OA557: Terpsichore's Comically Terrible $1.7 Billion Lawsuit

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 557 or season 2022 episode one. I don't know. How's going?

0:01:26 Andrew: Happy New Year!

0:01:27 Thomas: Yeah, how's it going, Andrew?

0:01:31 Andrew: I am just as optimistic that 2022 will suck less than 2021 as I was in January of 2021 with respect to 2020, so it's fantastic. How are you doing?

0:01:43 Thomas: You know what's weird though? You what's weird is it really still feels like 2021 to me. I just can't, I totally feel, feels like we're still in 2021 over here.

0:01:49 Andrew: It's odd. It Kind of does, yeah, yeah.

0:01:56 Thomas: Anyway, yeah, lots to talk about today. Oh, man, there's a particular update I am excited about. But let's just get right into it, shall we? Oh, a quick reminder of our Q&A coming up Friday, January 7th at 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 p.м. Eastern. Can't wait. Join us. Grab a beverage of your choice. Be beer, could be wine, could be tea. Who And join us for a Q&A. Everyone's invited. Look for the links or just subscribe to our YouTube channel, by the way. That'll give you the notification right away. Can't wait to see you all for that. In the meantime, let's get to our episode.

0:02:09 Andrew: I

0:02:31 Clip: Arrest a husband and wife for the same crime. Yeah, I don't think that that's true, Dad. Not that we're still...

0:02:41 Thomas: Well, what's Terpsichore up to now and And why is Terpsichore allowed to even file lawsuits?

0:02:43 Andrew: Do Not know. Uh I will point out, her name is not Terpsichore. Uh, when she files under her own name, name uh it is, and I don't any other way to pronounce this, but it is Terpsohore, Terpsahore Maris, as we keep, uh, as we keep pointing out, that's, you know, she has 50 Different Uh, I

0:03:06 Thomas: Oh, yeah, because she does a weird, yeah. Like Sovereign have a bunch of different names just in case it gets you out of something technique.

0:03:14 Andrew: I, I think so, right? Like, there's no punctuation marks or, you know, other kind of obvious sovereign citizen nutjobbery, um, but yeah, I mean, she maintains a bunch of different identities, and I think, like, having her legal name be slightly different than the most obvious incarnation of her name, right, is an effort to try and evade legal scrutiny.

0:03:38 Thomas: Like she can in go court and be like, I'm sorry, it says moops.

0:03:41 Andrew: Yeah, yeah. The it's the perfect reference. Courts don't fall for, oh, no. No, the card says the moops.

0:03:46 Thomas: Of course, follow the legal doctrine of moops? Dang.

0:03:49 Andrew: Yeah. So but as long as we're talking about sovereign citizen nut jobbery, I want give a shout out to the person who flagged this lawsuit for me on Twitter. They go by Get Innocuous, G-E-T underscore I-N-N O-C-U-O-U.S. And they pointed out that over here has requested compensatory damages of not less than $1.7 billion, punitive damages of no less than one point seven billion dollars and billion billion with a B. yeah no that's it's Um, in addition to being, um, ridiculous, there's a significance to it being 1.7 billion. This comes from Terpsahore's own social media accounts, uh, in which she proudly describes that she always sneaks a 17 into every lawsuit she files. Well, what's 17? 17th letter the alphabet is Q.

0:04:24 Thomas: Billion? Oh, man.

0:04:51 Thomas: I hate this. I hate all of this. I didn't want to hear the end of that stupid sentence.

0:04:53 Andrew: So, Yeah, I didn't want to either, but I had to read it, therefore you had to hear it.

0:05:00 Thomas: Yeah, fair. Fair enough.

0:05:02 Andrew: So yeah, um, you're asking you're ask me right. Like, the

0:05:03 Thomas: You know, she could just sneak a Q into her. Why the number 17? Like, I'm sure the letter Q would be somewhere in there. I would like to acquire. Ha ha, Q, yeah. Yeah. Quoth the raven. Yeah, I don't know. Put something.

0:05:14 Andrew: Capital, yeah, there's, how great be would it be if these people, people thought any occurrence of the letter Q in a 24-page document where one of the people that you have sued is Ali Alexander, whose real name is Ali Abdul Razak, R-A-Z-A-Q Akbar.

0:05:24 Thomas: Yeah. There's a sign. There you go. It's all coming together. Together,

0:05:34 Andrew: Yeah. Oh, gosh. So what has Terp Sahur done? She has sued the Chattanooga News Chronicle, the Huffington Post, representative Steve Cohen, U.S. Dominion Systems Inc., Dominion Voting Systems Inc., Dominian Voting Systems Corporation, Media Matters for America, Ohio Intelligence Tips, Ross Elder, and Ali Alexander, and I'm kind of mad that she didn't sue us, um, she she has sued all of those folks for defamation, uh, and, uh, we have defamed her as at least as much as any of those folks.

0:05:57 Thomas: Yeah, maybe

0:06:04 Andrew: Have I did.

0:06:04 Thomas: Not enough, though, maybe we gotta step our game

0:06:06 Andrew: Well, that's what this episode is for. But but as always, yeah, before we start slandering Terpsahore, and by the way, I'm using that in colloquial sense, you're you are welcome to add us to any frivolous lawsuits you want. That's Opening Arguments Media LLC and Maryland Limited Liability Company. We have to engage in some legally protected, throw some legally protected shade at Terpsahore's lawyer, right? We're reading this backwards. We scroll down to the bottom. We've talked about this joker before. TerpsaHore is represented by Russell A. Newman of the Russell A Newman firm. Uh, no, no shade there. Right. Mine are the law offices of P. Andrew Torrez. Nothing wrong with being out on your own. Right? So, uh. When we go to thenewmanlawfirm.com and click on Mr.

0:06:06 Thomas: Up a little bit. Talk about resolutions.

0:07:01 Andrew: Newman's practice areas, um, we will see that it is surprisingly light on $1.7 billion defamation lawsuits, and instead contains the list of the following: personal injury, wrongful death, truck wrecks, severe burns, industrial accidents, car wrecks, slip and fall, trip and fall, motorcycle wrecks, bicycle accidents, dog bites, train accidents, drowning accidents, boating accidents, eye injuries, brain injuries, liability of property owners, premises liability, punitive damages claims. Well, I guess they do have that here. Bad faith insurance claims, uninsured motorist claims, underinsured motoress claims, and pedestrian accidents. And when you click on his list of legal victories, it's kind of comical. I'm going to read a couple of them to you because our lawyers will appreciate this. This.

