Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Stare Decisis Under Attack and the Arizona FRAUDIT

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

On Episode 6 of Legal AF, MeidasTouch’s weekly law and politics podcast, hosts MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, analyze key decisions this “Supreme Court Season” and take apart SCOTUS’ 6-3 Republican majority and its unrelenting attack on judicial precedent (Stare Decisis) to legislate from the bench and change the law as we know it in the areas of abortion, the Second Amendment (NY State Rifle Association v. Corlett), and criminal sentencing for minors (Jones v. Mississippi). Speaking of SCOTUS, Ben and Michael also take a hard look at Justice “I am Not the Notorious ACB” Amy Coney Barrett and examine why she has refused to recuse (disqualify) herself from a series of recent cases involving her family and PACs that paid a million bucks to confirm her nomination (the Americans for Prosperity case), and how SCOTUS is on the verge of allowing unlimited and anonymous corporate dark money to pour into US elections. The Analytical Friends (is that what AF stands for?) then move into the #LegalWTF segment as they look at various state legislation that seeks to overturn fundamental US Constitutional rights. First up, Oklahoma gives immunity to drivers who maim or kill protestors with their cars, while criminalizing peaceful protests in the streets, and then for good measure virtually bans all abortions despite a woman’s US Constitutionally-protected right to choose. Not to be outdone, Arizona is allowing a made up QAnon conspiracy theorists called “Cyber Ninjas” to gain access to their voters’ sacred presidential election ballots to perform some sort of bizarre and illegitimate “audit” not to overturn the election, but to allow the Arizona Republicans to continue their charade at taxpayers' expense that the election was “stolen.” And of course, Florida Man is heard from, this time it's the governor, who is about to sign a law that likely violates the US Constitution’s Commerce Clause by preventing social media companies from banning political candidates from their platforms or face fines of up to $100k a day. Easter egg alert: Ben considers permanently changing the name of the podcast to LegalWTF, and not only does fan-favorite “financial dominatrixes” make an appearance, but so does cos-play! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to legal a f with Ben my cellus and Michael Popeok. Really Michael though, I think the show should be called legal WTF. We know legal a f stands for legal analysis, friends. The f is not what you think it stands for don't have that dirty mind, but I'm thinking about changing the show name to legal what the friend know what the fuck because seriously we're going to be analyzing a series of cases today which can only be described as the last grasp of GQP white supremacy of corporate takeover as they lose in the ballot box. They're trying to rig the system. And so we're going to go through a series of items in legislatures, a series of items being heard in the Supreme Court, but they all have that common theme, WTF.

Yeah, the Republicans almost never win national election unless they have splinter issues and use people's bias against them and race bait and all the like. And at the heart of what we're going gonna talk about today is a series of Supreme Court of the United States, Scotus cases, in which they basically are just gonna walk away from even recent precedent, which is unheard of in Supreme Court jurisprudence, in order for the conservative members of the court

to revisit decisions, some of which were just made in the last five or 10 years, which is really unheard of and tips the balance of the scales of justice in favor of conservative members of the Supreme Court. And when we say conservative members, let's be clear. These are another C word and it's crazy. These are psychos. These are white supremacists. These are criminals and crooks in my opinion, masquerading as lawmakers who want to rig the system

and want to change laws. This is not about Republicans, we're against small government. In the cases we're going to discuss today, these are GQP members wanting the government to regulate speech in ways that are unprecedented. These are ways that government wants to seize control over corporations, to seize control over your body. This is the GQP raw. What the GQP wants is a Hugo Chavez style GQP control under their fascist idiot and chief Mr. Orangeman himself former guy.

I won't even say his name, but let me before I just stop branding. Let me get into the law. I want to talk about your state, Popok, Florida. And I want to talk about, and I know you moved to New York and you like to play both sides with Florida and New York, whenever it suits you in Florida, does something crazy. But I'm calling Florida your home state, even though you live in New York, whenever it suits you in Florida, does something crazy. But I'm calling Florida your home state, even though you live in New York.

I become Florida man on our broadcast, on our podcast. It just depends on the story. Pope, I'm not letting, holding people accountable, even if it's my partner. I do it. And to be honest, for those that will see me on video, I am rocking a tan because I was there this last week. So I had a nice day on the boat on Sunday. So go ahead, I'll take it.

Po-Pock is Mr. Florida right now for those who can't see him even before the episode. Po-Pock's like, you know, I think we should put some of these clips up and yes, that would help for promotional purposes. But Po-Pock's feeling the look, he's feeling the tan, he's got a new podcasting equipment. And he knows he looks good right now. He wants this moment captured in history. But let's get into a moment. I do not want captured in history.

And this is Florida Senate passing an effort to crack down on social media. Tell us about this, Popak. Yeah, so Governor DeSantis is pet project, you know, he's a Trump acolyte. In fact, you know, if you talk to Republicans on the street and in the leadership, they think he's the leading candidate to run against a Biden reelection. So first thing out of the box is he had the Senate in Florida pass a bill.

It needs to go to the Florida House, but they passed a Senate bill 7072, which will ban social media companies from removing political candidates from the platform. Who does that sound like? Sounds like Twitter having banned Trump, not because they didn't agree with his political views or because he was a Republican president, but because he was crazy to use Ben's artful term and was using the social media platform to stoke hate. I think the studies show that like a vast majority,

I don't wanna overstate it, but I think the number was like 80 plus percent of all this info in the world originated from Trump and his inner circle. Yeah, and I think Twitter drew the line just as a backdrop for this new Senate bill in Florida. You know, Twitter drew the line on inciting violence and also continuing to promote conspiracy theories to invalidate the validity of a presidential election. But DeSantis has decided he's going to curry favor with Trump that he needs the Trump vote, whatever that is. I don't know why you'd want to stand in the shoes of Trump and

think that's a good thing. The man lost by seven million votes, but the Republicans are lining up to be the next Trump. So Senate bill Florida Senate bill 7072 will impose heavy fines if you're running for statewide office and one of the social media platforms bans you, they're going to pay a fine apparently in Florida of $100,000 a day. And if you're running for local office and you do something crazy and the you know, Twitter's of the world ban you, you're going to pay the Twitter's going to pay $10,000 a day. But look, I think there's a fundamental issue that needs to be challenged. Whether a state can regulate in the area of interstate commerce, which is what the internet operates in, in a way that imposes this type of punishment for what they consider to be bad behavior.

