Trump's Staff Infection

Transcript

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

0:00:00 Clip: You must never, ever give up or give in. You must keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize. That is your calling. That is you mission. That is moral obligation. That is mandate. Get out there and do it. Get in the way. Change happens because people care. The people have the power to make this life free and beautiful. To make this live a wonderful adventure.

0:00:38 Clip: I still believe with all my heart, America can be a place where no, child is left hungry, no community is left behind, and no one gets told they don't belong. Country is always worth it.

0:00:58 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1086. That's right, a numbered episode. Thomas Smith and I'll be explaining why. So at this hour, you'd be watching Plant World, but, no, this is, of course, the normal day that we answer a bar exam question, and Heather Veronini, bar exam prep expert, comes us through the answer. And lately, I just seem to get them all wrong. After this election, I'll admit I haven't been feeling like doing bar exam questions that much. On the other hand, I know many of you are like, hey, we actually want to just hear stuff that isn't about Trump in the election, and I get it, but I feel like at least in the shorter term I personally really want to keep an eye on all these people and what they're doing like a keen eye and there is so much to talk about that I think we need the extra real estate here to do it but we also don't have any extra mat. At maximum, Mat, poor guy, also has to have a life and help his clients who are probably, um, nervous right about now. Here's the solution I've come to since I could not bear to part ways with Heather because she's such a delight. I have so much fun. We're still going to do Thomas takes the bar exam, but it's going to go to the end of this Wednesday episode, at least for now. I don't know if this will be permanent, but at least for now, is going to be an additional Opening Arguments episode with the bar exam stuff at the end. In order to keep a keen eye on who's coming in to ruin our government and how exactly they are ruining it, bringing in the big guns. I'm bring in my wife, Lydia, who is an expert at this sort of thing over on Where There's Woke. Quite the Rolodex, of exact kind of people that have been gearing up behind the scenes, other levels of government first, you know, in the farm system and we're going to go through appointees. We're only starting with two today, even though I just, just after we recorded a bunch more were announced, we're starting with two, there will be plenty more to come and we'll dive deep into them. That's going to be today's show and I think going to be the Wednesday show for at least a bit. We can always go back to the old format if we want. For now, we need this extra space to keep track of these people. We're going TO be looking at the first couple of Trump's staffing decisions today and plenty more later. And then after that, we'll be Thomas takes the bar exam. In. It'll be question... be the answer to question 46, and it will be question 47. So we're still doing it all. We can have it all find you an OA that does both. Here it is. So that's our plan. I can't wait. It's going to be great. It is the best of all worlds. We better get on over to it after this break, you... you can avoid it. Patreon.com slash law. You can get your hands on that Lot Awful movies about the Conjuring, those charlatans. That was really fun. I hope you'll check that out. Patrons, I hope he enjoyed that. That Was a Lot of Fun. I love getting back to real Lot Awful movies. I'm forward to November's Lot Awful movies as well. So patreon.com slash law, get the goodies and avoid the breaks like this one. Right, after this, we'll We'll get to it.

0:03:57 Thomas: Right. Lydia, co-host of Where There's Woke. Welcome to Opening Arguments. I don't remember if you've ever been on the main show before.

0:04:04 Lydia: Literally never been on.

0:04:06 Thomas: Holy crap. Well, it just took our country descending into fascism to make it happen.

0:04:06 Lydia: Ever. Know. Thank you, country.

0:04:13 Thomas: Those, yes, a

0:04:13 Lydia: Just kidding. I'd rather it be the other way.

0:04:16 Thomas: Thank you so much, swing voters, for not caring enough. For those who don't know you, one of the things you're best at is keeping track of the fascists. And network well with each other. And certainly on Where There's Woke, you've covered a lot of the more obscure stuff that maybe the listening won't know just from reading coverage of like the Trump administration. But there's all these people behind the scenes, Heritage Foundation, you know, ruining education at different levels, contributing to these constant anti -woke fake stories that aren't real. We're turning our sights to the fascist takeover of our government. Thing I also want to do is I want to highlight who we had. Focused more on who's coming in. Yeah.

0:04:56 Lydia: The future. The dark future.

0:05:00 Thomas: I just think it's going to be very interesting. Well, no, more like the white future, because I think it is going to be very interesting to to highlight some of that.

0:05:08 Lydia: And token Vivek. Yeah.

0:05:09 Thomas: Yeah. And I mean, he's got he's appointed some women so far, you know, hashtag equality, hashtag feminism. Blue sky doesn't really have hashtags. I'm done with it. No more hashtags. Get on blue sky, everybody. False opening. I didn't say that. Right as we went to record there's like a million more announcements um so we're starting with two a modest two today but we'll be getting to more don't worry we want to make sure we have time to get really dive in. We get to it though I did came across something I'd had completely forgotten about. If you remember four years ago, around now times, Biden's transition was being held up by this like rogue general services administrator. Do you remember this?

0:05:28 Lydia: A flurry. You Yeah!

0:05:52 Thomas: Emily Murphy. Yeah. She decided, oh no, you can't... it. He like the big lie essentially. Yeah, and I just completely forgot about that because I was was kind of looking at the timeline of what biden did and uh they had to like threaten legal action and then eventually she's like, okay, I've checked and you guess we can go forward with it, but she wouldn't say like like vice president -elect biden or anything so anyway it was it was funny I tried to look and I couldn't find her I googled and there's some other like actress or something with that name or something I was just like yeah I don't care But yeah, I totally forgot about that.

0:06:18 Lydia: She up to lately? Interesting. Ah, yeah tricky. Well, that's what I'll be doing when we get off here.

0:06:33 Thomas: Biden, it's not the same thing, and it shouldn't be because it ultimately isn't going to do anything anyway and it's just not like in accordance with the law, so I don't think it's... there was some chance it could do something, maybe it'd be worth it, but all it does is give fuel to Republicans' grievances against Democrats, so there's not even worth it anyway. So a little trip down memory lane there. Okay. So where shall we begin?

0:06:53 Lydia: Okay, so cabinet picks have started to roll in. Are a few that haven't been formally announced. So we're going to kind of take this bit by bit. And I want to start with the EPA administrator, the I think this is really interesting and sort of helps set up this through line that we're going to see here.

0:07:11 Thomas: Because trump nominated a literal cloud of exhaust smoke to be the epa administrator

0:07:15 Lydia: Kind No. So he nominated Lee Zeldin. Lee Zeldin, representative from New York in the House, and he got his bachelor's degree from SUNY University at Albany in New York. In political science. Then he went to Albany Law School, got his J .D. and was admitted to the New York Bar in 2004, spent a few years in the Army, and then spent a few years practicing law. And from there, he entered politics, went to the Senate, then Congress, ran initially in 2008 for a House seat and lost, and then ran again in 2014 and won. When I read this background on Lee Zeldin, I was like, so why the EPA?

0:07:58 Lydia: He's not a scientist. Didn't study anything related to science in school. I mean, political science, but that's not like science for the EPA. I was like, OK, maybe he was active with climate issues. I'm racking my brain.

0:07:58 Thomas: Yeah oh let me let me help you. When you are going to hire a team of raccoons, animals come run through your system and ruin it and eat stuff and chew on all the wires, you... not like you can be like, I don't understand why didn't one of the badgers that has experience in foreign policy go into the role. It's like they're just a bunch of badgers, there's not, you know, they don't have the experts on their side, they don't have competent people on their site, so we're gonna to get a lot of extremely strange fits.

0:08:39 Lydia: But I also think there's something more to it, too. And we'll get to that in a second. Those questions that I was having as I was reading Lee Zeldin's record, the New York Times was also having those same questions. They ended up publishing like an article that's like, why? And in it, I thought something that was super interesting was a from somebody who thought he was going to be a great pick. So this my eye because this person — it said that they served as chief of staff at the EPA the first Trump administration — with the name Mandy Gunasekera. And they said, Lee Zeldin is a great pic. And the New York Times, thankfully, pointed out that she wrote the section on the EPA for Project 2025. So when I looked at Project 2025, yes, Lee Zeldin is a great pick for like if you are this person because of what they want to accomplish with the new administration there, right? Like they're talking about deregulating certain industries at the federal level, pushing it to the state because the environment only happens within the fake bound boundary of your state it's very silly um kind

0:08:49 Thomas: Literal cloud of exhaust smoke I Look,

0:09:45 Lydia: Of dismantling yeah

0:09:47 Thomas: We need to leave control of the oxygen the whole world breathes back to the state level, you know state that's where

