OA586: CA Uses TX Abortion Ban Trick but for Gun Control

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 586. I'm Thomas. That's Andrew Torres. How you doing?

0:01:24 Andrew: I'm fantastic, Thomas. How are you?

0:01:25 Thomas: Doing great. We are hanging out at AAcon as people hear this. Having a great time. We hope some of you are there. Say hi. Come hang out. Don't be shy.

0:01:37 Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, there's nothing better than meeting listeners and having folks come up. So, you know, neither of us are scary. And if time you will have heard this our trivia night will be over so uh boy you missed out on what was either a lot of fun or a tremendous embarrassment for me personally so there you go well

0:01:38 Thomas: Oh Yeah. How About that when Heath cheated? Repeated. I feel like that'll that'll work no matter what Yeah.

0:01:58 Andrew: Yeah. I feel like that's Evergreen.

0:02:00 Thomas: That'll apply All right, well, anyway, plenty of good Wayne Sack tickets to come hang out with us even if you you've already missed the trivia. So come hangout Atlanta, do it, American Atheist. That said, let's get to our show. Uh, looks like no announcements other than come hang out with us at American Atheist. So let's get to it.

0:02:01 Andrew: Yeah, totally. So,

0:02:21 Clip: Down the law, down the law.

0:02:25 Thomas: Right, this is a question that a lot of people had that I think now came to life, uh, which is cool. Back when the Texas abortion thing happened, uh, I suppose it's still ongoing, but the strategy, um, of have people instead of the government impose the, you be the bounty hunters, was a way to kind of sneak this through, apparently. Uh, and it seems as though California is doing a similar thing with gun control. Is this a one weird trick, is this gonna work, tell us about it. Yeah.

0:02:52 Andrew: You've set this up exactly perfectly. Uh, this is uh, Senate Bill 1327, which has now passed the state legislature and is just awaiting uh, Governor Newsom's uh, signature. Uh, that was precisely what Gavin Newsom said he would do after the Supreme Court bought into the insane subterfuge of Texas SB8. That said, well, you know, like, we we can't enjoy this because we're not sure there's any state action going on, because it's all vigilantes bringing private causes of action in order to enforce the law, that should have been dismissed by the Supreme Court as nonsense. And uh, as we know it wasn't, and so the argument was, liberal, okay know you cando that in conservative state for abortion, I candothat inaliberal state for gun control. So what does this bill do? This, this bill is divided into a couple of parts. It begins with a lengthy definition of what constitutes an assault weapon, what constitutes a 50 BMG rifle, which I think is a 50 caliber rifle.

0:03:32 Thomas: Don't

0:04:01 Andrew: Know that from Mythbusters, the like thing that fires bullets the size of your head. And you know, and uh, unserialized firearms, so-called ghost guns. So uh, it begins, when I say lengthy, right, we've often used gun control as an example of where you will delegate, you'll create a list and then also delegate it to uh, an executive branch agency. So uh, that's what we have. The list is huge, right? All the AK series, including but not limited to certain identified models, Norinco 56, 84 and 86, Poly Technologies AKS, Uzi, Galil, Beretta AR-70, Colt AR-15. I'm not going to read the 90 different firearms that are listed here. And then it says any firearm included in the list promulgated by the Attorney General pursuant to the California Attorney General,

0:04:01 Thomas: Don't Care. Oh, there you go Yeah.

0:04:55 Andrew: Pursuant to a former section one, two, two seven, six point five of the penal code, and any other models that are only variations of those weapons with minor differences, regardless of the manufacturer. The legislature has defined assault weapons as the types, series, and models listed in this paragraph because it was the most effective way to identify and restrict a specific class of semi-automatic weapons. But that's not all, subparagraph two says, notwithstanding paragraph one, assault weapon also means any of the following. So it means a semi-auto automatic centerfire rifle that does not have a fixed magazine but has any one of the following, a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon, a thumbhole stock, a folding or telescopic stock, a grenade launcher. Grenade launcher, really? People are out there buying grenade launchers? Okay.

0:05:46 Thomas: You Wait, before this, that was cool, wow.

0:05:49 Andrew: I. Apparently you can, you can buy firearms that have a grenade launcher on them. I, yeah.

0:05:54 Thomas: Throwing a grenade seems, you pretty effective, the launching part, I, both of them, my point is both of those sound horrible, why is the, anyway, I I hope none of those are allowed.

0:05:59 Andrew: Uh. No. Yeah. No, disagree. Uh, flash suppressor, uh, forward pistol grip, I think that's the thing that in any, even uh, all of the military style hardware. It continues to go throughout the definition. I'm to skip all of the rest of it. So, very, very comprehensive list of definitions of what constitutes an assault rifle. That's sort of what I call part one of the bill. Then part two says, notwithstanding any other law, no person within the state may manufacture, cause to be manufactured, distribute, transport, import into the state, or cause to be distributed, transported, or imported into the state, keep for sale, offer or expose for sale, or give or lend any assault weapon, 50 caliber rifle, or unserialized firearm, with you know, certain exceptions that are not important.

So part two is the complete ban on having anything to do with anything that was described in that large part one, right? So no assault weapons, no, no .50 caliber rifles, no ghost guns in the state of California. And then part three is the enforcement mechanism. And this is the part that is taken directly from Texas SB8. It says any person other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in the state may bring a civil action against any person who does any of the following. That language is lifted word for word from SBA.

0:07:28 Andrew: Right. And that is knowingly violates the section that I just read on the prohibition. Number two, knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets a violation of that particular section, regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the person aided or abetted abetting would be violating the underlying law. So, in other words, the broadest possible application of aiding and abetding. Right. Or three, knowingly commits an act with the intent to engage in the conduct described by paragraphs one or two. So

0:07:28 Thomas: Wonder If conservatives, and the people and the idiots on the court will see a problem here, yeah.

0:08:02 Andrew: We'll see, if a claimant prevails in an action brought under the section, the court shall award, shall award all of the following, one, injunctive relief sufficient to prevent the defendant from violating this chapter or engaging in acts that aid or abet violations of this chapter. To, statutory damages, is an amount of not less than ten thousand dollars, that looks familiar, for each weapon and firearm precursor part as to which the defendant violated that prohibition section, and for each weapon or firearm precursor parties to which defendant aided or abetted a violation of that section, as well as attorneys fees and costs. So yeah, it is designed uh, to be uh, it read in in pari materia with uh, Texas SB8, that is, you know, the same in all material respects, and will see, because look, this blatantly violates the Constitution, the the Second Amendment of the Constitution as understood through the lens uh, of uh, the Supreme Court's recent decisions Yeah.

