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Ep. 294: The Scoundrel Court

Ep. 294: The Scoundrel Court

Released Thursday, 6th July 2023
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Ep. 294: The Scoundrel Court

Ep. 294: The Scoundrel Court

Ep. 294: The Scoundrel Court

Ep. 294: The Scoundrel Court

Thursday, 6th July 2023
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:14

I pledge allegiance to

0:16

the people of the United

0:18

States of America and

0:22

to the Republic, this democracy

0:25

for which we stand. One

0:29

nation, part of one

0:31

world, indivisible,

0:35

with liberty and justice

0:37

for all. Happy

0:47

Independence Day, everyone. Or

0:50

as I like to say, happy interdependence

0:52

day. Independence

0:55

is good. Be independent.

0:58

But I

1:01

also like to think about how we're all connected

1:03

to. It's not just independence,

1:05

it's interdependence. And we

1:08

all are part of this one planet

1:10

that we all share.

1:13

We're all connected.

1:15

But on this particular day, we

1:18

celebrate the signing of our Declaration

1:21

of Independence.

1:23

And wow,

1:26

it's been a rough

1:28

few years, hasn't it? We've

1:31

gone through a number of

1:33

these years, probably

1:36

since the day of the golden escalator at

1:39

Tower in Midtown Manhattan, where

1:43

he rode, rode it down. June

1:47

of 2015. Jeez,

1:50

this is 23. That's

1:53

like eight years.

1:57

And we're still fighting.

1:59

still trying to maintain

2:03

what we had and

2:06

try to gain that which

2:08

we've never really had, a

2:12

work in progress. And

2:16

I thought it

2:18

might be a good idea on this day. And

2:21

you may be listening to this. On the

2:23

fourth, you may be listening to it. After this week,

2:25

the fourth this year is

2:27

the fourth of July is

2:29

in the middle of the week. So we don't really have like a fourth

2:31

of July weekend. Although

2:34

we all have gotten creative over the years

2:36

of trying to figure out how to stretch

2:38

the holiday when it lands

2:40

in the middle of the week. So

2:43

you might be listening to this on the fourth of July, maybe

2:46

fourth of July weekend, it may be fourth of July

2:48

week, whatever it is. I

2:51

thought this would be a good time to reflect

2:54

on what

2:56

we've had to put up with and go through recently.

3:00

Speaking specifically of the

3:02

Supreme Court,

3:05

just this last week. So

3:13

at the end of the week last week, we

3:16

had the Supreme Court issue three

3:18

rulings. Number one,

3:21

eliminating affirmative action, colleges

3:24

and universities in this country. Number

3:29

two, stating that

3:31

a business has a

3:33

right to deny LGBTQ

3:36

people services. If

3:39

they believe providing that service somehow

3:42

negates their rights to free speech.

3:48

And then finally, they got rid

3:50

of Joe Biden's plan to

3:53

provide student loan debt relief

3:56

to the 30 million people that are

3:58

holding the bill. holding these outrageous

4:01

student loans. It

4:06

was a rough, rough week for

4:09

the rights of people of color, rights

4:12

of the gay and lesbian and queer

4:15

community, and the

4:18

right not to be settled with debt for the

4:20

next 20 or 30 years of your life, simply

4:23

because you wanted to go to school.

4:30

And I know a lot of you have been pretty bummed out

4:34

ever since the end of the week, thinking

4:38

just how far will the Supreme Court

4:40

go? So

4:52

I wanna talk about that, but I wanna share

4:54

with you maybe a different viewpoint

4:57

of what they've done.

5:01

But also what we've done to them. And

5:05

this has not been discussed much

5:07

in recent days since these rulings last

5:10

week.

5:11

But I wanna give you my take on

5:13

this, and I want you, I know

5:16

this is gonna sound like what has happened

5:18

to Mike, he's become such the eternal

5:21

optimist. Believe me,

5:23

if you have followed

5:25

me and watched my movies or read

5:28

my books over the years, optimism

5:30

is not necessarily a very

5:33

good descriptive word for

5:35

where I'm usually at with things. But I

5:37

do pause when these moments

5:40

happen, when awful crap

5:43

happens, to try and find

5:45

not the good in it,

5:47

because there is no good in what the Supreme

5:49

Court has done here this

5:52

past week. But there

5:54

is buried

5:56

inside of their evil. The

6:00

key, the

6:03

way out, the

6:06

key that they've sort of handed us

6:09

and they don't know they've done that.

6:12

I'm hoping they don't. I'm guessing

6:14

they don't know. They don't listen to this podcast.

6:17

So I want you

6:20

to hear what I have to say about this and what I

6:22

think we can do about it and

6:24

how we can perhaps slow

6:27

down or even stop the madness that

6:29

comes from our Supreme Rulers,

6:32

the Supreme Court.

6:35

I think you're going to like what I have to say, or

6:37

at the very least,

6:38

you'll think about it.

6:41

What better way to celebrate the birthday

6:44

of this country than to

6:46

take back

6:47

the one third of our government

6:50

populated by these individuals who

6:52

are hell bent on bringing down our democracy.

6:57

There's a way to fight back.

6:59

And I'm going to tell you how I think we can do this.

7:02

This is Michael Moore,

7:04

by the way, happy 4th of July. This

7:06

is my podcast. It's called Rumble with

7:09

Michael Moore. And let me just give a brief

7:12

thank you and acknowledgement to the underwriter

7:14

for today's episode.

7:17

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you stamps.com for continuing to

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support my voice here on this podcast.

8:50

Okay. And, uh, we're

8:52

back here. So a

8:54

little over a year ago, the

8:57

last week of June of 2022, the

9:01

United States Supreme court started

9:03

issuing a bunch of

9:06

pretty disgusting

9:08

opinions, rulings, whatever you want

9:10

to call them. One

9:12

of them hugely

9:14

gutted the environmental protection agency,

9:18

but

9:19

the crowning disgrace

9:22

of what they did a year ago, June

9:24

here was

9:27

to essentially declare

9:30

women, all women in this country

9:34

as second-class citizens. They

9:37

ruled that women do not have the

9:40

same rights that men have.

9:43

Men, we men have the right

9:46

to control our own bodies to decide how we

9:48

want our reproductive

9:55

organs, how they're

9:57

going to work when we want them.

10:00

to work, basically

10:02

the government has no say on

10:04

what I or any man chooses

10:06

to do, as long as

10:10

it's in a consensual situation with

10:13

our bodies. But

10:16

a year ago at this time, the

10:18

Supreme Court said that women no

10:21

longer can decide when they

10:24

will have a baby,

10:26

that if they become pregnant, they

10:28

will have that baby, that

10:32

the government will

10:34

now decide when a fetus

10:38

is a human being, when a fertilized

10:40

egg is an actual human being.

10:43

And that was that. And that was the end of 49

10:46

years of abortion

10:48

being legal in this country.

10:50

49 years since the decision

10:52

called Roe v. Wade. During

10:57

that time, Democrats for a

10:59

number of years controlled both

11:01

houses of Congress and the White House

11:04

and could have at any time during

11:07

those 49 years, where they were in charge,

11:09

they could have codified

11:12

this decision Roe v. Wade made

11:14

it an actual law.

11:17

Never did it. They were so

11:19

scared of this issue, even

11:21

though it was decided in 1973

11:23

by the Nixon court

11:27

with a chief justice appointed

11:30

by Richard Nixon and

11:32

written by a Nixon appointee.

11:38

Republicans.

11:42

So the Democrats could have made

11:44

this the actual law and then

11:46

we wouldn't be dealing with this, but they

11:48

didn't. They ran from it. Number

11:51

of years, they were afraid to even put it into their party

11:54

platform that they supported the

11:56

right of a woman to choose.

11:59

Well,

12:03

I don't want to go there. You already know how I feel about

12:05

this. I'm sure a lot of you feel the same

12:07

way too, that the party that is

12:09

supposedly on our side

12:12

is often weak,

12:13

frightened,

12:16

and trying to placate and please

12:18

the other side, which has no

12:20

interest in supporting the rights of

12:23

women, people of color,

12:25

young people, immigrants, go

12:28

down the whole damn list. They've

12:30

shown their colors that we know who they are. They're

12:33

not the Republicans of 1973.

12:37

And they allowed the Catholic church and

12:39

the right wing, born again, Christian

12:42

organizations to

12:44

take charge.

12:47

And now have packed the court, Trump

12:50

in particular, these last

12:52

three justices of his, two

12:54

of them in his last year in office,

12:58

after the Republicans would not

13:00

allow president Obama

13:03

to make an appointment to the court during his last

13:05

year when

13:08

he still had 11 months left in office and

13:11

there was an opening on the court and he proposed

13:13

Merrick Garland and Mitch McConnell

13:15

on the Republican said, Oh no, that's not right.

13:18

This is the last year of your presidency. The

13:20

new president will decide this.

