May 17, 2025 • 35 mins
The constitutional crisis unfolding at the Supreme Court takes center stage in this thought-provoking episode as we examine the alarming arguments over presidential power and the 14th Amendment.
When the Supreme Court heard the administration's case challenging birthright citizenship, the justices cut straight to the heart of the matter: can a president simply override constitutional amendments with executive orders? The implications extend far beyond immigration policy. As one justice pointedly asked, using the same logic, could an executive order authorize the military to "enter every major population center and seize all weapons" despite the Second Amendment? The administration's struggle to draw meaningful distinctions reveals the dangerous precedent at stake.
Meanwhile, we explore the growing tensions between federal immigration enforcement and local oversight. Congressional representatives recently demanded access to ICE detention facilities while a mayor was arrested for the same attempt. This disparity highlights the critical role elected officials must play in challenging executive overreach – they should "be the ones leading the charge" since they face fewer personal consequences than ordinary citizens engaged in similar actions.
The episode also covers our upcoming June 6th D-Day event, where we're working to balance respectful commemoration of veterans while providing a platform for free expression. We're carefully planning speakers who can discuss military service and the importance of following lawful orders, especially relevant in today's political climate.
From diplomatic developments in the Middle East to reports of concerning deals with cartels at the southern border, we examine how money and transactional diplomacy have replaced principle in foreign policy. Share your thoughts on these critical issues – how do we protect the Constitution when those sworn to defend it seem determined to find workarounds?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
This is the Pikes Peak Region'spolitical podcast with a
veteran's point of view.
Thanks for joining us.
If nobody else was impressedwith that, I might have to cut
that one, and save it.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You dropped some extra peas in there too.
I know, that was weird.
I caught that.
I was like whoa, there's twomore peas in there.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
We'll have to cut that one and save it.
Yeah, save that clip man.
That We'll have to cut that oneand save it.
Yeah, save that clip, man.
That'll be our intro from nowon.
So I'm your co-host, adamGiller.
Joining me is Dick Wilkinson.
How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Dick, I'm doing great , adam, good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Good morning.
We got again a lot of thingsgoing on in the community here,
so let's jump right into it.
One of the big things that I'vebeen working on a lot with is,
uh, helping plan the protestsand things down.
I'm not a big protester myself,um, but I'll give people the
platform to protest.
Sure, you know, like, like, Ithink our first amendment is so
(00:52):
critical to us and making surethat people feel like they're
doing something.
You know, um, and it's weird,cause I, we did the May Day and
there was like Chinese flags andcommunist flags and stuff like
that, and like it felt weird.
Yeah, it felt like I'm likebecause that just means
something different to me.
Yeah, you know to be walking onthose flags, but like I have to
(01:13):
keep reminding myself that it'snot about me, it's about
getting them, it's about helpingpeople be safe and just letting
them have their voice.
Yeah, and exercise their firstamendment.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So it sucks when you you see it and like you see some
of the folks carrying, but likeyou know we could have a
conversation about this, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
There's better ways, to you know.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I had that experience one time at a.
So Gary Johnson um, if ifeverybody was listening hasn't
figured it out, dick is is alibertarian some, sometimes some
days of the week, and so Ilived in New Mexico.
Gary Johnson's from New Mexico,and so you know who'd have
figured that he's a popular guythere in amongst certain
political circles, right?
He ran as a Republican and wasthe governor of New Mexico as a
(01:53):
Republican and then, after hisRepublican career as that you
know ended.
Then that's when he startedrunning at the national level as
a libertarian.
He had a rally during his lastpresidential run, which was, I
guess 2016 is the last time heran and he came to Albuquerque
(02:15):
and while he was there this wasmy moment he said I would pardon
Edward Snowden, and that's likea battle cry for libertarian
circles, right?
I don't know if you're in thechat room they believe that
Snowden was a hero, that thesecrets were all justified and
that everything he did was justand that he should be carried on
(02:39):
your shoulders as the personwho told us all the secrets,
right?
Well, I, of course, have a verydifferent opinion about that,
right, but I had to be in theroom with all these people that
I was like, oh man, these are mypeople.
And we just said 10 things in arow that I really want to clap
for.
And then you just said the turdin the punch bowl that I have
to leave the room now, right,like I can't be associated with
you people.
(02:59):
And you know, I had that momentwhere I was just like eww, yeah
, you get the ick.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, oh, no, yeah, yeah, because that was
definitely the way he did it andjust went to China, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Stopped off in China and then, you know, by way of
Russia to China.
You know, it was just crazy, Ithink he's a Russian citizen.
Yeah, well, he is now.
Yeah, but yes, that whole.
Thing.
Oh yeah, but yes, that wholething.
And so you know, that was I hadthat moment too.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
That was my Chinese flag, yeah, so, for the next
thing that we're really focusingon and planning, I wanted to do
something different than just aprotest, Because it's going to
happen on June 6th, which is aD-Day, and you know one.
I don't ever like really usingveterans as props, like the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Sure.
So to try to like easy to do inpolitics, right right.
Yeah, it's easy to show uplooking like that sometimes yeah
, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So I'm really trying to walk that line right now and
make sure that we respect, uh,you know, and remember the
veterans.
Um, on d-day and this is a weekafter memorial day too um, they
wanted to do some protestsMemorial Day.
I just don't want to.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I agree yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
But this June 6th day we're going to have some
speakers out at the park.
We're looking at the locationsright now, but it'll be in the
evening.
So just kind of mark calendarsright now.
On June 6th We'll have somespeakers and, uh, you know,
hopefully you can just gettogether and talk about our
service and what it's like to uh, follow, follow, lawful orders.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, you know, yep, and then, uh, you just reminded
me that we're going to have aguest that we were going to have
today, but I didn't, uh,coordinate the meeting with him.
Um, but We'll have arepresentative from the Veterans
Trauma Court coming to the showsoon.
I'll just have to regroup andtry that again.
Yeah, I get that.
There's always things going on.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
That would be exciting to hear that one and
actually get some good examplesof things going on in our
community and just show people,everybody, that there's hope
when people are going into thesethings.
There's resources here to getyou through them.
Hopefully we're going intothese things.
There's resources here to getyou through them, you know so.
So hopefully we get to talk tohim real soon, yep.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
But yeah, we will be looking forward to the June 6th
event.
Um, adam invites me toeverything he does and a lot of
times I'm not able to go, butthis one is far enough out.
I'm going to.
I'm going to more than pencilit in, I'm going to actually put
it in the calendar and make ithappen.
So, yeah, looking forward to itcool, uh.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Next thing we wanted to roll to was our uh, kilmar
count yeah, we got 64 days onthe board and yeah, it's
ridiculous.
You don't hear anything aboutit like the news cycle has moved
on a bit right, right, and likeeven our own local ice raid,
that that you know, 100 peopledisappeared.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, we still don't hear a lot about that's.
That's gone full crickets atthis point, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And I spoke about it last week or the week before,
about asking the senator'soffice for some answers, and
Senator Hickenlooper's officeresponded and they said that ICE
responded to them and saidthere was because this was in
response to last week's raids ortwo weeks ago raids, no last
week's.
Do we even talk about that lastweek?
What day did that?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
happen?
I'm not sure.
I don't even know exactly.
So let me talk about that realquick.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, thursday or Friday of last week, I think it
was after we recorded.
Yeah, cspd served a searchwarrant down in Meadows.
Oh yes, that was afternoon,thursday afternoon a search
warrant down in Meadows.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Oh yes, that was afternoon, thursday afternoon,
that's right yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So they served a warrant down in a trailer park
on the southeast side of townfor one person and they had
everything shut down.
They had ice there with themand it was a similar tactic that
they use for the party raidright, okay, where they have a
warrant for somebody.
So they say, hey, ice, comealong, yeah.
(06:46):
And then they just try to grabwhoever they can.
Whoever whatever door theyknocked on, they either didn't
get a response or the persondidn't let them.
I think if they would have gota response, they would have went
in no matter what.
Sure, so the person probablydidn't respond.
But you know they cleared outand left.
(07:06):
But ICE is still active in ourcommunity and so you know, we
reached out and I talked to thesenator's office about that and
they were informed by ICE thatthere was no operations set in
Peterson or on Peterson on thatday in question.