It's one thing for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule as they have that states have the right in interstate commerce to impose sales tax for internet sales. Like if an internet sales happens in the state of Florida, they're entitled to tax. That's one thing. But when you're talking about when you're talking about this type of regulation, I think it runs a foul ultimately at the interstate commerce clause. And more importantly, I think it'll invite a democratic controlled house and Senate at the federal level to pass a law that overrides what the Santa's just did. We're going to talk a lot on this podcast about crazy laws being passed by states that are either unconstitutional at the federal level.

It will be ultimately thrown out and have just been done to pander to some electorate. Or the federal government will pass a law to override it because they have the power to preempt certain state law that deals with interstate commerce. Yeah, and the one thing I want to say there is, I think the distinction that you made is that we're going to be talking about a number of crazy state actions by GQP state legislatures that still have power in those states and how they run a foul to our constitution. And so one of the things, I mean, just look at the bill

sponsor of this crazy GQP bill. I mean, look, the real sponsor is governor death Santos. So the bill sponsors here are kind of phony figureheads that are just doing his bid. All bad sponsors. Exactly. But the bill sponsor Ray Rodriguez. I mean, these people are D.U. motherfucking B. They are dumb as shit. These people like they just, that's what bugs me about the GQP. They're just intellectually fucking moron setting aside even and don't hold back on your opinions. Tell them what you feel.

I'm unleashed today because this stuff I just read and I'm like you are just so dumb. And so this guy Ray Rodriguez, this is what he said, he goes, quote, big tech is not a free market. He goes when the battle is between a monopoly on one side and parking Americans on the other. The right side of history has always been on the side of the people. Yeah, I'm thinking about that construction worker with the Twitter following who's being banned on Twitter. That's, that's the hard word.

I'm thinking of that oil rig worker who goes back and starts to tweet, right? No, you stoop it. This bill is meant to protect Donald fucking Trump and all of the GQP who are being banned because they're inciting an insurrection. And guess what? Big tech is a free market. That actually, one of the complaints that you may have is that it takes free market to its logical conclusion that leads to problems. As you see when a company gets so powerful, a lot of the Microsofts and the Amazon's of the world, but it is the it is the epitome of a free market, what tech has been able to become. And the opposite of a free market is the government and legislatures saying what companies can and can't do in these types of situations.

And that's why you have another Republican, though, who has common sense here, a guy named Senator Jeff Brandis, probably butchering his name, but he joined with Democrats in voting against the bill. And he said, this is an unconstitutional measure that is a big government bill. Oh, that's what it is. And this is what he says. This is what his quote is. Remember, we're talking about a Florida bill. This is a bill you would see in countries that we don't want to talk about. Some that are 90 miles south of here and some that are a little further south. Brandeis said, alluding in part to Cuba. I think the article that I'm reading from Newer talking about Cuba But I guess if you're a

Well, look, uh, uh, you know, you're making a good point The that's why I agree with you when you say For our listeners, they're not conservatives. Because if they were true conservatives, this bill would never see the light of day. This is big government, this is the exact big government and big brother that the Republicans always complain about when anything like it is in a democratic bill. The part that they're missing

and that I wanna make clear for those that follow us is this is not a first amendment issue. Twitter is not a government entity. If Twitter wants to throw you off for violating its terms of service, it is basically a private organization that you don't have a right, a constitutional right to use.

It's a privilege that can be revoked for bad behavior. And that's exactly what's happened. And to have a government step in and say, you private entity have to be in business and have to take on customers that you don't choose to take on because of their whatever reason. That is the opposite of free market. It's the, it's, it's, as you said, it's the antithesis of our capitalist system that the Republicans are always extolling the virtue of. Oh, poor GQP.

You didn't get your insurrection that you wanted. You wanted to overthrow and topple the government. And now you want to use state governments because you lost at the national election. And you couldn't actually do a coup of our government to start passing what will be patently unconstitutional laws when these are challenged at the federal level and go in federal court, because they do run a foul to every principle of interstate commerce because these Republican governors,

GQP governors left to their own devices what they really want, what they really see themselves as in their idealization of Donald Trump. They love, they want to be Hugo Chavez, they love Putin. That's what they want. really see themselves as in their idealization of Donald Trump. They love, they want to be Hugo Shabas, they love Putin. That's what they want. They hate our democracy.

They hate our ability to be a great country. They hate America. There is a fascination, a sick fascination, and Trump was the embodiment of it for dictators. And in countries like Venezuela and Cuba and Russia and China, I mean, Trump was heard to say, not just one occasion, that he admired and felt bad that he didn't have all the powers that a dictator has. He never understood the checks and balances of three co-equal branches of government anyway. But for a US, it's said to chill down, my spine, your spine, your brother's spines, to hear a United States president long for dictatorship. I mean, it was, I mean, that end calling the press the enemy of the people,

which is right out of dictators playbooks. I mean, he should have been impeached, he should have been removed under the 25th amendment. One thing we're gonna talk about, but we don't have time today is what happened with the census and the new redistricting of and Jerry Mandering that's gonna go on and led by Republican

state houses who have that power to basically disenfranchise Democrats, that's going to happen with the change in seats away from New York and Pennsylvania and Ohio and towards Texas, California lost the seat too. compensa vei in oio and towards texas uh california lost to c to and towards texas and other places that people think may be republican driven. We can't about it today. We will talk episode. But what can you do

you who are listening to this? You need to do something. One, I appreciate you for listening to this podcast. That's definitely something. Keep on listening to legal a F, which may renamed Legal WTF, the way we're going, but probably stay Legal AF, but you have the ability to go and do what me and my brothers and Popo do, which is just get out there and speak. Go out there with passion, go out there and fight the disinfo, you can do it. Let's talk about

another ridiculous offensive racist hateful. I'm just looking at this man on my computer screen right Oklahoma governor, Kevin Stitt. What a perfect name for him. Yeah, that's so close to fucking Kevin Stit you fucking Kevin Stit like I have a feeling I know what you're going to be trending off this broadcast. I just think that this this Kevin Kevin I call him Kevin Stitty. Can I call him that? Yeah, you're steady. Yeah, Kevin, I'm looking at him right now on my laptop. I want to punch my brand new laptop that I see Kevin stood on because Oklahoma just passed a law protecting drivers who run over protesters.

Break it down for us, Popeye. Well, we're going to talk about two things back to back in Oklahoma, who has, as you and I talked about before, we started podcasting. They have a bizarre approach to human life. If you're an adult and you're protesting, and part of your protest takes you into the street, which often does, in traffic, you would think that that wouldn't lead to your being protected by the state and making sure that drivers don't run you over. We saw a terrible video and a terrible occurrence at West Virginia during, you know, two years

ago, three years ago, during the protests there, where, you know, the proud boys and others literally backed over on purpose of paralegal and killed her during protests. If that happened in Oklahoma, the person who did that may hits a protester, maming, injuring, or killing them, they will not be prosecuted as long as, and this is from Stits Law, they have a reasonable fear that something is going to happen to them. And they need to get away from the protest. So if they're surrounded because they've driven into a protest and they squeal away with their tires and they hit and kill a protester, in Oklahoma, they're going to have immunity for prosecution, almost like a good Samaritan law, totally crazy.

