OA668: A New Case Right Wing Sources Are Blatantly Lying About

Transcript

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

0:01:18 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 668. I'm Thomas, a moderate, and that's Andrew Torres, totally moderate, down the middle, you know, respected on both sides, How you doing, Andrew?

0:01:29 Andrew: Am doing my liberal best. Oh, jeez, I get away. No, no, no. This is, look, we want to be clear here. We have encouraged our listeners, if you are a Trump-supporting conservative, usually this is not the show for you. We are left-of-center commentators. We're very, very upfront about that. But and what I want to do is challenge you that maybe some of the sources that you're listening to are not trustworthy. And the great thing about this is I am going to make a prediction and it's yet to come in the future. It will come the week of January 6th, 2023.

0:01:32 Thomas: Dang it!

0:01:47 Thomas: You mean my elaborate disguise didn't Work? You Oh.

0:02:10 Andrew: 23. And if it turns out I'm right for the reasons we express on this show, then maybe you will have a reason to go back to some of those sources with perhaps a bit more of a quizzical, skeptical eye. And that's all we're asking, is that we find some common ground that when you look at, understand that places like the Gateway Pundit and Zero Hedge and Breitbart are not reliable, liable news sources. The things that they are saying are often not researched at all and can be easily disproven by two guys on the internet. So buckle up, strap in. We're going to have some fun.

0:02:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:54 Thomas: I guess I'd also say that, doesn't mean for the purposes of today's episode, Uncle Frank, this, is not a threat to your worldview. No need to say that, you know. You don't have to like convert or something, like you could still certainly be a conservative and and have all those same values, uh, but maybe take a look at the sources of information that you're Getting. What? Yeah.

0:03:01 Andrew: Yep. Yep, Exactly right. And in fact, before we get into the main subject matter, this, this is a segment I had planned anyway. We do is also police our own side of the aisle when our side says something that is misleading or legally false. And that's happening a lot in connection with Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter. So.

0:03:33 Thomas: Yeah, that'll happen.

0:03:35 Andrew: Uh, this tweet came out and was sort of making the rounds, uh, there's a guy named, uh, John Aravosis, who apparently has a huge, uh, left-wing Twitter following, is quoting an answer that Elon Musk gave to yet another account defending kicking folks off who were hyperlinking to other social media sites, right? This policy, I believe, has now been suspended, right?

0:04:01 Thomas: Really?

0:04:01 Andrew: Oh. Yeah.

0:04:02 Thomas: It. Has. Oh.

0:04:03 Andrew: You know, because. Consistency.

0:04:04 Thomas: Boy. What?

0:04:05 Andrew: Is the hallmark.

0:04:06 Thomas: A well-run.

0:04:06 Andrew: Of the, uh.

0:04:07 Thomas: Operation.

0:04:07 Andrew: Absolutely. So Elon Musk, in response to, you know, somebody defending him kicking off people posting links to Mastodon or whatever, says, "Exactly, Twitter should be easy to use, but no more relentless free advertising of competitors. No traditional publisher allows this, and neither will" Twitter. And so a bunch of people in left-wing circles were like, see, look, Elon Musk just admitted that Twitter was a publisher and implicitly compared it to a newspaper. That was the Erevosus tweet. And a lot of people are like, so that means he should be liable as a a publisher of a newspaper, uh, for defamation in exactly the way that uh, they claim that they don't, and and no that's

0:04:08 Thomas: Yeah. Uh. Yeah.

0:04:54 Thomas: Because if. Someone's wrong about the law, then that requires changing the law for that person, like it's a real gotcha by the legal system. Them interactive.

0:05:03 Andrew: It's the law doesn't work that way. The immunity, the Section 230 immunity that you've heard so much about, we've covered on the show a lot, 47 USC Section 230, Section 230 of the Telecommunications Decency Act, um, the protections that it gives are protections to an interactive computer service.

0:05:23 Thomas: CD-ROM.

0:05:23 Andrew: Whether that, yeah, whether that computer service characterizes itself as a publisher or not. And those those privileges are twofold, right? There is the immunity from doing stuff. So C1, 47 USC 230 C1, says treatment of publisher or speaker, and it says no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Right. So, "no traditional publisher allows this, and neither will Twitter." Doesn't matter. The law says you're an interactive computer service. You shall not be treated as the publisher or speaker speaker of any information that you publish, notwithstanding how you characterize yourself. That's the law.

0:05:24 Thomas: As I always say, I.

0:06:11 Andrew: And then the second protection that Section 230 provides is Subsection 2, which says that no provider or user of interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of actions voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected. So all of the things that on both sides of the aisle uh would maybe like for Twitter to be held accountable for, uh, it is not, better that Section 230 provides that absolute immunity, and it doesn't say like there's a triple secret gotcha that if you accidentally refer to yourself self as a provider, then the law doesn't apply.

0:07:00 Thomas: Think. Makes.

0:07:01 Andrew: That's a, that's a statutory exemption, yeah.

0:07:01 Thomas: Sense. I mean, when my when. My. Kids like. Beep beep, I'm a car. We're not like, all right, yeah, DMV rules. He. Said.

0:07:08 Andrew: Oh. There. You. Go.

0:07:09 Thomas: He's. A car. Get like.

0:07:09 Andrew: Yeah. Without repealing Section 230, uh, and we've talked about that in, and we might do, you a deep dive hypothetical of what a world without Section 230 would look like. Uh, spoiler, I don't think it's a world either the left or the right wants, but that doesn't mean that we won't wind up with it given how broken politics are right now. But until Section 230 is repealed or by fiat declared unconstitutional at the Supreme Court, that's another episode, protections will continue to apply regardless of the dumb things that Elon Musk says on Twitter.

0:07:48 Clip: Down the law, down the law.

0:07:52 Andrew: Now, what you've all been waiting for, Uncle, and by the way, I'm, uh, going to make the show notes for this episode available to everyone on patreon.com/law, so if you want to follow, you don't have to be a patron at any level, open post, every single person, go ahead, head on over to the site if you want to follow along with exactly my sources. And I encourage you to do that. Pause this episode right now. Get these up. We're going to start off with James Grundvig from American Media Periscope. This is the Supreme Court petition set to rock America. All right, Grundvig begins, total.

0:08:30 Thomas: It's. Gonna play a bitch in solo. Like.

