OA530: Andrew Testifies to Congress on Christian Healthshare Ministries!

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 530. I'm Thomas. That's Andrew Torrez. How you doing, sir?

0:01:23 Andrew: I actually am doing fantastic. How are you?

0:01:27 Thomas: Oh, the presence of the actually there implies that maybe before you weren't actually doing Fantastic. Now I'm worried.

0:01:33 Andrew: Did.

0:01:34 Thomas: Were all those Fantastics fake, Andrew?

0:01:36 Andrew: Are you asking me if I fake my fantastics with you, Thomas? I never.

0:01:38 Thomas: Yeah, you weren't faking those Fantastics with me, right?

0:01:42 Andrew: No, Those are every, every Fantastic with you has, has been a legitimate one, Thomas, I, I promise I am I am NOT on, uh, the same boat as Stormy Daniels, but we are on similar cruises.

0:01:42 Thomas: Okay. But now you're on a boat. Know, I was gonna say, it's good to clear the air right away, you know, that's uh mainly what the press has been asking about, uh, because your vacation curiously coincided with the Stormy Daniels trip, definitely

0:02:08 Andrew: We were both on the same Greek island on the same day, but she has already done Mykonos and I don't do Mykonos for a couple of days. So sadly, I am not on Stormy's cruise, which if I were, we would be friends. I mean, that's just, you know, there's, yeah, yeah. I would get her to do an interview because that's what friends do, right? But yeah, we'd be hanging out at the bar together. It would be amazing. And sadly, that has not happened. I will endeavor to do better in the future,

0:02:28 Thomas: Interview yeah oh friends too yeah, interview first Yeah. Well, Andrew as if your boat news isn't good enough. We actually have some incredible news that I think we should get right over to in our first segment.

0:02:51 Andrew: Okay, yeah, absolutely.

0:02:53 Clip: Senator, I will not yield.

0:02:55 Thomas: There was some congressional testimony that I think we should cover. Why don't you tell us about that, Andrew?

0:03:00 Andrew: Am, I am very, very excited about this. And not only do I want to share it with all of our listeners, but I need your ongoing help. So, so, week, behind closed doors, to six members of Congress and their staff and additional guests, I delivered closed-door testimony regarding Christian health share ministries. I'm going to share some of the new horrifying stuff I found in connection with preparing for that testimony. But I want to tell you that there are members of Congress right now that I have spoken to one-on-one. Grilled, they me for, you know, a half an hour afterwards. We have raised this issue in a way that surprised everybody I talked to.

0:03:49 Andrew: And this really, could, you know, there's sort of a bunch of directions in which this could go. There could be the establishment of a congressional subcommittee to investigate these scams, there could be proposed legislation, right? Like, that would be, you know, you would probably do the investigation first, not just, you know, call on me. But the biggest thing that the members of Congress have asked me about, and I shared some of this in an anonymized form, is feedback from you, our listeners. And I know a lot of you wrote in to say you'd been involved in a Christian health share ministry, or you had family members or friends, or whatever. If you have stories, please email those over to us at openarguments@gmail.com.

0:04:42 Thomas: Is for Congress, everybody. This is not just for us. This is for, very, look, I'm holding my excitement. Andrew Torrez was testifying before Congress, and not like, you know, one of the, one of the knockoff state congresses, this is like real Congress, I shouldn't say that because honestly state congress is probably get more done than, yeah.

0:04:44 Andrew: Yeah.

0:05:02 Andrew: They get stuff done, yeah? This is the United States House of Representatives. I was very, very excited.

0:05:03 Thomas: Yes. She's first lady of the nation, yes, yes, not California, um, this is amazing, uh, that is the coolest thing, I gotta tell you, I don't know who grilled you, I don't know if you're at liberty to say, and also, uh, you know, if I were gonna make up a story about testifying, I would also say it was behind closed doors to select, no, I'm just, just kidding. But all

0:05:28 Andrew: But look, the way the way to verify that is as we move forward, there will be open testimony and you'll see me on television. It'll be amazing.

0:05:34 Thomas: I if somehow Elizabeth Warren were on the other end of this, I'd just be like, can you grill me real good? Or maybe don't. I don't know. Wait, are there cameras? No cameras. No cameras, Elizabeth Warren, grill me really hard on whatever this is. Just really give it to me.

0:05:53 Andrew: In it, I'm going to let that pass in your emails. Emails, your email, please let me know how you wish to be addressed and conveyed, right? Full name, you know, initials, anonymous, whatever. If you do not, I will assume that you you're okay with whatever name is attached to the email. Usually we try and double check, but anticipate a reasonably sized volume. So share your stories on Christian HealthShare Ministries and include in that email how you want to be addressed, we and will assemble that. And you You may assist in creating public policy, and how cool is that?

0:06:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:36 Andrew: Also, shout out, the person who got the ball rolling on all of this is our good buddy, the second best legal Andrew in the world, Andrew Seidel, over at FFRF. He deserves really all the credit in the room. He should be the first Andrew on this. So thanks, Andrew, buddy, and get those in. Would you like to know what I found out while preparing, updating my testimony for Congress on Christian health share ministries?

0:06:52 Thomas: Whoa, whoa. Okay, I don't... It's major claim there.

0:07:06 Thomas: Um, yes, absolutely.

0:07:08 Andrew: Okay. Well, then I will tell you. So look, started I because I wanted to look at the lobbying groups that represent CHSMs, right? And there are only two that I can find. One is called the Alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries. We talked about out them on the last episode that we did on these. And they actually have a website, and they lobby Congress, and they lobby the 50 states for exemptions to things like reserving requirements and reporting requirements for insurance, right? And so I looked to figure out everything I could about, first, the Alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries, and then second, and I saw a reference to another lobbying group called the National Coalition of Healthcare Sharing Ministries, and a pin in them. So they have no website, by the way. They're obviously, I thought, much smaller. Alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries filed an IRS Form 990.

0:07:23 Thomas: Hmm.

0:08:09 Andrew: That's what a nonprofit files. It's public disclosure document. I'm going to talk a little bit about what you have to disclose when you file a Form 990. And yes, as you imagine, churches do not have to file Form 990s. And so many of these Christian health share ministries don't file any tax documents at all, because, you know, they don't have to. But lobbying on behalf of churches, you do have to file IRS forms. I'm And going to cut to the punchline here for the first First one, the Alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries, their 990 was perfectly normal. It was everything that I expected. They took in about $1.1 million in donations. They had three employees, which I assume is sort of two at the executive level and one admin person.

