What Skipping Dipshit Elon Musk Is Doing Has to Be Illegal, Right?

Transcript

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

0:00:03 Clip: So, just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan? I have concepts of a plan. That is a damning non -answer. I'm not trying to make it about myself, Your Honor. I'm just trying to show his bias toward the defendant. Just don't make it yourself.

0:00:33 Clip: Something simple as a crack pipe, a used crack pipe. The rules were that you guys weren't going to fact check.

0:00:45 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1080. Oh, that was one of my favorite video games as a kid. 1080! And I'm doing six snowboarding tricks down a hill with someone who probably doesn't get what I'm talking about. Matt Cameron, real life lawyer, how you doing?

0:01:01 Matt: Right, all right. Although I'm a little concerned that we might be both going to prison sometime next year.

0:01:06 Thomas: Yep. Well, I live once, so would we do anything differently knowing we're going to go to prison in the next year?

0:01:09 Matt: Let's do It. Yeah. No,

0:01:13 Thomas: No, so let's just keep doing it.

0:01:13 Matt: Crimes have already been committed. But I don't know if you saw this, but just leaked the possible top jobs in the new Trump administration. Illustration and two surprises. Well, okay. No surprises, obviously. We all knew that Alien Cannon was going to be rewarded. We knew that. But it's still shocking to see it on paper that she's being second on the list. She's being floated for Attorney General of the United States.

0:01:21 Thomas: I did well it's also and we'll get into it after the break but my question is why did they need to do that do you have to announce it is there a rule that says you haveと have to announce the quo after the quid like

0:01:43 Matt: I don't think they wanted to. Sounds like somebody leaked this. Yeah. And it's going going to be a problem if this case gets sent back by the 11th Circuit, because now it's come out that she has this massive conflict of interest, which we all knew. We all knew that she was being promised a job, but that's, yeah.

0:01:46 Thomas: It was actually a leak oh

0:01:59 Matt: But the other one that you might not have caught that you're going to enjoy is a possible FBI director, Todd Blanche.

0:01:57 Thomas: No. Oh

0:02:08 Matt: And he's going to make it all about about himself. You know he will. So, I

0:02:10 Thomas: My God. Wow, well, my voice actor friend Martin, who does the voice for Gavel Gavel, will be thrilled. I'm sure it's more work for him, maybe. I don't know. We'll just hear audio of Blanche so we won't have to read it anymore. Well, that all sucks. And But I am looking forward to our main story, which is, is Elon Musk doing election interference stuff? That's what I really want to know. Is he buying votes? It seems like he's doing an awful lot, Matt, that doesn't seem cool to me. Doesn't like it should be allowed. But then again, we don't have laws in in this country, really? Like, I

0:02:40 Matt: It sure doesn't. Don't. And I'm going to actually tell you the true villain of the story is somebody you've never heard of. Elon Musk is just beyond Elon Musk. So we'll get into it. The answers may surprise you.

0:02:51 Thomas: Guess that is, that will surprise me, Matt. And after I'm pissed off at Elon Musk and our entire system, then do we have anything fun or funny or weird in the form of a footnote fetish?

0:03:02 Matt: We have a good seasonal footnote. Just to follow up with our Salem witch trials, I want to talk about, yeah, it's a pumpkin spice footnote, yeah?

0:03:07 Thomas: I have seasonal footnote. I use a light for it and it helps. Oh,

0:03:15 Matt: Now, this one actually is some late -breaking news in the the Salem Witch Trials 334 years later. So yeah, we'll get there.

0:03:20 Thomas: You teased that. Yeah, that's right. Late breaking news in something a million years old. That's cool. I love Love it. All right. Well, that's our agenda. I can't wait to get to it. I also know, Matt, I believe we are scheduled for really fun, lot awful movies. So people should make sure to go to patreon.com/law to not only avoid the ads, but to also be the first to get those goodies. You And can avoid this break. We're about to take a right now. So patreon.com/law.

0:03:49 Thomas: Okay. Eileen Cannon. Yeah. So interesting. I saw the headlines, but I hadn't looked at like, Like, I thought they were being so bold as to just, you know, say what they were doing. But you're saying this is a leak.

0:03:57 Matt: Yeah. And just think about it for a second. And again, I just feel like once in a while, I have to just stop and make everybody really think about the fact that not only Donald Trump's personal defense attorney, Todd Blanch, but the judge who just dismissed one of the best federal cases against him, certainly a case that would have put him away for a long time on completely completely spurious grounds that no serious legal scholar agrees with. And, you the 11th Circuit is going to reverse it almost inevitably. I don't see how that's not going to happen. But, you Know, she did exactly what she was told to do by, you Trump and Clarence Thomas and his suggestion. And that's what she gets. She gets to be attorney general. We were joking about this, you now, AG or Supreme Court. But you Now this joke is real.

0:04:32 Thomas: I mean, yeah, that is nuts. I do want to give her the credit that I don't know that she did it because she was told to. I also think she's just independently, like, hashtag feminism. Like, women can be evil pieces of shit, too. You know, I think she seems like a true believer to me.

0:04:41 Matt: That's true. That's true, that is very true. Yeah. But You Now, we have been saying this whole time, like their decisions and just the way she has approached this case are so out of line, line, there has to be more to it. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's something like this kind of understanding before. But the corruption of it, honestly, if this were to actually happen, and I don't think it will actually happen. Well, I don'T know. Who knows? If Trump wins, it very well could happen. But The corruption of having the judge who did you this massive favor appointed the attorney general, she has no experience. She's not Merrick Garland, who was a career DOJ servant. This is someone who, as we've discussed in an entire episode about her, you can go back and listen to, she really does not really have the qualifications to be a federal judge, let alone the head of DOJ.

0:05:18 Thomas: Yeah. I It's hard to do the, like. Oh, imagine if this happened in 1994. Because, like so many steps of it are already insane. Saying? Like, you know, the president, you, okay. You know, the president's defense attorney for the case that, you know, like we're already, you now how he committed.

0:05:32 Matt: For one of his cases.

0:05:34 Thomas: Yeah. For one of his many cases.

0:05:35 Matt: Actually, for most of his cases. Todd Blanchett's all the way in.

0:05:38 Thomas: And you know the super corrupt judge that's obviously just a Trump or a MAGA person idiot that dismissed it, just dismissed it. Just dismissed it. You now that imagine if there's a press release like we can't even do the comparison to past the because we're so far in the awful times, but just as some equivalent, if the list for, you potential A's G came out it's and somebody who had just done a very, very public improper favor, who has no qualifications, I shouldn't say no, but like very few qualifications to do this job. It should be career Ending, Right?

0:06:13 Matt: Should be what we used to call a scandal. I don't know what happened to those.

0:06:17 Thomas: Yeah. We used to call stuff a a scandal then everything was a scandal all the time so it's like the old thing about the highlighter like if you're highlighting stuff in the book you're studying and then you highlight every sentence that's like okay yeah that's scandal now yep

0:06:28 Matt: That's useless. I it all the time about Steve Bannon saying you just have to flood the zone with shit. It's so true. There's no targets. There are so many targets, there's no no targets. That's where we're at.

0:06:34 Thomas: 100 well that I mean anything more on that or is it pretty much just the blatant corruption and uh pro quo and totally improper or is there any other layers to it just

0:06:50 Matt: Much that, and just thought we should notice it.

0:06:53 Thomas: Yep. 100%.

0:06:54 Matt: Here we are, noticing it.

0:06:54 Thomas: Todd Lynch. That's so good.

0:06:57 Matt: I know, making it about himself.