0:08:49 Thomas: Right

0:08:58 Andrew: I Do not think it would. Right.

0:08:56 Thomas: Wouldn't have before DC v Heller, right? Yeah. DC v Heller happened back in the 1778, when the founding fathers decided that you had just an unassailable right to any gun that you want. Right? Is that how history works? And

0:09:03 Andrew: Yes, not quite. Yeah no In in 1996, uh, about a third of the members of the Republican party in the U.S. Senate signed on to an omnibus crime bill that included a ban on semi-automatic assault rifles, not unlike that lengthy paragraph that I read to you in part one of this bill. So no, no, twenty five years ago, 26 years ago, mainstream centrist politics in this country included a third of Republicans signing on to a a nationwide federal ban on semi-automatic weapons. So,

0:09:50 Thomas: Consider this all happens uh, with a backdrop of a mass shooting in downtown Sacramento recently, uh, that, was scary, and barely, it feels like it barely cracked the the news, am I wrong? I mean it was there a little bit, but it seemed like not a lot of coverage for how scary that was, and a lot of people died. Yeah.

0:10:06 Andrew: Are not wrong on all counts. And in fact, Governor Newsom explicitly tied the passage of this bill to that shooting with, I'll just give you his quote. Quote, this week's unconscionable act of gun violence is a tragic reminder of the lives that are at stake in this crisis that engenders communities across the country. Today, the legislature took an important step towards holding the gun industry accountable for mass shootings in our communities involving illegal firearms and protecting residents, utilizing the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that allowed private citizens in Texas the ability to sue abortion providers. So long as the Supreme Court has set this precedent, California will use it to save lives. Lives, I, I don't have to tell you, I don't I get it, I'm behind playing hardball, I, we let off with this as our story, um, I would like, not to be, part of you, we know where this is going, which is the Supreme Court is going to invent some arbitrary distinction, uh, on, you know, the maintenance of like three words of difference between, uh, this statute and Texas, uh, SB8

0:11:11 Thomas: You think? I mean, yeah, I, I don't know what they're going to do with this. My question for you is, what's the... So, sorry, your sentiment is that you don't want...

0:11:14 Andrew: Yeah. I just did that I don't, I'm not a fan of the, like, oh well, we can get around laws, uh, having effect by, you know, effectively vigilantizing the law. Like, yeah, that's not what I signed up for in this country, you know, I'll go I'll go live in Gotham City when I want law, you enforcement to be outsourced I agree I I, I think that it is with the exception that the underlying subject matter is a subject matter that I think is, is worth trying to pass, right?

So that's a little bit different Well, it, it makes me feel as though, see, when the Satanic Temple is like, oh, we could just stick religious monuments whatever we want here, have a 20 foot tall goat-headed demon, I, I get the sense, I could be wrong, that they'd be happy not to have the 20 foot tall goat-headed demon. And so it's one of those kind of win-win of like, we're exposing the silliness on this, and now let's go our own way. And, and I would like a world in which individuals who are pregnant had full access to their constitutional rights and reproductive health. And also we had a strong ban, in areas that support it, on possessing semi-automatic assault weapons. So I just feel like it's a little different. Right.

0:11:32 Thomas: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, but this strikes me as the satanic temple kind of tactic, don't you think?

0:11:49 Thomas: Right. So even better than... That makes you like it less? I don't understand.

0:12:36 Thomas: Yeah, but I mean, this is what we have to do, right? I mean, if going to try to use one really stupid, obviously wrong trick to ban abortion, I don't understand why we wouldn't just say, oh, okay, well, here's why this is dumb.

0:12:38 Andrew: Yeah, I don't. I certainly agree with that. I certainly agree. So

0:12:52 Thomas: So my question is, so this is California. So what's the appeals process here? Who's next? I mean, is there a circuit court? There's California courts. And in that process, what do you think those, those appeals appeals courts, what do you think they're bound by here, like if you were just forget everything else, you're trying, judge Torres over here, trying to rule on this based on the precedent that may or may not be set, how should they rule on something like this, well

0:13:19 Andrew: It's really fascinating because here's what's going to happen. This law has not yet, as of the time of this record, been signed into law by the governor, although obviously though he intends to do so. Once that happens, a lawsuit will be filed in a U.S. district court, probably a favorable jurisdiction, but you might try and file in one of the districts in California.

I don't fully know the bench, so there might be an area where you want to roll all the dice because the problem with simply just going to a very, very conservative court that you know you can get away with is you're going to have to show standing, right, in that court. It's going to be a challenge to say, I could potentially run afoul of the enforcement of this law, right? So you're gonna need to show, uh, that you are a gun owner, a semi-automatic gun owner, and you are are concerned that this law is going to be enforced against you, uh, and, uh, then you will seek an injunction of this law from going into effect, right? As we're thinking about it, maybe, like, is is there a town, uh, is there a town that's kind of on the California-Arizona border, right? You might be able to go to a court in Arizona and say, well,

0:14:45 Thomas: I was gonna say, I mean, if you're just talking about forum shopping, like there's plenty of conservative-ass towns, all of them, actually, but you're saying one that lets you get into Arizona courts, huh?

0:14:51 Andrew: Right. But I'm saying those, yes, that will let you get into, get before a judge in D-Arizona as

0:14:57 Thomas: Well how does that not apply, remember the one weird abortion trick where the state court, uh, is this different than that? How, how would another state be able to tell California what to do?

0:15:10 Andrew: So any federal judge can can issue an injunction that would stop a state law from going into effect. Now, that's then reviewable on appeal by the relevant circuit court of appeal, and then all the way up to the Supreme, uh, but, uh, but think about it this way, suppose, uh, I live in Arizona and I have, uh, a second home in California, and, you know, and I have guns in both homes, right, and I transport them back and forth or something like that, you know, because I go hunting in southwest Californian, and, mean, I'm obviously inventing this off the top of my head, but you, you could imagine somebody who is an Arizona resident who says, I am plausibly subject to this California law, so I'm going to court to prevent California from...

0:15:45 Thomas: Yeah yeah did we make use of this with Texas, I mean, I suppose I have a, I have a reproductive system and I travel between the two states, does the same logic apply there?

