"ICE Is No Gestapo!" Complain Gestapo Enthusiasts

Transcript

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

0:00:20 Thomas: Hello, hello. We are here for Vapid Response number three. Hello, everybody. I'm Thomas. That over there is amazing producer Lydia. And coming in, I guess, on a blurry connection. I don't know why it's reconnecting every time. Matt, there we go. Now we've got you. And Matt's here. Lawyer Matt.

0:00:30 Lydia: Hello?

0:00:38 Matt: Tag, citizens. All right.

0:00:40 Thomas: Oh, boy. Oh, but that's a good it's a great place to start. It's not it's not feeling great lately. Real life immigration attorney Matt Cameron. How's your job lately?

0:00:50 Matt: You know, it's always been pretty fashy, but, you know, we're really cranking the fash up here. Well, we are not. We're trying to fight the f -.

0:00:56 Thomas: I was going to say just to clarify any new viewers. Matt is a fascist. He's Matt is an avid fascist he's this he's living his best life right now actually. Actually.

0:00:59 Lydia: Don't bring me into that.

0:01:01 Matt: That's fine. Right. Yes, I'm finally seeing it through. Now, we're going to talk today about the tip of the spear for fascism in America, which is, of course, immigration enforcement. But, you know, I know you're all paying attention to what's going on in D .C., which is very related to what we're gonna be talking about today. And the federalization of police throughout the country is very concerning. I'm really worried about it.

0:01:27 Thomas: It seems it's all, I love how news sources still play this like it's a novel thing. I just listened to, I think it was, well, I, I thought it was the Daily. We always loved it back on the Daily I can't remember. It might've been Washington Post, but it might've been the Daily too. And how can he do this with Washington DC? Oh, okay. And it's like, it's just worthless. Like, it's Just, we know what he's doing. He's, Matt, correct me if I'm I'm wrong. Washington, D .C., you've got the special, you know, constitutional situation there. So he does have the power to exert authority there. He starts there. He uses it as a model to maybe enforce it on other cities as a way to. It's like it's so transparently that's what he's doing that I don't know why we bother taking this like the news media takes this newborn baby role. Oh, OK. And so that city is it's like what what is it? Who is that for? What does

0:01:35 Lydia: I was going to ask, was it the daily? Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:17 Thomas: It do it's for newborn babies who tune in I guess and like oh this is my first time on earth today that's interesting everybody else we know what's going on anyway sorry just not to launch right in

0:02:26 Matt: Now we're going to talk about it more with, fun to talk more about it with Jenessa on Friday, you know, but again, like you said, the legal stuff doesn't really matter because he's doing it because he can do it. The Home Rule Act makes it a lot easier in DC, but he's talking about doing it in other cities. And that's why it's extra imperative. I think that we fight back against this national review piece that we're going to be talking about today.

0:02:43 Thomas: Love a good national review piece well

0:02:45 Matt: Extremely related. And then we've also got a piece I've been holding onto for a little while while now, from Newsweek, from somebody who's not usually an idiot being a complete idiot about Kilmer Obrego Garcia and this piece. This piece is, it's

0:02:57 Thomas: That's my favorite kind matt it's christmas here I love it

0:03:00 Matt: And this piece has actually aged really badly since June when it was published. So I'm looking forward to updating you in just a bit. Yeah.

0:03:04 Thomas: Since five years ago in june yeah

0:03:10 Matt: June. Man, what a month. Yeah, so we've got some good times, though, because I had to see this. As soon as I saw this headline, I had to go with it. This is from the editors. It's an op -ed, not just from anybody, but all of the editors at the National Review. And it's entitled, ICE is no Gestapo. They really want you to know that.

0:03:28 Thomas: Ice is no Gestapo. Okay.

0:03:30 Matt: They're no Gestapos. So yes, literally, they are not being led by Irma and Goring in 1933. Good job. We are in America in 2025.

0:03:38 Thomas: Now, is that the extent of the analysis? Because I could have written that.

0:03:43 Lydia: It's one sentence.

0:03:44 Thomas: Yeah.

0:03:46 Matt: Yeah, I will say before we get going, and I don't know if there's anything else we want to talk before we just get into this, but I think we should just get in. We've been going along on these. So I just want to give the usual disclaimers about how obviously it's dangerous to directly compare anything that's going on to any kind of history, especially Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was a very unique situation.

0:04:06 Matt: But I'm going to make the case today that ICE is a Gestapo, that it is very much in the beginnings of the Gestapo cycle that started in 1933 and carried on right up until the end of the war.

0:04:17 Thomas: I believe that you said it on last week's Opening Arguments podcast, right? Where it's like, are they the Gestapo in 1942 or whatever you said? Maybe not. But are Are they the Gestapo of 1938, something, you know, like maybe, you know, it's, there were people who were like, I was in the Gestapo before we were the whole Nazis thing. All these Johnny come lately's.

0:04:31 Matt: And even before, there was a Gestapo before the Third Reich, and there was an ICE before Trump, right? Yeah, that's right. They're working Prussia. That was the real stuff. That's where it was at. But the Gestapo, we'll talk a little bit about him.

0:04:49 Thomas: It's Russia, Matt. I don't, I can't believe you just mispronounced it like that. Sorry, everybody. We like to deal in facts here.

0:04:53 Matt: Just adding a P for no reason. So when those of us, and there are quite a few people, have been comparing ICE to the Gestapo, and we're comparing. We're not saying they're the actual Gestapo because that's a very specific time and place. And I'm going to talk more about why I think it's actually completely fair. And I'm saying this as somebody who's been getting into a number of arguments recently about people who keep calling that place in Florida Alligator Auschwitz instead of Alligator Alcatraz, because I don't think that talking about death camps is the right thing right now. I think that calling it a concentration camp is enough. I Think it does insult the memory of people who died in death camps to compare this swamp thing in Florida. And again, we all know that's where it can go, but it's not where it has to go, right? In just the same sense that the Gestapo doesn't have to go as bad as what we're going to talk about. But the editors of the National Review are being purposely obtuse, like all of our favorite authors here at Vapid Review. So we should...

0:05:44 Thomas: Vapid response is the name. So why don't we take our first break?

0:05:47 Matt: The National Review.

0:05:47 Thomas: Break. We'll teach Matt the name of the show and, and also Russia, the name of the country. He's got, he's not, sorry.

0:05:47 Matt: There we go.

0:05:55 Thomas: Anyway, no, we'll take a quick break for the podcast listeners before we dive in.

0:06:05 Thomas: All right. That's probably enough of a break for everybody here. I feel refreshed.

0:06:07 Matt: All right. Let's do it. Phil Komen. All

0:06:09 Thomas: Okay. Do I need, is this one I'm pulling up and where is the link? Sorry.

0:06:14 Matt: Yeah. This is hot off National Review presses from August 6th, 2025, so we're trying to keep it current here. And they really thought this was worth writing. They thought this was something that we needed to say. I don't know why,

0:06:30 Thomas: Sorry. Is somebody putting the link somewhere? Where's, okay.

0:06:31 Lydia: I I sent it to you on facebook I think you had it up earlier

0:06:34 Thomas: Slack is the place I was asking to send up everything.

0:06:37 Thomas: That's the one screen I have up right now. I don't have any other screens up.

0:06:38 Lydia: Well Okay. Well then give me a second all

0:06:41 Thomas: And go ahead, Matt. You can keep introing.

0:06:43 Matt: And yeah, so we should talk about the Gestapo for a minute just before we get started on all of this, which, of course, the name of the Gestapa literally means the state secret police. They are literally the secret police of Nazi Germany. And it's good to remember that they were a deportation force. That was a big part of what they actually did was and they did this after Jews were basically reclassified as no longer being German citizens. You know, certainly no parallels to today. And they were also a surveillance organization, which I want you to keep in mind as we're reading this. They were, to that point in history, I think they did more surveillance than anybody had ever done. They Were able to tap anybody's phone lines. They Were able to intercept all communications. They had an incredible team of translators that were watching newspapers around the world that could instantaneously translate and follow people that had escaped Nazi Germany so they could chase them down. I wasn't aware of that part of it. I've been doing a lot of reading about the Gestapo recently, and I have to say there are, there's pretty fair parallels, but But let's just start in here with the editors of the National Review and

0:07:41 Matt: Why they want to write this correct.

0:07:42 Lydia: In the summer of 1934 The Gestapo carried out a murderous purge against Chancellor Adolf Hitler's internal party enemies known as the night of the long knives.

0:07:53 Matt: That's one of the only correct statements in this editorial.

0:07:57 Lydia: In the summer of 20... Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

0:07:59 Matt: I just wanted to say, the Gestapo, as I said, they did predate the Third Reich in the Weimar Republic. But also, so remember, the Third Wright got started in January of 33. They're talking about the summer of 34. There are a lot of things that happened in between. And we are also, I remind everybody, recording this now in August of 2025. Keep that in mind as we're talking. Let's keep going.

0:07:59 Thomas: All right. You're stopping. Stop us here.

0:08:13 Lydia: All Right. In the summer of 2025, immigration and customs enforcement detained illegal immigrants and ensured they weren't evading lawful immigration proceedings. Can you spot the difference? Democrats apparently apparently can't.

0:08:32 Thomas: It's the same picture. Pam office meme. Yeah.

0:08:36 Matt: So they're doing the classic bad faith argument thing of like, well, here's one of the worst things the Gestapo did. And does this look like that to you? Yeah, as we'll talk about, there's plenty of reasons that we get to call it the Gestapos. But I mean, the worst thing the Gestapa did. Yeah?

0:08:45 Lydia: Yeah, right,

0:08:50 Thomas: ICE conducts HR meetings internally. Internally. They also clock in. I don't know. Yeah. Try to pick like the most irrelevant thing about what they do. Yeah, you pick the worst example of one and the best example of another. I feel like you could probably pick examples that are closer together if you wanted to. Right, Matt? Matt?

0:09:07 Matt: You certainly could, considering the fact that the Gestapo's main purpose by the time they were done was deporting Jews to camps. That's what they were doing. Literally, the SS had the jurisdiction over deportations of the Roma and homosexuals and other people that were minority groups that they were deporting to camps, but the Gestapa was responsible specifically for the Jewish population, which again had been effectively effectively denaturalized by the Nuremberg Laws in 1934. And again, we're talking about the equivalent of early 1933 when we're taking about where we're at right now. And, again, I want to be very careful to say I'm not talking about an exact shot -for -shot timeline in

0:09:41 Thomas: But it sure is pretty fucking close, Matt. Like, I don't, I don't even know that why we need to couch it. Like John Oliver last night, we just watched it. There's a clip where a citizen, a citizen is assaulted and taken by ICE.

0:09:44 Matt: A lot of ways. Yeah.

0:09:55 Thomas: And the guy says, you're an illegal. You don't have any rights here, brother.

0:09:55 Matt: I've seen that one. Yeah. Yep.

0:09:59 Thomas: You have no rights. That's a citizen.

0:10:00 Matt: And it kept recording.

0:10:01 Thomas: You're an illegal. I can't like, what is the degree of separation from, okay, OK, literally, it's not the year 1930 fucking whatever. Like beyond that, you're an illegal. You have no rights here. And being rounded up and taken somewhere as a citizen. What what reasonable what what margin of difference is there that that matters there? Like it's you really, really grasping at straws if you're trying to say there's some giant meaningful difference between what that is and what the Gestapo was.

