With more than 500 cases of this mysterious lung illness from vaping, the question over
the proposed vaping ban is what's, where's that leading us?
Where is the vaping ban?
And again, every time we do a vaping story, they hate to say this, but I swear to God
there is a vaping cult out there as this, it's the craziest thing I've ever seen.
When we talk about vaping, even though we talk about it's, you know, you got, you got
problems with THC, you got problems with E acetate, you've got all, you got problems
with heavy metals, you got problems with...
Pesticides.
Yeah.
And it, when you talk about it, this cult mentality says, oh, we can't talk about that
because it's safer than tobacco.
Okay, let's say it's safer than tobacco.
500,000 people die every year because of tobacco.
It doesn't move me to say it's a little bit safer.
What's your take?
I think the vaping ban is a bad idea and we look, we know, you know, I know everybody
knows that, yes, the vaping companies are marketing these flavored products that they're
trying to ban.
They're marketing them to children.
There is no question about that and something should be done about that, but outright banning
these things is an absolutely bad move.
It's addressing a problem that's not related to the actual problem.
The problem is you have hundreds of people getting ill.
We don't know why.
Nine people are dead.
And we don't know.
We don't know why.
Right.
That's the point.
Because there's no regulations.
That's the problem.
There's no regulations in this industry whatsoever.
We don't know what people are putting in here.
The FDA does not have any kind of set standards as to what can go in a vape.
Not to mention the little vape shops that pop up on the corners, they're putting, God
knows what in there because nobody's looking over their shoulders.
Is this just another FDA disaster?
Absolutely.
Okay.
We got, you got an, you've got an organization that is completely dysfunctional.
If you believe the FDA is there to protect you, you are in la la land.
So the FDA watches this develop.
Even in the early times, people are saying, look, there's no regulations.
People can put whatever they want in here.
They can have whatever device they want to deliver it.
It can be something that's leeching lead into the human body, leaching pesticides into the
human body.
It's releasing E acetate in the human body.
All these things.
Now I'm not suggesting, you know, we handled the tobacco litigation and the, we, we launched
that case right at this law firm years ago and we saw all the documents and I can tell
you this stuff that's in tobacco is a lot worse than this.
No question about it.
But don't you get to the point where you want to say, look, yeah, we get that it's a way
for people to stop smoking, but we have to at least objectively talk about it.
And the FDA has to regulate these mom and pop organizations that are making the delivery
system, the pen.
Yeah.
They need to regulate every part of it.
Well, and people need to understand too, anytime you're inhaling something into your lungs,
don't you want know what's in that?
I mean, rather than take some guy behind the counter, his word for it that, oh, no, no,
no.
I've just mixed up this fresh batch of it.
No, that that's what people are getting sick from.
That's why this all happens suddenly.
That's why people are dying.
There's obviously a bad batch of something out there in this country killing people.
Let, let me tell you where this case goes.
This is my prediction.
In a couple of weeks we'll be in Las Vegas where we have our meeting of lawyers that
handle complex cases and what we'll be talking about is this isn't a case that can be solved
in one federal court.
Okay.
May be brought in one federal court, but there's so many, there's so many avenues to go after
these companies.
Take for example the, the pen itself, it's got all these component parts.
Each one of those component parts are made in different States.
You have so many components to it that you can, you can almost pick where you want to
bring the case.
And so because of that you're going to have these companies that are mom and pop organizations,
basically, hugely under financed that are going to go under.
Even the big companies are going to go under.
And what we're going to find is when all the smoke clears, we're going to see most of this
was financed by big tobacco.
So we've come a full circle, haven't we?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Thanks for joining me.
Thank you.
The fight to hold the world's largest polluters accountable is getting more sophisticated.
The attorney general of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for violating
the state's consumer investor protection laws by not disclosing the risks of climate change.
RT's Brigida Santos joins me now to, more on that story.
It's a crazy story.
Brigida, what can you tell me about this lawsuit to begin with?
It's been common a long time.
The, the Massachusetts attorney general is probably one of the most courageous attorney
generals we have in this country.
Most of them are just useless as far as actually any kind of cultural or social engineering.
This woman is far different.
What's your take?
Yeah, she's incredible.
When you read the text of this lawsuit, it is, it is just astounding.
