Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Criminal Charges, Republican Maskholes, Cyber Ninjas and Racist Immigration Laws

Episode Date: August 22, 2021

The top-rated weekly law and politics podcast, LegalAF, produced by MeidasTouch and anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, is back for another hard-hitting, thought-provoking, yet entertaining look at this week’s most compelling developments at the intersection of law and politics.    Ben and Popok lead off with a detailed update of the pending and future state criminal charges led by the Manhattan DA against Trump, his company executives and cronies, including those who received last-minute federal pardons by then President Trump. Next, the Analysis Friends look at the Arizona appellate court decision to compel the Cyber Ninjas to disclose all their files as public records concerning the Maricopa County “fraud-it”.  Talking about bizarre election conduct, Ben and Popok shake their collective heads about Pillow Guy’s  latest misadventure of hiding from the FBI the Mesa County (Colorado) Clerk who is on the lam for having allegedly disclosed to Q the passcodes to election equipment.  Then, spanning the country on a whirlwind tour of this week’s legal developments about mandatory school mask litigation,  Ben and Michael explore litigation around the death-rattle of Republican governors’ executive orders banning school masks in Texas, Arizona, and Florida, and Biden’s likely response to it all, while reserving a special shout out to the Kentucky Democratic Governor and all around thinking person, Andy Beshear and his sensible school mask policy that was just invalidated by a federal judge (appointed by Jimmy Carter no less).  Ben and Popok conclude the episode with a close examination of this week’s 2 potentially game-changing immigration decisions: (1) a Nevada federal judge’s finding that a law on the federal books for more than 70 years making it a felony to reenter the country once deported, is both racist and unconstitutional under the 5th Amendment and (2) SCOTUS’ decision just today to decide on a fast-track whether Biden’s ending of Trump’s “stay in Mexico” while seeking asylum policy is legal.  Special Easter Egg: Popok makes Ben get up really early to record, and hijinks ensue.  Reminder and Programming Note:  All past episodes of Legal AF originally featured on the MeidsTouch podcast can now be found here.  Thank you for listening and remember to tell all your friends to subscribe to Legal AF by MeidasTouch! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, Midas, Mighty, and what's up, Popokians? You heard that, right? Popokians, it is a fad that is taking over the United States of America. People are naming their dogs and their cats after the man, the myth, the legend, the expert vacationer himself, Michael Popak, who joins me on Midas Touch Legal AF as my esteemed co-host every Sunday because if it's Sunday, it is legal AF, Michael Popak. What great adventures are you doing this weekend? Well, first of all, thank you for that intro.

We, I am, I am the proud apparently puppy daddy of a new puppy that one of our Midas mighty actually named popok, which I found remarkable. I think technically though, not to, you know, I don't like correcting you, but I think it would be Pope Poccheon because my last name is Pope Pocche, but listen, I'm thrilled either way. In terms of the weekend, I got bent up a little bit early this morning because I've got a schlep. That's a legal term to the farther hinterland of New Jersey with a truck to go pick pick pick up supply for a law firm office building that we're remodeling. And that's what Popoq also does on his weekend.

If it's Sunday, it is Popoqian and Teaking Day. Popoq doing a ton of incredible adventures. And Popoq will become, in my opinion, basically the gangus con of the pet world. And what I mean by that is I think if you trace the lineage of gangus con, his descendants have about one billion gangus con descendants. I think that's the same for Charlemagne. I think actually all these numbers are fairly made up. Now that I'm saying him out loud, but I've been told these things from various sources that I don't now put a great deal

of accuracy, but Popo will have his name live on in perpetuity in the names of tens and millions and billions of pets of dogs. The history of, well, you know, it can't be cats. No, it can't be cats. I'm trying to get hashtag. I'm trying to get hashtag. Lizard. I'm trying to get hashtag. Popoq is a puppy trending, but that's, that's just my own personal vanity. That, that, that is, but Popoq, you can name your lizards after Popoq, you can name your cats, you can name your dogs, you can name your cows, cattle goats, you name it. Michael Popock will lend his name to you.

Let's get into the hard core. I want to ask you something. I want to ask you before we get into the hard core, we're never going to leave this. Do you think we could find a way for the Apple podcast or the other ranking algorithms to factor in the amount of pets that are named after one of us? That would be really good.

You see, the thing about Popock is, and this is what I've met Popock many years back. His competitive spirit is unrivaled. You want Popock to be on your legal team because the man doesn't sleep, he doesn't stop working, and he always wants to find a way to be number one because legal AF podcast was number two was number two in the entire country on the podcast charts and Popoq now wants to know if we could factor

in dog naming to get us to number one. I like that thinking. I like the creativity. I don't think the folks at Apple will weigh the number of popocking and pets into their algorithm, but it is worth trying. We've we've created an innovative show. So I think we could create innovative algorithmic naming schemes. So we'll we'll put a little asterisk there and we will get back to it. But our fans, our supporters, our legal AF friends come to us not to talk about dogs and cats, but to talk about the law. And we need to start talking about what is going on right now in the prosecutions in Trump, Kushner corrupt authoritarian swirling the drain world.

And let's start off with this story from this week, Popoq, you teased it on the Midas touch legal, AF Twitter account, Jared Kushner's friend Ken Kerson, a certified maniac psychopath. When you see what this man was doing all of these years, who was pardoned by Donald Trump for cyber stalking his ex-wife and multiple people. This man was like a serial stalker who installed spyware and doctors and friends and basically anybody who this psychopath thought rubbed him the wrong way. He cyber stocked and spied on, including his wife. And then he would send

like his ex wife's friends like crazy stalker messages that like he knows what they've talked about. This was an individual who I think the Trump administration tried to nominate for like the endowment of the arts or something like that. And then on a background check, they realized that he was a psychopath. He was charged with these federal crimes. I'm seeing a little pop doggy wagon is pal in the background right now as I'm talking. But in any way, this this individual can cursor was charged by federal prosecutors. They were in negotiations for a plea agreement for this man being a psychopathic stalker and then Trump pardoned him. Ken Kirsten was a friend of Kushner. They worked at the observer

together, which Kushner's daddy bought for Kushner. And that's the connection between Kushner and Ken. And Sive Vance charged Ken Kerson recently this past week following Trump's pardon in the last weaning days of the Trump administration where Trump pardoned, made all those kind of corrupt pardons. And Sive Vance sending the message, fuck you Donald Trump. Basically, you think you can get away with pardoning people at the federal level, but guess what?

