All of a Sudden SCOTUS Cares About the Real World Effects of Their Decisions

Transcript

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

0:00:00 Clip: Thank you.

0:00:01 Thomas: Unprecedented what the courts are doing to President Trump yeah because no one has ever tried to do a kitten holocaust while in office and

0:00:18 Matt: That Lisa Cook received that she was about to lose her job was a truth social social post. Barrett actually says, well, what if you're not on Truth Social? How are you going to get noticed?

0:00:31 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1231. I'm Thomas. That over there is real life immigration attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing?

0:00:37 Matt: Just bought my first pair of thermal underwear, not to give you TMI, but it was quite a purchase. They look super warm. I can't wait. I'm a plane to Minneapolis in just a couple of hours to go see what's going on.

0:00:50 Thomas: Yeah I hinted at that um you can tell folks are you just kind of going over to join in the mayhem

0:00:58 Matt: Know, we just had a snowstorm in Boston, and it is absolutely freezing here, and I thought, why not go to Minneapolis? Perfect time, perfect time. I got a very cheap round ticket for some reason. Nobody wants to go from Boston to Minneapolis in January, and I can't imagine why. Yeah, no, more importantly, of course, it's been quite a week and another tragedy, another completely horrible, pointless, avoidable tragedy that you've covered at length in that amazing video. That was quite a tour de force there. It two and a half hours of coverage.

0:01:03 Thomas: Be even colder yeah it was a lot that

0:01:26 Matt: A watch. Yeah, no. I really appreciate your passion. I agree with everything you're saying, and this is the time for people to really pay attention. And that's why I really want to talk about DHS funding today and how that actually works, among other things.

0:01:39 Thomas: And it's it's so interesting that I recorded that and then like it's all of a sudden I guess because the backlash was enough they're at least gesturing at you to have some sort of consequences that the bavino thing um I don't know how much we're gonna get into it in the segment but bavina and then there it seems like they're actually you pointing fingers back and forth which I think is a sign that something's happening you know otherwise they just shamelessly don't care um we can't get around the fact that for one, this was just like more unambiguous than the other murder for one. I mean even more.

0:02:13 Thomas: It's they're both just awful. But like even clearer I think to people because I think I think a lot of people could at least tell themselves that Rene Good was going to hit him with a car. I think they could at last like decide to believe that for some reason even though it's not true with it's a white man with a gun. And the weird thing is, the the gun, that engaged enough Second Amendment supporters that I think that is turning the tide a little bit. It. It's just a bizarre combination of things, but I do think that's part of it. Cause I mean, they're so Trump's so clueless in terms of like, he doesn't care about actual ideology really. So he's just like, yeah, guns, no one should have guns. It'S

0:02:15 Matt: Horrible. Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:53 Thomas: Like, uh, I don't think that's going to work.

0:02:55 Matt: The fact that Bovino has been pushed out of Minneapolis and may be about to retire, that's not the kind of consequences we're used to seeing under Trump. I know that's a low bar. That's what should happen when something like this happens, obviously, that the person in charge of the agency that was that reckless should go. Obviously, Noam and Miller should be gone too. And I did appreciate that not only was Alex Pretty, a white lawful gun owner, nurse, seems like by all accounts an amazing man, but also was a union member. And, I don't know if you saw, but his union, the very large government union, has pushed pushed for the removal of Noem and Miller, which I thought was a great call. Noem, I don't know if you saw this, but she came out the other day and said, well, everything I've been doing is what Trump and Miller told me to do, which is an astonishing thing.

0:03:19 Thomas: I didn't see. Oh yeah. Yeah. I did see that. Yeah, yeah.

0:03:31 Thomas: Yeah that was, that was the bickering that I was like, that's new, you know, like that, that's a sign of something yeah

0:03:35 Matt: It is. But to have a cabinet -level secretary say, well it's this 40 -year -old guy that just hangs around the White House that's been telling me what to do. It's amazing.

0:03:44 Thomas: Wait does he not have what's his actual position nothing he's

0:03:48 Matt: The Homeland Security Council council person. He's

0:03:52 Thomas: Like our in -house nazi like we just you know nuts

0:03:54 Matt: Basically. Yeah. That's a consultant. Yeah? He's supposed to coordinate policy, but DHS secretary is supposed to have ultimate say over all of this stuff and needs to take responsibility for this, and she needs to go down.

0:04:06 Thomas: I mean I feel like that's almost impeachable in and of itself when you're like well I'm just doing what this guy who wasn't confirmed by the senate told me right like I mean I feel like you've got to actually do do your job. Well, it, couldn't help getting into it, but all kinds of things to talk about. What else are we going to talk about today?

0:04:22 Matt: Talk about the oral arguments last week in the The Trump v. Cook case, which is the Lisa Cook on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, I'm going to argue this is one of the most important cases of the term. It's certainly, along with the tariffs case, one of most important case for the economy, which is why I think it doesn't have a chance of the justices actually going along with Trump on this one. And I'll get into it. But this is actually, and I know this is quite a bar at this point, but this is one ofthe most ridiculous arguments the Trump administration has had to bring before the Supreme Court, maybe any administration.

0:04:49 Matt: So we'll get a taste of how John Sauer is received. And some outstanding layering on the other side from Paul Clement that we'll talk about. And I've got a fun Olympic musical footnote. Learned a lot about how music licensing works for figure skating routines, as did the owners of the song who are assuming now over the use of this song.

0:05:06 Thomas: Wow. I've never even thought about that.

0:05:08 Matt: Me neither. This is new territory for me. I've learned a little bit about the music. So got a fine one here. And I am overall feeling pretty optimistic. But let's get into it with the DHS funding.

0:05:17 Thomas: Right. Yeah, things are looking slightly, slightly up compared to the absolute rock bottom of Saturday. So, we've got so much to talk About. Go to our first break here. Sports show, Go to patreon.com/law and you lose the breaks. You get the lot awful movies and the early stuff and the good stuff and merch occasionally that Lydia has, you know, had some ideas for. There's some really themed bookmarks and other stuff Lydia's been working on. Oh, man, I didn't even say this isn't related to Patreon, but we got a FOIA back of that Lydia put in that to. We'll just put it up on the YouTube. I it's the best place for it. Keep an eye out for that. It is when, remember the time when the idiot tried to get, was it Tina Peters, I think? Tina Peters out by just saying, you know, by decree, by royal decree of the president who pardoned Tina Peters. Release her forthwith. They're like, no.

0:06:01 Matt: Tina Peters, yeah. Yep. From Colorado State Prison.

0:06:12 Thomas: Yeah. So Lydia requested the like footage or whatever. Like any, any footage and documents related to that. And we got video.

0:06:14 Matt: All right, man. Amazing. Love

0:06:21 Thomas: So it's, it's

0:06:22 Matt: It. I haven't seen this yet. I'll have to look for it.

0:06:24 Thomas: It's you know, it'S nothing crazy. I don't want to oversell like something crazy happened, but it's, I mean, the whole thing is crazy, but, but it's really, it''s really funny to just see it. It''s one thing to read about it or whatever. It's another to see these pathetic people. So So that'll be up on the YouTube.

