Meta Pays Up/Impeachment Symposium
Meta Pays Up/Impeachment Symposium
Ralph welcomes Haley Hinkle, policy counsel at Fairplay to tell us about how a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for harming children’s mental health and safety, violating state law. Then when present highlights from last week’s symposium on impeachment, featuring Dennis Kucinich, CIA whistleblower, Jeffrey Sterling, Public Citizen co-president, Rob Weissman, GW law dean Alan Morrison and many more.
Haley Hinkle is policy counsel at Fairplay, where she advocates for laws and regulations that protect children and teens’ autonomy and safety online. Ms. Hinkle has also worked on issues at the intersection of government surveillance technology and civil liberties.
We saw a lot of that in the discovery for these cases and other lawsuits that are currently being brought against the companies—that they have a lot of internal research where they’re very specific with their features. And also their safety features. They test them to make sure safety features aren’t too effective. They don’t reduce too much screen time. And this is completely overwhelming for young brains. And it’s completely overwhelming for families that are trying to make the choice between protecting their children and isolating them from the virtual spaces where all of their friends and classmates are gathering. And so it’s not straightforward. And in many cases, the parental controls or settings that may give a family some semblance of control are not usually very effective.
Haley Hinkle
I think if juries continue to make such resounding decisions on behalf of families, that’s maybe going to motivate these companies to try to find ways to avoid further jury trials and to settle. But all of this raises the fact that as these processes continue (and they’re so important), we can’t wait for lawmakers to do their part to also step in and act and try to get some strong rules of the road in place to fill the void that has created this situation.
Haley Hinkle
We’re in a moment right now where we have to decide who we are as a people—not who the President is. We already have an estimation of that. The question is who we are. Because, with few exceptions, almost each and every statement the President has made in the last month has been an impeachable offense. He is a walking, talking impeachment machine.
Dennis Kucinich
Let me remind everybody watching this and this panel that this entire Congress is complicit in every crime of this administration for letting Donald Trump pass that threshold into his illegal presidency by not upholding Section 3 of the 14th Amendment on January 6, 2025. I am preaching to the choir if I tell this audience that we have passed so many thresholds when accountability should have happened, when somebody’s foot should have been put down, and this should have stopped. This obscene, lawless war launched by a draft dodging pedophile domestic terrorist in concert with an international war criminal…Generations are going to be looking back to this moment to see what those people, those men and women (Democrats and Republicans in that body, but at the end of the day, human beings with moral compasses somewhere deep within themselves) were doing when American democracy was being burned to the ground.
Jessica Denson, founder of the Removal Coalition
News 4/10/26
This week, many felt that the U.S. came as close to a nuclear conflagration as it has since the Cuban Missile Crisis, as President Trump whipsawed between vowing that Iran’s “’whole civilization will die” and striking peace deals with the Islamic Republic. Ultimately, the U.S., Iran and Israel all signed a two-week cease-fire agreement, mediated by Pakistan, including a provision that Iran will “allow oil, gas and other vessels to proceed unmolested” through the Strait of Hormuz, per the New York Times. However, this is just a cease-fire – not a peace treaty – and is being immediately pushed to the brink as Israel continues their ongoing, devastating assault on Lebanon. The Guardian reports that both Iran and Pakistan view Lebanon as included within the deal, while Israel maintains that it is a separate matter. In retaliation, Iran is now demanding tolls as high as $2 million per ship to pass through the Strait. With Israel showing little interest in acceding to a ceasefire in Lebanon, it seems unlikely this crisis will be resolved swiftly.
In the lead up to Trump’s address Tuesday night, a large number of Democrats came out publicly in favor of Trump’s removal via the 25th amendment, or failing that, a new congressional impeachment effort. According to Axios, this group includes both progressives like AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, as well as more moderate members, including even Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. Some Democratic Senators, including Senators Ed Markey and Ron Wyden also signaled their support. Perhaps most strikingly, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called for Trump to be removed through an invocation of the 25th amendment, though she stopped short of calling for impeachment. This all coincided with Congressman John Larson introducing a new set of 13 articles of impeachment – that he may soon force a vote on under House Rule IX – and the legal symposium on impeachment organized by our own Ralph Nader and friend of the show Bruce Fein, available on C-SPAN.
Leading the moral opposition to the Iran war meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV – the first American Pope – has come out in opposition, telling journalists that “all people of goodwill” should “always search for peace and not violence… [and] reject war,” emphasizing that many have called this war “unjust” and that it is ”continuing to escalate and…not resolving anything.” Pope Leo stressed that “the innocent: children, the elderly, the sick…will become victims of this continued warfare.” The pontiff even went so far as to conclude with a call for political action, urging the people of the world “to contact the authorities—political leaders, congressmen—to ask them, to tell them, to work for peace and to reject war and violence.” This from Vatican News.
