Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Mini Show #19: Dem Failures, BlackRock Greenwashing, Flint Water Crisis, Prince Andrew, & More!

Episode Date: January 22, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about Democratic leadership's failures, BlackRock greenwashing, Flint, Michigan coverup, Prince Andrew's punishment, and more!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Daily Poster: https://www.dailyposter.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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us now. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, David. Good to see you. All right, we got a couple pieces we wanted to talk to you about this week, but let's start with Democrats have made this big pivot. They said, forget about all this, like, you know, health care, paid sick leave, these things, economic things we were talking about before. Now we're going to focus on voting rights with an equally implausible, you know, path towards victory. It's sort of like doomed to fail from the start. But you have a great piece pointing out that even if they could succeed, voting rights alone is not sufficient. It's headlined democracy alone Will Not Save Democrats. Voting rights without economic

rights is not democracy, it's theater, and most Americans know it. Elaborate on that. Sure. I mean, look, democracy is valued in a society if democracy is shown to actually deliver real material gains for most voters. And I think over the course of many, many decades, our democracy has been telling voters that, frankly, that their vote doesn't really matter all that much, that we have a system of government that one study found just simply does not reflect anything that voters actually want. It does not deliver those things. And so the idea of Democrats shifting to voting rights and sort of setting aside their economic promises, I think fundamentally misunderstands, first of all,

how to win elections. But secondly, what will motivate people to go to the polls to protect democracy? Look, we have a democracy crisis in this country that's been going on a lot longer than the last few years. We have a democracy crisis where elections are bought, politicians are owned, and lobbyists write legislation. That is the fundamental democracy crisis. That's why many times elections don't seem to result in policy change. And so if you want to actually motivate people to fortify democracy, I would argue what you need to do first and foremost is actually show that you're delivering real material gains to people, passing a $15 minimum wage, passing various economic initiatives that you promised,

extending the child tax credit. These are just a couple of examples. And in not doing that, and then in going out and saying, listen, the election is just going to be about voting rights, is that really going to motivate people when you're showing people that them continuing to vote doesn't necessarily deliver the promises that you made. You know, this is the thing I'm fascinated by too, David, because it's not like they're arguing they're going to do anything with it. They're just like, we have to pass this. And people are like, okay, why? What are you going to do? And they're like, well, we just have to. It's not like they're making a case. You know, yesterday Biden said they were going to break up the Build Back Better agenda,

but he didn't say which parts. We went through it, Crystal and I did, this morning, and we were like, okay, so would it be prescription drugs? No, because Sinema is not going to vote for that. Would it be the college portion? No, because Manchin said he wouldn't vote for that. Would it be the child tax credit? No, Manchin said he wouldn't vote for that.

Or then the two of them said that they wouldn't vote for the corporate tax rate hike or something like that. So what would you actually end up even putting on the floor? They're not making a case for why they should be handed power or to have democracy to do anything currently. I mean, that's the fundamental problem is that they're not actually about anything. And so the bottom line fallback, the fallback of last resort is voting rights. And I think it's important to understand that voting rights ultimately doesn't threaten capital. It doesn't threaten corporate power in a country where elections do not result in economic changes

that fundamentally restructure the economy to work for working people. And if you understand the Democratic Party and its contradiction, the Democratic Party essentially is trying to enrich its corporate donors and tell voters it's going to solve problems created by those corporate donors. And so what oftentimes happens is Democrats put forward bills that then get watered down, or they put forward initiatives that don get watered down, or they put forward initiatives that don't fundamentally threaten the donor class. Now, I'm not saying voting rights isn't important. I think voting rights is extremely important. But again, voting rights in absence of

economic policies that challenge corporate power, that doesn't offend the donor class. But the problem is, it doesn't necessarily motivate lots of voters. You can see that in polls. It doesn't necessarily motivate lots of voters who are asking if democracy is so important, why is democracy not delivering for me? Yeah. Well, I always think about Barack Obama with his whole like don't boo vote thing. And people did. They voted for him twice. Then they were pissed off with that. They voted for Trump. Then they were pissed off with that. They voted for Biden.