0:09:52 Lydia: Back to the state level exactly um is the person who actually was the one that handed the snowball to the um that like said you know climate change isn't real look at the snowball or whatever like was is that, person. She's also part of this nonprofit that believes that carbon dioxide is actually a good thing and that we just need more of it. I don't know. Anyway, she's singing his praises. 2025, you has tried to distance himself from it. I want to talk very quickly about what he put out instead, which was Agenda 47 when he was like, I don't know what Project 2025 is. This is actually my platform, Agenda 47, which honestly, like if you ever have, I the courage to check it out, it is very silly just the way that it is set up. Is 20 items on his like platform page and then you open up the PDF to read the whole thing and it starts with 2024 GOP platform, make America great again. It. It's just a white piece of paper with some big font in the middle. And then the next page says dedication to the forgotten men and women of America. Kind of I searched that agenda. You him for his word that he has no idea what Project 2025 is. He does, obviously. But taking him at his word, OK, what's his thoughts on the environment for Agenda 47? What are some things that we can expect Lee Zeldin to try and do? Agenda 47, the references I see to the environment or energy production as it relates to the environment are we will drill, baby, drill, and we will become energy independent and even dominant again. The United States has more liquid gold under our feet than any And it's not even close. So what I think we are likely to see here is anything regarding the environment that prevents the ability for them to get that liquid gold that going to be the priority, right? Also are very against the Paris Climate Accords. Author of the Project 2025 piece is a very outspoken critic about that. So I think we can anticipate that Lee Zeldin will lead the efforts to do that. Not to say that Lee Zeldin had absolutely nothing to do with the environment. Let me point out a couple of things things that he's done as of Congress. In April 2015, he and Chuck Schumer, bipartisan, introduced the Fluke Fairness Act. So it would have been managing fluke fishing quotas and pursuing a regional approach to updating what those quotas are for the fluke fish. It did not pass. On July 15th, 2015, he introduced the Exclusive Economic Zone Clarification Act. And so that was trying to amend the boundary for this specific exclusive economic zone for the federal government. And it would change fisheries management of specifically a sound in like New York, partly New York that, you know, he's coming from. So he cares about that. Died in committee. And then in in 2015, September, he joined forces with the Citizens Campaign for the Environment executive director to condemn a federal plan for dumping dredged materials and again, to New York. It was about dumping them in the Long Island Sound. And so they said, we can't just assume that dumping these waste spoils in the long island sound is environmentally benign. And also does not support the Paris Agreement. So that's the extent of his environmental record. Sierra Club is not happy about this. They issued a full press release and they said that he score. The environmental scorecard, you know, they do a bunch of different things specifically to the environment. A lifetime environmental score of 14 percent that he consistently.

0:13:40 Thomas: That you get by just putting your name on the environment? Also,

0:13:43 Lydia: Exactly. He consistently vote against votes environmental protection actions. Clean energy job investments voted against the Inflation Reduction Act. That, what I laid out here is something that the Sierra Club is very well aware of, too, that ultimately what we're looking at is dispersing the Environmental Protection Agency to the state level, which makes absolutely no sense and killing it, essentially. Essentially.

0:14:10 Thomas: This guy just is Sean Spicer with a makeover. It was bothering me. I was like, wait, I don't, I know this guy. It's they all, it's all the same. It'S all one guy.

0:14:17 Lydia: All look the same. Yeah. Is incredibly loyal to Donald Trump, however.

0:14:23 Thomas: No way. Wow. Who could have predicted that that would be the criteria, which would lead you to an appointment?

0:14:26 Lydia: I He prominently defended him during his impeachment hearings. He was an election denier signed on to the amicus brief in Texas v. Pennsylvania calling into to question, you know, the results of the election. Started a PAC called the Leadership America Needs PAC, and the only candidate they ever donate to is Trump. He's a big fundraiser for him. He, you supports him through and through. He constantly goes out to speak on his behalf, went on Sid Rosenberg's show. If you listen to Where There's Vogue, we talk about Sid Rosenberg and his speech at the Madison Square Garden rally that happened before the election. So a really, really awful human being. And Lee Zeldin went straight on there. And we'll talk about Sid Rosenburg a little bit with our next person as well. But that is the EPA administrator. Previous folks for the EPA, no one who has come out against Trump. See kind of differences with some of the other cabinet positions. But yeah,

0:15:25 Thomas: Yeah, that's one thing I was going to keep an eye on is which, as we go through it, it'll be a fun reminder of which ones now don't support Trump. I'm looking at it and I'm seeing Scott Pruitt, of course, and Andrew Wheeler.

0:15:33 Lydia: Scott Pruitt was pushed out because he's

0:15:36 Thomas: Yeah. And so I think we're going to see the people who obviously left early of their own accord might be the ones that don't support Trump as much or like, you know, early. Whereas Scott Pruitt, I think, was was a full true Trumper, but just, yeah, the most corrupt person. And Andrew Wheeler was in until January 20th, 2021, which tells me there wasn't a big falling out. So, yeah.

0:15:36 Lydia: A piece of crap. Corrupt. Yeah. So unlikely to be an issue there. So that is our EPA potential administrator. He would have to be confirmed by Congress. So it's not for sure yet. But also, I mean, Republicans own everything. So

0:16:11 Thomas: So if you're wondering who we had currently, Regan is the current, and I guess exiting, administrator of the EPA. Now, heard that name in your life.

0:16:19 Lydia: What's amazing though like never heard that name in my life like wouldn't that

0:16:22 Thomas: However, however, yeah. However However, I think you probably will remember a few viral moments that Michael Regan had. First, he's a black man from North Carolina. He, he did some stuff under Roy Cooper. Was he the second secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality? Wait a minute. Does that mean that only exists like recently? Oh, yeah. Formed in 2015. So he was the the second they, huh? Yeah. North Carolina hasn't cared about having, you know, an environment, I guess until recently.

0:16:22 Lydia: Be so nice they got there so welcome scratch

0:16:56 Thomas: So just recognizing right away, one for one, we're substituting uh younger black man for an old-ass white asshole. We've already we're one for one in terms of that. I'm very curious to where that ends up. The fact that Democrats have been the party that do diversify government and make sure your government actually represents the people and not just one particular cross -section of people has always been really cool, that, often straw-manned as like, oh, that's all anyone cares about. It's all Democrats. No, it's not. There's plenty of qualified people. There's too many qualified people for these kind of jobs, especially in the Democratic Party. And so there's a bevy of choices and choosing people who are not white men is cool sometimes, you know, on occasion.

0:17:37 Lydia: Yeah.

0:17:38 Thomas: Kind of cool. Anyway, I but guarantee a lot of the listeners will remember a certain viral moment that Michael Regan had. You might not be able to think of it yet. I'll start with one that was less viral, but is really funny. Money. So this was a gotcha. And this is the thing about our very unserious era of politics, which is every single Biden nominee for anything had to go up in front of the clowns, know, clown Congress, where there's a bunch of Republican clowns trying to have like the viral moment. They're it's such a joke. Like time I watch one of these things, I'm reminded how sad it is that this is what what we've become so this was this one guy's uh attempt at this this

0:18:13 Clip: I want to start with just speaking with you, having exchanged philosophically. You would agree that we, and this is real basic stuff, you would agree we live in a representative republic, correct? I'm sorry? We live in a representative republic, philosophically I agree with you. So which do you believe, even a binary choice, should have more legal weight and be held in higher regard? Choices A and B. A. Laws passed by Congress, the folks that are elected by the people, and then signed by the President, so that's choice A, will be in rule imposed by unelected bureaucrats.

0:18:35 Thomas: Is so good

0:18:51 Clip: What do you think should have more legal weight and held in higher regard? A or B. I like the system that we have. So, do you want to answer? A or D. Congress writes the laws, the President signs it in, and we implement them. So you would agree then that a law should have more weight than a rule. I'm sorry?

0:19:09 Lydia: No, it's A and B.

0:19:11 Clip: You would agree, then, that a rule should have a weight than the rule. The rules are designed under the auspice of the law.

0:19:07 Thomas: Well yeah it is yeah

0:19:20 Clip: Okay, so we're not going to get an answer.

0:19:20 Lydia: To follow the law.

0:19:22 Clip: So, you know, Chevron

0:19:20 Thomas: So we're not gonna get it so this is texas representative pat fallon I don't know he's probably still there I don' t care I'm gonna check it's I just love this because I wish it's more authority, a lot or an unelected beer craze. Like, do you not know how any of this works, man? Like that.

0:19:24 Lydia: Baby. Rulemaking is not just like people kind of drawing in crayon and posting it up there. Yeah there's it's a very regimented process yeah

0:19:41 Thomas: Just for no reason. Yeah, they just decide. He's like, it's already how it is, you know. And so this was funny. But there's one that was even better that you may remember. Can't wait you was owned by a certain other representative I

0:20:01 Clip: Your agency hasn't been authorized and has since lost most legal standing, Does your agency still plan to enable rogue bureaucrats to enact unconstitutional regulations? I'm not quite sure I follow you. You're saying that...

0:20:15 Thomas: Oh, my God.

0:20:18 Clip: I'm saying the Chevron Doctrine was overturned by the Supreme Court. We have all authority. I'm just as a delegate authority for us to do the regulations and the business and the policy. So the Chevron Doctrine, where you have created all of these rules under that have been proven to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, has been overruled. So now I'm asking, are your bureaucrats still going to implement these rulemaking processes? You do know Chevron is not just focused on EPA. But you are. So I'm talking about the EPA. And I'm thinking about your rogue bureaucrats that have enacted

0:20:41 Lydia: God god

0:20:45 Thomas: So good.

0:20:58 Lydia: Stop

0:20:59 Clip: These unconstitional regulations. Regulations, are you going to repeal them? Are you going to continue to implement them? Or are you going to stop altogether, since it's been overturned? Do you understand the ruling? Do you understand the rule of the Supreme Court? I do. So your question is ill -formed. No, we're not going to stop.

0:20:59 Lydia: Saying that oh

0:21:19 Clip: So you're going to unconstitutionally continue with these rulings? We're going adhere to the Supreme Court and continue to do our... So which rulings are you going to roll back? We are going to adhere to to the Supreme Court and continue to do our work in accordance to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court didn't tell us to repeal anything. They have been deemed unconstitutional. No.

