OA588: Wildly Ignorant Trump Judge Upends National Mask Policy

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

0:01:24 Andrew: I am fantastic, Thomas, how are you?

0:01:26 Thomas: Ah, just still recovering from the fun get-together at the American Atheist Convention in Georgia. That was a great time. And we did the bit, the joke, of you predicting ahead of time that Heath would cheat at games. Games safest Prediction. Yeah, several

0:01:40 Andrew: And shocker, the he cheated, that was spectacular, I was like, you do know, Heath, that like, we've pre-recorded, yeah, we pre-recorded several bumpers on OA in the future of like, it

0:01:48 Thomas: Times. Yeah, Yep. That Prediction Was safer than Thomas's second chance Bar exam odds. That was that Was the free space in bingo. Was Heath cheating? That's that. Was easy.

0:02:01 Andrew: Was indeed. Indeed. Want to call out, I'm really, really proud. You we hosted the Trivian Night Thursday night before the convention opened. The idea was to raise funds for Access Reproductive Care Southeast, which helps pregnant individuals secure access to abortion in the Southeast. Really, really critical thing right now. They literally pay for abortions. They will pay to drive you to a point, right? Right. Like it is just A, I love the fact that American atheists decided to use that as their initial entree. Right. The other thing is I am always blown away by our community for responding to the call. Uh, the idea was to take the ticket price donate it to ARC, which we did. And then one of our show listeners, FRED R GROOTHUIS, uh.

0:02:52 Andrew: Gave me a call a couple of days beforehand and is like, if you want to raise more money, I'd like to match that. Just unbelievable. And so, you based on his matching donation, based on Beth, another listener who wrote a huge check at the event, we raised $17,500. I'm blown away. Said, whenever we sort sound the alarm, this was last minute. Folks literally dug into their wallets at the the event, uh, pulled out their checkbooks, got online, uh

0:02:59 Thomas: I Brought a thing called cash that I don't even use anymore. Some

0:03:25 Andrew: So Did I. It was so weird, it Had Numbers on It. Yeah, yep.

0:03:28 Thomas: Weird Yeah Leaf Or or something that I put in a thing and it's apparently, yeah, it's worth something, but I did it because of the cause. And that was awesome.

0:03:38 Andrew: So We are still doing that. If, if you want to be a part of that, the, um, best way, uh, to register that right now is uh, send a donation over to American Atheists. And just put OA or Opening Arguments in the subject line. That's so it. I'm, I love that we were able to turn that of introductory night into sort of yet more opportunities to do some real good for people who are really, really hurting thanks to the Trump administration. So

0:04:06 Thomas: All right. Onto an action pack show. So much to talk about. Let's get to it.

0:04:11 Clip: Down the law, down the law.

0:04:15 Thomas: So Andrew, I'm going to try not to yell too much at this one. I've toyed with the idea of doing an entire SIO of just yelling about this news item because I'm so mad about it. And more than that, I'm mad about the response to it, but let's talk. I want to make sure I have my facts straight. I thought, you know what? Don't do it yet. Let's hear from the expert. Maybe I'm missing something. I don't think I am. Andrew, it true that a judge with seemingly no qualifications who's in there for life in Florida struck down a federal airline mask mandate, therefore changing what the entire country is doing with completely insane reasoning.

0:04:27 Andrew: So the only thing you've left out is that this Trump appointee is 34. So, yeah, she'll be on the bench for another six decades interfering with basic, legal functions and the health and safety of America. But no, you have this entirely correctly. I mean, you know, other than we have an imminent appeal, which, you the 11th Circuit is a conservative circuit. But this is a pretty stupid opinion. So, you know, we're gonna have to try and figure out exactly how that's gonna go. But but yes. So let's break this down.

Other than other than that quibble, you are 100 percent correct. So to what does this apply? This applies to 86 Fed Register 8025, which is the Biden mask mandate issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Executive Branch Agency, component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, right, HHS, they announced, uh, and this was February of 2021, uh, a superseding agency order that requires individuals to wear masks over the mouth and nose when traveling on any conveyance, and conveyance is defined as airplanes, trains, subways, buses, taxis, ride shares, ferries, ships, trolleys, and cable cars. Cars, so, you know, if you're reenacting the like, uh, Rice-A-Roni ad in San Francisco, you still have to wear your mask. Right, into or within the United States, person also must wear a mask on any conveyance departing from the United States until the conveyance reaches its foreign destination, right? So wear your damn mask.

And I guess I should add this other part, uh, two more components to it, but person must wear a mask at any transportation hub, right? So in the airport, at the bus terminal, at the marina, right, at the Seaport or train station, or any other port, subway station, or any other area that provides transportation within the United States.

0:04:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:43 Andrew: And, OK, finally, operators of conveyances and transportation hubs must, right, use their best efforts to ensure that persons wear masks. So you put all that together, this is what we flew out under to the American Atheist Convention in Atlanta, and I was on, like, connecting flight number 11 on my way home, and this, uh, order came down and was lifted while I was in mid-flight.

0:06:56 Thomas: Yeah, yikes.

0:07:07 Andrew: Uh, without, giving me the opportunity to consent to be like, oh, yes, I would like people in this tube to breathe on me now.

0:07:12 Thomas: Right. It's outrageous.

0:07:15 Andrew: Yes, it is absolutely outrageous.

0:07:16 Thomas: I fortunately I got home just in time. So I had both my flights were were mask mandated. So that was nice. But. Mid flight. So did everybody did they announce it or anything? What happened?

0:07:17 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. As it turns out, because all of my flights were delayed for all of the time, I learned that, uh, flight attendants basically are in constant communication with the airport, right, they're just basically texting people. Right? So I had, at the start of the flight, because I had one more connection to catch, uh, called for the flight attendant to come over, and I'm like, hey, looks like there's going to be like a 20 minute window, thanks to this delay, instead of, you know, a nice leisurely hour and a half, uh, am I going to make that flight? And so she's texting the right person and came back to me and said, oh, hey, this, um, is what they've said, they're going to hold that plane, it's going be fine, you're going make it.

0:07:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:02 Thomas: Not only are you going catch your flight, you're going to to catch COVID.

0:08:05 Andrew: And then in the middle of the flight, like, got the text message from, like, you, I don't know, the the Opening Arguments listener at the, who's like watching for federal court decisions to come out in the middle of the night. But, yeah, news the came down, and then they went over the the loudspeaker to say that to an injunction issued by a federal district court judge in Florida that you were no longer required to wear masks on the plane. And about two-thirds, um, of the people immediately took their masks off. So that's that's what happened. How, how did we get here? Um, I, I think it is really important to sort of go through exactly how ridiculous this is. Right, so I am going to link this opinion, it is a 59 page opinion, and if you ever wanted a stupid person to write like 59 pages, you, you have that here.