This went when stit. Yeah. And Oklahoma, you have the right now under this law. If you see a protest that you claim basically, you're fearful to run over people in the crowd and say, look, I was just trying to flee the protests. Not only that bill that was passed last week, 38 to 10 Republican sponsored legislature, the bill also makes it a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine for anyone who obstructs a public street during the course of the protest based on the

legislation. So not only do they protect the riot from running you down, but it now basically criminalizes a your first amendment right to protest. And this is what Stiti said. He said, we are sending a message today in Oklahoma that rioters who threaten law-abiding citizens safety will not be tolerated. I remain unequivocally committed to protecting every Oklahoma and first amendment right to peacefully protest as well as their right to feel safe in their community. Right. So stop.

Right. Just to complete non sequiner. Stop. Stop right there. You just had you just have to nail on the head with the quote. There is a constitutional right to the first amendment. There is no constitutional right to quote unquote feel safe. So he this is this is not even on this on the scales of justice. These things don't even

come close to balancing. And to your point, so just to put a to bring this to its logical conclusion, a legitimate first amendment protester who takes the protest into the street can not only be hit with impunity by a car in Oklahoma, but while he's on the ground, he can also be arrested for a misdemeanor. No, that's so that that's crazy. And look, at the end of the day, you know, I hear about, you know, we talk about protests and protests around sports and, you know, are you comfortable with the protest during sports? Are you comfortable with a protest in your city? Look, the very purpose

of a protest is not to make you feel comfortable. The very essence of a protest is to make you uncomfortable. That's what the protest is. And protest take different forms. It's to raise awareness over issues that you're protesting in a way that that that makes noise that pushes you out of your comfort zone. So that action is taken and we as the peacefully protesting. And at the end of the day, even if a peaceful protest escalates very frequently because the police are there beating the shit out of peaceful protesters, which is why it's escalating, even if it does escalate slightly to something a little bit more than a peaceful protest. That doesn't give you the right to play judge, jury, and executioner and go out there and start murdering people and taking away their lives and killing them because you feel uncomfortable.

So this right here is entirely, in my view, unconstitutional. It should be struck down. But again, the message that's being sent, when he says, we are sending a message, we are sending a message today in Oklahoma that you can kill protesters, specifically black and brown protesters fighting against systemic oppression

in the United States of America. Kill them, the state of Oklahoma will protect you. That is what the message that they are actually sending. I would, I would hope that even this scotus, even this Supreme Court, with arguably a six to three Republican majority, would find that law to be an improper barrier to the free exercise of First Amendment rights, and which strike it down. Certainly, it's going to come up. We talked a couple of episodes ago about we're in the middle of Supreme Court season. It won't be this term, but maybe in the next term,

someone will challenge. We know they will. The ACLU or someone just like them will challenge this law and bring it up through the court system and put it right on the feet of the Supreme Court to make a decision. And you would I'll be talking about what we think should happen then. And we've got not only that bill, the right to kill protesters bill, but then Stiti signed a spate of anti abortion legislations this week as well, basically making it impossible to have an abortion in the state. Can you go into that, Popeye?

Yeah, just a segue. So if you're a live person, an adult has less protections in the state of Oklahoma than does a pre-viable fetus. And that's shocking. Basically, the religious rights taken over Oklahoma, which is also a violation of church and state. So in Oklahoma, they, this governor, or the legislature and the governor signed a bill into law that in two ways, and the governor signed a bill into law that in two ways, basically outlaws abortion in the state of Oklahoma. We could get into the fine points where under very limited circumstances, it's going to be allowed.

But for all intents and purposes, it's banned in Oklahoma in violation of the US Constitution and precedent at the Supreme Court level that we're going to talk about next. And how does it do it? It does it in two ways. One, there's now along the books at Oklahoma that a doctor's medical license will be revoked. If he performs an abortion, at all,

unless it's to save the mother's life or some vague concept of preserves, quote unquote, bodily functions, whatever that means, can tell this was not created by doctors and scientists. And then secondly, and created by dumb shit men. Well, right. And you're right about the man part for sure. And then secondly, it uses this concept of the fetal heartbeat, FETAL heartbeat, which is not even a medically accepted term for viability of a fetus, which usually occurs at about the six week mark to say, if there is a fetal heartbeat, not only do you have to let the mother hear it, it requires them to have the

mother hear the fetal heartbeat because she should be shamed if they're not having the abortion, which is her constitutional right under the US Constitution, depending upon, you know, the term of the abortion, when the abortion would happen. But they use the fetal heartbeat to say, if there's a fetal heartbeat, it bans all abortions. So again, you can cut this anyway that you want. There will be no abortions in the state of Oklahoma until the US Supreme Court rules. Now, the sponsor, this is the scary part. And you're right to read sponsor's comments

because you see the thinking. And frankly, it'll be part of the record on the record that goes up to the Supreme Court. Todd Ross, this genius in Oklahoma, he had this to say about the prevailing United States Supreme Court precedent that's embodied in two cases that we're going to talk about. Roe v. Wade, which everybody talks about, and Casey versus Planned Parenthood. They were 19 years apart, and they set the right of a woman to have an abortion under most circumstances without

undue burden or limitation. Todd Ross said that those were not the law of the land in Todd Ross world. They were just opinions from many, many years ago that don't have to be respected. And then of course, as everyone does in this crazy world, they operate in, they say, and it's just bad law, like when the Supreme Court said that slavery was okay,

or that segregation was okay. They love comparing abortion law to old and ancient Supreme Court decisions at one time that found that slavery was okay under that society's morays. The problem is, he's just dead, effin' wrong. It's not a quote, unquote opinion, unless you, he's right one sense. It's a Supreme Court opinion. That's what we call it, but it is the law of the land.