0:21:12 Lydia: My god yeah

0:21:32 Thomas: It's so good.

0:21:44 Lydia: Oh

0:21:44 Clip: Absolutely they have. This was a huge victory. And even in our appropriations bill in the House this year, the funding has been reduced by 20%. I would argue that it needs to be reduced by 100%. But

0:21:47 Thomas: Such an idiot. So In case anyone didn't recognize, nice, this is re-elected Congress representative Lauren Boebert, uh, re-elected. She had to, she moved, yeah, This is Beetlejuice enthusiast, uh, Boebert, she had to move I think because of redistricting but she moved to a district that uh, you know, she made the right choice, and she, yeah, she got re-elected. This person is... I'm sorry, I'm just like this person's in the House and she doesn't understand things that like Arguments listeners understand, and I... we probably have a few House members as listeners, but like most of us aren't, and the fact that she doesn't even get that, it's so funny, I'm gonna see how long we can keep going because it's absolutely gold, what

0:22:03 Lydia: My God Beetlejuice fan I get it lots of great songs that elected her Wow. Yeah. What?

0:22:37 Clip: Is shocking you spend so much time with our regional staff and regional administration and region eight and have such productive conversations about how we're doing things for your district in your state and then you take this microphone I've also seen the The coal plants that have been decommissioned in my state, the coal plant, I see the energy regulations that have regulated my district into poverty. You're spending time on my staff in your district. Of course I am. I have oversight over your staff, and I want them to answer. Complimenting them. I want to provide a service for the American people. Compliment them about poverty. But there are so much. Yes, there are some things that have done well, but not everything. You should be 100 % with me. When we have $617 billion per year in rulemaking, that is absolutely absurd. When

0:23:21 Thomas: It's so good, it's so good. I I love it because the genuine confusion on Michael Regan's part he's the... EPA, she has never been authorized by Congress, that's what she's... that's how she started. So EPA's never been authorized? Really? I've seemed to remember a certain, certain act that

0:23:23 Lydia: Crazy. Yeah, yeah. That long ago, unfortunately, either.

0:23:41 Thomas: It was Nixon, actually. Yeah, so, gonna miss Michael Regan. I think he was doing a pretty good job, but yeah, that's what he had to deal with.

0:23:50 Lydia: On to our other announced, unannounced, cabinet member, U.N. ambassador. Do you remember?

0:23:56 Thomas: Wait, that's a cabinet member.

0:23:58 Lydia: It can be. So it doesn't have to be. I think I was reading that two-thirds of ambassadors to the U.N. have been members of the cabinet. And it's expected that this person will also be a member of Trump's cabinet by the way that he's talking about it. Do you remember who the U.N. ambassador was?

0:24:16 Thomas: Haley. Right.

0:24:17 Lydia: So Nikki Haley But she did not serve the entire time. She resigned in 2019. And there were a lot of theories at the time going around about why. And no one really knows for sure. Some say that was because she's hyperpolitical and calculating because she left around the same time that Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in. So potentially creating some distance as the highest ranking female of Trump's cabinet with Brett Kavanaugh coming in and being accused of sexual assault.

0:24:49 Thomas: Like back then when the political environment felt more like, oh, this guy no one cares now, okay yeah gotcha that

0:24:54 Lydia: Like height of me too yeah Well, yeah, nobody cares now, but height of MeToo, you know, her political ambitions were not done that maybe this was a calculated move potentially

0:25:04 Thomas: Would be a little bit too toxic to her brand what?

0:25:07 Lydia: Potentially. Um, she cited concern about term limits, about her serving as a U.N. ambassador, impacting term limits for, you know, her future career. It made no sense. And so that's why people were like, I think there's something else going on here. When she left, Trump appointed Kelly Craft, probably not a name you've heard before. So she's out of Kentucky, wealthy, very generous donor to the Republican Party. And she stayed through the U.N. ambassadorship through the end of Trump's term and then after that, she ran for the governorship in Kentucky as part of the Republican primary. And Trump endorsed an opponent. The primary was coming up for the presidential election for this year, she and her husband donated to six different candidates for the GOP primary, and none of them were Trump. Trump. Donated to Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy, DeSantis. She was a big DeSantis fan. Did not get any of their money at that time. And I was like, oh, maybe she didn't actually vote for him. Maybe this is one of the rifts that we can see. But she eventually fell in. I saw plenty of articles where she was incorporating MAGA rhetoric ahead of the election. So she seemed like she was kind of all in on Trump again, even though he, you her opponent. She ended up losing the primary by a lot and didn't care. But today, now we're going to talk about Elise Stefanik. Stefanik is a five-term representative from New York. She was the youngest woman elected to the House in 2014. Paul Ryan was her mentor. She actually helped prep him for his debate during the vice presidency candidacy, you know, versus Joe Biden. And she had worked in the George Bush administration previously. Obviously, she kind of rose to prominence. She was pretty well known in Republican circles when she first came on. Again, she was the youngest woman elected to the House. When Liz Cheney was kind of taking on the anti-Trump stance as the House Republican conference chair, she was ousted and Elise Stefanik was elected to replace her. I think it's like the third highest ranking Republican member of Congress. And to form, she you was the youngest woman elected to the House in 2014. She will also be the youngest U .N. ambassador if she's confirmed. I'm going to send you a link really fast to when she was first elected. She did an interview. I think this is a really interesting comparison point of kind of how she has changed over time.

0:27:48 Clip: Talks about something that's rare these days in Washington, compromise and working with Democrats. Americans are really sick of gridlock. In Washington, I think you're going to see a Congress at work in the 114th Congress, and a Senate at work. I can hear viewers at home saying, ah, I'll believe it when I see it. Every member of Congress tells me that, every new session. But you know what, maybe that's my youth coming through, and maybe it's naivete, but it's also optimism. I think that's where being young is a strength, because I bring, I hope, a sunny side of optimism to Congress and a willingness to work with people. I

0:28:22 Lydia: First came on, the Heritage Action entity, right, this conservative sort of group that ranks based off of conservativeness of different Congress folk. Would you guess her score was when she first started with Congress?

0:28:37 Thomas: Not great, like a young New York Republican. I

0:28:41 Lydia: 48 percent. 2021, what do you think it changed to?

0:28:47 Thomas: Don't know, man, does it even matter, is it the same as conservatism or just MAGA, because that's what it is now, like how are they grading this yeah

0:28:53 Lydia: I mean, it's yeah, it went to 84 percent. So the bipartisan ranking, looking at all the House members in 2019, she was ranked 19th most bipartisan House member. And by 2021, just two years later, she dropped to 100th. Over time, her position started out like that. And over time her position has moved closer in alignment with Trump. Is actually something that Tucker Carlson had called out at one point that he doesn't totally buy, you where she's at. I think people think of it as fake, that it's political opportunism. And apparently her started dragging Tucker's son and the Trump administration had to like reach out and say, like, leave Tucker's sun out of this. Yeah, it's been like a really strange thing. Her team was trying to play dirty and got poo -pooed a little bit and told to knock it off. Again, I'm left with a question. Why the U .N.? I mentioned, you know, is from, you know, New York, Paul Ryan was her mentor, she's very involved in politics from a young age. She... thinking like, okay, maybe it's education? No, she did her bachelor's degree in government from Harvard and she went straight to her political career from that she actually has experience working with her parents small business in the United States. They're like a plywood manufacturing company, small business in New York.

0:30:19 Thomas: The U.N. makes a lot of plywood, so why

0:30:22 Lydia: So I was well, I was thinking like, oh, you know, maybe small business administrator like that. Would be a good fit then potentially. Why, why the U.N.? And again, we come to loyalty. She was a big defender of Trump in his impeachment hearings. I don't know if you... you remember, yeah, Devin Nunes ceded his time to Stefanik to... And then Adam Schiff said, you can't do that. And it like created this whole hubbub because they said that she was being gagged, even though it was a rule that she Was not, you officially representing Trump. She was just sitting there kind of thing and wanted to say some stuff. Stuff. That probably, you know, helped put her in his good graces. She also was an election denier side that Texas v. Pennsylvania amicus brief as well. And she was actually one of the key people who said that Pelosi was responsible for January 6th and starting that rumor. So, So, yeah, very, very strongly loyal ally for Trump.

0:30:36 Thomas: I remember that. Yeah. Shameless liar.

0:31:22 Lydia: Yeah, not it. So the other thing that I think is important here for when we're talking about the U.N. ambassador specifically is that Israel-Palestine is driving this particular appointment. She was announced as the U.N. ambassador pick, Israel was one of the first to congratulate her. They said, Ambassador Danon looks forward to working closely with Elise Stefanik on tackling malicious lies at the U.N. advanced by hostile nations while staying unswervingly committed to truth and justice.

