Greenland Is Ice and ICE Is Nazis

Transcript

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

0:00:01 Thomas: Nowadays, you cite the law like it's an opinion columnist who's chiming in on this. Their opinion is that he can't do this, but, you know, that's just one view. We'll see.

0:00:17 Matt: The court finds it inconceivable that the Department of Justice, which holds a duty to faithfully execute the laws of the United States, even those with which it may have disagreement, would repeatedly ignore court orders while simultaneously prosecuting citizens for breaking the law.

0:00:36 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1228. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is real-life immigration attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing, Matt?

0:00:43 Matt: Well, a judge hasn't told me that I'm not allowed to appear in court today, so I've been doing pretty good. Better than Lindsay Halligan.

0:00:48 Thomas: Ah, I suspect we get a little bit, we get to enjoy a thing today. That's a fun one. But I'm looking forward to taking my Greenlandic vacation now that, you You know, I'm sure we can just waltz on over. This is so stupid. It's so stupid and it seems to be continuing to stupid and it might stupid all the way to something happening.

0:00:52 Matt: A little update. Yeah, It sure is. Is. Yeah.

0:01:11 Thomas: That's how stupid it is,

0:01:12 Matt: And it only got stupider in Davos as of the time of recording. We can talk a little about that, but I've actually always wanted to go to Greenland, not as a US territory though. I wanted to visit Denmark, which is what it should be. So I want to talk a bit about the legal stuff because there is actually some interesting legal issues around the Danish thing. Obviously there's no actual claim to Greenland that we have, just to be clear about that. This is not a contrarian defense of the Greenland invasion.

0:01:32 Thomas: Obviously, yeah. It does start getting weird, though, and this is, again, not to defend anything any idiot Trump person is saying, but it does get weird when you start having those arguments and then you go into, like, wait, why does anyone own anything? You're like, you don't deserve to have it. I'm like, well, I guess, wait. Who does deserve this? I guess whoever was there? Maybe the indigenous people, I guess, probably deserve

0:01:54 Matt: You go back far enough, it gets weird.

0:01:54 Thomas: It. But yeah. Yeah. And then it'll get weird with that too. Cause like, like obviously that's probably the right answer, but then you're like, well, wait, did they take it from somebody? I don't know. Maybe, maybe you could keep going and going. I'm not sure. Who knows? But one way or the other, I know we don't deserve it, so don't worry. I haven't settled on that question, but it is kind of interesting to think about. I have a theory. I just saw some people talking about this and I wonder if you you agree I really strongly believe this all could be because of the mercator mercator whatever map projection like I genuinely think it might be that when he looks at a map and it's the how do you pronounce that mercator or mercator I never know mercator projection one way or the other greenland looks enormous like it looks just huge it's not that big it's just can someone get this man a globe or or that one where they peel it like an orange you know and they put the map on the orange slices there's that one that get them that

0:02:28 Matt: I think it's Mercator. Yeah. Sure. Right? Yeah. Pretty much the size of the Midwest. It's not any bigger than that, really. It is a lot of land, but it's not America size. Oh, yeah.

0:03:01 Thomas: I mean it's yeah it's big but that has to have some amount to do with this right there's no way it's not partially that gotta

0:03:02 Matt: That or, I mean, it's just, you know, he has a bad brain. I don't think that's a pretty good explanation, too. But a little bit. Same thing. That's true. It all works out. That's right, that's right. There you go.

0:03:05 Thomas: Be that's yeah same saying tomato tomato yeah mercator mercator sometimes I surprise myself anyway um

0:03:19 Matt: That was a good one.

0:03:20 Thomas: Lots to mercator I had to say it like tomato tomato but it did kind of mess it up because it wasn't how how we were, how I was doing it earlier, but still funny. Anyway. Yeah. So Greenland, some good fun news about an idiot trying to pretend to be a United States attorney and no longer being able to do it. What else we got today?

0:03:37 Matt: And we got to talk about the actual order out of Minneapolis, because we were talking about a parallel case in Minneapolis last week, and this is important enough, I think I want to talk, about the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment basis for why the judges put in this injunction, what it means, what it means for the future.

0:03:53 Matt: So it's an important one to talk about. And also just to talk about the people who brought this suit and what happened to them, because I think this story needs to be told too. Then we've got a fun food note. We haven't had a food note out in a while. And one of my favorite genres of food note. And I got to say, I'm actually on the side of the plaintiffs on this one, which I'm not usually in our food notes. So yeah, we'll see what you think.

0:04:10 Thomas: Okay. We'll see. Yeah, maybe we'll have a little debate. Okay. So I'm excited for that. You mentioned the, what, first and fourth amendments, I think you said. I did see some of law. I almost said law Twitter. It's not Twitter anymore, more, but law, whatever, social media, talking about like how we might be close to getting our first ever like third amendment case because of like kicking ice out of like the hotels and stuff.

0:04:33 Matt: Quartering. Yeah, it's happening.

0:04:34 Thomas: Yeah. It's like, all right, we're finally going to get it. Look, let us have a little fun. You know, it's cool that we get in this time of fascism. It was a long oft discussed old OA topic that like there's never been like a third amendmentcase. It has been the most clear your amendment there's no you know it's just no ifs ands or buts really and uh and correct me if I have that wrong that's my memory of it and now it's like wait a minute we might have to fight over the third amendment oh yeah that'll be a fun way to celebrate it you know have a fight over a certain amendment oh man all right well lots to talk about lots to discuss uh we're going to take our usual break which you can avoid at patreon.com/law and support the show support good work like this I think it's really important right now and we really appreciate your support. And we're working on another lot off of movies. That last one was so fun. That is a New Year's resolution of mine is to actually do that every month because it's really fun and we can. And now that we have Peter helping edit, I think we can make that happen. So yeah. And they're really fun. And I think every time we do it, we have a blast and patrons love it too.

0:04:59 Matt: On the 250th anniversary of the United States, we finally made it. The thing we started the whole country over.

0:05:31 Matt: Yeah we can do this I know we can Yeah and we've got a real stinker this time I

0:05:39 Thomas: Oh, that's right. You already picked something out, right? Oh, okay. Do you want to drop a cryptic hint?

0:05:41 Matt: Don't even feel like I should give it away yet but uh it's so bad well the very cryptic kink is it turns out that kim kardashian really can't act but that's that's actually not even the worst thing but about the show by far by far we'll never

0:05:52 Thomas: Oh wow. Is she a better lawyer or actor? That'll be the question, huh? We'll see. Okay. Well, that's more than a cryptic hint. I think they'll probably give it away, but that's okay. patreon.com/law. If you want to want to hear that stuff. All right. We'll be right back.