0:06:41 Matt: Awesome. Good work, Lydia.

0:06:42 Thomas: Kinds of fun stuff going on here. So we'll get to our first break and then we'll get to it.

0:06:50 Thomas: Matt, DHS funding. I know that some Democrats in the House had initially voted for that, all in Trump districts, by the way, which, we all are really mad at those Democrats. I am too, um, just always want to put stuff in the context of if they're in Trump districts. I mean that means we need more districts that aren't Trump like we need just more votes you can be mad at them I'm not saying we shouldn't we should pressure them as much as we can to be mad but like also are districts that it's a miracle we even have and we need to work to have more than that like

0:07:20 Matt: And we can't count on for

0:07:22 Thomas: It so they could just as easily be Trump Trumpers in those seats. So, so yes, not saying that was the right decision by them. Not saying we can't complain about it, but I do think it's sort of like the Joe Manchin thing all over again, where it's like, well, we shouldn't even have anything here. Like it's a miracle that we have any kind of vote in that West Virginia Senate Now we don't, now we have the worst Trumper in the world, you know, one of the worst Trumpers In that seat and we don'T get anything from it. I think that perspective is important because we just need need to win more votes. Like can'T yell at Democrats to do stuff with the power they don't have. We didn't give them. So anyway, that little rant aside, um, I do think someone might be changing their minds because this was so bad.

0:07:55 Matt: I hear you. Yes.

0:07:59 Thomas: What's the status of that funding bill and all that?

0:08:02 Matt: Yeah, I want to talk about what is looming here because as of the time this episode is coming out, we might be heading for a shutdown over this, which I think is appropriate.

0:08:08 Thomas: Good.

0:08:09 Matt: We're in a different world this week than we were in last week. And you know it was obviously tragic enough that Renee Good died in the street of Minneapolis in what appeared to be anybody who watched that video to be an execution. And me, and then a few weeks later we have Alex Pretty being shot in the Street Under as we just talked about even possibly worse circumstances. I think it is actually worse. Hard to judge. I mean, they're both awful. Both right.

0:08:28 Thomas: They're both murders, but it's like just in terms of how much people might be able to convince themselves they were right. You know, like I think the Renee good one, people could convince themselves a little bit by people. I mean like conservatives and maybe, maybe like like people in the middle but this one I I mean it's if you see the video it's just there's No excuse for it

0:08:44 Matt: It's hard. In terms of what a jury might believe as well, because one of the arguments might be available. But yeah, I wanted to focus on the funding part of it because this fight is is worth having, no doubt. I also do understand where the Democrats who voted fund DHS in the House we're coming from, I still think that it's worth naming them.

0:09:03 Matt: Henry Quoylar from Texas, Tom suozzi is from New york, Vincent Vincenti Gonzalez from Texas, Laura Gann from New York, Glisenkamp Mary Perez from Washington state, Jared Golden from Maine, Don Davis from North Carolina. And certainly we know the Democrats are capable of taking a stand and been a lot of complaints that Hakeem Jeffries could have whipped them into getting a solid stand against DHS funding. But they have made the argument, and they're not completely wrong, that this is a fairly symbolic vote. Even in the bill that's coming up in the Senate, because, we talked about this actually as recently as last week with Silky Shah about how really one of the worst things, it's hard to keep track, but one of very worst things that happened last year was the July funding bill. It did so many terrible things at once. I'm not even going to use a stupid name. But week on the 22nd, this bill went through and their argument was that look, DHS in the July bill received outside of the usual appropriations process. This is very important to remember that this is just regular appropriations we're talking about right now. There's still six bills left. Most of the government appropriations have been passed. And this DHS bill, as we're going to talk about, actually does not include very much for ICE or CBP, the agencies that people are most concerned about.

0:09:03 Thomas: Hey oh

0:10:03 Matt: DHS, remember, includes the Coast Guard and FEMA and TSA and lots of other things that you do need to run. Bill just gifted ICE and CBP $165 billion.

0:10:07 Thomas: Fair wait why have I been saying 80 I thought that was is that a subdivision of it oh

0:10:21 Matt: Me break that down. So there's $75 billion for ICE and $65 billion for CBP, and then the rest was for DHHS. So much money. They've never received it. I mean, this is probably the single biggest funding bill for any executive agency, I have to think at once. Chart for this of just looking at what's coming up in the the next few years is astronomical. We're talking three or four times potentially the budget they would have had available.

0:10:44 Matt: And again, this is on top of regular appropriations. So what they're looking at right now is regular appropriation. And some Democrats are making the point, this is a drop in the bucket. Even if we shut down the government over this, the appropriations don't matter because they have this slush fund. They have this gigantic pile of money. And they are considered to be, of course, essential services. You can't run your government without deporting people, apparently, or going out in the street and shooting people.

0:10:44 Thomas: Ridiculous god

0:11:07 Matt: Nothing that we we can do, and we're just going to have that much less oversight if they're running during an emergency. Get that, but that was two Alex Prudy was killed and things changed.

0:11:06 Thomas: Yeah is a good argument yeah yeah

0:11:16 Matt: Now's the time to take a stand and to really just get people as aware as possible that we can put roadblocks as much as we can in front of all of this. And again, it's going to take a lot of work to undo the funding bill. That's ultimately what should happen is to undo that provision. They should not have that money.

0:11:31 Thomas: Uh I take a moment to say candidate for president thomas smith 2028 um would say abolish ice and use all of that money to repay the victim's restitution of down every single civil rights violation that happened and pay restitution. Probably won't be that much money because that's just an absurd amount of money. But yeah, that's why I would campaign on abolish ICE, use that money, to pay out the massive amounts of restitution that people are owed for all of the violations of their civil rights. And then I'm sure we could find something else oh all the people we've detained in the concentration camps and their families I guess by the time you add it all up maybe the restitution will be that much I don't know when you when you look at the extended web of people whose lives we've ruined but that aside I mean this is a good argument I get it I also get the argument that it sounds like you're saying you it's still worth just making a stand and I agree but this is good information though because I I think, I guess I didn't even necessarily realize kind of how futile this would be in a practical sense. And I think It's good to know, because I don't think we should have false hopes, because then we'll get mad at once again, get mad At Democrats for things they couldn't do. It sounds like I mean they're gonna have insane amounts of money anyway. Don't get me wrong, I do think we should, you shut it down, do whatever we can.

0:12:14 Matt: You, and I think that's a much better use of the money, certainly.

0:12:52 Thomas: But I accomplish.

0:12:53 Matt: Do want to make the counterargument here about the details of this bill because it's pretty bad. Is not just cutting funding. This is such a sick joke. And I will note that appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole from Oklahoma, Republican, of course, is saying that what I'm about to tell you is going to safeguard American taxpayer dollars. And I'm going to tell you that what it's going to do is get people killed because eliminating basically this part of this funding bill. And this is one really sick thing. They can say in some way they are reducing DHS, CBP, ICE funding. They are doing that. But they're reducing, for yep.

0:13:25 Thomas: Oversight or something? Yeah.

