Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com well. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas Republican
Speaker 1: had a pretty fascinating exchange in the Senate this week
Speaker 1: with actually over Kroger. There's a merger that Matt Stolen
Speaker 1: and others have covered very well between Kroger and Albertson's
Speaker 1: before the government right now, I think a merger that's
Speaker 1: worth blocking, certainly on anti trust grounds. And Senator Cotton
Speaker 1: confronted Kroger today on the anti trust case over basically
Speaker 1: woke concerns, saying, don't come crying to Senate Republicans over
Speaker 1: anti to get us to stop a merger from being
Speaker 1: blocked when you are harming or going after Christians in
Speaker 1: your workplace now, whether or not you think the steps
Speaker 1: Kroger took amounted to harmon Christians in the workplace. We'll
Speaker 1: get into the marginalized community, a marginalized community. Let's play
Speaker 1: the clip first and then get into some of those details.
Speaker 1: This situation reminds me a little bit of the situation
Speaker 1: big tech companies have found themselves in in recent years.
Speaker 1: They've come to Washington because they fear regulation from our
Speaker 1: Democratic friends or action by the Biben administration, and they
Speaker 1: expect Republicans, who are traditionally more supportive of free enterprise,
Speaker 1: to come to their defense. And I've cautioned them for
Speaker 1: years that if they silence conservatives and center right voters
Speaker 1: across the country, if they discriminate against them in their company,
Speaker 1: they probably shouldn't come and ask Republican senators to carry
Speaker 1: the water for them whenever our Democratic friends want to
Speaker 1: regulate them or block their mergers. So I've heard a
Speaker 1: lot a lot of questions about that today, and I've
Speaker 1: read a lot about it in the news, and I'll
Speaker 1: say this, I'm sorry that's happening to you. Best of luck.
Speaker 1: So conservatives saw this and we're just cheering wildly for
Speaker 1: it and saying more of this, more of this, more
Speaker 1: of this, and listen. I agree more of this for sure,
Speaker 1: But this is again verbal. It is an exchange in
Speaker 1: the Senate on c span that will be clipped and
Speaker 1: will be circulated. And there is a very big difference
Speaker 1: between saying something like this in the Senate and supporting
Speaker 1: and I'm not accusing Tom Cotton. This is about the
Speaker 1: Republican Party more broadly supporting appointments to for instance, the
Speaker 1: FTC that will allow mergers like this to go through,
Speaker 1: that will allow, by the way, as you merge. Matt
Speaker 1: Stoller makes this point very well, the consolidation becomes a
Speaker 1: consolidation of viewpoints and there's less competition for viewpoint management,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. Now, Tom Cotton's complaint is basically
Speaker 1: that there's a suit that was brought by the Equal
Speaker 1: Ployment Opportunity Commission in twenty twenty that was brought on
Speaker 1: behalf of two Kroger employees that didn't want to wear
Speaker 1: Kroger aprons that they interpreted as being in support of
Speaker 1: the Pride movement. They had rainbow hearts stitched onto the aprons.
Speaker 1: I want to wear the flare and Kroger said this
Speaker 1: is just part of our new marketing campaign. It's not
Speaker 1: LGBT related. But they actually settled to the tune of
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty thousand dollars with these two employees
Speaker 1: because the employees said, can we wear our name tags
Speaker 1: over the heart or I will pay to get myself
Speaker 1: into Yeah, that's well, that's what Kroger said until they settled.
Speaker 1: And so that's I think the heart of Tom Cotton's
Speaker 1: issue with Kroger. I'm sure, I'm sure Kroger has other
Speaker 1: maybe objectionable diversity policies that get into questionable territory. That's
Speaker 1: that's probably the case. But this was the high profile
Speaker 1: sort of complaint against Kroger in recent years, again saying
Speaker 1: it is one thing taking action on behalf that would
Speaker 1: actually make it harder for organizations like this to impose
Speaker 1: a viewpoint, but also just would be better economically as
Speaker 1: an entire entirely different thing. So Tom Cotton wants free enterprise,
Speaker 1: but not like that basically, Well, Tom Cotton introduced a
Speaker 1: federal minimum wage increase bill. There go, he's taken some
Speaker 1: interesting steps. What what regulations would Tom Cotton like around uniforms? Like,
Speaker 1: who's going to like does he want an agency that
Speaker 1: is in charge of like inspecting uniforms for like political
Speaker 1: compliance with GOP orthodoxy. Well, does he believe, like Mark
Speaker 1: Rubio that employees in situations like this should be able
Speaker 1: to handle it through unions? Right, this is something that
Speaker 1: Marco Marco Rubio, he has a different plan to create
Speaker 1: organizations similar to the unions, but a little bit different.
Speaker 1: But he has in the past said at places like Amazon,
Speaker 1: it would make increasing sense to have employees, when they
Speaker 1: old their viewpoints are being bulldozed by corporate people in
Speaker 1: C suites in Manhattan, to litigate some of those problems
Speaker 1: through collective bargaining. Yeah. And also then there's some union protections.
Speaker 1: If a union worker doesn't want to wear the flare,
Speaker 1: then at least, you know, then they can they can
Speaker 1: fight it out through the agreements process or the Yeah,
Speaker 1: rather than in the precarious situation where workers, you know,
Speaker 1: have so many fewer rights in situations where they're not
Speaker 1: not in unionized stores. Well, in this case, the EOC
Speaker 1: won the settlement to again the tune of one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty thousand dollars because it fired Kroger, fired the
Speaker 1: two employees. And that's where the suit came in for
Speaker 1: not wearing the flair, for not wearing the flare. That's
Speaker 1: an Office Space reference if people, if people haven't seen him,
Speaker 1: mabe this before a lot of yours time. Incredible, incredible movie.
Speaker 1: I'm just not a big Office Space fan, so I'm
Speaker 1: probably you get so many comments about that great movie.
Speaker 1: It's notice to quit over the Flare. It's not a
Speaker 1: bad movie, but it's like has cult status, and I
Speaker 1: feel like maybe that's overstated. Anyway, it is. It is
Speaker 1: fun to see support for uh cracking down on big business.
Speaker 1: It's particularly with anti trust and then but also more
Speaker 1: broadly from Republicans, even if it has to come because
Speaker 1: uh it won the tech side, or it's around censorship,
Speaker 1: and I guess in the grocery store side it's even
Speaker 1: around censorship too. Uh whatever, I guess whatever brings them
Speaker 1: to the battle against corporate power is a good thing.
Speaker 1: It takes, you, know, a coalition, takes people who are
Speaker 1: there for all sorts of different reasons. And if you
Speaker 1: and if you get to a place where the people
Speaker 1: have more control over the over society democratically rather than
Speaker 1: corp corporate America exerting, it's it's influenced undemocratically, then okay,
Speaker 1: that's a good thing and good good for Tom Cotton. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can count probably on one hand, the Senators,
Speaker 1: as it might be, would take what would take a
Speaker 1: position like this from Tom Cotton when it comes to
Speaker 1: actually voting on things and not downplaying, you know, saying
Speaker 1: this publicly and saying it in the Senate. But you
Speaker 1: know you can you can say Tom Cotton, Mark or Rubio,
Speaker 1: Josh Hawley, certainly jd Vance when he enters the Senate.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't amount to an earth shattering change in
Speaker 1: the Republican Party because it's still limited to them. And
Speaker 1: if it's limited to them, it'll you'll get viral clips
Speaker 1: like that, but you won't get a different FTC. You
Speaker 1: won't get changes. And the case that I've made repeatedly
Speaker 1: to Republicans is that if you have if you see
Speaker 1: uh the C Suites telling folks in Ohio that they
Speaker 1: can't wear a name badge over their union. If you
Speaker 1: see that, or they can't wear a name badge over
Speaker 1: the the heart, if you see that, you should look
Speaker 1: into what Amazon Warehouses safety records look like compared to Walmart,
Speaker 1: compared to other major competitors, because if they're doing that
Speaker 1: on the cultural level, imagine what they're getting away with
Speaker 1: on other things. So it's just a really good glimpse,
Speaker 1: I think, for Republicans into what corporations will do when
Speaker 1: they're so divorced from their actual workers. They're in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: they're in DC, they're in LA wherever they are. I
Speaker 1: think Kroger's technically based in Ohio, but the point remains
Speaker 1: that you have people who are culturally assescio economically very
Speaker 1: diverse from the workers they're overseeing, and without those intermediaries,
Speaker 1: that's dangerous both on a viewpoint level, but certainly, as
Speaker 1: we've seen with Amazon, on just a physical level as well.
Speaker 1: I would expect on its merits that the FTC and
Speaker 1: Lean and Conn will will block this merger. We'll see,
Speaker 1: I would expect for as well on the Wolkeness aside.
Speaker 1: But so Tom Cotton can Tom Cotton will not be
Speaker 1: riding to the defense of Kroger. Sounds good to me,
Speaker 1: all right, It's good interesting times, that's for sure. Senate
Speaker 1: Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is warning corporate America that now
Speaker 1: that they will have fifty one senators, they will have
Speaker 1: expanded subpoena power. Previously, in a fifty to fifty divided Senate,
Speaker 1: it was impossible without Republican at least one Republican vote
Speaker 1: and committee to issue subpoenas two corporations. With Raphael Warnock's
Speaker 1: victory this week, they will have a majority on the committee,
Speaker 1: so won't need Republicans will be able to issue spenis.