13:25

And so as soon as Trump got

13:27

into office, he got Gorsuch in

13:29

there and then, uh, in his

13:31

last year, Kavanaugh and actually in

13:33

his last weeks,

13:36

weeks in office

13:39

appoints Barrett. It

13:42

was stunning, but you

13:44

know, this is the one thing you have to say

13:46

about the Republicans of today. They

13:48

don't give a rat's ass what you think.

13:51

They believe in it so strongly.

13:53

They will fight to

13:55

the bitter end to the last day he

13:57

was in office. They were fighting.

15:43

were

16:00

so happy, but

16:02

then something happened. It happened right away.

16:06

The American public got angry. People

16:10

were upset at this decision to

16:12

eliminate Roe v. Wade. They

16:15

spoke out. There were demonstrations

16:18

everywhere. There were all

16:20

kinds of things on

16:22

social media and the actual mainstream

16:25

media itself.

16:29

New organizations were formed to fight this. People

16:35

started working on ideas on

16:37

how to get around it, how

16:40

we prevent the States from concurring with the

16:42

Supreme Court's decision. And the opposition of this got louder

16:47

and louder. They

16:51

started taking polls of the American

16:53

public and every single poll showed

16:57

that the majority of Americans disagreed with what the

16:59

Supreme Court did.

17:02

That the majority of Americans believed

17:05

that Roe v. Wade should remain the law of the land, that

17:10

women had a right to choose. Instead

17:13

of being now told by the government, there

17:16

will be a forced birth of

17:19

this fetus that you're now carrying. And you

17:21

will have no say in it. And

17:25

that drove the majority of Americans

17:28

crazy, including

17:31

the majority of Republicans.

17:39

And right away elections were being held because last year was a, you

17:41

know, the midterm elections. And immediately

17:43

the people going to the polls, started

17:48

passing laws, constitutional amendments,

17:50

or supporting existing

17:53

amendments to their constitution that made abortion law.

17:59

legal. States

18:03

like Kansas, Kansas

18:07

nearly 60% of the people of Kansas

18:10

voted to keep their Constitution

18:12

the way it was where women had the right to

18:14

choose.

18:15

Kansas,

18:16

Red State Kansas.

18:21

Then Montana, then Kentucky, Red

18:24

States, Red States were the first

18:26

out of the gate to say no no

18:28

no whoa whoa whoa wait a minute

18:30

here. You're

18:34

not taking women's rights away from them.

18:38

This has been the law of the land for nearly 50 years

18:43

and the Republican hierarchy,

18:47

the religious hierarchy and

18:50

the six justices that

18:53

voted in some form or fashion to get rid

18:56

of abortion. Roberts,

19:00

Kavanaugh, Barrett,

19:02

Gorsuch,

19:04

Alito and Clarence Thomas were

19:10

stunned. Kansas,

19:12

Montana, Kentucky and it just

19:15

kept going. It kept going right into

19:17

the November elections.

19:19

Constitutional amendments that didn't exist before

19:21

were now being passed in states

19:24

like Michigan and a number

19:26

of other what we call blue states

19:30

and they could see that

19:32

the Supreme Court that they were against

19:36

the American people. They were on the other side

19:38

of the American people. They were on

19:40

the other side of even Republican

19:43

American people.

19:46

And then after that

19:50

the shit started hitting the fan.

19:53

ProPublica, this incredible

19:56

investigative news organization that

19:59

I've asked. in the past for everyone to please support

20:02

them. Non-profit, non-partisan,

20:06

ProPublica, and other

20:08

news agencies started doing

20:10

investigations into

20:13

the members of the United States Supreme

20:15

Court, the justices of the court, started

20:18

doing investigations into their

20:20

personal finances. Who's

20:22

funding these people? What kind of

20:24

corruption is going on here?

20:28

What don't we know about them? Who

20:30

are they? And one

20:33

story after another in the second

20:35

half of 2022, and

20:37

then right up until now in 2023,

20:39

story after

20:42

story after story of some of the most

20:44

disgusting behavior on the

20:46

part of these so-called

20:48

conservative justices.

20:52

I don't even wanna say conservative, I don't really wanna

20:54

insult, like really

20:57

kind of true conservative people, you know,

20:59

the old school. My grandfather

21:02

was one of the leading Republicans in our

21:04

town, but you know,

21:07

he was born just three

21:09

years after Abraham Lincoln. So, you

21:11

know, that Republicans meant

21:14

it was the party of Lincoln.

21:17

He and my grandmother, they supported

21:19

women's right to vote, advocated

21:22

on the behalf of the constitutional

21:24

amendment. But that's what,

21:26

you know, when I was growing up, conservative just

21:29

meant, you know, conserve your money, don't

21:31

spend money you don't have, conserve the

21:33

earth that God gave us. It was a gift

21:36

from him, him.

21:39

You know, let's all eat at

21:41

the table for dinner. Let's

21:44

be good to people, let's be good neighbors.

21:47

Let's give 10% of whatever

21:49

we earn to

21:51

the poor, to

21:53

charities, to the church, to

21:56

whatever. That's

21:59

such bad, I eat. ideas. But

22:01

of course that's not what it means anymore. And so now the

22:03

conservatives, as they're called, you

22:05

know, these are really radical ideologues

22:07

who

22:08

believe in the superiority

22:10

of men, of

22:16

white men, of

22:19

older white men, of white men

22:21

with money, lots of money.

22:26

That's who they represent on our Supreme court and pro publica in

22:28

the New York

22:29

times

22:31

and other publications have done

22:33

some incredible work digging

22:36

into who are these scoundrels

22:39

and guess what they have found out? They

22:42

are scoundrels. They are corrupt.

22:46

They are shady. I

22:49

mean, starting at the top of the heap here

22:51

with Clarence Thomas, all

22:55

the things that they revealed about him, about

22:59

all the money he was taking from this billionaire,

23:01

Harlan Crow, he's been on the

23:03

take. This guy, this

23:06

Harlan Crow billionaire

23:08

has been giving Clarence Thomas and or his wife, Ginny,

23:13

who is involved in and

23:16

helps to run a number of very right wing

23:18

organizations. Ginny Thomas, who was there on January

23:20

6th at the

23:22

Trump rally there in the

23:26

ellipse, right

23:31

there, the wife of the Supreme court justice. Well, she

23:33

has a right. It's her life to be there. But just

23:35

so you know where the Thomas's are

23:37

coming from.

23:40

Anyways, I'm not going to get into

23:42

the details of these stories, but

23:44

if you go online, go to Google,

23:47

pro publica, Clarence Thomas, go

23:49

to New York times. Wow.

23:54

I mean one so-called gift

23:56

after another.

24:00

Crow, he's bought

24:02

up some of the property that Thomas owned

24:04

or co-owned down in Savannah,

24:08

Georgia, his mother's house. Yet after

24:10

Crow bought it, his mother

24:12

got to keep, of course, living there because this was really

24:15

just a sly way to

24:17

put money into Thomas's pockets.

24:19

I'm telling you, if

24:21

you know anything about the rules that House

24:24

members and Senate members have to follow

24:26

in Congress, the list

24:28

of things that Thomas has done, the money

24:30

he has taken,

24:32

would have him removed from Congress.

24:37

If he was in the White House,

24:39

there would be impeachment hearings. There would

24:42

be an impeachment. There would be a possibility

24:44

that he'd be convicted by the Senate because this

24:46

isn't a partisan issue.

24:49

The taking of,

24:51

quote, gifts. And

24:55

then you keep ruling the way that the

24:57

billionaire class wants you to rule, especially

25:01

your patron here. I

25:05

mean, most of it, you wouldn't care who was in the

25:07

White House. If the president of the United

25:09

States was taking kickbacks,

25:12

bribes, money,

25:14

gifts, trips, any

25:19

of that, and

25:21

you could draw a straight line to the decisions

25:23

he was making, the bills he was signing,

25:26

that president would be removed from the White

25:28

House. That member

25:31

of Congress would be removed from Congress.

25:34

But the Supreme Court gets to

25:37

essentially

25:38

exist without having to follow

25:41

anything that has

25:43

to do with ethics or morality or

25:47

just the basic stuff

25:50

that we all, I think, agree on that

25:53

the people who are representing us and who are voting

25:55

on the laws of the land,

25:59

their hands shouldn't be on the table. be in anybody's pocket

26:01

and nobody else's hands should be

26:03

in theirs. And

26:08

then it turned out it wasn't just Thomas. It

26:10

was Alito. Gorsuch.

26:14

Some of it was just basic ethical stuff

26:16

like Barrett. Her husband

26:18

is a lawyer for corporate

26:20

criminals. He defends white-collar

26:23

criminals.

26:27

Now, you

26:31

know, they all have to fill out this disclosure

26:33

form in the Supreme Court. And

26:36

she withheld the names of his clients.