You do not have jurisdiction at the state level and we are going to hold people accountable in our state, even if you, Donald Trump, try to play cronism and corruption with your partners. Popuck. Popuckian. What's going on here? I'm ready. Well, listen, this is a good example that we've taught our listeners about the difference

between the federal and the state court system because for the very same acts of cyberstocking, eavesdropping and computer trespassing, which were all on the books in New York, they were also federal crimes. The federal prosecutors had brought charges against him. The same gentleman, he used to be the editor or the publisher of the New York observer, a little red business political and gossip rag here in New York. For what he had done to his wife and other people,

he actually loaded keystroke software, cyber stocking software on his wife's computer and then used it to harass her and look at her Gmail and look at her Facebook accounts and all of that. So he got pardoned and we talked about the pardon process, the constitutional unfettered right of a president to pardon somebody but only for federal crimes. And so right after the pardon happened, Sy Vance and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office flew into action and decided to look at whether there were state law crimes committed in New York,

even if they're the same exact conduct as what was pardoned. There's no double jeopardy. I know a lot of our followers and listeners are probably thinking, well, maybe can you be prosecuted for the exact same thing? You can't in the same system. So if he is pardoned on the federal side, he couldn't be prosecuted again federally, but he can be prosecuted.

A person can be prosecuted on the state court side or the state system side for the exact same conduct. And so literally, side-fans as office took a look at the pardon and said, no, this is inappropriate. If their state law claims here, we're going after the sky. And they're doing the same thing. They're actually looking at Steve Bannon. And here's a prediction of Popaki and prediction that within the next several months, we may see a Steve Bannon also pardoned by this president indictment or a charging in New York by side vance's office for the Bill the Wall Foundation and the million dollars that was

upsconded with by Bannon and the rest. So we've answered the question, can somebody be charged for the same crime even after being pardoned? Yes, in the separate state court system. And that's the message, as you just mentioned, that Sy Vance is sending to all the cronies of Trump. You got a midnight pardon by the president, but will be you if you committed state law crimes

because we're coming after you. Popoche in prediction number one on this episode of legal AF, Steve Bannon will be prosecuted by sivans out of the Manhattan Ds at D a's office or sivans is predecessor, but the successor successor, sorry successor. You heard it there first from Michael Popak. Popak. I need a prediction number two. Michael and Dale is, he's a psychopath, but his conduct gets one flagrantly illegal and unlawful every single day.

It's as if he's out there screaming, arrest me, arrest me. Come on, prosecutors, look at all the crimes I'm committed. He reminds, he reminds us just interrupt for a second. Doesn't he remind you of the fact that he's a self-professed former crack addict? That's exactly what I mean. I wasn't sure where you were gonna go that it reminds you that he probably is currently.

He's acting consistent with a self-professed, the crack addict right now, but this is the man. This is the man that the GQP looks up to this you know because he's like them pop up like they all are disturbed all our crack into there. They all have some version of crack in their system You know, and that's going to releasing the crack in. They have some version of crack that's permeating their veins. Now that could be actual crack. It could be just their disturbed psychopathic nature, but it's in their veins. They're all projecting.

But what's the new thing? Michael and Dell has now admitted to hiding GOP officials facing FBI probe in a safe house. I mean, I read some of these headlines right now and I have to like read them four times to fully understand this comes from salon, but it's been reported. And this one's crazy. This like again, if you wrote this as a movie treatment or a script, no one in your town, no one in Los Angeles would buy this because it's so ludicrous. So in the my pillow guy, he decides after

his cyber security symposium that he's gonna take into custody and hide in some safe house, the actual county clerk from ASEC County in Colorado, who the FBI wants to talk to, about the release by her of passwords to election equipment, that QAnon got a hold of.

So the Secretary of State of Colorado has already accused this clerk of having released those passwords. So she's under a state investigation, and the FBI is now looking into it. So, you know, what do you do when you want to obstruct justice, or you want to, you know, aid an event, you take the prime witness for the release of the QAnon passwords, and you hide her somewhere outside the state. So I think that was an interesting article that you and I or I brought us went up, but you wait. They're going to find that clerk. They're going to extra like that clerk back to Colorado. And I think they might bring

my pillow guy along with her. Prediction number two, you heard it here first, you also heard first the difference between predecessor and successor, you are learning a ton on this might as such legal a have speaking of Trump's disgusting toilet ball orbit. Popo, what's the latest with Weistelberg? I saw that there was about three million documents that the government turned over in that prosecution, them in Hatton, DA's office. So maybe talk through why they are producing those records, you know, the requirement to produce records in these cases, the discovery process generally. And I also understand that the DA's office and the Trump organization are currently in further talks

for the Trump organization to, I guess, voluntarily turn over documents before further act. What's going on there? Yeah, I'm going to bring a plate on this one. All roads lead back to Alan Weiselberg, the soon to be former or former CFO of the Trump organization. And just to bring everybody up to speak, because we have talked about this on prior episodes, Weiselberg has been indicted. His son has been indicted. His son ran the Trump organization, ice skating rink in Central Park,

but also got the benefit of cars and free tuition. Again, what the government found in their subpoena and search warrant of the Trump organization is that the Trump organization was actually keeping two sets of books. They had an actual spreadsheet. Talk about they should have just typed exhibit A on the bottom because these are going to be used in the first minute of opening opening argument opening statement at the trial of the Trump organization. They kept spreadsheets that showed how much they paid out in Weiselberg,

intuition in Mercedes-Benz, for he and his wife, the apartment, the one for his son, and they didn't disclose it as income. They just kept it as a running expense that they come, so the company took it as an expense and had it on a spreadsheet, but they didn't declare it as income. That is called income tax evasion for our followers and listeners and they have 15 years of that. Now, where did they get all of this information? There was a whistleblower or there was a cooperating witness and that was the ex daughter-in-law

of Alvin Weiselberg and his son who had in her garage not making this up, thousands and thousands of pages of documents, I assume. And just so our listeners know, the prosecution, the government has an obligation at the inception of the prosecution. And Ben, I'll let you comment too, because there's always a tug of war between the prosecutor's office and the defense office about the turnover of this material and what's been held back by the government. Have you been involved with situations where you've had to sort of tussle with the prosecutors over the turnover of materials? You know, there's always these discussions because at the end of the day, the prosecutors

have the power of the pen where they could ultimately issue subpoenas. The harder you make the government work, oftentimes the harder position they're going to take on your client in clean negotiations and incentencing. And so if you're a smart and savvy lawyer, you want to be the tread the line between cooperative, and you got to obviously protect your clients interest, and you have to have those come to truth moments with your client to fully assess their exposure, their risks. You talk to your client about, hey, look, I could be a bulldog if you want me to be a bulldog

here, but let's be clear what the next chess moves are. It's very easy for a lawyer to play, you know, the lawyers that you see on TV and beat their chest and be the parody of that lawyer, but in reality and in practice, where your client could be facing sentence and guidelines that could put them in prison from on the low end a few years, on the high end the life, you have to treat these conversations with caution. So that's why people would be like, why would you even be cooperating with the government if you're representing a defendant in the first place? Because there is a practical reality of the justice system is a human system and you have to navigate those things. So