0:08:57 Thomas: I am surprised it's that long.

0:08:59 Andrew: So, uh, self-described, um, this is the activity of Anna Daza and Sarah Pope, as supported by the Health Freedom Defense Fund, which I did not look up. Daza, Pope routinely travel by airplane. This, this is page six in the fact section. Daza has anxiety that is aggravated by wearing masks and alleges that the government does not recognize her anxiety as a basis for a medical exemption from the mandate. Similarly, Pope flew regularly before the pandemic, but has done so less since the CDC imposed the mask mandate, as the constricted breathing from wearing a mask provokes or exacerbates her panic attacks. Now, want to stop for a second and say, a level at which I get that, I have a little bit of that, claustrophobia, fear of enclosed spaces.

0:09:47 Andrew: And I have felt the beginning of that when everything kind of overlaps together. Right? For example, when I was running to catch my connection flight, right, the activity of running, breathing heavily through a mask, panicking, not knowing if it was there, all of that plus the mask. I don't want to make fun of or belittle someone who says, really does affect me,

0:10:14 Thomas: However, I would like to make fun of and belittle somebody who uses that to say, therefore, nobody has to wear a mask, because my, whatever thing I have that may or may not be legitimate, that's fine, we can say it's legitimate, that is so powerful that people who are immunocompromised now have to die because I'm so uncomfortable to wear one tiny thing on my face. At best, you could say, hey, I'm not feeling great right now, can I take my mask off for a minute and catch my breath, and I would assume a flight attendant would be like, yeah, okay, it's not there's already the food rule, when you're eating and drinking, like you are, people wear, wear their mask even under the mandate like half the time at best on the plane.

0:10:51 Andrew: It It's even worse than that, because, right, the mask mandate was written in such a way as to provide for that kind of accommodation. Right, to say, hey, if you need to temporarily remove your mask, and it lists a bunch of different criteria. If, right, you while eating, drinking, or taking medication for brief periods.

OK, we know that while communicating with a person who hearing is impaired, when the ability to see the mouth is essential for communication, if unconscious, incapacitated, unable to be awakened, or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance, or, you know, while while necessary when, you know, proving your identification, it exempts not just children under two years of age, those with a disability who cannot wear a mask, cannot safely wear a mass because of a disability is defined in the ADA, a person for whom wearing a mask would create a risk to workplace health, safety, or job duty, right, and, uh, there are other exemptions that are built in, and and the reason I'm going, going through that is because this judge uses those exemptions as a basis for arguing that the mask mandate, a rational justification under the APA? In other words, the fact

0:12:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:12:05 Andrew: That it carves out classifications of people who can briefly take a break, the the opinion, Indian, literally says, well, I don't understand why you don't require two year olds to wear masks. And since two year old's can spread COVID, that means that this is not rational basis. So, in other words, this mandate was written in such a way as to try and and balance the interests of people who were sensitive. Right. As much as possible with, you know, protecting humanity.

And these people used the fact that it is written in that way and with that level of sensitivity to argue against the validity of the of the mask mandate. So, you know, truly a no good deed goes unpunished. Those two folks who didn't want to wear a mask, plus an organization of people who get together and are cranky about wearing masks, got together and filed a lawsuit seeking a declaration that, among other things, the mask mandate was beyond the authority delegated to the Centers for Disease Control in the Public Health Services Act of 1944, so the first thing your good lawyer does is go to the Public Health Services Act of 1944, which codified today at 42 USC Section 264, subsection A, says this, um, buckle in, Thomas, the

0:13:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:27 Andrew: Surgeon General, with approval of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, is authorized to to make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into states or possessions, from one state or possession in any other state or position. OK, seems like we're, we're trying to prevent that transmission or spreading of communicables. And by the way, the CDC reports to the surgeon general. Right. So this is the delegation this of authority by Congress to an executive branch agency. Hey, you do what it takes in your judgment is necessary to stop the transmission of communicable diseases. And then it gives some examples of things that you can do for purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations.

Regulations, the surgeon general may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be the source of dangerous infections as to human beings and other measures as in his judgment may be necessary. So now, I am not a dipshit, and I put, put that together, and I see the surgeon general, to prevent the transmission or spread of communicable diseases,

0:13:49 Thomas: Rated.

0:14:44 Andrew: May provide for sanitation and other measures as in his judgment may be necessary. And I think, um, kind of seems like what happened here. Masks are part of being sanitary. It's to prevent the spread of a super communicable disease. Um, asked myself, am I forgetting something? Did I miss something? Is there some unique part of that? No, of course not. What I'm missing is I am not a Trump appointee, lifelong member of the Federalist Society, and uh, completely unqualified hack Yeah, oh yeah, we'll get to that argument. Made, I wish I was kidding about this, is that in idiots tend to like stick to their staple of idiot argument, so the lead-off argument, pages 12 to 13, is you know, the dictionary definition of sanitation sometimes does not include wearing masks, right?

Right, sanitation sometimes means, you know, getting down on your hands and knees and like scrubbing the floor, right? And so now you're sitting there thinking, okay, so sanitation might mean mask and might mean not mask. Isn't that a situation where the grant of authority from Congress would be ambiguous, and therefore under Chevron deference you would say, let's ask the agency what they think sanitation is. Uh, again, you would think that, but that's because you're not a dipshit Trump hack who's just trying to come to a predetermined conclusion this case, and again, I, I wish I were making it up, rules that the statutory grant, that 1944 Public Health Services Act,

0:15:13 Thomas: Not Qualified By The bar, yeah, look, Right.

0:15:33 Thomas: It's

0:16:22 Andrew: Unambiguously excludes masks. Unambiguously, yeah, means that only active cleaning is part of sanitation. Now, if you'd had Neil Gorsuch in this case, for example, somebody who has, at least with respect to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, at least honestly gone back and said like, what, what do the words mean at the time, you, right, might know that sanitation is old-timey health speak for preventing the spread of disease, right? That's where we get our word sanatorium, right, meaning, uh, you know, a health hospital that, you know, that was originally used for tuberculosis and and quarantining dangerous patients, right? I'm trying to get the idea that the statue I read to you unambiguously exclude, says Congress was like, no, no, no, we definitely, we want you to be able to include like destroying plague rats, uh, and you know, setting up quarantines, but you know, if

0:16:28 Thomas: Wow, can

0:17:16 Andrew: There's a question about masks, that is not something we want to grant to the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services.