0:06:09 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:06:09 Thomas: Okay, Matt. We're wearing, we're in the map. We're in The Atlas. Do you want a weekend today?

0:06:14 Matt: Know well the major theme as it often is is ice but we're going to start in greenland to talk about their ice I've learned a lot about greenland recently as I think we all all have, but I've been doing some extra reading because honestly, it is one of those places in the globe. Sometime last year, I was just like, why don't I just go there? I should go there.

0:06:33 Thomas: Okay. Every time I fly anywhere like that goes around that because the, you know, curvature of the earth is often it's like, that's a weird path. That'S the fastest one. I'm like, what is this place? It seems really interesting. I'm like, who lives there? How many people live there? And I think it's like not super hospitable, but I think like most people there live all in like a tiny, you know, place like pretty south, like close to the coast, I'm pretty sure. But yeah, we do this thing with Trump where it's Like, all right, now we're all an expert in this one thing. And look, normally I'm all for it. We have ADHD here at Opening Arguments. We love a good deep dive. This one I'm just too resentful about to do. I'm I'm just like, no, I'm not. I'm glad you did, Matt. I'm Not Saying You Shouldn't. But I resentfully am like, I'M NOT DOING THIS. WE'RE NOT DOIN' GREENLAND. SORRY. SO MATT DID IT FOR ME. Okay.

0:06:57 Matt: It's worth I'm just celebrating Greenland because it's a pretty cool place and it's full of cool people.

0:07:27 Thomas: Yeah, why not?

0:07:29 Matt: It's majority Inuit, but it's only got 56,000 people, which is about the size of Roxbury neighborhood in Massachusetts.

0:07:35 Thomas: Isn't that crazy? Jeez.

0:07:37 Matt: Yeah. 56,000 people. It's 88% indigenous and people keep calling it a white country and that's just not true. Right.

0:07:41 Thomas: Once again, they're looking at the map.

0:07:44 Matt: Exactly. Yeah, it's very white in the map. And the photos are very white. But yeah, we got the Kowala, the Tunumut, and the Ingwit, and Evernir Sirwamit people. And apologies if I've gotten that wrong. But I wanted to start with a quick clip here from Greenlanders themselves, because I'd never heard a Greenlander say anything. And these guys are awesome. I love these people. Let's just hear what they have to to say about us before we get going.

0:08:05 Clip: If you're watching this we don't like you don't come to greenland don't buy greenland it's not for sale it's not for sale greenland is not for sale honestly leave us alone

0:08:18 Thomas: There's kids at like a high school or something?

0:08:19 Clip: We greenlanders we don't like you we don't like you so much I don't know why because greenland yeah he already has the all the bases around greenland already he does not need anymore He said he wants to make you great and make Greenland great again. We're literally happy like... I think that's quite silly and I think it's quite out of mind and most Greenlandic people don't actually agree with because we are our own people in our own land.

0:08:49 Matt: I I just thought those were great. We're going to talk about these people. And actually, their national security plan for 2024 was called Nothing About Us Without Us. They're very aware the world wants a piece of Greenland.

0:08:59 Thomas: Am I the only one who doesn't care? Do we all want Greenland for some reason? What are you talking about? Why does everyone want Greeneland?

0:09:03 Matt: Well, for one thing, it does have 20% of the world's fresh water locked up in ice sheets, which it needs to stay in the ice sheets as I think we all understand. We are in trouble when it's no longer in the ice sheets.

0:09:13 Thomas: But in a water world scenario um sure

0:09:16 Matt: Yes, it's going to be a great place to get your fresh water. More importantly though, though, unfortunately, more likely to happen sometime soon as the Arctic ice is beginning to thaw in a way that's going to allow trade routes through. It's going become a major trade hub. And it's also, of course, full of these minerals that Trump won't stop talking about, which are very hard to get right now, but it's expected that they're going to start to become more exposed. And of course we could just make some sort of deal to get the minerals, but I guess he wants to invade instead. I was curious because, you know, I don't know if you saw that letter that he sent to the president of Norway, the extremely cringe, embarrassing letter.

0:09:47 Matt: It is not worth reading into the record. It is terrible. But he did raise a question that I had actually had, which was Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, which is very funny because we're all part of NATO. So we're also supposed to protect the land from Russia or China. Why do they have a quote unquote right of ownership anyway? There are no written documents. It's only a boat that landed 300 years, hundreds of years ago, three hundreds of years ago. That's what it says.

0:09:46 Thomas: Three

0:10:08 Matt: But we also had boats landing there.

0:10:07 Thomas: Hundreds of years ago wow uh

0:10:11 Matt: Also true. You know, you could say the same about the Mayflower, but yeah, anywhere at all. That did kind of send me down a a bit of a rabbit hole last night, just kind of looking through some Greenland history. I won't give it all to you. But going back to 982, there was a banished Viking that established the first Norse settlements. Norway owned Greenland for most of history.

0:10:14 Thomas: Like anywhere anywhere had boats

0:10:32 Matt: And it's super cool, too, that even after all the history I was going to tell you about, it is still 88 % indigenous, like with the people who have always lived there. They're really hardy. They really held out. Denmark set up a trading department, basically, that had a trade monopoly over Greenland until 1953, to the point that the high -ranking employees of this trade union were not allowed to marry Greenlandic or mixed women as described.

0:10:29 Thomas: Whoa that's crazy Right

0:10:53 Matt: We're not, yeah.

0:10:51 Thomas: Weren't weren't allowed to oh

0:10:54 Matt: But it wasn't recognized as a Danish territory until 1814 with the Treaty of Kiel. That was the point at which Denmark actually had to give Norway to Sweden. There's a whole Scandinavian political thing in here. But the important thing that is in 1979, they got the right to some home rules. They've had basically an independent governor. They're still part of Denmark. And then in 2009, they passed legislation that gives them the right to hold a referendum for independence that Denmark has recognized if they want to do it. And it sounds like this is actually kicking off more of an independence movement in Greenland than they they already had because they don't want to be, you know, kind of tossed between world powers like this.

0:11:25 Thomas: In a way that could almost even more vulnerable right now, but I get it.

0:11:28 Matt: Right. Right, yeah. But it's, you heard what they had to say. I mean, they're independent people. Truman did actually offer to buy Greenland for $100 million in 1946. They passed on that.

0:11:39 Thomas: Chump change. Trump makes that in one crypto scheme.

