WTW15: A Scandalous Chapter of Kilborn's Past Uncovered

Transcript

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

0:00:42 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke, Tea in the Tea Edition. How's it going, Lydia Smith, my beautiful wife?

0:00:46 Lydia: This is my favorite kind of episode, I think, because I, live for the tea. Um, please spill it.

0:00:58 Thomas: And that's not the kind of thing you get to hear me do much because I'm not a tea person.

0:01:02 Lydia: No, I know.

0:01:03 Thomas: By the way, I'm Thomas Smith. How you doing, Where There's Woke? Um, is the final installment, I, I think, I uh, the Professor Kilbourne, uh, exam question controversy, yeah, which uh didn't have all that much to do with law exam questions, uh, spoilers, uh, you already know by now, yeah.

0:01:15 Lydia: Saga. Not spoilers.

0:01:24 Thomas: But I'm going not to beat around the, I've, I have teased not, not only you, but our poor listeners for like 18 hours worth of this stuff. Is so good. I, Santiago sent this over, there was every chance that this was going to be like, ah, it's a dud or whatever. He sent it over. I was like, this is everything I would have wanted and better. So that I saw this random, random ass comment.

0:01:47 Thomas: I actually can't even remember where. I don't think I kept it open. Open and maybe it was an angel sent from on high to come down and say, one time this guy was a piece of shit in this case. Then I, you know, and here's, okay, actually I did want to say this. Was funny is when I searched it, I actually found a lot of cases citing it, which is like, that's, you Know, that's kind of rare. Like not the law, but like there's a shit Gitload of cases in life, you know, like legal cases, the percentage that end up getting cited regularly as in like more than, you I don't know, 10 times, that's is an elite percentage of cases.

0:01:39 Lydia: Yeah. Mm hmm.

0:02:23 Lydia: Yeah. And this guy does not need anything else feeding his ego. So, uh

0:02:29 Thomas: It won't be doing that because I'm sure he would like no one to be able to find this. Yeah, I'll tell you what it's cited for later, but that was very interesting. It made me even more because that was all I could find. Like I would Google it and I would just find case after case that just cited it by name and be like, fuck, that's not, but it is, that is very interesting that then I mentioned before, or might've mentioned, I wanted to make sure it was him. Who knows? Jason Kilbourne is like, you know, it's pretty uncommon, but like not super, I double checked. I checked the, places that he worked. It matches the places they, so like, this is him. You ready for this? I'm going to get right, I'm finally getting to it.

0:02:31 Lydia: -oh. Okay. Yeah.

0:03:06 Lydia: I am ready.

0:03:10 Thomas: Is the case of Kilbourne et from 2004. Well, essentially the final kind of resolution of it, January 9th, 2004. In the last bit of fairness to our poor Jason Kilbourne, I will note he was a a younger man, how did you find out how old he actually is? I forget, like Now, so that, oh, I'm way too tired to do math. Oh, okay, fucking god, I don't know. Jesus Christ, he was 1972. 1972, and so he was 32, 30, so he's 32 years old, that's true, that's actually not as young as I was thinking. I didn't know how old he was for sure. So this is a 32 year old grown ass man, actually. Now that I think about it, here we go. I'm going to probably read like all of this.

0:03:15 Lydia: Okay. Okay. I think he's 51 now. Mm -hmm. 2023. 2023. 2023 minus 51 is 1976, 70. Yeah. Not a spring chicken, but.

0:04:02 Lydia: Oh,

0:04:02 Thomas: This is, it's not that long, but it's, it'S, there's no part of it that I would skip. Like it's that good. I, Defendant Igor Bakir, from here on out as Bakir brought a motion for sanctions against plaintiff Jason Kilbourne pursuant to the court's inherent power. Order dated March 7th, 2003, the court awarded sanctions in the amount of $18,641 a report and a recommendation of the magistrate judge. This is kind of some procedural crap that's, it is kind OF interesting, but it doesn't really matter because the sanctions were awarded and then they were actually vacated remand and remanded. And Oh, that was another twist of the story. I did find part of it myself, but it was that order that was remanded and vacated.

0:04:02 Lydia: My God. Yeah. Right.

0:04:43 Thomas: So I was like, oh, he never, oh maybe it was not a real thing. No, but, was remanded and then the court, it kind of a technicality thing, and then the court was like no, yeah, sanctions. So redid it and it was because, you know, they just kind of left something out. Parties have now made post -hearing submissions and the The following are the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law. I just wanted to read mainly that. Like, this is the fucking court. This is not me. This is like a magazine, like a gossip magazine. Here we go.

0:05:14 Lydia: OK.

0:05:14 Thomas: The purposes of this decision, the record can be summarized as followed. Bakir and plaintiff Olga Lukashevsky were a married couple and recent immigrants from Russia in late March 2000. Lukashevsky accepted a position at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering, by the way, that's where Kilbourne worked, and I verified that, as a systems analyst. While working at the firm, Lukaszevsky met Kilbourne, an attorney licensed to practice in New York and the District of Columbia. Kilbourne speaks fluent Russian. Note, that was an interesting component of it. Claims, and, I might mean, believe him that he speaks as well, because he He said, yeah, that's like kind of impressive.

0:05:48 Lydia: Yeah. I was just going to say that was a comment he made. Right. That he was like, I speak her language.

0:05:53 Thomas: Yeah. He's a multilingual or he's a Russian spy. I don't know. Do you think this is going, hon? I'm just curious. Any predictions? Any thoughts?

0:05:53 Lydia: Yeah. Sexy time.

0:06:02 Thomas: That's always a good prediction. At Lukashevsky's request, WCP, which is the law firm, configured the couple's home computer. Oh, we get some year 2000 technology Talk. You ready? The configured couple's home computer so that it would automatically dial up the law firm's server So that It actually says that in the thing. It sounded like this.

0:06:12 Lydia: Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. For posterity, we must we must capture this.

0:06:29 Thomas: It's part of the official record. I had to read it. So that she could access work from the home computer. Pretty, pretty fancy in 2000. But when you're a big law firm, you know, before the, yeah, 20 years before the pandemic. According to Bakir, because Lukashevsky's English was very weak, she agreed that he could access her law firm email inbox to help her with her work. Therefore, the.

0:06:35 Lydia: Yeah, love a work from a home situation. Situation.

0:06:51 Lydia: Wait, her husband's going to help her with her work?

0:06:54 Thomas: Yeah. So he and again, this is the court's fucking finding. In fact, he spoke English better and read English. So she was like, yeah, hey, can you, you know, maybe you can read stuff to me when I can't understand it. Who knows?

0:07:01 Lydia: So would he assist kind of thing. Okay. Gotcha.

0:07:07 Thomas: Something like that.

0:07:07 Lydia: Okay, all right. Continue.

0:07:09 Thomas: So she agreed that he could access her law firm email inbox to her with her work. Therefore, the home computer was configured so that when the computer was turned on, the email inbox popped up on the screen showing the header and first three lines of a message.

0:07:22 Lydia: Oh, no.

0:07:24 Thomas: Bakir claims that one evening he discovered an email on the home computer from Kilbourne to Lukashevsky thanking her for, quote, good sex. Bakir claims, I love the email too, to the work email. Thank you for the good sex, possibly. That's it. This is according to Lukaszewski, or sorry, this is according to Bakir.

0:07:37 Lydia: Yes. Thank you oh my for the good sex yeah

0:07:49 Thomas: Of the intrigue, the Russian couple, and he speaks fluent Russian, and he's having a dalliance with the wife, but this is not the end by any means. Claims that he confronted Lukashevsky, who confessed to him her affection for Kilbourne. According to Kilbourne, he sent an email to Lukaschevsky counseling her about divorcing Bakir after she sought his advice, but he denied that it made any reference to sex. So his version of the story for that is like, oh, yeah, I I didn't say thanks for the good sex. It said, yeah, you should divorce him. I don't, this seems fucking weak to me.