0:08:32 Andrew: It Total, period. Media, period, blackout. This should Come as little surprise for mainstream media outlets not covering the potentially seismic landmark petition set in front of the nine justices on the Supreme Court of the United States. But with national emergency language added to the second submission of the the petition, it begs the question relating to the alternative news outlets for also failing to cover the story. Now, this was written before a major article in the Gateway Pundit that we're going to get to next.

As of this writing, that resides in the public domain, all four of these new news outlets have done a phenomenal job covering the election coup of 2020 and the ongoing theft and irregularities in the 2022 midterm elections. Why hasn't any of them or all all of them pounced on this story? It's a petition that has the potential to rewrite the history of American politics like few other cases. So here is what the conspiracy theory says. This petition is going to allow the Supreme Court on January 6th, 2023, to reinstate Donald Trump as president. I want to make a prediction for you right now, so write this down. On the week of January 6th, 2023, the Supreme Court will do one of two things. It will either deny a writ of certiorari to this petition and say, we don't want to hear it, or it will punt to a later date and time because they didn't get time to review this petition in conference, which is really passing documents around a table. That's still how it's done. Although, actually, that was pre-COVID.

It might be a virtual table right now. I don't know. But literally, for 200 years, it was sort of Supreme Court justices sit around a table, and they pass around cert petitions, and then they, you know, vote up or down as to whether they're going to grant cert or not. That is a conference discussion.

0:08:38 Thomas: Wow.

0:09:24 Thomas: Sweet.

0:09:41 Thomas: Bold.

0:10:28 Andrew: So either the week of January 6th, not on January 6, either that week, the Supreme Court will deny cert in this case or they will move it to another date at which point they will deny certain right this case is never going to be heard by the Supreme Court and even if it did it would have no ability to reinstate Donald Trump as president so there's my wager to you if January 6th 2023 comes goes and Donald Trump is not the president and the then, and by the way, the case is Brunson versus Adams.

If the Supreme Court hasn't taken up this case, then maybe, just maybe, you want to give a second thought to some of these sources. Now, I read you James Grundvig of the American Media Periscope. Okay, he's just some dude. There are a couple other some dudes out there. What about Gary Humble, the founder and executive Executive Director of Tennessee Stands, an organization working to secure liberty and hold elected officials accountable to the Constitution through legislation, litigation, and education. That is TennesseeStands.org. Wrote, a huge court case headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, comma, maybe. I like that comma, baby,

0:10:53 Thomas: Prediction. Yeah.

0:11:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:47 Andrew: At the end. Way to hedge your bets there, Gary. You could say, all right, that's just a guy.

0:11:52 Thomas: So. Far, this sounds like small potatoes. Andrew, wow.

0:11:54 Andrew: I, what about former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee? Here are the top stories this week that you will want to read. The Supreme Court has agreed to a hearing for a case that could conceivably overturn the election of 2020, throw out all the legislators who voted to certify the results, And leave them ineligible to run for office ever again, even for town dog catcher. Um.

0:12:11 Thomas: Hmm. They've agreed to a hearing? Huh, doesn't sound accurate to me.

0:12:19 Andrew: Now. Mike Huckabee, not a lawyer, so maybe you're like, yeah, I know he's the governor of the state of Arkansas and, you know, has an audience in the hundreds of thousands or millions, uh, but maybe we'll give him a pass too, right? I.

0:12:19 Thomas: Oh.

0:12:34 Andrew: Mean.

0:12:34 Thomas: We. Shouldn't.

0:12:35 Andrew: You. Know. We. Shouldn't. How about Canova, professor of law and public finance at the Nova Southeastern University Shepherd Broad College of Law, a a lawyer, somebody with a law degree who teaches law to law.

0:12:35 Thomas: But. Yeah. Okay.

0:12:50 Thomas: Yeesh.

0:12:50 Andrew: Students at. Nova Southeastern University. Okay, we're now out of excuses, right, my. Cockabee excuse, you know, whatever, right? This was in an article, uh, that I read on the Highland County Press that was republished from the Gateway Pundit, the gatewaypundit.com slash 2022 slash 12 slash Tim-Canova-Supreme-Court-Considers-Case-Seeking-Overturn-2020-Presidential-Election. And I want to tell you, 100% of what Tim Canova says in this article, and this is where we're going to dig in, is entirely false. He is either, and I'm not even going to do an either, I was going to say he's either the dumbest lawyer on the planet. That's not the case. You cannot have

0:12:51 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:38 Thomas: Well, I could tell you some dumber. Lawyers, so he's not the, yeah.

0:13:43 Andrew: JD and not know that you're lying when you write the things that he's about to say here. So intro stinger paragraph. While there's been much public attention on the US Supreme Court's present consideration of the independent state legislature theory in Moore v. Harper involving North Carolina's redistricting. That's true.

0:14:02 Andrew: That case would not immediately upend the 2020 presidential election.

0:14:06 Thomas: That. Much.

0:14:06 Andrew: Okay, that paragraph is true. In contrast, a little-known case that appeared recently on the court docket could do just that.

0:14:07 Thomas: Is true. And. Already. Lying. That's, yeah, wow.

0:14:16 Andrew: The case of Brunson v. Adams, not even reported in the mainstream media, was filed pro se by ordinary American citizens, four brothers from Utah seeking the removal of President Biden and Vice President Harris, along with 291 U.S. representatives and 94 U.N. senators who voted to certify the electors of the Electoral College on January 6th, 2021, without first investigating the serious allegations of election fraud in half a dozen states and foreign election interference and breach of national security in the 2020 presidential election. The outcome of such relief would presumably be to restore Donald Trump to the presidency, um, No.

0:14:55 Thomas: Sorry. No.

0:14:58 Andrew: So there is an accurate statement in there, and that is, this is a pro se complaint, pro se, meaning filed without a lawyer. And by being filed without a lawyer, again, I'm a lawyer, feel free to disregard this?

0:15:04 Thomas: You probably want to file with a lawyer.

0:15:14 Andrew: Ask yourself, if this case is potentially monumentous, could reinstate Donald Trump as president, why is it that no lawyer has offered to work for Mr. Brunson for free? Not Sidney Powell, not Christina Bob, right?

0:15:28 Thomas: Yeah not any Trump-supporting lawyer in the entire country

0:15:36 Andrew: Not Evan the Cork Corcoran, Not Charles Burnham. All of these people who have represented Donald Trump or other parties in lawsuits attempting to overturn the 2020 election have expressed a desire to overturn the 2020 presidential election. And so the very first thing you might ask is, Yeah. Why would Alina Habba?

