WTW75: Decades of Anti-woke Propaganda Has All Been to Get Us Here

Transcript

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

0:00:42 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas. That's Lydia. How are you doing?

0:00:46 Lydia: Oh, man. I... I'm... Yeah, I think you need to stop asking how we're doing.

0:00:51 Thomas: We need a new way to start shows. Yeah, can we just do like a like a resistance like greeting?

0:00:58 Lydia: Meter?

0:00:59 Thomas: Or no, just like, you know, like if you're two spies meeting up in the wild or whatever, you know what I mean? And you just be like, I don't know what they'd say, but there'd probably be something. It wouldn't be like Hey, buddy. How you doing here? How you feeling about the fascism?

0:01:03 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah... What's up? Yeah. Oh,

0:01:13 Thomas: Yeah, it's it's bad. It's bad But I'm glad today we're doing something the same but different in that there are so many confirmation hearings that I wish we had time to go through. And they're so important. Lots today, I can't believe how much they're throwing at us.

0:01:22 Lydia: My God. So many... A bunch today. Yeah. Yeah...

0:01:27 Thomas: But I think you had the brilliant idea of instead of being behind the curve and reporting on those, which I still want to, you're going to tell us about one that's coming up and somebody that's, I haven't heard much about this person at all.

0:01:37 Lydia: Oh, man. Buckle up.

0:01:39 Thomas: Yeah, who are we going to be talking about today? Day.

0:01:41 Lydia: We are going to be talking about Harmeet Dhillon, who has been nominated to be the Assistant Attorney General for the the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, an incredibly important division. And we're going to talk a bit about what that looked like in the previous administration and what it's bound to look like if she is confirmed.

0:02:00 Thomas: And you know, this is where there's woke and the soul of the show still is debunking anti -woke conspiracy stuff. But I think this is important because this is the goal of all their stuff. This has been the goal. It's been to take out, to wind back the clock on civil rights. That has always been the of every anti -woke conspiracy theory.

0:02:19 Thomas: That's always been the goal every single time, whether someone was participating in it unknowingly or just with that that bias harbored in their hearts, that they think it's gone too far. It's all gone too far. All this, the consideration of other people, of non -white people, of nonmen, that's all going too far and we need to rip it back. And this person is going to be in charge of the civil rights division of, yeah, so that's going to be one of the many ground zeros of this. So can't wait to find out who this person is. And they're not white, which is even more fun. That's even more fun.

0:02:53 Lydia: They're not. No, no. Child of immigrants.

0:02:57 Thomas: Alright, well, we'll get to it after this break. Hey, please support the show. Patreon .com slash WhereThere'sWoke. It feels like it's more important now than ever. I know I say that every time, but we really appreciate the people who are supporting. You're making this happen. Not enough people are doing this work, and we aren't even doing enough of it. And we need to do more of it, and for that, we need your support, and thank you for giving it to us.

0:03:15 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Here's an example. New York Times headline dissecting the meaning of RFK Jr.'s tie with birds on it. That's how how they covered his confirmation hearing.

0:03:27 Thomas: Cute. Cool.

0:03:27 Lydia: So, yeah. Before

0:03:31 Thomas: Well, after this break, we'll get to it.

0:03:36 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:03:37 Lydia: We dig into Harmeet Dhillon specifically, I want to talk a little bit about what happened like immediately post -inauguration with the Civil Rights Division, because they are essentially leaderless right now. Pam Bondi is nominated as attorney general. She's still been going through the confirmation process. And of course, the assistant attorneys general are also not appointed either. They have to wait for the the confirmation process. Harmeet Dhillon hasn't even been scheduled yet for confirmation hearings because they have a lot they're trying to get through as quickly as possible. So, you know, she's just kind of waiting on the sidelines kind of thing. But almost immediately after Trump was inaugurated, a memo was sent to the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division from the DOJ's chief of staff, the new chief of stuff, Chad Mazzell, and it was directing them to freeze the pursuit of any new cases, indictments or settlements. They later clarified because all of these memos have been vague and confusing and causing people kind of running around being like, I don't know what I can do at work right now.

0:04:37 Lydia: We saw that with the funding freeze. So they had to clarify that, yes, you are allowed to continue work on cases that have already been filed as long as the judge that's overseeing it allows it. So they have to go and seek that confirmation that these cases would be moving forward under that judge. There was a second memo that was released shortly after that was freezing consent decrees. So we talked about, you know, freezing any new cases, indictments or settlements. And then the second memo is specifically saying, OK, these consent decrees, decrees that you are entering into, and those are agreements with local governments to address things like flawed police practices, for example. So a couple of these things were almost approved, but had not yet been finally approved. So now these are frozen. So the consent decree with Louisville, Kentucky regarding how they handled the Breonna Taylor incident that had not had final approval yet.