0:07:53 Lydia: Okay what yeah thanks for the conversation on

0:08:24 Thomas: Yeah. In July, 2000, Lukaszewski left WCP, the law firm. Thereafter, she left Bakir and their childhood. Holy shit. And their child moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana with Kilbourne where lived in Kilbourne's house for the next two and a half years. Bakir then brought an action for divorce against Lukashevsky in Fairbanks County Circuit Court, alleging adultery. The divorce action, he, Bakir's lawyer, who cares, he's the, he's the husband, I mean, by the way, he's, He's the sympathetic party, as far as I'm concerned. But he hired a lawyer. And then it says Lukashevsky, that's the woman, hired attorney Richard Gray to defend her.

But she fired him early in the divorce action and purported to proceed without counsel, seems interesting. You might think maybe she's being helped by the lawyer she's fucking. On July 17th, 2001, than a year after Bakir allegedly read the email between Kilborn and Lukashevsky, the two filed this action against Bakir, alleging that Bakir unlawfully intercepted email communications from Lukaschevsky's law firm email account in violation of 18 U.S.C. blah, blah, and Virginia law. Section 270 provides for liability when a defendant intentionally accesses without authorization a through which an electronic communication, blah, blah. So it's like a hacking kind of law.

0:08:25 Lydia: Yeah okay wow Wow. Hmm. Yeah.

0:09:13 Lydia: Doubt it. Yeah, okay.

0:09:37 Lydia: Oh, wow. Uh huh.

0:09:49 Thomas: The divorce action, you know, where do you think this is? Do you have any predictions from here on out? I'm just curious.

0:09:55 Lydia: Don't know. It's a wild ride?

0:09:56 Thomas: Yeah. You're right. That's smart. Smart move. There's bother. The divorce action, claimed that Lukashevsky took marital funds before she moved to Louisiana with Kilborn and laundered those funds through the accounts of family members. Although Kilbourne, this is Bakir claims, so we don't know for sure, but this is just the record of what Bakir blamed. Claimed. Although Kilbourne claimed that $25,000 he used for a down payment on his house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was borrowed from Lukaszewski's grandmother and that he paid it back in three months, Bakir's lawyer, Fikuri, testified that the judge in the divorce action transaction ordered that $12,000 be returned to Bakir, finding that the down payment was money from the marital estate.

Well, there you go. So he actually, it's more than just him alleging that he won on that case. That had been laundered through Lukaszewski's grandmother to Kilbourne. Fukuri, again, the lawyer, also testified. It's interesting that the lawyer is testifying. So that shows you where we've gotten. This is not the divorce action. This ist like downstream of that Because the lawyer is testifying to what happened. Fukuri also testified that during the divorce action, Kilbourne sent various correspondence to Fukuri. Guesses? Anything?

0:09:59 Lydia: Oh my god. Yeah.

0:11:09 Lydia: Forward letter of recommendation?

0:11:13 Thomas: I'm disappointed in you for signing this divorce action or whatever.

0:11:14 Lydia: How dare you?

0:11:20 Thomas: Kilbourne Set various correspondence to Fukui and witnesses in that action containing threats of criminal prosecution or deportation, threats to contact a party or witnesses' employer and threats to escalate the litigation to make the divorce action cost prohibitive. Yeah, he been accused of intimidating fucking witnesses and threatening deportation to this poor husband who, know, I mean, I guess, I again I, I, I don't know the details of this interpersonal thing, but for all we know, it's the husband who seems to have been having an affair with the wife, and then, oh,

0:11:20 Lydia: Wow.

0:11:38 Lydia: This guy is nuts. Nuts.

0:12:02 Lydia: Sure.

0:12:02 Thomas: Wouldn't you know it, they move to Baton Rouge to live together, and he's trying to sue over money she took. I take it back. There is a decent amount we can pretty plausibly say. Who knows, like, who knows if Bakir sucked? I don't fucking know. You know, you never know. But like, he, he won on the idea that she took $25 ,000 and gave it to Kilborn. Like he won.

0:12:16 Lydia: To buy a house.

0:12:22 Thomas: Yeah, he Won that. So, now he's like, in order to get out of this, like lawsuit, he's threatening to deport him and threatening other witnesses, like pretty big.

0:12:32 Lydia: I mean, this, seems like pretty big and incredibly unethical. And I'm surprised he's still allowed to practice law.

0:12:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It does seem surprising, doesn't it? And by the way, I, to make the divorce action cost prohibitive. I mean, think about that. He's he's saying he's a lawyer. Remember he's an expert lawyer. He is threatening this poor guy saying, Hey, if you don't drop this, I'm going to make it so expensive. You can't continue it. And let me tell you that gets really expensive.

0:12:45 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:13:06 Thomas: That seems like a really shitty thing for a lawyer to do, you think?

0:13:09 Lydia: He is sleeping with the wife in his New Orleans home.

0:13:11 Thomas: Or even if he's not. Bakir initially hired Roger Edelman to defend him in the federal action. So this is a different action, this is the federal action. Then Edelman withdrew, and then he hired a new new lawyer, David Schur and Mark Cummings, later on. Only mentioned that. Normally, I would leave it out, hon, but I mentioned it because during the federal action, Kilbourne made threats to Bakir, Edelman, and potential witnesses in this action, including threats of deportation and criminal prosecution for inter alia perjury or suborning perjure. Other threats were more obtuse. For example, on January 23rd, 2002, Kilbourn sent a threatening email directly to Bakir, warning Bakir that, quote, a fool and his money are soon partied. And told Bakir to, quote. Fuck off.

0:13:12 Lydia: Yeah? Oh my god.

0:13:55 Lydia: Oh my God. The combination of those two things is really funny where he's like, he's like this poetry.

0:14:01 Thomas: Yeah. Quoting Shakespeare. Duh, duh. Also, fuck you. I know that's not from Shakespeare. I was just joking. Kilbourne acknowledged at the hearing that he sent this email to Bakhir, he claimed that he was simply attempting to learn the identity of Bakhir's new new counsel. Doesn't this sound familiar? Oh yeah, sure. I sent that email, but it was, you know, it was a friendly way that I was totally fucking guilt tripping my fucking student into not, you know? Signing a letter against me.

0:14:04 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:14:32 Lydia: UIC know that this exists?

0:14:34 Thomas: Don't, I don'T know. I mean, I mean it. So it's 20 years ago. So like part of me is like, that's a long time. Granted.

0:14:36 Lydia: Can we send it to them? It's the pattern. It's the pattern.

0:14:42 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. This is, this This is, I, can you see why I was fucking dying when I got this email from our lovely Santiago who sent me this? And it's unbelievable. It's perfect. These people, I think I told you that. I was like, I can't tell you what this is, but these fucking people never, oh no, I posted this on Facebook.

0:14:49 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:15:01 Thomas: These people never fail. Never fail to be this exact person. They just don't. A reason that he's a piece of shit and he can't handle this entire thing. It's because he's piece of and he's can't deal with this entire thing and he is. It's just, that's who he is. There's, like halfway through. And what part of this could I have left out so far? Like there's, it's gold.

0:15:15 Lydia: Yeah. God. Yeah.

0:15:23 Thomas: It's gold, Jared. Kilbourne threatened to contact Buck here's employer and to subpoena Buck here his work computer and informed defense counsel that he would do so unless defense counsel filed for a protective order. The motion for a protective order was filed, Kilbourne agreed not to pursue discovery from Buck here's employer, lawyer. Why would he do that, you ask?

0:15:44 Thomas: To cost him money. He's just making it impossible to...

0:15:44 Lydia: Don't know. Why? Oh, yeah. Delay, delay, delay.

0:15:48 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Spearheaded the divorce and federal actions, essentially acting as Lukaszewski's lawyer in both cases, even though, this is kind of important, he has not been admitted to the Virginia Bar. Kilbourne signed, drafted, and argued all pleadings on behalf of Lukashevsky in this action. Kilbourne admitted to providing legal guidance to Lukaschevsky in a letter to Edelman dated September 5th, 2001. Oh man, six days before 9-11.

0:15:48 Lydia: Yeah. Oh, boy. Wow.

0:16:18 Thomas: To Kilbourn if the, just for fun, the fact pattern was like, then fucking those planes hit the building. Yeah. Like that was nuts. Like I just, it's not relevant, but like, fuck, did you see that? Anyway.