0:15:36 Thomas: Who would want, presumably would want to do that, maybe

0:16:02 Andrew: Nope. Not going to. Not going. At a time. No lawyer associated with the Stop the Steal movement, no lawyer associated with the Kraken lawsuits, no employer associated with any efforts to overturn the 2020 election has decided to sign on to this. You might consider that a bit of a red flag. And the reason you would then consider the entire thing a red red flag is when you read the allegations and the disposition of the case. So what happened is J. Brunson filed a complaint in state court against all those people that Tim Canova described, right? Against, it's why it's versus Adams. The case begins with Alma Adams, who I presume is a member of Congress, and continues alphabetically all the way down to Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse, Roger F.

0:15:58 Thomas: They were busy, yeah. Makes

0:17:02 Andrew: Wicker, Ron Wyden, Todd Young, then adds, uh, Joseph Robinette Biden in his capacity as President of the United States, Michael Richard Pence in his capacity as former Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris in her capacity as current Vice President of the United States, and John and Jane Does one to a hundred, because, you know, they probably had other co-conspirators. So it does name those almost 400 people in the caption. And, um... there's a provision of federal law that says, when, when you sue a federal agent, right, when you sue a federal official in state court, they can remove that complaint to federal court, right? That's seems like that makes sense, um, it's Section 1442 A1 and A4, authorizes the removal of a civil action commenced in state court against any officer of the United States. And there's case law that says officer of the United State, and in fact, the statute A4 says, officer of either house of Congress for or relating to any act in the discharge of his official duty. Again, remember that members of Congress are here for supposedly failing to investigate the rampant fraud and corruption in the election.

So removed to federal court, Mr. Brunson then tried to remand it back down to state court. This kind of interesting, number one, his claims do not depend on federal law, and under the well-plated complaint rule, federal defenses do not provide a basis for removal.

0:17:42 Thomas: Sense, wow.

0:18:32 Andrew: And number two, because the federal court is biased against him. The federal court, because they're biased against him, no doubt, said, you do understand that 1442 is an exception to the well-pleaded complaint. It even says that, right? It says, notwithstanding the well pleaded complaint rule, if you sue an officer of either house of Congress for in any way to any act in the discharge of their official duty, they get to go to federal court because we don't think members of Congress should have to litigate in Backwoods, Utah. So he lost on that. And then the court dismissed his complaint. So what was His complaint? According to Mr. Brunson, the 2020 presidential election was, quote, rigged in every single state.

And despite evidence of voter and election fraud, defendants intentionally refused to investigate the evidence and conspired to cover up the evidence. Uh, Mr. Brunson argues that defendant's conduct constituted an attack against the U.S. Constitution that resulted in the fraudulent inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris. Mr. Bronson's request for relief includes, among other things, the immediate removal of all defendants from office, right, so all of those 380 members of Congress and the U.S. Senate, an order that, quote, former President Trump immediately be allowed to be inaugurated president, end of quote, and money damages in the amount of $2,905 billion, comma, tax-free. I like how he had to add that one, because if you're

0:19:12 Thomas: Yeah

0:19:56 Andrew: Going to get $2.9 trillion, why would you?

0:19:56 Thomas: That you know the the tax hit on that's what

0:19:59 Andrew: Yeah, that would be a lot. So what you're realizing is this is a crazy person who it's

0:19:59 Thomas: Gets you, you know yeah this is, it's actually even alarming to, again, I'll reveal my biases as a pretty progressive guy, I'm even alarmed that that ex-Arkansas governor would have said that this has any chance of doing anything. That's a dire state of, of what someone like that views their audience to be. How gullible they view their audience.

0:20:27 Andrew: That and, knowing, again, they lack the, uh, intellectual fortitude of our uncle Frank here to sit and listen and and look up the alternative documents, and again, these documents, I found them in five minutes on Google, right.

0:20:36 Thomas: Yeah. They're not in a secret lawyer dungeon that only you can access, right? I mean, you can just, yeah.

0:20:44 Andrew: It that is that is right. So, uh, the trial court dismissed out his complaint, he appealed out of Utah to the 10th Circuit. The 10th Circuit affirmed that dismissal. Now, one of the things that happens when you, and again, link all these cases in the show notes, one of things that happen when you appeal is you have to tell the 10th Circuit exactly what you think the lower court got wrong. And in his own words, what Mr. Brunson thinks the lower court got wrong. And so first, the Tenth Circuit says, we construe Mr. Brunson's pro se filings liberally, but we may not act as his advocate, okay?

0:21:24 Andrew: So in other words, they could give him every possible benefit of the doubt here, but, you know, they're not his lawyer. You want to do better, get a lawyer. So Mr. Brunson first argues that the district court's separate judgment is invalid because it fails to set forth the legal basis for the judgment. This is a really technical thing, but I'm including it because it shows the level of total incompetence, okay? And so here's what happened, the district court, because this was a nonsense lawsuit, lawsuit, assigned a magistrate judge. Now, magistrate judge is like a helper judge. They're not appointed to the federal bench. They are appointed by the federal bench, and they can handle aspects to which the parties consent.

0:21:24 Thomas: That's good. Hmm

0:22:11 Andrew: And so you often refer to a magistrate judge to handle discovery disputes, or, right? As in this case, to deal with a crazy lawsuit, right, and to say, hey, I want you to give reasons, I want you to evaluate whether this case should be dismissed or not. And the magistrate judge was like, oh boy, should this be dismissed? And the principal reasons, they go through the other, but the principal reason is a standing-based argument, and I'm going to get to to that in a second. Now, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 58, a district court must set out the actual judgment that is the thing to be enforced, that is dismissing his lawsuit, in a document that is separate from the court's explanation for the reasons for doing so.

0:23:09 Andrew: So we've talked about that. And the first reason given on appeal was Brunson looked at the order and the judgment just says, it is ordered and adjudged that plaintiff Raylan Brunson's action is dismissed without prejudice. And he said, well, you didn't tell me why. Well, the answer is because they're not allowed under the rules of civil procedure to tell you why in that document, They have to do it in a separate document. That was the district court's order specifically adopting the recommendation of the magistrate judge. So I bring all of that together to say the very first grounds that Mr. Brunson set out in his appeal was a basic misunderstanding of how the court issues orders that any lawyer, even Alina Haba, could have easily corrected.