0:31:52 Thomas: And I did want to say a couple things about Stefanik. One thing I came across that was just, I just had to mention. For one, I, I didn't realize, I forgot, I think, in 2022 that she was on this advisory board for Harvard, I guess, and then Harvard removed her because of election lie crap. So remember that brief time after, you know, January 6th, when it seemed like we're kind of going to like move in a different direction in this country and people who are lying about the election were kind of not super popular for like five minutes remember that Yeah, it was nice, uh, she was one of those people, and I was thinking, like, oh, I wonder if that has anything to do with her grievances, like so many of these people are just, like, to get back at somebody, I don't know, and, and if she was removed from this Harvard advisory board, does that have anything to deal with how she lashed out about Israel stuff and the campuses I don't know, she might have done it anyway, but yeah yeah Um, here's, there's this clip I was gonna play, I started playing, and it's so garbled that I don't think you can even hear it, but, um, said she doesn't believe E. Jean Carroll when this guy was, was asking her. And then the guy's like, it's not, she's like all this is just another attack from the media. He's like it's not the media, it is a jury.

0:32:42 Lydia: I mean it right tucker carlson called it

0:33:03 Thomas: Literally they found him liable for that, and she is like, no, didn't happen, basically. I, I couldn't resist because right below this tweet video that I'm looking at, again, this is why we're all in Blue Sky.

0:33:03 Lydia: Yeah found

0:33:15 Thomas: There's a some sort of checkmarked account with 230k followers that posted this, the journalist says, it's not the media, it's a jury that found he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll, is the quote in the tweet, and then reply, this MAGA asshole with a bunch of followers post the jury form, the verdict form, with a red circle around the first one, and it said, did Miss Carroll prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Trump raped Miss Carroll, and that says checkmark no, and so it's like, ha, gotcha, only problem is, on the person's own thing, question two is, Mr. Trump sexually abused Miss Carroll, check

0:33:14 Lydia: Oh god yeah yeah

0:33:54 Thomas: Mark yes, literally right below it, on the, on the thing that this person posted. I know it's just a random tweet, I'm so sorry to bring it up, but it was just so apropos of, like, oh yeah, that's why we're getting the hell off of that cesspool, like, wondering if this is like parody, but no, no, it's real, the person's like... like, they, that didn't happen. And literally the thing, the verdict form that they posted, it's the second question. Boy.

0:34:17 Lydia: But, Dismantle the Department of Education, folks, that's gonna fix everything

0:34:25 Thomas: That will do it. The only other thing I had is like, there was, there's articles about like Stefanik's old Harvard being sad that she went for big lie stuff. I'm just like, man, this, how far she's fallen. 'Cause she really did, like, you, you covered. I mean, she started off as somebody who was going to be more sensible, but that also could have just been the political opportunism of the time. So who knows? I guess I don't know her personally, so who knows if it was more she genuinely changed or she was always going to be opportunist and it appeared in 2014 that that's what she needed to do and then she adjusted. I don't know. The, when we look at who, who is currently serving, I was gonna talk about, for one, how much more qualified Linda Thomas-Greenfield is. I mean, I mean, she, she held actual positions before this that have anything to do with this. You know, she was U.S. ambassador to Liberia from like first Obama term, director general of the Foreign Service, director of Human Resources, 18th United States Assistant Secretary of State of African Affairs. This she also sucks on Israel, Palestine. And here's this sort of tells us something about how effective tacking to the right is or isn't, you

0:35:31 Thomas: Know, it be in some circumstances, but, like, this is someone who was the lone vote against a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. So already were maximally friendly to Israel when it comes to the Biden administration and this stuff. And then for them to come in and, you... Elise Stefanik and be like, finally, an... we advocate. It's just, it's another sign that, like, I'm not saying we can never moderate on certain things, but certainly we don't get credit for it, like it doesn't matter among most of the hard right, and they still... they treat it as though this is some great change when it actually isn't. So, in a sense, while Linda Thomas-Greenfield, really Biden's current U.N. ambassador, way more qualified, change didn't... will make almost no difference directly in terms of Israel because we already were too far on Israel's side on that. So it's interesting. By the way, diversity check.

0:36:24 Thomas: Elise Stefanik, white. Thomas-Greenfield, a black woman. Again, two for two on white people for Trump admin. And, you know, it's just going to be interesting to keep track of that.

0:36:34 Lydia: And Neutral on women, I guess, Yeah, then later, Danon, who was cited in that previous tweet, ambassador to the U.N., And so he also tweeted in response, at a time when hate and lies fill the halls of the U.N., your unwavering moral clarity is needed more than ever. Wishing you success and standing firm for truth and justice. She was awarded the Defender of Israel Award by the Zionist Organization of America. And if that's not enough for folks to believe like this is kind of the position that we are taking with the United Nations, this just like Israel's ally, but this like firm commitment specifically as it relates to the Israel Israel -Hamas war. I want you to play when she went on Sid Rosenberg's show. The end of her interview, this is on November 8th. So this is prior to her being announced as the U .N. ambassador. Start talking about.

0:37:29 Thomas: He had Lee Zeldin on as well, Well, like you said, there it is, yeah. Eric Trump, oof. This show sucks, gosh. Oh my, really?

0:37:35 Lydia: Dershowitz comes on. Yeah I know I there's part of me where I'm like oh man do I have to start listening to this show. So, yeah,

0:37:41 Thomas: I know, maybe it'd be worth it to keep up with, like, evil these people are.

0:37:43 Lydia: I know. But towards the end of this interview, they start talking about the role that she played with the college protests and grilling the presidents for Harvard, MIT, and what was it, UPenn. Um there uh start talking about how they are going to be planning on holding schools accountable moving forward and what that means for the country as it relates to israel

0:37:54 Thomas: That was the worst.

0:38:16 Clip: So are other anti-Semitic institutions like the UN. The list is long. We are coming up to a century, and President Trump is the only person, the only president, who is going to be able to get this done, and I'm going to do with him every step of the way, no matter what that role looks like.

0:38:32 Lydia: Yeah so that's what we have to look forward to with the UN. Everything I'm seeing says that she's likely to be confirmed. Yeah Yeah. I don't really know what to do about that.

0:38:44 Thomas: I mean, it doesn't look it didn't really end up deciding the election or anything, but I be honest, not voting for Harris out of any sort of desire to send a message about Israel to the Democrats was the stupidest. I mean it just was illogical. It wasn't effective, wasn't going to work. People may justify that as some emotional thing that it made sense for them to do because they're too mad at Democrats or something. Thing. Fine. But I who decided their vote based on that issue was helping put someone in power who's going to enable more genocide of the Palestinians. So you actually were voting for the more genocide option by doing that. And that's hey, if you think that made sense, if that was your calculation that like somehow that was going to prove a point and somehow next election that will that that will send a message that there's stop trying to send a message to people with your vote. Because It look at the end result of this election. There's that message is gone. It's nowhere because we just lost and we lost by enough that that didn't even factor that isn't even in the top reasons. It's not in the Top 10 reasons people gave for voting. So all that your message even if you sent it or tried to send it is not received. And all you did was help try contribute to Donald Trump winning and enabling more genocide of Palestinians. But, you know, by that same token, again, it's not like this decided the election. It didn't. But that that kind of decision making of, quote, trying to send a message by not voting, it never works. It's not going to work. It hasn't worked ever. And it will continue to not work. And it's counter to your very own purpose. But whatever.

0:40:17 Lydia: And to close out Elise Stefanik, some folks have been saying, oh, well, you know, it's interesting because she just got reelected and now she's leaving the House. It's already a really like slim majority is what the Republicans are looking at. Is this an opportunity for Democrats? And no, I mean, there's going to be a safe district and there is required to be be a special election you they don't get to appoint members to the house of representatives

0:40:33 Thomas: She's in a safe district. Yeah. It does take time, though, right? It's not as though they can run a special election right away so that seat will be vacant for some period of time when they need it. So I guess but yeah, I mean, ultimately, probably won't make a difference.

0:40:43 Lydia: Does yeah yeah yeah potentially but I mean like ultimately I think donald trump's going to be coming through the door and the first orders of business are likely to be just executive orders and pushing things through that they can implement immediately rather things that have to go through Congress. But

0:41:09 Thomas: We'll see. I mean, having a slim majority has caused them problems. I don't know if it will be the same now because one person actually is worth saying. Someone pointed this out. I think it's a good observation that was one thing when the House, the slim House majority caused a lot of problems when Republicans were sort of maybe still running against Trump in a way. You know, like in 2022 and whole term, they had a slim majority and they weren't totally sure about the future of the party. They weren't totally sure that it was just Trump and there might have been some tension there. There's no tension there whatsoever. Like the entire Republican Party knows now more than ever it's Trump. And I suspect we'll see a lot more unity there in the House. Maybe not, you know, 100%, but I think that'll be less of that unity will be much less of a problem now. Now, and I mean, slim majority is still tough. I mean you don't, if, if they have only a seat or two, a vote or two to spare, then you know, people travel, people get sick, people, you know, there's different reasons. So I, I guess on the slightest bright side, I hope that he takes as many Republican members of the house

0:42:12 Thomas: That will go. And then at least that might cause some problem, but I don't know.

0:42:16 Lydia: We don't have time to get to it today, but a little preview. We are going to be talking about his chief of staff pick. That is is something that she does not need to be confirmed by the Senate. She is officially appointed. Susie Wiles. I have a lot on her. So we're going to save that for another time.

0:42:30 Thomas: We'll save that for next week on Fash Watch with Lydia. All right. Well, we'll keep an eye on these horrible people and what they do to ruin our government and our country. Yeah, so to sum up, we've got someone who's going to help ruin the environment and in a federal agency about environment, hand power back to the states. That makes sense. And then someone else who is going to go even more pro -Israel than the current person who was already pro -israel in ways that are going to be incredibly harmful. I mean, talking about how much the university system already bent over backwards for pro -Israel efforts during that whole thing. But that was enough. They're They are going to have their funding pulled and who knows what.