And until the Supreme Court says otherwise, Oklahoma, along with the other 49 states, have to follow it. So the two decisions, you want to frame them for us? You want to talk about Roe v. Wade and Kasey? Yes, I think you hit him fine. For the purposes of our audience, it makes it legal. I mean, it gives the right to a woman to have the choice, which I think is how this should be framed. It should not be, and creates, it finds that in the Constitution, the Constitution creates these rights

for a woman in her body to make these decisions. Now, what to me was most important about those decisions, whether or not said expressly, but the message is that people like Todd Ross, men from fucking Oklahoma whose political campaign, I just googled it, was Todd Russ. He's one of us, which is an obvious message is there is as clear. Yes, you's one of us, which is an obvious, which messages there is clear. Yes, you're one of us. You are a white man, Todd Russ,

and you should not be making the decisions over a woman's body as a white man. Go fuck yourself. And secondly, these GQP are all about cosplay at the end of the day. They're all, it's all fake about cosplay at the end of the day. They're all, it's all fake with them at the end of the day. I mean, these are the same people though, who tend to secretly, when it comes to their family members,

actually want the very things that they claim to be against. They are the ones in private who do the things that they publicly claim that they are against. They're the ones who make everybody's life miserable because they are fucking miserable people in their own heart. And so they go out and do fucking bullshit like this. And that's what pisses me off most about them generically. Because you know, they don't believe most of the shit that they say, but they play this fantasy land with also other believers who believe in this fantasy land. And guess what? More times than not, the problem is, is that they're often louder, you know, the then then progressives than Democrats have been. And sometimes you yell, you scream,

if you look at other countries, you know, it's the same way. Sometimes you can have a country like an Iraq or a place like this, which is often ruled sometimes by a smaller percentage of the population, because sometimes they're louder. And so and and here, that's basically what the GQP wants to do. They want to be a white minority fringe party that takes away everybody else's rights in America. Yeah, just to round out this one before we move on to the next one, when the KC decision in 1992 was passed, which reaffirmed Roe v Wade, it was a very interesting coalition of Supreme Court justices that banded together

to write what effectively was the plurality decision. They never got a total majority decision, but they had enough votes on enough aspects of the decision that they were able to establish new law consistent with Roe v. Wade. But that group that got together, which was led by Justice Souter, along with Sandra Day O'Connor,

which no longer exists. This center doesn't hold anymore at the US Supreme Court. We are so far over on the six to three Republican side that the fear is that there is no longer a suitor, a Kennedy and a, a Sandra Day O'Connor, to bring together this decision that would be in favor of the woman's right to choose, they wrote then,

I'm just going to leave it on this, they wrote in their plurality decision. Basically questioning why only 19 years after Roe v Wade, they were asked to decide the decision again. Understanding that every time a Republican president gets in office and picks the solicitor general and who advocates for the United States, every time they argue for the overturn of Roe v Wade, just so our listeners are ready. And that Trump's solicitor general did it, Reagan's solicitor general did it, every solicitor general does it.

But what the polarity polarity said in the Casey decision, and I'll quote from it, every solicitor general does it. But what the polarity, polarality said in the KC decision, and I'll quote from it, is that liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt, meaning the Supreme Court should not be re-evaluating their decisions on a regular basis because that just undermines freedom and jurisprudence. And we're going to see it again with how many times this term already starry decisis, which is the concept of precedent to be followed by the Supreme Court and therefore by the U.S. citizens is being overturned and thrown away by the Republican members of the US Supreme Court.

Totally. It's being overthrown specifically because the arc of history has moved in the direction of progress, of equality, of women's rights, of LGBTQT plus rights of becoming a more equal and open society. And they hate that. And they hate that. So when that happens, all this bullshit talk about precedent and, you know, the law evolving in the right direction, no, that's not what they want. They want to figure out a way to overturn all of that. And when they say they want to make America great, they want to make America hate, they want to make America in their own mind, a white supremacist country. And so for all of those

people who sat on the sidelines, they didn't vote for Hillary Clinton, you know, in those states and let Trump become president, you know, these types of laws, the Constitution of the Supreme Court now, being tilted heavily GQP members, that's, you know, that's the consequence. These elections have consequences, you know, that's why, you know, minus touches created. That's why Polpok and I, you know, are doing this. That's why you need to, you know, you listening, need to get up and and and take action. I told them, yeah, good. I just one last thing. I told people at the time who who held their nose and said, I can't vote for Hillary. And they were Democrats and independence that lean Democrat. And I said, I don't care that you don't like Hillary Clinton personally.

Think about the United States Supreme Court. I mean, that was literally my comeback. Every time I had somebody tell me, I hate both candidates that I don't like Hillary. I said, I don't care. I care about the U.S. Supreme Court, so should you. We're going to talk in a bit of another Supreme Court case in there, ignoring of Stereo Decisus. But first, I want to talk about myself and Popok for a second. You listen to us on the podcast. Yes, Michael Popok and I are practicing lawyers when we're not doing this podcast. Our day jobs allow us to do this podcast and bring it to you every single week.

And so the laws that we practice are everything from big kind of catastrophic personal injury cases to breach of contract cases, to people who are in business disputes. Oftentimes, we have cases with people who are founders of companies who deserve, their stock and deserve their shares who are deprived of it, often in these large transactions. We represent victims of sexual harassment and sexual abuse. We've represented everyone from people who are sadly and sickly molested as miners through the Catholic Church and schools at the workplace. That's the bread and butter, all those cases of what myself and PoPo do.

If you have a case, if you want us to evaluate whether you or a friend have a case, do not hesitate to reach out to us. We have law firms that will get in touch with you that will evaluate your case for free and tell you if you have a case and that all takes place for free. And so if you'd like to reach out to one of us, I will give you my email address. Popak will give you his my email address on the law firm side of what I do is Ben at garragos.com that's B-E-N- at G-E-R-A-G-O-S.com that's Ben at garragos.com and I'll pass it over to Popeye. Thanks Ben. Yeah, we you and I have overlapping practices. Literally we we're co-counsel in a number of very high profile national cases currently and in the past. And then additionally, as you know, I spend a fair amount of time as in-house counsel for a large global financial services company running all of their

litigation and employment-related matters. And so I do a fair amount of employment-related high-end employment-related matters on the plaintiffiff side, some on the management side, but mainly on the plaintiff side. And then anything that's commercial in nature, any kind of dispute, my competitive advantage, I think, and that you and I take advantage of when we're trying cases together, is that I've tried 30 cases in my career, which is a lot for a trial lawyer. I feel that's what you and I bring to the table when we're evaluating cases is that level of experience. I've been in front of judges, I've been in front of churries.