0:10:32 Matt: Well, Well, let's see what they say about it. First, they're going to give some examples of cool people saying cool stuff.

0:10:39 Lydia: Quote, Donald Trump's modern day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets, said Tim Walz at a May commencement address. He's not alone.

0:10:46 Matt: Let me just finish that quote because they're not going to give you the rest of it. They're in unmarked vans wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons, no chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans and disappeared.

0:10:54 Thomas: Fact check. Correct. Correct, correct,

0:10:59 Matt: Again, factual.

0:10:59 Thomas: Correct. So all those 100 % factual. I didn't hear, not even, I'm not even talking about like, I am a liberal and I'm a leftist going to exaggerate facts. Those are just plain factual statements. Like, I think the right would probably agree with those statements. Arguments but and and so sorry why is this article quoting this because as some sort of example of what of hysteria oh just describing the actual things that is happening okay gotcha

0:11:09 Matt: Videos you can watch. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

0:11:14 Lydia: They just like it.

0:11:20 Matt: Of hysteria. Of Democrat hysteria, right? Yes, that are happening in front of us. Yep. Now let's hear from Stephen Lynch, another one of my favorite congressmen.

0:11:28 Lydia: Congressman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts Schusitz said, quote, when you compare the old films of the Gestapo grabbing people off the streets of Poland and you compare them to those nondescript thugs who grabbed that graduate student, it does look like a Gestapo operation. Man, I'm not having a hard time.

0:11:42 Matt: It sure does. He's talking about, of course, about Ramesa Ozturk, and I think we've all seen that video by now, but just coming up to her on the street and grabbing her and taking her off the street, and they start masking at that point. Lynch, actually, that clip, we won't play it now, we'll link to it. It's worth watching. He gets very emotional. It is a great delivery. Let's look at the next one.

0:11:58 Lydia: Rachel Maddow invokes ICE in making the case that, quote. We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country. Representative.

0:12:06 Matt: Yeah, just for the context of that, because not that you you need context. I mean, I think we all agree.

0:12:10 Thomas: The content was all around us that's right wow context yeah

0:12:11 Matt: But she said, imagine the cartoon -level caricature of what you think a dictatorship looks like. It's secret police, right? A massive, anonymous, unbadged, literally masked, totally unaccountable internal police force that apparently has infinite funding but no identifiable leadership. Again, secret police. Blast?

0:12:29 Thomas: I will disagree that they have the leadership of that fucking guy uh that very very slow guy yeah tom homan who I can't again I it's It's like, these are all, every time I see him, Stephen Miller, I just think these were the people in the back of the class who didn't do any of the homework, failed out of it, and then wanted to like get guns or whatever. Like when I hear these people talk, it's like this is their revenge on us or something.

0:12:34 Lydia: Tom Homan. Yeah.

0:12:54 Thomas: It's, so he is a leader.

0:12:53 Matt: No, Homan is definitely, he's a cop all the way, like a failed

0:12:56 Thomas: I guess I'll disagree that he is the leader of ICE, but he's not.

0:12:56 Matt: Cop. Yeah. Well, he is not though. She is making a good point. Well, it is a good, because he is the border czar. He has like this indiscriminate sort of like broad portfolio, right?

0:13:03 Thomas: Please. Yeah. Educate us on that. I would have just said, yeah.

0:13:06 Matt: And same, yeah, same with Stephen Miller, who is like a special counsel, right, he is not, you know, he isn't a lawyer, but he is a special counselor or whatever, like he is just an advisor. They purposely, Stephen Miller never wanted to be appointed to anything because he wanted to have as much power as possible to move between agencies and yell at people as often as he could.

0:13:20 Thomas: And not have to go through like confirmation or any any accountability whatsoever.

0:13:24 Matt: Yep. And so, yeah, Homan is not the head of ICE. He's not the Head of DHS, right? I mean, that's Kristi Noem is Head of ICE, so.

0:13:29 Thomas: I honestly I think most of us who aren't immigration attorneys and maybe I'm just ignorant, but I just assumed he was. I thought he was literally that.

0:13:35 Matt: Well, he's out there like he is. It's fair enough. Sure. Yeah, let's keep going.

0:13:39 Thomas: So who is the leader then? The actual leader?

0:13:41 Matt: Well, Kristi, Kristie Noem is technically, I couldn't actually even name the Head of ICE right now because I think they keep changing it.

0:13:43 Thomas: So she's not the person they're calling ice. What are they calling her again? Ice Barbie or something? I don't know.

0:13:51 Matt: Yeah, she's the Head of DHHS.

0:13:53 Thomas: But she's not technically. Wow. OK, well, I stand completely corrected on that. I'm really glad you said that.

0:14:00 Matt: Oh, the acting director is Todd Lyons from Massachusetts. I should have known that, of course. Our FedEx guy. Oh, never mind. I'm not going to get into that.

0:14:06 Thomas: What?

0:14:06 Matt: So, got that? That. So let's go on to the next.

0:14:06 Lydia: FedEx guy. Like

0:14:09 Thomas: I'm not going to go to a related FedEx mail story. Just sending a package the other day and.

0:14:10 Lydia: His mailman.

0:14:15 Matt: I didn't say that. Let's go onto the next cool person saying a cool thing.

0:14:16 Lydia: All right. Representative Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez said the agency should not exist. OK.

0:14:24 Matt: No comment there. That's easy. Yeah.

0:14:26 Lydia: Representative Dan Goldman said that they were like, quote, secret police who need to be unmasked.

0:14:31 Thomas: Yep, this is incredible because normally they can do a better job of finding the extreme examples on the left of like.

0:14:37 Matt: Great.

0:14:37 Thomas: Like, and by the way, with the power of taking things out of context too, like, I feel like I could have done a better job. But in this instance, every single statement in that paragraph you just read, every single one is just literal truth.

0:14:50 Matt: It's easy and I should say for context of Dan Goldman, this is even better. Dan Goldman literally introduced the no secret police act, which would require ICE to be unmasked and show ID. And of course, Republicans are never going to go for that because they want secret police. It's very very important that we have them. So that, as you said, all a series of factual statements from people that we like. And let's see what the National Review has to say about it.

0:15:10 Thomas: Read that next sentence, son.

0:15:11 Matt: Yeah.

0:15:12 Lydia: This inflamed rhetoric is firmly in the American tradition.

0:15:17 Matt: Inflamed rhetoric.

0:15:17 Thomas: This inflamed rhetoric of factual statements.

0:15:20 Lydia: Yeah. It is also totally cracked and part of a febrile atmosphere around ICE's operations. Some anti -ICE activists have been taking matters into their own hands. Eleven left -wing agitators ambushed an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, opening fire on agents and shooting one in the neck. Now, yeah,

0:15:39 Matt: So I have to just stop real quick on that. Yeah? Do you know about this?

0:15:41 Lydia: I was going to say, yeah. Go for it, Matt, and I'll piggyback.

0:15:44 Matt: Go ahead. It sounds like you get the facts on it.

0:15:46 Lydia: Just a little bit. So from my understanding, there was a group of protesters outside of a facility, and they were shooting fireworks and graffitiing federal cars, I guess, saying Ice Pig and different things like that on it. And the allegation is that they were doing those things in order to get ICE agents to come out of the building so they could confront them and shoot at them. But the ICE officers called the police for backup.

0:16:14 Lydia: And then when the police arrived, one of the police officers got shot and was then taken to the hospital and is fine. But they're now all of these people are being charged with three counts of attempted murder of a federal officer, as well as discharging a firearm in relation to, you know, committing a violent felony.

0:16:33 Thomas: What's this? So some, why did somebody shoot a police officer? We don't know.

0:16:33 Lydia: Yeah,

0:16:37 Matt: They didn't, I don't think they even knew it was not a police officer. But I mean, that's a very very important point. And this is not the only factual error in this article, I will point out. There's going to be a couple of them. But I don't know if they don't know that it wasn't an ICE officer. And again, it's terrible that somebody just showed up, did his job and got shot in the neck.

0:16:52 Matt: I mean, that was a local cop. But because ICE just wouldn't come out because they're cowards. So they call the police instead.

0:16:58 Thomas: In what way, in what stretch of the imagination can you say that everybody at a demonstration is like liable for that, Matt, is like part of that? Is that what they're doing? Is it?

0:17:06 Matt: Or that it's representative

0:17:07 Lydia: Yeah, so they are saying all of those people are being charged with three counts of attempted murder.

0:17:08 Matt: Of how we protest.

0:17:15 Thomas: They're actually, wow.

0:17:16 Lydia: Yes, yes. And then

0:17:18 Matt: It is going to to be bad for them oh

0:17:19 Lydia: Your favorite hun, Andy Ngo, tweeted about this and posted all their mugshots. These are like, like some of these are like young kids, like they're, you know, you have some young white women, young white men, like it's a kind of broad mix. And he said these are, and at the time this was 10 that they had in custody at the Time. These are the 10 alleged members of a North Texas Antifa terror cell accused of carrying out the attempted murder of federal officers at a shooting terrorist attack on an ICE facility. Um yeah it's the talk about inflamed rhetoric I think like when I read this I'm just like come come on guys

0:18:02 Thomas: Exactly. Exactly. Grab any quote of these fuckers talking about any protest, anyone on the left, anyone who has any problem with what they're doing. That's the inflamed rhetoric for sure. Yeah.

0:18:13 Matt: Yeah oh there's more coming let's keep going for

0:18:15 Lydia: In portland oregon an incendiary device was thrown at officers I tried looking this up um and it's only ever called an incendiary device I don't know like I imagine there are various kinds of yeah I I and I don' t know I don'' t know can't figure out what the details are there um this is uh the yes

0:18:26 Thomas: It's like a lighter. It' s like a Bic lighter.

0:18:35 Thomas: Well, Portland, Oregon police are horrible. And so in any given day, I'm going to be careful with my words. It's likely someone thought they ought to throw something at them is all I'm saying. Like in any giving day.

0:18:47 Lydia: And and I will say like like things have been pretty intense in portland through the ice protests too like specifically the ice protest you know it fails to mention the tear gas the flash bangs all the chaos that's been happening um from the portland police side towards protesters and and who knows you know know kind of what escalated here and there um and and honestly like I could not find more details about the incendiary device um I'm sure we'll hear more about that uh let's see where did I leave off another attacker in mcallen texas shot a police officer and injured two border patrol employees yes

0:18:51 Thomas: For a while oh

0:18:52 Matt: A while sure that did happen and he was he was killed

0:19:28 Thomas: Congrats the guy oh

0:19:30 Lydia: He he was killed um and from what I understand too his father had called the police saying he was concerned about his son's mental state and he knew he had weapons in his car with him. So, you know, I would say that's not necessarily reflective on this person's view on ICE specifically, but maybe more reflective on our problems as a nation and that we struggle with gun violence.

0:19:45 Thomas: Sounds like yeah

0:19:54 Matt: Every day every day there's a concerned parent calling that in yeah no sure sure and

0:20:01 Lydia: And yeah. On Tuesday, a rioter threw a rock into and set fire to an ICE building in Washington State. Now, for this one, this was not an ICE building. This was an office in which part of it was being used by ICE. They threw a rock into a window.

