SPLC Indicted for Being the SPLC; 10 Commandments in Classrooms; Trump's Stupid Ballroom

Transcript

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

0:00:00 Clip: Thank you.

0:00:04 Matt: They have this contract for donors where they say, basically, donating to improve the President's House in a project that means a lot to the President personally. I most of the indictment is about the fact that they were paying these informants, with the cooperation and assistance and partnership of the FBI, And the FBI FBI turns around and and prosecutes them. Them.

0:00:32 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1255. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is real-life attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing?

0:00:38 Matt: I'm doing all right. Climate control is once again whacked out, but it's springtime in Boston. Feeling good. Ready for another round of Friday news.

0:00:46 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, lots of news. Boy, too much to cover.

0:00:49 Matt: Yeah, always.

0:00:49 Thomas: Yeah, what are we going to be talking about today?

0:00:51 Matt: Oh, we got a good one. I mean, it's not great, but we've got the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which I'm going to argue is actually one of the worst things. It's really hard to rank these days, but one of worst things that DOJ has has done in this administration. It gets so bad. It's

0:01:04 Thomas: I saw that just came in like last night as of recording. I was like, oh, great. You a thought of like well you never know if the doj is still doing real work like who knows if somebody embezzled or something I didn't really look through it but uh you know wouldn't be surprised if it was complete bullshit I guess that's why I listened to opening arguments ah

0:01:23 Matt: They just don't want the group that identifies hate groups to exist for some reason. So out why and what's going on with that. This case yet, but we've got the White House ballroom has had quite a lot of twists and turns, a lot developments there. So got to talk about that. That is quite a story. Dug into the legal basis for it and what what's going on there, as well as the corruption, of course, behind the funding and construction. Inevitably, there's going to be corruption behind that. You already knew that. I

0:01:26 Thomas: That makes sense ah yeah yeah more than the background amount or like actual specific specific corruption to that okay oh

0:01:49 Matt: Yeah, more than the usual. Yeah. And got a big decision out of the Fifth Circuit on requiring Ten Commandments in the classroom. It's bad, but So this is a big First Amendment case for for kind of seeing the state of the law after the Kennedy praying coach case, kind of leapfrogging from that, and playing out some of the pet theories that the MAGA right has been working on for a while. So I'll kick you through those and what to expect in front of the Supreme Court when this gets up there and what they're setting up. And on today's footnote, just to have a lot more fun, we've got the most bare example of fraud I have ever seen. This is absolutely bear fraud in that I mean it was committed by a bear.

0:01:59 Thomas: Saw that yeah do oh can't wait for that yeah we're gonna need some fun so it's basically a how effed is this thing episode how eff'd is the uh splc indictment the white house ballroom and this uh prayer this ten commandments case yeah I saw they're like yep definitely you can let ten commandments be in the classroom or it's like it's not even let it's like you have to right oh boy all right well we'll get into it a lot to take on we better get right to it so we'll take that first ad break which of course you can skip at patreon.com/law support the show skip the ads and we are recording law level movies in a couple days I cannot wait oh it's gonna be so fun haven't

0:02:40 Matt: Yeah, require them. Yeah, it's mandated. Yeah bad. Don't know what you're in for. It's the

0:03:11 Thomas: Watched it yet matt has watched it he's excited we'll we'll get to it. I can't wait.

0:03:14 Matt: Perfect sweet spot for a lot of movies. It is awful, but it has so much bad law in it. Don't how this was on for six or seven seasons or something. It was incredible. Incredible. I really don't. I don't want to ever watch more of it.

0:03:23 Thomas: That's because all our brains are melted and just America sucks. I don't know.

0:03:29 Matt: I think so. We deserve a better legal entertainment, I'll tell you that, especially legal dramas.

0:03:34 Thomas: It's simply the death of culture and art and intellect. Matt, that's why. All right. We'll take a break and then we'll get to It.

0:03:46 Thomas: Okay. So what did the SPLC do? What kind of, what kind of crimes are they up to?

0:03:51 Matt: Mostly it designated a whole bunch of groups that Mongo likes as hate groups. Let's start there. Now, of course, for those not familiar, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been around since 1971, famously co -founded by Morris Dees, who we'll talk about in a second. But has been investigating, You know, his big work is known, well, just about.

0:04:05 Thomas: Morris D's nuts. No, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

0:04:10 Matt: It turns out he might have actually said something to that effect at some point.

0:04:12 Thomas: That's great.

0:04:13 Matt: Yeah, we'll get to it. The SPLC is sort of classic in its classic iteration. People think of the big fight against the Klan, most famously in Donald v. United Clans of America in 87, bankrupted the Kran and then ended up turning over the deed to their offices to one of their victims' mothers, which which was one of the perfect outcomes of all time. Also working on prison reform in Alabama, ending federal funding for forced sterilizations, across the board in a lot of things that we care about, and and especially, as the name would suggest, in places where people might not have the resources to otherwise bring lawsuits or challenge bad policy.

0:04:28 Thomas: That's awesome. And since recent, well, I say recent, and by now it's probably been like eight years or something, they did make a few missteps here and there designating, it was like Majinawa, is this like something? It just seemed like they lost a lot. I don't know. It was like arguable, but then they lost a lawsuit to him, I think, or at least had a settlement that was not great. So, you know, maybe some missteps here and there, but all in all, I mean, still feel like they were doing good work.

0:05:09 Matt: Perfect. And story that I'm going to link to that kind of runs down how they're not perfect from the perspective of somebody who worked there. Would totally understand if somebody hearing this story wants to donate to them because they've done a lot of good work. There is an argument to be made they've got a little too much money and they've been going a little bit too far.

0:05:23 Thomas: It's organizations. It happens all the time. You know, that doesn't mean the cause is wrong or everything they've ever done is wrong, which

0:05:29 Matt: It doesn't mean the MAGA criticism is right, which is that they have gone over their skis and designating things like the Federation for American Immigration Reform or Center for Immigration Studies or the Alliance Defending Freedom, all of which have taken pretty extreme positions. The Alliance Defending freedom wants to criminalize queerness essentially and any support for trans medicine. Is allied with white nationals directly without really CIS too at this point. That's fair game, but you can see when you're looking down the list how there's a big difference between these openly, violently racist things and the more cloaked policy institutes that are basically taking the same position. That's one thing they've been mad about for a long time. Stephen Miller has been known for a very long time to personally dislike SPLC and want them out.

