Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Dominion, Drug Sentence Clemency, COVID Law, GQP Legal Losers, and More!

Episode Date: August 15, 2021

The top-ranked weekly law and politics podcast — Legal AF — produced by MeidasTouch and hosted by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, is now on its own podcast channel, and brought its 17 prior episode archive along for the ride. On today’s episode, Ben and Popok use their special brand of hard-hitting analysis and genial straight-talk to explore Dominion Voting Systems recent courtroom successes in their billion dollar defamation cases against Trump, Trump Jr., Sidney ‘Kraken’ Powell, Giuliani, My Pillow Guy, and now the founder of Overstock.com, for perpetuating the Big Lie that an international cabal, combined with key federal agencies AND Chief Justice Roberts, used AI to help President Biden win the presidency. The hosts then update listeners on cases that have been followed since LAF’s inception, including the recent SCOTUS eviction ban cases, and how federal courts around the country have been handling mandatory vax and vax passport requirements. Next up, the “Analytic Friends” discuss the public policy implications of federal criminal justice and sentencing reform as POTUS considers using his Constitutional clemency powers to address disproportioned convictions and sentencing of recreational drug users. The episode ends with a discussion of whether federal prosecutors in DC are going too easy on January 6th insurrectionists, a question recently asked out loud by the Chief Judge of the DC federal court handling 500 such cases. Easter Egg Alert: Ben and Popok discuss the right-wing’s literal death grip on COVID to use it as a nonsensical “wedge issus” to win back national office. And New Logo + New Theme Song + New Podcast Channel may = New LAF Merch! Thank you for listening and remember to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Follow Legal AF on Twitter here: @MTLegalAF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, Midas Mighty? Welcome to Midas Touch Legal AF. If it's Sunday, it is Legal AF. With your host, Ben Mycelas, and Michael Popat, Big, Big, Week for Legal AF. We have a new home, we have a new channel. How about that? Popak, we got our own podcast channel and we need our listeners to subscribe to that channel and and popak. I think you knew this would come or maybe you didn't, but this is already a top 20 podcast in the nation as soon as we created our own channel. They like us. They really like us, Popok. We started from the bottom and now we're at 16, which is great.

I see the people that are called silver, bronze 16 will take it. I'll take 16 a year ago. I barely knew what a podcast wanted was. And now you and I co-host one of the top legal news and political podcasts in America. And it's not because of us, although I enjoy talking to you once a week, it's because the mightest mighty and our subscribers and listeners,

we seem to resonate with them and vibrate with them. And it's really been one of the great professional experiences for me outside of the straight law that I've had. And I give it up to you, because as we've told people in our origin story, a year and a half ago in March when you launched in March of 2020, when you launched Midas Touch, you then said to me, Hey, you want to do this once a week, legal roundup thing with me? And I had pandemic hair, you know, like nobody was cutting my hair for

six months. And I was, I'm like, didn't know how to use a camera or a microphone and, and, and, and we did it. And everybody liked it. You and I liked it. And that was the beginnings of it. We've now spun off. They've thrown us out of the big house. We have our own apartment, our own channel. Everybody needs to go to starting today. Exactly. And Popak, the original legal AF podcast was Ben FaceTiming Popak and us talking for about an hour and just speaking to each other. So it's incredible we get to share this with our followers.

And we've got quite a crew, quite a following. I want to talk about a vicious following, I would say too. So yesterday, Popok put in a legal af background experimenting. He was saying he was going to do it. I was just in it as a goof and I said it's a bread in you. One of our supporters, one of the loyal legal AF listeners says, can we send him referring to you off on vacation again? That way we don't have to see that hideous background again for another two years. It's on par with that thing on Ben's

chin that he called a beard. Yeah, that bad. And of course, this individual has a naked mole rat as his icon on Twitter, but analogizing the way my face looks to a naked mole rat. This is this individual's identity. He was rude. I don't want to give him more clout than he's already got within the mightyas mighty, but pretty vicious. Popok and analogizing it to legal. Does that rise

to the level of intentional inflection of emotional distress? I'm a little hurt. I was, I was slightly hurt. However, I was, I was charmed by the overwhelming majority of people who even as a goof thought the background look pretty darn good. And you know what I took away from that? They like the logo. They like the logo the Brett designed. I like the logo the Brett designed. And I think it's going to look great. You're doing a poll right now on your Twitter feed, which I've recycled asking about legal a f merch and i you know i think it's gonna come i think that logo is gonna look quite stas he on on t-shirts and other things

quick thing we have a poll going on special shout out to might as kyle who is our graphic designer who works with bread on those graphics thank you kyle bur those graphics i know our listeners are like look if we want this stupid banter will listen to the brother podcast give us the fucking log guys hurry up. Hold on one second. Let me tell you one thing. Loyal legal AF listeners, as we have our new channel, let us chat just for one more minute. We're talking about doing legal AF merch. You seem to love

the idea. Some of the top ideas right now for legal AF merch are I'm a popokian that's doing pulling about 16% legal AF with ban and popok 10% popok is the two pop of law the way I envision that one by the way is those t shirts with the two pockets of core face with the bandana over his head. I envision a big photo of Popeye like that is just how I see that. 14% and most people like the standard legal a f shirt 60%. That's the one we'll probably do.

Popeye. No, I'm OG. I want, I like the legal AF, but I do, but I do note that, that three out of the four have some version of my, of my name, which has been trending, but legal AF sounds great. Let's just get it on some good looking emergency if anybody buys it. A good week for legal AF and a great legal week for Dominion. It's really weird to even say that that it's a great legal week for dominion. It's really weird to even say that, that it's a great legal week for a company that runs voting machines and successfully administered voting machines throughout the various counties

it contracted with, but became the target of a defamatory smear campaign by anti-democratic forces led at the top by a former fascist president in Donald Trump. But this was a great week for dominion, kind of the one two legal punch. Wouldn't you say popok? So what happens first is dominion files, a lawsuit. This is their second round, if you will, of lawsuits. This one against Newsmax, OAN, someone named Patrick Bairn, who used to be the CEO of Overstock.