So literally the first bullet is "drafted plaintiff's motion for sanctions for spoliation of evidence, which requests that the court strike," the to strike, that's not grammatically correct, "the defendant's answer and defenses," arguing that the defendant should not be permitted to defend itself after destroying all of the material evidence in this premises liability case. Your number one legal victory is a motion you drafted that, that is not a great sign, right? Like, like, that's a good thing to put on your – like, Morgan, if you want to put, like, motions you've drafted on your resume when you decide to leave my firm, which please don't ever do that. You know, that is – that's good thing for a mid-level associate to do. Not exactly what you want look for. Like, when you're looking for accomplishments, you want know, like what have lawyers done.

0:08:17 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:35 Andrew: So, drafted and won plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability in a car wreck case. That's a good accomplishment.

0:08:35 Thomas: Have you won something. Cool.

0:08:45 Andrew: Good on you, Russ.

0:08:45 Thomas: And I think it'll help you for this, which is a train wreck.

0:08:51 Andrew: Yeah, the rest of these are interesting, plaintiff, right? Alleged $250,000 in damages, but after I took depositions and exposed devastating facts, and let me point out, I am reading this word for word from the Newman Law Firm's page, we strong-armed a $15,000 settlement for a nuisance value. I think that means they paid a $15,000 settlement after they were alleging two hundred fifty thousand dollars in damages, um, again, good, good on you for getting the case settled. Russ.

0:09:15 Thomas: Yeah. Are You sure this isn't their Tinder profile? What an old-timey joke, it's

0:09:25 Andrew: Well, there is a long bit here about long walks on the beach, so, uh. Uh, uh. Russis not, uh, defamation lawyer, he, yeah, anyway, he's a guy who does dog bites and car wrecks, and, you know, look, the world needs plenty of people to handle dog bites in car wreacks, uh, slip and fall, trip and fall absolutely, uh, probably just Terpy's friend, right?

0:09:45 Thomas: Needs to sue those dogs, take them for all the kibble they're worth.

0:09:51 Andrew: Yeah. So, all right, now we're reading backwards, uh, usually where we go to next is we go the list of the various counts in this lawsuit, lawsuit, um, can't do that because this lawsuit has no counts in it, um, that's a little weird, but, you know, uh, it also has, it has two, headline sections, uh, section one, uh, parties and jurisdiction, right, then that goes from paragraphs 1 to 13, and then on page 4, uh, we can then go to section three, the statement of facts, which runs from paragraph 14 until the end of the complaint. I can kind of piece together from the statement effects what I think the counts are. I thinkthat it will be treated by the court as a single count of defamation, because it alleges defamation. It, it talks about and compares things that people have said about Terpy.

0:10:06 Thomas: Is The court required to translate your nonsense garbage into an actual lawsuit?

0:10:52 Andrew: That's a great question. So, so, so courts are acquired to read and construe pleadings liberally, and, right, we've talked about this, you in the John Eastman case. Right, in which they were like, yeah, we know we misfiled that, we're not bothering to correct that. And court was like, you sure about that? And he's like, yep. They're like, OK, well, we're going to dismiss you in a couple of days if you don't. And finally, they were like, all right, fine.

Courts really do bend over backwards to try and not bounce anybody, uh, on the basis of pleading defects, um, but, but you'd have a really good argument here, uh, if you were, um, any of these defendants moving to dismiss, uh, because this does not summarize all of the allegations, right, we're going to talk about the, the allegations that it makes, um, it contains some of the elements, right, so, for example, paragraph 81 says, "defendants publish the above referenced statements with actual malice, knowing or recklessly disregarding that they are false," um, that, certainly is an element of alleging defamation against a public figure, but, for example, it doesn't take a position, it doesn't say right which of these defendants, if, if any, it considers to be a public figure versus a private figure.

The Huffington Post, rate representative Steve Cohen, almost certainly public figures. Is Ali Alexander a public finger? I mean, you know, we could go ask the Knowledge Fight guys about that. I don't know. And usually courts will make you take a stance on things like that. Um, we have at least one person in here, Ross Elder, who I've never heard of before, who

0:10:53 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:12:26 Andrew: Is described in the plaintiff section as a resident of Ohio, who resides at 29 11 Beaumont Avenue Northwest, Massillon, Ohio, four four six four seven, um, I don't know who that guy is, so, um, it really does matter, right? Like it's not just, this lawsuit isn't together in the way that lawyers typically look at it. It is, that that identifying exactly what you intend to prove as a matter of law is really crucial for allowing the defendants to rebut those sort of point by point without, you know, because, you, as we know, in lawsuits, you can concede to some of the paragraphs, right, in a lawsuit. For example, probably true, they will probably concede to

0:13:11 Thomas: That guy does live in Ohio. Or whatever, I was

0:13:12 Andrew: Exactly. That's right, um, so, uh, it then contains, um, a bunch of, so these are all people who have said things about Terpy that are not quite as bad as the things that we have said about Terpy.

0:13:26 Thomas: Gonna say I'm really sad.

0:13:27 Andrew: I I know, I know.

0:13:27 Thomas: We didn't make this list, it's on our

0:13:30 Andrew: I know, I

0:13:30 Thomas: It's our New Year's resolution, Andrew, 2022, one of the bullet points, be better at disparaging Terpsahore on this show, that's, we're gonna do it, and, you know what, everybody listening, hold us accountable, you know, hold us account to, that's the only way resolutions get followed.

0:13:44 Andrew: Completely, I could not agree more. So, you for example, um, this is page 17, this is Ali Alexander, right, they refer to as, um, Ali Akbar, uh, Ali Abdul Razuk Akbar, um, it, is really hard, like the copy of this is so faded, I can't read the beginning of it, um, but it says, "Tori Lindemann is a fraudster, literal fraudster, as in she's stolen money and she can't sue anyone for defamation. One person she defrauded was Sydney Powell. She's now further trying to weaken Sydney's legal battle against Dominion. This was all a setup, which is why, why Sidney's team removed Lindemann, Lindemans crazy affidavit from their evidence. Not only did Sidney not ever talk to crazy Tori, who has like 12 different names and is a pagan pretending to be a Republican, but her team didn't even review her claims or her background when they finally round a bat, ran a background check and saw that she stole Valor from," and then, and then it cuts off.

0:13:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:43 Andrew: All of that is either provably true, right? Like as in she, She she has been adjudicated guilty, as we've discussed on the show, for literal fraud. Right. That is stealing money earmarked for charity and using it on waxing and like bags of M&Ms from Target. Right. Or obvious opinion. Right. When you say crazy affidavit has like 12 different names, right, well, again, that's also fact, like Yeah.

0:15:13 Thomas: Well, that's provable fact. Yeah.

0:15:14 Andrew: These this is precisely the kind of thing that courts look at and go, yeah, we're, we're going to toss this out, um, don't even understand how to parse this sentence, so I, I invite you to help me do this, right?

0:15:27 Thomas: Okay. Let's do some diagramming, everybody. That's a subject of the Wait.

