Legal AF by MeidasTouch - SCOTUS' Antitrust Attack on the NCAA and Rudy Giuliani's Law License SUSPENDED

Episode Date: June 27, 2021

On Episode 14 of LegalAF (#LAF), MeidasTouch’s Sunday law and politics podcast, hosts MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, joined by special guest and sports law commentator, litigator and all-around savant, Dan Lust, "tackle" (pun intended) SCOTUS' antitrust attack on the NCAA and its illegal price-fixing and restraint of trade, and why the NCAA should be very worried by Kavanaugh’s dissent more than the majority opinion. Continuing the sports theme, Ben and Popok “bounce” ideas around with @SportsLawLust about SCOTUS and the "off campus" First Amendment rights of students, including the former cheerleader plaintiff. The hosts also wonder aloud if Chief Justice Roberts is trying to "hold" the center and uphold fundamental democratic values. Talking about the First Amendment, Ben and Popok next use their AF powers to "school" Governor DeSantis about his new "viewpoint diversity" laws for colleges and universities and discuss whether they are constitutional. Next up, Ben tosses a "softball" to Michael in discussing just why New York took the extraordinary step to immediately suspending Rudy Giuliani's bar license for fraud and false statements until it can consider more permanent sanctions. Then, the expanded "Analytic Friends" take a "deep dive" into Popok’s bold prediction that the Trump Organization (and maybe more) will be indicted next week by the Manhattan DA’s office, and he is forced to remind everyone what AF really stands for. To round out the segment, the co-hosts talk through what a contract "morals clause" is, and how it has led to New York cancelling all of its contracts with the Trump Organization. "Switching gears," the #LAF co-hosts take a look at the DOJ's first lawsuit filed to protect voting rights, this time against Georgia arguing that its new voter integrity (= voting suppression) laws aimed at making absentee ballots harder to "cast" is a not so veiled unconstitutional attack on Black voters and violates the Voting Rights Act. The leading case of Burger King v. McDonald’s French Fries is also briefly discussed. Finally, Ben and Michael "grapple" with the Chauvin sentencing. Easter egg alert: Ben creates a new “Popok-ian” movement leading Dan to chuckle and wonder aloud about whether squirrels are bi-partisan. (Not kidding). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Midas Touch Podcast legal a F the a stands for analysis and the F stands for friends because we are your friends who break down the law for you. Ben my cell is here joined by Michael Pope, Michael Popock of Zupano, Patricia and Popock. And I'm from Gary Ghosts and Gary Ghosts. If it's Sunday, it is legal AF. Popock, how are you doing, my man? I'm good. I'm back in my home studio. We are again, coast to coast and cover to cover with a special guest today.

Popock, I like how on your linked in right now now your photo is from the last podcast where I said, and that is why we have Pope in reference to the fact that might has touched since its creation. With all of our success comes a lot of haters out there in the world and Popak has helped might as touch, not just as a legal analyst, but as our lawyer navigate through all of this right wing, GQP crazy lawsuit, litigation, demand letters. It's been quite the journey, Popak, over the past year. And Brett, your brother will be impressed. I won't tell him how long it took us to find that particular cliff and it frees it. So I could use it up on my profile, but yeah, it was fun. It was fun that we found something where my face didn't look contorted. And that's why we have Popock in Brett's style of language underneath it.

But we did it. But I could tell you that it would probably take Brett a fraction of a second. And my gut is that it probably took you hours to get that to get that. And on today's legal AF, we are going to be breaking down the recent NCAA rulings that you talked that you'm sure you've heard about. We're going to be talking about a Supreme court case involving a cheerleader who screamed, fuck this school and fuck football and fuck sports. Who has it? He said it off.

Who hasn't risen that? Who has it? Who hasn't risen that? Who hasn't risen that? Who hasn't risen that? It's wild that bad case, though, that her saying that I'm campus when she was 14 years old and didn't make the varsity cheerleading squad. She only made the JV and she said, fuck this, that that became a Supreme Court case.

But it did, there was a recent ruling, eight, one decision that we'll talk about. We're gonna talk about in Pope Poxhomes State, Florida, some of the, in my view, incredibly unlawful, but highly repressive, no matter how you want to classify, it laws that Governor DeSantis has imposed on edge public educational institutions creating fake controversies. We're going to talk about Rudy Giuliani, duty Giuliani, being suspended by the New York

far. We're going to talk about Donald Trump and the Trump organization suing New York. And we're going to talk about the Trump organization likely going to be criminally charged. I think there is a interrelation there. And it's just Trump projecting before the DOJ charges, the Trump organization, and Trump. We're going to talk about the DOJ suing Georgia. And we're going to talk about Shove and sentencing. Popak, the way I did that organizational framework at the very beginning is very popakian, would you say it is. I'm known for my organizational framework. That's going to be on my tombstone. Michael Popock, here lies Michael Popock,

known for his organizational framework with bullets on the tombstone, like bullet one, bullet two, bullet three. Well, one thing that I won't be known for is procrastinating. So let's get right into it. And I want to talk about the recent NCAA ruling. The case was in the Supreme Court National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA versus Austin. To talk about this case, we are bringing in a very special guest, the lawyer at Garragos and Garragos,

a friend of mine for a long time, a sports expert who you see on the cable news networks, a host of his own podcast, Conduct Detrimental, which you can download after, of course, you listen to Legal AF and the Midas Touch Brother podcast. Dan Lust, welcome to Midas Touch legal AF. That was quite the introduction, Ben, and a pleasure to be on. You know, I'm a huge sports fan. I'm probably a lawyer second to my sports fandom, but when the sports case gets to the Supreme Court, you know, that has all of my senses tingling. So I'm happy to come on and break it down with you guys. now you get to do it b

to analyze the sports c you get to litigate at t as a sports lawyer, as that experience going fo not just someone who an issues. You are on the fr issues. You filed a grance just this past week, one of the biggest grievances and NFL history

for a player named Joanne James, who was improperly cut by the Denver Broncos, but how's that experience going for you? It's good, it's good. So I'd say for about a handful of years, I was commenting on sports and then,, I'll give you some credit. You plucked me out of oblivion. You said, you know what? Why don't you comment on sports and you can also, you know, I handle some sports cases for us. So I was a litigator for about seven years at a series of different firms.

I'm very big, some small. But Ben, whoever's listening to this already knows, Ben is a master of all things social media. So, you know, we met once upon a time online and the rest is history. So, yeah, I mean, from NFL grievances, I was dealing with a baseball arbitration case about two weeks ago, out in Washington state. Via Zoom, of course, but Washington, not jurisdiction. But yeah, it's a blast.

And, you know, we're at a time in sports law, and we'll obviously get into it. But the college sports landscape is really changing. So I know if you're a lawyer, I'm sure your phone's been ringing off the hook about college sports and how these changing of laws at the state and federal level, at the school level. My phone's been ringing off the hook,

and obviously, a lot of media appearances this past week. So I thought it was only appropriate when I got the call from the podcast, we'll say the minus touch podcast. I mean, my podcast is pretty good, but it's not minus touch levels. Remember who writes your paycheck there? Well, you know, I was going to say I was fishing for the compliment with the prompt, re-elded in hook line and sinker. Thank you.

Thank you for getting the prompt. But let's jump into this case, Austin. It stands for in many ways that the ruling is narrow but its implications are incredibly broad and we've seen even since that ruling happened on June 21, a flurry of activity since then. So maybe break down the ruling and what's happened since then. So yes, I guess we'll jump to the end really quick.

There has been absolute chaos. If you're a college sports fan, you can't miss at the past five days, a best-pest week has been insane. So here's the decision. It's a running back from West Virginia named Sean Austin who ended up suing in California because he's doing a little bit of form shopping.

He sees the California verdicts have been pretty favorable. If you're suing the NCAA, I'm sure you guys have discussed on this podcast. Ed O'Bannon once sued the NCAA in a ninth circuit court of appeals in one that was about five years ago. A big win for player rights. So Sean Austin, Ed O' Edelband and people know, is a famous UCLA center, left-handed, makes sense for him to sue in California,

doesn't make quite as much sense for a West Virginia running back like Sean Austin to sue in California. But good representation tells him, hey, you were going to get favorable treatment on the West Coast. So he sues, and the cases, is a really narrow case, as you said, Ben. It's a case about academic compensation. And what do I mean by that? That's reimbursements for books, laptops, what kind of externship you could have during the summer. And the NCAA was basically putting restrictions on those. They were saying you had a cap on the amount of reimbursements

that you could get. So is that the biggest deal in the world, right? Is it as a five-star recruit from high school picking? We'll say the University University of Florida because they have uncapped reimbursements on their laptops and books? No, it's not that big of an issue, but here's the thing. In the law, timing is everything. So this case went up for a potential review at the Supreme Court, also in the running back, one at the district court level, he wanted the ninth circuit court of appeals. I think a lot of people didn't see this getting picked up by the Supreme Court, also in the running back one at the district court level. He wanted the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

I think a lot of people didn't see this getting picked up by the Supreme Court. It was a little bit of a circuit split. Third and seventh circuit have ruled kind of favorably for the NCAA. You know, the Ninth Circuit is not a fan of the NCAA. So they take the case a little bit of a circuit split, but why did they really take it?