0:43:12 Lydia: After the tenure process for professors. Yeah.

0:43:14 Thomas: I mean, we'll keep an eye on it. The whole point of this is I much want to know. To watch. I wanna keep a vigilant eye. And so, Fash Watch 2025, I guess? I don't know. Thanks, Lydia. Appreciate it. And looking forward... No, not saying that. Looking forward to hearing you on the show next week as we some more Fash. So, we'll see you then. Thank you so— Thanks so much.

0:43:34 Lydia: Thank you. Thank you.

0:43:39 Thomas: Right, well, after this break, we'll be on to the regularly scheduled programming, Thomas Takes the Bar Exam, question, Answer to Question 46, with Heather Virginia. Episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. You name every single subscription you have? Even close to that. Just learned that over 74 % of people have subscriptions they've forgotten about. I'm kind of surprised that number isn't just 99999999. 999. don't know what world 26 % of people are living in where they remember every subscription they have. With Rocket Money, I don'T have to remember every single dumb subscription that I've signed up for or worry about forgetting any of them because I can see them all laid out right in front of me. On the topic of most Americans being wrong, most Americans think I think they spend about $62 per month on subscriptions, but the real number is closer to $300. If they're misinformed on that, I wonder what else most Americans could be misinformed on. Jokes aside, if you're anything like me, you need Rocket Money for real. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and it helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Can see all your subscriptions in one place and know exactly where money is going. Any you don't want anymore, Rocket Money can help you cancel them with a few taps. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you, sometimes by up to 20%. They automatically scan your bills to find opportunities to save, and then you can ask them to negotiate for you. They'll deal with customer service.

0:45:18 Thomas: Total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $745 a year when using all of the app's features. Really is incredible. It really will help you. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash opening. rocketmoney.com slash opening.

0:45:45 Clip: I just know, that you are gonna kick that bar's butt, out of here, you know, No.

0:45:50 Thomas: How are you doing today?

0:45:52 Heather: Doing great how are you doing well

0:45:53 Thomas: Answer is entirely contingent on whether or not I've been bamboozled again. But yeah, we will see. This one, I will see if it's even a bamboosling. I could just get something normal wrong, which don't you remind everyone what last week's question was was about oh

0:46:06 Heather: This is about our friend Patty and Don who were married and then our friend Don moves to the state of Florida to as you so aptly put it um be closer to Trump. And then he files for divorce and then Patty flies to Florida to check out this thing with her mom to see whether or not she'd actually won a house. And then while she's there, she while Patty's there. She gets summoned by Don for a divorce proceeding. And we're going to figure out whether or not Florida can exercise personal jurisdiction over Patty. You said federal civil procedure and you were correct. This is a civil procedure question. Yeah. Personal jurisdiction or jurisdiction a lot times just broadly gets tested all the time as a civil procedure subtopic. And so I was like, oh, great. What we're doing. So that's part of how I knew right away, if I wasn't sure before, that it was a civil procedure question. Order for courts to exercise power over the people case and in the subjects, the subject matter of the case, they have to have jurisdiction. And to say that they have power over the parties to the case they have, to have what's called personal jurisdiction the people in it. And then that's really what we're going to be talking a little bit about today. So when you hear personal jurisdiction, that's, that, that really just a fancy lawyer way of saying that the court has to have, um, over the parties of the place. So, uh, we're gonna get a little more specific and this is also known as in personam, personal jurisdiction. When we have questions like this, what focus often is we're looking at asserting jurisdiction over what's referred to as a non -resident defendant. That means a person who does not live in the same state as where the court's located. So that's really what we're talking about. So that is why we are looking at Patty as opposed to looking at Dawn. That is one of the reasons. Also because when a plaintiff files a complaint in court, they are essentially assenting to the jurisdiction, the personal jurisdiction of that court because they are choosing the location. So then that is also why our focus also shifts to the defendant when it comes to MBE questions like this one. Where we start oftentimes is knowing that there's two main ways that courts can assert personal jurisdiction over what's referred to as that non -resident defendant, like our friend Patty. I refer to this as the traditional basis and the modern basis. Let's start with the traditional basis. If you have ever been to law school, you may have heard of a case called Pennoyer versus Neff. And this is a case from the 1800s. It's very hard to read.

0:48:28 Heather: It is the bane of every first existence. Very confusing, but the essentially it's about a piece of property up in Oregon, and the court was trying to figure out whether or not they could exercise personal jurisdiction over a person who was not in Oregon at the time that the case was going on. If you are a law student and you feel frustrated by the name Pennoyer, you're not alone. We'll talk about what comes out of that case in a minute. Then that modern basis, this is also known as the minimum compacts test that we learn about from this case called International Shoe versus Washington that looked at the domicile of corporations, kind how corporations have contacts with state where the court is located when they're getting sued. We're going to get a little bit more specific here, three ways to to get more specific, that the court can exercise personal jurisdiction over the parties using this particular way, that's domicile presence and consent. Talking about consent. We'll start with C because that talks about consent, right? No, because Patty consented to personal jurisdiction in Florida. Talked a little bit about what you thought consent meant. And you remind me a little bit so that I make sure I understand?

0:49:39 Thomas: I think that possibly possibly consenting would just be maybe participating in the lawsuit and just being like, yeah, I'll just, whatever, I will just do it. I was thinking that consenting would include a number of possible things, one of which might be presence, but that sounds like like that was wrong and presence is a separate thing. So, uh, I'm not entirely sure that I know what, what it takes to consent to personal jurisdiction.

0:50:00 Heather: No. But you actually gave a really good example a person shows up and starts to participate in the lawsuit. So the rule is that a party can agree to the court's assertion of personal jurisdiction over them. And that's exactly, you gave a really great example, you start to participate. So for example, and here that would be Patty shows up the first day of court and her and Don start fighting over the dog. They start fighting overthe house, they fight over the car, right? And that's what consent can look like. Contrast, the court says that, or what we know is that when somebody to say that the court doesn't have jurisdiction over them, they don't have have personal jurisdiction over them specifically. A rule that basically says that's not them consenting to personal jurisdiction. They can raise that with court.

0:50:44 Thomas: Otherwise you'd be, there'd be no way to do that. You'd have to like, you can't respond at all, otherwise you've consented, then we'd be stuck.

0:50:53 Heather: It. That would be a whole mess. That's also why we can eliminate C. C is the wrong answer choice. So you did a great job eliminating C and knowing that that was the wrong answer choice. So we don't have consent here. Patty has not consented to personal jurisdiction.

0:51:06 Thomas: Yeah I don' think I did a good job. I think I think C was not a good second chance answer. So all my entire are on my first answer basket. And so we'll see.

0:51:17 Heather: Next two answer choices that we can take a peek at are the ones that talk about presence, right? Have two answer choice to talk that have the word present or presence in them, and we'll talk about that. We have a rule here that says a party is in the forum state when they're served with process. Process and had a question about whether summons is different than service of process and the answer is technically like yes but for the purposes of this more or less it's one in the same that like when you're served with process and you get a summons summons usually the paperwork service is usually when they hand it to you so there's a technical difference but for purposes of the question it's kind of one in the same so you do yeah because it's a notice requirement yeah um

0:51:52 Thomas: Is weird because I thought you'd have to be served process. I thought that you always have to serve process. Wondering how that wouldn't matter for this question. But we'll say I guess.

0:52:03 Heather: I can answer. So the- the call- the question, it says Patty was served by her husband with a summons so she ends up getting that service in florida yeah

0:52:11 Thomas: But the summons. So you're saying the summons is the same as because like when you sue someone you have to serve them the lawsuit but a summon sounds like hey you we need you somewhere not that seems like at one least one step down the line from being served process if I was not served something process and then I get a summons I'd be like hey what the f man I wasn't served process to begin with so this seems like no yeah

0:52:18 Heather: And that's let me Because this isn't a question about, the main issue here isn't notice. Help a little bit?

0:52:40 Thomas: That's kind of what I said like I I looked for does anything in the answers say like about getting served properly, like notice or whatever. So I think that maybe it sounds like that would matter, except the question is not really looking at that part of it.

0:52:55 Heather: Exactly. And that's exactly what you would do too if the, because there are really good questions that deal with that and you're trying to figure out, oh, was there like proper service? There's And questions that we'll get into that. And, that's Exactly what you you look for. Oh, that arose? Did they hand it to my 12 -year -old son something to that effect? That's So for the presence issue, it's saying a party is in the forum state when served with process.

0:53:16 Thomas: You're saying that's the requirement for personal to personal jurisdiction. Requirement is if you're there when you are served with process. And that's it. No Wow.

0:53:24 Heather: Well, there's some exceptions, right?

0:53:29 Thomas: I

0:53:31 Heather: I always look for the first thing is I I start with the rule. It meet the rule? And then I go through the exceptions. So we're looking at Patty, was she in Florida where the court's located? Was she in florida at the time that she was served with process from exactly it. With a yes. And then so let's go through to see whether or not any of the exceptions apply. Of the exemptions is if a person is only in the state to answer a summons. That her only purpose for being in Florida?