0:06:59 Thomas: All right. Well, time to get to our main story. The person I hate the most, maybe of everyone in the world. He's a loser dork who dances around famously like a dipshit. Shit. Oh, okay. Talk about clips to play. Why me, Matt, this has nothing to do with the main story. I just want to play the all he's as an intro to this segment what is this dipshit dancing up to yeah

0:07:15 Matt: I haven't heard it, so bring Love it. Love It. Yeah, well, let's talk about who this guy is. I don't think anybody needs any explanation about who Elon Musk is at this point, possibly the world's richest man, depending on how you're measuring. But the point I want to make up front is he is not only the world'S richest man but he is a massive U.S. defense contractor. He has about $15 billion overall in federal contracts. A lot of those are with Space Force, with DOD, and of course with our agencies. Providing these launch vehicles. He has actually everything from the that we know about to a special Tesla tactical vehicle for the U.S. Embassy in Iceland for some reason.

0:08:05 Matt: So he's in deep. He's also involved in about 11 different regulatory and legal battles right now with the federal government, all pretty big. And I'm sure that he's banking on those going away if Donald Trump were to win. No doubt about that. So he's got a lot to if Donald Trump were to win.

0:08:03 Thomas: My god stands to gain a lot by a donald trump presidency yeah Yeah, that's

0:08:23 Matt: And he said that he thinks he's going to go to prison if Kamala Harris wins. And I just have to wonder what he knows that we don't know because

0:08:28 Thomas: I was I was going to say, do you think that was just exaggeration? Because, OK, I

0:08:31 Matt: Think so, but he maybe he's got a guilty conscience maybe he knows who knows but

0:08:34 Thomas: Don't know what these people like. Think if there's one thing these idiots know and these these horrible people know, they do know that there's no rules now. So they can just kind of say whatever. And so I wouldn't be surprised if that's referring to something real. OK. Well, we can hope. But, yeah, no, I don'T think think we think enough about this. The point of the show, but it is good to remind us how much federal money we are just shoveling over to Elon Musk's companies.

0:08:43 Matt: That is true yeah yeah

0:08:59 Thomas: And he's meanwhile, he's ignoring, you of regulations. His workplaces are horrible and all these fines he has for a bunch of stuff like that and all These lawsuits where we're both like paying him and funding him to do stuff that we don't want him to do and suing him for it. You know, like it's just it's a mess.

0:08:58 Matt: It's bad yeah yeah no I I am very concerned about one man having all that much control over one of the world's most popular social media platforms and this major space company and a major telecommunications company uh etc um know and especially he's really shown his ass in the past year or so as We've learned a lot about how stupid he actually is.

0:09:36 Thomas: It's been more than a year. But yeah, yeah.

0:09:38 Matt: For sure, though. Since he took over, really started... I mean, all he does is Twitter now. That's his job, as far as I can tell. He's just tweeting every five minutes. And he is just... I mean the stuff, it's great replacement stuff. It's hardcore MAGA stuff. It's all of that usual kind of, oh, interesting, right? Without looking to see what the thing is, right, typical.

0:09:54 Thomas: And his own community notes will own him constantly. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter

0:09:58 Matt: Now. It's been estimated about 1.2 billion views overall on his most recent misinformation. Misinformation, like the round of misinformation. A lot. Up front, I will say, unfortunately, there's no real violation going on here because he is basically a publisher like Jeff Bezos or anybody else. This hasn't really been tested out that much, but he can lie about Kamala Harris all he wants to. He can lie About the election all he Wants to using one of the world's largest platforms with the second biggest investor being a Saudi prince. And there's nothing we can really do about it.

0:10:25 Thomas: Okay. So that's step one of the of what's going on here. So We about like oh campaign interference happened in 2016 via facebook and other social medias And I think a lot of people are like hey now what elon's doing seems like that Therefore, isn't it illegal what he's doing? If I were to phrase maybe the the question I'm sure a lot lot of people are asking. And at least in terms of spreading misinformation, that doesn't surprise me that that's good. Because I guess the legal analysis of the Russian interference was foreign agents not registering as foreign agents mainly, right?

0:11:02 Matt: Right. And Elon Musk has been a U.S. citizen for 22 years now. So he's got every right to do what he's doing. And he's kind of like Trump, though. He's doing everything out in the open. And that's just kind of how we do it now.

0:11:09 Thomas: Well, step two, though. So that's one thing if he's just tweeting bullshit while he's dancing around like a dipshit. A dipshit a bullshit shit tweeting dipshit. Here's what I'm more interested in along those lines. Sort of in interference the form of, and I've seen allegations of this, of messing with Twitter in any ways that prioritize right -wing campaign voices or right - wing, you know, anything like that, or deprioritize anything about Kamala. Once you start doing that stuff, it feels to me like you're getting pretty close to a contribution to a campaign fair

0:11:14 Matt: Nonsense. That's arguable. I mean, I think he's pretty well protected, unfortunately, by Section of the Communications Decency Act, which generally allows them to moderate their platforms however they want to moderate them. And I mean we have plenty of partisan outlets, and we can't punish them any more than we can the punish National Enquirer, the Epoch Times for being full of nonsense. See what you're saying about a kind of an in -kind contribution, but I don't think that a court would see it that way. It's First Amendment speech, unfortunately, in this case.

0:12:00 Thomas: Point yeah yeah I I have to imagine there is a line somewhere but maybe it's just in this country it's hard to cross it but I if he was literally running you know running ads for free for the trump campaign like that's not covered by the first amendment like you would have to at least be registering that you're making that in -kind contribution right

0:12:24 Matt: And of course, he can't afford to be running ads for free at this point because nobody's advertising. Actually, that's another interesting part about this is the PAC we're going to talk about, the America Action Committee, which is his personal PAC. He's very intimately involved, according to the New York Times, with his operations. I it was interesting that only about three and a half percent of its advertising overall was on X and the rest of it was on Facebook and Instagram. They know where people are looking.

0:12:44 Thomas: If youre on x you're already nazi adjacent so they're like like we don't need to go for them yeah

0:12:47 Matt: That's true. Yeah. They're set there and you're already being forced to look at his tweets every day. So like that's the best advertising you can get. It's just forcing people to read your stuff. I want to talk about this political action committee before we get into the sort of the main topic we're talking about, because I want to remind everybody about what a super PAC is. And then I want to tell you about what is super PAC now is as of earlier this year, because I didn't know this. And this to me is the real story. It's interesting to talk about whether or not he's buying votes. It is an interesting academic legal question, but it really pales compared to what he's being allowed to get away with right now and what the future of super PACs are. So

0:13:21 Thomas: But take us I don'T know much about this super pack uh matt and all this you want to take us a step back here and and kind of catch everybody up who doesn't follow this dipshit sorry I'm never gonna I'm never gonna not find that funny anyway so

0:13:29 Matt: Yeah. So Elon Musk set the, yeah, no, it was great. Elon Musk sent this up, and so far, at least as of the end of September, and I think he's put in quite a lot more in this month, but as of September 30th, he's put in 75 million into this pack alone. He's also given to quite a load of other ones.

0:13:44 Thomas: He started super bad when is it like recent or did he always have it I

0:13:48 Matt: The America Pack was set up this year and of like all super packs, you don't necessarily have to know because they can use shell companies and shells to donate, uh of course me on must owning twitter he can just bump whoever had at america and he took that over and now owns at americapack but it's at amerika and

0:14:03 Thomas: I wonder who did have that okay Okay.