This is a time in our country where college sports are fundamentally changing. California Ben, your home state passed a fair pay to play at the end of 2019, which allowed for the first time athletes to get paid from their name, image, and life, and basically an endorsement license. So after California passed it, a bunch of states, Florida in New Mexico, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, all are passing state laws. So this case, you know, was early arguing on March 31st, the decision comes, June 21st,

it's 10 days prior to, we'll say the chaos deadline at the NCAA level. So I know we can get into the decision a little bit, but that's that's really the backdrop. That's the procedural history, and that's why the court took that case. What was the ruling in the case? Here's the thing, Ben. 9-0. 9-0 unanimous verdict in favor of Sean Austin in favor of college athletes against the NCAA. So, here's why this has picked up so much team this week. The decision was just an affirmance of the lower court decision. So, you know, we're lawyers.

They could have just wrote the firm and, you know, they could have gone home. This is a 45 page single space decision between a majority opinion and a concurring opinion. Concurring opinion is by Justice Cabinot. And the line that people are really focused on in Cabinot's concurrences is really important one. And it's set off really this week of chaos

that college sports. He ends his concurring opinion by saying, he doesn't really understand the difference between student athletes and employees, employees in fair market value. And he ends his decision. The last sentence of his concurring opinion is saying the NCAA is not above the law. So for those who are big sports law officer, just history buffs, people will remember

and Michael, this is probably when you were watching football, there was the Saturday, primetime game. There was one game for decades of college football. And then the University of Georgia, Oklahoma sued the NCAA in a case called NCAA versus Board of Regents. That's the last time in the last 50 years that the Supreme Court has touched college sports other than obviously this Austin case, especially in that Board of Regents case, very importantly, the NCAA lost and that opened up the floodgates for there to be this boom of college sports

that allowed there to be the ACC network, the Big Ten Network, the PAC-12 Network. And it turned really college sports from a million dollar business until maybe a billion dollar business. So I've, you know, when I go out on the show, they basically say the Supreme Court sprinkled their pixie dust a little bit on college sports and it exploded. And that in that decision, when the language was off of Judge Gorsuch, Judge Kavanaugh, a bipartisan issue, and they're saying, maybe in the next 50 years, guys, that athletes, student athletes will be called employees that will be getting paired fair to market value. It'll be

sooner or less. It'll be sooner than that. Let me give a bend if you don't mind. I'll give a little bit of a fine point on this. Because our might is mighty. I think they're in the legal AF law school. So we're going to open up the antitrust seminar. So in the decision, I know that that lost his listening to this closely as well. It turns on the Sherman Act, which which legislates what's called undue restraints of trade. And the first thing that this case does is firmly established that the NCAA

is not immune from antitrust law. They've always taken the position, well we're a private organization, so antitrust law doesn't matter, we can do whatever we want when it comes to amateurism among athletes. And for once and for all, very clearly, the gorsuch decision,

the Kavanaugh concurrence says, no, you're not above the law. You are governed by the antitrust law. And we are concerned about what we see as undue restraints of trade and what's referred to as price fixing, what's the price fixing? It's all the colleges getting together and saying that they're going to limit the type of compensation that they're gonna pay to student athletes. They wanted the complete and unfettered ability to determine how much or how little to give to student athletes in the form of,

as Dan lost set earlier laptops, but it could be more. Do we give them stipends? Do we give them anything other than room and board? Do we give them anything other than, how about travel Do we give them anything other than, you know, how about travel expenses when they need to go home to see their families or bring their families to games? So first and foremost,

the stands for the proposition that any trust law is going to be applied to the NCAA. Why does it matter? Because the next case that comes up before this Supreme Court, I believe is going to lead, and not in 50 years, but much sooner to actual real compensation. Call it a stipend, call it a salary because they spent a considerable amount of time in this opinion, talking about the multi-billion dollar

industry that Dan Lust has talked about being created by the Board of Regents case. They cited, for instance, that the president and chairman of the NCAA makes $4 million a year. That college coaches and football make $11 million a year. Assistance make $2.5 million a year. Why are they laying that out? It was to make the juxtaposition that the student athlete

upon whose back and knees and feet and legs, the entire industry is premised, get very little of the multi-billion dollars of these contracts. And that doesn't seem to be sitting right with this Supreme Court. The NCAA should have actually left well enough alone. The Knight Circuit, which Dan referred to, allowed them to limit to a certain degree the amount of compensation that was going to be paid. They didn't like that. They wanted unfettered ability to do whatever they wanted towards student

athletes. So they took the appeal. The NCAA took the appeal and they got hit with both sides of the stick by the Supreme Court. And Kavanaugh in particular, as Dan mentioned, should really trouble them because if he ever gets into the majority and he's pretty close, he's in the concurrent. So he's voting yes for this case. His comment was in any other business other than the NCAA, this would be flatly illegal. That's the other quote from Kavanaugh, what the NCAA is doing to its employees. And he gave a very, you know, even more so than then Gorsuch, he gave a very interesting set of examples. He said, if, if hospitals said that we want an entire volunteer nursing core that we're not going to pay because that seems

to be better for the provision of healthcare, we would say that's crazy. If we said lawyers should be paid a low amount of money because they should do this for the love of the law, we would say that's illegal. If they said restaurants should have underpaid workers because people like to receive service from underpaid workers, we go, that's nuts. So look, there's a very sharp edge in this case that they get one more case up to them about compensation for the student athlete. And I think those floodgates that Dan Lust talked about are going to be wide open and it's

going to be the next five years. Dan, what happens next? So this is the exciting part. The changes already happened. So, Michael did a really good job laying that out. Michael, you're very good at this. Has anyone ever told you that? Hope I got silent. Okay, I had it on mute. I was waiting for Dad to do something.

I get an occasional compliment from both Ben and some of our listeners, yes, thank you. Well, I keep you on your toes. Don't hit the mute button so quickly. Don't hit the mute button. This is where, this is like, baby. All right, okay. This is like, I'm on the brother's podcast all of a sudden.

All right, let's go. This is the, and this is the cry. You never know where the tag teams are gonna happen on the brother's butt. All right, I'm ready. This is the credit method right here. Combined this. So here's where we go from here.

And this is really truly the exciting part. So for two years, and I mentioned this 2019 legislation fair pay to play, Governor Newsom, whether you love him, you hate him, he signed this bill into law on the branch show. And they basically said, OK, the next couple of years, really, you know, 2021 of July is going to be that first date, Florida, California, all these different states are passing laws. So the NCA gets on their high hopes and they try to start preparing for the floodgates. So they start creating something called the NCA's version of name image and likeness.

So what that would do is if, you know, California passed fair pay to play in Florida, passed a version of it and let's say a handful of states with this NCAA name image and likeness would do would cover all of the other states So it would basically raise the floor and everyone would be covered in some way shape or form all 50 states and all the schools and every 50 state So for two years they're working on this bad boy. They're ready to release it and then this decision comes out and the NCAA which we know in you know moves very slowly like molasses, they said, whoa, whoa, whoa, record scratch moment. We actually cannot now release the NCAA version

of the image likeness, because we're worried that whatever we release, like Michael explained, could be potentially violent of antitrust law. Any restrictions that they put on the athletes could be viewed as a violation of antitrust law. So literally at the 11th hour, July 1st is the first time in our country, those states I mentioned Florida, Georgia,

that comes into effect at state law July 1st. So with a week to go, the NCAA goes, okay, I know we've been working this thing for two years, we're actually gonna, we're waving the white flag, schools, conferences, it's now on you to come up with your own rules. And that was their way of saying, hey, we are not controlling this market, it's a free market, schools can come up with your own rules. And that was their way of saying, hey, we are not controlling this market.

It's a free market. Schools can come up with whatever they want. The problem is, from an administrative standpoint, a logistical standpoint, it's a real nightmare to put this on the school's hands with a week to go when the NC had two years. So the NC is very much reacting to this really scathing language. And I think they are worried about more lawsuits. And to Michael's point, that would only expedite the timeframe if their version of amateurs and would come.

So here's my question for you, Dan Lust. Do you think that the NCAA seeing the writing on the wall, which is pretty stark right now, comes up with a compensation program that finds a way to whether you call it pay, compensate, stipend the athlete that is the basis of their entire non-educative business model. Do you think they do it? I don't think the emphasis on NCAA, I don't think they do it. They've said to schools this week, we are now schools. If you do it, we won't punish you. We're basically removing one of our bylaws that allowed us to punish the school if they did it.

I think the NCAA is out of that game, and then it raises a bigger point. What is the NCAA's role in college sports moving forward? If state laws going to abide, school laws going to abide, maybe federal laws, some points going to abide, and Michael, you laid it out. Mark Dimmer has paid $4 million for me to be a complete figurehead.