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer said, quote subpoena power can deal with corporate
Speaker 1: corruption and inequities and other problems throughout the country at
Speaker 1: a news conference, warning them that this could be coming.
Speaker 1: What's your take on this. I mean, it's a good
Speaker 1: example of why, or good indication of why that eighty
Speaker 1: million dollars race was money well spent for Democrats because procedurally,
Speaker 1: in terms of the rules of the Senate, there is
Speaker 1: a lot you can do when you add Rafael Warnock
Speaker 1: into the mix. When you go from fifty to fifty one,
Speaker 1: that's actually a very significant difference. Obviously, we know they
Speaker 1: had Kamala Harris to break the tie, but when you
Speaker 1: have the coalition of Cinema and Mansion, that I think
Speaker 1: took arrows for other people who haven't been a public
Speaker 1: about their opposition to some of the legislation that mansion
Speaker 1: and cinema have gotten major changes implemented into that fifty one.
Speaker 1: That's a huge, huge deal. And this is just one
Speaker 1: reason why. Now it's always important to remember with Chuck Schumer,
Speaker 1: one of his daughters is at Facebook, the other's at Amazon, right,
Speaker 1: he has pretty close ties to tech. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably why some of the bills haven't gotten to the floor.
Speaker 1: At least that's what I've heard from folks with some
Speaker 1: knowledge of it, that it's a matter of priorities. So
Speaker 1: while Chuck Schumer might if he's forced to support some
Speaker 1: of these measures anti corporate measures, especially in the tech sector,
Speaker 1: he also doesn't have to bring him to the floor.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's his kids that is preventing that.
Speaker 1: I think it's more just the power of big tech broadly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I did mean as kids, yeah, because I think but
Speaker 1: I think it's an indication of the closeness certainly to power. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and in the two thousands when all the Democrats
Speaker 1: twenty twenty tents, when Democrats were like leaving the Obama
Speaker 1: administration and leaving Senate House, going to big tech was
Speaker 1: seen as like the non sellout way to go make money.
Speaker 1: This is the utopian right. You weren't going to the banks,
Speaker 1: you weren't going to the big oil. You were going
Speaker 1: to the disruptors changing the world, change, making the world
Speaker 1: a better players, not doing any evil. So as a result,
Speaker 1: there's a ton ton of Democrats that are staffing a
Speaker 1: lot of these big tech companies. I saw that Tybe
Speaker 1: had highlighted that Twitter's giving from employees was ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent to Democrats. Usually it's like eighty twenty if it's imbalanced.
Speaker 1: It was ninety nine to one. Facebook is probably a
Speaker 1: little bit more balanced, but I suspect it it probably is.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Senator Bernie Sanders was asked by reporters if
Speaker 1: he's going to be looking forward as Chairman of the
Speaker 1: Budget Committee to using the subpoena power. He said, it's
Speaker 1: a little bit early, but the answer is yes. Uh.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren was asked. She said, oh yes, oh yes.
Speaker 1: And Warren is the most strategic of of the Senate
Speaker 1: Democrats when it comes to, you know, targeting subpoenas in
Speaker 1: a way that can then advance some type of not
Speaker 1: just legislative agenda, but regulatory as well. Because it's her
Speaker 1: allies who are running the FTC and running the cfp B.
Speaker 1: So Warren has built, you know, a sizable power structure
Speaker 1: inside Washington that when you when you add a subpoena
Speaker 1: power to it, you know, becomes that much more formidable
Speaker 1: because she could also I don't I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is happening, but I would expect it would that
Speaker 1: that people in the cfp B or FTC or other
Speaker 1: regular could back channel. Hey, look, we're you know, we're
Speaker 1: hitting a wall with this fraudulent company. A little you know,
Speaker 1: a little subpoena or a letter from you might might
Speaker 1: be able to shake something loose right here. So I
Speaker 1: think that Bloomberg's right to warrants readership that they should
Speaker 1: be a be on the lookout. They'll bolo. Is there
Speaker 1: anything in your wish list corporation you don't want to see? Supreme?
Speaker 1: I think I think some of the like some of
Speaker 1: the low hanging fruit, maybe medical debt companies, student students,
Speaker 1: lending servicers. Uh. I love it if they would go
Speaker 1: after some of the fundraising email scammers, anybody like you know,
Speaker 1: the robo call types like you do, some of that
Speaker 1: stuff that like that as a combination of really annoying
Speaker 1: to people. But then on the on the debt collection front,
Speaker 1: people like, you know, really breaking laws some of that
Speaker 1: looking at all sorts of profiteering when when it came
Speaker 1: to h you know, price increases during during the pandemic
Speaker 1: and not just energy companies, but you can look at
Speaker 1: the comments that a lot of the CEOs are making
Speaker 1: at their their quarterly presentations car companies or they're saying
Speaker 1: where they're basically saying that we're using this environment as
Speaker 1: an used to raise prices. Whenever you find one of those,
Speaker 1: then you go into subpoena and see if you can
Speaker 1: find you know, price fixing, other types of manipulation that
Speaker 1: involves collusion. And then you could even see corporations starting
Speaker 1: to bring prices down because it might be more important
Speaker 1: for them to stay ahead of that type of investigation
Speaker 1: if they were actually if they're like, oh wait, we
Speaker 1: did do that, oh and I'd love There are a
Speaker 1: lot of high profile Republicans. Again, I don't think this
Speaker 1: indicates of stee change in the Republican Party at all,
Speaker 1: but there are a handful. This is a Senate that
Speaker 1: Jade Bance will be in of Republicans that would love
Speaker 1: to join in a pylon on some of these corporations,
Speaker 1: probably not all of them, but you get you know,
Speaker 1: Larry Fank and Blackrock, give them a subpoena and just watch.
Speaker 1: Replica House have their own subpoenas that they can fire
Speaker 1: off at black Rock, so make sure they will plenty
Speaker 1: of those. So we could be looking at a circus
Speaker 1: that is at least somewhat enjoyable, sure from our vantages,
Speaker 1: right these CEOs around, Yeah, well, I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 1: Excellent President Biden chose not to put seven days of
Speaker 1: sick leave into the into the tentative agreement that he
Speaker 1: sent to Congress. The Congress, the House of Representative famously
Speaker 1: tried to add seven days, kicked it over to the Senate,
Speaker 1: which stripped it out and passed it as Biden had
Speaker 1: initially sent it to Congress without those sick days. The
Speaker 1: unions have vowed to push ahead, demanding that they be
Speaker 1: included in an executive order that gives sick leave to
Speaker 1: all employees of companies that have federal contracts. Joining us
Speaker 1: now to follow up on this is Matthew Cunningham Cook,
Speaker 1: who with his colleagues over at lever News has been
Speaker 1: following this extremely closely. So first of all, Matthew, we
Speaker 1: welcome to breaking Points. Thanks for having me on, guys,
Speaker 1: and so so what are you hearing though? Pretty pretty
Speaker 1: soon after this this defeat and when Biden signed the law,
Speaker 1: he was asked, you know when are worker is going
Speaker 1: to get seven six days? And he said, well when
Speaker 1: I when I convinced Republicans to go along. But as
Speaker 1: you've pointed out, there are other ways there. So what
Speaker 1: are what are those other ways? And why should people
Speaker 1: be confident not confident? Why should people believe it's possible
Speaker 1: it can happen if if Biden chose not to include
Speaker 1: in the first place. I think the main takeaway is
Speaker 1: that it's something that Biden can and should take pick
Speaker 1: a fight on. So I think that there's certainly any
Speaker 1: executive order that extended paid sickly to railroad workers would
Speaker 1: almost certainly be litigated in the courts. I think that's
Speaker 1: basically a guarantee. But in the past, very recently with
Speaker 1: the vaccine mandate, the railroad industry has said that they
Speaker 1: are federal contractors, so it seems like they could be
Speaker 1: included with this. Prior concerns about preemption with railroad laws
Speaker 1: seem to have focused on state based legislation, So I
Speaker 1: think the executive order is one route. I think the
Speaker 1: other route, which potentially might be on more solid legal
Speaker 1: ground and addresses a broader gamut of issues that railroad
Speaker 1: workers are facing, is with this fatigue management rulemaking process
Speaker 1: that was mandated in this two thousand and eight law
Speaker 1: reforming railroad safety, where the Secretary of Transportation and the
Speaker 1: Federal Railroad Administration were directed by Congress to begin comprehensive
Speaker 1: rulemaking to ensure that railroad workers aren't so fatigued. And
Speaker 1: the reason why this is so important is is because
Speaker 1: when railroad workers are fatigued, it's much more likely that
Speaker 1: there's going to be a crash, that there's going to
Speaker 1: be ecological disasters, people killed. This. You know, railroads are
Speaker 1: not just transiting consumer goods. They transit dangerous chemicals, oil, coal,
Speaker 1: all things that really are not the safest things to
Speaker 1: be transporting. So that rulemaking began earlier this year, and
Speaker 1: now the railroad industry is required by next July to
Speaker 1: submit fatigue management plans and they're supposed to be developing
Speaker 1: them in concert with the unions, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of skepticism right now from the unions. How seriously they're
Speaker 1: going to take it. That's a nice question. I think
Speaker 1: it's it's basically incumbent on Secretary Buddhatage to mandate that
Speaker 1: these plans include a rollback on these these heinous attendance
Speaker 1: policies that were implemented outside of the collective bargaining process.