0:13:28 Matt: You've been living in fascism a little too long, Thomas. You get the punchline before I get there. Yeah, $32 .9 million reduction to the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which is of course mostly gutted already. Context, workforce started the Trump administration with 150 people, it's down to 20. now they have 550 open active investigation of abuses by DHS agents and contractors.

0:13:50 Thomas: That's nowhere near the amount that they should have.

0:13:54 Matt: No, no way. And I do want to mention, because we haven't talked about it yet, the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos in Texas at Fort Bliss. So Camp East Montana is a real concern right now. It's really one of our worst, from what I can tell, and newest concentration camps. Is a George Floyd situation. It sounds like from witnesses' testimony that he was held down and choked, and his last words in Spanish where I can't breathe, just like George Floyd. Is the third person that DHS is known to have killed by homicide in January, this January, the month that we're in. We need oversight, as if we didn't know after seeing what they've done to two US citizens in the street, stuff is happening all the time. And a lot of people at this point, we've got in 2025, I think as many or maybe just possibly more people died in ICE or CBP custody have ever died since 2003 when the agency opened and basically didn't know what it was doing. They very much know what they're doing.

0:14:45 Thomas: Good counter -argument to the thing you brought up. Yeah that's the joke. No way we should ever vote for that at all under any circumstances.

0:14:51 Matt: And back and saying that we're saving American taxpayer dollars by eliminating and also the Ombudsman's office, which is a very important resource for people going through USCIS process for any kind of visa and residency process. I mean, this office receives tens of thousands of complaints, and I certainly know why dealing with USCIS myself, they're cutting that ombudsman's offense down to $5 million. It's already pretty hard to use, and I can only imagine they're going to replace their 46 people with seven to nine people, that's going to make things a lot harder for people who are trying to quote unquote do it the right way. Main thing that this funding bill is actually funding that's relevant to the things we're talking about is the Office of Inspector General, which again, of course, is pretty much eliminated and a Trump loyalist and is not doing a great job to begin with.

0:15:34 Thomas: Boy. So getting rid of, you oversight positions in order to save pennies, that's not really obvious. That's just fascism. Obviously, they don't give a shit about saving pennies for that.

0:15:45 Matt: Most of the way there and I just want to point out that the same person right now, and this is a very, very fascist thing to do. I'm saying that in the most literally historic sense possible. We've got one person serving as the CIS ombudsman, the person who's supposed to handle complaints through the legal immigration process. The acting deputy immigration detention ombudsman, which is a position they were just eliminating, that's for people in custody that they're handling complaints and oversight there. The acting deputy civil rights division officer. So he's doing all three of those jobs, I'm sure very well all at the same time right now. If you reduce their down to a dozen people each, then I guess that's a lot easier job. They are eliminating the Office of Detention Ombudsman, which Congress did create in 2019 under Trump to make sure that people weren't dying in immigration custody. So who needs it? That's it. Is a big fight to be had about the details here, because this isn't just about the usual fight over the number of ICE officers, the number of beds in detention. Stuff is pretty much covered by the funding bill. This is much more about preserving any opportunity that we have within the government to have oversight, to have people that we can push, to levers anywhere that we can have authority over these people. Now again, we've seen how they respond to abuses. We've seen how they responded to something that was on video twice now within the same month of them just openly killing somebody and their absolute refusal to participate in investigations or work with the state. A lot of faith in their internal investigative bodies, but I mean, Obviously, there's no reason to eliminate them. It's not going to be any better.

0:17:07 Thomas: Think it's just good. Context for what's happening. It's a shut down at this point, which we very much should do or just not not vote for this. And if that causes a shutdown, it causes a shutdown. But what's going to be accomplished is not any forward progress. It's goingto be stopping this insane, you of any sort of oversight. So I think it's just important to know, like what we can accomplish with with a given thing. And we verymuch should do that.

0:17:30 Matt: For sure. And Democrats correctly realize that maybe immediately after they've just shot the second US citizen in a month, that that's not the time to eliminate the remaining oversight. Maybe

0:17:41 Thomas: Yeah, do it some other time.

0:17:43 Matt: Right. A few more months. Give it a few more minutes. See if they shoot anybody else. Come wanted to provide a little bit beyond the headlines here because I've seen this reduced on social media to the usual kind of thing of like, it's just Democrats voting for ICE or not voting for ICE. There is actually a lot more nuance in several different directions here. And I hope that helps.

0:17:57 Thomas: Does that all that stuff come to a head what's the timeline on that stuff oh

0:18:01 Matt: It's going to be the day this airs on Friday. So we'll see what happens with the Senate bill and what they come up with. But I don't think we have anything right now. As usual, they're probably going to put it off to the last possible. But wanted to flag that because that is, I think, the most important thing happening this week.

0:18:14 Thomas: Right well uh take a break and then when we come back we're going to talk about the uh oral arguments in the uh federal reserve case so matt this was was something I literally was planning to like consume along with the the, trans sports case last, last, weekend. Uh, And then the murder happened and then I completely lost all track of it. And I'm Sure many listeners did as well. But this was a pretty important case that happened. Uh, where do you want to start your breakdown of this?

0:18:41 Matt: Very Very important. And as some of the justices pointed out during the oral argument, they've been briefed by Amicus in these cases to let them know that this could seriously affect the economy if they allow what amounts to the president to fire anybody on the Federal Reserve. And of course, we know that Jerome Powell, the chair, is in the crosshairs right now. But Lisa Cook, just to take this back from last year, and there's been so much going on here, but Lisa Cook is a governor on the Board of Reserves. And this case kind of fits into the progression of cases that we've been looking at over the course of the past year. And I just wanted to just review what those are and how this fits, because the Supreme Court has been pretty clear from the beginning. They think the Federal Reserve is different. I think they're correct. Is kind of the classic adage, very like with the mob or very much with lawyers generally. I guess there's not much of a difference sometimes. Don't mess with the money. Just do not touch the money, and tariffs case is the same thing, right? Because if they were to decide the tariffs case and this case the wrong way, they could crash the economy. The Supreme Court is well aware of that.

0:19:36 Thomas: This is so weird, Matt, because I thought we're just supposed to go based on the text and letter of the law. And yeah,

0:19:43 Matt: They don't Not consider the real world. Yeah.

0:19:44 Thomas: I don't, I don't what, what, we're allowed to consider like the real world implications of what might happen for a given case. I was told we can never do that.

0:19:52 Matt: I about fellover when Brett Kavanagh used the expression real world downstream effects, I've I've never heard conservative a talk like that, yeah

0:19:57 Thomas: What? They were the Westworld robots who couldn't even see see those they just couldn't even this is nothing to me is what they would say yeah

0:20:05 Matt: Don't live in the real world obviously, but you know maybe Kavanaagh's still stinging a little bit from the Kavanaigh stop, the infamous new form of immigration stop he accidentally created. But get into this. Like so many things that we've been talking about, and I just want to stress how unusual this is, and certainly a number of the justices did too, fortunately, this is not on the merits of the firing of Lisa Cook. This is not on the merit of the removal of Lisa cook. This is talking about a stay to the preliminary injunction in which the district court below said that Lisa Cook needs to keep her job while we figure this out. And the Supreme Court is is now considering whether it's appropriate for

0:20:08 Thomas: Why are we never on the merits of anything anymore ever matt is that am I wrong is that like a trend that's happening and if so why wait

0:20:49 Matt: Yeah, it's a great question. This is the shadow docket, just to be clear, what we're talking about here. This is talking

0:20:53 Thomas: They have oral arguments for the shadow talker forgot

0:20:55 Matt: Saw that in the birthright citizenship case, and It's very unusual to have oral arguments on these. Usually they just come back with a quick decision, but so many different things have been decided.