0:15:29 Andrew: Defendants, right, that's all the media organizations right, yep, have libeled plaintiff in plaintiff's complaint, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, case number 1-21-cv-0040, filed January 8th, 2021, and attached hereto as exhibit 4, I

0:15:49 Thomas: Were they saying they libeled her in her own complaint? I'd It

0:15:53 Andrew: That's Is that not what those words that mean in that order, um Yes So how could you libel somebody in their own complaint? Um, I I don't begin to Know. The next sentence, the next two sentences are fantastic. The next sentence, paragraph 79, says, "Therefore, the defendants are declaring that the plaintiff Terpy is guilty of the crime of perjury by portraying it as false information." What is it? It I'm good for you. Right. Like, I mean, I it

0:15:56 Thomas: Seems like It Oh There's No, there's not. There's nothing you're seeing that tells you that I assume There Was Like A, you know, a footnote or a something, nothing.

0:16:32 Andrew: I that I am reading you word for word. No. And then we have paragraph 80, which is now on page 18. Defendants have no applicable privilege or legal authorization to make these false and defamatory and libelous statements about plaintiff. By the way, if a statement is false and defamatory, you don't need to also add that it is libelous. Libel is a subset of defamation. It's kind of fun. I mean, clearly, Russ has copied this out of or off of a complaint that, you know, a lawyer friend wrote, because that is an important element to allege in a defamation lawsuit. Lawsuit. But he clearly doesn't know what it means that there is that the defendants have no applicable privilege for their statements that are allegedly defamatory. Right.

0:17:00 Thomas: And it's untrue.

0:17:19 Thomas: Sorry, what element? Okay.

0:17:26 Andrew: That's that's one of the elements that you must allege when you allege defamation. And you're sitting there thinking, what counts as an applicable privilege? Well, for example, one of the things that counts as an applicable privilege is the absolute privilege of making statements in a court proceeding, yeah. Yep.

0:17:42 Thomas: In a complaint, right? Yeah, we talked about this.

0:17:45 Andrew: So to the extent that this is cognizable, and I don't claim that it is, right, that you can parse what the hell this means, um, the the the very next statement, which they've just like copied over as boilerplate, right, like, and I can get it why you sort of toned, you know, tuned out, you're like, "defendants have no applicable privilege or legal authorization to make these false and defamatory and libelous statements about the plaintiff." You know, it kind of sounds like you know, doth hereby in perpetuity throughout the universe, right? But but it really, like, when you're a lawyer, those boilerplate weren't, like, you should know what those words mean because that's your job as the lawyer, and and and they have a real meaning, right, you have to allege that they have no privilege, and in fact, you just gave them the privilege in the previous paragraph, which is, they said it allegedly in your complaint.

0:18:11 Thomas: Yeah, et cetera, et sera. Yeah.

0:18:21 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You might as well have said, so in their privilege context, they said, in the sentence earlier, you basically declared their privilege earlier, right?

0:18:36 Andrew: Yep. Exactly right. The Media Matters, is, and I am not kidding, one paragraph on page 15, they include a copy of, uh, the headline, um, which is, "Defendant Media Matters defamed plaintiff in its article entitled Right-Wing Media Feud Erupts Over Trump Lawyer Sidney Powell's Bonkers Election Conspiracy Theories." That's it, that is.

0:19:08 Thomas: Well, what's the substance of the article? Is there, oh,

0:19:09 Andrew: Oh, they they do, they do not, they they provide a link to the article, they provide a screenshot of the headline of the article, but in terms of, is there, would you expect a following sentence that says "this is how Media Matters defamed Terpy," you would expect that, you will not find it.

0:19:29 Thomas: I was going to, that's funny as a, you? Noob here. I, I wasn't, I really, I guess I've never thought about it. Do you, are you required to just put the actual sentences, or can you be like, "here's a link to it, go look" at it on your own? Never thought about it, yeah.

0:19:42 Andrew: No, no, that's that's a great question. And and well, and it's and it'S why I'm glad in addition to entertainment that we're sort of going through this. Yes, like the the the core elements of a defamation claim is that you must identify the statements that were published with specificity.

0:19:58 Thomas: Well, because yeah, and like, now that I think about, when we went through that Dominion complaint, wasn't that like 9,000 pages detailing all the absurd lies that all these people told about them on, uh, on TV and all that, and you put the text in there, you actually, you know, do the work.

0:20:12 Andrew: Yeah, and and in fact, right. Right. And spoiler, we're going to talk about another defamation lawsuit later on in the show. But yeah, that's that's the way you do it. You just, you say, right, "Thomas Smith said, right, Andrew Torrez was dishonorably discharged from the military," that's, right, the defamatory statement. Right. And then I say, "this statement is objectively false, as Andrew Torrez was never in the military," here's, you know, the the damages that I claim result as come from that, but but yeah, you have to identify the statement that was made, and and all of these are, they're they're like, there's like 40 paragraphs in which, you they're basically like, well, every time you make fun of Sydney Powell for sucking, uh, you're really making fun of me right.

0:21:00 Thomas: By implication Yeah.

0:21:02 Andrew: Because I'm the secret witness. And like this is in here, for example. You can't disprove my affidavit that I filed. And it's like, again, you know, I just want that, you know, Facebook meme of like, that's not how any of this works, right? It's crazy.

0:21:03 Thomas: God.

0:21:23 Thomas: This sounds like a lot a complaint that was written by a law firm whose greatest achievement was they helped pay $15,000 of the settlement or whatever that was, I don't

0:21:33 Andrew: Oh yeah, um, "undermining confidence in the election process is Dominion defaming plaintiff," um, no, no, no, no, no that isn't, that that's paragraph 41.

0:21:44 Thomas: Even understand what they're going for with that, dear.

0:21:45 Andrew: Yeah. Um, so it says that, right, in talking about, again, this is Dominion posted a demand, right, letter to to Sidney Powell that says, "hey, we want you to retract your baseless and false accusations about us that you've made over the past two months, in spreading false conspiracy theories, undermining confidence in the election process, and putting election officials in harm's way, we believe that you, Sidney Powell, acted with malice in your defamatory accusations about Dominion," right? Right. So they're they're taking, just again, to be clear, they're taking what Dominion said in its lawsuit about Sidney Powell and saying that counts as defamation against Terpy.

0:22:35 Thomas: God, Which, by the way, is already all privileged anyway, as we said, right? Okay.

0:22:41 Andrew: Yeah. Now, now this, I would say, I would need to to go down the the track of, this was actually discussed on Dominion's website, right, like they posted a, "hey, we filed a lawsuit and said X," and so that could potentially defeat the absolute privilege, right, like if you take the claims you've made in a lawsuit and you start publicly saying, "hey, in this lawsuit I said X," that that's a separate publication. So I just want to be, again, this is is how far we go to steal, bought the other side.

