Stephen Miller Is Just Having People Killed Now

Transcript

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

0:00:03 Matt: We've reached the point in the second Trump administration, I'm very sorry to tell you, that Stephen Miller is personally having people killed.

0:00:18 Jenessa: Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, we the people of the United States, you and me, we have our magnificent Constitution.

0:00:31 Jenessa: Welcome to Opening Arguments, the podcast that analyzes law and the news. With me is Matt Cameron, immigration attorney.

0:00:38 Matt: And of course, with me as always is Jenessa Seymour, former neuroscientist and current voting rights attorney. And we do actually get to talk about some voting rights today, as I understand it. So that's good. I think it might be some of the only good news that we have today.

0:00:49 Jenessa: Yeah, probably. I have good news.

0:00:53 Matt: That's okay. I always happy to hear good news whenever we can. We do try to balance it out. I do understand people that continue to tell us it is very hard to listen to Fridays. We try to keep it as fun as possible. And I promise if you you hold on, you will find out that as a matter of law, it has recently been determined this week that Wu -Tang ain't, as the album track goes, nothing to F with. I'm just reading off the album track here and trying to keep our explicit tag down. But it has been found as a manner of law that Wu Tang is absolutely nothing to f with. If you didn't already know that, and I hope you already knew that. I really do. But we'll get to it. It's an amazing decision. And of course, it involves one of the most punchable people in American life. So yeah, quite the contrast of Wu -Tang versus one of the most punchable people in American life. So you'll just have to hold on to that. But I'm sorry to tell you, we're going to have to do a pretty big fascism update because there are some dots that I need to connect that I don't think are being connected properly because this is all happening so fast and because the New York Times is asking questions where it doesn't need to be and introducing experts that don't need to be commenting. For example, just this week, something we'll be talking about. Here's just a direct quote from the New York Times, America's paper of record. Some legal experts, some, have called it a crime to summarily kill civilians, not taking part in her hostilities, even if they are believed to be smuggling drugs.

0:02:06 Jenessa: Hmm yeah I wonder yeah

0:02:08 Matt: Some. Legal experts. So we'll talk about what this legal expert thinks and why anybody who would say that you can just kill civilians isn't a legal expert or shouldn't be. I would hope. All right. And of course, we are, as we're recording this, in a government shutdown. I think we will be at the time you're listening to it and probably for weeks to come, the way things are going. So I'm going to talk a little bit about that up front. So, we got a lot to talk about. So let's get back. I'm excited for all of this. Honestly, this is the stuff I love to talk about, no matter how dark it gets. So come on back and let's get some updates on the shutdown.

0:02:18 Jenessa: It kind of seems definitional

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0:02:45 Matt: So the way I hear it, Democrats are shutting down the government because they want to give undocumented immigrants health care, federally funded health care. I think that's what's going on, right?

0:02:52 Jenessa: Yeah this has been an accusation for a long time that I feel like they just bring this up with everything anytime democrats want to do anything it's actually going to undocumented people right

0:03:04 Matt: They're going to get something that you can't get, most importantly, but they might also get something you can get, and that's almost as bad. The main reason they're doing this, and we're not going to spend a lot of time on this. You can hear plenty about the shutdown in other places. Of course, the main reason we're doing it is to try to stop the Medicaid cuts, a trillion dollars over over the next few years, a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts to the states in places that are going to hurt Trump voters the most. So Democrats are stepping up for Trump voters, is the way I see it. But there is an immigration aspect to this, because there are 14 million people who are lawfully present who are going to lose their Medicaid. And they've been going out there over and over and over again and saying these are undocumented immigrants. And that's just not true. These are people with work permits. These Are people who are here with permission of the government, people on work visas, temporary visas, people who Are waiting on their green cards, people whoAre applying for asylum in some cases, immigrant juveniles who work with a lot, not you visa holders for victims of crime, temporary protected status, which guarantees you the right to be here with a work permit. Again, it's a cruel joke to give somebody a work permit and legal status and not allow them to apply for health care. But all of this is a cruel joke. Just wanted to point that out. There is something I want to talk about with the shutdown that I don't think is really getting covered, at least as of now, that is very much in my world. I'm starting to develop a theory, just

0:03:09 Jenessa: Always every time yeah

0:04:10 Matt: Working on this. We're only a few hours into the shutdown as we're recording this. But I'm started to develop the theory that most of the government might not be shut down at all. Now, even more so. Now I've lived through a bunch of government shutdowns. I want to be clear. I have practiced immigration law for going on 20 years and that has included about six or seven shutdowns and I think the longest one was about 35 days. I could be wrong. Two of them were completely unnecessary.

0:04:29 Jenessa: The longest ever was in the first trump administration I believe it was about 35 days

0:04:35 Matt: I remember them well because that was over the holidays, I believe. That was the wall one where they were trying to do their ridiculous immigration deal to try to get the wall done. But who knows? I mean, yeah, he did. And I think the one before that was the Ted Cruz one that was for absolutely no reason. The one that should have ended Ted Cruz's career because it was so pointless. But no, here we are. I've lived through remember these. And basically what usually happens is USCIS continues to run. That's the services where you go and get your visa interviews and handles all the marriage cases and family cases and employment cases. You'd imagine what we call the legal immigration system. And it is a libertarian dream because it is 98, 99 % funded by filing fees. And these filing fees are exorbitant.