0:20:59 Thomas: Did they have to dress really shadowy though, at least. I feel like they can't come in. It's like the midnight showing of the Supreme Court. They're going to do oral arguments. They have to come dressed to theme and all that. Feels like they should. That's true. Maybe they're dressed in bright colors then. Maybe that's the opposite for them.

0:21:14 Matt: They're black no matter what. Was a recurring theme from justices across the spectrum here on why are we doing this on an emergency application? How much of an emergency is this really? Because Trump is trying to fire Lisa Cook on the thinnest pretext. And we all know it. And the court certainly seems to know it, but they're looking not just at this, but how they should treat future things when they try to fire somebody on the Federal Reserve. And this is becoming especially relevant because since the time that he's threatened Lisa Cook's job, he's now threatening Jerome Powell with criminal charges. We'll get to those. Let's just look very quickly because we don't hear very much about the merits. And Sotomayor and the others do bring this up that we don't even have a record. She asks John Sauer at one point, obviously the Solicitor General for the government, she asks him, where in the record can I find this information about a false mortgage application? And he literally says, well, there's a screenshot of it from the social media posts. It's included in the screenshot. Look at the retweets, basically.

0:22:13 Thomas: Unbelievable.

0:22:15 Matt: Yeah, that's where we're at. And she really harps on that, the fact there's no record about any of this. And I just wanted to just talk very quickly about the merits because you're not going to hear hear about them, very much like with the birthright citizenship arguments, right? Where they just want to talk about their thing in trying to get universal injunctions killed. Here, they're trying to push the unitary executive to what I think the court is going to find is going to be its limit. Because as I said, you don't mess with the money. And we've got some serious unitary executor fans on this court who believe that the president should be able to do whatever he wants, except this one thing, because it's really bad. Before we get there, let me just tell you. Don't think we talked about it that much when it happened, but on August 15th, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, who a typical kind of Trump appointee, comes from private equity construction. He loves getting in fights with people in public. Sends a 44 -page letter referring Lisa Cook to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation. And he alleges, and of course, he posts all of this publicly.

0:23:09 Thomas: Yeah, that's normal.

0:23:09 Matt: And you're referring for criminal prosecution, he just wants everybody to know it. Is not a good case that he's trying to build against Lisa Cook, but it's what they've got because mortgage documents are fraught. It's very easy to make mistakes or oversight.

0:23:10 Thomas: Normal yeah there's a billion of them really

0:23:23 Matt: And of course. The list I've put together here, of Pulte's parents, Bill Pultee, the person who's making this referral, Labor Secretary, the Secretary of Transportation and the EPA Administrator, Paxton, Texas Attorney General, to do this exact thing where they submit mortgage documents for multiple primary residences, because obviously it's a much better deal to get a mortgage on a primary residence.

0:23:38 Thomas: How are they finding that information is it public somehow huh

0:23:49 Matt: ProPublica has done some extensive reporting on this, as always, and we'll link to that. Provide the receipts for everything I just told you for all these people, but that's a good question.

0:23:55 Thomas: But but how is anybody finding it like those public documents it I don't doubt pro publica they're fantastic but DIDN'T know that was a thing we could look up on people or

0:24:01 Matt: Well, because the homestead exemption, let homestay exemption is public in most states, including mine, if records, you have to claim a homestaid exemption. I know you do in Massachusetts. Homestead exemption, you're going to pay far less in taxes on your home than you would otherwise, and that exemption is public, public, yes.

0:24:09 Thomas: Oh, oh. So because they have to say like is but that's not even because this is a mortgage document that's is just someone putting on their mortgage application, because when you apply for a mortgage, there's a difference between when you're getting a mortgage on your primary residence and when it's like an investment property or that kind of thing. And my understanding of what this is. It's like she put on one of the forms of the million, she put primary residence when she meant investment or something, some other kind of property. And then I think it was corrected, right?

0:24:48 Matt: Right. And there's actually, as is argued here, even taking this in the light most favorable to the government, this is not a good case for the government. That Pulte was showing to the public, at least, are what are called covenants, not actual statements under oath. Just agreements. And using, in his complaint, his referral, he's using the words primary and principal when you're talking about the residences interchangeably. But she said principal, which is different from primary, right? That's very different legally.

0:25:13 Thomas: That's a good point.

0:25:14 Matt: He's going call it a fraud, that's going to require actual intent. And the justices seem pretty intent on agreeing with her in this case that this was at most negligence, at most, if that.

0:25:25 Thomas: Yeah, it's just not even close. But we're not even talking about the merits. Why are we talking about the merit? And to be clear, that I understand that everyone understands we're on like four levels of not merits right to exaggerate a little because it's not the merits of the firing but and it's also not the merits of yeah but should he even be able to fire her like like just at all it's Not even the merits of like that question it's should a court be able To stay the firing before the merits right right? Do I have that right? We even getting into this? They be talking about this. I mean, again, it's probably good they are. I just want to acknowledge they're going to do the special pleading because it's money in the economy. And so they're going to say, well, special pleating, I don't want to, and I don' t mean that in a legal sense. I mean that

0:25:38 Matt: We're not. Right, Right. Yeah.

0:26:10 Thomas: Philosophy, bad argument sense. Would be bad. So we're going to change all the rules for this. And they're looking at all details, which just, just, again, this is a shadow docket thing. We should just get a one -line thing that says no or yes, pretty much, right? Normally. But because this is a situation where they want to protect their money and investments, probably, they're out the red carpet for this thing, pretty much, two

0:26:33 Matt: They have to, and it's two hours. A very long oral argument. Yeah little too much.

0:26:37 Thomas: That's the longest shadow doocket argument I've ever heard of.

0:26:40 Matt: A long shadow. To answer your question, to show that the government gets to have a stay of the District of Columbia's order, they still have to show they have a chance of winning on merits, so they do have to make a claim on the merits.

0:26:52 Thomas: Okay. So they have to claim, claim we do we will prevail okay that makes sense I I did state that pretty strongly so good correction there to undo my misinformation there fair enough

0:26:57 Matt: This is a case. They also have to show irreparable harm to the government, and that is very hard to do here. Point, Sauer actually tries to say the irreparable harm that's going to be suffered is the reputation of the Federal Reserve if the president can't just fire people from it, and it's exactly the opposite. It. It's exactly the opposite. The reputation of our central bank will be ruined if the rest of the world knows that any sitting president can just mess with it. That's not how central banks are supposed to work. And so one of the primary questions here is, what is the Federal Reserve? Is it an executive agency? Is a quasi executive agency, is it completely independent? It was supposed to be be independent. That's what Congress made it for. Just want to note, just to sort of see the progression of cases that we're working on here before we dive into this a little further, talked about Wilcox back in April. And so WilcoX was a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and she was bringing suit along with someone from the Merit Systems Protection Board to keep her job and saying that just unilaterally fire her. Of the things that she argued correctly in that case was if you apply this logic and you believe this, that the president has unitary executive ability to just remove anybody from any of these agencies, potentially this threatens the federal reserve's independence and

0:28:07 Thomas: Shit.