Speaker 1: For the most part, BNSF Warren Buffett's Railroad has the
Speaker 1: most aggressive of them that was implemented in February, and
Speaker 1: it's that was where the paid sick leave demand came from,
Speaker 1: is a response to these new, really onerous attendance policies.
Speaker 1: So that I think that that might be even on
Speaker 1: more solid legal ground, is basically Bodhachi saying I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say it sign off on any plan submitted
Speaker 1: by the railroads unless we see a real rollback of
Speaker 1: these attendance policies. Uh. And that you've we've really kind
Speaker 1: of consulted with the unions on how to reduce railroad
Speaker 1: worker fatigue, and that you know, it seems like you're
Speaker 1: taking those concerns seriously. So those are kind of the
Speaker 1: two you know, main routes, I think to uh, to
Speaker 1: moving forward. I think there's a bunch of other kind
Speaker 1: of things too, you know, I mean as part of
Speaker 1: this that really are just kind of statements of principles
Speaker 1: or policy from the administration. The administration could President Biden
Speaker 1: could say to the railroads, I just gave you guys
Speaker 1: a huge favor, and you know, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: watching you very closely, you know, railroad company CEOs. And
Speaker 1: that hasn't really happened either. So I think there's what
Speaker 1: our reporting kind of showed is that there's there's a
Speaker 1: wide range of options that the administration can take to
Speaker 1: help railroad workers, and it's it's really about being creative
Speaker 1: at this point, just like the administration was frankly very
Speaker 1: creative when it came to the ocean vaccine mandate, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, where they saw kind of an urgent public
Speaker 1: health issue and kind of said, you know, we're going
Speaker 1: to say that this matters more than anything else, and
Speaker 1: we're going to implement uh this policy. And so I
Speaker 1: think the same kind of level of creativity that they
Speaker 1: engaged in with the oceanman vaccine mandate, they could choose
Speaker 1: to engage in with railroad workers as well. That's a
Speaker 1: great parallel, and you can also see it in the
Speaker 1: student loan debt relief there were clearly there was some
Speaker 1: clear like innovation in terms of procedural innovation in that vein.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask then, also, Matthew, kind of
Speaker 1: the obvious question, which is is it your sense, having
Speaker 1: looked at these mechanisms boota judge is obviously aware that
Speaker 1: he's going to have to sign off on something. Is
Speaker 1: it your sense that the Biden administration is aware these
Speaker 1: routes and these mechanisms exist to tackle the issue. Do
Speaker 1: they know that they have this power? And then how
Speaker 1: confident are you or not confident is perhaps the case
Speaker 1: that they'll actually take any action here. I'd be astounded
Speaker 1: if they didn't know. I mean, again, you know, it's
Speaker 1: the main thing is is that if they didn't know
Speaker 1: that they can't take concrete, immediate actions to improve safety
Speaker 1: on the railroads right now, that would be astounding to me.
Speaker 1: And if they don't understand that, you know, humans are
Speaker 1: a critical part of safety and workers are a critical
Speaker 1: part of safety, that would fly in the face of
Speaker 1: basically every piece of rhetoric of this administration. So I
Speaker 1: think that they are aware. I think that what they're
Speaker 1: kind of dealing with is, you know, a very powerful
Speaker 1: railroad industry lobby that is opposed to anything that will
Speaker 1: improve safety on the railroads. So that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: my main takeaway I think in terms of seeing action,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the biggest issue I think is
Speaker 1: that railroad workers are one hundred and fifteen thousand workers
Speaker 1: divided into seven different international unions with not a lot
Speaker 1: of coherence or kind of a common strategy. And so
Speaker 1: that would be kind of my first kind of feeling
Speaker 1: is that And this is really kind of what railroad
Speaker 1: Workers United, this worker organization that unites railroad workers across
Speaker 1: different unions and crafts, is really pushing for, is for
Speaker 1: some kind of more cohesion I think for railroad workers
Speaker 1: as to a common approach not only with Washington, but
Speaker 1: I think in state capitals and with the media, with
Speaker 1: the corporate media as well. So that's I mean, when
Speaker 1: you have such kind of levels of diffusion in the
Speaker 1: union workforce, it's hard to kind of see a coherent
Speaker 1: strategy for getting more out of the Biden administration. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just real quickly wanted to underscore the delicious nugger
Speaker 1: that you guys, you know on Earth in your in
Speaker 1: your reporting or draw drawing the connection between the carriers
Speaker 1: telling the courts that they are in fact federal contractors
Speaker 1: so that they could mandate their employees take the have
Speaker 1: to take the COVID vaccine. That's that seems like it's
Speaker 1: going to be pretty tough for them to walk back.
Speaker 1: They would obviously twist themselves and pretzels to do it.
Speaker 1: But if if you're the Biden administration at this point,
Speaker 1: all you have to do is cite the carrier's own
Speaker 1: claim that they settle conscious. Then they say, well, it
Speaker 1: would be so confusing to figure out which employees work
Speaker 1: on you know, which trains carrying you know, federal freight
Speaker 1: and which ones are carrying private freight. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you didn't seem concerned about that when you were saying, well,
Speaker 1: only these employees are mandated to get the vaccine, but
Speaker 1: these employees employees don't. That's that seems like a pretty
Speaker 1: rich vein for for the administration there. And yeah, that
Speaker 1: was my colleague Rebecca Burns who who on earthed that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think it's I think it's a very
Speaker 1: very good point. You know, I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: what we see from the Roberts Court is that they
Speaker 1: will kind of, you know, change their reasoning on a
Speaker 1: dime to kind of justify whatever, you know, Jenny Thomas
Speaker 1: kind of wants at a given moment. But it's certainly worth,
Speaker 1: you know, trying. And I mean, I think the other
Speaker 1: thing is is it's good to pick fights with the
Speaker 1: Roberts Court. You know, this is a fundamentally undemocratic institution
Speaker 1: that frequently relies on precedent from slaveholding era or from
Speaker 1: the Gilded Age to justify it's increasingly deranged decision making processes.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, challenging that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. Both agreed with every word of that. Ry
Speaker 1: fully unbored with that. That's a discussion for another time,
Speaker 1: but it is. I mean, if the Biden administration wasn't
Speaker 1: aware of what Rebecca unearthed there before, they sure as
Speaker 1: hell are now. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's such a it
Speaker 1: seems like such a layup. It seems like special Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's it's easy for us to say when they're hearing
Speaker 1: from the railroad industry and they like to keep the
Speaker 1: railroad industry super happy. But from a political perspective, let
Speaker 1: alone a moral perspective. It seems like such a layup. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely well. Great reporting is always from lever Matthew Cunningham Cooke.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: having me on. Guys appreciate it. The top rasts that
Speaker 1: the military are pushing to keep the vaccine mandate in place,
Speaker 1: even as Republicans are pressing the Biden administration to end
Speaker 1: the military vaccine mandate and are also trying to use
Speaker 1: the National Defense Authorization Actors it must must pass piece
Speaker 1: of legislation that is currently being negotiated in Congress to
Speaker 1: force the military to end to end it's we could
Speaker 1: put up a one here to put to end its
Speaker 1: vaccine mandate. This is Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying that
Speaker 1: that they believed that for military readiness it was important
Speaker 1: that they keep the vaccine in place. What's your read
Speaker 1: on on, First of all, how do you think this
Speaker 1: is going to go? Do you think Republicans will succeed
Speaker 1: in getting this into the NDAA and ending this Ending
Speaker 1: the mandate depends on how hard the Pentagon pushes back.
Speaker 1: This is a sign that they're at least pushing back,
Speaker 1: but it depends on and Austin is doubling down right.
Speaker 1: He says, I'm the guy. Quote, I'm the guy. I'm
Speaker 1: the guy who did this, and I'm sticking in it.
Speaker 1: I'm sticking with it. I'm not walking it back. But
Speaker 1: listen to that. I mean the Army National Guard, they
Speaker 1: have projected losing up to fourteen thousand members for vaccine
Speaker 1: non compliance alone. That doesn't even count how many people
Speaker 1: are just not signing up because they don't want the
Speaker 1: mandate or they don't want to get the vaccine or
Speaker 1: be mandated to do it. And that's just the National Guard.
Speaker 1: They are missing their recruitment targets, like across the board,
Speaker 1: the military is and the NDAA, a little inside baseball
Speaker 1: like congressional procedural nonsense has become the thing that everyone
Speaker 1: is trying to basically push their pet project in right
Speaker 1: now because it looks like they're doing a cr instead
Speaker 1: of an omnibus to fund the government by year end,
Speaker 1: which means we got to get the stuff in the NDAA.