0:24:02 Andrew: Now, a non-lawyer make that mistake? Sure, you might make that mistake. But think about the level of arrogance it requires to look at a one-line order and go, that judge is biased against me and they hate me and they didn't tell me why, and that's why I'm going to get this overturned. Instead of, I don't know, calling and asking somebody and saying, hey, is it normal for a court to issue a judgment that is separate from the order explaining its reasons, and then any lawyer would be like, oh yeah, federal court, yeah, of course, that's Federal Civil Procedure 58.

0:24:39 Andrew: And you would have saved yourself from looking like a moron to the 10th Circuit. So court explains that. The court says, this argument is frivolous. I'm quoting from the court on page 20 of this opinion. And again, when the 10th Circuit says your argument is frivolous, that is the strongest possible language that an appellate court would use. This argument is frivolous. Federal Rule Civil Procedure 58 requires the district court to set out its disposition in a judgment separate from the Court's explanation of the reasons for the disposition. See, and then it cites the appropriate case. The district court's judgment did just that, and the reasons were thoroughly explained in the recommendation in the district Court's order adopting it. Okay. So first, you say there's a point of error because the court didn't do something it's not allowed to do. Two, Mr. Brunson next contests the merits of the magistrate judge's standing analysis.

0:24:39 Thomas: Yikes parentheses

0:25:27 Andrew: And this is the pin that I had you put in before. We're going to pull it out right now. One of the things that happens in a court is sort of an order of operations. And the very first thing that a court will do, particularly when it's faced with a crazy... That's exactly right, PEMDAS, Right, you right? Have a crazy person making crazy claims, the first thing you might ask is, is there a technical reason why I can get rid of this case without having to delve into 800 pages of utter nonsense? And one of those technical reasons is a lack of standing. Ending. This is not some kind of crazy liberal doctrine that we've made up. This is, in fact, a very conservative principle of law, and it stems from the Constitution. It stems from the idea that our judiciary does not render advisory opinions. As Article III of the Constitution puts it, that there must be a live case or controversy in order for the court to rule.

0:25:41 Thomas: PEMDAS well

0:26:30 Andrew: So in other words, I I can't go to the court and go, I want a declaration that Wes Moore, governor of Maryland, can never be president. The court would be like, what are you talking about?

0:26:42 Thomas: Because think of how many of those they would have to deal with every single day if they did that kind of thing

0:26:44 Andrew: Right, course. That. Exactly right on an utilitarian practical level. But also the principle is that you must have suffered an injury that the court has the power to redress.

0:26:58 Thomas: Cognizable injury you might say Hillary

0:26:59 Andrew: Yeah, you might in fact say that. And so that's really the test. And it says, if you can't show that there's a thing that, that you suffered a wrong and the court can make it better, then what are we doing here? And that principle then has various forms of application. And one of them is the principle that an individual, and this comes directly from a 1992 Supreme Court decision. So again, George H.W. Bush era Supreme Court, relatively conservative Supreme Court called Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555. And it says, a person who raises only a generally available grievance about government, claiming only harm to his and every citizen's interest in the proper application of the the Constitution and the laws, and seeking relief that no more directly and tangibly benefits him than it does the public at large, does not state an Article III case or controversy, okay? So about what that means and how that applies in a case like this.

It is to say, if I believe that the 2016 presidential election was stolen from Hillary Clinton, and I filed a lawsuit that said, you didn't count my votes, and you didn't do this and that, and you should have made Hillary Clinton president, the very first thing that a court would do is throw that out on standing and go, you know what? You know who has standing to bring this lawsuit? Hillary

0:28:36 Andrew: Clinton. She could be the president, but you are just a dude. And what you want is for the government to just follow the law, and that's not a particularized injury. That is not, uh, quote, "such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure concrete adverseness," okay? And again, might seem a little bit unfair, but there's a super easy way around it. If if this argument were true, have Donald Trump bring this argument, because Donald Trump has a real stake in, he would be the president. That's different than, and again, if if it were not entirely

0:28:35 Thomas: Clinton and

0:29:16 Andrew: Made up, which it is.

0:29:17 Thomas: One thing I think we and Uncle Frank and literally everybody on this great earth can agree on is if there was a case here Donald Trump would have brought it because he's famously yeah

0:29:25 Andrew: Yeah, he was not shy about bringing lots of other cases, 61 of them, in fact. Yeah, and still going, exactly. So next argument on appeal, so that's where the ultimate disposition came from the district court. It said, look, arguments are crazy, but we don't even get there because you don't have individualized, individualized, particularized standing to be in this court. This is a federal court of limited jurisdiction. We can hear only live cases and controversies, and this isn't one of them.

0:29:28 Thomas: Yeah. Still doing it. Still.

0:29:56 Thomas: This one is as dead as it gets.

0:29:58 Andrew: Exactly. So then, point two on appeal, Mr. Brunson next contests the merits of the magistrate judge's standing analysis. But, as noted in his objection in the petition that he sent to the Tenth Circuit, he did not address the standing analysis. He only faulted the magistrate judge for not discussing the arguments he raised in his opposition to the motion to dismiss. So let's unpack that. In other words, the district court said, we're adopting the magistrate judge's finding and we're dismissing out this case for lack of standing. In his petition to the 10th Circuit, Brunson said, that's not fair. They didn't talk about my arguments. But the problem is that what you have to ask the district court to do is not just say it's not fair you didn't talk about my arguments.

You have to say it's not fair, you do have standing, and now you should listen to my arguments, right? So he never said those critical words, and it's not just the adding in the words, you do have standings, but it's giving an argument, sorry, right, the 10th Circuit has no more power to hear a case where the plaintiff lacks standing than the district court, than anybody,

0:30:20 Thomas: Huh? Yeah.

0:31:07 Andrew: Right? It should not be in federal court at all. And so if you want to get there, you have to resolve the parentheses first. You have to convince the 10th Circuit, yes, you do have standing to hear my case. And if you don't ask them to do that, and then you later at oral argument are like, well, okay, all right, sorry I didn't do that. But can you decide whether you have standing now? The court has a waiver rule, which is, no, we consider on appeal only the questions that you've asked us to appeal. So here's how the Tenth Circuit puts it. This court has adopted a firm waiver rule with regard to objections to a magistrate judge's findings and recommendations. To avoid waiving appellate review of factual and legal questions, a party's objections to a magistrate judge's report and recommendation must be both timely and specific.