I have a very good sense of how they operate and how they decide matters. And I'm able to promote my client's position in a way that's effective. So for me, my contact information is my law firm, which is M Popak POPOK at z for zebra P for Peter law.com and popak at zp law.com you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. in a 6-3 ruling that took place. The basic history here is that in 2012, okay, the Supreme Court ruled in a case called Miller versus Alabama, that mandatory life sentences without parole for minors are unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The opinion said that juvenile offenses reflect transient immaturity because the children's brains are less developed and someone who commits a crime at 14 or 15 should not be having a life sentence based on the transient immaturity of their brain and this being deemed

cruel and unusual punishment. There was then a later case kind of further cementing the Miller versus Alabama ruling in 2016. A case called Montgomery versus Louisiana, which held that the Miller ruling that 2012 case could be applied retroactively. And so the application of that case saying that you can apply this Miller ruling that life sentence without parole is unconstitutional retroactively is what prompted the Jones case involving case, involving a young individual who committed a crime, who committed a murder, when they were under the age of 18, and tell us what happened, Popeyes, from there. Yeah, and for our listeners, there's a pattern here. The case we're going to talk about is Jones versus Mississippi, and the two prior precedents that we're saying that Kavanaugh has run away from is Alabama and

Louisiana. I think you'll catch my drift here. These are where these cases are coming from because these are where at the state court level some really bad and constitutional things happen on a regular basis. So it's no surprise. So you know, Justice Sotomayor took Kavanaugh who wrote the majority opinion that just got released on April 22nd in Jones versus Mississippi to task. how dare you and shame on you. You have totally destroyed the underlying foundation and bedrock of the Supreme Court, which is the reliance on precedent and the comfort that comes in a constitutional democracy from being able to rely on the stability of our jurisprudence. It's, it's based on this concept that Ben and I have used throughout the

podcast of starry decisis, which is Latin for we're going to rely on precedent. And we're not going to change the precedent unless there is a major overriding reason to do it. She even says in her, in her dissent, where she chastises Kavanaugh and says, and I'll quote her, how low is this courts regard for stary decisis and how low it has sunk, which is supposed to be the pillar of the rule of law. And you, you, and she said, look, you didn't even, you're supposed to give a special reason why you're going to, you're going to depart from starry decisis and precedent, which in this case is the Miller versus Alabama decision,

which said, eighth amendment, cruel and unusual punishment for sending a minor off for life under that circumstance. And it wasn't even a case that was like from the 1800s or like the 1950s, like, was a case from like nine years ago. Right. That just very clearly said in a well-reasoned opinion that these mandatory life sentences

without parole for minors are constant. Right. And then four years later in 2016, which is only five years ago, that court in Montgomery versus Louisiana said, we affirm the ruling in Miller versus Alabama. We like that. That's right. We like it.

We like it so much that we're going to allow people to retroactively apply it to their case and come back before us. So your listeners are probably asking, so what happened between 2012 and 2016 and 2021? What's the big difference that the Supreme Court, the current composition of the Supreme Court, is citing in their six to three decision to overturn a most recent precedent? What is it? Nothing. It's the new judges, justices that have been appointed by Trump. It's Gorsuch. It's Cody Barrett and it's and it's Kavanaugh who wrote the majority opinion and what so to my or so eloquently said is You don't even try to give lip service to the fact that you're overturning starry decisis by giving a special reason

You just overturn it. And woe is us as a constitutional democracy with a Supreme Court that has run a mock, a Supreme Court that is led by so-called conservatives who are always heard to clock that judicial activism shouldn't override the will of the people in law, except when they want it to. And that's what happened in Jones versus Mississippi.

It's a bad ruling in general to apply mandatory life sentences to minors, oftentimes to children. I think that it's a bad ruling for that basis. But the idea that, and this is to me what this opens up, that this Supreme Court's just sending a message, go fuck yourself, precedent, go fuck yourself. We're just going to do whatever we want to do, okay? And so all these cases coming here, we don't care what you said before, okay?

It doesn't matter. And by the way, you think we should give a reason? No, fuck you, we're not gonna give you a reason. We're just gonna do another message. That's the message they're sending. And it's another message, a related message. It's an invitation by the US Supreme Court to bring before them cases where they can change the law

from the more moderate or liberal Supreme Court panels of the past. Bring them to us, they're change the law from the more more moderate or liberal Supreme Court panels of the past. Bring them to us. They're blowing the dog whistle. It's not even a dog whistle because we can all hear it. Telling the QDP, bring your cases. We will give you the results that you're looking for. That's not how the Supreme Court is supposed to operate.

So shifting for a second from the Supreme Court is supposed to operate? So shifting for a second from the Supreme Court destroying precedent to Arizona Republicans destroying every single shred of credibility that they have every single day so that they literally are just a walking, talking GQP convention at that legislature level. The Arizona Republicans, we've heard a lot about there's this audit, there what's this audit taking place in Arizona, okay?

It is a fake made up, they call it an audit, but at where these Republicans in Arizona legislature hired a company called get this cyber ninjas. Okay. From Florida. I literally almost spit my coffee. I wasn't ready for that. Go ahead. Cyber ninjas. They're literally called cyber ninjas. They're from your hometown of Florida. Oh, we're back to Opoch and Florida again. Yeah, I just want to let everybody know I'm in New York today, but go ahead. Okay, they're from your hometown of Florida and they have no experience whatsoever in doing anything related to elections. But what they do have is a CEO who fucking retweets QAnon craziness, basically saying that Trump had the election stolen from him and and rehashes all the

crazy conspiracies. So the Arizona legislature subpoenaed the votes from Maricopa County, approximately 2.1 million votes delivered it to this group Cyber Ninjas, who's basically Cyber ninjas was basically sole reason for existence is to claim that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. They go in this stadium or convention center. They don't even have the right tools to even know what they're doing. They don't have the right colors of their pens. They don't have anything, you know, accurately, but they have no experience in this area. And so litigation around this has ensued. But this is incredibly damaging to our democracy, of course.

So we highlighted this situation in the minus touch podcast. But let's talk about it from a legal angle. Shall we? We shall. Thank you. One week's podcast we talked about a financial dominant atrix is now we're gonna go back to your term cosplay because this is cosplay.

There, as you said at the start of this segment, this, whatever it is they're doing, okay? This made up bullshit review of the audit of the votes made up bullshit review of the audit of the votes by this partisan group brought in by the Republican Arizona senators, state senators, because that's what that's what happened here. We'll have zero impact at all on the presidential election, properly certified by the, by Congress, Biden will be president. He was president before they started this, this weirdo count, he'll be president after it's over,

but what, and in fact, a shout out to one of the Midas, mighty, might as stacey, who I think is an original, he was an OG here. She got into a Twitter set of comments that somebody forded to her a lawyer for cyber ninjas actually said, don't worry, we're not doing this as it relates to the 2020 election. All right, so you're going in there.