0:16:01 Andrew: It would, and what happened in Texas, the reason the lawsuit was filed, and multiple lawsuits, the reasons they were filed in Texas is because you have to have a plaintiff with standing. And so as an activist looking to bring the lawsuit, you need to sort of decide between, okay, how long am I going to wait for the perfect plaintiff to come along versus am I gonna get into court right away and challenge. And so it's very, very easy to find a pregnant person in Texas or a gun owner in California and get into court where they live. You know, my kind of unicorn plaintiff, you know, who lives in Arizona, I'm sure they would like to find one.

0:16:56 Andrew: Yes, they are. It's really scary. Gary. So, uh, so that's what's going to happen, uh, is there's going to be an effort to find the most favorable forum to try and get a district court judge to issue an injunction blocking SB 1327 from going into effect, the, that judge, you then ask, how, how should that judge rule?

0:16:54 Thomas: The unicorns carrying guns now geez, what a dystopia mm-hmm

0:17:16 Andrew: And the answer is we don't know because the only definitive guidance that we have from the Supreme Court comes from the infamous shadow docket, is right, in, in a per curiam opinion that is by legal custom not supposed to have any precedential effect. So I certainly think if you had a judge that understands the propriety of, you know, and understands what's going on here and that basically says, look, you the Supreme Court has effectively tipped its hand in its ruling with respect to Texas SB 8, that injunctive relief is not appropriate here. And so we are going to follow that guidance.

That's obviously the result you want. But if you're asking me, could a conservative judge say, all I'm asked to do is ask to determine whether this bill violates the Constitution of the United States. And in my judgment, it does. And the enforcement part is a decision for each court as it comes across it fresh. And we have no ruling on the merits from any court so far. So I conclude, contrary to what the Fifth Circuit determined and contrary to the Supreme Court, that does not immunize this bill from nevertheless being state action. And is that a blatant contradiction? Sure. But it's it's way less

0:17:15 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah

0:18:43 Andrew: From from a coloring within the line standpoint. It's way more of a contradiction than, you know, most of the stuff that the Supreme court has done over the past five years. So, right.

0:18:52 Thomas: Well and I if she were on the other fetus here, uh, if the shoe were on another foot, I would want, you know, a judge to rule like, okay, ignore this shadow docket that said anything goes because that's silly, let's still keep ruling as the law works, so yeah all

0:18:56 Andrew: Right. Yes. Yep. That is right. And Note that courts did not, by and large, right, in evaluating, for example, the constitutionality of the various mask and vaccination mandates issued by the Biden administration, the courts did did not look to the absurd shadow docket rulings that, you know, allowed churches to continue to gather and like, you know, have people spit on each other during the height of pandemic. By and large, those cases weren't cited for precisely the reason even when court courts wound up ruling against mask and vaccination mandates, they did so for reasons that were unrelated to the shadow docket decisions. So you, if you want, "the system works?" Question mark That's that's one aspect of that.

0:19:56 Thomas: So what are you predicting will happen here, just what we outlined, the instant appeal?

0:19:56 Andrew: Yeah as soon as this bill is signed, a lawsuit will be filed, uh, will be interesting to see what the district court does in terms of issuing an injunction or not. I could see it either way. I suppose my gut is that there is a likelihood that that injunction would not be entered because that's sort of the safest way to kick the can up the road, you know, down the street. I feel like I'm mixing my metaphor here.

But if you issue the injunction, then you've shifted the burden on appeal. If you don't, then you allow the litigants to come forward and ask the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court, hey, are you going to enjoin this one? And obviously the real question there is if the Ninth Circuit also declines to issue the injunction, and then you're presenting a question to the same Supreme Court that said, oh yeah, we're definitely going to allow SB8 to go into effect. Does it how does it feel when it is no longer, you depriving women and pregnant persons of their rights?

But now it is depriving people of their precious, precious guns, launchers, flash suppressors. Yeah, so right, we will see. That's the path that it's going to take. My prediction is, you Know, the same kind of speedy within a couple of weeks after passage. This will likely be before the Supreme Court that again, that could change if either the district court or the Ninth Circuit decides to enjoin the law from going into effect. And, you we outlined the case for that. I think that's probably the minority outcome, but it's not, you not a crazy outcome.

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0:24:43 Andrew: The updates are not good. So This needs to be a wake-up call. So some background stuff, you know, most of our listeners know the incumbent party that controls the presidency typically loses seats in the midterm election. Joe Biden right now is 10 points underwater in 538 polling average, maybe lower than that if you believe in directionality. That is 42 approve, 52 disapprove. Those are terrible numbers, right? Those are late 2019 Trump numbers, right? Those are bad for an incumbent president, it which is which is insane, which we don't need to get into. And And the truly worrisome part is if you want to model recent history, let's look back to 2010, right? Right, the Obama's first midterm, that was when the Tea Party crazies first started getting. And the candidates nominated by Republicans this time around are truly terrifying.

0:25:18 Thomas: Is incredible, yeah.

0:25:36 Thomas: Somehow worse?

0:25:44 Andrew: Not just somehow worse. So let's document this right away so that people know. You'll link these in the show notes. Business Insider shows 36 candidates that have direct ties, have directly endorsed, retweeted, run on QAnon platform. And I'm going to define what that term means in a minute because I think people don't understand what that means. So when I say 36 QAnons level candidates, they list Marjorie Taylor Greene as a shadow supporter, not an outright supporter. Yeah, right.

0:26:04 Thomas: Yeah wow, well that's just wrong, I mean I think she is an outright supporter. That's weird

0:26:18 Andrew: Yeah it is right That's cautious how the Business Insider list, is Media Matters, which, you know, again, if you're sharing this with Uncle Frank, he's gonna be like, our, Media Matters, left wing loons." Fine. They track, and we're going to link in the show notes, and again these are their own words, 60 candidates that have, quote, expressed some level of support for q anon conspiracy theory. Now, I said I would, I think this is really important. When we say QAnon conspiracy theory, I have been guilty of sort of tossing that around carelessly and including people who believe in a transparently idiotic conspiracy theory. That is, that Donald Trump secretly won the 2020 election and that ballots were harvested by Hugo Chavez and sent overseas to be converted into Joe Biden.

0:26:19 Thomas: Right

0:27:05 Andrew: That's not what I mean by q anon conspiracy theory, right, not just the big lie, this is the the q anone belief, this is what, uh, the standard to which, uh, these articles are holding candidates in terms of asking for their support. It is the belief that Donald Trump, in a secret agreement, sometimes with Robert Muller, sometimes with other folks, has had, it's harder for them to maintain the president has, but some of them do, a plan to root out and arrest deep state operatives that secretly control our government.