0:28:08 Matt: I mean, you would think, uh, the Supreme Court in Wilcox, uh issue to stay and forced them out of their jobs and said that, you know, actually the president can fire you. But of what they have to say about the Fed in April. Contend that arguments in this case necessarily implicate the constitutionality of four -cause removal protections for members of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors or other members ofthe committee. We disagree. The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured quasi -private entity that follows the distinct historical tradition of the first and second banks of the United States. So history and tradition, once again, saving the Federal Reserve, right? The slaughter case that we looked at a couple of months ago is big one for this, is the one that's gotten the most attention because that's a member of the FTC and the logic in that one would overrule Humphrey's executor, which is the 90 -year -old case that says that the president can't just fire members of executive independent agencies and that these are sort of, they have to maintain some independence and we have to be able to trust that the president can just do that whenever he wants to. This is the next one down the chain where we're looking at what has previously been sacrosanct, the Federal Reserve. Statute here is 12 U .S .C. 242, and the same kind of good cause requirements that similar agencies do. And an active debate about what for cause means in this context. And if you listen to the oral arguments, which we should, it's actually a pretty entertaining set of oral

0:28:09 Thomas: Sorry. Oh,

0:29:20 Matt: Arguments. But

0:29:20 Thomas: I will. I intended to. And then they had to murder somebody.

0:29:23 Matt: It is a good one. Letters they keep using are I -N -M, which is inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance. There's some interesting hypotheticals that come up here. Coney Barrett at one point asks, well, what if somebody somebody committed a non -impeachable minor misdemeanor like shoplifting or domestic violence?

0:29:40 Thomas: Domestic violence. What?

0:29:41 Matt: How far does this go?

0:29:42 Thomas: That's a minor misdemeanor.

0:29:43 Matt: Well, that still could be a misd demeanor. On how it's charged.

0:29:47 Thomas: Weird example to go to. I don't know. I

0:29:49 Matt: Know. I do consider it to be a different degree from shoplifting.

0:29:51 Thomas: Would have stuck in the like traffic ticket range or something.

0:29:54 Matt: And also, can we remove somebody for pre -office conduct? And I think they generally agree that you can't, that it needs to be something done during office.

0:30:02 Thomas: I think the liberal justice is just a troll should be like, well, what if they just committed a very minor misdemeanor? Like, you know, traffic tickets are like being in the country without documentation or something just as you just keep emphasizing over and over that that's a tiny nothing. That isn't a big deal.

0:30:13 Matt: Something tiny. Yeah. Right. Not a crime. Yeah, yeah. John Sauer is arguing for the government, as he often does, and we should hear a little bit about how he's received because I'm going to play some of our favorite justices, but I will tell you that Alito is the closest to maybe... Thomas seems to be basically accepting the unitary executive could extend to this. I don't think they have any of the other justices on their side for this one. Let's hear Sotomayor breakdown, kind of just how silly this is.

0:30:39 Thomas: Right. Here we go.

0:30:41 Clip: Any of these questions, except the constitutional question, decided by the D .C. Circuit? The D .K. Circuit, in its stay opinion, relied exclusively on the sort of property interest. Noticed an opportunity to be heard. That's what it said the Constitution required, correct? It said that, yes. It said there's a property interest in this office under Loudermilk. That's the only issue it addressed. It did not address all of the things you've talked about today, what the definition of cause is, including whether it includes pre -office conduct and how much or what nexus there has to be between pre - office conduct and post office conduct one

0:31:21 Thomas: Just to clarify, I didn't, this was before she was in the position or were they talking about that as a hypothetical?

0:31:27 Matt: No, I think this is hypothetical. I believe she's been on the job for a while.

0:31:29 Thomas: Oh, okay. I but the fact that she was talking about like pre -office conduct. That I wasn't sure if like this application had been before she was even in office. That would have been noteworthy. Okay. Continuing on.

0:31:39 Clip: Could imagine that what would constitute for cause during office would be different than what would happen pre - Pre -office, even yourself below said if something was known before confirmation, you likely can't rely on it. You haven't quite said that up here. But logically, pre -offices has a different temporal connection. Then the Court didn't address whether the President's determination of cause is reviewable and under what standard. Standard. Ultra -virus seems to me to be whether or not another — and that's what all our cases have ever said about ultra -viral situations — whether another entity, another adjudicatory entity has jurisdiction or we do. And three, whether Cook has a right to notice and hearing under the statute and what that that means, and what remedy, if any, Cook can seek now or finally in the case. You ask us today in this emergency application to finally decide these issues. I want to know why, meaning the President, by your own admission, cannot fire someone for disagreeing with his policy choices you've conceded that correct all right so it's not as if keeping her is going to tort any right he has to run the department because he has none he's conceding that on policy he does not now it's as if she's been incompetent negligent or committed malfeasance while in office. This is something pre -office.

0:33:00 Thomas: Why'd you do it? Oh, it

0:33:42 Clip: So keeping her in office is not causing an immediate harm to the agency. Number three, we know that the independence of the agency is very important and that that independence is harmed if we decide these issues too quickly and with not due consideration. So waiting to me to have at least the lower courts look at these issues first makes most the most sense to the public's confidence and to the world's confidence about the due process of law. Explain to me why the President's harm is greater than the public's, greater than the Federal Reserve, who deserves to have people acting that have been in office. And number three, why we should disrupt, as we said in Wilcox, the disruptive effect of of repeated removals and reinstatement of officers. Why shouldn't we wait till the end of this case, where all the issues are clear and where we make a final decision as to whether she should have been removed or not? Let me start by addressing that last point. We are seeking a stay of an unprecedented preliminary injunction restoring a principal officer of the United States after being removed by the President of the United States. 112 years, and it's unprecedented unprecedented that any Federal Reserve officer has ever been removed. So the unprecedented nature of this case is a part of what the President did, not what Ms. Cook did. I

0:35:40 Thomas: That's a good I love that that that comes up so often with Trump it's unprecedented what the courts are doing to President Trump yeah because no one has ever tried to do a kitten genocide while in office and so the court was like we didn't think we had to do this but don't do a kitten genocide and they're like oh they're so unfair

0:35:40 Matt: So I just wanted to give you that. Yeah Yeah, it's so good. Yeah.

0:35:52 Matt: Right. Right, right, right. But I want to crash the global economy.

0:36:02 Thomas: God it's they do that every time and I love the, I love her calling BS so astutely on that.