0:08:58 Andrew: They made collectively a little over 400 grand. That's, again, maybe feels a little top-heavy, but that's not uncommon. They spent about $80,000 on travel, about $90,000 legal fees, and that left about a half million dollars that they spent in lobbying. So, you know, that's like a 45 percent realization, you Know, value for your money. If you donated a dollar to the Alliance of Healthcare Sharing Ministries, hoping that, you Now, you got about 45 cents on the dollar. That's a great ratio, but for a small non-profit lobbying, it's totally normal, totally fine, nothing fishy here. I'll link it in the show notes. Remember, this is the big one, right? The big lobbying group. They're the one that has a web page, right. They actually do lobbying. Then I'm like, okay, well, let's pull up the 990 for the other one, the National Coalition of Healthcare Sharing Ministries. And that is when I hit the jackpot, so to speak. Because when I pulled up their Form 990, it shows $61.6 million in yearly donations, $11 million in salaries, $47 million in other expenses. We're going get to those.

0:10:14 Andrew: Now, you might be thinking, how on earth is that possible? How can the organization without the website be 60 times larger than the one that's actually doing things?

0:10:13 Thomas: I was thinking more from an accountant's point of view, if, whatever 47 million out of your 50 or 60 million of expenses is other expenses, then those are actually the expenses that should be named. You know, like you don't, other expenses, ah, and a million here, you know out of the 60 million, if the bulk of your spending is one thing, maybe name what that is, I

0:10:47 Andrew: Yeah, this and is one of the limitations of the IRS Form 990, but it is not a limitation for Congress. And that is, on an IRS Form 990, you only have to list your five largest vendors, right? So we're going to talk about who their five largest vendors are. But yeah, everything beyond that. There were 19 other line items. You have to say how many others there are, but you don't have to name them.

0:11:08 Thomas: Wonder which vendors sell all these other expenses, we deal in other expenses where the best vendor around and you won't find better other expenses anywhere else

0:11:13 Andrew: Right. We will get there. You also have to save money. You your expenses are tax deductible. And so the National Coalition of Healthcare Sharing Ministries says all of our expenses are tax-deductible for administering health care sharing services for something called Gospel Light Mennonite Church Medical Aid Plan, Inc. Now, $61 million struck me as an awful lot of money for Mennoniites, what with their, you know, lifetime vow of poverty thing, as a key tenant of their faith, right? The Mennonoites are, I'm probably being somewhat theologically inaccurate accurate by calling them an offshoot of the Amish, but this isn't a theology show, so I'm going to say that, right?

0:12:03 Andrew: Yeah, exactly. I love it. I was going to say all of our Amish listeners can write in now, but...

0:11:42 Thomas: Wow, yeah, um-ish, no, I don't know, we phonograph sales it just went through the floor

0:12:12 Andrew: All are Mennonites is doing with $61.5 million. Turns out, Gospel Light Mennonite Church Medical Aid Plan, Inc. has a DBA. I found this through Dun & Bradstreet's public records. And that DBA is Liberty HealthShare, one of the five largest Christian health-sharing ministries. So remember back in the original episode that I told you, in order to get grandfathered under Obamacare, right? You had to be in continuous operation since 1999, but they put in the parenthesis that said, or a predecessor of which. And so Liberty HealthShare, formed in 2015, went out and bought Gospel Light Mennonite Church and grandfathered themselves into Obamicare. You will not find this information in their public records. You will NOT find it advertised on their website.

0:12:18 Thomas: Uh-huh

0:13:05 Andrew: That's what they did. So, okay. So have Gospel Light, Mennonite Church, Medical Aid Plan, Inc. is Liberty HealthShare. But now we have a much bigger problem to try and figure out, right? Which is $61 million was way too much money for either Mennonnites or the lobbying group without a website to have, it's way too little money for Liberty Healthshare to have. So what I did was I checked to see if Gospel Light Mennonite Church Medical Aid Plan, Inc. followed a 990, and they did. And I'll link that in the show notes. And at first, everything kind of seemed to match up. And it was off by a couple million each ways, right? They had 62 million in donations, 57 million in expenses.

0:13:51 Andrew: All of their expenses were to one independent contractor, The National Coalition of Healthcare Sharing. So, all right, we get it. The National Coalition of Health Care Sharing is the slush fund for Liberty. Where was the rest of the money? And then I found this, and you can read it too. It's on page 33 of Gospel Light Mennonite Church Medical Aid Plan, Inc.'s IRS Form 990. It is under the heading Supplemental Information for Part 6, Line 19, Other Organization Documents Publicly Available. And they say the following. And these, by the way, are all 2018 returns. They're the latest returns that they filed. So I guess they got extensions for 2019. And, you During 2018, and again, I'm quoting this directly.

Gospel Light Mennonite Church Medical Aid Plan, Inc., DBA, Liberty HealthShare, provided health care and end-of-life assistance to over 110,000 families. These funds belong to the members and are not shown on the balance sheet. They are kept in member sharing accounts and are non-included as income or expenses in Gospel Light Mennonite Church Medical Aid Plan, Inc. Funds contributed by members in 2018 amounted to $322,814,532, of which $321.8 million were sent out. Okay, so now you've said, and maybe I should let you as the accountant explain that to our listeners, but essentially what this means is Liberty in 2018 took in 385 million dollars in premiums. They took 322 million off the books. They just said, no, up these are in member sharing accounts, they are not included in income or because they don't belong to us, right?

0:14:38 Thomas: Geez yeah

0:15:50 Andrew: $62 million difference is what they took out for their overhead administrative expenses, okay? That's 17% of the total revenue, which, by the way, we told you, one of the problems of these Christian health share ministries is that they're unregulated. Insurance companies are forbidden from having over 15% in overhead.

0:16:20 Andrew: Every 17 cents that you spend of every dollar that you put into your member sharing account is taken by Liberty HealthShare. It is washed through to a separate LLC that is doing business under the name of a lobbying trade organization, National Coalition of Health Sharing Ministries, Inc., right, that that holds itself out as an independent lobbying group, but is in reality 100% owned by Liberty and 100% funded as the slush fund of all their administrative expenses. And now, when I go to the National Coalition's 990 and try and figure out where they spent the $62 million, so the answer is, right, of that $62 billion, what percent was spent on health Health sharing?