that's why I would respond. I think I think you just provided our listeners with a very good Intel color as an expert in the field of criminal law that you are also about what really happens that you don't see in law and order episodes or on television. It is this nuanced ballet, this play that goes between you and the prosecutor's office, you want to defend your client, but you don't want to antagonize the government. And that's all the Trump organization and their lawyers have done from day one, calling the indictment a piece of you know what to not cooperating with them. And all that does is engender heart feelings by the prosecutor and let's, it makes them, as you said, dig in. And so, and so here, just as an example of the Trump Organization lawyers not really playing well in the sandbox with the prosecutors, the prosecutors have now had to go to court,

and this is what the Wall Street Journal just reported earlier this week. They have had to go to court in a secret hearing, or at least a closed hearing, in front of Judge Mershon here in the New York State Supreme Court, which is the New York trial-level court, notwithstanding its name, to tussle over these subpoena records that they don't want to turn over these additional financial records. The other news that's sort of tightening around the Trump Organization is a guy that I'll

mention here for the first time that will follow closely. And he's got a great name. It's like right out of Old Hollywood, Matt Kalamari, I'm not making this up. This is really people in the inner circle of the Trump organization. Matt Kalamari has been the 40 year chief operating officer and head of security and surveillance with his son to family affair everybody. Everybody's got a son in the business. And so Kalamari's got a son that's in the Trump organization. Weisselberg's got a son in the Trump organization. And Kalamari, the federal, the Manhattan district attorney prosecutors,

wanted, they figured he's got to know something about Weisselberg. Did he get any income tax treatment that was inappropriate? And what else does he know about where the bodies are buried? So the next target, right now I'm sure he's just a cooperating witness, maybe. He has a lawyer, at least that's been disclosed in the media, but he could ultimately be a target. And I think if they take down the chief operating officer, the head of surveillance, the CFO and all their sons,

what are they trying to do? They're trying to squeeze the prosecutors who are trying to squeeze to get them to flip to testify in favor of, you know, their case against Trump and a shout out to fellow podcasts that might as touch host Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen was the first one to really surface Matt Kalamari's name in his testimony, uh, to the government. That would be the Maya Copa podcast. Popa, do you think it goes down like this?

Kalamari. I got a, I got a favor. I want to ask you Kalamari. I need you to go and tell Weiselberg to get Bannon to tell Indel to hide that witness in Mesa to find that bamboo from China to prove, I'm not sure what that's a kind of a Godfather from. By the way, this is. This is.

This is either. First of all, the fact that I'm able to bring out of you, this hidden talent of impersonations is amazing. And I never knew this about you all the years I've known you. This is also the, the, the, the outline for the worst Godfather sequel ever. Calla Marie. I got a favor. I got a favor. Go get Weiselberg and tell his son and law to go get banning and tell banning to go tell that lendale, that pillow guy to hide that witness, to get me that bamboo. We need, we need the bamboo. I'm not like it in all.

Are you doing Michael Cohen? It's a hybrid. It's a hybrid of everything. So there we go, folks. We talked about cursing the hacking creep. We talked about lendale, the crackhead. We talked about Trump organization swirling the drain. Can I get another papakian prediction? Donald Trump, will he be indicted under sidevanced or his successor and not his predecessor? I think it's going to roll. All right, here's my prediction. I'm going to stick with the prediction I made several episodes ago. Paul Paka, I got a very important favor.

I want you just to say yes. I just want you to say yes. Yes. Yeah, no, no, wait, wait, wait, I can't answer a yes when you ask me a two-part question. It's going to be yes, but I think it's going to be Alvin Bragg, the successor to Sy Vance in some time in the fall or early winter. I would love Alvin Bragg to be on this podcast.

I just, if we were the ones, if we had Alvin Bragg on this podcast and it's somehow our questioning and my Godfather impressions in any way, potentially negatively impacted the ability of Donald Trump to get indicted, I would literally probably become the most saddest person ever, which is why I don't want to, you know, I would literally probably become the most saddest person ever, which is why I don't want to, but, you know, I just think those Godfather impressions, once you go down that route, you can imagine it becoming a very effective exhibit. We also apologize to all of our Italian American listeners by Ben's impersonation. Thank you for that, Popeye. But the point was not that the point was

that the Godfather connection is very similar to how Trump runs at Mafia style. And I think when you see it all being familial, we've called Trump before, probably the biggest mobster and Mafioso in history. That's how he runs his criminal enterprise. Oh right folks going from all of that stuff, let's call it stuff, to let's talk about mask law, huh? Exciting, exciting developments in the law of masks right there for you. Popok never thought that when we talk about a public health crisis and the need for mask mandates, if implemented by businesses, private businesses, school boards using the collective wisdom that they have never thought in a million years, that that would become a politicized issue, that it would be Democrats are for the CDC, therefore following health guidance and the other political party. sickness is pro not showering is per hat bright. They're pro having dirty nails. They're pro not brushing their teeth. That these are the issues that are significant on the GQP list. But you go into these

states where you have GQP governors, whether it's Arizona, Texas, your state of Florida, whether it's Arizona, Texas, your state of Florida, they get more vile and more disgusting in their already filthy and disgusting tactics. I mean, each day, when you talk about what's going on in in Arizona, for example, right, with Governor Ducey, he wants to divert the federal COVID aid relief that he received from the federal government to help people for COVID. And basically said, if you are implementing mask mandates within school districts, as within other public entities, you've now disqualified yourself from getting the federal COVID aid grants that the government gave us to help alleviate the problems with the pandemic. As I say that, it sounds so fucking crazy, Popok, but that's what they're doing there. They're obviously legal challenges going on in Arizona, but maybe just talk through

that, Popok, of using COVID grant money as a means of extorting school districts, not to implement mask mandates under the recommendations of health officials. Yeah, I don't think that's going to survive a challenge. And I think the Biden administration, which we'll talk about at the sort of bottom of the segment, has a way to combat that. But let me give two statistics or two things that I've read this week that I thought were interesting and bears on the question that you and I should talk about a bit. There's two studies that are out, one of them by looking at the Israeli results of the vaccine rates because they were the first one to get close to 90% vaccination rates and a study out of London that says that with the Delta variant, it vaccinated people carry as much of the coronavirus in their system as unvaccinated people.

And the two takeaways from those studies are that one vaccines decline in their ability to protect you over time. That's the Israeli study because they did it early and now they're seeing the fourth wave because the initial vaccine has sort of started to wear off. That has led the Biden administration to push for boosters and booster shots which are gonna start next month and the recommendation that's coming out

of within eight months or eight months after your last denoculation of vaccination, you'll need to get a booster shot. That's out of the Israeli study. The scary part was the second study out of London, which is people like you and I that are fully vaccinated and our followers, we carry as much of the Delta variant as anybody else who's unvaccinated.