However, this is just the latest flashpoint between Pope Leo and the Trump administration. Administration officials were already irate with the Vatican earlier this week, following Pope Leo’s statements on Easter Sunday, when he called for world leaders to give up their “desire to dominate others” and “the imperialist occupation of the world.” In response, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby – grandson of former CIA Director William Colby – reportedly told Vatican officials that “America has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,””and “The Catholic Church had better take its side.” They also reportedly invoked the Avignon Papacy, implying that the United States could sponsor an heretical anti-pope as an alternative for rightwing Catholics. This exchange was apparently so shocking that Vatican officials canceled a planned American visit by the first American Pope. This from Newsweek.
Another deeply immoral story comes to us from Michigan, where the Detroit News reports Danhao Wang – a Chinese electrical and computer engineering research assistant at the University of Michigan – has died after falling from an upper level of the George G. Brown Building. According to this report, the university’s police department is investigating this incident as a “possible act of self harm,” but Chinese authorities are demanding an investigation into his death, noting that it came on the heels of Wang enduring “hostile questioning” by federal law enforcement. This tragedy has occurred within the context of a Trump administration-led “crackdown” on foreign influence at U.S. universities. The Chinese Consulate in Chicago meanwhile put out a public statement decrying that “For some time now, the U.S. has overstretched the concept of national security for political manipulation and groundlessly interrogated and harassed Chinese students and scholars,” like Wang, implying some role in his death, while simultaneously “infring[ing] on Chinese citizens’ legitimate and lawful rights and interests, poison[ing] the atmosphere of people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and the U.S., and creat[ing] a serious chilling effect.” The Consulate is also demanding that law enforcement “carry out a full investigation, give the family of the victim and the Chinese side a responsible explanation, stop any discriminatory law enforcement targeting Chinese students and scholars in the U.S., and stop imposing wrongful convictions.”
Elsewhere in the midwest, Republican lawmakers in Ohio are taking first steps to do something about the out of control sports gambling epidemic. These legislators have introduced two bills, one designed to ban in-game gambling, parlay and prop bets and wagers on all college athletics and a second bill which would prohibit the “use of credit cards to make bets…[limit] bets to $100 and only [allow] up to eight wagers per 24 hour [period].” It would also ban ads during events broadcast live. However, the number one biggest rule these laws would impose would be banning online sports gambling period. Republican State Rep. Gary Click is quoted saying “[We’re] going to put some common sense consumer protections in place to protect Ohio citizens.” Yet, this report also notes a huge loophole in these bills: they would not apply to prediction markets like Polymarket or Kalshi, just pure sportsbooks. This from ABC News 5 Cleveland.
Turning back to foreign affairs, French authorities have arrested Rima Hassan, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Jean-luc Mélenchon left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI) party. The charge? According to Al Jazeera, suspicion of “apology for terrorism” for a post that referenced Kozo Okamoto, a participant in the deadly attack at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport in 1972. However, Hassan’s allies in the LFI see this as a thinly veiled attempt to silence pro-Palestine voices. Sophia Chikirou, an LFI MP said “The French police and justice system are being used to intimidate those who support the Palestinian people,” while Mélenchon himself wrote “So there is no longer parliamentary immunity in France. Intolerable.” Mathilde Panot, an MP and head of the LFI delegation in the National Assembly, said “the criminalisation of political opponents has reached a new level,” under President Emmanuel Macron and demanded that “This relentless attack, trampling on the most fundamental rights, must end immediately.”
Our final stories this week cover Latin America. First, a delegation of American members of Congress, including Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and Congressman Jonathan Jackson, visited Cuba in an attempt to see “firsthand the devastation and suffering caused by the U.S. blockade of fuel,” according to Jayapal. In their joint statement, Jayapal and Jackson wrote that they met with “families, religious leaders, entrepreneurs, civil society organizations, the Cuban government, Latin American and African ambassadors, humanitarian aid organizations, and Cubans across the political spectrum, including dissidents,” all of whom demanded an end to the blockade. Further, they wrote that they witnessed “premature babies in incubators, weighing just two pounds, who are at tremendous risk because their ventilators and incubators cannot function without electricity. Children cannot attend school because there is no fuel for them or their teachers to travel. Cancer patients cannot receive lifesaving treatments because of lack of medications. There is a water shortage because there is little electricity to pump water. Businesses have closed. Families cannot keep food refrigerated, and food production on the island has dropped to just 10 percent of the people’s needs.” They concluded by calling for “real negotiations” between both countries. Sadly, it is unlikely that those will come after such a long, acrimonious relationship since the 1959 revolution.
