This episode of your neighborhood black friends is brought to you by Kelly's Olympian on Southwest fourth in Washington. This Thursday, November 4, at 9pm. Come see the thesis. Portland's longest running monthly Hip Hop showcase. Tickets start at $15. And masks are required. Then on Saturday, November 6 at 9pm Come see all black effect presented by for the people to get started at $10. Learn more at Kelly's olympian.com And thank YOU Kelly's.
So cool. You're just lying to me about living in Portland.
That's right. I was telling you that I actually didn't know. I was I was telling you that I live here. I've lived here since since since the day after the Louis Vuitton looting.
Louis Vuitton…
you you heard there was free? Louis? No. in 2020.
Okay,
yeah.
You said you were here before then. Yeah. Sorry. We looted you know, back when Trump was first elected. We had the riots.
I have no comment.
Yeah, you weren't here at all. You're bouncing back and forth between Portland and California.
Yeah, man. Yeah, I wasn't not exactly I was in. I was in grad school.
Get your story straight man.
grad school in Indiana. Portland. 2009-2011.
How old are you? 3535 young chap. 36. This month? Yeah. Okay. Happy birthday.
birthday present. Thank you. Yeah, man.
And then you decided that now you have this amazing degree. You can do anything you want in the world and you decided to come to Portland.
I did. came to Portland 2009. To work at Intel. Two years later, I decided that wasn't for me. decamped for grad school. Came back here, both grad sorry, became for law school, came back here both law school summers came back here for a year after law school, left to California for a year for basically two year long gigs that were scheduled way in advance. Left to California for what supposed to be a year. And then my girlfriend at the time who I had met while I while I was living here said hey, I've never lived outside of Oregon. I would like to do that before you settle down. Ah. And so we ended up living in San Francisco for about four years after my one year gig there. Yeah. And then we moved back mid pandemic.
She said nah. To you. Not No, not leaving Oregon.
She did. She did she she she put her foot down.
Wow, she does that. She really planted those roots.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it's uh, I I'm like a, you know, rootless cosmopolitan lived in all over the world. Except
they're all the same to me.
Nowhere I can call home and she is a second generation Portland native.
Yeah. And what would you say if she was like, now I want to move again. Let's go to Chicago.
I'd have some objections.
want this time? Okay. Okay. Cool. Well, we're so privileged that Portland gets to have you. Cool. Acharya? Right? Yeah. Good. I know how to read.
You didn't even have to ask how to pronounce. I know. Right. You know,
I'm not a white person what it does. Executive director of public accountability, which is a national legal advocacy nonprofit. Yeah, it's amazing. Thank you for being here today.
Thank you guys for having me.
Yeah. What's your story?
I I'm a lawyer. I've kind of had a circuitous path to the law and then within the law immediately,
Intel people don't know Greg is here.
Don't get the joke, but I'm assuming
it's funny,
Greg. assumed
you know what to say about puns anyway. Yeah, so I graduated law school in 2014. I did two clerkships which are basically apprenticeships with a judge one with a judge here, Michael Simon.
Oh, yeah, we all know Michael, we have to get the dirt Michael Simon's like a high profile judge.
There's a limited amount of dirt that I'm able to provide on that topic
we'll take year after we stopped recording I
did that for a year did a year in California with a different judge myself. Smith, both great human beings. And then I went to San Francisco as I was talking about for how long that'll be a that'll be in about four years with a firm called Fenwick and West, which is not a civil rights firm. They are a tech law firm. But when I was there, I fought patent trolls, which is what I went to law school, which is what I said that I want to do when I went to law school. And I got to do it, which in and of itself is rare again, to do the thing that you said you'd go to law school to do. Yeah.
Yeah. What did you go to law school for?
Yeah, that's part of the problem. To be a lawyer, I think after a year one, I was settled on DUIs and divorces,
divorce law, you were gonna be a divorce lawyer.
I mean, that's like, that basically means you just do law.
So, yeah, I was basically Law School Crashers. Yeah, I didn't really have like a focus. I mean, I want to do criminal defense and stuff. But then it's like, Yo, they don't make a lot of money. Spend all this money to go be a criminal defense attorney like,
yeah, yeah, so I did patent law for two and a half years. It was, it was a great time for what it was. But at some point, I realized that I needed though,
like, what does a patent lawyer do, I was gonna be like a Netflix show about
probably won't be good.
I'm gonna try to do this, like getting into too much detail. But thankfully, patent law is about innovation. And there are bad guys within patent law called patent trolls, who curb innovation make it more difficult for startups to succeed, make it more difficult to for the next Netflix or the next Google to come along and make your life a little better. And I was really exercised about it. Before I was a lawyer, mostly because you know,
did your father,
Facebook, now
No date. So I was I was I was an open source programmer. That was that was kind of the community that I was a part of, wow. And patent trolls often go after open source projects, because they're doing innovative things. And they're, you know, they're, they're making the world a little better. And there's like 10k, you can get out of like some random open source engineer, and that helps fund your lawsuit against Amazon for a few mil. So it was it was frustrating to see good open source projects get targeted by patent trolls. So that's what I went to law school to do. And that's what I did for two and a half years I fought patent trolls. And the great thing about fighting patent trolls at a big law firm, like Fenwick and West is, you know, you have clients that have a lot of money that pay you to fight these patent trolls. But if you kill a bad patent for a big E commerce firm without naming it, you kill it for everyone. And so if you kill a bad patent, for a big E commerce firm, that the patent trolls that owns that bad patent can't go after anyone else either can't go after your open source buddies. So that was that was important to me. It's exciting to me. But as a lawyer, it got old fairly quickly. It's not the most. It's not the most very type of law practice. And I also wanted my clients to reflect my values as well as the substantive work I was doing. And so I started looking around, I ended up at a firm called brown Hagen, Borden, brown Hickey has had a pretty big impact in Portland through the index newspapers case. What's that? The it's a it's the the case on behalf of journalists and legal observers against first ppb and then the Trump administration. Yeah. We enjoin them both. We continue to have an injunction against them both. They are prohibited from targeting journalists and legal observers at protests. I like to think that it may have made them think twice about indiscriminately using force in general. I don't know if that's true. But yeah, I did. I worked at Brown Hague mourn for a couple years, one year in San Francisco, another year back here once the pandemic started. And then in May of this year, I launched public accountability, my nonprofit organization that fights there's a longer explanation I can go into but issues like qualified immunity.
Alright, I got a real hard question for you. Yeah. Why are you so smart?
I don't even know how you are. I'm not so smart.
Like so many syllables right now and I'm just like, I'm catching up still today.
I have a I have a lot of education. I don't know that I'm terribly smart.
Imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome, right? They're fake. Way to be humble.
I did well, you know, I don't I don't know. It is me. It is me and my wonderful board. Okay. That I could not, could not do without. Just today actually, I was finishing up a brief on a pretty complicated legal issue. And I sent it to one of my board members who's a lawyer for some feedback. And I just like right before I drove out here, I went through her feedback and may change in the brief and I was just like, Man, I would be in such worse shape without without people like her on my job. So yeah,
so what exactly is public accountability up to? What's your vision?