26:38

We should know that

26:40

information, right? So

26:43

that we know if she should

26:45

be recusing herself, should one

26:47

of those corporations or rich people come

26:49

before the court with a case. But

26:52

we have no way of knowing that because she refuses

26:55

to provide that information.

27:01

Roberts, his spouse,

27:04

is a high-paid legal

27:07

lawyer consultant who

27:10

essentially is like a headhunter and

27:13

goes looking for people to bring to the

27:15

top of the line richest law

27:17

firms in the country.

27:19

She finds them new partners,

27:21

new lawyers, and

27:24

she has received over

27:27

ten million dollars just

27:29

by suggesting the right

27:31

people that should be in these law firms.

27:35

And one of these law firms,

27:37

one of them argued three times in

27:40

front of the Supreme Court in 2022 alone.

27:47

This is called a conflict of interest. So

27:50

we have no idea how much bigger

27:53

this really is because they

27:55

don't have to disclose. And

28:01

in these stories that are being done, they

28:03

show

28:04

whether it's Gorsuch,

28:06

Alito, how

28:09

many times they've actually voted for

28:11

what the people who gave them the money

28:14

wanted them to do.

28:19

We didn't know any of this was going

28:21

on. I

28:23

mean, the times, they did a story like a decade

28:26

ago, I think on Thomas, but

28:29

again, we wouldn't have known about this

28:31

without our free press.

28:35

What little is left of it. It's

28:38

been devastated with

28:40

layoffs, closures, bankruptcies,

28:42

you know this. A lot of you

28:45

listening to me right now, the paper in your hometown

28:48

no longer exists or they're only publishing

28:50

it once a week

28:52

because of what's happened to our media.

28:55

And because of the greed of the media, the

28:58

big companies that own the media,

29:01

they just started laying people off.

29:04

All of a sudden, nobody was covering the police.

29:07

Nobody was covering the courts. Nobody

29:09

was covering. It's been a bad couple

29:11

of decades for this. And we know

29:14

less as a result of it. And yet,

29:17

wow. I

29:19

encourage you who are listening to me to

29:22

look up some of these stories and read them about

29:26

Clarence Thomas, about Alito, Robert

29:29

Skorsich, Barrett.

29:31

And

29:36

I gotta say, those

29:39

six justices, they

29:41

have to be just shitting themselves. God,

29:44

I wish I could be a fly on the wall when they're

29:47

just in the room by themselves.

29:50

You know, the three liberals on the court are

29:52

nowhere in sight. They've

29:56

just gotta be like, I thought we did

29:58

a good thing getting rid of. getting

30:00

rid of abortion. You know,

30:03

everybody hates us. There

30:05

are approval ratings. Some of these polls of

30:08

the Supreme Court, they're lower than Congress. How

30:10

bad do you have to get to get a lower approval

30:13

rating than the one for Congress?

30:15

You know, Congress ratings are always, they're

30:19

down there, as they say, with the approval ratings of

30:21

used car salesmen and,

30:24

but they've got to realize that

30:27

they screwed themselves. They

30:29

created this. No, they

30:32

never would be investigating us if we had, why

30:34

did we do this? Well, because the bishops

30:36

said you had to.

30:38

Yeah, but well, I know,

30:40

but you know, remember for the

30:42

longest time here, the nine

30:45

justices, six were Catholics and three were

30:47

Jewish Americans. There

30:49

was not a single Protestant on the court for

30:51

many, many years. Now I think they've,

30:53

the Protestants finally have,

30:55

well, they have at least one, and I think Gorsuch

30:57

actually was raised Catholic, but then switched to

31:00

Catholic light, which we

31:02

call Episcopalians, but

31:06

they've just got to be wondering, if

31:08

they hadn't done this, would they be all these investigations

31:11

into them? These

31:14

are impeachment offenses. You

31:17

can impeach the Supreme Court justices. You can remove them

31:19

from the court. They

31:22

know that. Yes, it's a lifetime

31:24

employment, except Congress

31:27

can impeach you. You

31:30

can be removed. You can be convicted and

31:33

removed, and they know that,

31:36

but they also care about their legacy. They care about,

31:39

you know, they're just gonna be remembered

31:41

in history as the scam,

31:45

Trump's scam court, and

31:49

they're gonna be thought of. I

31:55

don't wanna say the word. I

31:59

just, you know, just you know this

32:01

is how we are right people like us and

32:03

are just kind of yeah I don't

32:06

want to dehumanize them they are human beings

32:09

and they're deserving of our love at

32:12

least for being a human being that

32:14

part of it nothing else really but

32:20

if you've studied history if you've read history if

32:22

you enjoy history you know what

32:24

happens when the corrupt

32:27

the corrupt politician the corrupt president is

32:32

found out as they

32:34

have been when

32:37

the entire world knows how

32:40

unethical they are how

32:43

deceitful they are

32:47

yes they can be impeached they

32:50

can be removed and

32:54

not just on these issues they

32:56

could be removed because they

32:59

perjured themselves when they testified

33:01

to the Senate about their feelings

33:03

about Roe v. Wade

33:06

let me just read you a few of the

33:09

actual quotes from these

33:12

Republican conservative right-wing

33:15

supremacist justices when

33:17

they were questioned about their

33:19

views on abortion when

33:21

they were nominated to be

33:24

on the Supreme Court but they have to you have to be confirmed

33:26

by the Senate

33:28

Clarence Thomas this is quote unquote this goes

33:30

way back I can say

33:32

on that issue meaning abortion

33:35

and on those cases I have no agenda

33:38

I have no agenda I have an open

33:40

mind Wow

33:47

his actions have spoken much

33:50

louder than those lying

33:52

words here's

33:56

another quote from Thomas we

33:59

justices have to understand that

34:01

we must shed the

34:03

personal opinions that we have.

34:07

This is a guy who has imposed

34:10

his religious beliefs,

34:12

his personal religious beliefs on

34:14

the rest of the country for many, many years.

34:18

What the Catholic Church wants, especially the

34:21

church, I'm talking about the organized religion now,

34:23

the hierarchy. Not

34:26

the good people are trying to live a good life as

34:28

Catholics. Here's

34:32

another quote from Thomas's nomination

34:35

hearing. He

34:38

said it would be inappropriate for any

34:40

judge, including himself, to

34:42

take on a case on an issue

34:45

that,

34:46

quote, in which he

34:48

or she, oh that was nice of

34:50

him, included she in that sentence,

34:53

in which he or she, the justice, has

34:55

such strong views

34:57

that he or she cannot be impartial,

35:00

should not take on that case.

35:03

That's what he testified under oath

35:06

to the Senate. Gorsuch.

35:10

Let me give you a couple of his quotes to the Senate

35:12

committee. I

35:14

would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided

35:16

in 1973, is

35:18

a precedent of the United States

35:20

Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed.

35:23

So

35:27

then Senator Dick Durbin from

35:30

Illinois questioned Gorsuch

35:32

about this and wanted

35:35

to know, because in 1973, Roe

35:37

v. Wade was decided based

35:39

on the 14th Amendment, the Due Process Clause,

35:42

and basically the Supreme Court back in 1973

35:45

held that a fetus is

35:48

not a person. If

35:50

the fetus cannot live outside the

35:52

womb of the mother, then

35:54

it is not a human being. It

35:56

is a fetus, just like

35:59

you for me say. say before in this podcast,

36:02

a seed is not a flower. We

36:05

don't call it a flower, we call it a seed. A

36:07

stem is not a flower, it's

36:10

a stem. A flower is a flower.

36:13

A baby able to live outside of

36:16

its mother on its own. It

36:19

can have all the help from the ICU

36:21

and everything else that science has

36:23

given us.

36:25

That's fine. But if

36:27

it has to be inside the mother

36:29

to survive, well then it's not a human being.

36:32

That's what they ruled. So

36:35

Durbin asks Gorsuch in

36:37

his confirmation hearing, do

36:39

you accept that as the legal underpinning

36:42

of Roe v. Wade? That a fetus

36:44

is not a person for the purposes of the

36:46

14th Amendment's due process clause? Do

36:49

you accept that? Senator Durbin

36:52

asks him. Gorsuch replies,

36:55

that is the law of the land.

36:58

I accept the law of

37:01

the land, Senator. Yes. Wow.

37:06

I don't know what book the rest of you were reading, but

37:08

in my book, that's called perjury. You're

37:11

just lying straight up

37:13

because you're not on the Supreme Court very long

37:16

before you are upending

37:19

what is accepted as the law

37:22

of the land. Brett

37:26

Kavanaugh, here's his confirmation hearing.

37:28

You remember the beer hearing, the kegger

37:31

hearing, the woman that nobody would listen

37:33

to about him raping her. That's

37:36

what he said to the Senate committee

37:38

under oath quote from

37:41

Brett Kavanaugh. It

37:44

is important precedent of the Supreme Court

37:47

that has been reaffirmed many times.