0:16:22 Lydia: 9 -11. Yeah, it was a dark day in history. Yeah. Of

0:16:28 Thomas: Yeah, Kilbourne made at least one telephone call to Fakuri, Bakir's divorce attorney, and admitted to helping Lukashevsky write pleadings in both cases. Testified that he helped Lukaschevsky, quote, understand the law in preparing the divorce action, that he communicated with Bakir'S lawyers on her behalf in the federal action, and that he wrote all of the motions in the federal action.

0:16:50 Lydia: Course.

0:16:51 Thomas: Response to an interrogatory request from defense counsel, he claimed an attorney-client privilege to the email, attorney work product, an attorney-client privilege to the email communication with Lukaszewski that is the subject of this action. Oh, okay. Well, that's what this fucking action is. According to Edelman, flouted the fact that because he's, oh God, this is good, when you think he can't be any shittier. Kilbourne flaunted the fact que because he is not a Virginia attorney, he was not subject to disciplinary action for his conduct. Conduct.

0:17:22 Lydia: Yeah.

0:17:24 Thomas: And I, by way a fucking decision saying ironically is not common. Like the Virginia State Bar admonished Kilbourne for practicing law without a license in response to a complaint filed by Lukashevsky with the state bar against Gray, the attorney she discharged in the divorce action, see Virginia State Bar letter dated August 6, 2001. So, just to decode that slightly, because I know it's hard when you're not reading it, she complained against her attorney that she discharged. So, he's doing some sort of complaint to the bar.

0:17:29 Lydia: Yeah.

0:17:58 Thomas: And, bar took the time out of their day to be like, hey, yeah, cool. But, like. Is Kilborn.

0:17:57 Lydia: Yeah, what's Going on here? Yeah.

0:18:04 Thomas: Yeah. Why is this other guy practicing law without a license here? Just an unrelated issue. God, there's more. It goes on. Kilbourne admitted to helping Lukaszewski write Fakuri an email, dated October 5, 2001, in which they threatened to rack up thousands of dollars in legal fees by prosecuting the federal action and by filing a second divorce action if Bakir proceeded with his attempts to track down missing marital funds in the Virginia divorce action.

0:18:08 Lydia: Yeah.

0:18:32 Lydia: Trying to think, is the word extortion, like, like

0:18:34 Thomas: It feels like extortion. Distortion. Kilburn repeatedly offered to drop the federal action if Bakir would drop the divorce action and his claim to missing marital funds. This fact that this guy is not only an attorney but teaches the fucking law, like, on man, yeah.

0:18:49 Lydia: Wow. It's Unforgivable, honestly, um, like losing that two percent merit salary adjustment or whatever, like, no, he should be gone. This is ridiculous.

0:18:57 Thomas: Unbelievable. And I, I want to know, the only possible thing here is mistaken identity. If somebody else named Jason Kilborn worked at at that law firm the same years, then I have the wrong guy. But like, I mean, fucking, I doubt it. Especially with so many of the parallels, like there's a lot of parallels. Also insisted on numerous occasions that Bakir admit to perjury in the divorce action in exchange for dropping the federal action.

0:18:58 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yikes.

0:19:23 Thomas: Kilbourn did not personally appear at pretrial conferences held September 26, 2001 and January 17, 2002 in the federal election. And he failed to notify Edelman that he would not be appearing. Both times, Edelman heard at the last moment that Kilborn would not being appearing. Kilborn took no depositions in the case and attended no pretrial proceedings except his own deposition. That's funny. He never produced the allegedly, quote, intercepted emails that were the subject of the complaint. Moreover, Kilbourne failed to attend a March 1st, 2002 hearing before this court on Bakir's dispositive motions filed February 11th, 2002 by Bakir new counsel.

And he did not receive the court's permission to be absent. He did not notify Bakir's counsel that he would not be appearing. Acknowledged that he eventually learned that Bakir and Lukashevsky would email each other daily so that Bakir could help her with her work. He maintained that when he initiated the federal action, he believed that Bakir had no authority to access Lukaschevsky's work email account. This is important because again, you get in trouble If you file a complaint that has stuff you know is false. And now he's saying, oh, I didn't know that like

0:19:24 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah.

0:20:32 Thomas: Here would help her with her work. And that's why he had access, which seems fishy to me since, you know, why is he involved in this at all? All, well, it's because Lukashevsky Told him about it. Maintains, and I think he gets away with this one, so whatever. He maintained that when he initiated the federal action, he believed that Bakir had no authority. He claimed that Lukasevsky told him that she did not give Bakir access and that Lukashevsky's aunt was prepared to testify that Bakir told her that he somehow accessed Lukaszevsky account without authority. What is that? I don't look I'll maybe believe that, like, okay, let's say, let's play it out, hon, ah, I can't believe my Russian lover, we have to speak Russian, I can' believe that you fucking, you let your husband see my email thanking you for the good sex, and then, you know, the the Russian woman is like, ah, I didn't let him see that, he hacked me, I got fucking hacked.

0:20:41 Lydia: I know. No.

0:21:05 Lydia: Know, yeah.

0:21:27 Lydia: Yeah.

0:21:27 Thomas: I could see that, but then this thing that, like, Lukashevsky's aunt was prepared to testify that Bakir told her that this fucking, what? Why would, okay, that just seems, I guess, yeah.

0:21:32 Lydia: She comes in and certs herself and, yeah. Yeah.

0:21:40 Thomas: In In response to the February 11, 2002 motion for judgment on the pleadings by Bakir's new counsel, Kilbourne filed a cross-motion for voluntary dismissal, which he neglected to serve on Bakir's counsel. So it's like he dismissed it.

0:21:40 Lydia: Like Yenta.

0:21:54 Thomas: It's the worst everything. No, it's intentional, this is all tactics, so, like, doing nuisancey stuff but then trying to get away with it. So he dismissed, the voluntary dismissal means, like, oh, never mind on the lawsuit, but he didn't tell Bakir that he did that, so, like, Bakir might still be, you know, racking up legal time or whatever, like, like, it's all calculated.

0:21:53 Lydia: This guy sucks at the law.

0:22:11 Lydia: Yeah, so Citibank should be viewing him, him, yeah.

0:22:19 Thomas: When I talk about cockroach, yeah, fucking Kilbourne's the cockroach. Oh, he's the cockroach the whole time. On on March 1st, 2002, defense counsel appeared, but Kilbourne did not. Again, yeah. On the theory that like he's just costing him money because he doesn't tell counsel that.

0:22:22 Lydia: Yeah. This guy yeah.

0:22:36 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, the court dismissed the action with prejudice reflected in an order dated March 6th, 2002 to and granted Bakir leave to seek sanctions. Eventually, the sanctions motion was made and referred to the magistrate judge for a report and recommendation. Kilbourne neglected to appear at the hearing before the magistrate judge, who determined that Kilbourne failed to Rule 26 disclosures, appear for a hearing on the defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings, serve his omnibus response to defendant's motions for judgment, and some other stuff. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. Okay, but yeah, so he failed to do a bunch of stuff that we've already heard. Magistrate judge recommended sanctioning Kilbourne $33,481 for the attorney fees and costs incurred by Bakir. Now, I'm going to warn you that the ending to this is so perfectly fucking depressing.

0:23:08 Lydia: Oh,

0:23:25 Thomas: Content Yeah, note, this just, the fucking assholes pretty much always win. By order dated March 7th, the court accepted the report and but reduced the amount of sanctions to 18 ,000. Kilbourne appealed and the Fourth Circuit vacated the order and remanded. I told you about that already. Noting that the order lacked a determination that Kilbourne had, quote, willfully disobeyed a court order or that he filed suit or proceeded with the litigation in bad faith, vexatiously.

0:23:24 Lydia: No, that sucks, yeah.

0:23:43 Lydia: Oh, please, right.

0:23:51 Thomas: Well, hold on. That's the technicality. And then the court's like, okay, sorry, we fucked up, I guess. So, Bakir seeks sanctions equal to his attorney's fees and costs in the amount of $35,587, pursuant to the court's inherent power. As the Fourth Circuit noted, sanctions are appropriate under the court'S inherent power if a party, quote, filed suit or proceeded with the litigation in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons. Reasons. The court's inherent powers extends to a full range of litigation abuses. I think that's why this is cited because it's kind of an interesting I believe it's like, can you sanction a guy who wasn't barred in, you know, like, cause he's in that weird zone of like, he wasn't actually practicing, but he did effectively do this stuff. So I think that's why it's cited a lot now because it's like, yeah, look, they did impose the sanctions, meaning you have the power.