Speaker 1: This is Preslary. I was just going to say, at
Speaker 1: least related, but that's what complicates the negotiations here. As
Speaker 1: Ryan said, it's an absolute much past you have to
Speaker 1: pass the NDAA, and so there's all this conversation about
Speaker 1: poison pills. Ryan, do you think Democrats end up caving
Speaker 1: on this? Even as La County is right now talking
Speaker 1: about bringing back a mask mandate. We're seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: across the country the still uneven sense of whether the
Speaker 1: pandemic is over most Americans, and if you look at polling,
Speaker 1: I think this is true as well. I feel like
Speaker 1: we're on the other side of the pandemic, but that's
Speaker 1: not true of everyone. So will Democrats who represent a
Speaker 1: lot of those people cave on that? I feel like
Speaker 1: this is something they would be willing to trade because
Speaker 1: you know, Biden has said the pandemic is over, particularly
Speaker 1: the vaccines, like usefulness for people in their twenties and thirties,
Speaker 1: you know, which is the and teens, which is the
Speaker 1: bulk of people in the military, is is dubious, Like
Speaker 1: it's not it's not nothing there, but they are also
Speaker 1: you know, they're a side effects that that that make
Speaker 1: it so that a lot of people at that age
Speaker 1: at this point are like, you know, I'm not gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna. I'm not I'm not gonna. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna get this vaccine. And when you have the combination
Speaker 1: of UH full employment, an absolutely raging fentanyl crisis, and
Speaker 1: mass incarceration, it's you're gonna you're going to have a
Speaker 1: hard time hitting your recruitment numbers if you throw on
Speaker 1: top of that this vaccine mandate for people who are like, look,
Speaker 1: I like the pandemic's over. I let a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of people know people who've had you know, either
Speaker 1: have had bad reactions to vaccine or feel like they've
Speaker 1: had bad reactions to the vaccine. And so those people
Speaker 1: like you know I I, And they also don't know
Speaker 1: people who are twenty who have died. Now some you
Speaker 1: know some some people in their twenties have dies. Happened,
Speaker 1: It does happen. But the but the percentages are very clear,
Speaker 1: like the people who are at risk are more elderly
Speaker 1: and A. And also say like ob serve people with
Speaker 1: other co morbidities. But if you're eligible for the military,
Speaker 1: you probably don't have as you may have one corbidity,
Speaker 1: but you likely don't have you probably don't have any
Speaker 1: comorbidities because of the screen the health screening that is
Speaker 1: required to get to get into the military, which then
Speaker 1: takes your your your risk of COVID down that much more.
Speaker 1: So that's another recruitment problem, by the ways, right, is
Speaker 1: that I forgot to mention that one something like fifty
Speaker 1: percent just on plus of eighteen year olds are basically
Speaker 1: ineligible off the bat for the military. Right. And then
Speaker 1: you add in like you were just saying, fenterel crisis,
Speaker 1: mass incarceration, and a vaccine mandate Lindsay in full employment.
Speaker 1: So here's an interesting quote from Lindsay Graham that goes
Speaker 1: to I think whether or not, like who's who's going
Speaker 1: to blink on this one, Lindsay Graham says, our recruiting
Speaker 1: goals are way short. The conflict in the world is
Speaker 1: getting worse, not better. We need more people in the military,
Speaker 1: not less. He is threatening to withhold his vote from
Speaker 1: the NDAA. So again, it's one thing to add ask
Speaker 1: for it. It's another to say, listen, I'm not voting
Speaker 1: for this, pushing it away, I'm not voting for this.
Speaker 1: Lloyd Austin then doubles down. Now it's a it's a
Speaker 1: staring match at that point. But I think if you
Speaker 1: have Republicans pushing that hard literally saying we cannot get
Speaker 1: people into the military right now because of one of
Speaker 1: the things NBC News sites is like cultural differences. And
Speaker 1: I've heard that too, that it's a problem when you
Speaker 1: have high profile congressional testimony from people like Mark Millie
Speaker 1: who say they're interested in learning about white rage whatever
Speaker 1: you thought of. That doesn't land particularly well with some
Speaker 1: people that were interested in the military and who feel
Speaker 1: like it won't be a you know, militaries two woke
Speaker 1: for them, militaries too woke for them because they already
Speaker 1: you know, don't want to deal with their HR Department alone,
Speaker 1: this sort of culture in the military. According to the
Speaker 1: Washington Examiner, as of Saturday, the text repealing the vaccine
Speaker 1: mandate is actually currently in the legislative text of the NDAA,
Speaker 1: So again it's the it's in the text repealing it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: repealing it. According that's as of Saturday. So this is
Speaker 1: going to be talking of war all week, right, And
Speaker 1: I think so for Lloyd Austin, you don't get to
Speaker 1: be Secretary of Defense without being a deaf bureaucratic infighter.
Speaker 1: And what any bureaucratic infighter knows is you don't give
Speaker 1: away something for nothing. So if you hear that. You know,
Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham very much wants X, Like it would be
Speaker 1: almost irresponsible of you to say, sure have X. Say, okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, I know, I'm drawing a hard line
Speaker 1: on this. You want X. You got to give me why.
Speaker 1: There are thousands of things that that Austin wants. They've
Speaker 1: got a Christmas list, Yeah, they've got a Christmas list.
Speaker 1: So my suspicion is he will ultimately say, you know what, fine,
Speaker 1: this means so much to you, I'll let you have that,
Speaker 1: let me have I have no idea what Austin wants.
Speaker 1: He a base closure, a base opened, an aircraft carrier
Speaker 1: to be recommissioned. Who knows what on earth this guy wants,
Speaker 1: you know, related to Ukraine, related to Yemen. But I
Speaker 1: would suspect that it'll end up being part of those
Speaker 1: negotiations because it's hard. It's really hard to defend like
Speaker 1: the I'm trying to, like even even in his defense
Speaker 1: here in this article, he says, a million people died
Speaker 1: in the United States of America. We lost hundreds in
Speaker 1: DoD if a million people died in the mill, Okay,
Speaker 1: but like she's like hundreds like that, that's a tragedy,
Speaker 1: but it's it's hundreds and so it's not millions. So
Speaker 1: even in that best argument, I think it's hard for
Speaker 1: them to say, and you know how many of those
Speaker 1: were vaccinated? Also, we don't like it. It's not that
Speaker 1: they were all unvaccinated. This is probably before in that
Speaker 1: in that first more in that first dead layer wave. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: these are all completely legitimate questions. And I think for Austin,
Speaker 1: if Austin says, fine, Lindsey Graham, I'm not, I'm not
Speaker 1: budging on this and get Democrats to take that out
Speaker 1: really like gets support and muster support among Democrats and
Speaker 1: maybe even some Republicans to keep that in place. I
Speaker 1: think it's to how out of touch the top brass
Speaker 1: of what the military is with the people that are
Speaker 1: trying to recruit, because you're asking them to quote, follow
Speaker 1: the science, trust the science that legitimately has shifted in
Speaker 1: front of their eyes, and that they see contrast between
Speaker 1: what Anthony Fauci and others said at point A earlier
Speaker 1: in the pandemic and point B on vaccines. I mean,
Speaker 1: we could talk about mass we could talk about transmissibility,
Speaker 1: We've talk about all of those things and the shifts
Speaker 1: in what we've been hearing from quote the science capital
Speaker 1: t capital s, but on vaccines in particular, you really
Speaker 1: cannot blame people for having no trust in the product
Speaker 1: that is being sold to them right now because it
Speaker 1: has changed, like the story has changed. And again I
Speaker 1: get it, like I feel like both of us have
Speaker 1: been fairly support of over the last couple of years
Speaker 1: of vaccines. But this is a real problem and it's
Speaker 1: not going away. You can't just mandate it away because
Speaker 1: there are so many questions remaining, right and and and
Speaker 1: the vaccines do uh, you know, reduce the likelihood of
Speaker 1: the data does seem clear that that the vaccine does
Speaker 1: reduce the severity of your infection? And does and age
Speaker 1: courts cohorts, does you know, reduce the likelihood of dying
Speaker 1: from COVID, particularly among vulnerable populations. That's that's the key. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's that's that's extremely important. But if you qualify
Speaker 1: for military participation, you are likely not in one of
Speaker 1: those categories. You're likely younger, you're likely fitter than the
Speaker 1: general population, And so you can understand why people wouldn't
Speaker 1: want a dose of the m r n A when
Speaker 1: again they were told a lot of different things about
Speaker 1: it that I mean, really the benchmarks have changed on
Speaker 1: some of those metrics by the admission of folks in
Speaker 1: the industry. And you know, for Lloyd Austin to just say,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to join the American military,
Speaker 1: you have to comply with this mandate. Man, that's not
Speaker 1: going to help the recruitment one bit. Well that's and
Speaker 1: that's Lindsay Graham's whole point. Yeah, yeah, yep. So we'll
Speaker 1: follow the story for sure and bringing updates on it.