What does that mean? That means all of the things that we anybody else who's unvaccinated. What does that mean? That means all of the things that we need to do to try to control. And we're only gonna be able to control the coronavirus. I don't wanna call it a popaki in prediction because we're talking about deadly stuff here. I just don't see a way to remove the coronavirus

from our system, our national system for years. I think it's going to be several years. So we're going to have to just control it and maintain it until it gets it just sort of variance itself out of existence, mutates itself out of existence. And so we have to do all those things that are necessary for a period of time. I don't want to mislead our followers and listeners and public policy people shouldn't either. It's not like where a mask gets vaccinated. The thing disappears in three months, not happening. Where a mask wash your hands. Nobody talks about washing their hands anymore. I don't know why. Maybe it's because you tell me that the GQP is dirty as a as a party. Wash your hands properly and regularly. Where a mask, get vaccinated, get boosted.

Do everything that you can do to help bring this pandemic to an end. That is not a democratic position. That is not a Republican position. That is a sentient thinking human being position. And so these governors who for political gain and for reelection and to try to target and use it as a proxy fight against the Biden administration and the Democrats were willing to risk their children's health. And apparently their private school children's health, it seems like they could care less

against the public school kids, which is where I went to school and I think you went to school. They don't, they care less about them. It's the private school parents. So we're going to talk about these four states and what's going on. But at the top of this segment, you said to me, can a governor withhold federal funds that every school should be allowed to participate in? To the tune in Arizona, for instance, of $1,800 a student would be the benefit that a school district would get from COVID-19 relief federal, COVID relief funds. I don't think Ducey's executive order to try to cow-tow and beat up school districts to force them to make mask wearing a choice and not a mandate

is going to withstand either the Biden administration coming after them or ultimately federal court rulings. Now again, all roads lead back to where? Midas mighty to the US Supreme Court. And it's called roads lead back to popuck. All leads back to popuck. Right. It's called roadside back to popuck. All we've backed to popuck men, the US Supreme Court and we know who's sitting on the Supreme Court. So all of these cases we're going to talk about, we're going to talk, we're going to touch on Texas, we're going to touch on Arizona, we're going to touch on Kentucky, we're going to touch on Florida, the common denominator here, except for Kentucky, which has a Democratic governor,

is that all the Republican governors are using it as a way to get elected or get voted on the next time around or to beat the Democrats in the midterm election at the expense sacrificing the health, welfare, and mortality of their electorate. And that's what's going on. But none of those cases have made their way yet to the US Supreme Court, although it's coming and it's coming on a really rapid track. You want to talk about each one first? Yeah, let's first, let me reflect on one thing.

Governor Ducey, the walking, the walking, Duce. The walking number two. The walking number two himself, dropping a Dose. I have a lot of other ones, but I'll just leave it there. I'll give you just a quick governor, Ducey, Ben Micellus story. So when I was doing the Colin Kaepernick case and remember when the Nike campaign was announced that Colin was going to be the face of Nike going forward. Governor Ducey went out and basically said that he was going to ban Nike factories from his state because he's a performative piece of shit, Governor Ducey.

This is what he does. So he was one of the first governors to go, I will ban Nike. We need to burn the Nike socks. And then I think the next day, because it was right around the holidays. I forget which holiday, but he was photographed at a public event wearing Nike socks and Nike shoes the next day. And it goes to all of those things you said, Popak, Popakian, right? Is that these are the people who are out there railing against mask mandates at schools,

but send their children to private schools where they have mask mandates. They don't care if your children die. These are people themselves who are vaccinated, who have their families vaccinated, who are out there spreading anti-vax messages. These are the most vile, low denominator disgusting people in the world. They can't have access to platinum level health care and eat the Trump cocktail of drugs to keep them alive. Should they still contract a deadly form of the virus? So that's Arizona. I want to go through some of these other states, but these mass conversations just, they're so bothersome that I want to move through them swiftly because I think they frustrated our listeners as much as it frustrates me

at frustrating these people. You want to revive your faith in humanity and do Kentucky next? Because that'll... No, it won't revive the faith in humanity with Kentucky. But yes, let's talk about Kentucky there where you have a Democratic governor who instituted mask mandate. So, ah, let's revive the faith in humanity because we have a Democratic governor. But lo and behold, the Republican legislator voted to strip the executive of a lot of his public health powers to begin with. And so his ability to enforce mask mandates is he's fighting for the right to do that

and the validity of his executive orders, there were prior rulings by the Kentucky courts that based on his executive powers during a pandemic, there were certain things that the legislature could not curtail. But even here, there was a federal district judge who was appointed by, you know, who was appointed here by Judge Carter, who said, well, there are some areas though that have not been overturned. There are some areas where the legislature curtailed your authority as an executive and you don't have the power to overrule the Republican legislature when they're

saying that you, you know, that these mask mandates are not something you can implement by an executive order. So on the one end, Pope, I guess it does revive my view in humanity that a democratic governor is implementing health policies, but the Republic and legislature, they've gone out of their way to harm the people. Yeah. This one's fascinating. And also you downgraded President Carter to a judge. You called him Judge Carter.

But there's a judge, well, there's a judge Carter out in California in Orange County. Right. On your mind. Look, Pope, I got the end of the day. I blame you. Now, let me tell you why because we are, let me explain to you why because we are recording this podcast super early. So Pope, I can go do his antique today.

And he's going and teaching the whole day. He's doing two days, double header of and teaching. So I jumble predecessor successor judge Carter, president Carter, your fault. Popeye. All right. I'll take it. I'm going to take it. So this whole Kentucky thing is fascinating because you've got the, let's let's identify the parties here, the cast the characters. You got Judge Bertelsman, who's an 85 year old senior status judge, appointed in the 1970s

by Jimmy Carter, so a Democratic appointee. The plaintiff challenging the mask mandate, the universal mandate of Governor Preshear, which would apply to public schools and private schools equally, is the diocesse of Covington in Northern Kentucky, the Catholic diocesse. Hold that thought, put a pin in that, our followers, who is the leading Catholic right now and worked and worked on faculty at the University of Notre Dame on the US Supreme Court? Amy Coney Barrett. So get ready, because that case is gonna come up to her

off of the diocese of the Covington and North Kentucky. They challenge it because they want parents to have the right to decide whether they want, I guess, their children to die from COVID. So the right not to wear a mask if they so choose. The judge relying on as you Ben pointed out, relying on the fact that the Republican control legislature stripped the governor of powers over COVID policy said to said in his ruling, my sort of my hands

are tied. The legislature has told you you can't do this. And if the people don't like it, they're going to have to vote out their legislature or recall you you can't do this. And if the people don't like it, they're gonna have to vote out their legislature or recall them or whatever it is these days and put in some new people they like to set new policy, but I can't do this. They're interesting part of this though, the twist of this private and public school dichotomy that you and I have talked about as a theme in this in this podcast is that it that ruling does not apply to the state

