OA451: Section 230 and Tulsi's Transphobia

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:01:17 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 451. Oh.

0:01:22 Andrew: Woo.

0:01:22 Thomas: You like that book, don't you? Or is that my thing? What's the other book? No, I'm thinking of, what's your favorite book? Catcher in the Rye? I can't remember. What is it?

0:01:28 Andrew: Um, no, my favorite book is Catch-22,

0:01:33 Thomas: Catch-22! That's it.

0:01:33 Andrew: But yeah, I've read Fahrenheit 451.

0:01:36 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:01:36 Andrew: I mean, you know, I thought I'm wrong. I'm

0:01:38 Thomas: What a terrible intro to a show, but I'm Thomas. I'm doing fine. How are you doing?

0:01:40 Andrew: Really, uh, I'm offended that you thought my favorite book was Catcher in the Rye. I was fantastic, but, you know, Catcher in the Rye, come on.

0:01:48 Thomas: I haven't read it, so I don't, I honestly don't know.

0:01:50 Andrew: Oh, really? Okay, yeah, it is, we could just hijack the rest of the show for me talking about how bad Catcher in the Rye is, but uh because it's this huge, like, you, you, it's like it's a coming of age teenage angst kind of thing, and like it, it's the first, like, piece of serious literature you read in in either late middle school or high school where, you know, like, uses the F word and the protagonist is edgy, and like when you go back to it, like, it's terrible, so uh, and I will fight and die on that hill if you, yeah, uh catch 22, Catch 22, the great American novel, it's

0:01:57 Thomas: Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. Wow. Who knew? Okay.

0:02:29 Andrew: The, it's, it's greatest novel written in America, so there we go.

0:02:33 Thomas: Wow. Well, we got that straightened out, everybody. How are you doing, Andrew?

0:02:37 Andrew: At Fahrenheit 451, this episode is, is fine, nothing wrong.

0:02:41 Thomas: It's fine.

0:02:42 Andrew: I'm good.

0:02:42 Thomas: Yeah. OA451. Yeah, I'm excited. We're getting to some stuff, that Andrew has wanted to talk about for a long time. Not eminent domain yet. We'll get, I think that one, that's going to be the inauguration and celebration thing.

0:02:55 Andrew: That the giving it away way.

0:02:57 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. But we are going to talk About Section 230, which has been in the news a bunch and nobody seems like they fully understand it. And hopefully Andrew will help us fully understand It. And also our best friend Tulsi Gabbard, definitely a Democrat, no questionable views there. No, what in the world is she up to with all this garbage? Can't wait to find out Andrew's take on that. So that's our show. Why don't we get to it?

0:03:29 Andrew: Let's do it.

0:03:38 Thomas: Okay, so section 230, Andrew, finally, you get your chance. This has been pushed off so many times.

0:03:32 Clip: The law breaking down

0:03:45 Andrew: Donald Trump threatened to veto the Defense Appropriations Act if Congress didn't repeal Section 230, you know, to which I think 90% of our listenership was like, yeah, don't threaten me with a good time, Donald Trump, um, are, bloated, and again, I'm, I'm reminded with at least one email daily that I am not far enough to the left for some of our listeners, uh, and, and, you know, fair, fair criticisms, I, I have some, uh, mainstream Democratic Democratic positions.

0:04:18 Andrew: But I don't, I don't see how anybody can defend our bloated defense budget at this point. But in any event, it didn't matter because the one thing that senators from both parties can agree on is, you know, support the troops vote for the defense budget no matter what. But so they know.

0:04:34 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the thing is, when Trump took office, we were out of bullets. Did you know that? Have you heard him do that spiel a bunch of times? Out of bullets, every service members. Oh, I got my weapon, but I don't. There's no no ammo. Just the wet. What do I do? Do I throw it at someone? Yeah. Out of bullet, Sandra.

0:04:41 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, I it which, You Everybody got together in a bipartisan fashion. Yay. And voted in a huge and bloated, disgusting defense budget. So Trump's threat to repeal Section, you know, to to to hold his breath until he turns blue if you don't repeal Section 230 went nowhere. Where, um, so what is this thing and why is it so important to Donald Trump? Um, and the answer is, like everything in life, um, Section 230 is way, way more complicated. There are legitimate issues of discussion that that surround it, and the reason that Donald Trump hates it is because of personal peak, um, of course. So, um, here's what it is.

It is 47 USC Section 230, um, which is a part of the Communications Decency Act, Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996, and all of those words should start to clue you in on what was happening, right? Telecommunifications, Telecommunication Decency Act, and 1996 tell you that, you know, this was during the Clinton administration. We had a rampant economic boom. Everything was going great. Kids were dropping out of college and getting like $10 million in venture capital to start businesses that didn't have a shot in hell of being profitable. Like, it was an amazing time, right? Right. Like it was a seriously, like, great liberatory time made possible by the government essentially getting out of the way and unleashing the power of the internet.

0:06:32 Andrew: Net, um, so removing restrictions and barriers on on one end, and then actively, like, one of the things you have to give credit to the Clinton administration for was, um, having, uh, Al Gore, you know, later unfairly maligned and parodied as saying, "I invented the internet," um, a a totally fair flex. Somebody who for decades was saying, hey, this ARPANET thing is someday going to to fundamentally change our economy, and it did. In the 1990s, um, but, uh, that then produced a backlash when, um, what today we would call Karens realized, uh, that you could see boobies on the internet, um, and so, uh, and there's really no, uh, good way to to to stop that.

0:07:23 Thomas: Wait a minute. Can you still is this real? Can you find?

0:07:25 Andrew: You Yeah, talk to me when we're done. When we're done recording, um, there's a there's There's a couple of sites. You could probably type in boobies.com, I'm thinking, but that's not a recommendation. That's a supposition. So, yeah, so the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996 was primarily concerned about internet pornography, um, and it had two provisions that that work at cross purposes. That are cross purposes is the wrong, but one is, uh, arguably pro-censorship, one is arguable anti-censuship. I'm to talk about both of them. Okay, um, is subsection C, and it is titled "Protection for Good Samaritan and Blocking and Screening of Offensive Material," and this has to do with how people can bring civil lawsuits. So C1 is the treatment of

0:07:28 Thomas: Life changing news. News.

0:08:19 Andrew: Publisher or speaker, and it says, "No provider or user of an interactive computer service" - put a pin in that - "shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider," right? And that is a question about free speech on the internet, right, and the idea is, roughly speaking, in terms of civil liability, there are two models for those who disseminate the speech of others. Right. The first would be the newspaper model. Right. So I write a column under the name Andrew Torrez.