Next, in Venezuela, NPR reports that the Office of Foreign Assets Control – a division of the Treasury Department – has lifted sanctions on acting President Delcy RodrÃguez. NPR notes that this sanctions relief “allows RodrÃguez to more freely work with U.S. companies and investors.” In a statement on the platform Telegram, RodrÃguez wrote “We value President Donald Trump’s decision as a step toward normalizing and strengthening relations between our countries...We trust that this progress will allow for the lifting of current sanctions against our country, enabling us to build and guarantee an effective bilateral cooperation agenda for the benefit of our people.” Yet, her presidency rests on shaky legal grounds. While the Trump administration recognizes her as the “sole Head of State” the Venezuelan political system still recognizes Nicolás Maduro as the rightful president and RodrÃguez as acting president for just 90 days – a window that is ending as we record this segment – though the National Assembly, presided over by her brother, can extend her acting term by six months. After that point however, the future of Venezuela looks far murkier, particularly if Maduro remains in U.S. custody.
Finally, in Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced that her government will consolidate the various branches of the Mexican public health apparatus – including the Mexican Social Security Institute, the Social Security Institute and Social Services of Workers of the State, and the IMSS Bienestar program – into a single Universal Health Service. According to TeleSUR English, President Sheinbaum stated that the “objective is that any citizen can attend any health institution and be guaranteed full and free coverage throughout the national system.” President Sheinbaum emphasized that “universal breast cancer care will also be incorporated, including mammograms, biopsies, and treatments at the nearest facility, expanding preventive and therapeutic coverage for women nationwide,” and that the plan would “ensure continuity of complex treatments for conditions such as cancer, HIV, kidney disease, and hemophilia, even if the patient loses or changes their health insurance coverage, preventing interruptions in critical therapies.” She hopes to have this system in place by next year. While Mexico has a much more robust public health infrastructure than the U.S. to begin with, it is remarkable how, with the right combination of administrative competence, popular government and political will, Sheinbaum is poised to achieve yet another social safety net expansion considered a complete political impossibility in this country in such a short window of time. Never let yourself be beaten down. A better world is possible.
This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard.
Discussion about this episode
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I have a question on the impeachment process
If the votes required in the House of Representatives is 218 , we would need 4 of those to be Republican , and 67 in the Senate to convict. Is filing the articles of impeachment in face of the odds the point ?
Thought this finding was very interesting on the impact of digital classrooms.
Sweden just hit the undo button on 15 years of digital classrooms, returning to traditional teaching methods with printed books, pencils, and paper.
Back in 2009, Sweden was celebrated as a pioneer of modern education, replacing printed textbooks with laptops and tablets in classrooms nationwide. It seemed like the future. But according to international reading assessments including the PIRLS study, Swedish students' reading comprehension scores dropped significantly between 2016 and 2021. Teachers reported shorter attention spans, more distraction, and weaker handwriting. The experiment that was supposed to prepare kids for the future was quietly failing them.
So Sweden made a bold move. According to AP News, Sweden committed €104 million to bring printed books back into every classroom, with the goal of ensuring every student has a physical textbook for every subject. Students are once again writing by hand with pencils and paper, and the government is pushing to make schools cellphone-free nationwide. Students are once again writing by hand with pencils and paper, and the government is pushing to make schools cellphone-free nationwide.
Rodney king " can we all just get along "
Impeach and arrest got treason. He needs to go to jail and never be interviewed again.
From Australia, I've been following the podcast for a long time and recently have become a subscriber.
From this distance we are looking with increasing concern at your mid-terms and it seems there is no doubt that the current regime will be gearing up to disrupt the democratic process. My question is what is being done by anyone - the Democrats, the Independents, the States, the media - to anticipate and thwart that potential disruption?
Re the case against Meta, et.al. with the large jury awards, which no doubt will continue to mount - reminds me of the issue of Monsanto with glyphosate - multiple multi-million $$$ jury awards connecting it to non-hodgkins lymphoma - with more on the way - so that now, in the current Farm Bill, there is a provision that forbids any more such suits.
Considering that these Big Tech companies, I would posit, have a hell of a lot more sway on our Congress critters than Big Ag, don't be surprised if there is a provision tucked away in one of those Omnibus or "must pass" bills that forbids any more such suits against Big tech ...
Be on the look-out ...