0:04:44 Jenessa: Yeah and he did back down on it hmm

0:05:11 Matt: At this point for a regular marriage case, it's about $3 ,000 just in filing fees, so that adds up quick when you've got a million people getting residency every year. So that's the only good thing about these exorbilant filing fees is it means that USCIS pretty much never shuts down. The immigration courts typically, well, not typically, the whole time I've been doing this, when there's a shutdown, the detained courts continue to operate because obviously we can't have people lingering in custody without any decisions. ICE continues to operate, because of course, ICE is an essential function. You can't possibly live without it. The whole time I've been doing this, the immigration court remains closed for the non -detained cases. But we have all found out today, all of the immigration courts are still fully open. And I was fully expecting to have to tell, and I preemptively told one of my clients that you're not going to be able to do your green card hearing. We have a hearing coming up with the judge. They've been waiting for years on a case that we had to sue just to get the marriage visa approved. It took so long because everything was taking so long. And now there might be denied the chance to see a judge. And, you know, I'm going to have wait many months, possibly many years more because of this. But then I see that the American Immigration Lawyers Association has advised us what we can now see with our own eyes, which is that the courts are still open. So I went looking at the Department of Justice website, and they do have a directive that they signed a couple of days ago about how they were going to handle a shutdown. And it says some very ambiguous language, which I think could be subject to interpretation. But you might remember that we are in a state of immigration emergency. I'm sure you've noticed the tremendous state of emergency that we're in. I guess we are getting in

0:06:33 Matt: A stage of emergency. It's just not really the one they're saying. It's the one they're creating. They're using this national emergency thing to justify, I guess, keeping the courts open, even though in their own order, this is from an order a couple of days ago that we can link to. EOIR is the name of the agency, Executive Officer Immigration Review. That is the immigration courts. It's a system within the executive branch, as we've discussed many times. So they're saying because we're in a national immigration emergency, they have a backlog approaching 4 million cases. That's all true. Here's the weird part. EOIR staff, including administrative oversight and support staff, that are needed to process immigration cases and appeals appeals involving detained respondents are accepted employees. That's always been the case.

0:07:08 Matt: That's what it says, but they appear to be operating full speed with everybody there, and they're doing all the regular hearings. I'm looking at this, and some people are saying, because there's no comma, needed to process immigration cases and appeals involving detained respondents. I read that to be cases and appeal, and I'm not sure if that's true. Appeals involving detained respondents, but some people were saying maybe it just means appeals involving contained respondents, and all the rest of the cases are going forward. That makes no sense. I don't know.

0:07:30 Matt: It could just be that they're not following the law, but I'm just wondering if anybody knows as things are going forward, I'm sure some reporters will start to notice, but I think there might be parts of the government potentially that are operating beyond the mandate of this shutdown.

0:07:41 Jenessa: Yeah just just to make sure it's clear, usually what happens in a shutdown is there are anything non -essential. If you're somebody like me who works at a federally funded organization, we keep working until the bank account is empty, which is not on day one. We are funded off of a grant. So you might not notice a lot of services instantly stop because it will take a little while. If You Are a Direct Federal Employee and You Are Non -Essential, which of course many things Things are designated non -essential that are really wonderful, important things.

0:08:16 Jenessa: They are just furloughed, which means they're just not working unpaid. For essential workers, they are working unpaid. They are, of course, entitled to back pay. Like, you can't force people to work without pay. They are continuing to work their jobs. It's kind of like the classic thing is like the parks are closed, but there is a ranger at the front door saying like, the park is closed. You can't come in. So that person is currently standing there unpaid waiting for their back pay so it sounds like what you're saying is until now we have assumed that a significant branch of these workers were the non -essential people they should just be on furlough right now and you just have a bunch of cases that just keep right on going

0:08:28 Matt: Someday. Yeah. Right, right. That's how it's always been. And this is what is happening is we just noticed that fully open, all courts are open. The cases from our calendar today were not cleared. I have a lot of cases coming up next week. We'll see. I mean, there's quite a few of them I'd really like to go forward on. People are going to be held all up for quite a while if they don't get them done. But we will see. I'll update on this. But I do think that it looks like they found an excuse to continuation deportation orders to as many people as possible. And that's an essential service. So that's what it looks like.

0:09:27 Jenessa: Especially if the people who would normally fight that are non -essential not coming to work that's uh difficult because like you said the criminal side of things is essential so both the prosecutors and the public defenders are showing up to work

0:09:43 Matt: Well, there's no public defenders in immigration court. It's just us. Yep.

0:09:48 Jenessa: Right of course it's just oh

0:09:49 Matt: Whoever gets paid to go there. Yep. And I think before we move on, I want to be sure everybody understands that Donald Trump, champion of the working man, furloughed everybody during the holidays last time and made essential workers work without pay, just to think about what Jenessa had just said, except that that was all during the holidays.

0:10:04 Jenessa: It's always important to emphasize I am not suggesting this isn't worth fighting over or that it's never worth digging your heels in and going for a shutdown. Like there are reasons it might have to be done sometimes. That doesn't mean there is no cost. First of all, there are these federal workers who are not getting paid. And of course I have, they have all of my sympathy, but they're also doing really important things. And I think it's important to emphasize like, yes, you're not necessarily going to notice it on day one, unless you're dependent on some of these services day to a day but the longer it goes on you will notice it people who work in government get sick of this and leave and they're not coming back that's part of why you don't notice it is like my organization doesn't go bankrupt on day one so we keep working but your federal government does in fact to do things there is a cost to a shutdown at some point there will be some kind of compromise compromise to get us out of this shutdown. And I know it will probably be disappointing to see some level of compromise, but I hope there's an understanding that shutdowns are not like nothing, no big deal. There's like really important government functions that are non -essential, that are actually like really life -saving, that are just, everybody's gone home.

0:11:33 Matt: Well, let alone, as they say, this is no way to run a railroad. I mean, this is not how you're supposed to do anything. There's no other country that routinely shuts down its government because it can't pay the bills or hasn't raised the debt ceiling or whatever. I means, this just, this a sad state of affairs. It really is. Once again, this has nothing to celebrate. Sure.

0:11:47 Jenessa: It's very frustrating. Somebody who thinks my work has kind of a lot of value. And if you picked up the phone to call me and no one picked up, I think you'd be very disappointed to hear no one can help you because there was no ramp into the polling place. The elections are coming up or employment discrimination and there was No One to Help You. Like, that really sucks.