0:19:55 Thomas: Someone

0:20:02 Matt: What's in it yeah

0:20:18 Thomas: Took a virtual meeting there uh in a starbucks in the building it's an ice building yeah yeah

0:20:21 Lydia: It's a co -working space. And so they threw a Rock, it broke a window, and then there was also a fire set on the backside of the property. The building was not set on fire. There was a small small fire set. And they are pursuing it as arson charges. But Assistant Secretary DHS Tricia McLaughlin said, quote, from comparisons to the modern day Nazi just Gestapo to glorifying rioters, the violent rhetoric of these sanctuary politicians is beyond the pale. That was her response to that situation was a rock through a window. Nobody got hurt. No issues. And they put out the fire.

0:20:58 Thomas: I mean here's the thing if the rhetoric fits you know like I I don't know I don'T know again we went through what this article thinks is inflamed exaggerated rhetoric and it's literally just factual statements about what's happening. And so if we have that, if we have people describing what's happening in factual terms, and we have, by the way, communities are seeing people being ripped from the streets. They're seeing it. There's no, there isn't even a mediation of rhetoric. They are actually seeing it and they're saying, fuck this. What do you think? Oh, it's the word choices, though, of Rachel Maddow. That's really, really the a difference here.

0:21:35 Matt: They they said that tim wall's calling them the gush napa was sickening they were sickened I didn't want to hear it uh yeah let's get to this last point, the last couple of points.

0:21:46 Lydia: Let's see. There is a movement to unmask ICE agents, dox them, and encourage their harassment at their homes.

0:21:55 Matt: Hey, why do you think we have to unmask them? What's that about? It's almost like they're wearing masks all the time, like no other law enforcement.

0:22:01 Thomas: Remember during COVID when masks were the biggest threat to like everything, security, everything?

0:22:04 Lydia: I know that's all I can think about is like, wait a second. Are masks good or bad?

0:22:10 Matt: There's no other law enforcement that just goes out in the public wearing masks. You suggest you might know you're doing something wrong that people don't like very much. And doxing at this point, I mean, they've been throwing that word around. Doxing is basically just using a nice officer's name in public. They

0:22:27 Thomas: Is it not publicly accessible information? I mean, I don't know about this, Matt, because when we work for the state, you can get our payroll. You can get everything for the State of California.

0:22:34 Matt: Reclassified as a national security agency under Trump, and I think it's a lot harder to FOIA that kind of stuff now.

0:22:40 Thomas: For fuck's sake.

0:22:43 Matt: I will point out that I think we haven't talked about this, but in Irvine, California, there was the guy who had been posting pictures with names of ICE officers to warn people about ICE in their community, and they sent basically a military convoy to his house to interrogate his parents. The video of that was shocking. It's hard to believe that was in America, honestly, because they're coming down hard. Let's talk about this next sentence is actually very important yeah this seven

0:23:02 Lydia: Yeah. The White House claims that ICE agents are facing a 700% surge in assaults. And John Oliver did break this down last night, but yeah, go for it, Matt.

0:23:09 Thomas: It went Went from one to seven.

0:23:13 Lydia: Yeah, it was 10 to 79, right?

0:23:11 Matt: Did it yeah yep that's right that's what I got and yeah it's it's like and it's been inflating throughout it's kind of like the the arrested development joke with job suit you know the value of the suit just keeps going up all the way through because it's just like it was so

0:23:26 Thomas: The guy with a 700 % certain assault.

0:23:30 Matt: It's gonna tell me yeah yeah no it's really like

0:23:33 Thomas: Should, should, should. Sorry. Got it. Love that show so much.

0:23:36 Matt: This is what I thought of because I was finding different stories where they have different numbers, like, increasing throughout the year.

0:23:38 Thomas: That's so good. Yeah.

0:23:42 Matt: But, you know, 700%, you think that's... Now, there are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, I guess I want to state very clearly, and I've said this every time we've talked about this, but because of 18 U.S.C. 111 and because we're all nonviolent here, I just want to say very clearly that we do not support assaulting or getting in the way or in any way doing anything to threaten an ICE officer. That is not the purpose of anything we're talking about here. And anybody who takes that away from what we're saying is not hearing us. But the reason that these assaults have gone up, there's a couple couple of reasons. One of them is that under the Biden administration and under the Obama administration, even under Trump, because it was COVID, most of Trump, they weren't in the streets that much. They were mostly just transferring people from state and local custody who had been arrested for criminal offenses and putting them into immigration custody. So you hardly ever saw them in the community. And now suddenly they're everywhere in the committee because they've been giving these numbers. They have to do quotas now.

0:24:28 Matt: And, you know, people are much more attuned to them because Trump was elected on the promise of the largest mass deportation campaign in American history. And again, their definition of assault also, they've been pushed by this in the media. I don't know if John Oliver got into this, but they will not give the details. They won't break it down.

0:24:44 Thomas: He did.

0:24:46 Lydia: They won't I mean they call what brad lander did the new york comptroller assault and like that that's insane there's

0:24:47 Matt: So you can't find it. Yes. Right. Or Ras Baraka, right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that's, I mean, again, just like arguing with them.

0:24:56 Lydia: One of your 79 apparently Yeah.

0:24:57 Thomas: They're just, it's professional reverse victimhood. And Andy Ngo is such a good example of this. He's been a professional reverse victim for 10 years, at least. And the way they exaggerate it, wildly out of control. I mean, it's just that is so fascist. Like it just is the epitome of fascism.

0:25:17 Matt: And it's classic fascism because fascists fascism have to both be like the most powerful people and the worst victims right that they're the people that they are arresting are both you know terrible little rats that have to be taken out of their holes and they're also in charge of everything right that's that's

0:25:32 Thomas: And then they put their boot on you and they, oh, he scratched my boot. Assault. You know, it's exactly.

0:25:38 Matt: I mean you remember there's a famous case with the guy who bled on a cop while they were beating him and they charged him with damaging property right that kind of stuff I mean they but I mean this is and it's time -honored tradition for cops to charge people that way but oh yeah that's regular cops

0:25:47 Thomas: And yeah, that predates this. That's just the base level cop fascism. That'S just the normal, you know, like the cosmic back microwave background.

0:25:53 Lydia: You're every day. Yeah, these

0:25:56 Matt: Right right it's always there that's right yeah yeah um all right let's keep going you

0:26:00 Lydia: Attackers evidently take the idea that ICE is an American Gestapo all too seriously.

0:26:10 Lydia: ICE agents are simply doing their job, Which is a f -

0:26:15 Matt: Might even say that they're just following orders

0:26:18 Thomas: You not doing their job? Were they doing a... They were doing a different person's job. The actual job that they were hired to do is clean up trash.

0:26:24 Matt: Accounting they were accountants yeah and they just went out and went nuts yeah

0:26:28 Thomas: Gestapo means accountant, actually, in another language. Yeah, that's the problem. They were dealing with a lot of people. They were just doing other people's jobs. But these people were just doing their jobs. There's falling orders. It's fine.

0:26:34 Matt: You know, if you watch those videos of people and you think they're doing their job, you're a fascist. Like, there's just something wrong with you, right? If you think that's a job that people should have, then yeah, yeah, he's

0:26:44 Thomas: You might be a fascist. We need... Is that guy a fascists? You might a redneck or whatever. We need him.

0:26:50 Matt: Probably most of the way to, you know. Actually, we should play

0:26:52 Thomas: We need to him to do a you might be fascist uh bit with all these things please

0:26:55 Matt: A quick video, actually, of us doing their work. I got the first one I sent you there. It's a very quick clip. Just to remind people, because I think the visuals are important.

0:27:04 Thomas: Queue it up here oh

0:27:05 Matt: Now, imagine you're sitting in your car. This is a mother sitting in her car with her children. And this just happens when you're sitting at a traffic stop or whatever. Got audio?

0:27:16 Lydia: My

0:27:15 Thomas: One sec wow that goes right in in today's in this day and age yeah it goes it just goes right into the fascism uh okay sorry I was turning that was me turning down the volume hopefully all right let's see yeah

0:27:18 Matt: Yeah, you can hear the fascism. Yeah. Here we go.

0:27:44 Clip: I says that I'll see Berrios is an illegal alien Salvadoran national and an affiliate of the violent transnational street gang MS 13 border patrol arrested Berrios in 2017

0:27:57 Lydia: Jesus Christ.

0:27:58 Matt: Of course. Yeah that's enough. That's enough All right. But I mean, just that opening shot of a masked man smashing your window and there's another one we don't have to keep going.

0:28:04 Thomas: I don't know how to restart

0:28:08 Matt: But there's another one where the guy is like, I'm gonna smash your window. And if you can open the door, and then two seconds later, he smashes the window in. It's just so many of those videos.

0:28:12 Thomas: We saw that one yeah yeah

0:28:14 Matt: Yeah. I mean, just look at that. Look at that, that is fascism. The other ones are amassed at least. But there's also, I want to talk about Emiliano. I don't know if you heard about this a couple of days ago in Pittsburgh. I sent you the other video. We should watch a few seconds of that. This is what they've been up to. Now, there's another video I'm not going to show you, but you can clearly see them stealing, actually just walking out. And it would require are buying this whole tiktok explanation but let's just watch a little this is the owner talking about her experience with ice raiding them a couple days ago seeing the aftermath one of the guys is still hanging around now

0:28:48 Thomas: Let's just let's say how do I full screen this huh

0:28:51 Clip: Look at this, look

0:28:53 Matt: Notice the drinks fridge empty ceiling

0:28:53 Clip: Inside the office, my insurance is gonna love this, yeah, they didn't show me anything when they came in, they didn't show me nothing, I have a little basket with money there, should I leave it there or should I take it? Don't touch anything, I mean, you already got everything, I know there's there's nothing and you said the kitchen's on fire, why would they turn the kitchen on fire?

0:29:00 Matt: Tiles ripped out yeah

0:29:06 Thomas: There it is oh wow

0:29:17 Matt: They just left the kitchen on fire just

0:29:20 Thomas: What the wow

0:29:29 Matt: Left The Burner's gone so

0:29:30 Clip: No sir, you may not. I'm sorry, but this is wrong. Why is she here?

0:29:37 Clip: I don't know, here she is. Hold on ma 'am. Yes sir.

0:29:42 Matt: They they posted along with this video that the the walk-in fridge was emptied they just took all the food and there's a video of So outside, you got the three vans pulling up to take the workers away. And then in the back, they pulled up their personal vehicles and just took a bunch of stuff. And this is before we have grown this forest to the size it's going to be. It's going quadruple in the next few years. But in time for the next election, it's gonna be four times bigger. And it's the best funded federal operation in American history. And this ist something we have to talk about now. And that's why it's important to use this kind of language when we're talking about it now. Now. So that's what they're doing when they're doing their jobs, is they're taking busboys and kitchen workers and destroying businesses, small American businesses, and stealing from them, just openly taking things out the back. I can link to the full video another time, but let's keep going here.

0:29:45 Thomas: That's ominous wow

0:30:33 Lydia: ICE agents are simply doing their job, which is a function of the legitimate power of the federal government to regulate immigration and to expel those with no legal right to live or work in this country.

0:30:43 Matt: That is a description.

