SIO355: Afroman vs Police and Clarence Thomas vs Ethics

Transcript

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

0:00:15 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 356. I am Thomas Smith and I am joined once again by Matt Cameron. Matt, I promise someday I will bother another lawyer. I promise. I going to. But for now, I appreciate your willingness to be just constantly annoyed bothered by me. How are you doing?

0:00:34 Matt: Having fun. Nothing, nothing. Bothersome.

0:00:35 Thomas: Oh, good.

0:00:35 Matt: About this at all. Having a good time.

0:00:36 Thomas: Well, and I think this one is actually quite a bit of fun because we've Been wanting to talk about the story. A lot of people have posted about it, shared it. Afro Man, someone whose house was essentially broken into by the police, I guess you could say, and have seen the story, he shared the footage. I think he even maybe used it in music videos. And I also think, furthermore, he might have used the police faces on merch. It's a great story, but it's also an interesting legal question. So I'm so excited to talk about it.

Why don't we just dive right in? And then, oh, by the way, everybody, we're also going to talk about the epitome of ethics that sits you on our Supreme Court. I guess that could refer to too many of them. Um, the one who accidentally, like, whoops, billion dollar jet, right? Sorry, I forgot. Oopsie daisy, I tripped into a billionaire funding a bunch of stuff for me, that, that one, but we'll get to that in a minute. Let's talk about this really, I, well, I say delightful, but maybe you're gonna tell me this is gonna be a shitty ending, but it seems delightful.

0:00:37 Matt: Oh. Yeah, no.

0:01:39 Matt: I think it's gonna end just fine, uh, I'm pretty happy about it, and uh, so I, I only remembered Afro Man for that, uh, it was a novelty song about 23 years ago, uh, "I Got High," right, just lifts off a bunch of stuff he can't do because he got high.

0:01:40 Thomas: Oh, great, oh, Yeah. Nice.

0:01:53 Matt: That's about all I can think of for him. He probably had a couple other hits, but uh, he's living pretty well. If you look at these videos, it looks like he's got a pretty nice house because I got high money.

0:02:01 Thomas: Yeah. Well, and like, I feel like that's kind of an anomaly. I feel, feel like most of those folks who have a one-hit wonder, like, their manager fucking steals all the money, you know, they signed a bad deal or something. Like, there's a lot of people for whom that didn't work out.

0:02:13 Matt: Yeah. No, he hit it just the right time. I don't know. I mean, maybe he does a lot of touring and makes a lot money that way. Maybe his merch, it looks like his merch is pretty popular. He sells a lot of weed-related merch.

0:02:18 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. There you go, that makes me sure.

0:02:24 Matt: Makes sense. And so, you know, you can understand how the police might believe that somebody whose most famous song was "Because I Got High" and sings a lot about drugs generally might have drugs in his house. That might be something you could conclude.

0:02:35 Thomas: Oh, And after all, if a black man is getting high in his own home, you need to bust down the door and just the guns a -blazing.

0:02:43 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Can't leave that be. So nobody's really exactly sure what happened here with the search warrant, but there was a search warrant issued against his house. And it's a very unusual search warrant because for no reason that I can understand, or that he could understand, are looking for narcotics and paraphernalia, which he actually said in the song, you know, know fair enough, uh, but there weren't any, and uh, but also

0:02:43 Thomas: Of course. Yeah.

0:03:06 Thomas: But the song, you're still talking about the song from 23 years ago, right? What's the statute of limitations?

0:03:07 Matt: Oh, No, no, sorry, there's a new song. And The, yeah, the reason this is so awesome is he wrote at least two different songs about this raid and used the video from it. So, I mean, I have to appreciate, I'm going to be totally straight up, one of them is really lazy, it's just "Under the Boardwalk" with different words, but, but still, he was probably pretty high when he came up with it. I gotta, gotta excuse him, it's fine, it's fine. I can just see the guy sitting around singing "Under the Boardwalk" and singing about this raid.

0:03:11 Thomas: Oh, okay, oh, He's in, right? Oh, Yeah, I don't like that, but whatever, Yeah. But, but are you saying there was a song that that kicked this all off? I mean, obviously they raided for some reason, I'm not gonna say it's a good reason, but like, was it, a was, you're saying, was it song lyrics that caused this raid? Okay. Okay.

0:03:49 Matt: No. I don't think so.

0:03:50 Thomas: So do we know?

0:03:50 Matt: Nobody really seems to know what the probable cause was here. They got a judge to sign off on it. I'm looking at the warrant. I mean, it looks like a warrant, but items of evidence, including but not limited to unknown quantity of marijuana. I think they can assume it's a lot. Marijuana derivatives, any and all drugs of abuse, drug paraphernalia, et cetera, et zebra, which are being concealed in violation of, and they lift off the statutes. Now, here's where it gets weird. Not just possession of drugs. Sure, you expect that. Trafficking in drugs, which is another level, of course.

0:03:51 Thomas: No. Huh. Of course.

0:04:15 Thomas: Okay.

0:04:15 Matt: And then kidnapping.

0:04:16 Thomas: What?

0:04:17 Matt: They just threw in a kidnapping charge. This is the thing that really pissed him off because that put him over the top. He doesn't want to be accused of kidnapping. He smokes weed. Maybe he sells it once in a while, but he doesn't kidnap people.

0:04:28 Thomas: Well, yeah. And do you suppose there's a whole, obviously, conversation to be had about no-knock warrants and all that. And a lot was, there's, a lot of good coverage. Actually, there was a whole, I think it was like a Washington Post podcast series on it that I found really as depressing as it was fascinating. First off, did you, did you say what state this was? Did I miss it? What state are we in here?

0:04:45 Matt: This is in Parma, Ohio.

0:04:47 Thomas: Ohio. Big okay, on the anti-weed or is it just, again, over -policing like a black neighborhood or something?

0:04:53 Matt: Even in Massachusetts, they're down on a lot of weed. You still can't have a whole lot of it and you can't be trafficking it without a license. So you

0:04:57 Thomas: Oh, gotcha. Checking my California privilege, I got, well, my White privilege and my California, to be fair. But yeah, one thing just while on the topic of the no-knock thing, because I wonder if this kidnapping bullshit was like just a way or a reason to get it to be a more serious warrant that they could go in guns a-blazing for, or what do you think?

0:05:02 Matt: Yeah, right. Yeah, could be. I mean, they kicked his door down. They literally did kick it down. He wasn't home. His wife was home and scared his kids. And his wife, though, and this is what anybody should do in this situation, I want to be very clear about this, pulled out the camera and started recording. That's the first thing you do when the police start searching your house. And so she got some awesome footage of cops just rummaging through everything. Thing.

0:05:24 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Wow, do. Now, obviously, knows if cops will, you know, actually allow you to exercise your rights, but assuming you have police that are, I guess, going to let you exercise your right, that's something, you're in your own house, you can just do that, right? Just film them, they shouldn't be able to to stop you that is that something that's perfectly within your rights

0:05:49 Matt: Better, you can film the police anywhere as long as you're not getting in the way. And you should, you always should. It's just a good, it's just, you're just walking down the street, see some cops harassing somebody, just start filming them. It's just the right thing to do. You're helping everybody. They kick in his door. He actually wrote a song called, will you help repair my door? Which is very literal. Uh. And the music video for that is worth watching and we'll link to it but uh it's very entertaining and you know Efferman has this kind of weird kind of singy songy style it's just kind of fun to listen to but not really he's kind of a novelty guy I guess I'll put it that way sure and not not really we're not not talking Jay-Z here but uh it's there's some really funny bits where he's he's playing the video of them going through his suit pockets you know and literally one of the lines in the song is are there any any kidnapping victims in

0:06:02 Thomas: Okay cool good to know sure yeah okay nice

0:06:45 Matt: My suit pockets? You crooked cops need to stop it. There aren't any kidnapping victims, victims in MySuitPockets. And then he just lists off all these different things and places there they are. Cause he, you know, he's going, they're going through his CD cases. Are there kidnapping victims inside my CDs? You know, that's great.