Speaker 1: But I think an important one to pay attention to
Speaker 1: CBS is moving to dismiss a lawsuit that alleges its
Speaker 1: fundraiser for diabetes. A fundraiser was having for diabetes was
Speaker 1: being funneled, the money from customers was being funneled into
Speaker 1: a debt basically that CVS had. Now CBS's lawyers have said, quote,
Speaker 1: no good deed goes unpunished. We can put up the
Speaker 1: element here. This is a write up in Legal news
Speaker 1: line that really caught traction online this week. A lot
Speaker 1: of people saw this. But again CVS has motioned to
Speaker 1: has posted a motion to dismiss it. That was back
Speaker 1: in October. The story itself is a couple of weeks old,
Speaker 1: but I think it was a tweet that caught people's
Speaker 1: attention and went viral. And it's funny how that happens.
Speaker 1: Ran and sometimes it just takes one tweet, something goes
Speaker 1: up in the trade publications or industry newsletters, and you
Speaker 1: don't hear about it until someone picks up on it.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of remarkable how much traction I saw
Speaker 1: this catch online. CBS further promised that at the conclusion
Speaker 1: of a three year plus three plus years of fundraising,
Speaker 1: CVS would, if necessary, make up the difference between the
Speaker 1: cumulative customer donations and ten million dollars. Obviously, upon signing,
Speaker 1: CBS did not assume an unconditional ten million dollar debt
Speaker 1: to the ADA, that is, the American Diabetes Association. So
Speaker 1: CVS is claiming it had no debt to the ADA,
Speaker 1: but CBS agreed to fundraise from its customers and then
Speaker 1: turn those donations over to the ADA. Ryan, what do
Speaker 1: you make of this whole thing? Yeah, So, the initial
Speaker 1: kind of viral meme basically was that CVS had a
Speaker 1: debt to the American Diabetes Association and that they were
Speaker 1: then getting their customers to pay their debt that turned
Speaker 1: out not to be true. They CVS created the quote
Speaker 1: unquote debt by agreeing to raise ten million dollars for
Speaker 1: the ADA and then if if they failed over those
Speaker 1: that three year period to raise the full ten million
Speaker 1: from your like five or ten cents that you give
Speaker 1: at CBS, that they would then make up the difference.
Speaker 1: So okay, fairboyt Like that was like it was a
Speaker 1: freak out at CBS for no reason. Now, I think
Speaker 1: you could The reason that corporations do these things, I
Speaker 1: think can be interrogated a little bit. It's not just
Speaker 1: pure humanitarian gestures. Although, you know, because CBS is going
Speaker 1: to get a tax deduction, you know, for bundling everybody's
Speaker 1: money sending it over in that direction. But this isn't
Speaker 1: At least this is a place where the charitable work
Speaker 1: and the business are kind of lined up because they
Speaker 1: actually would like the Diabetes Association to succeed in reducing
Speaker 1: the amount of UH diabetes. Actually, wait a minute, I've
Speaker 1: just talked myself out of this sentence. Wouldn't they wouldn't
Speaker 1: they want more diabetes? Like for their business model is
Speaker 1: that they can sell more insulin. Actually, CBS took a
Speaker 1: stand which I did not appreciate. Trying to get healthier
Speaker 1: as a college student, I did not appreciate the stand
Speaker 1: CBS took on selling tobacco products. But they did do that,
Speaker 1: and that was probably a significant hit to their business
Speaker 1: because fewer sick people right to buy there either. All
Speaker 1: the different medicine. Yes, so good for good for them,
Speaker 1: but I'll go back to good for them. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons I think this caught so much tracks online
Speaker 1: is because people are constantly being asked to do this
Speaker 1: and are happy to round up. Not everybody does it,
Speaker 1: but I mean, I think it is really easy. A
Speaker 1: lot of times people happy to round up. But first
Speaker 1: of all, so that happens to a lot of people
Speaker 1: a lot, and they want to know that that money
Speaker 1: is going to the right place because they're being asked
Speaker 1: to make this donation with a lot without a lot
Speaker 1: of time to like look into it, and you're just
Speaker 1: trusting that the corporation is doing the right thing with
Speaker 1: your money and that the charity is doing the right
Speaker 1: thing with your money as well. But when you're at
Speaker 1: a point of sale, it's a really heavy trust relationship
Speaker 1: and the burden of proof is in their court, like
Speaker 1: it's in the court of the corporation and the charity,
Speaker 1: and you just have to trust them. And so it's
Speaker 1: because so many people have been asked to give that
Speaker 1: trust away so many times when they potentially feel like
Speaker 1: it's been violated. It's a really big deal to people.
Speaker 1: And again, I think this all I think this really
Speaker 1: started with the tweet that was on December fifth. It's megaviral.
Speaker 1: We've got seventy two thousand likes and around eighteen thousand
Speaker 1: retweets as a time. What did you say. It's by
Speaker 1: Emma van Inwagon. I'm probably not producing that. I'm probably
Speaker 1: not pronouncing that correctly, but she said CBS is being
Speaker 1: sued for asking customers to donate to the American Diabetes Association.
Speaker 1: When they check out, those donations are in fact not
Speaker 1: sent to the ADA, but instead reimburse CBS for a
Speaker 1: legally binding obligation of ten million dollars that CBS promised earlier.
Speaker 1: Oh so, and then that was so that's that sort
Speaker 1: of accurate ish, but not quite right, not quite What
Speaker 1: I originally read from that was like there was some
Speaker 1: judgment that they owed that it was some type of
Speaker 1: like punishment, and they were asking customers to fill that
Speaker 1: in And she's not exactly saying that, but she's kind
Speaker 1: of leading you in that direction. But the reason that
Speaker 1: they have a pledge is that CBS pledged to give
Speaker 1: to give them ten million dollars and to help fundraise
Speaker 1: from their customers to get ten million dollars their way,
Speaker 1: and said, look, if we fail, we'll make up the difference. Right, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's I think that's a little bit because otherwise what
Speaker 1: you would be left with would the CVS say, would
Speaker 1: be CBS saying, we're going to try to raise you
Speaker 1: ten million dollars, but don't budget for it, because if
Speaker 1: we only raise you five million from our customers and
Speaker 1: they don't round up as much as we think they're
Speaker 1: going to round up, then you only get five million.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight would much prefer to have the guarantee of
Speaker 1: ten million dollars. So in CBS's defense, their line quote,
Speaker 1: no good deed goes unpunished is fair enough. But again,
Speaker 1: like it is one of those things where people get
Speaker 1: like that seventy two thousand likes on that tweet in
Speaker 1: just a couple of days. That's a tweet from December fifth,
Speaker 1: I should say, so, it's not even like one that's
Speaker 1: been up for a while. Even though this lawsuit, this
Speaker 1: motion to dismiss, I believe it was from October, and
Speaker 1: the write up itself that we're looking at here is
Speaker 1: from a couple of weeks back. It's just a what's
Speaker 1: the word I'm looking for? Man, It's a source spot
Speaker 1: for people because they probably have placed their trust in
Speaker 1: these companies many times at the checkout point, so CBS.
Speaker 1: I think that's also probably why CBS came out swinging
Speaker 1: with emotion and dismiss with things that say like no
Speaker 1: good deed goes unpunished, because this could be very bad
Speaker 1: for their ability to raise money in the future. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: crazy story. Crazy how things can just strike viral gold
Speaker 1: and make us look at trade publications articles from a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks back and get to the bottom moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't read a lot of legal newsline. Somebody
Speaker 1: was telling me like a year ago about a kind
Speaker 1: of black beauty product company that got hit on TikTok
Speaker 1: with a claim it was like organic beauty products that
Speaker 1: A it's like a these are not organic, and B
Speaker 1: it's no longer black owned neither thing was true. We
Speaker 1: went viral on TikTok like destroyed the company, right, I
Speaker 1: mean not completely destroyed, but like absolutely the company. That's
Speaker 1: the thing where we're having all these and just completely false. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have all these conversations about misinformation and disinformation, and
Speaker 1: a lot of times we talked about this on last
Speaker 1: week's show, like what PolitiFact is doing. I was reading
Speaker 1: a study by two academics. They're actually out of Europe.
Speaker 1: They looked at a lot of political fact stuff that
Speaker 1: is just plainly uncheckable. And these are not like right
Speaker 1: wingers by any means, but they're just looking at certain
Speaker 1: things and saying, like, you can't have an objective fact
Speaker 1: check of this. This percentage of claims, and it was
Speaker 1: a lot. It came to something like forty four percent
Speaker 1: of PolitiFact changes in the sample of like eight hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty eight of them. And it's misinformation and disinformation. Like,
Speaker 1: there's so much stuff that goes viral that is objectively
Speaker 1: fact checkable. You can objectively say it's absolutely right. It
Speaker 1: is a company still black out, Oh yeah, it's products
Speaker 1: still organic. Well, here's the evidence that it is right,
Speaker 1: and it's not all political but it's so damaging in
Speaker 1: certain circumstances. So it's just a you know, a shame.