0:14:05 Matt: Very concerning that this guy that we've just described as it has his fingers in this many pies is also running a massively influential super pack and it's even more concerning when you're going to find out what this thing can actually do because that was the part that is not being covered. And I think we really need to understand why this story in the news is as important as it is about what he's doing. So the America PAC is a super PAC. And talk in a minute about everything else with the vote buying, but I just want to make it very clear why this matters. Regular political action committee in the old days when we had some kind of campaign finance restrictions, severely limited individual contributions and prohibited corporate contributions. So you had, I think it was 5,000, it was 2,500 at some point, then 5,000 for individuals. And of course, as of January 2010, we have Citizens United, which I think everyone understands, opened up the floodgates for corporate spending and basically said that it was unconstitutional to keep corporations from spending unlimited amounts of money on political speech. And basically, as long as a candidate's not involved, you can do whatever you want because corporations can't directly

0:15:06 Matt: To campaigns. And so, yep, yep, great.

0:15:06 Thomas: It's, it is speech. You know, how could we, how could we infringe on corporate speech in the form of bajillions of dollars, Matt? I

0:15:14 Matt: We've got to let them get out there and say their piece. And they're not allowed to contribute directly to PACs, so they've gotto have some other alternative. And

0:15:18 Thomas: Feel like one of these days, I don't know about a regular episode or a bonus or something. Let me know what you think listeners, but just yelling about that, United for an hour might be really satisfying to me personally. I I

0:15:28 Matt: Oh, after this, honestly, now that what hath wrought, I will tell you, you're going to want to after you hear what I tell you here. Here.

0:15:34 Thomas: Already do. So now I'm going to double yell.

0:15:37 Matt: So just a few months later, though, it was a case that didn't get as much attention. It was SpeechNow.org v. FEC. It's a D.C. Circuit case that is binding. And that case was challenging the $5,000 individual contribution cap because Citizens United was just about companies. And there's a one -two here because Citizens Unite was about spending, and SpeechNow., this case was about the contributions. And in both cases, they did away with it. And they specifically found that that whatever the merits of these arguments before Citizens United, they plainly have no merit after Citizens United. Contributions to groups that make only independent expenditures cannot corrupt or create the appearance of corruption, which I strong disagree, as we'll find.

0:16:18 Thomas: Okay. You could just say that. You can just say things that aren't true. Okay, cool.

0:16:21 Matt: This isn't corruption. Moving on. Yeah. Again, these are groups full of dark money that anybody can give to without necessarily having to have anybody know that they gave.

0:16:30 Thomas: Is why we need the left wing equivalent in the court after we pack the court or something that just says, Hey, actually, um, the right to bear arms was for a militia thingy. So that's, and, and just say just, yep. It was actually because for a well regular leg of militia it doesn't doesn't mean individual right to own guns wrong yeah they

0:16:48 Matt: Enough. Appreciate a nice firm statement of moral clarity, but I didn't appreciate this one.

0:16:52 Thomas: Do that with this bullshit so we need to start doing that sure

0:16:55 Matt: Just want to also read a quick quote from Citizens United because there's no way this is possibly going to come back to haunt us. The absence of prearrangement and coordination of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent not only undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate, but also alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate. So super PACs are very much predicated on the idea that the candidate is not coordinating with the super PAC, that they're doing their own thing. You know, they're often a parallel dimension, basically just spreading information about their values and their ideas.

0:17:27 Thomas: That's a good but yeah they're in a different universe they don't even know they put them in a different universe creating machine and they don'T even know it's like a black mirror thing or is it true that easily they could just kind of coordinate with them unofficially and they could do things like my favorite thing I've I've referenced it too recently so I won't go too long on it but the ted cruz footage on youtube of him being not a human being with his not -human family, which is my favorite thing. And was back, I think, under maybe even a different paradigm. I don't think anything's changed legally, but I just think, like, -y, you know? And now I don'T even know if they bother to be that coy about it.

0:17:44 Matt: The videos? Yes. Love it. Right. No. Well, that's the other problem is, of course, of Citizens United was 2010, 14 years ago. And I went looking to try to find some case law to figure out about how these violations are being handled. And there has never been a single enforcement of a violation of this particular kind of communication thing, of a coordination.

0:18:15 Thomas: I know, Matt. Maybe all the billionaires and candidates have been on their best behavior for 14 years. That could be, yeah.

0:18:20 Matt: That's true. Yeah, I'm sure they're following the rules. That must be it. Yeah.

0:18:22 Thomas: Scout's honor.

0:18:23 Matt: These two cases, Citizens United and SpeechNow.org, created super PACs as we know them, because essentially they set up a completely new kind of political action committee. And that is the problem that we're dealing with here with this America PAC. And I just want to to talk about the changes before we even get there. I want you to understand how big these changes are and how this allowed the America pact to exist in its current form. Because I had no idea, to be honest, about how bad this really is. Because, Federal Election Commission has been deadlocked for many years, 3 -3, Republicans and Democrats. But we had a switch this We've got a Democrat that started voting with the Republicans. Her name is Dara Lindenbaum. And I'm going to tell you that she is the true villain of this story, because Elon Musk is a snake. He's just going to do what he's going to do. But Daryl Lindenbaum did not have to do this. Let me tell you about some of the changes that she's helped to be responsible for, because this is truly shocking. As of just a couple of months ago, August 29th, this isn't even the biggest one, can now participate in joint fundraising committees with Super PAC, so they can just completely coordinate their fundraising.

0:19:19 Thomas: That sounds like the what we were they weren't supposed to do matt already like right away thing

0:19:24 Matt: Getting started. We're going to head even closer into that territory. But

0:19:26 Thomas: One is already a violation of the very thing we thought was the logic of this already deeply flawed decision okay wow

0:19:32 Matt: Yeah. No. And the vice chair, Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, felt so strongly about this that she published a dissent, like a separate dissent from the advisory opinion that Lindsey Graham had asked for. And I just want to read a little bit of this to emphasize how bad this is. And this was a couple of months ago. Under the proposed arrangement, Team Graham would have regular communication with Security is Strength PAC about the candidate and campaign solicitations and their campaign strategy as it relates to solicitations for the Joint Fundraising Committee. It is hard to fathom how how that necessary independence will be maintained when the super PAC is integrated into the campaign's fundraising operations. This advisory opinion is a classic example of not seeing the forest for the trees, which is very much the problem around this whole thing. And saying this breaks new ground, but unfortunately the commission has already created far too many holes in what should be a solid wall dividing candidates and their committees from the super PACs that support them. Because I'm unwilling to pull another brick from that essential barrier, I respectfully dissent. So good for you, Ellen Weintraub, because she's absolutely right. Right. They're doing away with the legal fiction that there's not supposed to be coordination. Let me tell you the real problem, though. March 20th, 2024. This is where things really went off the rails. And this is how America PAC got to be what it was. So public communications is the name of the game here. If you're talking about coordinated communications, and there's a test about coordinated communication, it's a very complex, multi -part test. But essentially, the communication has to be paid for somebody other than the candidate or the candidate's committee. Then the communication has to satisfy four different content prongs about what kind of communication it is. And, you know, that it's clearly advocating for the election or defeat of a specific candidate that clearly refers to a specific political party, et cetera, et cetera. And there's some conduct standards about how you do all this. So again, remembering this has never been enforced, never once has the FEC

0:21:06 Matt: Tried to enforce it. But this is the thing, the coordinated communication test, which is very much at the heart of Super PAC to try to make sure that there's this wall that she's talking about. So in March, this advisory opinion found that public communications only includes broadcast, cable, satellite communication, newspaper, magazine, outdoor, et cetera, et ceter, or any other form of general public political advertising. And guess what doesn't get included in general public Public political advertising.

0:21:06 Thomas: Tweets tweets

0:21:37 Matt: No, no, that's all. But no, it is really bad because this is not something that I would ever have thought Super PACs would be able to do. It includes going out and canvassing voters one -on -one on behalf of the candidate. Yeah, this is bad.

0:21:49 Thomas: I had no idea Wow.

0:21:52 Matt: Yeah. No, this isn't. I didn't either, honestly. And I don't know why more people aren't talking about this. This.

0:21:56 Thomas: Kidding.