0:17:24 Thomas: The Government require me to wear clothes into the plane, who, like, if they said, yeah, for sanitary reasons you can't just sit with you, you know, your bits and bobs all over the, all over the seats, like, for sanitary reason, we're not going to do, nope, can't require it, it doesn't say closed, Andrew.

0:17:39 Andrew: Is and it gets worse. OK, so that's part one of the ruling. Right. No. Despite the fact that the plain meaning goes the other way, despite the fact that the contextual meaning right in 1944 goes the another way, despite the fact that at most, if you have an ambiguity among your dictionary definitions, you would then consult the agency and the agency goes the other way. You're you're over three. You have struck out already. That's part one of the ruling. For good measure. The judge also ruled this is beginning on page 31, that the mask mandate improperly violated the Administrative Procedures Act and did so because, and these are, you know, technical legal violations, but they're important sometimes because you have to provide for a notice and comment period.

0:18:26 Andrew: And it's true that this mandate was promulgated without a notice in comment period, you probably probably suspect that the APA has an exception for, you know, doing stuff during a pandemic when sitting around polling a bunch of bleach-drinking ivermectin users is maybe not the greatest idea? And you would be correct. 5 U.S.C. Section 553b sub b is when the agency for good cause finds that notice and public procedure are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest, it can skip that. And there were numerous filings, All of which were like, duh, covid spreading bad. Wear masks. Good. Right. That answer was the one that I had hinted at that the judge then says, yeah, yeah. But I'm not convinced that they did a good job on their fact finding to be able to rely on that specific exemption because, and again, I wish I were making this up, of all of the that are made within the order itself, Right.

0:18:39 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:34 Andrew: So right? Mask mandate fails. This reason, this is pages 48 and 49, fails this reasoned explanation standard beyond the primary decision to impose a mask requirement. The mask mandate provides little or no explanation for the CDC's choices. So why didn't they have alternatives? Right. Why didn'tthey have testing, temperature checks, occupancy limits? Why does it explain why all it does not explain whyall masks homemade and medical grade are sufficient? Right. Because, again, you we were trying not to say everybody has to wear a KN95 mask. Nor does it require social distancing or frequent handwashing, despite the fact that, you know, everybody is a party to this lawsuit would have objected to doing that, too. But then it gets into the unbelievable section.

0:20:20 Andrew: The Right? Mandate does not require universal masking. It exempts individuals who are eating, drinking, or taking medication, and a person who is experiencing difficulty breathing or who is feeling winded, which again, by the way, are the sections That, yeah, would have applied to the plaintiffs. It also excludes individuals who cannot wear a mask due to an ADA-recognized disability. And literally, the reason the court is like, well, why did you leave them out? And children under two years old, mandate the makes no effort to explain why its purposes allow for such exceptions, nor why a two-year-old is less likely to commit COVID-19 than a 62-year old. A judge wrote that in English in a document that is printed and will be a part of the National Archives for the history of the universe documenting our legal system. I don't know why the CDC didn't make two-year-olds wear masks.

0:20:33 Thomas: Oh, yeah.

0:21:12 Thomas: Yeah, I could you why. Tell

0:21:12 Andrew: Um, yeah, because you can't make a two-year-old wear a fucking mask

0:21:14 Thomas: It's pretty impossible to make a two-year-old wear a mask. Yes.

0:21:18 Andrew: Is just, uh, unbelievable to me.

0:21:21 Thomas: Don't even look. I know you love a good crazy person awful ruling, Andrew, but this is so obviously terrible that I would like to spend more time on everything, but why this ruling is bad and and instead talk about what's going on here. Is this system sustainable where this person can just, upend national health policy with a stroke of a pen and our response to it. But we also have such a good main segment coming up that I don't, how so like, what do we do here?

0:21:49 Andrew: Do. In a practical sense, I, I think the damage has been done. Right, people are going to go to airports for a couple of weeks, you, the Department of Health and Human Services, uh, can, uh, and may, but as of today I have not noticed if they have noticed their appeal uh, to the 11th Circuit

0:21:56 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, I'm seeing coverage that they will appeal finally. But not, yeah, I

0:22:10 Andrew: Yeah I, I think that, but but this is one of those things where, where do I not believe, if you go two weeks of folks not masking at airports, think it would be a challenge to to try and reinstitute that policy. Right. And I think the Biden administration knows that. The damage right was done. So, yeah, these are the situations where, instituting, you, an injunction right away, stopping a government policy that's having real effect out on the streets. And this is one idiot in Florida. And when we say idiot, right, again, I'm going to link it in the show notes. 34 was appointed at 33. Lifelong member of the Federalist Society, was rated not qualified by the American Bar Association as someone who had not tried a case, civil or criminal, as lead or co-counsel.

0:22:59 Andrew: Right, like she could have had training wheels on, um, somebody with less qualifications to be a federal judge than Ace Associate Morgan Stringer, um, is someone who's going to be on the bench for, you know, five, six more decades. Yeah, it's super bad.

0:23:13 Thomas: Just want democratic leaders to be calling out the game, please start calling out what's actually happening. I don't, I love Jen Psaki, I don't want to put this all on her, but like the language from the White House as well, this is disappointing, it's like, no, I don't, don't treat this like it's anything like rule of law, this is this is absurd, this is a joke, that please call out the game, call out what has happened due, I don't know what kind of language is appropriate for the White House to use, but something like, due to, you a completely inept president who lucked his way, uh, and possibly crimed hisway into being elected, tried to steal the election that he lost, that person was allowed to put, uh, into life tenure a not qualified judge who knows nothing about what she's talking about, who then struck down national policy, this is absurd, we're doing everything we can to reverse this, this is a joke, we shouldn't even follow this, this ruling, just, can we please up our rhetoric a little bit, can we match what's happening a little bit, instead

0:23:25 Andrew: No, here.

0:24:08 Andrew: Here

0:24:08 Thomas: Of trying to treat it like we're still in some fair system, you know, like, well, you know, institutions rule, no, that's gone. We have an idiot, a 34-year-old idiot with with no qualifications, just just ended a mask mandate for everybody in airlines. And that's not how anything can work. It can't work.

0:24:27 Andrew: It is very close to, you know, Judge Maizel has made her ruling, now let her enforce it, right? I

0:24:34 Thomas: I wish we would do that, by the way. I really wish we could. I don't know where it would go.

0:24:37 Andrew: Do too.