But to me that's just a hugekind of deflection because it
wasn't on Peterson space forces.
It was near Peterson but it wasoff of the base in the trailer
(07:29):
park next door.
Yeah, so it seemed like apretty obvious deflection.
Um, you know, we talked lastweek about the, uh, the prisoner
movement that that a friend ofmine saw.
Yeah, um, and there they tried,they tried to put it on like a
different BOP.
I don't know what that means,but different prisoner movements
.
But my friend that saw thismovement said it wasn't what
he's seen in the past.
Sure, prison movements.
(07:50):
So everything that thesenator's office, like we asked,
they got responses from ICE andit was all deflections.
Just misleading information.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Just not being true.
They're intentionally not beingtrue.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah Well, you didn't ask for this specific right,
yeah, yeah, you said at threeo'clock, but we were down there
at 9 am, so you know it must notbe what you're talking about.
Yeah, it's.
It's like the word problem.
You know, in high schools theygot all the sentences in the
word problem that don't need tobe there.
That's all they're telling you.
They won't give you theinformation about what you need.
They're just giving youinformation about stuff that
(08:21):
doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Right right, just give them a little extra nuggets
of information, just so, if youlatch on to it, they get the.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, and you know the bottom line.
It's just like well, you askeda question, we answered it.
I don't care if you don't likethe answer.
That was the answer.
Yeah, let's move on right.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, and this is something I'm working with
another group of people, withtrying to build some
relationships with CongressmanCrank's office and actually
trying to have usefulconversations.
Yeah, just, you know, goingthere yelling and screaming at
each other, but you know we hadto set the tone early on with
their representatives.
You know that don't treat uslike we're stupid, sure, so like
(08:57):
when you say something, likeI'm listening to you and like,
if you're not giving me theanswer, like like we're going to
I'm going to ask you again.
Yeah, you know, and you know,one of the examples I told him
was like I hear you say thingsthat you're not saying sometimes
, like when Congressman Cranksaid that the executive order
hasn't been signed to move spacefor us, like I don't think he
meant to say, like it's beenwritten, but he did.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yes, right.
And so when I asked his officelike, has it been written?
They're like oh, yeah, it'sbeen written.
It was supposed to be signedday one.
Yeah, it's what they said aboutmoving it to space, sure, so
hasn't been signed yet is a truestatement, but it's, you know,
a very veiled version of thetruth right, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So people don't know how serious it is and they're
like, oh, you know, everybody incolorado's fighting for this.
How right, how are you right?
You're passing everything thathe asked for.
You're doing everything that hesays.
You are putting up zeroroadblocks for anything.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, and doing a local news statement saying this
is important, the military isimportant.
You know, the president caresabout the military.
Yeah, okay, sure, that's whatthey're saying is, oh, we're
fighting it.
That's what they're saying is,oh, we're fighting it is that
people, all the Republicanrepresentatives here in Colorado
(10:08):
, all did say they released,basically, a press release
statement that said SpaceCommand, space Force elements
should stay in Colorado.
That was it.
That's their fight.
Right, that was one run in thelocal newspaper and they're not
talking about it in dc becausethere's nothing to talk about.
Right, you know, from thepresident's perspective, there's
(10:30):
nothing to talk about.
So, you know, run that localnewspaper story and then again
the news cycle has moved on.
So they're like, yeah, yeah,look, I said that back in
january.
Now, what, what do?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
you want.
You know, yeah, and that's whatif I quit with you know, with
that, with, uh, the icesituation, our representatives
need to be out there, like inplaces and not letting them
close until you get the answersyou want and actually like use
your status for what it's for.
You know what?
I mean yeah, like, put leveragewhere it needs to be put.
Yeah, um, like, if you don'tget the answers from the ice,
(11:01):
like you go into their detentioncenter and you find the people,
find the people?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, find the people , sure, sure.
What do you think about thestuff that happened out on the
East Coast, because thathappened last week that was
around the same I think it wasabout Thursday of last week
where there was a mayor of is itthe mayor of Newark, new Jersey
?
Yeah, went down to the ICEdetention center with the
congressional representatives.
Yeah, do you know about thatstory?
Yeah, so what's your take onthat?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I love seeing it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
They need to be out there.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Bottom line the demand right, this is it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
We're going to bottom line this demand right, because
when you look, at people whohave things to risk and to lose
if they get arrested.
So many people's jobs aredependent on their employment.
Sure, Because, well, theirpaycheck to paycheck you.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Because, well, they're paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
You know you're saying yeah their stability is
they don't have.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Stability in life in general is down to, like hitting
that mark on your nine to five.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Our elected officials are there to like, take that
heat, sure, and to be like youknow, if today's the day I get
arrested, okay, I'm going tohave a job tomorrow.
Sure, the day I get arrested,okay, I'm gonna have a job
tomorrow sure because you canstill elected me.
Yeah, um, like it doesn't hitthem, it's hard.
Like them getting arresteddoesn't hit as hard as me
getting arrested so that theyneed to be the ones leading the
charge and actually likestanding up and making sure that
people understand that thisisn't just about you know the,
(12:20):
you know migrants orundocumented workers, things
like that.
This is just a straight attackon the judicial leg of our
tripod democracy and if one ofthose other legs don't stand up
and fight for each other, ifthey don't come together and
start fighting that, third onethe executive branch is just
going to absolutely take overeverything.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
As they've said, they already are in charge of
everything.
Yeah, then it will just belegitimate.
Yeah, so this is the fight.
Yeah, charge of everything.
Yeah, then it will just belegitimate.
Yeah, so this is the fight.
Yeah, they need to be out theregetting arrested as much hell
as possible and stopping to passthe agenda.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Lockstep all the way I I think there's it's worth
noting or it's worth reflectingon that the congressional
representative folks that werethere were eventually allowed in
.
Uh, they were not immediatelyallowed in when they showed up
and they were resisted by thelocal you know, just operation
of the prison facility.
But then they demanded andentered the facility and the
(13:19):
mayor got arrested because he'snot a congressional
representative and so they saidhey, you, basically you broke in
, right, and because you brokein, we're going to charge you
with trespassing in thisfacility or something like that.
But the other people that werethere like six or seven people
got to go in but they made anexample out of him basically
saying these people do have thestatus and you know the
(13:42):
questions are valid and theirpursuit of this information is
valid, and their pursuit of thisinformation is valid, but
you're, you are not valid.
You know you're the part ofthis that's this wrong, because
you're a mayor, not acongressional representative.
You know that that was such.
I mean, it's a way to splithairs, it's, it's this weird way
to like, I don't know hold onto the authority, piece right Of
(14:03):
like.
Oh well, we recognize that theyhave some kind of authority to
do what they're doing but youdon't.
So we're going to affect ourauthority on you and make an
example out of you, because wecan't make an example out of
them.
And so, yeah, I agree, it'stheatrics.
Yeah, that's a good way to sayit.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah, it's just.
I mean, we elected a realitystar to top off.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
People know how to get his attention.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, that's true, people know how to get his
attention.
Yeah, and it's and it's notthrough like a well written memo
.
No, speaking of well, we'regoing to digress even a little
bit further out here.
Wow, what's going on in themiddle east right now the, the
horse parades and the camelparades and the sword dancers
and the purple carpet dude, thegold, just everything, wow.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
We are literally up for sale.
There was a $1.5 billion TrumpTower deal In Qatar.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, or no Syria?
Was it no Qatar?
No, qatar's a done deal, andthen Syria offered to do it.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, so that's why Qatar sent them that $400
million jet.
Yeah Right, it was part of thatdeal.
And then Syria's saying thesame thing, like, oh, we're for
sale.
Yeah, yeah, put a tower here,we'll rebuild.
And the new president fromSyria I mean, yes, we needed to
get rid of the previous regimethere.
Yeah, but that new guy is notreally our friend.
We talked about that before.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
No, yeah, yeah, he's a jihadist.
This was kind of once upon atime people made the statement
of Saddam Hussein was safebecause he was predictable In
that his goals of whatever kindof military conflict he was
willing to execute againstpeople other than his own people
(15:43):
.
He was in a box and it waspossible to sort of contain the,
the, the danger that was saddamhussein.