0:05:29 Thomas: Wow. So it's sort of like the settlement, essentially.

0:05:33 Lydia: Kind of. Yeah, it's basically saying like, you know, the police in Louisville. Kentucky are under a consent decree with the DOJ in which they need to pursue the following things to address the issues that they had. Minneapolis, same thing.

0:05:46 Thomas: God, I didn't think about that.

0:05:46 Lydia: After George Floyd, the DOD pursued. Yeah, they pursued a consent degree with the Minneapolis Police Department, and neither of those have final approval. So those are both on hold.

0:05:54 Thomas: Well, okay. Here's the only thing, though. Even if they were approved, could Trump just unwind them anyway? Could Trump just say, no more consent decree? This is kind of an opening arguments question, I guess.

0:06:03 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess theoretically, yes, but it depends on, I Guess how far along in the the consent decree they were to.

0:06:13 Thomas: Well, consent decree might just be an ongoing practice, right?

0:06:15 Lydia: It is. But if but if the police department is expected to like if they're going to initiate new policies, procedures, training, you know, if they are down the line on those things, I don't know how proactive they would be in like rolling all that back necessarily.

0:06:32 Thomas: Have you considered that some of those who burn crosses are the same? No. They're joined forces. I always forget the... So they probably would wind it back. But yeah, point taken. I mean, it definitely would be harder, but yeah, like I didn't even, this is one of those many, many components of this damage that we don't even think of. Like it's just, there's so much, there's some many ways that they're ruining things and consent decrees over just out and out, like police murder, you know, it's like, they're going to wind all that back they have no they have absolutely no shame they will wind it all back I'm

0:07:02 Lydia: One more example of a consent decree that was being pursued that will now no longer be pursued was the condition of the Fulton County Jail in Georgia. That investigation released their findings in November and I read it and it's horrific. They found that the conditions at Fultons County Jail in Georgia violated the 8th and 14th Amendments, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. There are like really awful examples of things that they share in that, like things that really need to be addressed and fixed immediately. And I'll link the report in the show notes if anyone wants to check it out. But for sure, content warning, there are descriptions of things that are pretty bad. So how unusual is this freeze? Well, Damon Hewitt is the president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under law. And he said that this is beyond unusual. Quote, it's unprecedented. We've never never seen this before at this scale with any transfer of power, regardless of the ideology of any incoming president or administration. This should make Americans both angry and deeply worried. This is more than just a changing course of philosophy. This Is exactly what most people in the civil rights community feared, a Justice Department that was created to protect civil rights, literally abdicating its duty and responsibility to protect Americans from all forms of discrimination. So let's talk about who sent out this memo. I mentioned his name, Chad Mizzell, that he's, you know, just chief of staff for the DOJ right now. He's Stephen Miller's buddy, of course, right? He served in the previous Trump administration as, yeah,

0:08:40 Thomas: Gonna debunk you, Stephen Miller cannot have friends, it's not possible

0:08:42 Lydia: That's fair. Maybe I should come up with a new way to describe him.

0:08:44 Thomas: It's like saying it's it's this lizard's friend it'slike they're not they're just in the same place they don't they both are disgusting near each other that's it there's no there'sno

0:08:54 Lydia: Oh, it gets worse. So he served in the previous trump administration as general counsel for Department of Homeland Security. He helped develop and defend the border security and deportation policies, along with Stephen When Trump announced his appointment on Truth Social, he referred to him as a MAGA warrior. So this is someone who is very, very intense. He is also married to Judge Catherine Kimball Mizzell. Yep. District judge with the U .S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Yep, appointed at 33 years old. It's a lifetime appointment. The ABA had rated her not qualified, quote,

0:08:57 Thomas: Friendship a judge a federal judge Judge? God damn. Oh my God. Fuck this.

0:09:31 Lydia: Since her admission to the bar, Ms. Mizzell has not tried a case, civil or criminal, as lead or co -counsel. The Democrats ended up boycotting the Judiciary Committee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty much. Pretty much, yeah。

0:09:35 Thomas: Holy crap. As lead or co -counsel. She's never been to a trial, never seen it. And she's a judge. You know how, it's not that easy to be a judge, like it really is not. God, oh my God!

0:09:54 Lydia: She is responsible for striking down the CDC's federal mask mandate on airplanes and public transportation, like towards the end of the Trump administration. Yeah, and she had clerked for, surprisingly.

0:09:59 Thomas: Oh wow, so she's been there since like, what, beginning of Trump administration oh

0:10:07 Lydia: Surprise, Clarence Thomas from 2018 to 2019. She's been a Federalist Society member since 2012. And she also was behind.