I watched the Senate hearings with an NCAA on June 10th. They had another Senate hearing on June 17th. Mark Hammer for getting paid that much money takes zero accountability. So I don't know what the NCAA's rule is moving forward. Ben and I connected during the pandemic. We're speaking, the conference has basically took all the power away from the NCAA. They were the ones that get the side of whether or not we'll play college football. It's going to be in the fall or the spring, but we're going to cancel certain sports.

So you take away that, right, the power to play games. And then you take away paying athletes. That's now in the school stands and the states. I don't know what the NCA has left. So, you know, Michael, you're talking about what the employee designations are going to look like for athletes. I don't know if the NCA exists in 10 years. I don't know. There's a world where it just does not exist. Well, I think it's one of those things where it will be to be continued, Dan. You will continue

to be on the Midas Touch Legal AF podcast. And look, at the end of the day, the ruling, essentially, when we break down what the, what the opinion and the concurring opinion says is that the NCAA is like a criminal cartel. I mean, they're operating like a criminal cartel. They're an unlawful entity that is exploiting workers. I mean, that's at its heart of it. It did deal with that narrow issue, but like criminal cartels, they're not going to want to give away their power right away. They're not just going to say, hey, you know, we're good. I think Popa, they fight and they'll try to make small gives, you

know, over the next, you know, year to years. Their goal is, how do we, you know, how do we keep this, you know, that all these benefits going over the next decade, two decades, and let's make as much money as we can before the ship totally sinks. That's my gut of what they're going to do. Yeah, you have a Supreme Court and Kavanaugh who thinks that this is an organization that regularly engages in illegal price fixing. That's a problem. You need to address that. I don't think they can bury their head in the sand. Although I follow lusts and analytics about the sort of demasculization or the defanging of the NCAA over time becoming less relevant, but as long as they're still going to exist as a trade organization, they're going to have to do some

fixing. I All right. Well, let's, let's, let's, we talk about cheerleading for a second because I really, you know, I love that lofty, in depth conversation about the NCAA ruling, but I definitely want to pivot to this cheerleading opinion. It was an eight to one majority opinion that was penned by Justice Breyer Pope, can you tell us about this case? Yeah, it's actually, you know an important first amendment case that deals with the rights and powers of public institutions lust I'd love for you to stay on for this as well if you have some time because I'd love to hear your thoughts about this case and it's broader implications.

But I'm not going, I'm not going anywhere. You got stuck with me for a little bit. All right. Right. Lots of Sir cheerleader. He said there's a sports angle here. We're going to, we're going to work it. The, you find it. that you're talking about is interesting because it really lays out the different ways that the First Amendment plays out on a school campus. And they make a big, the Supreme Court makes a big distinction and has for years between on-campus speech and off-campus speech. So I don't wanna mislead our listeners to think

that that school, especially a secondary school, high school and middle school kids have unfettered First Amendment rights on campus. They don't. But this was not a case that arose because of conduct on campus and had to do with off-campus conduct by a cheerleader. I think she was in middle school or 14 years old. She was 14. She wanted to be on the varsity team, but she's from varsity. But she's in high school and she's cut from varsity and she goes to JV. I mean, this is every parents nightmare of sobbing children who don't make the cut. This child took to social media, okay, as many as many do.

And on TikTok or Twitter, she dropped the chat. Sorry. She did snap. She did snap. You see, he had to be connected with the youth copap. You got a. I thought Tik Tok was connected with the youth, but anyway, at least he didn't say snap face. I saw that coming.

All right. All right. Apparently, age is a misalive and well on this broadcast. I am, I am the oldest of the legal AF people here. So anyway, I thought I got social media right. I got it wrong. So she on Snapchat, she dropped the, is it, is the term F bomb guys? Am I using that term correctly? Yeah, but you can say fuck on the minus. I know, but you know, I, I tried to balance.

I have to balance. But I have to balance Ben. I have to be the other guy. So I say F bomb. So she dropped the F bomb a number of times about the school and her squad and the cheerleaders and the coaches. And specifically said fuck school, fuck softball, fuck cheerleading, fuck everything was her little snapchat. All right. That's detention. Ben that's detention. You can't stand it. And the school Decided that that was violentive of their school conduct and they tried to muzzle her and sanction her and penalize her So our listeners are probably thinking okay, some freshman in high school got penalized Big or detention as lust just said because she used she dropped the F. Bomber set the word fuck on Snapchat

Okay, who cares? All right. Who cares is her parents decided to make it a federal case and to take it up to the US Supreme Court. And you might be thinking, doesn't the US Supreme Court have better things to do than this? And as Briar said in his decision, sometimes when you're protecting free speech, you have to protect the superfluous in order to protect the necessary. So is the F-Bomb on Snapchat really,

is that really what they're after? No, they wanted to finally establish a bright line test for off-campus first amendment exercise, and they're declaring to the world and to the student bodies out there that if they're off-campus and they do things exercising the world and to the student bodies out there that if they're off campus and they do things Exercising the first amendment rights. They can't be penalized the Constitution protects them and I there were there were two interesting lines Both in the eight to one decision by Breyer and by Thomas's he was the one in descent and in Thomas's

Descent in descent in the majority, I thought the interesting line was, and it will drive the QDP up the wall, briar, GQP, you know, I never, Republicans out the wall. Brier says in quote, public schools are the nurseries of democracies. We're going to talk in a bit about DeSantis fearing just that that schools are incubators for thought and for democratic ideals and he wants to kill it. That'll come in the next segment. But think about that. The majority opinion the United States declared that public schools are the nurseries of democracy. Now, we're

not saying Democrats. We know where our politics are on this show, but democracy, and he's right about that. Now, that doesn't mean they've changed the laws that relates to on campus. And what Thomas said in his dissent was basically creating a cheerleaders can harm the high school program exception, which I've never heard of.

Yes, I'm sure a cheerleader could harm the program, but I'm not sure that's the measure of the exercise of First Amendment. But Tom is sort of combining the law in the area of on-campus exercise of free speech, thought that this person had gone too far and therefore had harmed the program or the brand of the high school, whatever that is. And therefore, he was in descent. But you know, a powerful decision and one that our listeners who are parents and students should be mindful of that the first amendment is robust, but just make sure you do it off

campus. This is a specific student. I have a question for you in a second and this specific student, Brandi Levy, when she filed this was 14, she's now 18 years old. She goes to Bloomsburg University. She said she never really thought that this case would be a Supreme Court case, but there was important to fight for her rights. I'm very interested to talk to her. I'd love to know more about her and the family. Oh, your sister. Your sister should talk to her. I'd love to know more about her and the family. Oh, your sister. Your sister should talk to her. I would love for my sister to interview Brandy Levy. I'd love to set that up.

But I think there may be something deeper at play going on here, Dan. We, in the previous case, we talked about a 9-0 decision. Here we're talking about an eight-one decision, talking about our elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools as the incubators of democracy. Am I looking into this too much Dan or is this Supreme Court, though taking certain cases also in these incredibly divisive and partisan times, where they could find in kind of forage agreements in Popeyes. We've talked about lots of unanimous decisions in the past week.

That's not normally typical because we're used to these 6, 3, 5, 4 and these hyper kind of partisan cases. Do you think they're also picking cases where there's going to be an agreement where they could reaffirm some support for democracy to send subtle signals to the nation? Or is this just the way these cases are coming out and I'm over-analysing with that? See, I think it's a great point. And Ben, you know how my mind works. I think about sports, right? I don't really think about issues as being left to right issues because I just think about sports. This sports issue,'t really think about issues as being left to right issues, because I just think about sports.

This sports issue, the NCAA versus Austin issue, is not an issue that's on the left or the right. This issue about freedom of speech in the school is not a left or right issue, and I think Michael laid it out. But for Justice Thomas, I think going off the rails a little bit, citing cases from the 1800s, I think this would have been another unanimous opinion.

Never a good look if you're citing cases from the 1800s. That's unless it's like a very versus. Is Paul's graph on 1800s cases? Well, you know why we're going to talk offline. That is a more recent case, but that is not a Supreme Court case. We'll talk offline. I knew it was not a Supreme Court.

Get out of here. Okay, it's a Long Island railroad case. Then those are talking. That's an old case. I have a line not a super get out of here. Okay, it's a long on railroad case. Then those are I'm talking that's an old case. I have I have a line from this case that I thought was just wrong from Thomas. So Michael you you you're glossing over the the juicy part here because a profanity lace-scree delivered on social media or at the mall has as much has as much different effect on a football program when done by a regular student than when done by the captain of the football team. So maybe Clarence Thomas did go to high school.