0:17:15 Andrew: Zero, right? These are all non-health-related funds. None of this goes back to the membership in any way. Where it goes, nobody really knows. There's an LLC called Cost Sharing Solutions LLC that got $25 million. They're a call center, so they do marketing. Marketing. There's an outfit called Health Smart Care Management that links to a P.O. box in Dallas, Texas. There is something called Bowtie Medical LLC. Your guess is as good as mine what any of these do. But what we do know is we have $385 million in premiums. Liberty skimmed $62 million off the top, ran it through two separate LLCs, and And reported five vendors with whom they spent money.

0:18:05 Andrew: They disclosed there were 19 others. Others. Do we know if these are friends and family of the directors of Liberty HealthShare? No, we don't know. We don't Know anything about any of the rest of them. It is 100% a black box. And it's why I tried to get Congress interested and why I believe they are interested. And if you think that's a big issue, I will tell you, Christian health care ministries took in $633 million last year. They have an asset portfolio of $135 million. Independent, Where right? That's invested, they don't have to tell me. Who they spent it on, they don't tell me what they're doing with the dividends.

0:18:52 Andrew: They don't have to. But they do have to tell Congress if Congress acts. So I thought that was a pretty pretty interesting follow-up. And just the more you dig, right, the more you see fraud. The more you see billions of dollars with no regulation and oversight. And maybe we shouldn't have that.

0:19:13 Thomas: Andrew, I feel like we need to get Katie Porter's drawing board on this immediately. First off, just also for the podcast graphic to understand what you just said. But I'm actually surprised. So if you're saying that normal insurance is capped at 15% of whatever ratio of kind of premium. Well, yeah, what would it be? Because it's kind of a different setup for actual insurance.

0:19:36 Andrew: Of premiums paid to to real insurance companies, 85 cents or more of every dollar must go to paying, to payments to insureds. That's right. And if you fall below that, right, you get audited.

0:19:47 Thomas: So out to doctors essentially or whatever. Yeah. Like the actual, yeah. Okay. Uh-huh. Okay, so I'm surprised that it was only 17%. I mean, I'm Serious. Like if, if, if there's no limit, essentially I'm actually, I kind of doubt that it could possibly be that close to what it is. Uh, I, I will say, say that devil Christian's advocate, whatever, um, if, if it is really a thing where the money is, uh, I don't know how would this be reported in a normal insurance company, because on one hand if you take something like, say, Patreon, know who we use, um, we have shows, shows that are on Patreon, whatever's on Patreon. They make X dollars that's processed and sits within Patreon for a month or whatever, for a while. But then they take their Patreon cut, which I think is something, is like five percent or something. Wouldn't be like, if you're Patreon, you wouldn't be like, well, we don't have that whole amount of money. Yeah, it sits on our accounts for a bit, but it's actually the five is the money that we as Patreon actually have.

0:19:54 Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So

0:20:49 Thomas: Is that analogous to what's going on with Christian health share ministries here, or whatever the one is, Mennonite Miller Light something, um, or is it different? And, and, uh, if, if so, if it's different, how should that be reported exactly, do you think?

0:21:03 Andrew: Am not an accountant. I can't tell you what best accounting practices are. I I can say if I were the CEO of Patreon and I were preparing disclosures to – and Patreon is not a public company, so they don't have to prepare public disclosers. But if I were preparing internal disclosures to my investors, which they have, my disclosers would show inflows and outflows of money earmarked for other shows, artists, YouTube, you know, content creators, that sort of thing, as income and expenses, right? Right. So in other words, right. You know, Patreon takes two levels of cuts off of our off of our income.

0:21:52 Andrew: They take a percentage of everything that people donate to the show. And then they also charge an administrative processing fee that is a percentage at the end of every month, month. So it would show a profit margin that, to the sum of those margins two, over the total amount of inflows that are coming in, which will probably be, I don't know, I'm guessing on the order of like 15%, might be closer to 20%. If you just said, if you took the the same approach that Liberty is taking with the member individual accounts, then right? Patreon would say, yeah, we don't account for funds sent to be earmarked to content creators and then paid out to content creators. We keep those all off books because they're never really our assets, um, and And. I That That, yeah.

0:22:44 Thomas: No. That, that is how Patreon would Do it, they're not, they're not Patreon's, as an accountant, I, I, I guess I disagree, I, I don't think you show, you know. Because imagine the amount of money. For one, you don't want to ramp up your income with numbers that aren't actually your income. That's the last thing. I guess maybe for shareholders maybe would, but that's not their income. I mean, when Visa processes credit card stuff, they're not going to show, well, our revenue, our inflows are the zillions of dollars that people use credit cards for, but then we'll cancel that out and we're left with just the 3% fee or whatever it would be. You just show the 3% fee because that's what you actually make as income.

0:23:06 Andrew: Yeah.

0:23:24 Andrew: I, that makes sense to me from an accounting perspective. From a legal perspective, I want as much information as possible.

0:23:31 Thomas: Well, and I'll note, and this is why I was wondering if it's a different situation, maybe a different because they have custody of these funds, possibly in a way that's different than Patreon or a credit card company has, you know, any sort of custody of our funds, you knows, as consumers or whatever, don't you think? I mean, if they're in charge of this giant pot of cash that I guess ostensibly is for members to use, aren't they in charge of how that gets paid out? Or is the legal quirk of it that it's like, no, you figure it out amongst yourselves, Christians. Is it?

0:23:33 Andrew: Well.

0:24:06 Andrew: Think you make a really the excellent point there, which I did not emphasize at the beginning of this because we talked about it in episode 513, and that is the difference between the Visa card example and the Patreon example is that Visa and Patreon expressly promise that they are conveying the funds to a third party, whereas the Christian HealthShare Ministries expressly promised the opposite. They say, this is not insurance. There are no guarantees of payment.

0:24:35 Thomas: We'll keep your money. Yeah.

0:24:39 Andrew: And if we decide not to pay, the responsibility for paying the bill rests with you. So yeah, I think when you have that kind of discretionary control, yeah.

0:24:45 Thomas: Yeah, it is different. Actually, let me ask you another question that makes it different, I think, is if I'm a member of a Christian health share ministry thingy, I'm not allowed to just be like, "Hey, I'm leaving, give me the amount that's mine," right? Like, I can't be like, "I'm out, I'm entitled to this amount that is my share," right?