0:30:43 Thomas: To take any beverages that happen to be nearby that's that's their job yeah

0:30:47 Matt: Evidence. Yeah. Yeah? I mean, that is a literal description of what ICE is statutorily supposed to do. So good job, National Review. All right, let's keep going, obviously.

0:30:58 Lydia: ICE officers only take steps to protect their identity because they are facing violent resistance. They obviously are nothing like the Gestapo. The Gestapo arrested people for political crimes without any judicial process they had

0:31:10 Matt: Hold on. Wait a minute. ICE would never arrest people for political crimes without any judicial process. Mahmoud Khalil, Rameza Ozturk, Madani from Vermont, you might remember. Those were all straight up political offenses. They're charged purely for things that they said in public that were not crimes. And lots

0:31:30 Thomas: And they but they had all kinds of due process right matt yeah

0:31:33 Matt: Of depravity. The only reason that those those people are out right now is because we have decent federal judges. But if that had just been left to the immigration courts, they would have been still in custody. And Mahmoud Khalil, as it was, of course, missed the birth of his child and had to be there for months. Rumeza Ozturk had multiple medical incidents while she was in Louisiana. Just terrible what we're doing to these people. But immigration enforcement has a long history of politically motivated enforcement. Going back to John Lennon, right? They tried to deport John Lenne just because they didn't like what he was talking about in Vietnam.

0:31:46 Thomas: That's so sad which

0:32:02 Matt: And they have a long history, well before Trump, of going after activists for things that they've said in public. They'll just go and arrest them and try to deport them. I mean, there's a famous case in Washington of a guy whose wife was in a sting. This is so strange. I've never heard about this one. But there was some kind of arrangement where she was going to sell some pinatas and ICE grabbed this ad and came and met her in a parking lot and picked her up. And so he went public with this, told the media what had happened to her, and they drove hundreds of miles to find him in a lake somewhere and arrested him just for talking.

0:32:37 Matt: Yeah. I mean, this is the kind of stuff they do. And no doubt, as they get more power, that we're going to see more and more of this. Now, again, the Gestapo were political police. That was their main job, was to go after enemies of the Nazi Party. But of course, very important to remember that Jews across the board were political enemies enemies of the Nazi party. So these were political arrests too.

0:32:55 Lydia: You'll see a word that's not used in the next sentence and on the rest of the sentence anyway they attacked partisan enemies of the nazi party and they secretly monitored religious organizations among other crimes and hideous acts conveniently leaving out like a pretty significant uh group of people that the nazis were not you know fond of so

0:33:10 Thomas: Religions yeah geez yeah

0:33:16 Matt: So I think it's a shot that we're particularly responsible for. And I will also mention, if you're talking about attacking partisan enemies of Nazi party, you did already mention Brad Lander, of course, being arrested for interfering or allegedly for just asking questions. We had Raz Baraka, we had Monica McIver in New Jersey arrested together. I think McIver's still facing federal charges, and they're alleging that somehow she did something wrong in a public space. And of course, after 9 -11, they were secretly monitoring mosques all over the place, no question about that, and getting informants. But I like how the National Review has to be sure to say that these are crimes and hideous acts, things that ICE would never do. All right.

0:33:56 Thomas: And and like it It seems like the key difference right now, because there is a difference, as you say, there is a difference. But the key different seems to be that sometimes there's checks on their power. It doesn't seem to be in what they're doing. You know, it doesn't seem to me in how that like they're they're arresting people there with no due process. They're sending them off to foreign death camps, essentially, with some of these. But like the only difference seems to b that there's sometimes judges that can tell them to stop or other pressures that tell them to stop.

0:34:16 Lydia: Sounds

0:34:24 Thomas: That seems to it. Yet. It's not, it's not their internal restraint.

0:34:24 Matt: Well, yeah. And that's not even a difference, because in 1933, they were still bound by German law. But within a few years, they declared themselves through decree. They declared that they were completely outside of courts and any kind of law. They were not accountable to the people or the parliament. And they actually set up special Gestapo and SS tribunals that would judge themselves. You can imagine how that went.

0:34:48 Matt: But I mean, I found an example even like in 1933 of a man who was murdered by the Gestapo. Everybody knew that. And they said that he killed himself. His family was trying to collect the life insurance and life insurance said that he'd killed himself and he couldn't collect. And they sued and tried to get discovery basically to show that Gestapo had killed this man. And for making these statements and filing this claim, they took his lawyer to a camp. But at the time, they were still in a time when the lawyers would feel comfortable actually taking this to court. So that tells you something, right? And people think about it, like somehow people just woke up in Nazi Germany and there's jackboots in the streets, right?

0:34:48 Lydia: Effective wow yeah yeah

0:35:21 Thomas: Right.

0:35:21 Matt: This stuff happens slowly. And it did happen pretty fast in 1933, but it's still... All right, let's keep going.

0:35:23 Lydia: Ice enforces the laws that are on our books which say that illegal immigrants shall be detained until their immigration proceedings reach a conclusion.

0:35:36 Matt: This is an interesting combination of statements. So first of all, the first statement, you could have said about the Gestapo in January 1933 or April 1933, the enforcing laws that are in the books.

0:35:44 Thomas: She's following orders, just stealing the laws.

0:35:46 Matt: And basically, they were doing criminal enforcement. And one thing to mention, I think there's gonna be an opportunity to mention this later, but I do want to mention very clearly, and we'll talk about this more on Friday, but the thing that made the Gestapote the Gestapa was that they federalized. They actually actually brought all of the police in Germany under their control, which ICE is trying to do right now by eliminating sanctuary policies.

0:36:05 Thomas: You see that here and there.

0:36:07 Matt: Yeah. But not only with D .C., what you just saw where literally the federal government's taking it over, but with the 287G agreements that you and I have talked about on opening arguments, there's now 900 287D agreements where they're working directly with local police. And that concerns me more than anything out of all of this. But the second half of the sentence, alleging that the laws in our books say that illegal legal immigrant shall be detained until immigration proceedings reach a conclusion. That is not what they say. This is a weird sideways way to support that ICE memo that we talked about a few weeks ago that says that everybody should be detained all the time. So there, well, until recently, there was a presumption against detention. And, you know, it's generally presumed that you have a right to, unless the government can show otherwise. And that's certainly the law here in the First Circuit as well. But it's not, it doesn't, there's not mandatory detention for everybody who's here without permission. Mandatory detention is only for a very slight group of people, and it's mostly the people you would imagine that already have a dangerous record or anything that resembles. I mean, honestly, you can get mandatory detention for minor drug possession,

0:36:38 Thomas: That's not. How does it actually, what do the laws actually say on that man? So

0:37:10 Matt: But it's still something, right?

0:37:10 Thomas: That's a new thing. That's the thing that changed and is therefore something that we could could complain about and call fascist because this article wants to represent this. This is just how it is. It's just the law is like this.

0:37:19 Lydia: How it's always been.

0:37:21 Thomas: It is fine.

0:37:20 Matt: That's always been.

0:37:21 Thomas: Yeah, if they change the law, I guess you could call it the law with an executive order. Sometimes it has that effect, I think. But if they changed it to be even more fascist, then that is them becoming even more fascist recently.

0:37:34 Matt: And doing the thing that they did that we've talked about on the show where they just issued a memo and said, gaslighting us completely and just saying, this is what the law is and has has always been, which nobody believes, that is as Gestapo -like as you can get, just saying this is the law and we're the law now. So yeah. Let's go to the next sentence. I can get more mad.

0:37:52 Thomas: Yeah it is like sentence by sentence you have so much to say.

0:37:55 Lydia: If anything those proceedings tend to provide overly generous due process to illegal immigrants even

0:38:02 Thomas: Overly generous yeah

0:38:02 Matt: Yeah. Too much due process.

0:38:05 Lydia: With the stepped up ICE enforcement by the way mass defiance of our immigration laws with millions of illegal immigrants working and living here is still the norm.

0:38:05 Matt: Yeah, by the way. So if anything, they're not being fascist enough. That's what we're saying here, I guess.

0:38:20 Lydia: If Democrats don't like immigration laws, they can run campaigns to change them. But not too long ago, Democrats wanted to expand ICE. None other than Tim Walz supported the Lankford bill late in the Biden administration that would have brought a threefold increase in ICE's annual budget. So did all but five Democratic senators.

0:38:39 Matt: This is the single most disingenuous thing in this article. And if you blink, you might miss it. You might remember for last February when Trump kept them, Republicans, kept Republicans from passing the big border bill the Democrats were willing to sign on to. That's what he's talking about. I don't know that it was actually a threefold increase. I looked it up and it was about adding $7 billion to ICE's annual budget. With the new budget bill, we're adding $75 billion over the next four years. So I think that's a lot more than $7 million. But I just want to point out the first sentence, Democrats have been running campaigns to change immigration laws for decades.

0:39:11 Matt: That's one thing they've been running on for a long time. It's such a stupid thing to say.

0:39:14 Thomas: That's that's a weird thing to say if they don't if democrats don't like immigration laws they can run campaigns yeah they're doing that yeah

0:39:20 Matt: And they have, and they have not been able to because Republicans refuse to do anything that looks like giving anybody a break. And it's so toxic at this point that we may never pass another major immigration bill again. I don't want to pass one right now as it is. But the Lankford bill, I mean, that was a joke. You might remember that it was holding Ukraine funding hostage.

0:39:38 Matt: And I didn't support the bill. I thought it was too much, but there were a lot of Democrats who were willing to. Too.

0:39:42 Thomas: It was an interesting gambit I mean it was it was you know at a time when boy it's isn't it crazy to remember way back when in uh what is this so you're saying it was last february as a year and a half ago.

0:39:53 Matt: Yeah, I looked it up. Yeah

0:39:55 Thomas: Holy crap. That feels way more recent than that. But yeah, it was a gambit because on an issue at that time that here I feel like a historian because I remember pretty clearly a year-and-a-half ago, everybody. But yeah. At that time, immigration on the border was looked at as a losing issue for Democrats, a very badly losing issue. And it was again, but to say, okay, you want something done about it? Here, Republicans, here's a bill. And yeah, we talked about it at the time.

0:40:24 Thomas: And I still, I'll be honest, I still don't know what the right answer is there. Like, I think there is merit to that, to what they did. I think that's one of those things where I get why people voted for it. I get what, you know, when it comes to Democratic senators, I get white Democratic senators voted for. I don't, I mean, I feel like it's, I'd be like, it's unfair to say there's a really clear answer there, because I think there was value in that approach at that time. Now, and it showed, it showed us, it showed us at that Time that Trump was 100 % in control of this cuck Congress, you know, this like, this absolute worthless house that just does whatever Trump wanted. Because it was Mike Johnson then, right? It was him at the time. I can't,

0:40:24 Matt: We did. Yeah I think

0:41:09 Thomas: I can't. To quote another Arrested Development, her. And he just, he just called him and said, no. And then that killed the bill. So somebody wasn't, no, a convicted felon that was not, oh, wait, was he convicted at the time? I can't remember. Maybe he wasn't convicted yet. Yeah.

0:41:26 Lydia: February he was not.