0:10:14 Thomas: When she was eight yeah sure

0:10:15 Lydia: Yeah. And she was also behind a ruling that said that prohibiting firearms in post offices is unconstitutional, citing Bruin for that. So, yeah. And Chad Mazzell. So he is not the person who's going to be making like all the calls at the top. I wanted to talk talk about him because this is the structure of the administration supporting the people at the top. The issues run deep in the DOJ as a result. But let's switch and talk about Harmeet Dhillon. Right now, Kathleen Wolf is the acting supervisor while we wait for Dhillan to go through the confirmation process. But I want to talk a little bit about her background, first of all, and then we'll get into a little Bit for her vision of the Civil Rights Division for the DOH. So Harmeet Dhillon was born in India and moved to the U .S. with her family as a child. She attended Dartmouth College and received her bachelor's in classical studies. She has been conservative her whole life, essentially. She was the editor for a conservative paper at Dartmouth and felt that the school was discriminating against its conservative students in favor of its liberal students.

0:11:22 Lydia: So there were a lot of articles related to that. She got her J .D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and then had a clerkship on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. She actually worked with the ACLU following 9 -11. And this is like the one thing that the GOP like kind of goes after her about. Everything else is like perfect from their perspective. But she does get some flack for having worked with The ACLU. But given her background, she was advocating for Sikhs that were being discriminated against or harassed in the wake of 9 -1 -1. You would think that somebody who was on the kind of like the front lines of some of that stuff would be able to apply the discrimination and harassment that is occurring. Yeah.

0:11:58 Thomas: She's now trying to get a job with the people who did that like absolutely the people Who Would Have Harassed a Sikh

0:12:06 Lydia: And after she left the ACLU, she founded her own firm in 2006. So this is the Dillon Law Group, and we're going to be talking about them quite a bit very shortly. And then after, you know, several years or a decade of working for her own firm, she also then started a nonprofit called the Center for American Liberty. And their mission is to create a nationwide network of attorneys to, quote, zealously advocate for individual liberty and to combat illegal discrimination. Wonder how that's exactly being applied. She ran for the RNC chairperson in 2023 against Ronna McDaniel because she felt that the party organization needed to be more Trump friendly, but she lost. And she was also the co -chairwoman of Lawyers for Trump. So she's She's a she's Trump through and through another like strong loyalist with Dillon Law Group. Let's talk about some of the clients that she had. I think you're going to recognize several of these. Berkeley College Republicans and

0:12:12 Thomas: Person oh god for for the

0:13:06 Lydia: Young America's Foundation against UC Berkeley. No. For Ann Coulter. Yeah. So, yep. Berkeley canceled Ann Coulter's speech citing security reasons.

0:13:08 Thomas: Milo thing oh and culture yeah similar it was one of those two

0:13:17 Lydia: And she represented the Berkeley College Republicans and Young Americans Foundation. They settled in December 2018. And she said because of the settlement, this forced Cal, UC Berkeley, to change its policies. And then Cal said that they had already been following those policies. They just, you know, needed to be done with the lawsuit. She also represented James Damore versus Google in August of 2017.

0:13:39 Thomas: Oh my god unbelievable had

0:13:43 Lydia: That case was actually dismissed because he, given the nature of his employment, well, he had mandatory arbitration.

0:13:46 Thomas: No fucking case yeah oh

0:13:52 Lydia: So the lawsuit was dismissed as a result of that. And he was removed from the case. The case has been continuing without him. But she recently, yeah, she recently lost an appeal with the National Labor Relations Board. So I don't know exactly if that means it's just dead now, probably, because I don'T know why you would keep bothering, especially with the broligarchy, right? Like all the tech bros. Yeah, you guys figured it out.

0:13:57 Thomas: What huh interesting yeah also yeah you you won tech you won

0:14:13 Lydia: Andy Ngo versus Antifa.

0:14:14 Thomas: Oh my god versus antifa

0:14:17 Lydia: Yes, yes. June 2020, she filed a lawsuit on behalf of Andy Ngo for $900 ,000 in damages. The named defendants of that lawsuit were Rose City Antifa and several named defendents.

0:14:29 Thomas: Okay so they did have someone to actually pin it on and what sucks is I know he won one of these

0:14:32 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, they did. So kind of. Yeah. So basically, conservative media framed this as victory for Ngo, three defendants found responsible for assault and battery, etc. etc. But those three were ones that did not show up to the hearing despite being summoned. So he won by default. He didn't win on merits. He won by defect. The two people who did attend were found not guilty by a jury.

0:14:38 Thomas: Fucking things well that's interesting I mean we should cover that gavel

0:14:59 Lydia: That's something we might want to cover at some point in more detail. Yeah, exactly. The conservative spin of that, of course, is that Andy Ngo was vindicated. She represents Chloe Cole, detransitioner versus Kaiser. That lawsuit was filed February 2023. So she's very very deep in the anti -trans movement. And she also represented Tucker Carlson when he was going up against a Fox News producer, Abby Grossberg, in 2023 regarding gender discrimination and represented the Tucker CarlSON side of that. Yeah. So she's been very involved with those kind of culture war cases, but she was also very involved during the COVID pandemic.