0:31:57 Andrew: This focus the district court's attention on the factual and legal issues that are truly in dispute. Now here, although Mr. Brunson's objection was timely, he did not specifically challenge the magistrate judge's standing analysis. The firm waiver rule therefore applies unless the interests of justice dictate otherwise. So, okay, now they say, maybe we should give you an exception, right? So what are the exceptions to why you didn't raise that? And a pro se litigant's effort to comply, the force and plausibility of the explanation for his failure to comply, and the importance of the issues raised, right. So in other words, the court has said, if you don't ask us, if he didn't specifically challenge what the magistrate judge said, we're going to give you some leeway because you don't have a lawyer representing you, So right?

0:32:45 Andrew: We're going to look at what you did do, why you didn't challenge the standing argument, and how important it is for us to let you come in and raise this argument. The Tenth Circuit then notes, "Mr. Brunson makes no effort to explain why he failed to specifically challenge the magistrate judge's standing analysis. The first two factors, therefore, weigh against invoking the exception. In considering the third factor, the importance of the issues raised, we conduct an analysis akin to plain error review." And then they sort of go through that. "As the magistrate judge explained, the relevant Article Three standing inquiry is whether the party alleged seeking relief has such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure concrete adverseness." And this goes back to the discussion we just had. "Mr. Brunson's argument does not persuade us otherwise."

0:33:31 Andrew: Essentially, he contends that because he alleged the defendants acted fraudulently and because, quote, fraud vitiates whatever it touches, he has a, quote, unfettered right to sue the defendants and any federal or case law is inapplicable if it, quote, supports treason, acts of war, or the violation of Brunson's inherent, inalienable, God-given rights. But none of his supporting authorities suggest that allegations of fraud, acts of war, or the violation of allegedly inherent, unalienable, God-given rights relieve a plaintiff from demonstrating Article III standing. This is really, really important because, Uncle Frank, you probably heard people in your circle quote a case that says fraud vitiates everything. You can indeed find those cases. You can indeed quote that language.

0:34:18 Andrew: It does not mean that once you say you have been defrauded, you don't have to follow the legal requirements in order to bring your case. That's what Brunson tried to do here. And the 10th Circuit says those allegations, quote, do not relieve a plaintiff from demonstrating Article 3 standing, end of quote. So fraud may vitiate everything, but it doesn't vitiated this. It says, finally, Mr. Brunson mentions the magistrate judge's 11th Amendment sovereign immunity analysis, but develops no argument in addressing the magistrate judge's reasoning other than to direct us to his opposition to the motion to dismiss. That is insufficient to meet this court's requirement for developing an argument on appeal. Thus, setting aside the antecedent inquiry of standing, which precludes our review of this aspect of the dismissal, we conclude that Mr.

0:35:05 Andrew: Brunson has waived appellate review of the sovereign immunity basis for dismissal due to insufficient argument. Now, again, a lot of legalese in that, but basically what the court there is saying is, all right, let's also look to the merits. If we were inclined to hear this case, even if you had particularized injury, which you don't, you've sued members of Congress for not voting to do a thing. You can't sue members of congress for not voting to do with thing.

0:35:32 Thomas: Yeah. That doesn't work.

0:35:34 Andrew: That's sovereign immunity. That's nonsense. If you could do that, we would have a billion cases every single day.

0:35:39 Thomas: Every single vote. Every time.

0:35:42 Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. And again, just think about that. Frank, would you want your crazy leftist son-in-law to be able to sue every single time that there's a defense act that sets a budget for the Pentagon? On right and to say you've been derelict in your duty to not consider, you know, the Bernie Sanders argument of x y like no, okay, your remedy against elected officials who don't do the things you want them to do is to vote for a different elected official. Okay, so that's the case right, you've alleged three arguments on appeal, those three three arguments are, number one, the court didn't do a thing it wasn't allowed to do. Number two, the Court didn't consider the merits of your argument because it held you lack standing. Why do you have standing? Meh.

And number three, by the way, your underlying argument is that I should be able to sue members of Congress for the way they vote in Congress. The Tenth Circuit said, therefore, the District Court's judgment is affirmed. That was October 6th, 2022. And pursuant to that, Brunson did a thing that he is 100 percent entitled to do, and that is filed a cert petition with the Supreme Court of the United States.

0:35:43 Thomas: Yeah, it's

0:37:05 Andrew: Okay, good, for you, right, every citizen, every person has the the right to do that, but a cert petition is just a request that the Supreme Court take your case. And the reason that it is called a writ of certiorari, that sort of confusing Latin, is Supreme Court doesn't have to take your case. So the fact that you show up on a docket just means you filed your thing. And he filed his thing on October 20th, 2022. That triggers obligation of the parties against whom you were appealing to reply? And so all these members of Congress, the President in the United States, Kamala Harris, uh, they become represented by, uh, Elizabeth Prelogar, right, the, uh, Solicitor General of the United States, right.

0:37:53 Thomas: I was going to ask if this even merits a reply. Would you even bother or do you have to? Too.

0:37:57 Andrew: Great question, because when nut jobs submit nutball proceedings, there is a process, and that process is you you petition for a waiver. And that waiver says the government hereby waives its right to file a response to the petition in this case unless requested to do so by the court, period, signed Elizabeth B. Prelogar, Solicitor General and Counsel of Record. And you might notice that, by my reading that, that that is exactly what happened. You can see this on the docket. We will put that there. So the very first time that the government saw this petition, cert petition, it said, you know what? We have a right to try and persuade the Supreme Court not to take this case.

0:38:44 Thomas: Hmm.

0:38:44 Andrew: If we thought there was a snowball's chance in hell that the Supreme court would take this case, we would file an opposition to cert. We talk about this on the show all the time. And so, you know, go back to the Moore versus Harper case, uh, that, uh you know Dingleberry, Barry McSchnagen. Oh, sorry. Uncle Frank didn't mean to lose you there. Go back to Moore versus Harper that we talked about from the first right-wing article of, you know, people are focusing on that, but they're not focusing on, you how landmark this case is in Moore versus Harper. There was significant briefing. There Was significant briefing in opposition to the a cert petition, Here, the government was like, yeah, you know what?