0:11:42 Matt: Yeah, hardly anything. There was also potentially a deal that could have been made along with Alaska in 1867. But what actually turned out, this is super interesting to me, the Treaty of the Danish West Indies in 1916, in which Denmark traded its Caribbean islands, which are now the US Virgin Islands, in exchange for $25 million, and then a preamble in this treaty in which we recognized, or at least said we wouldn't oppose, a Danish claim to Greenland.

0:12:08 Matt: So as of 1916, there's still some debate about who this belonged to, because we'd had Arctic explorers passing through it all the time. We had camps. There was some potential US claim, never a serious one. But this is the closest thing that we have, is this 1916 agreement in which for $25 billion and the US Virginia Islands, we said that we had the honor to declare the government Germany, the United States of America, will not object to the Danish government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland. It's not a very strong language, but I do want to point out that that deal was actually what gave us Epstein Island, which is a weird little crossover in the news here, yeah. Jeffrey Epstein purchased Little St.

0:12:43 Matt: James in 1998, but it was U.S. Virgin Islands territory. Actually, that was the most recent acquisition.

0:12:43 Thomas: So Then why can't he just purchase, oh, he just owns it like anyone owns a piece of property in the United States.

0:12:52 Matt: It's a private island, yeah, never really thought about it, but yeah,

0:12:54 Thomas: Is that different? Yeah, I guess I'm asking, is it different than in the way that, like, I technically own the lot the house is on? Or is it like he actually owns an island? Like it's a, its own thing. I don't know. Okay. I've never looked into freaking pedophile Island ownership.

0:13:05 Matt: It's still U.S. soil, yeah? So I guess it's, yeah it just ends the island. I'm going to guess most of our listeners haven't either.

0:13:09 Thomas: I didn't, I didn't know. I know sometimes they go to islands where there's no laws for stuff like this. I dunno if it's like a, you know, that kind of thing where it's, it'S its own thing this

0:13:19 Matt: Just a weird little detail there. But, you know, we were actually threatening to invade Denmark to get this done because we actually thought that at one point the Germans were going to take over the Virgin Islands.

0:13:28 Thomas: Is in 1916 or whatever you're saying. Oh, okay. Well now we're before World War III. So that's, that's like kind of full circle yeah okay there's

0:13:29 Matt: Yeah. Before the war, as things were heating up in Europe. Yeah. Yeah. It works out. Right.

0:13:37 Thomas: A pandemic damn okay hold on we're doing a shit we really are full circle

0:13:40 Matt: Yeah. We're just, right. Cycles of history. There we are. The most recent acquisition of the U .S. Empire was actually the Northern Marianas in 1986. I didn't know it was that recent in our lifetimes. My lifetime. So that's where we're at with Greenland. But of course, we do have the 1951 defense agreement you probably heard about that was kind of a supplement to NATO to make sure that we could have a joint defense given just sort of the strategic importance of Greenland. And notably, I was looking at the treaty here in Article 6, it requires that we give due respect to the local population and internal administration of Greenland, and every effort will be made to avoid any contact between U.S. personnel and the local populace, which they do not consider desirable.

0:14:16 Thomas: Wow they don't even want to talk to us oh geez

0:14:18 Matt: Like, stay in your corner. But it does give us the right to set up autonomous military bases, which we had done. There's a space base there. It's like, I think it's the only major space base that we have that's monitoring space. You know, again, we have every right to set up shop in Greenland and to have military occupation there. Essentially, we don't actually have to invade it, is the point.

0:14:37 Thomas: Yeah we could just park some of our war fighters what's his name could get some of the stupid war fighters that he loves saying over and over the term he can't stop saying park some of your dumb war fighters there, dude. Just do that.

0:14:48 Matt: Surely that's why they joined the military, was to invade Greenland. And speaking of, you know, I just want to mention just very clearly, because I actually think at this point that Donald Trump may not actually understand what NATO is, or maybe he's been listening to Putin so much that he doesn't respect it at all. He said in that letter, actually, that nobody has done more for NATO than Donald Trump, Trump, which is very strange since he's actively trying to be on Russia's side for pretty much everything, including Ukraine.

0:15:09 Thomas: He got Europe to pay more into it as this whole thing, which I guess is technically true.

0:15:14 Matt: Yeah. He's not helping NATO.

0:15:17 Thomas: But yeah, I mean, I guess arguably you could say it helps NATO if they take more of an active role in NATO's... I mean honestly, it might be true that it's better for NATO to not be entirely dependent on us. It's not better for us though. And I don't think that was really what Trump wanted.

0:15:28 Matt: He's also done everything possible to make things worse for Europe. So it's not really helping NATO at all. But I just thought it was interesting. I was not aware that in 2024, somebody had the foresight to put into the National Defense Authorization Act, and this should not be necessary. This is one of these things you should not have to write down. But in 22 USC 1928 F, the president of the United States can't suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw the U .S. from NATO without two -thirds of the Senate, which is true anyway. It's a treaty. Obviously, attacking another NATO member, I think, would be pretty much withdrawing or denouncing the treaty. You're pretty much done. Right.

0:16:02 Thomas: Oh that's gonna be funny if that's the reason that he can't do World War III.

0:16:05 Matt: Doesn't say you can't attack.

0:16:05 Thomas: Hey, yeah, it's, hold on. That would technically be withdrawing. And we somehow miraculously passed a bill that had language in it that says you can't do that. That'd be, wow. All right. Maybe.

0:16:14 Matt: Right. Yeah. It also, basically, it defunds anything that would be in violation of this. There can be no funding provided to the military if there's any kind of move on Greenland, according to the law. And the president has to consult with both the House and the Senate and their respective foreign affairs committees before they can appropriate anything that might seem like it would withdraw or otherwise contravene the NATO treaties.

0:16:35 Thomas: Nowadays you cite the law, like it's an opinion columnist who's chiming in on this. So I saw somebody wrote a thing on the law and their opinion is that he Can't do this, but you know, that's just one view. We'll see. I mean, New York Times has the other views too. They like to, they like to provide all views, you know, the law and then some other, some other people, just

0:16:54 Matt: Yeah, it's just different branches of government with different takes on things. That's pretty much where we're at. Yeah exactly. So apparently this all goes back to a cosmetics heir named Ronald Lauder who convinced Trump during his first term that we could get Greenland is what he said. I think it goes right to your theory because Trump said to the New York Times in 2022. I love maps. I always said, look at the size of this. It's massive.

0:16:57 Thomas: A different opinion columnist. Really? It's just, you know? Exactly. There you go. I knew it.