37:50

And then continuing his quote.

37:53

It is not as if it's just a run

37:56

of the mill case

37:57

that was decided and never been. reconsidered,

38:01

but Casey, he's referring to a

38:04

later case after Roe that

38:06

got to the Supreme Court where they had a chance

38:08

to throw out Roe and make abortion

38:10

illegal. But the Casey case reaffirmed

38:13

the court reaffirmed

38:15

that abortion was legal, that Roe

38:17

was the law of the land. And he

38:19

reminded them, he says, Casey, Casey

38:22

case specifically reconsidered

38:25

whether abortion should be legal. And

38:28

they applied these factors

38:30

to it. And then they decided the

38:32

court to reaffirm it

38:34

years and years after Roe v. Wade.

38:38

And then I'm quoting Kavanaugh again. He

38:40

said that makes Casey a

38:42

precedent on a precedent,

38:47

a double precedent. I

38:51

mean, can we no longer define something

38:53

that a lie, when a lie is a lie, can

38:55

we call it a lie? He's

38:57

lying to them. They know he's

39:00

lying to them. Susan

39:02

Collins, the Republican Senator from Maine afterwards

39:05

said that Kavanaugh told her in her

39:07

office in a private meeting that

39:10

he considered Roe v. Wade to

39:12

be quote, settled law,

39:15

settled law, meaning the

39:18

issue has been settled or not talking

39:20

about it anymore.

39:23

So it is against the law to lie when you're under oath

39:25

testifying in the Senate or

39:30

in the House of Representatives. And

39:33

one after the other,

39:35

bullshitted their way onto the court.

39:39

They could, they could just make this up, lie.

39:42

Nothing will happen to them.

39:45

Just like they thought nothing was going to happen when they

39:47

took away a woman's right to choose, when

39:49

they set themselves up as the arbiters

39:52

of when women would be forced to

39:54

give birth. Nothing.

39:56

We got the people

39:58

behind us, the people.

39:59

No. What bubble

40:02

are you living in? People don't

40:04

support this. They don't support

40:06

not just this. The people love

40:08

their Environmental Protection Agency because

40:11

no matter whether they're a Democrat or Republican

40:13

or an independent or whatever, most

40:17

sane people

40:19

want to breathe clean air

40:21

and drink clean water. Sorry,

40:25

that's what I would call an indisputable

40:28

fact. So

40:30

the people of this country, they like the EPA.

40:34

They like their environmental laws that

40:37

protect them and their children. But

40:40

when they started carving away at the

40:43

EPA, when they started giving and

40:46

approving more gun rights for

40:49

people that shouldn't have guns, and

40:52

when they took these rights away from

40:54

the majority gender, by

40:57

the way, just a quick lesson, folks. What

41:00

do we call a country where

41:03

the minority of anything, whether it's

41:05

the minority race,

41:08

I mean by minority, I mean whites

41:10

in South Africa were the minority,

41:13

the majority were black.

41:16

When it's the minority gender,

41:18

men are the minority. There's fewer

41:20

of us than there are of women. Women

41:24

are anywhere from 51 to 52% of the population.

41:27

They're

41:30

the majority of the country.

41:33

So when the minority rules, the ones that

41:35

don't hold the powers because of their

41:37

numbers, but hold the power because

41:40

of the rich bastards that

41:42

have put them into office or whoever

41:44

they're working for, because they ain't working for us, they're not

41:46

working for the majority. What

41:49

do we call that?

41:50

What

41:52

do we call it in South Africa? When

41:55

the white minority told

41:57

black people how they would live their lives, what

42:00

they could and could not do. And

42:03

those black people had little

42:05

or no say in this. What

42:07

do we call it? We call it apartheid. That's

42:12

what it's called. You could call this gender

42:14

apartheid

42:16

because they singled out one gender

42:18

because it's the gender that brings life into the

42:20

world. One

42:23

gender

42:25

has their rights taken away.

42:28

And it's over a thing that is actually, it's

42:31

a gift to the world. None

42:34

of us would be here without

42:36

our moms, without our mothers, without

42:38

women.

42:42

Wouldn't that be the last group you'd punk on?

42:45

Wouldn't that be the last group that you would take rights

42:48

away or pay them less or

42:50

treat them like, the

42:55

gender that brought you into this world.

42:59

If you just step back from it, it just, I

43:02

mean, I swear to God, when they, if

43:04

the planet survives somehow, if the species

43:07

survives 100 years

43:09

from now, 200 years from now, they're gonna write about

43:11

us.

43:13

They're gonna go, God, they hated, they

43:16

hated women. Why?

43:18

Women, no women,

43:21

no babies, no life, no nothing.

43:26

Why would you do this? And

43:29

wouldn't you want, wouldn't you want the women

43:32

to decide when and how and

43:35

whatever they would bring

43:37

life into the world that kind of has, they

43:39

have to be like the final call on this, because

43:42

it's their bodies.

43:44

We have to leave a note behind.

43:46

I say this a lot. We gotta leave a note behind

43:48

to the future to explain ourselves,

43:52

because nobody will understand this behavior.

43:57

They lied in their confirmation area. They

44:01

should be removed because they committed perjury.

44:04

Perjuries against the law, they should be

44:06

removed. They

44:09

should be removed for that. They should be removed for

44:11

all their ethical and financial violations.

44:15

For being on the take, they should all

44:18

be removed for that. But

44:21

I know you're thinking, Mike, how do we do that?

44:24

Because, you

44:26

know, Republicans control the House.

44:30

You know, they control it by what? You

44:32

know, on any given day of five or six Republicans

44:36

either vote the

44:38

other way or don't show up or are

44:41

sick or have, you

44:43

know, passed on and they haven't been replaced

44:46

yet. It's so close

44:48

right now. Yet it's

44:50

so wrong that in a country where the majority of

44:52

Americans agree, vast

44:55

majority agree with the Democrats on their issues.

44:58

Again, I'll just repeat what I've said before. There's

45:01

a reason why since 1988, the

45:04

election of George Bush the first,

45:06

that only one time since then have

45:09

the majority of Americans voted

45:12

for the Republican on the ballot to

45:14

be president of the United States. Only

45:16

once

45:18

in 2004, Bush the second. And

45:22

there's even dispute over that county

45:24

because it was, came down to

45:26

one state. 100,000 votes in Ohio.

45:31

But even giving them that, okay, just for

45:33

the purposes of argument here. Only

45:37

once since Daddy Bush got elected

45:39

in 88. 88, that's

45:41

like, that's 35 years ago. So

45:45

in 35 years, only once have

45:47

the American people said, you know what, I want the Republicans

45:50

running this country. I'm voting for a

45:52

Republican in the White House. Once. In

45:58

every other election since. then. They

46:01

voted for the Democrat to be

46:03

in the White House. 1992, Clinton. 96,

46:05

Clinton. 2000, Gore

46:10

won by a half a million votes. Didn't

46:13

get to be in the White House. 2004, certified

46:17

that Bush got the most votes. 2008, Obama

46:20

wins. 2012, Obama's reelected. 2016, Hillary

46:26

wins by 3 million plus

46:29

votes over Trump,

46:31

and yet is not seated in the White House. 2020, Biden

46:37

wins. Seven times voted

46:40

for the Democrat once for the Republican.

46:42

What does that tell you? What do the

46:44

American people want? They

46:46

don't want the Republicans in the White

46:48

House. They don't want them running the country.

46:53

Trump ends up losing in 2020 by, what

46:56

was it, seven, eight million votes? Huge.

47:02

Get them out of there. That's what the American

47:04

people want. And yet they've got a Supreme

47:07

Court that in

47:09

many ways is to the right of Trump. If

47:13

you pay any attention to the right wing media,

47:15

I know you don't want to spend your time doing that. That's

47:17

why I do it for you. But there's

47:19

a lot of kind of low

47:21

level talk. They don't want to say it too loud,

47:24

but they aren't happy

47:26

with Trump's appointments only

47:28

because they know how weak they are

47:32

and how they're not really quite

47:34

the ideologues that Scalia

47:36

and Alito and Thomas and the

47:38

others have been and still are.

47:41

Scalia no longer with us. And

47:45

so they're not happy. Because

47:47

they don't think Kavanaugh, Gorsuch

47:49

and Barrett are right wing enough.