0:09:05 Andrew: I publish it in The Washington Post. It defames you, Thomas. You get to sue both me and The Washington Post. Right, Washington Post was the one that that published my column. Them. And so it doesn't do The Washington Post any good to say, yeah, well, but we didn't write it. You'd be like, well yeah, of course you didn't right it. But, you know, you either gave Andrew Torrez the space or you paid Andrew Torrez to write it, and it's defamatory. So I'm going to sue you. Okay, so that's the newspaper model. The other side of that is what you might call the bookstore model, right, and it's exactly what it sounds like.

If I write a book that defames you, um, you you can sue my publisher, right, um, but you can't go into every Barnes and Nobles in the country, the four that are remaining, uh, and sue the bookstore, right? You couldn't go on Amazon and sue Amazon. They'd be like, yeah, man, like, we just sell books here. We don't read all these damn things. Like, this is just what we do. So, in other words, defamation law sort of recognizes that there's a fuzzy dividing line between somebody who has published a defamatory statement and is therefore arguably liable for it, and somebody that's just sort of republishing lots, lots of content without having any responsibility, you know, the bookstore model, right?

0:10:36 Andrew: So this C1 provision treats any interactive computer service as a bookstore, not a newspaper, right? So I get on, and now let's pull that pin out.

0:10:52 Andrew: What's an interactive computer service? Again, you get the sort of delightfully archaic knowledge, right, like this is what But 70 year old white guys in 1996 thought they thought of how to describe the Internet. Right.

0:11:01 Thomas: Yeah. An interactive CD-ROM.

0:11:08 Andrew: Yeah. It's a series of tubes. Yeah. So it does not just mean ISP. Right. It's not just an Internet service provider. It includes Internet service providers. But but the actual description definition of the term is in subsection F2. And it says, the term interactive computer service means any information service, right, ISP, system or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services operated by libraries or educational institutions.

All of that is a super long winded way of saying that Twitter, Facebook, other social media companies qualify as an interactive computer service, even though this was clearly written and it was meant to apply to, like, dial-in ISPs that also had an interface on the front, right? Like, you know, like AOL, for example, America Online, for those of our listeners who are even younger than Thomas. So you have this kind of hybrid term of interactive computer service. It means more than just your Internet provider. It also means large social media companies. It applies to Google, anybody that's repackaging content, right? Right. And they get that subsection one.

0:11:10 Thomas: Yeah,

0:12:44 Andrew: They are not treated as the publisher or speaker of any information that they provide. And then subsection two is the this is the good Samaritan civil liability. It says no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of. And then there are two subsections.

0:13:34 Andrew: Restrict access to material described in paragraph one. So in other words, it says we won't hold you responsible for what you publish and we won't hold you responsible for what you restrict. And we encourage you to then define yourself according to the free market. That's section 230 of the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996. Why does Donald Trump hate it? Because the fact that Google has Section C1 immunity, it is not responsible for the information that it provides up there, means that they can label his tweets as false and he can't sue them and tie them up in court.

0:14:22 Andrew: It is 100% a fit of pique raised by the, like, idiot talking points on the right that says social media companies are actively discriminating against the right wing and they, they censor conservative viewpoints and all of that. And that's not true. But even if it were true, that was the whole point of engaging in Section 230 in first place, right? The whole idea, that's why I read through, was to say, to follow a model that gave you the ability to respond to the market, right. It doesn't say you have to censor obscene stuff.

0:15:08 Andrew: It says if you want to censor obscene stuff and you do it in good faith, you can't be held liable for that. If you don't, if you just present it, you keep it, you're held liable for that either. And the thought process was, yeah, well, then the market will bear that out, right? AOL will say, you know, you sign up and you're under 18 and, you know, we will guarantee that your child will not see pornography on the Internet. That didn't work great, um, But but It's A tough guarantee, admittedly, It's it's difficult,

0:15:37 Thomas: That's a tough guarantee to back up. In the words of the great Jeff Goldblum, life or porn finds a way.

0:15:43 Andrew: Um, Porn Uh, Finds A way. Yeah, um, so look, is this a subject over which reasonable people could disagree? And sure, you could. But that debate is not taking place, right? It has been crystallized into Google and social media companies are anti-conservative and are censoring viewpoints and they're evil and we should get rid of Section 230. And I just want to point out, if you get rid of Section 230, you're getting rid of both sides of that equation, right? You are getting rid of an immunity from civil liability for the stuff that they censor, but also for the stuff that they don't censor, so, Um, I, you know, to me, I, I kind of think the Internet's doing a good job.

I mean, like, I'd Like to See less Nazis But Yeah, right, um, but, uh, I don't, I don't know that I, uh, that, uh, heavy-handed government censorship regulation, uh, is, uh, is, is, is the right course of action. I could be persuaded, right? Like I, it, I was certainly cavalier in my sarcastic comment of it's doing a great job. Like, like, there are areas we've had that, like, I have, you have successfully changed my point of view from the, you know, sort of absolute Lockean, you know, the solution to speech is more speech, to watching four years of Donald Trump speak to an echo chamber going, all right, right, maybe the solution to Uncle Frank is not more speech.

0:15:49 Thomas: Yeah hmm geez I don't know About that. Yeah, Well, Yeah, and not to mention things like this COVID vaccine and Things like being anti-vax, it is just, just not the case that if you put all the arguments out there and the anti-vax people and then the pro-vaxx people and then, look, better argument wins the day, it's just not how it works. And there are other examples like that where that, and that's a tremendous public health harm. So I don't know that I would say the Internet's doing a great job. I'm glad that they seem to be moving, moving in a direction of taking a slightly heavier hand towards certain things. But I wonder then, what is your opinion of what should happen there? I mean, don't you back the idea, the kind of the Elizabeth Warren idea that there needs to be some oversight to Facebook and Twitter and all these things? But is that something different than Section 230?

0:17:28 Andrew: Yep.

0:18:17 Andrew: Yeah, that, that, in my view, that would sort of sit on, on top of that. But look, I agree. I mean, as I said at the conclusion of the segment, right, like, this is, those are real issues without easy solutions. Uh, but, you know, that's been obscured by kind of the, uh, insane howler monkey claims with, with respect to Section 230. Um, absolutely, when you think about, right, I, could crafting the argument for repealing Section 230 is really, really simple, right? Like, um, Kyle Rittenhouse, right?

