Mm-hmm.

So anyway, I'm sorry I missed that yesterday.

Uh, there's a specific statute that prevents officers from... barring federal officers from election sites since the reconstruction days, and it's 18 U.S.C. 592.

And of course, Kash Patel, who's lying off his ass there about election integrity officers, uh, he's gonna try to circumvent that, that and say that having officers at the polls is necessary to make sure there's no election fraud.

Well, of course, the problem with that is there's zero evidence to support election fraud.

So again, media, frame this properly, call it out.

They're relying upon things that are simply nonexistent.

Josh, what's your take on that?

Josh.

Well, there's all sorts of problems with this.

The, the pardon office at the Department of Justice has basically been abolished.

There used to be a systematic way that you would submit pardons, uh, to the Department of Justice and have it reviewed and then taken to the White House, and they would work in coordination with each other.

And I believe the attorney, Liz Oyer, she, she's always reporting on the injustices, uh, of, of the pardon system now.

She was actually fired from there for trying to be ethical and advise them, uh, what to do.

But you've got these two guys, uh, Jacob Wall and Jack Burkman.

Correct?

Football's on all season long on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app

I, I agree completely.

Uh, I, he, we are fucked, and we have these conversations with our phones, with AI, with Alexa or Siri, uh, day in and day out, and it's only gonna get exponentially worse over a period of time to where we're not having any conversations amongst ourselves.

That's scary.

We talked about this, uh, on the pod a little bit yesterday, but it's scary where this is headed, and I couldn't agree more.

Yes

... th- th- then that, that's what you're interacting with, that means there's a problem in your life.

Like, you're not seeing people enough.

This is a really huge problem, Josh.

Well, a- and I find things like this so offensive, and we see a lot of that in Oklahoma, where if you look different or if you're from a different country, uh, you, you hear this, uh, dog whistle.

A- and that's what this is.

This guy's running for office in, in, a, a state office in the state of Texas, and he sees this and feels threatened, and he wants to reach out, and he wants to, to send a message that this is not okay, that this is somehow they've infiltrated, uh, the campus at University of Texas.

Uh, you know, this is dear to us because we have two sons that have gone to two different colleges, uh, and are at college now.

And we...

A- I see a picture like that, and we embrace that diversity.

... for the Supreme Court, et cetera.

the outpouring bipartisan support of the people that have to live around these data centers screaming, "No, we don't want them near us." What's your take?

Well, I think that, uh, Obama is a brilliant politician, and I completely agree with him, but I would say that the American public has made their feelings about AI as clear as crystal.

Same with the government of Israel.

So I'm saying listen to your constituents.

Obama is voicing concerns the American people are voicing, and you have Trump poo-pooing it.

And so we need to see these lawmakers, are they getting funding from, you know, Israeli corporate interests? And are they getting funding from AI corporate interests? And we know for a fact, you know, Chuck Schumer, speaker of the...

or, I'm sorry, the senate minority leader, is ass-deep with Palantir.

Putin what he wants, and that we still have some European allies, um, bending the knee to Trump, is a real wake-up moment here.

[laughs]

You've had the Senate.

Why didn't you do this stupid-ass $5,000 dividend? Why didn't you just do it in the first two years? It's just a con job, and these people that buy into this bullshit, uh, it, it, that's what drives me crazy, not that Fox sells it anymore, not that Trump sells it anymore, not that JD Vance says this stupid shit.

That doesn't bother me anymore.

It's the fact that these people Are either so uneducated or so unwilling to look outside of themselves, uh, and, and, and see the truth in what this is.

So...

[laughs]

Uh, well, it's a bigger picture here.

trumped.Yeah

I've got another, uh, addition to this, and this gentleman that was duct-taped to his seat, you know, w- down where I grew up in Hugo, um, we would tell people like this that, that he's lucky.

Like, he's lucky by saying those kind of things to people like that, that he didn't just get his fucking ass whipped, that he didn't get hurt really, really bad.

Being duct-taped is a gift for this guy.

You say this kind of shit, uh, and I think you're right.