47:55

And how do they know that? Well, now I'm

47:57

getting to the happy part of the podcast. It

48:00

took so long to get here, but I want to

48:02

delay this out for you because There

48:04

are ways to remove them and

48:06

I wanted to make that clear

48:08

And there is an election

48:11

coming up next year and my god my friends

48:13

I know we're not gonna complain about

48:15

the Democrats today Plenty of time

48:17

on other podcasts to do that and to fight

48:20

for the things that they should

48:22

be fighting for

48:24

still aren't What

48:26

happened last week? As

48:28

god-awful as it was these

48:31

three decisions Where

48:33

they told people of color? That

48:37

they were no longer going to get any help

48:39

in trying to right past wrongs from

48:41

them not being able to get into universities

48:44

and colleges

48:45

That right was taken away by

48:48

the Supreme Court last week a vicious

48:51

vicious decision And

48:54

Then they told the LGBTQ plus

48:56

community that they're going

48:58

to take away more rights from them

49:02

They're trying to pair this thing down. Of course, they've

49:04

already been on the record Thomas and the others that

49:07

gay People should not be allowed

49:09

to be married and any member

49:11

of the LGBTQ plus community

49:15

Marriages a man and a woman and

49:17

no animals can be involved. So so

49:21

So last week They

49:23

had

49:24

a made-up case. You got

49:26

to read about this I'm not gonna get into

49:28

the depth of it, but it's so damn

49:31

crazy. There was no real case

49:33

Nobody been discriminated against

49:35

but this woman who ran

49:37

a graphic design company out in Colorado Said

49:40

that she felt that the Colorado law that

49:43

prohibits businesses from discriminating

49:47

Against gay and lesbian people

49:49

that that violated her free speech rights

49:52

because she doesn't support gay and lesbian

49:54

people and Therefore by

49:56

forcing her to do graphic design for them

49:59

just like

49:59

the cake issue from a year

50:02

or two ago, they can't be forced

50:04

to do that. Except

50:06

there was nobody who was

50:09

forcing her to do graphic design

50:11

for gay people. It was a hypothetical

50:13

case. I mean, if you've listened to any

50:15

of the legal analysts about this in the last

50:17

week, they're just so dumbfounded. How

50:19

did a case

50:20

that was never a case, nobody

50:23

was sued, nobody was arrested, nobody's

50:25

rights were violated, just

50:28

a made up hypothetical case. How did a hypothetical

50:31

case get to the Supreme Court? That's

50:33

just how desperate

50:35

these six justices are to go

50:38

against people who are not

50:41

heterosexual, people

50:44

who are not like us, that

50:49

they allowed a made up case in front of the court to

50:53

be heard quote marks, heard.

50:57

And then they issued a ruling on it, saying

51:01

that a business does have a right to discriminate against

51:03

gay people and that it's their first

51:05

amendment right to do so. You know, this is

51:07

not going to last folks, nutcases,

51:11

supremacists, haters, you

51:13

know, this isn't going to last because the

51:15

crazies that you're supporting

51:18

and helping here are just going to keep

51:20

at it. And sooner or later, very

51:22

soon, the next case is going to be a landlord

51:25

is going

51:26

to say, my rights are being

51:28

violated if I have to rent an apartment

51:31

to a gay couple. And

51:33

when it comes to that, when it comes to housing

51:36

accommodations, I'm not

51:38

going to serve that couple

51:40

over there at table five in my restaurant.

51:43

It's two men holding hands. They're

51:46

going to bring these kinds of cases. And

51:48

this report is going to have to say,

51:50

yeah, no, the restaurant has a right to deny food

51:54

to people that are holding hands of the same gender. The

51:58

American people, you know. some point aren't going

52:00

to put up with this. I know they're thinking they might be thinking of themselves,

52:03

jeez, I don't know. We took these rights away from women

52:06

and women haven't burned down any courthouses

52:08

or there's been no real,

52:11

you know, no,

52:12

no real. What do you call real?

52:14

How about, how about those votes in Kansas

52:16

and Kentucky and Montana? How about no

52:19

red wave last November that we

52:21

stopped

52:22

the predicted red wave predicted even

52:24

by Democrats that there was going to be a red

52:27

wave and people

52:29

showed up in record numbers in

52:32

a midterm election to

52:36

stop Republicans from

52:38

having all the power. You

52:42

haven't seen anything yet. You keep doing

52:44

this to people of color, taking the rights away

52:47

to LGBTQ plus people, and

52:50

it's just going to be quiet. Just

52:52

going to take it from you. No. Student

52:58

loans. So that was the third big case last week. Biden

53:00

trying to provide some student loan

53:02

relief for like the only industrialized

53:05

democracy on the planet that

53:11

puts a teenager starting when they're 18

53:13

into a sometimes a lifelong debt just

53:18

so they can go to college. All

53:21

the people that are carrying 30, 40, 50, 30, 40, 50, a

53:24

hundred thousand dollars of student

53:26

loan debt can never get out of it, can

53:28

never crawl out from under it. Affecting

53:32

their lives in their forties and their fifties. Unable

53:36

to get other loans because they haven't paid off this long.

53:40

That's all Biden was trying to do. Most

53:42

people got it. 30 million

53:45

people had already had loan

53:47

payments suspended during the pandemic. So

53:49

for three years,

53:51

a lot of younger adults all

53:54

sleep, didn't have to pay

53:56

on their student loan during the pandemic.

53:59

And now, Now they've got to start paying. No

54:03

relief. They've

54:05

lived these last three years. It hasn't been in the budget.

54:08

Now it's in the family budget. Less

54:10

money making life more

54:12

difficult for them. Can I just ask a political

54:15

question too? Why would you

54:17

piss off 30 million Americans who

54:19

make these student loan payments? They're not all Democrats.

54:22

Some of them are independents. Some of them are

54:24

Republicans. Some of them don't

54:27

usually vote, but

54:29

they may now because

54:32

of what you just did. So

54:34

those are the, those are the three big cases

54:38

last week and as awful as

54:40

these are, and please do not

54:43

hear me backing away

54:45

one inch from this, but

54:48

I think this is, you know,

54:50

I'm not a pundit. I'm not

54:52

an expert on any of this stuff.

54:55

Common sense is telling me that

54:58

Kavanaugh and Robertson

55:00

Gorsuch and Barrett, at

55:03

least them, Alito and

55:05

Thomas are so far gone to the wind that

55:08

I

55:09

don't know if they actually do care.

55:12

They don't care about their legacy. They

55:15

don't care that they may face impeachment hearings.

55:18

That's how rock solid they are in their

55:20

hatred. But

55:23

the others, I'd

55:25

be worried if I

55:28

was a right winger supporting this

55:31

court, because you've got four of them that

55:33

do care, at least to how, what

55:35

people think of them. You

55:39

know, most people want to be liked. It's

55:42

just kind of a human nature thing. I

55:45

like it when people like me, they

55:47

got the whole, you know, majority

55:49

of the country against them now. They

55:53

got reporters doing their

55:55

reporting, doing their job, investigating

55:58

them. And

56:00

they saw this right away right after the road decision

56:03

last year. And and this

56:05

was I want to now tell you something

56:08

that people, including people on

56:10

our side of the

56:11

political fence have not really told

56:13

you in the last week. I don't know

56:15

why. I don't know why this isn't reported

56:18

or maybe it's just because, you know,

56:22

if you get three or four or a dozen

56:25

emails a day from various candidates,

56:27

Democratic candidates or, you

56:29

know, groups that we all support trying

56:32

to do good work. But the letters

56:35

in the last week are so filled

56:37

with fear, utter horror stories.

56:40

You know, the country

56:42

is over. We're doomed. Send

56:45

money. Send five dollars by midnight

56:47

tonight. It's like, OK,

56:50

can I just ask that Democrats

56:52

stop doing this?

56:55

Yes, I know we need the money. We still have a system

56:57

where elections are based on this. We've

56:59

got to get rid of that, too. But

57:02

for the time being, for right now, people

57:04

don't need to be anymore. They're already scared enough.

57:07

Most of us can't believe we got through

57:09

the four years of Trump. I mean, got through it in the

57:11

sense any of us are still here. So

57:17

if we just stop with the fear mongering for

57:20

just a few minutes and listen

57:22

to some things I have to say about what

57:24

happened. In the 12 months

57:27

since they took women's rights away,

57:30

since they upset the majority of

57:33

the country.

57:35

And how this court is running scared.

57:38

And that's because you made

57:40

your voices heard. And

57:42

now they are scared

57:44

shitless. And because

57:47

they're scared shitless, let me tell you what's happened just

57:49

in the 12 months with this court,

57:52

this so-called

57:53

conservative court. So

57:56

remember now there's only three liberals on the

57:58

court. Jackson. Kagan

58:00

and Sotomayor. Okay, there's only

58:02

three. You

58:04

need five votes to get

58:07

something done. They'd be a majority five to four, right?

58:10

So we have three and the whack

58:12

side here has six, six

58:14

votes. Okay, but

58:18

slowly, step by step,

58:21

that leaves these four Roberts,

58:25

Cavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett.

58:30

They started siding with the liberals. Sometimes

58:34

just one of them, sometimes two of them,

58:37

a few times three of them, a

58:40

couple times four of them

58:45

sided with the three liberals to

58:47

create majority opinions in

58:50

favor of the liberal side of the opinion.