0:24:38 Thomas: And I think The airlines, probably, like, a lot of this is complicated because the airlines, poor, the the poor flight attendants, you know, everybody's sick of this because they have to deal with children who can't, by the way, that's an insult to children, my children can wear masks, they're not great at it, but they were, even at two, I was able to get them to wear masks a little bit, because it's actually not that fucking hard, and they have to deal, these poor flight attendants have to deal with, 65-year-old babies who can't cover their faces for five minutes. And it's, so they're probably like, honestly, they're probably a little bit, a little bit relieved at a certain point. They're like, all right, maybe it's whatever, maybe it's worth getting COVID to not have to deal with this, and I kind of understand it. Like the poor people have had to enforce these things against a bunch of Trumpist babies who can't do anything for anybody else. So I don't know,

0:24:39 Andrew: Flight

0:25:24 Thomas: Like maybe if they had done the let, let this judge enforce her ruling, I, you know, maybe the airlines, that would have been a mess. I don't I' not sure what the right answer is.

0:25:32 Andrew: Psaki, if Jen Psaki had come out with language like you had suggested and said, look, we encourage, right, the mandate is temporarily blocked by an incompetent judge who we believe will be summarily reversed by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, we encourage all businesses, including transportation hubs, airlines, those providing transportation, Uber, you continue voluntarily to require wearing of masks in order to continue to build on the progress we've made while having an adult be president. Yeah, that could have been different.

0:26:09 Thomas: Yeah. Or start again, a little bit of hardball. Do a, I know this is a thing that theoretically you can't get away with, but we need to play hardball, do a thing where you issue the same mandate, but change a word or something and then make them do it all over again. Cause that's we're at that level this week doesn't function anymore. If we let one side do this, and then we are still playing by the rules. It doesn't work.

0:26:30 Thomas: God, I'm so mad about this. Sorry. Right, okay.

0:26:20 Andrew: Yep. Yep Antonin Scalia would use the phrase Marquess of Queensberry rules here but uh yeah no it's true

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0:28:07 Clip: I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!

0:28:11 Thomas: Let's let's gets to our main breakdown today on bankruptcy, on the health share, ministries that everybody wants to hear Andrew talk about. Here we go.

0:28:19 Andrew: So there are two big bankruptcy cases that really bookend both ends of bankruptcy law. Right, there is Alex Jones's company's filing for bankruptcy and how, how does that implicate the pending Sandy Hook cases? Is there fraud going on there? Hint, yes. And there is the news that the bankruptcy case, which has been adjudicating the assets of Charity Ministries, a Christian health share ministry, has just approved of the final plan of reorganization. So that's at the end of a bankruptcy case. Uh, spoiler, in that one about 10,000 members of that ministry are going to be left holding the bag for 50 million dollars in unpaid health bills.

So if you're doing the math, or, you know, you weren't with us for episode 496 in which we broke down that this is exactly what you would expect to happen, because these are an unregulated Ponzi scheme that preys on people's religious identities entities. Um, go back and listen to that. And by the way, Christian health sharing ministries are unregulated Ponzi schemes that play on the religious identity of its members to continue to sucker them into giving money, uh, of which there is zero guarantee you will ever have a single dime uh allocated to you in exchange for your health care costs. And, And, I'll get to that.

0:29:44 Thomas: I was just going you, but Andrew, we got emails from people who put all their money on even and the roulette wheel came up. No, don't know.

0:29:50 Andrew: Yep, that is true. Look, again, yeah, it can happen.

0:29:55 Thomas: Maybe Maybe you can't, but also your health share ministry that you think is your insurance can go under and then you have no recourse and you're out all that money, no

0:29:57 Andrew: Yep. And there's no regulations on what kind of salaries the officers at these companies can spend, what kind OFA third-party creditors they can engage for purposes of marketing and fundraising and administering the actual. Yeah, no, this is all part of my testimony to Congress. Roulette example is actually an even better one than you think, Thomas.

0:30:28 Thomas: I think it's a good one Stop giving me no credit for my uh metaphors that I come up with that actually make sense

0:30:29 Andrew: Yeah, that I was going to move from roulette to slot machines, which are my like, you know, I could sit down at a roulette table and like, you Have drinks and like.

0:30:43 Thomas: It's fun to see the marble go the opposite way of the wheel. I'll be honest. There's a certain amount I pay for just that little bit of entertainment.

0:30:45 Andrew: Yeah, it's a little bit of entertainment. I can't I can'T stand slot machines. I don't know why it is. It's just, yeah They they drive me nuts, but casinos, right, engineer slot machines to pay off in a sweet spot of, and please, you know, well, sure, send me hate mail, I don't care, um, but, but it's around 80 percent, right? And the idea is that way, right, you're making 20 cents on every dollar, but you pay off enough that it releases enough endorphins that people continue to play. About 80 percent of the time it'll, it will pay off. Made that analogy when I was testifying to Congress because I, because I got asked the question, well, why do these Christian health care ministries ever pay anything? And, right, that was my analogy was, yeah, you know, you

0:30:55 Thomas: No. Yeah. No way.

0:31:17 Thomas: Yeah a

0:31:34 Andrew: Could set up a slot machine. You always pull the lever and it rolls one wheel and it's just, a you, frowny face, right but then

0:31:34 Thomas: They right you will not make as much money because people will say, well, don't play that one, and then you've limited your money, hear me yeah pays out 80 percent of the time

0:31:42 Andrew: Yeah yeah play this one instead it's way better so yeah exactly you will lose proportionately less, uh, and that's how I think they operate. So is weird, and that is the takeaway that that I want you to have from this, right? Bankruptcy courts are not Article III courts, Article, right, III of the Constitution is what sets up the judiciary and says the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and such lesser courts as Congress may from time to time establish, and all of the principles that we talk about that govern what a court does do not apply to a bankruptcy court, to a federal bankruptcy court, court, including lifetime terms. Bankruptcy judges do not serve for life. They serve for 14-year terms. And that's because they are Article I courts. That is, Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 authorizes Congress to enact, quote, uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States.

0:31:51 Thomas: Yeah get

0:32:46 Andrew: And from that, Congress has interpreted that permission, that permissive grant of authority as including the ability to not just create the bankruptcy code, the law that covers bankruptcies, but the courts that interpret that code, where we, we are. So what, we do not have, not separate, we do and don't have separate bankruptcy courts. I know it seems weird.

0:33:13 Andrew: I'm yeah, it, for example, you go to, you log on online and you access the court for the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, or, you know, some, some other district, and you file in, uh, the bankruptcy court, which is treated as a unit of that court. What's a unit. Good question.