Now, attorney general Maura Healey from Massachusetts, basically outlined the entire case.
Now the court documents reveal that for decades, ExxonMobil has intentionally misled state
investors about and consumers about climate change to increase its short term profits,
stock price, and access to capital.
Now the company reportedly withheld information from investors that could have affected decisions
about purchasing, selling, and holding ExxonMobil securities.
Exxon of course is the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company.
So this is a very important case to keep our eyes on.
Okay, so all the way back to the 50s the, Exxon's own experts were telling the company
that this is bad and the company ignored it.
Instead what the company did is ignored the experts that were working in house that were
telling them, yes, green, the climate change is real.
Yes, we're part of the cause with fossil fuels and yes, we may be on a course that if we
don't interrupt right now, might be irreversible.
Their own scientists were telling them that as early as the 1950s.
Then the, then they go out and hire biostitutes to say what they want them to say.
Give me your, give me your understanding of that please.
Yes.
Let's run through some of the evidence here now.
Since the late 1970s Exxon scientists and management reportedly knew that Exxon's oil
products were the leading cause of climate change and that if nothing was done to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, climate change would have potentially catastrophic impacts on the
global environment and a substantial fraction of the Earth's population.
37 years ago, Exxon scientists even predicted that in 2019 carbon dioxide levels would reach
415 parts per million, and that average temperatures would increase by 1.15 degrees as a result,
and my God, they were right.
In may of 2019 this year, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere not only reached 415 parts
per million, but they surpassed that level reaching the highest point in human history.
And the company also confirmed there was a general scientific agreement that humans influence
the climate through carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels.
And that dramatic changes in global energy use may be necessary to prevent significant
climate change, including the use of its own products.
Well, what they did is they, they had shareholders as early as 20 years ago that were saying,
look, we're very fearful that all this money we have invested in Exxon can go bad when
all the lawsuits begin.
When we have catastrophic climate changes along the coast.
When we have insurance policies that will never pay for the damage that's done, we're
going to be the next target.
Their shareholders were telling them that and what the company then did, they went out
and they hired scientists that would sign off on documents that were actually written
by Exxon.
Exxon would write the story.
The scientist, they'd pay the scientist $1 million and they'd sign off and say, climate
change is not real.
That's where we are right now.
We know Exxon knew and that it didn't take action to sharply reduce fossil fuel, and
now we're living with that, aren't we?
Yeah, and look, they had a multimillion dollar consumer deception campaign that's been in
full swing since the 1980s.
The goal is to strategically magnify uncertainty in climate science to curb fossil fuel reduction
efforts.
Now that campaign included publicly contradicting Exxon's own climate scientists and tricking
the public into believing that the role of greenhouse gas in climate change is not understood,
even though it is.
Exxon also funds front groups to publicly attack climate science and lobbies heavily
to influence energy rules and regulations.
And it may soon even be rewarded a new government contract because president Trump recently
said he wants to make a deal with ExxonMobil to tap Syria's oil reserves.
So this is a very powerful company.
It's not a victimless crime.
All the people out there who do not believe that humans play a role in climate change
are the victims of it.
Not to mention all the people who have had their houses destroyed due to fires, you know,
that are increasing, especially in California due to climate change.
The list goes on.
Well, let me just tell you, this attorney general Maura Healey is she, she's the leader
in, in in cases that we should be interested in.
Here's what she knows.
She has watched cases being brought in federal court throughout the country.
Federal judges rather than being, whether it being hands on are always saying, well,
we can't really do anything.
This is too big for the courts.
We have to worry about congressional, we have to wait for congressional mandate to do something
about this.
And the truth is, Maura Healey has said, no, you know what?
I'm through listening to that up here in New Hampshire, I'm going to do something as an
attorney general.
Because the judges, the federal judges that time after time have, have, have dismissed
these cases where I, I've read the pleadings there, there, there were a hundred ways to
keep these cases in court, but the, the, the, the mantra from these federal court judges
is no, we have to wait for Congress to do something.
She saying, no, we don't have to wait for Congress to do something.
We're going to bring this in state court up here.
We're going to get judges that aren't so tied down to these notions that their hands are
tied.
Brigida, thank you for joining me.
Okay.
Anytime, Mike.