You get outside of the bubble, you know, and Trump has made all this stuff normal.

These young kids that we see, these young white kids that are in college, and they, they normalize a lot of this stuff, too.

I was so shocked at how many people in the comment section are sitting there defending Walmart, and then it, it, it's just, it's, it's wild that it- the Republican Party has so brilliantly gotten so many people to defend things that absolutely harm them directly.

Stock up at Whole Foods Market.

And the psychology in that, and we, we talk about this a lot, but the psychology of Fox News is they grab this boogeyman.

Here, the boogeyman is the terrorist, and you somehow try to link Mamdani to a terrorist because he has, I think, a, a, a lawyer that works for him that had represented someone charged with terrorism before, and that's the link.

But if you see, they always try to prop up this straw person, and what they're doing then is creating this narrative that Zoran is somehow attached to the terrorist, that, that he's somehow linked to someone involved in 9/11.

That's, that's their claim.

They...

And they do this with the trans female athletes.

Fox News is such a disgrace.

They'd rather feast on lies because it makes them feel good about being bigots.

And how refreshing is it to see Mamdani basically get in office and say, "Listen, I'm not gonna keep this secret anymore.

I've got no reason to hide these facts from the public, from the New York, uh, citizens," uh, and he releases it.

And, and so then you get, you know, the right side.

You, you get the conservatives coming out attacking him.

That's basically what a lot of this is about, is the smear campaign against him because he's not, he's not your typical politician who's bought and paid for.

He's independent, and so he gets into office and he says, "I'm gonna be honest with the people.

And so all of these forces are using the Vicki Paladino red meat racism shit to take our eye off the ball, but it's always been the billionaires that are taking your jobs and now apparently gonna kill us all

It, it, w- w- what do we do with such an entity?

Well, th- there's been a lot of talk about reform, and adding 13, a total of 13 justices to the court has been one idea.

But the biggest problem where we sit as lawyers, as attorneys, is that this body, the Supreme Court, has no oversight At all.

No ethical oversight that they're subject to.

Uh, myself as a lawyer, I'm, I'm constrained by the rules of professional conduct governed by the American Bar Association, the Oklahoma Bar Association.

Uh, they live on their own island.

They play by their own rules.

They know it, and that's why they try to make it so difficult for people to vote.

Okay.

And, and both of these are gonna sound, uh, familiar to you.

[laughs] The first is, um, in Italy they like to serve... restaurants like to serve your drinks with ice, and I drink Coke.

I'm a, just a straight up Coca-Cola drinker.

And so with every meal I order a Coke, and they like to bring you a glass with ice, and then they like to pour the Coke into the glass.

And in Italy it's real humid, and the ice melts the Coke and dilutes it.

So I've had it with the restaurant not asking, "Would you like us to pour the Coke into the glass of ice?" And so what I do is I preemptively tell the waiter, "Hey, I just want a Coke in a bottle.

It drives me fucking crazy.

Okay.

The, the story of my life, complicated and confusing.

So I've had it with clothing stores in which you're a paying customer not allowing you to use their bathroom, the restroom.

And let me, uh, elaborate a bit, if you don't mind.

So when we were on vacation in London, I took a cab to the Frame store to buy some jeans, to buy some black denim jeans, because I like to wear all black.

If the listener hasn't noticed, I, I'm a Johnny Cash type guy, all black.

So I'm in there.

[laughs]

All of their policies, especially the decisions of the Supreme Court, support all of those things that I just mentioned.

You're 100% right, and I, I would say that, that they have been successful in labeling basic needs that government supplies its people, they've labeled that somehow as socialism, and that that's a bad thing.

And you look at the history of our country, you look at a lot of these, uh, minorities, you look at poor people, uh, the economy has always experienced an uptick when the government can help those groups of people function and be employed and be a part of the workforce.

Um, and, and so that's, a- again, that's another thing.

Like, uh, I, I think a lot of this comes down to labeling 'cause Republicans think that they can call something socialism, and that that's gonna have, uh, some sort of taboo at the polls, but it's not.