0:06:48 Thomas: Oh now is this almost like they're they're MST3K-ing the the footage like they're doing the Mystery Science Theater of the of the footage and then but it's singing or rapping, I suppose. Okay. That's fantastic.

0:07:07 Matt: Totally. Yeah. It's great and he's kind of narrating and telling you what's going on. Other song that came out of this is called Lemon Pound Cake because one of the officers, bigger guy, was, was walking by eyeing his lemon pound cake that his mom made and left there. And he gives it this beautiful, like, look over, you know, you can tell he wants the lemon poundcake.

0:07:27 Thomas: My God. Yeah.

0:07:29 Matt: He claims the lemon pounds. The lemon pound Cake disappeared at some point during this raid.

0:07:31 Thomas: Oh, we need that footage. Yeah. I'm surprised. Is there anything about any lyrics about him having kidnapped a lemon pound cake or anything?

0:07:34 Matt: Yeah, no, the stolen pound cake. They came to kidnap. But here's another great line here. The warrant said narcotics and kidnapping. Are you kidding? I make my money rapping. Why does the warrant say narcotics? Parentheses. Well, I know narcotics, but why kidnapping? I really enjoyed that. Yeah, help. I'm doing it as white as possible, but he makes it sound a lot more fun. Um, you, I support everything about this, this is awesome. Uh, to take, and you know, the thing is, they caused him twenty thousand dollars worth of damage going through his house, so that's not funny. And they took five thousand in cash from his house and returned to forty six hundred of it, and he had them look into that. There's actually investigation, and they said it was just an accounting error. They hadn't, they'd actually taken 4,600 to begin with. And he claims, of course, that's not true. No surprises, no surprises. So he goes to war with the Parma Sheriff's Department, and he starts posting about Officer Poundcake, which is what he calls the guy who was going after the pound cake, which I really appreciate.

0:07:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:07:53 Thomas: It feels Yeah. Geez. Okay. Yeah.

0:08:36 Matt: Starts, you know, using his photo and his shirts and merch and hats and stuff, You Know

0:08:39 Thomas: I He should do An Officer Krupke, well, that's not really his musicals. Okay, Weird Al do an office or Krupkey, but with Officer Pound Cake, damn.

0:08:40 Matt: Yeah Right Yeah Totally Yeah, know we're protecting a pound cake everywhere. Um, will say there were some less funny posts that are quoted in the lawsuit here about a female deputy. They're pretty misogynist and transphobic, but you know, this will Happen I Know, I Know, it got

0:08:58 Thomas: It come on, Afro man, let us have nice things. You don't have to be a misogynist asshole. We could have been, flashed, could have be unambiguously happy. Oh, well, yeah.

0:09:06 Matt: Milkshake ducked a little bit there, but yeah. So, again, lawsuit is really something, because think about what just happened. You just had cops literally kicking a door down, searching through CD cases, searching through suit pockets, going through every part of his house. And a search warrant, I think this is a really good time to really stop and see what a search warrant does. And it's this incredible public value to just have basic footage of a search warrant, because this is not just cops, you know, kind of slowly going through your house. They're rummaging through everything. They're turning things over, ripping drawers open. You can really trash a house.

0:09:30 Thomas: Right. Well Well, and again, we've seen what, what, when there's no footage, we've seen how the cops report stuff. You know, they'd be like, oh, well, you see the house. It had a minor medical issue. And that's why the house just completely died. It was ruined. Just a minor mental. And then the footage comes out.

0:09:44 Matt: Yeah, you're right, yeah. And it was on fire when we got there, yeah,

0:09:54 Thomas: Yeah. And then it's like, Oh, well actually, so we killed that. We murdered the house, actually, if you if you're OK, if you saw it, then, yeah, OK, I guess we did really bad things. But like, why did you have to see it, though, is the problem? That's the problem.

0:09:59 Matt: And your dogs. And that is absolutely the problem in this lawsuit is it is the why did you have to sue a lawsuit.

0:10:10 Thomas: Yeah. God. Again, just to clarify, anybody apologies, who doesn't know, you are saying the lawsuit of the cops suing Afro Man. This is not Afro Men suing the cops right now, right?

0:10:21 Matt: Far as I know, I went looking for this. He doesn't seem to have sued them, which is, you know, it's hard to do, obviously.

0:10:26 Thomas: Yeah, well, don't they have that bullshit thing you are going to tell me?

0:10:29 Matt: Immunity. Yeah. Yeah, and it's not easy at all to get around, but still, they kicked his door down for no reason, and who knows what, I'm guessing this must have been some stupid false tip, or they had some other reason, but they didn't find anything at all. The lawsuit they filed against him, what they're saying is that he's appropriating their images from the footage that his wife took of them inside his his own house. And it's pretty bold to be saying that.

0:10:58 Matt: It's also kind of a Barbra Streisand effect, right, where you talk about something. You know about that, with her house?

0:10:30 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah Oh, yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah they are definitely calling more attention to it. But then had they just maybe quietly taken the L.

0:11:05 Matt: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And much like this Streisand effect, it requires you to post more pictures of Officer Poundcake, too, to really make the point. So it doesn't help anything. But unauthorized use of persona is the first tort count. The second one is invasion of privacy by misappropriation, which I thought was very funny because defendants have appropriated for their own use and benefit the reputation, prestige, social standing, public interest, and other values of plaintiffs' names and likenesses.

0:11:15 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:11:35 Matt: The very famous Officer Sean Cooley, also known as Officer Poundcake, appropriating his social standing and public interest to get famous. Then false late because it makes it look like they were doing an unreasonable search warrant. And

0:11:48 Thomas: I Boy, feel like is that one of those truth is the ultimate defense kind of thingies? Because I feel like that would help, is interesting. Maybe this is a distinction that isn't a thing. But is this like them suing as officially policemen thingies, or just them as people like you or I? Or does that not matter, is that okay?

0:11:51 Matt: Yeah.

0:12:08 Matt: They're actually suing us people because they're saying that their their private lives now are being- that's actually the next toward is unreasonable publicity given to private lives, um, because their faces and names are out there and they're on these merch things, and you know, it would be pretty irritating, honestly. To-

0:12:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:12:21 Thomas: All- Right, I'm not- I probably- I'm not defending these these fucking people.

0:12:24 Matt: No, me neither.

0:12:25 Thomas: But- Just as a hypothetical to explore the issues properly, if someone had just come over to my house and I filmed them and then put them up on something without their consent, that does feel like something's wrong. Like, I feel like it can't just be like "you're in my house, nope, I yeah I now own your image" or something.

0:12:43 Matt: But- If they kicked your door- down, and you might change the hypothetical a little bit. It If you didn't- have permission to be there. But no, it's true. I mean, there are limits to what you can actually repost. And there might actually be something to this. I think this case is going to be dismissed ultimately because the public interest of the footage is too much. And they also didn't comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, basically a records request, to give him whatever they might have from their own footage. So he's getting to use his.