0:39:25 Thomas: Have at it. Good luck. You

0:39:27 Andrew: Yeah, we'd like not to contest this unless the Supreme Court tells us that we have to. And then a week later, so then that goes back to the Supreme court. Now the Supreme courts, if they had any doubt whatsoever, Right, if there they're like, "Hey man, you're not taking this seriously enough," they could have said, "We request that the United States respond to the cert petition," and if they've done so, the United Saints would have filed a response. Instead, this is again the third, the final entry on the Supreme Court docket for this case, which is 22-380, again link in the show notes, it just says "distributed for conference of 1-6-2023." As we explained in the outset, that "distributed for conference" means gets passed around the table with the other Supreme Court justices to vote yes or no. It does not mean that they have taken the case. They have not. It does not means they will take the case. They have to vote no to vote. No. Right.

0:39:27 Thomas: Know, I'm rooting for you, actually. I right. Mm

0:40:25 Andrew: And So people who have then come in and read and said, "See, one six is when they're going to rule that the case hasn't have been briefed," right? Like, one six is absolutely 100% not when they are going to rule. Uh, one six is when they're going to either vote to send this case back where it belongs, uh, which is nothing, right, we are not going to take this, or to postpone for a less busy week where they can say cert petition denied, and that would just be because they don't get to it in the stack. That would be the only reason not to do that. I could. I have prepared an analysis of the actual merits of the cert petition.

Want to tell you just one thing, cert, okay? Petition gives this is written by Mr. Brunson himself, pro se, and it has a bunch of arguments about like, due to the fact that this case represents a national security breach on an unprecedented level, like never before seen, seriously damaging and violating Brunson, and coincidentally affects every citizen of the USA and courts of law. That's the national security stuff that, you know, was being breathlessly reported by Mike Huckabee, right? Therefore, Brunson moves the court to grant this petition or in the alternative without continuing further, order the trial court to grant Brunson's complaint in its fullest and immediately remove respondents from office without leaving the country vulnerable, without a president and vice president. OK, that's nonsense,

0:40:25 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

0:41:52 Andrew: Right. That's just ranting in a piece of paper. Paper, there's then a lettered set of sections from A through E, and two of them purport to cite to actual legal argument. One, the D is just "the fraud vitiates everything, our courts have consistently held that fraud viciates whatever it touches" that's internal quote to a case externally quoting from a Texas Supreme Court case called Stonecipher versus Butts. It doesn't mean what he says it means. "It is stern but just maxim of law that fraud vitiates everything" that is internal citation to an external citation to RadioShack Corporation versus ComSmart. And if you're thinking, "Gosh, RadioShack was probably never president," yeah, that was about RadioShack induced ComSmart to enter into a contract and lied to them about what was in the contract.

0:42:42 Andrew: And then ComS mart went to go void the contract. So yeah, fraud vitiate everything in a contract, okay? That does not mean we get to make Donald Trump president. But I think the best illustration comes from what he thinks is his best argument. The case of American Bush versus City of South Salt Lake, 2006, Utah, 4140, P. 2nd, 1235, clearly states that "the Constitution of the United States, along with state constitutions, do not grant rights to the people, these instruments measure the power of rulers, but they do not measure the rights of the governed. Therefore, the statutes and case law cited by respondents claiming immunity from Brunson's claims" that the sovereign immunity stuff are unconstitutional and the court needs to rule in that matter. Well, that has got to be right, holy shit, right, American Bush versus City of South Salt Lake, says holding that sovereign immunity is unconstitutional. That's got to be a hell of a case, right?

0:43:42 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:42 Andrew: Turns out it's really easy. I'll provide a link in the show notes to American Bush v. City of South Salt Lake, a 2006 Utah Supreme Court case. And instead, I'm just going to read you from the fact pattern. And you stop me when you're laughing too hard. Plaintiffs, American American Bush, Jerry Phelps, DBA Paradise Modeling, and Gail Peterson, DPA Leather and Lace, operate nude dancing establishments in South Salt Lake. Plaintiff Brent E. Reed, by the way, American Bush is an outstanding strip club name.

0:43:42 Thomas: OK.

0:44:17 Andrew: Plaintiff Brent E. Reed owns a lingerie and novelty store also situated in South Salt Lake. In May 2001, the South Salt Lake City Council adopted a new sexually oriented business ordinance that repealed and replaced all previous ordinances of this type. Section 5.56.310G of the new ordinance specifically prohibits any sexually oriented business employee from appearing in a state of nudity before a patron on the premises of a sexually oriented business. In other words, you could no longer have complete nude dancing in South Salt Lake City, Utah. You could only have partially nude dancing. G-string and pasties. The language, which had not appeared in previous versions of the city's sexually oriented business ordinance, effectively eliminates the former subcategory of nude dancing establishments and requires three of the four businesses, American Bush, Paradise Modeling, and Leather and Lace, to either reapply for business licenses as semi-nude dancing establishements or face criminal and civil sanctions for the violation of the new ordinance. So those strip clubs sued the government and said, "We have a free speech right under the Utah Constitution to naked dancing, and" the I don't, me too.

0:45:30 Thomas: I support that, by the way. Therefore,

0:45:34 Andrew: Right, and so even though there's a Supreme Court case that says you don't have a First Amendment right to nude dancing, yeah, I know, right, um, that the Utahr Constitution is greater than the U.S. Supreme Court Constitution, and therefore implicitly should protect our new dancing rights. And then the court said, "Okay, how do we figure out what's in the Utah State Constitution?" And this is the part that they think they are referring to. This is on the floor of the Utah Constitutional Convention, Charles Varian quoted from a treatise written by Thomas Cooley, the preeminent authority of the late 19th century on state constitutional matters, which reads as follows, creature of their power, the instrument of their convenience, designed for their protection in the enjoyment of rights and powers which they possessed before the Constitution was made. It is but the framework of the political government and necessarily based on the pre-existing condition of laws, rights, habits, and modes of thought. There is nothing primitive in it, blah, blah. I'm not going to read all the rest of this nonsense.

But that Cooley quote says is, and here's how the Utah Supreme Court analyzes it, Thus, the rights which are protected by the Utah Constitution are, quote, based upon the pre-existing condition of laws, rights, habits, and modes of thought, then extant, end of quote. Then the Utah constitution said, you know what? Before we had our constitution, we had Brigham Young, and we kind of had this sort of Mormon governance, and it definitely did not include the right to naked dancing.