0:17:16 Matt: That should be part of the United States. Trump's razor, once again, the stupidest possible explanation. It is true. I just wanted to close this out by just playing a quick clip from the New York Times massive interview, completely useless interview they had with Trump in the White House. One particularly striking thing that I noticed about Greenland is when I was flipping through that.

0:17:36 Clip: Why is ownership important here? Because that's what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think ownership gives you a thing that you can't do whether you're talking about a lease

0:17:48 Thomas: It's just like leasing a house or whatever.

0:17:52 Clip: Ownership gives you things and elements that you can't get from just signing a document that you can have a so you're going to ask them to buy it important to you or to psychologically important for me now maybe another president would feel differently but so far I've been right about

0:18:05 Thomas: So far I've been right about everything. Sure.

0:18:06 Clip: Everything and you would use military force to get that I didn't say that you said I'm asking you would you yeah I wouldn't comment on that it's I don't think it'll be necessary I want to

0:18:18 Thomas: Boy, is he dying?

0:18:21 Matt: He sounds That's exhausted. Yeah. Psychologically important to me.

0:18:27 Thomas: Like he goes into like boomer dad, like, well, yeah, we own a piece of something. You're going to really value it.

0:18:32 Matt: It's great.

0:18:33 Thomas: You know, put your, put some elbow grease into it.

0:18:35 Matt: It'll fix her upper, Greenland.

0:18:35 Thomas: Like that's the, the level of like analysis we're doing for taking over another country or whatever. Cool.

0:18:42 Matt: Yeah. I mean, it's just the fact that he said we're doing it because it's psychologically important to him, I think really just says it all.

0:18:47 Thomas: Yep. These things used to be massive scandals. These used to be presidential ending. Well, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be presidential end because no idiot would get that far. It would have been local, like, you know, comptroller ending statements that you'd make absolutely disqualifying. And It's every day, 400 times a day, all the time.

0:19:03 Matt: And I'm sorry, but I have to say it. Imagine Barack Obama saying or doing something that got the prime minister of the UK to suggest they're going to have to begin military exercises just in case, just to be ready. Those poor people in Greenland that we were just hearing from, I mean just the the fact that they have to think about us at all. They shouldn't have to think about it.

0:19:19 Matt: They should, there's, they shouldn't have to give a second thought to anything we're doing. And this is where we're at. So, sorry everybody.

0:19:25 Thomas: You know, on that note, I did see a Reddit thread that went a little viral that was like, hey, every American keeps coming to the Greenland subreddit and like apologizing or whatever. And it was kind of interesting because they're like, that doesn't do anything. Just change your leadership.

0:19:40 Matt: Just stop doing this.

0:19:41 Thomas: Yeah. And I think that someone was sharing it with a bit of a like kind of a gloating sarcastic point that I didn't really agree with. It was like now, you know how red states feel, you Know, it's like people in red states and And and then they're unable to kind of change their leadership. And it's like all of America is essentially a red state now to the world. It is interesting to think about that. It's both true that like, yeah, it isn't really helpful, I guess, to apologize. At the same time, I can't do anything. We don't it does.

0:20:07 Thomas: It also doesn't really do anything to tell us to overthrow our leader like, OK, but I guess it is useful to apply that outward, you know, like next time we're analyzing something else, some other place like it's not that easy to just get rid of an authoritarian leader.

0:20:20 Matt: No, it really isn't. I was actually just apologizing to the world, generally. I'm just sorry.

0:20:22 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, I wasn't a criticism or anything. It was interesting. It's an interesting thing. I saw because on the other hand, I also think that like I think the apologies from United States citizens. I think that I mean, personally, I think there's a lot of people out there that are like, I don't know, I'm not going to do this. That is something. It'S NOT NOTHING.

0:20:36 Matt: Like, sure, yeah.

0:20:36 Thomas: Like if you're in conflict with a place, I'd rather have some people in that place be like, hey, this is not us. This guy sucks. I'd Rather I'd RATHER feel that than like the whole country is out to kill you. You know, that that wouldn't be fun.

0:20:48 Matt: For what it's worth, this is the first thing that a Republican congressman suggested he might impeach Trump over, if he actually invaded Greenland. So Don Bacon, full credit there.

0:20:55 Thomas: Sure whatever it takes man

0:20:57 Matt: So that's probably more than enough of that. I mean, he has said at Davos now that he's backing off of both the tariff fight and the military stuff, but who knows? That's just today.

0:21:05 Thomas: Oh here's another great one I don't know if you saw this the world's worst senator brain damaged I mean I mean like I think I literally I'm not making a joke I think literally brain damaged otherwise I don'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN IT FETTERMAN SUPPORTS THE BUYING OF GREENLAND DID YOU SEE THAT IT'S LIKE I DON'T WHAT ARE YOU DOING LIKE WHAT ARE YOU EVEN HERE FOR WHAT'S YOUR I got I guess with the israel thing I was like I strongly disagree agree, but at least that kind of had some coherent sense, like, okay, he's just an Israel guy.

0:21:19 Matt: Oh, no. Perfect. There are a lot of those.

0:21:34 Thomas: But what is this?

0:21:36 Matt: Why? Why?

0:21:37 Thomas: When is he up? He's pretty fresh, right? Pretty freshly elected. We got to get rid of that guy. Really bad. Holy crap. So the same election as the next presidential one, we could maybe get rid of John Fetterman. Okay.

0:21:48 Matt: Let's do it.

0:21:49 Thomas: We'll take a break and we'll get to our next segment.

0:21:54 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:21:54 Thomas: All right. Now for a bit of fun. This was great. I saw the headlines about our favorite not US attorney. Give us the

0:22:01 Matt: Yeah, Lindsay Halligan, this is a footnote a couple of weeks ago for us, but I'm moving it out of the footnote section because this is so extraordinary. It's become such an extraordinary thing that's happened. As we detailed back then, there was a Judge Curry in the Eastern District of Virginia found that she is not the U .S. attorney for reasons we've discussed, but her appointment was invalid. Don't need to go through that again. And this was in a completely different case, just a random criminal case where Judge Novak ordered that she has to stop calling herself the U .S. attorney because it's been found. And she came back and she's like, well, that was basically just one judge's opinion. It gave her seven days to say why she is actually the U。S. Attorney. And she basically was trying to say that, well that was just sort of declaratory judgment and didn't really go to the question of legality.