You're being given actual ballots of voters. They're being turned over to this unqualified amateur organization that has never in its history done an audit of an election ever. You're being given these sacred ballots to look at. You're going in there with blue pens, why do blue pens matter? Because blue pens can actually be used at the time to create new ballots. You're supposed to have this be an invalid process to make sure the ballot, the ballots are being properly counted and you're going in with materials that can create

new ballots. But having said all of that, they then come out and say, we know we're not doing this anything to do with the 2020 election. This is to sort of validate somehow if they find out that Trump actually won, which no way in hell will an accurate hand count of Maricopa County result in 20,000 fraudulent ballots being located to put Trump over the top in Arizona. No way, no how, if they find it, it's fraud. The whole audit process is fraud, but they're saying, no, we're not doing it for the 2020 election. We're doing it so that the Arizona Republicans can run around and say, we were right.

And then past laws that lead to voter suppression, Allah, Florida, and Allah, Georgia, which is also, that's run amok. So what did the Democrats of the Arizona State House do? They ran the court and they asked the judge to put a stop to this whole thing to declare that the audit is invalid. It's not allowed. Look, the Republicans can get by their subpoena power anything they want. They want to see the ballots fine. But to bring in cyber ninja, which was created like, I don't know, a week ago Tuesday in order to promote QAnon theories and, and it's founder, as you noted, has already said, we'll find 20,000 fraudulent votes before he even

started the process is a sham and shameful and a waste of taxpayer dollars in Arizona. So they said to the judge in the lawsuit that they filed, put a stop to it. And the judge actually said in an injunction hearing that he would. However, he also said, you're going to need to post a bond for the injunction that I'm going to issue. And the Democrat said, how much? And the judge said a million dollars. And the Democrat said, never mind.

So they didn't get the injunction. They got the injunction, but they didn't have, they didn't want to put up the million dollar bond. I don't know why injunction, they got the injunction, but they didn't have, they didn't want to put up the million dollar bond. I don't know why, frankly, they should have an Arizona listeners should go to their legislators and tell them raise the money, get the money, we'll send you the money, put up the bond, stop this charade. But look, at the end of the day, this is really just make believe. This is bullshit. So don't worry if you're in Arizona.

It's cost play. Don't worry if you're in Arizona. This will have no impact. A, they're not going to find fraud if it's done properly. B, even if they did, it doesn't change the election results at all. And Arizona should stop Arizona, the home state of Senator McCain and city McCain should stop wasting taxpayers dollars and censoring Republican members that they think didn't support the QAnon

conspiracy theory about Trump. A, it's a conspiracy theory that has no merit and no fact. And B, F and move on. Okay. The Q and on theories, none of them turned out to be true. I'm sorry that might as touch had to tell you and the other people had to tell you that you fell in love with a cult that has no substance, but that's what happened. Come back to try to earth. Pope, I'm going to give you a scenario here right now. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are.

I'll give you a few different versions. You go on a date with somebody and it turns out that they believe the election was stolen in favor of Trump. Data over. Data over. Data over. Okay.

You meet somebody who's, you know, as, you know, as a friend and they start to tell you about that they support, you know, start the steal. Do you ever hang out with that person again? No. Do you try to convince them first, though, that they're wrong or you think it's not even worth a while? Look, I've always said that. first though, that they're wrong or you think it's not even worth a while. Look, I've always said that I've always said in my life that I live my politics more than my religion. So I've had relationships with people, including a present of different religions.

I'm okay with that. I'm not okay, frankly, to be people know my politics, I'm not okay with people who are of, I'm okay if they're of the other party and they're legitimately not queuing on, but they're, you know, even Reagan Republicans, even Bush Republicans, you know, if there's a coherent thought in their head, if they have a valid reason for doing it, I'm fine with that debate. But don't bring me what is effectively a cult, no different than the cults that led to

Jonestown or led to mass suicide. You know, that's the next thing. I'm waiting for, I'm really waiting. I don't want it to happen. But I'm really waiting for someone in the Q and on world who's considered to be a leader. Q, I guess, saying, okay, everybody, if the spaceship doesn't land in time square tomorrow

as planned, drink the cool aid, we're checking out. Watch, because the people that are following this seem to have minds, what do we say before about the youth who's have minds that are improperly formed or not yet formed? This transient maturity. Transient maturity is the hallmark of the QAnon supporter. There's no, yeah, there's absolutely no doubt about that. Especially these people who at this point still parrot the conspiracy theories, you know, over and over and over. My hope is that through our work at Midas Touch, through us communicating differently, whether it's through this podcast or through

the way we make videos that, and I think we are having an impact on a lot of people. It just depends when the intervention is made, and then providing those sometimes, these conspiracy theorists with a soft landing to get out of the cult because they are in a relationship with a financial dominatrix going back and taking it full circle. The GQP, the QAnon leaders, are the financial dominatrix utilizing GQP cosplay basically to loot from their own people, tying all of the concepts together.

That's actually what's going on. You look at some of these GQP conventions that Lynn Wood, Cindy look at some of these GQP conventions that Linwood, Sydney Powell are speaking at. There's a reason that there are green Lamborghinis in front of these buildings. One, to probably signify that it's a fucking Martian in these conventions. As, oh, who was it? Great Democratic political strategist basically says, it pays to be crazy in the GQP. And these conventions, these GQP members are paying

at the $1,000 for tickets, then extra money to go into the VIP to see people like Lynn would do that with his fingers and do the and do the Q movement and say that Q's a patriot. You know, these are horrible, horrible, you know, views and and that's why we don't need to be a little bit loud on our side. We need to get up. We need to talk about these cases like that. Democrats didn't do that in the past. And this is what we've got because we sat back. There's more of us than there are crazies. But the crazies sometimes are crazy loud. And we got

to be loud as well. It's like Howard Beale in the old movie network, you know, where he just tells his listeners, go to your window, open your windows, go on your terraces, go outside and scream, where Matt is hell, and we're not gonna take it anymore. And that's what the Democrats and the, and the our followers and listeners and Midas Touch need to do. You have to get, you have to get angry, not violent,

but you have to get, you have to get angry. And just as a plug, I may have, this might have been a daydream, but didn't I see that Midas Touch has formed some sort of advocacy group that you also want your listeners to know about and support? Or did I, or did I, did I make that up? I think it's called Midas Touch, but I think the group is might as touch, but yeah, one of the things that we're doing though, it's really important and it's an important effort to support and if you have students of college age, of high school, we have might as touch university chapters across the country. And so if you have a family member who's in college, I think they want to start a chapter,

or goes to school, have them reach out to us as well, have them DM, Midas Touch. Amy Coney Barrett, we talked about this case last week. Amy Coney Barrett, who receives a lot of dark money who received millions of dollars nor sell for her confirmation by the Koch brothers. Refused to recuse herself in a Koch brother funded effort. I think it's only one Koch. One of the brothers passed away. But one of the living coke brothers effort to basically use civil rights statutes that prevented the disclosure of donors in certain circumstances so they would not be killed by the KKK to basically recreate the system to allow dark money donors to not

disclose their identity when they make contributions to super PACs and other groups by citing a Lusory and fake fear of ISIS and other groups is basically the logical conclusion of their case. Coney Barrett refused to hear it and I think that you're going to have a six three ruling in that case that's going to go a step further in this one case that they're looking at in California. But that will, I think, go where I'm saying it's going to go to basically allow large donors not to disclose their identity in super PACs in other organizations. I think it's going to take citizens united and add rocket fuel to citizens united and allow that to you know, allow that to occur in the worst way and we talked about a last podcast, but maybe want to talk briefly about her.