0:22:54 Thomas: Gotcha. That's yeah. I think I asked about that, one weird trick is you, it a free ticket to disparage people if you put it in a complaint, and I don't, I don't remember you saying, saying that last time, but that makes sense if it's like, well, sure, but if you broadcast it, if you publicize it in any way, then that's no longer privileged anymore. That makes a lot of sense.

0:23:15 Andrew: Yeah. Yep and and look, like, there's still a lot of space in which bad faith actors could operate, right, like, I could pop, I could write it in the complaint, uh, as a crazy person, and then Fox News and OAN could pick it up and go in a complaint, complaint filed today it is alleged that, and then just, you know, broadcast those claims like crazy, and then Fox News would be able to say, "hey, look, like we're not, you know, this is not liable, right, this is, um, you know, we're" we're reporting yeah we're providing a valuable news service exactly. Um, and in fact, like, that that's part of, you, the genius of the, uh, the Dominion defamation suits against Fox News and a bunch of other bad actors, is teasing apart, right, the statements that were made that could not plausibly have been whitewashed in that matter, so

0:23:51 Thomas: Yeah yeah complaint yeah exactly yeah we're just referencing a complaint yeah the epitome of journalism yeah hmm yeah

0:24:28 Andrew: All right, we've, I think we've spent enough time making fun of Terpy here, uh, good stuff.

0:24:30 Thomas: This is radioactive garbage, this is, I mean, you've given us a lot, lot of breakdowns, a lot of terrible complaints in the show's history. This is up there, right? I mean, I can't think of one that's more badly written than this.

0:24:41 Andrew: Stuff yeah I'm struggling, Terp, do you hear us, we called your

0:24:50 Thomas: James Lindsay's complaint suing me over sharing what he wrote me in an email is probably better than this one. That's a deep cut. Sorry.

0:24:58 Andrew: Yeah, that's a, a, that's deep cut, b, I'm not sure, James Lindsey once, uh, boasted that he wrote like an article examining, uh, some legal point, and like, it was 37 pages long, it had zero citations in it, and it was, I was just like, I, this, you're not, this is not even, you know, cargo cult law review order, like you would at least have footnotes, anyway, um you go

0:25:12 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:21 Thomas: Oh boy. It's like a little lot awful complaints for you there. That That was, uh, so, uh. You don't think that'll, uh... Be successful?

0:25:26 Andrew: I don't, I don't think this is going anywhere, but uh, you know, when Terpy gets her 1.7 billion dollars, boy, that'll that'll show me

0:25:30 Thomas: Yeah. Do you think she'll only get, like, 1.1 billion dollars out of this?

0:25:37 Andrew: The court. Oh my God, if the court enters a directed verdict for her for 17 cents, I will cry, it'll be like, how would you do that, would you be like, "we'll see the courts in on it," or oh God. It

0:25:45 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Also, like, honestly, the least of the problems with this idiotic complaint. But when you ask for damages and part of your number you ask for is, like... well, I kind of like the number 17. That's not really... that that would strike me as a weakness in your claim, right?

0:26:08 Andrew: It is in fact a weakness in your claim. Um, I, it, I don't, I don's say I mean, other than the claims of defamation per se, which, um, calling somebody a crank is not defamation, uh, by the way. Um, defamation is limited to the very specific categories we've talked about, bet them on the show before. Uh, and I'm not sure any of this falls under that. Um, even if, even if you could, uh, but if not, right, if it's just garden variety defamation, you have to show how you were hurt by this, and as far as I can tell, Terpy here has been greatly benefited by being publicly viewed as a crank, because, you know, her followers seem to love that sort of stuff. So, so I don't know

0:26:09 Thomas: Yeah there also should be a legal doctrine that's like, you you can't hurt somebody more than them talking would hurt themselves, you know what I mean like yeah we can't I can't really be responding. There's no damages here. Like, when she opens her mouth or writes a complaint, it's already worse for her than anything thing we've ever said. All right.

0:26:52 Andrew: The Rudy Giuliani doc trip. Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right.

0:27:05 Thomas: We've got lots more good stuff to get to, but uh, that was fun.

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0:29:21 Clip: Thank you, Dr. Hibbert. I rest my case. You rest your case? What? Oh, no. I thought that was just a figure of speech. Case closed.

0:29:30 Thomas: Okay, oh, I'm, this is the bullet point I've been excited for, uh, we've got some updates, one of them involving uh baseball law. I'll just tease it thusly.

0:29:38 Andrew: Yeah, I I can never pass up the opportunity to talk about some baseball loss. So we broke down the owner's lockout of the players. There's been no movement on that front and none expected until January. January, some of the players, I think, have kind of pushed back and have said, you know, hey, you should take a look at that MLB statement that that seems almost entirely false from start to finish. In particular, right, what players have said is we were talking just fine, right? Like there was no need.

0:29:50 Thomas: Yeah Yeah.

0:30:11 Andrew: The idea of we were forced to lock you out, like that's just flat out false. I love this. I brought this to your attention. We both agreed we wanted to talk about it on the show because it emphasizes a point that we made in that discussion. And so I'm just going to quote from, so first, if you're not a regular MLB aficionado, you might not know of the preeminent site on the internet, which is MLBTradeRumors.com. Ball players follow the site, right? And have been interviewed, right, like they've had, they've done many high profile interviews in which players are like, yeah, no, everybody tracks the site because they use a combination of really, really good comprehensive reporting and also in-depth statistical analysis to do things like projections of what they think the top 50 free agents will receive in free agency.

0:30:13 Thomas: Mm hmm.

0:31:05 Andrew: How arbitration cases are likely to break down based on similar players. And like, they're amazingly good at it, right? So if, if MLB Trade Rumor says, you, G-Man Choy is headed to arbitration this offseason and will likely get 3.2 million dollars, like teams read that, players read that, fans read it and go, yeah, well, that's, they're probably, you know, they're going to be around that number, right? So in other words, I would be shocked if G-Man Choi got $5 million. And I don't know that that's the number.

0:31:24 Thomas: Wow. Yeah.

0:31:35 Andrew: But if they say a player is going to get $3.2 million, that player is very likely to get, you know, between $2.5 and $3.5 or $4 million, right? So really big, important site. And one, I went through that history because one that focuses on the financial aspects of players, which is important to fans of teams, right? This is a piece by Dara McDonald, who writes, a baseball player agrees to a contract, the financials of the deal are quickly reported by various media outlets, including here at MLB Trade Rumors. What gets discussed much less often, however, are the financial details of the people paying those paychecks, here is each team's primary owner, along with their net worth with source links, provided. Quick caveat or about to, quick caveat that the financial numbers of this nature are fluid and subject to change.