0:06:08 Thomas: Is so weird because I feel like he would be the kind of guy that would be like, oh, man, I'm trying to get to the top of their list. You know what? What part of what they say does he think is wrong? Wrong you know like like you're you're a hateful person he'd be like yes I hate a bunch like I don't I don't even get it like why weird okay oh

0:06:22 Matt: Well, their perspective is that they've moved on. This is kind of a standard line that they have lost their way. Of course, maybe they don't really mean great, but it was great when they're prosecuting the Klan. Now they're going after policy institutes and protected speech, even though their policies they're advocating are potentially against human rights and the people funding and supporting them are white nationalists, which I think is something people should know about. Really had this target on their backs for a while. And this indictment is pretty lazy. Got to say it's very bad, just as an indictment. This is an indictment against the SPLC as a nonprofit. There are no people named in this. Apparently, nobody did anything. It's just the SPLC itself that did all these things. Of the things that the SPOC was doing until 2023, with, I will stress several times in this conversation, with the aid and assistance of the FBI, working closely with the FBI in some cases, is they were paying informants inside inside things like Unite the Right. They had people in there.

0:07:00 Thomas: It's interesting wow

0:07:18 Matt: Knew who was going and they had somebody, they had a man on the ground. Have informants inside the KKK and other hate groups. And going to guess, I've never donated to them, but I would assume that anyone who's donating to the SPLC would be fine with them paying informants to get them information so they can designate hate groups and find out about them. That's a pretty normal thing you'd expect.

0:07:18 Thomas: Yeah

0:07:38 Matt: Outside of its mission or purview. And you I could pay an informant for opening arguments from the KKK if we wanted to. I mean, somebody would report back and give us news.

0:07:32 Thomas: Right yeah no it's okay we can just turn on the white house press briefings yeah

0:07:51 Matt: I can watch them say it. Some ethical questions about giving money to people in the KKK, but there are people who want to be informants. So the FBI does this all the time. And the what makes this extra bad, is that the FBI was working with SPLC until October 2025 when Kash Patel cut off ties and finally determined that they were not a group the FBI should be working with. And at that point, given the timing of this indictment, they have to have been investigating or trying to find some way to indict them. So imagine just how weird this is that most of the indictment is about the fact that they were paying these informants, again, with the cooperation and assistance and partnership of the FBI, And the FBI turns around and prosecutes them. Not even entrapment because the FBI wasn't even trying to get them to commit a crime. They were just doing crime investigations with them. Way that they have gone about this is that they're saying that because they had to set up shell companies to pay these people that was defrauding donors because they didn't report to the shell companies. Remember the thing with Michael Cohen when he set up the thing to pay off Stormy Daniels and

0:08:46 Matt: How that was a sort of allegation that that was the know -your -customer thing where you have to tell the bank what you're doing with it? They had to lie to get that. Don't know exactly because it doesn't say here. It doesn't see exactly what they said they were doing with these organizations, but I'm assuming that they had pretty broad statements of whatever they were going. I thought it was kind of funny that one of them was called the Center Investigative Agency or CIA. CIA. Don't know why they did that, but the Rare Books Warehouse, the Tech Writers Group, Northwest Technologies, just kind of vague names for these different kinds of groups that were paying off these different informants. Allegations about wire fraud, there's allegations about money laundering, but it really comes down to saying that this organization did not tell its donors that some of their money might go to people who were actively in the KKK, which would be surprising if you didn't have the context. And of course, the dumbass baby -brained headline that's been coming out of this for MAGA is, you know, it turns out this anti -hate group was paying off hate groups and sustaining them,

0:09:43 Matt: Like funding the Joker or whatever, right? But that's not what's happening here. I mean, it came out to like $3 million total over the entire lifetime of the SPLC.

0:09:43 Thomas: Yeah. I'm sure that's right. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

0:09:53 Matt: Are going to individuals. It's a lot of money, but it doesn't

0:09:55 Thomas: Over the entire lifetime that's not really much depends on how many years you're talking about I guess but

0:10:00 Matt: I'm sorry, that's from 2014 to 2023. So that's 11 years.

0:10:03 Thomas: That's I mean still really not much.

0:10:05 Matt: Good amount of money, but it's not much. And given the way they're throwing it around, you're not propping up any one given hate group by doing this. And you're getting a good investment out of it, and they got a lot of information out of it. This idea that they had some sort of affirmative obligation to blow their cover and let donors know that they were doing this or to to tell banks that they were setting up shell companies, which people set up shell companies for all kinds of things all the time, including paying off the porn star they had sex with weeks the election. That's a perfectly normal thing to do now, apparently. I'm not comparing those things because I think this is actually more justifiable and makes more sense. This indictment is pretty thin. There's not a lot to it. I don't really understand it. A lot of people are pretty baffled by it as a matter of law. And I think the entire purpose of it is to harass the SPLC, to force them to spend time and resources litigating. Seems to me that some of this stuff has to be barred by the statute of limitations because they alleging conspiracy, but this is 2014 to 2023. did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with persons known and unknown to the grand jury, but nobody's named. There's not a single person

0:11:03 Matt: Who's actually named in here. And Blanch suggested in his hilarious press conference that more might be coming, but he was very cagey about it. We can play a quick clip here where he explains the fraud. Maybe we can understand a little better from him. Might make more sense. Probably not.

0:11:16 Clip: It's suspicious in the back. Thank you, Mr. Acting Attorney General. Can you explain again what the fraud is here exactly? Are you saying it's illegal for the SPLC to pay money to people that are in hate groups or something about the way this was done makes it illegal? Because it's not automatically illegal, is it? No, that's right. This is a good question. So again, I summarize the indictment and it's It's now public for everybody to read, but the Southern Poverty Law Center is a 501c3. They're required to, under the laws associated with a nonprofit, to have certain transparency and honesty in what they're telling donors they're going to spend money on and what their mission statement is and what they are raising money doing. As the indictment points out, there's

0:12:00 Thomas: God

0:12:01 Clip: Different ways that they raise money and no fundraising efforts that the investigation found did they say, oh, and by the way, we're going going to give a million bucks to the Ku Klux Klan. So that's fraud. So that wire fraud. And then the bank fraud part of it is you have KYC.

0:12:17 Matt: It's not. It's just not.

0:12:19 Clip: You have an obligation to tell your financial institution what the corporation or the entity that you're opening an account for does. And the allegations in the indictment are that these were fictitious companies that were set up. And so there was certain information sworn to by SPLC executives about what the entities were doing that that we allege is false on

0:12:41 Matt: All makes sense, right? We're caught up here.