0:21:57 Matt: And they found, this is so sick, the way that they found this. They said that canvassing is fundamentally different because it's a grassroots activity, but it's not going to be after this. I mean, you're basically inviting people to buy off huge... And this is what the Trump campaign is doing. They've outsourced, just like we've outsoursed a lot of our space flight, they've outsources a lot their canvasing to Elon Musk to get out knocking on doors for Donald Trump. Yes. Found that one -on -one canvassing to potential voters is a communication, communication, but it's not a public communication. I guess it's just a bunch of private communications.

0:22:27 Thomas: My God. Yeah, well, then what about, I mean, wouldn't, like, doing a bunch of calls or doing anything like that, wouldn't that also be the same logic? Like,

0:22:35 Matt: Would expect it to be pushed, yeah, because this is a pretty shocking conclusion because canvassing is, you know, door to door, obviously, but there's no reason it shouldn't include robocalls and everything else. Then it gets worse. There is another piece of this is it gets worst because

0:22:45 Thomas: It gets worse? I thought on thing one we were already in stupid territory that was unbelievable. Believable.

0:22:52 Matt: The whole point of a super PAC has been demolished by these memos. It is just an absolute travesty within the last few months that nobody seems to have noticed. The thing that really set me off is that communication directly with candidates and their campaigns are now allowed as long as you're talking about canvassing. So they're never going to check, of course, but you can have a four -hour phone call with the candidate and plan out your strategy. And on top of all of that here's where america pac comes in they're allowed to do open data sharing agreements which they're now doing so the stuff they can collect with all of their unlimited funds can be given straight to the trump campaign and the other way around yeah bad

0:23:00 Thomas: What? Oh my God. Oh my God. Is insane, Matt. How do we, I look, I've been too, okay. I've been really busy. Haven't had time to listen to my normal podcast news sources. So maybe I've missed it, but I don't feel like I've heard anyone talk about this.

0:23:42 Matt: I haven't either and there are a couple of new york times stories that sort of talk about this generally but nobody is talking about how this this week relates to this overall problem of the way that PACs could be run now.

0:23:51 Thomas: Yeah, I So just to make sure we're all on the same page, I want to slow down just in case to make make sure we're on the same page. Super PACs were already a joke. They were already a joke from Citizens United and that other thing you talked about where, oh, allegedly they're not supposed to coordinate with the candidate, so how could you take away their free speech rights, you Nazi? They have the right to just be out there speaking.

0:24:15 Thomas: It's independent of the candidate. Nothing to do with the candid. That was already a joke. And we knew it was a joke, it was really messed up politics in a lot of ways. Awful. Now impossibly it's just gotten far worse like I really wouldn't have thought this is why it really is important to a theme of the show lately is it can get worse and I wouldn't have thought that the super pack situation I'm not an expert or anything I have if you'd asked me a week ago I've been like yeah I can't get much worse it's already a joke like they just spend whatever money now now you're saying not only can they canvas they can do all that kind of stuff not as well be coordinating with the candidate because they can have unlimited phone calls about canvassing because you know now that they can canvas for them they got to talk with the candid about that and their strategy

0:24:29 Matt: Much worse. Yeah, sure. Yep, just,

0:25:00 Thomas: And a sharing agreement this

0:25:05 Matt: The executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, which put out a great report on some of this, which we'll link to, of no tea, he said, it is breathtaking the speed at which the rules are being torn down. There's been more activity in the last two years to allow money into the system than the 20 years before that combined. And don't ever let anybody tell you that one person can't make a difference because this is Dara Lindenbaum switching sides. This is what happens.

0:25:13 Thomas: Is nuts yeah yeah what that what is her story was that was she a like a manchurian candidate and I actually mean that kind kind of seriously.

0:25:29 Matt: I mean, she was a leading progressive lawyer, according to the New York Times. She worked for Stacey Abrams. She marched with Code Pink. She was doing what you expect. Know, it got to the point that the other Dems on the commission literally spent $16 on Etsy to send her an olive branch, like an actual olive branch to try to make peace because she was so far off base and that didn't get them anywhere. But, you know, she said that she is just following the law and formalizing things that have been happening in practice, which is not an excuse.

0:25:41 Thomas: What?

0:25:52 Matt: That not an excuse for this kind of rulemaking. You should stop the things that are happening in practice. That's part of your job.

0:25:52 Thomas: Yeah, that is crazy.

0:25:59 Matt: She also signed onto a 4 -2 ruling that members of Congress can legally use their PACs for their own personal benefit, because why not? They're already doing it. Yeah. Why not? Yeah. No, just, this is, it is just straight corruption. It's so bad.

0:26:05 Thomas: What, but also that sounds like it's know the Supreme court isn't going to do anything, but isn't that unconstitutional based on citizens United? And we're like, God, somebody looked to citizens United for some amount of protection against this kind of crap. This

0:26:24 Matt: This was what I was concerned about and what people have been saying for a long time is that you take a ruling like Citizens United and you can only expand it regulatorily. If you have a friendly FEC, then they can write rules that stretch things to the limits, which is what they're doing here with this. You know, you just find one exception, you say, oh, these kinds of communications aren't public, so they don't fall under the coordinated communication rule. And then floodgates are even further open as if they weren't open far Yeah. No, it's really something.

0:26:48 Thomas: Is this is astonishing I so what are the rules around replacing this asshole what how is it always three three is that always and is it the kind of thing where there's supposed know is it supposed tobe a partisan balance what arethe rules around that my

0:27:00 Matt: Well, it is an independent commission. I don't think that the president can just remove it. I know that Dara Lindenbaum was nominated by Biden in 2022 and confirmed by the Senate. I think it was actually a pretty close vote in the Senate, but that's no surprise, I guess. She's a Democrat.

0:27:15 Thomas: Well matt I'm gonna call call not inaudible. I'm going to almost the opposite of that. I mean, uncall inaudable and go back to the, play as it was called by the coach on the sideline. Uh, I'm that I'm Sure you don't care about or understand at all. Um, I asked Matt a million questions that probably I have cut by now about how to get rid of this person and what in the world is happening and how this could happen. But we, this is one of those things where This show is a short turnaround. I get it out right away. And we need to talk more about Elon Musk and his quote vote buying stuff. And there's a lot more we need to get to. So I think we should put a pin in this person who's ruining our lives. What's her name again?

0:27:27 Matt: Yeah sorry. Daryl Lindenbaum.

0:27:53 Thomas: Let's put a pin in Dara Lindebaum. And if anybody has a voodoo doll of her, that would be a good way to do it. We'll And figure out what's going on there. A follow up on what the a plan is or could be about that because that is wow. Pin again, in that and let's go back to what we were talking about. So this awful person has helped, if not single -handedly, caused a bunch of just the downfall of anything resembling the rules around this.

0:28:19 Matt: And well in part, obviously the whole FEC did its part. The Republicans were eager to do this. It's something they've wanted to deregulate for a long time along with lots of other things. And we'll see how this plays out. But it is causing chaos in so many different ways because, again, the world's richest man in any way messing with the election a couple of weeks before we go to vote is bad enough. But having the power to outsource your canvassing operations, your door -knocking operations to an unlimited amount of dark money. There's estimated at least 1 ,000 canvases around the ground right now that are paid for by these organizations. Turning Turning Point USA, you'll not be surprised, also involved big in this. What made the news this week was that Elon Musk was offering to pay $47, $100 if you live in Pennsylvania, for people to sign a petition sponsored by America PAC. Now, it's not illegal to pay people to assign a petition. It's a pretty significant waste of money, I think.

0:29:11 Matt: But, you know, if you want to pay somebody to support your cause, then you can do that. That's not really the problem. Them.

0:29:11 Thomas: What kind of petition are we talking about? Because yeah, most petitions are worthless.