If the captain of the football team is social, if the captain of the football team does that tirade, that's very different than a regular student doing it. So I think Thomas just missed the boat on this. I think, honestly, I don't even think that's the analysis who the student is. You know, since when did your first amendment rights depended if you were the captain of the football team or a regular student? I think Thomas just, maybe he was like, you know what, we can't have two unanimous decisions in a week. I got to mix it up a little bit. Then our country would be two put together. I'm not sure Thomas ever saw like the breakfast club. I'm not sure he understands high school

social strata. Oh, Pock, is there anything? I'm not sure Thomas ever saw like the breakfast club. I'm not sure he understands high school social strata. Oh, podcast. Is there anything? There's a higher. There is a higher. It's a bet, but depends, but depends point. You know, I, I tend to agree with that on this podcast,

but I hear I really do. I think that that this is, this might be Roberts, and we've talked about it in prior podcast. This might be Roberts at play again. Roberts is trying justice, Roberts for those. Yes, thank you. Chief Justice Roberts that he's been trying to hold the center for a while now against an external tide.

That's against him. I mean, literally an insurrection steps from the Supreme Court. An internal kind of knitting in of several new justices appointed by Trump in Coney Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. And he's trying and the loss of Kennedy, Justice Kennedy, who was always sort of center, center left, center right, and held the center together for making decisions like the one you just saw. So I think what we might be seeing at play is Chief Justice Roberts trying to find his footing and trying to continue to make this the Roberts court and where he can get opinions

that go to social issues that are part of the fabric of our democracy and get close to unanimity, he's going to take that opportunity because that explains why you take a cheerleader case. Do you take it because you really, I mean, you really care about Brandi? No, but you care about the broader issues around democracy and the ability to declare that public schools, and he got, you know, eight people to say this. Public schools are the nursery or the cradle of democracy. So I agree with you. I think this is Roberts trying to put his impromotor back on the court and get it back to, you know, center bubble if you're using a level at home,

because it's been off for the last couple of years. for the last couple of years. Because we move from the cradle of democracy to the armpit of fascism, your home state, Popeyes. Wait, my home state is New Jersey. I would live in my, I live, I am. I'm from New Jersey. Okay. Good.

And like this is, you know this is, I think that Florida wants to be democratic, but time and time again, I think it's brought down this path by demagogues, like Governor Death Santas here. What is Governor Death Santas doing in Florida, Popak here? I mean, he's banned. One of the things that the GQP has elevated is like critical race theory, which is not something that's generally discussed with that label, but they basically use critical race theory as a way of saying we shouldn't be talking about just systemic racism Generally, we shouldn't be talking about slavery. We shouldn't be talking about the 1619 project

We shouldn't be talking about things that actually happened in our country where white people repressed and enslaved black people And they put it under this label, you know banningning critical race theory, which I haven't even heard of that term, honestly, you know, for the past month or two months, I know what it's trying to get at. So one of the things that that happened in Florida was banning of the critical race theory. And then this other bill that DeSantis introduced this week where he banned, where he was saying the indoctrination going on in colleges, he didn't ban anything, but he basically put out these surveys that were meant to intimidate and harass public school, the public university students, public university teachers, you know, and in many cases some people write it as requiring students and teachers to reveal their political affiliation. It will.

It will, a mandatory survey of viewpoint diversity. Nothing says totalitarian fascism, like the governor requiring people to disclose their political leanings and their viewpoint. So here's the problem with Florida. We've talked about this before. We have a governor down there who doesn't understand the First Amendment. Nor is staff because a staff is letting him do this stuff too.

Why do I say that? Because he just passed three bills. We're gonna talk about two of them. One of them is outlawing critical race theory, which, look, I've been a liberal Democrat in my whole life. I never heard of that. But it sounds a lot like the 1920s and banning evolution from being taught. I thought we, I thought we cleared this up already. In the scopes trial, you know, where Clarence Darrow came in because of poor science teacher in Alabama or Mississippi, wherever it was, wanted to teach evolution as a science, which it is. And it was banned. Now we have the governor saying, we're going to ban race

analysis in our textbooks and history books. So we got the governor deciding on that outrageous. That's wrong. But then he said, you know what, let's go further. Let's go to colleges. Let's find out what's going on on campuses. We think there's a viewpoint diversity problem. I love when they've co-opted the language of the liberal wing talking about diversity, but doing it in a perverse way. So we're going to do viewpoint diversity. How do we get to the bottom of that? And first amendment expression on campus because we think right wing Republican groups on campus and professors are being gagged or diminished in some way. So let's do a survey mandatory that all the colleges and universities have to roll out

along with a code of conduct that's now going to be memorialized in legislation in Florida that every college and university has to adopt with a grievance procedure because there's a theory that young Republicans on campus are being denied their First Amendment rights. And if they are, and this is my retort to the governor, there's a thing already on the books called the Constitution and the First Amendment, you don't need a state statute to enforce the First Amendment. We have a First Amendment for that. So I really don't get,

this is all window dressing for his campaign to run for president. And he's, you know, he's he's pandering to that group locally and nationally that seem to be, you know, again, we talked about a two podcast ago. The Republicans have to create crisis now. This is crisis creation so they can run as the saviors to fix the crisis. We don't have a diversity viewpoint crisis in a higher education. It's made that's a made up thing. We don't have a problem with racial viewpoints being taught in textbook. That's a made up thing. But why do they make it up? So he can stand at a middle school back to middle school. He

actually announced the passage of these college oriented bills in front of a very hard-hitting group of 11-year-olds in the press because he's a coward. So we have that. So we have HB, it's House Bill 233 for those that want to look it up. It's 12 pages long. It is against what they're calling educational indoctrination in higher education. Did DeSantis go to college or university? Does he not understand the differing viewpoints that already exist and that people, look, I don't know what he thinks goes on in these things, but people come out, some are Democrat, or Democratic leaning, some are Republican, some are independent, some are apolitical.

That's what comes out of colleges and universities. How do I know that? Because half the country thinks it's Republican or identifies with being Republican, and the other half identifies with being Democrat or with a small group in the middle, you know, I'm getting the numbers off, a small group in the middle that's independent.

So what does he think that's going on? That there's a factory in higher education that's generating like widgets, does he think that's going on? That there's a factory in higher education, that's generating like widgets, all Democrats, because that's what's coming out. Look, I know what's interesting here, what's interesting here at Popeyes II is that this is also kind of an attack on the military because these diverse viewpoints are being taught

in the military. And I'm not sure if you saw or don't, if you you saw, they had the chairman of the Joint'm not sure if you saw or Dan, if you saw, they had the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, and the Republican GQP members, the Gates of the Worlds, were cross-examining him and like mocking him for teaching diversity within the military academy. And the answer was that Chairman Milley gave was interesting. He was like,

I don't necessarily know what you're talking about, but what you're sounding like, if that's what critical race theory is, that's something I think I want to teach at the military academy. I want to know why there's white rage. I want to know the history of systemic oppression because as a military person, I want to know how we could all get better. I want multiple viewpoints out there. He said, I read communist books, not because I'm a communist. I'd like to know how other people think we were allowed to read other items. I'm not sure if you saw that, Dan, but, and I'm not sure if you're able to comment outside of sports, but what do you think about this?

I do know other things outside of sports. Just pretend we said sports. Sports got it, light bulb. No, no, I think I just on a human level. I think what we saw after the George Floyd saga, right? I think our country had to kind of take a step back and find a figure out we don't know. So I'm with you guys that term critical race theory is not something that I've heard of before,

but the concept of hey, we're teaching new things in school. We wanna try to figure out what we did wrong and educate our youth. I don't really think there's a problem to it. And then I love that line of thought process. I read and I listen to a lot of podcasts for people I don't necessarily agree with, but I just like listening to how other people think. You can find smart people on the left, smart people on the right, you

can find smart people all over the place. But to say that we're not going to teach a certain school of thought because I don't really understand the reasoning. I see the outrage. I think there was a like a school board over in Virginia that had like a complete riot over critical race today. The end of school board meeting early this week, I think in Loudon County. But I just, I don't understand the outrage of just like, we're going to teach this thing in school, like just like we learned about the dinosaurs, we learned about the Holocaust, like we're just learning about something that happened in our country. I just, I don't see the harm.

I'll tell you, I think the harm in that if you're a Republican is that people who quote unquote receive higher levels of education and who are opened up to all these ideas vote democratic usually because those ideas are embracing of others. The idea what motivates the GQP and the de-Santisis of the world unfortunately is hating the others is creating rage, is scaring their base. It's not how do we help all people. There's also the PR element that Pope, the Pope, the Pope referenced there, that this is just, you know, also just a fake crisis that they want to create. But if you want to delve deeper kind of intellectually, I think that they that the Republican base wants to keep people in a constant

state of fear and a constant state of not being educated because the more educated they get they go, hey, let's embrace some of these ideas. These are good ideas. And what they want to do is they want to hoard the education in a small group of millionaires and billionaires who have it and basically convinced their base who supports them that they're being screwed over by actually the workforce of the country, which is a broad coalition of immigrants and diverse people who help. I'll go one further. As we've said before, the Republican Party is a by its very nature, a narrow party whose policies, if you put them on a clean sheet of paper without labeling it Republican or Democrat, and you just ask

people, are you supportive of these policies? They usually aren't at all. And the only way that a narrow party can win national office, And this was discovered by starting with Nixon, going to Leigh-Attewater, going to Karl Rove, going to Cheney, all the way through to today, is the politics of fear. Republicans have to pedal in the politics of fear to drive a base and motivate a base because their normal natural base is much narrower than the Democratic

base. Period has been for the last 100 years. So what do you have to do? Whether you call it crisis or fear, whether you call it gaze in the military, gay marriage, which was starting 30 years ago, abortion, these have to be the wedge issues that were raised by the Republican party, or they cannot win national office. I totally agree with you.