School Board which has ruled that in public schools Kids have to wear a mask so kids in public schools in Kentucky are gonna have to continue to wear a mask Thank God, but the private school kids have now won the right at least as far as this federal judges concerned kids have now won the right, at least as far as his federal judges concerned, not to wear a mask. Now, the judge is still, here's inside baseball, the judge is still considering on briefing by both sides, whether this ruling only applies to the counties that are like involved or it applies to all the counties in Kentucky. But either way, this is going to be fast tracked with all these other mass cases to the US Supreme Court in the next probably 90 days, I would think. Talking about other mass cases, let's go into Texas where we've got Governor Greg Abbott,

who essentially infected himself with COVID by going into this mass Republican GQP gathering. These events are the weirdest events in the world because you literally have these mouth breather, GQPs, like it's an orgy of filth. It's a COVID orgy that they hold these rallies. And these are all people with the highest risk factors possible in terms of their age, obesity, you know, all of them. They go in a room together and they just breathe on each other's faces. You couldn't make this scene in South Park like we're American patriots.

I apologize to all the listeners who I've just mimicked blowing on a face, but like that's what they do. These events are, these events didn't happen. Parick COVID, you wouldn't want to be so close to these people. Oh, you know what, you know what, back to Governor Prashir for Kentucky, he had a great quote yesterday in the media. He said people that are that are going to send their children to an unventilated or poorly ventilated classroom, which is just like the places where these QT, these GQP places that are posting these events you're talking about. Sending your children there is like a chickenpox party, which I guess parents send their kids

to, except instead of chickenpox, it's the third cause of death, the third leading cause of death in America, which is COVID, would you really send your child to chickenpox? If it was the third leading cause of death in America, you would not. The GQP, the opposite of the QDPI, Popeye, as Popeye likes occasionally occasionally call him. But let's talk about what Governor Abbott is doing in Texas. We want to talk about insider baseball. There was an appeal that Governor Abbott made to go from basically the superior court level directly to the Supreme Court to try to challenge the fact that school districts are coming out with workarounds to the bands on mask mandates that Governor Abbott implemented. Schools are basically utilizing their dress code, just not following the court's orders or coming up with creative workarounds to the mandate

and to prior court orders, which allowed for the ban on the mask mandates by Governor Abbott to hold. And Governor Abbott said, my top priority for the state of Texas is we need to fast track litigation to go to the Supreme Court so we can make sure that COVID spreads in our schools. That's basically what Governor Abbott said. And the Supreme Court's like, you can't come to us right away. And so the headline was, local mask mandates allowed for now after Texas Supreme Court rejects Governor Abbott's request to intervene.

It's a little more nuance than that, but I think the kind of bigger and broader headline though is that the Texas education authority though has basically said, you know what? It's so costly these litigations. And you know, there's there are generally work around this mask, the ban on mask mandates is not well thought out. You'd have to keep passing laws and it would be like whack a mole. And it's obvious that the school districts in Texas who need to protect the children want mask mandates. And so they've basically said, look, we're going to stop enforcing the ban on mess.

This was another example, Ben of a temporary hooray moment when you read the procedure of what happened. And I think some of the reporters got the headline not quite right in getting the nuance. Yes, the Texas Supreme Court said, we're not going to enforce the ban at this moment, but really because procedurally he just went packed in, which is the Attorney General of Texas and the governor Abbot just went to the wrong court. They pointed them in the direction of the lower, lower appellate court down the street

and told them, go take it there first, then it'll come up to us as a proper appeal. We don't see a reason to take it as a direct appeal to the Texas Supreme Court, which they could have done, actually, procedurally. They could have found a compelling reason to have it be a direct appeal, but they said, no, you're going to go. You're going to be like all the other appeals. Get in line. Go to your go to your, what we call the second level of pellet court, or I'm sorry, the first level of pellet court, which is your pellet court for your jurisdiction or your district, and then you come up to Texas Supreme Court.

And as you said, the Texas education agency, which is the, the big board over all of Texas, just threw up their hands and said, why don't we just wait and see what happens while these lawsuits. And in the meantime, we're not going to enforce the ban on masks. So who ray for like the first semester or the first quarter, but eventually it not going to enforce the ban on masks. So who ray for like the first semester or the first quarter, but eventually it's going to go to the Texas Supreme Court. We've seen how they've ruled on things like, you know, voting rights. I doubt they're going to suddenly not side with Abbott on this issue. And then we're going to be up probably at the US Supreme Court.

Oh, our country would be, I don't even know if we would have a country popok if Trump stole the election like he was trying to do. You know, if God forbid, he had won that thing. This, these, the way these GQP governors are acting at a federal level. There would not be vaccines. America would be in the worst shape. Imagine them. But that's all I keep thinking as we talk about it. Let's turn our attention to your state, Popok, Florida, DeSantis is going all in on finding school districts who are not implementing the ban on mask mandate school districts that still require the mask mandates. He's basically going to find them the equivalent of the salary of the school district board members in one-twelfth chunks, so they'll get fined, you know, each month for 12 months, the equivalent of those salaries. So just to be clear, in the most basic sense, defunding the schools, public schools at a significantly high level because they want to vote collectively, these school districts are meeting,

they're having a board, talk through issues, and are deciding a mask mandate is in the interest of the children, and DeSantis says, if you do that, I'm stripping you of your salary. Pretty, just pretty, pretty heinous stuff. Anything else we should comment about their pop out?

Yeah, what DeSantis is doing? Yeah, so you got two things. You got a one-side descent that's trying to use every power he thinks is at his disposal through the power of the purse and purse strings to force his ban on masking, masking in schools down the throats of these school districts. And so he's trying to hold back funds. But you're just for our listeners, public

schools are ultimately also regulated by the federal government and the department of education. And while a governor has certain powers over public schools through who we appoints to the statewide boards of education, local boards of education are usually done by local election. And so you have regular people running for these positions. So in order to control the ones, there's five or six major boards of education in Florida, including Palm Beach County and Broward County for Fort Lauderdale, which has said, we're we're mandating masks. We don't care what the governor says. Ultimately, Biden with the Department of Education is going to be

able to do to to Santhus with the the Santa's was trying to do to the superintendents and the boards of these of places in Florida. He's going to try to say to him, really, you got two things that I control. This is Biden talking. You've got accreditation, which is licensing related to whether you can operate a public school under the Department of Education. And I've got funding too, you know, that's as the president talking to the governor. I fund public education in large amounts. And I can withhold that from you and from your schools if you don't allow, you know, there's certain ways he can nail DeSantis. The other way is he can just take extra federal money and give it to replace the salaries that are being taken can nail DeSantis. The other way is he can just take extra federal money

and give it to replace the salaries that are being taken away by DeSantis. So there's going to be this whole cat and mouse game between Biden and DeSantis over a very deadly issue of masking. In the meantime, there's a lawsuit that we haven't talked about yet. 27 families in Florida have filed a lawsuit in Tallahassee, which is the seat of government for Florida to the north of the state in Leon County, which is where Tallahassee is located in front of a circuit court judge there. And these 27 families said basically the executive order that that DeSantis has passed to ban masks is unconstitutional and illegal and shouldn't be allowed.