It, it's not.

And if we can define that, Bernie Sanders was doing a, an excellent job of talking about working people and what the government can do to help working people.

[laughs]

Josh?

I first think of the disconnect that's associated with these people that work for the Department of Justice that are, like you mentioned, are law and order individuals, and that the disconnect they have when they see him and they applaud his entry, whether it was staged or not, just the, uh, theatrics, the dishonesty associated with that, the hypocrisy associated with that.

It's...

A- a- and I try to understand it, but I think that these people that live in Washington, uh, live in this fantasy land.

Like, they're not seeing what the rest of the country's seeing as it relates to Todd Blanche.

He's the most corrupt, unqualified candidate for attorney general that we've ever had, and he's admitted to, to a certain extent that his loyalties lie with President Trump.

Uh, he's not law and order.

Josh, what, what would you do if you were defending this Olympian? And, and, and break this down for the audience.

Do these rulings on the shadow docket, are they so outrageous because they are overturning precedent without explanation?

They're overturning a previous court's examination of a case, and the, and the lower court, the appellate court, oftentimes has received multitude of briefing and legal issues presented and oral argument, and the attorneys appear in person.

And so they have a, a wealth of knowledge and information about the case, and then it goes to by application to the Supreme Court, and then the Supreme Court, oftentimes you'll see in less than one paragraph without citing any legal authority, will overturn something.

Uh, a- and it's not just something of little significance.

It, it's something of great magnitude.

You know, for example, one of the, uh, Black-majority districts in Louisiana recently, uh...

Th- they, they basically just take the pen and strike whatever it is they don't like, and it's dangerous.

Josh?

Really?

Yeah.

I- i- it's, i- it's one of those cases that...

And we all know this as lawyers.

The Supreme Court, they, they can get to any result that they wanna get to.

They can find a way to navigate through.

Here, they simply say that physically, because you haven't entered the United States, you're not allowed to claim asylum from persecution.

Well, they're over-policed.

wow so um so let's just get into it what's the story behind the photograph

okay so you know oklahoma city is the home of the flaming labs i guess you know the flaming labs and i'm good friends with uh wayne and stephen and in 2011 i think portugal the man was headlining the norman music festival and norman is the home of the university of oklahoma outside of oklahoma city and so the we went to go see those guys And they needed a place to stay.

Like they were young kids and hadn't hit it big yet.

And they were headlining this festival, but you know, musicians at that age, they're dead broke.

And so we had them over, we fed them, we let them shower.

And so I got to develop a relationship with John and those guys.

And fast forward maybe to the end of 2012, I'm doing professional photography.

Has anyone ever reached out to you after this and said like, hey, that's my car?

From your vantage, from your career, when you see the DOJ siding with these corporations that are plundering the Earth, what stage of fascism here do you think we are?

Well, I, I think, w- what we haven't talked about, and I'll answer your question in just a second, what we haven't talked about is the communities that are impacted by this pollution are African American communities in the state of Mississippi.

So that shows you right there, they don't care about an African American community.

Uh, I think there are 27 natural gas turbines that are owned by this company that are putting, uh, these toxins into the, the airway in violation of the Clean Air Act.

Um, a- and the Department of Justice wasn't even a party to this lawsuit.

So understand this.

The Department of Justice and the state of Mississippi intervened.

It is so disgusting.

But I'll tell you what, I think the kids are a lot better off that these types of mothers have full-time jobs.

Well, and she says, "Slave behind desk." You know, I don't know if she knows this or not, but a majority of the people have to get out and just do a job that's picking shit up or, you know, moving shit or just to make ends meet, to pay their mortgage, to pay the ga- you know, get gas in their car, pay for food, for tuition.

So, uh, this thought that you're not meant to slave, you know, to work, basically, I'm sorry, but a lot of people don't have that luxury.

They have to fucking work.

You know why? Because inflation's up.

The cost of living in America is three times what it was.

Um, so welcome to the real world.

Mm-hmm.

So what does this filing from Democrats, um, what are they trying to do? And is there any chance that this filing will succeed?