0:33:13 Thomas: Your story straight

0:33:37 Andrew: I don't know. Um, nobody really knows. Right. And I, again, bankruptcy lawyers are going to write in, go ahead, that's fine, I'm trying to explain this to a lay audience. Um, they are, those bankruptcy court judges do not get assigned to other district court cases. This is going to be really, really important in about 10 minutes, so, you put a pin in that. Way in which bankruptcies, uh, begin is with the filing of a, a petition. That petition can be either voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary means that the debtor, the bankrupt estate, filed that petition because they want to organize their remaining assets. Involuntary mean exactly what it sounds like, right? This is a business that is purported to be an ongoing concern, but there are various criteria that would lead one to believe that that it is not, in fact, viable, a ongoing concern, and is, in fact, bankrupt.

0:33:37 Thomas: Yeah

0:34:34 Andrew: This is one of the things I tell my clients all the time is that that is subject to state law, and that in many states, a business that is hopelessly deadlocked, that it cannot make decisions, is considered, that is one of the grounds for filing an involuntary petition of. And so when you have like an even number of people who start a business together, you have to make provisions among the two of you for what happens when you disagree. Because I have been in a case, it was two on two, in which the other side ran and filed an involuntary petition for bankruptcy, arguing, hey, look, we're totally deadlocked.

Uh, that was a total mess to disentangle, so easier to get that done, to knock that out in advance than have to fight in a bankruptcy court. But you file a petition and then, um, there is a, a United States trustee, there are, I believe, 21 U.S. trustees, they serve five-year terms, they, they are appointed by the attorney general. But again, you odd number of terms. So, you this is not an area where I believe the Trump administration was able to politicize it. But, you Now, you never know, right. But an asterisk by that. Trustees then participate in rule 11 cases, in reorganization cases. They do not oversee each and every, you know, personal bankruptcy, Chapter 7 liquidation, you kind of small time cases.

0:36:07 Andrew: But if there's any, both the Charity Ministries and the Alex Jones cases are filed under Chapter 11, which means to say that there is a possibility that that there will be a plan of reorganization, to, right, allocate out all the debts and then allow the business potentially to resume operations again. In those cases, you are supposed to have a disinterested third party who is nevertheless an expert in bankruptcy, participating in the proceedings to make sure that no shenanigans go on. And in both of these cases, right, the U.S. trustee is a party.

So bankruptcy does, like, ordinarily, when you run a business, you just pay your creditors the way you think is best, right. That works super fantastically great when you are making more money than you owe. When you're profitable. Yeah, sure, whatever. But sometimes, right, like sometimes you're temporarily unprofitable, but you're going to turn it around. So in those cases, you you might stiff one creditor. Right. And pay another one in full. And you might do that based on, you know, imagine if you're a restaurant. And Right. You can either pay the cleaning bill or you can pay your rent. Right.

0:36:54 Thomas: Or

0:37:16 Andrew: Well, yeah.

0:37:16 Thomas: Imagine If you've completely bankrupted Sears, and and you're, you're in debt to yourself, you'd pay yourself first. Right. Don't know why I thought of that example. I have no idea.

0:37:25 Andrew: It's yeah, that's a totally random. What a crazy random happenstance. Yeah. No, you can do that. And, opening arguments media LLC, if it incurs certain legal obligations to the law offices of P. Andrew Torres LLC might choose to pay its legal bills off first. And Right? You're sitting there thinking like, all right, well, if they have more money than coming in than going out, I don't care so long as I get paid. That's Right, capitalism. The law doesn't care how you pay your creditors until that number is no longer positive. Right. And think like, a you half an hour into It's a Wonderful Life, right, where you have George Bailey's building and loan. Like, it seems like it's a valid concern. Right. It's taking in money and then loaning that money out for people to build houses.

0:37:27 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:15 Andrew: But when there's a run, when all the creditors decide they want all their money all at once, that would exceed their reserves. Right? Stewart running around going, well, you know where that money is. It's, you Know, Bobby's house. Right. All that. That great. You know what? And you saw exactly what happened in that sequence. The Right? First guy who's like, I want to demand my full, you knows, two hundred and thirteen dollars and ninety four cents. And, youknow, and George writes him a check. And then for each subsequent creditor, he's like. How much can you get by on this week? Right. Right. Know, and they take increasingly smaller amounts or decreasingly large amount, however you want to put that. Right. You know, I can I can make it two weeks on ten dollars or whatever. And eventually by getting the creditors to forego demanding the money now, they were able to save the building and loan.

0:39:05 Andrew: And that, by the the way, is exactly how you should be thinking about bankruptcy law, particularly chapter 11 bankruptcy. The right? Idea is, hey, maybe there's a valid business here. If we all run in to try and get paid off at once, that's going to result in wildly uneven accounts. Some people are going to get a hundred cents on the dollar. Some people are going going to get nothing, and this business is going to be wrecked. But if all of us get together, all of us creditors, everybody that this business owes money, gets together and stops and says, all we're going to trust you for now and we're gonna have some legal, you know, legal back backing that makes us trust you, um, and we wait, we can figure out a fair way to pay each of us and maybe preserve the productive asset that is this business, put us in a position where eventually we'll get back up to our 100 cents on the dollar, right?

0:40:01 Andrew: That's the thought process behind bankruptcy. And the notice that I said, it requires the creditors to to not take all their money out of the assets of the estate of the bankrupt immediately. And Right. One of the ways, that primary way, in fact, in which the bankruptcy laws encourage creditors to do that, to not make a run, is something that we call the automatic stay.

Day It's 11 USC section 362, and it it does the following: when you petition for bankruptcy, that petition operates as a stay applicable to all entities of the commencement, continuation, including the issuance or employment of process, of a judicial, administrative, or other action or proceeding against the debtor that was or could have been commenced before the beginning of this bankruptcy, or to recover a claim against the debtor that arose before the commencement of the case under this title. And stripping out the legalese from that, what that means is, by and the way, there's eight subparts, it says, you cannot perfect a lien against the estate. You cannot enforce actions against the property of the state. You cannot set off any other debts that are owed to the debt.

And basically, right, what that mean is, all the money coming in or out of the estate gets shut down, right, by law, and that then makes the creditors happy, because they look at it and go, okay, well, at least we know these assets aren't going to be looted, right? They're sticking around. And then it is up to the bankruptcy court. Their primary goal is to treat similarly situated creditors similarly, to treat like cases alike, right? It doesn't make any sense to think, you know, the carpenter gets all of their

0:41:50 Andrew: Bills paid, you but the painter gets none of their bill. You know, you both, you came in and did the same kind of work, uh, you should be stuck for the same degree of loss, right? A timeout, put the creditors in order, that seems to make sense until you hit Alex Jones. So here's what you have to do, right, because that's the way it works. When you file a petition, you have to list your assets. Right. And you have to verify, under penalty of perjury, subject to 20 years in prison. There's a separate section of the U.S. code for lying on your bankruptcy petition. Right? So this is something, you know, however seriously you think lawyers take the don't suborn perjure on behalf of your client, don't sign false statements, like 20 years in prison, long time, right?