Of course, the state and DeSantis, in the attorney general for the state, ran into Leon County Court and said, motion to dismiss, dismiss this case for two reasons. One, substantively, Governor has the right to do these things and there shouldn't be a lawsuit over it. And secondly, standing. And you and I have talked a lot about standing over what's now 18 or 19 episodes, which is these particular plaintiffs don't have the right to seek redress for their injury in a courtroom.

They're going to lose on the standing argument. I think the judges already found that these 27 families are proper parties to bring this issue into a courtroom. And the judge has just ruled this week that he denied the motion to dismiss. He said that the families and ultimately the policy needs to be addressed in a court of law with a full record, with evidence, with testimony, which is going to happen next week. He gave them a week. We're on a temporary injunction fast track in Leon County. But, but the good news is the judge found that he's not going to dismiss the suit and he's going to

have full basically mini trial with evidence and testimony in the next week or two that you and I'll be able to update. The issue of standing, which we've talked about on prior episodes, which is to avail yourself of our court system, you had to suffer some sort of cognizable, some sort of recognizable injury that is recognized in law. what the DeSantis attorneys argued were, these families who were bringing this case against our ban on mask mandates, these families did not suffer any injury. And the family said, yeah, we did.

You are sending our kids to die. That is our injury. And so that's how they got overstanding. And you reflect on the issue of standing where courts had found that certain entities did not have standing. There were a lot of these Trump frivolous lawsuits where congressional leaders and people who were Trump

accolades, who had no connection to the allegations in the complaint were filing these spurious lawsuits across the country claiming that they should be a party because no person with integrity was filing the lawsuits. And so a lot of those Trump lawsuits where Trump was trying to illegally overturn the election, where he lost those 75 cases in federal courts, the federal court say, you're just some random weirdo person bringing this case. You don't even have the right to step into this courtroom because you're not the right party. So that's the distinction of standing where you have standing in these cases in Florida

because the family have their kids who are going to be injured from COVID. And the Trump cases where there is no standing where some random person basically goes into court and says voter fraud. And the court says, who are you? You are a pillow guy. You're a pillow guy. You and I call you and I call that lawyers like you and I call that. The courts call that a drive by plaintiff.

He has no real connection to the what's just gone on. He's just driven by and has no real injury that gives him the ability to file the suit. That was, I like that. That was really good explanation of cognizable injury and standing. Quote, I'm directing the secretary of education to take additional steps to protect our children. Biden said this week, this includes using all oversight authorities and legal action. If appropriate against governors who are trying to block and intimidate local schools, officials, and educators that came from President Biden this week to his education secretary hour,

education secretary Miguel Cardona and Miguel Cardona education secretary also stated that he would be looking into working with these civil rights division as well within the Department of Justice if these governors are discriminating against families who want to keep their children healthy. So it is an interesting use of but appropriate use of civil rights that you have governors who are discriminating against the health practices of the American population. We will keep you updated and I think that there will be a lot of litigation there stay tuned for lawsuits

These are this is a Myceles prediction. We will see some Biden lawsuits in the next week or two weeks from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona from the Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice against a lot of these GQP governor Bans on mask mandate. Updates, updates, we've got updates on legal a F that song gets cringier with age, but no worries what gets cringier with age are the cyber ninjas, this crazy group that hails from Popox State of Florida who had no background whatsoever in election

audits. They were brought in by the Arizona legislature to conduct a fraught it, a complete sham audit where they literally like broke election machines and use the wrong tools and then hid the data in like a undisclosed location in Montana, a complete and utter shit show embarrassing and disgracing the Arizona GQP, just all election integrity. The Arizona board of elections had to order new machines for millions and millions of dollars because the cyber ninjas like literally destroyed the integrity of the underlying machine. The Department of Justice has warned other states that they're not going to allow that kind of audit in the future without federal government civil rights supervision.

It is one of the most outrageous things. And then you look at the GQP governors across the country. The DOJ has to say that, Popok, because these other GQP leaders who want to spread COVID, they also want the cyber ninjas in their states to fuck it up there. That's what, I mean, this is what they want. They really want to destroy the United States of America. Anyway, the court of appeals, state court of appeals in Arizona ordered the cyber ninjas, even though the cyber ninjas are a private company because they were hired under a contract by the legislature.

They are now an arm of the state based on this ruling and based on common sense, and they can't shield their records from public records requests, and they have to turn over their emails, their data, all of their information because they were hired by the government to do this. Of course, this triggered the Senate, who was one of the responsible parties for bringing these Arizona cyber ninjas in. We are outraged by this ruling. We want them to keep their data private like these are the most disgusting people in the world.

Pope when they lose these rulings and they appeal at what they're fighting for is to keep the cyber ninja data private for what purpose other than because you know you've just aided and abandoned a fraud and want to cover it up. We're opening a chapter of Legal AF Law School public. We're going to make public records law fun with an explanation. The basis of public records law, whether it's the Freedom of Information Act, which referred to as FOIA on the federal side, or every state has on its books a requirement that government be conducted in what Florida calls in the sunshine, meaning the old phrase of sunshine is the best antiseptic. You want to bring into the public proceedings, rulemaking, decision making, and public records so that the public and watchdogs, like the American oversight group, that was the plaintiff

in this case, which is a nonpartisan watchdog who uses public records in litigation in order to expose frauds like this. You need public records in order for people to exercise their rights and to supervise these types of events. Bad people like the Republican controlled Arizona Senate, they don't want these records to see the light of day because they're doing underhanded things. And so the tussle that happened here

is what besides the government itself are there entities that were private entities like Cyber Ninjas, they're not a government entity per se, but because of how they are brought in to do a government function, are they subject to the public records law, just like they were a part of the government? And this judge about the Maricopa County audit said they are. That cyber ninjas are basically doing, they were hired to do a government function, which is audit. There's no such thing as a private audit of election and voting in a state.