That was the same thing with,uh, bashar al-assad, right, like
he was very much in a box, hewas under russia's thumb and he
was very contained, right.
So, yeah, this this is not thatright.
This guy's the opposite of that.
(16:03):
Like there's nobody, he's notcontained by anything other than
poverty of the country rightnow.
But look at Yemen Like they'reeven more destitute as far as
the overall population of thecountry and they're still an
international terrorist threat.
Right that people that operateout of Yemen are still hitting
ships and shutting downcommercial traffic and they
(16:25):
don't have barely enough food toeat.
They're somehow still we knowhow.
Iran, but Syria is in the sameboat and this regime is just as
available to Iran or to anyother malicious actor.
I don't know, man.
I guess Trump's speaking thelanguage that everybody
(16:47):
understands, which is money.
I'm not saying this is good.
I'm not giving anybody anycredit on trying to sway Syria.
I agree completely that doingbusiness with this regime
doesn't make sense becausethey're a terrorist regime by
nature.
Even if they're not executingtheir own citizens right now,
they are from the roots of ajihadist regime own citizens
(17:11):
right now.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
They are from the roots of a jihadist regime.
You know so and, yeah, to seethem, you know, put that flag
out there and to try to buddy upthe trump administration now
it's really just kind ofconfusing it is.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
yeah, it is.
Well, I mean, it's a look at itthis way survival that, that
faction that took over isfragile, extremely fragile, and
the dude who's basically thepresident self-named president
of Syria right now, that wholeconstruct is extremely fragile.
So I think that bottom linethat's why they're courting
(17:42):
Trump is just to gain somerecognition, like global
credibility, if you will right,yeah, and what's unfortunate is
but they can't do it like thoseother folks with the camels and
the gold planes and the you know, because I saw one where the
women were shaking their hair atthem.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Oh, yeah, which I thought was really weird, right,
but I'm sure it's a big deal in, like you know, muslim
countries to shake your hair ata man like that yeah, it was
really really kind of a strangething.
Yeah, um, but when you hit yourwagon to trump like, you also
have to understand that he'sprobably going to throw you
under the bus and burn you atsome point oh sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
So yeah, yeah, if the deal sours, if the plane
doesn't show up, you know evenif it does, yeah, yeah, he might
not like oh sure whatever wassaid in those back rooms like
yeah it, it didn't happen, it isnegotiable.
You know, if American citizens'rights are negotiable, our deal
is negotiable at all times.
There's no stability here.
(18:38):
Don't pretend like what I toldyou is guaranteed.
That's probably one of hisnegotiating tactics.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
He just turns on CNN and sees like all the horrors
happening.
He's like oh yeah, see, I dothat to my own people.
Yeah, just wait till I see it,right, right.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Well, and he also like oh gosh, I'm trying to
remember.
There was a situation where itwas specifically about rights,
and I want to say it was in thefirst term.
I can't remember what it was,but it's what we're talking
about here, where him, you know,treating us not any better than
some other country.
(19:09):
Gosh, I can't remember what itis now, but it was some
situation where someone hadasked him and it's just like
they've done now, are yourequired to uphold the rights of
these certain citizens, orwhatever?
And he's like I don't knowmaybe, but he said that back
then too, and I can't remember.
And I want to say he was evenmaking a comparison, like look
at these other places.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
They're terrible.
We would never act like that,right, you know?
Uh, a big flash point this lastweek also is with him is that
he let in those south africaners.
Sure, 60 south white southafricaners yeah um, just showed
up now yeah like, while he'strying to kick everybody else
out and they're refugees, rightyeah, now they're refugees, yeah
, like, and they're not like.
That's not a status, becausethat status has to be granted by
, like, the un or something,sure, um so so they're not like
(19:54):
refugees by any they're refugeesfrom the horn of america.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
from the people being angry at them being racist in
their own.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah yeah, no, no, no , that's the new.
You know, south africa is nowthe horn of amer right.
That's where they're all fromokay, Elon renamed it for us.
You didn't know that was athing.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
God bless.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
You got to tune in to the South African news channel
every now and then, right.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So another thing that I just read, that on the Gulf
of Mexico thing I almost calledit the other thing.
But the Trump administrationhas opened up communication
channels with the el chapo, ohyeah, yeah.
And so like he's, uh, he's beentalking with them and he let
some of them into like cross theborder, sure, and but that was
(20:39):
against the mexican government'sknowledge.
So like their presidents likewhat the hell?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
yeah, we've been looking for those guys, right,
yeah, like we're making dealswith them.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, like you're making deals with cartels like
what the hell?
Yeah, we've been looking forthose guys, right?
Well, we're making deals withthem, but you're making deals
with cartels.
What the hell, man?
These are not your LegitimizeAgain.
Don't legitimize these peopleRight, right but it's going to
be one of their paid thugsprobably.
Sure, you know what I mean,because those authorization
zones, those are getting movedaround and those are being
thrown around.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Somebody's got to tell him man, this is what the
CIA is for.
They're supposed to keep thatstuff secret.
All right, when you sneak inSouth American drug lords,
you're supposed to keep thatunder wraps.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
I like my imperialism through the back door yeah
right, right, this is, you know,witness protection.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
These people back in Mexico can keep looking for them
.
It is no-transcript.
I told Adam this morning thatif you told me yesterday or a
few years ago that somedayyou'll listen to a Supreme Court
(21:41):
argument and you'll just bewrapped in interest and you'll
say what's next?
What are they going to say next?
Well, that happened today.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Did they put any commercial breaks in there?
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Dude CNN did?
I mean they do have to at somepoint, but they went as long as
you possibly could without abreak, like on a channel like
that.
It was at least a 20 minutechunk of uninterrupted time and
then they, you know, they wentto a break, came back and just
jumped right back into it.
So because it was the I guesswhat, for TV wise, it was
(22:14):
probably the most interestingpart, probably the most
interesting part.
What I was listening to was thesolicitor general of the United
States, you know, theDepartment of Justice, who's
mainly the main senior lawyerthat goes and argues cases on
behalf of the administration atthe Supreme Court.
So that's who this guy is.
He sounds like one of mydoctors and I kept hearing his
voice and I was like that's,that dude sounds so familiar.
(22:34):
And then it took me a minute.
But he's not a doctor, not like.
Kennedy.
Kennedy's not a doctor, notlike Kennedy.
Kennedy's not a doctor, sodon't listen to his advice.
But what they were talkingabout, what the justices were
asking this guy, was OK, this,the birthright citizenship is
under question, and that is the14th Amendment to the
Constitution that enshrines thebirthright citizenship, and the
(22:57):
language is very clear, asamendments be in our, you know,
are consistently.
They're pretty clear, right.
And so the the Trumpadministration signed an
executive order that said thatthat's they.
They basically are not going tohonor that and that if you're,
you know, a kid that's gettingdeported, like your parents are
(23:17):
getting deported, we can deportyou just right, along with them,
no questions asked.
Nobody should be blinking aneye.
They should be clapping for us,for keeping a family together
and for getting these degeneratemigrants out of our country.
That's their argument, right?
So they took that to the SupremeCourt and the Supreme Court
said this argument has alreadybeen settled back when the 14th
(23:37):
Amendment got written.
Why do you think it's changed,right?
Or why do you think thatargument then?
And the amendment is not valid,right?
What's?
What's the administration'sposition on the lack of of
enforcement or validity of the14th amendment?
Wow, what an interestingconversation to listen to,
because the justices allunderstood what was really on
(24:00):
the line here was yeah, I mean,the 14th Amendment is not.
You know, arguing an amendment'svalidity is not a simple case
or a minor argument.
But the even bigger thingthat's on trial here is can the
president just do whatever hewants to do?
Here is can the president justdo whatever he wants to do?
Yeah, that's really what's ontrial.
Can he write an executive orderthat flies in the face of
(24:26):
anything in the constitution andthere's no redress?
That was an amazing argument tolisten to, because the justices
I'm going to tell you something, adam they went there and you
say where's their Dick?
The second amendment they saidwhat if the president wants to
tell the military to enter everymajor population center and
seize all the weapons and hesigns an executive order?
(24:48):
Who's protected in thatsituation and who's not?
And how are those peopledifferent than the divisions
that you've made in your 14thAmendment argument?