0:24:50 Andrew: Good.

0:25:08 Andrew: You are required in the contract that you sign, and it is posted in disclaimers in text boxes all over their websites, you are not entitled to any funds from the Christian health share ministry whatsoever. And you have no cause of action against anyone associated for anything that they do or do not do. They,

0:25:30 Thomas: So total BS, I agree with you as regards to this, uh, the accounting-wise, that's a totally different thing than Patreon or Visa. It sounds like that's their money as a company and they're in charge of it, right? I mean, if you're in charge of how it gets paid out, that is something that you should have to reflect on your books, definitely.

0:25:43 Andrew: There is nothing. So again, remember with Liberty, they took in $385 million. How did they pick 62 million to skim off the top? They don't tell us, they don't have to tell us. But there's absolutely no disclosure to their members that says, you know, we're taking the 17% off. Yeah, correct.

0:25:57 Thomas: Yeah. Well, and and honestly, that's Why I'm very skeptical of that 17%. Like what if that's the amount where they're like, well, we'll show this books wise. But if we we don't know where that at the bulk of the 300, whatever million you said, we have no information as to who that's paid to and how and why and all that. Right.

0:26:26 Thomas: So that could be any number of like LLCs that have their family members in them or what, you know, any kind of crap like that. And we wouldn't know other than I guess members would have to, you knows, there's that information. Yeah. That'd be impossible for anybody to really have that information besides the company doing the stuff.

0:26:24 Andrew: It is not shown, right, anywhere on the returns. Yep.

0:26:44 Andrew: Besides the company doing the stuff. That's exactly right.

0:26:45 Thomas: Wow. So That's why I'm calling BS on that 17% number. I think that's just what they are willing to say they've done. And it really calls into question what's going on with that $300 plus million number. So there are no auditing requirements of any kind. Just to make clear, I'm trying to give you the Elizabeth Warren treatment. Mr. Torres, you're here before for Congress, there's no requirement that they tell anybody how that member money, quote unquote, is getting doled out.

0:26:47 Andrew: Yeah.

0:27:19 Andrew: That is correct, Senator.

0:27:20 Thomas: This is a travesty. I demand we draft a bill right now, forthwith. Yeah, no, that's that's uh, that's crazy. Uh, all right, send in your stories, everybody.

0:27:29 Andrew: Have, please do send in your stories, your experiences. Um, the the question I anticipated fielding, and I will, I will tell you the question that was asked and the answer that I gave, and you know, feel free to let me know what you think about this. And that was, boy, uh, Mr. Torres, this sounds really really bad. On the other hand, if this is that bad and there are billions of dollars being squirreled away and wasted and unaccounted for and everything you've told us about in your testimony, why am I not getting complaints from my constituents? I said, I think that's a fantastic question. I think the answers fall into a couple of different categories. As an overarching, overarching overview to my answer, consider that casinos set their slot machines to pay out about 80 cents on the dollar, right?

0:28:20 Andrew: If you are counting the hits and forgetting the misses, and I shared a couple stories from our inbox that people shared with us of people defending Christian health care ministries, the ones we talked about on the air, right, of the Couple that had been a member for two years and were like, well, they paid for our pregnancy. And we did the math, and it was like, you've paid them twice as much as they paid for your pregnancy. So I said, look, isn't as though it's a black hole and they don't pay out any claims. As far as I can tell, they do pay out claims, but they're paying out about 83% of the claims, which just so happens to be the level that keeps people coming back to the casinos.

0:28:33 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:57 Thomas: That We know about, by the way, but

0:28:58 Andrew: Second, it's not even a dog whistle, whistle. It's a regular whistle, where, you know, it, it says, uh, we have health care that's love and reflects your values, and like, If you're pro-life, don't complain about us. Is right, sort of the second level of response there. And the third level of response is, I think you are getting some of these complaints, right? Some of it is, you know, explicable to bad math. There really isn't a clearinghouse, right? The follow-up question was, is there anybody out there collecting this data? I said, well, other than the podcast that I'm here on behalf of, not that I know of.

There's no legal requirement that anybody keep track of any of this. So is, right now, the best numbers that we have is that 1.5 million people participate in this thing. I will tell you, of that $62 million slush fund, the single largest expenditure was $25 million to that call center I talked to you about. And what's a call center? They are placing outgoing calls, doing solicitation. Amount spent on advertising, if you click on Christian Broadcast Radio on your radio or listen to a podcast or whatever, you will hear a Christian HealthShare Ministries ad. I want us to get in when there are between one to two million people involved before there are 10 million people involved, right?

0:29:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:30:33 Andrew: It's why I thought it was crucial that we covered Crowd Health on here before there were knockoff secular groups trying to get it on the action. This is going to be fraud, let's try and stop it as proactively as possible. So we need your help.

0:30:50 Thomas: Well, also, by the way, if they were getting complaints on the Christian health sharing ministries, I assume they just stuff it into the same box that everybody's complaining about the shitty normal healthcare that's way too expensive and isn't good. Like I, I imagine it would just go in that same box. So like, it's not like if they were getting complaints, they'd be like, oh, well, we got to do something about this right away. Cause they haven't fixed, uh, uh, the normal healthcare system, the non-Christian healthcare, healthcare system. So, I response though, I imagine he said something slightly more diplomatic than that.

0:31:23 Thomas: This episode is brought to you by Xchair. It's that time again when I get to tell you about Xchair while I'm sitting in my own comfy Xchair, if you've ever been behind the wheel of a high performance sports car, you realize how much better a car can be and and you never want to settle for a regular car again. I feel exactly the same way about my X chair. From the moment I sat down in it, I understood why many consider X chair to be the finest office chair in the world. Can your current office chair give you a massage while you're working? X Mine chair can. Can Your Current Office Chair Heat Up or Cool Down? My X Chair Can. All in the LMAX Massage and Temperature Regulation exclusively designed and made for X chair. And once you feel the customized support of X chairs, patented dynamic variable lumbar or DVL, your back will never be happier in another chair.