0:12:42 Thomas: I want them to apply this standard to so many more non-profits that are in the conservative uh realm

0:12:49 Matt: I mean, yes, right? I mean the idea that you have to list out everything you might ever do as a nonprofit or that the donors would somehow be appalled to learn that they're doing investigations by doing the same thing the FBI does, by paying informants and working with the FBI to help take down hate groups, it's exactly what you're donating for. Know enough about money laundering and wire fraud to know exactly how strong these charges are. I have have to imagine they're pretty weak given the basis of what they're saying here, given the way that he justified this.

0:13:14 Thomas: I would say even if they could be technically true in some sense wouldn't you having a pretty good defense of selective prosecution if it's like well this is never ever enforced I mean we just looked at a bunch of 501c3s for the stupid uh child trafficking moral panic where a bunch did they set up a bunch to go I don't know fly a helicopter into the place where the children are being kept and do nothing all that kind of stuff and there's just no requirements I mean it's just like they'll just write like we're teaching people about child exploitation and then it's like millions of dollars nobody cares there's think these laws should be a lot more firm I still don't think this would violate it obviously but even if they could find a way that it technically did in some way I would say it is interesting about the shell companies I mean maybe I I don't know like if I get by the letter of the law maybe they could fine something if you are supposed to tell somebody I don't know I'd be a little worried there just in case there's you know I know they made a bunch of pretty strict laws about that kind of thing with 9 -11 and the other money laundering stuff like terrorism and all that later on like who knows but I would really hope that selective prosecution or just you would would uh would govern on that kind thing

0:13:51 Matt: Maybe. Especially because this is also a journalism so I think you can justify a lot more in the name of First Amendment protected journalism. I don't I haven't seen anybody mention that but like what they do is journalism. They have done a lot of it, a lot if it exposes an investigative work and the reports they publish are journalism. So I just think that if you need to set up a couple of fake companies to investigate something, like I feel like Channel 5 does it all the time or whatever, right? I mean, CNN, like it has to be a thing for doing exposés. Or what about Project Veritas? I'm just lying to people constantly.

0:14:55 Thomas: Was I was just thinking that I and then also whatever that asshole's new company is because he got kicked out of project okay

0:14:57 Matt: Their whole job. Yeah. Yeah, right, right. Was kicked out of Southern Poverty Law Center in 2019 for good reason. The story's not complete without mentioning that But unfortunately, he had a long history of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior. And the SPLC, until very recently, was extremely racist, not in its hiring, like demonstrably racist, like really not a good look. A lot of white people.

0:15:21 Matt: They now have a black leader. It seems like they've kind of cleaned house.

0:15:24 Thomas: Seems so counterintuitive.

0:15:28 Matt: It's really unfortunate. And they have this sort of like, they call it the poverty palace, like this huge building.

0:15:32 Thomas: Poverty palace.

0:15:33 Matt: I've always thought I've seen pictures of it. It's like this big, huge building, huge mirrored building. I actually looked into working there a long time ago. Alabama.

0:15:38 Thomas: Weren't wide enough.

0:15:39 Matt: Yeah, that too. It seems like they have cleaned house and they're doing better. And I wouldn't at all have a problem with somebody donating from what I understand what they do now. And certainly could use the legal defense.

0:15:48 Thomas: Yeah, I wouldn't be at the top of my list. I mean, it's like they, many nonprofits, we have this issue, you know people, the kind of people who are, do shady stuff often are drawn to these kinds of things. And, you know, it's like there's a lot of fraud. It doesn't mean the whole cause is wrong. It doesn'T mean that, you Know, but but yeah, they wouldn'T be at the top of my donation list.

0:16:06 Matt: A lot of good work, but there are other works doing this. Lots of independent journalists doing this kind of thing too, especially now exposing hate groups and what's going on with far -right extremism. But that's exactly why they're being targeted. And this I hope it doesn't get any further. Sure there's gonna be more to follow. I mean, it just seems like reading this that they are gonna have to charge some other people for this to make any sense since there's nobody named.

0:16:28 Thomas: Mean, corporations are people, my friend, but you can'T I don'T think you can put a corporation in jail. But it would be like, yeah, how does this normally work, actually, in terms of an actual criminal thing? I mean, I know you could like, the government can fine companies and do all that kind of thing. But if you're, if it's criminal charges, you can't, can you charge a company without

0:16:29 Matt: That's right, that's Yeah, the officers can be held criminally liable, I think, in there are actually sentencing guidelines for corporations. Do note that corporations cannot be jailed. That's very helpful. Thank you.

0:16:50 Thomas: But isn't it? Don't you have to have like, to your point, you haveと say they did something, right?

0:16:59 Thomas: Sure. Would be funny though, if they required them to hire like one guy that goes to jail. It's like, you Have to have a designated corporate jail sitter.

0:17:06 Matt: You're a whipping boy. Or the corporation has to pee in a cup once a week. You know. Yeah, that's

0:17:14 Thomas: All of you, everybody. It's a big let's get a big cup.

0:17:19 Matt: Corporations can be placed on probation, so maybe they can impose that. I don't know. But they certainly can be ordered to pay restitution. But I think that what Todd Blanch and the DOJ are going for here is the corporate death penalty. I think they want to take this thing down.

0:17:30 Thomas: Granted, all that, I guess. My point is, I still think you would need individuals who did like when they did the Trump corporate death penalty for the Trump org. There was a whole bunch of stuff about what the people did. You know, is that one guy kind of took the fall by my memory for a lot of that. It just seems like you need some level of an individual did something within the company I think yeah

0:17:50 Matt: Right? I agree. It would have to be. And Blanche is pretty cagey in this press conference. It really sounds like more is probably coming. I did want to note too that the six counts of wire fraud, it's a little unusual because they are talking about this paid network of informants and that there's 3 million approximately paid out. Then the wire fraud is only about $13 ,905. And just from one set transactions on April 25th, 2023 to six informants. I don't know why they're specifically going for those.

0:18:09 Thomas: Maybe because of the um statute of limitations thing those the only ones that so they use they use the amount of like the full range but then they only are charging a certain amount huh

0:18:19 Matt: Probably. Must think they can really get those. But with conspiracy, they could reach back in the statute of limitations. So that's what they're trying to do here. They do have a conspiracy to commit money laundering. Sentencing gets a lot more complicated with conspiracy because you can have an ongoing conspiracy. Typically, though, it is the five -year statute of limitation after the last overt act in the conspiracy. So maybe that is why they picked these particular transactions. Think there's a lot more that's going to be coming out here. It's one to watch. Just think it's a really bad sign. DOJ has nothing but bad signs right now. But fact that this is kind of the first nonprofit that they really don't like that they're going after criminally, would argue that in its way, this is actually worse than the Jerome Powell or James Comey indictments, which are personal private enemies of the president, basically. That's really bad. Seems like more of a policy and ideological, straight -up prosecution.