0:32:15 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Oh. Oh name names, baby. Do it. Yeah,

0:32:29 Andrew: Um told you that that these were billionaires, it is it's one thing to hear that, it's another thing to go down the list. Angels, Arturo Moreno, 3.6 billion dollars. Astros, Jim Crane, 1.4 billion dollars. Athletics, right, widely, you, the money ball right, there's 30 feet of crap and then there's us, John Fisher, 2.6 billion dollars. Blue Jays, Edward, Edward Rogers the third, 11 and a half billion dollars. The Braves, Liberty Media chairman John Malone, eight billion dollars. Uh, then, then we get down, Mark, Mark Atanasio, the lead owner of the Brewers, only worth $700 million.

0:32:30 Thomas: Yeah, I love it.

0:33:10 Thomas: Oh geez.

0:33:11 Andrew: Yeah, no, but don't

0:33:11 Thomas: Must be the real black sheep of the owner group.

0:33:15 Andrew: Worry. Guggenheim Baseball Management controlling partner Mark Walter, who owns your beloved Dodgers. Yeah, he's only worth five billion dollars. Charles Johnson, who owns the Giants five point eight billion. The Dolan family, who loans the Cleveland Guardians four point six billion. Steve well

0:33:26 Thomas: Wow I've eight is the highest I've so far. I think right. Well, let's see.

0:33:33 Andrew: How about steve cohen incoming owner of mets 15.9 Billion dollars, um, yeah, there, there are only a handful of folks on this list who are not billionaires outright, uh, the lowest, Ken Kendrick, uh, who is worth a paltry 600 million dollars, I kind of feel bad for him right now, then, uh, we got a couple of guys in in the $700 million range, we have, oh, no, I'm sorry, I missed Robert H. Castellini of the Reds, only worth $400 million.

0:33:37 Thomas: Oh wow.

0:34:05 Thomas: How how does he even afford day-to-day expenses?

0:34:05 Andrew: Oh, I don't know.

0:34:09 Thomas: You know what's amazing too?

0:34:09 Andrew: He's got to shake down his own

0:34:10 Thomas: There aren't that many American billionaires. I think there's like 700 something around that. A high percentage of them own sports teams.

0:34:20 Andrew: Baseball teams. Well, think about that. Once you were in the billion range, you've run out of ordinary millionaire stuff you can buy. Right, like you've already bought, like, you know, Mc Hammer's house and as many cars as you want and you know, like a jet or two and a big yacht, and to really spend billions, you know, you've got to buy like a huge, huge asset like a sports team. So, uh, I love this. I don't have anything more to say other than I thought it was incredibly responsible, um, and, uh, and, and worth and pointing out right that that, uh, yet another, that they made the point that that we didn't emphasize and that I didn't really think about it before, that sports deals, one of the reasons, I mean we talked about like that kind of bar talk inequity of, you know, you see, oh yeah, you know, so and so gets a, uh you know, Wander Franco gets 11 year, 182 million dollar contract, and you're like 182 billion dollars to to play a game, right?

It, the very aspect of the fact that sports contracts are discussed in public in a way that other professions are not, and in away that those writing, that those checks are not, uh, I thought was just a fantastic, fantastic point.

0:34:21 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:35:35 Thomas: I Love Every Minute of It. Is that all all it was. So it was just listing the net worths. Cause I would love if there, if there's any way for them to keep it up and, and do stuff that's like, Oh, stock split just resulted in a, you know, that whatever, like a dividend for this guy just, just gave this person another a hundred million. Like if they could keep up like little transactions that are going to, going to give them more millions and billions. I know that's probably impossible to do, but that would be be funny

0:35:40 Andrew: That's it with I think we just have a, uh, an idea for a, a brand new website, so, uh, let's let's, uh, let't talk offline. I

0:36:02 Thomas: Yeah yeah, and I also love the idea too that, when you hear that, as you said, the bar talk thing of, I'd, I'd swing a bat for half that kind of crap, all these billionaires is essentially, um, they have billions of dollars and they sit on their asses. You know, you don't have to, do they earn much more than the players by just doing the job of having money, like just having it earns them far more than these players ever earn.

0:36:35 Andrew: Could not agree more.

0:36:36 Thomas: Oh, good stuff. That was, uh, that's one of my favorite bullet points in the history of the show, Andrew. I love that. That's, that's such a great idea. All right. On to another bullet point. We've got another settlement with DEFA, but not Blizzard.

0:36:40 Andrew: I'm Glad Yeah that is correct, but another And another video game company, uh, in in this case, Riot Games. And if Riot Games is not familiar to you, was not familiar to me, their signature property is League of Legends.

0:36:52 Thomas: Oh, League of Legends.

0:37:07 Andrew: Yeah, so it

0:37:07 Thomas: Yeah. I don't Play it, but everyone in the earth, I've heard it a million times, I don't, still don't know what it is, but yeah, okay, that's a bit, that's got to be a big company because I, based on just hearing it, I think League of Legends is huge, isn't it.

0:37:20 Andrew: Is. So big, big company, not as big as Activision. Activision Blizzard, I think, is still the largest software company. But of a settlement between the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, DEFA, for judicial approval of a consent decree that would settle outstanding claims against Riot Games for systemic sex sex discrimination, and harassment of its female employees. So under the proposed consent decree, Riot will pay over $100 million to remedy violations against 1,065 women employees and 1,300 women contract workers over the past three years. Specifically, it breaks down like this. So $100 million, of which a minimum of $80 million is dedicated to compensating workers, Goes directly to the the workers who were harassed, sexually discriminated against,

0:37:27 Thomas: Hmm. I

0:38:21 Andrew: Includes four million dollars in penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act, which is one of the largest penalties in California history, creates a six million dollar cash reserve for each year of the three year term of the of the consent decree. So total of 18 million to make adjustments and to fund diversity, equity and inclusion programs, makes available 40 full time positions in engineer quality assurance or art design roles to qualified class members who worked as temporary contractors in a competitive process.

So this is an aspect that is not present in the Activision Blizzard. As far as we know, the idea that women that were disproportionately kept as contractors rather than brought on as full time employees, to hire and pay for an independent third party expert approved by DEFA to conduct a Gender equity analysis of employee pay, job assignments, and promotion each year for the next three years, and remedy disparities that cannot be explained by bona fide legitimate reasons, and to hire in pay for independent third-party monitor approved by DFA to audit compliance with the workplace protections, including a review of complaint investigations and outcome each year for the next three years. So, um, obviously I, it's noteworthy in and of itself, um, the fact that this is the kind of consent decree that that DEFA has entered with a large video game manufacturer of this particular size. Uh, well, let's get to the comparison to Activision right now, um,

0:39:42 Thomas: That's Been waiting to ask, I, if I remember right, wasn't the Activision thing we were talking about was like, I donno, 15 million or so, it was a lot less, wasn't it

0:39:50 Andrew: It Remember That that is the EEOC Proposed settlement Is only 15 million. And the defense case remains active. So, yep, yep.

0:39:52 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But I, the whole thing was that, you know, that's little bit in jeopardy depending on how the legal stuff Goes, right?