And how could they win national office to when their leadership are people like duty Giuliani? I mean, Rudy Giuliani from your newly embraced hometown of New York. And Dan Lust is from New York. I was reading this book the other day about the kind of debt crisis, the overinflated markets in the late 80s. The book is called The Den of Thieves. And The Den of Thieves, an incredible book from Wall Street Journal writers,

kind of chronicles the rise of that era in Wall Street where markets were just completely and entirely manipulated by a handful of people who engage in insider trading. But Giuliani's the good guy in the book. You know, the book was published in 1991, 1992, right around when Giuliani was was running for mayor when he was the United States attorney in New York. But Giuliani, the ultimate one of the ultimate ironies is Giuliani prosecuted Michael Milkin, who was one of the people manipulating the market back then, who then Giuliani helped basically get the pardon from Donald Trump, you know, 30, 30, 40 years later when Giuliani took

on, you know on this new persona. So to see though Giuliani portrayed a certain way in the book, as I'm reading it, and then you see, well, Giuliani's being suspended from the practice of law in New York and he's being suspended because he lied in front of 70 plus federal courts about the election.

He filed phony briefs. He went out there, saying just complete lies about the election. And the Appellate Division and the New York Supreme Court said Thursday it was, quote, immediately suspending Giuliani's license. This is an interim suspension, so that Giuliani has a certain amount of days

where he can respond for an opportunity for Reense statement. Giuliani's son went on TV, claimed it was a partisan, which on a people made some incredible great memes. He went in parking lot. I don't know about TV. He did another parking lot. He did another parking lot.

And people did those incredible memes with him in front of Paco Bells and all these different locations, but Popeyes, what's going on here? Yeah, and let me back, let me back into it by picking up what you just said because I practice, I started my career in New York in 1991 right at the height of Rudy Giuliani. I have very close friends and mentors who I started my career with, who worked with him, number two under him in his office. And I've spoken to those people recently, and I won't name names, but they just look down at their shoes and shake their head and they tell me they do not recognize this person that is now calling himself Rudy Giuliani,

because that's not the Rudy Giuliani that they know and that they worked for at all, 100% all the way through being the nation's mayor. You and I have talked about, Rudy Giuliani could have done and should have done what somebody like Sully has done with his career after being so brave in landing the plane in the Hudson and just becoming a preeminent states person as it relates to aviation and politics and patriotism. That could have been Rudy Giuliani's career. For whatever reason, he just went off the rails, not only is he now being investigated separately from this license to spend

your, that we've spoken about before for criminal involvement with Ukraine by at least two prosecutors offices. So he's got that to worry about. But he just lost his law license and not only because the Appellate Division first department, which Dan and I will talk about in a minute, which regulates all lawyers who operate in Manhattan, it goes by your department, I'm in the first department. So those are the judges that decide your fate.

But he also got temporarily suspended, subject to a future hearing immediately, which is a drastic remedy that the first department uses usually only when somebody has been accused of stealing money. Or as they don't want them out there taking any more new clients because they're a danger to the legal community and to society. That's how drastic immediate suspension is. And it can only be done under a finding of uncontroverted facts which support the misconduct.

In this case, the violation of three rules of the New York rules of professional conduct dealing with false statements. One of the reasons it's uncontroverted, frankly, is that Giuliani is a terrible lawyer for himself. I know he's got two lawyers, and I've seen their names, but they did a terrible job in defending him at the suspension level because you've got on one hand the attorney's grievance committee general counsel, that's who brings this kind of case, the attorney

grievance committee for the first department. And then you've got the five judges, the five justices of the first department, which is an appellate, an appellate level, the second highest, not the top appellate court in New York, but the second highest court in New York for appeals. Giuliani apparently didn't submit really much of anything in opposition to their position that he should be immediately suspended. They even commented in the decision that, well, your affidavit is pretty poor. You reference other affidavits that you've created, but you did not file with us. You reference a spreadsheet of some vote problems in Michigan or in Pennsylvania, but you didn't attach the spreadsheet. You say there's some confidential information that only you know that you can't share

with the regulators for your law license, which we find incredulous because what could you possibly know that you couldn't share even in confidence with the regulators of your bar license? So they didn't buy that one. And they basically said, you didn't give us anything. So the entire factual background that's been presented by the Attorney Grievance Committee attorney, we have to accept this true.

You lied about votes in Michigan. You lied about votes in Pennsylvania. You filed briefs that had lies in them. And that's a problem. And one of the lies, for instance, that they raised is, he went on television. I don't know if this was the parking lot for the four seasons landscaping company or whatever. As we said, Julianne, he seems to love parking

lots. But he went on, he went on television and in briefs and said that, for instance, I think it was in Pennsylvania that there were only 1.8 million people that requested absentee ballots, yet 2.5 million ballots came back. Well, that sounds bad. That sounds like if more ballots came in than went out, that sounds like there's fraud, except he's just dead wrong. Three million people asked for absentee ballots. That's a fact. And 2.5 million returned them and voted. That's not fraud. That's just really high absentee voting. That's okay in this kind of election.

So they pointed that as an example. So again, as you said, Ben, to start the segment, Giuliani temporarily suspended, immediately suspended. He can't take a client. He can't give advice. He can't collect a fee. And if they catch him doing that and with this guy, he's so like not not with it, he's sort of so out of it. He could accidentally like continue

to practice law and get even more sanctions. And if you look even more carefully at the decision, it's yes, it's temporary, but they said that based on the conduct that's being alleged, that they envision there will be substantial permanent sanctions against Rudy in the future. He's got a tremendous uphill battle here to avoid not a permanent suspension, at least for five years, I would think of his license, which takes him out of the running, really practicing law anywhere in the country. Once he loses his New York license, I think he'll have to lose. He probably is a member of the DC bar because a lot of us are, he'll probably lose that right away. All the federal bars will bar him and then he'll be out of, he'll be out of business as being a lawyer. I'll go back to being until he gets indicted.

He'll go back to being whatever he is, a lobbyist, a consultant, whatever it is. But that's where we are with the suspension. So Dan, Rudy used to go to Yankee games. Yeah, I was going to say Ben, you were saying this story from 91. My dog's been a family with Rudy to Leigh. Yeah, but I remember Giuliani from the 2001, you know, from the World Trade Center Bobbys. He did a fantastic job for New York back then by partisan support. Everyone was a fan of Rudy. And, you know, if he had just kind of gone off into the sunset and, you know, ate into the background, he'd have this ultimate Q rating, 100%. So I don't know who's, who's strategy it was for him to control

the line of politics, but I guess not just the bombing, the the actual the actual attack by the planes on the trip I just I think it was the mayor for both. Yeah, and look, you know, obviously Dan's dog is a Rudy Giuliani supporter I can click clearly clearly clearly the one the one point where your dog opined is on the Giuliani question And so my view is that really the only remaining supporters of Giuliani are GQP members and dogs. So and golden doodles to be specific. I evolved that kind of runes of golden doodles are too cute to possibly support Rudy Giuliani. I was imagining some other form of like pounded dot. Well, I won't go there. There's lots of people. You thought you thought I had a band dog?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no Let me take back that dog support Giuliani. So that I actually think, you know what I'll say if you've been, she actually heard you say squirrel. That's actually what happened. That's what you said Giuliani, but she heard squirrel with her dogage. And that is the connection there. Giuliani is a squirrel.

Your dog heard squirrel. Your dog like all cute dogs want to attack the squirrel. And so that's what it's an ultimate bipartisan issue for dogs. Hey squirrels. That I definitely definitely true. I don't think we have a lot of squirrels support out there. I mean, but anyway, if I offended you by comparing Giuliani to squirrels, I apologize for that as well.

But let me talk about something. I know I will not be offending you about, which is the recent announcement that the Trump organization could be facing criminal charges. In a district attorney inquiry out of New York, we've known for a long time that Sive Vance has been investigating, and the Matt and D.A. has been investigating Donald Trump, the Trump family members, the Trump organization. And it looks like indictments may be imminent against the Trump organization, not necessarily Trump individually yet. We know that there still is a criminal grand jury out there, though, with respect to Trump

and his family members. And then we also learned that the Trump organization decided it would be suing New York for wrongful, for quote unquote wrongful termination of contracts, where after the insurrection, New York City terminated various city related contracts with the Trump organization like the ice rink. It says it's article that I read that the like on the ice rink and on Trump golf links that the organization Trump organization was making about $17 million per year from operating those ice rinks. I've been to the ice rink. It's possible. Really, it's that much of a cash.