And therefore, they're subject to the public records law, the sunshine law, if you will, just like any other government official. And so, the Senate and Arizona lost that. This is going to be appealed. Does that go to the US Supreme Court? I don't think so. I think it'll rise and fall in Arizona. But we'll see. I can't wait to read these psychopathic emails when they talk about their bamboo and their Hugo Chavez, Venezuela and theories. We are going to, I mean, we've already seen how psycho these people are, but I have a feeling that it is just the tip of the iceberg updates. We've got more updates. Biden eviction ban is heading to the Supreme Court for all of those might as touch legal a a flissiners you'll recall from past podcasts we've

been file been following the stages of this eviction bands there have been certain chapters of the national realtors who are saying we want to evict people right now this eviction ban should in hold the CDC does not have the authority, the Supreme Court previously ruled that, hey, the only way that the CDC can, you know, we allow as a judge, a Kavanaugh who actually saved the initial ban because it was set to expire last August, Biden then rejuvenated it based on the new facts, the fact that there's a killer Delta variant that's out there. Whereas past August, Biden rejuvenated the provisions from the CDC that allow the Seviction ban. We talked in the last podcast about the district court judge

who upheld the ban, but noted that based on what the Supreme Court previously had said that the view was that I don't think this is going to hold. It's interesting. This was a three person panel after the district court judge ruled last week, Popok. It was a three-year decision in this panel

at the DC Circuit Court. And one of those was a Trump appointee, which I found interesting that it wasn't two to one because of the facts and the Delta variant. And what do you think is gonna happen here, Popok, now that it heads to the Supreme Court because you would think based on the prior ruling that the Supreme Court will strike down the eviction ban, but also the Delta variants, the real deal. And the Supreme Court does balance some practical consideration sometimes like, Hey, if we strike

this down, people may die because they're going to be evicted and homeless. Yeah. So, so just as Roberts, we read on the last day or so has, has now ordered that the case is going to be at the Supreme Court and is ordered that the government have until I think tomorrow to fully brief the issue, because this is on a really fast track. And now the Biden administration is going to have a, a tough road to hoe here, a heavy left, to prove to this ultra conservative bent, ultra right wing bent Supreme Court with Alito, Thomas, Coney Barrett, Gorsuch, what will

be a cabinet on a separate position for a moment. To convince them that this is different, this policy because of Delta is different than the one that those at least four of them already said that they hated and found out constitutional. Cavanagh looks like to be the swing vote because of his concurrence, which allowed the prior ban to stand for a short period of time. But I'm not sure with the record that's now been developed, it's going to be enough for the Biden administration to overcome

the strong right-wing pull of the court on this issue, given the T-Leaves from the last case. So if I was, and it's really hard here because these things are moving quickly, the acting solicitor general, which will be the person that the Biden administration will use to argue the matter, file the brief. He doesn't have a lot of time to even collect friends of the brief friends of the court briefs Amicus Curie briefs. It's just going to be sort of their office generating the papers and then they're going to see what happens with the court on a real argument.

I think they get a real argument on this. If I were a betting man, I think it's going to get struck. I think it's going to get struck and I think this Supreme Court is just waiting at least four of them just waiting. And I think I don't think Roberts gets pulled over, but I think Kavanaugh does at the end. I think this is, this eviction ban is going to go by the wayside. Popok, what the people want to know though is the following, are you a betting man?

I am. Popok, a popok in betting man and bedding man, and T-Gur, vacationer, extra. All of them. I want to make something, I want to make one point clear, because we do read our Twitter followers, and there is one messaging, and I'm a moderate Democrat, but I want to give one piece of messaging out here. I personally am in favor of the eviction ban. However, people should know that the underlying

debt of the tenant that he owes to the landlord for the rent is not being wiped out by the federal government. Let's put a pin on that for a minute. The Biden administration is about to wipe out student loan debt for permanently disabled who can't work. It's in the billions of dollars. Should the federal government help landlords? Some of them are not big mega companies that own apartment buildings. Some of them are regular people that own two and three units or a multifamily house, like one extra unit, and they've counted on that money in order to make their mortgage payment.

When they bought the house, it was calculated in, and they need relief, too. So I don't want to make it sound like I don't want evictions, but the underlying debt that's accumulating that has not been addressed, either has to be addressed by banks giving the landlord's relief, or the federal government giving the banks and or the landlord relief so that the tenant can ultimately stay beyond the date of the eviction ban and not face a personal judgment for tens of thousands of dollars for accumulated rent. I think that's a great point, Popak. And a lot of these issues, it's easy to encapsulate in a sound bite, a partisan talking point. But when you also break it down as well, you are right. There is also the small landlord who employs five people and maybe had to let go two or three of them or all of them because their business can't function

because they're not collecting rents. And there is a domino effect as well. There also are though more exploitive landlord situations though that become the poster child for them wanting to evict people who shouldn't be evicted during this time period, because of the horrible pandemic situation. So it is definitely nuance, but also the Biden initiatives. I hope are holistically addressing these economic issues, but popok, the GQP wants to bring us into perilous economic conditions such that the billionaires can get away with

highway robbery while everybody else, the remaining 99% oftentimes will, you know, will suffer. That is their modus operandi. So we've talked about the Trump crackhead crew at the beginning of the podcast. We then talked about the GQP crackhead governors and their attempts to ban common sense mask, mask mandates. I've hit you with the updates. And now I want to talk about immigration cases that have been in the news recently. Popok, the first I want to talk about is the felony deportation law being deemed unconstitutional by a district court in Nevada, the felony deportation law in short popok. If you were deported and you come back, it's a felony. Is it, we can break it down a little more complicated than that, but that is well, well, here's the, you break it down more. Yeah, here's the lead in it's it's 1326,

section 1326 of the immigration and nationality act. But then do you know what that act historically colloquially has been called, even by the people that passed the legislation? I think it's something like the undesirable Aliens Act. No, it's worth, it's the Wetback Act. And that was a fact in the legislative history that the judge here, Judge Miranda Du, D.U. out of Nevada, a federal judge,

whose own personal background is quite interesting. She is Vietnamese American. Actually, I think she immigrated from Vietnam when she was a child and she was appointed by Obama. So she has a special sensitivity to immigration policy as a person of Vietnamese descent. And she basically, no, not basically, she declared section 1326, which to all of our listeners in you and I who don't regularly practice immigration law sounds like this arcane

chapter in the statutes. It is a in federal court practice and in the federal public defenders practice 1326 comes up on a regular basis on a daily basis. It floods the courts with 1326 issues by people who were deported or left the country and then came back in and then charged with a federal crime. And so this is not a esoteric academic discussion. This has real life consequences about our immigration policy and judge do declared that it is a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment. This statute should be removed from the books. It is unconstitutional and it sets up an interesting a next step. Will the Biden administration and the Department of Justice, when it makes its way to the Supreme Court or to an appellate court, will it take the position that Miranda do is right,

that this should be stripped from the books? I think if the Biden administration had its way, they would, through legislature, remove it from the books, but that's not gonna happen because, frankly, the House and the Senator tied up with a lot of other matters in a very short time until the midterm elections. So he's not gonna get around to that.

But if here's the question for you, Ben, you're sort of a betting man. This comes up to the US Supreme Court. What is the solicitor general? What is the Department of Justice's position about judge do having declared a law on the books of the federal statutes is unconstitutional? What do they say? Fun Ben Myceles fact, not a betting man. Ben Mycel, not a betting man. I maybe have gambled once in my life and I absolutely, when I if I've ever gone to Vegas, never gamble. This judge is in Nevada, but she's in Reno. She's not in Las Vegas, but let's go. What's your prediction?