Yeah, so the vision is a lot easier to explain after 2020 Before 2020, if you ask a roomful of lawyers, if they'd heard of qualified immunity, they'd say, no. Maybe one of them would say, I don't know, maybe I think about law school. But post 2020 People know what it is, or at least there are tick tock memes about it. So it's important, it's a doctrine that keeps keeps cops from being held accountable. And there's a lot of these doctrines, it's it's the one that got famous, it got big. But there are a number of legal rules like it that let cops prison guards, federal agents, all sorts of government actors escape accountability for their misdeeds. And my goal with public accountability is to help help roll them back help restrict them reform the law so that it's easier for someone whose civil rights have been violated to vindicate their rights in court.
Is that like mostly through like the courtroom itself and sort of shaping precedent or trying to break things down through court cases? Are you doing like advocacy work in trying to Yeah, the laws at the source as well?
It's both it's both and so a lot of these doctrines are created by the courts qualified immunity is purely pulled out of well, it's it's it's purely made up by by the Supreme Court. A lot of these other doctrines are the same way. Most of them are not present in the statute books in the laws that Congress or the legislatures have written.
I was like, a British thing.
It's not really no Yeah, no, it's not it's it's it's I mean, it is a British thing, but it's absolutely a US thing too, huh.
Fuck that shit. Yeah, well, yes or no. Specifically to the wrong person, you will never get me to like, like our system of, you know, fucking legal system and our judiciary system. You will not convince me well,
you know, in some ways I
agree with somebody sorry, invoking all my ancestors, they'll get a show up like ghosts with all the fucking chains around their ankles.
I'm usually the one convincing liberals that that the the the way our courts control our destiny is bad. Because liberals love that shit. Right. Liberals love Brown v Board. Great case. Shouldn't have been done that way. Should have been needed to be done that way. Liberals love Roe v. Wade again.
Yes.
Excellent. glad it happened. Yeah. But that is not the the way that the courts unelected lawyers are not the people that should be dictating what our rights are, of course, what we should have is a Congress that actually reflects what people want. Yes, that 1,000% That's a that's a white.
Anti Senate.
Yeah, thank you, Kimmy. That's like gerrymandering from the get go.
Amen.
But yeah, so in answer your question, Greg, it's both in initially, because all these doctrines, almost all these doctrines are created, I thought that that's kind of where I'd be doing all of my work. And it's where most of public embellies work is done. But at the same time, state legislatures exist, Congress is useless, state legislatures exist. And the Oregon legislature is a place where you could go to rollback qualified immunity a little bit, and maybe get a little traction. And so I'm working with some state legislators and some other advocacy organizations in the state to see if we can get a state bill passed kind of like Colorado and New Mexico did to limit the limit the reach of qualified immunity, at least within this state. In the end, my goals are national. And the place you get national policy done is Congress or the courts, right? But if I can, you know, help move the ball a little bit in Oregon. That's awesome, too.
Right. What's the game plan
keep throwing them into one hit?
Yeah, I mean, you I'm hoping they all hit but yeah.
Yeah, no, I mean, if you wanted to, like, major, major, major Supreme Court?
Yeah. So So yeah, actually, not so much that because I think most of the movement is gonna be incremental. Gotcha. So I, what I do in more detail is I find district court and appellate cases that raise issues within qualified immunity or within the Bivins doctrine or within the Fairness Doctrine, where I think there's a little bit of a wedge, right, where I can come in and, and chisel away at the doctrine a little bit guide, or maybe just shift the trajectory a little bit. So just for like a, for an example. I, the brief I just finished up before I came here involves the Bivins doctrine, which is basically the doctrine that lets you sue federal agents at all like if, you know, if, you know, if a federal agent does something to you, and you sue him for damages. It's through what's called the Bevins doctrine. And the court has been closing off the ovens. But it hasn't closed it off completely. And the law is kind of at a juncture right now, where the Supreme Court said Bivins is a lot smaller than we thought it was. And lower courts have to decide, well, how small is that? Exactly? So in this case, the ninth circuit is going to decide does it cover a certain type of First Amendment violation? And if it goes one way, it could say it doesn't. And that's it. For everyone else who has that same thing that same it was retaliation. But everyone also has a similar set of facts. Their host after that case, if the court decides one way, but that's where I come in, I found the plaintiff, I saw that he had what I thought was a meritorious case. And I said, hey, what if I represent you on appeal, and I can try to shift the direction that the law goes in the circuit, so that more types of more more people who have had their rights violated in ways similar to you have a chance of bringing their claim in court and having
said all that, Greg, sorry. I'm not a JD. So all I'm hearing like,
yeah, let me know if I if I need
it, and I'm like, this is blah, blah, blah.
But bottom line, what I want is layman's I want is when a when a cop, or a Fed, punches you, or hits you, or throws tear gas at you, or surveilled you, yeah, I want you to be able to go to court. And I want to be able to get damages. And I want you to be able to get an injunction and order from the court saying you can't do that anymore. So that's the bottom line. Man just said that
invitation. I mean, you can. And you obviously know way more about this than me, but like people can sue when bad things happen to them from the police. But there's never any sort of like personal liability towards the actual officer. Right?
That's, that's qualified immunity. Yeah, in theory, there is personal liability for state and local cops. In practice, what happens is qualified immunity comes in. And it says that unless there's a case with almost exactly the same facts, telling the cop that he couldn't do what he did to you. You don't get your day in court. Right. And that's exactly what I'm trying to change. It's a judgment doctrine. It can be it can be changed by judges, and judges. What I'm trying to do is get judges to listen to me and change it in the right way. Right.
All right, man. So what how do you feel like you have a personal connection to this? Do you have any stories? Should we start with Greg stories?
Yeah, no, I do. I do. I haven't actually talked about it publicly before.
And ynbf? Exclusive.
Yeah. In California, my first year I was there. Or the second year I was there. I was at a football tailgate. Stanford against the ducks. My wife went to the U of O so you know, Go Ducks. The Ducks lost. night I had had quite a bit to drink. I'm not gonna you know, I'm not I'm not sugarcoating that. And Stanford security had stopped me and I'm not I'm not entirely sure why they stopped me but I'm really not sure why. Palo Alto police, there's video of this, Palo Alto police basically, were patrolling. They saw that Stanford security have stopped me. And they're like, What if we got involved? And so they stroll up and they get involved? They start asking me like, hey, like, you know, have you been drinking? Can I see your ID and so on. And my demeanor is basically you know, annoyed, but compliant, like Yeah, yeah, I've been drinking officer like it's football. tailgate. What do you think? You know, I yeah, here's my ID. Why have I been stopped? And then one cop grabs me, takes me to The ground, no warning, no like, Hey, you're under arrest. No, I think just just a absolute violent like standing to face on the ground take down, slaps me in cuffs. And then you know as soon as he takes me down the rest of them, I'll take me down to of course. And so you know, I have like six cops knees in my back and my shoulder on my neck and they've they're, you know, cuffing, my cuffing my wrist and I'm, I'm not gonna lie, I'm resisting. And they put me in a rap, which is basically a, they put me in a plastic burrito and tie me up basically
tasty burrito
and cart me off to cart me off to jail. It was a pretty traumatic experience. And not one that I I had cared about this stuff before then. And I didn't really integrate it into how much more I cared about it afterwards. Because there's a lot of a lot of shame with something like that happening to you. But, you know, over time, I think I've come to realize that there's a reason that after that I sort of changed the trajectory of my of my work away from patent trolls, who are bad guys, to the cops, who are also bad guys.