0:24:34 Lydia: Yeah. There's no rule that a dog can't play basketball.

0:24:45 Thomas: Yeah, there is a rule that we can charge a dog for being a piece of shit while playing basketball, essentially. Kilborn has proceeded in this action in bad faith, vexatiously and for an oppressive reason. Oh, so sorry, this me set this up. Know ultimately I tease that this doesn't end great, but there's a bit of a a momentary victory here because you had a very visceral reaction, I don't blame you, when the higher court, the circuit court said, well, you haven't said that he willfully disobeyed a court order and that he filed suit or proceeded with litigation in bad faith, vexatiously, or for oppressive reasons.

And that's why it got remanded. Let me read you this sentence. So this is after that remanding, this same court again, you know, that's what remand means. It it goes back. Uh, so here's this sentence on, you ready? Kilborn has proceeded in this action in bad faith, vexatiously and for an oppressive reason. So that's the court saying, all right, we didn't write literally the words you did this, but fucking obviously he did it. So I feel like that's higher court being a piece of shit. And this court being like, allright,

0:24:46 Lydia: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:25:47 Thomas: Man. Yeah. Read it. Like he did this. Uh you know, yeah, we didn's yeah.

0:25:49 Lydia: Use your brain, yeah.

0:25:51 Thomas: Fucking read the words on the page. So they They just decide, all right, we will write the magic words, yes, he did this. And that's what this decision is. Beside the fact that Kilbourne apparently brought this action to drain Bakir economically, make it difficult for him to litigate the pending divorce action, and or to seek tactical advantage in the state divorce action.

Kilbourne's sanctionable conduct is evidenced by the cumulative effect of his failure to appear at scheduled hearings without providing notice to his adversary, his threats, intimidation, accusations made against Bakir, but here's counsel but here're witnesses and exploring his status as an attorney in that regard and his failure to serve his motion for voluntary, just, I think this is the court saying these are all the fucking reasons, yes, obviously it was vexatious and you should have just fucking let it stand, assholes, but whatever, they're screaming at the wind because the higher court won't see it again because they just did it and then it's fine, and his failure to service motion for monetary dismissal, like, they're just calling out all the bullshit shit he did because he really did, and here's where it takes a turn, hun.

0:25:53 Lydia: Yeah. Oh

0:26:52 Thomas: Accordingly, considering Kilbourne's limited financial condition, to which he testified can, at the hearing, the court imposes sanctions against Kilbourne for seven thousand five hundred dollars, representing a portion of buck here's attorney's fees and costs in this action. Kilbourne shall make payments and equal monthly installments of twelve hundred and fifty dollars per month for six months, with payments due on the first of each month, and with the first payment due on, each payment shall be sent, made payable for, if Kilborn fails to make any of the payment, council, blah -ba -dee -blah -ba back here shall be entitled to blah -da -da blah -de -da blah So ordered.

0:27:02 Lydia: My God, so He just basically ruined this guy's life. Yeah.

0:27:31 Thomas: After that, after all that, he does essentially, in the first Batman movie, where it's the very end and Jack Nicholson's Joker is like, Batman's like, just punching him and finally gonna kill him, and he just puts on glasses, he's like, you wouldn't hit a man with glasses, would you? It's that, he, all this shit, this fucking, fucking weasel, I hate this fucking guy, he's absolutely terrible, he does all this shit and then in the end, after putting him through all that, oh, I don't have any money, oh, I can't afford the bigaboo, and then the court for some reason is like, oh, poor guy. Why?

0:27:47 Lydia: Oh, yeah. He's a terrible person.

0:28:09 Lydia: Yeah.

0:28:09 Thomas: Why? It's fucking insane. The legal system, let me tell you, not top notch, you know?

0:28:11 Lydia: I know. Very disappointing. Out of ten would not recommend.

0:28:21 Thomas: My that maybe this guy is actually a piece of shit. What do you think? You got a ruling on that, Judge Lydia?

0:28:29 Lydia: Is terrible. I don't think he should be allowed to practice law anywhere. He shouldn't have been allowed to practice on where he should not be allowed to teach law. It would be a shame if this case ended up on a lot of people's.

0:28:33 Thomas: Or teach law? They have to know about, like, how could

0:28:42 Lydia: Well, Well, I want to like I want to send it to UIC.

0:28:42 Thomas: They not know about it? You

0:28:45 Lydia: I want it to all the all the law. The Catherine Rubino who like wrote about it. I'm like, oh, you know.

0:28:45 Thomas: Should. Yeah, we need. So that's what we need to do. Business meeting right now. Hey, actually, anyone listening, if this is anything you think you could help us with, we need fucking a website where we do write ups of this so that because that seems to be the way to get, you know, yeah, people hear this podcast, but when you want to get stuff like kind of officially done, you need to just be able to point to like read this, you know?

0:29:01 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:11 Thomas: And then spread, I think, I don't know.

0:29:13 Lydia: Something that lives on the Internet in that way. Mm-hmm. But

0:29:14 Thomas: Yeah, let us know if you could do that. Help with that. We're so maxed out, but we're hoping to do stuff like that because, yeah, this is unreal.

0:29:21 Lydia: I'm mad. This guy's getting away with a lot. And it's like he's been getting away with a lot for 20 years.

0:29:28 Thomas: Yes, is the kind of person, and gosh, I hate to say, I think I've met a person like this before, that seemingly can just abandon any commitment to the truth whatsoever when they want to win a legal fight. They can just say whatever they want because, fuck it, there's apparently nothing matters and you can just saying things because you can get away with it because you know you're little shit weasel and the then you can cry about it and then somebody will be like oh well don't be mad because something I don't know what but uh yeah it is

0:29:38 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's abusive. It's an abusive manipulative and and unfortunately in this case in particular preying on immigrant you and and you know uh his economic situation yeah like it's just it's it's honestly evil at that point um he steals his wife too like

0:29:58 Thomas: Yeah threatened to deport him unbelievable holy shit what a journey, what a journal, we tried to track down if they're still married or whatever, something, or still together we couldn't find it, yeah, he's probably, maybe he keeps that uh under wraps for some reason I don't know, oh

0:30:13 Lydia: Geez yeah I couldn't find anything yeah I even like went to, because he has a website, right, through Weebly is his website provider. But I like went in way back and I was like clicking on all the times that it was there because he had like an about me section. And I was, like, really hoping for, like. Here's me and my wife. But it's just about him doing. Yeah. It's just About Him Doing Races.

0:30:33 Thomas: Man uh my wife he's like, yeah, watch, I speak your language, my wife, that'd be so funny if he was bullshitting about all that I know he's probably not but like yeah, this fucking guy, now uh we're not done hun, because I can't let this go this is why we're doing the show because when I get mad enough about something, it inspires me to spend countless fucking decades researching this. Like it's just, it's, so much and it's infuriating. And now I want to go back in light of all we know, in lightofallweknow. I kept I it from you a little bit, everybody. I wantto play the fuller version, probably, I don't know the whole thing, of the Bill Maher segment. Now let's listen to this. Just listen to this in light of what you know.

0:30:45 Lydia: Yeah. Fluent in Russian. Right. Yeah. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah.

0:31:30 Clip: And finally, New Rule. If you're part of today's woke revolution, you need to study the part of revolutions where they spin out of control because the revolutionaries get so drunk on their own purifying elixir, they imagine they can reinvent the very nature of human beings.

0:31:51 Clip: Communists thought selfishness, selfishness could be cast out of human nature. Russian revolutionaries spoke of the new Soviet man who wasn't motivated by self -interest, but instead wanted to be part of a collective. No, it turns out he wanted to be on a yacht in a Gucci tracksuit holding a vodka and a prostitute. Not standing in line all day for a potato. The problem with communism and with some very recent ideologies here at home is that they think you can change reality by screaming at it. That you can bend human nature by holding your breath, but that's the difference between reality and your mommy.

0:32:35 Lydia: Of it makes sense.

0:32:36 Clip: Lincoln once said that you can can repeal all past history, but you still cannot repeal human nature. But he's canceled now, so fuck him.