0:22:27 Thomas: Update yeah the whole legal system is just like one judge's opinion man that's the whole thing the whole thing that how it works you don't have to get a let me get a second opinion I mean you kind of do when you appeal but like until you do that until it's appealed successfully that opinion counts that first one

0:22:45 Matt: So that's where we're at. That's where it's at.

0:22:57 Matt: Yeah, it really does. Does. And he's coming down hard. I mean, because we talked about this before that he's suggesting essentially parenthetically that this could be worthy of a bar complaint, that he could take this to the bar because she's continuing to disregard the order. He's filed an order to show cause saying, you have to come back and tell me why I shouldn't essentially report you. And the only reason he says in this order, this most recent order from this week, is that basically, I know you're new here. In light of her inexperience, the court grants Ms. Halligan the benefit of the doubt. That's not why you...

0:23:09 Thomas: Counts yep hey let's not grant the fascists the benefit of the doubt let's be like hey let'S go ahead and hold the fascist to the same standards we would hold anybody else how about

0:23:35 Matt: He is pointing out that of the same court held another attorney in contempt and jailed him for six months for continuing to disregard orders. And there's no reason that this couldn't happen if she keeps doing this. Yeah, no, I mean, just make the point here, because this is how we win, is actually enforcing these actual norms. These aren't just norms. This is the law, I should say.

0:23:43 Thomas: That let's do

0:23:53 Matt: But this is a firm finding, which was as to the entire issue of her appointment. And that's, you know, rather stunningly, Ms. Halligan even fails to mention Chief Judge Diaz's order, let alone discuss its impact. Ms. Holligan has not only ignored Judge Curry's rulings, she has turned of blind eye to an order from the Chief Justice of the Fourth Circuit. The court finds it inconceivable that the Department of Justice, which holds a duty to faithfully execute the laws of the United States, even those with which it may have disagreement, would repeatedly ignore court orders while simultaneously prosecuting citizens for breaking the law.

0:24:14 Thomas: Yeah boy no kidding that's that's a good way to put

0:24:25 Matt: And there's a great kicker here. In the wise words of Judge J. Harvey Wilkinson III, a very, very well -respected Fourth Circuit Justice, we yet cling to the hope that it is not naive to believe our good brethren in the executive branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. And that is from the Obrega -Garcia case, bringing in a very important precedent here to make the point about how the DOJ needs to shape up.

0:24:40 Thomas: It oh wow yep they're like we only like the law when we get to you know jail people for fascist reasons not when we actually have to follow it yeah it's nice to see a judge sticking up for I did she it seemed like she actually backed down or I thought was a was a headline I saw did she back down

0:24:59 Matt: She's going to have to. Yeah, I think so. Because I mean, check out what he actually is ordering here. This order was on behalf of the district judges. She is invalidly appointed. She can't show up. No matter all of her machinations, Ms. Halligan has no legal basis to represent to this court that she holds this position. Any such representation going forward can only be described as a false statement made in direct defiance of valid court orders. In short, this charade of Ms. Holligan masquerading as the United States attorney for this district and direct defiance of binding court orders must come to an end. For all of these reasons, the court hereby strikes the words United States Attorney from the signature block in the indictment, as well as other government filings. So now it's just been filed by some person.

0:25:10 Thomas: Finally wow yeah it feels a little like okay that's not much but also good. Important to do.

0:25:40 Matt: No, for the record, she was not the U .S. Attorney at the time that she filed that indictment. It is invalid. And the court further bars Ms. Halligan for representing herself as U .N. Attorney in any pleading or otherwise before this court until such time as she may lawfully hold the office. So there we go.

0:25:52 Thomas: It should be like, and on any dating site and on LinkedIn and anywhere else. You just can't say it. Yeah, that's your family reunion, a school reunion. Nope, can't do it. Doesn't count.

0:25:56 Matt: Facebook, yep, yep. Stop telling people you're the U .S. attorney.

0:26:03 Matt: Yep, yep." She has no choice because she will actually. I mean, there's not really much of a valid threat here and it's completely within his power. Like he's saying, I will put you in jail for contempt if you do this again.

0:26:11 Thomas: Oh, please just do it.

0:26:12 Matt: I know, I know. The DOJ needs to check here at this point.

0:26:13 Thomas: Come on. Come one.

0:26:17 Matt: So let's move on to the order out of Minneapolis. I want to talk about what's going on in in Tintra v. Noem, which is actually the case that was filed about a month before the case we talked about last week, which was the Twin Cities in Minnesota bringing suit against ICE just for the scope of the action and the way that they're doing things right now. This case notably was filed a few weeks before René Goode was executed in the street, and it is directly supposed to be protecting people who were doing what she was doing, which ist peacefully observing. It's an interesting one. I haven't really seen something like this, and the judge is noting that there really is no precedent for something like This because the kind of protest that people people are engaging in, in Minneapolis and around the country, as we've been talking about, is a very active form of protest. It is following the ICE around, it is reporting their activities, recording them, often yelling or chanting at them or whatever as well in the typical kind of protest way, but it's also a very sort of active, engaged thing. This is Catherine Menendez, the same judge that was looking at the other case. And so she's, I think that when we were talking about how she didn't give that emergency ex parte injunction, I'm sure she had this in mind.

0:27:17 Matt: She knew this would be coming a few days later, because it does protect a lot of the same things directly for the people who are bystanders, especially.

0:27:22 Thomas: Oh that's good to know. Okay.

0:27:24 Matt: But this is very much limited to those plaintiffs, to the concerned citizens who are trying to help and trying to record, and not necessarily to the people being arrested, which is much more the concern, I think, of the other seat. But, this is really important, because right now, the impunity that ICE has been showing, we've all seen it, we've seen the videos, heard the stories. We'll play one in a second here. The class that is defined here is, all persons who do or will in the future record, observe, and or protest against the DHS immigration operations. So, that's pretty good.

0:27:50 Matt: That's pretty solid. And the lead point of Susan Tincher I wanted to shout out here, a really brave woman. You might've heard this story and you might recognize it when you hear her tell it, but I wanted to just hear her voice here because she sounds and looks like such a Minnesota mom. Like she's exactly sort of the platonic model of a Minnesota mum. She seems very cool.

0:27:57 Thomas: Hmm. What?