And throughout all of this, many, many things remained the same. We continued to have very similar levels of brokenness in our health care system. We got some moderate improvements under Barack Obama. But overall, capital basically has control of the system. And that's not to say both parties are identical. But as Marianne Williamson has been talking about lately, like one of them is like death for the working class and the other one is like managed decline. So it's not an amazing choice either way. How do you ultimately get out of this? Because as long as they're captured by these people,

it's hard to see how they do anything other than kayfabe. I mean, democracy, what you're pointing to here, democracy and your vote is irrelevant when they're just going to represent the interests of their corporate donors and, you know, put on a show with Lin-Manuel Miranda instead of actually governing. Well, look, they can make a real effort. They can start by making a real, serious effort to improve people's lives economically. I mean, Joe Biden has a stack of executive actions on his desk that he could take to actually improve people's lives. He could use, for instance, the power at HHS to start lowering drug prices in America. He could start canceling student debt. The American Prospect has done great work on this. They have a thing

called the Day One Project, which is just all of the executive orders that Joe Biden could sign right now that he hasn't signed. So my point is, is that first and foremost, you want to actually make a real effort to pass a real economic agenda. And I would argue that they haven't even made that effort. Now, I know the argument is, well, what are you going to do about Manchin and Sinema? Well, there are ways to put more pressure on them. But there's always a rotating villain, right? The Democrats always seem to have one or two senators that they can point to and say, hey, listen, those are really the two problems. The rest of us are all on board. But the fact that there's always a rotating villain suggests the fix is in.

In other words, that the rotating villain is actually doing the dirty work for far more than one or two senators, that the rotating villain allows Democrats to rank and file Democrats to go out and say, hey, listen, we are pushing, but we're pushing for something that's already predetermined, already doomed. It really ends up saying to voters, this whole thing is performance. It's not real. Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. You've got another piece, David, that we wanted to get you to break down for us about BlackRock's greenwashing. And, you know, this has been sort of corporate America's hobby horse lately is portraying themselves as, oh, we're not really just all about the bottom

line anymore. We've got the business roundtable. We've got these statements of principle. This is why they all gather at Davos for the World Economic Forum to pretend that they're these magnificent saviors of the world. When in reality, what is actually going on, David explained to us, when BlackRock is claiming to be this like, you know, focused on the climate crisis and green company, what are they really doing? Sure. I mean, it's straight up hypocrisy. I mean, BlackRock has, Larry Fink at BlackRock, the head of BlackRock, has been touting himself as a forward thinker on climate. And they do this letter every year from Fink. And it should be understood BlackRock is an owner and investor in many, many companies.

And BlackRock has basically been saying, we support companies moving to more sustainable climate policies. But, of course, the problem is that BlackRock is also putting large amounts of capital into the fossil fuel industry. I mean, just this week, Fink put out a letter saying this kind of climate rhetoric. But only about a month ago, BlackRock became a majority owner in a $15 billion fossil fuel pipeline deal in Saudi Arabia. That's just one example. I mean, it's a company that has pumped money into fossil fuel projects, coal projects all over the world. So it's the classic divide between what is said publicly and what is actually being done with the money. Now, BlackRock has argued, listen, we still invest in bridge fossil fuel infrastructure. Fossil fuel infrastructure

that we argue is necessary to get to better climate policies. But the bottom line is that BlackRock has become a serious and significant obstacle to things like the divestment movement, to things like actual efforts to reduce the amount of capital going into fossil fuels. And I think that's their strategy. They want to have the nice brand. That's why we use the term greenwash. They want to have the nice brand, but they don't necessarily want to actually fundamentally change their business models. And the problem is with the science is if a company like BlackRock, a $10 trillion company, does not change its business practices, then the science and physics is telling us our planet's livable ecosystem is screwed. It's a great piece. There's one other piece of this that I think is important because oftentimes moving towards green energy or sustainability or dealing with the climate crisis is pitted against jobs and support for workers. So someone on the other side might say, listen, not great, but at least BlackRock is investing in these jobs. Workers can earn a living. Well, we know because

we've covered here extensively, they're one of the major backers of Warrior Met Coal, which has those miners have been out on strike for months and months now. All they want is to be able to get back to the wages and the benefits that they had in 2016. BlackRock certainly has plenty of money to be able to make these miners have just the bare basics of a dignified life. And they have been totally adamant and opposed to coming to the table and, again, giving these miners just what they had in 2016. Well, yeah. And the idea that there aren't jobs to be created in a green economy is just preposterous. I mean, there have been studies out that show that actually in the age of automation and the like, that various parts of the fossil fuel industry have a low job creation rate per amount of money going into the fossil fuel industry. In other words, that the fossil fuel industry is not some incredible engine of job growth, and certainly not necessarily as big an engine of job growth as

retrofitting the economy to a more green economy can be. So I agree with you, that jobs argument has been an argument that's been made against green policies forever. It just doesn't actually hold up. And again, I go back to the science here. In addition to it not holding up, we all have to live on this planet. I mean, how much more stark could the climate science be about what we need to start doing? Yeah. Well, it's great to have you, David. Love both of those pieces. Of course, we always appreciate you coming on, having the partnership with you. So thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Everybody go subscribe to The Daily Poster. Otherwise, you're missing out. That's right. Thanks to both of you. Thanks, man. Absolutely. And thank you guys for watching. We will have more for you later.