0:32:34 Thomas: What, what, that's the only slightly funny joke in this entire thing, well

0:32:51 Clip: Yesterday, I asked chat GPT, are there any similarities between today's woke revolution and Chairman Mao's cultural revolution of the 1960s? And it wrote back, how long do you have? Because again, in China, we saw how a revolutionary thought he could do a page one rewrite of humans. Mao ordered his citizens to throw off the Four Olds.

0:33:06 Thomas: It's not funny I don't what is the Chat GPT connect okay

0:33:09 Lydia: I don't know.

0:33:19 Clip: Old thinking, old culture, old customs, and old habits.

0:33:18 Thomas: Let's, this is, this is important, this is what he's comparing this event to this woke controversy to

0:33:24 Clip: So your whole life went in the garbage overnight. No biggie. And those who resisted were attacked by an army of purifiers called the Red Guard, who went around the country putting dunce caps on people. Yeah. Who didn't take to being a new kind of mortal being. A lot of pointing and shaming went on, oh, and about a million dead, and the only way to survive was to plead insanity for the crime of being insufficiently radical, then apologize and thank the state for the chance to see what a piece of shit you are.

And of course, submit to re-education, or as we call it here in America, freshman orientation. Listen to this story, there's a law professor at at the University of Illinois Chicago named Jason Kilbourne, whose crime was that on one of his exams, he used a hypothetical case where a black female worker sued her employer for race and gender discrimination, alleging that managers had called her two slur words, the type of real world case these students might one day confront. And knowing the extreme sensitivity of today's students, he didn't write the two taboo words on the test, just the first letter of each.

He was teaching his students how to fight racism in the place where it matters most, the criminal justice system. But because he merely alluded to those words, again in the service of a good cause, he was banned from campus, placed on indefinite leave, and made to wear the dunce cap. No, not really the duns cap part, but but our American version of that: eight weeks of sensitivity training, weekly 90 -minute sessions with a diversity trainer, and having to write five self -reflection papers. A grown -ass man, a liberal law professor. If you can't see the similarities between that and this, the person who needs reeducation is you. Yes.

0:33:24 Thomas: Oh here

0:34:08 Lydia: Burn.

0:34:16 Thomas: We go I So in light of all we know, it's just, it's the, it's, and then you, then the next step of this process is realizing, oh, Bill Mahr is the same guy. They're the same guy. It's a lot of the same qualities, it's this angry arrogant white man who Bill Maher is the most, like, you can't believe how dumb everyone else is but him person and it's these kind of white men who just cannot accept at the the slightest hint that they might be wrong about something, this hysterical notion that that what we saw here, which was the the school investigating some very serious claims and in the end being like, take a class, maybe. By the way, they didn't even require it at first. At first, they're like,

0:35:40 Lydia: Ridiculous. It's just I'm sitting here shaking my head.

0:35:57 Lydia: Yeah. Ja.

0:36:28 Lydia: Ja

0:36:29 Thomas: We recommend it.

0:36:29 Lydia: Ja.

0:36:30 Thomas: And then they're, like, well, now we require it. Probably because you're a piece of shit and doing a bunch of media tours and do a piece, you know, protests and stuff. That's the same as this fucking Maoist, this revolution.

0:36:43 Lydia: Red Guard.

0:36:43 Thomas: Revolution, the you out of your fucking mind, yes, the answer is yes, I

0:36:44 Lydia: Yeah,

0:36:49 Clip: We we do have our own Red Guard here, but they do their rampaging on on Twitter. Here's a cute example from a couple of years ago. The banjo player from Mumford & Sons tweeted that he liked a book, a book that apparently had not been approved by the revolution. So of course, he had to delete the tweet, then take time away from the band. Oh my god, you mean this could have affected Mumford and Sons?

0:36:55 Lydia: I don't

0:37:07 Thomas: It's an Andy no, book yeah

0:37:21 Clip: And then the cringing apology, I have come to better understand the pain caused by the book I endorse. Pain from a book, unless he hit the drummer over the head with it, what happened to, I can read whatever the fuck I want, don't

0:37:47 Thomas: This is an ironclad point, you see, um, cannot cause pain. So like if he, you know, endorsed, hey, I was just, you know, this book, um, Mein Kampf, love it, great book, then nobody's allowed to be mad about that because a book can't cause pain. I can read whatever I want. I can read whatever. It's fine. I can endorse any book. Doesn't matter. So deliberately missing the point and disguising it in argumentative language that a bunch of idiot white dudes can be like, yeah, a book that can't actually cause pain because his words, it's like, well, first off, his apology sucked because he was probably just trying to stay in the fucking band and he failed at it. It's not like the woke side endorses that apology, um, you know, what, what also people can do in addition to reading whatever they want, they can also um support whichever musicians they want and tweet whatever the fuck they want. It's the the funniest thing. Somehow, it only goes one way for these folks. I can read whatever I want.

Doesn't matter if it's Mein Kampf, doesn't matter it's race science, whatever the fuck it is, I do whatever I want. Can you tweet at me about it? No, that's it. That's beyond the pale. You cannot tweet your opinion about it, because that would be something. I don't, what, why is that, you know, it's the rules go one way.

0:38:01 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

0:38:59 Clip: Was once a very different musician named John Lennon who wrote a song called Revolution, and people who didn't really listen to it thought it was a rah-rah call for revolution. No, it was the opposite. The the lyrics are, "You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, we all want to change the world. But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't going to make it with anybody anyhow." There's a guy who understood how good intentions can turn into the insane arrogance of thinking your revolution is so fucking awesome and your generation is so mind bendingly improved that you have bequeathed the world with a new kind of human. You're welcome. With communists, that human was no longer selfish. In America today, that human is no longer born male or female, and obesity is not something that affects health. You can be healthy at any size. Really, we voted on it. A

0:40:03 Lydia: None of this is funny.

0:40:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:40:06 Clip: Formerly serious magazine last year published with a straight face an article called separating sports by sex doesn't make sense I

0:40:14 Thomas: Oh, by the way, that is in the Atlantic, so I agree with you, that's not a serious magazine. Yeah, I guess the only other thing I wanted to comment is this idea that no, actually, you see, John Lennon was a very sensible, practical man who didn't, it's like, are you, are you really gonna base your argument on on John Lennon? No, you see, he, he, he would agreed with me, the fucking Bill Maher, John Lennon, he was fucking doing naked could protest to stop war in general, like, he, yes, he wanted a revolution, it's um, guy fucking sucks, he's also a scab, uh, was another one I saw go viral recently, was him talking to Jim Gaffigan and uh, talking about the writer's strike. Oh,

0:40:51 Clip: The strike is a perfect example, those guys would never go back, this strike could go on till the 24th century, they would stay out. There is, I feel for my writers, I love my writers. I'm one of my writers, but there's a big other side to it, and a lot of people are being hurt besides them, a lot people who don't make as much money as them. In this bipartisan world we have where you're just in one camp or the other, there's no in-between. You're either for the strike, like they're fucking Che Guevara out there.

You know, like this is Cesar Chavez lettuce-picking strike, or you're with Trump. You know? There's no difference. There's only two camps. And it's much more complicated than that. It is. But I do feel like there is a lot of the points, a lot of the grievances I kind of agree with. I do understand that they're getting screwed a bit by the streamers, yes. Yeah, I mean, it's a change. And you either, you know, it is like anything that is, you know I believe in free market, but I also believe in trust and then verify, right? What does that mean?

Meaning, you know, you don't trust, you know, like the reason, I mean, Zaslav made $400 million and I think they're looking for $80 million for, you know, it's like they're going to, you know, if you leave a kid in front of a bowl of marshmallows, they're gonna eat the marshmallows. It's not like some grand thing. Well, I don't know, what you're saying, they're only asking for $ 80 million? Well, they are asking for a lot of They're asking for a lot of things.