0:31:21 Andrew: So

0:32:11 Thomas: Again, take my advice, try X Chair for yourself, risk-free for 30 days. Once you realize how much better your chair should be, you'll never go back. I promise, go to X Chair, O a.com. Now, that's the letter X, XchairOA.com, for $100 off your order. Xchair has a 30-day guarantee of complete comfort at Xchair OA.com. Show is brought to you by Wondery, and they've got another cool podcast to tell you about. It is called Business Wars, specifically Death Row versus Bad Boy. In the 90s, two hip-hop record labels shocked parents and won over fans worldwide, selling tens of millions of albums. The Business Wars podcast from Wondery has the story of how Death Row and Bad Boy Records changed American music and American business, but soon enough their East Coast versus West Coast rivalry would turn deadly.

0:33:04 Thomas: The battle between two labels escalated as they fought to reach the top of the charts. And then Bad Boy would retaliate with a hit Notorious B.I.G. single. With larger-than-life characters like Tupak, Biggie, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Puff Daddy, and Suge Knight, the Business Wars Death Row vs. Bad Boy has the story of how these rap rivals turned hip-hop into a multi-billion dollar global industry. Think if you enjoy our recent and talk about Weird Al and the music industry there. You're going to love this podcast talking about Death Row versus Bad Boy. It is absolutely incredible how rap went from in the mainstream, relatively unknown to a literally multi-billion dollar global industry that everybody knows. It is incredible that something happened that fast.

0:33:51 Thomas: Find out how, listen check out business listen to business wars death row verses bad boy or you listen to week earlier on apple app.

0:34:04 Clip: Down the law, down the law.

0:34:07 Thomas: Well, on to, uh, our not main set, you know, that was the main story. Mr. Torres going to Washington was the mean story. Uh, on to another story, we got an Activision Blizzard settlement is, catch this, is this over? Are we done?

0:34:21 Andrew: It, it is not over. And this is really interesting, the way this developed, and since we've been covering the story very very closely, I wanted to make sure, this was a couple of days ago, if you have seen Activision Blizzard settlement right in the news, uh, I want to explain what that is, right. So, um, remember that there are multiple irons in the fire against Activision going right now, right? So the initial lawsuit that we discussed was brought by the California State Agency, right? That's what we talked about on episode 513 and broke down. That lawsuit is still pending. That is the one that contained the frat boy office, you know, drinking party cubicle things, you know some of the like truly you know, sort of horrifying details.

But as we pointed out, also contained what we would call sort of garden variety, don't want to minimize that, but standard employment discrimination claims like, Like, oh, hey, as it turns out, you know, women are being systematically discriminated against for for promotion, for, you know, plum jobs, for increases, for representation in management, kind of across the board. So that lawsuit was filed in July. That investigation is ongoing. Going. Then we discussed as an update that there have been both shareholder derivative lawsuits, and I'm going to re-explain that in a second, and inquiry made by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the form of a subpoena requiring them to turn over certain documents.

0:34:22 Thomas: OK. Mm-hmm.

0:36:01 Andrew: Now, that subpoENA itself is confidential, so we've only heard about that through Activision's PR statements that say that they are cooperating with the SEC and producing documents. A shareholder derivative lawsuit, we've talked about this on the show before, but basically, if you own any shares in Activision, a publicly traded company, the board of directors is required to act in the best interest of the shareholders when it transacts business, right? And And as you might imagine, the minute that the California complaint was filed, Activision shares dropped like a rock, right? They dropped 20% in two months. And the argument in the shareholder derivative lawsuits is, Hey, you've been under investigation from multiple state and federal agencies for years, years, and you should have disclosed that years ago rather than Waiting for the anvil, you know, you know, the anvil, to drop out Of the sky.

0:36:59 Thomas: Yeah. Silly blizzard. You know, you can screw over regular people. You can screwover women apparently all you want in this country. But if you if you cross the shareholders, you might see some consequences. Big mistake. You know, it reminds me I just was listening to another podcast. They were talking about the that I have you caught the LuLaRoe thing. We watched that documentary. It was Lula Rich. Anyway, it is one of those multi level marketing marketing scams that, you know, involves selling really shitty clothing and, and, uh, you know, that kind of thing. Here's the thing about, Uh, LulaRoe. That was funny, after finishing this documentary. It was like four episodes on, I don't know, I want to say Hulu, maybe Amazon. Oh, I think it's Amazon. They're still going. The end of the documentary, it wasn't like Enron docs, where it's like, well, and that's how the company died. The lula row Lula Rich thing was, and they're still going, you know, it's just, care, they carry on.

And someone pointed out the difference is they didn't screw over the shareholders, whereas Elizabeth Holmes right now is on trial and might hopefully go to prison, uh, for a while, because she screwed over the shareholders. And I just think it's, it's, it's darkly funny, in this, in a way that the way we can get any sort of justice for some of this stuff sometimes is like, okay, they discriminate against women.

0:37:03 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

0:38:19 Thomas: Nobody's going to do anything about that. And hold on. And that reduced the share price. What? Oh my God. Okay. Throw them in jail.

0:38:27 Andrew: I, I agree with all of that. I think that, draw an analogy to our wild card segment, that we're definitely not going to get to. And that is, you know, the fact that we are depending upon defamation lawsuits by Dominion Voting Systems to try and stop the outright lies being perpetrated by Sidney Powell and their ilk. Yeah.

0:38:41 Thomas: Yeah. You know, it'S kind of depressing, but like the ways we're able to get justice in this day and age often involve like, well, okay, OK, find the way that someone with money was harmed by the thing that also harmed a bunch of vulnerable people. And then that's the way maybe you can get some justice.

0:39:04 Andrew: Yeah, that's and a shame. Had the slight diversion about shareholder lawsuits. This is 100 percent public investigations. And this is the U.S. equal employment Opportunity Commission, so the EEOC. They filed a complaint on September 27th in federal court against Activision. Activision lodged their settlement decree the same day. Now, you know, the court will have to sign off on the settlement decree. I'm going to talk to you about it. The court will, think. I looks I completely reasonable to me. But we learned an awful lot in what the EEOC filed. I mean, first, we learned that the EIOC felt like they had to file this complaint, They could right? Have reached a settlement without filing the complaint. And the fact that they wanted this to be a matter of public record is significant.