0:18:30 Thomas: How does that work are would you think there'd be more to come yeah

0:19:14 Matt: The way Blanche was talking, but also the fact that they

0:19:15 Thomas: But he's full of shit was more to come on the what's a face one where he gave the indicted the guy after he came back into the country was that one yeah

0:19:18 Matt: Sure. I I'll bring it up again. Well, that was different. Already had those charges. Just saying that there seems like there'd be more to come here because they're only indicting the nonprofit and the thing where they have employee one all the way through here and other things like that. It just seems like think, though, that if they really wanted to go after people, they would have also put that in front of the grand jury. And maybe they did, for all we know. Maybe the grand juror declined to go efter any of these people.

0:19:42 Thomas: I guess my point is if this were a legitimate thing and under a real DOJ they usually dot their eyes and cross their T's before doing a press conference right it wouldn't be be like, watch this space.

0:19:56 Matt: Yeah. I They mean, maybe after this indictment, they'll be able to get more stuff out of more subpoenas and more investigation.

0:20:02 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. The more informants coming out of the SPLC, the criminal conspiracy. Well, all right. We'll keep an eye on it.

0:20:08 Matt: Yeah. On to the next thing.

0:20:10 Thomas: Let's take a quick break and then we will talk about the White House ballroom and stuff. Is Trump never going to get to dance in this ballroom?

0:20:23 Matt: You know, this president, he has balls, or at least he wants to have balls, like one of the 46 presidents before him. Ballroom, as you know, is not a feature that is currently in the White House. They it, and they complain about this a lot in the course of this litigation. They have kind any kind of ball or gala in a tent outside, and они действительно не любят в кухне.

0:20:40 Thomas: Won't someone think of the children of the tent?

0:20:42 Matt: That's right.

0:20:43 Thomas: I don't know. No. Yeah.

0:20:43 Matt: Whining in these filings is very funny. And full credit to the lawyers for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. There's some choice stuff in these filings. Mean, they have fish in a barrel here. I mean, this is such a stupid case. As people remember, and we watched this on Vapid Response at some point, they just spontaneously tore down the entire east wing of the White House in December. Very sad. A week later, the National Trust for Historical Preservation brought suit as soon as they could. And of course the damage had been done by that point, but they wanted an injunction to keep anything else from being built because under 40 U.S.C. 8106, a building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the federal government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress. You wouldn't think there's a lot of room in there for, I mean, that's, this is a public park, everything that, you know, where the president lives, it's federal land, public grounds, and he has to have express authority. Now in their their filings, the federal government has tried to say, and this is the National Park Service, they've also done some fun hiding the ball and trying to claim that it's not actually the National Park Service. It's actually the Office of Executive Residence, which is not an agency. So they're saying, you can't get us because we're not an urgency. The president's not an agency. This office isn't an agency, so I guess we can do whatever we want. Also trying to argue that other presidents have done stuff to the White House, which is true, but nobody's actually built a completely new building without congressional authorization.

0:22:01 Thomas: Think I'd remember if other presidents demolished an entire wing of the White House in this way.

0:22:05 Matt: And tried to build it, yeah. And the last major renovation was under Truman, and that was all congressionally funded and authorized. And as the plaintiffs point out, for the most part, something like the Portico, that was a pretty big addition, but that was still an addition to the house that existed. Andthe rest of it was pretty much interior. And thestatute they're falling back on is incredible. It really tells you a lot about how bad this case is. The statute they're following back on is 54 three USC one Oh five D they're actually arguing that to this. Is incredible. There are authorized to be appropriate each fiscal year to the president. Such sums as may be necessary for the care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing, improvement, air conditioning, heating, and lighting, including electric power and fixtures of the executive residents of the white house.

0:22:52 Matt: So you can install a new HVAC, have fun, go ahead, go wild. But

0:22:54 Thomas: We're building a whole new thing that has those things.

0:22:59 Matt: Does include them. This is ridiculous, obviously. And so the first TRO that they came in trying to get for the plaintiffs was deemed too speculative. They tried to get a restraining order because the plans hadn't even been finalized, construction hadn't begun. Government was saying it probably wasn't going to begin until about now, which it seems to be where things are going. They came back and they got one in back in this case are just a lot of fun because this is one of these things where the plaintiffs just have everything. There's not a lot argument against this. There are a lot these cases, obviously in the Trump era. A really funny moment at one point when they're like, we love these affidavits the defendants have submitted in support of this idea that they can build this thing. It reminds us of another statute they're violating, USC 100101 B2. I didn't even know they went that long. The NPS obligation to protect historic objects. They're like yeah, it turns out you're violating that one too. National Park Service should be protecting this thing." Sure you've seen the plans for the ballroom. It's absolutely massive. So the complication begins with this bunker that is under the ballroom. Now, again, remember, they've raised the east wing, but this bunker is now there. A big distinction between the stuff below ground, which is completely protected by national security. We can't even see the blueprints or know what's under it. And the stuff above where they want to build the ballroom. And is actually trying to argue that the ball room itself is a national security matter, which is really something. And he's trying to say because it has all these national security,

0:23:39 Thomas: What

0:24:23 Matt: Yeah, that's right, very secure balls he's got, that it has bulletproof glass among other things. So it's like a national security thing, I guess.

0:24:23 Thomas: On this guy yeah

0:24:33 Matt: So, matter of national security that you can't interfere fear with the construction of this place where he's going to have his parties.

0:24:33 Thomas: Same as like you know a bank teller window it's national security huh doesn't seem like to go to that national security you can't do anything like it's pretty much a lot of his stuff is that right yeah

0:24:48 Matt: That's the easiest way to fall back. Judge said, look, I'm not trying to stop. This is Judge Richard Leon in U .S. District Court in D .C. He said, I am not trying to stop your national security facilities. Obviously, do whatever you have to do. But anything above ground, I have say over. The National Historic Trust has say over, and you know you can't just keep doing this it has to be stopped and and it was kind of funny too. The plaintiffs had to file a motion to clarify after Trump came out in public and said, we're not going to follow the court's order because there's a security exception. And he just said that pretty much the same day when he was complaining about the court not letting him build his ballroom. So they filed immediately a motion to clarify saying, hey, this is what the president's saying. What do you think?