Yeah, just to tie it together for continuity sake, we talked last week about the Americans for prosperity case and how it was going as Ben outlined it. If it married the concept of unlimited corporate funds in elections as a First Amendment right of corporations. If it married that, which is the Citizens United decision, with a new decision in this Americans for prosperity case that was just heard this week That would allow all of that dark pool of money that's coming from corporations to be to be given anonymously I mean look at that Harscape that's created with anonymous money coming in at with with basically a fire hose anonymous money coming in with basically a fire hose into our election process, including potentially foreign money that is by law not supposed to be infiltrating our US election process, which normally Republicans who always led the charge against the red menace and

Soviet Union and Russia have seemed to abdicated that role in American society. And now foreign money is fine, dictator, foreign dictators are fine, everything is fine. I mean, I don't recognize this Republican party at all. And I think a lot of Republicans don't either. But in this case, we talked last week and I said, Coney Barrett would likely be in the majority on the case and look for her vote. But the issue that Ben has raised is why didn't she disqualify or what we call recuse herself from hearing the case and your listeners might be saying, well, why should she?

Well, why should she is the very same group, the Americans for prosperity contributed a million dollars of an ad buy and media buy in order to secure her confirmation. So when you were sitting at home and saw all sorts of things on social media and all sorts of things on your local television station, a supporting Cody Barrett, that was primarily bought by the very organization that is now sitting in front of her to have a decision made in their favor. And there is actually back to this concept of story, decisus, and precedent. There is a recent Supreme Court precedent in which a West Virginia Supreme Court justice, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled should have accused themselves because the oil

should have recused themselves because the oil executive in front of him had donated $3 million towards his reelection campaign, spookily, eerily similar facts, but Cody Barrett so far has not found a case that she's willing to recuse herself or should recuse herself for. We, I think on our first broadcast or even back before we even launch legal AF, Ben and I talked about a case in which the petroleum industry came in front of Coney Barrett and she refused to recuse herself despite the fact that her father was a long time successful lobbyist for the very petroleum industry that she was asked to pass rulings about. So she's not going to accuse herself. The other optical problem with Cody Barrett right now that people are kind of shaking their

head over is she just signed a $2 million book deal in which she's going to write a book about how personal feelings should not enter into a decision making by judges. It's not that. She's only been on the bench for like 20 minutes. She was only a federal judge for like a year before that. So where does she get off taking a $2 million advance on a book? It's again a conservative imprint,

I think of Random House. You know, again, she's like a poster child, a sex symbol for the Republican QTP party, and she's just benefiting while in office, you know, presidents at least wait till they get out of office before they sign lucrative book deals, even Trump didn't sign a lucrative book deal while he was in office. And so why should a lifetime appointee Supreme Court Justice get $2 million in her back pocket? It looks bad, it stinks. And so far, everything that I worried about in having Cody Barrett be nominated and confirmed

has come to fruition in the very first term where she's being asked to consider cases. Okay, first off to the everything with the GQP their whole essence is let's troll Democrats. Let's pick someone. So let's pick someone in Amy Barrett. First off, she was never called a CB or Amy Coney Barrett, right? It's because she was replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg that they basically say, let's use a CB and basically make that Amy Coney Barrett replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And then they did like,

yeah, the notorious a CB. That's one of the things that they were pushing. And also, I mean, like she was a law professor, Amy Coney Barrett, who expressed a lot of crazy fucking views as a Notre Dame law professor who was elevated to the bench for it, like literally a minute and then became basically a supreme court. Including about abortion and abortion rights. That's why. Yeah, in law review articles. Right. So there you have it.

Elections have consequences. And so I have a question right now for the listener. Should we just end the show? You want me to end the show or do you want me listener? Not you. Fuck, I'm asking the listener. I know you want to do one more story. I know you're ready to go second amendment,

but I'm asking the listener right now. We're making this interactive. I but I'm asking the listener right now. We're making this interactive. I need to hear from the listener. Okay. They want to hear one more story. Popa. They want us to go over one more thing. So let's go from your home state of particularly Miami, Florida to newly adopted state of New York. You're denying what is the poster, what is the poster saying behind you, Popeye? Okay, I'll add, say it, I'll add.

It's the Miami Film Festival, however, however, just for the listeners, I was born and raised in our south of Manhattan, in a little town next to Asbury Park, New Jersey. I went to NYU undergrad and I practiced here. I'm a New Yorker. I went to Florida for 20 years to become a trial lawyer, but I've come back to my senses and back to New York. Okay. Now, that's a good segue into the Second Amendment. The about every 10 years, the Republicans try to run another case in front of the US Supreme Court to try

to enhance Second Amendment gun ownership rights. It happens about every 10 years, and we're in that cycle right now. So in a case brought by the New York State Rifle Association that's now gone up to the Supremes. They are going to consider whether the New York ban on concealed weapons without a permit. And then they have a very small narrow exception to allow people to carry weapons outside the home. You can do it if you can demonstrate a need for self-protection.

You're in an industry like you work at a liquor store. You work in a check cashing store. You're a banker. You've had other brushes with people trying to kill you, and you need to have a gun on you. That's the very narrow way in the state of New York. You can get a concealed weapons permit. In contrast to what Ben keeps calling my new adopted

state of Florida, there you go take a course, you sign a form, they barely do a background check and you walk out with a concealed weapons permit. Okay, New York is much different. It's one of eight states that have pretty severe restrictions on who can and cannot have a concealed weapons permit, a perfect case for the NRA and the Second Amendment advocates who wanna have the Supreme Court to clear once and for all that everybody can have a concealed weapons permit or an open carry permit, just put it on your hip, put a six shooter on your hip while you're walking around

times square in New York, why not? What could go wrong? Have you heard of any one of these shootings where, which a lot of them happen in these states that basically allow open carry of fucking tanks? Have you seen anyone where someone's basically a private citizen who's had it, has basically come in and saved the day.