I want to get into what those complaints are. And they're filed in different jurisdictions. So pop pop, I'd like you to let us know like why somewhere in the district court in the district of Columbia, why one was filed in Delaware. But then a day after, a day after those lawsuits were filed, bam, it's like the judge, the federal judge in the district court who watched in DC, almost that news almost hit his back and go, hey, if we filed our order yet, because this judge in DC denied the motions to dismiss on the first round of dominion

lawsuits, denying the motions to dismiss, Spylandell and Don Jr. and Giuliani. And you may recall, Landel was having this ridiculous cookie 72 hour thing where he was supposed to stand and start talking about voter fraud. And as soon as he got the news that he lost, he like ran off that stage as quick as can be. One important note though about the judge, Carl Nichols who ruled against Lindell, Trump appointee from 2019. And so this was not some, you know, quote unquote liberal, although, you know, I hate those terms because I don't believe the GQP as any shred of conservatism, but

you had judge Carl Nichols, who was the judge who eventually ruled in favor of dominion here. I bet you and people listen to that opening they think, how is Polpok going to tie all that together? Because that's a lot, but I'm going to. I'm going to tie it right now, I'm going to tie it together with a ribbon. All right, let's start with reminding our followers and listeners what we what when we say dominion, we blow that dog whistle,

what does that even mean? Let's remind everybody that dominion voting systems operates voting machines that a lots of jurisdictions use for electronic balloting. Okay. And so there was a set of allegations, the big lie that was run by Sydney Powell and Trump and Don Jr. and Giuliani and all of their minions and all the other rich nutty right wing Republicans that Trump won the election, the Biden lost the election. And one of the ways they say that really happened is that there was a conspiracy, a cabal, a worldwide conspiracy. Hold on, put on your seat belts because it's going to take a minute.

The conspiracy involves Argentina, Venezuela, Spain, the Department of Justice, Homeland Soros. George Soros, Homeland Security, and just because I guess they were feeling like they needed one more, Chief Justice Roberts. Then I see a CIA funded database in Spain. just because I guess they were feeling like they needed one more chief justice Roberts. Ben and I are the CIA funded database in Spain. But yeah, I left that one now. Ben and I are not making this up. That is the conspiracy theory that that group has been using and that judges are now having to rule on and I guess bite holes in their tongues about how ludicrous these allegations are.

Why does it matter? Because Dominion systems, dominion voting systems, is a billion dollar company that's in the business of supplying voting machines to municipalities and government and electorate states and all sorts of things. That's what they do. They sell these machines. And if they're being attacked because people are saying that there is Venezuela in software

and AI built into their machines that automatically changes votes to Reagan election in favor of one person or the other. And that's how Chavez won in Venezuela and they use the exact same technology to make Trump won. Again, I mean, I might as mighty enlistners. I know you're spitting your coffee right now, but that is the set of allegations that are in a lawsuit that Dominion has brought. And thank God judges, including Trump appointees, are waking up and saying, this case is ridiculous, this is defamation.

Damages are probably gonna be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and you're gonna trial. So the main case, the first case that was filed that Ben talked about is the one against Trump, Don Jr. Giuliani, Sydney Powell, the pillow guy, and you and I Ben, I don't know if you remember this, we talked about this in episode three, which means 15 weeks ago, just to show you how justice moves. And we said there's a motion to dismiss and we'll tune back in when it gets ruled on. Just got ruled on 15 weeks later

in favor of dominion voting system. So that case, which is a big case with a B billion dollars of damages at stake is going to a jury. And that's great news for progressives, for thinking human beings. That's good news. And the. Well, Bob, let me ask you this question. Is it definitely going to a jury or is it past the,

what we would call the tw I mean, I think it will go to a jury. But was was the motion that was filed though a 12 B6 motion to dismiss or was it the summary judgment? Is there still one more chance for the defendants here to say, well, here are the facts now. Now, I think the writings on the Wal-Popat that in this order, you know, we, because these complaints and give the Dominion lawyers a ton of credit, because they've essentially done their complaint as though they were writing a summary judgment by attaching all of the comments and statements and these things were said. So it will go, but maybe just briefly explain that to us. Yeah, and you've done a good job in our other podcast episodes of explaining the difference procedurally between motion practice, motions to dismiss

and summary judgment. And I sort of smushed it together. There is a chance, there is a right that the other side has to bring a motion for summary judgment. But they have to allege there are no material facts that are in dispute. And based on that record, that as a matter of law, they're entitled to a judgment without having to go to trial in their favor, in the defense's favor.

There is another popok in prediction along with Ben. This judge, these alleged facts, there is no way in heck a summary judgment is going to be granted in the favor of the defendants before trial. That's our prediction. Oh, I completely agree with you there. So popok, tell us what happened with these other lawsuits right now and the judges ruling. Right. And so on the heels of all of that, Dominion has properly gone after they've got a list, obviously, of the all of the people

that have injured them. And the first wave is what we just talked about. The second wave now, they brought a case against what I'll refer to as the John McAfee of, of overstocked goods to recall McAfee was a crazy eccentric multi-millionaire in the in the computer virus area, McAfee software. He just died recently after being disgraced and doing some crazy things on a private island. The overstock guy. All these people are crazy. I mean, the commonality of these Lindels and these overstock people. These are crazy fuckers, like the most psychotic human beings

who all flock to this shit and convince a significant piece of the population, still that 25 and 30% number, who's equally susceptible to this crazy shit that this stuff has some basic. Mark it down August 14th, we've developed the crazy fucker, Dr. and the CFD. So the CFD here is that Patrick Byrne,

who made billions of dollars at a Salt Lake City, Utah, as the CEO and founder overstock.com. I don't think he's still involved with it, but he owns equity in it. He runs a pack called America's Project. They always take these amazing names that are filled with democracy and flag unfurling, which is the opposite of what they are, because they're against democracy and they're against America. But they poured, for instance, he poured through his America's project, $3.5 million into the Arizona fraud. He also sent his private plane to Michigan for all the craziness there about fraud in the election.

And he's the one that's promoting, and this is in the new complaint that's been filed by Dominion against him and another, that there is that international conspiracy, the cabal that Ben and I just described. And you know what, you don't get to say that types of things against an individual or a company, cause them damage and just walk away and say,

oh, it was my opinion, which is what, you know, they tried to argue in the earlier case. It can't be defamatory. It's just my opinion. Well, no, you went beyond opinion and you went into the world of defamation. So that I read the opening. Can I read the opening statement? Yes.

You said that. I'm afraid. Read it out loud. After blowing up his career at Overstock by having an affair with the Russian spy, Patrick Bern soon found himself a new pet project, promoting the false narrative that the 2020 election had been stolen. In fact, as Bern has publicly admitted, he had already committed to that narrative three months before the election took place.

After the election, Bern manufactured and promoted fake evidence to convince the world that the 2020 election had been stolen as part of a massive international conspiracy among China, Venezuelan and Spanish companies, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, prominent Republicans, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Dominion, which Bern falsely claim, committed fraud and helps steal the 2020 presidential election. And we look at this and go, what in the world? But hey, this is the person who Trump supports.

These are the people who do the Trumps hang out with. Well, two observations. You'll know that might have touched really made it when you're included in the list of conspirators for one of these crazy conspiracies when they say, you are, you are. That's a great, Marjorie, Marjorie Taylor green. By the way, Popo, Popo, Spin too busy vacationing. He was at a jazz club last night apparently to like 3 a.m. in the morning. We had to start recording this a little late today. Popo, apparently, to like 3 a.m. in the morning, we had to start recording this a little late today.