Because they wow, that's, that's saying, you know, that's, that's, that's pretty incredible. So what's going on here? I mean, to me, obviously, Pope, those lawsuits are going nowhere. Those are typical Trump projection, Trump never wins these lawsuits. Like he has a history of like, we know from the, uh, let post elections that he lost, you know, 70, but 70 lawsuits, but he has a whole history of filing lawsuits and losing lawsuits. I mean, he is almost the like a role model of what a vexatious litigant is. He just has a lot of money, so he's not called a vexatious litigant, but he has a history

of just filing lawsuits, trying to screw with people and delay the inevitable. And this just seems to be more of the same. So let's go to the indictment because you and I talked about it four or five podcasts ago. Sy Vance, who's going to be leaving office at the beginning of the year and his replacement has really already been selected. Alvin Bragg is going to be the new Manhattan district attorney, a fine choice by the voters. I think Sy wants to get this indictment wrapped up and be able to transition the prosecution of the case over to Alvin Bragg and the existing long-term members of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office

who will remain on the case after Si leaves. So we had said, I know a lot of our followers and listeners were like, yeah, we'll believe it when we see it, we've heard this before. This is happening. The insider information that's been reported in the media is that the Manhattan DA has now reached out in the last day as told the Trump organization

as a courtesy that the indictment is coming and it is coming next week. We originally talked about the long-term chief operating officer, sorry, chief financial officer Weiselberg, who was separately being investigated and prosecuted and possibly indicted for tax evasion, tax fraud related to Trump because he had all sorts of perks like private school tuition and other things paid by the Trump organization and nobody paid income tax on that. They're squeezing, of course, Weiselberg to get them to flip.

But even if Weiselberg didn't flip, and maybe he has already, because that's not going to be in the media, they're inditing somebody in the Trump organization and the entire Trump organization. And if it's somebody, it's going to be former 45, I think next week. And you and I will talk about it in the next podcast. So I think it's tax fraud.

This is the office of prosecutors, along with the New York Attorney General, that's had the tax returns for two years. They all have been doing is mining hundreds of thousands of pages, if not millions of pages, of tax returns and attachments for year after year after year. I think we're going to see tax fraud. I think we're going to see mortgage fraud. I think we might see insurance fraud, all under under an indictment of Trump and the Trump organization as a criminal under. You see that happening as soon as bold. You think that's going to happen in the next next week? Yeah. With Donald Trump directly mentioned. Well, definitely, Well, if the Trump will definitely mention, but

Trump as a criminal defendant next next week, that's the whole prediction. All right. I'm out there. I'm out there. Okay. Trump organization definitely gets indicted next week. Donald Trump, maybe a superseding indictment a month later, but I wouldn't be surprised if Trump gets indicted next week. They've reached out to the organization. The organization is headed by former 45. I mean, does Ivanka get entitled? I don't know, but it's gonna be,

you and I will do nothing, but talk about that indictment after the next podcast. It is coming. Prosecutors do not pick up the phone and call the lawyers for the defense and warn them of the impending indictment. And because with indictments come arrests.

Okay. It's not just indictment you stay in your bathroom. We've talked about this in the past. You have to get processed. Somebody from the Trump organization will probably have to go down to jail, you know, and come back out in some way, shape, or form. So next week is going to be a very interesting week for all of us to watch in the meantime, as a complete. You just said it so casually. I've been talking about it with you for 14 episodes, but I've predicted it before 2022. Dan, did you know that Pope Pock was this boulder?

Is your dog still chasing a squirrel in the back room? She's outside. We put her outside with my live a question for you. I'm a sports bedding guy, right? So you're saying in the next week that it'll occur. What type of odds would you put on that? Would you put that at like two to one three to one? Are you going like the other way? You're saying minus three hundred that that would happen. I don't bet as much as you do. I think there is a 85% chance that before that is that before the week is over, the

Trump organization will be indicted. I believe next week. If it rolls over to the following week, don't kill me, but it's going to be in the month. I think it's going to be in the month. You just said 85% chance. So if someone did find one of these offshore betting sites and they bet that and they bet the house bet, prop bet, prop bet right now. But you bet bet bet you bet, but but might not be in existence in the world in the next week. But the subtlety of the language there, do you see how he hedged though on the 85%

is 85% just a Trump organization. He left out the boldest of the prediction, which would be what do you call that when you when you do the two for one, the two for one, but as I call the two for one, a part of our line, the pilot over, the power line, the power line. Overlining is playbook. You're talking my language here. See Michael, but the problem you said, if I'm wrong, don't kill me, but people are going to make a wager based on your advice.

And you might be sleeping with the pressure. We are not in that. I don't know what disclaimer now, Ben, we have to do because of lust, but I am not giving betting advice at all., offshore, onshore. Just my own view, which is me and my dog. Just putting percentages on it. No big deal. I just made giant proclamations.

And I then indictment next week of Trump organization, how high it goes in next week, I don't know. And I will come up with a side bet that I will do something if I'm wrong. Wow. Bold predictions here. That's what this is about.

This is the legal and F podcast. I'm well, you know, it's also about, yeah, preserving the credibility if we're right. So I'm hoping, I'm hoping, well, look, I do think that Donald Trump personally, I've been saying it on the show, you will personally be indicted in 2021. That's a prediction that I could make competently. Next week, next week, that's again, I think we're developing a philosophy that we've created earlier, structure, Popocheon, but bold predictions, Popocheon as well. And Popocheon both combines

a Popoche philosophy and the fact that our firm, my partner Mark is our median. So you have the IAN as well. That is the Popocheon philosophy. Now, just going to this Trump lawsuit, the legal AF analysis here is that Trump's lawsuit is complete bullshit. He's filing a civil lawsuit against the New York City. Imagine one thing. Imagine one thing, just the one. So the the the de Blasio administration invoked a provision in the contract is better than I like to talk about contract provisions, sort of the morals clause, which I'm sure

Ben knows from some of his other clients. The morals clause says that if you have committed a crime or done something... My clients follow the morals clause. I didn't set all the time. I left it neutral. I just said you know about it. That if a person or a contracting party violates the law, commits a crime, does something immoral, then the other contracting party has a way out of the contract.

It's usually with celebrities, you know, like a newscaster turns out to be a sex or asser. They can terminate that person's contract and say, we really don't want to be in business with you. You're sort of unsavory. Goodbye. That's what the DeBlasio administration has done. They've said that the Trumps have committed a crime, the crime being the fomenting of

the Jan 6th armed. And by the way, the Morales clause doesn't have to necessarily be an actual charged crime oftentimes with hypothetical clients. If there is a criminal indictment, that per se is something that can be pointed to by the corporation to say, hey, you violated it, but it could also be just an unsavery allegation that's out there that has some basis. It could be an internal investigation. In this case, it could be, hey, we all saw with our eyes. You led an insurrection and leading an insurrection's evaluation of a morals clause,

which states that you're going to follow the law. Guess what? Leading insurrection and leading an insurrection, the violation of a morals clause, which states that you're going to follow the law. I guess what? Leading insurrection is not following the law. Again, this is like picking up nickels and dimes in front of a steamroller. I mean, I don't know why he's bringing this case and why only about the golf course in the Bronx. I don't know why it's not about the ice skating rink.

I guess he wants to back to Dan Lust's comment about the NCAA. He thinks there's a more favorable for a sitting in the Bronx. But again, he's got a steam roller behind him of, of, of, of side vans has been at in D.A. about to roll over him and his family. Why he's worried about the golf course contract. I have no F and idea. Lust. Can I ask a question? Can I ask a question here? Yeah. I like this fancy term like Popakas. What do we call the Popakians? Popakians? What is the name of the Popakians? Popakians?

Popakians? What do we call the people that believe in Popakians? Are they like Popakian or what is the name of the Popakians? What is the name of the Popakians?

Popakians. I like it. I like it. I like it. Popakians. There are some Popakians. Before they. Popo. There are some poking areas. Before they become popo.

Yes, they start up as poking areas and they get their wings as popo. We should put that on a t-shirt. Right? That would be a hot seller. Wait. We do my salary. Wait. We do my Salis one day. Wait. It's called my this touch. That's it. I was going to let's throw. You got the whole thing. I got the whole thing. All right, switching gears. We're on our fourth quarter of my this touch, League of Legends, using sports analogies in honor of our special guest, Dan Lust. Let's talk about the Justice

Department's action this week in suing Georgia over their bullshit voting rights restrictions. Bill, I don't even know what to call it. I want to call it a voting bill because it does the exact opposite. Its intention is to repress the rights of voters. On the Midas Touch podcast, we had Gabriel Sterling who runs their voting system. He's the sea chief operating officer. He's actually a private official who's hired by the government. Gabriel is actually a great guy. He tweets a lot about barbecues. Actually, I had a great conversation with him. But when you asked him, you said, but

Gabe, the underlying aspects of this bill that there was voter fraud and voter fraud on a rampant scale is a complete lie. Do you agree, Mr. Sterling, that the entire premise of this bill is false? And he goes, yeah, I totally agree with you, that the entire premise of the bill is false. He gets into some of the nooks and crannies of the bill, which have certain aspects of it that Republicans like as Republicans like to suppress the vote. But he even acknowledges and he's supposed to be the person in charge of the system that the entire premise is based on a lie. Tell me about this lawsuit brought

by the Department of Justice. What's its authority to bring this and what are the next steps? Yeah, so we have, we talked about it. I think last either pod 13 or pod 12. We talked about Merrick Garland using the powers of the Voting Rights Act, his civil rights division and the Department of Justice to do what he can about voter suppression laws being passed by states like Georgia.