0:15:06 Thomas: Gavel yeah also sounds familiar yeah she's like the lawyer that all the criminals in the wire

0:15:37 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. During the COVID epidemic, the Dillon Law Group is based out of San Francisco. And so she filed a ton of lawsuits against California, more than a dozen within like two months. And obviously, her firm took Paycheck Protection Program money between $150 ,000 to $350 ,000, it was reported. And it was through a small Wisconsin bank that only has five branches within Wisconsin. And the Dillon Law Group practices law in a number of states. Wisconsin is not one of them.

0:15:52 Thomas: Use sure sure

0:16:08 Lydia: So there were some questions about, oh, I wonder why, like, it was via the Hiawatha National Bank that they received their COVID. So we know her background. We know how she's approached some of these culture war issues, how she approached COVID. You know, she was against masking. She said it did nothing. She also, because she's out of San Francisco, she went on Tucker Carlson during the election, like during the campaign. I think it was like October. And it's very long, so we're not going to play it. But maybe I'll link to it if people want to get mad. If, like you're interested in it.

0:16:37 Thomas: Does anyone need to get more mad lately is anyone just like walking around man I'm not mad

0:16:40 Lydia: Yeah. I'm not mad enough. Yeah. But she went on Tucker Carlson to basically do like a takedown of Kamala Harris. And she would know because she's also in San Francisco and their paths had crossed, you know, in a variety of circles. And a big chunk of that interview with Tucker Carlson is talking about how Kamala Harris and Willie Brown and how that paved the way for Kamala Harris's future that they had a relationship. Yeah.

0:16:47 Thomas: Enough sure what was that again oh I don't yeah

0:17:07 Lydia: But let's now talk about, OK, we know where she's at, culture war, COVID, her background and the conservative Trump loving position that she has been in for a very long time. So it's probably no surprise that what we can expect with her at the helm of the Civil Rights Division is not good. There is a speech that she delivered that was then reprinted in the Hillsdale College's in premise publication in August of 2022. I'll link to that as well because that's worth reading. And it's titled The Politicization of the Department of Justice. And I'm just going to read one little bit of it because here are the three examples she hones in on to show that the DOJ was politicized.

0:17:47 Thomas: It's homes in on Nah.

0:17:49 Lydia: No, it can be either. It can be either. Home and hone.

0:17:50 Thomas: If you're homing in, you're homing -in. Honing, you can hone something, but you don't hone -in on it.

0:17:58 Lydia: Oh, okay. Hang on.

0:17:58 Thomas: Unless it's one of those where they've made irregardless

0:17:59 Lydia: I'm going to fact check you. No. No.

0:18:01 Thomas: Correct as well. It is, no, it's yeah.

0:18:04 Lydia: Home in means to move towards a target, while hone in means to improve or refine something.

0:18:09 Thomas: Yeah, but only because people used it wrong.

0:18:12 Lydia: I don't know if I agree with that. Someone write in and tell me.

0:18:13 Thomas: I only say that because this is one I said wrong forever. I actually still say it wrong, but I just remember it from time to time.

0:18:20 Lydia: Mm -hmm. She said in this piece, Let me discuss three recent examples that illustrate the threats we face from a politicized DOJ. The DOJ raid on Project Veritas journalists. Journalists, the DOJ raid on Mar-a-Lago, and the DOJ's efforts to undermine election integrity and chill -free speech. And she goes into details for all of those. But I thought it was funny that when we discussed Project Veritas on OA, you brought that up as an example. I was like, oh, I'm going to be talking about that a little bit too.

0:18:50 Lydia: Yeah. Here's an example of like how they've been unfairly attacked by the DOD.

0:18:55 Thomas: Their shit is so deceptive, it is illegal sometimes.

0:18:58 Lydia: Yeah, let's hear it directly from her, though. So if if you want to pull up the clip I sent you, this was a speech at Turning Point USA's America Fest, which

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0:19:07 Lydia: Just happened about a month ago. And she lays out her vision.

0:19:10 Clip: I can't talk about what I hope to do with the guidance of my two bosses, President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi, but I can tell you my vision, I think it's out there, of what civil rights is in this country. And I have spent my life fighting for the free speech rights of American citizens, dating back from my college years to today. Parental rights are civil rights in the United States. Children have rights in

0:19:39 Lydia: There we go. Anti -trans stuff.

0:19:42 Thomas: What about my right to give my kid the proper trans medicine?

0:19:45 Clip: The United to be free from predatory adults who seek to shape them in unnatural ways.

0:19:47 Thomas: Is that not a parental right? Uh -huh.

0:19:55 Lydia: It's so ridiculous.