58:54

Let me spell this out in statistics.

58:57

Don't worry, I won't make this too

58:59

difficult for those of us who weren't good in

59:01

math. In

59:03

this last term, what's called the 2022 term, 2022 to June

59:05

of 23, the three liberal justices

59:12

were in the majority 64% of

59:15

the time.

59:17

Doesn't feel like that, does it? But that's the

59:19

fact. The three

59:21

liberal justices were in the majority 64% of the

59:23

time. Now, granted, because it

59:26

is a conservative court, that means

59:28

the six conservative justices were in the

59:30

majority 73% of the time,

59:33

but only 9 percentage points more than

59:36

when the liberals won. Now,

59:40

let me tell you what it was last

59:42

year's term. Okay, this is the 2021 2022 term where they

59:47

eliminated Roe v. Wade. All

59:49

right. There

59:51

was a 34 percentage point difference

59:54

between how many times the liberal justices

59:56

were in the majority versus the conservatives.

1:00:00

This last term, nine percentage points.

1:00:02

Wow.

1:00:06

This is amazing. And thanks

1:00:08

to Adam Littak of the Times

1:00:11

for running this down and coming

1:00:13

up with these stats. Okay.

1:00:18

So last year now, not this past

1:00:21

year, but the year before, 2021-22,

1:00:22

Roberts

1:00:25

took the liberal position only 26%

1:00:28

of the time. Okay.

1:00:33

In this last year, 2022-2023, the

1:00:36

one that ended last week, Roberts

1:00:38

took the liberal position 44% of the time. 44% this

1:00:43

year, 26% last year. That's

1:00:49

a huge leap. Roberts

1:00:53

actually voted with Kagan, one

1:00:55

of the three liberals on the court. He

1:00:58

voted with Kagan 62% of the time.

1:01:04

He only voted with Clarence Thomas, 48% of

1:01:07

the time, his own side. So 62%

1:01:11

of the time this past year

1:01:14

with Kagan, only 48% with

1:01:16

Thomas. That's

1:01:19

a jump for Roberts from the Roe

1:01:21

v. Wade,

1:01:22

get rid of Roe v. Wade year.

1:01:25

That's a 14 percentage point jump

1:01:29

from how he voted with Kagan

1:01:31

the year before to

1:01:33

this past year. And Kavanaugh,

1:01:36

get this, Kavanaugh this past

1:01:38

year voted with

1:01:41

Jackson, Katonji Brown

1:01:43

Jackson. He voted with her 62%

1:01:45

of the time and

1:01:48

only voted with Thomas, Clarence Thomas, 45% of

1:01:51

the time. I

1:01:53

know, do I need to read this again? Because

1:01:56

it doesn't make sense, right? I'm reading

1:01:58

the truth for you. I'm reading the facts.

1:02:01

Kavanagh voted with Katanji Brown

1:02:03

Jackson 62% of the time

1:02:05

this past year and

1:02:07

only 45% of

1:02:09

the time did he vote with Thomas.

1:02:12

That is a 17 percentage point

1:02:14

difference with him siding with Jackson

1:02:17

over Thomas. Wow.

1:02:22

This is amazing. Oh, here's listen to this

1:02:24

one. David Cole. I'm quoting

1:02:26

from the Times here. The

1:02:29

ACLU's national legal director

1:02:32

said that our losses this past year

1:02:34

in the affirmative action and gay rights

1:02:36

cases were unprecedented

1:02:38

setbacks for equality.

1:02:40

But he said civil

1:02:44

liberties and civil rights actually

1:02:46

fared surprisingly well this

1:02:49

term far better than

1:02:51

anyone predicted. And

1:02:53

then he goes on to say the

1:02:56

ACLU in this last year,

1:02:59

they were part of 18 cases heard in

1:03:04

front of the Supreme Court, mostly

1:03:06

civil rights and civil liberties cases, 18

1:03:08

cases. They

1:03:12

won 11 of them this

1:03:14

past year. The year after the

1:03:17

court took women's rights

1:03:19

away and then got beat

1:03:21

up by the American public and

1:03:24

then started being investigated

1:03:26

by ProPublica in the New York Times.

1:03:29

They started to pivot like

1:03:32

in a 180 fashion. They

1:03:35

saw the writing on the wall. They weren't

1:03:38

so smug about their decision to

1:03:40

kill Roe v. Wade. They

1:03:42

realized that they had fucked

1:03:45

themselves. And

1:03:47

so what did they do? As soon as the court

1:03:49

went back into session last October, 22,

1:03:53

just a few months after eliminating

1:03:56

Roe v. Wade, they

1:03:58

start voting with Katanya Brown. John Jackson.

1:04:01

They start voting with the liberals, Roberts,

1:04:05

Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and

1:04:07

Barrett voting over

1:04:09

and over again with the three

1:04:11

liberal justices.

1:04:14

And as a result,

1:04:15

the ACLU won

1:04:17

or came in on the winning side in 11

1:04:20

of the 18 cases they had before

1:04:22

the court. Nobody's telling you that

1:04:25

this week. Are they just want to leave

1:04:27

you depressed? Here it is birthday

1:04:30

day here, our nation's birthday.

1:04:34

And we're all bummed out and we should be bummed out

1:04:38

because we're going to now have to fight to get these rights

1:04:40

back affirmative action. The

1:04:43

Colorado gay rights decision

1:04:45

student loan relief.

1:04:49

Yeah, we have to keep fighting. Got

1:04:51

huge blows given to

1:04:53

us. But in

1:04:56

order to find our way to win, in

1:04:59

order to develop the strategy to

1:05:01

outsmart the Clarence Thomas's and

1:05:03

the Samuel Alito's, we

1:05:05

have to figure out what worked,

1:05:08

right? This is what you do in anything. We

1:05:10

try to, okay, how do we make this better? How

1:05:12

do we get ahead again? You

1:05:13

know, and yes,

1:05:16

we need to, we need to vote next November

1:05:20

and get both houses out of the hands of the Republicans.

1:05:24

The one we already have the Senate, we

1:05:26

need more senators need to replace

1:05:29

Kristen cinema. We need to, there's 10

1:05:32

Republicans, I think 10 or 11 up for

1:05:34

reelection next

1:05:36

year. We

1:05:38

don't need to remove all of them. It'd be good. But

1:05:40

seriously, if just a couple of them were removed

1:05:42

and get rid of cinema, we'll have a

1:05:44

stronger Senate on our side and we

1:05:46

need to get the house back. We get both

1:05:49

of those houses. We can start impeaching

1:05:51

Supreme court justice or we can start doing

1:05:54

other things. I'm going to, before we leave here, I'm going

1:05:56

to tell you what some of these groups are doing

1:05:58

and how you could get involved.

1:06:00

in turning this thing around.

1:06:02

But right now, I just want you to just stop and

1:06:04

think about how,

1:06:07

you know, these other things that happened here in

1:06:09

this awful year with the Supreme

1:06:11

Court, the majority,

1:06:13

the three liberals and the ones they convinced

1:06:16

to vote with them, the majority

1:06:18

rejected Alabama's gerrymandered

1:06:21

map that took power

1:06:23

away from black voters. They

1:06:26

supported the Voting Rights Act when it came

1:06:28

to Alabama this last year. That hasn't

1:06:31

happened. And they've been voting for gerrymandering

1:06:33

forever.

1:06:34

The Supreme Court stopped it in

1:06:37

Alabama this year after

1:06:40

they humiliated and soiled

1:06:42

themselves with the Roe v. Wade decision.

1:06:45

But that's not all that happened

1:06:47

this year.

1:06:48

Morvey Harper,

1:06:50

this was this case, every one

1:06:52

of us thought we were gonna lose. It's

1:06:56

one of these so-called legal theories that the

1:06:58

right wing has, that state legislators

1:07:00

are independent of their own state constitution

1:07:03

and they're independent of the federal government so

1:07:05

they can pass whatever laws they want to gerrymander

1:07:09

or to oversee their own elections the way they wanna

1:07:11

oversee them.

1:07:13

Okay, we thought this

1:07:15

court was definitely gonna vote against

1:07:17

what's right. And

1:07:21

they didn't. They voted in

1:07:24

favor of

1:07:26

the liberal position on this, the Supreme

1:07:29

Court this year. Morvey

1:07:32

Harper, no, they

1:07:34

said. The state legislators

1:07:37

can't overrule their constitution or

1:07:39

the federal election system. So

1:07:43

all of a sudden in all these states that

1:07:46

were hoping that this would pass, were

1:07:49

sure that this would pass, the

1:07:51

Republicans on the court, they couldn't pass it.

1:07:53

In fact, they joined the liberals because they're

1:07:56

trying to get people to like them again.