0:53:43 Thomas: Say no, but I guess if you're saying that serving the summons counts as that, then sure. No, I guess.

0:54:03 Heather: That's exactly right. She was there for other reasons, right? Her and her mom, they received that big envelope winnings. Listen, she doesn't meet that requirement or exception. The other one is this. A person is brought to the state by force or fraud by the person that's suing them.

0:54:19 Thomas: It. Yeah, exactly. I thought it would be by the person suing them. So we don't have any evidence of that either.

0:54:25 Heather: Exactly. Because we're looking at big envelope winnings, bringing them, Patty and her mom, to the state, when we are looking at if feel that Patty was brought to Florida by fraud, her and her mom, right? Would have to be the big envelope winnings was suing Patty in order for this particular exception to apply.

0:54:39 Thomas: Well we may find out later that Don is behind big envelope but we don't know that now.

0:54:44 Heather: That's exactly it. For the purposes of right now, it seems like that might not be the case for what we have. Yeah. What that means too is that we look at answer choice A, yes, because her presence in Florida was procured by fraud.

0:54:56 Thomas: I did something right, which is that I figured it would need to be fraud by the, by Don and it wasn't. So absolutely

0:55:01 Heather: And that's how A is a wrong answer choice. Now we're down to D, no, because Patty was served while physically present in Florida, which sounds like the presence answer, right? And then B, she did not have minimum contacts with Florida. We're between B and D. But we know that we've got this one last part of the rule for the traditional basis, which is that one of the ways in which the court can exercise personal jurisdiction over a non -resident defendant is when they're domiciled in the state where we're only looking at individuals, we're not looking at a corporation, rule for domicile is that it's determined by physical presence in the state and intent to remain. We know that our friend Patty, she's at least physically present, right? She's located now. She's physically present in Florida. Now we're looking to see if she has any facts to to suggest she's meant to stay there after the lawsuit. Exactly. So the can't get it for reasons of domicile. Domiciles out. So we still have our presence answer and it's not quite yet helping us with our minimum contacts.

0:56:01 Thomas: Not. Was this an and? Thought it was, or so like, are you saying you need all three of those things? Uh okay

0:56:07 Heather: You're right. It's an or and not an and. Yet you only have to have one in order for the court to be able to exercise personal jurisdiction. What do you know about minimum contacts?

0:56:10 Thomas: Gotcha um it's pretty intuitive stuff I mean some something they're renting something doing doing some sort of transacting something some business or some part of your life in florida I donno No.

0:56:27 Heather: Well, say this. Give you the lawyer answer for what has to happen is in order to get to minimum contacts, the answer to the three traditional basis ones, it has to be no, no, and no. And then you can move on to minimum contacts.

0:56:41 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:56:41 Heather: Yeah. And the rule for minimum contacts the one that they teach you in law school that you can then repeat in your sleep is that for for a court to exercise personal jurisdiction over a non -resident defendant, the defendant must have such minimum contacts with the forum state so that jurisdiction does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. Recite that in my sleep until I'm dead. Then what happens is that there's a whole framework that you work through of, you go step by step to try to determine determine whether or not the defendant has met those contacts. Systematic and continuous. We have specific or general jurisdiction? There's a whole thing. Has to be, again, those traditional Basie's question. It has to to be no no no and then we can move on to say um

0:57:23 Thomas: Then what was the first I thought minimum context was one of the three things. So what were those first three that you have to have no's for? Domicile, presence, and consent. Okay Gotcha.

0:57:30 Heather: Presence and consent yeah yeah we have a for one of those right that means is so we're between d and b um and we don't even have to get to b because we we already have a yes, Because right? Patti was physically present when she was served in Florida.

0:57:47 Thomas: Add another question to my appeal because he did not serve process on Patty, so I really understand how she could could have been served while physically present in Florida she got served by a with a summons does that count why it always have to be a weird thing can it just be that she was served process in Florida and then that would make sense but it has to be served a summonds related to the Florida divorce proceedings what why why is it because that makes it sound like it was already undergoing, going on, which seems weird be like, yeah, okay, well then they have personal jurisdiction, even though it kind of already started without you, but because you were here and then we were like, oh, that's great. You're here. We've already been doing something that we shouldn't have been doing at all because you weren't here. But now that you're here, we were already doing it. And here you go, you, need to come to court. That seems insane to me. I feel like, uh, once again, I'll, I'll put this one in the appeals court it. I think I can revise my complaint. Think I think you get you get amendment complaint amended by right probably you know so yeah

0:58:47 Thomas: I'll I'll add it. So it sounds like the answer was D another misleading question. Wow.

0:58:54 Heather: Do. Yes? That's correct. Yeah, I was physically present in Florida?

0:58:57 Thomas: Do you think it split the service into those two different things like what is it doing with that? What I'm asking is there is there something else it's testing there and that's why it split it into two things because is it is it testing what part partof the process counts as being served you or something because like otherwise this makes no sense to say did not sort of process but then served a summons related related to the divorce proceedings. Seems insane to me. Like, wouldn't you have to be served process first? The And rule is you got to be served process and you got to be physically present, I don't understand why a thing later, which is a summons, counts.

0:59:47 Heather: A good question I think that question's assuming that you know that it's referring to the same thing. So to answer your question, yes. And

0:59:53 Thomas: Think there must be. Are you sure there's not some sort of case or something? This seems deliberate that they separated summons from process because I'm just Googling and it's like serving process is both the legal documents and the summons like the complaint and the submons. So is there some where like, oh, didn't serve the thing, but I did serve the sum. And so that counts. And like, I'm supposed to know that.

1:00:14 Heather: Might be a case. But if were supposed to know that, that question would be different. The question would be about notice and not about personal

1:00:22 Thomas: It's one, you have to know a lot of things for a question. That's just one thing. So I think that would be another thing along the way is like, you would have had to know that that counts because it just is needlessly confusing to separate those two things unless it's trying to test something on that. But yeah, I don't know. Know. That's something that you just blow don't by and just know like that serving process that counts as being served.

1:00:43 Heather: Again, and process, it's about notice because so much of that is about notice, and it definitely is. But about notice, it will look different than this. And yeah.

1:00:53 Thomas: I know they're not testing notice that you say, okay, OK, the rule for personal jurisdiction, one of them that we hit yes on was, were they served while present? So I'm saying the factthat the question divided these two things really seems to me that it's testing some rule about what you have to be served. Like, it sounds like you don't have tobe served everything. You don'thave to be serve like the complaint. Plan, in you order to hit that rule served while present, it sounds like you only have to be served this summons. Like that really seems like specifically put in there for something and this is such an active choice by whoever wrote this, you Know, this isn't something you accidentally write. So I just really think there's a, like someone had a reason in their mind when they wrote this. Like there's no, You don't accidentally just write it in this weird bifurcated way. I feel there's something behind it. But, I mean, it might even just be like the fact that you said it's just one thing that's testing like, yeah, being served anything counts as that. And I wonder if that's just what it's testing and that's Just Part of What I Needed to Know

1:01:49 Thomas: Or you got me again you got my again with whatever this weird technicality between summons versus serving the complaint thing is and I'm trying to think I'll try to be honest with myself would I have answered the serve process because was served while physically present in Florida Florida, maybe, mean, maybe I wouldn't have changed my answer anyway. So it's that we'll see like it comes out in the appeals court, but under deposition, I'm going to swear I would have changed my answers, but the correct answer was D because Patty was served while physically present in Florida. Apparently that's all it takes. That's all takes these days, crazy youths and their or personal jurisdiction rules. So I've been gotten again, and I'm on a bad streak. And I didn't even get my second chance answer, which that one's on me. I feel like I should have been able to pick a better second. I think D was, could I have been on a better chance answer. I should've at least sniffed out D as the better second chance. So that's on Me. On a bit of a losing streak and I am now down in a row. I'm now down to 26 out of 42 for 61 .9%. Not great, but as long as I stay above 60, I'm happy. So I got to get my act together. Okay, I'll go. I'm going to go do nothing but just be mad at myself for a week and then we'll see what happens next time.

1:01:45 Heather: That think that could it. It. No, that is terrible.

1:03:02 Thomas: I'm just kidding. All it is time to grab the winners to honor the winners, but I got to say this just as a reminder, I mean, we're still going to do Reddit. We're still gonna do patron but blue we really want to get people on blue sky. So uh sure next time that on Blue Sky, everyone, search Opening Arguments, search Serious Pod, you got a Blue Sky?

1:03:21 Heather: Well, I guess I'm going to have to go and get one now.

1:03:23 Thomas: Yeah, but until then, we'll let people know if you get one, but seriously, search Serios Pod, search Open Args, follow both of those, and make we'll sure that that's part of the process of T3B going forward, because everyone is moving. I'm so excited. But looking at Reddit, which is amazing. Why don't you tell us who the pick for winner is?

1:03:42 Heather: There were so many great answers here that it was hard to just narrow it down to one. But I was definitely reading that there are some, uh, former law students in this group. And I loved Modest Polar Bear's answer. Did you happen to catch that?