I wanted to bring you some really significant investigative reporting around the Flint water crisis brought to light by Jordan Cheriton and also Charlie LaDuff. This is a new piece published at The Guardian. Let's go ahead and throw this tweet up on the screen from Jordan. Flint water crisis racketeering charges against government officials, numerous government officials, by the way, for financial fraud that ultimately led to the crisis before Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel took office, fired the prosecutors and let it go. The long and short of this story, Sagar, is if you guys remember some of the dynamics of the Flint water crisis, what effectively happened is they had been buying water from Detroit. They decided they had Governor Snyder installed an emergency manager of Flint, and that emergency manager decided instead

to switch over to this new partially privatized pipeline that was being built. And then the other decision was, in the meantime, while the pipeline is being built, which would have gone to Lake Huron, we're going to switch over to using water from the Flint River for the residents of Flint, Michigan. Now, they did not do what they needed to do. And what was documented is they knew that they needed to do in terms of upgrading their system and making sure that the lead pipes that were throughout Flint, Michigan, that they did not corrode, which ultimately, you know, they didn't do those things. And so lead ends up in the water, causing devastating poisoning and damage to the people and especially the children of Flint, Michigan. So there have been long a lot of questions about, was there any sort of like greed, this privatized pipeline? Was there money that was involved? What were the

incentives for pushing Flint to move over to the Flint River so quickly and move over ultimately to this pipeline? And what Jordan reveals here, we don't have the answers to all of those questions, but what he reveals is that actually the previous attorney general had been pursuing an aggressive investigation into racketeering and financial fraud, which implicated over a dozen officials. And when the new Democratic attorney general came in, erased, got rid of all those charges, killed that investigation and went in a totally different direction. What did they find? Why was that investigation ultimately killed? Those are questions that we still need answers to.

So this is pretty, pretty bombshell. Apparently, this investigation was looking into potential bribery. Again, this was RICO charges, racketeering, financial fraud. It could have implicated some of the banks that were involved in the financial deal that allowed Flint to participate in this pipeline. That's JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, along with a third financial firm. They were the ones who underwrote the pipeline bond deal. So a lot of questions here about what were some of the real motives at play? Was there actual outright political corruption

that ultimately led both to the poisoning of an American city and then potentially political corruption also allowing those true wrongdoers off the hook? Yeah, I mean, Jordan's done a really good job on this. And I did not know about the RICO charges and about why exactly they were let go. But that was the thing about Flint, is that it was just such an emblem of such the deeper rot of corruption. Because it wasn't just

the poisoning of the American city of some of the poorest people in the US. It went all the way up to lucrative government contracts, to the switching over, to the lying of the actual people, and then finally culminated in the social show of all three presidential candidates going to Flint and Obama famously drinking the water. And then that was it. Everybody just gave up. And Flint really was left behind. And the justice system was one of those places where you thought they might be able to get to the bottom of this. But the more and more that you look at all of it, you can see very clearly that there was a lot of nefarious action and corruption in letting the people off the hook so they could just throw up their hands and be like, oh, it was a terrible thing that happened, when it was a very intentional process that actually came to the actual poisoning itself.

So here's what the former director of the FBI's office in Detroit, said, testifying, speaking before a state government committee back in 2018. He said, we believe there was significant financial fraud that drove this. He also revealed that his team, this was after they were fired and the investigation let go, were within six months of filing significant financial charges, which he described as, quote, dropping a heavy rock. That investigation was looking into potential bribery and racketeering. Okay. It is astonishing that we are this many years down the road and we still don't have real answers to these questions of why. Because look, here's the bottom line. People were making money off of this pipeline. There were people who stood to gain from Flint switching over to what ended up being a catastrophe and a horrific source

of water for their people. So were there financial incentives involved? These individuals investigating were very close to filing charges that would have said yes. And that could have blown the doors open on a whole range of government corruption. We already what we already know is bad enough, of course. Not only were they poisoned, but there was an overt conspiracy to cover up the fact that residents were coming in with very high lead levels and that the water was testing very high for lead. So Jordan has been just dogged in the pursuit of the truth. I happen to know from both of us speaking with him that oftentimes mainstream outlets, they're not even interested in anymore. They've

moved on. But this story is so critical, not only because of the lifelong health consequences, but because of what it exposes about our system. I mean, I think it was Michael Moore who said this. If terrorists came in and poisoned the water supply of an entire American city, can you imagine what we would do? Can you imagine what we could do in this? We're supposed to say, oh, it was a while ago. Let's just let it drop. That's a good point. It really is. All right, guys. One other thing you should follow Jordan, Status Quo. They do good work, and his dogged reporting on the road is really important to support. So if you have a chance, go over and subscribe over at Status Coup.