0:42:41 Andrew: So you have to list all your assets. You have to then list the 20 largest creditors in your petition. So if you're asking, did Alex Jones do that? Alex Jones did do that. And it is really, really, Really, really interesting. So first, First, Jones is not personally a part of this, and Free Speech Systems is not personally a parte of this. Put a pin in Free Speech System. This is brought by InfoW LLC, formerly known as Info Wars LLC, H LLC, LLC formerly known as InfoWars Health and Prison Planet TV LLC which is

0:43:14 Thomas: That's a completely different company, Andrew.

0:43:27 Thomas: Oh, that's that one guy. Paul Joseph Watson. Well, he was the at prison planet Twitter handle, I think.

0:43:27 Andrew: Yeah yep That is exactly right. Number of creditors, they've checked the box marked 1 to 49. OK, I tell you that the the boxes for estimated assets of InfoWars LLC, that, you know, there are 12 different boxes here, with the highest one being more than 50 billion dollars, right? So, right. Hand column starts at

0:43:54 Thomas: Right, right. I'm going to say not that one.

0:43:56 Andrew: Uh, 500 million to a billion, one to ten, ten to fifty, more than 50 billion. The middle column, uh, is an order of magnitude lower, so starts at million, a to 10 million, 10 to 50, 50 to 100, 100 to 500 million, and then the left hand column is an order magnitude below that, zero to 50 000 50 0001 to 100 000 100 0001 to 500,000, 500,001 to 1 million. What do you think info wars LLC estimates its assets at,

0:44:22 Thomas: Hmm. Well I, you set up breaks for me to step on and slap me in the face, but I choose to do that for the sake of the show. I would say, I would estimate, I don't know, maybe the one to 10 million would be what InfoWars would have asset-wise.

0:44:36 Andrew: That's about what I expected. Any, they have checked the upper left hand box, zero to fifty thousand dollars. We're worth nothing and then they have check the box that marks estimated liabilities at one to ten million, which, by the way, guess again, uh, because when we get to

0:44:42 Thomas: That's hard to believe. That is hard to... Yeah, no, I do not think that is true.

0:44:54 Thomas: Yeah, I am in the podcast business, Andrew. I do know if you know this. And you do not traditionally have like a 100x debt-to-income ratio. You are not usually like, I'm making 50,000, but I've borrowed 10 million for what? Like, what do you borrow? What is that money? I'm just saying that's not the industry standard.

0:44:57 Andrew: Ah, so And in fact, when you look at the list of creditors to InfoWars LLC, you will discover nothing that looks like what you might think of as a list of creditors. So in other words, if we were to, pull, write down the list of Opening Arguments Media LLC's list of creditors, you would go, all right, right? Libsyn for hosting us, the folks that we have hired, right?

0:45:38 Thomas: Question. Is a creditor and just like a vendor the same thing? Just if you haven't paid the invoice for a month.

0:45:42 Andrew: Yep. Anybody you owe money to, to whom you owe money. Yes. But 20 largest creditors for InfoWars LLC are, are it begins with a lawsuit that has been settled but not paid. This was brought by Brennan Gilmore through the Civil Rights Clinic of New Jersey, so seems like a pro se person went to a legal clinic, uh, and settled with Alex Jones for fifty thousand dollars. And like settling with Donald Trump, make sure you actually get a check in hand before you dismiss out your case. Um, they, they very plainly have not paid it, so he's listed as a $50,000 creditor. And then there is potential lawsuit for copyright infringement. This is one of these, just based on the caption, boy, don't know who you want to root for here,

0:45:44 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Gotcha.

0:46:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:30 Andrew: By Christopher Sadowski, care of Copycat Legal, PLLC, from Coral Springs, Florida, which may be just misnamed, you know, somebody decided copycat legal sounds like fun, but to me, that sounds like, copyright you trolls. And it's listed as potential lawsuit for copyright infringement demanding $90,000. Other than those two, which have dollar values assessed to them, the other 18 of the largest just creditors listed of InfoWars LLC are the Sandy Hook plaintiffs, yeah, because they will in fact be unpaid creditors of InfoWars LLC.

0:47:04 Thomas: Well, OK, sure. Yeah, that makes sense. I should amend my statement. If you're Alex Jones, you may have a crap ton of creditors for millions of dollars because of all the people you've lost lawsuits to. But you shouldn't have zero income like you. There's still going to be income there to pay that off.

0:47:10 Andrew: Yeah.

0:47:21 Andrew: That's right. And by the way, you can pull that pin now. Last week we discussed how in the uh, Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfers Act case, Free Speech Systems was described as insolvent, right? That is, they owed unbelievable amounts of money to an alphabet soup entity in order to, because, you know, they'd been receiving all of these products for so long, but never actually got paid by that entity. And so as a result, there was a UCC one filing that said this PGLC, PGLC Limited LLC has a primary secured claim on all of Free Speech Systems' assets.

0:48:11 Andrew: Assets, so you might be asked, thinking to yourself, well, if that's the case, if they owe 54 million dollars to this alphabet soup entity, why didn't Free Speech Systems file for bankruptcy? The reason for that is because the difference between lying in public and lying in a bankruptcy is the difference between you probably won't get pulled over for perjury and 20 years in prison, as overseen by an independent U.S. trustee who will get assigned to this case and immediately look down and go, well, that doesn't seem right. Need to tell you believe that in terms of what we just saw, that those initial petition contains materially false information.

0:49:00 Andrew: Right, this is going to be really, really fun watching the bankruptcy. The second thing is you might notice that this petition does not seem to fit the It's a Wonderful Life kind of definition, right? Because we don't have different creditors that, you know, different classes that we all need to figure out, like how are we going to treat, you know, this class, the the carpenters from everybody. Everybody is a Sandy Hook plaintiff, and these are the two things that have happened as a result of initiating the bankruptcy. Number one is the automatic stay. That stops those lawsuits from going forward. Those are lawsuits against a debtor now in bankruptcy, and the court had initially scheduled a conference to determine whether it was going to proceed just against Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems.