0:12:10 Matt: There's just nothing good about this. And just keep watching. I do also want to note that the, just to add one more terrible thing on the way out, government websites. Now, the way the government talks is something I've have been following very closely, just kind of casually keeping examples of some of this language on the USCIS website, how it's getting more and more extreme and partisan for agencies that are not and never should be. If your immigration services are getting partisan, you are lost as a country. That's very, very bad. And it's the same, of course, with the DOJ, much worse, because they can actually throw people in jail. At the top of the DOG website right now for the immigration court page, Democrats have shut down the government. Department of Justice websites are not currently regularly updated. Democrats have shutdown the government, this is new language, You don't see that kind of partisanship on government websites. USDA, due to the radical left Democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated.

0:12:55 Matt: From the Housing and Urban Development, the radical right in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need. And basically, they're going to push forward on this thing about how Democrats are fighting over giving health care to people they don't think should have it. And they'd actually told Politico that they're betting this will amount to a distinction without a difference, that these people are actually lawfully here. They don't thing people are going to matter because they're still immigrants, and they're probably right.

0:12:54 Jenessa: Sucks

0:13:18 Matt: So we'll see. We're going to come back and talk about something. I'm very sorry to say something much worse. Be right back.

0:13:17 Jenessa: Cool

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0:13:26 Matt: Okay. That was quite a tease. Something much worse that could be so many things right now. We are going to really try to get through this. I am just going to tell you straight up, please just hear this in my calmest, most soothing podcasting voice. Inside I am yelling and I am very concerned and I have been concerned for a while and I've been trying as I think everyone listening regularly knows. I've tried not to be demurest. I have tried to make sure we see the best and I still see a lot of good and we are still going to talk about some some of that good by the time we're done today. But I've got to tell you about some of the dots I've been connecting about what is going on in this country right now. All the pieces are there and they're all out in the open. And I got to get out my Charlie Kelly string board. It's the only way to do it because the New York Times can't hack it. Washington Post can't seem to hack it like they're not telling you how these things connect and why we should be extra worried about some of this. So I'm going to talk about both enemies, foreign and domestic, because that is, of course, what the president has sworn to counter. He seems much more interested in the the latter these days, but I'm going to tell you about how using enemies foreign is going to get to enemies domestic. We've had a slew of executive orders and executive actions recently that are adding up to something pretty disturbing. So let's start with the coming war on Venezuela. I don't know how else to say it, but Donald Trump has been talking about invading Venezuela since 2017. Marco Rubio was pretty into the idea in 2020. Venezuela was, of course, under an authoritarian socialist government. I've worked with a lot of Venezuelan refugees, and I can tell tell you, the Venezuelan government is completely out of control and the economy is in bad shape and they're doing terrible things to people, especially political opposition. I'm not defending the Venezuean government any more than I would defend Saddam Hussein, but we shouldn't have invaded Iraq, obviously. The reason I'm bringing this up now is, of course, we've all heard about the boats by now, about the Venezualan boats. The New York Times, as I read you in that piece, was saying some legal experts say that this is a bad idea to just strike civilian boats, not telling us why or who's on them or if they're without any provocation. I just want to remind day of the Trump administration, one of the things that we briefly touched on when we were looking at executive orders was that Donald Trump designated Tren de la Agua and a couple of other cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists. Now, calling an organization a terrorist organization doesn't mean you just get to kill them when you see them in the field. Like, that's not how it works. I think that's actually what they're trying to tell us. We've reached the point in the second Trump administration. I'm very sorry to tell you, but what I'm about to say is literally true, that Stephen Miller is personally having people killed. That's what's happening. That is not an exaggeration. The Guardian actually had to break this story because an American paper apparently could not get this story. Stephen Miller is a Homeland Security advisor, among other things. He's kind of an advisor without portfolio, as they say in certain other regimes. He has been very influential, obviously, on immigration, but he's also been running a lot of this foreign policy and military stuff. One thing that not hardly anybody noticed is that the Homeland Security Council kind of spun off into its own thing. The Homeland Security Advisor was given a bunch more power, and now, apparently, he he can just call in strikes on unarmed civilian boats, just say they're terrorists and move on. That's the thing the Homeland Security Council can do. The Guardian went looking to see who authorized the strike or how it was authorized, because usually in the, you know, even in the worst of the Obama drone warfare, which I completely opposed and was very bad for everybody, and I think will go down as one of the worst things on Obama's legacy. Even during drone warfare, you had a team of people that would examine the targets, that would determine if they're legitimate targets, they would run the intelligence, and they would ran it by lawyers. Years. Trump fired most of the JAG lawyers, the head ones.

0:16:47 Matt: One of the scarier things he did right up front was to fire the people that are supposed to be telling the military independently what they're supposed to being doing. So we're in a situation here where Stephen Miller is killing people, and I think he's starting to like it because four boats now.

0:16:45 Jenessa: That helps

0:16:58 Matt: Four, yeah, more than a dozen people. One of the widows told the New York Times that her husband was absolutely a fisherman, had nothing to do with drugs. Even if they did have anything to do drugs, it doesn't matter. You can't just strike them in the middle of the ocean. I mean, if they start taking shots at you, sure, that's self -defense. But international law and our law, absolutely, there's nothing that allows you to do this just because you say that they're foreign terrorists. And the reason they designated Trans -Iraq terrorists is because they're trying to connect them to fentanyl, which they have nothing to do with. They do run a lot of drugs, but they don't run fentanyls. The story that The Guardian was given was that Pentagon General Counsel Earl Matthews signed off on this. They haven't been able to confirm that apparently, but that's it, I guess. Just one lawyer at the Pentagon can just say, sure, go ahead and start hitting civilians because who's going to stop us, right? And the fact is that Donald Trump wants to go to war with Venezuela. There can't be any other way to see this because, I don't know if you're aware of this, this. Venezuela is the world's largest oil reserve. It has more oil than anywhere else in the world right now. Five times more than we do.

0:16:57 Jenessa: Four cool yikes

0:17:52 Matt: Yeah. If this were George W. Bush, I'd say, well, obviously that's what's going on. I'm going to get a little ranty for this one. I'm watching you learn this in real time.

0:17:55 Jenessa: Even like give me breadcrumbs of this and I'm just like in total denial

0:18:04 Matt: Well, I happen to. Not total, but I have to see it happening with ICE every day, and I'm seeing a lot of other things too. Yeah, this is just the international portion of the discussion. Sorry. Obviously, we've been talking a lot about the Alien Enemies Act. They tried to use the Alien Ennemies Act against Venezuelans. It was one of of the first things they did within the first few days.