My prediction, the current solicitor general, the current dynamic, we will not see the Biden administration and the current DOJ supporting this law. They're not going to be supporting the felony deposition law. And I think their abstention from it, though, this is why elections have consequences are important, though. It will be a major election talking point from the GQP when they try to scare people in 2022, in 2024, and they will use the lack of enforcement there to basically say, and you've seen it already. So off-donted criminals. Right. So off-dont, yeah, exactly. So that's where I think it goes. But one of the right circuit does, because it's going to go to the ninth circuit, your home state, a pellet court, which leans a little more liberal. What do you think the ninth circuit does?

You know, I look, it depends on who the panel is going to be. I know that's a cop out, but one of the things we've always told our listeners though, is that it is impossible sometimes to predict on an issue like this without knowing the composition of the court. If you give me the composition of the court, I think I'll be able to. Well, what if it's the whole thing?

What if it's an on-bunk entire night circuit? What do you think happens? If it's an on-bunk entire, I still think that given the way this was worded by this judge, it was an incredibly written opinion. That was well researched. The judge knew that it was going to be heavily scrutinized on appeal. And that's why she went through all of these kind of detailed analysis. It would be hard to support the law, especially where we are now with its entirely racist roots.

I mean, the roots of the law literally, as you know, what you said, you know, I called it the undesirable alien act, which is one of the names that it had. I just don't think you, you can uphold a law that, yeah, that outwardly discriminates in his legislative. I agree with you. I don't think the wet back act survives the ninth circuit sitting. Where does the ninth circuit sit? Is that sitting Sacramento? Where does the ninth San Francisco? I don't think the wet back act is going to survive the ninth circuit sit? Is that sit in Sacramento? Where does the San Francisco? I don't think the Wetback Act is gonna survive the ninth circuit, but we will post our listeners with updates, updates as they develop. And Popoq, we actually have the ninth circuit as well,

right in Pasadena, California. It's an interesting, beautiful building out here. So, talking about the felony deportation law being deemed unconstitutional. And finally, Pope, I just want to talk briefly about the Supreme Court temporarily halting the Trump remain in Mexico program. It's very temporary like in a few days, Tuesday, by Tuesday. But the, what the DOJ went in and said,

you need to remember there was a, what it was a Texas district court judge that struck down, Biden's non enforcement of Trump's remain in Mexico program. And tell us about that Popeye of that dynamic. Yeah, because we probably just teased out and wedded the appetite of our listeners with the Remain in Mexico part. So Trump in 2017, as part of his executive orders, passed a rule that if a Mexican national

is trying to seek asylum in the United States, he can't cross the border and wait for the asylum process to continue in the safe haven of the United States, which is what a benevolent immigration policy would do. He has to or she has to remain in Mexico. So it's called the remain in Mexico policy while you seek asylum in the United States. And of course, the people that are seeking asylum are often seeking asylum because of persecution, legitimate fear of death. They've gone up against the drug lords and the whole family could be killed. And now they have to remain in Mexico instead of having at least the temporary safe haven, safe haven while their application is being considered. Sounds like

a terrible and not generous in appropriate immigration policy and it is. It was challenged by the Department of Justice and other people. Unfortunately in Texas, which is where it was of course filed in Amarillo division of the Northern District of Texas federal court, they pulled federal judge, Kazmarek. But is that matter? Because Kazmarek not only was appointed by Trump, but he was also the deputy general counsel of First Liberty Institute, a supremely conservative religious freedom group. So you know where he was going to vote on this.

He voted that the, that the remain in Mexico policy, which was set by Trump by executive order, not even by legislation of the full Congress, needed to be remain in place, and that Biden couldn't, through a stroke of his pen, as you like to say, Ben, remove it by executive order. Why I have no idea. But the Department of Justice ran with as fast as they could to the Supreme Court and filed just yesterday or on Friday. They filed an emergency application to have the Supreme Court block that decision and allow

people to come into the United States while they're waiting for their asylum application to be ruled on. The Supreme Court judge Alito, who is again, we're back to who's the duty judge for each of these circuits, and the circuit for Texas works its way up to Judge Alito. Judge Alito stayed the order. So that's sort of in favor of Biden, but temporarily until literally two days from now, Tuesday, and he's giving the government time to submit all their papers for this to be heard on a very, very fast track. So, but don't take, I don't want our listeners to take anything from the fact that Alito was involved. Alito was assigned to that particular, he's the duty judge for that circuit, and that's

why he has to make the ultimate decision. Now, he could have made the decision to reject the appeal, to reject the DOJ Fast Track appeal, but he didn't. So, it's at least a good sign, it's going to get a full briefing and a full airing at the Supreme Court. Popak. Popak, you're just, you nailed it. You nailed it every time, right? I mean, at the end of the day, there's really anybody in the world, nail it the way Popok does.

I think not. And as we said earlier, the popok. It's like a new segment. And you know where it all works. It's way up to the popok. That was one of my favorite parts of this podcast. We hit it all, pop up. We hit it all. We talked about again, the Trump crew swirling the drain. We talked about mask law. We gave updates on the Arizona cyber ninjas, the Biden eviction ban, we've talked immigration law. I'm so knowledgeable. I need to get something to eat popoq. I appreciate your time. Go on. Speaking. Popoq is going in. Teaking. Popoq, it's great to have you back. Any future vacations that we should be aware of while we got you on the record. And the suits have told me that I am not allowed to take a holiday. But, but I wanted to say

one thing because I've seen you even throw shade at me on Twitter when you were off doing whatever with your lovely girlfriend on your holiday. Apparently you brought your microphone with you. I want to make this clear. I wanted to do an episode in the can before I left on vacation and I offered to do one while I was away and you in a very magnanimous way. But now I see I've been set up. You said, no, well, wait till you get home when you have stable internet. We don't have to do it like in the wherever you are. And I said, okay. So and then you haven't let me forget it. It was a trap. It was in my cellion trap. And you haven't let me forget it ever since. Popo, did you have stable internet when you were traveling on railtens of it?

No, okay. There you have it, folks. Closing argument. I rest my case. And we rest our case on this edition of Midas Touch Legal AF. We are so grateful for all of your support. Thank you for making Midas Touch Legal AF. One of the most listened to podcasts. The number two, most listened to podcasts in all of the United States of America last week. I'm Ben Mysellis. You got Mr. Popo himself the Popakian right there

super shout out to the Midas Mighty closing words Popak. Just I'm always I don't care what time of the day it is I look forward to seeing you on legal AF. I look forward to seeing you Popak. We'll see you next time staying place if it's Sunday it is Legal AF. Shout out to the Midas Midas.