Popoq, we need to file the lawsuit against Marjorie Taylor Green for calling Midas Touch a Communist Pack. She actually held a whole press conference and called us a Communist Pack, even though on our prior settlement agreement. I give you credit before your vacation, you did a great job resolving our first case against Marjorie Taylor Green, where she had a turnover, not an insignificant amount of money.

We then turned around and donated for Midas Touch. But that amount amount. But with you and I and our strategy set up this current case, because of the way we drafted the settlement language in the prior case, she exposed herself to the future lawsuit. Well, I mean, we entered in, I mean, she's psychotic. So I'd like to give us some credit, but the reality is we just entered into a settlement

agreement with her. And she was so angry and upset that she had done that. And a lot of Republicans had attacked her and said, hey, you talk a big game, but you resolve this case with Midas Touch. So she went around, made up false allegations that we were saying, like disgusting things about her, which we never did.

We would just talk about, use her exact words and basically point out that she was spreading QAnon conspiracy theories. But then she did a whole press conference like this individual we're talking about and I'll let you get back tying your meat bow around overstock. But she did hold the press conference and call this a communist pack. So we're not on overstocks list. We're on Marjorie Taylor Green's list. I don't know what's worse, but there you go. And shout out to her lawyer. We know it's not your fault. Let me go back. Let me

go back to Peter Patrick Bern because there's two things that you mentioned, one thing you mentioned, one thing you didn't mention. The thing about the Russian spy is fascinating. That's the one where that group of Russian, including the attractive Russian woman came to the United States tried to infiltrate and she had affairs with a number of people, including a business

and in politics. Is that the right one, Ben? I, you know, it's hard to meet my Russian spy Trump story straight, considering that Trump was likely a Russian spy. So that whole orbit and that whole period kind of the one. They finally, they finally threw her out. They finally deported her. But yes, she had affairs with kind of mid-level politicians. It was right out of the Americans, that great television series. It was very, very similar.

And apparently, one of the people she had in a fair with was Patrick Byrd. But don't just think he's just lost, you know, allegedly, allegedly lost a screw. He's also doing this for his own financial gain. He has a $200 million block chain company that he's invested in that he wants to use for what secure voting technology. So one of the ways that you can help your own company is if you tear down your competitor by claiming that they're involved with a conspiracy involving the Venezuelan government.

So he's not complete, look, his hands are completely covered with blood and completely covered with dirt. But the background to all of this is he's trying to make a buck, follow the money we did this last week. He wants to destroy dominion so that his smart voting technology company takes off. It's obvious. They want attention also. These people crave. These are sociopathic, narcissistic individuals who surround themselves by these crazy QAnon conventions. And I think they just crave and need that adulation.

But Popak, the most recent one against Patrick Burn, who you just mentioned, that was filed in the District of Columbia, as were those first round of cases where the judge had recently ruled. And then there was also the lawsuit that was filed against, was at OAN, which is in the District of Columbia. But the Newsmax lawsuit was filed,

I believe in Delaware. Any sense of why there was the... Yeah, I mean, you and I, we'll open up a quick class at Legal AF Law School. We talked about jurisdiction and the Supreme Court has gotten a little bit squirrely and therefore the federal court's under them about where you can sue companies and have jurors and the judge can have jurisdiction over them for a specific act or general jurisdiction.

And the easiest way to avoid that whole problem if you're a plaintiffs lawyer, like these great lawyers representing Dominion, is to just sue the entity where they're incorporated. So I assume, without doing that too much research, that Newsmax is incorporated in Delaware, which a lot of top companies are, in order to get the benefits of Delaware corporate law, and the judges there, and the chancellors there, and that's a kind of skipp skipped this whole morass about jurisdiction.

They just said, you know what? We're just going to sue you where you're incorporated. You can never argue there's no jurisdiction. And they probably think ultimately that the Delaware Chanceree Court, which will handle this matter, is it a state court filing or federal filing? That's a state court filing.

So my gut is there's two, here we go with our inside baseball, there's two courts in Delaware. What is the court of chanceery? And the other one is a court of law, but almost all filings against companies gets filed in the court of chanceery. And an old colleague of mine is actually the head chancellor, the chancellor of the Delaware Supreme Court. He and I used to work at Scadding together. And so they're the POPAC friends.

That was the name dropper. So Andrew Bouchard is the chancellor in Delaware, and I worked on a case when I was a young lawyer. But there's a whole body of law and Delaware that I think is going to be favorable to Dominion. So they get the one to punch. They get a filing that the other side can't object to on jurisdictional grounds. And then they get really fine judges, these these chance report judges to decide rulings based on Delaware law. That's probably favorable to them. That's my answer. I don't know the chancellor in Delaware, but I know Popok. And that may be a new merch line. I know popock legal a F tie this all with a nice

both. Some other news coming out this week that Biden was exploring clemency for nonviolent federal drug inmates. And this comes on the heels of advocates wanting all marijuana prisoners released, all people who were charged with marijuana related crimes. This was an issue that Biden ran on. He said that he was going to give clemency to individuals who were in prison and incarcerated for marijuana-related crimes. And I did some research here just about the statistics. It's estimated that about 40,000 people today are incarcerated for marijuana offenses, even as the legal cannabis industry is booming.

And with certain mandatory minimums that exist across the country, someone who was maybe caught with even $900 or a few hundred dollars of pot, you hear these stories. From back in the day, our serving 55-year sentences at the same time, anybody can go to marijuana dispensaries now in most states and be able to buy marijuana legally. So there certainly is an incongruence here. And it should be noted that Biden's views on this have evolved. Biden was a major supporter of crime bills, particularly in 1994, that provided for a lot of the mandatory minimums. But we are allowed to evolve. We are allowed to change our ideas that is the nature of our constitution, that is the nature of our legal system. And I appreciate having a president who can evolve and reach higher levels of enlightenment and actually take systemic action, not just when Donald Trump would pardon one individual

and make a whole PR event about it that he would, you know, pardon this specific person or that specific person. Because Kim Kardashian wanted him to. Yeah, but this is actually something that's systemic that seems like the right thing to do. Popuck, what's going on here? Yeah, this is, there's a few things going on. One of them is, as we've said, and the Republicans like to say,

elections have consequences, Biden ran on a platform that you touched on as, as Canada Biden of a very progressive criminal justice reform candidate. He was probably pulled a little bit in that direction by some other people that were up on the stage when he was running. One of them being his now vice president, Kamala Harris, who had her own progressive criminal justice reform. But he came out, you know, there was no doubt that when you were voting for Biden, one of the things you were voting for was criminal justice reform because he ran on it. That included ending private prisons, ending cash, bail, ending mandatory minimum sentencing, reducing prison population by 50%, 50%. That's Canada Biden. So now he's making

good on it. The other thing that historically, I know our listeners like to hear a little bit about the past and you touched on 1994. Because of the crime reform bills that were passed then, coming out of the Clinton era, when we had Senator Biden, there's disparity in the sentencing guidelines which are used by the federal judges. And that's what we're talking about here.