0:19:55 Clip: Voting rights and the right for each of you to have your vote be counted equally and fairly and once and everybody else is the same way those are civil rights in these

0:20:02 Thomas: And more than the other side.

0:20:06 Clip: Great United States and we're gonna I've always fought for those rights and there's so many others the right to free and fair access to education and housing and the rights of the disabled these are all important federal civil rights and

0:20:22 Thomas: What? How is she going to sneak that? I know her mirror version of all of them except that one. I'm not sure what that one is. Oh, is that from the like, well, you see people with disabilities, they can't be made to wear masks because it's so hard to wear. Maybe that's the one.

0:20:24 Clip: And so I hope and pray that I'll be able to serve in that capacity.

0:20:36 Lydia: It could be.

0:20:37 Thomas: There's always some bizarro world version of all these

0:20:39 Lydia: So how does this compare to Project 2025's vision? Because as we know, that is the plan. Project 2025 is the plan. And Russell Vogt, one of the architects of Project 2025 is expected to be part of this administration. His confirmation hearing has already happened. And now we're just kind of waiting. But in Project 2025, the way that they framed how the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ needs to be reimagined is that they want to formally and forever eliminate resolution agreements and consent decrees. They say that those are administrative remedies and that civil rights laws should be enforced via the courts. This will result in things not being fixed. I mean, ultimately, the reason why these consent decries are happening with police departments and Fulton County Jail, with the city and everything, or the county rather, in Georgia, is because that is going to be the most efficient and effective way to bring about change. If you have to go down this litigation route, you know, that's going to take forever. That's going to take so long, so long. And in the meantime, a lot of people will suffer. In Project 2025, they also say that DEIA is a problem. So diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility. And that they want to use the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice to go after DEIA as violating civil rights. Yeah, A is the accessibility.

0:20:43 Thomas: D D-E-I-A, what's

0:22:16 Lydia: That itself is a violation of civil rights because it's violating the civil rights of cis white men, I guess. They want to stop civil rights data collection, and they would also potentially prosecute private employers if they chose to continue their DEI programs. They specifically say in the section on civil rights division that they should spend the first year under the next administration using the full force of federal prosecutorial resources to investigate and prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers who are engaged in discrimination in violation of constitutional and legal requirements. That's pretty scary to me. State and local government, colleges, Colleges, corporations, like, jeez louise. Yeah. Yeah. They also want to move election -related offenses from the civil rights division to the criminal division, which

0:22:46 Thomas: Oh my god geez freedom hmm

0:23:12 Lydia: Is a little interesting, too.

0:23:14 Thomas: Hey anything they do there if we get back in power let's keep it but for real stuff

0:23:19 Lydia: And then they cite within the Project 2025 mandate for leadership that the reason why the civil arts division needs to, like. Review everything that's been done is because. Here's an egregious example is what they call it. Using the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the FACE Act, to harass pro -life demonstrators while not pursuing similar investigations of shocking acts of violence committed against pro -Life Pregnancy Resource Centers.

0:23:49 Lydia: Yeah, so they cite in particular a couple of cases, and one of them is Matthew Connolly. And they say, you know, that he was arrested in front of his young children at his house and treated so horribly, etc., etc. cetera. But I looked at the complaint from the DOJ when they pursued this arrest. He had violated this act 19 different times over years. He was arrested at least eight times in four different states. He also explicitly said that he had no regrets. He would continue to do this. And they tried to negotiate with him to get him when he. Yeah.

0:24:26 Thomas: Is this a white guy yeah I'm sure they made every effort to make it completely comfortable for him to be Be arrested for breaking the law 400 times.

0:24:34 Lydia: He basically went into Planned Parenthood went into the patient care facilities in the back even though they they were saying you cannot be there he took over a bathroom and would

0:24:46 Thomas: Took a giant dump. What?

0:24:46 Lydia: Not leave he like yeah he left um roses which is like their calling card I guess for this particular organization yeah it's like called like the red red rose

0:24:56 Thomas: He left roses. Is that what you're saying?

0:24:58 Lydia: Yeah like it's you know meant to intimidate kind of thing yeah red rose rescue is the name of this organization they they kind of leave roses there too as like their calling card as well as like pamphlets, you know, trying to get people to change their mind. And he would not respond to police, to the people working at Planned Parenthood. They were all very concerned. They ended up evacuating the entire building because they didn't know.

0:25:23 Lydia: Like, do you have weapons? Do you have an explosive? Yeah.

0:25:23 Thomas: Hey, people at abortion clinics have been shot for providing health care.