0:36:08 Matt: Yeah, she does multiple times on this. She has little patience for this argument, for any of it. And Sauer is really not... I mean, I don't know what he can do with this argument to be honest, but he gets called out by Kavanaugh as well, not just by her, for the fact that he's he's saying that there is no review, that the court can't possibly review you. If the president says it's good cause, it's a good cause. And he says, well, if you don't like that, you can do mandamus, except he's also arguing we can't do mandamous, which is when you force the government to do something it's supposed to do, because you can't actually file mandamus against the president for anything except what they call a ministerial action, which is something the president absolutely has to do. Now, he doesn't have to fire anybody, right? So once he's fired somebody, that's a discretionary decision. So you can'T file a mandamus to restore somebody that the president has fired because he has the discretion to do that. And Sauer is essentially saying this is unreviewable discretion and the courts do not like that. They don't want to hear that. Sotomayor pointed out in that clip, the DC circuit decided this on notice because,

0:37:01 Thomas: That mean?

0:37:02 Matt: That Lisa Cook received that she was about to lose her job was a truth social post. Sauer has to come in here and say that actually was sufficient notice. And actually, there's no other requirement for anything, right?

0:37:14 Thomas: Well, they have to do some fact finding as to whether or not she follows him on truth social, but yeah,

0:37:22 Matt: Barrett actually says, well, what if you're not on Truth Social? How are you going to get noticed?

0:37:24 Thomas: I mean, yeah. Kind of joking, but not.

0:37:27 Matt: It's true. And there's an astonishing moment too, where Sauer tries to argue that the letter that Lisa Cook's lawyer sent, in which he detailed why these allegations are ridiculous, should not be considered. And Sotomayor's like, I'm sorry, excuse me, are you saying that a letter from an attorney is not noticed, but the President of the

0:37:46 Thomas: Man. Why don't we have that clip? I want to hear that. All right. I'm sure there's a lot of good ones. Yeah.

0:37:50 Matt: There's just so many clips. Brown -Jackson goes after this notice thing in the next clip.

0:37:54 Clip: History. That's how it should be balanced. But, Mr. Sauer, General Sauer—excuse me. I guess I think you may have to be a little bit bit more specific with respect to the irreparable harm that you are alleging. Because really, as Justice Barrett sort of indicated, we are in a stay posture here. So the question is, to what extent do we believe that the president or the public is harmed by allowing Ms. Cook to remain in her position for the the pendency of this case. I'm not sure that we have evidence here that Ms. Cook is an immediate threat to the public, that she's been in this position for a long time. The kinds of things that you're pointing to, as Justice Sotomayor indicates, are not related to conduct while in office. So it would seem to me that on the stay factors, you would would have to say more about the harm of leaving her there for the next however many months while this case is being litigated. We have a remedy here, which is a preliminary injunction this Court squarely held in Sawyer. There was no jurisdiction to issue. Yes, but I'm not talking about the Court's power to do it. I'm talking about assuming we have the power for the moment. I appreciate that you say we don't, but assuming that we do, the question is what is the harm of allowing that injunction to remain because she's in office now and would just continue. Among other reasons, we assert grievous irreparable injury to the public perception to the Federal Reserve of allowing her to stay in office. They argue that this is going to cause the markets to tank when it was first removed, they didn't tank. You have evidence related to the public perception or is this just the president's view? The president has made that determination. It's reflected in the language of the dismissal order, and as I discussed in my opening, it was closely — Did the President make that determination based on evidence presented to him in the context of some kind of hearing related to Ms. Cook's conduct? The Federal Reserve governor who sets interest rates for the entire country appears to have engaged in improper behavior — No, no, no. I understand — — and favorable interest rates — You're repeating — Please, I'm sorry. You're repeated

0:38:24 Thomas: Despite having done a mortgage document before she was in the... So dumb. Stupid. They're very dumb.

0:40:14 Matt: Never

0:40:14 Clip: The allegation.

0:40:14 Matt: Good?

0:40:15 Clip: What I'm asking you is the evidence that supports that that allegation. Traditionally, when an allegation is made about someone's misconduct or whatnot, there's an opportunity for that person to present evidence, for the other side to present evidence, and even if the president was the final arbiter of this, one would expect that he would do so on the basis of evidence. So what I'm trying to understand is what is the the evidence that has been presented and considered with respect to Ms. Cook's alleged misconduct? Well, the removal order addresses that because it— What is the removal ordered? The Truth Social Post?

0:40:38 Thomas: Would you expect that? Yeah.

0:40:55 Clip: No, it's the August 25th letter. I think it's Doc 1 -4 in the district court. But the removal border addresses that. The evidence is you have mortgage applications within two weeks of each other that make clearly conflicting representations. Was Ms. Cook given the opportunity in some sort of formal proceeding to contest that evidence or explain it? Not a formal proceeding. She was given the possibility in public because she was justified. In the world? Yes. Like she was supposed to post about it, and that was the opportunity to be heard that you're saying was afforded to her in this case? Yes.

0:41:25 Clip: Yes, and she's had plenty of opportunities in the ensuing months where we've had ongoing litigation where there's never been a personal statement addressing that or justifying it. General,

0:41:21 Thomas: So good. That's how our government works now.

0:41:34 Matt: Ridiculous. I mean, we're all posters now, so this isn't... Yeah.

0:41:39 Thomas: We're all yeah we're all texters now or something yeah something like that oh

0:41:43 Matt: Textualist posters. Yeah. So I just wanted to put... I mean it's a long clip, but I love it. I just the way she's just going after him. And they're all pretty much doing this. Even Alito is getting pretty much on his case about a lot of this. And the consistent in theme of what's the rush? Why are we doing this on the shadow docket? Why is he so intent on trying to remove her on next to nothing? And basically, if we allow this, what is to stop the president from actually coming out and saying publicly, I am firing this person because of policy differences, which is the one thing that Sauer keeps saying that he can't do. That's like the one line that he draws because he's saying that Congress had to put that good cause provision in so he couldn't do that. Court is very rightfully pointing out how are we supposed to stop him if he does, if you're saying we have no oversight, right? So I don't think this has as much of a chance of remaining as it is. I think this is good news. I do think that they were very persuaded both by the amicus from The Economist that Amy Coney Barrett references more than once that this will cause a recession potentially if the rest of the world thinks that our central bank is no longer dependent, but also a brief from seven former governors of the Federal Reserve who are very strictly warning us of the consequences. And this is one where they really do seem to be okay with looking at real world consequences. So we're at. I I think this is pretty promising. Again, this is low bar stuff. This Before we close this, though, I wanted to shout out Paul Clement, who I think was a brilliant choice for the other side on this. Lisa Cook hired him. He is a very well -respected sort of classic conservative lawyer. And you might remember his name because we talked about with Liz the

0:43:04 Matt: Memo he wrote in the Eric Adams prosecution in which he sort of gave the judge cover for the way that he dismissed it, which, you know, as we discussed, was kind of the best way out of a bad situation.