0:18:09 Jenessa: So god damn it

0:18:22 Matt: And one of the first things I said when Trump came to power is watch how he treats Venezuelans, because he's identified a population that he wants to pick on, Haitians especially, but Venezuelians, because they're from a socialist country, which we think, as we've talked about before, you'd think that might give them refugee status. There's somebody that he can associate with Trinidad and Tobago, which isn't really fair at all, of course. The Alien Enemies Act requires that we be in a state of declared war. I'll talk in a minute about what that actually looks like.

0:18:22 Jenessa: Right that's why even the I think it was the fifth circuit which is usually very conservative was like no we're not at war you can't do this

0:18:54 Matt: That's right. And there's no evidence whatsoever. There there's anyone in our country right now that's preparing an invasion or encouraging, right? There's just nothing to do with anything. If the circuit, I'm sure, would have been otherwise very happy to give Trump what he wanted, but they had to read the text of the Alien Enemies Act. But imagine if we were in a declared war with Venezuela, how that changes immigration enforcement, because now everybody's on suspicion of being Venezuelan. Declared war has a specific legal meaning. And of course, we haven't declared war in a very long time. We may never declare war again, because it requires Congress. The presidents since 2001 have been using the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which basically gives the president extremely open -ended power to go after anybody that was associated with Al -Qaeda or anyone who might have possibly helped Al -qaeda or any successor organizations to Al -quaeda. That's pretty well played out at this point, but they've used it all over the world for all kinds of organizations. There's talk that he would try to either get an authorization of use of military force, a very broad one, which again, it would require both houses. I don't think he can do it. Or that that he'd somehow try to use this or use no authority at all, just invade Venezuela. Because now he's talking about a land war. He's actually talking about how we might have to go into Venezuela, get the cartels. This is inevitable. This Is the next step. Just very recently, Trump said, now we'll look at cartels, we'll begin to look very seriously cartels coming by land. We have absolutely no drugs entering our country by water because they were lethal. So apparently taking out those boats eliminated all drugs coming by water.

0:20:15 Matt: Incredible. We know just from recent media reports, first of all, we know that the Trump administration has been in contact with the Venezuelan opposition and has created a transition plan for them. We know that the administration has been reviewing plans for targeted operations inside Venezuela. We know that he's been talking about how Maduro is not properly elected, ironically enough. The administration is saying it's possible within weeks that we could be conducting military operations inside Venezuela. And if they can somehow elevate this to something they call a declared war, it will completely change the face of immigration enforcement in this country. I'm very sorry to tell everyone. It will change a lot of things to be in a a wartime footing. And he would like nothing more than to be in a warttime footing.

0:20:15 Jenessa: Yeah nailed it just to level set this because I'm no history buff but I am aware of things we have done to mess with south american governments in the past get me there like where are we on the scale of what the heck this

0:21:08 Matt: That's an important thing to put in historical context that we have occasionally just decided to invade countries or to help arm super violent, terrible people to make sure that we keep the people in power that we want in power are usually pretty bad. Speaking of people in power who are pretty bad, let's talk about the plans for domestic enforcement, because I want to tie these two things together. I really don't want to, but I'm going to. We have to talk about how this ties into the way that Trump is talking about this country and the people inside it. I'm just going to read you from that ridiculous meeting. Now, of course, we all know by now that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth flew everybody in and has a massive meeting with everybody, brings in all the top brass to tell them the military is not woke anymore. That was the headline. But for me, the headline was when Donald Trump said this, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. We're under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms.

0:21:55 Jenessa: Is what what

0:22:02 Matt: He said that in front of everybody in public, but the headlines are about Pete Hexeth talking about fat generals, because that's funnier. He said that he wants to declare war on his own country. Now, this is exactly consistent with what we've seen at the use of the National Guard, the talk about the military, what they're doing in Memphis now, D .C., other cities to come. Again, I want to discuss, as we do in this program, how the law is used to do that. There is so much happening at once that we have to talk about these three instances, three things that I want TO tie together. And then I promise we'll get to something good. I'm going to try to get through this just using my calmest podcasting voice.

0:22:02 Jenessa: The fuck

0:22:32 Matt: Let's start with the executive order I'm sure you heard about on September 22nd, 2025. designating Antifa as a domestic terror organization. Two problems with this. First of all, that as we've discussed, Antifa doesn't exist.

0:22:31 Jenessa: Oh

0:22:44 Matt: So that seems like a big problem. It's defined in the executive order as a militarist anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law. I like how they say enterprise, because that's a nice broad term, enterprise, because they can't really say it's an entity or an organization. It is an enterprise. It is a bunch of people pulling together, I guess. And again, it's a set of ideologies, right? Right?

0:22:44 Jenessa: Yeah it makes it sound like a mafia sure why not

0:23:05 Matt: It is, I will be clear, a set of ideologies have been honed over decades from people who have resisted exactly the things we're seeing in the uprising authoritarian government. So Antifa is a reliable set of ideological principles. It is not a capital A group. That's just not how it works. That's why they're afraid of it. We've discussed this before, but I want to emphasize there is no such thing as a domestic terror organization. At the time we talked about it, he hadn't done this yet. But the closest thing is in 18 U .S .C. 2331, paragraph 5. And this is the enhancement that they're using against Luigi Mangione, as we've discussed, who is being charged with terrorism offenses for the death of one healthcare CEO. It defines domestic terrorism so that the law can use that definition. It does not create a list of domestic terrorists. It doesn't say, here's how to designate one. It just says domestic terrorism means activities that, and it defines what these activities are, but it doesn't talk about how to define a domestic terrorist organization or domestic terrorist group. So he's making this distinction up completely, but we are reaching that point where they're just making things up out of nothing.