Speaker 1: I think that we spend so much time fighting about
Speaker 1: things that are subjective when you can look at things
Speaker 1: and get to the bottom of them and say this
Speaker 1: is legitimate disinformation. Yeah, nobody trusts anything that's right. And
Speaker 1: honestly I say this, people disagree with me. It's rational.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of lying going on out there, that's right.
Speaker 1: Crazy story. I was going to say, we'll keep following it,
Speaker 1: but CVS is going to win this this option. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Matt Stoler, author of monopoly focused newsletter Big and
Speaker 1: an antitrust policy analyst. I have a great segment for
Speaker 1: you today on this Big Breakdown. Okay, So this one's
Speaker 1: for you if you love hiking, and it's about how
Speaker 1: a giant consulting firm named Booz Allen somehow gained a
Speaker 1: measure of control over US national parks. All right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So every day visitors to Vermillion Cliffs National Monument in
Speaker 1: northern Arizona hike into an area named Coyote North to
Speaker 1: see one of quote the most visually striking geological sandstorm
Speaker 1: formations in the world. End quote, which is known as
Speaker 1: the Wave. All right, here's a picture. Okay, So it's
Speaker 1: a pretty weird place on an ancient layer of sandstone,
Speaker 1: millions of years of water and wind erosion crafted giant cliffs,
Speaker 1: weird canyons that look like you're on Mars, giant formations
Speaker 1: that look like crashing waves made of rock. There are
Speaker 1: old carvings known as petroglyphs on cliff walls, and even
Speaker 1: dinosaur tracks that are embedded in the sentiment. So the
Speaker 1: Wave isn'tlike anywhere else on earth. It's also part of
Speaker 1: a Nashville Park, a US National park, and thus technically
Speaker 1: it's open to anyone to preserve its beauty. However, the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Land Management let's just sixty four people daily
Speaker 1: visit the area, and snagging one of these slots is
Speaker 1: an accomplishment. A ticket into the Wave is known as
Speaker 1: the hardest permit to get in the USA by Outside
Speaker 1: and Backpacker Magazine. To apply requires going to a site
Speaker 1: Recreation dot gov, which is where you manage the government
Speaker 1: manages national parks, public cultural landmarks, public lands. You go there,
Speaker 1: you pay nine dollars for a lottery application fee, and
Speaker 1: if you win, you get a permit, then you pay
Speaker 1: a recreation fee of seven dollars. The success rate for
Speaker 1: the lottery is between four and ten percent. Some people
Speaker 1: spend upwards of five hundred dollars before securing an actual
Speaker 1: permit the Golden Ticket. We had to apply for a
Speaker 1: lottery yes, for this trip, because today we're doing the waves.
Speaker 1: But while the recreation fee of seven dollars goes to
Speaker 1: maintaining the park, the money for the lottery application fee,
Speaker 1: the nine dollars does not. That money instead goes to
Speaker 1: the giant DC consulting firm Booze Allen and Company. In fact,
Speaker 1: since twenty seventeen, more and more of America's pubs over
Speaker 1: forty two hundred facilities and one hundred and thirteen thousand
Speaker 1: individual sites across the country at last count, have been
Speaker 1: added to the Recreation dot gov database and website run
Speaker 1: by booz Allen, which in turn captures various fees that
Speaker 1: Americans pay to visit their national heritage. You can do
Speaker 1: a lot at Recreation dot gov. You can sign up
Speaker 1: for a pass to cut down a Christmas tree on
Speaker 1: the on the on the Roosevelt National Forest, get permission
Speaker 1: to do fly fishing rifle hunting or target practice at
Speaker 1: thousands of sites, even secure a tour at the National
Speaker 1: Archives in Washington, d C. There are dozens of lotteries
Speaker 1: to enter for different parks and lands that are hard
Speaker 1: to access or that require a limited number of people.
Speaker 1: This includes you heavily visited lands like Acadian National Park,
Speaker 1: which has four million annual visitors, Arches National Park which
Speaker 1: is one and a half million visitors, Glacier National Park
Speaker 1: which is three million, Rocky Mountain National Park which is
Speaker 1: four point four million, andos might three point three million
Speaker 1: visitors a year. Not all of those aren't lottery sites.
Speaker 1: Those are just places where lots of people go. The
Speaker 1: thing is is all of them are Most of them
Speaker 1: on Recreation dot Gov come with service fees attached, and
Speaker 1: these fees go directly to Boozelan, which built the site.
Speaker 1: The deeper you go, the more interesting the gatekeeper. Now,
Speaker 1: most people don't know that these service fees are going
Speaker 1: to Boozelan. They think it's going to the park, so
Speaker 1: they don't mind. But when you find out they get
Speaker 1: people get really mad. So, as one angry writer found out,
Speaker 1: waiting on hold and being transferred multiple times because this
Speaker 1: person was trying to find out where the money went,
Speaker 1: but also who set the fees. She found that Boozeland.
Speaker 1: She was told after being on hold for a long time,
Speaker 1: Boozelan actually sets the Recreation dot gov fees for themselves. Now,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with charging a fee for the use
Speaker 1: of a national park as long as that fee is
Speaker 1: necessary for the upkeep and is used to maintain the
Speaker 1: public resource. And that was in fact the point of
Speaker 1: the law passed in two thousand and four, the Federal
Speaker 1: Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, to give permanent authority to government
Speaker 1: agencies to charge fees for the use of public lands.
Speaker 1: But what booz Allen is doing is different. The incentives
Speaker 1: here are creating the same dynamics for public lands that
Speaker 1: we see across the economy with junk fees. So, just
Speaker 1: as airlines charged for carry on bags and hotels are
Speaker 1: forcing people to pay resort fees, some national parks are
Speaker 1: now requiring reservations with fees attached, when before they didn't.
Speaker 1: As scalpers automatically grab Taylor Swift tickets from Ticketmaster using
Speaker 1: high speed automated programs, there are now bots booking campsites. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what is booz Allen. Okay, who are these guys? Now?
Speaker 1: Some of you may remember it as the place the
Speaker 1: company where controversial National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden worked.
Speaker 1: Now on their website, booz Allen lists its business as
Speaker 1: follows quote. We bring bold thinking and a desire to
Speaker 1: be the best in our work in consulting, analytics, digital solutions,
Speaker 1: engineering and cyber with INDO trees ranging from defense to health,
Speaker 1: to energy to international development. I mean that's basically like
Speaker 1: prestige worldwide. They don't know what the hell does it
Speaker 1: even mean. And the thing is is when you can't
Speaker 1: identify what a company does, like we sell socks or whatever,
Speaker 1: when they throw out lots of garbage like that, it's
Speaker 1: usually because it does something useless or corrupt or both.
Speaker 1: And in this case, booz Allen just operates as a
Speaker 1: shadow government. Now Snodent was operating as a National Security
Speaker 1: Agency employee, but was employed by Booze Allen and Recreation.
Speaker 1: Dot gov is a government website that's supposed to handle
Speaker 1: government lands, but it was created and has fees going
Speaker 1: to Booze Allen. In twenty seventeen, Booze Alan got a
Speaker 1: ten year one hundred and eighty two million dollars contract
Speaker 1: could consolidate all booking, with thirteen different government agencies participating,
Speaker 1: from the Bureau of Land Management to the National Oceanic
Speaker 1: and Atmospheric Administration to the National Park Service to the
Speaker 1: Smithsonian to the Tennessee Valley Authority to the US Forest Service,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth of money involved. For instance,
Speaker 1: has one Camber noted in just one lottery to hike
Speaker 1: Mount Whitney. More than sixteen thousand people applied and only
Speaker 1: a third got in. Yet everyone paid the six dollar
Speaker 1: registration fee, which means the gross income for the single
Speaker 1: location is over one hundred thousand dollars going to Boozellan.
Speaker 1: There's nothing criminal about this scheme, but it does hand
Speaker 1: ticketmaster like control of our national parks, our national lands,
Speaker 1: cultural monuments to this private firm. But that's not where
Speaker 1: the story ends. In twenty twenty, an avid hiker named
Speaker 1: Thomas Kotabe sued the Bureau of Land Management over the
Speaker 1: two dollars processing fee it charges to access the mandatory
Speaker 1: reservation system to visit Red Rock Canyon Conservation area. He claimed,
Speaker 1: among other things, that the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act
Speaker 1: that's the law that authorizes the government to charge his fees,
Speaker 1: mandated that this fee was unlawful because it had not
Speaker 1: gone through the notice and comment period required by the law.
Speaker 1: A few years later, a judge named Jennifer Dorsey, who
Speaker 1: was appointed by Obama in twenty thirteen, agreed with him.
Speaker 1: She looked at the statute and found that Congress authorized
Speaker 1: the charging of recreation fees for the purpose of taking
Speaker 1: care and using federal lands, not administrative fees that compensated
Speaker 1: third parties. As such, Boozolan's ability to set its own
Speaker 1: prices was inconsistent with the law mandating the public's right
Speaker 1: to comment on what we are charged for using our
Speaker 1: own land. The Bureau of Land Management sought to appeal,
Speaker 1: but then drop the appeal in July. Why well, rather
Speaker 1: than a bitter procedural argument about classifying fees, the government
Speaker 1: in booz Allan just decided that they'll go through the
Speaker 1: annoying process of having the public comment on booz Allan's
Speaker 1: compensation and then ignore us using a sort of phony
Speaker 1: process where they get fake advisors to approve things. So
Speaker 1: here's a screenshot of one of the endless advisory committee meetings.