Yeah, pretty bad. Yeah, cops are bad. But a lot of them are cool, do not be ashamed of being a burrito. There have been other burritos who felt the way that you have. Now I appreciate that story. And it is so important for for folks who have gone through that to to be open, because I think probably part of the issue is is like there is this, you know, reputation and perception of oh, well, please only go after bad people who deserve it. And we know that's not true. Right. And so I know that you feel ashamed with being associated that perception, but also, that's what feeds the upset absorption that we decide to be silent,
right? No, exactly. And that's that's kind of you know, I did a My organization is partnered up with Oh JRC, the Oregon justice Resource Center. And I did an interview with them shortly after I launched. And I talked to the the interviewer before I went on, and I mentioned this thing, but I was like, I don't know, I want to talk about it yet. And we didn't in the end. And so as I was driving around, I was like, am I gonna like they'll ask about the origin story. And I'm not gonna talk about it. Like, you know, I actually I think, thing I am ready to. Yeah, this is the thing that happened to me. And it's, it's why I do the work that I do.
Wow. That's powerful. We did get the exclusive Patreon. Tell your story. I don't want to tell him. You don't want to tell multiple bad stories with the police.
I got arrested in the world's smallest Park. So if you could help me get some public accountability, because I was found guilty. We took it to Supreme Court and they still refuse. They were sent the case back. So like, we need some public capital. That is a public park that is literally on the Guinness Book of World Records. And I stood in it. Can I ask what you were arrested for standing in the park. But it was something like failure to follow traffic direction because a police officer was there told me get out the street and I'm like, it's a goddamn Street. I'm in the park. And it was funny because we were a protest. It was during the Occupy Portland time. Okay. And we were doing occupy the world's smallest Park. And my friend Gina. She was brilliant. She made these tiny little tents with like cloth and toothpicks. And you got like GI Joe figures. And so we and tiny little signs that were written on toothpicks as well. And so we just marched over to the park and we put it all in the park and there's probably like, 30 of us there. And we're just standing there around the park or in the median. And then a cop show. Sergeant Nia.
was a sergeant back then. And so sergeant, he's always been a smooth talker. just, you know, protesters. And so he's in his car, and he's like, You are occupying the world's smallest Park. We're all cheering. He's like, No, get out the street. And we were like, we hit the street. And he was like, Well, I’m bouta arrest.all y'all get out right now. So everybody else left but you know, I'm like 20 years old, full fucking testosterone. So I'm like, come at me, bro. And he did called back up and it was like, this is like, I know we were talking about defund the police and there's not enough police officers now but like, it was ridiculous. Middle of the fucking day in downtown Portland. Six cop cars show up to arrest little old me standing in the world's smallest park all black. And it was really funny because there was this old white woman who was like last year on my arm. She's like, if he goes I go She was not going
course she was your hostage.
So yeah, that's what I did say that you got to go down with the ship no matter what I think we used to really hold on too tight. Yeah. Or resist or something. Yeah. She said if you go she goes, gotta go she lied
So this went up the Oregon Supreme Court. Yeah. Do you do you know if if they like accepted the case or if it was no there I
think they basically said you don't have the right grounds to challenge it to the Supreme Court. I think it was like, I think dig it to the Court of Appeals and then we try to sit. Okay, yeah, like it doesn't meet this statute. Yeah. Yeah.
I am curious. Now. I have to go look up that case when I get home, there's a decent chances was it when you say you fought you fight it as a civil lawsuit? Or
Or do you mean you asked me like I know anything about long so this fighting the charter
was fighting for like redress.
Were you sealing or were you fighting your case?
Fighting my case?
Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Greg
Camera. People listen to this podcast. They bring out like, a source or something and be like, What is he talking about? What's this case? Tell a single story.
Why do I have to tell the stories? I don't
like beer clinic. And he might help you figure out how to like, No,
I've already done I've ran my stuff up the ladder. But I mean, obviously, there's one we talked about on the pod before, where my wife was arrested with me. And they sort of like twisted her neck and stuff. She ended up suing and like, the process was so drugged out. And by this time had been like four years later, and they're like making us go to deposition and stuff to where eventually we just settled.
Yeah, yeah, that happens a lot. That happens a lot. It is one of the byproducts of the kind of legal rule that I'm fighting is even if even if you would when they drag it out. Mm hmm. And it wouldn't be dragged out necessarily, but like, like, here's one crazy, crazy rule that actually I just filed a brief with a JRC about. Ordinarily you can't like, like, if you have a court case, you can't just appeal. Every little decision the judge makes, that would be wild, right? Like everything that the judge says, you know, you're you can't bring in that evidence. So you're like, Great, I'm taking an appeal and appeal takes two years. No court case would ever end. If you could just appeal everything a judge did. So what you usually have to do is wait till the end of the case, and then just appeal it all at once. But the Supreme Court has said for qualified immunity. You get a special right of early appeal. Yeah. So if so there's qualified immunity, which makes life very difficult for someone who's suing for their civil rights. And then there's this added bonus if you convince the the first level judge that you're right, and there's no qualified immunity, the cop can immediately appeal it pauses the case. And it takes a year to two
years because even if there's not qualified immunity, it can still they can
appeal that decision. And they can appeal it immediately and just add to yours your case like that
and just can run out the clock on your lawyers. Like people lose their money in the government. Yeah, you know, damn,
yeah. So there's there's all sorts of Yeah, it happens so often that you know, people whose rights have been violated clearly violated clearly established rights are just five years, six years how long you want to fight this thing?
So I first started seeing your image everywhere during the uprising that happened in 2020. I think your celebrity Yeah, we're the celebrity Twitter celebrity Twitter followers as you
are you out there just like don't tweet shade like
no, actually yes.
Tweet you must know you must have a as a magnet.
No, he goes viral sometimes. Yeah, I
have a tweet deletion regime, so I'm not sure what my most usually your tweets. Yeah, like automatically.
Yeah, so why? Why my tweets are gone after every year. Like, why the oldest tweet on my account over 300 And what about the memories cuz I ain't trying to be canceled.
Very smart. In case you ever tried to run for Jeopardy host
find my old tweets that are now that from 2018 to 21, inappropriate.
Plus, look, you know, I'm trying to be off the cuff. I'm not trying to like think through, you know, Twitter. Twitter is not a place for my most well thought out thoughts. It's where I'm riffing. Okay. Okay,
I'll say I'll send you some fire tweets.
Best tweets from a tool
Some good stuff about the mayor's race.
Oh, you Team Ted? Oh, yeah.
All the way. Wheeler, the real dealer? Yeah.
He supported the recall. He supported the recall. I mean, he did. No.
Real campaign.
I don't think I don't think there are hot takes on TED anymore, right? Like TED is Ted is vilified by this. What
were you saying?
I mean, he's a sign of a timber family. And that's the only reason he's in politics. Yeah. Like what kind of burns I can't give you any like super hot take stuff. He's, he's he's he's the classic example of failing up.
And that was a burn. That would hurt.
Lasers, horrible. He's a failed video store.
Oh, I don't even know about the videos.
And videos, we're going out of business. I just tapes. You know how like the death of blockbuster and stuff happened? Well, Ted's great business idea was to open a video rental store in that house like, wells. And then because it instantly like caved because it was a horrible idea. And at the same time, because people were always in the campaign being like, Sarah doesn't have the business chops of Ted and Sarah was like, really, because at the same time, he was opening a video store, I was opening up a restaurant to do brunch in Portland, like one of the most popular things in the world if you were doing something that was on its way
out. Ice town.