Those deep state operators are, and again, I am not making any of this up, I'm not exaggerating a word of this, their words, Satan worshiping pedophile globalist Democrats who rape and murder children, including in the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn't have a basement, to harvest the adenochrome from their pituitary glands and their bloodstream, they then ingest as a powerful hallucinogenic drug. And the globalist thing means that they operate beyond borders, beyond national borders sometimes, and again, I wish I could tell you I was making this up, they are shape-shifting lizard people. Sometimes, of course, they're also Jews, because there's a tremendous amount of anti-Semitic nonsense, uh, in with this. So I want you to understand, when you see, and the, like, hashtag save the children, or, of, well, we need to go after pedophiles, dog whistle is too weak to use for what this is.

0:28:42 Andrew: This is an overt signal, an overt whistle. It's a regular whistle for support for that are 60 of those candidates on the ballot in 2022. Some, like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, have already won. More of them are about to win in this cycle. That will happen no matter what we do based on primaries in hard right Republican districts. I went down a slight rabbit trail because I did not know about the adrenochrome stuff. Do you know aboutthe adrenechrome stuff?

0:29:18 Thomas: Adrenochromes, no, I don't know, I I just, this is

0:29:18 Andrew: Okay, good. I want to emphasize it because this is the part, I feel like this is like when skeptics started talking about Xenu with Scientology, The breakthrough. Right? Maybe I'm overly optimistic. Maybe I've got a wrong sense of causality. But I think we on the left have done a great job of exposing in our conversations with folks exactly how insane this is. Because to us, all of it's insane. Right. Oh, yeah.

0:29:49 Andrew: Yeah. The guy who sell, you know, the former cokehead who sells pillows has the secret proof of how our election was stolen. That's stupid and insane. That's not as stupid and sane as believing that adenochrome, which is a hydrocarbon compound. It was the subject of research in the 1950s. It is not a psychedelic drug. The psychedelic effects were invented by Gonzo journalist and novelist Hunter S. Thompson for his work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

0:29:49 Thomas: Yeah, yeah that's all, when you say adrenachrome, that's all I think of. Is that the same oh oh are

0:30:19 Andrew: That's all it is. That is where this comes from. It comes from Fear and Loathing and Las Vegas, which I should have to tell you, work of fiction. Right, and in that work of fiction, Thompson, who by the way has said yeah

0:30:31 Thomas: You telling me that bar didn't turn into lizards, that whole bar, that's fake, geez.

0:30:34 Andrew: But by the way, he has said, yes, I made all this up, but, but in the work of fiction, Thompson could say, tiny taste of a drinker chrome from his lawyer, which, love that detail, and The lawyer says that stuff makes pure mescaline seem like ginger beer. You'll go completely crazy if you take too much, and then Hunter S. Thompson replies, "Yeah. Yeah, there's only one source for this stuff. The adrenaline glands from a living human body. It's no good if you get it out of a corpse." That is the source for the belief that shape-shifting lizard people Democrats are harvesting the substance from children that they sexually abuse and then murder in the basement of a pizza parlor that does not have a basement. And this is what they mean when they say they're anti-pedophile. Let me give you an example, because look, everyone's anti-bedophile. This is right, the signal. OK, so Marjorie Taylor Greene, in 2017, as a candidate before being elected to Congress, said this, quote, quote, "There's a once in a lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan worshiping pedophiles out."

0:30:37 Thomas: Yep yeah, oh man yeah yeah

0:31:47 Andrew: And I think we have the president to do it. End of quote. But now she can omit all of the global cabals Satan worship thing and just say and said this week ago. This is a real tweet still up. Quote, Murkowski, Collins and Romney are all pro pedophile. They just voted for Ketanji Brown Jackson. Real tweet, really up right now. We'll link it in the show notes.

0:31:54 Thomas: Look not, not to play Cue's advocate but I isn't that just about like this bullshit sentencing attack that they went after, and the idea being because, like, also, also, Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz made the argument that Ketanji Brown Jackson is pro-pedophile or whatever, but you would distinguish between them and QAnon people, right?

0:32:11 Andrew: I would distinguish in their set of beliefs in their head. But I think when Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz repeated, I think what Josh Hawle invented this line of attack, and Ted Cruise repeated, 100% they knew that they were going after the QAnon vote, that that this is, like I said, louder than a dog whistle. They know that when they say I'm doing this to stop pedophiles that the q anon people, who remember are used to cryptic data drops coming, are gonna, are gonna, they're looking, they're begging to read between the lines, right? That is part of the reason why, part of reason why I'm doing this now is because I feel like I didn't explain, explain, uh, in a lot of detail why, when we first got that list of, you know, a dozen cases, uh, arguing that Katanji Brown Jackson was, you soft on pedophiles, why I dealt with it at a very top level rather than doing the deep dive that I wanted to do.

And that the reason was, I realized, unlike some of the other shows we've prepared for you to, you know, put in front of Uncle Frank, that we would be be answering a different question, right? If we, if we answered Holly's accusations, we'd be answering the question, did Judge Jackson disproportionately give lighter sentences to individuals charged with the federal crime of possessing child pornography, and the

0:32:36 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah.

0:33:46 Andrew: Answer that is no. Right, but what the question they're really asking is, does she eat babies, right? And so no answer, to, well, you know, if you look at this opinion, they're going to sit there and listen and go, right, right, right, right. But does she eat babies? And I think we have to be calling these people out.

0:34:02 Thomas: It's not as though like everybody but QAnons is super cool with pedophiles. I just feel like that was an easy attack that basically appeals to almost everybody, buddy, um, if it weren't complete bullshit, which it obviously was, but like going after, I get the connection between that and QAnon, but I don't know that that, I don't, maybe, maybe no

0:34:22 Andrew: I think these people are guilty until proven innocent. Yeah. But

0:34:26 Thomas: I know, but it also doesn't matter, like either way the q an on people were not, you, they weren't, do you think they would have supported her otherwise? I don't understand, is it just trying to anger them more and like keep them stirred up or something?