He's now brought, um, signed by the highest level of lawyers in his Civil Rights Division. He's now brought a case, the first one, against the state of Georgia, based on their recent voter suppression, masquerading as voter integrity laws. There's a few problems with it. I want to manage expectations. First problem is that we have a judge called JP Booley. JP Booley is a Trump appointee. That is where the case has landed. If we get past Jait Judge Booley, we're going to go to the 11th Circuit, which is also unfortunately packed with a lot of Trump supporters. So from there, if they lose at the Booley level, the trial level, they lose at the 11 circuit

level, they'll have to go to the Supreme Court that's composed of the, it's kind of six to three split that you and I have talked about podcast after podcast. The actual premise of the case is under the Voting Rights Act that these laws have improperly targeted black voters in a way that creates the civil rights for the amendment violation and therefore a voting rights act violation. It does not, again, I want to manage expectations. It does not attack every element that you and I and your listeners and followers find offensive about the Georgia new statute. For instance, one of the main ways that a state can influence impact and corrupt an election

is to replace the local election boards and pack them with, you know, in this case, Republicans, the Georgia has taken the incredible step under its voting rights law to allow the governor to replace local, county, and precinct level supervisors of election and boards of election. And those are the ones that are really day to day, the most influential over election. They set the hours for voting. They decide whether a voter will be disqualified at the polling place based on ID, based on some other BS thing. They decide whether somebody, if they vote out of precinct, whether their vote is going

to be enfranchised or disenfranchised, that's all done. All that kind of hand-to-hand combat is done by these boards, these election boards. This case does not attack at all the ability of the governor to continue to replace with his loyalists on those election boards. What does it attack? It really just focuses on absentee ballots. What it says is that statistically, black, brown, and other minorities use absentee ballots

more than others. If you do something to create hurdles and barriers to the use of absentee ballots, all you're really doing is disenfranchising mainly black voters in Georgia. They also asked in the case for the extraordinary establishment of a remedy that's called pre-clearance. What is that? That means they've asked the court to rule that Georgia cannot be trusted With exercising its own voting supervision that there must be a federal supervisor the Department of Justice over them and That any new change to their voting laws has to first be pre-cleared by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Before they can even put it on their books. They had that power to first be pre-cleared by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division before they

can even put it on their books. They had that power and the Supreme Court took it away in a number of historically prejudicial or states based on prejudice against races in the South, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia for a long time. Supreme court and Supreme Court's past said, well, we're really, we're really in a post racial division period in our history. I don't know where, where they get that from, but, and we're going to remove the Department of Justice as the supervisor of all elections, if you will, in these states. And Georgia got released from that obligation. Department of Justice now wants this judge

to put them back into the supervisory role of all election changes in Georgia. But as I said, we gotta get through a Trump appointee on the federal bench, a very conservative 11th circuit, one that I used to actually go to when I practiced in Florida, and then to the Supremes, and all that will play out over

the next couple of years. One of the interesting things here was, I think, pre-pandemic, though, the absentee voting was pushed far more forcefully by Republicans. I know out here in California, that's how they tried to get a lot of the elderly vote by absentee. There was kind of a complete 180 degree shift during post pandemic of those statistics of who's voting absentee.

So I wonder if surgically focusing on absentee kind of forces that issue where yes, statistically the focus here is on black and brown voters. That's what Georgia was trying to institute. But as you start fleshing out what this case is, the idea of absentees was actually something that Republicans would bank on absentees from elderly, you know, from elderly to win elections. I mean, that was the case in California. So I wonder if that was also a strategic decision.

I agree with you. The Democrats in the last election, ate the Republicans lunch when it came to absentee balloting in a way that I don't think the Republicans anticipated. The Democrats got their voters who were worried about pandemic and waiting in lines to do alternate voting other than live. And the Republicans in an a rare case of them being sort of having a political tenure, because usually they're pretty good at this. They were caught flatfooted and with

their pants down to continue to continue the metaphors. And the Democrats really over produced in terms, I'm not fraudulently, just overproduced in terms of the percentages of absentee balloting. So what does the first thing Republicans do when they find out that people are being in franchise that are voting too much, try to take that right or right away. And if it happens to also impact blacks in Georgia, who helped win the election for Ossoff and Warnik and ultimately Biden, so the better. Lust, don't we want, at the end of the day, shouldn't all of the efforts that are going across, going out across the country, though, to be, how do we get to 100% voting? Like, each election we should figure out ways.

You know, even if, you know, one side is against voter IDs and one side wants voter ID. Shouldn't we figure out, well, how do we get every American there no matter what? Should we make it easy online? How do we create a system where everybody votes, you know, in a safe and secure way? And, you know, ultimately what, what's just so obvious and transparent about what's going on here is we can over complicate the different initiatives. But at the end of the day, you have one party who wants as many people to vote as possible who are over the age of eligibility.

And you got one group of people who want less people to vote. Like, I know sometimes we're overcomplicated, but sometimes it just seems as simple as that and voting at the end of the day to me should be the most bipartisan thing there is. And I know you're the voice of bipartisanship on our show. So what do you think about that? I thought I was the voice of sports. It seems like I have two voices here, which I will say. Which are sports and bipartisan.

And squirrels. And squirrels and what dogs are thinking about in their politics so I have five hats that I wear on the show. So I might surprise you guys here. I used to be pretty involved in local politics over in Westchester County where I'm from in New York. So it's funny. So Ben, your question, how do you get to 100% voting? I mean, at a state level, there are certain states that are going to go blue and red, no matter how many people vote, right? So New York is always going to go blue. And so I have friends that will not be named on this podcast that don't feel the need to

vote because New York is going to go blue no matter what. So I think of the percentage of people that are not voting. A lot of the people are probably wearing that hat in some sense. And then there's a half that just doesn't care, doesn't give a shit. But there's a percentage of educated people that just say, yeah, what's the point in voting, right? It's going to go blue anyway. So at a local level, very, very differently. And Michael, I'm surprised you. My first appellate case is actually an election law case. I wear a lot of hats here. I was not just hired for my sports brain

over at election law cases. I get that. I've done a handful of election law cases shockingly. And I will tell you at a local politics level, the door-to-door grassroots nature of it, you're literally going and knocking on door shaking hands and you're almost hitting 100% of any given city or town, you're gonna get pretty good voter turnout there. And it's not because of left to right, it's because local politics can turn on a couple of people.

So yeah, I think it's one of these, like you're chasing this, this like brass ring, like are we ever gonna get to 100%? Probably not,, I think it's one of these, like you're chasing this, this like brass ring, like are we ever gonna get to 100%? Probably not, but I think it's just the way that state government is set up or federal government, I just don't think we're ever gonna see that. New York's always gonna be blue. It doesn't, doesn't matter how many people come out

and don't come out with. But I think it goes back to what you, Ben, and you and I talked about earlier. We have a party, and now we see the expression of that party that does not want full voter turnout because it's a narrow based party and they can't win. They know they can't win. The more people that vote, we know statistically the more people that vote, the more that vote Democrat, they don't want that. They always want and they've always been a party of voter suppression forever, even before

the civil rights movement. So they never want 100 percent. For them, a good election is one where there's weather events, rain, snow, people can't make it to the polls because those super voters are usually democratic. And they're worried about that. Isn't that problematic that that a victory would be less people voting? Yes, but the parties, but you have a party that's that is based on it. And now that they're in power in some state houses, not all state houses, but now that they're

in power in some state houses, they've taken to express that their politics, their winning strategy, is now hitting the books in voter suppression laws. You'll never have, you know, you'll never have, to be honest with you, a Republican that wants to win national office or cares about his party doing so will almost never be in favor of complete 100% voting. This country could do it from a technology standpoint overnight. You could have, for instance, as in some states, you could make it so easy to vote, so easy to vote voter registration with your with your with your drivers license automatic drop offs at libraries and schools in secure boxes that you drive up to and drop in the mail

like in Oregon, and I think maybe even California does a version of that. So it's your civic duty to do it. You just drive up like you're getting a bag of burger king fries and you drop in your ballot. You do it electronically, like an ATM. You extend voting not just on one election day, but over a period of time to allow for the capture of as many votes as possible.