0:18:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:54 Andrew: Um, it, that, there you go. Like, that's a really, really good argument. That doesn't have anything to do with crazy conspiracy theory. I mean, other than the ones that were allowed to propagate. But yeah, don't you have some responsibility for enabling individuals to create groups that say, hey, we want you to, you know, get an illegal firearm across state lines and come out here to, quote, defend local property owners, end of quote, wink, wink, wink, um, yeah, like, there, I, I think there are, there are super strong arguments, um, but, but I think that it begins with sort of figuring out what it is that we want the Internet to look like. I, I will say, we got a deep dive coming up. It has become super fashionable, I think, like the Young Turks Were saying this, um, it's become super questionable on the, on the left, to say we want, want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, um, And That, that could not be more wrongheaded, That is a hundred percent wrong, uh, and even as a descriptor of, like, sort of what happened with the rise of Fox News, uh, it's It's

0:19:46 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

0:20:00 Thomas: Well, Fox News would have been exempt anyway, right?

0:20:04 Andrew: The argument is so bad on every level. Um, we're gonna, we're going to cover it, uh, but, uh, but don't find yourself getting swept up by voices on the left going fairness doctor, because the fairness doctrine, fairness doctrine works fantastically well. Well, no, the fairness doctor works sort of well when you have three networks and that's it.

0:20:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:20:25 Andrew: Um, the fairness doctrin could not possibly conceivably work, uh, on the Internet. And

0:20:31 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if if I'm typical, but I don't watch TV like I'm I'm not a you know, and believe me, I watch a ton of things on my TV, but I don't watch TV. Like I don't there is no channel that I watch. You know, we stream shows and do all that kind of stuff. So like that would be completely irrelevant to me just as an example, like it wouldn't even matter. And then if I suppose are they saying you ought to apply it to like the Internet? Net.

0:20:33 Andrew: I,

0:20:59 Thomas: That would be really weird.

0:20:58 Andrew: I do. Yeah. Yeah, it would be super weird in the sense that if we were required, right, If the equal time rule applied to opening arguments, you wouldn't have a show. Know. Um, so

0:21:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, that would be like the David Smalley interpretation of the whatever that one thing was.

0:21:13 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. There so is no cure to be found, uh, in bringing back the, uh, the fairness doctrine. But there's a little bit of an intro, so now hopefully you know a little but more about the, uh, weird and strange world that is Section 230, 47 USC 230, if you want going to sound smart to Uncle Frank. Oh, oh, oh, and of course there's a Tulsi Gabbard connection. Everyone's favorite Russian asset, Tulsi Gabbard, introduced a bill to repeal Section 230. Or did she? I...

0:21:51 Andrew: ...will include a link, uh, to, uh, Tulsi Gapbard's House page, right, that says, uh, that... Representative Gabbard and Representative Paul Gosar, Republican, Arizona, 4th District, introduced H.R. 8922, the Breakup Big Tech Act of 2020, which would remove Section 230 legal immunity shield that protects interactive computer service providers like big tech monopolies and social media companies who engage in certain manipulative practices, including acting as publishers and censoring certain users. So, you know, that's Tulsi parroting right-wing talking points. But interestingly enough, if you go look up H.R. 8922, which is the kind of thing you would expect here on Opening Arguments, you find, despite the fact that this press release was issued on December 9th of 2020, as of December 17th, 2020, the official records of the U.S.

0:21:50 Thomas: Yeah mm-hmm

0:22:52 Andrew: House of Representatives say, oh, text has not been received for H.R. 8922.

0:23:00 Thomas: Interesting.

0:23:02 Andrew: Yeah, that is congress.gov. I'll include the link in the show notes.

0:23:03 Thomas: I bet she didn't bother that so that... we're gonna, this kind of transitioning to into the next segment too, because Tulsi Gabbard has recently been making headlines with, like, "Oh, I'm introducing legislation to blah-biddy-blah." And it's like, introducing it to who, who is... I... the only thing that should, can and should be happening right now in this holiday period before the new Congress, sits you is COVID relief. That's literally the only reason they should be doing anything right now. What, what are these bills you're introducing in December that to like stake your Republican claims real quick, I guess. I mean that's really what's going on. It's to it's finally show people that Andrew and I have been right the whole time, that she's really a Republican, more or less, and that she wants to kind of signal that before she leaves, you Know, because she's leaving. She's not she didn't run for reelection. She's what a weird thing, right?

0:23:19 Andrew: Yeah.

0:23:54 Andrew: Yep. Far Yep. As I can tell, this will transition nicely over into the second segment. She's not actually doing the work.

0:24:01 Thomas: That's what I'm sorry. That was what I started to say. Yeah, that makes sense under my theory, which is she wants the signal that she is doing something, but why bother even writing it because nobody is not going to a vote. Nobody's doing anything with this.

0:24:13 Andrew: Yep, that's exactly right. So that's quote H.R. eight nine two two. By the way, this is also we get we get this not infrequently as a as a question in our inbox. Box. Someone will say, hey, you know, this crazy crackpot has introduced X bill. And sometimes it's even, you Know, in the state legislature, like, all you have to do to say you introduced a bill is to say, you've introduced a bill, right? Like, like in this case, yeah. Well, and you have be a sitting member of Congress, but yeah, But far as we can tell, she didn't bother to write the bill, um, and so yeah, we are discussing two such bills here because they, they fit into an overall theme in which, you know, we, we do want to talk about these legal issues, um, but oftentimes, you know, when you just see like, you J Random Crazy Pants has introduced a bill, like, you now let talk to us when it, when it passes, that right? Look, then, okay. OK, fair enough. Until then, you know, it could just be Tulsi Gabbard pretending to write legislation. But in reality, doing nothing.

0:24:41 Thomas: Wait, can I do it? Ah, damn. There's always a catch. That's so awesome. Are well, speaking of bills that Tulsi didn't really write out and is just doing to signal how awful she is, probably for future Fox News appearances. I don't know. She also introduced a bill on banning transgender athletes from, you know, certain sports. So, Andrea, I'm sure you have the breakdown of this bill.

0:25:41 Andrew: I, I do.

0:25:42 Thomas: Oh, wait, you can't. How do you read? Is this one she wrote out or not? Like, how do you analyze it?

0:25:47 Andrew: Yeah, this is H.R. 8932, the Protect Women's Sports Act. And when you go to Congress.gov, it has exactly as much written text as H.r. 8922. So, yep.