0:41:27 Thomas: Yeah, a soon to be convicted felon who wasn't in any political office at that time, just got to kill a bill. It was amazing. And it showed us what was going on there. And so there was merit to that. But the idea that that justifies this well they were for that they voted for under biden a an increase in ice funding so that they what what right have they to say that this all this is wrong

0:41:51 Lydia: Well it's also just like so disingenuous because they're trying to make it seem like that's what the bill was just like this one line item, okay, vote for this and absent anything else. And look, all the Democrats were in favor of increasing ICE's budget and like taking away stripping of it, of all the nuance, all the conversations and the debates and stuff that were happening within the party and across the aisle, et cetera. And just pretending like it was this simple one line thing that they said, yay or nay too

0:42:23 Thomas: Well or there's other line items but the line items were bashing ladies windows um steel like it like it was it had all that and democrats were like we like this because it's under bidan now yeah we We like it now.

0:42:32 Matt: More of that please. Yeah exactly yeah yeah. Oh and you know who else voted against the Lankford bill was James Lankford because Trump told him to to vote against his own bill to kill it. And yeah no and also that in the that I did to look up the sort of the line items on the budget And only $535 million of that $7 .6 billion I mentioned was going to go to hiring. So I don't know what they're talking about here.

0:42:52 Matt: I'm sure it's just some other way of lying with statistics, I'm Sure. I did want to shout out that of the five Democratic senators mentioned, both of them were, excuse me, bothof my senators were represented, as often happens in these cool lists.

0:43:02 Lydia: One of ours I think right uh

0:43:05 Matt: Yes, Padilla. Yeah, did. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, let's keep going. Yeah, it's right there

0:43:05 Lydia: Padilla yeah california for those who don't know uh there are questions about the legality and wisdom of some of trump's immigration actions, especially

0:43:17 Thomas: To be sure. That's where, well, granted, look, there are some problems with the fascism happening right now.

0:43:19 Matt: Are questions. And surely questions exist. We don't have them. Yeah.

0:43:27 Lydia: The deportation of alleged MS -13 members, like the old lady we saw in the video earlier, to an El Salvador prison earlier this year.

0:43:38 Matt: So this is another one of the factual inaccuracies in this story. 30 of those people probably were actually, because 30 people were from El Salvador. So 30 of them might have been MS -13, because that's Salvadoran, right? The other 250 were from Venezuela, and they were alleging were from Tren de Rago, and they weren't. I mean, the media fully covered this, but most of the people did not have credible allegations of gang membership against them and generally just had tattoos.

0:43:58 Thomas: And we still don't know all those people, right? I mean, I feel like there's something about the flight manifest where we're still trying to uncover who was taken where and it's like, okay, okay.

0:44:07 Matt: Well, they've all been released. Is. They're all back in Venezuela now. The Salvadorans, except for Obrega Garcia, are still there. But we do know that some of the Salvadorans were actually hardened gang members that Salvador was looking for. Just a few, just enough that they could say. But just to characterize this as the deportation of alleged MS -13 members, they're still trying to show you that it was okay to send them there. That's what they always do with these.

0:44:28 Thomas: There's questions, you know, there's like questions, but it's mostly fine. Yeah. Here's the big but. But, but, yeah,

0:44:31 Matt: But they're still probably bad so yeah yeah

0:44:34 Lydia: In the big picture, though, what we've seen at the border and in ISIS enforcement actions is an administration that that finally is taking our immigration laws seriously.

0:44:43 Matt: That's one way to say it well

0:44:44 Lydia: That Democrats view this as incipient Nazism is another indication of their opposition to immigration enforcement as such and is an indictment of them, and, oh, sorry, and is a statement of their own. And is an inditement of them not the ICE agents doing their duty.

0:44:59 Matt: The indictments are coming in a few years I think against us but yeah

0:45:02 Thomas: Do the Democrats feel a need to cover their faces and mask over what they're doing or just in terms of who should it be more shamed of what they'RE doing? Is it the ICE agents just doing their duty or is it these representatives?

0:45:08 Matt: This

0:45:16 Lydia: Man. Also, if the Democrats are going to be doing campaigns to change immigration laws, wouldn't some of this rhetoric that they're calling out and saying you're anti -American earlier in the article, be part of that campaign to change immigration laws.

0:45:17 Matt: Is so willful yeah

0:45:29 Thomas: Exactly. This is ridiculous.

0:45:30 Lydia: So dumb. So vapid.

0:45:31 Thomas: What asshole wrote this? Yeah.

0:45:33 Lydia: The editors. Yeah, well, it could be any combination of the editors or all the editors.

0:45:35 Thomas: The, oh, how many assholes we got on this national

0:45:39 Lydia: We don't know.

0:45:39 Thomas: Review? Anyhow.

0:45:40 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:45:34 Matt: All of the assholes can fit quite a few of them in this baby yeah no they've co -signed this piece of shit yeah no this This is, yeah.

0:45:42 Lydia: We don'T know specifically the, yeah,

0:45:45 Thomas: The editors. That's incredible. I, for one, am not, I'm canceling my subscription. All right. Well, we could take a break right now.

0:45:53 Lydia: This was the last straw.

0:45:57 Thomas: Is that a good time?

0:45:57 Matt: I think we should.

0:45:58 Lydia: Yeah.

0:45:58 Thomas: Let's take a break.

0:45:58 Matt: Take a breath.

0:45:59 Thomas: Podcast listeners and video people will just see us do this again. Do nothing.

0:46:06 Thomas: Today's episode is brought to you by Quince. Love talking about Quince, you know why? Their clothes are great. I'm wearin' a pair of shorts right now, it's always shorts, I know, it was 104 today, folks. Folks. It's gonna be shorts, okay? That's what I'm always wearing. I never get tired of my Quince shorts because last, they look good, good, and they feel good. Most importantly, I didn't have to drop a fortune on them. Has the good stuff, the high quality fabrics, classic fits, lightweight layers for warm weather. That's what I'm talking about. Thank you, Quince. At prices that make sense. Everything I've gotten from Quince, and it's been, I admit, mostly shorts, also gotten some shirts, some t -shirts. Are they short sleeve? Yes, because it's California. Everything I've gotten has been great. The main thing I notice is how much it lasts. That's what I am. Pretty practical guy, not going to lie. Notice how much it lasts. Other stuff, wash it a few times and it's somehow it's disintegrated. It's like Thanos snapped his fingers and the clothes, they're just gone. Not with Quince. Has the closet staples you want to reach for over and over. Cozy cashmere and cotton sweaters, that I know nothing about, but I bet are amazing for just $50. Breathable flow knit polos and lightweight pants that somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed up dinners. Best part, Everything at Quint's is do that by working with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen. How they give you luxury pieces without the markup. And Quint only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing

0:47:36 Thomas: Finishes. Keep it classic and cool with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash OA for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash OA to get free shipping and 365-day returns. One more time, quince.com slash OA. Right. What, what is the next item on our agenda?

0:48:04 Matt: Okay. All right. So now we have somebody who should know better being very stupid about the Department of Justice and Kilmer Arburga -Garcia. I thought this was a good follow -up. This is what I wanted to do last week.

0:48:16 Matt: I think you'll be able to spot the problem with this pretty quickly in, but it is so willfully stupid in a way that I just love for this program. It's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Far. So just to remind everybody while you're pulling this up, of course, I think everybody should know, but yeah.

0:48:30 Thomas: I don't know what I'm pulling up.

0:48:30 Lydia: I put it up in Slack. Where you requested.

0:48:31 Thomas: Did somebody oh okay cool yeah

0:48:33 Matt: Kelmar Obrega -Garcia was a Maryland father who was specifically ordered by an immigration judge not to be deported to El Salvador. He had a standing order that he could not be depoted there because of problems he'd had with gangs, not because he was a gang member, but because he Was defending his mother from gang members in El Salvador, so he was deported along with the other people we were just talking about to El Salvatore, the Seacott, and he spent quite quite a while. In El Salvador, he was brought back just last month.

0:49:00 Matt: So this author, who is a former judge, who I went looking at some of his other stuff, it's not unreasonable. He's a pretty normal kind of middle-of-the-road liberal in most other things. I don't know why he wrote this or what he was thinking when he wrote it. And I just have to say, this is just dumbass stuff. This is so stupid. It's like the most baby -brained, smooth -brain, idiotic take you could possibly possibly have on why he was brought back. Let's just get into it.

0:49:23 Thomas: So far from the title just why was kilmar abrigo garcia returned to the u .s yeah

0:49:28 Matt: Well, let's remember that it was the Supreme Court said specifically that he had to be brought back, that should be enough, that should have been why he Was brought back? We're gonna pretend.

0:49:35 Thomas: Isn't that I I don't even know what the what the click normally titles are a little more clickbaity than that I don'T know what this is even getting at okay right

0:49:42 Matt: Yeah But it was ordered, it was found, of course, that he was even and they admitted it was a mistake, and they still weren't going to bring him back and the Supreme court ordered that he didn't have to be facilitated. And of course you know, Kelly said they couldn't let him out and Trump said he couldn't arrange it and they were just going to keep him in there, and they found a very creative way to bring him back, which just to remind everybody before we get started, was to charge him with a bunch of completely nonsense crimes, which have since, since the time of this article, been pretty well exposed as based in nothing. And also, well, we'll get into more, but let's read.

0:50:09 Lydia: All right. If you've moved on to the latest Trump spectacle in Los Angeles, you may have underrated the monumental importance of Kilmar Obrego -Garcia's return from El Salvador. It's a watershed moment. The Justice Department has decided to obey the law.

0:50:23 Matt: No, they haven't.

0:50:23 Lydia: Yeah, that first one, I like rolled my eyes when I read that. From its earlier behavior with this migrant, it wasn't clear that obeying the law was among the department's priorities.

0:50:24 Matt: That's not what they did here. I'm sorry.

0:50:35 Lydia: Authorities

0:50:35 Thomas: This so far this starts like like I would start it like it seems sarcastic right like wow watershed moment it.

0:50:39 Matt: This is read.

0:50:41 Thomas: They're going to obey. They decide to obey the fucking law. Yeah, I actually, so far, I feel like we're, yeah.

0:50:43 Lydia: It does feel very thomas smith

0:50:45 Matt: We should have Thomas read it. I mean,

0:50:49 Thomas: Oh, it wasn't clear that obeying law was among the department's priority. Yeah. This is sarcastic. Am I crazy?

0:50:49 Matt: Just imagine like, no, it's totally straight ahead. I actually read in the margin here, from Epstein's earlier behavior with minors, it wasn't clear that obeying the law was among his priorities. I mean from its earlier behavior, this is stupid.

0:51:04 Thomas: I mean, this is, this has kind of sarcastic there's no way that from its earlier behavior with this migrant, it Wasn't clear. That obeying the law was among the departments priorities. There's no, that's not like, right.