I'm sure it's not great. I'm certain it wouldn't make it look any better. But it. As a result of defendants' violations of the statute, plaintiffs have been damaged in the amount of profits made up by defendants by the unauthorized use of their personas, have suffered embarrassment, ridicule, emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of reputation, and are entitled to injunctive relief and other remedies, etc. So they're saying essentially this is just too much. You have humiliated us all. You've made us look bad. You made it seem like we broke into your house for no reason and threw your house up. Tossed

0:12:43 Thomas: Sure. Sure. Really? Uh- -Huh.

0:13:34 Matt: It up there. So plaintiffs who have been subjected to ridicule, even at the further performance of their official duties by members of the public who've seen the defendants above described postings. This is the thing that made people make fun of cops. It was, this is the straw that just made everybody laugh. Um, some instances it has been more difficult and even more dangerous for plaintiffs to carry out their official duties because of comments made and attitudes expressed toward them by members of the public. This has too much.

I mean, this, this has just, you're, you're blaming anything thing that people don't like about the police on Afro Man. Don't see it. I don't see this going too far. Uh, and I, I'm, I support Afro Men obviously all the way on this, but his, his thought is, you know, he's just, he needs to sell all this merge because he has to make up for the $20,000 in damage they did, uh, which I think is a pretty reasonable position.

And that his video footage is his property. It was not just from his wife's footage, but from, he had security cameras around. So he got to use all that. I used it to identify. And if I criminals who broke into my house, stole my money

0:13:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:26 Matt: And disconnected my home security system, you know, fair enough. This also does kind of give rise to the whole question about the right to parody the police, which is something that has, that came up to the Supreme court last year. Has worth mentioning because

0:14:26 Thomas: That's- Fair. Oh- God, that- oh yeah, that horrible case, that horrible- as in I cannot believe this would even be controversial- was this the one, just the social media posts that were clearly satire? Oh, my God.

0:14:47 Matt: Yeah. Obviously fake Facebook page. On. I'm sorry, I need to- I need revise what I said before. That was Parma Police Department. That was Prima- was Ohio, but it wasn't Parma, Ohio. So-

0:14:49 Thomas: Oh, Geez. Oh, So just to- Parma is the Supreme Court case. The police involved in that. And this, as you're saying, the Afro Man is a different...

0:15:02 Matt: And- Adams County, um- that is- they're both in Ohio, fortunately, so- That all works out.

0:15:05 Thomas: Okay. Alright. If you started typing that email, you may unstart that. Everybody, you might appreciate that you're on it with the facts. But, you know, Matt caught himself, so we're good.

0:15:08 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. They're different places in Ohio, and I gotta tell you, I don't know how Ohio at all, so fair.

0:15:20 Thomas: News to me. Me. Okay. There are two different places. There's more than one place in Ohio. Okay?

0:15:25 Matt: And they have different police departments as well, and we're learning, but uh, so in that case, Mr. Novak, uh, posted a fake Facebook page. He only had it up for 12 hours and it got 10- 911 calls, which I thought was pretty excessive because it was doing things like saying that they're going to be providing free abortions for teenagers in the Walmart parking lot. You know, like pretty outrageous stuff like- that. That was obviously a joke.

0:15:47 Matt: And the question was, should he have to say up front, this is a parody? And that's stupid. It's very stupid.

0:15:45 Thomas: Oh, boy. Oh, yeah. Wait, this isn't the one The Onion wrote the thing for, is it? It is. Oh! This is great. Yeah. We covered that on OA.

0:15:55 Matt: This is. Yeah. I'm obsessed with this.

0:15:59 Thomas: That is a fantastic amicus.

0:16:01 Matt: My favorite. It.

0:16:03 Thomas: Oh. We need to take that. Amicus, where are you? I

0:16:06 Matt: Know, I actually change it up. I like amicus, but once in a while it's an amicus for me. It just depends on my mood.

0:16:10 Thomas: I was on Wikipedia Wikipedia and you know how they have the pronunciation -y like thing. I swear to you, I'm going to go back after this. I swear to you it was telling me it's pronounced Amicus or something like that. It was like a third one that wasn't possibly right. So we'll investigate that. But okay, we're going to say Amicus on this show. I think that'll Differentiate. Differentiate, hmm.

0:16:27 Matt: Everybody's saying it wrong. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that was probably the best amicus amicus brief ever filed. I mean, it's a beautiful piece of art. One thing that they did quote from that was Falwell v. Flint, of course, one of the most famous parody cases of all time when they, when Larry Flint ran a fake ad featuring Jerry Falwell getting down with his mother in an outhouse. Is more thoroughly democratic than to have the high and mighty lampooned and spoofed, and I stand by this all the way. That we can make fun of cops. We can make phone of people who are in charge of us. And if we can't do that, we have a real problem. Hoping that's what this comes down to, too, is that he's using it to make fun on them. He's putting out likenesses on shirts and whatever, but they did something stupid. He has the right to come back and do something kind of stupid, too.

0:16:43 Thomas: Oh. Yeah. Right. Right, that it It does get a bit interesting where it's like, could there be a ruling that's like, "Yeah, sure, but you do actually have to pay them some royalties or something like that"? Could you see a a sort of a weird outcome like that, or no, all

0:17:23 Matt: Yeah, I mean, they're seeking essentially all of the profits that he's made from that merch, and I could see it. Yeah.

0:17:27 Thomas: Of Them, okay. Well, fuck that, I mean, he did, he put in some work, it was granted. Granted, it wasn't like Shakespearean lyric writing, but, you know, that's that's art. It's funny.

0:17:35 Matt: Well, I think they're just looking for the merch, at least. So that might be splitting the baby.

0:17:40 Thomas: Oh, just the merch. OK.

0:17:42 Matt: Yeah. So you can decide that maybe something that had Officer Poundcake's face on it should go to Officer Pounding. Maybe that works out. Um, I will give Afroman the closing word on this one though, he said, uh, "I was thinking these big bad cops are being beat up and bullied by these little corny rap songs I made about them," he says.

0:17:42 Thomas: OK. Yeah.

0:17:57 Matt: I'm like, "Oh my god, are you letting me know that my raps are working on you?" Fair enough. I love it. I love and

0:18:04 Thomas: Oh, boy. So that's I assume that's kind of the Streisand thing you're talking about, where it's like, boy, So you're helping this work by drawing attention to it.

0:18:13 Matt: Your skin is that thin. Yeah, yeah.

0:18:16 Thomas: Notoriously good sports. Courts, cops, you know, they love a good, they love a good razzing. They're just

0:18:17 Matt: Some some japes. They enjoy. Enjoy those. Yeah. That.

0:18:20 Thomas: Yeah. Just for fun, what's, what's your kind of official prediction that we won't hold you to or anything, but you think this will get dismissed or you think there could be some weird third you way split the royalties kind of thing? Does

0:18:33 Matt: I'm going to predict it's dismissed all the way, but I could also see it's possible that they get a cut, a very small cut maybe, but it doesn't seem like it's a claim that's going to be sustained. So I'll say that. That. Yeah.

0:18:44 Thomas: He ever get his door money back, like officially, or you're just fucked, what I mean, again, we're, we'll move on. But like in normal course of business, you're just fucked. Right. It's like, oh, they come in, knock down your door. Oh, and the thing I was going to say about the no knock warrant, and this, something I've said before, but it bears repeating, in, in that podcast series I listened to, I interviewed like the judge who did one. It wasn't the actual, like, Breonna Taylor one or anything, but they looked into a bunch of these.