0:25:22 Matt: And he came back and said, you know, we're not going to stop you from building actual security stuff. But to be clear, I believe that the ballroom falls under the national security exception. So that was the clarified injunction, stopping them from doing anything. And so the Court of Appeals for DC stayed that and determined that it can go forward potentially for now. They didn't really give much of a reason. They just said that it was just to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion for a stay. They're going to argue it in June, and they're going going to let them build something in the meantime, I guess. So it's a lot of flip -flopping as usual. The argument on the side of Trump here is that apparently the bunker and the ballroom have integrated stuff and that it's not going to be secure until it has something else on top of it. I don't really know. And we can't really see the plans.

0:25:22 Thomas: Right

0:26:06 Matt: Do have some clue from April 11th in the court's order remanding it. There was another sort of issue that Leigh -Anne had to clear up, but said that the state papers have raised serious factual questions about the relationship between, on one hand, the above -ground construction of the ballroom itself and the maintenance of safety and security, and prior governmental representations of the below -ground and above - ground stages were distinct and the above ground design features subject to change. And the district court hasn't been able to look at any of this. They said, basically, we need to clarify this more. There has to be argument. And if there's actually security stuff, we're going to allow that to be built. See. This is developing. But I just want to talk a little bit about the legal basis and also just how stupid the government's arguments are about Because this never should have happened. This never should have been demolished, and they never should have authorized without Congress. And on top of that, I just have to address the fact that we've got a bunch of private donors that are paying for this. It's really bad.

0:26:41 Thomas: How the hell does that work work.

0:26:52 Matt: That's a very good question. Was a dinner a while back in December in which they had a bunch crypto bros. I legacy dinner and a bunch of corporate villains, basically. I mean, 14 out of the 24 major donors to this thing have been facing federal enforcement actions, and some of them have already had those issues disappear just after these donations. This is pretty obvious.

0:27:11 Matt: There's a really good report from Public Citizen that we'll link to, which details every one of these donations, how much it is. Even got the contract, which is pretty light on ethical restraints, I have to say, basically. Mean, think about what you're doing. You're donating to the president. You know, I mean it's going to the National Park Service, but

0:27:27 Thomas: How? I don't understand. I didn't think you could even do this.

0:27:32 Matt: Trust for the National Mall is a 501c3, and apparently it includes restoration and educational enrichment of the National Mall, the White House, and the President's Park. So I think that's what they're actually donating to. The National Park Service is also involved here. They have this contract for donors where they say, basically, we can guarantee up to the absolute limit of what the law allows, that we will keep you anonymous if you want to be anonymous. So that's not good. You're donating to improve the President House in a project that means a lot to the President personally. I mean, I can't see how this is anything but corruption. Like that should have like 50 pages of ethical addendums and conflict of interest stuff. But basically, as long as you're not currently under investigation for a crime, it seems like you can, or

0:28:09 Thomas: It's okay. We've all already been convicted and pardoned.

0:28:11 Matt: That's right, we're good. Right. As long as they're not actually China, basically, you can give them money. Exaggerating a little bit, but there's nothing here about any kind of conflict with interest with the president or any other Trump interests.

0:28:23 Thomas: I've worked in government and I would think if anything, what I've done would be way less buttoned down than this, but I would have thought in terms of like, you know, procurement and contract like all that stuff is always so tightened down and like how just amazing how they even got the the workers who were just tearing the shit down like did they get their money from that like I just it doesn't make any sense I can't believe that they could just do that and tear it down and then no point could anyone stop it or did anyone I guess was where they motivated to stop it I don't know yeah

0:28:56 Matt: Until it was gone. Yeah. No, it happened pretty fast. Whole thing is incredible. Lot of corruption here. You can take a look at the agreement yourself. I mean, it's pretty thin. There's not much to it. Let me just read off here.

0:29:07 Thomas: What's this agreement What do you mean?

0:29:08 Matt: For the corporate donors, like

0:29:09 Thomas: So any donor, they do like an agreement for, okay.

0:29:13 Matt: Yeah, philanthropic support agreement. Is between the parties, basically the trust for the National Mall, the White House and everything else agreeing how they're going to use these donations and how it's going to work with the donors. Moving money around, they're, they'RE moving names of organizations around, you know, theyRE saying that this executive office that is supposed to basically maintain the AC in the White house has all this power it doesn't have, isn't but actually an agency. Just a shell game like everything else. Is another way, just like the crypto scam and everything else he's been doing for Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, all of these things. Has donated to this thing. Google, obviously, just huge amounts of money. Coinbase, I mean, just, it's bad. Hard Rock International, actually, for some reason. That's almost comforting.

0:29:50 Thomas: The hard rock cafe.

0:29:51 Matt: I don't know what their corruption interest is, apparently.

0:29:54 Thomas: Is it really?

0:29:55 Matt: Apparently.

0:29:56 Thomas: What the hell?

0:29:57 Matt: I don't know. That's what I'm looking at the list here. Yeah. And of course, the Adelson family, because they're in everything. But the Winklevoss twins too. Why not? Why HP, Union Pacific Railroad, Caterpillar, Palantir, of course. I mean, these are just massive. And we're talking, you know, 25 to 50 to $100 million donations, just massive massive amounts of money. Going straight into a project that the president is very excited about that is attached to his actual house where he lives I mean it's actually our house but he's not treating it like that yeah

0:30:23 Thomas: I wonder what, if I wonder if this will be any part of, I mean, obviously it's not like a huge thing, but I would think in a presidential campaign of 2028, I would would think something about this little something like hey we're gonna just whatever the hell he did screw that we're going to fix it and go back to either restore it or or maybe restore it plus make it a little better or something I feel like this was just such an insult to america well

0:30:49 Matt: I a big ugly glass cube I mean I just don't look good not even a cube I'm it's just it's huge it's so big right yeah but the plan and plan looks bad yeah it not going to be attractive um we're going to get the swing back but this is where we're at so that that's the latest on that.

0:30:55 Thomas: Now it's like nothing right but you know the plan for it yeah yeah huh all well that all sucks.

0:31:07 Matt: Yeah, maybe take a break and talk about one more thing that sucks before we get to a fun footnote.

0:31:15 Thomas: Boy. Yeah. Speaking of sucking, um, the, the 10 commandments now, as of now, are they required in Texas classrooms or is it still, wow.

0:31:25 Matt: May 2025, Greg Abbott signs Senate Bill 10, which requires this very specific display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. And there was immediately an injunction by District Court Judge Fred Beery, who described the law as plainly unconstitutional and cause coercive indoctrination. I mean, imagine.

0:31:39 Thomas: If ever read a case on you amendment religion stuff I

0:31:45 Matt: Don't know who is listening to this who thinks this is a good idea. But if you do think this is good idea, imagine you're probably not the kind of person and would like to see the Shahada on the wall, perhaps, that

0:31:53 Thomas: Don't even know what that is right

0:31:54 Matt: Says that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. That would be the equivalent of the Ten Commandments. And Ten Commandments includes, you'll have no God before me. It's the same thing.