0:51:08 Matt: I think he's

0:51:07 Lydia: I don't think so no I I don' t I don''t know I I yeah I think I think that he is just kind of blind but I think he's kind of yeah a straight shooter kind of guy

0:51:15 Matt: Being really generous. He's a real institutionalist. He wants to believe, he's

0:51:26 Thomas: Yeah but, but he's, he's being critical of them is what I'm saying like he's being critical yeah

0:51:30 Matt: Trying, he is acknowledging, judging, but

0:51:32 Lydia: And and then giving them kudos for obeying the law but I don't I don't think it's with with any hint of sarcasm I think he's like good that that's what we want to see yeah

0:51:40 Thomas: He was just like straight up yeah we weren't sure if they were going to follow you know the laws or anything but uh

0:51:40 Matt: This is not the onion. Yeah. No, this could be an onion editorial. This is just a few tweaks if they made it a little more hyperbole. But yeah, but I just love the initial behavior with this migrant. It's such a weird dehumanizing way to, I mean, it just gives away a lot. Yeah and that's

0:51:55 Thomas: This migrant yeah wow

0:51:57 Lydia: All abrigo garcia had a court order forbidding his deportation to his native el salvador I sent him there anyway and the supreme court ordered the trump administration to The Justice

0:52:09 Matt: Why he should have been brought back.

0:52:10 Lydia: Department ignored the order for months, mocking the authority of Judge Paula Zinnes as she tried to implement the facilitation ruling. Government lawyers pretended not to understand what facilitate meant. They dragged their feet, squabbling about court deadlines and document requests. Administration officials and the president of El Salvador repeatedly said Abrego Garcia wouldn't be returned. But in a stunning reversal, Abrega Garcia is back in the the United States. In an equally stunning admission, President Donald Trump said that the Justice Department made the decision without him.

0:52:40 Matt: Okay. The Justice Department was supposed to make all of its decisions without the president. That's a really important part of being the depressed this is so bad stunning reversal stunning admission like just the fact that like they did the right thing folks I saw some takes like this I'd have never seen anything this bad it's nuts yeah

0:52:45 Thomas: That's a okay yeah wow that's crazy from a judge as well how

0:53:00 Lydia: Yeah, they tried to put a fig leaf over the whole thing. The White House said Abrego Garcia was returned so he could be prosecuted as an, quote, illegal alien terrorist, gang member and human trafficker who has spent his entire life abusing innocent people, especially women and the most vulnerable.

0:53:00 Matt: Come on this

0:53:15 Lydia: But they didn't mean it. The only only thing the government has charged Abrego Garcia with is transporting illegal aliens. The indictment mouths off about Abrejo Garcia being an MS -13 gang member who transported guns and sexually abused migrant women, but regardless of whether he is a good guy or not, he hasn't been charged with any gang crimes, gun crimes, or sex crimes.

0:53:35 Matt: This whole editorial is so like schizo it just it can't make up its mind because it really seems like he's saying there's a bunch of bad stuff they ignored court orders they made a mockery of the system and then they charged him with this stuff and they didn't wasn't what they said it was going to be and then he's going to conclude by saying this is great. Stay tuned. This

0:53:52 Thomas: Is this great okay

0:53:52 Lydia: This means, this means the administration didn't bring Ábrego García back because it had grave charges to bring against him. More likely, Justice Department lawyers, perhaps even including Attorney General Pam Bondi, are stepping back from their ultra-Trump-pleasing pronouncements and remembering that they are lawyers, not Fox News personalities. I had to write this down because I was like, this is the silliest thing I've ever read.

0:54:16 Matt: Is insane.

0:54:16 Thomas: I I can't yeah this is confusing like it's it's hard to even follow the weird mindset of what this is written from

0:54:19 Lydia: Like, yeah, I'm

0:54:19 Matt: It's so bad. If they remembered they were lawyers, they would have followed the actual Supreme Court order that told them to bring him back in the first place.

0:54:29 Lydia: Sorry. It's just like it's so out of touch. He is absolutely blind to the kind of people these are. And I think it's, to your point, Matt, this institutionalist idea, right? Like, I think he thinks that lawyers just need to remember that they're lawyers and they're part of this grand system.

0:54:44 Matt: Do the right thing.

0:54:45 Lydia: And they will always do, they'll always end up doing the right thing because they're bound by ethics and they're bound by the, you know, justice and these like high ideals. And it's like, but okay, but we're also talking about human beings. And there are some people who are inherently flawed and evil. And unfortunately, we're looking at a lot of those people in the administration so even because they have a jd after their name it does not make them better than the people who don't who are doing these batshit insane things for trump

0:55:06 Matt: In charge, yeah. Often especially because... And also, I mean, he's acknowledging that they lied about the thing they were going to charge him with. So he can't go as far as to think that maybe they actually lied about that thing they They charged him with two, regardless of whether he was good or not.

0:55:22 Thomas: I this is this is crazy so he's like wow hey everybody I have read the tea leaves and they actually didn't bring him back because they had crimes to charge him with it's like yeah everybody knew that like there's not a single person who thought that was real, right?

0:55:42 Matt: Right.

0:55:42 Thomas: Am I crazy?

0:55:43 Matt: And he says it's a fig leaf, and yet he's still saying it was the right thing to do. Let's keep going.

0:55:48 Thomas: And then, and then, so now, so he's taking that as a sign that now they're all serious people. This is the day that Pam Bondi became whatever the attorney general.

0:55:58 Matt: Not just a Fox News blonde. Yeah, yeah.

0:55:58 Lydia: And and I also think like like it's completely ignoring all the instances we've had of um of you know career prosecutors leaving of whistleblowers we've Had in these various departments that are like, I will not cast aside my ethical duty to go along with you being willing to cast aside yours to curry favor from one man, one man who happens to be president of the United States.

0:56:23 Matt: Including the man who was supposed to indict Hebrera Garcia, who quit the day that he was indicted, the U.S. attorney. I want to credit that again. All right, let's keep Going. Oh, sorry.

0:56:30 Thomas: And perhaps just in time. Oh, I love this.

0:56:33 Matt: Yeah, Nick of time.

0:56:35 Lydia: And perhaps it's just in time. It comes at the moment when Judge Zinnis is beginning the sanctions process that could mean misconduct penalties against the Justice Department and its lawyers for stonewalling over Obrego Garcia. It also follows an ethics complaint against Pam Bondi filed in Florida by 70 people, including lawyers, former judges, and law professors. The complaint is specifically aimed at Bondi's alleged misconduct in forcing Justice Department lawyers to follow Trump and not the law. In light of these developments, Bondi and her team may be slowly recognizing that their right to practice law depends on adherence to ethical rules.

0:57:09 Matt: I knew that in 2005 when I was sworn into the bar, actually.

0:57:12 Lydia: It's insane.

0:57:13 Matt: I even knew that before then, that my right to practice law does depend on it. I didn't slowly recognize it. But also, okay, again, it's amazing.

0:57:18 Thomas: Again, if you read this entire thing as sarcastic, it actually works. I

0:57:23 Matt: It does. It really does.

0:57:23 Thomas: Agree with you. That's probably not, but oh, Oh, she may be slowly recognizing that you're right to practice law depends on ethical rule. But like, yeah, it's like straight up. I don't.

0:57:34 Matt: And also, they should still continue the sanctions process. They still stonewalled. They still dragged their feet. They broke court orders. It doesn't save them.

0:57:41 Thomas: He's like, he's trying to be like the sky is falling. He's Baghdad Bob or whatever. Like the bombs are falling in the background. He's great news. They just learned about this thing called ethics and they are thrilled about it. They're like, oh, ethics.

0:57:55 Matt: Everything's fine, folks.

0:57:57 Thomas: I didn't know about that. Now that I know about ethics, I'll do that. What?

0:58:01 Matt: Yeah, she's seen the light, just because...

0:58:03 Thomas: Who

0:58:02 Lydia: And like and and like the horrific things, the horrific lies that they've created about him, too, and like willingly, you know, putting that out there. And then he wants to give them a pat on the back because they didn't actually file those charges. They just talked about it a lot and like completely degraded him in the media and made people believe these horrible things.

0:58:21 Thomas: Is this for, Matt? Who is this written for?

0:58:24 Matt: I feel like he's writing it for DOJ. That was my best guess of just like, hey, guys, just keep doing the right thing, please. Good job.

0:58:30 Thomas: I guess. What is Newsweek?

0:58:32 Matt: Yeah... Newsweek

0:58:32 Thomas: This is News Week. Are they, I haven't kept track of them. Are They Shitty Now?

0:58:34 Matt: Sucks now. It's kind of... Yeah, I know. It went real bad.

0:58:37 Thomas: So yeah, it's just, so it's the process of normalizing the fascism of whitewashing and sanitizing it. Is that, yeah, okay.

0:58:43 Matt: I'm saying, look, justice finally

0:58:45 Thomas: That's not so bad.

0:58:45 Matt: Was done. They made some mistakes along the way, but here we are.

0:58:49 Thomas: Learning process, you know, and now they know there's like rules they have to follow. In fairness, how could they have known?

0:58:50 Matt: That's right. That's That's right. Yeah.

0:58:49 Lydia: You're figuring it out. Yeah, those rules forbid lawyers from ignoring court orders seeking frivolous delays and making bogus claims about things like what facilitate means Bondi's playbook until now. Now, when judges do their jobs, lawyers who violate those rules may be fined, suspended or disbarred. Bondi could face these kinds of penalties in Florida and other lawyers at the Justice Department may find themselves facing similar charges. It's a good time for them to clean up their acts and avoid career ending sanctions.

0:59:05 Matt: Until now. So she's done now. She's quit. Knock it off, guys.

0:59:26 Thomas: Who is this for?

0:59:28 Matt: It's incredible. And also, again, he's not addressing the fact that, and we know more now than we knew on June 11th when he published this, but the charges were bad faith. They were brought with informants who were completely unreliable, and they were clearly scrambling to find a way to bring charges so they could bring them back for that reason and save face. He doesn't acknowledge that. I mean, he says it's a fig leaf, right? But that should be its its own sanctions. That should be its own investigation. That should be it's own disbarment proceedings. But yeah, anyway,

0:59:52 Lydia: Other lawyers should follow their lead. In particular, the prominent law firms who yielded to extortion demands from Donald Trump requiring them to do free work for his pet causes should rethink their choices.

1:00:04 Matt: Rethink.

1:00:05 Lydia: Collaborating with an extortionist rather than reporting him is a serious breach of legal ethics. Other law firms stood up to Trump, and so should they.

1:00:12 Thomas: I think I know what this is. It's gentle parenting. That's what it is.

1:00:15 Matt: That's right. Yeah.

1:00:16 Thomas: He thinks like if he's really, instead of getting all mad about these people being unethical fascists, he's like, good job. They learn, they use their inside voices and they put their big boy pants on.

1:00:16 Lydia: That's what it is.

1:00:24 Matt: That's right, that s right. And

1:00:24 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

1:00:29 Thomas: They recognize they got, there's rules that they They have to follow.

1:00:29 Matt: That there was some, there were some ethical problems, but I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed.

1:00:36 Thomas: Yeah. But we work through it. You know, we had a rough day, ethics -wise. But we, you know, we worked our way back to normal.

1:00:44 Lydia: But the next time, next time. Like, what could we do differently?

1:00:47 Thomas: Yeah. Differently. Now, there's consequences to when you violate people's rights. Do you understand why they were upset? Oh, you do. Okay. That's all this could be. I don't, seriously, I genuinely think that's the closest thing I can come up with with, for why he would write this. Like, or, or he's trying to like, I'm giving him a little more credit in that he's tried to like make it like manifest it into their minds as like, take this opportunity, please just like normalize, become normal. You know, I feel like people did that with Trump a lot in the first thing, like, oh, maybe he's normal now.