Yeah, my hottest take on tat. And it's also a pretty cool take is Ted was a Reagan Republican. And literally, nothing has changed. Except he switched parties. But his positions are the same. His outlook is the same. He views business the same way he views people the same way. He views protests the same way. He's a regular Republican and congrats. That's who you got from air.
Sounds like Portland.
So how does how is the common person who doesn't speak all this legalese? How do they engage with public accountability? How do you see this as like a space for other folks to like, advocate and rally?
You know, that's a piece of it that I have not. It's brand new, and it's, you know, I'm sort of I started it because I wanted to move the law in a particular way. At the same time. Absolutely. With law. Yeah, exactly. More law.
Anti law laws.
You know, that's, that is my training. And and I encourage other people to move the law another way. Other ways? Yeah. But yeah, no, absolutely. I want it to be a place that people can engage that non large engage in, and you know, it. I feel a little bad that I was being so sort of jargony and doctrinal earlier. Because it's not really it's not it's not my brand. You know, my the, the the legal
you do post legal briefs on Twitter. I do. I do.
I do. But like, like, I try really hard. I mean, my overriding thing is that I want them to be readable by an educated non lawyer. You know, because because, because so many legal briefs are written by lawyers made to be read by lawyers, and no lawyer actually wants to read them, let alone someone who's not a lawyer. Yeah. So I tried to make mine readable and, and personable and something that that someone who didn't go and spend
flair in there a little so long breaks.
But, you know, I wanted to be somebody, you don't have to pay 100 grand of education, money to read. But, you know, at the same time, you know, I'm doing laws, I understand that. It doesn't always work out that, my, my, how I present, it doesn't always come off as the most public friendly. But I do I also have a newsletter. And that is absolutely written in with with non lawyers in mind what I want, and it's a little, it's a little irreverent, a little punchy, a little. It makes fun of the cases I'm writing about a little bit. It's it's a roundup of recent on accountability Decisions, decisions in the qualified immunity space and in adjacent spaces. And I'm absolutely trying there to tell stories that will. That will make everyone understand why I'm doing the work that I'm doing.
We just talked about Greg's favorite topic. You were you know, you work with bobbins. So you must know I'm talking to Thor. Thor, so you must be painted the Oregon politics to degree right. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Okay, what are you paying attention to right now?
Who sucks Who are you? Who's your least favorite five politicians? The ones in office except for Tina Kotek. You like to know by now? I do on housing stuff. Okay. I don't know.
Neighbors welcome.
Yeah, yeah. Who's Who's on the other side of Team Tina in this conversation?
Ellen Rosenblum
Oh yeah, still team Tina. Okay.
Nicholas Kristof from the Oregonian.
They'll tintina.
From Yamhill county
a different black person or is it Springfield? Greg plead the fifth.
House housing. I think General buying them is great on criminal justice stuff. Rep. Rep. Weldy.
Some shade. I don't want. You want to hear
about the ones I just like? Yeah. Just yeah. It's pretty near the top of my Oregon ship list. 10
lawyer hating lawyers. Okay. See a lot of self loathing there.
Yeah.
All lawyers?
I'm not sure I put her in like that myself category. Down? Yeah, no, I mean, look,
there there was defending qualified immunity, or what is that? You know,
so there was a Supreme Court. So So Oregon was one of the last two states that allowed people to be convicted with non unanimous jury. Yeah, you don't? That's it was fucked up. Yeah. It was us and Louisiana. Great company. It
was an amazing director of campaigns. He worked on that issue.
that's still in prison campaigns. Me.
Oh, no kidding. Yeah.
I mean, me and a lot of other people. But you're talking points down, man. You got our talking points. Great.
Yeah, I mean, yeah. So so the Supreme Court, in a rare act of benevolence, actually held that non unanimous convictions were unconstitutional. And it was pretty clear about why it's because they're racist. Brett Kavanaugh called us racist Brett Kavanaugh called Oregon racist. And you know what he was right. Yeah, he was right. And that that should really sober some of us up. Brett Kavanaugh said yeah, it was a Jim Crow system. It was put in place specifically to make sure that if we had to seat black people on juries, well, at least they wouldn't have a voice. That's why Oregon had a 10 to system where 10 Jurors could vote to convict and Supreme Court said that's unconstitutional. Ellen Rosenblum is the person who could at that point, say maybe we'll stop defending our 10 to convictions. She's a person that has that power. And she has avoided that for a year and and a bit at this point,
even after admitting it's racist. Yeah.
And and I don't know why. You know, she's on the opposite side of Brett Kavanaugh on this one because Brett Kavanaugh got this this one little thing, right. And it'd be nice if Ellen Rosenblum would get on the same page.
Yeah, I mean, RBG got it. Right, too. So it was like, you know, it was up in this room, a normal split play. Yeah. I mean, it's really messed up. And it's, you know, I think there's a lot of people willing to forgive it because she's made a name for herself, especially in some more national oriented groups of suing the Trump administration and stuff like that being part of the resistance or whatever. But like, I don't know, I mean, I feel like any Democrat cuz have done that. And you know, what you're doing here. And the thing is, she's basically made the argument that she has an obligation to uphold our state's laws, even if they're racist, or fascist or whatever. And that's just not if that were true, we wouldn't have to elect somebody to the position, we could just have a bureaucrat that just reads what it says like that
is exactly right. The Obama ministration refused to defend DOMA. She's in exactly the same position. And she's basically saying, yeah, no, I think I'm gonna defend DOMA
Defense of Marriage Act.
And then like, the weird opposite of that is she's saying she doesn't like have this discretion, or they would be going around voters or something like that. But she did rightfully do the opposite on marriage equality, you know, because that was under her purview, too. So she has used her discretion to not enforce racist or homophobic laws and stuff. And so now not willing to do that. I think one of the arguments is that it would overwhelm the courts. There's just not that many cases. So 1000
Torial campaign right now,
I would not be happy if he were governor. I really wouldn't. And you know, you said that, that she
I would love to see your tweets though about it.
You said that she got some credit for suing the Trump ministration she didn't even like she signed on to breach would mean something On the other state Yeah, Washington did the work California did the work New York work Oregon, Oregon, signed on. Right? Congratulations. I'm a little I'm
gonna run on though it's really incredibly racist. I mean, then, like, we passed it non unanimous juries for the Express and like, it's not even something that we can look back at now and be like, oh, you know, like, the war on drugs, you know, definitely had racist impact. But not everybody who was pushing for this stuff had racist intent like this. The intent of this was very clear. I mean, targeted mostly at Jewish folks back then. But it was to, you know, screw over minorities in our legal system. And yeah, so and like, it's just so obvious racist and so obvious, should not be around and to use the excuse of like, oh, well, this would overwhelm the courts. Like, you're gonna say that to the people who are maybe wrongfully in jail or were in jail just because of racism, etc. Like, sorry, like your extra 30 cases would overwhelm the court so you have to sit in jail forever due to racism. That's ridiculous.