When Biden's talking about doing something about crime, he's talking about federal crime, because he only has power over federal crime. Whether it's clemency, which you and I will talk about, or parties, that's over federal crime. If it's a, if somebody committed a state crime, that's up to the governor of the state. So we're only talking about federal criminal drug crimes.

And the biggest problem that came out of the 1990s is that the really talking about federal criminal drug crimes. And the biggest problem that came out of the 1990s is that the way the sentencing guidelines were written that judges had to abide by is that it felt disparate in a disparate way against black and brown emanortity people. Crack, which was unfortunately all the rage in the 80s and 90s, if you use crack or sold crack, you went away for almost life, especially if you were a three-time offender. If you used cocaine, which was like the white man

privilege drug, you got a sentence of like one tenth of that. So you had black men serving disproportionate sentences in jail, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, while the white guy in the cell next to him who used cocaine was out in two or three. And that was a problem. And even the Democrats who had passed these reforms recognized, they didn't do much about it, but they recognized it. Biden is now, he's got one power in his pocket that can't be challenged

by Senate, by Congress, by former, by anybody. He can pardon and give clemency, and we'll talk about the differences to anyone he chooses. That is a constitutional right under Article 2, clause 1 of the Constitution. The president has that unfettered power to do that. A clemency is the reduction of a sentence. So if I had a 10-year sentence, he can give me clemency, and I could be out tomorrow, because he's reduced the sentence from 10, let's say I had three years left in my term, he, the clemency power eradicates that last three years. A pardon is a type of clemency. We're not talking about pardons that we're talking about clemency.

Pardon is to be forgiven for the crime. Clemency is reducing the term that's left for your sentence. So what Biden is trying to do with the recommendations to the Department of Justice is to figure out which of these 40,000 or whatever it is millions and millions of inmates were sentenced improperly under drug laws that made a poor distinction between crack and cocaine, between marijuana and really harmful things like heroin and other drugs. And he's going to try to find a way to do mass clemency.

This is at least what the trial balloon that's been floated by the Biden administration, that he's going to try to do that. And that he can do. That's an immediate impact of a change of policy. Doesn't have to wait for any kind of congressional reform. He does it literally after the DOJ makes his recommendation. I think it's a good thing. I think there are people that are cooling their heels and have ruined their lives because of poor sentencing. And Biden can wavled magic wand and fix it. Oh, I completely agree. You know, and I think, though, that you can recognize these crimes like the marijuana crack and that were specifically kind of racially motivated

and targeted at black and brown communities. But I think that doesn't mean popuck. And perhaps I'm being a little preacher here and not legally though, I still think you can be tough on drugs, specifically the synthetic kind with the opioid crisis, where individuals are lacing things like Xanax with fentanyl and importing fentanyl in here and killing people and mass. And you do have a group of these hardened drug dealers who are bringing fentanyl in our streets who are trying to get the protections and analogize themselves to people who are convicted of these marijuana and crack cocaine.

And so I think though you have to in this space have some level of nuance though when it comes to, you know, there is this fentanyl epidemic and that to me still needs to be attacked very strongly because, you know, you find out about someone that you know or loved one or a family member every day, you know, who gets the bad pill, you know, the bad Xanx. And a lot of this stuff is on Snapchat and a lot of this stuff is on social media where drug dealers are really, really bad people are set, are given these drugs. But what Biden's doing there with these clemencies, I completely agree with, and I'm glad that it is the right type of about face. But perhaps I'm sharing with you something that goes beyond the legal side, but speaking with a lot of parents recently about this fentanyl epidemic,

I do think it's important that we, anyone who's importing that type of suicide drug needs to be, you know, and we're not saying anything to the contrary, it's just we have to focus on it. Look, I don't want to take away to be because it's not that progressive Democrats like you and I and our listeners are in favor of emptying the jails and not using prison appropriately as a punishment where it fits the crime. I'm law and order in that sense. The problem is, and I think you've properly actually injected policy, policies, what you just talked about, into the laws and how they're administered by the federal criminal justice system. That's the problem. If you read out loud your policy that you just established, I think everybody, most thinking people, sentient people would agree with it.

It's how it's applied by federal judges, federal laws, and the impact on prison population. I'm not sure we ever get to 50% reduction of criminal sitting in federal prison, but there's certainly a fair number that are improperly sitting in prison and rotting in prison for a long periods of time to what amounts to recreational drug use that had no other victim, but themselves and by extension their families. And that, and Biden is going to address it. And if people don't like it, I'm sorry. That's why we voted for the guy in overwhelming numbers by 7 million more than the other loser.

Because I wanted, as a progressive Democrat, to, and I'm a moderate, to see these types of policies enacted. I didn't want him twiddling his thumbs, president Biden, for four years. And you can say a lot about the man, but he's not twiddling his thumbs. I mean, every day there's an announcement about a new policy that should warm the hearts

of people like you and I in our listeners. And Biden does have thumbs to Twittle. As you recall, the former guy's hands are so small that he couldn't even twittle his thumbs although he basically tried to twittle his thumbs and his diddle for the entire four years as America burned. [♪ Music playing in background,

music playing in background, updates, we've got updates, we've got updates and updates and updates. That reminds me a bit of the Dave Letterman letters, we get letters, but it's not that I am not inviting any type of trademark dispute or copyright dispute or intellectual property dispute. My song updates, we've got updates is a very different song. So let's talk about the first update here. Popo, you know, I come up with this stuff on the spot,

dude. This is no, there's no script here. These are the types of thoughts that go through my mind, just on a day to day basis. And I have to deal with them, but I like it. You know, when I was a kid, I used to go to the batting cage when I used to play a lot of softball baseball and just, you know, put in my dollar and wait for a hundred balls to come my way and swing it up. I always think like when you and I do this, it's like I'm back in the batting cage. What's coming at me? Here we go. Exactly.