0:29:19 Matt: I need to send it to you because it's pretty funny when So check out this Petition and see the language you are actually signing off on here. It's just meaningless.

0:29:27 Thomas: Is a website that looks like um sort of maga grandparent would have it as a bookmark kind of you'd

0:29:33 Matt: It's not much on it. Yeah.

0:29:35 Thomas: Open their computer when you're visiting them and it would be the the page that in addition to a million viruses and other crap you know this would be the like the home page what Yeah.

0:29:43 Matt: It's got siren emojis. Yeah. And

0:29:45 Thomas: And flags and. Oh, my God. Petition in favor of free speech and the right to bear. Come on, man.

0:29:45 Matt: Cash emojis, yeah. Can you pick one? I want to pick one.

0:29:57 Thomas: Petitioning favor of two things that are already overwhelmingly protected, not only constitutionally, but by our idiotic Republican Supreme Court. OK, cool. It's constantly we have to be the victims that people have to beat victims. The things that have incredibly mainstream, very protected, overprotected rights like the right right to bear arms. That has to be the victim. That has to be constant danger. Oh, they're going to take away. It's just, it's pathetic. This is, and they decided to put it all in writing. Let's just write down all the things that aren't being threatened that we can be scared about. Okay. Um, it has like John, John earned a million dollars in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Christine earned a milli, okay, so it's got your like winners each day

0:30:38 Matt: Notice that that verb, earned, we'll come back to that. Yeah very significant.

0:30:40 Thomas: Earned. Oh interesting. So perhaps not paid yet is what that implies. Each day, one petition signer from either Pennsylvania, Georgia, blah, blah states, swing states basically, will earn $1 million. Do first and second amendments guarantee freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. By signing below, I am pledging my support for the first and second. Okay, cool.

0:31:02 Matt: That's it. Easiest is $47.

0:31:04 Thomas: In appreciation for your support, you will receive $47 for each registered registered voter, you refer that signs this petition.

0:31:11 Matt: Maximum $600.

0:31:13 Thomas: Oh, is it say that later? Yeah. Okay. Maximum. Cause I mean, I, I'm not above trying to earn a little money on the side here. Like I'll sign a useless petition. I don't care. Maybe I'll earn a million dollars. Oh, I can't wait, wait, but hold on. But can't I do if I get registered voters in those States to sign?

0:31:21 Matt: You can't, unfortunately. You're in a state he doesn't care about. Ah, that's true.

0:31:31 Thomas: Maybe. Okay, we'll see. Maybe not though. Cause it does say this program program is exclusively open to registered voters in those swing states.

0:31:32 Matt: Maybe. I think you have to be an eligible person to refer.

0:31:41 Thomas: Yeah. Special offer for Pennsylvania registered voters. Oh my God.

0:31:46 Matt: Siren emoji.

0:31:47 Thomas: This is, wow. Okay. So this is it. This the petition .theamericapack .org.

0:31:51 Matt: Yeah. That's all you're signing. The details you're required to give, obviously. We required mandatory mandatory information for name, email, cell phone, and mailing address, right? That's what they really want. That's which you're giving them.

0:32:02 Thomas: I going to ask, obviously this petition does absolutely nothing. So what is the thing it's doing? Is it collecting data? Is it just in general getting people, you to pay attention to this kind of right -wing messaging?

0:32:14 Matt: I mean, in a sense, it's a better deal than the donor list that we end up on every time we give to anything and you start getting getting cell texts and calls from campaigns, you know, well after you've donated. At least you're going $47 out of it, but they're putting together a donor list, which again, every PAC has the right to do. But now we know that that donor list goes straight to the Trump campaign. So they're just doing data collection for the Trump campaign using unlimited of dark money. That's what this is. So that's my real problem with it. And we can talk about whether or not they're buying votes. It's an interesting academic question. I'm not really sure. And I think they might've weaseled out of it.

0:32:45 Thomas: Matt, what's the actual law involving this kind of thing, buying votes, votes, buying registration to votes, candidates, you know, what's, what kinds of laws are we talking about there?

0:32:55 Matt: There's two basic statutes here, two criminal statutes that would apply. The one that's been in the news is 52 U.S.C. 10307C. And that is the one that has the broadest kind of reach. The other one, just to name it very quickly, is 18 U.S.C. 597, which is about making or offer to make an expenditure to any person to vote or withhold a vote. And that's not really what's happening here because you're not being told, you know, you're not signing this on the condition you're going to vote for anybody. You're signing this in the condition that you're a registered voter. So that's why the election experts like Rick Hassan have been talking about this as a possible crime and why the Department of Justice on Tuesday sent a letter because they think there might be a a violation of 52 U.S.C. 10307, which is about those who pay or offer to pay or accept payments either for registration to vote or for voting. And you'll be fined up to $10 ,000 or prison not more than five years. So I went looking just to get an idea of the kind of flavor of cases that apply to this. He had something pretty straightforward in U.S. v. Lewin, where in the 1968 election in Chicago, and of course, we all know there's some pretty shady stuff going on in Chicago voting.

0:33:54 Matt: Defendants were observed actually paying people two quarters each to register to vote. Two quarters. It's amazing. Amazing. Think that probably, you know, got you a record album or something in 1968, but yeah, who knows? Know, so that's very straightforward. They were basically in a sting operation. They watched them do it and they got evidence and they were able to show that they were paying people to register to vote. And it's a little strange when you think of it, because we should be encouraging everybody to register, to vote and like, I don't really have a problem with paying people, to register and to vote if there's no other conditions. I Think that would be okay, honestly, but that's not the law.

0:34:05 Thomas: Back then. Yeah yeah. Right. Well, I think the danger would be obviously you could just target certain areas where the votes are going to, you know, but it is funny that in general though, doing get out the vote efforts and putting putting ad campaigns behind that and do it like in a general way is completely not only allowed, but encouraged, you know, which is interesting. It's a fine line there or not so fine, I guess.

0:34:33 Matt: It's just in theory. Right. Yeah. No. And I Cards Against Humanity had a promotion, which was never actually litigated, but it looks when they inquired about this, wouldn't confirm or deny if they'd actually been investigated for this, but they had kind of an unusual promotion for anybody who voted for Trump in 2016, that they could write a letter of apology and make a pledge to vote for not Trump in the future. That potentially could be because you're promising to vote from somebody or to withhold your vote from somebody.

0:35:09 Matt: That is kind of an issue, even if it's for a good cause. Pretty straightforward kinds of stuff. Just cannot offer rewards or inducements. There's an example that's been given in some of these stories about Ben and Jerry's. If of course, this is very funny, because back in the day, Washington George had to spend enormous amounts of money to give away free booze to get people to vote. That was perfectly legal at the founding of our country. Actually, the very I found this in a really interesting history .com piece. Very first campaign reform law was in Maryland in 1811, and it prohibited them from giving booze to people to vote because that was such a widespread practice. Election Day used to be a party. You just shut down, and everybody gets wasted and goes to vote, as you should.

0:35:43 Thomas: Man, maybe we should go back to those days, actually.

0:35:48 Matt: Should be a holiday. Absolutely, it should be holiday. Everybody can do it.

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0:37:14 Thomas: And now already as a keen, not a lawyer, but as a person who listens to the show, it does feel like this petition that I read has covered a lot of those bases. I don't see anything saying anyone needs to register to vote. It's just like, yeah, you have to be registered. But then again, I mean, that's kind of interesting. You have to register to be in the contest. So you think this skirts all those lines just enough to not be illegal?