0:24:02 Jenessa: Law defines what a terrorist act is not who a terrorist is individual or organization

0:24:07 Matt: Essentially. For example, a foreign terrorist organization, which we were just talking about with Trinidad in the cartels. A foreign terrorist organization is designated by the president. And that has all kinds of implications about how we conduct ourselves with that country or that's hosting that or with the people involved in that entity. It allows for, of course, a state of exception for a lot of things. And that's what he's trying to do here. He's tryingto take the logic of the foreign terroristorganization and apply it domestically because of what he just said, that there's a bunch of people that don't wear uniforms that are enemies among us. I just want to point out that all relevant executive departments and agencies will utilize all applicable authorities to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations, especially those involving terrorist actions conducted by Antifa. This is so broad. For any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa, or for which Antifa or any person claiming to acts on behalf Antifa provided material support, etc., etc. We have been hearing, and our office has already experienced, about immigration lawyers in interviews with clients, and we've already experienced this, in which our clients are suddenly out of nowhere grilled about who is your lawyer, how did you meet your lawyer? Who's paying for your lawyer ? What organizations does your lawyer work with right in front of us. The next time this happens, I haven't happened to me yet, but I would like to know. And I would very much like to learn where this information is going and what they're doing with it. Because there is this general conspiracy theory that immigration lawyers are Antifa, working with Antifa are funded by these kinds of groups. And we'll talk about in the next order, there is This sort of conspiracy mindset that drives all of this, of course. But just as a starting point, you know, it's funny in theory that he's designating a thing that doesn't exist as a terrorist organization, but it's terrifying in practice. Because if if nobody's Antifa, then everybody's Antifah. That's what's happening.

0:25:44 Matt: Oh yeah. Yeah.

0:25:45 Jenessa: I mean it's such a strange thing to ask it's very red scare what organization is your your lawyer part of, like, I don't know, the church choir?

0:25:50 Matt: Right. Right.

0:25:50 Jenessa: Like, what kind of question is that?

0:25:52 Matt: And the Red Scare, I mean, at least you could be a registered communist. Like that was something you could do, right?

0:25:57 Jenessa: At least that was real.

0:25:58 Matt: That existed. So this is, that was actually an improvement. Missing the good old days of Joseph McCarthy. This is the first time any group has ever been designated this way because this designation didn't exist. It's basically a sentencing enhancement. And also it's an excuse as we'll talk about a pretext for investigation, which is my real concern. National Security Memo comes out a few days later, September 25th, 2025. And this one is pretty scary. Generally, though, I have not seen that much discussion about it. It is bad. This is very much kind of the response to the political violence conversation that happened after the shooting of Charlie Kirk. They're looking for a new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies, including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them. What they're targeting is political violence that is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change your direct policy outcomes, etc., etc. There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self -described anti -fascism. These movements portray foundational American principles such as support for law enforcement and border control as quote -unquote fascist

0:27:04 Matt: To justify and encourage acts of violent revolution. This anti - fascist lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. Here's just the worst part and we'll move on. Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti -Americanism, anti -capitalism, and anti -Christianity. Extremism on migration, race, and gender, and hostility towards those who hold unmatricional American views on family, religion, and morality. So just break that down very quickly, if you believe that Trump's immigration policies are actually bad and fascist, you are an extremist. If you believe that the traditional one -man, one -woman definition of marriage should be expanded in our times to everyone, you're an extremists.

0:27:54 Jenessa: 70 % of Americans, you mean?

0:27:56 Matt: That's right.

0:27:56 Jenessa: I think that's the latest numbers.

0:27:58 Matt: I mean, that's what they're telling us. And presumably, if you support a woman's right to reproductive health, I can only imagine that you have to be a terrorist under this definition.

0:28:07 Jenessa: Is this an executive order you're reading?

0:28:09 Matt: Yeah, this is straight from the September 25th, Countering Domestic Terrorism and organized political violence. And I feel like I've said this every week, but this is one of the scariest things I've seen yet. Yeah. Start to put the strings together here that you're creating a new terrorist group that didn't previously exist, that doesn't exist.

0:28:24 Jenessa: And they have to define it now because it doesn't exist, so we have to start trying to tell you what makes you a member.

0:28:31 Matt: And this next memo, they're saying anybody who calls them a fascist is an anti -fascist and is therefore a member of Antifa. That's the point we've reached.

0:28:38 Jenessa: Well, that's about the most straightforward definition but then it's like calling us fascist is anti -fascist okay fine but then it's like also anti -christian which I don't know if that means just anybody who's not Christian uh presumably

0:28:52 Matt: It's interesting. They didn't throw in the usual anti -Semitic in this case. They did include that because they love throwing that in.

0:28:55 Jenessa: All of a sudden we don't care about that anymore we cared about that when it was helpful

0:28:59 Matt: You know, actually, I just saw that they just removed globalist from the list of anti -Semitic words, and they just tweeted about how one of the people we're going to exclude from the United States coming in future immigration policies are globalists. And that is a well -known, I mean, just if you spend any time online at all, globalist is a very well - known euphemism, and even like a little picture of a globe and stuff like it's not even subtle.

0:29:10 Jenessa: What yes 100 % like no question that is code for Jewish people like Like, they're trying to hide behind it, but, like, no, it is anti -Semitic, period.

0:29:24 Matt: Yeah, I'm going to say Jewish Trump supporters take note that they didn't think anti -semitism was important in this case when they're starting to worry about their domestic enemies, but they do think anti Christianity is. So just something to note. The countering plan is a minority report. Basically, they're going to start looking at pre -crime. Through this comprehensive strategy, Investigations should prioritize crimes including, now here's my real concern, prioritize crimes, including 18 U .S .C. 111, which is the statute we've talked about several times now, assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain federal officers or employees. But it's not just assaulting. It resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with any federal officer. So I can see a case being made that I've been doing that for years by talking about ICE online, but

0:30:23 Jenessa: I would read that as, given the holistic list, I think we would assume that means physical impeding some sort of physical resistance.

0:30:33 Matt: Opposes intimidates. You can intimidate people online just by talking about them, perhaps suggesting that no one should ever socialize with them again, as has been done by certain people on this program.

0:30:42 Jenessa: Oops.