That are, like, kooky. Like, what I find objectionable about the philosophy of the strike, it seems to be they have really morphed a long way from 2007 strike, where they kind of believe that you're owed a living as a writer, and you're not. This is show business. This is a make-or-miss league. And not everybody... You don't think that, like, they should... that streamers should reveal numbers so that they can calculate things? Oh, maybe, sure, sure. Oh, I'm not saying they don't have points. You don't think that these micro

0:41:38 Lydia: Oh my god zero

0:43:13 Clip: -rooms are... I mean, the TV shows that we used to watch were 22 episodes, 26 episodes, and... Okay, but this is... No, I know things change, but what I'm saying is that, that, like, it's not just that. It's also these shows, you know, the life of a show is now two years. So I'm not saying that, hey, tough noogies, that's what happens. I'm saying that if they're making all their money, if streamers are making all Their money or someone's making all Their money in the first year, then if the writers are constructed, their deals are constructed on working for a couple years and that's removed, then they should probably recalibrate how they get compensated. I don't disagree. There should be recalibrations.

0:44:11 Thomas: All of this in a nutshell. There was a way thing used to work in the past, and I think that, and that's why I did agree with the corporations, like, but it doesn't work that way anymore. Yeah, but you know, the past, I

0:44:27 Lydia: Empathy too I mean It's just remarkable. He makes tons of money. So why does he care?

0:44:32 Thomas: I It's amazing how just blind somebody could be. The common complaint of, "Oh, you're either on one side or all the way on the other." That's just such a cop-out for when somebody is disagreeing with you. Nobody's like, you're Trump. Nobody said that. Mean, he's very conservative and he's getting more conservative. But the part where you're like, oh yeah, well, I agree. They have good these claims. Yeah, they have these, Good these claims. I just, you know, what? That's what I want to ask him. I wish Jim Gaffigan would ask him, So then should they stop? Should they cave or what? What is it that he wants? He just has like these vague disagreements because they're asking too much.

Then you're like, OK, but, you know, the other side is the corporations making gazillions literally don't even tell you how many views they get on certain Things, which would be necessary. Oh, yeah, I agree with all that. Oh, okay, so then what the fuck are you talking about? Like, just that alone would mean, let's strike until that's resolved, right? Like, what do you, what, don't even understand what his points are, like, what, what does he want to happen? Like, if you're, you demanding that, plus you demand something else he disagrees with, then you get nothing? Is that how he thinks? It's just not, it's absolute nonsense. Um, you know, you mentioned we used to watch Bill Maher, and I, I've did. And I, I was, I actually reflecting on that. For one,

0:44:32 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hmm.

0:45:48 Thomas: I remembered my first encounter with him. I didn't really know him through the fucking nineties or any of that crap, but in the atheism stuff, he made a religulous or whatever. And so when I was into the atheism stuff, that movie was brought up. And I'll just found it like way too mean spirited, you know, like there's the there is a kind of thing where he's always been incredibly mocking in a way that's like so clearly he's the fucking brilliant genius and everyone else is an idiot. It. And there are times when like, if that's something you way agree with, sometimes you're like, oh, that's kind of funny here. Cause you know, if, if someone's mocking Trump in that way, you're like, well, yeah, I mean that, level of mockery might make sense there. And so it kind of blends in and maybe you don't find it as objectionable, but I always thought his, manner his, was just so over the top about that stuff. And then he also believes some like woo bullshit.

Like he has some other beliefs that are clearly non -scientific. So that combined in my mind of like, okay, you're being incredibly insulting and dismissive in the religious context, which I agree with some of that because I find religion ridiculous, but simultaneously you're over here with these like anti -sientific views on this side. Like you're just an asshole. Like that doesn't, you don't have some principled, you stance that kind kind of mockery. It's just your views are the greatest ever and everybody else who disagrees sucks. So whatever.

0:45:56 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:47:11 Lydia: Just pompous.

0:47:11 Thomas: I've never been a big fan, but during Trump, we I started watching it because God, like a lot of people could relate to the fact that we just craved any sort of sanity in that moment, any sort Sort of like someone talking about Trump in a critical way in that moment.

0:47:26 Lydia: He regularly platformed, you knows, some of the Republican never Trumpers and getting to hear like their perspective on, you know, the show I I found valuable at that time, um, know, gave me false hope maybe, but

0:47:39 Thomas: Yeah. And I did. I remember saying that back at the time. I did like that he would try to engage Republicans somewhat. And Here's what I remember really appreciating. Because of the Trumper like mythos around Trump as some sort of alpha tough guy, blah, blah. Was so pervasive. And then Bill Maher was over and he would literally call him a whiny little B. And it was like, I'm glad it was nice to have somebody actually calling out that this apparent, you macho whatever is really just being the whiniest little fragile boomer.

0:47:40 Lydia: Mm. -hmm, yeah.

0:48:04 Lydia: Baby. Yeah.

0:48:12 Thomas: Yeah, just this absolute baby and then ultimately that's what Mar is too and all of this is that exact thing because when you see what the real reality of this story is and then we'll contrast it to his depiction of it as the Mao's Cultural Revolution, what A whiny little little baby is so whiny. And I remember, I can't remember the dates or anything, but moment the I quit watch that fucking show. Like, I would watch it and be kind of mad the whole time and be like, ah, there's

0:48:13 Lydia: Yeah. The Red Guard. Yeah, Barry.

0:48:45 Thomas: Still some stuff, but whatever. And you and I got in the habit of kind of watching it.

0:48:48 Lydia: It was on the list.

0:48:49 Thomas: One of those Sunday show like you and me. And then he had Bari Weiss on. I was like, Jesus fucking Christ, this is so annoying. And And then you had her on, like the after. My memory is it just became, oh, so that's your whole fucking thing now. You're just going to be the intellectual dark web bullshit having Bari Weiss on. You're talking about how everybody's afraid of disagreement, freeze, blah, blah. And then you just have the same guest on over and over parroting the same points. No, not ever having anyone argue with you meaningfully. And that's when I quit and never watched it again. And everything I saw ever after in any sort of clip was the most obnoxious, irritating thing. And uh, just to show, hun, he, he didn't stop becoming shitty when we stopped watching him, it just just kept going and going, here's a video up pretty high on Reddit the other day, and it's um, Bill Mara on prager you so

0:48:49 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:49:38 Lydia: Of Course, oh.

0:49:38 Clip: It's not me who's changed, it's the left, who is now made up of a small contingent who've gone mental, and a large contingent, who refuse to call them out for it, but I will, that's why I'm a hero at Fox these days, which

0:49:43 Thomas: Old. I Just have to play this until we get one of the most hilarious forced fake laugh crowd reactions I've have ever heard in my life. You gotta hear this, uh,

0:50:04 Lydia: God. Okay. What.

0:50:06 Clip: Shows just how much liberals have their head up their ass, because if they really thought about it, they would have made me a hero on their media, it is not my fault that the party of FDR and JFK is turning into the party of lol and WTF members

0:50:28 Thomas: Not fun, what, listen to that, it's like they're still going, yes, are You kidding me? That That's the weakest bolt. It's so terrible. You might as well be that fucking uh red eye guy on Fox News. And I want to note, I guess this isn't him doing a video for PragerYou per se, or at least I'm not going to watch the rest of it, so I don't know. But it's a video featuring him and also someone who is doing a video for PragerU, Dave Rubin, doing their whole...

0:50:35 Clip: Of Congress

0:50:59 Thomas: In 2022, this was, by the way. So a year and a half ago, February 2022, them still doing the routine of, "Oh, I was a liberal. I'm the liberal, but the left left me." They're the ones who... It's it's like seven years ago we saw through this. What are you even still doing here? So yeah, that's where he is now.

0:50:59 Lydia: Yeah. This complex that he had to like that he should be, you know, revered by the left, you know, if they had any sense kind of thing is like, oh, God, go away.

0:51:21 Thomas: Yeah. Oh. It's so terrible.

0:51:28 Lydia: Ridiculous.

0:51:28 Thomas: Oh, know, there's something else I realized, Han, that I wanted to share that I thought was kind of, I don't know, kind of a funny insight, way that these very terrified white men look at these conflicts and how they're so terrified of the couple of students who tweet stuff at them, it's really something to behold. Because if you do the Google searching, as I've obviously done a billion times, like Like I said, you get 87,000 articles in support of Kilborn. And mentioned the New York Times article. I already covered that in the first part. Only thing that article references is like black law students tweets and stuff, which again, for I already mentioned it had barely any likes. For fun, I did the Wayback Machine.