Speaker 1: Where they did this. So this is the Mojave Southern
Speaker 1: Great Basin Resource Advisory Council meeting in August simply proposing
Speaker 1: directly to substitute new standard amenity fees quote equal to
Speaker 1: the Associated Recreation dot CoV Reservation Service fees. This is
Speaker 1: in response to the court loss. So one notable part
Speaker 1: of the saga is that technically the Bureau of Land
Speaker 1: Management and Boozeland owe refunds to everyone who went through
Speaker 1: Red Rock Canyons timed entry system from twenty twenty to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, but they'll probably ignore that and what
Speaker 1: seems like steal the money anyway. The Federal Lands Recreation
Speaker 1: Enhancement Act, which is the bill that Congress authorized to
Speaker 1: allow the government to charge fees, and they put in
Speaker 1: restrictions because they knew that government likes to charge these
Speaker 1: fees even when they should. That's what the bill was
Speaker 1: designed to do. Well. The authorization runs out in October
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, so that's next year, and that
Speaker 1: means that Congress has to renew it. They sort of
Speaker 1: do this automatically, but an interesting member of Congress on
Speaker 1: the relevant committee who likes hiking, and there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of them could actually tighten the definitions here and
Speaker 1: find a way to stop Booze Allen and these thirteen
Speaker 1: government agencies from engaging in this kind of like minor
Speaker 1: theft from junk fees. It wouldn't really be hard and
Speaker 1: it would be kind of fun to force a bunch
Speaker 1: of government agencies to actually do their job and actually
Speaker 1: take over the site themselves or pay Booze Allan a
Speaker 1: fee for its service. Another path would be the President
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, through he's got what's called an anti junk
Speaker 1: fee initiative, using a bunch of different regulators to say,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't charge this fee, you can't charge
Speaker 1: that fee. There's consumer protection laws and whatnot. In the
Speaker 1: private sector. Well, he could just assert through what's called
Speaker 1: the White House Competition Council, to the thirteen different agencies
Speaker 1: that they end Booze Allen's practice of charging these kinds
Speaker 1: of fees. I mean, if you're going to try to
Speaker 1: stop junk fees in the private sector, might as well
Speaker 1: get the government to stop it too. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: want to overstate the problem. We have wonderful national parks,
Speaker 1: and you know they're still there, and the thing is
Speaker 1: is we can set up a website that doesn't charge
Speaker 1: young fees. Is not that hard. But to get there,
Speaker 1: we'll have to recognize the real problem at work, which
Speaker 1: is not just that Boozellen got you know, this contract.
Speaker 1: The problem is ideological. The government officials supporting Booze Allen
Speaker 1: are doing it for a specific reason. They believe in
Speaker 1: something called privatization, which is the idea that the private
Speaker 1: sector can do stuff better than the government can directly.
Speaker 1: So instead of the government building a website, they hire
Speaker 1: a shadow government aka Booz Allen to do the same,
Speaker 1: to do the same thing, and give that shadow government
Speaker 1: taxing authority aka the junk fees on recreation dot gov. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes a private sector can do stuff better than the government.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the government can do stuff better than the private sector.
Speaker 1: It sort of depends. But this ideology is one where
Speaker 1: it's always better to have private sector actors doing things.
Speaker 1: So they think that if you have a bunch of
Speaker 1: web developers in a government building, that's somehow worse than
Speaker 1: having a bunch of web developers in a non government
Speaker 1: building doing the same thing at three times the cost.
Speaker 1: It's stupid, but this ideology is deeply entrenched So if
Speaker 1: it seems like everything today in America is kind of
Speaker 1: a scam, that's because increasingly it is, But of course
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be. Not every I mean, the
Speaker 1: parks are still there, right, But the problem large is political.
Speaker 1: It's that most of us don't know how our system works.
Speaker 1: Everyone assumes that the fees on recreation dot gov go
Speaker 1: to the national parks. I've talked to members of Congress
Speaker 1: about this problem, who are really surprised that the fee
Speaker 1: money on recreation dot gov is going to Boozelan. That's
Speaker 1: not what they thought, that's not why they wrote the law.
Speaker 1: If it seems like everything in America increasingly is a
Speaker 1: scam with some sort of tiki tak fee or something,
Speaker 1: that's because increasingly it is. But of course it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be. And the problem here is ideological, and
Speaker 1: it's also that most of us don't really know how
Speaker 1: the system works. So in this case, everyone assumes the
Speaker 1: fees on recreation dot Gov go to the national parks.
Speaker 1: I've talked to members of Congress about this problem, and
Speaker 1: they are shocked that the fee money is going to Boozellen. Now,
Speaker 1: once enough of us know, we can fix it, and
Speaker 1: there are enough Thomas Katab types in America. He's the
Speaker 1: guy who brought the suit against the two dollars fee
Speaker 1: to make sure of that. And we're gonna fix this.
Speaker 1: More broadly, We're going to roll back privatization is too
Speaker 1: ridiculous not to. But in the meantime we're going to
Speaker 1: have to pay our two dollar fees to get access
Speaker 1: to the national parks and that's pretty infuriating. Thanks for
Speaker 1: watching this Big Breakdown on the Breaking Points channel. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to know more about how big business and
Speaker 1: how our economy really works, you can sign up below
Speaker 1: for my market power focused newsletter Big In the description, thanks,
Speaker 1: have a good one. Hey, my name is Damesley. Welcome
Speaker 1: to another segment of fifty one to forty nine on
Speaker 1: Breaking Points, where we dive into different topics at the
Speaker 1: intersection of business, politics and society, and today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the homeless industrial complex. The homeless crisis
Speaker 1: in America is worsening again. The COVID pandemic caused a
Speaker 1: surge in housing costs and arise in unemployment, leaving nearly
Speaker 1: six hundred thousand Americans unhoused in twenty twenty cities across
Speaker 1: America are spending more than ever to combat the crisis.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, New York spent a record breaking three
Speaker 1: billion dollars to support its homeless population. California is also
Speaker 1: expected to break its record, allocating four point eight billion
Speaker 1: dollars of its budget to the same issue over the
Speaker 1: next two years. And areas like that just don't seem
Speaker 1: to be getting any better, despite the fact that every
Speaker 1: politician claims that this is a top priority of theirs,
Speaker 1: and the budgets keep going up. On the contrary, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty saw a thirty percent increase in the unsheltered homeless
Speaker 1: erasing over half a decade of work since its dramatic
Speaker 1: rise in twenty fifteen. YEP, if you live in an
Speaker 1: urban area, you've probably noticed the homeless problem getting worse.
Speaker 1: Everybody has seen this, I think to some degree, and
Speaker 1: thus we have dedicated more public funding and attention towards
Speaker 1: solving homelessness in the US than ever before. But for
Speaker 1: some reason, the homeless epidemic continues to grow. Let's look
Speaker 1: at one example, San Francisco. This graphic is from the
Speaker 1: SF Department of Public Health. The budget allocated to combat
Speaker 1: the homeless crisis in the city has increased every year,
Speaker 1: but the SF homeless population has also been increasing in
Speaker 1: lockstep every year for the past half decade. How could
Speaker 1: this be? Now? There are a lot of factors that
Speaker 1: contribute to increased rates of homelessness in America, and today's
Speaker 1: segment covers only one small sliver of that discourse, one
Speaker 1: that I think is less often discussed because it brings
Speaker 1: to light the uncomfortable premise that maybe some of the
Speaker 1: people in charge of solving homelessness don't actually want to
Speaker 1: solve it at all. Turning now to the homeless crisis,
Speaker 1: the governor just announced almost seven hundred million dollars in
Speaker 1: funding to convert more apartment buildings and vacant hotels into
Speaker 1: housing for the homeless. No mattresses memories. Governor Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: with volunteers helping set up a new Project home Key apartment.
Speaker 1: The space will become a home for someone living on
Speaker 1: the streets. Why can't we buy more buildings and get
Speaker 1: people off the streets today, Buildings where we can help
Speaker 1: people ever avoid hitting the streets. That's where Project home
Speaker 1: Key was born. Project home Key uses funding to convert
Speaker 1: buildings like this or motels and hotels into interim or
Speaker 1: permanent housing for the homeless seven hundred million for Project
Speaker 1: Home Key in California, which is a program that sprang
Speaker 1: from a strategy to combat homelessness called Housing First, where
Speaker 1: the goal is to get every person, every homeless person
Speaker 1: into a permanent home without any kind of pre qualifications
Speaker 1: like sobriety, drug treatment, or psychiatric care. Now I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert in social work, so I don't know what
Speaker 1: the most effective way is to get people off the streets.