0:30:43 Matt: Yeah, well, it's said now. 18111 has been used against so many different people in different situations, including a number of elected representatives now for people that just got too close to an ICE officer or looked in the wrong direction or threw a sandwich at them. We don't have time to go through. I want to talk another time about 18 U .S .C. 111. I'm tracking uses and abuses of it around the country right now, but I have to keep going here. So DHS and DOJ are, of course, doing the enforcement here, but they're also pulling in Treasury so that IRS can start looking into where people are getting their money because they're obsessed with the idea that George Soros is specifically funding some of this stuff. So they're going to start looking at the funding of nonprofits and harassing nonprofits, any of the ones that are the most effective at fighting fascism and organizing people politically. There's a whole round of protests coming up this month that people should go to that are organized by some of these nonprofits that can't be done unless there's a national effort to do it. And then there is the expansion of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. So the JTTF has generally been looking at international terrorism, and they're now going to be turning it more to domestic terrorism, more than it has been. This is very much a 9 -11 thing, as was the domestic terror designation, by the way. That was a Patriot Act introduction. And JTFF, there's all kinds of abuses you can find from what they do. But the really important thing for this conversation is that since 2008, FBI and JTTF can open assessments, which are the first tier of FBI investigation, just kind of getting started, without any factual indication of wrongdoing or threat to national security. So they can just start monitoring you, basically. They can use CIs, they can lie to you, they can do physical surveillance that usually would have required some kind of reason to start investigating you. This JTTIF thing is very concerning because, because, you know, JTF, they were at one point harassing organizers of Black Lives Matter rallies, right? So you can only imagine it's a matter of time before they're coming after lots of other organizers for lots of different reasons. And again, not just the JAG lawyers that we've been talking about in Wiped Out, but the ombudsman and basically the people who are supposed to be watching the shop, the inspectors general of lots of Different Agencies, including DHS and DIJ, are pretty much gone. Of course, I got to mention in all of this that JTTF has never really done anything against far -right militants and white supremacists. JTFF had a a pretty good idea or should have known who the proud boys who ended up at the Capitol were, a lot of the other people at the capital that did nothing about it.

0:32:50 Jenessa: Yeah, I mean, when you first started reading that definition of, like. Like somebody who uses physical violence, their power, their intimidation to suppress opposing political viewpoints. I'm like, hmm, I wonder who that could be. Like you get some real inconvenient friends standing next to you with that. But then they build into the definition that it has to be anti -fascist and it has to be all these like anti -American things. It's like oh okay cool so we're just defining out of it your friends I

0:33:28 Matt: Yeah I want to be clear I mean again we've said it many many times almost weekly that this is little f -fascist you don't have to be an actual follower of Mussolini but the tactics and strategies and the entire way that this has been deployed that the Trump administration has gone forward especially in this term has been small f - fascist. MAGA itself was an openly fascist movement especially by the end of that last election where the way they were talking about mass deportation was terrifying. And when I say fascist, I don't just mean people I don't like doing things I don't like. I mean, this is an identifiable historical cycle that we are in right now. And there are proven tactics to fight those that don't even have to be violent. And nothing we're talking about has anything to do with violence right now, I just want to be very clear about that, as always.

0:34:08 Jenessa: Do want to add one thing on that my area of hope on that is I really think the American public does not have an appetite for a ground war after 20 years in iraq and afghanistan we don't have like you know well I guess I shouldn't say this and without knocking on wood but uh we don't have like a 9-11 that's gonna rally us around the president to be like sure let's go halfway across the globe and fight a bunch of people if they were to do something like that putting troops on the ground all the sudden your neighbor who like signed up for the military is gone because they're in Venezuela for like no freaking reason I do believe even like moderate and conservative voters are going to be very concerned about that and not happy about that. I am hopeful that that is not going to be a kind of rally around the flag moment like we had with other wars.

0:35:05 Matt: He did promise no new wars. That was an actual campaign promise. He's promised a lot of things, but I don' t think we can count on that.

0:35:12 Jenessa: The far right is fracturing over a lot of things right now, including our involvement in foreign wars. Trump has promised that and there are a lot people who are far right and moderate who felt really strongly about that, who thought that was a good thing and are not seeing that play out at all. If he takes it a step further and instigates something, I actually do think that is gonna really turn public opinion and public opinion matters. Like, we are the people. It matters. It's important.

0:35:45 Matt: Counterpoint. I agree with all that. That. But a quick counterpoint, because before we finish this topic out, this is the war on drugs. And it's also something that gives people an excuse to treat Latinos in their communities like they're the enemy.

0:35:46 Jenessa: Important hmm

0:35:56 Matt: And I think there are a lot of people who will be susceptible to both of those messages, that this is wiping out drug use in America that are causing so many problems, and that we are going to step up our mass deportation campaigns because we now have alien enemies among us. I hope you're right. But the other problem is that if you are right, as again, as I think you are, if we have a lot people on the streets, then that only also accelerates the plans to use the Insurrection Act that we've been discussing many times. And I think that this could also be of a piece. I don't want to get too Charlie Kelly on you, but I think the string board's pretty full here, so we should move on. I see you staring sadly in the middle of the distance, and I want to make you happy. Let's talk about something happy. So we'll come back and do that.

0:35:56 Jenessa: Yeah

0:36:33 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:36:34 Jenessa: Yes I have good news on the election front one of the big ones right now pennsylvania just came out their uh supreme court with a really great decision just across the board this is solid different states have different rules about how to handle absentee and provisional ballots. Most states have some version of either what we call notice and cure, which is a procedure where you send in your absentee ballot, there's some curable defect, which would be like, ah, maybe you sealed the envelope a little wrong, but not in a way that would make it seem like the ballot got tampered with, or maybe you, you know, didn't fill out this one thing right. They would give you notice and give you a chance to cure that defect. If there's an incurable defect, they might give you noticed and say, send us a new ballot, something like that. Other states, it's not curable. We will give you notices and you're going to have to show up in person and vote with a provisional ballot. That's an inconvenience, but at least we're letting you know. Pennsylvania was, until now, the only state where the policy was different by county.