0:37:14 Matt: To be registered. That's the thing. Well, I'm not sure. I'll tell you the difference here. I think that as of when they first announced this thing, I think it's pretty questionable. And I think I agree with Rakasan that it could be an issue. The DOJ clearly thinks it could being an issue, but check out the clever way that they have pivoted on this. It's very smart. And I haven't heard anybody actually explain how they're getting out of this, but it's pretty good, actually. So remember up top when it says that these people have earned a million dollars?

0:38:04 Thomas: Earned. Yeah.

0:38:05 Matt: So what they have done is they've made it conditional so that when your is picked in this lottery, and again, this lottery applies to any registered voter who's in the swing states who applies, gets their $47. Your number was picked, you have to sign a contract to become a spokesperson for America PAC. So you record an interview or a promotional.

0:38:21 Thomas: Man.

0:38:22 Matt: You've already had a few promotional videos announced. And what I thought was kind of funny about this is that because the Super PAC being what it is, they couldn't take the money away. If you went up on stage with Elon Musk and you're like, yeah, America PAC, giving away money to people who need it, vote for Kamala Harris, right? You could do that.

0:38:38 Matt: They could totally, like somebody should do that in Pennsylvania. Venue yeah

0:38:39 Thomas: Please do that, everyone. I'm actually not joking. Anyone in these swing states who... Actually, yeah. Anyone who can hear us who's on the left who's in these swing states should flood this because like what it doesn't actually cause any harm I mean you're gonna get some phone calls I guess I mean yeah if you can tolerate some spam flood this cuz it's costing them money and you have a chance to be a big winner and you could pull off the funniest thing in the world which is what you just said.

0:39:05 Matt: Unfortunately I actually thought of that I haven't heard anybody suggest this scenario but I don't think that under super PAC rules I don'T think they could punish you or make you or sue you or take the money away because you're not allowed to condition it on yeah for now because obviously super PAC can't condition it on you supporting any particular candidate uh so what what you're doing then is you're actually getting a job for a day they're paying you a million dollars to to do a spot for them, which is silly, obviously.

0:39:13 Thomas: For now. Yeah. Okay.

0:39:27 Matt: But I think that makes it legal, because at that point, you're there's this problem that you have to be a registered voter, and maybe you're going to register to vote just to do this. Then once you actually have to collect the money, you have do something affirmatively for the PAC to collect it. So I think clearly they think it's enough.

0:39:27 Thomas: Yeah, that's Michael Cohen money.

0:39:45 Matt: But at the same time, I will say that they have stopped doing this. As of the day after they they got the letter. They did not give away money. It's Thursday now. They didn't give away money yesterday.

0:39:45 Thomas: Yeah yeah. Oh, really? Was the details of that letter?

0:39:54 Matt: Well, we haven't seen it. We don't know the actual letter, but no.

0:39:55 Thomas: We don't know it. Oh I thought,

0:39:57 Matt: It just, it's been reported on. There was initially disclosed to some source I'd never heard of, and the New York Times recently confirmed it. But DOJ sent kind of a warning letter saying, we think you might be in violation of the statute we've been talking about, and we'd like to have you consider if maybe you shouldn't be doing this. That's essentially what it sounds like the letter said. Must be nice to just get a little warning when you're maybe committing a a crime.

0:40:07 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah but I'm surprised it would even change their behavior because there's no teeth to any of this stuff now. Know but weird

0:40:20 Matt: Sure. Right. It's the FEC. I wouldn't be surprised if they pick it up again and start giving the money away, but they didn't do it yesterday when they'd been doing it every day. So we'll see.

0:40:27 Thomas: Interesting because especially because they probably figure elon you know he can just buy the election and then all this goes away anyway any any of this stuff would go away if they buy successfully by the election let's say let's Say it was against the rules uh it was illegal and right the lame duck period uh whoever fec whoever it is is like starting to look into this and then trump wins and takes over does that just go away or is it I mean it is that in quote -unquote independent body or whatever but it already was 4 -2 for Republicans it seemed like yeah

0:40:52 Matt: I mean, and why would they start enforcing it now? They haven't been doing It before. So yeah, I mean this is a man who makes $43,000 a minute. He makes two and a half million dollars an hour and giving away a million dollars a day is nothing for him. It is well worth the investment. If he can make all these cases go away that he's involved in, if he can have the ear of the president whenever he wants it, because he's buddied up a lot, as we've seen.

0:41:18 Thomas: You actually give away a million dollars a day hiring lawyers that he probably has anyway

0:41:21 Matt: Right. Yeah. So I have to concede that I think that as it is now, the scheme seems to be legal because of the spokesperson thing. I think it was pretty questionable before and possibly a crime. And certainly Rick Asana is pretty authoritative on this stuff, but it certainly was worth looking into. It's not even the beginning of the the actual problems with the super PAC?

0:41:45 Matt: It's an interesting kind of academic question. But as long as you've got, at this point, the Trump team relying on Elon Musk's super PAC to do their ground game in places like Arizona and Nevada. Now, double -edged sword, I will say, there is actually some good news that we can end on on this story. Because it turns out that outsourcing this to the guy who spends his entire day on Twitter and makes cars that blow up,

0:41:44 Thomas: When he's not dancing jumping around like like a dipshit you mean I

0:42:10 Matt: Sure. Out that they, of course, Elon Musk is a technocrat and believes in the power of technology, and they have this very fancy system for the canvassers to use in which you go door to door and you register that you've talked to these different voters and you record what they said and you just move on and you can report back your numbers. And one of the canvassers posted a on how to spoof the GPS and get paid while sitting at home, while just making it look like you're knocking on doors. Nevada, that's where he was doing it in particular. And it's been estimated at this point that possibly up to 25 % of the results they're getting from their canvassing are just total fraud at this this point so you know backfire a little bit that's nice that's good to hear yeah

0:42:39 Thomas: Love it oh fantastic I was gonna say the seems like a very Elon thing to do to be like, oh, it costs, you know, X dollars to get someone on your donor rolls. Well, how about we pay him forty seven dollars directly? You know, that's very Elon ask. And I wonder if like, I don't know, he might have a point. Maybe they are spending too much money to get donor rolls until whatever the thing you just said is. And now it's all bullshit data, which warms my heart. I really hope that's happening.

0:43:09 Thomas: And prize if they're still doing it who does the funniest thing in the world and announces their support for Kamala Harris that would be great

0:43:06 Matt: That would be great yeah be great yeah yeah I don't see why they couldn't but again you know this is not legal advice if you get a contract take a look I don'T want you to lose a million dollars over it either uh you you know, but don't blame us.

0:43:25 Thomas: Yeah once you get that I'm sure it's worth consulting an attorney to make sure you get your hands on that million dollars it'll only cost you half a million dollars no I'm just kidding uh

0:43:29 Matt: I think so. So a couple other things before we get to our footnote, I wanted to mention very quickly, you might've heard about the Progress 2028 website. You heard about this one?

0:43:42 Thomas: No I actually haven't geez

0:43:43 Matt: Question about it from GMORC, and I wanted him to mention this because it was something that caught on my radar earlier this week. One of the many super PACs that Elon Musk is also helping to fund is called Building America's Future, which is an extremely dirty super PAC. Only purpose at this point has been to fund two other super PACs, which are doing terrible things. One of them is trying to get black men specifically to vote for Trump. And the other one is simultaneously targeting Muslim voters in Michigan to tell them that Kamala Harris supports Israel and also highlighting Doug Emhoff in a really super anti -Semitic way. The same time, the same super PAC is taking taking out ads in Jewish areas of Pennsylvania to tell them about how Kamala Harris is pro -Palestinian. Same super PAC running the same, these very disparate ads. So one of the things that they did is they set up a website called project2028.com. Of course, they're desperate to have some kind of thing that looks like a lefty Project 2025. what they did, which is pretty clever, honestly, is they took Kamala's Harris positions, And they either exaggerated them or they used ones from 2019 that she doesn't necessarily have now, at least on paper. And they put together something that would enrage a lot of people, a lotof voters, basically about how we have to honor undocumented people and give them free stuff, about how, you know, we have to defend gender -affirming care for minors and whether or not their parents know about it and all this other stuff that's hitting all the hot buttons. So I had to wonder, because they're also texting people. They're using some of this information they've collected. They're sending these texts from Project 2028. Now, it doesn't say it's from the Harris campaign, which would definitely be a crime.