And it also serves as a significant deterrent principal the relief sought. Going to be an $18 million fund for victims from 2016 to the present. So it covers a subset of what some of the other litigation covers. But the big relief that the EEOC wanted was was a permanent injunction against Activision Blizzard from engaging in sexual harassment, retaliation, and any other employment practices which discriminate based on sex, including pregnancy. That means is, a result of engaging in this settlement, if there's any violation, if Activision does not live up to what they promised to do in the this settlement, they've breached that agreement, everything springs back, and we don't go to a situation where the EEOC then, you know, has to do another investigation, and maybe it's a Republican administration, and there is a complaint that is live, and the government can go into court resurrect that complaint and say, okay, to settle, we We tried to have them do the right thing.

They decided not to, so, you let's bring the hammer down. That's what was filed on Monday and settled the same day, a federal suit by the EEOC alleging, and in particular, all obviously federal claims. They are violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for sexual harassment in the workplace, for sexual discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, that is, when individuals were pregnant in the marketplace, they were denied the same opportunities and compensation as those who were not pregnant, and retaliation against whistleblowers.

0:41:01 Thomas: Hmm. No,

0:41:53 Andrew: And we learned, relevant, I think, to the derivative lawsuits, that this investigation has been going on for a long, long time, right? It is at least three years old, right. Right. So it specifically states that on September 26, 2018, the then commissioner of the EEOC initiated the investigation into allegations that Activision Blizzard, one, was subjecting female employees to sex based discrimination, including harassment based on their gender to retaliating against female employees for complaining about sex based discrimination based on their gender, and three, paying female employees less than male employees based on leur gender.

0:42:39 Andrew: And on the basis of that three-year investigation, that led to the filing of this complaint on Monday.

0:42:46 Thomas: So they... Settled it the same day, which...

0:42:46 Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I...

0:42:49 Thomas: I feel like that's, if I, if I was in some sort of legal thingy, and uh, and I settled it the same day, I feel like that implies that maybe I'm guilty of something. Is that a fair uh assumption?

0:43:01 Andrew: So... I, I should say, uh, that as part of the settlement agreement, right, that there are recitals that says, you know, Activision is not, not admitting to any liability or guilt, right? Of course.

0:43:03 Thomas: Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I And always do those when nothing has happened. Like I've done nothing wrong. Someone threatens illegal action. I'm like settling the same day and I've done nothing. Just saying.

0:43:30 Andrew: Yeah, the language is, "Defendants expressly deny that they subjected any individual or group of individuals to sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, and or related retaliation, deny all allegations of wrongdoing, liability, damages, and entitlement to other relief set forth in the action, whether arising under Title VII or analogous state and local laws, deny any group of systematic discrimination or harassment and deny that any of their policies and procedures are inadequate. However, the parties recognize that the parties can avoid the expense, distraction, and possible litigation associated with such a dispute and thus wish to resolve all issues" through this settlement decree.

0:44:03 Thomas: Yeah. Basically, I've done nothing. Right, I've, here's a bunch of money, or, what's, what's the actual settlement, I suppose?

0:44:10 Andrew: Get to that. Not only would I infer some level of culpability, know, and if you wanted to make a devil's advocate, you could say the things that we did that were not illegal would nevertheless look really bad at trial. But that's not a great argument either, right? Like, you know, our company engages in behavior that while not technically illegal, would reflect really badly on us and further depress our share price if you went to trial, right, because if it looked good for you, you'd say, let's go to trial, right?

0:44:34 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:44:42 Andrew: Um, there is certainly, um, argument about legal expenses, but yeah, settling on day one, I think it is fair to say that in my civil cases, when we settle that early, uh, that is, um, because the, the fact scenario is at least mixed, right, um, The second thing that I would say is the fact that, you know, it's just to reiterate the fact that the EEOC did not agree to just a private settlement. They, right, can do that. They can say, "We've engaged in this investigation. Unless you promise to do A, B, C, and D, we're going to open a complaint against you." They did not do that here.

They said, "Oh, we're opening the complaint. If you want to settle, we'll agree to terms, but we're getting this out in the open." And that, again, I draw some inferences from. So the thing that this does is this provides for future injunctive relief about the practices that Activision Blizzard is going to undertake internally to ensure that this doesn't happen again in the future, or minimize the risks of it happening again in, in the future. They are required to update the EEOC and the court pursuant to this settlement decree. And they also created a fund of $18 million for potential litigants who may fall under this decree. And those potential litigants are

0:44:58 Thomas: Okay. Wow.

0:46:17 Andrew: Anyone who was employed by Activision Blizzard at any time from September 1st, 2016 to the present, and on the EEOC's assessment, could assert a claim for sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, retaliation, and or your constructive discharge, right? And that's where, you know, you don't get fired, but they make you quit because they make your condition so bad. So what they do is, the first part of the settlement is Activision has to do two things. They have to pay the $18 million into a fund, and then they have to play at their expense both a claims administrator to run the fund, That's an outside lawyer. It could be us. We might apply to do that. The law offices of P. Andrew Doris might apply to be the claims administrator here. It's something we would do really well, right?

0:47:05 Thomas: That's because that's all upside, you just get to dish out money to people who've been wronged by the company is that

0:47:13 Andrew: Yeah. You get to solicit out folks if they have been wronged by Activision Blizzard, and then you facilitate the communication by and between Activision Blizzard, the EEOC, and the employee, right. So in other words, they don't have to go through Activision. You then can go back to Activision and you are empowered to get their employment records and that sort of thing. And then the EEOC evaluates the claims, right? So our firm would not say,

0:47:14 Thomas: Oh, nice. Oh. Okay. I was because I

0:47:46 Andrew: Yeah,

0:47:46 Thomas: Was going to say, glass half empty, would you have to be the person that's like, "I think that sexual harassment, that's worth about X number of dollars"? Like, that, that strikes me as tough thing to have to do.

0:47:56 Andrew: I think, above my pay grade. But well within the wheelhouse of the EEOC. They also have to pay, Activision has to pay an EEOP consultant. And that is the person who runs back and forth from the EIOC, which has subpoena power, back to Activision to say, "Okay, well, you've got to get us this. You've got get us a witness to why. You've gotta get us so much time with your HR personnel." Etc, etc, and again, you know, the degree to which Activision complies with those requests is pretty much, uh, inversely correlated with, um, likely, uh, that complaint is to succeed, right? If, if Activision is like, "Well, we don't have a lot of information," then the EEOC will be like, "Well, great, then we're going to say that this is a value, you know, that this a meritorious complaint," and we're going to pay them out of that fund.