0:37:48 Jenessa: About whether or not you would be given notice, whether or you could cure a defect, or if perhaps you would send in your absentee ballot and they would detect an error that was curable and not tell you about it. That's kind of a problem. Finally, we have a statewide rule in Pennsylvania, hallelujah. They do not necessarily have to have notice and cure, which would be, we are telling you, here is a new absentee ballot, or here is a form so you can fix it. But you have to tell the person you have identified a defect and tell them they can come vote provisionally on election day. There is a single statewide policy. So, Pennsylvania real important in the presidential elections. Of course, every state is important for the House and the Senate and for their own purposes for their state government. So So just a huge relief to stop having to say, this is the policy in New York, this is a policy in Jersey, Pennsylvania. Literally, you have to check depending on your county. Unacceptable for it to be that confusing.

0:39:01 Jenessa: Problem solved. You can vote provisionally if your ballot has a defect and they have to tell you. They can't keep sending everyone the same generic message that says we received your ballot if they know there's a problem with it because you could go fix it.

0:39:17 Matt: How many ballots have had problems? How common is this?

0:39:20 Jenessa: The percentage is very small certainly on the level of like a nationwide like a presidential election we're not talking like swing the election numbers but every vote matters certainly on the local level local elections can come down to a single vote not infrequently it's not something where I would look at like oh my god this could have changed everything but never say never in the future so glad that's been taken care of and also looking towards those statewide and those as local races. This is obviously a very big deal. Every ballot you cure matters. And it just matters on principle that people get to exercise that right to vote.

0:39:59 Jenessa: Unequivocal good news out of Pennsylvania. It will be easier for people to find out about defects in their ballot and cure it. Yeah.

0:40:07 Matt: That's a nice little ray of hope in Pennsylvania, a state that we watch closely. I want to talk about my very big news out of the Boston federal court from Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee. And we've talked about this before, but Reagan appointees are doing the work right now. They are doing some amazing work. There's like five of them left, but they are out there. Judge Young is 85 years old. This opinion I think he's very much seeing as the capstone of his career.

0:40:27 Jenessa: Dang.

0:40:27 Matt: He actually wrote in it, this case, perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court, squarely presents the issue. Whether non -citizens lawfully present here in the US actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The court answers this constitutional question unequivocally. Yes, they do. Sort of, it's a challenge from the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association, challenging the way that the Trump administration in particular has come for students and student protests and student activism. It includes the stories, obviously, of Ramesa Osterich here in Massachusetts and Mahmoud Khalil in New York and others, people that were familiar with these stories by now that were just taken for the things they said and absolutely nothing else. Literally, they confirmed in a nine -day trial, one of the things they confirmed was that Ramesa Osterich was targeted for the co -authored editorial that she didn't write herself. An editorial that I almost completely agree with, and lots of other people do too. The really notable thing about this right up front, and we're going to link to this decision, I really think everybody should read the first, I don't know, 20 or 30 pages and the last 20 or30 pages. There's 161 pages, you don't have to read them all. But the beginning of this thing, he had something above the caption, which is very weird. I've never seen anything.

0:41:28 Jenessa: I've never seen this.

0:41:29 Matt: Never happens. And he copies in a handwritten postcard that he received in his chambers from Philadelphia of course philly and boston never got along too well philly doesn't get along with anybody let's be honest you're a new yorker you get it this philadelphia resident wrote on a post card to the

0:41:44 Jenessa: Right above the header, first thing you read on this page is a handwritten, all caps, why do we do this, postcard that says, Trump has pardons and tanks, dot, dot. What do you have? And the response is, dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, we the people of the United States, you and me, we have our magnificent constitution. Here's how that works out in a specific case.

0:41:53 Matt: Judge it's

0:42:20 Jenessa: Space begin header wild you

0:42:20 Matt: Incredible yep here's my guns and tanks here's my tanks yeah I mean this is so good and honestly okay I will say if this were a younger judge who's like more flamboyant I think this is kind of annoying this whole thing this whole opinion I've got to be completely honest. I'm just being straight with you. I think it's super cool that he did the header. He actually brings it around at the end in the footer and he gives a little postscript and basically is like, hope you enjoyed this, come visit sometime, which is awesome.

0:42:44 Matt: But the last 20 pages or so are an editorial about the Trump administration and Donald Trump. He just has an extended editorial saying all of the things that we've always said and that many of us have been thinking for a very long time, which I think is all fair game, but these are extraordinary times. And you don't usually see judges doing anything like this, but he's obviously incensed. Again, as a Reagan an appointee, he's incensed at the way that we're treating our students and the way that they're so casual about free speech and the idea that we could just deport people for things they write in an editorial that have nothing to do with violence or threats or anything other than opinions. And so it's a masterwork opinion. We will link to it. I'd love to do a whole episode on it at some point to break it down. It's got some amazing footnotes. It's an 85 -year -old man, no doubt, but it's got so amazing footnuts. Love it.

0:42:44 Jenessa: Know I think though if you look at the voting data this is actually reflected that the 65 and up bracket broke 50-50 it was like that 40 to 65 or 50 to 65 that was more what you were expecting for like older people or more conservative I really think what we are seeing is people of his age they have a long breath of experience they have seen the rise and fall of things like this I worry like gen z is just like yeah you know this is how it is people just tell you you aren't allowed to say these things and we have a fascist government and that somebody his age is going to be like no this is not normal this is not okay it's never been been like this before this like ring the alarm bell you

0:44:12 Matt: It's so good. Yeah. No. And the fact that a federal judge, a conservative federal judge is saying and doing the things that he's doing in this decision should say something. But of course, the headline is going to be, you know, Boston judge hates Trump. That's how they're going to take away from it. Everyone should read it. It's a great treatise. It is going to go down as one of the great decisions, I think, of a district court. Okay, we've got to get to our footnote very quickly here. I am delighted by this because it involves Martin Shkreli. I'm sure you remember. How would you describe Martin Shkreli?