And here's here's where. Here's where I really soured. on Ellen Rosenblum. So when Ramos against Louisiana was the Supreme Court case that held that non unanimous jury juries were unconstitutional. The governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, signed on to a brief in support of the petitioner in support of the person saying that he'd been convicted by an unconstitutional jury. So Oregon was on record in support of getting rid of non unanimous juries. And Ellen Rosenblum filed a brief on behalf of Oregon on the other side, she filed an amicus curiae brief on the other side. So even as she's saying, it's the law, she has to uphold it. She has no discretion, blah, blah, blah, all that, frankly, bullshit. Yeah, she is filing amicus curiae briefs with the Supreme Court, which he absolutely doesn't have to do, saying that it should not get rid of non unanimous jury.
And she did the same thing on retroactivity to you she did she's supporting that these things should not be retroactive.
Were other ages before her like this. Just for the people to know in Oregon. Yeah. Do they have?
I don't think it didn't come
on. Yeah, it hasn't. So we haven't even been preserving the issue like meaning like seeing who is convicted by non unanimous,
like similar issues. Have ages always been like, you can't throw stones. Okay. Yeah.
But this I mean, but like, it also is kind of really sad that
for someone to like National Supreme Court law or something.
I don't know about first. But that you know, but I do think the the one point, that's like something worth noting what you said is like, Oregonians didn't even this was not like if you search news articles and stuff, there's been 100 in the past year or two, especially since the Supreme Court has been like taking it up. And then like a few things to you know, a lot. There's a Lisa Kaplan's work at Lewis and Clark. And like other people have been talking about it a little bit from before this time period. But this has been on the books since the 30s. And like nobody, like was willing to visit this. And it's, you know, one of the biggest remaining, you know, we call it in the campaign, a monument to Jim Crow, or illegal monument to Jim Crow. And it's like, you know, we say like, we're in a period of time where we're tearing down all these statues and stuff, which, sure, I think the statue should probably go, but not, and also ignore the institutional monuments that still exist within our criminal justice system that were built with the same ideas in mind as those statues.
Yeah. Amen. So anybody out there smashing business windows, like hear it, like smash the corrupt laws that are still holding people behind bars?
Let's talk about that. No, no, smash it. Wait, I love Windows smashy talk?
No, this is to talk to you. A lot of times, but part of your work is addressing the way that police protect, protecting, harass and attack protesters protect property. I'm just curious, like, what has been your take on the shameless violence and anarchy that has taken over?
We've been sitting here there's been so many fires outside. 711 is closed
you know, I can't see through the Molotov.
But yeah, I mean, just to piggyback off that question, and it is like, I think it's for I think people like both of us. Maybe everybody in the room are not like you know, shutting down Here's over windows and stuff like that. And I think, you know, some even might think it's just not our job to critique any form of protest at all or something. But you know, I think all of us are also reasonable humans who can see when things maybe aren't effective. So that impacts your work. Like if you come home and you're like, wanting like posting supportive protests and stuff, and then you see something idiotic, and you're like, God fucking dammit.
Like the guy who lit his pants on fire.
He's suing Portland police. No. They made him.
I mean, look far, far be it for me to differentiate the world of good protesters and bad protesters. I don't want to be
everybody else in the world. So you better make a statement.
I I think the only thing I can say about it is this. I feel like among my friends and acquaintances in Portland, I felt the appetite for defund go down. Right? around like October, November, there was a lot of appetite for it. There was a lot of momentum behind it. And then by October, November, the the the what had happened had shifted from protests to what people were calling direct actions. And without, without judging their motives, or reasons. What I can say is, I think it made the political task of defending the police more difficult. And I think that's unfortunate.
Yeah, well, not just defund the police but like support for black lives matter. Yeah. itself took a huge beating.
Well, I think it's possible that it's still higher than it was before the uprising. Right. No, not on defunding? Absolutely not. No, no, putting Black Lives Matter. Like as an organization, maybe not, but like the amount of people that are now engaging in talks about race in a way that I think is wholesome, and matters, I think is way more as a result of the uprising.
I think so
I think the backlash is louder,
louder. But we've seen a decrease in white Americans supporting Black Lives Matter since
both. So you think that uprising was a net negative that I saw with 538?
And is that was that okay? But that's not Portland, right? Yeah. Not Portland. Cuz I think I think that's a trend that doesn't really reflect what's going on in this city. That's fair. If a bunch of Floridians don't support black lives matter anymore, I'm not that's okay. That's fair.
There is though, even in this city. I mean, in my line of work in the numbers, I have to like, look at, like you said, a decreased appetite. But I think the numbers bear that out completely, too. And it's hard to know, like, if it's going to impact elections, like Commissioner, Hardesty user, like da Mike Schmidt, etc, but it like, uh, you know, my, I think, to have my patented devil's advocate takes one I'm not 100% Convinced that defund was like, the best thing to push for, throughout that movement, you know, like, maybe in from my perspective, maybe because of the political angle was never going to be successful. And others might think we could have gotten other things done on the road to that, etc. And that maybe that isn't even a feasible road to something like abolition. And then I think the other thing is wrong. Let's just do that. Yeah. What do you think, do you think defunding is would have been really productive? But I guess I'll throw the other one out there is that even when there was mass support for defunding, right, where it seemed like certainly over 50%, where it seemed like where there were 1000s of people signing up to testify at city council, they still only did this like small amount and sort of rolled it back anyway. So even if I could make the broader public support, defunding the police, maybe that one wouldn't have even mattered anyway.
So I think, I think it's really hard to fit, move funding away from police and into other types of public safety onto a slogan. That's that's tough. And I don't know that's
the whole Sarah campaign.
Are you to try
to reallocate public funds what we didn't do as a slogan? No, of course not. I mean, just like that's what our policy bullet would say. So when people ask me for defunding the police, like we budget the police, reallocating funds back in liquidity, imagine
reimagine. reimagine public safety is a good one. Yeah, imagine I think.
Going away from the car
I actually I think reimagine public safety is a good one. But it also it has to be, you know, backed up with with concrete policy, I think Cahoots and the Portland Street response. Yeah, Cahoots and Eugene Portland's response here. I think I think the city council just decide to actually expand. Right? Yeah. So I think that's great.
But those are the pluses right are like universal pre K, that was from the tax the rich campaign from DSA. And they were like, it just gonna be more like easier if we just promote what we do want versus what we don't defund the police as like a just slash this much. And then, like, there's nothing that I've seen from police behavior that would lead me to think if if I took $50 million from their budget, they would any of the problems that we talked about from Black Lives Matter would be solved. Like, the only way it makes sense to me is if it's on a scaled way to absolute abolition in the world and country are not ready for that right now. Even
then, abolitionists do not have a vision for what how to keep communities safe. And that's a huge gap. And no one wants to admit it. You can't convince people who've been victims of crime, that you are there for their best interest when you don't have a plan to keep them safe. Right.
Right. I mean, that's, I think the you know, that when I when I talked to my friends who are further left of me on this issue, the how could
they be further? Like, you seem like the leftist of lawyers that I've ever met?
Um, well, you got to talk to Bob and
Alan Kessler. Yeah.
No, to Alan's house.
Oh, yeah. Lawyer.
Yeah. Okay. No, maybe not.
Yeah, Alan will come on here and tell you I'm a regular Republican. Yeah. But no, I mean, you know, I think the I think it'd be a fun conversation.
I think they'll do. You know, I
think you know, the, the thing you hear when you talk to, you know, hardcore abolitionists and defenders, about what do we do about public safety? You hear them?
No, because they won't stop yelling.