0:34:36 Andrew: Oh, yeah. Right, it's to, it's to say, you know, so that when QAnon supporters huddle together and say, OK, you who's among the real Republicans who are with them? Yeah, they they already know Lisa Murkowski is a Rhino in their eyes or whatever, but they try and differentiate between Chuck Grassley and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and right? I think 100% this was Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz trying to get on the Marjorie Taylor Grene side of the equation without having to say, you know, global cabal of Satan worshipers. To me, that, to me that seems obvious that you were trying to use the same brush, uh, to make an argument that you can respect, respectably make, uh, quote unquote, versus the statement that you can't. Um, I agree with you, uh, you know, there's a lot of plausible deniability in there for, you know, the former professor of constitutional law, Josh Hawley, and the former graduate with honors from Harvard Law School, Ted Cruz, right, people who know way better when they, uh, made attacks on Judge Jackson's legal record, yeah.

0:34:37 Thomas: Yeah I mean, it doesn't matter, I guess, my, my only point is, if QAnon didn't exist, they still would have done this exact thing, so this would Because There Was I Think They would have, there was no Attack On Katanji Brown Jackson that made any sense, and This was one they found because everybody hates pedophiles, and the like, and the right has always been moral panic about criminals and crime and increasing pedophiles and whatever, that's always been there anyway, it doesn't particularly matter that much, yeah.

0:35:42 Andrew: I Don't Know that They Would have You know That's Interesting. Right. Yeah.

0:36:05 Andrew: I Think, I think it would have been packaged differently, but again, we no way to know. So, uh, I think the point is well taken, the alarm of that's what these 60 candidates outright believe right now, right? Like, again, Ted Cruz is not on this list, right? Josh Hawley is not in this list. Marjorie Taylor Green is listed as adjacent on this, so, you know, when I say, uh, the connections are strong, I mean Marjori Taylor Green level and above, which is pretty terrifying. Hold That does not mean we should not be worried about folks who just believe the big lie conspiracy theory, that is people who are potentially going to be in positions of power to adjudicate the 2024 election. I need to flag these two for you, because, uh, they are out there. Tina Peters just won the Republican primary to become Colorado's next Secretary of State.

If you're wondering, hey, that name Tina Peter sounds kind of familiar, she was the person we covered in Opening Arguments episode 577, This Weekend Republicans Are Horrendously Evil, who, uh, is has been indicted, uh, charged with 10 counts of criminal fraud related to tampering with voting machines in the state of Colorado to prove that it was possible to tamper with the voting machines, um, so this is somebody who instigated outright fraud, uh, knew what

0:36:33 Thomas: Yeah.

0:37:24 Andrew: With 100 certainly, right, you know, arranged for the fake badge for her phony contractor and then leaked the passwords for Colorado's voting machines to the internet, um, this is somebody who, if Democrats don't turn out, could be the Secretary of State, could be overseeing the 2024 election results.

0:37:43 Thomas: Wait, she's not in prison? She's not going, she's not from a jail cell, oh

0:37:46 Andrew: Uh, it'll be real nice Yeah. I did it, let's, let's find out, but I do not know, uh, what the Colorado rules are regarding her serving out her term from a jail cell. But this is a motivated activist who engaged in deliberate fraud to undermine confidence in Dominion voting machine systems, including leaking the passwords to right wing sources on the Internet. This is not just, a Lauren you Boebert level idiot. Right? This is a malicious bad actor who will do everything in her power to steal Colorado's electoral votes in 2024 if she wins. And she's the Republican nominee. Crushed the field 60 plus percent in a multi-way field in Pennsylvania.

0:38:34 Andrew: The secretary of state is not elected. The secretary of state is appointed by the governor. Every Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, in a state that routinely elects Republican governors, is connected to the big lie in some way or another. Former Representative Lou Barletta is probably the leading candidate right now, and he was one of the people listed as an alternate slate of electors, right, on those documents that we talked about. Out. So gathered together in a Denny's parking lot, committed actual perjury, signed his name to a certificate that said, yes, I am the duly appointed elector in Pennsylvania for Donald Trump. Under indictment at the moment, but again, participant in a scheme to deprive Joe Biden of Pennsylvania's electoral votes.

0:39:23 Andrew: He's the leading candidate, probably the candidate. And second place is State Senate President Pro Tem Jake Corman. And he's the guy overseeing the Pennsylvania Republican Legislature's ongoing, quote, investigation into the irregularities and frauds of the 2020 election, which is a bunch of nonsense. Sense Third guy is Bill McSwain, uh, who has publicly stated, uh, that the 2020 election was stolen and is openly courting Donald Trump's endorsement. Guy in fourth place is Doug Mastriano, who has been recently subpoenaed by the One Six committee, uh, that is investigating, mitigating his role specifically, uh, into the 1-6 insurrection. I should point out the interesting fact there is that Mastriano was outside the Capitol there, right, uh, present

0:40:15 Thomas: Did he also get cold, had to go back and get a jacket with Jimmy Thomas.

0:40:15 Andrew: Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, not just at the speech at the ellipse. He was outside the Capitol, apparently decided, as a state senator, maybe he shouldn't commit the additional crime of actually breaching the Senate floor, but was a part of the mob of idiots that became insurrectionists. So the Republican Party steals Pennsylvania and Colorado, it is almost impossible to imagine how Joe Biden can win.

0:40:45 Thomas: Mean, you mean in 2024, just because they'll be in charge of like elections, or what do you mean?

0:40:49 Andrew: Because you're talking about people who have retroactively after the fact in 2020 tried to steal the election for Donald Trump, put them in position. Imagine, you Biden wins Pennsylvania by five points and then the Republican governor doesn't believe that that happened, installs a like minded secretary of state and the secretary of states like, yeah, well, Well, I don't know that I'm going to accept this slate of electors. I'm gonna accept a different slate of selectors instead.

0:41:16 Thomas: Let's go to Denny's, boys, we got an election to steal.

0:41:19 Andrew: Like Professor Lessig, I don't want to give our enemies too many ideas. But clearly something that they've thought about. And this is, yeah, this

0:41:27 Thomas: They're already, they're ready ahead, head of us on this pack

0:41:29 Andrew: Is akin to, you in the late 90s when Republicans realized that taking control of state legislatures in order to win redistricting, you know, in order to win control of redistricting maps was part of their path to retaining electoral relevance. And that gets us to the second half of the story, which is painted a pretty bleak picture. Really important for Democrats to get out vote stay motivated despite a president that is underwater, despite a president that has failed return to on things that I think all of us want, That right? Were very, very important for an inspiration of electing Joe Biden in 2020. I totally agree with that. We have people who literally believe in lizard people and pillow election fraud in a position to to take over the government.

