CSIS: Spaulding & Corporate America’s New Disinformation Scheme

Cenk Uygur discusses corruption and Russia on The Young Turks.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

All right. Everybody knows how much I dislike Russian disinformation, right? So we're pretty well known for that. And I've gotten into giant battles with right wingers and left wingers who are in favor of Russian disinformation. I've pointed out exactly how they're doing the disinformation, et cetera, right? So I'm reading an article called Judicial Independence: Threats Foreign and Domestic. Okay. And it's about Russian disinformation. I'm like, okay, I'm super interested in it. In the middle of the article, it's like an interviewer or something with David F. Levi and Suzanne Spaulding, and then some judges and other folks involved. These are all giant DC establishment figures. I don't mean that they're gigantic. I mean that they're part of the giant establishment in DC. They're normal bureaucrats, right?

They, they work in defense industry, then they work in the government, they work in think tanks, and they don't think any of this is incestuous. The fact that they think that they're, part of their paycheck comes from giant defense contractors, which I'll get back to. They don't think that that's a conflict of interest. They think it's, it would be conspiratorial to think that they would care about their own salaries, et cetera. Anyway, these guys are writing about, so, and in the beginning of the conversation, I'm totally agreeing with them. Putin's a danger, this is what he's doing, et cetera. And then they throw in a random line, it was Spaulding who did it. She's like, and you know, of course the problem is trial lawyers. Wait, why are trial lawyers a problem?

It's not because they sue corporations like BP and, and other giant, Johnson and Johnson, giant corporations, right? No, because there was once a trial lawyer at some point on RT. My English teacher back in I think in the eighth grade, Mr. Pember used to do this sometimes when I was making points about symbolism that I thought was in a book. And I was like, what are you doing Mr. Pember? He's like, Cenk, you're stretching. You're stretching. Okay. And then I thought, why is she's stretching to attack trial lawyers in this, in the middle of this argument about Russian disinformation, et cetera, right? And other countries disinformation. I mean, it was just so out of the blue. But, and she's like, you have to worry about domestic threats too. In fact, that's the title of this, whatever this thing is, right? And threats foreign and domestic. And apparently the threat domestically is people exposing corruption in America. Whoa, boy. Okay, then I'm in a world in trouble.

Guess what, Suzanne and David and all the rest, yes, I think, and by the way, over 90% of Americans think that politicians are corrupt. And yes, judges take, some are elected, not all of them, some are. They take campaign contributions. And a lot of those are from corporate executives, et cetera, and from industries. And then people like Suzanne come in and go, oh, you think a judge would be affected by hundreds of thousands of dollars given to his campaign? That's outrageous. Are you serious? I mean, that's the kind of gaslighting that is four-dimensional chess of disinformation. Like we did a story yesterday on the show, oil and gas industry has put in $123 million in lobbying last year into Congress. That's a ton of money, $123. But people like Spaulding, I guess would say, I don't know, would have to ask her specifically, but almost every establishment figure says, no, no, no, no. Those, that is not legalized bribes. Their business interest. Oh, they have no interest in their business interest just for the general welfare. They're just doing it for charity.

And they happen to give it to politicians who happen to give them back, you know how much in subsidies, what they spent $123 million. You think maybe they got a hundred twenty four, hundred twenty five million? No, they got back $16 billion in subsidies from us, from the taxpayers. That's so, that corruption is so obvious.