0:43:15 Thomas: He's that's right so the guy appointed council to argue because the government didn't want to argue for it kind of thing yeah

0:43:22 Matt: And because he's very well -respected as like a sort of a universal bipartisan voice. I shouldn't say bipartisan. He's very much a conservative, but he's just well - respected as a good lawyer, somebody who's very fair -minded and balanced in the way he approaches it. You know, he's taken plenty of positions we would disagree with, but I think it means a lot that he's coming in here in front of the Supreme Court. This is his fifth time in front the court this year on behalf of Lisa Cook and saying this was completely wrong and it's very dangerous. I think that's something that they are going to listen to. I think it was a good choice. He does a great job, and he's a much better lawyer, I think, than Sauer all around, but he's also got a way better position, so it makes it a lot easier. Lot of interesting questions raised in this one, for as stupid as the whole thing was, and it was great lesson.

0:43:59 Thomas: It's funny that like in a weird way, Sauer's is like not entirely wrong in that, like, well, this is how they do their stupid government now. Like, I mean, it is wrong, but it's just kind of it's kind of interesting because found one thing where I guess you still have to use the old rules of doing things still for some reason. And yeah.

0:44:15 Matt: Because you're messing with the money. Can't do it, right?

0:44:17 Thomas: But Not that they should let Trump do this is that I wish this would be, you know, something they could be consistent on and that they they should consider, you horrible effects on the world and maybe indeed on the on the people involved in cases when they decide other stuff, not just when there's money involved.

0:44:32 Matt: It was astonishing to hear even the justices we agree with mention the world, like what the world might think about this or how it might affect the world. We don't ever talk about that in the Supreme Court. That's just not a factor.

0:44:43 Thomas: It's a bullshit anti-trans report that was put out in another country that normally Alito would never listen to in a million years. Are the only times.

0:44:47 Matt: Then we can pull from that. Yeah, course. Of a funny hypothetical just before we close here where Clement mentions in passing that, somebody on the Federal Reserve came out and said, I love Adolf Hitler and I'm a white nationalist, well, of coarse, that'd be grounds for impeachment. And of course they'd have to resign immediately. And it's like, are we living in the same world now? I don't know. It's a very conservative traditional thing to say.

0:45:10 Thomas: They if they just imply it a little, it's fine, though.

0:45:12 Matt: Right. Yeah. I'm not even sure that would be grounds for impeachment anymore, the

0:45:15 Thomas: No. Well, nothing would ever make him. I mean, we'll see. We'll see, all

0:45:18 Matt: Because basically to say that impeachment is the only thing that could possibly work, and the court is essentially telling him that's never going to work again. They understand the consequences here.

0:45:28 Thomas: Right. Right. Well, yeah, that's really interesting. I guess they're going to do, quote unquote, the right thing in this. But it's in special rules, special rules. They're doing a two hour oral argument on a shadow docket case. But when, you know, when the state's going to put someone to death with, you that, might you cause horrible pain and not be tested and all that. Eh, whatever, you You know, just different execution cases are often just shadow docket denials, right?

0:45:55 Matt: A five -minute review for Clarence Thomas. Yeah,

0:45:58 Thomas: Or death, eh. But when it's like, ah, there might be some money involved, okay, we'll roll out the red carpet.

0:46:03 Matt: There's also, I want to point out a pattern here, and I think that this is something thing that's worth watching is people who follow the Supreme Court very closely, as I know that our listeners do. There's been this kind of general thing in the Zeitgeist, which I completely understand that the Supreme court is just going to do whatever Trump wants. But I think for the most part they are, but I think they also want to take little stands where they can. And they want to have these little moments where theycan say, well, we're going to eliminate Humphrey's executor, which means the president can be the unitary executive and do whatever he wants. But hey, it turns out federal reserve is not part of the executive branch. So go for it, right? We're going draw a line there.

0:46:31 Matt: And it's going to be the same thing with birthright citizenship. I'm sure of this. I think pretty much everybody else who watches the court is sure of that when they finally get to the merits of birthright citizenship, they're going to say this is too far. We'll let you do anything else you want to do with immigration, but you can't remove this one thing.

0:46:44 Thomas: To even talk about that as part of executive power. It's like that's just in the Constitution. You can't do that.

0:46:50 Matt: They shouldn't get any credit for that. I know. Right? But you know, here we are like looking for scraps.

0:46:54 Thomas: Once again, you stopped kitten genocide. Great. Good for you.

0:46:59 Matt: Kittens can live. Thanks. That's a plus. You know, it really is that kind of thing, though, where this is very much part of autocracy and part of the slide. And again, I do think it's good news. Obviously, we don't want the Fed to be messed with by the executive. But at the same time, this is not something they should get high praise for. And I think it is still a way to make themselves look reasonable. And they're going to send this back and they can pat themselves on the back. They didn't let the president go too far on this one, but they're gonna let them eliminate every other federal position, right?

0:47:26 Thomas: All right. Well, we've got to get on to a fun footnote. I guess the final thing I want to say on this is I am curious to keep an eye on as the years progress and we get closer and closer to possibly not Trump being the president. How many of these cases keep going? How many of them come up where where they're granting the president insane powers that he never before had? I'm just curious if there will get a suspicious slowdown in those you know grants of cert or whatever you know toward toward 2028 I'm juste curious we'll see and

0:47:58 Matt: Kavanaugh actually warns about that in this argument. He says, you know, look, this is all going to be used by the other side too. You have to realize if you set this precedent, this has going to be a tool that ends up on both sides. And we're just going to have the entire president, executive branch gone every time a new president comes in.

0:48:10 Thomas: Then Alito's like hold on everybody hey man we're just gonna not let them do this we don't we're not gonna let them do that don't worry so I got I'll straighten them out it's fine

0:48:18 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, he's clearly isn't on the with the whole program. It's also, once again, Kavanaugh being like a little bit of self -awareness, because they know, he knows we're about to eliminate Humphrey's executor and that you you are clearing the way for the president to have massive more control over these agencies than he's ever had before. But I don't know. It's interesting. It

0:48:36 Thomas: Right we'll take our final break and then I get to a fun footnote a footnote involving kind of feet in skates I don't know I saw something like that what do you got for us

0:48:48 Matt: So not something I usually follow, but Olympic figure skating. Since we've got the Winter Olympics coming up, we've got a figure skating lawsuit. This one's really interesting because involves music rights, which is something I know we both enjoy. Given you a video here, the offending routine that is going to be the subject of this litigation. Now, this is a cover of House of the Rising Sun, which people might associate with Eric Burden and the Animals, of course, did the classic cover of it. It is a traditional song. It wasn't actually written by anybody officially.

0:49:13 Thomas: One those old like blues songs or something yeah how they're those songs that just somehow weren't written by anybody like they're that old it's like uh yeah girl from the north country kind of thing like how uh bob dylan and you know simon garfunkel both have the same song because is like a traditional folk song kind of thing.

0:49:28 Matt: And there was of course that whole movement of just picking up those kinds of songs, which conveniently you usually. That might have been the mistake that was made here, I'm not really sure. But House of the Rising Sun itself actually goes back to 7th century Britain, so old one.

0:49:42 Thomas: What the hell did it mean back then? I had no idea.

0:49:44 Matt: It's about a house of ill repute, which is why it's extra funny to see two -figure skaters all dressed up the way they are, dancing in this very precise routine about degenerate gamblers and in this is going to be a little tinny, but I wanted you to hear it.

0:49:55 Thomas: Wow, that's right.