0:42:19 Andrew: So, I can't ring the alarm any harder than that. So, what drawbacks have we faced? We've faced recent sensible court decisions in Maryland and New, New York that have thrown out, uh, Democratic extreme gerrymandering plans, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start with Maryland, um, I will tell you that this, uh, decision was written, this is, these, these are both trial court decisions, right, this one was written by, uh, uh, retired Court of Appeals Judge Lynn Pataglia, so that's, she was on, uh, for 16 years the the state supreme. And now in retirement gets assigned to various circuit court cases. So she's sitting as a trial court judge. This is one of the most respected judges in the state of Maryland. And also Judge Pataglia was chief of staff to Senator Barbara Mikulski, firebrand liberal for as long as I can remember.

0:43:12 Andrew: So, you somebody with impeccable Democratic credentials as well. And let me explain kind of what Maryland was, was trying to do. But, but if you take an F, and then and then a big, thick F where, you know, the middle prong is kind of thick, and then you tilt that 90 degrees to the, the right, okay, that's what Maryland looks like, okay, and the space between the base of the F and that first a little middle prong, that's Virginia, okay, so don't, don't worry about that, that's, those are people, but then the space between the middle prongs and the top line of the bar is the Chesapeake Bay, that's, that's rather more important for reasons we're about to get to, so, okay, that whole top bar of the Eff, right, uh, which is now a big flat line across, across the state of Maryland, rural country, right? It's very rural. It's a very conservative.

0:43:58 Andrew: The middle prong, right, runs from the top the top right is Baltimore city. The bottom right is Annapolis. The bottom left are the DC suburbs. So three big pockets. They're where people live and they're very, very liberal. And then the top bar of the F is the eastern shore, which other than surge of, you beach goers in June, July and August is sparsely inhabited very, you you know, on a full-time basis, very rural, very conservative. Okay. So that's the demographics of the state of Maryland. Maryland has eight congressional districts. Maryland one is that top bar of the F, the Eastern shore. It's currently represented by troglodyte far right-wing Republican, Andy Harris, the only Republican in Maryland's congressional districts, right?

0:44:50 Andrew: The panhandle part. The bottom part of the F all the way up to the middle prong is Maryland six, which is currently represented by Democrat David Trone. And if you're thinking, well, seems kind of weird that the like rural panhandled would be represented by a Democrat. It's because the very bottom of that district is connected to about a third of Montgomery County, Montgomery County being about eighty-five, 15 Democratic and also being where people live.

0:45:22 Andrew: So, yeah, that's right. So we have cracked out some of the Democrats from Montgomery County and stuck them in a panhandle district where they get to outvote all the residents of the panhanddle, basically all of the time.

0:45:22 Thomas: Them, and crack them, baby, I love it.

0:45:35 Thomas: Yeah. You don't like it, national election reform? No.

0:45:37 Andrew: Yep. Yep. 100, agree, I'm just explaining what was done.

0:45:41 Thomas: I am I know. I'm not talking to you, there's there's people listening to us, Andrew, this isn't just you and I talking there.

0:45:41 Andrew: Right. Yep. Yep. Okay. Oh, Oh, sorry. Oh, All right, then, now let's talk about, so that's, so that's the, now let's talk about the middle part of the F, that's where basically people live, so right, that the, top part that, that beats the bar, that's Maryland 2, that has rural Carroll County plus enough of Baltimore County to outweigh all the rural votes, right.

0:46:08 Andrew: So Yeah, good, good for that. And then there's Maryland 5 at the very bottom of the F, that's southern Maryland, and stop me if you heard this one already, it's rural and conservative, but it has enough of liberal Prince George's County gerrymandered into it to outweigh all the rural parts, right? So every other seat in Maryland, right, in the in that middle F part, the cities, the DC suburbs, that's Maryland's three, four, seven, eight, uh, they are, um, Democratic seats in liberal areas, right, so for example, Jamie Raskin represents Maryland eight, where, right, I used to live back when I, uh, worked in DC, uh, that's Montgomery County, that's the core of, of Montgomery County, it's still two to one Democrat. Right. And, you know, Jamie Raskin, one of the most liberal members of Congress, God bless him, his seat is safe for, you the foreseeable future. So what this means is there's still an awful lot of Democrats in Maryland that can be cracked out.

0:46:07 Thomas: You go yeah.

0:46:58 Andrew: Right? And what can we do? Well, we can stick some more Democrats in the two areas that we've talked about. So getting them into the panhandle is pretty easy, right? Just continue to add some more of Montgomery County. Jamie Raskin doesn't need to win by 30 points. He can win by 15. We can feed some more Democrats into that district to make Make sure that it is not competitive, it is, in fact, a safe Democratic district. And that's what they did. And then what you can do is travel across the Chesapeake Bay, right, so across that space between the two prongs of the F and add in some of Anne Arundel County, you know, liberal Annapolis, to try and outweigh the voters that that are all along Maryland's Eastern shore.

0:47:45 Andrew: And if you do it carefully enough, you can take a district that is Republican plus 25, right? A safe pro Trump, super red area, and completely outweigh all of their votes. And that's what the map did. So it took a state that is reliably seven, one, six, two in a bad year and made it into a likely eight to nothing, thing um until two weeks ago, where the circuit court decision came down, as I said, incredibly well written, um, does what I would expect these cases to do, which begins with a an analysis of the Supreme Court's decision in Rucho versus Common Cause and says, yeah, if I were just following Supreme Court precedent, uh, this map is probably fine, right, because Supreme Court says partisan gerrymandering that's super cool, but I hold that our state constitution offers more protection to voters than that, it offers them the right to be meaningfully represented by a candidate of their choice.