You make it a national holiday where you don't have to worry about people losing their jobs, they're paid to go and vote. There are ways to incorporate that into civic duty. That's why some countries have 80, 90% turnout, and we have less than 50 at most times, least for national office. But we have a party that will never agree to this because it is not in their political best interest to do that. The lower the better, they get to below 50%, they got a fighting chance.

They get above that, they're dead bang losers. Exactly. I think we've just remembered something. I think that's why Republicans like golf, lower score. Um, Michael, can I ask you, are you a fan of Burger King fries over McDonald's rolls? Is that what you just know? Why?

No. And I don't know why I use Burger King because I'm a McDonald's kid. I don't know why those are disgusting for us. Hopefully Burger King does not sponsor this podcast, Ben. I am not called for this. No, we have to get sponsors. I, I, I, I, I, I, I would say this, this is a good, it's a good time to mention that this show is not sponsored by Burger King or McDonald's. Dan Lest does not, his statements about Burger King if Burger King did want to be a sponsor. His own opinion are not necessarily reflected.

I, one of the aren things that I do facts. Well, that's what I mean. Let me tell you one thing that Burger King's done. Good recently that I like. I like that they've introduced the impossible burger at Burger King, which I think is a good alternative for vegans out there. So I do like that. But I don't know if McDonald's has something similar, but the show is sponsored by Garagos and Garagos and Zupano Patricius and Popac. As we've always said before, Michael has something similar, but the show is sponsored by Gerigo St. Gerigo St. Zupano Patricius and Popo, as we've always said before, Michael Popo and myself, we're not just legal AF analysts, we're actually practicing lawyers.

And so for those out there who have been, if you've been injured in an accident, whether it's catastrophic or not, you know somebody who's been injured, if you're a victim of sexual harassment in the workplace or know someone who has, if there's catastrophic or not, or you know somebody who's been injured, if you're a victim of sexual harassment in the workplace or know someone who has, if there's a contract dispute, if there's a business dispute, Popo can I usually handle and Dan, I think the firm,

now a Gerriger, Sangerer goes, we tend to handle the higher level bigger types of cases. And so if you or someone has one of those kind of bigger, higher level cases where they've been seriously injured, no matter what type of injury that is, reach out to us. We get back to you. My email is benatgaragos.com, B-E-N-At-G-E-R-A-G-O-S. That's B-E-N-At-G-E-R-A-G-O-S. Again, that's for personal injury cases, employment cases, discrimination cases, sexual assault, and harassment cases, and pop-up, give your email address. I will. And a little bit different practice. I don't really do the personal injury things,

unless it's product liability oriented, but I do do the high-end commercial litigation, business dispute litigation, class action work, and things that arise out of the employment world, both, you know, just whether it's litigated or non litigated, right, negotiated or ultimately litigated or trial work related to employment matters is something that I'm comfortable in handling and expert. And so my work email is mpopok. P-O-P-O-K at zplaw.com. Thank you for that. And let's close with talking about, I think some news where the judge got it, right?

Let's go to Minneapolis where the judge sentenced Derek Chauvin to 22 and a half years for the murder of George Floyd. We've kept our listeners up to date on all of the developments in that murder trial from the commencement through conviction. And now with sentencing, we've talked about on past podcasts that the prosecutors recommended a upward departure from the sentencing guidelines. The prosecutors actually wanted, I think, 30 years or 30 plus years, Shobin wanted, obviously, less than what the guidelines suggested.

And ultimately, the judge went above the guidelines, which were around, I think it was 12 to 14 years, and here sentence, Derek Chauvin to 22 years, and actually used the fact that Chauvin abused his position of power and trust as a police officer, plus his culpability as making him extra responsible and deserving of extra punishment above and beyond those guidelines. Based on what some legal analyst say, usually people in Minneapolis serve about two thirds

of the prison sentence. So he would be out in about 15 years, think he's in his early to mid 40s. And so that means he'd get out in his 60s. Popak, what's going on? Yeah. Look, I think we sort of hit it right. We managed expectations in this area. The sentencing guidelines was about 12 and a half years. The show inside pushed for like zero, like a suspended sentence. Judge was never going to do that. Anybody that watched the jury verdict and the judge's relief on the jury verdict knew that this judge and based on his decisions to enhance

and allow for enhancement factors, including the one that you just mentioned Ben about abuse of power, that he was never going to give the 12 and a half years. The only question was, was he going to go all the way to the 30 years that the prosecutors were asking for? He was never going to go over that, but was he, although he could, he could have gone to 40, but he was never going go, I think above the 30. And in his salamonic way, he came up with what he thought was a rational approach

to why this individual sentenced to 22 and a half years. I don't think Shovein did any service to himself when he gave sort of a perfunctory comment about the victims and their family. He came off to at least courtroom watchers, came off as not really showing much remorse. That's the time you wanna show remorse. He could have and he didn't.

And I don't think his lawyers helped him either. We talk about lawyering on this podcast. I don't think his lawyer has helped him by saying, well, he was a pretty good cop. And you know, he volunteered that day. He wasn't supposed to work that shift. I mean, what does this have to do with the loss of life of George Floyd being murdered, you know, crushed under the weight

for nine and a half minutes? I really didn't get why they were making these arguments. I thought they were, they were, they were poor form and 10 year, and certainly didn't go over with the judge. So you're right from what I've read, what I've heard, two thirds. These two things are going to happen to the sentence. First of all, he has 199 days of time served, which is going to come off the top because he has been sitting in custody in jail for all of that time.

And when you do that math, along with the two thirds for time served, if he's good behavior, and we have to see if he's going to be on good behavior while he's in prison. It'll reduce it to about 15 years on the three counts. But I agree with you. I think the judge got it about right. I think you and I had said about 20 to 25 years, and that's where it ended up. One of the things here, strategically that Shobin's lawyer did is waive the jury's ability to sentence Shobin and to allow that to be determined by the judge. Ultimately, do you think that a jury would

have sentenced him for longer, shorter? Did he make the right, legal, the lawyers make the right legal decision or do you think it probably would have come out of that? No, that's a very good softball for me. Because I just sort of critiqued those lawyers for what I thought was a relatively not great job in the sentencing hearing. I thought though the decision, the tactical decision to not have the jury, the same jury that just convicted him. Also, which they have to make the decision before.

They can't wait to see what the jury says and then, oh, we'll go with the judge. They made that decision before fearing that a jury who was going to throw the book at him having heard the evidence would hang him high, as they say. I think they're right. I think this jury, and based on the interviews of the jury that happened after the trial and the testimony that they found most persuasive, including the young woman who's now want to pull it sir for video taping murder and then testifying quite poignantly and with great emotion about the fact that she felt like she could have, she wished she had done more. She wished she had knocked over for, you know, giant policemen. She was a small, a small person and saved in some way.

And she has nightmares about that. That testimony, which the jury talked about, I think would have led them to push that needle all the way up to 40. So in a way, the lawyers did the right thing for their client and probably saved them 10 years off of a sentence. Dan lust, final words. Dan? Yes, so I have a 19-month-old running around I have a a wife that's due in a month So I am I am in the middle of the the thick of young father and so I I

Appreciate being brought onto the show. I think the one thing I wanted to acknowledge before before I He's departed. I am the newly appointed sports law professor over at New York Law School So talking sports talk at law But always a pleasure to come out with you guys. You guys, I don't know, Ben and Michael, I follow everything you guys do on social and you're definitely leaders in this space. So I'm a pleasure to come out with you guys.

And I guess on the sports side, stay tuned on college sports because it is about to be a wild ride for the next. We'll say two, three weeks, but it's going to change college sports as we know it. Hey Ben, can we do one last thing? Yeah, what's up? Yeah, I wanna, and I've probably Ben's young family reminded me of this.

So my adopted home state, as you know, had a tremendous tragedy in the last week. I know the community of Surfside Florida well in my prior life, my law firm was the city attorney for Surfside. I know the mayor mayor Berquette well. And so we grieve with all of the families. There's over 150 families. You would have thought we were talking about a third world country and some sort of bomb that had gone off or an earthquake, about 150 people are missing and probably lost in surfside.

So there is a leading charitable organization it's led by the Miami Heat and a number of cities in and around surfside. It's called support, sorry, supportsurpside.org. And I would commend our listeners and followers to go check that out and see what they can do to help those grieving families. I mean, in Miami, it's a really small community, very small community. Besides those

150 families, I'm sure it's not just one degree of separation. It's even closer. Everybody knows somebody. I know people that are that are a presumed lost. And so I wanted to interject real life into our podcast. We talk about Florida a lot and usually not in great terms, but you know, it's suffering right now and I think it needs our support. Michael Popak, Dan Lust, thank you both for joining me on this incredible episode of Midas Touch Legal AF. For all of those listening. We appreciate your support. We appreciate you joining us each and every Sunday. If it's Sunday, it is Legal AF. We'll see you same time, same place next week. Have a great week. you