0:26:00 Thomas: You got to be kidding me. Well, then how have people been reporting on this that

0:26:02 Andrew: Yeah. It because they're reporting on the press release from her house news page. Yeah. That's why we do the show. Right. Because, you know, your regular news organization, you're like, oh, a member of Congress says they wrote a bill. We're going to interview them and find out what they say the bill does. I want to actually read the text to figure out what it's going to do. And so it's kind of notable when there's no text there. But but yes, this was designed to, you know, if and by the way, day afterwards, this was introduced December 10th. This was designed to burnish her anti-trans cred. And and I want to I want to contrast this with an excellent and long overdue decision from a U.S. district court, from federal court in Ohio Ohio in striking down an Ohio policy that prevented trans individuals from changing the gender marker on their birth certificate.

0:26:08 Thomas: Is so weird? Yeah.

0:27:04 Andrew: So really good. By the way, a conservative George W. Bush appointee wrote the Ohio decision. And I think it's really an excellent illustration of the difference between, you know, the ease of demonizing trans folks in in political discussion and then sort of where where the rubber meets the road in in legal illegal grounds. Like those arguments are shown up for the like stupid edge cases and things that, you know, that don't matter. So I think I should do a little bit of a content warning here. I'm going to I'm going to read about I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna read from Tulsi Gabbard and this other bigot Mark Wayne Mullen.

By the way, your name is Mark Wayne. Like, anyway, Mark Wayne Mullin from Oklahoma. Um, I'm gonna read the like bigoted stuff they've said about trans people. But but I I am really gonna talk about when we get into uh the Ohio case, um, I I'm I'm going to uh talk about the experiences, um, of a trans woman, uh, on the job. And so, um, let me just give that again, I'm going to be reading from court documents, but want you to know that that content information coming.

This is a trans woman who severely mistreated on the job. Just want you didn't know that. OK, so, know, we, we get emails about this, you know, the what about, you know, trans women uh competing in women's sports. And you know, if you've got an uncle Frank who's pulling this nonsense with you, you, the the first

0:27:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:47 Andrew: Step is to say, all right, Uncle Frank, you care so much about, uh, equality in women sports, name five members of the WNBA. Yeah.

0:28:53 Thomas: Name A women's Sport, yeah.

0:28:56 Andrew: Right, um, what are you doing for the real equality issues in women's sports, right? The fact that it's called, other than, uh, college basketball, college basketball, uh, men's college basketball, women's college basketball, good. Um, but it's call soccer and women's soccer, right? Like, uh, and the women's soccer U.S. women's team grossly underpaid, yeah, there are real issues. Regarding equality in in women's sports. They're real things that you could be fighting for. But instead, Uncle Frank's are shedding crocodile tears for a situation that ranges from does not exist to sort of bizarre corner case. And that is that like throwing it back on, like, making people who are overwhelmingly the victims of criminal assault in this country, who who suffer into the, I mean, this is this is a slight repackaging of the Mike Huckabee.

0:29:14 Thomas: So Great, oh,

0:30:04 Andrew: Be like, well, well, what you're gonna do is, you know, you'll have men pretend to be women and then they'll shatter all the records in women's sports, never minding that there's no incentive to do that because no one gives a damn about the records in women's sports because they're systematically undervalued. Uh, but let's read, uh, Tulsi Gabbard says, "So, Title IX is being weakened by some states who are misinterpreting Title IX, creating uncertainty, undue hardship, and lost opportunities for female athletes. Our legislation protects Title IX's original intent, which was based on the general biological distinction between men and woman athletes based upon sex. It is critical that the legacy of Title IX continues to ensure women and girls in sports have the opportunity to compete and excel on a level playing field." Or Representative Mullen, deciding not to even bother with the dog whistle part.

0:30:55 Andrew: Title IX was designed to give women and girls an equal chance to succeed in sports. Allowing biological males to compete in women's sports diminishes that equality and takes away from the original intent of Title IX. As the father of three girls involved in athletics, I want them to be able to compete on a level playing field. I am proud to lead this bill that will safeguard the integrity of women's sport and ensure female athletes can compete fairly. Of that's true. Process which trans woman undergoes that transition, the hormone treatments, all of the best evidence says that that and away outweighs whatever you think of as like, you just ridiculous. And anybody who says that has no idea what either I college athletics are like and certainly no idea what professional athletics are Like.

0:31:49 Andrew: And I say that as somebody who represents professional athletes. On the other hand, let's talk about a real issue. So that's ugly and gross. Unfortunately, it is going nowhere and Tulsi Gabbard did not even really write the bill.

0:32:00 Thomas: If they don't Yeah. They don't write the bill? I don't... what do, would they vote on, uh, just the title of it?

0:32:01 Andrew: Yeah. Right. There's... there's nothing there. So let's pivot very quickly to the to the good news portion. And this is Stacey Ray et al. versus Stephanie McLeod, director of the Ohio Department of Health. Link the opinion in the show notes. This is, again, Judge Watson, George W. Bush appointee, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio. Ohio. This is from the fact section of that opinion. So I was surprised that as of this opinion, Ohio is one of only two states that prohibits a trans person from changing their sex marker on their birth certificate.

0:32:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:47 Andrew: There's now just one, that state is Tennessee. And the the reason here comes at the, um, administrative agency level, right? So, uh, the Ohio law, Ohio does not have a law that specifically says trans folks can't change their gender marker, but what it says is, uh, that you are permitted to correct a birth record that, quote, has not been properly or accurately recorded. That's Ohio statute 3705.15. No portion of that law specifically prohibits you from changing that because you've transitioned away from the gender you were assigned at birth. Ohio, you know, recognizes they have a U marker for undetermined, right? Right.

0:33:36 Andrew: Because that happens in a significant number of cases. Ohio has Republican governor. And in 2015, the Ohio Department of Health issued an administrative policy. And that policy said that we will not allow trans people who have transitioned away from the gender that they were assigned at birth to update their gender marker on their birth certificate.

Significant, and again, this is the part, if you've gone through this, if you're sensitive, uh, maybe skip ahead, uh, a couple of minutes, um, but but I, but I want to say this isthe part for the content warning, um, but I wanna read this to you because, as opposed to you, the the chuckleheads who say, you know what, if I come in and dominate, this is what really happened. Okay, Ray, trans woman, started a new job, one of the things you often have to do when you start a new jab is you have to complete your government information forms, right? Your I-9 form to show that you are a U.S. citizen, comply with the immigration laws. And one of the documents you can show, think it's three documents, you have to show a valid driver's license, you have to show social security card. One of the documents that that meets that requirement is your birth certificate. This is all in the record.