0:48:49 Andrew: The really nice thing about setting up a fund in advance, and again, you have to think that the number of folks who are affected by this, EEOC picked a number that is likely to be reflective based on the results of their three-year investigation. The fund is exhausted, you now have to file suit individually, and you may face statute of limitations issues by that. But the nice thing is that is is that money is already forfeited, So right? Even if nobody comes forward to claim it, then what happens is there is, boy, I don't want to run down the amicus amicus route again. This is another

0:49:03 Thomas: Right. Oh, no.

0:49:38 Andrew: Latin phrase.

0:49:38 Thomas: You see, that was settled. The Facebook group pointed out that Sidney Powell pronounces it amicus, so we win. It's amicus. Yeah.

0:49:45 Andrew: Yep, then it's obviously amicus.

0:49:47 Thomas: That's end of debate. I don't know.

0:49:47 Andrew: Yeah, agreed. This is, I have heard multiple ways. It is spelled C-Y space P-R-E-S. I've always heard that as Cypre, but I've heard C-P-RES, C-pre. So we're going to get a whole bunch of people writing in Cyprus, Laurel,

0:49:56 Thomas: Huh? Yeah. Yeah. Cypress chat. I bet somebody will say it's a cha sound.

0:50:11 Andrew: Yanni. Money. Yeah. The way a CPRAE award works is, CPRAe is Latin, I think, for as close as possible or whatever. But the idea is when part of the reason you pay out is punitive, the idea is you don't want the defendant to get any part of that money back in the event that that there are insufficient number of claimants. And so you take the funds and you deliver them to a charity that the court decides that the lawyers will nominate a charity and then say, yeah, you should just make a CPRA award to X charity.

And the idea is if is if the charity's work is as close to the goal of the original imposition of the trust as possible, then, you know, you're basically doing, you rough justice, right? You're getting somewhat of the way there. And courts really do, right, will entertain evidence and will say, and there are cases in which they approve of charities and cases in in which they're like, no, you know, the problem here is that although this charity is doing good work, right, it isn't really reflecting the original terms of the settlement. And sometimes that's for reasons, for geographic reasons, right?

Like there's a fairly prominent case in which the proposed Sea Prayer Award would have gone to a, it was a civil rights settlement, would have going to a civil arts organization in California. And like, you know, 50% of the class plaintiffs were non-California plaintiffs, right? And the court was like, the mission of the organization is fine, but the distribution is not fine. Come back with somebody else, right.

0:50:12 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Oh, interesting.

0:50:59 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. So.

0:51:52 Thomas: My question is, don't

0:51:54 Andrew: Go ahead.

0:51:54 Thomas: They just say, okay, uh no more claimants, let's divvy the remaining amount among the people who already, we know they had meritorious claims.

0:52:04 Andrew: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I think the idea there is you would not want to create a perverse incentive for wanting members of the Class to not have other members of the class to opt In. So, yeah, I think that would be the counter argument.

0:52:15 Thomas: Yeah. Good point. All right. Makes sense.

0:52:22 Andrew: So the monetary part, $18 million goes into a fund. There will be a CPRAE on the balance. So, you know, if there are fewer claimants the EEOC does not disperse them all to women who have been discriminated against by Activision, then it will go to presumably a woman's charity of some sort. Then there is injunctive relief. So this I thought was pretty specific.

So within 30 days of the settlement, Activision agrees to A, remove from the personnel files of each eligible claimant any references to the allegations related to sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, and or related retaliation, except to the extent that defendants must keep records of the allegations or any eligible claimant's involvement in this charge in order to effectuate this decree, right, that is to pay them, in which case such records must be maintained separately from the eligible claimants' personnel files. Now, that's really important, right? That says we have to scrub your personnel files so that in the future, right, nobody will be able to come back and say, oh, you were a Potential whistleblower here, Handle work inquiries confirmation through an established third-party vendor neutral reference process.

The claims administrator shall provide notice to each such person on the distribution list of the defendant's work verification number and website address that instructs persons only to use that resource source for references. Reclassify the terminations of any eligible claimant to voluntary resignations if they have been identified by the EEOC as being subjected to retaliation. And ensure that the eligible claimants are not prohibited from reemployment from defendants other than for non-discriminatory and non-retaliatory reasons. So that's all relief that goes to people who were were hurt in the past. What else do they have to do in the future? Pretty wide ranging, So right?

0:53:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:54:16 Andrew: Defendants are enjoined from engaging in discrimination, including harassment of any persons on the basis of sex, including pregnancy, engaging in any practice that creates a hostile work environment on the base of sex and or creating, facilitating, or permitting a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII on the bases of sex. And might say, okay, well, the law. They were also required by law to do that. That's true.

0:54:38 Thomas: Yeah.

0:54:39 Andrew: But because of that, because of that factual finding that we needed to enjoin you to not violate the law, that means that within 30 days, defendants, Activision, Blizzard, will retain a third-party EEO consultant approved by the EEOC with demonstrated experience in the areas of preventing and combating gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. The consultant shall have access to documents and employees and shall review defendant's compliance with the provisions of this decree. Defendants agree to bear all costs associated with the selection and retention of the EO consultant and the costs associated with the performance of their duties. So we'll get to their duties in a second, but yeah, they have to to hire an outside attorney approved by the EEOC to oversee all of their policies.

0:55:27 Andrew: And again, I'm sort of taken back to Liz Warren's complaints, you know, beginning in 2017 about neutering, you know, the consumer protection division, right? This is the kind of teeth that you want, right? Like when you get a consent decree and a company says, yeah, we promise we're going to, you know, examples include, you know, Facebook violating multiple consent decrees about use of its information. Well, when you have to bring in somebody that the government agency agrees to your hire and then you have to pay them and then that person gets to file a report every 30 days back to the EEOC and yet the company has to pay them their full salary and all of their expenses. That's a lot more teeth than your sort of standard, no, we promise we'll never do that again.

0:56:14 Andrew: So what are their duties? Number one, to conduct regular audits to identify areas for improvement in defendant's response to complaints for sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, and related retaliation, and determine whether those things exist at your work sites. Number two, reviewing your internal complaint logs, which include complaints regarding sexual harassment pregnancy discrimination and related retaliation. And to provide oversight on documenting the complaints, investigating the complaints complaints, evaluating those complaints, reviewing the disciplinary actions that were taken in response to those complaints. So basically completely overhauling the complaint process. Number three, evaluating pregnancy discrimination complaints and providing feedback on improving working conditions for pregnant, and again, the language in the decree is pregnant women, or removing impediments that may exist for women due to pregnancy.