And sometimes when I was in the batting cage, I may have got hit in the head a few times too, which also may explain things. Let's talk first about the new eviction moratorium, the old eviction moratorium lapsed by an institute at a new one based on the Delta. He then had to make it targeted to kind of get around, or try to get around what the prior rulings were with respect to the first moratorium. This case was brought by realtor associations. This was in the district court. For now, and I say that for now, the district court said that the moratorium will survive the challenges to it based on DC Circuit Court precedent. But, and I want you to go and explain this again to our listeners about what Kavanaugh did at the Supreme Court level though that allowed the prior moratorium survive, but why

the the tea leaves are on the wall and this judge said it here That she thinks that if this were to go back in front of the Supreme Court. And the judge here is Judge Dabney Friedrich of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia in a 13-page court ruling so that I don't think this is going to survive the Supreme Court based on how the last round barely survived because Kavanaugh basically said what it was, it's running out anyway, so we might as well basically just keep it for now, but you can't, but we don't think that the CDC has for now, but you can't, but we don't think that the CDC has this power, but break it down for us. Yeah, this one is we're going to,

here's another new doctrine we're going to coin today. This is the Oive doctrine because I took a look at this case as like, Oive, this is on this is on life support at the Biden moratorium with the CDC on the eviction ban. So this again is the national realtors and the local realtors who want to see the, on behalf of landlords, the eviction ban, which is based on COVID and Delta, wants to see it go by the wayside. The current ban ended, or the original ban ended

at the end of July, the new ban that the CDC issued, which is more targeted and based on Delta. So it's targeted to states that have high Delta variant numbers, which as you joke last week is like every state and every red state. They, that runs out October, the middle of the first week of October, October 3rd, right? The first week in October.

So there's litigation about it because they don't want to wait. Landlords don't want to wait till October third. Landlords want to evict the people. Right. They want to evict everyone. Put them on the streets. They've picked everybody. If it was Christmas, if it was Christmas day, when they did it, it'd be even better. You know, Karen, there's a pandemic out of here. Right. So we can't wait until October third. So we won't be disturbed. We're hiking in the Alps. So, here's the problem for Friedrich. She sits in a, in the DC circuit, which sits in Washington, DC, and there's an appellate court called the DC circuit, which sits there.

The DC circuit. She sits below them. She sits below them. She sits below them. She's a trial judge below the appellate judge. The appellate judge is the DC circuit, maybe based on some stale precedent and some stale rulings, because this is a fast moving, high velocity issue and it changes it morphs like every day,

as we can see, thank God, because that gives us our podcast. But the decision of the DC circuit, the most recent one, the judge, the trial judge, Friedrich, or Friedrich says ties your hands because it ruled that the moratorium could stay in place. However, Friedrich said, yeah, I got a rule now to keep the moratorium in place, but I'm warning the Biden administration and I'm warning the CDC. I think this is gamesmanship, and that's the word she used, the part of the administration.

I don't think this moratorium, the way it's written, is any better than what the Supreme Court, just by the skin of its teeth, almost overturned just a month ago. And I think if this case goes up to the US Supreme Court, I think you're going to lose. She wrote this,

this is what she wrote in 13 pages. However, because my immediate appellate court, I think you're going to lose. She wrote this, this is, this is what she wrote in 13 pages. However, because my immediate appellate court, my boss ruled that the ban is appropriate, even if it's based on stale precedent, I have no choice, even though I don't want to, but to keep the ban in place. So she ruled for now. This is how tenuous and how much of a thin ice, this, this Biden ban on evictions is on right now. This is how tenuous and how much of a thin ice, this bite and ban on evictions is on right now. It's almost on life support. And the Kavanaugh, the Kavanaugh conundrum

or the Kavanaugh issue that you raised is a good one that we talked about a couple of episodes ago. The Supreme Court in facing the eviction ban has now made two recent rulings. The first one a month or so ago went five, four in favor of keeping the eviction ban in place, but just by the skin of its teeth. Four justices, and you know which four, I mean all of our listeners could chant them, chant the names themselves, you know, Alito, Gorsuch, Cody Barrett, and Thomas, all said, get rid of the ban now, it's

unconstitutional. Kavanaugh, you would think what have went along with them, but he did a concurrence and joined with the majority of the liberals or the thinking people on the panel to rule in favor of keeping the ban in place. And his thinking, as you noted, you noted touched on Ben was it's going to run out anyway. Why don't we let the monies that need to go to renters so that they're not injured from federal government? Let that money flow through the pipeline a little bit longer, but I don't like the policy either. I think it's unconstitutional. So that gave

new sort of enthusiasm for the realtors to say, Oh, we got Kavanaugh. We got the other four. We're going to win five to four when we go back up to the Supreme Court. And that's what Friedrich is saying. When this case goes back to the Supreme Court, she would be shocked if the Supreme Court doesn't overturn this band.

The only T-Leaves that you and I and our listeners have to look at. And again, it's not that clear. It's a little bit murky is that the Supreme Court this week also ruled that a portion of the New York State Eviction Band, not the whole thing, a portion of it was unconstitutional. And they quashed it. It was the portion where landlords under the State of New York's eviction ban were not

able to challenge in court the self-certification by the tenant that they were in financial distress. So they make out an affidavit. I'm in distress. I owe this amount of money. I can't pay my rent. Under normal circumstances, when you and I go to court, then, we're able to challenge any affidavit, any declaration, and cross-examine the person to find out if that's really true. under normal circumstances, when you and I go to court then, we're able to challenge any affidavit, any declaration, and cross-examine the person to find out if that's really true.

Let me see your bank statements. Let me see if your family's helping you. You know, whatever it would be. But the state of New York said, you don't get to do that. You have to accept this true, everything that's in that affidavit, which is sort of, I'll be honest with you, it was sort of weird. And the Supreme Court found it really offensive and said, all right, you can't do that, but kept the rest of the band in place. So it's unclear whether when the realtor case finally gets up in a week or two or three weeks to the Supreme Court, I'm not sure what they're going to do. What do you think, Ben?

I have no clue what they're going to do, prop, you know why? Because they just make shit up. And at the end of the day, you want to come to law and say, well, give me the science. One plus one equals two, five plus four equals nine. And sure, that means there are nine justices on the Supreme Court, but we don't know necessarily what they're going to do. And at the end of the day, when you have, look, there are trends, there are ways to predict it, there are ways to figure out based on their underlying ideology

where they're going to go. And yes, from the prior ruling, it does seem like here. Kavanaugh will side with the other four that didn't want this eviction ban. And I think that the ban will be determined to be unconstitutional. I agree with this ruling. That's reading the tea leaves of what the Supreme Court is doing. But at the end of the day, what's always fascinating when I say no one really knows. I mean, we do have a sense of where the lineups are. But what's always just shocking to me for those who are not steeped in like the legal everything is just that when there's a five four decision or six three decision, that means four justices or three justices depending on the on the

makeup or one job, whatever it is. But the smartest people supposedly in the law are supporting a decision that is violative of the law, that is essentially illegal, that four of them are basically vigilante criminals in our system because it's 5.4, which is why the appointees are so important and who is the president is so vital

because that determines the composition of our Supreme Court. That determines who replaces Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and it becomes Amy Coney Barrett, who has three initials, too, but who's the exact opposite person? Or Stephen Breyer, who if he just dies in office, while Biden is in office, at least before the midterms, he'll have the ability to nominate a new Supreme Court justice that'll lead Democratic. But if he waits longer, and I don't want him to die, he will eventually, we all will.