She had to show her birth certificates to a representative from human resources in a room with 10 to 15 other people who were starting on the same day. OK, so she's part of a new class coming in. Everybody brings in their birth certificate. H.R. then questions her in the room with everybody else who's starting off at the job why the gender on her birth certificate does not match the gender on her driver's license.

0:35:27 Andrew: Now, the answer to that is because she was prohibited from changing the gender of her birth certificates. This is then page 10 of the opinion. Ray's co-workers harassed as a result of this forced disclosure. They called her a freak. One co-worker threatened to beat, and then this is in brackets, because obviously deliberately used the wrong pronoun, but beat her ass if she used a woman's restroom. Room. Another member of the lawsuit had to show a birth certificate to an employer and was verbally harassed as a result of the forced disclosure of that intimately personal information. HR told her she would, quote, never be a woman and would always be a man in God's eyes, and then disclosed that this person was trans to the other employees, and word quickly spread from there.

0:36:14 Andrew: After the forced disclosure. Her supervisors misgendered her, made comments about her genitalia and avoided working directly with her. Third plaintiff, man, says it's dehumanizing because I'm telling something very personal about myself that I don't want to be telling a stranger. Then, yeah.

0:36:31 Thomas: I don't remember Any part of any job I got had to be like, I have to answer for my genitals and stuff, and like, I've been in a in a crowded room, like, talk about my gender identity and stuff. It's this sounds really unfair and horrible. Good.

0:36:44 Andrew: And And when when they go to correct the information, even we're not prohibited the fact that because because this is the whole problem is that even though you can identify, you can change the gender marker on your driver's license on with the Social Security Administration, they can still look back and say, well, why doesn't this match your birth certificate? And these are the real harms that real people identified. The Social Security Administration, a fourth plaintiff attempting to correct her gender identification, the clerk, quote, loudly and in front of many people, refused to permit her to change the sex, despite showing the clerk a copy of the Social Security policy permitting her to do so. So the plaintiff then described that experience as awful, that she ran out of place in tears, sat in the parking lot in her car for about 45 minutes, crying.

0:37:37 Andrew: This goes on for seven pages. I'm not going to continue to read it. I'm going to tell you, unlike, you know, the hypothetical Michael Jordan playing on, you know, they UNC women's basketball team and boo like this really happened to real people And it happens to them every day. But fortunately, it's not going to happen in Ohio any further. On equal protection grounds, it challenged both the law and the policy. And the court said, OK, look, essentially what you're doing here is you are you are challenging the interpretation, the administrative agency's interpretation of that policy to prevent you from changing your gender marker. Parker. And we have determined that under the right to privacy, that that's a compelling right that that, as you pointed out, and and I want to explain like the legal analysis here, because it's really, really important. Gender on equal protection cases typically gets you intermediate scrutiny.

0:38:50 Andrew: We've talked about that before. It's kind of a cobbled together area that says, as, well, we recognize that, you know, that there's some sort of heightened scrutiny applies here, but you don't get to strict scrutiny. You get to strictly scrutiny when you have racial discrimination or the denial of an important individual right. And you, and again, we didn't plan this out, but it was really beautiful. You said, yeah, when I go to my job, nobody starts talking about my genitals. Nobody starts talking about what it says on my birth certificate. And that's the model that the Ohio court follows here that I think is going to be the model in subsequent cases that says, yeah, this is not even an intermediate scrutiny case.

0:39:41 Andrew: This is a strict scrutiny case because you have the right of personal privacy to not have forced disclosure of your gender identification, particularly of trans status, to not have to talk about what gender you were assigned at birth. Because that's private. It belongs to you. It's not the business of your employer. And if the government's policy then makes it the businessof your employer, that government has to satisfy strict scrutiny, Right. That is that policy is narrowly tailored to support a compelling government state interest here. And if it isn't and it wasn't here, then the policy gets struck down.

So, really, Really important decision, very, very obvious that folks were treated differently than other similarly situated individuals, and they were deprived of a core right to privacy. Um, and so therefore, uh, that, uh, invokes, uh, strict scrutiny. Um, and, uh, I expect to see these kinds of arguments, uh, replicated, uh, against other efforts to discriminate, uh, against trans men and women and, um, and trans folks. Um, really shows the difference between, between, you, a compelling legal argument in front of a judge who, you know, I like, I, I doubt this guy's the most woke guy on the planet, right, um, but, when you are applying the real legal principles, uh, that, you know, I

0:40:32 Thomas: Well.

0:41:22 Andrew: Still believe it in this, in this country and in our legal system, um, this is, where we came out. So, really, fantastic Result.

0:41:27 Thomas: I'm glad for the happy ending. Yeah.

0:41:29 Andrew: Yep. It.

0:41:29 Thomas: It's, it's, Such, that's the bottom line with this athletic stuff for me. Like, I'm not an expert on on athletics and what goes into that, and I could see some, you know, that's an area where maybe if you are an expert, if you are, you know, the Olympic committee or something, yeah, maybe you need to look into that and figure out what makes sense for everybody involved. But it's so obviously bad faith that people are using that and focusing on that when they don't, when they, A, as you pointed out, do not give a shit about women's sports. Actually, they don't care in any other sense. And B, don't cares about the very real harm that you've outlined in this lawsuit that happens to trans people every day in this country. So it's obviously bad faith, and I don't really engage with it. It's not worth it. I know that it's something they want to point to.

0:42:17 Thomas: It's a wedge issue. It's an identity politics issue that cis people and Republicans want to point to, but it's not a real argument.

0:42:25 Andrew: I leave folks, folks, and I, and I changed one person's mind with an Uncle Frank in which I, I asked, hey, Uncle Frank, you ever drive across multiple states? Yeah. Ever have to look up the law to see what bathroom you're going to be allowed to use on that trip if you have to pull over. These are real issues that affect real people every day. And, you know, and I agree with you that the, I mean, obviously, but the, even if you could invent kind of a corner case, I would say, you know what, like, sports records are weird anyway, right? Like, you don't, what to do with the Barry Bonds home run record, right. I put a little asterisk in there. We don't know what to do with.

0:42:44 Thomas: Oh, God. I know what you Can do with that. I'll tell you exactly what you can do with that record.

0:43:16 Andrew: I Thought you might have some thoughts on that. And so if what you're saying is we might have uncertainty in hypothetical examples of women's sports versus these people were humiliated on the job in front of their co-workers.

0:43:27 Thomas: For just Trying to have a job, it's Unbelievable.