0:40:03 Andrew: Yep. That is that is correct. But if Activision wants out of its existing default lawsuit, this is probably the structure that they're going to have to follow. Activision Blizzard has about 9000 employees of whom. And this would certainly be part of any consent decree. Only 24 percent are women, which is is pretty staggering. Right. Like by comparison, you know, this covers a thousand Riot employees and Riot only has 2500 full time employees. Right? Right. So I was unable to find the same breakdown. Obviously, Activision, once these charges came out, publicly released a study of its diversity or or lack thereof in the workplace.

0:40:04 Thomas: Okay.

0:40:51 Andrew: So that's where we get that information. That right, comes directly from a December 16th report, I'll list in the show notes, from Activision Blizzard's chief operating officer, Daniel Allegra, that revealed that only 24 percent of the company's employees are are female, and it has, additional breakdowns. So that's present in the show notes. So if you do some quick math, right, you get several thousand women employees at Activision. Obviously, a bunch have come and gone. So I think that this really provides, if you want to know, right, the the reason I think that this is useful is we previously learned that, you know, DEFA was unhappy with 15 million dollars, uh, as a fund to Compensate employees, um, but we didn't know what they were thinking. Well, this, this is something, this is a settlement they have signed off on.

0:41:43 Thomas: And as you say, a smaller company.

0:41:43 Andrew: So Yep. Smaller company, um, exact same time frame, by the way, uh, DEFA Notified Right in October of 2018, uh, that it was investigating allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation against women employees and temporary agency contractors in the workplace, and again, other than that last component, um, these are the same kinds of allegations that are raised against Activision.

0:41:49 Thomas: Hmm. Interesting.

0:42:08 Thomas: What are the odds? Sounds like maybe there's a systemic problem here.

0:42:09 Andrew: Yeah. Uh, Kind of seems, it's that way, doesn't it? Additional. So order of magnitude on their on their previous numbers. So yeah,

0:42:19 Thomas: Right. Yeah. And. Now, why wasn't this ruined by the EEOC? Uh, you know, cause again, that's what we talked about at length with Activision. Um, what was the difference here?

0:42:35 Andrew: No no federal action was taken. This was actually broken down between two separate California state agencies. Um, and there was never any federal involvement. So

0:42:37 Thomas: Huh? That's interesting. I wonder why. And also it seems weird to be like, yeah, the good, the reason this is better is cause the feds didn't do anything that's kind of weird

0:42:53 Andrew: I, it, it does, but, um, but this does show you, right. If you're sitting there thinking, boy, you know, the spat between DFA and EEOC, you note, which we covered at length because that's newsworthy. Um.

0:42:55 Thomas: Yeah

0:43:08 Andrew: This reached a joint settlement with, um, not just right, but but on the on the side of government agencies, Defa, as well as the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, right, who agreed to the same kinds of burden sharing information, um, the same people who were involved. So, uh, so yeah, it definitely, it makes it more of a head scratcher as to, uh, as to what's going on With respect to Activision and the EEOC, um, yeah.

0:43:32 Thomas: Weird. All right. Well, we'll keep an eye on it and we're on to another bullet point. Nope.

0:43:38 Andrew: Yep. Oh, this one, I, I'm, will link the complaint in the show notes, uh, because it's an excellent contrast to our A block story. Um, and it is this, uh, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, uh, who you probably don't recognize those names, um, but you absolutely have seen them. They were two that their mother and daughter, uh, and they were to Fulton County, Georgia, volunteer poll workers who were absolutely destroyed by OAN for doing their jobs. Right. And that is, they are alleged, you to have taken ballots and, you know, fed them through the machines multiple times and, you know. All of that. And and and

0:43:59 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Based on nothing, right? Yeah.

0:44:31 Andrew: Crucially named by name. Right. These were just good, Honest people who went, to volunteer in Atlanta in, you, you know, what they thought was a pretty crucial presidential election, uh, and they got, you, captured on camera. And, you know, headlines of things like "Poll Worker in Fulton County, Georgia, Caught on Camera Scanning Same Stack of Ballots Multiple Times." OAN delivers breaking news, right. And it says four poll workers remain behind, including one woman named Ruby Freeman, after pulling out hidden boxes stuffed with ballots. Footage analyzed by Gateway Pundit reveals Freeman scanning the same stack. Oh, I should, I should add, they said, apparently, apparently, scanning the same stack of ballots over and over again. Surveillance cameras show these poll workers watched and waited until GOP observers and reporters had left the room before they resumed scanning their ballots. During this time, Ruby Freeman, as seen here in this video, repeatedly scanned the same stack of ballots at least three times. No, no, no, reportedly, right, there, apparently, which is highly illegal, and it's all captured on tape. Freeman was working with her daughter, Wandrea Moss.

Um, should point out that included in here are the results of the Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Georgian Bureau of Investigation investigation that investigated each and every one of these claims. And prior to the airing, that segment that I just quoted from was December 23rd. On December 7th, reported, uh, the following. This is paragraph 83, the following facts.

0:44:35 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

0:46:08 Andrew: A, water leak reported at State Farm Arena on November 3rd turned, had to be an overflowing urinal. There was, of course, an allegation that they'd used water to soak and destroy Trump ballots. B, the flooding did not affect the counting of votes. C, no announcement was made telling monitors, members of the press, or others to leave on election night. D, no ballots were brought into the arena from an unknown location. E, the supposed suitcases of illegal ballots were not suitcases, but regular ballot containers filled with valid uncounted ballots. F, those ballots were not hidden but stored and no one tampered with those ballots.

G, there was no evidence that plaintiffs illegally scanned ballots multiple times because they did not. If anyone had done so, there would have been a significant discrepancy results between results of the hand count and results on election night, and there was not such discrepanzee. H, the ballot processing in the Trump edited video was in fact entirely normal, Trump, entirely normal ballot processing, and I, no one, let alone plaintiffs, committed election fraud in Fulton County that altered the results of the election, and there was no conspiracy to commit such fraud. Again, that's not crazy leftists Andrew and Thomas telling you that, is Brad Raffensperger, Republican Secretary

0:46:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:47:26 Andrew: Of State of Georgia

0:47:26 Thomas: Former Republican soon to be former Republican Brad Raffensperger. Yeah. Soon to be part of the Justin an Amash crew of former Republicans. Yeah.

0:47:28 Andrew: Yeah. Right. You don't, you don't count as a Republican anymore.

0:47:37 Thomas: Yeah, unless you go along with the big lie.

0:47:37 Andrew: Yeah, that's right. So I include this in here because this is a I want to signal boost. What happened to Ruby Freeman and her daughter was unconscionable. And we don't always see that because we're not in the OAN bubble, but they were people vilified by name to millions of Trump-supporting idiots. Yeah. And also because this is how you file a lawsuit. Right. Like you go to the bottom, you see Wilkie Farr, a totally like a Covington and Burling style white shoe law firm.