1:03:53 Thomas: Yeah. Speaking so many Good Answers. But don't you read it or sure

1:03:55 Heather: Says that first of all, I am filing a claim for IIED against you for causing PTSD flashbacks to what else Zipro and Burnham versus Superior Court of California for this question, um evidently based on. So for those of you who might not know, Burnham v. The Superior Court of California in Marin is a case from in 1990. I won't go into too much detail, but you're welcome to look it up. Polar bear says, your behavior is, quote, beyond all bounds of decency that a civilized society should be asked to tolerate, end quote. It was painful to hear Thomas eliminate the right answer right away, which is, in fact, D. But that's because he thinks like a normal human instead of a lawyer. Do you hear that, Thomas? You're normal. You're a non -lawyer.

1:04:32 Thomas: I I I appreciate how I heard the intensity of your voice in that moment which I appreciate I you yeah all mad about this I appreciate it

1:04:41 Heather: Transient jurisdiction is one of those weird old -timey holdovers from 16th century Saxony when the jurisdiction of a court was primarily based on geography. But because it is a thing insufficient for personal jurisdiction, every other answer choice is wrong for applying an incorrect standard. I am now going to scream into my copy of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure until the flashbacks go away yeah

1:05:01 Thomas: So okay so many things happening here, this- don't want to re-litigate this, but this was the kind of question, Heather, where I was, after we were done, I was still researching. It was like, I don't have time for this, but I'm so mad about this. My conclusion is that they were very very much trying to mess me up with the serving only the summons. Because additionally, we have another person, person on Patreon who points out a problem with the answer that I think lends further credence to the idea that this was a trap that I fell for a little bit in part. No, that wasn't the only reason I got it wrong. I also think it's, it you is dumb how this works. So thank you, Modest Polar Bear, because I believe you referenced this, but there's a case where just flying over a place, like in the plane, in the airspace, you can serve someone and that worked. Worked, it's like, come on, that's stupid, that is not how it should work, but okay, but might think that the election was the reason we skipped T3B last week, but it was actually because I'm preparing my legal motion against this question. And I was so intensely certain that what had happened was a trick. And I did a bunch of research. And I think I've been vindicated in that idea because there's just no reason. There's just no reason for the question to say that her husband Don served a summons related to the divorce proceedings and one the of the keys was also pointed out by a brilliant patron Drew Hickox on Patreon.com slash law. Drew Hickox. Thank you. They say I think the answer is D. I don't think it even matters if Patty is connected to Florida at all as long as Don has lived there for long enough. The answers don't address this at all. So I'll assume that's not a factor. The only Only question is whether the service is legitimate, which I think it is because she was in Florida. Strangely, and here's the key. Here's the game. Strangly, the question seems to imply that Don served her personally, which I think is not valid. But Patty is only arguing personal jurisdiction. Get a lawyer, Patty. They'll get this dismissed for you. And I asked you as well that like pretty sure that the the other party, the the like guy dawn actual dawn is not supposed to serve the person that that you're supposed that like that might also be a problem with the process of service here and I think what was happening there is they did want these the the evil geniuses that wrote this question wanted to trip people up we'll say me but people with with a like oh there's some problem with how service was done Because the

1:07:16 Thomas: Serving the summons just felt like to me, not right. I was like, but that's, but you can't just serve a summons if you haven't been served the complaint, if you have, you know, like, and that was the very attractive distractor to me personally, because it led me to believe that there'd be something wrong with that. Ultimately, I wasn't right anyway. Like, I'm not saying I had this, thing, this right. I in terms of the trick it was doing, I looked it up and there is like a question question about whether serving a summons counts as like some amount of service of process. And, for my limited research abilities, I couldn'T find any cases that directly had to do with specifically the personal jurisdiction and the servings of like a summonds or something like that counting. But there was other stuff that was about like, Oh, does that count? And the key Key is, it does count because we're not talking about this. And that was what you were trying to tell me, which is like this might be problems with how service was done here, but because of the way they're litigating this, because ofthe way theyre trying to answer this specific question, we don't get to look at any of that. And we just say she was served while physically present. But it's, I feel like that's so diabolical because like Don himself serving her a summons for that to count as being served. I don't know. I still think I have a point. That is diabolical to F me up with that, you know? But like, I think that the key that I think you were trying to say was of the way we're looking at the question, don't get to look at that. We're that's enough to count alservice of some part of the process. Like any sort of process service like that, I guess, in terms of evaluating this question of personal jurisdiction, that apparently is fine.

1:08:51 Heather: And part of the reason we know that is it says the question asks if party argues that she is not subject to personal jurisdiction in florida well

1:08:58 Thomas: I as a hypothetical imagine don doing more and more inadequate services service of process you know I don't pick you'd be better at this than me I'm sure but pick your most and he puts skywriting he holds a sign at the airport that's like hey patty you're served with something and you'd be like that's not service the process but I think it's genuine an unanswered question how far this goes because there isn't a direct case that I can find on it so I think this is diabolical I somehow here's in the world could see through this this but me so I'm gonna go ahead and say that this was my problem because like basically all the answers were pretty much right on not many people got it wrong I have to take this L and I'm going to take the L but I hate how they did this because this was needlessly incredibly tricky

1:09:41 Heather: And And to answer a question directly, one of the rules for service of process Is that any non -party who's at least 18 can serve process. So exactly, and so

1:09:50 Thomas: In what sense was she served it does should not count come on I already honored the patron winner, but one more time, Drew Hickox, well done. And you legitimated my- to go into the lawsuit as well through exhibit two or whatever. Um, so much for playing everyone. Really appreciate it. You did a great job and I suck. Okay, well, let's try to not suck for this question. After this break, we're going to get question 47. And will it be the cause of another of my lawsuits? Or will we just have a normal question? We just have one where I just answer it. And it's like, okay, either I got it right or I got wrong. And I see how it worked. And doesn't have to be some horrible trick thing that really gets me after this.

1:10:06 Heather: Great job. No.

1:10:35 Thomas: Right, Heather, as soon as you stop laughing at read our question.

1:10:35 Heather: All right. Well, Gabriela was admitted to the hospital with severe pain in the lower right side of her stomach. Physician, Dr. Jekyll, ran tests that showed Gabriella had appendicitis that required an immediate appendectomy. The woman's appendix would need to be surgically removed. Dr. Jeckyll informed informed Gabriella of the need for surgery and started explaining that the risks included an infection at the site of the incision. Dr. Jekyll could explain the additional risks associated with a surgery, Gabriella stopped him and said, please don't tell me anything else. I know I need the surgery regardless of the risks. After, Dr. Jeckyll performed the operation. To an unforeseen complication, Gabrielle died during the operation. Estate state sued Dr. Jekyll for failing to inform her about the risks of the appendectomy. Jeckyll's defense was that Gabriela had provided informed consent for the surgery.

1:11:29 Heather: Will Gabriels estate prevail in its action against Dr. Jekyl? Yes, because Gabriola did not give informed consent for the appendctomy.

1:11:28 Thomas: Sure doesn't seem like it.

1:11:37 Heather: B. Yes. Because Dr. Jekyll was bound to inform Gabriala of all the potential risks of the appendictomy. C, no, because Gabriella consented to the surgery after refusing to hear about the risks. Or D, no because Dr. Jekyll was only required to inform Gabriella of the commonly known risks of the appendectomy.