0:44:33 Thomas: Something think yeah right right

0:45:16 Matt: It's just sort of like another advocacy group saying, you know, check out this great stuff. This has become kind of a new tactic of celebrating something to make people mad, to make them think that the candidate supports that thing, right? So check out all of our great stuff that we're doing to support the undocumented and trans trans people, which she should be doing more, frankly, to support the undocumented trans people. But we'll have that conversation another time. Whole thing seems crimey. Like, it really seems like there should be some crime here somewhere. But yeah, it is. It's dirty tricks. It's just regular old dirty tricks."

0:45:26 Thomas: Maybe but it also just feels like normal super pack stuff it's like last year's evil yeah

0:45:46 Matt: Yeah, yeah, right. The kind of stuff we were used to back when they weren't coordinating with campaigns directly or pretending not to. It is a completely, it's First Amendment protected speech, as long as you're not saying it's from the Harris campaign and as long as it's not really very clearly identifying which super pack is paying for it which I thought was a little strange apparently there's some exceptions for the online stuff the tech stuff still seems like it could be wire fraud but is asking how this is different from what Jacob Wohl did, who was, of the best manga characters of all time oh

0:46:07 Thomas: God that person oh he was the worst and what was jacop up well doing I'm kind of forgetting it's

0:46:15 Matt: So he was doing a lot of things.

0:46:16 Thomas: Dumb it was super duper

0:46:18 Matt: Well, the one that made my favorite was the guy that was allegedly in a BDSM relationship with Elizabeth Warren. That was amazing, which is good for her, obviously lies. But what they were doing in Ohio, Michigan, and New York, yeah, it's awesome.

0:46:18 Thomas: Illegal that's right but it was the kind of lie that all of the elizabeth warren supporters like me were kind of like I'm fine if true like if if true better but yeah it is a lie

0:46:41 Matt: It was fine. But no, so in Ohio and New York and Michigan, among other places, they put out robocalls, him and his partner in literal crime, put out these robocall calls that were targeting black voters. And they were specifically talking about how if you registered a vote by mail, that your info is going to end up like with credit checks and like old warrants could be served on you and that it's, you know, the man's going to have your information was basically the theme. And was another one that where they were giving them wrong election day, but that actually wasn't this one. They're actually prosecuted both civilly and criminally under the Ku Klux Klan Act because it's a pretty serious interference with voting. Yeah, how about that?

0:47:16 Thomas: My god that's That's one thing. Oh boy. There's not, I don't think there's a lot of innocent. Yeah. I was prosecuted under the Ku Klux Klan act. It was, it was for, yeah, it wasn't for parking violence. It was just a, it's not related to horrible racism. I promise that

0:47:26 Matt: Total misunderstanding. Yeah it's just, you know, wearing a ghost costume. Him.

0:47:37 Matt: It's that time of year. But no, that's what happened was, yeah, no, it's not.

0:47:40 Thomas: Isn't actually illegal though. Sadly. Yeah, maybe.

0:47:44 Matt: Well, if you're carrying on a flaming cross and standing in somebody's yard, sure. But yeah. So the KKK Act obviously involves interference with civil rights of all kinds. And so this was a crime and a civil violation. They had to pay like a settlement to New York. And my favorite, actually, their sentence in Ohio was they had to do 500 hours of community service as helping to register poor people to vote. So I thought that was a perfect sentence. Yeah, yeah.

0:48:03 Thomas: I love that. Very creative sentencing.

0:48:06 Matt: Was different than this because they were specifically targeting Black voters. And so that was civil rights violation. This is just going out to whatever donor list, I'm sure.

0:48:13 Thomas: Well, Well, and it was spreading a lot of false information right it was like is that part of it or no I

0:48:18 Matt: False. Yeah, well, this is also false information, but yeah,

0:48:21 Thomas: Well I thought this wasn't false information because it's like kind of those celebrate yeah you know bending the truth information on celebrating project 2028 I don'T know that that's false in the same way this jacob wool crap was is it

0:48:28 Matt: Not as directly false, no. And it's also misleading in the sense that they're using some of her 2019 positions, but there are positions she has taken. And they're just phrasing it in the most offensive way possible to right -wing people.

0:48:40 Thomas: That feels like normal politics lies though versus

0:48:43 Matt: But yeah, no, of course, the wall stuff was another level. So that's where I land on that. Again, it's really concerning that the world's wealthiest man gave that super PAC tens and tens of millions of dollars.

0:48:56 Thomas: Just to be clear there's no chance elon musk is liable for any of that he's just donating to that you're which sucks but you know okay

0:49:03 Matt: PAC is doing, allegedly, he is intimately involved with everything they're doing and making real decisions. So he could be liable for violations committed by them. But different day of the lot today. Yeah.

0:49:07 Thomas: But it's a different evil entity you know it's always he's diversified his evil portfolio a little which is you know what's smart is

0:49:18 Matt: It is wise. You just never know.

0:49:20 Thomas: Right so it sounds like um main questions of is he buying votes is any of this illegal not Seems like he or his team or whoever, evil minions, evil jumping dipshits, he should be the jumping dipshit pack. That's what it should be. Anyway, are doing enough to not have this be illegal, seems like right now, but interesting that they got possibly a threatening letter and that actually changed their behavior, which is fascinating.

0:49:43 Matt: Potentially. It might have.

0:49:45 Thomas: We'll find out, I'm sure, more details on that at another time.

0:49:48 Matt: Oh, I do have one more thing, actually. Sorry. Is actually an open legal question that'll be very interested to know how this comes down. Immediately after Biden dropped out, Grok, which is the AI thing on Twitter, on X, began sharing false information about registration deadlines and said that in voter registration deadlines in swing states had passed. And that was just completely not true.

0:50:05 Matt: And you know how AI makes things up sometimes, but it's an interesting thing because you can say, well, you know, AI just hallucinates. That's what they call it, right? When they make things up, it just gives the user what they want to find. There's no way to prove right now. I guess you could probably do some investigative forensic work to try to figure out if it had been told to give those results. The secretaries he was lying about wrote a joint letter saying, please stop doing this. Fix your AI. Don't let it do this. That's a really interesting and scary new frontier. If you start rigging AI... I'm

0:50:04 Thomas: Wow. That sounds illegal. Oh god no kidding yeah and how do you prove it and how now I'm thinking how far away are we matt from the first ai deposition you know they're gonna be like we need to ask this ai yeah who who did it yeah

0:50:43 Matt: Not saying AI couldn't do my my job. Yeah, no, it's true. I don't know how that would even work. But at some point, I'm sure the AI will just be deposed by a different AI. That's where we're heading with all this. And one final thing before we get to our footnote very quickly, did make noise about how he was going to try to declare Elon Musk a natural -born citizen, which is weird and scary, obviously for the purpose of allowing him to run for president, which was the nightmare scenario that somebody with this much money and I

0:51:13 Thomas: I I you know what I don't think he could win I'm fine with with that. Go ahead. Go head and do it. No, famous last words.

0:51:17 Matt: Hope not but you wouldn't think trump could have at this point either but uh you know musk is picking up a lot of steam but again the natural born citizen thing cannot just be changed by an executive order that's just stupid like that's the constitution it's been interpreted by the supreme court and you know again maybe in the complete lawless society yeah

0:51:36 Thomas: Telling me that executive orders can't alter time and space? I didn't know that. Okay. News to me. Wow.