They'll talk about reducing the the social determinants of crime, right, like, they'll talk about reducing poverty. And, man, it's not the answer.
It's so long term and also takes sort of, it's sort of like a class reductionist view of things too. I mean, like, you can reduce all crime and cops are still going to be racist still, like, like, that's ignoring the racial component of it, I think, in part and then also, it's just like, Who the fuck has time to wait, like, people are gonna be dead at the hands of the police tomorrow, and we're gonna wait until the housing crisis is fixed. To do something about police. Like, I'm sorry, I think we're gonna abolish the police before the housing crisis is solved. Like and I don't think either it's gonna happen. Yeah.
Damn.
I mean, public safety. Doing public safety, right is a hard problem. Every you know, there's a talking point that the American police are an an outgrowth of slave patrols, which is true, but also every other country has police. Some of them even have okay police. Like, you know, the, you know, for sure, police. I'm gonna get pilloried for I'm gonna have to quit Twitter. No, I mean, in in some European countries, right? It's not they're not it's a police service. And that is part of the culture is that they? And it's not,
can't You're a lawyer, I have no idea what you mean. He's a police service to me sounds like
it means like the fire department called like, like, clean and safe. Portland Street response. Okay.
It does involve a more multifaceted approach to public safety. But it also involves a culture change, which I don't know if is possible with where we are, I think just past dependently we've gotten ourselves to a place in America where no one who wants to be police, is the kind of people that we want to be police. That's real. Right? It's, it's the people in high school who were bullies.
And like, now they got a badge and I'm gonna take it back out.
Exactly. You know, what we need are, you know, the kind of people who want to be
doctors, right, like, like people who actually want to help people. Some of the people want
Yes, because doctors want guns.
You know, it's, you know, it's a fantasy trope that you know, the old the old person who should have power is the one who was thrust upon them. Yeah. And Spider Man. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But I don't know how we get the culture of policing in this country or even in the city to a state like that. It's it's the kind of thing where I think we've gone down a path. And we'd have to backtrack so far out to go down that other path. I don't know if it's possible.
Thank you for all of the hope, man.
We can't end it on a dark note like that.
Yeah, it was something hope. Start speaking about court cases, like give us some real comment of hope.
Okay, here's the hope. I don't don't think we can change policing culture from the inside. So I think our options are to change it from the outside. So there's a few application
All right. I will absolutely right. You in
That's original.
Yeah, thought of it myself.
There's, there's, there's, there's a couple ways that you can change policing from the outside. And one of them is just making it much more painful to be a bad cop. And that's what I'm here for. I'm here to make it easier for people who have been the victims of bad cops to go back and make those cops lives. miserable. You're in court, please, saying
that there's a patent on bad policing?
No, I'm trying to open it up. I'm trying to make it accessible. Not bad policing, but getting back at bad policing to everyone. There's other paths, you know, if we have the political Well, we could elect someone that would actually hold the police department in hand. Ted Wheeler in it.
John Hardesty is had a chance. If only we had a chance.
Yeah. But that's a matter of political Well, that's that's not public accountability. his wheelhouse, but that is absolutely the wheelhouse of the kind of political leaders that I see coming up in this town today. So I'm hoping that between between, between you, Greg, and between you and between what I'm doing, we can make policing better. Not everyone for
ag someday.
I don't know I think I think we need a brown ag a little too revolutionary for that kind of institution. I think
Da is not in your future.
A da.
Well, I'm really happy
doing what I'm doing right now. public accountability. You saw that the auditor is not running for reelection. You can run to be the auditor.
Yes, someone should accountability someone, someone someone good really should. That's really that's really important post. You know, she also runs IPR. She runs she runs. Oh, yeah. And please review.
Yes, he is not gonna be gone. It
is. She seems like she'll have some power over where it goes over how the how the next thing goes
I just announced my own organization. I'm working on building that up. I let you know when public accountability has you know, 10 lawyers all working towards that.
Office.
Give me my body.
Absolutely. I run for office. I will announce on the spot.
We'll come out of retirement and 20 years. Episode
need a few more gray hairs.
Right. Exactly. You're not bringing down the system. What are you doing for fun?
I hike.
You are an Oregonian.
I am It's the reason I keep coming back. Yeah, no, I hike. I work out. I used to rock climb. I've had some injuries that have sidelined me from that for the last couple years. But I keep going back and trying it again. You know, my my like vision is that someday in the future, I'll take my kids to Smith rock and have them believe out of your kids that that's also in the future.
I was like I seen any kids on Twitter.
Long term future like young dad.
Yeah, but it makes you old.
Yeah, I also you know, I code sometimes get back to my old
way. You're not smart at all.
In my spare time, I just code.
I mean, silly stuff. You know?
Anybody out here likes right? Rock climbing and hiking and coding. You got your guy? Cool.
Yeah, yeah. Let's meet up. Twitter briefs. Reg,
where do people find you?
Yeah, so I'm on Twitter at a Thule K Acharya on Instagram and spell it
you're racist.
On Instagram, you can follow on Twitter and Instagram. You can follow public accountability. On Twitter. It's at public underscore ACC t. And then on Instagram. I think it's at public accountability. We're also on Facebook. I think it's at public accountability there. And we've got a website, www dot pub accountability.org. You can check out our cases, read our briefs. And I think most importantly, sign up for our newsletter that I'm going to ask. Yeah, you can sign up for the newsletter on the website public accountability.org and
up today, yeah,
it's I it's, it's weird because the newsletter doesn't change anything in the world. But I'm really proud of it. Because I feel like it's one of our most important pieces of communication to the world. And yeah, I hope people sign up and read and enjoy it.
I will say You are one lucky man. That public accountability.org was just available.
Oh, no, no, it's not public accountability. It's public. accountability.org. Oh, public accountability.org was not available. Neither were many of the other
people. Were at Kelly's Olympian right now they're starting to get a little nervous about
accountability. Yeah, we're a temperance movement now.
You are one delicious burrito.
Thank you, . Thank you, Cameron. Yeah, thanks, Greg. for being on.
Stay lovely neighbors.
Welcome Cameron from Mexico City.
Hola, todos.
Bien, y tu?
Como esta? la lluvia.
I don't know what any of that. I think I know Como esta now. 60s in Spanish.
Oh. Oh, great to see you.
So you are in Mexico?
I am. What's my first yo COVID trip? Really? Wow.
How are you liking it?
Honestly, I haven't left my hotel room that much. What am I feeling? Am I feeling of vacationing?
Yeah. Why have you not been leaving your hotel?
You know, I needed to take a visit to the country of Cameron. Okay. Bear soaking up the air?
No, what is it? What is like being in the country do for you, if you're not leaving the hotel room, don't drink the water
oh, is definitely silencing a lot of the noise and distractions. Because yes, we might be in isolation, but you know, you've got dishes to do, you got laundry, your roommates cat and all the things that you want to be doing like house projects, or, you know, going to the same grocery store all the time, or in the same food. And this is just forcing me to like, not be able to lean on any of my regular habits, I have to do everything differently while I'm here. And that is giving me space to to instead of thinking about my daily stuff, and getting so used to being in my usual confines. I'm like, in every sense of the space, like my geographical space, my mental space, the case, you know, I'm hung around a bunch of other Americans. So like, I am, like, so isolated in a really unique place. And I need this because I think I've used vacation before to get away from Portland, and not take the time to really process stuff that I need to process. And I really wanted to take this trip, to really have a different experience with going to a place and seeing if how much I've changed with my mindset and my growth. And so it's good. It's been good for me to see like, when I come to Mexico, I'm not leaving, you know, Portland and all of my struggles behind there with me and I can still work on them. I guess the problem is just like I'm just having an epiphany every goddamn day. Like, just today I realized that I had a relationship three years ago that I wasn't aware was a relationship. Like how does that happen? How do you end up in a relationship and not know that you were in one? Beats me?