Wow! Mexico improving their healthcare system! What a great leader they have! On another note, I recently heard a song Fast Cars by the Buzzcocks which mentioned Ralph Nader.
Why aren't there more songs with Nader?
Thank you for your part in the impeachment symposium. We should all be after our Congressmen and Senators holding them accountable for this war and their failure to oppose it. In my district, Himes, Blumenthal and Murphy have said some good things but I don't see them being vocal enough.
On the illegal and immoral Iran war, I'm watching a lot of Youtube discussions with some of your former guests such as Col. Wilkinson, Amb. Freeman, Scott Ritter, Larry Johnson and others like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzaMmOeTAVo Interviews by "Dialogue Works", General Danny Davis, Napolitano and others are informative.
Haley Hinkle’s (Fairplay) presentation about the New Mexico jury’s award of $375 million against Meta for harming children’s mental health and safety was excellent. One of the cases she mentions hit home because a friend’s child met a similar fate about a practice described on the Radio Hour that can result in death. I don’t know if the fate of that child followed a similar and Internet driven outcome, but the practice that resulted in both of the children’s death was very similar.
The Radio Hour’s discussion on the symposium on impeachment was equally impressive. By this point in Trump’s lawless presidency, recently augmented by a war of aggression, along with Israel, against Iran, even the most diehard of Republicans knows that not only is the president a criminal on several accounts, but he’s obviously not all there, so to speak. Who threatens an entire nation with thousands of years of civilization and can be called normal? In keeping with Ralph Nader’s call to contact Congress, I wrote to Congressman Neal about supporting impeachment, but he is one of the so-called holdouts, last I checked, who kowtowed to the so-called Democratic Party leadership. All of this is quite remarkable given Trump’s crimes, at this juncture almost too many to mention. A moral compass? Their moral compass is in their egos and their pocketbooks.
An aside: I’m paying attention to experts, some of whom believe that as the negotiations now taking place regarding the Iran war go on, Israel will launch another attack against Iran. I think this is quite plausible and Trump may be out, or too far out, of the reality loop at that point?
As you know doubt know, Senator Sanders recently proposed a bill to cut off funding to Israel. Congress returns next week and that bill will be coming up for a vote very soon. I hope we flood Congress with messages in support of the bill.
One point that gets ignored when we condemn Trump for launching a war of aggression against Iran, resulting in the deaths of US service men and women, as well as thousands of Iranian and Lebanese civilians: thousands of Iranian soldiers and militia volunteers have died defending their country against a genocidal aggressor. Their untimely deaths only occurred because Trump, the neo-cons of both political parties and Israel chose to attack their country. If there are any heroes who we should honor if only in our silent prayers, they are those who perished defending what they loved - their homes, homeland and civilization. There are things worth fighting for. Using our precious young men and women to advance a war of choice to ‘destroy a civilization’ is treason beyond imagination.
Symposiums are nice but sometimes
I think it's time for America to use some of it's natural inherited resources,,,," the Mob ," I remember working in San Francisco and my boss's daughter had been accosted by some Street hoods ,, so he gave a quick call to some of his friends in Chicago and soon the hoods were in his office the next day begging for mercy.. years early I had a roommate in college at the University of Illinois and he was more interested in running his street gang on the south side of Chicago,, he never cracked a book ,, so years later I got my car towed for parking in the wrong space in Chicago and happen to mention his name to a police officer asking where my car had been towed and 30 minutes later my car was in my hotel parking garage, keys at the hotel front desk , no questions asked.
Can you imagine being a terrorist and having " the Mob" after you ? Is it legal ? is it nice ? A forest ranger friend of mine would called it , fighting a fire with a fire , not to bad of an idea sometimes don't you think ?,,,, good luck America have a great day my friends
I wish we could all just quote Rodney King and everything would be better
It's criminal enterprise holding our government hostage that's very true . So all can think about is this from JFK
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” John F. Kennedy
That and smothering him with the White House drapes .
I watched the entire impeachment program - it was great!
One person I would like to get a hold of is Oliver Hall, having read his article in the Seattle Law Review "Death by a 1000 Signatures" ....
As there seems to be rather general agreement that both the D/Rs in this "2 Party system" are complicit in creating and perpetuating the mess we are in - it seems to me past time to "throw the bums out", all of them ...
We need more choices at the polls - but both parties, in their control of State Legislatures, have also "colluded" in doing their best to keep 3rd Party/Independent candidates off ballots so no one can challenge them at the polls ....
I do wish Ralph would have Mr. Hall on his show to talk about this ....
I am tired of "bending the knee" to the duopoly ....