0:28:07 Clip: Talk about fear because that matters lying face down in the snow with masked officers on top of me no names no visible badges guns everywhere I was genuinely afraid I was being kidnapped that is not drama that is what it felt like in my body I yelled for help because I didn't know if anyone would ever see me again people will understandably be upset about what happened to me once I was taken to the Whipple building. I was put in shackles, I was held for five hours, some of my clothing was cut off, and my wedding ring was cut from my finger. And I'm upset about those things too, but I want to be very clear. The violence began on the street. It began with how quickly and forcefully I was taken down for doing nothing more than observing, asking a question, and standing where I had every legal right to stand. This is not a hobby for me. I was not there for excitement. I wasn't there to provoke. I'm not there to play activist. I went because ICE activity was happening before dawn in a residential neighborhood when most people were asleep and I believe someone should bear witness. This was part of a larger effort by neighbors, attorneys, journalists, and organizations like the ACLU to gather information about what the government is

0:29:36 Matt: And there you go. Radical leftist Antifa, Susan Tincer. Yeah.

0:29:38 Thomas: Yep. Super soldier right there.

0:29:40 Matt: One of our finest. Great work though. I mean, that just, the story is horrifying. And that was the one that people might've heard about where she did actually have her wedding ring cut off during her arrest. I don't know how common that is.

0:29:48 Thomas: Why? For what? What possible reason? Okay.

0:29:52 Matt: Maybe there's some liability reason, but they don't seem to care that much about liability.

0:29:56 Thomas: That's all we got we have no answer for that it's just okay that's weird all right

0:30:00 Matt: So yeah, I don't know. The only real testimony that was submitted from DHS was from the regional acting field office director, the guy who's in charge of ICE for Minnesota. And generally about their conduct and how they're

0:30:09 Thomas: And you're saying the testimony about this woman's arrest in general okay gotcha

0:30:15 Matt: Treating protesters because in fighting the injunction and saying we shouldn't have to comply with the law, basically. That man's name, the regional field office tractor, is David Easterwood. And Kristi Noem has been doing a very funny thing recently where she's like, don't say his name, don's say his his name, which is like the opposite of what we do with BLM and everything else, where we want to make sure we say these people's names.

0:30:34 Matt: Same with Jonathan Ross. He's been very strict about not letting journalists say his name as if we don't already know it and as if that's doxing him somehow.

0:30:40 Thomas: She can just go and shut the fuck up I don't give a

0:30:43 Matt: Yeah, we're going to say his named. So David Easterwood, the reason he really matters, not just because he is the regional field office director for ICE, but he's also the pastor of a local church. Just inconceivable to me. There was a protest that disrupted his church and let everybody know that their pastor is responsible for everything that's happening to Minneapolis uphill St.

0:30:51 Thomas: Shit hmm

0:31:00 Matt: Paul right now, which is a very reasonable thing to do, I think.

0:31:00 Thomas: Oh yeah just to let them know like hey did you want to be at the church of satan well not the good church of Satan like the church is like accidental Satan or like secret Satan.

0:31:08 Matt: Yeah, right, right. Actual, yeah, secret Satan. And Todd Blanche was on TV saying that he's going to investigate the people who interrupted the church service because it's so despicable to interrupt the church service.

0:31:24 Thomas: Sure, man.

0:31:25 Matt: And Keith Ellison, the Attorney General of Minnesota, is being investigated for their practices and not complying with ICE. Literally everybody but Jonathan Ross, the Department of Justice, is going to investigate in Minnesota by the time this is done. But this is a really interesting injunction. We'll link to it. But just because there are some things that have to be balanced here, because DHS is coming back and saying, we can't have the court micromanaging our crowd control, essentially. We can't Have you telling us how we handle things. And she's saying maybe under other circumstances, but we can let the stuff like this happen. And there is a valid First Amendment retaliation claim. And I just wanted to talk about the legal basis for that, because these are not easy to get to say that you're actually a victim, especially as a class, that there's an entire class of people who are being retaliated against for expressing themselves under the First Amendment. You have to find the plaintiff engaged in protected activity. And at this point, you know, ICE was trying to dispute that and saying that people are getting too close to cars or whatever, but she's saying on the whole, these people are doing protected activity, the government took adverse action against the plaintiffs that would chill a person of ordinary firmness from continuing in the activity. But you know what's interesting about this, though, is that the court finds that a variety of the defendant's conduct would chill the person of an ordinary firmess from engaging in further protected activity certainly if you think you're going to go get pepper sprayed or you're gonna get tied down and shackled for five hours have your wedding ring cut off that that that might make you think twice about protesting. But I also like the implication sort of on the converse that you're saying that Susan

0:32:44 Thomas: Extraordinary.

0:32:44 Matt: Tencher and the other plaintiffs are actually people of extraordinary firmness, extra firm. So the tough one is actually causation that you have to show that the government was continuing to retaliate. It was motivated, at least in part by what you're doing, the protected activity. And that's usually pretty hard to prove, but they were able to prove it here that they have a fair chance of demonstrating that it was their protected conduct that motivated defendants adverse actions. And if you've watched any of these videos, is, you can tell that's what it is. Yeah.

0:32:45 Thomas: Affirmative. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna say normally might be hard to prove. But when you have the people saying I did it, I killed Ned Johnson, I'm the whatever, over and over on video. It's not as hard all of a sudden.

0:33:15 Matt: Or things like, didn't you learn from what we did to Renan Good?

0:33:17 Thomas: Yeah? Yeah.

0:33:18 Matt: I mean, that's been on video now too. And you can't argue with that. I mean that is exactly what it Is. Then there's a fourth amendment claim, which is pretty clear. You get people getting their cars smashed in, you have people being unlawfully detained all over the place, people being dragged away and beaten up.

0:33:31 Thomas: Pretend we don't remember what the Fourth Amendment is. The search and seizure thing? What is it?

0:33:34 Matt: So yeah, anything to do with unreasonable searches and seizures and stops, any kind of arrests. She says, even crediting everything that Easterwood, the field office director is also a pastor, said in his statement, I have to say that there's not reasonable articulable suspicion to stop any of these plaintiffs. None of these people had any reason for ICE to be stopping them, asking them questions, investigating what they were doing. They were keeping their distance. They were filming. They Were talking to them. They were protesting. But there's nothing that even should have approached what they Were doing. I think this is a very balanced opinion. I don't even always agree with everything in it.

0:34:04 Matt: But she's making the point that I can't guarantee that every motorist is going to follow the traffic law when they follow ICE. I'm not going to assume that they're all going to not give reasonable suspicion to a 18 U .S .C. 111 violation of interfering with federal duties. But even looking at the safety concerns, I'm assuming that most people are following the law, that they are protesting peacefully. This is what we're seeing. And so based on the Fourth Amendment as well as the First Amendment, I am going to find that there is a class issue here.