1:08:00

Then they ruled in favor of Biden

1:08:02

and his immigration rules. They

1:08:05

said that Biden had the right to

1:08:07

decide which undocumented

1:08:09

immigrants would be let in and

1:08:11

which, if they had a criminal record,

1:08:14

could be arrested. But it was up to the Biden administration,

1:08:17

the executive branch.

1:08:18

That's how the Supreme Court ruled this year. Again,

1:08:21

the three liberals convinced some

1:08:23

of the ones who were trying to get their reputation

1:08:25

back who were hoping that they're not going to be investigated

1:08:27

by another publication about where

1:08:29

their money is coming from. Boom.

1:08:35

Native American rights.

1:08:36

Again, the Supreme Court goes against

1:08:39

the supremacists in the right wing and

1:08:41

they uphold a 1978 law

1:08:43

giving adoption preference of

1:08:46

native children to native families.

1:08:50

Everybody was certain they were going to overturn

1:08:52

this law from 1978.

1:08:57

Because not fair

1:08:59

to the white people. We're

1:09:02

being discriminated against. Boom.

1:09:07

Supreme Court sides with the three liberals on

1:09:10

the court. There's four

1:09:13

huge cases. And

1:09:15

then there were these other rulings. I don't know

1:09:17

if you remember this. Remember the federal judge down in Texas

1:09:20

that after Roe v. Wade, he was so quick

1:09:23

to want to rule in favor

1:09:26

of the crazy anti-abortion people saying

1:09:29

that the abortion pill

1:09:32

was abortion and therefore illegal. And

1:09:34

so he ruled that

1:09:37

the abortion pill couldn't be handed out. This

1:09:41

Supreme Court, again,

1:09:44

the three

1:09:47

liberal justices convinced all

1:09:49

four of these ones who

1:09:51

are running scared,

1:09:54

Horsage, Barrett, Kavanaugh,

1:09:56

Roberts,

1:09:57

they all voted with the three women.

1:10:00

to block that ruling

1:10:03

from the federal judge in Texas, banning

1:10:05

the abortion pill.

1:10:08

Unbelievable. I

1:10:10

mean, that is the impact of

1:10:12

your voice being heard. Yes,

1:10:15

it will be hard to try to impeach or remove

1:10:17

these guys, but we're gonna try

1:10:20

because we have to.

1:10:22

It's the right thing. But

1:10:25

to get all four of them to vote

1:10:28

with the three liberals, seven

1:10:31

votes to block the

1:10:33

ruling saying the abortion pill is

1:10:36

not legal anymore. Boom. And

1:10:40

then another time

1:10:43

they get seven to decision where

1:10:45

the court allowed

1:10:47

a transgender girl to compete on the

1:10:49

girls cross country and track team at

1:10:52

her middle school in West Virginia

1:10:54

while her appeal moves forward.

1:10:57

In the end, this may not go their way,

1:11:00

but again, Clarence

1:11:02

Thomas and Alito are left by themselves

1:11:05

in a dissent with the rest

1:11:07

of the court saying this little girl should

1:11:09

be able to compete on her track team

1:11:12

while her case is moving forward. I

1:11:16

mean, I'm not gonna take any more time. You're

1:11:18

getting the gist of this, right? Where we won

1:11:21

and the ACLU won 11 of their 18 cases. That's

1:11:27

what happens when

1:11:30

the press does their job and it investigates

1:11:32

politicians, Supreme Court justices,

1:11:36

and finds out whose hand is in

1:11:38

the till, finds out

1:11:40

who they're on the take for. And

1:11:45

then we, everybody makes

1:11:47

it clear, including the majority of Republicans,

1:11:50

that women should have the right to choose. That

1:11:54

gay rights, what's the latest

1:11:56

poll on this one? Look at this, eight

1:11:59

in 10.

1:11:59

Americans favor comprehensive

1:12:02

non-discrimination protections for

1:12:05

the LGBTQ plus community.

1:12:08

And that includes 90% of Democrats.

1:12:12

What they're saying is they believe that gay rights should

1:12:14

be part of our Civil Rights Act. Another

1:12:17

thing that the Democrats failed to do when they

1:12:19

passed it back in 64 and

1:12:22

couldn't do it any other time when they

1:12:24

were in power, they should have been

1:12:26

made part of the Civil Rights Act, just

1:12:28

like we already have the 38 states now that

1:12:31

have passed the Equal Rights Amendment for women, yet

1:12:33

it's still not in the constitution.

1:12:37

Now, there's gonna be a big court fight over this because

1:12:40

they're gonna say they didn't get the 38 states for the Equal

1:12:42

Rights Amendment in enough time, blah, blah, blah.

1:12:45

Well, we'll fight that out in court at some point,

1:12:47

but still

1:12:49

do the right thing should

1:12:51

be in the constitution. And

1:12:53

when it comes to gay rights, let's get that in

1:12:55

the Civil Rights Act because 90%

1:12:58

of Democrats support it, 82% of

1:13:01

independents support gay rights, and 66%

1:13:04

of Republicans favor comprehensive

1:13:08

non-discrimination protections for

1:13:10

LGBTQ people.

1:13:12

Come on. We've

1:13:15

got work to do. We could do this. We're

1:13:17

in the majority, all of us. We're

1:13:20

not on some weird limb. We're

1:13:23

the majority now of this country.

1:13:26

If you're my age, since the voting

1:13:28

age was lowered to 18, there's

1:13:31

been two, almost all three generations

1:13:34

of young people that have been raised.

1:13:37

We're in the third generation of them

1:13:40

where now some of them are gonna vote.

1:13:43

I was just thinking like right now, like

1:13:45

if you have a kid, say

1:13:48

that kid is eight years old, right

1:13:51

now, it'll be nine next year. That

1:13:55

means that they will be 18, 18. in

1:14:00

the 2032 presidential election. So

1:14:04

that means after next year's election, there's

1:14:06

only one more election

1:14:08

that your eight or nine year old

1:14:10

is not gonna be able to vote in. That's 2028, they'll

1:14:13

be too young. But

1:14:16

this, we've raised a whole group

1:14:18

of kids. And when they're adults

1:14:21

in 2028 and 2032,

1:14:24

this is only going to get better and you know

1:14:26

it.

1:14:27

We've got to start that work now.

1:14:30

We've got, everybody should have a plan in their neighborhood,

1:14:32

in their communities, how they're gonna get

1:14:34

the vote out next year, how we're gonna have

1:14:37

another record turnout post

1:14:40

the elimination of Roe v. Wade. We've

1:14:42

got to support groups. And I want to tell you about a

1:14:45

couple of these groups now, of what

1:14:47

they're doing to impeach

1:14:49

these justices

1:14:51

or to get term limits passed.

1:14:54

It's not in the constitution how many

1:14:56

seats

1:14:57

should be on the Supreme Court. It's been

1:14:59

anywhere in our history

1:15:01

from five seats to 10 seats. It's

1:15:04

flipped all over the place. And then after

1:15:06

the civil war, they landed on nine

1:15:08

and they've been there ever since. But

1:15:11

it doesn't have to be nine, it could be 11,

1:15:13

it could be 13.

1:15:15

If there were four more justices right now that

1:15:17

actually represented the majority of the American

1:15:20

people, 13 justices, four

1:15:23

of them on the side of

1:15:25

us, the majority of the people, that

1:15:29

would be seven

1:15:31

liberals on the court, six conservatives.

1:15:35

And there are groups trying to make this

1:15:37

happen. First of all,

1:15:39

there's a group called Take Back the Court. You can look

1:15:42

all this up online.

1:15:43

They want to expand the court by at least four

1:15:45

seats. There's another group called Demand

1:15:48

Justice. They too want to expand

1:15:50

it by four seats and create

1:15:53

term limits and

1:15:55

a binding code of ethics.

1:15:57

There is of course the Brennan Center.

1:15:59

for Justice, a very good group in

1:16:02

this country. They

1:16:04

want a staggered 18-year term

1:16:07

for justices, just 18 years, and that's

1:16:09

it. And they want them staggered

1:16:12

so that a new justice would have to be

1:16:14

appointed every two years. There's

1:16:17

all these things happening. You should look this stuff up. Brennan

1:16:19

Center for Justice, take back the court. Demand

1:16:22

justice. There's another group that just

1:16:24

did a

1:16:25

bus tour with 20 stops,

1:16:27

a nationwide bus tour, pushing

1:16:29

these agendas for trying to clean

1:16:31

up the court,

1:16:32

and they're called just majority.

1:16:36

I want to read you something from

1:16:38

John Roberts, the Chief Justice,

1:16:41

one of these conservatives, what

1:16:44

he wrote in

1:16:46

October of 1983. This is a

1:16:48

quote from Chief Justice

1:16:51

John Roberts. The

1:16:53

Framers,

1:16:54

you know, the founding fathers here. The

1:16:57

Framers quote, adopted

1:16:59

lifelong tenure for

1:17:02

Supreme Court Justice at a time when

1:17:05

people simply did not live as

1:17:07

long as they do now.