0:52:13 Thomas: At the time of the whole conflict, it... it had like four likes. The parallel I realized that was kind of funny is, have just see black men as larger and more threatening when they're the same size as white men. This has been studied, like there'll be... it's the reason police kill black men, it's a reason police kill back then, it's the reason, you know, witness statements will overestimate black men's size and age and all that stuff. And I'm realizing it's just this, but online, like Brett Stevens, when he's writing his column, is like, "Officer, there's a there's the black students account and it had like a hundred thousand million billion followers and it's in control of the world and it's trying to do a revolution."

And it is, like, you look at it's like, this had four followers, man. What do you, what do you, you're just scared because they're black, that's the only reason you're scared. There's... took up ink in the New York fucking Times to defend a professor who's already defended times infinity against a tweet with four likes. It's embarrassing. It's absolutely embarrassing, but it isn't because they're just lying, it's actually just a fucking lie. So, trying to tie up some loose ends, you remember Catherine Rubino, who wrote one of the first articles, um,

0:51:46 Lydia: -hmm yeah uh -huh hmm okay okay yeah yeah yeah yes oh

0:53:23 Thomas: Was kind of like, oh, more complicated here. She did eventually do a follow-up that was like, oh, actually, there's more stuff. And so yeah, so, you know, give her some credit. Now Now, I still feel like she was a little soft. Last sentence is like, "the entire episode serves as a reminder that the allegations of racial can be a lot more complicated than they appear." Yeah, right, complicated. Whatever. She covered it, she kind of, that's just to tie up that loose end. She kindof fixed her thing there. But a of other people didn't. And in fact, an article in the fucking Atlantic from February 7th, 2022. So that's right after the lawsuit was filed. Connor fucking Friedersdorf. "The Educators Who Decided That Context Context Doesn't Matter. Students lose out when the language police ignore the distinction between using offensive words and discussing them." And Conor Friedersdorf, after having, you know, again, the investigation report is out,

0:53:30 Lydia: Good for her.

0:54:16 Lydia: Yeah.

0:54:16 Thomas: Everything, all the information's out there that you would need. He writes the same bullshit article in The Atlantic from the point of view that it was all about the question, and therefore you're doing the conclusion that he was punished because of the question and they're fine, they're crying, blah. Embarrassing, embarrassing. The way they spin out to the difference known as the use slash mention distinction to educators still brave enough to teach it is a key bulwark against anti -intellectual attacks on our... Talk about anti - intellectual. You don't just read. You don't read the facts of the case. Then we got February 11, 2022. the So last wave of news coverage that I didn't go through, because it's kind of in response to the lawsuit being filed, the last wave that I've seen. You get also, because they hadn't collected them all yet, a Washington Post opinion piece. Washington Post, by George Will, this hysterical man's first couple paragraphs. "A sludge of ignorance and cowardice oozes so constantly through today's campuses that institutions acquire immunity through recidivism. Progressivism's totalitarian temptation is too common." Just fucking god.

0:55:23 Thomas: Is "too marketplace to be newsworthy, but I'm going to write about it anyway." In the Washington, all right. "America's vindictive intolerance has become humdrum. The University of Illinois is so repulsive that attention must be paid to Jason Kilbourne's ordeal. He is enduring as the price of continuing as a tenured law professor progressivism's version of the ancient torment, the pillory. He has been sentenced to multiple debasements devised by UIC policy, which is wielding

0:55:24 Lydia: My. God, that that's too much. Wow. Wow. God.

0:56:00 Thomas: Progressivism's array of tools for mind-scrubbing conformity enforcing."

0:56:06 Lydia: Yeah, like I can't tell if any of it's a bit or like it's all word for word oh my

0:56:09 Thomas: I that was all word for word literally all word forward so Then he talks about the fucking, you, then he just goes through the same wrong facts and talks about the this quotes all the students who said they had heart palpitations, as, you know, that's how weak all these students are, according to him. Then, great minds, hun. I mean, there's a lot of the usual bullshit I won't go through, but I just wanted to read this lovely paragraph. "Could those who concocted this sentence," as in like the prison sentence that Kilburn's serving, "ever recognize their kinship with the moral purifiers of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, or of Mao's Cultural Revolution, or of the Stalinist interrogator Gletkin in Arthur Kessler's 1940 novel, Darkness at Noon? If so, would UIC's unconscious emulators be discomfited by the resemblance? Unlikely."

0:56:12 Lydia: My god, yeah. Parroting all that stuff this Guy, geez.

0:57:07 Thomas: Oh, boy. Just unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Final thing I wanted to do is essentially a little context debunk. I've already hinted at it. But if want to talk about Chairman Mao's fucking revolution, why don't you, instead of this fake bullshit that isn't real with Kilborn, why don't you listen to episode of the Washington Post podcast, was about, and it's probably an article too, but I heard the podcast, entitled, "Reported on by Her Own Students for a Lesson on Race." Spring, South Carolina English teacher Mary Wood was horrified when her students reported her to the local school for teaching about race.

As she starts a new school year, we ask what it's like for her to step back into the classroom. What happened. This teacher who's, you know, she's obviously liberal, she kind, she wears that on her sleeve a little bit, to the extent you can in high school in a conservative area. She assigns Ta -Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me. And she, by the way, she goes out of her way to do the both sidesy stuff and make sure she's, you known, not enduring, whatever.

But just assigning that book led to students to complain. Plane. Want to talk about actual fucking dystopia? Students complained that the book made them feel bad for being white. And so she was forced to cancel that. She had to take the book back from the students and not do the lesson. She played, to this dystopian scene of when she had to take the book back, on, listen to this.

0:57:07 Lydia: He's Yeah.

0:58:39 Clip: What happened after that? Mary was Given a Few Days to Figure Out What to Do Next. She couldn't even mention the book moving forward. And on her very first day back, after scrambling to come up with a replacement class, she had to take away the copies of that book from her students. It was really hard to take that book out. I remember crying before going into that classroom. So five teachers in the English department, including the chair, Tess, decided they had to help Mary pick up the books. They wanted to show her support because she looked so upset that morning. And they wanted to help her pick up and remove the books as quickly as possible, with the least fuss. Students took their seats and saw five English teachers gathered really weirdly at some point in the room. Then they heard Mary say these three carefully constructed sentences. We will no longer be reading this book. I will be collecting it now.

Please look at the smart board so that I can direct you to today's lesson. Like, that was literally all that I could say. And the students were quiet. Maybe they were like, this is real weird. But it was weird. One of the students in the class that day, Connor Bryant, did remember exactly what he was thinking. I kind of expected it would happen. So I wasn't too surprised, but I was still disappointed. Do you remember what she looked like when this was happening?

0:58:48 Thomas: Even mention it, listen to this fucking scene listen to this, yeah.

1:00:08 Clip: She looked like she wasn't taking care of herself as well, like in all honesty. Like, I think she was really upset by it, like visibly so. So teachers walked up the five aisles between students' desks and they picked up copies of Coates' book from the desks as they walked.

1:00:27 Clip: Some kids were whispering to each other. Some kids are fidgeting with their hands. Some had their hands completely still. Some were flipping through their books, taking out sticky notes or reading some stuff that they wanted to look over. There was one kid next to me that had like five sticky notes on each page. He looked pretty upset, too. Yeah. A teacher stood and waited until that boy had pulled out every single note. Connor said it took almost half a minute. Then the teachers placed the collected copies of Coates' book on a shelf in the classroom. Set them on the shelf and walked out. It didn't say anything.

1:01:00 Lydia: Jeez.

1:01:02 Thomas: Talk about a fucking dystopia. Teacher just have to to say the word that, "oh, I feel uncomfortable for being white." And then a teacher is forced to take back the book in this disturbing ritual where she can't say anything. I mean, it's insane. This is a real thing, too. This really fucking happened. Unlike every description of this bullshit lying con artist fucking weasels story about the exam question, is real thing happening, it's real, and more part I have to have people here, when thinking about Bill Maher's fucking hysterical red guard, all that shit, listen to this part. And

1:01:23 Lydia: Yeah, that's so sad.