And this decision, uh, striking down the map says, yeah, this, this map was just designed to render voters' votes irrelevant, um, again, if it were taken in in a vacuum, right? This is the kind of opinion I would write if I were a Maryland

0:48:58 Andrew: Judge. So instantly, a backup map was put forward as Senate Bill 1012. It was signed into law by Maryland's Republican governor, Larry Hogan, probably the smartest remaining Republican in the country, right, and the result of that district, um, puts us back, it's actually slightly worse than the status quo, um, we, go from 8-0, uh, Democratic to definitely no better than 7-1, like it crushes, uh Heather Miser's effort, uh, to, to win Maryland One, um, I love her dearly and I wish her all the best, and she's basically, you know, spent the past year, uh, traveling to all these rural communities and trying to build support, uh, in Maryland One, had a really good chance of winning if this map upheld, uh, map's not going to stand, um, and could cost David Trone his seat in in western Maryland's

0:48:58 Thomas: Dang so it could go

0:49:50 Andrew: Could go six two in Meryland if if we get, get wiped out, uh, in the midterms, which is a possibility, so that's a minus two, and now, uh, I have to tell you it gets worse, and I will, I will not go through the same level, uh, except to say that, in New York, this is brutal, the New Yorg map that we described that I said is, uh, likely to pass, uh, did in fact pass the legislature, uh, but was struck down by a circuit court in the exact same way, by trial court, saying that a referendum enacted by the voters prohibiting partisan gerrymandering, prohibited this kind of partisan gerrymandering. Pretty, pretty, you know, hard to

0:49:50 Thomas: Six two oh this

0:50:31 Andrew: Argue with the approach.

0:50:31 Thomas: Is the problem with be the change you want to see in the world, folks, doesn't doesn't work. And

0:50:34 Andrew: I know. So the New York map drawn by the legislature would would have been 22-4 Democratic. That is a plus 18. It will probably shift to 17-9 when being redrawn by an outside expert, possibly 18-8, but that is an 8-10 vote shift right there, And could be.

0:50:56 Thomas: Is it a done deal just because of this one ruling? And

0:50:59 Andrew: So ruling has been appealed. The Fourth has stayed that opinion, right, pending oral arguments, which are going to be held on April 20th. So is there a chance we could get this back? There's a chance that we could get this back and we're gonna we're going to be eagerly watching early next week but so

0:51:18 Thomas: Who has the say over that? Which court are we talking?

0:51:21 Andrew: This is the New York Intermediate Appellate Court and then obviously that court will render a decision and then it will go up to the New York Court of Appeal which is their state Supreme Court So we will be eagerly watching. And again, this has to move quickly. Right. Because we're talking about the 2022 elections. So your eyes peeled. But lots of reasons to be pessimistic.

0:51:36 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, this sucks. Is the reason this fell through, is it because voters in these particular two states in the past, or somebody has passed a law, as you said, like a voter initiative? I'm just wondering what's happening here that doesn't happen in some of these red states or purple states like Wisconsin that are horrible gerrymandered. What's the difference there?

0:52:04 Andrew: Yeah. And the difference is that those of us on our side are generally pro access to the polls. And so you are 100 percent correct. So in New York, it is a prior referendum enacted by the voters. Because if you ask me, yeah, if you asked me, you know, yeah.

0:52:17 Thomas: Un-referendum. Everybody quick. New Yorkers listening, de-referendum. I don't

0:52:24 Andrew: Should should partisan gerrymandering be legal? No, it shouldn't. And it's hard to say no, it should with an asterisk.

0:52:25 Thomas: Know. Yeah, quick referendum should you partisan gerryander. If Republicans have decided they're always going to do it, then maybe that'd be a different answer.

0:52:33 Andrew: Yeah, I did. That would be I would answer that very differently in Maryland. And this is based on a long tradition, again, of having sensible judges in the state that say, yeah, it's

0:52:38 Thomas: Okay.

0:52:47 Thomas: So that one sounds like we could, it's not as ironclad, maybe. So,

0:52:51 Andrew: Not quite as ironclad. But again, there was a reason I went into sort of the history of Judge Pataglia, who I don't know that I need to disclose this because now we're like conflict of interest. She succeeded the judge I clerked for on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Uh, so that that seat was a huge flip.

I have well Judge Bradowski was the judge for whom I clerked, uh, but he was you, the most conservative judge on the court and and so you, it, was bittersweet seeing him go a from a political standpoint, obviously, uh, he to this day has my uh personal loyalty, we've talked about that, um, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, there is not a panel on the Maryland Court of Special Appeal that is going to reverse Judge Pataglia's 94-page decision here, it, even though, uh, again, uh, paper this these are legal opinions, right, this is not really about the application of facts, uh, it is almost entirely sort sort of the straight legal question, does does the Maryland Bill of Rights, Declaration of Rights and Maryland legal precedent interpreting the Maryland Constitution prohibit partisan gerrymandering? And I think she's right that the answer is yes under Maryland law.

0:53:07 Thomas: You're a real Homer for uh, Judge whatever name, right. Yeah

0:54:01 Andrew: And I think that the Intermediate Appellate Court is very likely to affirm her opinion, and, uh, Maryland Court of Appeals is likely to do the same, even though, again, you know, this was, this was brought by conservative activists in Maryland's, right, let's make no mistake, these these are not the, you know, what we would consider to be the good guys, uh, this is not even you, an independent, you, Arnold Schwarzenegger-esque, like, let's all come together on some basic principles, no, no, these were, you, long-time Republican activists, uh, and Trump supporters who, uh, who got together to bring this lawsuit, um, right, result makes it even more critical that that we get out and

0:54:36 Thomas: We still have time to do something uh, in Congress, this is a national voting rights reform that would stop the, even though it's getting really close, I mean, it's getting close, though, right, I mean, how, there, it can't be right up to Election Day that we're making a bunch of states redraw their districts. What, what's the the hard timeline on that, yeah.

0:54:38 Andrew: Oh yeah absolutely absolutely Absolutely. It is. So it's it's hard to say because states are allowed to set the timing for their own primaries. Right. So there are primaries that are scheduled for June. There are primeries that have already occurred. So, you terms of redrawing districts in 2022, I would put a question. I would say there's some yes, some no. Put a big question mark by it. But certainly it I would take the result of all of these if we could pass the omnibus John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Right. If we could pass the bill that Joe Manchin co-authored. Right. That includes the Access to Voting Act that we have described in great length on this show. That is essentially, you know, everything that we learned from the 2020 elections.

0:55:44 Andrew: Yeah. With a couple of Manchin esque sops in there, too. You know, we're going to stop voter fraud or whatever. But like it is an outstanding piece of legislation. Don't I don't understand. It would be overwhelmingly in Joe Manchin's self-interest to get it passed. I don't understand why he's not willing to suspend the filibuster to vote on what would be his signature. We can call it take take Congressman John Lewis off it. I'll call it the Joe Manchin Voting

0:56:15 Thomas: I don't care what you call it, the that, we love chugging oil, crude, crude oil, whatever appeals to Joe Mansion the best.