1:01:05 Matt: He thinks they've learned something, or they could learn something from this. Mm hmm. Yeah right, right, Right, right, right. It'll be bad next time. Yep.

1:01:22 Thomas: He's just being president now.

1:01:21 Lydia: He's just trying this tactic. Yeah,

1:01:23 Thomas: Yeah. Cause otherwise I don't understand this at all.

1:01:26 Lydia: Likewise,

1:01:27 Matt: Yeah. I think you're onto something.

1:01:29 Thomas: Oh, there's more. Okay.

1:01:30 Lydia: The lawyers representing both parties

1:01:31 Thomas: I was hoping hoping that was it. Okay.

1:01:32 Lydia: In Trump's personal lawsuit against CBS should consider their futures as the negotiations drag on. They know Trump's lawsuit is frivolous and that CBS wants to settle only because Trump controls the Federal Communications Commission and it can block the sale of CBS parent to its would -be purchaser, Skydance. Those lawyers are negotiating a bribe. And, yeah, what happened there?

1:01:53 Thomas: I too, yeah, I was going to say, I can very much sympathize with telling your kid, hey, and you should probably, you know, not spill your food all over the floor, right? We should probably not do that. You know, 10 seconds later. All right. Well, they spilled it all overthe floor. They did that despite the warning, you know, cause this didn't turn out either, but maybe he was just trying to, again, Again, maybe he was trying to manifest it into their brains.

1:02:18 Lydia: Ask Stephen Colbert how that went. So let's hope they wise up and act like the lawyers who defeated Trump's extortion demands in court. If they do, there's hope that the Justice Department's decision to obey the Supreme Court and return Kilmar Obrega -Garcia to the United States represents a trend. Lawyers are remembering that their duty is to the rule of law and not the whims of one man.

1:02:41 Thomas: It's so funny.

1:02:43 Lydia: Yeah, that's not happening.

1:02:43 Matt: It's just so stupid.

1:02:44 Lydia: That's that's no.

1:02:45 Thomas: Thomas G. Malkasher is the lawyer with his first day on earth today. And he's like, what is happening?

1:02:45 Matt: And the whims of one man, I mean, again, Trump obviously went out in public and said, well, I didn't tell them what to do or how to bring him back. But clearly there was some kind of angry Stephen Miller type meeting where they yelled at everybody and they're like, find some way to not comply with the Supreme Court, but bring him bank anyway. We're going to figure this out.

1:03:06 Matt: And DOJ went back and came up with this. They cooked it up. I mean it's It's just, yeah,

1:03:09 Lydia: Well, and like, here's the thing, too, like like you can tell because when when someone does something that Trump doesn't like, Like, he makes it known, right? Like, they are always making their choices based on what's going to make him happy, even if he doesn't explicitly say it. And I think they can all tell what he wants and what he doesn'T want at this point.

1:03:18 Matt: Right, right. Yep. It's so bleak and cynical to say this was following the rule of law to come up with bad faith trumped up stupid charges that were based on informants who have every reason to lie about anything that they're told to lie about so they can get out of being deported to the SECOND themselves. It's juste, yeah. So you can see why I wanted to get to this one.

1:03:45 Thomas: It's gentle parenting. So your kid has had an absolute horrific day. They've punched you. They've punch other kids. They've made a mess. They've written on the walls. They've done all that. But what you're supposed to do, and this is true, you can listen to dear old dads for more parenting advice. But what you got to do is you got to seize on that one fucking thing they did at the end of the day. Hey, remember how you got your jammies on yourself, buddy?

1:04:08 Lydia: I'm so proud of how independent you were in that moment.

1:04:10 Thomas: That was so good. I think that represents a trend toward obeying the courts is what I think. That represents... Let's let this be turning over a new leaf. You know, tomorrow is a new day. Good job, buddy.

1:04:23 Matt: There was some equivalent of editorials like this in, just to bring this back to the beginning, in 1933. 1933. There were definitely newspapers that were like, yeah, this Enabling Act thing, you know, it looks pretty bad, but Hitler knows he's not going to completely take total power. I mean, he knows that the law still binds him, right? And hopefully he'll do the right thing. There were people writing things like that, I'm sure.

1:04:23 Lydia: Man. Yeah

1:04:30 Thomas: Fuck. Yeah. This is just... This is the most most irrelevant, worthless thing I could imagine writing. Like it's, who's this for? It's not for anybody.

1:04:47 Matt: So, and here we are. Let's hear what we're here for.

1:04:51 Thomas: Oh boy. Well, we're, oh, sorry, go ahead.

1:04:50 Lydia: Here's

1:04:53 Matt: So, yeah. I was going to say, I hope that Thomas Merkishour learned something and maybe doesn't write like this again, because he is capable of having decent opinions.

1:05:00 Lydia: Hoping

1:05:01 Thomas: My mic keeps falling down. Sorry. Yeah. Well I think we're just about out of time. So you know what I want to do is last week for patrons only, we had, we had some, some Dershowitz. It was, it was so fun. It Was Dershowitz it's, um, uh, being refused. Was it pierogi? Oh boy. Uh, we, I, I wanted to do a follow -up and I think maybe I'll do it for everybody. Um, uh. Because it'll be worth it. Uh. But I, there's, I had you guys not look at this. So I'm going to take, we'll take our last quick break here. And then I can't wait to get some follow -ups to last week's patron only story.

1:05:20 Lydia: Pierogi yeah yeah

1:05:42 Thomas: Right. So now I got got to find that. Uh, you had it in that document. Do you mind pasting it for me again?

1:05:48 Lydia: Well here I'll yep yep yep

1:05:50 Thomas: Oh, so much fun. So yeah, we're not, it's not for the video. Um, it'S for the, it' s for the article. So yeah, it'' s, yeah, yeah. I think we can, uh, let me make sure this was the one I sent you. Oh, fantastic. Okay. Let's see. I just want to, I wanted to share this with you folks because it touches on another thing that I've found infuriating lately. Lately uh well we'll get to it but um this was the fallout after last week after we covered Dershowitz again making a whole fuss and having a whole interaction with a really patient police officer that for once I was kind of on the on the side of the police in this instance uh this guy who had to recognize instantly that he was in a debate with the

1:05:52 Matt: It looks like it starts with the previous. Oh, okay. Are you reading it for the article? Okay.

1:06:00 Lydia: And you're gonna read it to us right okay yes yeah time

1:06:40 Thomas: Biggest asshole in the world who had to you know all these uh legal bona fides or whatever and and had to shift into like you're not not going to talk this guy out of whatever it is. Anyway, so there's more, we've gotten more clarity on this. And actually it's, all right, here, I'll pull it up. Alan Dershowitz, maybe I can zoom in here. Here we go. Once again, denied pierogi as Martha's Vineyard residents chant, time to go.

1:07:07 Matt: Breaking.

1:07:11 Thomas: Oh, so it's amazing. And now we get the, so now we're going to get into the the vendor himself. So the legend, the man, the myth, the fucking legend, this Pyrogy vendor that had refused to sell him. I'm very surprised that you're here because of the things that you've been saying about us and the business online, the Pyroky vendor told Alan Dershowitz on Wednesday. Okay, so yeah, let's just, well, why don't you read it? I like hearing your reading voice better.

1:07:11 Lydia: To go oh yeah all right all right for the second week in a row, Alan Dershowitz was denied pierogi at a farmer's market in Martha's Vineyard, marking yet another summer of social angst at the exclusive enclave for the former Jeffrey Epstein lawyer.

1:07:48 Thomas: Dun, dun, dun. This just in everybody, everybody. A second Pierogi denial has hit the World Trade Center. That's a great way of writing that.

1:08:01 Matt: Great sentence.

1:08:01 Lydia: And I mean, they're, I think, referencing a Larry David situation that we talked about as part of that patron bonus too, which is super fun.

1:08:02 Matt: Well done.

1:08:03 Thomas: Good writing. Well, I think, yeah, well, sure, but I think they're more referencing when he wrote, like, that people won't talk to me at Martha's Vineyard or whatever.

1:08:15 Matt: I'm a pariah and Martha's been in it.

1:08:15 Lydia: Well, he's just having problems

1:08:16 Thomas: Yeah, so funny.

1:08:16 Lydia: He's having problems following days of legal threats and accusations of anti -semitism lobbed at the owners of Good Pierogi after last week's incident when the vendor denied him service Dershowitz showed back up on wednesday to once again purchase some potato step dumplings in quote an effort to try to restore community

1:08:35 Matt: Restorative justice through pierogi.

1:08:37 Thomas: Restore community. This guy is so fucking full of himself.

1:08:41 Matt: The community is doing fine without him, I think.

1:08:42 Thomas: Yeah, they're fine, man.

1:08:44 Matt: They don't need you.

1:08:44 Thomas: You want to restore community here? Just don't come. They're great without you.

1:08:46 Lydia: Just be done with the farmer's market sir

1:08:49 Matt: Well, actually, it looks like he's bringing people together. I got to say, he's creating communities.

1:08:52 Thomas: Here we go. This

1:08:54 Lydia: With a large crowd of supporters backing them the vendor refused to back down against the famed defense attorney and continued to rebuff dershowitz's pleas for pierogi please for pierogy leaving

1:09:04 Thomas: Is very well written. This is great.

1:09:05 Lydia: Leaving him empty-handed once again time to go the supporters chanted go home alan last week dershowicz put the west hisbury farmer's market in the national spotlight light when he threatened legal action after good pierogi owner krem miskovic krem miscovich refused to serve him dershowitz would tell police officers on the scene that he was the victim of discrimination and later posted to social media that he Was suing the quote bigoted vendor for denying him pierogi quote for political reasons

1:09:34 Thomas: This is what I want to highlight. He's crying bigotry. Oh, he's bigoted. And then we talked about this last week, so I won't go too much on it. But it's just a great follow up to that. So, according to this fuckface, Dershowitz, this is an anti -Semitic, you know, hateful guy who's just denying him pierogi because he hates Jews and all that. Like, he just gets to say that, you now. Dershouitz just gets him to claim that. And so, there's more. We get to learn a little more about this whole thing here. Oh, I got to scroll past the, there we go.

1:09:54 Lydia: Saying that much of the backlash against him centered on his defense of Donald Trump and Epstein, the deceased sex offender who has been back in the news, Dershowitz has also insisted that this is really about his Jewish heritage and fervent support for Israel. Over the weekend, Derschowitz passed out flyers at the market that accused vendors of being anti-Semitic, following that up with a tweet this week that claimed that Good Pierogi's food was, quote, tainted with the poison of anti-Semitism while urging others to boycott caught the establishment.

1:10:34 Thomas: So good. It's going to get, it's worse. Okay, here we go. Read this next paragraph.

1:10:40 Lydia: Quote, as I correctly suspected, the bigot who refused to sell me pierogi, Krem Miskovic, is a notorious anti-Semite who is part of an anti -Semitic organization that protests Jewish, not only Israeli, cultural events and doesn't believe in Israel's right to exist or to respond to what these haters regard as the, quote, justified massacres of October 7th, he posted on Monday, adding, quote. Don't patronize anti -Semites who refuse to sell to Jewish Zionists.

1:11:05 Thomas: Okay, so we got one side of the story. That's Dershowitz's side. Let's see if the article is going to do this. This is great. This article fucking rules. Let'S figure out who this person really is.