0:47:29 Andrew: So therefore, our First Amendment does not include the right-to-naked-dancing, and American Bush, I'm sorry, you're going to have to cover that up. That's the argument. I have read to you the factual background and the holding of the case.

0:47:42 Thomas: Naked dancing For president. I agree, actually. I mean, I'm a little surprising, but I agree with this take.

0:47:47 Andrew: That's the first case and the only case cited on the merits of why sovereign immunity does not apply in his crazy lawsuit and why therefore Donald Trump should be immediately inaugurated as president because Utah once held that you had to cover up the American bush If that strikes you as perhaps not standing for the principles for which it was cited in Mr. Brunson's complaint, let me tell you, Mr. Brunson's complaint itself is cobbled together nonsense from other right-wing sources. This is why the citations are off a little bit. This is why there's an internal quote to an external quote and no analysis of the cases. Because he's not a lawyer.

Because he just copied and pasted random stuff found in the most conservative parts of the internet. Stuff you've probably heard, Uncle Frank. Stuck it all in a complaint and said, "I want 2.9 trillion dollars and also Donald Trump to be president and also, you know, a white Christmas," who knows what, right? Like, I don't know how to make that any more clear. This is a frivolous nonsense complaint and the people who are telling you that it is going to result in Donald Trump being made president are lying to you because there is, is no way that a professor of law, there is no way somebody who was the governor of a state who knows damn well what sovereign immunity is, right?

Because Mike Huckabee got sued by cranks all the time when he was governor of Arkansas. That comes with the territory. There is no way Tim Canova, professor of law at Nova Southeastern University, Shepherd Broad College of Law, does not know that he is lying when he says, and I'm to go back and quote from his article, the, "The important national security interests implicated in this case allowed the Brunsons to bypass an appeal that was frozen at the U.S.

0:48:10 Thomas: Right.

0:49:50 Andrew: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and get the case to the Supreme Court, which has now scheduled a hearing for January 6, 2023. I have walked you through how every part of that sentence is a lie. Not just a little lie, a big lie, right? There's no frozen at this point. There was a final decision by the 10th Circuit on the Merits from which you can file a cert petition. That cert petition goes on the Supreme Court docket because everyone does, and it is not scheduled for a hearing. It is scheduled for the conference to vote on whether it will get a hearing, and that vote is going to be a no. The reason it's there is because the U.S. government thought this was so ridiculous that they deigned to file even a single piece of paper in response.

0:50:36 Andrew: Yeah. So, I write in if you've got more questions. Stay involved. Stay skeptical. Maybe if you saw this, maybe realize that the folks over at Breitbart and the folks over at Gateway Pundit, they published this article, uh, and they either didn't know or didn't care that this person, Tim Canova, and others are lying to you. And that should make you mad.

0:51:03 Clip: Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar will eat you.

0:51:09 Thomas: And now it's time for T3BE. This is, well, Uncle Frank, I don't know if you're still listening, but if you are, this is where me, the not lawyer, tries to answer a, uh, bar question. And that was last episode was the question, this episode is the answer, and feel great it. Let's see how I did on this week's bar question. It's

0:51:26 Andrew: So this was, while A was talking with B about baseball, A held onto his bike to keep it from falling over, A then makes a joke, and apparently it's a good one, because while laughing excessively at the joke. B then, this is a fun verb, blundered into A's bike, knocking it to the ground, damaging it such that the bike is no longer functional. Is B liable for conversion? And the multiple choice answers were A, no, because B had no volition to touch the bike. B, no. A had no volition to touch the bike. C, yes, because a conversion has occurred. Or D, yes, because the bike is no longer functional. So, what's a conversion? A conversion is a tort, right? A

0:51:36 Thomas: A real good joke, yeah, sure, got

0:52:14 Andrew: Tort is a civil wrong, it is the civil equivalent of the crime of larceny, so, yeah, that

0:52:15 Thomas: That, that much. Wait, I didn't notice an answer E, yes, because fraud vitiates everything. That could be the answer to every question.

0:52:27 Andrew: Would otherwise, yeah, you could take every bar exam and just, just write in, "Fraud vitiates everything." So, conversion, civil wrong, and it says that order to sue somebody for conversion, you have to show three elements. You have to show that you had a possessory interest in non-real property. Again, this used to matter for like 800 years, from the century, Saxony, till the very beginning of the 20th century, there were different, you had to plead different things based on whether somebody took your land or they took your non-land personal property, right? So first you have to show, I own personal property, a watch, second, right, you have to show that the defendant, the person you're suing, intentionally interfered with your possession of that watch.

0:52:28 Thomas: Yeah. Okay.

0:53:17 Andrew: And third, you have to show then that the defendant's acts are the legal cause of your loss of the property. So the very first question, and one that is, I think, potentially still kind of unresolved in this question is, does wrecking a bike intentionally interfere with the plaintiff's possession of that bike, right?

0:53:40 Thomas: Yeah, because, I mean, you still possess the broken heap of a bike.

0:53:45 Andrew: Yeah, but you no longer possess the bike as a bike, okay? Okay. And so would it be appropriate to bring this as a conversion action? I think yes, is the answer to that kind of underlying question.

0:53:45 Thomas: Okay, okay. Oh, okay, now it would be appropriate,

0:53:59 Andrew: Usually, not.

0:53:59 Thomas: Would it be the best thing to bring it under? Right.

0:54:04 Andrew: But if you listed, because remembering torts, you sue everybody, let God sort them out, and you list every plausible cause of action and let the defendants move out to dismiss the ones that are less that, well supported, I think it would not be inappropriate to use common law conversion for, hey, you mangled my bike. But I will tell you, usually common law conversion is what you get for, oh, you stole my watch. You right? Said, hey can I look at that watch?

I hand it over to you and then you run, right. And then the next time I see you, you're like, oh wait, watch I don't recall that at all, right, and then I sue you in conversion to get my watch back and that's the typical fact pattern of a conversion. So this is an atypical conversion, and then the only, the only question is, do you have to, is it a strict liability offense or are you responsible regardless of what you intended, or did you have to intend to deprive somebody of of their property, and I've already given that away, right, the second element this requires is an intent element. You even use that language, and kind of puzzling it out of of scienter or mens rea. And again, mens reas is what we use in the criminal context, but, but perfectly analogous, and and the exact right inquiry. And so, uh you went with a no because B had no volition to touch the bike. That is consistent with the fact pattern, consistent with the law, and 100% correct, Thomas.