0:48:02 Thomas: Yeah! Ugh! Terrifying!

0:48:17 Thomas: Yeah! Yeah!

0:48:19 Andrew: Right? You see enumerated counts, including a first claim of defamation per se against all defendants. Right, they

0:48:22 Thomas: Wow! Paul, let me ask you a crazy question. Do the alleged facts, like, substantiate the accounts? You know, do they actually correspond to them?

0:48:33 Andrew: Do. Do. And I look, I will tell you, for example, right, like the second count here is intentional infliction of emotional distress, um, it, it, I, I think that this is a plausible cause of action, but this is going to be the hardest one to prove, right, like IIED requires extreme and outrageous conduct, right, and I, I can see the argument that, like, saying bad stuff about people on our fake news network does not count as extreme and outrageous. I think they should be able to make that argument. But, you know, you have to allege it. They allege It as in paragraph 209 defendants wrongful conduct is so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree that it is beyond all possible bounds of decency and is to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. That's the requisite standard. You have to plead that right. Right. I could see a court saying your conduct is outrageous in character and extreme and unwarranted in degree, but maybe not beyond all possible bounds of decency, beyond most of the bounds of Decency.

0:48:49 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, right,

0:49:38 Andrew: Yes. But, you know, so so, again, I don't want to say that just because this is a complaint that is, you know, on, quote, our side, that that means that they're going to prevail on everything. I just want and again, you I know Uncle Frank's not listening to this episode, but but you have somebody who's the slightest bit open minded, you put the Terpsichore complaint next to the Freeman complaint and you can just see the difference between competency and lack thereof.

0:49:50 Thomas: Yeah, it doesn't mean they're gonna win everything.

0:50:11 Andrew: No.

0:50:11 Thomas: It's just like it's, it's, yeah, we've harped on it enough, but just that it's actually what cognizable is, that the good legal word, yeah. I wonder.

0:50:19 Andrew: Yep, exactly. Exactly right. Good legal word. So. So there you go. The third claim is a claim for civil conspiracy, and the fourth claim is a claim for aiding and abetting. So, again, perfectly, you sensible. And boy, I sure hope that they're able to soak away. Oh, Rudy Giuliani is also named in this lawsuit, which is fantastic. So there you you go. How is he? He's been really quiet lately, so, uh, hopefully not good.

0:50:40 Thomas: How he's doing all Right, well, good to see, uh, a real lawsuit, a real complaint written, uh, against horrible people. I hope, I wish them the best and

0:50:54 Andrew: Agreed yeah

0:50:57 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

0:50:58 Thomas: And now it's time to thank our Hall of Famers, our all-time greats. By the way, I heard you use that same phrase on Aisle 45, and I think I'm suing you for, that's my trademark. Mark. No, that's okay. I'll lease it to you. I will lend it. But yeah, let's think.

0:51:06 Andrew: You should you should absolutely can we do the, like, World War One style lead lease, which basically means you're giving it to me.

0:51:19 Thomas: Oh, wow. I don't know about that. So, no. Let me consult my attorney. Andrew, should I do that?

0:51:21 Andrew: No all right no You should definitely not. You have a great case against Andrew.

0:51:25 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Andrew. I'm not doing that. Yeah. All, I usually make Andrew have an actual hat he changes to when it's, you know, he's my attorney versus he has to put on a little costume to him and change back and forth, uh, but no, enough of that nonsense, let's thank our Hall of Famers, our all-time greats, in our final quintile. I know the timing is a little off, but as uh always, we record on Thursday, so this is the final Thursday quintile. I can't start the new quintile or quartile until, you know, the the end of the year, so, do it, year first, go ahead duh

0:51:26 Andrew: Oh, quintile number five and I think we agree, obviously the best of all the quintiles. Yeah yeah So we begin with False Anonymous Dude, R.I.P. Notorious RBG, Yep Liz, Puffy Coats or Violence, W thanks Liz, Malcolm the Dragon, the Precious Variant, Derrick, reigning champion of Yodel Foto Mountain Fantasy Football League, Big Easy Blasphemy, a person who says they don't need a call out and just thanks us, a string of unpronounceable characters, RhondaTheDork.com, love that, Malika Chandler, they said I could be anything, so I became two princes who adore you. You know, I will tell you, that song came on over the holidays when my sister and I were driving around, I did not demand that we change the channel, because and that's because of you, the call out to the Spin Doctor's Two Princes, on our, on our Hall of Fame.

0:52:00 Thomas: Yeah of of course.

0:52:49 Andrew: So, uh, you, you, you got me to listen to your song, I just want you to think about how much change that means. All right, thanks to Soggy Pants, to Terese Chan, and Adopt a Homeless Was Pet and Opposed Declawing into Ear Docking. Wow, I don't know how you're gonna do better than those, are some classic all-time Patreon Hall of Fame famers, do better, I I

0:53:08 Thomas: Yeah, they really are. I will try. How about thank you to Dejuri Belli at Patchy's at Last Baby, Butterscotch the Cat, Heather L., Matthew Vernon, Jeremiah's Fancy Microwave Emporium, Ian and Allie, Danny or Azari, Eli Bosnick gets to change his patron name because Patreon gave up on his blog too. Depresses me every time I see that. I wish you would start that back up. Adam Costa, Erotic Almond. That's new. Okay. David in Brooklyn. Sam Dineau, Mitchell. The plural of bonus is boni. This patron name was topical four weeks ago when I made it. I agree with that 100%. Sam Buck. And you know what? Not to disparage those fine, fine Hall of Famers. Andrew, I didn't even need all those because I have the Trump card. It's Conrad Michaels, of course. Thank you, Conrad Michael's top patron of all time. What a great end to the, uh, to the, for us over here in current time, this is a great end of the year to thank our top, our, our final quintile. Um, next month looks like it is a, uh. Back to the quartile method. So, I guess be warned. I don't know.

0:53:11 Andrew: Uh nice. Oh, Conrad Michaels yeah, and and, and remember, you can change your name up to the Thursday before we read it, that's when they get pulled, so yeah, like keep, keep it up, you know, who you're nearby, right, like, it's, keep it coming.

0:54:20 Thomas: Mm. Yep.

0:54:26 Clip: Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar will eat you.

0:54:32 Thomas: Now it's time for t3be answer Answer time. All right. I've been punked recently. Let's see. Did I do any better on this question?

0:54:40 Andrew: We got you a Christmas constitutional separation of church and state law question, um, this says, man driving home from work in December noticed a large, heavily decorated Christmas tree sitting outside of City Hall. The Christmas trees stood alone, brightly lit with Christmas lights, had ornaments on it, but there were no other holiday or religious symbols on the city ground. He's a Jew, uh, he is a taxpayer in the city and sued the city, uh, saying that it was unconstitutional. Assuming that he has standing, will the man prevail?