1:11:37 Thomas: Oh, wow. Really like this question because many of these, I felt like it was obvious early and then I was like, well, it could be every answer. And then hopefully I can get to the point where I feel like it's obviously one answer, but we'll see. Maybe not. Okay. An immediate appendectomy. So by looking at the category, let me hold on. I, I will admit that I have the list of categories. I can't answer that otherwise. So t, I DON'T want to mislead anybody to think that I've memorized these categories. They are constitutional law, contracts, criminal law and procedure, evidence, federal civil procedure real property or tortes. Away, this feels like it's probably torts defense. Dr. Jekyll for failing to inform her about the risks. Don't know what specific tort that is, but unless it's contra, I think it's gotta be torts otherwise I don' t know what else it would be. So we're, we're getting tortious here and thing is like I know a lot of times someone would just be passed out they would be like let's say she was unconscious and they decide that she needs the appendectomy immediately it's not like you have to do you haveto get consent from like the family I feel like there's emergency room situations where this is just impractical immediate appendectomy feels kind of like that. Then again, we had the like, hey, here's the risks. Then Gabriela stops, says, please don't tell me anything else. I know I need the surgery regardless of the risks, which is that informed consent. Say, hey. Hey, I know that I don't need to know. Is it like, well, I'm not informed. I'm consenting, let's say. I'm like, hey, yes, go ahead. But I'm knowingly, not knowingly consenting. I'm known unknowns, Donald Rumsfeld or whatever, consenting is that informed consent. Immediately after, Dr. Jekyll performs the operation. Now, not for nothing, she's right that she does need the surgery regardless of the risks. You can't just not get an appendectomy. Me. So like, honestly, she's kind of right. So in a way she's informed, but I don't know what is the law going to think? It doesn't matter what rational people would think. Immediately after Dr. Jekyll performed the operation due to an unforeseen complication, doesn't say what, makes a point of saying the risk included an infection at the site of the incision. And then it says due to unforeseen complication. I guess we're to assume that's not an infection, but I don't know. Gabrielle died during the operation. Her estate sued Dr. Jeckyll for failing to inform her about the risks of the appendectomy. Jekyll's defense was that Gabriela had provided informed consent. So he's saying, yes, she had informed consent, so will they prevail? I feel like just as a matter of law, surgery on someone without informed consent is going to be big no-no. Maybe this is one of those strict things or something. I don't and we'll see. Yes, because Gabriella did not give informed consent for the appendectomy. Strong contender there. B, yes because Dr. Jekyll was bound to inform Gabriella of all the potential risks of the appendectomy. Are A and B different? Is Gabriella Did Not Give Informed Consent And other is Dr. Jekyll was bound to inform Gabriela of all the potential risks of the appendectomy. That seems slightly different to that's going with the idea that, well, he explained something about an infection before explaining the additional risks. Okay, so that's targeting that. The fact that he, like, said one thing but not the rest, instinct is that that's that's, sort of secondary in a way because suing Dr. Jekyll for failing to inform her about the risks and his defense is she provided informed consent, of two different things now, I'm really, it's like, is he saying her consent was informed consent because she said, Hey, I know I need the surgery regardless of risks. Whereas they're saying it's like, I of the law, he would have had to tell her every single possible thing. Man, I don't like the was bound language. And it says all the potential risks. I mean, I think B is a no because of those little things. I think, B, you could say, well, you it out to the nth degree. Like, you don't have to go through literally every single potential risk. You just have to inform them enough about it. So I think that's probably what they're going for with B. So I'm going to say A is the better yes answer. I'll say that. So, I've eliminated B. A is the better guess answer, I think. C, no, because Gabrielle consented to the surgery after refusing to hear about the risks. That's just kind of a description of what happened. I guess that would be under the logic that informed consent can involve not wanting to know something. That's interesting. You have the ability to say, I don't want to know the stupid risks. I know that I need this. Do this isn't doable, then I wonder if you, you have to know, because I, part of me would be like, Hey, look, if the doctor says I need this, fine. I don't want to know. There might be people who are like that, but I guess you're not, you could, maybe you're not allowed to be like that. Maybe you have I don't know. Do you know because Dr. Jekyll was only required to inform Gabriela of the commonly known risks? The a weird one because it says he explained the infection part, but was not able to explain additional risks. Those, don't know that additional means not commonly known. Additional could have been additional known ones. Feel like D is the worst no answer. So I think I'm going to be between A and C. I think it's either, yeah. Wow. Which is actually, they're just the no nonsense ones. It's like either A, yes, because did not give informed consent or C, no, because consented after refusing to hear about the risks. So are you required, if someone says, la, la, La, La I can't hear you, I don't wanna know the risks, like don't even, I know I need it. Does that count basically? Are you required to say, nope, can't do that. And I think, I think I'm just gonna have to go with A. think that like, if you're a doctor, in a position where someone actually does need to know before they're giving informed consent, Like maybe they're under a false impression of something. Maybe that, you know, we take a different, slightly different hypothetical. Maybe they think some crazy thing that, that would lead them to a wrong decision where it's like, no, Hey, you got to power through and listen to this regardless of whether or not you think, you need the surgery. I think I'm between A and C and I'm going with A. Hopefully we can get right back to no nonsense land here on the bar, but I don't know. I don't know. You'd like to play along, let's please play along wherever you want. But I will say that at least for the time being, while we try to get the blue sky off the ground, get everybody over there, that's where the winners are going be from. So we're going to go back to the old rules, back when Twitter was how we did it. If you'd like to play long, you got to retweet the thing that has this episode in it, which better exists. I got to make sure that exists. Write that down. And you got to re re blue sky it bleed it skeet I think they call them skeets actually it's kind of funny the blue sky tweets re -skeet it and give your answer so that you're there for the point is you are sharing the show and you are giving your answer and the uh oh wait do they have hashtags we used to say use the hashtag t3b but I don't know if they have those crap well how are

1:18:46 Thomas: We're gonna search our skeets well likely the winner is coming from just if you're on blue sky and you share the episode and you give your answer I think that's where the winner's gonna come from find a way to do that at openargs.bsky.social or just search opening arguments on blue sky find it follow it do it you gotta be follower that's how we're going to do winter but still play along on reddit and patreon.com because it's fun uh is only temporarily speaking. Well, I'm sure we'll in the long run call shout outs from lots of places, but we want to get blue sky up and running. So now at limited time only, uh, winners coming from blue sky. So that's where to play. Right, Heather. Well uh, we'll see you in a week and find out whether or not I have to hire another team of lawyers to argue a bar question. All

1:18:46 Heather: I don't know either. I'm looking forward to hearing and hearing from those folks on Blue Sky, seeing who our winners are.

1:19:33 Thomas: Right. Well we'll See.

1:19:34 Clip: Thank you for being, say we started from the bottom, now we're here, girl.

1:19:44 Thomas: Only one thing left to do, which is to thank the patrons, starting with new patrons. Thank you so much. New patrons, it really meant a lot, especially since some people were dealing with burnout. Is even more important that folks support the work we're doing here because personally, I don't think we have the option of burnout. You all have the opportunity. I get don't. This a real obligation to keep it up and double my efforts and try to make whatever little difference I can here on this show precisely because I'm worried about people being burned out. Thank you so much, got got some names to name. That's so exciting. Thank you, Jose Perez, Carrie Leigh, Jan McLaughlin, A. Nonny Mouse, Megan, Steve Anderson, Hannah Lichtenwalter, Andrea MacGillivray, Alex O'Connell, Emily Olsen, Undercover-Toad, Randolph Lasota II, Kyla Kemp. Marissa Colasacco. Blue Heron 55. Christopher Patnaude. Sorry, I don't know how to pronounce that. That's a cool name though. Adam Clapp. Scrolling Blunder. It's like Rolling Thunder. That is a good one. Hannah Shelton. Waqser57. Dr Bill.

1:21:09 Thomas: Thank you seriously from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for pledging. Please join the ranks. Everyone's doing it. All the cool kids are. Patreon of the cool kids, it's time to thank the hall of famers the all-time greats at patreon.com these are the saints that at that five dollar tier and above for at least a month starting with swedish made penis and larger pump cross-examination yeah that's that's a reference to uh gavel gavel Michele is a huge fan of your voice don't know who you're talking about, but cool. I have perspicaciously noted that Jordan B. Peterson is a moron. Oh boy, that's a reference to Where There's Woke. You got to catch that. Judy Hanrahan, Childless Ladies, Local 47 Chapter. Is she talking about me? Apprentice of Adventure, Jesse D. Myers, Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, Justice Best Served with Cold Hamburgers, Nick Fish, a string of unpronounceable characters, A Negative Phenomenon quick update ovechkin is only 36 goals from the record yeah wow that guy I wish he weren't a russian who was probably like cool with russian putin and all that but I guess yeah it's hard to know but anyway setting that aside ovechnikin wow unbelievable This guy is 100 years old, and he's scoring even better this season, and he's within sight of Wayne Gretzky's goals record, a record that it was hard to believe anyone would break, but there he is. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Ex Parte). Sank, I'm never going back. The past is in the past. And I think that's Frozen. Oh, that's Let It Go, isn't it? Yeah, I was gonna say Frozen too, yeah. Past is in my past. And they even did the pass with a bunch of A's. So there you go. Test ease interpreter. Oh, great. Now I have to go back to changing my name every month. E.T., Thomas Freeman, Cajunkilla, Fraud Fishy Hates Everything. Chris Simpson, love the extra episodes. Check out the Queer and Cryptography Conference at cryptography.lgbt. Liberal Zone Guns 2, support root cause mitigation, not ineffective gun control. Not a lawyer, but I play one in court. I give up on funny names. I'm just Leo G for now. Now, Stormy Decisus says, visit sharebandbooks.com. This isn't a Patreon name and I'm not reading anything right now. I just personally think Legal Eagle is so handsome. Mark Schultz, hors d'oeuvres in the court before we report. The Cincinnati Kid, Bob Loblaw's Law podcast. Philly Basement Bar is closed in mourning. Veggie, Elect Thomas Smith President, American Honkytonk Bar Association. Baltakatei, Philip Kizer. I'm writing this patron name before the election, so depending on the outcome, read it accordingly. Ah, yeah, yeah. I think it is. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Yeah. Bad. 501st and Rebel Legion want you. Cosplayer's doing good. A string of unpronounceable characters. Milo Meadsong is on to the post-conviction process now that his cert petition was denied. Chandler. The Dragon, the precious variant. Big Easy Blasphemy. FRED R GROOTHUIS, RhondaTheDork.com, Chris Waltrip, Mitchell, and by Felicia, still on top, but just barely, is by Felícia. You so much, Hall of Famers. You're the best. All right, that's the show. That was a long go. That but so much to Lydia, and we'll be on for Rapid Response Friday, the normal schedule, Back with Matt. We'll see you then.

1:24:24 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.

1:24:41 Lydia: Lady only. Plugging myself.

1:24:43 Thomas: How dare you plug your own thing get get your own show in what sense was she served it

1:24:52 Heather: A youtube video that's from these law students from ages ago and they put together like a rap that they made about penoyer it's called when jurisdiction gets personal and it's like very silly and very dorky

1:25:03 Thomas: It is because didn't I I named the episode oh I I named it taking jurisdiction personally. Okay. Thank God. I thought I accidentally like ripped something up.

1:25:09 Heather: My god yes that's amazing no I'm gonna put like I'm all posted in the reddit because it's really funny like it's really dorkly but like I like watched it when I was a 1l and I was like like, oh my God, this is amazing. I

1:25:15 Thomas: That's awesome.