They interviewed a judge and it was, it's the perfect system for these people, and by perfect I mean it allows them to be perfectly unethical and take no responsibility. That's what I mean by that, because the, the police say, "Yeah, well, the judge signed off on the warrant." Like, we, we presented a warrant and the judge signed off, so I mean, what do you want from us? Like, that's how the system works.

And then they interview the judge and judge is like, "Well, I mean, they, they wrote a warrant so I gotta assume that means they, like, looked into it." And so

0:18:52 Matt: Right. Yeah.

0:19:35 Thomas: It's, it's like the most, it's, things get so depressing, but it's also like darkly funny in a way where you're like, really, that's what's happening, that's what's happened. That I uncut, we, the society, journalists pull up this rock and what's underneath it and you're, there's gonna be some vast conspiracy, you're, "Oh no, it's just idiots being like, well, I think he looked into, no, no, I think they looked into." That's it, fuck.

0:19:44 Matt: No.

0:19:53 Matt: No. It's just that stupid, that, that could be a whole podcast in itself.

0:19:58 Thomas: Yeah. Don't Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of evil, too, as well. But like but like there's also at the heart of it, just pure incompetence and lack of caring about doing things correctly when it comes to often, you know, black neighborhoods and and black targets of these things. Like it's just it's it's equal parts incompetence. And actively the power to not have to care about something like that. But that is a really good term. I hadn't I haven't I hadn' heard that before.

0:20:03 Matt: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I call it administrative violence. That's, that's really what it comes down to, that's uh, I I don't know if I made it up or not, but I, I feel like I did, and it really applies to the immigration system as well, where I spend a lot of my days, um, it comes out of what you're talking about, that the judge can always say, "Well, you know, that ICE brought this in front of us." And And ICE can say, "We're just following what Congress told us to do.

0:20:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:20:39 Matt: And even the judge, when he makes a ruling for deporting somebody, he can just say, well, the higher courts will reverse me if I'm wrong. And ICE could carry out the order saying it was the judge's order. And it all just kind of goes around in an ICE. But, you know, the ultimate, the worst kinds of administrative violence are when everybody's just doing their little part, right?

0:20:40 Thomas: She's following orders. Right? Yeah.

0:20:54 Matt: Just their little piece in the factory line.

0:20:54 Thomas: Yeah. Well, that's a depressing note to go on. Let's go on a cheery note.

0:20:59 Matt: So, yeah.

0:21:00 Thomas: This is really funny and fuck those police. And that's that's a fantastic way to to get your Dora money back.

0:21:06 Matt: And best of luck to Afro Man.

0:21:20 Thomas: Right. Speaking of a cab, I don't know why I feel like Clarence Thomas qualified for some reason. He's also a cop. I don't know. Know, his cop energy, big, yeah, for sure. Um, just to open up the, segment, have you ever just like accidentally gotten a billionaire to fly you places and then just forgotten about it and been like, oh, I thought that was fine.

0:21:26 Matt: He's a cop. Yeah. That's canon. Sure.

0:21:40 Thomas: And I just, yeah.

0:21:40 Matt: That's just not how I'm living. I feel like I'd remember that.

0:21:44 Thomas: I really do think that would stick out in my memory. It'd be like, Oh, Oh yeah, no, that did happen.

0:21:49 Matt: Mean, I haven't even been in a private jet in ever, never at all. It's never happened.

0:21:51 Thomas: Yeah, all let's talk about the story. And hard to stomach because already before this, there's so much that is corrupt about, I guess, just to focus on Clarence Thomas. I mean, there there's the Jenny Thomas crap. There's the outright, you in and helping the coup and he's He's hearing cases about it and he's not recusing. I mean, there's so much already, you know, this is just the like 20th layer of icing on the shit cake. It seem seem like it could be making a bit more of a stir than than some other stuff. So why don't you break this down for us?

0:22:12 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, This is a real classic financial scandal. We haven't had one of these in a long time. And I think the whole thing is kind of a stress test on our systems right now and on the court, especially on what we're going to do with this, because there's obviously, as we'll talk about, there's not much we can do when something this egregious happens. But this is some outstanding work from ProPublica, I got to say. This is exactly what we need places like ProPublica for, doing good, strong, independent journalism, they put a lot of work into this story because they first noticed that he was taking some private jets to New Haven, kind of back and forth. It was about $70,000 worth of services.

And then they started digging into it and realized he was taking private jets everywhere and taking vacations and all these fancy places and had been on this yacht a couple of times, just hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff. So there's a few issues here, but the problem is that, as I was saying, SCOTUS has to police itself, you know, they don't have any outside agency, they have to kind of decide when it's time to recuse themselves from things. I'm there are rules about things like gifts that the judicial conference has signed on to, and the Supreme Court essentially has said in as much as many words that they're above all that, that they don't need to apply these rules to themselves, uh,

0:22:37 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah,

0:23:29 Matt: And that these are these rules are for the lower courts, it's lower being worse, obviously. But what have here is getting to take a perfectly good joke a little too far, because we have a Supreme Court justice that is living very, very well. A man who makes $285,000 a year who's taking $500,000 vacations on the largesse of somebody who's one of the biggest dark money donors to the GOP right now. And that's what I'm worried about, is we don't even know where this money is going. Yeah, no, exactly.

0:23:29 Thomas: Sure, Mm. -hmm. That's Saying Something Boy, It's I feel like there's a lot of pride in that race among the evil bastards, like, no, I'm the dark money champion of Republican assholery, no, no, I'm the dark money, they must be pretty sad they can't put the like official ranking to it.

0:24:01 Matt: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, No, I don't even get to know where it's going ever. So, uh, you, the problem is that had a couple of years ago, back in 2016, they already legalized soft corruption. Do you remember this case of Bob McDonald, you get into that at all? Governor

0:24:21 Thomas: One I do remember talking about, a case where it was essentially like a public official that was obviously being bribed, and then the Supreme Court decided brivery doesn't exist, but I don't know if that's this case. What's the one you're talking about?

0:24:31 Matt: Bob Bigelow was a governor of Virginia for a while, and he was buddies with this CEO of a supplement company, and he was trying to push this supplement that was based in tobacco, of all things. And it's a good quality Virginia product. And he was setting up meetings and phone calls and hosting things and doing all this stuff for this guy who was giving him, it came out to something, by Clarence Thomas terms, it was pennies. It was $175,000 in gifts and loans, which used to sound like a lot until you find out what Clarence Thomas has been getting up to. John Roberts writing for unanimous court, the entire court agreed on this, found that an official act was required. It can't just be that you helped arrange a phone call, right? This is the one?

0:24:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Wait, much involved in this guy's corruption that there's different layers of it that we never went into. So there was no official act because there wasn't... Yeah, and it just... A, it's depressing that it's unanimous. What year was this, by the way?

0:25:19 Matt: Yeah, there was Right. 2016.

0:25:29 Thomas: Liberal justices do we have to be mad at? Let's see, 2016, so four, probably, right? Yeah.

0:25:33 Matt: Yeah, five, I think.

0:25:35 Thomas: Oh, was it? Wow, five. Oh, uh, or was it when they only had eight or whatever?

0:25:37 Matt: Then? Might have been during that time, right after Scalia.

0:25:42 Thomas: Yeah, way... um, frustrating. There was no official act, so you can get all kinds of bribes and benefits if you're just like, "Yeah, I'll get you in the room" or something, but not... Not like, "I will pass this bill," or, you know, was that was what I remember of it.