0:49:59 Matt: This by a group that is suing these figure skaters for the use of this. Very dramatic.

0:50:35 Thomas: Mean, I don't hate that. That's kind of cool. That's another interesting music law question, which, I knows the answer, but it's interesting to do a cover of a cover kind of, because like if you're copying, I mean, I guess that's fair game, right? But if you are totally copying everything that the previous cover did, it's kind of interesting to think about. Out like it is sort of copying that exact whole thing what sure yeah that

0:50:57 Matt: Think anybody who grew up in the 20th century associated with the animals certainly, but it is the the heavy, young heithens who apparently just make music that is used for different things. They list all of these different TV shows and other things that have used their music.

0:51:10 Thomas: Not like an actual like group that like does music from you know touring and stuff they just make stuff for other stuff huh

0:51:15 Matt: It seems to be these Madrosian brothers, and the name of the company is 1260 LLC, and they do custom recordings and productions of original musical compositions for use in television, motion pictures, film trailers, etc. It's a very niche thing they've got going here. They're not recording for general consumption. Is a really interesting thing because I don't follow figure skating that much. My mom always used to like it. Is from the 2022 Beijing Olympics. This routine got a silver and then the Russians were disqualified for some kind of doping, I think.

0:51:46 Thomas: Were they even they were allowed to compete I thought we already got rid of the russians out of the olympics by then but

0:51:51 Matt: Not in 2022. up taking gold. On this routine. So, know, certainly the plaintiffs have a point that they did very well using their music, but you're

0:51:59 Thomas: What point is that? Is that? You used our song and got a gold. We deserve half that medal. I don' t even know what that point would be. All use songs. Is it that they didn' t pay them enough or something?

0:52:10 Matt: Is what's really interesting is that I had figured that, you Know, obviously figure skating, ice dancing, this stuff is always set to music, the gymnastics routines, right?

0:52:17 Thomas: Always.

0:52:18 Matt: But they did not allow, the whole world of competitive figure skating didn't allow music with words until 2014, so this is a pretty recent problem. Most of the time they're using classical music or some kind of custom thing that they have done for them. The plaintiffs are saying they were never contacted for any licensing, which seems like an incredible oversight.

0:52:37 Thomas: Yeah, you' re going to be at the Olympics? Come on. It' s one thing if it' s like a local snuff at your kid or something. The Olympics though that's gonna be on tv yeah yeah no kidding yeah

0:52:47 Matt: You're TV. Get rights covered. Response, the defendants basically say that they don't have any specific knowledge of any of this. It's all going to develop right now. We're in the early stages. Wanted to bring this suit up because I just learned about it. It was from a few year ago. And they'd actually settled for an undisclosed amount, which was suggested to have been in the millions, according to the coverage I saw.

0:53:05 Thomas: Wow where where the skaters getting that kind of money holy crap huh

0:53:08 Matt: Figure skating skating pays. I really wouldn't have thought of that. Kind of kicked off a whole thing in the world of international figure skating because people realized they need to be more careful. They were claiming that they really didn't know that this was going to be an issue.

0:53:20 Thomas: They didn't think they had to get rights at all because that that was my comment before I assumed they had the right size I was like what would they even be arguing now like we didn't know it was going to do that well but no if you didn't even get the rights come on what are you doing crazy I

0:53:34 Matt: Would think you would know that or that you would have... Maybe figure skaters don't regularly work with lawyers, but I would think that you'd

0:53:39 Thomas: Even you you make the lyrics point but like that doesn't really I mean plenty of music that doesn'T have lyrics doesn'T like still has rights I mean even performances of classical music they still have the right to the performance like the musicians still own the performance you know because there'S there'S publishing rights and there'S what you know the other kind of rights right so it'S like it'S interesting that they I'M just I'M my my guests are flabbered that they didn'T have any knowledge of this or somebody wouldn't have pointed it out somewhere along the process or the tv stations wouldn't even be like hey so yeah I don't know that you normally something they check you know a little bit like because if there's like a reality tv show and somebody starts playing a beatles album they can't they can't do that you

0:53:53 Matt: Yeah, Yeah, potentially. But you can... Sure. Right.

0:54:22 Matt: I mean, obviously, they're broadcasting days and days of Winter Olympics. They can't screen every single song. But there are different performance rights for classical music. I know that. And certainly, almost all classical music is in the public domain, at least anything that anybody's heard.

0:54:36 Thomas: But but you can't just use like okay this is uh who's the guy who played the beethoven variations uh uh you can just just like well I'm gonna use elliot gould's performance of I feel like he still has a right I mean he's dead but like he's he still would have a right to that performance of it right

0:54:52 Matt: Yeah., of just the nature of it being a modern composition and some very litigious people. And I get their point. I mean, this was a winning routine. It probably did get them a lot of fame and fortune.

0:55:00 Thomas: I'm I'm fully on their side I'm saying I'm just I'm juste amazed that that the performers didn't consider this weird huh what was the reason so it was a settlement you're saying

0:55:07 Matt: I agree. Amount. Yeah, but this is just something I want to talk about before. So when you're watching now the figure skating and ice dancing and such, you can think about how much work they probably had to go to make sure they they can get those songs.

0:55:17 Thomas: Well some musicians got the you money they were deserved yeah awesome well that's fun uh I'm gonna be watching the hill out of the olympic ice hockey uh the only problem is I can't root for our stupid fascist country especially because there's a few I think there's few trumpers that play for our ice hockey team um sucks because I you know sure would love to be able to root for my own country but no I guess I'm team canada you know plus they got uh they got my boy macklin salabrini anyway so I guess I'm just a Canadian now, everybody. I'll be rooting for them.

0:55:22 Matt: Get their bag. Sure. Aren't we all?

0:55:50 Thomas: Can't wait. That's in like a couple of weeks. Ah, it's going to rule. Right. Well, thanks, Matt, for the breakdown. Fun footnote. And, dark as it was last Saturday and all week, does feel like a little bit of progress was made and keep up the fight, everybody, the pressure. It looks like it's accomplished at the very least. It's inarguable the pressure is accomplishing something. It is working to some degree. Great keep at it well done good job everybody yeah

0:56:10 Matt: It is. Minneapolis is a model for how this should be done everywhere. It is absolutely incredible. I am just so impressed and I can't wait to get over there and talk to people.

0:56:20 Thomas: Yeah you're gonna be there

0:56:21 Matt: I'll be there. I'll let you know.

0:56:22 Thomas: Here from some people maybe and at least at the very least we'll hear Matt's report about it so that'll be I think probably the next episode all right we'll see everyone then thanks for listening

0:56:29 Matt: I'm ready.

0:56:35 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon.com/law. Contact us through Patreon or openarguments@gmail.com. Make sure to follow our blue sky at OpenArgs. But most of all, please share the show. Thanks for listening.

0:57:08 Thomas: Like hold on everybody hey man we're just gonna not let them do this we don't we're not gonna let them do that don't worry so I got I'll straighten them out it's fine

0:57:15 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, he's clearly isn't on the with the whole program.

0:57:18 Thomas: Yeah again, you stopped kitten genocide. Great. Good for you.