Yeah, look, there have been recently a year ago, there wasn't a black church. Somebody pulled out and started to click off seven or eight parishioners. And, you know, somebody did pull out a gun and did take them down or at least delayed them enough so that when law enforcement arrived. So there are anecdotal cases. It's not with the Republicans' envision, which is a fully armed, benevolent, Christian population in a church or in a mall or a theater, you know, and the crazy pulls out the weapon and then they pull out the weapon and shoot back.

You know, it's not like those, you that, it's not that kind of event. It happens on occasion, the security guard who's able to get off a couple of shots, the parishioner who's got a gun, brings the church in their back pocket. But I definitely get the security guard example. And there's no one who's against the security guard. And I get the example of

somebody being allowed to have certain types of weapons. But in terms of the example that I'm giving is I've never seen somebody who has the, you know, the AR or the AK or whatever they want, you know, having it. And that actually deterring the underlying shooting ever. No, I agree. And the problem with this case is that we're back, you know, to our thumb, one of our themes for this podcast, this episode is that the Supreme Court has shown this current Supreme Court has shown a pension and a predilection for overturning recent Supreme Court precedent, which they never should do. You and I in law school both learned of the power

and the bedrock foundation of precedent at the Supreme Court level. You know, we spend months in constitutional law, a mandatory course in law school, learning about it. And to it is, it is headspinning to, to understand now that as that there's case law Supreme Court precedent from 2008 and 2010 that that they're revisiting the issue again. Look, they already said in 2010 that the second amendment and I mean, I disagree with it, but the, they already said in 2010 that the second amendment, and I mean, I disagree with it, but the Supreme Court already ruled in 2010 and 2008, that the second amendment is an individual right of the person. And they uncoupled it from the concept of a well-regulated militia. You and I have always taken the textual approach that the only reason we're allowed to have guns in America as a constitutional

right is because it's tied to our right to have a not a militia, not a bunch of rambos, you know, and vigilantes running the streets, but a well regulated militia. Well, unfortunately, our textual view lost in an owe- A- Two, I made up you and let's not read the fucking words. I mean, like, it's not going to say that. I mean, I'm not going to say that. I mean, I'm not going to say that. I mean,

I'm not going to say that. I mean, I'm not going to say that. I mean, I'm not going to say that. I mean, I'm not going to say that. I mean,

I'm not going to say that. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I someone goes, well, I wouldn't read that. Those words don't matter.

Well, what the fuck, what's the point of words? Why are you writing them? Why the frame? I haven't do words. Let's just talk in fucking sounds. So we'll do clicks. Next podcast, all clicks. So 2008 and 2010, Supreme Court says

that you cannot have a state cannot band handguns because it's an individual right to have a handgun, but left open the ability to properly regulate it. New York said, okay, we're going to properly regulate it. You got to get a permit and you have to have a justification for it. The New York Rifle Association in the NRA, which is very similarly named, has come out and said, well, you know, it should be a universal right. Why can I do it in Oklahoma? And I can't do it on the streets of New York. And of course, the advocates in New York have said, you know, judges, are you the fuck allowed? That's why. Secondly, that's also the case.

And secondly, judges, you know, judges, are you blind to the pandemic of gun violence and mass murderers that have happened year after year, including since the pandemic got lifted? The only good thing that came out of the pandemic is that we didn't have serial killing and mass killing and shooting with AK-47s. Let me tell you a law school story to round this episode out. So the lawyer in this case is Paul Clement. Paul Clement, when I went, he was a solicitor general under the Bush administration, meaning he was the main advocate in front of the Supreme Court hired by the Bush administration. When I went

to Georgetown Law School, Paul Clement taught a class that was like a small group class with someone named Viet Din. Viet Din was the author of the Patriot Act, which for those who don't remember was the act that Bush passed basically to infringe on everybody's liberties in the wake of individual liberties in the wake of 9-11. Viet Din wrote the Patriot Act and wrote a number of those Bush policies. I think including some of the ones on torture, but don't hold me to that. But he wrote a lot of the nasty Bush stuff.

So my course was with Paul Clement and Viet Din and about me and seven or eight other people. You would ask, why did I sign up for this class? Well, you're also talking to somebody who signed up for a class that was called medical malpractice for non-practicing physicians. And I thought that because I was a non-practicing physician, that the class was for me. Little did I know five classes and when all we were talking about was nursing and nursing malpractice. And I raised my hand and I said, why are we talking?

I mean, I'm interested in nurses, but the class is called medical malpractice when I'm I'm in a practicing position. They go, no, the class is on malpractice involving nurses. I go, oh, that would explain why everybody in the class are nurses. And I'm the only non-nursing this class. And so I spent a lot of my time in law school working for a law firm. In fact, the law firm where I work today and apparently very little time actually leading the descriptions of the cases. So about two classes in similar to my medical malpractice of non-practicing physician classes, I go, what the

fuck are we talking about in this class? I'm like, these people have the craziest views in the world. And I finally looked up like what this class was. And it was literally like a collection of people they were molding to be federalist society shit. If I stayed in that class, thank gosh, I got out of that class, but I'm sure if I look back at those people and I haven't looked back, never look back, never look back, a bad decision's

like that is my one advice to future law students. I bet you a lot of those people are probably unqualified judges right now, who are now appointed to like circuit courts, and I've been appointed to major decisions. So that's my Paul Clement story. That's my medical malpractice of non-practicing physician stories. But let me even take it full circle, not talking about financial dominatrixes or cosplays, talking about school. And I hope that you feel after listening to this one. Paul Popeyes and I may have gone 90 minutes. I've been moving left and right because I have to go to the restroom.

That's how long this podcast has gone. That's my fidgeting. Popeyes sees me look moving left and right. I'm not avoiding any flies. This podcast has to come to its natural end because nature itself and the laws of nature are calling. So I want to thank you out there for listening to might as touch legal AF podcasts. Some of you have argued might as touch legal AF and I'm not going to tell my brothers.

But many of you have said that might as touch legal AF is your favorite podcast. They've said it. I've seen it. I know you got to go. I literally I will I will not reveal who, but one of those people that may have said that may actually have the last name my Salis and not the first name Ben. Wow. Yeah, I'll leave you with that one. Thank you for listening to this edition to Midas Touch Legal AF, not to be confused with the sequel, Midas Touch WTF.

This has been my cellist and Michael Pocax. Stay safe, fight for the rights. Fight for your rights. I like that ending. Stay safe, fight for your rights. Have a good day.