0:25:45 Matt: Right.

0:25:55 Matt: Yeah, and of course, getting in the room is how you do the corruption. Like, that's how it works. How are you supposed to do corruption if you're not getting people together?

0:26:02 Thomas: It's not official, though, so it's fine.

0:26:03 Matt: Right. Right. It wasn't in your agenda or, you know,

0:26:06 Thomas: I unofficially got you in the room where you can just get everything you want in exchange for the goods and monies and services that you've provided to me. But it was unofficial.

0:26:13 Matt: Exactly. Yeah. No, it's just back room, just like usual. Cigars in the back room.

0:26:19 Thomas: Yeah, this is garbage. This this ruling makes me so mad on so many levels.

0:26:21 Matt: Yeah, yeah. The wrong direction for sure. And it didn't help that for years the justices, I mean, they will recuse themselves, but they think it's a huge deal to recuse themselves, because then that leaves eight or seven, or how many people are going to end up with it. One of Justice Katonji Jackson's first acts was recusing herself from a case involving Harvard, because she was on the board. And, you know, fair enough. That's a good way to start, just to say right off the bat, I'm going to be recusing myself. But Harvard didn't take her on vacation, didn't fly her around anywhere. She was just on the court. Most famously, from 2004, Antonin Scalia wrote a 20 -page memo explaining why it was okay for him to take a look in a case that Dick Cheney was on. It was actually CheneY v. U.S. after he'd just spent the weekend duck hunting with Dick Cheney.

0:26:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:03 Thomas: Like, it's fine because I didn't get shot by him. So it's OK.

0:27:06 Matt: Yeah, shot somebody else.

0:27:08 Thomas: Yeah. Guy should recuse himself.

0:27:09 Matt: Go duck hunting with Dick Chenney. That's an easy one.

0:27:12 Thomas: He should recuse himself from all future hunting trips as well.

0:27:15 Matt: Yeah, yeah, that was, I memo's angry. That's something else to link to because it's worth reading. But he just goes through point by point and explains how every single part of this trip, of how it didn't influence him at all and it's perfectly fine and it was it's okay for him to look at Dick Cheney's case. Um, that kind of set the tone. Of course Scalia and Thomas were very close. I have no doubt that Thomas has always believed the same thing, that whatever this is. But this guy, uh, Crowe, just a real classic TV name. Uh, that's our man, he's

0:27:41 Thomas: That's the billionaire that's at the heart of all this. Harlan Crowe, you're telling me it's. Wow. That's very on the nose.

0:27:47 Matt: Yeah. For a real estate developer who's evil. Yeah. I mean, I think it was character unjustified or something, but it could anybody ever been to your house and left and said, I still can't get over the collection of Nazi memorabilia? Nobody said that about my house.

0:28:03 Thomas: Gonna plead the fifth on that. No, no one's ever said that. Oh, boy.

0:28:04 Matt: I know. Yeah, that's something thing that you can say after going to Harlan Crowe's house. He has a lot of Nazi memorabilia.

0:28:08 Thomas: Okay. I saw that part. I wasn't sure if that might have been any in any way exaggerated or fake or anything. No, he literally, that's real. Okay, that's cool.

0:28:21 Matt: Yeah, he's got a signed copy of Mein Kampf. He's got Hitler paintings, which I do have to appreciate. I do appreciate this detail. He hangs the Hitler paintings next to the George W. Bush paintings. So it's perfect. Yeah, no problem with that.

0:28:24 Thomas: Who's There better, I wonder. I don't know what that means, or what I don't know what that means, like, that mean about them, their personality, their whatever, but I am actually curious who's painting, who's a better painter, for some reason that matters to me.

0:28:34 Matt: They're both pretty terrible.

0:28:45 Matt: If room full of art done by war criminals, I mean, that's a short list.

0:28:49 Thomas: Yeah. You could make that wing at the museum, you know, it'd be a special exhibit, I guess.

0:28:53 Matt: War Criminal art room, but

0:28:55 Thomas: Fascist art. Yeah.

0:28:58 Matt: Uh, and strange thing about the Nazi stuff is that it is, is not in his garden of evil, which he has in the back. He has a garden of evil.

0:29:06 Thomas: If I had a garden of evil, I might put the Nazi stuff there just to maybe not give people the wrong idea, perhaps.

0:29:06 Matt: Yeah. Maybe, build like a little shed, or you know, a structure for the Nazis stuff in the garden of evil, but no, the garden of ego is communists, that the Nazies get to be inside. Yeah.

0:29:14 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. I heard a quote from him. Those biggest fears, like communism is going to take hold. Yeah, it's just so it's weird being that self -unaware where you're. By the way, I inherited his bullshit. Is a guy. This is the guy, from my understanding, who inherited a real estate empire. I love that. Like, yeah, you know, it's really the root of all evil is like if, Yeah.

0:29:21 Matt: Uh, Yeah, Oh, yeah. He did. Stuff. Free stuff.

0:29:43 Thomas: No free stuff is going to collapse. It's just, do they not hear themselves? Do they literally never hear themselves their whole lives? That's what I want to know.

0:29:43 Matt: Can't have it. Yeah. They have nobody to tell them anything, so that's easy enough. That's the benefit of all that money. So, Clarence Thomas for, and now this actually, this is not the first time this has been mentioned. It was the first time it's sort of the conglomeration of everything has been guessed at, but 2004, the LA Times ran something just like this. 2011, it was noticed again. Again. Actually, what he learned in 2011 was just to stop reporting the plane flights. So it makes sense, right? People start noticing them, just stop reporting them.

So it's hard to know how much he actually has taken from this one person. And this is not a person with direct business in front of the court, but he sits on of things like the American Enterprise Institute and I believe the Hoover Foundation. Know, these are places that submit amicus briefs or amicus griefs, however we're going to to say it in front of the court all the time, all the time, like constantly in front of the court. And if nothing else, he's a giant dark money donor giving to any number of organizations, you know, even if you don't know officially, things

0:29:53 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:30:14 Thomas: Oh, yeah. There you go. Yeah.

0:30:37 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:30:47 Matt: Like Citizens United, for example, which was something he apparently was very interested in the outcome of. And just about a month before Citizens United Leonard Leo from the Federal Society started a dark money organization with with Ginny Thomas, just about a month before. Yeah, it makes you wonder. Makes you wonder a little bit. I didn't know where that was going.

0:31:04 Thomas: I'm sure they never talked about it. And I'm sure this billionaire is lavishing Clarence Thomas because of his amazing personality and just companionship that you would you'd want out of Clarenced Thomas.

0:31:14 Matt: Yeah. No, he wants you to know in their official statement, we have never asked about appending a lower court case. Never. They've known him for 25 years. And Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we've never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue. More generally, I'm unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying to seek or influence Justice Tomas on any case, and I would never or invite anyone who I had any belief or any intention of doing that. These are gatherings of friends.

0:31:39 Thomas: Yeah. You know, in some of the coverage, I saw how Clarence Thomas has done his fake like folksy routine before, like contrasting that with this. Oh, I'm a middle America. I love the Walmart bullshit. And it's oh, I am also I'm best friends with this billionaire. And it is totally just because we are friends. There's no, there's no other, it's not because I'm a judge. We're just, we're friends. You know how like middle America all has like a next door neighbor that's a billionaire and you're just friends.

0:31:45 Matt: Yes. Yeah. Just that guy. No. Like you said, the only thing that I knew about Clarence Thomas' travel patterns before this was that he liked to sleep in Walmart parking lots, which is...