Wow, he was just like no onewould ever do that.
No, that's not the argument.
We've already told you.
You have to argue this point.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
It could happen just because he signed this one.
So it could have said 2ndAmendment instead of 14th
Amendment.
That's the only thing that hadto be different.
And you could do that for eachand every one, every single
piece of the Constitution, allthe way up to like how many
presidential terms you can serveSure.
Terms, slavery, suffrage to anygroup of people All those
things are negotiable if thepresident has a pen in his hand.
(25:27):
That's the argument that theTrump administration wants to
make right now.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
So all of the judges were kind of more skeptical in
their responses.
You can usually tell tone whenyou listen to those things yes.
Somebody like Thomas or Leto.
They had the same tone.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
So the first person I heard was Clarence Thomas and
to clarify birthrightcitizenship, at a lower court
level, at a federal districtcourt, there was a federal
district injunction that saidthat President Trump's executive
order was illegal and that someof the deportations he's
executed since then are illegal.
(26:05):
So that's the part thatactually made it to the Supreme
Court was if a lower court'sfederal district court judge can
make a ruling that applies toevery person in the United
States or to every state in theunion, et cetera, Right, and so
the justices and to includeClarence Thomas pointed out the
(26:27):
fact that, hey, theadministration didn't bring in
their case here, they didn'tbring every.
They didn't refute everythingthat that judge said.
The refute is can that judgerule on behalf?
Can their ruling affect everycitizen or is it limited in
scope only to the people thatwere parties to that case?
Super technical legal argument.
(26:48):
And that's what made it up tothe Supreme Court.
And so they were even takingissue with that of.
It really feels like you'retrying to thread the needle here
.
It really feels like you'retrying to create a gap in
precedent out of a very, veryminute example.
Right, and we're we're reallynot interested in playing that
game.
(27:08):
So all of them called that outand then, for the most part, all
of them sounded fairly slantedor skeptical around the actual
other merits of the case of youknow, birthright citizenship is
clearly enshrined.
So why you believe that there'ssome situation where that
wouldn't apply?
Like we cannot track.
(27:30):
And then they started to listout the justices listed out four
sets of precedent, previouscases where things like what if
your parents entered the countryillegally and were were
basically known and arrested assuch?
Right?
Like, let's say, your mother'spregnant with you gets arrested
and you get born in an americanjail.
Are you a citizen or not?
(27:50):
Right?
Yes, you are.
That case has been defined,right?
That's one of the precedents,right?
So, and it didn't really matterthe the color of the leaning of
the judge, they all took thoseprecedents.
As this is what we're talkingabout, this is valid.
These things have already beensettled.
So they just weren't interestedin playing the game.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
What's interesting about this to me is that for the
Supreme Court to hear something, they need to follow the rule
of four.
So four Supreme Court justicesneed to say like Agree, yeah, we
need to follow the rule of four.
Yeah, so four Supreme Courtjustices need to say like, agree
yeah.
We need to hear this one, yeah.
And so for them to come outlike this and say like yeah, we
need to hear this and we need totell you some things, yeah, and
kind of lay it out, so you knowthey should be coming out with
(28:33):
their rulings soon, or is it?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I mean I go on, or whatever.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
So yeah, cause I think they usually wait until
the end of the session, which islike June or something like
that, or like the end of themonth.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Oh right, Um, you know they do kind of put two or
three out at a time.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I've I'veseen it depends on the weight of
the case and if there's otherthings that are being like
waiting on the case Right, andthat was also one of the
arguments on behalf of theadministration was well, the way
that things are being done nowis that if one judge can issue
this ruling that affectseverybody, but there could be
(29:02):
other judges that don't agreewith that, then someone can go
and basically bring a slightlydifferent case to another judge
and they can go judge shopping,right, Like that's one of the
arguments that if any districtjudge can have the power that
almost that a Supreme Courtjustice has as far as like a
nationwide edict, well then youknow, it's just down to finding
the right judge in the rightdistrict to get your biddings
(29:23):
done Right, and so the justicesacknowledge that that form of
abuse exists, Right, that'scalled projection.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, that's what they do.
Yeah, like, yes, it can be done, because you've done that.
Yeah, but like our courtsystems aren't set up for that,
that's taking advantage of thesystem.
And but like our court systemsaren't set up for that, that
that's taking advantage of thesystem.
And like the people who havemoney and can afford that do
that.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
You know what I mean and that that was brought up as
well.
Right, I'm like now what you'vedefined as if only certain
parties in the case areprotected or affected by the
judge's ruling and there'ssomeone else who's clearly, you
know, in the exact same exampleof situation, but they weren't a
party in that filing.
You're saying that that personwould now have to go seek out a
(30:03):
lawyer, bring a case, use thatone as precedent and then run
their own case.
But the people that you know,if they can't afford it, they're
not going to get justice.
That ruling applies to them,but they have to come and ask
for it to apply to them.
And they were like, well, yeah,probably.
And they were like what you know?
Like that doesn't make sense,you know.
(30:25):
And they were like, well,that's what class action
lawsuits are for.
And they're like right, butthere's also these types of
judgments that, instead of therehaving to be a class action,
the judge can just basicallydefine a class of people and say
look, this applies to all thesepeople.
If anyone's in this situation,this is the precedent for all of
them, and that type of judgmentexists already, so that you
(30:45):
don't have to go out and have10,000 individual lawsuits to
restore your rights in somesituation.
But the Trump organization wasbasically saying sure you do.
That makes perfect sense.
If you really care about it, goto the court and ask for it.
They're like no, that's why it'san amendment to the
constitution so that you don'thave to do that.
Right, and they just talking incircles.
(31:07):
Man, you know the?
I don't know, I don't know.
You know some of the.
It also felt like, if you know,the justices were kind of
saying if you'd stop trying tobreak the law, people would stop
shopping for judges.
You know, there was some ofthat in there, you know, of like
stop doing stupid stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So we have to, we can stop hearing these stupid cases
, you know it was funny becausewhen I was talking with uh, that
rep from uh crank's office, youknow I was laying out some
things and you know somedifferent options and somebody
next to me just kind of thequietest person, the note-taker
just chirped up or we couldstart following the Constitution
.
Oh, that was cool, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Well, this administration is set on
defining, redefining the ideathat they I don't know, I guess
it would be too overt if youjust went out and tried to
repeal amendments, right, likethat almost feels too overt,
like you want to try and findthe most subtle way to do that
(32:10):
without just like it'simpossible to do, probably
because, if you look at what ittakes to get an amendment
approved, you need liketwo-thirds.
Yeah, the same thing isrequired to repeal something
like that, to repeal something.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
So you're trying to get two-thirds of a amendment
approved.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I agree.
It's a political lift that isimpossible for the nation as it
stands today.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Which is good, which is how it's supposed to be, I
agree.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
That's how it's supposed.
Due process gets forced betterin a democracy when we are.
You know, there's a healthybalance, right, and it's
unfortunate we have a two-partysystem because there could be a
different type of balance.
But, yeah, I agree that the ifone side, you know, I know
there's no way that they couldgo out and repeal an amendment,
so you just have to find everyother possible way to game the
(33:13):
system.
Yeah, exactly, and again, thatcomes down to money and that
comes down to the ultra richtrying to dictate.
We got to.
Everybody has to go in andargue their case of why they're
a citizen.
Well, you were born in America.
Nah, it's not good enough.
Your parents are communists,right, that doesn't matter,
right, and I, yes, it does.
Right, like that's, they'retrying to make up stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
And it courts.
But we keep pushing further,closer and closer to that spot
where they're just going to say,no, we're not.
Now there was a little bit, youknow, of uh, some chip on the
shoulder, sassy comment from oneof the justices where they said
, uh, hey, you keep losing.
You know, like, you're justgoing to keep, you're going to
court shop too.
Right, you're going to takeeach one of those individual.
You want there to be 10,000individual cases so that
eventually you can find a judgethat passes the bar, right, and
(34:03):
so you get five or six lossesand then you find one where you
win, and then every other caseyou take back to that court,
right, like how to tell me howthat you're not going to use the
same, exact same thing, right?
Speaker 1 (34:13):
You know, but she said, things are projection.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
There's a reason that you're that you're hearing
right now, because you've lostthis argument already.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
You know so yeah, To be a Trump lawyer right now.
