Episode

10/12 Sam Live From The Mass Torts Conference, Las Vegas! Day 2

October 12, 2023

Sam is coming to us LIVE for Day 2 of the Mass Torts Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada! First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Israel’s siege on Gaza, Blinken’s unconditional support for the IDF, Steve Scalise’s speakership limbo, expanding UAW action, stalling SAG-AFTRA negotiations, and general tidbits on US democracy, before exploring the ongoing disaster in Gaza as we stand on the precipice of an even larger crime against humanity, with Israel punishing some 2 million Gazans, half of whom are children, for the crimes of some 45k Hamas fighters. Sam then sits down with various lawyers from the law firm Levin Papantonio Rafferty as they parse through their ongoing mass tort cases against some of the world’s biggest corporations to hold them to account for their active lies and omissions. First, Caleb Cunningham joins to explore his work attempting to hold the “troubled teen” industry to account, walking through the unregulated rise of these carceral facilities for minors, and the pervasive trauma that they have left on the children and families they are supposedly helping. After touching on the tactics the industry uses to get around bad publicity or accountability, they wrap up with a conversation on the differences between class actions and other forms of mass tort. Troy Rafferty then joins to explore the devastating impact of Big Pharma’s price gouging of life-saving insulin medication, tackling the prevalence of diabetes and the central role insulin plays in mitigating its deadly impacts, and the role both manufacturers and pharmaceutical middle-men (called Pharmacy Benefit Managers) play in exponentially pushing up the prices on irreplaceable drugs, before they wrap up with a conversation on the failure of the US government to properly hold these bad actors accountable, and what a single-payer system could do to prevent this from ever happening again. Lastly, Peter Mougey discusses his ongoing battle against opioid manufacturers and distributors for their role in actively perpetuating the opioid crisis in the US, and how they were able to track the malpractice on the part of these industries in refusing to flag clear regional abuse of their drugs. Sam and Emma also discuss the absurd coverage of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, with Fox & Friends painting Hamas’ violence as Palestinians being ungrateful, before they step back to walk through Hamas’ long-time history as a wing of Israel’s war against a Palestinian state, making parallels with the US’ midwifing of the Taliban. Wrapping up, Sam and Emma watch the “radical right” of the GOP immediately shut down any potential hope of a Scalise speakership, and Tim Pool points to female autonomy as the end of feminism.

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