0:32:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I heard that. What the fuck was the context of that quote?

0:32:17 Matt: It's true. No, he talked about it more than once that he and his wife just like to drive around in their RV and just meet with regular folks.

0:32:20 Thomas: What? He and his wife. Oh my God.

0:32:25 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. They just, they love the regular people. People, everyday people.

0:32:25 Thomas: That is, oh, does Anyone have that Men in Black flashy bald thing? I don't need, need to know, I just don't want to know anything about them, this. They're just the most disturbing people. Like, they really are, oh.

0:32:34 Matt: Yeah. They're, yeah, they're, they're unique. Uh, or maybe they're not, I don't know. I don't know anybody like them, but yeah. So this guy though, he's really into Clarence Thomas. He has given him so much money and so much stuff. And he's like, basically, I think he wants to start some kind of like a little Clarence Thomas museum. He wants everybody to know about his place in history. And Jenny never asked us to do any of this. We did so because we believe Justice Thomas to be one of the greatest Americans of our time, and we believe it is important to make sure as many people as possible learn about him, remember him, and understand the ideals for which he stands. We will continue to support projects that advance this goal. That's a threat and a promise. It's very important.

0:32:40 Thomas: Yeah. Sure.

0:33:15 Thomas: Is a project that advances that goal flying him around places at your expense. Does

0:33:20 Matt: And he needs to, as many Americans as possible need to meet him at our resorts, you know, specifically.

0:33:21 Thomas: That yeah yeah Oh.

0:33:27 Matt: You know, the oil painting was what did it for me. I don't know if you saw the oil painting, but it's Amazing, and it looks like a photograph.

0:33:30 Thomas: I didn't see it, oh. God.

0:33:33 Matt: But it is a beautiful oil painting of Justice Thomas sitting around smoking cigars with a bunch of uh old white Republican dudes, including Leonard Leo, of course, and if you know anything about the Federal Society and Leonardo Leo and what they are doing to our courts right now, um, idea of him sitting around having cigars is at this guy's massive resort, taking a $500,000 vacation, flying around on these planes. I mean, what are we supposed to think from all of this? What are we suppose to believe?

0:33:33 Thomas: You Know, on the other hand, it, it is a pretty good excuse for him to be like, no, this is just my one Black friend that I can say I have. So I spend a lot to keep him my friend. I feel like, you know, racist, I actually think you're telling the truth of

0:34:02 Matt: Totally, it's that too. Yeah, right. There is something to that. I mean it really is his black friend. You can tell from that picture. I mean even something as simple as at the end of the piece there, his favorite eighth grade teacher, Harlan Crowe donated a statue statue to the cemetery that she's in. He went to go speak at this thing. I mean, it's just to that level of detail that he's helping him fund a statue of his eighth grade teacher. I mean, he's paying for his life.

0:34:30 Thomas: Clarence Thomas's. I'm missing the pronouns here. So Clarence Thomas's favorite eighth grade teacher. What?

0:34:32 Matt: Yeah. A nun. Yeah, at his school, Catholic school. And there's a picture of him standing in front of him.

0:34:41 Thomas: Oh, fucking. Everything I learn about him and Ginny is the worst thing I've learned that day. Every time. Amazing.

0:34:48 Matt: Yeah? No. It doesn't get better. And ProPublica pointed out, the extent and frequency of Crow's apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court. I mean, this is way beyond anything we've ever heard of justice is doing. And

0:35:01 Thomas: Besides George Soros is obviously funding every liberal justice.

0:35:03 Matt: Right. Yeah. Of course, of course. But

0:35:06 Thomas: Besides that.

0:35:07 Matt: There has to be some outcome from this. There has to be. There has to be. I mean, I'm just asking somebody, the only actual thing they can do is impeach him, and the House of Representatives is not going to impeach Clarence Thomas. We already know that. So I don't get into a job like this so that that you can fly around for $500,000 vacations sponsored by a billionaire. You're not supposed to. If you remember the name Abe Fortas from the '70s, he was supposed to sit on the Supreme Court, but he had taken something like a $20,000 donation from somebody who had business in front of the court.

It was a huge scandal, and it was enough to keep him from getting onto the court, were asking him back in 2011 if maybe Justice Thomas had an Abe Fortis problem, right, as he's looking at, and nobody cared. Nobody cares that much now. I just, I really hope that somebody does. And it's insulting to our intelligence because Thomas said essentially that he's now going to follow the rules that were just changed, that include some things like private jets and whatever else. He should have been reporting this the whole time, and he should have been recording it because this man has business in front of the Supreme Court, whether or not it's stated business, whether or not it's official. He's very much involved in conservative policymaking and conservative think tank stuff. And he is trying actively to influence the course of politics and of policy in this country and

0:35:14 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:28 Thomas: Don't.

0:35:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:20 Thomas: I feel like if you are somebody who's referred to as a dark money donor already, then we don't know what the fuck's happened. Like that should already be, again, shouldn't these people who we've decided are like royalty that we decide like, yo, for life, you are now a person who gets to ruin our fucking lives on the court. And there's only nine of you. You're nine very special people who get to ruin Our Lives. Shouldn't there be some heightened level of like responsibility that comes with like if there's even at all the appearance? And I actually think that's the wording of the the of ethics that normal judges have. Have to, or even lawyers, if there's even the appearance of

0:36:24 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Of

0:36:57 Thomas: Impropriety, you know, if somebody is a fucking dark money donor, you don't get to say, well, there's no, but he doesn't have any business. I don't know what business he has. He's a dark money doner. It's in the name. I don't what business that he might have or not.

0:36:57 Matt: Impropriety. Yeah, right.

0:37:09 Matt: And He's arranging meetings for you with Leonard Leo, who we all know has all kinds of business in front of the court. He's trying to recreate the entire court. I mean, it's just, and oh, just for extra fun too, this guy flew him to Bohemian Grove, of all places, is uh Yeah.

0:37:23 Thomas: Oh, that thing. Yeah.

0:37:25 Matt: Yeah, uh, mean, that's just where you can go and hang out with all the people, all the men at least, who are running the world and piss on trees and do all kinds of weird stuff. Um, it sounds like fun, but it's not something that I want A Billionaire Flying Him to, oh

0:37:36 Thomas: I Don't Know What The Hell That Is. I, yeah. For anyone who doesn't know, I only remember it 'cause it was where Alex Jones and um, and Ronson Yeah. They did that to get back, before Alex Jones was like entirely nuts, you, that's kind of a famous story, um, all I know about that place, but that's, that's Weird. That's very weird.

0:37:43 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, well It's Like A really old-timey, classic, like cabal kind of place where all these people come together to run the world and all that. It's basically, it's, you know, you don't talk about what happens there. And yeah,

0:38:03 Thomas: I know, here's the thing, even if I were an evil, run the world, mustache twirling person who was like a billionaire, dark money ruining the world thing, I still wouldn't do that shit. Wouldn't you be like, I'm not going to go fucking hang out with a bunch of dweebs. Like why would, am I there no introverted run the world people? It's all like, yeah, let's go, let'S GO TO A CLUB WITH A BUNCH OF OTHER MEN AND DO WHATEVER ON Trees. What, What's in it for you there,

0:38:13 Matt: Yeah And They, they Dress up and drag, and they put on shows and like, it's, it's If You Can imagine, like, all Of the most powerful men in the world, Nixon actually said in so many words that it was the gayest thing he'd ever seen. He used worse language than that, but I think that was kind of funny. Um,

0:38:27 Thomas: Oh, This Is Too Yeah. Okay, so the answer is Nixon. Nixon is the only like, runs The world but is an asshole and doesn't want to hang out with these losers, maybe, I don't know.