0:34:31 Matt: Irrevocable harm is pretty obvious because this is ongoing harm. We have to have an injunction. They're just going to keep doing it if I don't tell them not to. The class issue I thought was was particularly interesting because DHS tries to raise CASA v. Trump, which is the birthright citizenship case.

0:34:41 Thomas: I was just gonna I was literally gonna ask they tried to get rid of injunctions right is it that one and so is that why she was doing the class

0:34:47 Matt: Right. Universal injunctions. Yep. Yeah. And she's establishing a class that I think she's doing this very narrowly on purpose, but she really gets on DHS for the way they're bringing in CASA. And they're doing exactly what we expected and what they're doing with everything, like the maximalist argument and saying, you know, well, injunptions basically just don't exist anymore. She calls it a strained reading. What they're saying is this should be limited to those six people, the plaintiffs who brought this. And She's saying, no, of course, there's a whole class of people. Everybody can see the news. A lot of people are doing this, and I want to protect all of them. So she concludes that defendants' extremely narrow reading of CASA would not only contradict CASA's own reasoning, but also wipe a body of case law off the map without discussion. That cannot be the case. So, she defines the class, again, as we talked about, of people that are recording, observing, or protesting. Now, one of my concerns, my only real concern about this, is that she narrows it to people who are recording observing or protesting against Operation Metro

0:35:02 Thomas: Thing yeah uh

0:35:38 Matt: Surge and related operations. And then she keeps using Metro MetroSurge, which is the one that they've been doing since December 4th in Minneapolis. That's the official name of it.

0:35:44 Thomas: I think I just renamed the operation yeah

0:35:48 Matt: Exactly. Just call it MetroPurge or whatever. Change directions.

0:35:52 Thomas: That's your search to electric boogaloo yeah

0:35:55 Matt: Yeah, yeah. But she's making the point that she's really trying to limit the language. She wants to make sure that she'S not accidentally hampering the Coast Guard from doing things. She actually mentions that, right? Just federal immigration, just in connection with these kinds of operations, special operations, not regular immigration enforcement, but this massive 3 ,000 officer thing that's overwhelming the Twin Cities right now. Not that I've heard of. No.

0:36:13 Thomas: Or is the coast guard beating people and pepper spraying them and the sentiment being expressed is not wanting it to be too broad but like I don't even get the connection there are they doing something that is anyone protesting them I don'T get

0:36:27 Matt: No, Yeah. DHS was just saying that there's a risk here that you could accidentally enjoin other federal officers that aren't just immigration officers.

0:36:34 Thomas: It uh sure man okay yeah

0:36:34 Matt: But I don't think that was going to happen, but she just has to include that. She concludes kind of saying that this is a unique protest. This is something different, and I'm just trying to adapt to the situation here. And that makes a lot of sense. So at this point, they can't retaliate against people who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructed protests. They can't arrest or detain them just for observing them. They Can't use pepper spray or other non -lethal munitions against peaceful and unobstructed protest activities, including observation, and they can't stop or detain drivers where there's no reasonable articulable suspicion that they're forcibly obstructing or interfering with federal agents. And arguably, and again, I don't expect that Jonathan Ross would have respected this, but arguably this could have potentially prevented the death of Rene Good if he'd actually been following the letter of this order. But we'll see. And the encouraging thing, as I said last week, is that we're going to have an army of people in the streets of Minneapolis -St.

0:37:21 Matt: Paul with cameras that are just going to be watching officers and recording violations and can report them to the court.

0:37:20 Thomas: Yeah but I mean the question we always ask in this era is what happens if they ignore it

0:37:29 Matt: Well, contempt can be enforced by US marshals at the direction of the court for what it's worth. US marshals are paid for by the Department of Justice. So there is some concern there. Contempt is contempt and it's a powerful thing.

0:37:38 Thomas: And it would be like individual ice officers would be held in contempt for for this or would it be like as a whole the like the leadership or something

0:37:45 Matt: No, they could potentially hold any individual that was found blatantly violating these orders. I think at some point, if you could show that leadership was telling people to ignore court orders, you could absolutely get them to. There's real power here. That'd be great. That's past time.

0:37:55 Thomas: Can we please get bovino in jail please that'd be nice well so good court thingy

0:38:02 Matt: Yeah, I think so. Hi, everybody. It's Matt here. Just a quick update. Just jumping in because, of course, one of the problems with doing something called Rapid Response Friday is that we have to move as quickly as the news does. And shortly after we recorded this episode, the Eighth Circuit stayed the decision that we were just talking about from Catherine Menendez in Minnesota, and that stay is going to be pending appeal. So the protections that we just talked about are not in place. ICE is certainly acting accordingly from what we can see so far. I'll just read you Pam Bondi's response posted online shortly after the stay decision. Decision. A liberal judge in Minnesota tried to handcuff ICE agents who were enforcing the nation's immigration laws and were responding to obstructive and violent interference from agitators. The Eighth Circuit just granted administrative stay, halting, in caps, these restrictions, which were designed to undermine federal law enforcement. And Bundy, of course, also called her an activist judge. And you might remember, as we just discussed, that the crux of the order here is that they have to follow the First and Fourth Amendment, and they have to respect the rights of the people that are, in fact, not even the people they're trying to arrest, but just the people that are around the people they're trying to arrest, who are peacefully protesting and peacefully observing. So this is a real blow for justice. It's very unfortunate. This is routine in most kinds of cases to maintain the status quo pending appeal, but the status quo here is ICE being lawless and dangerous. And of course, I'm sure you've already seen by now the photos and video of ICE pepper spraying a peaceful protester in the face, just pinning him down on the ground and pepper spraying him in the case. And that's the kind of thing that that we can expect when a federal court stays at reasonable order from a federal judge just saying you have to follow constitutional law. So just a quick update here. We'll continue to follow the story as it develops, but I just want to be sure that we had this part covered.

0:39:46 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:39:46 Thomas: What

0:39:49 Matt: We deserve a classic Simpsons moment.

0:39:50 Thomas: Kind of tasty footnote you got for us

0:39:51 Matt: I wanted to play the clip very quickly where Homer becomes addicted to the McRib, which is today's subject.

0:39:55 Thomas: That's a classic scene wait what season are we dealing with here let's see because I don't remember

0:39:59 Matt: The Ribwich? Remember that whole episode where he's into the rib which I think is a classic let's see

0:40:05 Clip: Sir, are you all right? I have eaten the ribs of God. Girl, clean up at register four.