0:51:40 Matt: Apparently not uh born still means I mean I don't I've always thought it's kind of silly but honestly if it keeps you on musk from running for president I I guess that's less silly than I thought.

0:51:48 Thomas: I think the real way it would happen is he or somebody on the Republican side that is just runs and the Supreme Court says, eh, not justiciable. This doesn't matter. That's probably the real way that would would happen. Many people actually like Elon now, you how many actually are fans still?

0:51:59 Matt: It could happen. I mean, certainly, if all the people who are paying for Twitter, paying for X, they're, I guess they, that's them.

0:52:09 Thomas: I think they're forced to because it was there already something they needed. And then this dancing dipshit was like, you have to now pay for a bunch of things. And people like you and I were like, no. And now Twitter is useless to us pretty much took away like everything. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. I don'T think anyone likes them. I think it's a dwindling number. You It know, when you go into the electric car business and then you turn alt right or, you Know, far, far right. Uh, least publicly turn far, Far right. I feel like that's going to kill a lot of your appeal, but I don' know not sure

0:52:37 Matt: He's truly the Henry Ford of our times in every sense. Not just the innovative car making, which isn't all that innovative, but the anti -Semitism and conspiracy theories, and the love for Nazis.

0:52:39 Thomas: But the nazism yeah for sure well

0:52:47 Matt: It's just about 100 years later, here we are.

0:52:52 Thomas: We better uh our palate with nice a nice footnote fetish matt oh

0:52:56 Matt: Sure. Let's talk about witches. I've got to get back to some Salem witch business.

0:53:00 Thomas: Breaking new breaking news in the salem witch trial did

0:53:04 Matt: We have a development. Mary Beth Norton, and the author is telling you, believes that this mass hysteric broke out because these people were under the constant pressure and stress of being surrounded by natives that didn't want them there and were occasionally slaughtering them for reasons that are certainly understandable given what they were doing. However it happened, it doesn't really matter for our purposes because we're talking about the law. Had a whole bunch of people that were wrongfully convicted. We already talked about how that happened on Monday. Go back and listen to that show just a few days ago. But I want to talk about the aftermath because I thought this was particularly interesting because it only took about four or five years for everybody involved to realize, not all publicly, but for the most part, everybody realized that this was just nonsense, that they had just wrongfully executed a lot of people. By 1697, the girls who'd brought these claims were pretty much discredited. The spectral evidence was embarrassing. Told you before that the of Judicature, which became actually the Supreme Judicial Court, which is actually the oldest constitutional court in the Western Hemisphere here in Massachusetts, our state Supreme Court, it was set up specifically to deal with the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials. That's how old this court is. And I've argued in front of it. And it acquitted almost everybody.

0:54:05 Thomas: You get any witches killed or what did you okay so it does other stuff than witch stuff now okay gotcha

0:54:07 Matt: Yeah, no witches. Yeah. It actually is pretty respectable now. And it was respectable at the time because they actually disallowed

0:54:15 Thomas: Because they were cleaning up after it yeah I

0:54:16 Matt: Spectral evidence and they acquitted most everybody. But there were multiple bills, one in 1711 that exonerated a number of people and started offering restitution to the families. And then there was one in 1957 1957 that cleared up a bunch of more names. And it also said in 1957 that it was certain other persons that included that. And I wanted to read some of the very fancy language from this bill because it's kind of funny. Resolved that in order to alleviate such distress, and although the facts of such proceedings cannot be obliterated, the general court, which is our legislature, declares its belief that some proceedings, even if lawful under the province charter and the law of Massachusetts as it then was, were and are shocking. And the wave of popular hysterical fear of the the devil in the community. And further declares that as all the laws under which said proceedings, even if then legally concluded, have long since been abandoned or superseded by our more civilized laws. So basically just a kind of a mulligan. Sorry about that. 1957.

0:55:07 Thomas: Feel like a lawmaker must have been getting haunted or something all right okay we made a mistake it wasn't me but someone made a mistake back then I can't get a good night's sleep anymore because the hauntings because the chains rattling and the doors and knobs and everything and so just it was all you're all innocent it's all done and I hope that the entity living in my attic hears me over here

0:55:32 Matt: Have a less supernatural theory about why it was 1957. I don't have any confirmation for this, but I double checked. But that was the year The Crucible came out as a film and the play had been out for a few years already. And we're talking about the height of the Cold War when, you know, all this hysteria, right? Yeah. And similarly, actually, there was another bill in 2001 that went into effect just a few weeks after 9 -11, where they actually specifically mentioned 9 -1 -1 as a connection to the Salem witch trials about the dangers of losing your head.

0:55:39 Thomas: It's got to be that yeah oh okay wait what what perspective were they like this is why 9 -11 happened is those people

0:55:59 Matt: No saying this is like, we have to be careful in our times, basically not to go into witch hunts. We have to, you you know, not to wrongfully blame people for things. Appreciated the tie -in, but because the 57 bill cleared up five names and said certain other persons, but didn't name them. So the 2001 bill added a bunch more names. But the feel -good story that I'm concluding with today is that in just a couple of years ago, in 2022, an eighth grade teacher at North Andover Middle School named Carrie LaPierre realized after doing some research on her own that one of the names had had been left out. Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who was convicted to die, to hang at 22. She was actually given a reprieve by Governor Phipps, but her name was never cleared. So she and her students made it a cause for three years to petition the legislature to exonerate this last witch from the Salem Witch Trials. And it took three years, but Senator Diana DiZoglio, who's now our auditor, took up the cause and got it passed into the budget. So officially, finally, as of 2022, all of the names were cleared, and justice, as long as it takes, was finally served. Well, I don't know about justice,

0:56:59 Matt: But hey,

0:56:59 Thomas: Boy I I yeah I really feel like we have better things to do um but but okay I mean again so I I I hope someone was getting haunted, and I hope this brings that person to peace, but what a waste of time. Anyway, it's at least a delightful, yeah.

0:57:13 Matt: Don't tell those eighth graders. Come

0:57:15 Thomas: Oh, you're right. It's not, yeah, it's a fun thing to do for eighth. You know what? I take it back. I take het all back because what actually happened was that some eighth graders did a project and got to feel like they affected the political process, which is a good cause, and actually do really think that's positive. So, never mind. It s not about the witches at all yeah good stuff

0:57:15 Matt: On. Good work, kids. And about wrongful conviction and all the rest. And only one of the judges ever apologized to Sewell in 1696. of the jurors came out and apologized, and Phipps actually was recalled basically over this and died almost immediately when he got back to England. So the interesting sort of aftermath and cleanup of the Salem Witch Trials. But it is finally now, after all this, 324 years has been resolved and we can put it behind us.

0:57:48 Thomas: All well that is a much better thing than elon musk a dancing dipshit buying elections so thank you for that footnote fetish as always all rightwell that's our show thanks so much for listening hey please support it and get the word out about again share the show review the show anything you can because I really matt I have not seen anyone talking about this person and what they have done and the super pack stuff like that I haven't heard that. And there needs to be more coverage of that because we have so much damage to undo. Just astonishing that that happened on Biden's watch. I don't know what he could have done about it, but geez, like what is happening?

0:58:00 Matt: Certainly is. Well, we're going to pick up this thread again. There's a lot to talk about here.

0:58:31 Thomas: Absolutely. But please share, spread the word about this and, you know, vote, you know, make a plan to vote, get everyone, you know, to vote especially in critical states, but also everywhere. And thanks so much for listening to the show. See you next time.

0:58:43 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

0:59:00 Thomas: Maybe all the billionaires and candidates have been on their best behavior for 14 years. Can't get a good night's sleep anymore because the hauntings because