It'd just be like you feel likea toddler getting scolded all
the time.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Or like you're literally marching up and down
the firing line, just like theyjust keep shooting at you and
you just hit the end of thething, the thing, track and turn
around and go back the otherway.
Man, yeah, I feel exactlyfiring squad man, big time all
right.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Well, we'll end it on that.
I think that's a feeling mostof us can relate to.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Is the fire.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Political firing squad for sure all right, well
again, thanks for joining us.
This was less left face.
Uh, screwed up up on the exitthere.
We'll cut that one.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
We'll record the beginning and we'll cut that one
.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Thanks everyone for joining us.
We'll talk to you next week.
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
This is the Pikes Peak Region'spolitical podcast with a
veteran's point of view.
Thanks for joining us.
If nobody else was impressedwith that, I might have to cut
that one, and save it.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You dropped some extra peas in there too.
I know, that was weird.
I caught that.
I was like whoa, there's twomore peas in there.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
We'll have to cut that one and save it.
Yeah, save that clip man.
That We'll have to cut that oneand save it.
Yeah, save that clip, man.
That'll be our intro from nowon.
So I'm your co-host, adamGiller.
Joining me is Dick Wilkinson.
How are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Dick, I'm doing great , adam, good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Good morning.
We got again a lot of thingsgoing on in the community here,
so let's jump right into it.
One of the big things that I'vebeen working on a lot with is,
uh, helping plan the protestsand things down.
I'm not a big protester myself,um, but I'll give people the
platform to protest.
Sure, you know, like, like, Ithink our first amendment is so
(00:52):
critical to us and making surethat people feel like they're
doing something.
You know, um, and it's weird,cause I, we did the May Day and
there was like Chinese flags andcommunist flags and stuff like
that, and like it felt weird.
Yeah, it felt like I'm likebecause that just means
something different to me.
Yeah, you know to be walking onthose flags, but like I have to
(01:13):
keep reminding myself that it'snot about me, it's about
getting them, it's about helpingpeople be safe and just letting
them have their voice.
Yeah, and exercise their firstamendment.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So it sucks when you you see it and like you see some
of the folks carrying, but likeyou know we could have a
conversation about this, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
There's better ways, to you know.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I had that experience one time at a.
So Gary Johnson um, if ifeverybody was listening hasn't
figured it out, dick is is alibertarian some, sometimes some
days of the week, and so Ilived in New Mexico.
Gary Johnson's from New Mexico,and so you know who'd have
figured that he's a popular guythere in amongst certain
political circles, right?
He ran as a Republican and wasthe governor of New Mexico as a
(01:53):
Republican and then, after hisRepublican career as that you
know ended.
Then that's when he startedrunning at the national level as
a libertarian.
He had a rally during his lastpresidential run, which was, I
guess 2016 is the last time heran and he came to Albuquerque
(02:15):
and while he was there this wasmy moment he said I would pardon
Edward Snowden, and that's likea battle cry for libertarian
circles, right?
I don't know if you're in thechat room they believe that
Snowden was a hero, that thesecrets were all justified and
that everything he did was justand that he should be carried on
(02:39):
your shoulders as the personwho told us all the secrets,
right?
Well, I, of course, have a verydifferent opinion about that,
right, but I had to be in theroom with all these people that
I was like, oh man, these are mypeople.
And we just said 10 things in arow that I really want to clap
for.
And then you just said the turdin the punch bowl that I have
to leave the room now, right,like I can't be associated with
you people.
(02:59):
And you know, I had that momentwhere I was just like eww, yeah
, you get the ick.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, oh, no, yeah, yeah, because that was
definitely the way he did it andjust went to China, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Stopped off in China and then, you know, by way of
Russia to China.
You know, it was just crazy, Ithink he's a Russian citizen.
Yeah, well, he is now.
Yeah, but yes, that whole.
Thing.
Oh yeah, but yes, that wholething.
And so you know, that was I hadthat moment too.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
That was my Chinese flag, yeah, so, for the next
thing that we're really focusingon and planning, I wanted to do
something different than just aprotest, Because it's going to
happen on June 6th, which is aD-Day, and you know one.
I don't ever like really usingveterans as props, like the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Sure.
So to try to like easy to do inpolitics, right right.
Yeah, it's easy to show uplooking like that sometimes yeah
, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So I'm really trying to walk that line right now and
make sure that we respect, uh,you know, and remember the
veterans.
Um, on d-day and this is a weekafter memorial day too um, they
wanted to do some protestsMemorial Day.
I just don't want to.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I agree yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
But this June 6th day we're going to have some
speakers out at the park.
We're looking at the locationsright now, but it'll be in the
evening.
So just kind of mark calendarsright now.
On June 6th We'll have somespeakers and, uh, you know,
hopefully you can just gettogether and talk about our
service and what it's like to uh, follow, follow, lawful orders.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, you know, yep, and then, uh, you just reminded
me that we're going to have aguest that we were going to have
today, but I didn't, uh,coordinate the meeting with him.
Um, but We'll have arepresentative from the Veterans
Trauma Court coming to the showsoon.
I'll just have to regroup andtry that again.
Yeah, I get that.
There's always things going on.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
That would be exciting to hear that one and
actually get some good examplesof things going on in our
community and just show people,everybody, that there's hope
when people are going into thesethings.
There's resources here to getyou through them.
Hopefully we're going intothese things.
There's resources here to getyou through them, you know so.
So hopefully we get to talk tohim real soon, yep.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
But yeah, we will be looking forward to the June 6th
event.
Um, adam invites me toeverything he does and a lot of
times I'm not able to go, butthis one is far enough out.
I'm going to.
I'm going to more than pencilit in, I'm going to actually put
it in the calendar and make ithappen.
So, yeah, looking forward to itcool, uh.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Next thing we wanted to roll to was our uh, kilmar
count yeah, we got 64 days onthe board and yeah, it's
ridiculous.
You don't hear anything aboutit like the news cycle has moved
on a bit right, right, and likeeven our own local ice raid,
that that you know, 100 peopledisappeared.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, we still don't hear a lot about that's.
That's gone full crickets atthis point, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And I spoke about it last week or the week before,
about asking the senator'soffice for some answers, and
Senator Hickenlooper's officeresponded and they said that ICE
responded to them and saidthere was because this was in
response to last week's raids ortwo weeks ago raids, no last
week's.
Do we even talk about that lastweek?
What day did that?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
happen?
I'm not sure.
I don't even know exactly.
So let me talk about that realquick.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, thursday or Friday of last week, I think it
was after we recorded.
Yeah, cspd served a searchwarrant down in Meadows.
Oh yes, that was afternoon,thursday afternoon a search
warrant down in Meadows.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Oh yes, that was afternoon, thursday afternoon,
that's right yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So they served a warrant down in a trailer park
on the southeast side of townfor one person and they had
everything shut down.
They had ice there with themand it was a similar tactic that
they use for the party raidright, okay, where they have a
warrant for somebody.
So they say, hey, ice, comealong, yeah.
(06:46):
And then they just try to grabwhoever they can.
Whoever whatever door theyknocked on, they either didn't
get a response or the persondidn't let them.
I think if they would have gota response, they would have went
in no matter what.
Sure, so the person probablydidn't respond.
But you know they cleared outand left.
(07:06):
But ICE is still active in ourcommunity and so you know, we
reached out and I talked to thesenator's office about that and
they were informed by ICE thatthere was no operations set in
Peterson or on Peterson on thatday in question.
But to me that's just a hugekind of deflection because it
wasn't on Peterson space forces.
It was near Peterson but it wasoff of the base in the trailer
(07:29):
park next door.
Yeah, so it seemed like apretty obvious deflection.
Um, you know, we talked lastweek about the, uh, the prisoner
movement that that a friend ofmine saw.
Yeah, um, and there they tried,they tried to put it on like a
different BOP.
I don't know what that means,but different prisoner movements
.
But my friend that saw thismovement said it wasn't what
he's seen in the past.
Sure, prison movements.
(07:50):
So everything that thesenator's office, like we asked,
they got responses from ICE andit was all deflections.
Just misleading information.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Just not being true.