0:25:27 Lydia: Yeah. And eventually they ended up having to call the SWAT team to get him to leave. They tried to use the SWat team to encourage him to Leave. He still They had to break down the door. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah I know. Yep. Yeah 44 appointments at that one location had to be rescheduled as a result. They had a close for the entire day. They had to search the premises for any potential

0:25:36 Thomas: The fucking caucasity of just breaking the laws, getting a SWAT team called on you. And then still it's just like this very comfortable arrest, you know, this very, and then complaining about it. It. I'm being discriminated against for violating the law, repeatedly scaring, terrorizing, being a terrorist, essentially. Wow. Unbelievable.

0:26:06 Lydia: Issues. And then honestly none of this even matters because Trump won. So obviously all of this has been dropped. Yeah there have been several people who have, who were convicted of violating the FACE Act, they just were pardoned. Yep. Some pretty, you know, egregious things.

0:26:22 Thomas: Oh, this is the woman who had like fetuses in her bedroom or whatever. What the hell was that? I keep seeing that headline. I don't know what it exactly means, but it sounds creepy.

0:26:28 Lydia: Yes, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep. So this is a group of, I think, like five different folks who were pardonned, who had recently been convicted in violation of the Face Act. And the House is also looking at legislation to repeal the F ACE Act, of course, because we have no power. So that might be likely. But that was Project 2025's example of how the civil rights division of the DOJ is being politicized and weaponized and going after, you know, these poor folks that, you Know, are just exercising their freedom of speech. Yeah, I know. I know." So who is Harmeet Dhillon replacing? Just to make us feel even sadder, Sorry. A pretty incredible person named Kristen Clark. She was the first Black woman to lead the division. Her parents immigrated from Jamaica to Brooklyn, and she was the only girl to join the boys wrestling team when she was in high school. I thought that was really cool. She graduated from Harvard in 1997, got her JD from Columbia Law in 2000, worked as a trial attorney right after college, right after law school in the civil rights division, and then served as a federal prosecutor, worked on voting rights, hate crimes, human trafficking. Those were kind of her areas as a specialty. She ended up joining the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in 2006, served as the director of the Civil Rights Bureau for the Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman. She was appointed the president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, who we heard from earlier regarding the Dillon nomination. She argued in Shelby County v. Holder in district court, opened an investigation into the Boy Scouts ban on openly gay adults in 2015 while she was in New York and secured an agreement late just later that year months after she opened up that investigation and it ended up applying nationally where they would no longer ban gay adults from serving as you know scout leaders and

0:27:02 Thomas: Yeah, to terrorize people and have the SWAT team called on him. Oh, God. Wow.

0:28:23 Lydia: And volunteer roles and things like that yeah

0:28:25 Thomas: So she was doing like civil rights stuff in the civil rights position. Wow, that's interesting.

0:28:31 Lydia: When she was nominated she was supported by law enforcement organizations jewish organizations doj alumni across the aisle republican democrat corporate law firms fortune 500 companies hate crime survivors like she had had a lot of support when she was nominated. And then four days later, Tucker Carlson aired a segment that pulled up a letter she wrote to the Harvard Crimson. And again, remember, she graduated from Harvard. Yeah, when she graduated from Harvard in 1997. So we're talking about the mid -90s. And she wrote this letter, and they said, claiming that Blacks had superior physical and mental abilities due to their higher levels of melanin. This was a satirical statement about about biological essentialism that was being talked about constantly because of the bell curve and Charles Murray and saying that Black people are not as smart as white people. And so she tried to turn it on its head a little bit and said that because, you know, yeah, yeah exactly. What she said was fighting one ridiculous absurd racist theory with another ridiculous absurd theory. That impacted a little Bit her path to confirmation, but she was confirmed 51 to 48. Ted Cruz was really, really upset about this. Yeah.

0:28:54 Thomas: Like when she was in Harvard. So it's satire.

0:29:37 Thomas: Wow 51 to 48. That's closer than the complete loser unqualified people like Hegseth and other people like this actual qualified person. But because they are black and because of some propaganda that Tucker Carlson didn't. I mean, it's just, yeah.

0:29:54 Lydia: When she was like 20, she wrote that article.

0:29:58 Thomas: Well, it doesn't even matter. It sounds like it was a fine thing.

0:30:01 Lydia: So things are not looking good with Harmeet Dhillon leading the Civil Rights Division. There there is some fight against her nomination, but I'm not hopeful about it. I think that all of these nominees are just going to end up getting getting through.

0:30:14 Thomas: I think there's no way. If we're barely fighting back RFK fucking Jr., this person is, this person is actually on paper qualified for the job, I will say. So it's like, yeah, and she's dealt, she's actually done, dealt with these issues.

0:30:24 Lydia: She's a lawyer. Yeah that helps. Certain issues. Yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:30:29 Thomas: She's been on the wrong side of them, but she's been dealt with. She's dealt with all of these issues. So, I mean yeah, I don't think there is a chance in hell that she doesn't get confirmed, but it's good to know about this. And it's also good to learn about how many things are being broken because we forget. We make progress and then we forget and we treat it, we take it for granted. We treat it as Democrats never did anything except look at all these things they did that now we're like, oh shit, this is all going away. It's good to learning more about that.