0:32:02 Thomas: They're pretty shitty in terms of commandments I mean it's they're just not as that good like at all yeah

0:32:08 Matt: Could really update them. I think we could have some better ones. Of them are classics. I mean, you really can't go wrong with not killing and stealing, although Maga's not great at that either. But it's

0:32:10 Thomas: I feel like you need a little clarification since they love killing and and trump loves stealing so I don't know yeah maybe maybe put them up in every white house like it was required that it be in trump's bedroom or something I donno yeah

0:32:28 Matt: Of wife coveting and ass coveting going on too. Is obviously unconstitutional. I mean, anybody who understands anything about the way that the entire history of First Amendment law has worked in this country to date. But the Fifth Circuit is taking a stance here. And to be clear too, last June, as recently as last June there was a Louisiana statute that was almost identical that the federal court there struck down. The Fifth Circuit decided that this one was okay. And the reasons for it are pretty concerning. And they're clearly setting this up for the Supreme Court, and they want the Supreme Court to sign off on at least some of this, and maybe they will. Again, there is a direct on-point case from 1980 called Stone v. Graham. And we've got some kind of funny language here about how with extracted, there was nothing left of stone. Remember the lemon test? So they're saying the stone is full of lemon. So because it was a seven -paragraph decision that relied largely on the lemon tests, which is the classic test for how you determine whether or not there's an establishment of religion, we're talking about the establishment clause here. Kennedy case in 2022 with the praying coach, Supreme Court essentially acknowledged that the lemon tested had been abandoned, it didn't overrule it, it just had been abandon. So the Fifth Circuit takes them up on the joke and basically says, look, well, it seems like you're not using it anymore. So if we're not using the Lemon Test, then that's all there is to Stone.

0:33:09 Thomas: Right yeah

0:33:37 Matt: And we're just going to decide, That's right? It. Yeah.

0:33:37 Thomas: Okay constitutional law I didn't know you could just abandon something like get it when it's, like oh this local law that says you cannot have more than one egg in your pocket on a sunday or whatever okay I get that they're just like no one cares about that anymore but like when it's a tenant of a pretty key tenant of constitutional law how do you just abandon it I didn't even know you could do that yeah

0:34:03 Matt: Think that's how it works. Even if the fundamental test is no longer being used, the law is still the law, which is what the dissent says here, obviously, that the Supreme Court case should still control. And they're doing this, obviously, to challenge this to the Supreme court so they can have the Supreme Court decide whether or not Stone v. Graham is still good law. And the main basis they're talking about, they go on about this for pages, and this is something I've wanted to talk about for a while. I'd love to have a guest on if anybody has any ideas about this one. I'm sure there's some good guests we could get. Is a theory that's been percolating through the MAGA legal world for a little while now that the Establishment Clause was never incorporated to the states and that the states can establish religion. If you wanted to set up the Lutheran Church of California or whatever to be the official church of California, you could do that because

0:34:39 Thomas: So you can't have any effing gun control but you can establish a church yeah that makes sense that's consistent so

0:34:49 Matt: And is kind of historically consistent because the states did have churches, including Massachusetts, had official churches that were built into the government past the time of the First Amendment becoming law. They eventually disestablished them. There were actually disestablishment laws that cut them out. They're going from history and tradition, and they're talking about the fact that the states pretty well and comfortably integrated graded religion. They do kind of have a point, but that is not the modern understanding.

0:35:12 Thomas: They never incorporated that they wouldn't that mean the whole first amendment is not incorporated I

0:35:14 Matt: That's the claim. You can piece it out. I don't know. I agree.

0:35:21 Thomas: That can't be right matt I'm sorry I'm not a constitutional scholar but I feel like you either incorporated an amendment or not like

0:35:29 Matt: So it is actually not a historical. There have been times when the court has determined that certain parts of amendments are not incorporated. The Seventh Amendment civil jury trial right is not fully incorporated. The Fifth Amendment's grand jury clause. And religion have been fully incorporated as far as I know.

0:35:45 Thomas: Wow, you can incorporate part of an amendment but not the whole thing? The hell does that work?

0:35:52 Matt: There's some piecemeal kind of stuff about the the 14th too. This is not my field, but arguing about what establishment actually means and the idea that maybe the federal government can't have a religion, but Tennessee or Texas could. And that's dangerous. We don't want that. Is the argument they're going to be pushing to the Supreme Court, no doubt. And this is one that I've been watching for a little while. Like to get deeper into it because I don't fully understand it, but it is definitely one of those history and tradition type arguments they're trying to do. It's worth keeping a watch on.

0:36:16 Thomas: Well, one of you states is going to have to go Satanist. Sorry. Going to be the ones that do it. We're gonna have to pick a state to be the Satanist state of, you know, California or whatever. Gonna have to do it!

0:36:26 Matt: I think they'll be fine. They're most of the way there. Coercive, which they spend pages talking about why it's not actually coercive. Can look at it mean, you're in fifth grade and you see this on the wall in your classroom. What are you supposed to think? Knowing the state put it there. I mean, that's just not... Whether

0:36:43 Thomas: Well, this is a hodgepodge. I know you're allowed to do that and like arguing the alternative, but this seems like a bit of an extreme where you're like, well, first off, we don't care about any of this. You don't have to do any of it. Secondly, here's all these very specific reasons why it's fine.

0:36:44 Matt: Or not you know the state put there. Yeah.

0:36:58 Thomas: If we did have to, you know, incorporate the, I don't know. I know you're allowed to do that, but it's just like, it feels incredibly weak. And I feel like the circuit court has got to be the ones that are like, these are all novel things that they should just rule against this. And then if the Supreme court is going to ruin our lives, that's what they're going to do.

0:37:15 Thomas: But there's, there's gotta be no grounds for the, what the fifth circuit did. Right.

0:37:19 Matt: Don't think so. Claiming that they can build from Kennedy to this point. And this is what we were concerned about after Kennedy, because obviously they had to use lies to get there, as we know. They'd actually lie about what the football coach was doing on the field after school and how many people were involved and how coercive it was. There's good reason for that, because they knew they were pushing the boundaries of establishment and of what you can do at school. And is Texas moving that forward. And I'm sure this is coordinated. There's no question. There are a lot of people that want this to happen. In case there's any question about legislative intent, I found a quote from Representative Candy Noble from Lucas, Texas. Us, it is incumbent on all of us to follow God's law. And I think we would all be better off if we did.