0:55:31 Thomas: Well, better luck next, wait, what, I got one right?

0:55:33 Andrew: You got it exactly right.

0:55:35 Thomas: Holy crap, it feels like I was on a hell of a streak a while back, and now it's, I can't even remember what that feels like. Yay, I got it right, sweet.

0:55:35 Andrew: There you go. Yep. You're back on the bike and

0:55:45 Thomas: Yeah, nobody make any jokes, nobody laugh. I'm on this bike, I don't, don't want you to wreck it. Awesome, I got a right, well, we'll see if, uh, uh, I'm able to do a T3B winner.

0:55:48 Andrew: I will not.

0:55:59 Thomas: There may not be.

0:55:57 Andrew: There may not be. In fact, we can declare

0:56:01 Thomas: The winner is Scombert.

0:56:01 Andrew: All of you you and baby Scumbert

0:56:03 Thomas: Baby Scomber.

0:56:04 Andrew: To be, to be the winner, yeah, let's not even put in there, will not be a contest, please do share out the show on social media please do

0:56:08 Thomas: Yeah. Show the show. We might still look at it, but Scompert is the winner.

0:56:12 Andrew: Yeah I will absolutely, uh, interact with you on, on social medial if you, uh, want to make a guess, uh, but yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna save Thomas and I the need to record, uh, on Christmas, a T3 be winner, and, uh, happy holidays, whatever you celebrate, we love you, or if you're not, don't celebrate at all, we still do love you and

0:56:33 Clip: Thank you for being a friend, yeah, travel down the road with me, say we started from the bottom now we're here girl,

0:56:42 Andrew: I think we have some special, uh, thanks, to, to give out to end to out the episode oh

0:56:45 Thomas: We do indeed. And fitting. It's the final quartile.

0:56:49 Andrew: No

0:56:59 Thomas: And and here, of course, this is thanking our Hall of Famers, our top patrons at patreon.com/law, enjoying all the goodies, the uh Law'd Awful Movies, the Q&A's all the benefits, the ad free shows, lots of stuff, uh, so you know, maybe join up in the new year or something if you haven't considered it it yet, patreon.com/law. And I reached the final quartile a little early for some reason. I don't know why I was thinking that. This is actually a quintiles month, everybody. But it doesn't change the fact that we're on the final quintile.

0:57:27 Andrew: Happens to everyone from time to time, Thomas don't worry about it, totally natural

0:57:29 Thomas: Yeah, I don't know what it's... Along the lines of thinking five five as a not prime number. You know, that's what happens. See, in the equation, I plugged in five five as a not prime number. And that just, it absolutely threw me off. So no, uh, weird. Sorry about that, but here we go. Final quartile. And then we'll just, I don't know, do whatever next week. Thank you to Philip Kizer, Andrea Singletary, Sleazy Lillies, Pain's Trumpet. Happy holidays, Andrew and Thomas. We love you. Oh, thank you. Laugh-O-Copter wants a Denver OA live show, please. A karaoke legend who likes to sit on tables because okay Sergeant Javier Escueda felony trial set for March in retaliation for whistleblowing the death of a subject in police custody. Wow. Absion, join your labor union. Together we bargain, alone we beg.

0:58:16 Thomas: Wordorigins.org has a new book, From Barflies to Bitcoin, How Words Map Our Modern Era, available on Amazon. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse. Yeah. Greg Crimer. Am I contractually obligated to lead a bunch of mean reindeer just because I have a shiny nose?

0:58:33 Thomas: False. Yeah, I agree with that. Anonymous. Seriously, though, live show in Minneapolis. Emotion in lemonade. Derek, give to modestneeds.org, then visit deepfakestop.com. Big easy blasphemy. Please don't read this on the pod. We don't need to call out thanks for what you do born to pun a comedic look at bruce springsteen and RhondaTheDork.com Your turn, Andrew.

0:58:54 Andrew: Oh I love reading RhondaTheDork.com. Anyway, thanks to a string of unpronounceable characters, Malika Chandler, not that Chris Wallace, soggy pants, Malcolm the Dragon, the precious variant dude, Day Jury Belly, at Packy's at last, baby, Liz, Puffy Coats or Violence, W, and then, that's a, a classic, that's back, Heather L, Matthew Vernon, Ian and Ally, Danny Rosari, Theresa Chan, Theresa Gomez, Chris Waltrip, Adam Costa, David in Brooklyn, Mitchell, we scared Thomas away with terrible movies, um, Thomas cannot be scared away with horrible movies, no I know, yeah yeah

0:59:27 Thomas: Well that's that's philosophers in space, in fact, uh yeah of, uh, if you haven't checked that out, now hosted by Callie and and Aaron so, uh, Callie's great, so go check it out

0:59:38 Andrew: Love Callie, absolutely, Michael Ropps, Sam Denow, I agree with that a hundred percent, and our all-time great holder of the Conrad Michaels inaugural chair of excellence, Sam Buck, Sam, we love you of

0:59:49 Thomas: Webster's dictionary defines excellence as the state of quality of being excellent

0:59:57 Andrew: Being excellent, entry number two, Sam Buck

1:00:02 Thomas: Awesome, and that's our show, I'm gonna go hopefully deal with a healthy Scombert, uh, so much fun, and hope, uh, you had a great Christmas, 'cause this is probably out, I guess the day after Christmas is when this comes out. So I hope you had great Christmas or anything you celebrate. Merry Christmas, Andrew. Have a happy holiday, enjoy some what other people find as disgusting, 14 year old eggnog or whatever you're doing over there, I'm sure it's delightful, and Uh, we'll see.

1:00:09 Andrew: Yep yep merry Christmas, Thomas and

1:00:27 Thomas: You next time.

1:00:26 Andrew: See you

1:00:30 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.

1:01:03 Clip: www.openargs.com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Yodel Mountain and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media LLC, all rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Leverage, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Debra Smith. Special thanks to Teresa Gomez, who runs our live shows and heads up the OA Wiki, follow at OA Wiki on Twitter. Additional thanks to the moderators of the Opening Arguments Facebook community, Emily Waters, Alicia Cook, Eric Brewer, Natalie Newell, Brian Ziegenhagen, and Teresa. And finally, thanks to Thomas Smith, who edits the show and created the fabulous theme music, which was used with permission.

1:01:40 Andrew: G-string and pasties.