Well, in essence, um, Mr. Platkin and the other individuals involved are telling this judge, "Do not allow the settlement.

Do not allow this dismissal," because there is a provision that, that even though the plaintiff is moving for a dismissal, the court still has the authority, uh, to keep this case alive and to order show cause hearings and make them explain exactly what they're doing, whether or not what they're doing is legal, and so forth.

And that's a big part of their urging the court.

If, if the court doesn't do it, then there's not gonna be any oversight here.

We're not gonna know exactly what happened.

We're not gonna know the answer to these questions.

No president has ever done anything like it." So Josh, you've told us what you think about this as an attorney, but as a man who was born and raised in Oklahoma your whole life around all of these Republicans that talk about the rule of law, law and order, and corruption, and waste, fraud, and abuse, what is your personal take on the hypocrisy of all of the Republicans that still support this brazen criminal that happens to be the President of the United States?

... for gaslighting you.

Yeah.

And, and I, I got ChatGPT to admit this.

So I asked ChatGPT a question like, "Does President Trump control the Department of Justice?"Uh, and then it gives me some answer that it doesn't, and then I have to, like, give it four or five examples of how, how he does in fact.

And, and then ChatGPT says, "Well, there's a perception that he does, but blah, blah, blah." And then I take the word perception and I say, "No, it's not just perception," and then I list all these examples.

And then ChatGPT apologizes and said that it will do a better job moving forward at being transparent-

They belong in Europe

...

And how do you think you're doing now, and what do you think is the difference from before?

Well, I do, I, I, I do several things now that I, I didn't do before.

Um, I take ketamine infusions.

That's helped me quite a bit as far as my recovery.

Um, I try to be accountable and honest to my kids.

I still take drug tests, and for the past four years I've voluntarily taken drug tests.

And, and when I was going through a reinstatement process to practice law again in 2022, 2023, I started taking drug tests literally to where I call and, and I'm gonna go this afternoon, and I call in and get a color.

With a wink.

Dumb this down in layman terms for me and the listeners so we understand what Trump is doing with the DOJ and how he is, in fact, weaponizing it.

Well, so to begin with, the Second Circuit has, has already decided this issue, and they decided against Trump, and this was during Biden's administration.

And just recently, uh, DOJ requested an en banc hearing.

That's where you get all of the judges to rule on this.

I think there's eight or nine circuit judges, and all of them would collectively hear this and rule.

And typically, you only see that if it's a very important issue and the court decides upon a request to actually do that.

Here, DOJ did that, and the Second Circuit refused the en banc, uh, decision, or, or, or to sit en banc and listen to this and give them a second shot at it.

And the DO- Go ahead.

It turned off fine.

'05 was...

And then there's all [laughs] these emails, like, uh, yeah, it's kind of a comedy show.

You can't keep up with all the lying, who's lying the most.

Um, this guy, Tartaglione, he was, uh, sentenced recently to four consecutive life sentences.

Uh, he's a former police officer.

He finds this note, he says, four days after Epstein's, uh, suicide attempt.

Tell, tell the audience just how stunning this original deal was e- with Alex Acosta.

There's just a slight difference.

[laughs] Right.

Don't want anyone to be confused.

But back in the sticks, back in Oklahoma, we call it Midtown too.

So, uh, I recently moved to Midtown and I'm about two or three blocks from a sanctuary for homeless people, and there's a bus stop right in front of our office and I'm building all this up because, uh, I'm an atheist, I'm not a Christian, but what I'm really had it with are Christians who don't act like Jesus, okay? And when I say that, I see a lot of the homeless population around this new office, and I see how much help people need.

Um, and so I make a point, like if, if I go outside and I bump into someone, sometimes I'll give 'em money, if they need a water, if they need a drink, and then I think to myself, "You know, I'm an atheist.

I'm not a Christian.

Somebody like MacKenzie, the wife of Jeff, she can't give it away fast enough, and it's always to marginalized people, Meals on Wheels, um, Black universities, et cetera.