0:37:48 Thomas: That's a great name. That's pretty non-ambiguous. Now I agree that obviously Obviously, the Supreme Court has ruined this and the Kennedy case, sure. But even that with the lying was still about like, well, what? This is just this one guy and it's his individual right to do something at a school. And it was more about wasn't it more about that? You know, and it wasn't because this is just like, no, you must have the Ten Commandments in a classroom. They're so far away from that, even that very tortured logic of the individual rights of a teacher or something. Thing.

0:38:23 Matt: The Kennedy court suggested that they were replacing the lemon test and they didn't really say it. They just said it's abandoned, but they didn'T say this is the new rule. They just said that they're going to be looking at historical practices and understandings, which is why the fifth circuit went on for pages and pages about the state history of the establishment clause. And that's where we get some danger. I think, I think that that could be something the Supreme court really latches onto because unlike birthright citizenship and other things we've been talking about, or the gun stuff, even there is a pretty rich tradition of of states having established religions to one degree or another. And what the Fifth Circuit is saying is that you can have an established religion in the state without violating the First Amendment, without actually crossing over into coercing people into participating in that religion, which I don't buy. And that's not my understanding of how establishment works at all. We've been so careful to keep this stuff separate, but that is what they're pushing. And that's what is going to be in front of the Supreme Court by next year, I'm sure.

0:39:12 Thomas: I guess I don't exactly see the connection from Kennedy then, because it did seem like it was just about a coach getting to do the thing, but maybe I'm wrong about in my memory of how that went. I

0:39:24 Matt: Was an Establishment Clause case, though, and saying if you're incorporating that as part of your game. Because what the kids were saying, some of them, was that he was making them do this. He was making them hang out after the game and just sort of a part of the school activity. And then they had to lie about it to say, no, he was actually mostly by himself and maybe a few kids joined him when, in fact, you can see the pictures. Still the limits of establishment. But is it establishment? Because arguably, the Kennedy thing is that's more coercive, right? To have a thing where you know the coach is going to like you more if you hang out and do the prayer versus you just walk by.

0:39:46 Thomas: I got all that. Yeah. I don't think it's more coercive than literally every classroom has to have the 10 commandments in it. That feels feels pretty coercive, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.

0:40:01 Matt: I mean, you don't have to read it. That's what they're saying. It's just on the wall and kids don't read anyway.

0:40:05 Thomas: My God. All right. Hey, can you put, what are they doing now? Can they put like a, well, I guess, I don'T know if they have to do it now, but can they, well actually as a result of this decision, do they have to start doing it right away?

0:40:14 Matt: Yeah, the injunction is lifted.

0:40:16 Thomas: Then you're going to put like, can you do like the tiny print it like a Willy Wonka style or something, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

0:40:23 Matt: Think there is actually like specifications for how it has to be displayed in

0:40:27 Thomas: Damn. They thought of everything. Make it a really dumb font. I know there's got to be there's got to be a way to follow the letter of the law and make it not really work that'd

0:40:30 Matt: I'm just going to say the old man thing, which is that if you put it on text on paper, kids won't read it. That's the way. Tall in an easily readable typeface, so there's no way. You can't game this one. Sorry.

0:40:48 Thomas: No way there's a way that no way Matt we can get creative easily readable type face well the type how do you define that now if it's an easily readable type face but it's the same color as the paper didn't say that does it yeah is color part of the type face? I don't know. We'll have to litigate.

0:41:03 Matt: Hey, checkmate, checkmate. Gotta say, Wingdings is very legible. You can make out every letter. Let's do that.

0:41:13 Thomas: So we'll see. We're going to see how it goes. All All right. Well, that sucks. And obviously, yeah that's got to be a Supreme Court thing. I mean, best case, I guess, even though that's not a good case, you know, like it's we're kind of either way. It's like either it doesn't go to the Supreme Court and this crap stands in Texas or it does and they ruin the law further with it. So not looking looking forward to that.

0:41:36 Thomas: I hear, we've got a fantastic footnote that will hopefully put us in a better mood after all this terrible law. So what's your footnote?

0:41:44 Matt: Right. Well, I'm sending you a video, and I'd like you to describe to our listening audience what you see in the first few seconds of this video. A uh surveillance camera uh is dated uh January 28th 2024

0:41:55 Thomas: Department of insurance fraud division uh bear claw okay that's the text I've got so far with a big don't read anything else okay I'm playing yeah 2010 rolls royce ghost claim it oh, that's the car, but the video's from 2024. Okay.

0:42:02 Matt: Read yeah don't anything else no spoilers so this person owns a rolls royce there's the rolls royce no

0:42:17 Thomas: Whoa. Said ghost claim, like really saying there's a ghost in there?

0:42:20 Matt: Actually I think that's the name of the car uh I think yeah

0:42:22 Thomas: Rolls Royce ghost? Oh, okay. I didn't know that was a car. Cool. Honestly, the video, I could see someone being like, there's a ghost in my car, because we got a black and white surveillance. You can barely see. Now, given the hinting, I'm going to go ahead and say this is a bear, probably. It almost could be like some people having sex in the car. You can't make it out very well, and there's a lot of crawling and not really. Think if you hadn't hinted at a bear. I wouldn't really know. Like, I think maybe it's a person. Maybe it's kind of hard to make out.

0:42:44 Matt: You see what is in the car because

0:42:57 Thomas: Okay, now it's going. Now the video is going to some in color photos of like the damage.

0:42:57 Matt: Sure yeah gonna send you the picture now of what you just saw and you can go ahead and describe the picture that you're now looking at this the most creative fraud claim I've ever heard of this is amazing just

0:43:13 Thomas: So you have sent me an elaborate bear costume. So once caught, I would probably say this was a sex thing. I wasn't trying to do fraud. It's just a sex thing. It got carried away with the law. Used a bear suit to defraud car insurers are sentenced to jail. I think the giveaway was when you look at the video that you told me to to stop looking at the claw marks are like incredibly symmetrical and like perfectly easily spaced. It looks like, you know, the thing that your teacher used to use to put lines on the chalkboard that were even, you know, like if you had one of those perfectly blended claw.

0:43:23 Matt: A furry yep yep yep and -hmm right right I love this yeah for music yeah

0:43:51 Thomas: Yeah, that, that, yeah, exactly. Or writing a bunch of sentences, one or the other. Uh, yeah. No, that's not very convincing. So someone got in a bear suit and tried to like defraud. Wow. Wow. But they didn't even do much damage. I don't even know what the payoff is here.