0:30:53 Lydia: I just want to like spotlight a couple of the organizations that are fighting back against this nomination. The first one that I want to call out is the Legal Defense Fund that was founded in 1940 under Thurgood Marshall. And their statement says the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division touches the lives of nearly every American safeguarding such fundamental rights as the right to vote and enforcing federal laws that protect individuals from discrimination. The responsibility of leading this division requires someone with a firm allegiance to the rule of law and the principles of equal protection and justice for all. Harmeet Dhillon is not that person.

0:31:27 Lydia: I thought that was pretty strong. And then the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. This organization was founded in 1950 by a kind of like cross -cultural group of people, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, Arnold Aronson from the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council. This group of people lobbied for and won the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, 1960, 1964, the Voting Rights Act Of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 68. And they were a key organization that helped to put together the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. So this is an organization at the forefront of civil rights for as long as people have been fighting for civil rights. And they said as the coalition that fought for passage of The Civil Rights act of 1957 that created the division, civil rights division, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent laws that expanded its powers of protection, we are alarmed at the direction this administration is taking that puts real people's lives, livelihoods, education, and more at risk. The nomination of Harmeet Dhillon to lead this critical civil rights office is yet another clear sign that this administration seeks to advance ideological viewpoints over the rights and protections that protect

0:32:39 Lydia: Every person in this country. So I'm just going to take those words with me and feel invigorated by them and keep screaming out into the internet. So at least we can, you know, keep an eye on these crazy people. But anytime I can find stuff to share, I will. I know that they had taken down the January 6th database pretty quickly, but that was archived by some other folks. And so people are sharing the link to the archive specifically. So that continues to to get sunlight. You know, this some of these reports that they've put together in the past want to make sure that people have access to those, that they continue to get sunlight. And yeah, I don't know. It's not great.

0:33:19 Thomas: It's what they told us they would do. It's we've been worried about. It's, it's everything that they told that we do. It's everything we have been trying to warn people about. And now it's happening.

0:33:22 Lydia: It is. Mm hmm.

0:33:28 Thomas: And then people are like, wait a minute, we don't like all these horrible things. We just like saying the Democrats never did anything for anybody, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

0:33:35 Lydia: Yeah, and you know, with the crash that happened between the American Airlines flight and the military helicopter and Trump going after DEI and having someone lead the civil rights division who is going to do whatever Trump wants I am concerned there is no protection for those people that are going to be, you know, accused of not being able to fulfill their their duties, their job requirements, et cetera, because of they're considered to be a DEI hire, for example. The DOJ is not going to Be on their side because the DOJ Is going to BE just doing Trump's bidding, essentially, and going after the enemies that he has decided are the enemies.

0:34:11 Thomas: I said it before, but I want to say it again more clearly, just in light of everything that's happening and blaming DEI for everything and all that. But like in the first Trump term, everyone was like, hey, get out of there. Don't support this. You're enabling. Now it is, it couldn't be more opposite. If you are in any position in the federal government in anything, please stay there. There stay there and take up space and slow things down and continue to try to do the right thing to the extent you can to the extent we can risk it we actually need that like now we're we are in a whole different this is a whole different era a whole difference ball game just stay stay and fight please do everything you can yeah

0:34:48 Lydia: Did you see that the declassified CIA guide to

0:34:53 Thomas: It's I've seen it shared around a while

0:34:53 Lydia: Sabotaging fascism is is going around a bit? And I had seen a librarian share something that they did, you know, kind of like tongue in cheek. It had to do with complying with like the Patriot Act back in the early 2000s. And they said that they had someone on the organizational structure that was the lead for Patriot Act requests. And it was always like the person who just left working for the library. So then And they could be like, oh, we were having turnover with our staff. It's going to take some time for us to answer your request. And then they just never would. They just kept changing it to whoever just left would be the new Patriot Act lead. Yeah. Yeah. Find things like that. If you've been offered the buyout, it's not going to happen.

0:35:20 Thomas: Yeah wow that's That's amazing. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that's bullshit.

0:35:36 Lydia: Don't believe that. Stay and fight. Find ways to get in it from the inside. And we'll be here on the outside trying to do our part, too.

0:35:44 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:35:44 Thomas: Man, Harmeet Dhillon, whether it's Vivek Ramaswamy, Clarence Thomas, you know, it's all these folks who are helping people who don't like them. Like they don't, J .D. Vance and his wife, you now, Dave Rubin and his husband when they adopt kids and then his entire audience is like, you shouldn't have kids because you're a freak of nature. You know, like, why can't you wake up and see that you're helping the bad guys? You're helping the people who will, they will not, they will inevitably turn on you.