He does a good job. Yeah, he really does. Thank you guys so much for watching. We're going to have more for you later. Big news on the developments between Prince Andrew and the new civil case against him here in the United States filed by Virginia Gouffre, a prominent Epstein accuser. Judge has ruled that Prince Andrew, the suit against Prince Andrew, can go forward, meaning that it will be tried in open

court, which is going to unleash a whole lot of stuff. We already know about secret settlements in between Epstein and Virginia Gouffre, in which he tried to absolve both himself and everybody else, including the prince, of any potential future actions that was struck down by the judge, although it still will play a big thing within the trial. But the most important thing that we see is that the royal house is completely abandoning Prince Andrew Crystal. Let's put this up there on the screen. The UK media has been having a field day with this. Apparently, Prince Andrew was, quote, left in tears after the Queen told him his titles were being stripped and he was hosting a shooting party for his family and friends while struggling with the decision. Now, what it means to strip titles is the Duke of York will no longer be known as his Royal Highness in any official capacity and is expected to write to his former regiments with remorse that he had to leave.

What it means is that whenever you're a prince in the system, you get all of these military titles and the HRH title is very important socially and all of this. I know it sounds ridiculous, but they still have it over there. And these are obviously socially have a lot of cachet. It gives you the ability in order to go and participate in public works and charities, that thing. That's how they justify their existence. But anyway, so the queen has now come in and stripped her own son of the title of his royal highness, of any of his military titles. And Buckingham Palace put out a statement saying that the Duke of York will continue to not undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen. They, I mean, ice cold from your own mom, basically just saying, you're out.

We're not backing you. This is on you. You go fight your own case out there in New York. And look, now he's subject to the U.S. judicial system. They don't have this. We don't now he's subject to the U.S. judicial system. They don't have this. We don't have the same protections that he has over there. We can subpoena and look into a lot of the stuff.

And this actually could be some of the stripping away of the access to power that the Maxwells and the Epsteins had and the access to the royal family. So this is kind of a sign to the media of like y'all do what you're gonna do like they don't have that he doesn't have that same protection that perhaps he once did um from fear of crossing the royal family not having access to whatever it is that they're doing. He also apparently had his royal patronages stripped, which I didn't know what that was. But apparently that's like you were saying,

these are all of these charities that they lend their name to, which gives cash aid to the charities and helps them justify their existence in your words. Look at all the good deeds we're doing out there for the poor or whatever. So anyway, those have been stripped away from him as well. And apparently, according to this piece, the military, the stripping of the sort of honorary military titles was meaningful to him because he is a decorated military veteran. Yes.

So he actually cared about this, which I guess is why he was emotional, although unsurprised when the queen, his own mother ultimately made this move. Yeah, this is really big. I mean, in terms of royal stuff, this is, you know, like almost a medieval soap opera that's happening over.

And it comes to the heart of the Epstein case, which is how did Jeffrey Epstein, what did he have on Prince Andrew, and what did Prince Andrew participate in that made him subject to being such close friends with these obvious perverts, such that Epstein, as that came out in the trial, they took a photo at the Queen's private cabin in some of the most hallowed ground in the UK, most private places. That photo of Maxwell on the throne, remember that? Yeah. Where she had the private tour with like Kevin Spacey and Bill Clinton, real cast of characters. I think Chris

Tucker was there too. So he's the only one who's, I love Chris Tucker. So thank you for not being a perv as far as we know. Chris Tucker, the four of them together. Look, it's, it's has showed us, it just shows us the access to power and to the levers of high social status that they were able to worm their way into. This civil case will give us even more. Virginia Gouffre has accused a lot of people, Alan Dershowitz, Prime Minister of Israel, many others of participating in very illicit activity. And if we can learn more in this case and get the prince to testify, or at least get him to deny some things on and off the record, there's a lot, there's a good chance we'll learn more from this than we did from the Maxwell trial. It said in this article, the queen wants him to try to settle out of court. Of course she does. But that there's questions over whether, because Virginia Gufri seems like what she's

really after here is not justice. I hope she does justice. Yeah, I hope she does not settle. So, you know, it's a question mark whether she'd be willing to do that at any amount because, you know, I think she certainly from her public comments really wants to see some transparency and truth and some level of public accountability. Good. Drag his ass, Virginia. Drag him. Indeed. We will be watching. All right. All right, guys. Thanks for watching. We'll have more for you later.

DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up.

They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OkayStoryTime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. or wherever you get your podcasts. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator,

and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.