0:44:23 Jenessa: Know wasn't he it was pharma bro everybody was calling him for a while there I probably got not exactly the right but he was the one who bought that hiv medication and then like sent the price through the roof and it's like cool cool life -saving medication no worries whatever people will just die no big

0:44:57 Matt: Yep, just one of those people who proves why you just shouldn't have a certain amount of money. He went away for seven years for stock fraud, among other things. But famously, one of the things that he did before he did that was that he bought the only copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin by Wu -Tang Clan. I think as listeners know, I'm a rap fan, generally love hip hop. And of course, you know, Wu-Tang are legends, killer bees. And absolutely fascinating story about this album. I don't know if you know about this, but it was recorded over about six years as a protest against the way that we now pay for music. As a protest, they sold it at auction to the highest bidder, one copy with a legal provision that you could never copy it or distribute it. You could sell it to somebody else, right? But you could only have one copy in the world of this masterwork. There is a five minute sample of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin on YouTube, and it's got some great stuff. I mean, I'm not saying it's going to reinvent hip hop, but I'm saying it's

0:45:47 Matt: An interesting thing that these artists who've given a lot to the world and know that they have, have decided to do like the Renaissance patronage model of like, let's just work for one guy. Whoever wants the highest bidder, then that's it.

0:45:47 Jenessa: Deal oh I never thought of it like that but yeah like commissioning a

0:46:01 Matt: Right. But it's like their top secret album that only one person gets to own. It really goes against a lot of things I believe in but at the same time I also believe in supporting artists and we're not doing that so by contract the album cannot be released to the public until 2103 so I don't think I'll be around for it I'm planning to be but we'll say one physical copy yeah by this contract burned into a single two-disc set a hand-carved nickel silver encased box set with integrated boxes housed in a larger leather box all designed by the British American artists on and on like very specific it's a beautiful work of art Ghostface Killah was not happy that Martin Shkreli bought it he described him to TMZ as a shithead I think that's accurate but he also said he bought it you can do what he wants that's what ariza said the beautiful thing about our art from my standpoint is it has no discrimination Shkreli of course bragged all over the place is one of the many reasons you know there was actually a juror who had to be excused because I love this you know what he said he said you disrespected the wu -tang clan

0:46:10 Jenessa: Painting yeah oh yeah I'd be pretty old I'm doing the math oh no

0:47:03 Matt: So good yeah

0:47:03 Jenessa: I didn't know that one I heard many quotes during jury selection that were

0:47:08 Matt: Yeah, that's right. Somebody put them all together. But yeah, the disrespect to the Wu -Tang Clan was so good. That's like the one thing you knew about him. Martin Shkreli did the least hip-hop thing I can imagine.

0:47:20 Matt: After bragging, of course, about being the sole owner of this thing, and this is before his assets were seized or anything. This is 2016. He celebrated the victory of Donald Trump in 2016 by streaming some of it to his followers on Twitter live. That is how he celebrated Donald Trump's victory. This thing that he'd signed a contract saying that he would never play ever in public. That's the beginning of the problem. And then he auctions it off because famously he's going under, his assets are seized. And before he goes to prison, this NFT company, I don't even want to get started on NFTs, it's called Pleaser DAO, Decentralized Autonomous Organization. They bought it and they're right to play it for 4 million. Remember, he bought it for 2 million. So he's already doubled. The government got good money from that. They also purchased copyright distribution rights for $750 ,000.

0:47:32 Jenessa: Choice oh god damn it which don't exist

0:48:04 Matt: So I think they worked out some kind of deal because every time somebody pays a dollar for a sampler of the album, 88 seconds gets shaved off the 2103 release date. And they're actually giving the profit to the Wu -Tang Clan, which is awesome. That's very cool. So they're going to keep getting paid for this, at least on these purchases. The important part is in 2024, Shkreli could not help himself. And he starts posting various comments along the lines of, LOL, I have the MP3s, you moron. I literally play it on my Discord all the time. What are you arguing about? Is this about something listening to a CD? Lots of people have. Yeah, I have The Music, but I sold The Plastic. Again, he scrawly was not allowed to keep The Music and he kept copies. So he got sued appropriately. So that was in April when he makes a statement in 2024. He got sued in June. Obviously, he's filing to dismiss and the counts include enforcement enforcement of a forfeiture order, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unjust enrichment, and recovery of chattel. And the judge has allowed two counts of misappropriation of trade secrets because he'd made copies of the album and then distributed it without permission, as well as count six, recovery of chattel to make sure that they have any stray copies back.

0:49:11 Matt: I don't see how Martin Shkreli doesn't go down for this. I mean, this is a pretty obvious violation of it. It's not a crime, unfortunately, but you know.

0:49:17 Jenessa: Right this guy cannot stop confessing to crimes on camera basically he just is for mr like business genius he just keeps doing the dumbest stuff possible

0:49:29 Matt: Yeah. If I had purchased the most expensive musical work ever sold by one of the greatest artists of the 90s, I would also probably brag about it. But I would also not stream it to my followers, especially not to celebrate the dumbest thing that's happened.

0:49:42 Jenessa: I'd also like to read the contract contract what do I

0:49:48 Matt: Everybody agreed upfront that Martin Shkreli was incredibly lame for doing this, even though everybody wants the album. It's just him in particular, right? But this just makes it so much better or worse, however you want to say it. Once again, it has been determined as a matter of law that Wu -Tang ain't nothing to F with. Here we are.

0:50:03 Matt: Killabees. I bomb atomically, et cetera. Some good news at the end there, but I am sorry to have to put all those dots together for you, but I think it's time. This is the stuff I've been talking about for the last 10 years and why I no longer really have much fun at parties.

0:50:02 Jenessa: Know I'd

0:50:18 Matt: Yeah, I don't know if everybody I talk to at parties would, but they do now too.

0:50:16 Jenessa: Rather know what's coming I don't want to be blindsided let's put it that way

0:50:25 Matt: No, you know, and that's why you're listening if you're still listening to this program. It's why your supporting independent media because we are able to actually connect these dots and say things like it's okay to believe in the principles of Antifa. Have a good one, everybody. We will see you next week. Thanks again.

0:50:36 Jenessa: See ya