0:43:36 Andrew: Yeah. I, it, it just, it, to me, uh, it, you know, I, you could concede the argument as far as I can tell is false, but but you make a really, really excellent point, and I, and I want, I want to be clear on that, right? Like, neither you nor I are, uh, doctors or kinesthesiologists, or, you know, sports medicine practice. Like, we don't, we aren't experts. We got to do our best to to evaluate what things per se, even if the argument was correct. Um, I just don't see how, at the end of the day, you would say, uh, I, I want, I care about the records of women's collegiate sports, uh, more than I care about the Lives of people. Yeah.

0:44:11 Thomas: Of whom I can name none. For

0:44:14 Andrew: I forget

0:44:15 Thomas: These people, I'm sure they can name not a single one. They just care about a hypothetical athlete.

0:44:20 Andrew: These people, I can't name a single women's collegiate sport records, and I, you know, like I yeah

0:44:26 Thomas: If you were going to all of a sudden really care about that, if it were in good faith, it would be because you actually care about it or something and you have a connection to it. It's obviously a bad faith argument, but we. I'm glad this one had a happy ending, though. So there's only one garbage state left in this respect, and that's Tennessee. Is that what you said?

0:44:28 Andrew: Yep

0:44:46 Thomas: Hey, Tennessee, stop being a garbage state. Anybody who lives there, you know what to do. Start lobbying your member of Congress and that sort of thing at the state level. Okay, I'm Glad That Had a Happy Ending and Tulsa Gabbard Sucks.

0:44:39 Andrew: Me too yep that is right there. You go. Yes. She does.

0:45:03 Clip: And thank you, let's go!

0:45:04 Thomas: And now it's time to thank our top patrons, our hall of famers, our all-time greats on patreon.com/law. Start us off, Andrew.

0:45:12 Andrew: Thank you to Former Federal Reserve Attorney. Thanks to Jacob Daniel Murphree. To Sparkle Donkey Tequila, the world's best tequila in the world, SparkleDonkey.com. Rest in peace. Next week on Lawdawful Movies is the trial of the Chicago 7. Nevin, I agree with the previous patron. Noctelfa Root Creeper. The Coterie, expert Salesforce implementations and custom app development. Activate digital transformation at www.thecoterie.io. Justice for Beer. Check out Budget Botanist on Fiverr for all your virtual houseplant needs. Listening for years, still can't come up with something clever. Nevin Dudas' Cow, Chelsea Olson. Wesley Glenn Brock. Becoming a patron to get five episodes per week.

0:45:57 Andrew: Now to catch up on months of backlog. Well, you know, the holidays are a perfect time to do that. New book, The Greatest Gift of All, A Logical Path from Religion to Humanism by Mark McLean, out December 30th. Pre-order now. Eli, you have my express permission to say whatever you want about Mitch McConnell. That's a patron name, not A communication between me and my client. At Casa Agria is the best brewery. At Emperor's Brewery is a close second. Bradford Thomas thinks Joe looks better in a Leafs jersey. Keity, great dooku tree, a thorny torny of torn and tawny tourniquet attorneys, each more torn and tawny than the last. Thomas Kleberg, big docket energy. Do not hug your local public defender, there's a pandemic.

My name is Mary Perez, and I'm a fan of both the Boston Celtics and the Boston Bruins, even though I grew up in New Jersey. Well, thanks for supporting us, Mary. Ascension, massive spiders got a job, a new job in the oil industry. Please vote, vote blue and make me lose my job for real, buddy. Freaking Guyerson, one is first, but two is a close second. Oh, that is so perfect, idea for

0:46:15 Thomas: Yeah,

0:47:01 Andrew: A screenplay. Air Bud, man's best amicus. Hadron, sorry for not changing my Patreon name. 1L finals are a clown horn. Yes, they are. 1L final spark, clown horn. Two fabulous lesbians. Two fabulous lesbian's TM. Your fabulous lesbian.

0:47:16 Thomas: We're going to never know. We'll lose track of who the original fabulous lesbians were. I don't know anymore. I don't know what to believe.

0:47:23 Andrew: William Drew Collins, Bob Newhouse. Sassy Italy Tours is asking you to donate to the Raphael Sassy Memorial Fund, www.raphaelsassymemorialfund.org. That is R-A-P-H-AE-L-S-S I-S A-S S-I-M-E-M O-R-I A-L F-U-N-D.org. Greg Krimer, this is the best Patreon name ever, period. White space, white space. Face, Biden Harris 2020, now to win the Georgia runoffs. Well, we got a little closer to that thanks to you guys. Jennifer Schakowsky, doing this while drunk. Hey, Hans Royal, you're live on the air with Opening Arguments. Simple Country Hyper Chicken, Mike Hall, an old mad blind despised and dying king. That Dickens, always with the compliments. A cursory evaluation of Republican capability ability indicates a distinct tactical deficiency.

0:48:12 Andrew: Excellent Perceptor line there. Say it with me, amicus. I'm not even a tortfeasor and I'm kicking your ass. Support secular construction. There's no rule against faithless erectors. Angry Macface. Sorry, Andrew. Uncle Frank is too far gone. Well, if it isn't my old friend, Mr. McGreg. With a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg. I was singing last night with my family the The great Dr. Nick song where he's like, the hip bones connected to the red thing.

0:48:43 Thomas: Oh yeah. Yeah.

0:48:45 Andrew: The red thing's connected to my wristwatch.

0:48:45 Thomas: Everything's connected to my wristwatch. Yeah.

0:48:48 Andrew: Yeah, it was so good. Center, black trans sex workers. The Books of the Burn podcast, reviewing fictional depictions of drama since 2019. Came for the Stormy Daniels, stayed for the string of never-ending clown horns. The one, the only, they who shall never be dethroned. Crazy Corgi. Yeah, not even mine. If everyone listened at speed 1.3, they might understand long legal explanations without exceeding their attention span. Uzi Rudy's Legal Ruse movie was a doozy. Change my Patreon name so that I don't jump every time you read it. Murray Gregerson, if you have to deliver a baby, then only moms can use doctor. I moved for a bad court thingy. I became a patron because this is the best podcast ever.

0:49:31 Thomas: Oh.

0:49:31 Andrew: Indeed it is. But technically every podcast where this person is a patron well hopefully they're only a patron of us so yeah robodope is trump's judicial appointment strategy that's that's pretty good jordan g jessamine in illinois we pronounce it illinois andrew's pronunciation has me cracking in my boots that's Pretty Good Dash Infinity Trash Dash Infinity

0:49:37 Thomas: Yeah. Oh.

0:49:47 Thomas: I'm Pretty Sure that Patron tricked you into pronouncing Illinois correctly too.