0:35:55 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Usha? Yeah and in the meantime they get to use

0:36:17 Thomas: Yeah. They use you to harm other non -white, non -male people. And then it'll be your turn. And it's just like, it's so frustrating that that happens. And I don't put any more blame on them at all. It's not, I don'T blame them more. The people responsible are the villains responsible, but it does suck to see them under the delusion that they're going to be like in the good graces forever. They're just not.

0:36:39 Lydia: You yeah I don't know if anyone feels invigorated or just sad but I don' know I I get moments of feeling invigorating and so I'm just gonna when those happen I'm gonna lean into

0:36:51 Thomas: Yeah, I think the real key here is calling attention to the things we had that were good that nobody noticed. And I say nobody, broadly white America didn't really notice probably, you know, like there are so many things, all the good things that have been done. It doesn't mean Democrats always did great things, but all the Good Things that have ever happened in government are Democrats, like for the last several decades. And it's so much better to have people who are very imperfectly trying to sort of do do the right thing than Nazis who actively want to ruin everything. Like it's just, it's not a close comparison. It's something we need to consider and bear in mind. And not just in your overall vote, in how you talk about the entire situation and how you talked about your different choices for candidates. You know, when people say things like, it is not enough to just be a Democrat. Yeah, it actually is. You're incorrect. It is enough to be a Democrat. Is that all they should strive for? No, of course not. But that is enough. You are making a choice between poison and not poison. And you're looking at the not poison and being like, it's not enough that it's just not poison well, actually it is because the poison kills you. The not poison we'll see, you know, like if we do, maybe it's a healthy breakfast or maybe it is something that's also harmful long -term in a different way, but it's no poison and that's enough. And it's like, it's, it just people, I've been shouting about this since 2016 and it's just frustrating that we still, we still can't see it. It's not an attack on your leftist politics that I pretty share, it's not. It's an acknowledgement of reality.

0:37:02 Lydia: Them yeah yeah but in this day and age that's enough yeah.

0:38:18 Thomas: And it's not just leftists, it is also people, there's a lot of people in the center who just have this overall feeling of like, nobody fights for them, both sides, both sides, both sides. In fact, I think that's pretty powerful. I don't want to single out just the Bernie type left that I often have talked about with this. I think there are a lot of people who have just absorbed the cultural message that everybody's corrupt and nothing matters. And they've accumulated this very difficult to argue you with semi -conspiratorial feeling that everybody's out to get them in the government, like all politicians are corrupt and out to Get them in, you know, and like, they are just not engaging or voting. You know, it's not all Trump supporters. Yeah, it's people who are opting out because they just think that no difference can be made. But here's an example of the things being dialed back being ruined, essentially by Harmeet Dhillon in a few weeks or whatever, that is a sign of those were good things. Those are very good things, those were things that stopped horrible racists from doing racist stuff these things are important God, the harassment of people just trying to get health care abortion clinics

0:38:53 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, exactly. They just opt out. Mm mm.

0:39:20 Thomas: Like just pardoning people who were essentially terrorists well and the literal terrorists of January 6th to not even talk about that but like it's just I think that's that's the message that I'm getting from this most of all because I don't think we can do anything about harmeet dylan there's I just don't we're barely doing anything about the people who are 10 times less qualified or infinitely less qualified in the case of RFK. And so I think what I'm taking from this is just an appreciation of what we had and remembering it to both build it back and to speak more accurately about the state of things in the future.

0:39:13 Lydia: Mm hm. Yeah yeah yeah. Mm hmm. Mm. Yeah, great points.

0:39:54 Thomas: And now I want to tell you about eggcorns.

0:39:57 Lydia: Eggcorns? What?

0:39:58 Thomas: Eggcorn is a word for an alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements, creating a new phrase which is plausible when used in the same context. So baited breath, B -A -I -T -E -D, when the real phrase was B -A -T -E -D, bated breath. Beckon call, as in beck and call instead of beck -and -call. Let's see, X -EX -patriot instead of expatriate, the fetal position.

0:40:16 Lydia: Okay. Okay beckon call. Oh my gosh.

0:40:29 Thomas: Yeah. And I will not say that hone -in is that bad, but it is that. Hone -in was heard instead of home -in, but it's gone on long enough that people say home home hone in now so yeah, all right thanks so much for listening everyone lots more coming your way we're we are busy and I have a feeling of like it just I don't want to stop working on this stuff even though we're always doing that like it's just it's it's so bad right now and it's like such a crucial time so thank you for being with us and for supporting us and uh we're working hard for you so thanks for listening see you next time you know what's what's his name no it's not what I'm talking about the well

0:40:37 Lydia: Yeah. 50 -50 hindsight. Thank you, James Damore, Andy Ngo, Pete Hegseth. I just have he to go off of, so I'm... Oh, Vivek Ramaswamy.

0:41:36 Thomas: The doge guy Oh Remy