Oh, that's fucked up. If he doesn't resign to give Biden the opportunity to make a pick, and he doesn't do it before the midterms, and he waits till after the midterms, then you're going to have Mitch McConnell invoke the McConnell doctrine and he won't allow a vote on the candidate and we'll have a Marigarland situation and then we'll be stuck six to three in the entirely wrong direction and then what's going to happen? The McConnell doctrine. I've got to go I think that it is appropriate

out to Tom that we, uh, that we are standing from, that we abstain and we should invoke the cloture to the discourse cloture. Let's, you know, it's always a wagon procedural. We are, but I know that was that rock horn, leg horn from Warner Brothers cartoons. It was really subtle. It was Mitch McConnell. I do really bad impressions as those know listen to the Midas touch brother podcast. But let me get to the root though of this decision. So you go, are these Supreme Court justices who want to evict people? Are they just cruel and horrible people?

Yes, they are. But, but, but, but there may be something deeper there, too, because what's that issue here is section 361 of the Public Health and Service Act regarding what the CDC is authorized to do, and whether this specific section authorizes the CDC to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium. I don't think any of the justices would dispute that if Congress passed legislation calling for an eviction moratorium that was signed by the president, that would never be able to be challenged. The problem is, is that we have a political party called the GQP who literally love COVID. They like to snuggle with COVID.

They like to make out with COVID. They want to marry COVID. They want to give their children COVID. These are literally and figuratively sick fuckers. So we can't pass the legislation that we need. But within, this is how I do a Popeye. I do a little joke and then I get into the law. So I just, I rehab, I rehab myself. So what the, what basically the second sentence in section 361

authorizes the CDC's inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, and destruction of animals and articles that are sources of dangerous infections and whether that clarifies the scope of the preceding sentence which authorizes the CDC to promulgate these regulations to prevent introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases, relating to inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, were those powers broader than that to actually allow them to promulgate

regulations to allow an eviction moratorium in a global pandemic. And the Biden administration, and I think common sense thinkers are saying, look, we have a global pandemic and we need to, it's right, we need to figure this out. So we don't have all these people on the street who are spreading COVID. And so this is close enough. We think that that sentence that I just read basically does it. And then you have your people who love COVID, who kiss COVID, who want to make out, I was gonna say some other fucked up stuff,

who make out with COVID, who love COVID. They want to find any way to poll holes in the CDC because they love COVID. They want everyone to die in the United States of America. So they go, ah, that sentence right there did not give you the power to do it. And then they appeal to this conservative doctrine about the power of agencies to basically promulgate these regulations and to do things without express congressional authorization. Popak, that's why they paid me the bet. I was going to say that was very my salicy in its presentation.

I liked it. And you brought it home because it is important on this particular podcast for us to explain the law and what is the legal precepts that are being debated. But you're right when you look at the policy behind it, the Biden administration put it bluntly, you know, Jen Saki, I think put it best. Saki Bob, Saki Bob. Is if you're not going to be helpful in the area of COVID prevention and to crush COVID out of our system, get out of the way and let the federal government do a full court

press to make that happen. I mean, today, just today, I sent this over to you and the brothers, a Texas judge in Texas of all places told people in his courtroom that if you have a child that's in a car accident and needs the ICU, you're out of luck. Because COVID has overrun our state and we're at 100% ICU capacity. He didn't say blame the governor, governor Abbott, but that's what he meant. And that's what's happening at the state level. Death panels. Death panels. Yeah, right. They used to say that Obama and Clinton, when they were doing health care, they were going to create death panels.

They were not going to allow you have access to health care. You know what's stopping people from having access to health care? COVID. COVID not being crushed out of our system. Which it should have been six months ago if vaccination had been taken seriously and Republicans and other bright wings, whatever nut jobs had an undermined vaccination rollout. So there's a law that there's a precedent that the Supreme Court is going to have to grapple with, and I'm sure you and I will talk about it. And I'm one or two podcasts from now, which is in 1905

when there was a smallpox epidemic. The US Supreme Court issued a rule, a precedent, that said that the US government could mandate vaccination for smallpox. How is COVID any different in terms of its impact on mortality, on life, on our way of life, then smallpox. And if we had a polio epidemic, I expect the federal government to enforce a vaccine mandate as well.

It is beyond bizarre, but I truly mean it that these GQ peers, they appear to like love COVID. They appear to be attracted to deadly viruses, which is why they elected the former. You know, you're, you're, you we joke about it, but there is, and I'm not joking on this one. There is a necrophilia that under, that undergirds a lot of the Republican approach. This for them has become the, and this is really disgusting, the ultimate wedge issue. They used to use gay marriage, they used to use gay in the military, they used to use abortion.

Okay, now they've latched onto the necrophilia of COVID as a way to, they think to drum up their base and to win state houses and to win the presidency. And it's really morally repugnant and ethically terrible at disgusting. It's really disgusting at the end of the day. It's like, yeah, you don't have to take a shower, but take a fucking shower. Like, you know, like they just, like, like they are like the GQP is just a bunch of really smelly, stinky, they don't cut their nails, their future, they love diseases, they love spreading diseases,

they definitely don't brush their teeth, they definitely have tongues that are like really, like, you know, like disgusting tongues, like they are really, like that's their teeth. They definitely have tongues that are like really like, you know, like disgusting tongues, like they are really, like that's their thing, which is not conservative. Like they are, they are like just, just, just, they become, they become, they become, they become the Howard use of political parties. Exactly. Updates, we got more updates for you. It's speaking of GQP, death Santas trying to force the cruise industry not to require individuals coming on cruise ships to be vaccinated or to show their vaccine cards.

This is true. I mean, death Santas in a state that is where the cruise industry is very important, where off the ports of Miami, you have lots of ships, whether it's carnival, Norwegian, you know, the industry is thriving there. And the industry is saying, look, COVID is very serious.

We don't want to have COVID spread on our cruise ship because if people die on our cruise ships, we'll get sued. That'll be really problematic to our cruise. There will be a cruise, by the way, that's it. There'll be a really bad cruise if there's rampant COVID. So we want to take the best testing measures and we want to put forward the best science that exists. Right now. We want to test. We want to make sure people are vaccinated and governor death. Sanctus goes, uh, uh, no, you cannot require passengers to be vaccinated. So the Norwegian cruise ship, a private business had to sue the state and say, Hey, we're a private business. Let us function as we want to function. And specifically here, the way we want to function is what the health of our passengers requires. And victory one goes to common sense.