0:57:11 Andrew: Number four, or reviewing and providing feedback on existing procedures to ensure that they fully comply with Title VII and this degree, consultation on communications by and between the company and employees, providing an independent assessment of the trainings and ongoing workplace manuals and materials that are used, that are required. So, you know, there are more than their semiannual reports to the EEOC and ensuring that they comply. There is then also an internal coordinator that you have to hire under the same requirements that implements all of those policies. And then there are regular audits beginning 90 days out by the internal coordinator that get transmitted directly to the EUC.

0:58:02 Andrew: So to summarize all of this, right, this is a real investigation with teeth, with neutral third party, non Activision high level employees who will be brought in fully paid for by Activision, but required to report to the EEOC over the lifetime of this agreement. And that seems like a really, really good result to me. And, by the way, an $18 million fund to resolve specifically Title VII claims. So this does not moot out the California investigation. So that will continue. This does not resolve the shareholder complaints, although it may certainly affect those shareholder complaints going forward. But seems like a pretty good result.

0:58:29 Thomas: Well, I suppose then in this, in this instance, it isn't all about the shareholders, I guess, maybe, uh Maybe I was being too cynical before.

0:58:57 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Can wipe away a little bit of Thomas Smith cynicism, then I consider this an episode well done.

0:58:59 Thomas: Right. Well, on that note, uh, yeah, that sounds like, uh, pretty good news as regards Activision Blizzard, so, uh, yeah, all right, a feel-good segment, hopefully.

0:59:14 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

0:59:20 Thomas: Now it's time for T3BE, uh, this new source, I think, I think I'm one for four. Let's see if I can creep toward 50 percent.

0:59:29 Andrew: We can get a huge chunk of the way there on this question. Thomas, a man entered into a valid contract with painter A to touch up the paint on his house. The man agreed to pay painter A $400 as well as supply the paint for the job. Payment was due after the job was completed. The paint would have cost the man 50 bucks. Before the man purchased the paint, painter A breached the contract and refused to paint the man's house.The man subsequently entered into a valid second contract with painter B to complete the same work that painter A was going to do. The man agreed to pay painter B $600, and painter B provided his own paint. Painter B completed the job, and the man promptly paid the $600.

1:00:16 Andrew: The man then timely filed suit against painter A for breach of contract. How much will the man recover from Painter A. our answers are just numbers. A, $150. B, $200. C, $350. Or D, $400.

1:00:37 Thomas: I love this question because the answers being numbers makes me feel like it's a math test and I'm very good at math tests. However, It's not really a math text. Yeah. I think this is, um, pretty much the kind of thing that logic should hopefully, hopefully, and reason should hopefully prevail here. And it's pretty much like, I know in the past we've talked about when it's contract law, it's usually like make the person whole. You know, you can breach in this country, you can breach a contract, but you're probably going to have to pay somebody and make them whole for whatever they would have had. And I think the trickery here is with the first contract, the man was going to supply the paint. And with the second one, the man wasn't going to supply the paint, so there could be a little bit of trickery there depending on it's like, which, what's the amount of the actual job, I think. So I think if I was just trying to do the straight up math and just make everybody

1:00:44 Andrew: Well,

1:01:30 Thomas: Equal or make the man essentially. Well, it's always about the man, Andrew. Always how the man's going to get paid here. If...

1:01:37 Andrew: Women never get their house painted in the bar.

1:01:40 Thomas: Well, Painter B is a woman, so because it says Painter B provided her own paint, so gender equality. If Painter A was going to do it for $400 and the man would have to pay 50 for the paint, that essentially makes the job cost 450, uh, so that, you know, that's what the the job would have been worth to the man, I think, I suppose I have that right, and Painter B is doing it for 600, all things covered, so, so the paint is covered, so comparing apples to apples or paint to paint or something, um, had Painter A fulfilled the contract, the job in total would have cost the man $450, but I think Painter A then, I believe, based on what we've talked about, kind of has the responsibility to make the man whole, and if the man had to pay Painter B 600 to do the whole thing, I think the difference there is 150.

1:01:46 Andrew: There you go. All

1:02:33 Thomas: Um, I don't know if there's going to be again some sort of trickery with the 50, the cost of the, who knows, but it strikes me if I'm just doing strictly, you know, rational numbers calculations here, um, the total cost of the job would have been 450 under the first contract, and the total total cost of the job was 600. So I believe Painter A owes the man that difference. You um, have to basically pay out because the job's already done. There's no other way to make the man whole. So I think I'm going to go with a one 50. So if I'm going to try to find like another answer just for second chance purposes, I think that would be B 200. I was gonna say 400, like maybe the painter just just has to pay the cost of what they were going to do with that.

1:03:21 Thomas: I don't actually think that makes sense. Like if you don't do a job, I don't think you would possibly owe the entirety of what the job would have been worth. I much sense. So I guess I'll go between A and B and, and we'll see what the coin thinks here. And the coin agrees with me. So we're both going to say A, 150, uh between A&B for second chance purposes, final answer.

1:03:41 Andrew: Right. And if you'd like to play along with Thomas in the coin, you know how to do that. Just share this episode on social media, include the hashtag T3BE, include your guests, your reasons. Therefore, we will pick a winner and shower that winner with never ending fame and fortune, fame and fortune not guaranteed.

1:03:55 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

1:03:56 Thomas: And only a few new patrons to thank this week. So I think I'll just do the honors right quick. Thank you to Kelly Burke, Two Fabulous Thespians from Dakota Territory, Hans Maverick, and Kelly. Thanks so much for joining up uh go to patreon.com/law to get access to all the goodies the ad-free show each week each and Every episode it's ad- free and the Tuesday show you get on Sunday night if you're a patron uh there's so many other perks we'll have a Law'd Awful Movies coming in about a couple weeks on that uh I think we can't do a Q&A this month because uh for boat purposes, so we'll have to skip a month on that. And if you were a patron, you got a whole lot of extra notes Andrew had on Weird Al last week, so lots of good reasons to be a patron. Sign on on patreon.com/law, and thanks to our new patrons. And that'S our show! From me, not on a boat, and Andrew, on a BOAT, we'll see you next time.

1:03:56 Andrew: Oh, thank you until then

1:04:57 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.

1:05:31 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.