0:38:45 Matt: Only Person, obviously. Obviously, Richard Nixon, yeah. But, I mean, that's how Thomas got into Bohemian Grove, was this guy. And, again, once you're there, you're around everybody that is running the world and anybody you want to talk to. So, anyway, this is obviously wrong. Like, there's just no question. And I don't see how you can possibly defend it. I don'T think he's even really trying to defend it, he's just basically saying that the rules were different. But,

0:38:57 Thomas: Family Oh, Well, I mean, I, since Trump, I think honestly anyone who isn't an idiot recognizes the game now, which is, well, what are you going to do about it? Nothing. Okay, okay, whatever, I don't care. You can't, if we have nothing to do about, you would hope that wouldn't be true of Supreme court justices, but yeah, there's nothing the fuck we can do about it because anything that could be done requires, you know, like 10 to the a hundredth power, more Republicans doing the right thing than will ever happen. You know, it requires a bunch of Republicans in the house and then, you Know, a bunch in the Senate, right? I mean, it required requires a lot of coordinated, all of a sudden good behavior on the part of Republicans in Congress. So that means you do whatever you want. He could kill a guy in that club. He could do what, you know, what are we going to do about it?

0:39:22 Matt: And that's, yeah... Right. Right. Pretty

0:39:57 Thomas: There's nothing.

0:39:58 Matt: Much. In the country I want to live in, this is an immediate stop and start impeachment proceedings as soon as this comes out. But that's not the country we live in.

0:40:05 Thomas: Are you talking about a specific country? Or I'm just wondering, do you have like a line on a better country where stuff like

0:40:09 Matt: No. I'm going to start shopping pretty soon here, though. I'll tell you.

0:40:13 Thomas: This would matter? Yeah, yeah. If anybody knows of a better country where we could live, let me know, but yeah, no, if, if you're saying, if we tried to make this piece of shit into a place where it'd be good to live, okay, I love those countries where they don't know who the Supreme Court justices are, like they have, I think in England, I think they're, I think even in Canada maybe, I want to say, although I think that's changed somewhat recently, uh, if I'm remembering correctly, because a lot of stuff that you, our country, we do end up like, like kind of export, like other assholes abroad start trying it too. But yeah, like that's the idea. We shouldn't know who these people are. We should not.

It should be some rotating, you panel selected from all the judges in the whole country of science. There's any, any number of ideas is better than this. I could come up with something off the top of my head and it wouldn't be worse. I'm not saying I've created a perfect system. It would not be worse than the current bullshit system. Are so many ways to improve it.

0:40:14 Matt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:25 Matt: But maybe if you could not be one-ninth of one-third of the federal government and do this stuff, you Yes.

0:41:12 Matt: Wigs in the UK, right? They have to wore wigs because they want to make them all look like everybody else. Because sometimes it's hard to recognize people when they're wearing those silly things. But, yeah, they want them to serve a function. They're in office.

0:41:20 Thomas: Is that really the reasoning of that? That didn't age very well then we just we have to look like everybody else by wearing these wigs, that's because, just if you go to England, you will see everybody, you, you wouldn't, they're all wearing those at all times, yeah.

0:41:25 Matt: No, it didn't.

0:41:35 Matt: Yeah. You could just put them all in overalls or something. I don't know. I mean, yeah.

0:41:40 Thomas: That, that, well, that would have been funny if that was like the requirement, was it changes with the times and they actually have to do some sort of fashion survey that would be amazing, that would go from a shitty thing to the best thing ever, if they're like, like, you know, having to wear whatever the styles are of the time, these old fucks who were deciding all this stuff.

0:41:47 Matt: Right, right. Or maybe Hunger Games hairstyles.

0:42:00 Thomas: Oh boy, that is funny.

0:42:00 Matt: Yeah, no, it's and the wigs are every day. I worked for a lawyer over there actually for about six months, and it was a fascinating experience, but she was first generation, um, lawyer, nobody in her family had ever been a lawyer before, and you're supposed to inherit your wig, right, and it's a whole thing, and so she went to the

0:42:02 Thomas: Oh My fucking God. Really? I don't know anything about... All right. You know what? British... I know we have them. British... Barristers? Is that what they're called? I don't know. Hit me up.

0:42:19 Matt: Barristers or the the court people yeah yeah

0:42:22 Thomas: I want... I want a whole shit... We could... This could be a... Maybe a bonus episode or something. Tell me all the dumb shit that you do over there just to give us a relief from... For a moment of not being the target of ridicule. Just us to laugh at something a little bit stupider than some things that our country does

0:42:34 Matt: There's so much of it because Yeah, to our credit, we got rid of a lot of the stupid British stuff when we started our own deal, so um the attorney I was working for, she actually had to kick her wig around on the floor for a while just to make it look used because you don't want to be a person walking in with a new wig, you know, right?

0:42:44 Thomas: This is something no one will appreciate, but yeah, that's a, as a hockey thing, when you see a goalie with like pristine white pads, you know, like you're like, oh, okay, so they suck or or coincidentally they're, they happen to buy new pads and they're really good, that never happens, so for some reason they always just keep their old shitty smelly pads forever, probably because, because it is a sign of being a good goalie.

0:42:59 Matt: Yeah hey you don't want to meet the guy with the new equipment, I know what you mean, but

0:43:16 Thomas: No. Get back on track. Realistically, though, I know the answer is there's nothing the fuck we can do. But like, what can we do? What is anyone even trying to do? What even looks like something we could maybe do about this? What's the plan?

0:43:30 Matt: We've created these law priests who are above everything and don't have to follow the rules, so that's It's always the problem with priests in any circumstance. But the conference, literally, it's all of the judges in the United States, and they're represented. They pick their representatives, and they get together once a year. The chief justice is actually in charge of the judicial confidence. They've got these rules, and they have a very strict set of rules about when you recuse and how, and when you report expenses and gifts. And they've had a rule about reporting gifts since 1990. And Clarence Thomas is just now saying, well, now that they've updated it with a few more things that I like, we're going to actually start following it, he's going to start following it because he knows he's in trouble, but if they could just agree to follow the same rules the other judges did, then we could avoid a lot of this, but they won't.

0:43:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:44:14 Thomas: Is he really saying that the 1990 revision just hadn't made it to his desk yet or something? What do you mean?

0:44:18 Matt: No, they're Just now, like this month, adding a bunch of new stuff to it, but I went back and read the current version and I don't see how the current vision doesn't apply to his stuff either, I mean it's pretty strict about gifts over 415 dollars. I mean, I don't know, but we can't impeach them and they know it, and they can't police each other, which would be pretty awkward, right, to have Sotomayor sitting him down and telling him he can't sit on the court for this case. That's it. We have to hold them to that. I think, like you said, now Dick Durbin has said the judiciary, that the Court must be held to an enforceable code of conduct just like every other federal judge. So I'm assuming that they're going to try to say, they're going to somehow impose these same judicial rules on the high court. And maybe they can. I don't really know, it's new territory, but

0:44:24 Thomas: Oh yeah yeah yeah you know, you say the other justices can't enforce it, and I know that's not going to do a whole lot, but part of me wishes, you know, when they're doing shit like rolling back, uh, rights to fucking, pre, it's hard to even say stuff like, they are overturning Roe, because that used to be like, well, that's the insane example you'd use as like a, just a really hyperbolic thing. But no, they literally overturned Roe when they're doing that, and then we still have to get the bullshit about, well, they're very cordial to each other on the court, though, like at what point can they just, every, I know it's not going to do anything, but it will at least be nice if every time they're, they're in oral arguments, they're like, hey, fuck face, you said what, what, what'd you say, piece of shit, you just ruined our, our country?