0:49:52 Andrew: Right. Which I believe that's exactly what that court would have done. Right. Would have said, OK, yeah, bankruptcy says we can't transfer money in or out of InfoWars LLC or Prison Planet LLC. LLC. Cool. They are named parties to this lawsuit. But we can still go forward against Alex Jones and against free speech systems. So we're going to do that. Think the court was set up to do that, and then Alex Jones's lawyers hit them with the haymaker from that, which is that you When a when a court and this is why I went through the article one versus article three. When you have a bankruptcy, district, the federal district court shall have original but not exclusive jurisdiction of all civil proceedings arising under or related to cases in that bankruptcy.

0:50:42 Andrew: What that means is you can then take a case that relates to a bankruptcy, and you can remove it to a different court. Now, we've talked about removal in the past. This is, it is incredibly rare. This is one of the few circumstances in which it happens, to remove a case weeks before trial in the Texas example, or about five months before trial, four months before trial now, as in the case of the Connecticut case. But removal is automatic. That is affected the minute you file those papers. And then it will be up to, and I am 100% positive that the plaintiff's lawyers in both of those cases are busily petitioning the courts to remand as we go to press here. So you remove from state court to federal court.

0:51:31 Andrew: And then you go back and petition to remand from the federal court back to the state court. The standards for that are governed by 28 U.S.C. Section 1452, and that is at the discretion of the district court judge. Court may remand such claim or cause of action on On any equitable ground. A decision to remand or not to reman is not reviewable by appeal or otherwise by the Court of Appeals under the section, or by the Supreme Court of the United States. So in other words, the judge gets to determine, hey, am I going to sit here and hear these Sandy Hook cases and start all over again, or am I gonna send them back to state court where they belong? I am 100 percent confident that the judge is going, that is going to send these cases back to state court.

0:52:20 Andrew: But Alex Jones has shown such contempt throughout the entire process for the Sandy Hook plaintiffs is doing everything in his power to hide assets, secret them away, delay the process, stop everything. This is another this is going to take, you know, another couple of weeks and it's going to throw off the schedule just like refusing to show up for your deposit. Right. Like that's their game now is to continue to throw as much stuff out there and hope to wear these folks down. And and now we've, Know, watched you Alex Jones improperly use the bankruptcy court process to to do that. Want to jump ahead very, very quickly and talk about Charity Health Share Ministries. The courts approved their plan. This is what end of a Chapter 11 reorganization looks like.

0:53:10 Andrew: And what happens is you divide up the creditors into classes. We said we want to treat similar classes similarly. And then those classes get to vote on whether they, and they vote by a class, whether to accept the plan or not.

0:53:41 Andrew: And of creditors. Number one is miscellaneous secured claims. Those are Anybody for whom a secured claim means that it is secured by some collateral of the ministry itself, right? Those people are going to get 100 cents on the dollar. Estimated amounts of claims, zero. Priority non-tax claims, right, they're going to get 100 cents on the dollar, estimated amount of those claims, zero. The real issue is, and and this was the class that voted on it, claims for people who continued to funnel money into the Charity Health Share scam after they filed bankruptcy. Okay, you want to talk about just how oppressive, just how awful these things are, um, they are class three claims members for claims with post July 8th, 2021, monthly payments. People who went to their church were told from the pulpit, continue to share out your medical, I know it's in a bankruptcy or whatever.

0:54:45 Thomas: Yeah. No attention to bankruptcy the behind the curtain. It's all fine.

0:54:45 Andrew: Um, is thousands of people, totals 1.2 million dollars, and they will receive a full refund without interest, so that held they've on to their money for, for a while, paid as soon as reasonably practicable following the effective date. And that leaves in class four everybody else. Everybody else is member claims, general unsecured claims. And then, you know, there's another class of governmental fines and section 510c.

0:54:55 Thomas: Wow. Wow. Well, that's something.

0:55:22 Thomas: So is the long and the short of it, Andrew, that guess I people who are tricked into continuing to pay after bankruptcy are basically the only ones who will get that money back, but that's still only what they paid after. But I'm sure there's a bunch of money everyone has paid before bankruptcy that, well, how much of that does anyone get back?

0:55:23 Andrew: So those claims are expected to exceed 300 million dollars, and in the plan itself, itself, right? There's a little column. This is a part of the show notes uploaded. This is page 14 of the document. It's page eight of the plan, because, you know, you do a little alphabet numbering on the prepages. There's little column at the top that says estimated recovery. The estimated recovery for everybody with a class four general unsecured claim is zero to 10 percent. Yeah.

0:55:45 Thomas: Wow.

0:56:12 Thomas: Wow. No way.

0:56:15 Andrew: So, Uh, it is entirely possible, and the way in which, the reason that is zero to ten percent is because there will be an ongoing, uh, litigation trust, uh, that will bring lawsuits against, uh, the fraudulent transfers that Charity made out over the course of its Yeah, exactly. To various vendors.

0:56:15 Thomas: Jeez. Right. Right. That's actually what I was going to ask. Like, is, that would tell us that, you know, the amount of money they had in any sort of assets was just a fraction of what they would need to pay actual medical claims at any time, time or is it, is it that that they did, they Alex Jones did and tried to get all the money out fraudulently, or do we have any indication of like, because I would believe either one of those, like honestly it's such a scam that like maybe they just didn't have remotely enough money to pay all the health claims, you that they should be paying, uh, what's the balance of those two things, or do we not know right now?

0:56:40 Andrew: And yeah, so we don't fully know. But what we do know is that while taking in money that charity, like all of these Christian health share ministries, paid out operations costs to vendors, those vendors are LLCs. Those LLCs are completely opaque. So if you wanted to.

0:57:25 Thomas: Yeah. It's probably them their friends, their family, honestly.

0:57:33 Andrew: Yeah. If you, if you wanted to infer that, I think that would be a very, very strong inference based on this. But yeah, there is. And the second reason to believe that that is the case is because of the, the preservation of litigation in order to secure assets for your class, for creditors. Well, there would not be litigation, right, to pursue, uh, if there were not potentially fraudulent transactions, so, uh, that is the only way that anybody in class four is going to get any money. And that's why their own estimate is zero to 10%.

0:58:13 Thomas: Wow. And That's why our goal on the show, on the HealthShare show, was to try to stop people from being victimized from this. Even they Christians, they're doing what they think is right because, you know, and because of our horrible healthcare system in the country that Democrats want to make better but just don't have the power to, like, you, for all those reasons, these are innocent victims who have been, you... The Christian HealthShare Ministry has come in and built the monorail and taken all the, the money, and then left, and the monorail just collapses and kills everybody, basically.

0:58:17 Andrew: Yep. Yep.

0:58:43 Thomas: Zero.