Well, that didn't happen to you. Well, how does it happen?
I mean, I part of my issue because I've traveled so much is then I've met a lot of interesting people during travels. And it's it's been convenient for me to make connections with people who I don't think I will have to like, see long term and make a commitment. I've never had to make a commitment with somebody in Portland and so there was somebody who had connected with me they were from Europe. They've actually been a topic of this podcast before. And we met twice, we had a connection in Europe, and then we didn't talk for a few months. And then he was coming to New York. And we basically had an online relationship for three months, texting almost daily, lots of video calls, picture sharing, but you'll never get to see that I
didn't come down.
You were thinking it Greg. I know you. I'll send I'll send you some PG pics, don't worry, um, and then made a commitment, you know, to spend a week in New York with him. He was there for work, but like, that dude could have had any New York poontang that he wanted. But three months before coming to the country wanted
your Pootie Tang.
We had talked about what happened when we were in Europe together and process all the ways that he hurt me and I hurt him and how would it be more sensitive to each other? And all the boundaries? Doesn't sound like relationship stuff? Yeah, totally. And I didn't realize that at the time, because again, there were no labels. I felt like well, he lives in a different country. I, I don't, if if if I don't want to commit anything, it's gonna be very easy to cut this. But it was up until that moment could have gone forever. And yeah, when we got to New York, and it didn't click, I just kind of forgot about him. And I said, I've moved on, and didn't really realize the number of months I invested into that. And how it actually impacted the way that I perceived future potentially relationships and why I've stayed single for so long, it was clearly like, I don't want to make an emotional investment. And folks who don't have who I perceive not having the things together. And being in the way of my own love my own self love and my own self care.
Well, not single for long. But that's for another episode. Well, I'm happy for you, and I'm happy that you're having a good time on vacation, when you got to get to business to business. Alright, so let's do our hot take after following an interview of a Athul.
What a great guy.
I mean, super great guy. incredibly smart. Somebody who's like, I don't know, maybe not like a jack of all trades, but like clearly good at very, a lot of different things. I mean, they're all somewhat, I think, somewhat related, but they're, you know, I yeah, I mean, that's
because he works at Intel. Hey, Google stuff. What was he doing for Intel? He was doing something totally different. I don't remember. But like, a thought is the type of dude who's like, oh, yeah, I want to do this now to my entire life, go do this thing. That's impressive.
Yeah. And I think also impressive is, you know, he came back to Portland and basically has like risen to be a really prominent voice in criminal justice in a short amount of time being back here in Portland, which obviously, there's a lot of voices in our criminal justice like arena. And so that takes definitely, like some skill, knowledge and wherewithal, but also, he's been able to accomplish a lot, whether that be the foundation of the organization that he's running right now. Or, you know, other suits that he's worked on, and also changing just how the conversation around criminal justice.
Yeah, how did he become such a name here? field we have a lot of lawyers who have a lot of opinions was like the best leader.
He is a really good tweeter. He's like a prolific Twitter person. I mean, like, I started hearing about him, we talked about it a little bit, but like randomly it's sort of right around the same time as the uprising. I'm like, Who is this guy? And it took him like, a couple of months to follow me back so I was a little salty for a while. But eventually he did follow me back I was like, Who is this guy? He's too cool for school is too cool for me. And but he did follow me back and so he came back down to earth in my mind, but I again, I think it's probably probably so but yeah, I think it is just like a mix of talent and skill and also connections that he's been able to make while he's here, whether that be with OJ RC or the ACLU and others.
super dope, super dope. Well, I always, like we talked about lived experience a lot in these circles. And it's really hard to get intersection of, you know, lived experience when you start getting into, like, specialized professions. Especially, you know, legal, you know, black brown issues folks have, you know, likely been the survivors of legal injustice. And so, you know, it's, that's the issue that has so close home to me. And so to hear his little burrito wrap story, and his experiences police brutality, right, and to use that, in a way and I also thought so interesting that he grappled with his own his own shame of the event, but still use it as fuel. So that was special for him to share that on the podcast. And yeah, you know, keep going.
It is special. And like, I just like not to toot our own horn. But I think it's really cool that we've cultivated this place where people are having discussions whether it be required EJ, LG one or a fool. Other people where they have like, jewels, even where they talk about things where they either have not talked about before or that people don't know about in regards to them. So I'm really enjoying, like our format and ability to get to that stuff with people and that people feel comfortable sharing with us. So you
just do you just make people feel so safe. It's just me. You just met. You just make people so safe. Greg, you've got this air about you and you're just so like, emotionally present? I think that's probably it. Yeah. And the questions you ask people what their personal lives and really showing that you care for them.
I love it. And people really open up to it.
I would say you're like Portland's Oprah. At Close.
Close. Yeah, definitely. Pulling on the heartstrings over here.
You did a really great job at the rakhi Adams interview last week, so
it doesn't want to be maybe our most popular one. Yeah, I think people what I brought to the table for that one.
You're lucky I was sick.
You're great. We're gonna get a beer. Sometimes I'll get a very light colored kombucha. We all drink your beer. And you have to translate for me, Greg, because when he starts talking about legal policy, you don't understand. Yeah.
But he was able to dumb it down for the everyday listener, but
it still wasn't enough. He was speaking at like,
grade level, which is definitely higher than most of society's comprehension. But great interview. Thanks for coming in talking with us. And thanks for being a friend of the show. Let's move to our news topic of the week.
So speaking of Rakhi, we got some bitches to slap
my God. I'm not saying that even though Rupiah has laid out that it's a gender neutral term, that the word slap has ambiguous meanings. That's what she said.
Considering the bitches that were metaphorically talking about, you wouldn't slap those bitches.
I don't think I need to call them. I'm not condoning violence on me. But what happened was it you know, we've seen school boards across the country sort of flare up with talks of vaccine mandates, as well as masking in schools as well as critical race theory and the insurrectionists have basically found their new place to go yell and scream.
Foul boys who Yeah, the proud was ambiguous on his views on slapping them well,
and so they invaded Portland like they often do, but this time for a school board meeting where the school board was going to be talking about a vaccine mandate for kids 12 and older, which is a way that kids can go back to school safely. And lots of other places are discussing this and both the proud boys and then also a group founded By Ammon Bundy, I believe people remember the Bundys, which also kind of insurrection is who took over the MAL here, mount here county building and occupied it. And eventually, it was a standoff somebody did end up getting killed. And lots of people have been arrested for that. So that lovely guy created a group that they are going to go and stand for the children, but they are not standing for their own children. They have come in come to Portland to skew these views. And they basically took over the Portland Public School building that these are done at. They were maskless, of course, and the school board had to move the meeting to be virtual for like safety and everything. And these people wind spewed their idiocy. And, you know, I do think that eventually vaccine mandates will happen in Portland Public Schools. But it is a really interesting thing happening in our community thoughts, Cameron? Well,
what the fuck, that's my first thought. It's just like, the vaccines been out for so long. We've already been mandating it with you know, you know, government employees. And, you know, hospitals have been doing it. I guess
Fox News does it? Yeah. Oh, wow.