0:40:13 Thomas: That drooling let

0:40:13 Matt: The ribs of god so the question raised by this lawsuit is what have I just eaten because uh it turns out and again I I hope that nobody is going to be too surprised and I assume you're all sitting down here zero rib meat uh it's actually

0:40:31 Thomas: Me guess the mick rib doesn't have any rib in it

0:40:37 Matt: Packed with some of the grossest parts of the pig you can imagine especially if you're not a fast food fan I'll remind everybody that the McRib has like built -in ribs it's like pressed into of the shape of ribs. Have you ever had one?

0:40:42 Thomas: Yeah yeah I don't know I may be a long time ago I mean obviously vegetarian now but uh that's not something I would go anywhere near in the last 10 years.

0:40:55 Matt: No, me neither, but I did occasionally indulge. The sauce is pretty good, but I always remembered thinking that that meat's pretty suspect.

0:41:03 Thomas: Well, okay. People eat hot dogs every damn day and that's the same thing. So don't get all holier than thou if you're a hot dog eater.

0:41:11 Matt: They're not called hot ribs, Thomas. Nobody thinks they're ribs.

0:41:14 Thomas: I'm not saying it's like an equal amount of false advertising, but I am saying it is the same garbage probably.

0:41:19 Matt: Sure, if you're going to eat a pig, you should be prepared to eat the pig. I do agree with it in principle. I had to check. The McRib is now $7 .99.

0:41:23 Thomas: Holy crap.

0:41:28 Matt: I know, because I think it used to be a lot cheaper. And I think for $7 .99, I would expect maybe a modicum of rib meat.

0:41:35 Thomas: Is Is that because of the Democrat affordability hoax?

0:41:38 Matt: Yeah, it's not just eggs.

0:41:39 Thomas: Claimed another victim.

0:41:41 Matt: This suit was filed in the Northern District of Illinois just before Christmas, December 3rd, 23rd, 2025. And it's quite a Christmas present for people who follow these kinds of cases. I will just read you here from the beginning of the claim. Plaintiffs and class members were induced to purchase the McRib under the reasonable but mistaken belief that they were purchasing a sandwich which contained actual pork rib meat, instead, they received a sandwich that did not contain any actual pork rib meat only lower grade pork products such as inter alia never good when it's inter alia pork shoulder heart tripe or scalded stomach scalded stomach I had to look that up but that is literally just a pig stomach that has been cleaned with boiling water so that's your scaldic stomach yeah you know we've touched on a few of these kinds of deception type claims when we talk about like the

0:42:19 Thomas: Yummy. Are the Reese's shape or whatever? There's that one.

0:42:26 Matt: Um yep right the the spooky ghosts weren't spooky enough the the big Big Macs, excuse me, the Whoppers weren't Whoppery enough, right? And I remember you made the point that people do actually pay attention to these photos, and you're taking a picture that makes the Whoppar look bigger than it is, then that is a problem, right. And I would say this is very much along those lines, except that, because, you know, with deceptive practices, you have to be able to say, I wouldn't have purchased the product, or I would have purchased it for less, but I wouldn'T purchase it for that much. And that was kind of what Reese's was arguing in the Reese's spooky ghost suit was that nobody actually thinks they're buying like premium Swiss chocolates here, right, and you're getting a bag of Reese's for $4 .99 or whatever.

0:43:01 Thomas: Well, Reese's are premium chocolate, so I don't know what you're even talking about.

0:43:05 Matt: Oh, absolutely great. Nobody thinks they're handcrafted to look exactly like ghosts. You don't have artists sitting there touching them up. I do see the point here in the McDonald's suit because it's in the name. It does say rib, and they're made to look like ribs. Yeah.

0:43:17 Thomas: Yeah. If you think a thing is ribs and you buy it because you think it's ribs, that seems important. It seems like not exactly like, oh, this was slightly different than I thought. It's like, there isn't the thing that I bought in here.

0:43:32 Matt: It's not a McPork because they're saying their defense is, well, it'S 100 % pork, which is true.

0:43:34 Thomas: Yeah. McPork stomach.

0:43:38 Matt: All the stomach you want.

0:43:38 Thomas: That wouldn't be as tasty in the advertising, I don't think.

0:43:43 Matt: No, not at all. So I think this one might have a shot compared to these other kind of silly ones that we've been looking at. And again, as somebody who doesn't eat this stuff anymore, you know, I don't have it. I was gonna say a dog in the fight. That's something doesn't sound right, but I don'T have a pig in the fight. It's just gross.

0:43:58 Matt: I think it is like using the word rib and then giving you pig stomach. I take your point about hot dogs, but we know that's trash. We know we're eating where you should know.

0:44:05 Thomas: That's true. Yeah I wasn't, again, that wasn't about the advertising of it. That was about the, it's gross meat, but you know you're eating gross meat or you at least should and you don't and think about it.

0:44:14 Matt: It is McDonald's at the end of the day. You should know you're eating gross meat no matter what. I'm sure we've all heard about the pink slime and this is probably some variant on pink slime. You know, I guess if you'd asked me before and they actually include in the lawsuit, they include a survey that they commissioned. Of course, that's not very trustworthy, but they include a surveying in which, you know, most people said, if you ask them, they assume that there's some rib meat somewhere in the McRib because, you Know, why wouldn't you?

0:44:33 Thomas: Call to McRib. I would assume that

0:44:35 Matt: Apparently there's always been a fan theory. I don't know who these people are, who comes up with this thing, but there's a fan story that has been around for a while that McDonald's brings back the McRib every time the pork prices are especially lower and there's glut of pork in the market. And apparently that's true either. So people like even were reinforcing the idea that you're you're actually getting meat that you would otherwise pay more for in this. So, yeah.

0:44:54 Thomas: The rib police are coming to.

0:44:57 Matt: I've said too much. I've saying too much, but I say good luck to the plaintiffs on this one. I don't usually care that much about food suits.

0:45:04 Thomas: And good luck to your digestion as well. All right. Well, for once, we got Matt to be on the side of a plaintiff and not on the side OF a big corporation. You know, that's good.

0:45:13 Matt: That's right. You know me.

0:45:13 Thomas: You're making progress. He's so bought and paid for, you know, big Matt over here with his big big lawyer energy. It's the opposite of true. All right. Well, that was a lot of fun. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks, Matt, for the breakdown. Yeah, I guess we'll see everybody on Monday.

0:45:30 Matt: All right. Thanks, everybody.

0:46:07 Thomas: Mercator Mercator. Mercador.

0:46:09 Matt: That's great. That's good. There you go. So this suit was filed in the Northern District of Illinois. Excuse me. I know how to say Illinois. What was that?