It goes to the Norwegian cruise ship, who wins this, wins the first round. The judge allows Norwegian cruise line to temporarily require proof of vaccination in Florida. And of course, Governor Ron DeSantis's office issues a strongly worded statement that it plans to appeal this disturbing ruling. It's I laugh out of your mental exhaustion. Yes. Yeah, mental exhaustion. You know, again, I like having a podcast with you. I'd like to stop talking about crazy things like people opposing proper COVID policy and vaccinations and masking. You know, this case on cruise ships would be like, if a governor issued an edict that the local health

department would no longer be required or obligated to inspect restaurants for sanitary conditions. And restaurants would be like, we want to be regulated and inspect it because we can't get people to come and eat in our restaurants if they're dirty. So judge Kathleen Williams, who you and I talked about, a federal judge appointed, sorry. That's such a good point. It'd be like, yeah, there's mold in the restaurant.

Good. We don't want you to remove your mold from the restaurant. I mean, you have no right. Mold needs to be in your restaurant. It is so crazy that we're even talking about this. But the Norwegian pulled the right judge in the Southern District of New York. And there's really two ports, just the big Florida

for a minute, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. And then in the north, there's a port of Jacksonville. So there's a lot of cruise ships that go in and out of Florida. But Judge Williams, perfect poll, random poll by the wheel of assignment in Southern District of Florida. She is a former, she is the former federal public defender for the middle district, it's a district, so she leans sort of on the defense side

and on the indigent, indigent, sorry, indigent people, poor people having right side of the aisle, which is good. And she was appointed by a Democrat, also good. It's going to go to the 11th Circuit and then to the Supreme Court. It's going to join with the other case that we talked about that originated on the Tampa side of the state about the CDC masking and other requirements that the Santa stepped in the middle of to try to prevent being enforced on cruise ships.

Because why would you want to have masks and vaccinated people on your cruise ships? Apparently, is there public policy? That case is already at the 11th Circuit. And that'll probably be joined with an appeal of this case. And then maybe an emergency application, we're gonna talk about emergency applications at a moment to the Supreme Court. And when you have an emergency application

to the Supreme Court, one of the Supreme Court justices, not all of them, makes the ultimate decision. They're the gatekeeper, and each justice is assigned a certain circuit to be the goalie for, and to decide emergency applications. So as we discussed last week, the emergency duty judge at the Supreme Court level for the 11th Circuit is Clarence Thomas. For the 7th Circuit, where you and I are going to talk about next, which sits in Illinois, that emergency duty judge is Amy Coney Barrett, and then we'll talk about what happened with her

related to the Indiana University vaccine case. Let's get into it. Our third update because we talked about the Indiana University, largest university in the state, also requiring that its students be vaccinated. We also discussed though that it was an honor policy, so you didn't actually have to show it, but that they did require vaccination, which I remember everywhere I went, whether it was going to camp, or whether it was going to school,

I would always have to show proof of vaccinations when I grew up as a kid. So this shouldn't be a controversial concept, but about eight students who are all part of this, you know, GQP effort. These aren't just eight students who wake up one day and go, hey, we want to sue Indiana University because they're requiring vaccination cards. They're inspired by the death santises of the world and these other groups that fund these litigations. And they basically say, my liberty, you are, I want to spread COVID to all the other students and how dare you in the United States of America, you treaded on me. Don't tread on me. I want to spread my COVID and they filed a lawsuit

because they're fucking disgusting little babies. And that's what disgusting babies do. I mean, I bring us, that's an accurate assessment of what took place there. And tell us about the procedural history pop-up and then what just this Amy Barrett did, And tell us about the procedural history pop-up and then what just this Amy Barrett did, which I guess surprised people

because they assumed that because she was appointed by Trump and she has a bunch of crazy views on certain other things that she would be a COVID kind of sire, if you will. Yeah, and interesting as her background, just to remind everyone, remember she came out of the University of Notre Dame on the law school faculty.

So she came out of, before she got appointed, she wasn't in private practice. She was a judge for a very short time at the trial level, before she got elevated to the US Supreme Court, just to understand her background. She's more of an academic, she's more of a person that's been a lot of her life working in places like Indiana University. It was random assignment in the sense that she happens to be coincidentally the emergency judge for the Supreme Court for the

seventh circuit, which is where the Indiana University case came out of. So the trial judge came out of. So the trial judge rules, as we discussed in the prior podcast, in favor of Indiana University's policy of mandatory requiring that its students get vaccinated. These eight students didn't like it and took an emergency application, emergency application arguing that their due process, 14th Amendment constitutional rights to what they call bodily integrity, the autonomy of their body, not to have a government or quasi-government entity or school. Clowns, they're cousins. These are such clown people. Oh my god. Winnie baby. Winnie clowns. And sorry to the clown community. Right. Okay. They rolled out of their clown car and they dons. And sorry to the clown community. Right.

Okay. They rolled out of their clown car and they don't like the result in the trial court. So they take the emergency application, probably thinking, and this is where lawyers, lawyer in comes into play. We compliment it, the dominion lawyers. And here I'm going to say, the lawyers for the eight, this gang of eight students probably thought, oh, it's Coney Barrett. We'll probably do pretty well with her.

Let's do an emergency application. We'll probably get a great ruling. Talk about backfire. Not only did Amy Coney Barrett reject the application, allowing the trial court ruling to stand, which is great, but she did it without even a briefing schedule at all. Indiana University didn't even have to submit a brief or a piece of paper to state their position. She took one look at the papers that were filed by the eight students and went like, no, I'm not doing that. Indiana University's vaccination requirement stands. And that's it. I mean, they can take a broader appeal and they can go to the

full eight, sorry, nine justices in the US Supreme Court, but that's going to take, they're not going to do it on an emergency application. That's going to be like a year from now. So it's not totally dead, but it's pretty dead, especially when they don't have Amy Coney Barrett on their side. And it's interesting to there because it's an example where Someone's background and life experiences though produce a result that may be different than Where the ideology is or where the ideology is Moving and it's really where the ideology is moving and as I've always said I'm a big proponent of stripping away the term conservative from

the GQP. I think I can be both progressive in my policies, which I am, but I also feel that the fact that I am against an insurrection, that I'm for vaccinations, I truly feel that I am way more conservative than anybody in the GQP because I believe in conserving our democracy and I believe in conserving the lives of people who are living right now. And so I think what they are is crazy. And I think that as the ideology moves, we assume that someone like an Amy Coney Barrett, who by the way has some crazy foundational ideologies, but that she's going to move to the way the GQP's moving

on these issues of vaccines, and she clearly has in there. And it should also be worth noting that federal court appointments, Supreme Court appointments being one of them are lifetime appointments. And so a judge like Amy Coney Barrett doesn't have to bend to elections every two years, like a member of Congress or every six years, like a senator or and and presidents put on very young, young-ish federal judges in their 50s. So they get 30 or 40 years. I mean, if you and I are still doing a version of a holographic podcast where we just beam it directly into our listeners' heads in