0:49:55 Andrew: Yeah Yeah. Clever monkey dick to porker. Brett meddling. Jake Braun, Jake Braun. Donate to Georgia Runoff or Right Said Fred will come back. Ooh. Christopher Brown.

0:49:59 Thomas: Okay. I'm opening my wallet. Yeah.

0:50:10 Andrew: Philly Live Show 2022. I'll bring the scotch and the cheesesteaks. Lawfulcopter says, Andrew and Thomas, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything you guys do. Well, thankyou. The wheels of justice turn faster than the speed at which I change my Patreon name. Support co-ops and not-for-profits. This porking streak is much like the POTUS election. It just won't end. There's a goat. Why is there a goat? Andrew Seidel's butt is more is so excited for boring OA episodes next year. Yep. In rural Illinois, I pronounce it amicus. Sadly, everyone else pronounces it. That Bill Gates vaccine will destroy your DNA. Circle. Let me drink lots of water. I like peeing. Totally clear.

0:50:55 Andrew: Odin the to the Y, to the decisis. Nice. Love you, Stormy. Polly Hernandez, the previous patron name is true, the next patron name is true. Check out Ringrunner and Brigador on Steam, two slightly mad indie labors of love that do not deserve their obscurity. KTEL presents the 1,460 Best Bittersweet Yodel Ballads. Oh, man. And Emily Rainbow Spence Thomas, take it away.

0:51:17 Thomas: Oh. So much fun. Ah, good times. All right, thank you. Not that. Chris Wallace, Alfred Wallace, give to modestneeds.org, give to minusneeds.org, release the butt cracking. Jason Kopas, Hot Spear asks that you don't refer to Michael Flynn as the turkey. That's foul language. Free Melania. Melania is part of it. Optimism is overrated. 8 equals equals equals D. Yeah, there you go. F yeah, footnote five. The true Conrad Michaels. Nate Drex. Darth Mandy Pants.

0:51:33 Andrew: Ha ha ha ha.

0:51:49 Andrew: That's so funny.

0:51:56 Thomas: Some text representation of boobs. Boobs, or it could just be, you know, it's hard, that there's no, it's two-dimensional, so it could just be a man, I just, pecs, nice pecs, I don't know, not sure, no idea what emotion in lemonade is, but sounds delicious. 13th century Saxony. Gravel truck lawyer. I am the bad things that happen, Philadelphia. Stay greedy. Diogenes the cynic was right. Jennifer Kratz. Jeff Gelbach. Unionized Brooklyn friends. Puddles the clown sings sad yodel songs. civilpoliticsradio.com, Fridays at 7 p.m. Eastern on Valley Free Radio. Good job on voting for Joe Biden. Please continue with a hand-washing. Stephen Balticate Sandoval. John Bilderbeck. Rhino John Thune. Mitch's boy. Philip Kizer. Andrew the Arbitrarian Capricious.

0:52:43 Thomas: Can I get back to criticizing religious influence on our democracy yet? Absolutely. By Dawn 2020. Sadly, a Tony Braxton porked my streak joke might might be too obscure. Absion. Painstrumpet.

0:52:56 Andrew: That was very obscure.

0:52:57 Thomas: Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have gotten it. So yeah. Trambolus. Thank God she finally changed her stupid Patreon name. Thomas's load bearing cats.

0:52:57 Andrew: I did not get it.

0:53:07 Thomas: Was that your joke? No, I'm blanking. Was that, that was you, wasn't it? I can't remember who said that.

0:53:12 Andrew: I don't know if that was my joke, but it sounds like something I would have said.

0:53:14 Thomas: Oh, oh man. Those are funny. Uh, it's a funny joke. If it was you, I can't remember now. Jonathan. Trump wanted four Four Seasons got Doubletree. The second best patron. Patreon. I don't know why I said that. The second-best patron. Sitting down because, like Texas, I like standing. Milo Meadsong, Esquire, Halfling Bard, and Attorney at Law. Stop, ask a question a karaoke legend would ask. Join your labor union together, we bargain alone, we beg. Exfoliating evidence. Our doula borrowed some money because she's going through a midwife crisis. James K. Okay, Therese Chan, doctorate knight, homeschooling our kids in the day, pretty sure my wife's superhero. Chad T., anonymous, Biden should name everyone Trump fires between the election and inauguration to his transition team. WordOrigins.org, your source for legal terms from 13th century Saxony. In the end, it was more like Iran-Contra than Watergate.

0:53:19 Andrew: Thank you.

0:54:08 Thomas: RIP Notorious RBG, video killed the Patreon pun. An undisclosed senior government official from an undisplosed red state. Oui, oui, croissant, escargot, omelette de fromage, ha ha. Derek, Trump pardoned three turkeys this week. Congrats, corncob and Michael Flynn. Terrified will be pecked to death by lame ducks. A string of unpronounceable characters. RhondaTheDork.com. The coronavirus apocalypse is making me too depressed to think of anything clever this week. Adam Costa, Jay Aldenwalt, Malika Chandler, tricycular manslaughter. Two immigrants who decided to stay in the U.S. but leave the South are moving to Michigan. Michigan. Soggy Pants. Matthew Vernon. I just had COVID and losing the Seattle live show is still the worst part of 2020. Perfidious Albion. I'm not sure.

0:54:54 Thomas: Albion? Adopt a homeless pet and oppose declawing and ear docking. Dejury Belly at Pachi's Set Last Baby. Heather L. Jeremiah's Fancy Microwave Emporium. Ian and Ali. Danny Rosari. Eli Bosnick. David in Brooklyn. Next Platinum Night should just be playing video games. Absolutely. Sam Donow. Mitchell. No commute, mute, so behind on podcasts. Andrew, I'm beginning to think Sidney Powell might not be a good attorney. Natasha Crunchwrap wants you to support the Justice Policy Institute. I agree with that 100%. Sam Buck and Conrad Michaels. Thank you so much, top patrons. We love you extra, extra much, but we also love all our patrons and all our listeners equally, but top patrons the most.

0:55:34 Andrew: Yeah, obviously.

0:55:35 Thomas: Duh.

0:55:37 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

0:55:43 Thomas: And now it's time for T3BE answer time. Find out if I did in fact pork this streak. Here we go.

0:55:51 Andrew: All right. Oh, and I need to just add as an update. As of our record on this, as of December 23rd, Tulsi Gabbard has still not filed either of those bills. I know you're shocked, just as shocked as I am. But, oh,

0:56:05 Thomas: Shocking. Shocking, I thought she was wanting to do some substantive work and not merely vice signal. But I was wrong.