Uh, you narrowed it down to the yes answer of yes, because the city's display violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, eliminating A, that it violates the Free Exercise Clause ofthe First Amendment, good elimination, that's that this, this is not. Not if it is unconstitutional, it will be an unconstititutional endorsement, establishment of religion, not interfering with his free exercise. He can go, you know, practice whatever religious beliefs that he wants. It's just a question of, you Know, what is city hall apparently endorsing? You also, between the no answers, you eliminated the wordy and I have to say nonsensical C answer, or no, because the city may engage

0:55:22 Thomas: All right, all right.

0:55:40 Thomas: Good.

0:55:50 Andrew: In free speech and spread whatever message it desires, so long as it does not prohibit citizens from engaging in the same free speech. That's crazy.

0:55:59 Thomas: I'll tell you though, that's not that dissimilar from last week's prank answer. Like it's kind of a little bit of a similar logic, like the two quo K as long as, you know, I know that's nonsense, but also so Was last week's answer, but successful

0:56:09 Andrew: I get it. I get where you're coming from. I get where you're coming from, yeah.

0:56:18 Thomas: Elimination. Okay.

0:56:19 Andrew: Successful elimination, so Then the question is, uh, is it the, uh, answer you decided on? No, because the city's display does not violate the First Amendment. And Thomas, I have to tell you, you got this one exactly Right, although I Wish you hadn't, um It, I really think B is a better attractive distractor than you gave it credit for, uh, because

0:56:31 Thomas: All Right. Yeah. Well That's Why it was my second chance. What Do mean?

0:56:39 Andrew: Yeah. Well Um Let me, let me kind of break it down, uh, as it turns out, um, you, you mentioned the Bladensburg Cross case, um Which, which is actually the right way to analyze this question, uh, because the first question that the courts will undertake is, is the government here engaged in religious expression, right? So it's on the city hall, it's on public property, so the government is the actor, um, and there is in fact a Supreme Court case that says just displaying a Christmas tree Is no longer a Religious symbol in the same way that a giant cross is apparently no longer a religious

0:56:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Which Yeah.

0:57:24 Andrew: Symbol.

0:57:25 Thomas: You know, there is, that is, not, I, I did think about that, I, I almost mentioned it, but honestly I was, I was pretty Sure on D, so, because also there's the, uh, uh, I'm sure, sure many of the atheists listening are aware of, like, the, "In God We Trust" on the money decisions, where it's like, yeah, you know, yes, it says "In God We Trust," but what does that mean really? So it's fine.

0:57:45 Thomas: It's like it's stuff that's adjacent that you or I might take as definitely endorsing a religion. The court, it seems like has been like, nah, that doesn't really endorse anything.

0:57:56 Andrew: So So I'm glad you brought that up, because there's actually a little bit of a hairline distinction between those two, and "God We Trust" on the money is unquestionably religious, but considered de minimis, right? Like, such A minor Bit of religious that it's like, no, we're Not Going to Deal With it,

0:58:07 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. It is a little different. Yeah, so this is just a tree. So if this were a, what the hell's the baby Jesus thing?

0:58:11 Andrew: Right. Right. Yeah. A menorah, nativity scene, yeah.

0:58:20 Thomas: Nativity scene. Yeah. If this were a nativity scene, might be a different story, right?

0:58:20 Andrew: Uh That is right. And in fact, the Supreme Court's test. So, so here's what's happened. And here's where, right, our right wing court is going to continue to, you know, drive a truck through these exceptions. I think you and I both kind of agree that, you know, I put up a Christmas tree. In fact, haven't taken mine down yet, right? It doesn't have to be an inherently religious symbol. And so when the court says that that has lost its religious significance, OK, I can get behind that. When a court says giant cross has lost its religious significance.

0:58:58 Andrew: That's a harder one to get behind. But so but so then the two step analysis, the two-step inquiry is number one, is it religious speech? If the Christmas tree were religious speech, right, if it were a nativity scene, unquestionably right religious speech. Then the Supreme Court has said that a public display of a nativity scene is permissible so long as you have other religious groups on display there.

0:58:57 Thomas: Yeah. Not getting behind that.

0:59:25 Thomas: Right. Yeah, yeah.

0:59:27 Andrew: Right so you know you have a menorah you have uh other decorations I don't know I always picture I like the ones that show that how the uh the negative space of the nativity scene looks like a T-Rex coming down to eat right so I think you should have like dinosaurs frolicking around in there as well um but yeah no so if you if you have an amalgam of a whole bunch of religious stuff they've decided well the net effect of all of that kind of cancels each other out I'm not convinced that's outstanding logic from our Supreme Court uh but nevertheless it is the rule and so I thought that I might be able to trip you up or the question might be able to tip you up I'm always rooting for you of course uh but I thought the question might be a little bit with the uh no other uh holiday or religious symbols on the city ground but uh you saw right through that you were like nope, Christmas tree, not going to be considered a religious symbol, therefore not a violation of the Establishment Clause, uh does not violate the the First Amendment, answer D, you got it exactly right.

1:00:24 Thomas: I think it's fair to say that I could have elaborated more on my reasoning. I honestly just kind of lost steam because I figured there's no way it's, but yeah, no, you're right. Right. That's the interesting distinction there to talk about. And all right, I got one.

1:00:37 Andrew: Whoo!

1:00:37 Thomas: Woo-hoo. Okay. Well, let's find out who also got one, who's this week's big winner of T3BE.

1:00:42 Andrew: And While Thomas, a lot of folks played along over the holidays, a lot people got it right, I think my favorite correct answer came on New Year's Day from our friend Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, who writes, "Finally at T3BE, about the only area of law where I have any knowledge, Thomas is correct. Trees are generally part of the analysis of what makes a holiday display secular rather than religious. So a creche or menorah by itself, religious, but with a tree, reindeer, Santa, and I think that's a little snowman emoji, uh, probably good to go." Yeah, and this was uh loaded with emojis, by the way. Um, Nick is uh unsurprisingly correct, this is a fantastic tweet, and everybody, you should already be following Nick Fish, but if you're not, uh give him a follow, that is at Nicholas R Fish on Twitter, at N-I-C-H-O-L-A-S-R-F-I-S-H.

1:01:38 Andrew: Congrats Nick on being this week's winner, the first winner of 2022, if that's how you want to count it.

1:01:45 Thomas: And that's our show. Thank you so much for listening and, we'll see you for rapid response Friday and we'll see you next that Q and a. So make sure to also tune in on YouTube to that on another reminder, January 7th at 3 Pacific, 6 Eastern. We'll see you all then.

1:01:54 Andrew: Can't wait until then.

1:02:02 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.

1:02:35 Clip: www.openargs.com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash 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.