1:01:46 Clip: So Mary Wood made some of her students uncomfortable. She was reported by those students. She had to remove Ta -Nehisi Coates's book, Between the World and Me. And then she's back in the classroom to face these same students, knowing that they had been involved with her situation, bringing this complaint up, and she had to teach them for the rest of the school year. Yes, and as you might be able to imagine, this was not easy to do. She said she could barely find the energy and the confidence to teach her students basic AP -Lang exam prep. I just, like, kind of presented the facts. Only the facts, ma'am. Like, here are the concepts for the argument essay, here's the way that you can do this. I was afraid to select texts that were different, so I just went with past exam questions, and it was so boring. They had to write every class, I couldn't allow class discussion.

If I allowed class discussions, somebody might say something that made somebody feel uncomfortable. I couldnít have thoughtful dialogue, because every single thing that I said could have been misconstrued. Like, you feel your heart break a little bit each day when you, they come into your classroom and you're afraid to meet their eyes. You're going to be able to trust your students this year?

1:02:11 Thomas: Think about that listen To us, yeah.

1:03:14 Clip: I've had a nice email from my dad the other day and I don't know if I can even trust the email.

1:03:23 Clip: Like, he reached out and he said something like Like, we were so happy to find that our daughter was in your class this year. We go out of our way or something to teach our children different perspectives and viewpoints. And I'm like, this is a trap. Like, you just don't know. Like, can you believe that? Like, it's not just broken trust between you and the students. It's broken trust within you and your whole entire community.

1:03:54 Thomas: Does that, that sound like a fucking dystopian, can't trust anybody, you might be reported for wrong speak or wrong think? Boy, that sounds a lot more like that to me than the bullshit nothing that happened at UIC. It's out-fucking-rageous. And while these asshole, lying, grifting, dishonest pieces of fucking hysterical garbage are out there crying about a grown-ass man having to like read something as a punishment for being a racist, this is what's really happening. They are making this happen. They are active participants in making this happened because they've been doing a bullshit fake culture war moral panic about the woke for 10 plus years that actually dates back forever but like this latest one. And they are making this happen. They are the reason this has happened because it's not confined to the FIRE.org. It's not confined to the pages of the Atlantic. The right also partakes in this and it fuels them.

And if it were just the right, maybe we could stop them, but it's not. They've also influenced the center and the center left and people like Bill Maher, who kind of used to be on the left. And they are the reasons the right wins and can do stuff like this. So they're actively making this happen. You know who we should be really worried about instead of a very, very white fucking asshole who has tenure, isn't going to get fired and is barely in trouble at all. I know literally any other employee in the entire fucking country.

1:03:55 Lydia: Yeah...yeah...yeah. Yeah! Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:27 Thomas: Because that's something these people never, I guess they never think about. They, they judge these situations as though professor is like the only job there is or or something where like, well, your employer could make you take a class that has a a like policy that you might not harass people and they can make you agree to that. Dude, Amazon drivers have to pee in bottles that like, I, the comparison we need to be going with, they judge it in this different world where like you have all these rights as an employee if you got all these things and yes you should but I did did this just for fun, how many professors are there in the entire fucking country? And And, you vary, and now there's also the lecturers and the blah, blah, blah. There's a bunch of different stuff. But it was somewhere, we'll call it a million, maybe. And by the way, how many of them is actually going to have anything like any real problem regarding the First Amendment or anything? Like, even if you just take them at their word that there's some number of people, academic freedom, blah.

1:05:54 Lydia: Yep. Yeah.

1:06:31 Thomas: How many is that going to be? A tiny percentage. A handful.

1:06:34 Lydia: Minimal. Yeah, yeah.

1:06:36 Thomas: Um, let me Google how many Amazon workers in the U S this is just one corporation. Are 1 .1 million Amazon workers In the U.S. virtually every single fucking one of them is working for shit wages, working too hard in bad conditions. And we're supposed to care about a guy who has to take a diversity course once. Who makes six figures and has tenure and can't be fired. This is one corporation, Amazon. And I just, for fun, I know I referenced the pee bottles. I have to point out this article that I found when I Googled it. It's by Vice. Here's the headline. You'll love this. Amazon denies workers pee in bottles. Here are the pee bottle. Now we get the one sentence. We always get the sentence under the title now. I love it.

1:07:24 Lydia: Huh.

1:07:25 Thomas: Quote, you don't really believe the peeing in bottles things, do you? Amazon tweeted. Drivers say they're being gaslit to point where, back before Elon Musk, you know, ruined Twitter, the tweet itself by Amazon's like official account had one of those like readers added context. This is one of the many articles that have been published by journalists involving in investigations into the misconduct and malicious intent by Amazon to punish people for going on break. And then everybody was posting their pee bottles, you know, And here's some quotes. Quote. Quote, "We're pressured to get these routes done before nighttime, and having to find a restroom would mean driving an extra 10 minutes off path to find one," an Amazon delivery driver told Motherboard, which is the Vice site. "10 to 15 minutes to find a bathroom can meaning 20 to 30 minutes there and back altogether. Obviously, we drink a lot of water throughout the day, so this is happening a lot through the drive," they continued.

"I can tell you that if I drove off to find the restroom, that I would be bringing back packages every night. And that would eventually mean I would get infractions, which would lead to termination. I usually do it in a bottle in the back of the van away from any packages and

1:07:32 Lydia: Huh? Yeah. Yeah?

1:08:30 Thomas: Clean my hands with sanitizer because I understand how gross it is," they continued. "I just park off to the side and close the front sliding door." The guys do it. Another Amazon driver says, "Best drivers get overtime. So there's incentive to cut corners. The most productive drivers get it rewarded the most hours." I'm supposed to fucking care about this whiny baby ass prick of a professor who has to take a diversity class because he's a racist.

1:08:54 Lydia: Yeah?

1:08:55 Thomas: It's just, it's insulting. It's of perspective is just insane. Its core, I know the fire .org would like to make this some noble thing. Oh, freedom, academic freedom. Yeah, sure. Academic, I agree. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. At its root, it's an employment law question, like one you might not find on Professor Kilbourne's exam because he doesn't teach employment law. But that's what the issue is. It is the and freedoms of a worker. Professors aren't like a gilded class of wizards that should is get more rights than you or I should get.

What do you think happens if an Amazon worker, oh, I don't know, tries to unionize and utilize their free speech to organize, to maybe not have to piss in fucking bottles. You know what happens to them? They get fucking fired and they don't have virtually any protection. Or if they do, it might be because Biden won the presidency. And so maybe the, the fucking federal, like labor, all those places might do something about it, maybe, if they can prove it and if they can do it, you know, a lot of ifs down the line, let alone if Trump is in office and then nothing fucking happens because they

1:09:07 Lydia: Huh. Yeah yeah. Yeah Yeah.

1:10:00 Thomas: Don't care. Republicans make things worse in every single aspect of life. This is what we should care about. If is not just whataboutery for the sake of whatabouterie. This is the same issue. Rights of employed people in this country. That's the issue. Don't get to just hyper-focus on one tiny group of extremely privileged people and make up problems that aren't even real and cry about them and raise millions for them to jack off in the courts with cases that go nowhere because they're fucking insane. What a waste of resources. What a waist of help. How about you help someone who actually fucking needs it? Who has no, effectively no rights. Because they're at will and they are employed by a large corporation that can just trample them all. How about you defend them for once?

1:10:46 Lydia: A mess.

1:10:47 Thomas: We got through it, hon. I think I said, you know, most of what I planned to say. So this was a thing.

1:10:55 Lydia: Was quite a thing.

1:10:57 Thomas: Oh, boy. And now we are going to edit for the rest of our natural lives. But we already did that if you're hearing this. So I want to thank you for listening to Where There's Will. Please, please, please support the show. This is, talk about employment conditions. This is no, I, I am not complaining, but it is a tremendous amount of work we do. And if you find that valuable, please consider pledging at patreon.com/wherethereswoke, but, you so much to those who have, and I truly, we are not complaining in any way, shape or form. We don't have to be in bottles over here. If you like the work we doing, please support it. If you'd rather put that dollar somewhere that you think deserves it more, by all means, please do. But if you'd like to get access to the bonus content and support what we do here, we'd really appreciate it. And thank you to those who have. And until next time, hun, what a wild marathon here.

1:11:26 Lydia: Wild.

1:11:48 Thomas: So much for listening, everybody. Thanks, Lydia, and fuck Kilborn and this entire industrial fucking lie complex, and we'll see you next time.

1:11:47 Lydia: Absolutely wild. Hey, thank you