0:43:52 Matt: Yeah two 141 000 in insurance payouts I mean rolls -royce is a pretty expensive car to maintain uh mean you already can afford a rolls -roys ghost I don't know what you're doing messing around in a bear suit. It's just weird.

0:44:16 Thomas: That's what I'm trying to figure out. Step five: profit. Like, do they just not spend them? It's like they needed the cash so they get the money to repair it and don't repair it maybe or something.

0:44:26 Matt: I guess. And you can see those claw things they were using. And when you go back and you see the video, I'd watched it a few times, it's not crawling around like a bear would. I'm not sure what the point of even wearing the suit was. It was like, this is a bear that desperately wants to claw that seat and is just going to carefully climb over to do that. It is not doing what a bear will do.

0:44:42 Thomas: This is not bear activity at all. I mean, I mean, bears are usually like F this thing in particular or F anything around there. They're not going to like carefully crawl through to check the different chambers of the car, you know, like opening the glove box and crap. They're just like, I'm going to start ripping things until I get to the thing I want. And usually it's amazing how much damage they can do to a car. But yeah, this looked like a kid crawling around. That's what I said. I really couldn't tell. Like it looked, it looked like it kid. I wouldn't have thought it was a bear if I even said that. That like if you hadn't hinted at that, I wouldn't have said bear because it just doesn't, the motions aren't right.

0:45:18 Matt: Kind of see the fur. You know, definitely there's somebody wearing a costume when you really look at it, but I don't know how they thought this was going to hold up when they did this, because they did it knowing it was going be on surveillance, I think. I mean, they wore the costume on purpose.

0:45:28 Thomas: That would be the point. Yeah, yeah. I think they would have had to set up the surveillance for that purpose, which to then I would think make it a little bit more hazy. Like this is too obvious.

0:45:33 Matt: At least hire an actor. You're in California. Like, you can get somebody who can pretend to be a bear.

0:45:42 Thomas: Light seems to be on in the car. Is that that we're going to say that's the door light or something?

0:45:46 Matt: Yeah, probably. Yeah. When they're getting in. They should have at least consulted with Andy Serkis or something. I mean you know, it's got to be way to...

0:45:51 Thomas: Yeah have Gollum them sneak in there.

0:45:53 Matt: Yeah, somebody does motion capture. So was reported, of course, by the insurance company because they thought this looked really suspicious. And they sent it over to the Department of Insurance. And of course it was very suspicious. And this was $141 ,000 in insurance payout. And now three of these defendants have been sentenced for insurance fraud. It's just the most creative insurance fraud I've ever heard of.

0:45:55 Thomas: More convincing. Many people you got in that bear suit anyhow?

0:46:13 Matt: I think they did it several times and to each other's cars.

0:46:17 Thomas: Oh, okay. I was like, no, no. I could do a better bear. Hold on. Give me this suit. No, that sucks. Let me try it. You got like three different bears.

0:46:24 Matt: Totally. Well, yeah, two more were Mercedes. So Mercedes -Benz and Rolls -Royces, like these are nice cars that you're, and you're not, you want to carefully rip it up so that you don't have like real damage, like a bear would do, but just enough that you can report it. Very stupid.

0:46:39 Thomas: Very dumb.

0:46:40 Matt: Top of that, they the bear suit and the claws. They like, a while later, you

0:46:44 Thomas: Well, it's a perfectly good bear suit. I mean, mean you got to use that later with the wife

0:46:46 Matt: Never know when you might get it. It does kind of go to your point. And, you know, of course we've got nothing against furries here, but this might be a furry thing, maybe just a little furry crime.

0:46:49 Thomas: I guarantee it's a furry thing in some way it might not have been all it was but you're you're not spending the money on that bear suit to not use it for sex stuff that's all I'm saying yeah under

0:47:02 Matt: A nice bear suit. It's very well made. Think It's a very attractive bear.

0:47:06 Thomas: The police report there's like various uh stains that we're not going to investigate on the suit you could do the inventory probably

0:47:12 Matt: For the record, I think furries are far less likely to commit crimes than regular people, but

0:47:16 Thomas: They know they've got a microscope on or they don't want a microscope scope do they

0:47:20 Matt: Yeah. They do have the perfect outfit though. Obviously, the way it worked out.

0:47:26 Thomas: Get the suit back I

0:47:27 Matt: Uh yeah it's evidence no

0:47:28 Thomas: Know it's like hey you got us you know whatever but I do need that suit I'm gonna need that and

0:47:33 Matt: And the meat claws uh those were the claws they were holding they couldn't use the suit claws they had to use these special implements from a kitchen or something um this is a really dumb insurance fraud so thought you'd enjoy that one yeah

0:47:36 Thomas: They're so terrible oh fantastic yeah they had these stupid meat claws that are metal and the funny thing is the suit has claws but they must not be actually effective and in the bear suit that which has claws. They were holding metal claws underneath those claws that were not the same size at all, like way smaller. Oh, this is terrible.

0:47:53 Matt: Not not good enough right right and angled in the video away in such a way that you can't really see the bear's paws so I guess they've maybe thought that out but

0:48:10 Thomas: I don't want to break the law because I don' t want to go to jail, blah, blah. But like, I where you're like, okay, if you can pull this off for fun. I mean, they do that with hackers. Like hackers, they try to hack stuff. And then if you say, hey, I hacked you, Microsoft, here's the the exploit they'll give you money for that I want that but for bear suit stuff you know like if you can pull off this insurance fraud you then not only are you not in trouble we'll pay you pay

0:48:36 Matt: I'm telling you, you get Andy Serkis, you've got the Ocean's Eleven of furry crime. You could do this.

0:48:39 Thomas: Eventually they're like no more anti -circuses he's too good at it they gotta ban him from the whole thing we're out of money our budget's gone and all went to anti -circus uh good times well a fun footnote a fun furry footnote at least that was one thing that was not totally effed but yeah lots of stories to keep an eye on from today thanks for the breakdown Matt thanks everyone for listening and like I said lots of fun content coming to you soon not only a lot of awful movies but we got a really fun thing over on GG that I can't wait to tell you folks about once we're done with that it was a fun special we did to take a break from the sandwich trial so lots of fun stuff coming you'll hear about it thanks for listening

0:49:19 Matt: Right. See you soon.

0:49:23 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.

0:49:56 Matt: Corporation has to pee in a cup once a week. You know. Yeah, that's

0:49:59 Thomas: All of you, everybody. It's a big let's get a big cup. Morris D's nuts. No, this suit. No, that sucks. Let me try it. You got like three different bears. One of you states is going to have to go Satanist. Sorry.

0:50:07 Matt: Secure balls he's got, that