20 years from now, Coney Barrett is we're still going to be talking about Amy Coney Barrett, who's going to be like 72 at that time. So it's not only what you said earlier about elections have consequences for the president because the Supreme Court matters, and it matters for a several generations, unlike other appointments. Michael Popak, the lawyer, vacationist, futurist with podcast, beaming. I love it. Let's talk about our last topic of the day, which is the federal judge in Washington. We've been talking a lot about Washington DC District Court judges, but federal court in Washington judge, Barrel How Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and a fairly routine, kind of status conference sentencing

hearing. She has a docket of about 550 prosecutions of capital insurrectionists and rioters who have been charged by the government. And it seems like this judge had enough and, you know, of seeing some of these insurrectionists paraded before her court and getting fairly lenient sentences and slaps on the wrists and minimal fines and minimal prison sentences. And she goes, what's going on here? and slaps on the risks and minimal fines and minimal prison sentences. And she goes, what's going on here? She goes also, why are we using as the damages, as the restitution that these individuals caused

when we're looking at what the overall damage is? Why are we using some 1.5 million number where we know that the damage that had to be done based on appropriations to fix all of the overall damage to the capital building and it's surrounding structures is somewhere in the range of like 550 million. That, that, that, that, that 500 million dollar figure includes overtime for the National Guard.

It includes all that fencing that went up and went into the repairs. And that's like a real number, but what you're saying is that, and just to bring our listeners right up to speed at the moment, real time, the prosecutors, the federal prosecutors that are going into the court rooms in DC, and there are 500 plus prosecutions that are pending in the DC court, the federal DC court right now. Why does, why does Barrel howl judge Barrel howl, why does she matter? that are pending in the DC court, the federal DC court right now. Why does Barrel Howell judge Barrel Howell?

Why does she matter? She's the chief judge of the DC, the United States District Court, the District of Columbia, where all 500 of these cases are sitting. So when she, as you said, in sort of a run of the mill, misdemeanor, plea bargain hearing,

which should have went, when she says to the federal prosecutors in front of her, why are you bringing these lenient plea deals in front of me? Why are you using $1.5 million as the measure of damage? That resonates. And that's going to go back to the prosecutors about, we got a problem. The chief judge thinks we're not being tough enough on the Jan 6 insurrectionists and it's going to flow through to all the other judges that sit under her for which she's the chief judge. What do you think, Popo? It's a DOJ that is under Merrick Garland.

There are professional prosecutors now. Why do you think, though, that they are not seeking more significant sentences or just bringing these cases to trial? Why are they entering into people? Yeah, I think there's a couple of things going on. First of all, these prosecutors need to put on their big boy and big girl pants and bring their big, big brass ones

and bring appropriate either prosecutions or that result in trials because you're gonna have to have some of these go to trial. Or plea deals that make sense. They can't all be misdemeanors for what we saw happen on Jan 6th. You know my position. All of these people, big and small, the leaders and the followers should be in federal penitentiary making big rocks into small

rocks for the rest of their natural born days. Because if you don't do that as a deterrent, it's going to happen again and it's going to happen with a literal armed insurrection, not just with terrible things like fire extinguishers and flagpoles and helmets that they were using to beat the Capitol police, but they're going to come armed with weapons, guns, bazookas, and ammo. And that's going to be the next one. If you don't, as a federal government, if you don't prosecute to the highest degree possible, these people, why are they doing it?

I think part of it is they're overwhelmed administratively with 500 prosecutions. And I assume they're trying to sort it out to get it to the top 100 for the people that are going to go away for a long, long time. But the problem is you can't just let somebody out on a J walking, you know, barrel of the judge, judge Howell said, you're bringing me these people like they were, that they didn't have a permit to do a parade. That's not what happened on Jan 6th. You know, she didn't jump up and down on her bench, but she might as well have. And I'm hoping that that signal gets back to the prosecutors.

And you know, Merrick Garland's a smart man. He's going to hear it, that he's got a problem. You know, this is a system. Criminal justice is a system. You have a federal judge who sits with a black robe on a bench. You have a prosecutor who represents the government. You have defense lawyers that represents the accused. And you have the accused. And if the person in the black robe is signaling to the prosecution,

that they're not bringing strong enough charges. Well, then by God, they better start bringing strong enough charges. You know what else is a system? What? Might as touch legal AF is a system. We've got popok taking vacations going to jazz clubs. Having the time of his life, we got Ben working away, doing research, you know, just trying to keep us afloat. And we're a system, I'm just teasing you, Popeye. And we're a system because we've got a new system. We've got the legal AF by Midas Touch podcast, channel. If you haven't subscribed yet, because you've just been so enraptured, so captivated by this podcast so engrossed in the legal ease of Ben Myceles and Michael Popak,

please make sure you subscribe. And I'm going to make a challenge for you. I guess my last challenge on the MidasTouch podcast. I'm like, I want you to tell a thousand of your friends and people like, you know, I don't even know 20 people, which I get. Okay. So here's the challenge. Tell five people you know today to subscribe to Midas Touch legal AF and tell them to listen to this episode. Say to them, if you don't like this episode, I don't know what's wrong with you. I'm not even sure if I should call you my friend at the end.

I got one. I go one. I'm going to add on a friendly amendment to that really good pitch. And I don't, and this is not from ego. I think everybody understands you and I don't do this out of ego. We have egos. We don't do it out of ego. Apparently, you need to also be read it and get reviews in order for

this world of podcasts, this universe, the system that you and I now operate in. So while you're there, if you liked what you heard on this or the prior 17 in our archive, take a moment and do some sort of rating or review. Five star review. Five star. It's like Uber. It's like, you think that I'm a one star and popox a five star you round up and you give us collectively five star review. So give us a five star review. And as always, you know, we're practicing lawyers. We're happy to help you can send us emails. Mine is Ben at MidasTouch.com. Ben at MEIDISTOUCH.com. If you think you have a case, if a loved one's been injured and an accident, um,

if there's an issue at the workplace, we do sexual harassment cases, sexual assault cases, um, for victims, um, class action cases. So if you or anyone you know, have a case, PoPock and I'll take a look at it, shoot me an email at Ben at MidasTouch. know, have a case, Pope Ackon, I'll take a look at it. Shoot me an email at benat mitestouch.com, Pope Ack, your email address. Yeah, M Pope Ack at zplaw.com and depending on the case, it may even be one that Ben and I will do together, which brings us special pleasure and joy brings us special pleasure and joy, not

our opponents. Exactly. Thank you for listening to this week's opponents. Exactly. Thank you for listening to this week's Midas Touch Legal AF. Hope we made you laugh. Hope you learned a little bit more and hope we can all convince PopoK not to take another vacation in coming weeks. Michael PopoK any last words. Not after that. Look for legal AF merch at a Midas Touch store near you in the future. And as we always say, a big shout out and thanks to the Midas Mighty. See you same time, same place next week. If it's Sunday, it's legal AF. you