They're intentionally not beingtrue.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah Well, you didn't ask for this specific right,
yeah, yeah, you said at threeo'clock, but we were down there
at 9 am, so you know it must notbe what you're talking about.
Yeah, it's.
It's like the word problem.
You know, in high schools theygot all the sentences in the
word problem that don't need tobe there.
That's all they're telling you.
They won't give you theinformation about what you need.
They're just giving youinformation about stuff that
(08:21):
doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Right right, just give them a little extra nuggets
of information, just so, if youlatch on to it, they get the.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, and you know the bottom line.
It's just like well, you askeda question, we answered it.
I don't care if you don't likethe answer.
That was the answer.
Yeah, let's move on right.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, and this is something I'm working with
another group of people, withtrying to build some
relationships with CongressmanCrank's office and actually
trying to have usefulconversations.
Yeah, just, you know, goingthere yelling and screaming at
each other, but you know we hadto set the tone early on with
their representatives.
You know that don't treat uslike we're stupid, sure, so like
(08:57):
when you say something, likeI'm listening to you and like,
if you're not giving me theanswer, like like we're going to
I'm going to ask you again.
Yeah, you know, and you know,one of the examples I told him
was like I hear you say thingsthat you're not saying sometimes
, like when Congressman Cranksaid that the executive order
hasn't been signed to move spacefor us, like I don't think he
meant to say, like it's beenwritten, but he did.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yes, right.
And so when I asked his officelike, has it been written?
They're like oh, yeah, it'sbeen written.
It was supposed to be signedday one.
Yeah, it's what they said aboutmoving it to space, sure, so
hasn't been signed yet is a truestatement, but it's, you know,
a very veiled version of thetruth right, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So people don't know how serious it is and they're
like, oh, you know, everybody incolorado's fighting for this.
How right, how are you right?
You're passing everything thathe asked for.
You're doing everything that hesays.
You are putting up zeroroadblocks for anything.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, and doing a local news statement saying this
is important, the military isimportant.
You know, the president caresabout the military.
Yeah, okay, sure, that's whatthey're saying is, oh, we're
fighting it.
That's what they're saying is,oh, we're fighting it is that
people, all the Republicanrepresentatives here in Colorado
(10:08):
, all did say they released,basically, a press release
statement that said SpaceCommand, space Force elements
should stay in Colorado.
That was it.
That's their fight.
Right, that was one run in thelocal newspaper and they're not
talking about it in dc becausethere's nothing to talk about.
Right, you know, from thepresident's perspective, there's
(10:30):
nothing to talk about.
So, you know, run that localnewspaper story and then again
the news cycle has moved on.
So they're like, yeah, yeah,look, I said that back in
january.
Now, what, what do?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
you want.
You know, yeah, and that's whatif I quit with you know, with
that, with, uh, the icesituation, our representatives
need to be out there, like inplaces and not letting them
close until you get the answersyou want and actually like use
your status for what it's for.
You know what?
I mean yeah, like, put leveragewhere it needs to be put.
Yeah, um, like, if you don'tget the answers from the ice,
(11:01):
like you go into their detentioncenter and you find the people,
find the people?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, find the people , sure, sure.
What do you think about thestuff that happened out on the
East Coast, because thathappened last week that was
around the same I think it wasabout Thursday of last week
where there was a mayor of is itthe mayor of Newark, new Jersey
?
Yeah, went down to the ICEdetention center with the
congressional representatives.
Yeah, do you know about thatstory?
Yeah, so what's your take onthat?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I love seeing it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
They need to be out there.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Bottom line the demand right, this is it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
We're going to bottom line this demand right, because
when you look, at people whohave things to risk and to lose
if they get arrested.
So many people's jobs aredependent on their employment.
Sure, Because, well, theirpaycheck to paycheck you.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Because, well, they're paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
You know you're saying yeah their stability is
they don't have.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Stability in life in general is down to, like hitting
that mark on your nine to five.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Our elected officials are there to like, take that
heat, sure, and to be like youknow, if today's the day I get
arrested, okay, I'm going tohave a job tomorrow.
Sure, the day I get arrested,okay, I'm gonna have a job
tomorrow sure because you canstill elected me.
Yeah, um, like it doesn't hitthem, it's hard.
Like them getting arresteddoesn't hit as hard as me
getting arrested so that theyneed to be the ones leading the
charge and actually likestanding up and making sure that
people understand that thisisn't just about you know the,
(12:20):
you know migrants orundocumented workers, things
like that.
This is just a straight attackon the judicial leg of our
tripod democracy and if one ofthose other legs don't stand up
and fight for each other, ifthey don't come together and
start fighting that, third onethe executive branch is just
going to absolutely take overeverything.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
As they've said, they already are in charge of
everything.
Yeah, then it will just belegitimate.
Yeah, so this is the fight.
Yeah, charge of everything.
Yeah, then it will just belegitimate.
Yeah, so this is the fight.
Yeah, they need to be out theregetting arrested as much hell
as possible and stopping to passthe agenda.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Lockstep all the way I I think there's it's worth
noting or it's worth reflectingon that the congressional
representative folks that werethere were eventually allowed in
.
Uh, they were not immediatelyallowed in when they showed up
and they were resisted by thelocal you know, just operation
of the prison facility.
But then they demanded andentered the facility and the
(13:19):
mayor got arrested because he'snot a congressional
representative and so they saidhey, you, basically you broke in
, right, and because you brokein, we're going to charge you
with trespassing in thisfacility or something like that.
But the other people that werethere like six or seven people
got to go in but they made anexample out of him basically
saying these people do have thestatus and you know the
(13:42):
questions are valid and theirpursuit of this information is
valid, and their pursuit of thisinformation is valid, but
you're, you are not valid.
You know you're the part ofthis that's this wrong, because
you're a mayor, not acongressional representative.
You know that that was such.
I mean, it's a way to splithairs, it's, it's this weird way
to like, I don't know hold onto the authority, piece right Of
(14:03):
like.
Oh well, we recognize that theyhave some kind of authority to
do what they're doing but youdon't.
So we're going to affect ourauthority on you and make an
example out of you, because wecan't make an example out of
them.
And so, yeah, I agree, it'stheatrics.
Yeah, that's a good way to sayit.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah, it's just.
I mean, we elected a realitystar to top off.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
People know how to get his attention.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, that's true, people know how to get his
attention.
Yeah, and it's and it's notthrough like a well written memo
.
No, speaking of well, we'regoing to digress even a little
bit further out here.
Wow, what's going on in themiddle east right now the, the
horse parades and the camelparades and the sword dancers
and the purple carpet dude, thegold, just everything, wow.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
We are literally up for sale.
There was a $1.5 billion TrumpTower deal In Qatar.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, or no Syria?
Was it no Qatar?
No, qatar's a done deal, andthen Syria offered to do it.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, so that's why Qatar sent them that $400
million jet.
Yeah Right, it was part of thatdeal.
And then Syria's saying thesame thing, like, oh, we're for
sale.
Yeah, yeah, put a tower here,we'll rebuild.
And the new president fromSyria I mean, yes, we needed to
get rid of the previous regimethere.
Yeah, but that new guy is notreally our friend.
We talked about that before.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
No, yeah, yeah, he's a jihadist.
This was kind of once upon atime people made the statement
of Saddam Hussein was safebecause he was predictable In
that his goals of whatever kindof military conflict he was
willing to execute againstpeople other than his own people
(15:43):
.
He was in a box and it waspossible to sort of contain the,
the, the danger that was saddamhussein.
That was the same thing with,uh, bashar al-assad, right, like
he was very much in a box, hewas under russia's thumb and he
was very contained, right.
So, yeah, this this is not thatright.
This guy's the opposite of that.
(16:03):
Like there's nobody, he's notcontained by anything other than
poverty of the country rightnow.
But look at Yemen Like they'reeven more destitute as far as
the overall population of thecountry and they're still an
international terrorist threat.
Right that people that operateout of Yemen are still hitting
ships and shutting downcommercial traffic and they
(16:25):
don't have barely enough food toeat.
They're somehow still we knowhow.
Iran, but Syria is in the sameboat and this regime is just as
available to Iran or to anyother malicious actor.
I don't know, man.
I guess Trump's speaking thelanguage that everybody
(16:47):
understands, which is money.