0:56:11 Andrew: You sure were wrong, wrong. So, uh, T3be, Thomas. Uh, the question was, uh, a man was a suspect in a murder investigation, was brought in but not Mirandized, um, then voluntarily confessed, uh, and also told the officers where to find the murder weapon. Uh, officer leaves the interrogation room and it's like, like, all right, what did I do? Lock the windows.

0:56:37 Thomas: Yeah, where are my glasses? Are they on my face? Ah, forgot something.

0:56:40 Andrew: Oh, yeah, But I forgot to read him his Miranda rights. Right. So tells the chief. The chief is like, all right, well, let's figure out what to do. Stick the guy in a holding cell. I'm going to send out some other cops to go look for that murder weapon that he talked about. They find it. And then the man is brought back in from holding, this time read his Miranda writes. Uh, by a different officer, uh, and, uh, man says, yeah, no, I get it, thanks. Uh, and then the different officer says, um, how about it, you still good on that confession thing? And he says yes.

Um, at trial the man admits that both of the confessions were voluntarily made but argued that they should each be suppressed along with the weapon, uh, as fruits of the poisonous tree because they were Miranda a violation. So then the question is, um, gets suppressed if anything? Uh, and the options were, you eliminated, uh, D, both of the confessions should be suppressed, but the weapon should be admitted. And you eliminated C, the first confession should be depressed, but the weapon and the second confession should be admitted. Uh, and I, I think your reason for that was you were very confident, uh, that the weapon should be suppressed, which is what's, um, consistent across A, both the confessions and the weapon should be suppressed, and the answer

0:57:14 Thomas: Well,

0:58:00 Andrew: B, you chose, which was first confession and the weapons should be depressed but the second confession should be admitted. So we have two questions here, right? The two questions are, um, is a subsequent consequent confession valid for Miranda purposes? Right? So in this situation, man not Mirandized, confesses, then is Mirandize, reconfesses, does that rehabilitate the confession, or, uh, once you've violated Miranda rights, is it, you know, everything's on the table? Um, and so as between A and B, um, you are correct in that the second confession, uh, gets admitted, um, a subsequent remirandizing so long as, uh, it is voluntary. Um,

0:58:48 Thomas: It'd be a weird situation if it didn't work that way. It'd like, well, now we can never confess? Like you're never, it's never okay.

0:58:49 Andrew: Yeah. That's Right. Look, that would be a perfectly valid, right, like you would just have an absolute rule that's like, yeah, the police screw up reading your Miranda rights Yeah.

0:58:54 Thomas: Okay. Oh, you're free to go.

0:59:03 Andrew: That guy, sorry, that guy gets to the purge. Right, like he's, yeah, he's free to go. Um, yeah, so you know, as you might suspect, that's not the rule. So A is out, uh, it it, the, the second confession, uh, is valid. Then we get to the question of what about the gun? Um, and the arguments are, um, they wouldn't know anything about the gum if not for the first confession, which was obtained without Mirandizing him. The flip side of the argument is, right, but like he voluntarily gave that first confession and voluntarily gave up the gun. And it would seem unduly restrictive, perhaps, on the police to say that we can't bring in voluntarily revealed physical evidence when the confession is voluntary, even if the subject hasn't been Mirandized. And that's the difference between B and C. And I am sad to tell you, Thomas, the streak is not porked, my friend. Um,

0:59:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:59:59 Thomas: No way. This is a prank book. This is the hardest. I'm not, I'm not joking. All of these questions are harder than any of the bar questions I've ever had in my entire career. This makes no sense. These are all designed for people. This isn't going sound crazy. These questions have been designed for people who know the law. And that's something that I didn't bargain for that.

1:00:25 Thomas: How would you possibly know that the weapon is okay, but this, but the confession isn't, which came with the weapon came from, this is impossible. I guess if we're going to do this should have been the one we do the whole time. And then all your lawyer friends will be right. That'll get like, you know, 15%, maybe I'll get lucky occasionally. This is ridiculous. Ridiculous.

1:00:24 Andrew: I Well, Well, I, I, still have faith that, uh, you're gonna, you're going turn this one around, but Um, this was tough all right.

1:00:47 Thomas: I want answers. I want a full investigation into this. This is not...

1:00:51 Andrew: Well, Well, I will, I will put Sidney Powell on it tomorrow. So, so, oh, well, I did my I did my best, Thomas. I apologize.

1:00:51 Thomas: No, I want a real... That's nice. Nice try.

1:01:04 Clip: Wrong! Hide my head, I wanna drown my sorrow. No tomorrow, no tomorrow. You lose!

1:01:18 Thomas: Guess didn't get it right again because these are all impossible. Okay, which person is a lawyer who could only a lawyer could possibly get this right? And maybe that's, you know, that should be what the bar is for. I get that. But the other Other questions weren't like that. Used to be able to reason your way to them. Nope, not anymore, Andrew. I don't know what you did. I'm not sure what deal you struck with the bar people or what happened. The bar people, by the way, can't disbar Sidney Powell, but can deliver impossible questions to a good faith podcaster who's doing his best. So that's where the bar's priority is, everybody. Anyway, all right, sour grapes. Types, uh, hop in your time machine and, and which person got this right.

1:01:48 Andrew: Yeah.

1:02:05 Andrew: Well, Thomas, this week's winner is Durdenstein, who answered on Christmas and says, "I think the answer is C. The first confession should be suppressed in court because of the Miranda violation. However, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law is not the same as anything you say can't used to find the murder weapon." So Durdenstien got it exactly right. That was pretty funny. Congratulations. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. And everyone give Durdenstein a follow on Twitter, that is at D-U-R-D-E-N-S-T-E-I-N, and congratulations on being our holiday winner.

1:02:41 Thomas: All right. Thanks for listening so much and I hope you're having great holidays. We'll see you next time

1:02:47 Clip: I move for a bad court thingy. You mean a mistrial? Yeah, that's why you're the judge and I'm the law talking guy.

1:03:21 Clip: www.openargs.com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/Yodel Mountain and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media LLC, all rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Leverage, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Debra Smith. Special thanks to Teresa Gomez, who runs our live shows and heads up the OA Wiki, follow at OA Wiki on Twitter. Additional thanks to the moderators of the Opening Arguments Facebook community, Emily Waters, Alicia Cook, Eric Brewer, Natalie Newell, Brian Ziegenhagen, and Teresa. And finally, thanks to Thomas Smith, who edits the show and created the fabulous theme music, which was used with permission.