0:56:17 Andrew: Rights Act of 2022. You Yep. Absolutely. But time, as you point out, for legislative solutions, time is running out. And this, you know, we said in 2020, you have to vote in numbers too big for them to to steal, to to, fraudulently deter, to invalidate from, you over application of looking for discrepancies in the signature line on the outside of a mail-in ballot. All of that is back, is with a vengeance, in in the 2022 midterms, and, uh, and it's really going to be up to us

0:56:25 Thomas: Oh, boy, yep, please, please, everybody stay active, we got to do this.

0:56:59 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

0:57:06 Thomas: Now it's time for T3B: Thomas Takes the Bar Exam, uh, better news, I got one of these right the other day. Yeah, democracy is gone, but in a meaningless, not even the real bar exam, just again. But anyway, let's get to it. Bar exam question.

0:57:10 Andrew: You're doing great yeah bad news is the country is uh deemed perilously close to losing democracy, the good news is Thomas is doing great on the bar exam. Yep Thomas, a city allows concerts to be held in its city park stadium. However, after hearing complaints about the noise level, the city passes an ordinance that requires groups that rent out the city park stadium to use the city's audio equipment found in the city park stadium. A particular band of a unique genre states that the city is audio equipment found in the City Park Stadium is insufficient for the various songs it plans on performing. The city nonetheless insists that the band use the City's equipment. The band sues for a violation of its First Amendment rights. The right to rock, yes.

0:58:03 Thomas: Oh, the right to rock, the Right to Party. Yeah,

0:58:07 Andrew: Will the ban be successful? A, yes, because the ordinance is not narrowly tailored to serve an important government interest. B, yes because although the ordinance is constitutional on its face, it is unconstitutional as applied to the ban. C, no, because it ordnance serves an important government interest and there are no less restrictive means by which it can satisfy that interest. Or D, no No, because the ordinance is rationally related to a legitimate government interest.

0:58:33 Thomas: Gosh, another one of These, I guess. So what standard are we looking at? What thing are we? First Amendment. Do you have a right to rock as hard as you want? I mean, I think, no, I think the time, place, and manner restrictions are pretty normal, um, but using the city's audio equipment, I don't even know that that necessarily, you know, maybe maybe it's true that you could just easily be like, all right, that rule sucks, an easier one is just max the dBs, like you can't go any higher than these dBs. Maybe, maybe you need better, different, whatever audio equipment for your special type of music. But the easier rule would just be only go up to this volume or something, or this hour, or some other reasonable time, place, minute restriction.

0:58:35 Andrew: Yeah.

0:59:22 Thomas: So I don't know. I could kind of see that going either way. All right, let's see. So the band is suing and says my First Amendment rights, my freeze peach, will the band be successful? So, A, yes, because the ordinance is not narrowly tailored to serve an important government interest. So is that it, maybe, maybe. B, yes, because although the ordinance is constitutional on its face, it is unconstitutional as applied to the band.

That doesn't make any sense to me, because I mean, maybe this is some trick answer, but the whole point, of the entire point of the ordinance was for bans, so it'd be weird for it to be like, yeah, it's fine, but unconstitutional as applied to the band. I don't think it's B, I hopefully not B, that that would be a real tricky one if it was. I'm gonna eliminate B. C, no, because the Ordenance serves an important government interest and there are no less restrictive means by which it can satisfy that interest, and I think there are less restrictive means, I think you could again have some other time, place, or manner, some other restriction that would work. So I, I think C could be it, C's attractive distractor, but I, I thank no on C. And D, no, because the ordinance is rationally related to a legitimate government interest. D is, D is pretty strong. Because it's just like, like, nah, sorry, the government, the city government wants you to be quiet. In order to be quiet, use this audio equipment.

It seems pretty, pretty easy. However, it's a First Amendment, so if we're talking First Amendment, I know last time it was like, okay, was it a protected class? You know, cause we were looking at 14th Amendment, dah, dah. If we're talking First Amendment, maybe you need more than just rational basis tests.

1:01:02 Thomas: Like maybe that would, would lean toward A. Doesn't seem that bad to be like, this is our city park, you will use our city audio equipment. It that bad? This is tough, right. I'm really 50-50 between A and D. I'm so 50- 50. I almost want to dust off the old coin, but no, we've tried that. I think I'm going to go toward A, because it borders on First Amendment rights, which we care about a lot in this country, and you know, it's not very narrowly tailored, you, if the issue is just volume, that's the only issue, noise level, so there's got to be other ways to do that than making them use audio equipment that might be totally inferior and mess. But the only thing, the only reason I really think it still could be D, is that there's, it's just not that big of a deal. I don't know. So I don't, I'm going with A, I'm feeling optimistic, mystic, pro, free right to rock, I'm pro your right to rock as hard as you want, so I'm going with A, but it's probably D.

1:01:56 Andrew: All right. I love the fact that this pits civil libertarian Thomas against audiophile Thomas, because I can picture this actually happening to opening arguments and you being like, I'm not I'm not using their audio equipment like their their audio. Equipment sucks so much.

1:02:12 Thomas: Audio file Thomas is on the same side as libertarian Thomas, right?

1:02:17 Andrew: Could Be. I, I, I, wasn't piecing together how the votes would, would look there. I, I want to add, uh, if you were playing, we're going to talk about the rules for playing in a second, if you know the real case that this is based on, keep that one to yourself, okay? Let the, uh, let the folks who are trying to puzzle this one out, uh, puzzle this went out, is, um, this is for them. So if you are not familiar with the underlying case, you'd like to play along with Thomas, you know how to do that. Just share out this episode on social media, include the hashtag T3BE, include your guests and your reasons therefore, we will pick a winner and shower that winner with never-ending fame and fortune. Fame and fortune not guaranteed.

1:02:17 Thomas: Ah. And

1:02:52 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

1:02:53 Thomas: Now it's time to thank our new patrons at patreon.com/law, and uh, you might guess that because of the, the aforementioned American Atheist Convention, we're recording a little early. So once again, haven't I given enough time for the new patron list to add up. So once you join the ranks, go to patreon.com/law, pledge as little as dollar, enjoy the ad-free episodes, the early episodes, the bonus content, all the good stuff. I'll just thank real quickly our new patrons. Thank you, Laserbeam Dream, Lily, Grant Rogers, Hannah Reed, and John Passaro. Thank you folks so much. That's our show, hopefully we're seeing you right now at the convention. Yay! Come say hi. Ah, so fun. Can't wait, we'll see you there, and also on our next episode.

1:03:37 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.

1:04:10 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.