1:17:09

A judge insulated from the

1:17:12

normal currents of life for 25 or 30 years

1:17:14

was a rarity back then.

1:17:20

And it's becoming commonplace though today.

1:17:24

Setting a term for Supreme Court Justice

1:17:27

of say 15 years would

1:17:29

ensure that federal judges would

1:17:32

not lose all touch with reality

1:17:35

through decades of ivory tower

1:17:37

existence. It would also

1:17:39

provide a more regular and greater

1:17:41

degree of turnover among the

1:17:44

justices.

1:17:46

Health developments would, in my view,

1:17:48

be healthy ones. That's

1:17:51

Chief Justice Roberts in 1983. They

1:17:54

know that the way we do this

1:17:56

is wrong. They know

1:17:59

we need to fix this. And they

1:18:01

know that their ethics are

1:18:03

in serious question right now. And

1:18:06

they know that the majority of Americans, the

1:18:10

vast majority of Americans, the

1:18:13

women of this country have

1:18:15

had it. They've

1:18:18

had it with the right wing. They've

1:18:20

had it with insurrection. They've had it with

1:18:23

these Republicans taking away

1:18:25

their rights, forcing

1:18:27

them into more student debt, not

1:18:30

helping out their kids to get

1:18:33

just a bit of a helping hand because they

1:18:35

want to go to college. They

1:18:38

take the mean position, the

1:18:41

majority of this court, on most

1:18:43

of these issues. And,

1:18:46

you know, people, most people at

1:18:48

their core, are not mean. That's

1:18:51

why they've lost the Republican majority

1:18:53

in this country, the people. Side

1:18:57

with gay rights being the law

1:18:59

of the land. Side with women's

1:19:01

rights being the law of the land.

1:19:03

That's the country

1:19:05

we live in now. So

1:19:08

I encourage you to contact these groups,

1:19:11

get involved, start something locally in

1:19:13

your school or at work or in your

1:19:15

neighborhood.

1:19:17

We need to fight the Supreme Court.

1:19:21

Some of them, if not all

1:19:23

of the six, need to go. You

1:19:26

know, yes, difficult,

1:19:28

yes. But, you know, history

1:19:31

is full of a lot of examples where when

1:19:34

they're called out and when there is

1:19:36

such a cacophony of opposition

1:19:39

from the public to something, they

1:19:42

will resign.

1:19:45

They will want to get out of the

1:19:47

chaos and the hatred toward them.

1:19:51

It's also possible that one or two

1:19:53

of them could have their road

1:19:56

to Damascus moment where they get knocked off the

1:19:58

horse, where all of a sudden the law of the land is the light

1:20:00

bulb goes off or the conscience

1:20:02

kicks in and they say, you

1:20:04

know what, this is wrong. I

1:20:07

mean, this has happened in our lifetime.

1:20:10

President Eisenhower, a Republican,

1:20:13

appointed a Republican, I believe, who's

1:20:15

the Republican governor of California,

1:20:17

to the Supreme Court to

1:20:20

carry out the Republican agenda, pointing

1:20:23

them as Chief Justice in 1953. In 1954,

1:20:27

Earl Warren, the Chief Justice, the

1:20:30

so-called Republican conservative,

1:20:33

issued the majority opinion in Brown

1:20:35

v. Board of Education that eliminated

1:20:38

segregation in our schools. And

1:20:40

he went on to head the most liberal

1:20:43

court

1:20:44

in modern history. Decision

1:20:46

after decision to

1:20:49

support free speech, to support people's

1:20:52

rights, were

1:20:54

decided during those years that he was Chief

1:20:56

Justice from 1953 until 1969. He

1:21:03

had a change of heart. He

1:21:06

had a moment of conscience in

1:21:08

a huge way. Justice

1:21:11

Souter, who was from New Hampshire, a Republican

1:21:14

appointed by Bush I, he

1:21:16

was appointed as a conservative to

1:21:19

strengthen the conservatives on the court.

1:21:21

He wasn't there long before he started

1:21:23

voting for the liberals,

1:21:25

because it was the right thing to do, not because he

1:21:27

was a liberal.

1:21:29

But when you're talking about people's rights, when

1:21:32

you're talking about not serving them because

1:21:34

they're gay, or

1:21:38

making life more difficult with them, because

1:21:41

they have all of this debt

1:21:43

from a college that

1:21:46

if they'd lived in any other democracy,

1:21:48

would never hold

1:21:50

this kind of debt. Sometimes,

1:21:54

yes, my friends, sometimes someone

1:21:57

who was on the other side of you. can

1:22:00

wake up one morning and say, you know what, I

1:22:03

do know right from wrong. And

1:22:06

that's how I'm gonna live my life from this point on. Any

1:22:10

of these things can happen. It won't happen if

1:22:12

we are silent. We need to be

1:22:14

loud, we need to be present.

1:22:16

We need to vote.

1:22:18

We are journalists

1:22:21

and even citizen journalists.

1:22:24

You're on Facebook, you could share this

1:22:28

with people. What I've told you about today, we

1:22:31

can do this. And in the meantime,

1:22:34

keep them running scared. Keep them voting

1:22:36

with the three liberals on the Supreme

1:22:39

Court.

1:22:40

It's an amazing fact.

1:22:43

And I, again, thank Adam Liptack of

1:22:45

the New York Times for sharing that

1:22:47

with us. And I ask Democrats

1:22:50

to please stop

1:22:52

depressing everybody. We know it's

1:22:55

depressing. Start telling

1:22:57

us how we can win. Start

1:22:59

participating in the win. Make

1:23:02

it happen. That's

1:23:04

why we elected you. Come

1:23:07

on, my friends. I know it looks

1:23:09

dark. It's been

1:23:11

dark for some time. We've

1:23:16

never fully realized what the founding fathers

1:23:20

said that we were, that we were all created

1:23:22

equal. We know that they

1:23:24

meant white men who owned property. We

1:23:29

know that they considered black people only

1:23:31

three fifths human. The

1:23:34

other two fifths some kind

1:23:36

of animal. Yeah.

1:23:40

That's what they voted for. That's what they stood for.

1:23:43

But they also, man, they did some

1:23:46

amazing things with this constitution

1:23:48

and with our Bill of Rights. But

1:23:53

it doesn't end up on just one generation's

1:23:55

shoulders. It's on our shoulders now.

1:23:59

And we wanna leave our. kids and our grandkids with a

1:24:01

better world, don't we? Isn't

1:24:03

that what we said back in the 60s and the

1:24:05

70s and the 80s? And if

1:24:09

we haven't done that, well

1:24:12

then it's not just these justices

1:24:14

on the Supreme Court that have to look in the mirror,

1:24:18

have to be worried about what

1:24:20

are they gonna think of me? What are they gonna think

1:24:22

of us decades

1:24:25

from now? This

1:24:27

is not how I want to be remembered as

1:24:30

being part of this, any of this. I don't

1:24:33

think you do either. So

1:24:35

let's celebrate this birthday

1:24:38

today on this day

1:24:40

of interdependence. We

1:24:45

have a lot of work to do, but

1:24:47

there's a lot of us where the majority, it

1:24:50

means there's a couple hundred million of us. Let's

1:24:55

do the work. Let's have

1:24:57

our voices heard. Let's

1:24:59

let these four justices

1:25:02

who are voting with the liberals now

1:25:05

to do more of that.

1:25:08

We have more power in our hands than we realize.

1:25:13

Thanks for listening today. I hope

1:25:15

you're spending it with friends and family,

1:25:19

having some good barbecue, taking

1:25:22

a dip in the lake, enjoying

1:25:24

your time off. I'm

1:25:26

gonna leave here sort

1:25:29

of the way we began, except

1:25:32

this will be another version of

1:25:34

America the Beautiful

1:25:36

by the great Ray Charles. This

1:25:38

is from the Dick Cavett show. He performed this.

1:25:41

It's now a classic. It's the

1:25:43

late 60s, early 70s singing the song

1:25:45

on national TV. He doesn't

1:25:47

start with the way that we

1:25:50

were taught to sing it in grade

1:25:53

school.

1:25:55

You hear the heartbreak in his voice as a black

1:25:57

man. I

1:26:00

want to play the whole thing for you. Ray

1:26:02

Charles at the piano on

1:26:05

the Dick Abbott show some 50 or so

1:26:07

years ago. We feel

1:26:09

the same. The

1:26:11

same heartbreak, same

1:26:14

heartache, but

1:26:17

also the same realistic

1:26:19

hope. Some

1:26:21

things do get better. Sometimes

1:26:24

it takes a while, but there's

1:26:26

now more of us, many

1:26:29

more of us than there are of them. Let's

1:26:32

act like it. Happy birthday,

1:26:35

everyone. This is Michael Moore.

1:26:38

Take care.

1:26:54

Let's act like it's the permanently bad.

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