I'm not saying this is good.
I'm not giving anybody anycredit on trying to sway Syria.
I agree completely that doingbusiness with this regime
doesn't make sense becausethey're a terrorist regime by
nature.
Even if they're not executingtheir own citizens right now,
they are from the roots of ajihadist regime own citizens
(17:11):
right now.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
They are from the roots of a jihadist regime.
You know so and, yeah, to seethem, you know, put that flag
out there and to try to buddy upthe trump administration now
it's really just kind ofconfusing it is.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
yeah, it is.
Well, I mean, it's a look at itthis way survival that, that
faction that took over isfragile, extremely fragile, and
the dude who's basically thepresident self-named president
of Syria right now, that wholeconstruct is extremely fragile.
So I think that bottom linethat's why they're courting
(17:42):
Trump is just to gain somerecognition, like global
credibility, if you will right,yeah, and what's unfortunate is
but they can't do it like thoseother folks with the camels and
the gold planes and the you know, because I saw one where the
women were shaking their hair atthem.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Oh, yeah, which I thought was really weird, right,
but I'm sure it's a big deal in, like you know, muslim
countries to shake your hair ata man like that yeah, it was
really really kind of a strangething.
Yeah, um, but when you hit yourwagon to trump like, you also
have to understand that he'sprobably going to throw you
under the bus and burn you atsome point oh sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
So yeah, yeah, if the deal sours, if the plane
doesn't show up, you know evenif it does, yeah, yeah, he might
not like oh sure whatever wassaid in those back rooms like
yeah it, it didn't happen, it isnegotiable.
You know, if American citizens'rights are negotiable, our deal
is negotiable at all times.
There's no stability here.
(18:38):
Don't pretend like what I toldyou is guaranteed.
That's probably one of hisnegotiating tactics.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
He just turns on CNN and sees like all the horrors
happening.
He's like oh yeah, see, I dothat to my own people.
Yeah, just wait till I see it,right, right.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Well, and he also like oh gosh, I'm trying to
remember.
There was a situation where itwas specifically about rights,
and I want to say it was in thefirst term.
I can't remember what it was,but it's what we're talking
about here, where him, you know,treating us not any better than
some other country.
(19:09):
Gosh, I can't remember what itis now, but it was some
situation where someone hadasked him and it's just like
they've done now, are yourequired to uphold the rights of
these certain citizens, orwhatever?
And he's like I don't knowmaybe, but he said that back
then too, and I can't remember.
And I want to say he was evenmaking a comparison, like look
at these other places.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
They're terrible.
We would never act like that,right, you know?
Uh, a big flash point this lastweek also is with him is that
he let in those south africaners.
Sure, 60 south white southafricaners yeah um, just showed
up now yeah like, while he'strying to kick everybody else
out and they're refugees, rightyeah, now they're refugees, yeah
, like, and they're not like.
That's not a status, becausethat status has to be granted by
, like, the un or something,sure, um so so they're not like
(19:54):
refugees by any they're refugeesfrom the horn of america.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
from the people being angry at them being racist in
their own.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah yeah, no, no, no , that's the new.
You know, south africa is nowthe horn of amer right.
That's where they're all fromokay, Elon renamed it for us.
You didn't know that was athing.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
God bless.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
You got to tune in to the South African news channel
every now and then, right.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So another thing that I just read, that on the Gulf
of Mexico thing I almost calledit the other thing.
But the Trump administrationhas opened up communication
channels with the el chapo, ohyeah, yeah.
And so like he's, uh, he's beentalking with them and he let
some of them into like cross theborder, sure, and but that was
(20:39):
against the mexican government'sknowledge.
So like their presidents likewhat the hell?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
yeah, we've been looking for those guys, right,
yeah, like we're making dealswith them.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, like you're making deals with cartels like
what the hell?
Yeah, we've been looking forthose guys, right?
Well, we're making deals withthem, but you're making deals
with cartels.
What the hell, man?
These are not your LegitimizeAgain.
Don't legitimize these peopleRight, right but it's going to
be one of their paid thugsprobably.
Sure, you know what I mean,because those authorization
zones, those are getting movedaround and those are being
thrown around.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Somebody's got to tell him man, this is what the
CIA is for.
They're supposed to keep thatstuff secret.
All right, when you sneak inSouth American drug lords,
you're supposed to keep thatunder wraps.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
I like my imperialism through the back door yeah
right, right, this is, you know,witness protection.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
These people back in Mexico can keep looking for them
.
It is no-transcript.
I told Adam this morning thatif you told me yesterday or a
few years ago that somedayyou'll listen to a Supreme Court
(21:41):
argument and you'll just bewrapped in interest and you'll
say what's next?
What are they going to say next?
Well, that happened today.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Did they put any commercial breaks in there?
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Dude CNN did?
I mean they do have to at somepoint, but they went as long as
you possibly could without abreak, like on a channel like
that.
It was at least a 20 minutechunk of uninterrupted time and
then they, you know, they wentto a break, came back and just
jumped right back into it.
So because it was the I guesswhat, for TV wise, it was
(22:14):
probably the most interestingpart, probably the most
interesting part.
What I was listening to was thesolicitor general of the United
States, you know, theDepartment of Justice, who's
mainly the main senior lawyerthat goes and argues cases on
behalf of the administration atthe Supreme Court.
So that's who this guy is.
He sounds like one of mydoctors and I kept hearing his
voice and I was like that's,that dude sounds so familiar.
(22:34):
And then it took me a minute.
But he's not a doctor, not like.
Kennedy.
Kennedy's not a doctor, notlike Kennedy.
Kennedy's not a doctor, sodon't listen to his advice.
But what they were talkingabout, what the justices were
asking this guy, was OK, this,the birthright citizenship is
under question, and that is the14th Amendment to the
Constitution that enshrines thebirthright citizenship, and the
(22:57):
language is very clear, asamendments be in our, you know,
are consistently.
They're pretty clear, right.
And so the the Trumpadministration signed an
executive order that said thatthat's they.
They basically are not going tohonor that and that if you're,
you know, a kid that's gettingdeported, like your parents are
(23:17):
getting deported, we can deportyou just right, along with them,
no questions asked.
Nobody should be blinking aneye.
They should be clapping for us,for keeping a family together
and for getting these degeneratemigrants out of our country.
That's their argument, right?
So they took that to the SupremeCourt and the Supreme Court
said this argument has alreadybeen settled back when the 14th
(23:37):
Amendment got written.
Why do you think it's changed,right?
Or why do you think thatargument then?
And the amendment is not valid,right?
What's?
What's the administration'sposition on the lack of of
enforcement or validity of the14th amendment?
Wow, what an interestingconversation to listen to,
because the justices allunderstood what was really on
(24:00):
the line here was yeah, I mean,the 14th Amendment is not.
You know, arguing an amendment'svalidity is not a simple case
or a minor argument.
But the even bigger thingthat's on trial here is can the
president just do whatever hewants to do?
Here is can the president justdo whatever he wants to do?
Yeah, that's really what's ontrial.
Can he write an executive orderthat flies in the face of
(24:26):
anything in the constitution andthere's no redress?
That was an amazing argument tolisten to, because the justices
I'm going to tell you something, adam they went there and you
say where's their Dick?
The second amendment they saidwhat if the president wants to
tell the military to enter everymajor population center and
seize all the weapons and hesigns an executive order?
(24:48):
Who's protected in thatsituation and who's not?
And how are those peopledifferent than the divisions
that you've made in your 14thAmendment argument?
Wow, he was just like no onewould ever do that.
No, that's not the argument.
We've already told you.
You have to argue this point.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
It could happen just because he signed this one.
So it could have said 2ndAmendment instead of 14th
Amendment.
That's the only thing that hadto be different.
And you could do that for eachand every one, every single
piece of the Constitution, allthe way up to like how many
presidential terms you can serveSure.
Terms, slavery, suffrage to anygroup of people All those
things are negotiable if thepresident has a pen in his hand.
(25:27):
That's the argument that theTrump administration wants to
make right now.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
So all of the judges were kind of more skeptical in
their responses.
You can usually tell tone whenyou listen to those things yes.
Somebody like Thomas or Leto.