0:58:43 Andrew: To be clear, I'm going to read this directly from the summary of voting that was sent out. Again, this is also uploaded and linked in the show notes. Member claims in class four. Remember, yeah, we love you, you are a class four creditor, right? Member claims and class four will be paid if and when there is a recovery, money from lawsuits brought by the liquidating trustee. There is no guarantee that money will become available to pay claims in class 4. However, and if money does become available, there is no way of knowing how much it will be and how much the members will actually receive.

It is most likely that members will receive only a percentage of their claims. Again, they estimate this at zero to ten percent, although the size of the percentage will also be unknown and until everything is collected and the liquidated trust figures how much there is in claims and how much money there is to pay them after deducting the expense of conducting the process. That last bit, kind of important, bankruptcies are expensive. Everybody gets paid. When you have a trustee running the bankrupt estate, you right, have the lawyers. They all get paid. So the pool of assets that you started with is diminished by the cost of running the bankruptcy itself. So, yeah, lawyer bills get paid, your health

0:59:21 Thomas: To 10, all right, Yeah.

0:59:54 Andrew: Bills do not. Oh.

0:59:55 Thomas: But Let's not deflect away from the fact that it's not the lawyer's fault, it's the lawyer is getting paid for their services, fault that this Christian health share BS has no money to actually pay the people, it's corruption, right? I mean, sure.

0:59:59 Andrew: No. Absolutely Yeah.

1:00:07 Thomas: The lawyers might take a percentage, but they're not taking 90 to 100 to get you into to that zero 10% bucket.

1:00:14 Andrew: That's right

1:00:16 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

1:00:22 Thomas: And now it's time for T3BE. Uh man tough quiz lately. Not doing that great. Let's see if I can come I'm back. Here we go.

1:00:28 Andrew: Tough quiz, so, uh, nothing like a good old real property question to get back in the back in a saddle again, Thomas. A sister and brother own property as joint tenants. A victim of a car accident, has a judgment against the sister after a court found that she was negligent in causing a car incident that injured the victim. The victim properly filed the judgment and has a lien on the sister's real property. The statute in the jurisdiction states, any judgment properly filed shall for 10 years from the date of filing be a lien, the real property, then owned, were subsequently acquired by any person against whom the judgment is rendered. Before the victim took any additional action, the sister died. Who has an interest in the land? A,

1:00:32 Thomas: You had to do it to me. Okay.

1:01:16 Andrew: The brother, B, the brother and the sister's heirs, C, the brother and the victim, or D, the brother subject to the victim's judgment.

1:01:27 Thomas: Gosh. The Well, this feels impossible.

1:01:28 Andrew: Shout out to our real property lawyers out there.

1:01:30 Thomas: Joint tenants. Joint tenets. I think, you know, yeah, they both own it, I believe. I don't remember if if that ends up being a 50-50 thing or if they, something weirder than that. But anyway, it sounds like someone has a judgment against the sister and properly files it has a lien on the property the sister dies, And the statute says any judgment properly filed shall for 10 years from the date of filing be a lien-on-the-real property, then owned, and then owned. So, she owned you it before she died or subsequently acquired by any person against whom the judgment is rendered. I think that just means if had a judgment against the person and then they bought some real property or something, maybe. Before the victim took any additional action, I don't know what that additional action would need to be, but it says the sister died.

1:02:22 Thomas: It seems like it's properly filed. So I think she's got to lean on the property. And I think when the sister dies or the victim rather has the lien on property, when the sister dies, I think in like, forget everything else. I think, in a joint tenancy, would just go to the brother, actually, man, I feel like I remember something weird about that. Like there's one where it's like, oh, no, it will go to The Sister's heirs as well. But then there's, I swear there's another kind of weird real property thingy where it'S like, no that one just goes to whoever still has the land or still, you know, because the brother is still a joint tenant and then becomes, I think, I don't know. So that's going to be tricky. So who has an interest in the land? Let's see if I can reason my way to something. A, the brother. I actually don't think that's right. I think the victim will have something here. That's, I'm going with that guess. So I'm eliminating A. B, the brother and the sister's heirs.

1:03:09 Thomas: So that still would mean that the victim had nothing. So, I can eliminate B. I clearly cannot choose the answer in front of you. C, the Brother and the Victim. That is a solid one. D, the the brother subject to the victim's judgment. What? Subject to the victims judgment. Wait, I to have a lien on it, does that mean you have an interest? Or is that, is that the same thing? I don't know if a lien is the same as having an interest. I maybe, I guess it is. Is it saying like if you sell it, they get the money and maybe that's an interest. Okay. Subject to the victim's judgment. What the hell does that mean? Don't, I don'T know how to differentiate. I think it's between C and D, the brother and the victim. And I don't know how to differentiate between C and D which is D is the brother subject to the victims judgment. To I think I'm going to go with C. D kind of sounds like the brother now like subject.

1:03:58 Thomas: Okay, so D sounds like kind of, I don't know, I'm just trying to grasping at straws to, I'm grasping, grasping it bundles of sticks here to try to figure out this answer. I think D sounds more like the lean or the judgment, like kind of transferred over to the brother. And I think that's not as accurate as saying the brother and the victim have an interest in the in the land. So I'm gonna go with C. Final answers between C and D. C, final answer.

1:04:21 Andrew: And if 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 guess, your reasons therefore, we will pick a winner and shower that winner with never-ending fame and fortune. Fame and fortunate not guaranteed.

1:04:33 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

1:04:35 Thomas: Now it's time to thank our new patrons at patreon.com/law, uh, look for a Law'd Awful Movies coming your way, that's two dollar and up patrons very soon, uh, can't wait to do that, and the ad free episodes and the early episodes, all the great stuff. So Andrew, start us off, thank our new patrons at patreon.com/law

1:04:53 Andrew: And Thank you to Lynn C Bryce, to Lincoln Addis, Brian Garceau, Kitty Zero, and Shelly Baskin.

1:05:03 Thomas: Thank you to The Mighty Aardvark of the Wonderful Tongue, very, very interesting, Lily Musai, Richard Branson, Herb, Lisa Sklar, Craig Meinschein, and Jennifer Bouman. Thank you so much.

1:05:11 Andrew: Do you think it's really Richard Branson, because you know if so

1:05:19 Thomas: Yeah, that better be a steep pledge.

1:05:20 Andrew: Yeah you better be trying to unseat Conrad Michaels there, Richard. I

1:05:24 Thomas: Yeah. No kidding. Well, And that's our show. Thank You so much for listening, everybody. And remember, friends don't let friends and family join Christian HealthShare Ministries. So the word out. And that's another reason why Andrew's breakdown was so important back on episode 497, I think you said? So share it out and thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time.

1:05:43 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.

1:06:16 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.