Sorry, I didn't hear that question. Just anything. Give me anything. Any passive aggressive thing. I'll take anything at this point. Or in every opinion, I know they're not going to do that. In every opinion started off with, oh, just, I'm still mad by the way, if you're so to my, whoever, hey, just noting at the start of this, I am still really fucking mad that you ruined our country and took away abortion rights and right to choose and rolled us back to the pre, the seventies, or even worse. That still sucks. Just noting that. Okay. Now let's talk about the the next thing you're going to ruin. I don't know. Little

0:45:21 Matt: Yeah right right yeah, yeah right yeah yeah and

0:46:15 Thomas: Protests of some kind.

0:46:16 Matt: There's a dissent in this case, but it's written by a guy who just took a five hundred thousand dollar vacation, paid poor by a major GOP donor, right, that kind of thing just kind of really get in there remind it, yeah you

0:46:22 Thomas: Yeah. Ooh, yeah. They don't do that. I get it. You, you know, you, this is your coworker, I guess, but I don't know. It's just fine. It just, it makes me mad that there's not something, there's no, there's some of that at all. So nice to each other. They're

0:46:37 Matt: Know, that thing about how when they say, I dissent, instead of, I I respectfully dissent. Like, that's about as mean as it gets.

0:46:42 Thomas: Oh yeah. That, well, that did it. Yeah, you're right. You know what? Sorry. Hey, hey, it's solved, everybody. Problem solved.

0:46:44 Matt: Really scathing. Just say, I dissent, yeah.

0:46:50 Thomas: Instead of they didn't respectfully dissent, bam, the country's fixed. Okay. Yeah. So there's nothing other than, I mean, we should be very mad and we should make noise. And, you know, this is something that's so egregious. It does feel a little different. Now, I'm not, don't get me wrong. I'm saying that means something's going to happen, but it does feel like so egressive to me that some number of whoever's the remaining remaining sane Republicans in power. And there's very few, but, but even on like, I don't know, state level or more, you know, local whatevers do seem to be talking about it in a way that is a little different than past thingies. Does that seem true to you as well?

0:47:26 Matt: And Clarence Thomas might be capable of shame, but he's never going to step down until he wants to, right? Until the next Republican president. I mean, thanks to Harlan Crowe's largesse, he's had a lot of time to spend with Leonard Leo, and he will never let him step down.

0:47:31 Thomas: No. Yeah.

0:47:39 Matt: Got a schedule for this stuff, and it starts with the next Republican president. President, so that would be the only, the thing would be just to try to shame him into it, and that's just not going to happen.

0:47:39 Thomas: Yeah, still worth trying, still worth having the fight, even if we're going to lose, still worthwhile in the fight.

0:47:49 Matt: Just It out when you see it, call it as you see it, but Uh, statement getting out of this, I think was, uh, it was pretty weak, it was weak tea, it was advised, this sort of personal hospitality with friends who did not have business before the court was not reportable, it was advise, very passive, uh, claims that he was told this, you, when he started 32 years ago, and he asked around about it. He's been friends with them for 25 years. Uh, so he's been at this for a long time, but

0:47:53 Thomas: Yep.

0:48:12 Thomas: So he's putting it on like I can, the, my old boss, who's long dead, Baron Whizzer White or whatever.

0:48:15 Matt: Rehnquist. Right. Yeah. Right. Right, right.

0:48:20 Thomas: Yeah. Berger told me that this was fine and yeah. Okay. I can't really fact check that. So I guess you're good.

0:48:26 Matt: Yeah, he wasn't taking private jets and going to Indonesia or whatever else at the time. But yeah, um, can see how it happened. You can see why you're a public servant. You're, you're, getting 285 a year. You think you're worth more. You're getting these friends. You have all opportunities, private jets, private yachts, these beautiful resorts that they stay at, that they own. You start to think that maybe you just earn it. Maybe you're entitled to it somehow. Maybe this is the world you're supposed to live in. And meanwhile, you got my man, David Souter, who lives in New Hampshire and basically in a cabin with a TV in the corner that he's never plugged in. The man eats yogurt and apple cores for lunch.

0:48:55 Thomas: Wow. Really? Apple cores.

0:49:00 Matt: Famously, he eats his his apple's whole. I don't really know. He does eat the rest of it.

0:49:02 Thomas: He doesn't. Oh, but, but that suggested that he specifically only eats the core. Like he's like, yeah, peel back this shit. Just it's let like somebody else is eating an apple. The You're only good part of that thing? Oh, hand that over.

0:49:16 Matt: No, he's a monk, he's not psychotic, exactly.

0:49:18 Thomas: Yeah, but this is very like, you Carter's peanut farm level of thing. I didn't know this about Souter.

0:49:21 Matt: Yeah. No, Suitor. And Suitor has never reported a single gift in his entire time as a judge, in any of the judges- he's at positions he's been in. And that's the way, like, if you can possibly be that aesthetic, like, that's what you should do. This is supposed to to be a position of incredibly high trust, and like you said, there's no reason to have any appearance of impropriety at all. They shouldn't be doing it. I

0:49:23 Thomas: Okay.

0:49:44 Thomas: Could we leave people with here? Just make noise, basically? Is there anything to do or just be meh, be yelly about it, I guess.

0:49:50 Matt: Find more David Suitors and fewer Clarence Thomases, I think that would be a good way to go. I got no problem with that.

0:49:55 Thomas: Okay. So maybe don't vote for

0:49:58 Matt: That's a start. Well,

0:49:58 Thomas: Republicans. Don't vote for Republicans, everybody. We've got our action item. But no, thanks for the breakdown, Matt. I'm glad we had the more delightful story to offset. This is just truly depressing and shitty and infuriating. And I hope that someday the only bright side maybe is that I do think generationally, and this will take for fucking ever, but it does feel like generationally the The younger Democrats that are getting power and progressives that are acquiring are dead set on like, I don't give a shit about your filibuster, man. Like, why would we care about that? And that's at least good. Like, I think we can keep pushing on that, keep hoping, making the arguments that the filibustering is worthless and we don't need it. And, you know, and by the way, if we vote enough people in, then that's fewer dinosaurs to we have to convince that the Filibuster sucks, too. Too. So, I Joe Manchins and such.

0:50:22 Matt: And More, more moral clarity. That's what I want to see. That's the kids are really good at, is moral clarity, and this is morally very foggy. So, So, just keep you it clear.

0:50:49 Thomas: So yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah, let's get clear. That's why we're becoming Scientologists.

0:51:01 Matt: It's another episode.

0:51:02 Thomas: That's the only thing we can do about it. No, thanks so much, Matt Cameron, as always. It's at Matt underscore Cam on Twitter is mainly where people can find you or, you know, back on the show, I m sure, next time I bother you. But thank you so much for the breakdown. Really appreciate it.

0:51:12 Matt: Okay. Anytime.

0:51:15 Thomas: Now, do you want to fly in my jet? Let's go. Hop on.

0:51:18 Matt: Happily.

0:51:19 Thomas: Don't have to tell anyone.

0:51:19 Matt: I've