They had the same tone.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
So the first person I heard was Clarence Thomas and
to clarify birthrightcitizenship, at a lower court
level, at a federal districtcourt, there was a federal
district injunction that saidthat President Trump's executive
order was illegal and that someof the deportations he's
executed since then are illegal.
(26:05):
So that's the part thatactually made it to the Supreme
Court was if a lower court'sfederal district court judge can
make a ruling that applies toevery person in the United
States or to every state in theunion, et cetera, Right, and so
the justices and to includeClarence Thomas pointed out the
(26:27):
fact that, hey, theadministration didn't bring in
their case here, they didn'tbring every.
They didn't refute everythingthat that judge said.
The refute is can that judgerule on behalf?
Can their ruling affect everycitizen or is it limited in
scope only to the people thatwere parties to that case?
Super technical legal argument.
(26:48):
And that's what made it up tothe Supreme Court.
And so they were even takingissue with that of.
It really feels like you'retrying to thread the needle here
.
It really feels like you'retrying to create a gap in
precedent out of a very, veryminute example.
Right, and we're we're reallynot interested in playing that
game.
(27:08):
So all of them called that outand then, for the most part, all
of them sounded fairly slantedor skeptical around the actual
other merits of the case of youknow, birthright citizenship is
clearly enshrined.
So why you believe that there'ssome situation where that
wouldn't apply?
Like we cannot track.
(27:30):
And then they started to listout the justices listed out four
sets of precedent, previouscases where things like what if
your parents entered the countryillegally and were were
basically known and arrested assuch?
Right?
Like, let's say, your mother'spregnant with you gets arrested
and you get born in an americanjail.
Are you a citizen or not?
(27:50):
Right?
Yes, you are.
That case has been defined,right?
That's one of the precedents,right?
So, and it didn't really matterthe the color of the leaning of
the judge, they all took thoseprecedents.
As this is what we're talkingabout, this is valid.
These things have already beensettled.
So they just weren't interestedin playing the game.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
What's interesting about this to me is that for the
Supreme Court to hear something, they need to follow the rule
of four.
So four Supreme Court justicesneed to say like Agree, yeah, we
need to follow the rule of four.
Yeah, so four Supreme Courtjustices need to say like, agree
yeah.
We need to hear this one, yeah.
And so for them to come outlike this and say like yeah, we
need to hear this and we need totell you some things, yeah, and
kind of lay it out, so you knowthey should be coming out with
(28:33):
their rulings soon, or is it?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I mean I go on, or whatever.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
So yeah, cause I think they usually wait until
the end of the session, which islike June or something like
that, or like the end of themonth.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Oh right, Um, you know they do kind of put two or
three out at a time.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I've I'veseen it depends on the weight of
the case and if there's otherthings that are being like
waiting on the case Right, andthat was also one of the
arguments on behalf of theadministration was well, the way
that things are being done nowis that if one judge can issue
this ruling that affectseverybody, but there could be
(29:02):
other judges that don't agreewith that, then someone can go
and basically bring a slightlydifferent case to another judge
and they can go judge shopping,right, Like that's one of the
arguments that if any districtjudge can have the power that
almost that a Supreme Courtjustice has as far as like a
nationwide edict, well then youknow, it's just down to finding
the right judge in the rightdistrict to get your biddings
(29:23):
done Right, and so the justicesacknowledge that that form of
abuse exists, Right, that'scalled projection.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, that's what they do.
Yeah, like, yes, it can be done, because you've done that.
Yeah, but like our courtsystems aren't set up for that,
that's taking advantage of thesystem.
And but like our court systemsaren't set up for that, that
that's taking advantage of thesystem.
And like the people who havemoney and can afford that do
that.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
You know what I mean and that that was brought up as
well.
Right, I'm like now what you'vedefined as if only certain
parties in the case areprotected or affected by the
judge's ruling and there'ssomeone else who's clearly, you
know, in the exact same exampleof situation, but they weren't a
party in that filing.
You're saying that that personwould now have to go seek out a
(30:03):
lawyer, bring a case, use thatone as precedent and then run
their own case.
But the people that you know,if they can't afford it, they're
not going to get justice.
That ruling applies to them,but they have to come and ask
for it to apply to them.
And they were like, well, yeah,probably.
And they were like what you know?
Like that doesn't make sense,you know.
(30:25):
And they were like, well,that's what class action
lawsuits are for.
And they're like right, butthere's also these types of
judgments that, instead of therehaving to be a class action,
the judge can just basicallydefine a class of people and say
look, this applies to all thesepeople.
If anyone's in this situation,this is the precedent for all of
them, and that type of judgmentexists already, so that you
(30:45):
don't have to go out and have10,000 individual lawsuits to
restore your rights in somesituation.
But the Trump organization wasbasically saying sure you do.
That makes perfect sense.
If you really care about it, goto the court and ask for it.
They're like no, that's why it'san amendment to the
constitution so that you don'thave to do that.
Right, and they just talking incircles.
(31:07):
Man, you know the?
I don't know, I don't know.
You know some of the.
It also felt like, if you know,the justices were kind of
saying if you'd stop trying tobreak the law, people would stop
shopping for judges.
You know, there was some ofthat in there, you know, of like
stop doing stupid stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So we have to, we can stop hearing these stupid cases
, you know it was funny becausewhen I was talking with uh, that
rep from uh crank's office, youknow I was laying out some
things and you know somedifferent options and somebody
next to me just kind of thequietest person, the note-taker
just chirped up or we couldstart following the Constitution
.
Oh, that was cool, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Well, this administration is set on
defining, redefining the ideathat they I don't know, I guess
it would be too overt if youjust went out and tried to
repeal amendments, right, likethat almost feels too overt,
like you want to try and findthe most subtle way to do that
(32:10):
without just like it'simpossible to do, probably
because, if you look at what ittakes to get an amendment
approved, you need liketwo-thirds.
Yeah, the same thing isrequired to repeal something
like that, to repeal something.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
So you're trying to get two-thirds of a amendment
approved.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I agree.
It's a political lift that isimpossible for the nation as it
stands today.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Which is good, which is how it's supposed to be, I
agree.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
That's how it's supposed.
Due process gets forced betterin a democracy when we are.
You know, there's a healthybalance, right, and it's
unfortunate we have a two-partysystem because there could be a
different type of balance.
But, yeah, I agree that the ifone side, you know, I know
there's no way that they couldgo out and repeal an amendment,
so you just have to find everyother possible way to game the
(33:13):
system.
Yeah, exactly, and again, thatcomes down to money and that
comes down to the ultra richtrying to dictate.
We got to.
Everybody has to go in andargue their case of why they're
a citizen.
Well, you were born in America.
Nah, it's not good enough.
Your parents are communists,right, that doesn't matter,
right, and I, yes, it does.
Right, like that's, they'retrying to make up stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
And it courts.
But we keep pushing further,closer and closer to that spot
where they're just going to say,no, we're not.
Now there was a little bit, youknow, of uh, some chip on the
shoulder, sassy comment from oneof the justices where they said
, uh, hey, you keep losing.
You know, like, you're justgoing to keep, you're going to
court shop too.
Right, you're going to takeeach one of those individual.
You want there to be 10,000individual cases so that
eventually you can find a judgethat passes the bar, right, and
(34:03):
so you get five or six lossesand then you find one where you
win, and then every other caseyou take back to that court,
right, like how to tell me howthat you're not going to use the
same, exact same thing, right?
Speaker 1 (34:13):
You know, but she said, things are projection.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
There's a reason that you're that you're hearing
right now, because you've lostthis argument already.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
You know so yeah, To be a Trump lawyer right now.
It'd just be like you feel likea toddler getting scolded all
the time.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Or like you're literally marching up and down
the firing line, just like theyjust keep shooting at you and
you just hit the end of thething, the thing, track and turn
around and go back the otherway.
Man, yeah, I feel exactlyfiring squad man, big time all
right.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Well, we'll end it on that.
I think that's a feeling mostof us can relate to.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Is the fire.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Political firing squad for sure all right, well
again, thanks for joining us.
This was less left face.
Uh, screwed up up on the exitthere.
We'll cut that one.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
We'll record the beginning and we'll cut that one
.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Thanks everyone for joining us.
We'll talk to you next week.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.