Speaker 1: I do know that the causes are multifaceted. Obviously there's
Speaker 1: a financial component, but there's also substance abuse to consider,
Speaker 1: and maybe a cultural factor as well. But what I
Speaker 1: can comment on is that with the amount of money flowing.
Speaker 1: For example, in California, Governor Newsom has approved grants for
Speaker 1: nearly one billion dollars over the past two years, a
Speaker 1: billion dollars this year and another billion dollar next year
Speaker 1: through the States Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program to
Speaker 1: all cities and counties in the state. That is a
Speaker 1: lot of money of billion dollars a year, which I
Speaker 1: would guess there's going to be a lot of opportunity
Speaker 1: for misuse. Misuse by who what am I talking about here?
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at the eligibility for the program. Cities, counties,
Speaker 1: or other local public entities, including housing authorities, were federally recognized.
Speaker 1: Tribal governments within California may apply independently as a development sponsor. Alternatively,
Speaker 1: a local public entity may apply jointly with a nonprofit
Speaker 1: or for profit corporation. That is important to take note of.
Speaker 1: The home Key program is designed as a public private partnership.
Speaker 1: An important truth to remember is that private sector corporations
Speaker 1: aren't in the business to address societal problems. They are
Speaker 1: in the business to maximize profits, which unfortunately is fundamentally
Speaker 1: I think incompatible with something like providing universal affordable housing.
Speaker 1: And here is an example of what happens all the
Speaker 1: time in public private partnerships. A real estate broker, Jim Neil,
Speaker 1: who was hired by the San Diego Housing Commission, bought
Speaker 1: forty thousand shares of stock of Chatham Lauding Trust, the
Speaker 1: former corporate owner of a mission value hotel, before negotiating
Speaker 1: a sixty seven million dollar deal for the Housing Commission
Speaker 1: to purchase the one hundred and ninety two unit property,
Speaker 1: which works out to about three hundred and forty nine
Speaker 1: thousand dollars per room, which is the highest per room
Speaker 1: cost for any hotel sold in the county last year.
Speaker 1: According to the San Diego Union Tribune. Neil also allegedly
Speaker 1: breached their broker agreement with the Housing Commission when he
Speaker 1: earned commissions totally over a million dollars on his deals
Speaker 1: with the cities last year, according to the city Attorney's office,
Speaker 1: and now he's being sued by the city. You say, developers, brokers,
Speaker 1: government bureaucrats, nonprofit executives. They all see dollar signs. They
Speaker 1: see this opportunity to not necessarily fix homelessness, but to
Speaker 1: profit from it. City leaders, including Sacramento's Mayor Darryl Steinberg.
Speaker 1: We are in a meeting right now with Governor Gavin
Speaker 1: Newsom discussing the local homeless funding he withheld until they
Speaker 1: came up with a better plan to address the crisis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the governor said, combined, the plans would only reduce homelessness
Speaker 1: by two percent over the next two years. Governor Gavin
Speaker 1: Newsom walked into the meeting Friday afternoon hoping for cities
Speaker 1: to come up with a better way to address the
Speaker 1: state's homeless crisis. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said he
Speaker 1: welcomes a collaboration of ideas, but not like this in
Speaker 1: a short pause means that we have to pause our
Speaker 1: own efforts because we don't have the certainty of the
Speaker 1: funding being available. We have an expectation that the state
Speaker 1: make these funds permanent and ongoing. Permanent and ongoing. That's
Speaker 1: literally what some of these people are looking for, blank
Speaker 1: checks in perpetuity for a cause that's worthy, but also
Speaker 1: a cause they are willing to milk. Of course, since
Speaker 1: we heard from Todd Gloria, Mayor of San Diego, let's
Speaker 1: take a look at what's happening in San Diego. In September,
Speaker 1: the city was awarded thirty seven point seven million dollars
Speaker 1: from California's Homekeep program. On March twenty second, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria boasted that Homeky temporarily housed
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty people, which is one hundred and
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand dollars per person. I don't think him going
Speaker 1: out on much of it. Limb by saying that, I
Speaker 1: don't think he's spending that money very wisely, I mean
Speaker 1: thirty seven million bucks for three hundred and thirty people,
Speaker 1: which is kind of comical, right, I mean you heard
Speaker 1: it earlier. A billion dollars right to be doled out
Speaker 1: to every county and the largest cities in the state
Speaker 1: of California, and the current plans as submitted by the
Speaker 1: cities would only reduce homelessness by two percent statewide over
Speaker 1: four years. Even Gavin Newsom is not too happy about it.
Speaker 1: He temporarily halted the billion dollars in an effort to
Speaker 1: demand better plans from the cities and counties. But the
Speaker 1: problem is he's kind of thrown in his lot with
Speaker 1: Project Homekey. In the state of California, there's something called
Speaker 1: a behested payment. Basically, public officials may call individuals or
Speaker 1: companies with business before the state and them to donate
Speaker 1: to any governmental or charitable purpose, and there's no limit
Speaker 1: to these types of contributions. Now, it was reported that
Speaker 1: Newsom racked up an unprecedented two hundred and twenty six
Speaker 1: million dollars in behested payments in twenty twenty, mostly for
Speaker 1: purposes related to his administration's COVID nineteen pandemic response and messaging.
Speaker 1: For example, Facebook was behested out of two point one
Speaker 1: million dollars, which included over a million dollars of AD
Speaker 1: credits and six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to support
Speaker 1: Project home Key, an effort to buy hotels and convert
Speaker 1: them to housing for the homeless. Very interesting. He's got
Speaker 1: not only his political capital tied up at the project,
Speaker 1: but also financial capital as well. Right, he kind of
Speaker 1: has to be all in, and California is not unique.
Speaker 1: These types of situations. Abuses happen all over the country.
Speaker 1: The New York Times recently ran an expose about Jack Brown,
Speaker 1: a nonprofit executive who operates New York City homeless shelters,
Speaker 1: who has siphoned off millions from the people who he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be serving. Since twenty seventeen, the city has
Speaker 1: awarded more than three unred and fifty two million dollars
Speaker 1: to Core, a nonprofit run by mister Brown, to operate shelters.
Speaker 1: From that funding, we're talking about him taking more than
Speaker 1: a million dollars in salary per year. We're also talking
Speaker 1: about him using his nonprofit to channel contracts worth at
Speaker 1: least thirty two million dollars into four profit companies that
Speaker 1: he has a financial interest in. We're talking about millions
Speaker 1: more going to real estate companies in which he has
Speaker 1: an ownership interest in. And to top it off, he's
Speaker 1: also hired his family members and given employees per such
Speaker 1: as gym memberships and cars. You cannot convince me that
Speaker 1: he actually cares about any homelessness, because if he does,
Speaker 1: by chance, all his financial investments go poof. And that
Speaker 1: is the homeless industrial complex. In a night show. You
Speaker 1: have the politicians who are funding programs that, in theory,
Speaker 1: help promote solutions to a widespread problem, in this case homelessness.
Speaker 1: But like any other industrial complex, you also have nonprofit executives,
Speaker 1: real estate developers, government bureaucrats, and many others who have
Speaker 1: hijack the original cause and turned it into a profit machine.
Speaker 1: There is something called Pornell's Iron law of bureaucracy, which
Speaker 1: states that in any bureaucratic organization, there will be two
Speaker 1: kinds of people, those who work to further the actual
Speaker 1: goals of the organization and those who work for the
Speaker 1: organization itself. The Iron law states that in all cases,
Speaker 1: the second type of person will always gain control of
Speaker 1: the organization and will always right the rules under which
Speaker 1: the organization functions. Okay, so in this case you have
Speaker 1: the hard working social workers on the street trying to
Speaker 1: help make a difference, But you also have your Jack
Speaker 1: Brown's the world, the people who run the organizations, the
Speaker 1: people whose interests are not tied to the success of
Speaker 1: the organization in terms of the causes they serve, but
Speaker 1: rather the financial success of the organization itself. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna end with something that is uncomfortable and potentially unpopular.
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that homelessness is both a result of
Speaker 1: and an impediment to the pursuit of economic growth. Basic
Speaker 1: homelessness is in our country a feature and not a bug.
Speaker 1: You see, you need it to exist as a stick
Speaker 1: to keep people working, and the lack thereof. The lack
Speaker 1: there of of homelessness is kind of a moral hazard
Speaker 1: for our economic system, And to me, that is the point.
Speaker 1: We either choose to have homelessness or we don't. Throwing
Speaker 1: billions of dollars at the problem is kind of like
Speaker 1: treating the symptom without fully understanding the cause. It only
Speaker 1: serves to enrich folks who are not in the business
Speaker 1: of solving the problems, but rather in the business of
Speaker 1: milking every ounce of profit until the well runs dry.
Speaker 1: That's all for me this time. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's discussion about the homeless industrial complex. If you did,
Speaker 1: I would encourage you to check out my YouTube channel
Speaker 1: fifty one forty nine with James Lee. Have tons of
Speaker 1: videos and breakdowns on different topics, many of them like
Speaker 1: this one. The link will be in the description below.
Speaker 1: Of course, don't forget to subscribe to Breaking Points, and
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time today.