1:11:17 Lydia: Miscavige, who uses they them pronouns, has yet to speak to the press about the kerfuffle, but did post on Good Pierogi's Instagram account a lengthy response to Dershowitz's accusations and what sparked the incident last week. Miscavige, who co-owns Good Pierogi with their spouse Lily Rose, said they, quote, experienced a surge of emotion when Dershowitz appeared at their tent last week because he's represented and befriended, quote, several sexual predators and abusers, including Jeffrey Epstein.

1:11:42 Thomas: And he's Jewish. No, that seems like it's about the sexual predators and all that. Okay. Okay.

1:11:48 Lydia: Miscavige added that when it gave them pause to sell to Dershowitz, the Harvard Law emeritus, quote began to harass us, misgender me and film us without our consent. As for Dershouitz's anti -Semitism claims, Miscavaige noted that they are Jewish. Yeah.

1:12:02 Thomas: There's step one. Okay. They're Jewish. Could it get worse for, uh, for Dershowitz? Let's see.

1:12:06 Lydia: And have immediate family members in Israel, noting that friends call them Rabbi Krem. And that they have personal relationships with other rabbis on the island.

1:12:15 Thomas: Their nickname is Rabbi Krem.

1:12:17 Lydia: Yeah. Quote, finally, we don't back down to bullies, no matter their size, Miskevich concluded the Tuesday Night Post. Despite calling on others to shun good pierogi over their bigotry, Dershowitz joined the long line of customers on Wednesday after the market opened, most of whom were there to show their support for the vendor amid Dershouitz's legal threats. With anticipation growing for another confrontation with media onlookers and supporters encircling the tent, Dershowitz made his way to the front of the line and claimed he was there to bring Harmony back to the island.

1:12:48 Thomas: Fucking asshole.

1:12:49 Lydia: Just as long as Miskovic acknowledged they were in the wrong.

1:12:50 Thomas: What a fucking asshole.

1:12:54 Matt: I'm sorry. Harmony's actually a 15 -year -old he picked up in the mainland, but he's bringing her back to the island. It's very good of him.

1:13:01 Lydia: Quote, I'm here in an effort to try to restore community and to ask you to sell me pierogi in the interest of keeping the island together. So we don't have to have two pierogi stands, one for anti -Zionists and one for people who will sell to anybody, he declared. Oh my God. So I'd ask you to please just sell me any one of your products to show that you're prepared to sell to everybody and not allow your anti -zionism to decide which people you'll sell to. Okay. At the same time, he came armed with a paperback version of one of his books that he wanted to give Miskovich, which he also noted he had personally signed.

1:13:12 Thomas: We do pierogi stance. Doesn't even have to be pierogi.

1:13:28 Matt: Yeah, it's just what they wanted, an autographed copy.

1:13:43 Thomas: That's definitely sounds like they are a big fan of, of you.

1:13:46 Lydia: Quote, I am very surprised that you're here because of the things that you've been saying about us and the business online, the Good Pierogi chef reacted. I really do not appreciate what you've been sharing in the last week.

1:13:55 Matt: Fair.

1:13:56 Lydia: Dershowitz insisted that everything he said was true, prompting Miskovitch to ask him to provide proof that they are anti -Semitic. Derschowitz pointed to Miskovish's participation in a protest outside the island's Jewish culture festival last year. Talia Weingarten, who helped organize that protest, pushed back on Dershowitz's generalization about the demonstration, claiming it was largely about taking a stand against genocide and oppression in Gaza. At the time of the protest, Weingerten told the Martha's Vineyard Times that it was to partially object to the appearance of music artist Maris Yahu, who has been outspoken in his support of the Israeli Defense Force. Quote, we are here to reject the presence of someone who performs and fundraises for the Israeli occupation forces and the AIPAC lobbying group condones violence against the Palestinian blah blah blah.

1:14:39 Thomas: We'll skip a little bit of that. Yeah, so it's again, Again, it's very much, yeah, having a problem with the genocide happening.

1:14:42 Lydia: Clarifying their position during that protest. Yeah. Yeah and the the moneyed

1:14:49 Thomas: And a musician who supports the IDF. Yeah.

1:14:41 Matt: Was fun. Yeah. It

1:14:49 Lydia: Interests of those groups and yeah.

1:14:54 Matt: 'A fair game.

1:14:54 Lydia: At one point in the back and forth Miscavige took issue with Dershowitz repeatedly misgendering them prompting the high -profile lawyer to concede the point. You are they you are them I'm happy to use whatever whatever pronouns you want, he said. Supporters of Good Pierogi eventually began clamoring for Dershowitz to leave while defending Miskevich, leading the celebrity attorney to accuse them of, quote, bigotry and sparking an even louder argument.

1:15:18 Lydia: Quote, my grandparents died in the Holocaust. Don't you call me an anti-Semite, one customer shouted, while another added, quote, my Jewish culture is a history of resistance to genocide. We are not anti-semites. We stand against the oppression of all people. Meanwhile, as Miskewitch begged Dershouitz to stopping a bully and calling them bigots, he groused, quote, you're the one who won't sell me my pierogi.

1:15:38 Thomas: It won't sell me my pierogi.

1:15:42 Lydia: At this point, market goers began chanting time to go before the market manager stepped in and asked Dershowitz to leave.

1:15:43 Matt: My civil rights. Community. Sounds like community.

1:15:44 Thomas: Time to get the whole place. Oh, so good.

1:15:51 Lydia: In the end,

1:15:51 Matt: Good

1:15:51 Thomas: Oh, this is a great sentence.

1:15:52 Matt: Job.

1:15:52 Lydia: In the end Dershouitz shuffled off without any pierogi while the crowd loudly applauded. This time, at least, the police did not get involved.

1:16:00 Thomas: I think we can we could pause it there. But like, oh, it is so good, I just just the. I thought the left was the one who did the oppression Olympics and everything's bigotry. It couldn't be more the other way around. Every single thing to this fucking guy is anti-Semitism. No matter how many times, and the narcissism of this fucking guy, the narcissistic, the anti-semitism of the guy. The narcissism to be like, okay, here's what I'm going to do. This person clearly has a problem with me. They won't sell to me. I'm gonna bring some of my books for them, autographed books, you know.

1:16:21 Lydia: I know.

1:16:33 Thomas: Yeah with it probably has like a picture of him on him you know like I'm gonna bring them this and then when that person says hey why can you stop saying the horrible things about me and my business that I'm anti -semitic then he's like well they're true though like imagine being that I can't that that brain just where you think like I don't know I don' t know I'm going to be able to I'm well it's just yeah it doesn't have a nickname the rabbi but like to think both that like they're They're going to love this. This person's going to love it. I'm going to give them my books and they'll acknowledge that they've been an anti -Semite this whole time even though it has nothing the fuck to do with anti -Semitism. It's a masterpiece. Like that level of narcissism is just, it's unmatched. It's incredible.

1:16:32 Lydia: A nice little message in each of them. Personalized message.

1:16:48 Lydia: Yeah. And to a rabbi, no less. Just kidding. I'm just

1:17:19 Matt: Maybe you could have considered the possibility that somebody named Krem Miskevitz might not be an anti -Semite before you said that. Maybe, I don't know.

1:17:22 Lydia: Kidding.

1:17:28 Matt: A little Google. Because Miskevis was saying that, and I didn't actually know about Miskevic's pronouns when we started covering this a few minutes ago, but they were

1:17:30 Thomas: So good. Yeah, yeah. And apologies if we've misgendered them at all.

1:17:39 Matt: Saying that Dershowitz knew at the point at which this whole interaction began that Derschowitz was purposely misgendering them, which is reason. It's the reason in itself not to sell to somebody.

1:17:46 Thomas: And I will say just in case anyone quibbles, it's not Miskevitz which sounds a little more Jewish then you're saying it's Miscavige.

1:17:52 Matt: Oh, Miscavige.

1:17:53 Thomas: Yeah. But still, you're, oh, I think it's because you're yeah, Dershowitz. So it's Dersowitz, Miscaavige.

1:17:53 Matt: Okay. Well, still worth a Google. Yeah. Right, right. Miscavis.

1:17:59 Thomas: But yes, I mean, it's hilarious. Like the, the idea of just accusing someone of a whole anti -Semitic thing with not a care in the world for what the reality is, like not, not a carer in the word, but a care for the reality of the world for it. Oh, what a guy.

1:18:14 Lydia: Baragona, the reporter for this piece.

1:18:16 Matt: Yeah. Great work.

1:18:16 Thomas: What an article. Yeah, this is something to cheer us up.

1:18:18 Lydia: Well done, sir. Well done. And okay, so now predictions. Is he going to show up again?

1:18:24 Thomas: A a third weekend yeah are we do we think a third pierogi is gonna be at the world trade center oh boy I imagine being such a fucking asshole that a whole island is like get the fuck out of here get the fun yeah it's like an actual movie where like the grinch like goes off you know and everyone's like this is fantastic you know or something some villain

1:18:30 Lydia: Hope so. I hope it's the gift that keeps giving. Yeah, yeah. Man.

1:18:45 Matt: I mean, well,

1:18:46 Lydia: Wait, maybe next weekend. He's that's when he starts his own pierogi shop. The one that will will sell to everybody the Dershowitz pierogi

1:18:52 Thomas: You won't Don't sell me my pierogi. The entitlement, too. We're going to have to have two pierogi stands. Yeah, that was funny, too, because he was like mixing it a little bit. Like it's two pierogie stands, one for the people who won't sell to. Yeah, anyway, it's like the two drinking fountains kind of thing that is like that level of victimhood. Ah, good times. I read that and I just laughed out loud. Good.

1:19:10 Lydia: Crazy yeah

1:19:14 Matt: If I remember right, he's been going to Martha's Vineyard for many, many, many years. I'm sure that they've been tired of him for a long time. So this must feel good to really have a national opportunity to really just kick him out.

1:19:24 Thomas: So much fun. Ah, well, I love it. Thank you so much, everyone, for watching and listening, of course. Uh, we've been the Opening Arguments Wednesday show, Vapid Response Wednesday. You can listen to the podcast, of course, find it wherever podcasts are sold, uh, Opening Arguments podcast. And, uh yeah, thanks for watching on YouTube. Thanks most of all to our patrons and we'll see you next time.

1:19:44 Lydia: The best oh

1:19:45 Matt: And if there's anything you want us to cover, let us know.

1:19:47 Thomas: Ooh, good idea. I meant to say that. Yeah, yeah. I meant say it last time. You can email us at, uh what is it? openarguments@gmail.com .com. You can, you know, comment on this video. You can, the best place is Patreon, you know, message us on patreon.com/law. That's where you can support the show. And please give us suggestions for videos, for articles for us to break down in this way, anything at all. And we'll, we'll take it into consideration.

1:19:48 Lydia: Good idea yes yeah

1:19:49 Matt: Happy to take a look.

1:20:01 Lydia: Great

1:20:13 Thomas: All righty. Well, thanks, Matt. Thanks, Lydia. Until next time.

1:20:14 Matt: For sure. See you later. Bye.

1:20:15 Lydia: Thank you

1:20:21 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon .com slash law. Contact us through Patreon or openarguments at gmail .com. Make sure to follow our blue sky at OpenArgs. But most of all, please share the show. Thanks for listening.