Like, I know that kids have been used as like political scapegoats for a lot of issues. I think it's really funny because typically, it is progressives who are like, Hey, can we stop school shootings? And I guess this is my first time seeing conservatives show up thinking that they're trying to save you lives. It's just it's weird given the fact this is not the first large scale mandate that now they're all of a sudden, probably bringing guns and bringing their craziness to a school setting.
Did you hear what happened to Nicki Minaj his friends cousins balls? What? Yeah, Nicki Minaj is friends cousins. Balls apparently swelled up after she had the person got the vaccine. And that's why Nicki Minaj is anti vaccine. I didn't know you really haven't heard of friends, cousins balls.
Um,
I was a big deal.
kind of missed out on getting those small balls. Like I didn't know that was a bad side effect. And I'm kind of mad I don't have it.
It didn't happen to you and you got your vaccine. I thought I was seeing something going on down there.
Well, that was just I was looking at cute baby. Dolls. Like, did they hurt?
I feel like small balls. Well, he was he was supposed to story. So he was supposed to get married and the wife called off the marriage. Cuz swollen balls and he's infertile now. Nicki Minaj his cousin's friends. Balls, friends.
He knows how to impregnate since he goes vaccination.
Yeah, yeah, like right before his wedding. I don't know. But it sounds like he might just like have some horrible STD and tried to explain it away with well, it could have been the vaccine I got. But it was her dad, and they and actually the president of Trinidad had to speak out about it and said there's no such case in Trinidad, but they've heard of swollen balls is related to the vaccine. So it runs all the way to the executive level. But anyway, get back so I mean, yeah, I'm okay. Um, uh, one thing I think is interesting about this too, is like these are always the people like in rural Oregon who are pissed off that Democrats are deciding anything for them when their communities don't vote Democrat. And I really end to like community rule, right basically like states rights, but you know, what? They they're sheriff's well, not enforced mass mandates, those types of things. Like they want to be able to decide things at the community level, and then want to stop Portland from being able to decide things at the community level for Portland, like, these are not Portlanders. And so it's just interesting. They're all about like liberty and choice and stuff like that, but are not. But you know, are not they don't want Portlanders or anybody to have liberty if they do something that disagrees with them.
America, America these pictures and they weren't wearing masks, of course no.
The other thing is they called a black security guard. There was like some sort of not altercation but discussion or argument or something and this lady comfortable Back security guard boy. And then she takes a second like there's sort of like a Oh, shit moment. And then she looks around the room obviously see, it's not this looks like a lot of racist. I think I'm good. And then she just goes yeah, I said it. So it's not even like she could be like, I didn't mean it to be racist like she said it looked around the room sees that it's sort of a moment and then goes, Yeah, I said it
triflin
and if you ever look around a room and you're like, Yeah, this seems like a good place where I could call a black person, boy, not really the room you want to be in?
I mean, they're early anti maskers, who are also anti backs, which I don't understand how those two things can exist in the same place. Coming to a school saying that it's a definition. Yeah, they don't want to protect children, I guess there's little else they could do to surprise me.
That's true. And it's just so weird that they've made this their like, crusade for lack of a better term, like it's just stay in your community and yell about critical race theory or something like why you got to come before it?
And like, are they to come to every meeting? Like this is
like, probably, no, they're not there? Well, not forever. But like, for a little bit, I bet. They're probably gonna start yelling about
pass, unless they're gonna start the occupation board meeting, which God I
can't because it's virtual now. Like, they're the only ones there. So the whole place is just full of these idiots. And everybody else is like, okay, I guess we'll let them have their like idiot corner. But like, you know, the black security guard has to work there. There's other staff that have to be involved in stuff, it's just not safe. And then, like, any one of these moments can really like boil over into violence. Also, you know, these are people that are set, like, if you're convinced enough that, like, you think that there is a conspiracy for people to inject kids with something very dangerous, if you really believe that, like, it would be logical to be like, I'm going to do a lot to stop that. And, you know, you can see that somebody might be willing to resort to violence, like let's say they were let's not say they were right, but let's say it was something else like Republicans were going to force you know, something horrible upon people, there's gonna be people that rise up and sometimes with violence and stuff. And and so, and it's really scary, because like you said, These people are coming to school settings, and who knows if they're armed, but like, chances are with this group of people, some of them are, yeah.
And it's, like, I guess what the part that I'm really flowing spy is like, why this why now because I feel like most of the times, these folks have been using like Antifa as like their foil. And I think honestly, the the reality is, is like, it is rainy, it is full time, they got nothing better to do. There's no other big like, you know, news catching type of thing for them to get attention on. And they're using this, which is not newsworthy, whatsoever. And they also know, PbS is going to pass this policy,
right? They're just trying to make a show of it. But like, you do have to care a lot to come. It's just so like, I have your same question like, but like, not just why this and why now, but like, why? This much like, y'all could have sent it like this could have any email.
But some people love attention.
Yeah, I guess. And they're getting it certainly across the country. I mean, like, nobody who ran for school board anywhere, like I feel so bad for them. I mean, I feel bad for our teachers. And, you know, people service workers didn't sign up to be the frontlines of a pandemic, either. But, you know, school board members didn't sign up to be the front lines of the dumbest culture war of all time. Yeah, I mean, if you see the things that have been banned by the school boards talking about critical race theory, it's like you're literally not allowed to teach black history or anything about racism. And its
freedom issue.
Right. And and these and it's also like, again, like these people are really say they're into, like, freedom and stuff in free speech. And they're now banning, like, what words can be said in school? That's not free speech. And then they say they're for like small government, but they're banning what teachers are allowed to say. And you know, they also say they're for rule of law. And the law is you have to wear a fucking mask, and they won't do it. So it's like, they're all these are the same people that whenever like a black person is killed. They're like, well, he didn't do this exact same thing, right? And then they all walk into the building not following the law. If a black person were to do this and got killed, it would be the same people being like, Well, why didn't you just follow the orders?
Yeah, well, this is just a steam, you know, we have now PPS school board that is blackity, black, black. And I, I just wish that the job is already hard being on the board for PPS school district that has a lot of political, you know, controversies that has a lot of debates around, you know, funding and, you know, resource officers, school resource officers, and then we have a huge unification issue and redistricting issue that constantly is happening because of, you know, wealthy families moving into the area, and then switching their kids to different districts, there's so many dynamics of being like an urban school district, and we finally have some really great representation, representing black folks on the school board, as Ernie, a thankless job, and now that we have this safety issue, you know, that these fucking Alright, people when when they start looking for targets, they go for the darkest color. So right just, I don't I just hope that our school board is not feeling unsafe with this, I hope that they're not feeling that, that their leadership is at a sacrifice to their safety and their family safety. And I encourage folks, not just to, you know, decry the anti vaxxers But yeah, show love to our score members not always agree with them. But this is a moment to recognize that, you know, civil, public leadership and public service at this point in our country, comes with some real threats to your health and safety. And even if you don't agree with these elected officials, most people would not be willing to put their lives on the line every day to do the role that you don't get paid for. For these very long things that you don't get paid for. And then your life might get in jeopardy.
It's yeah, thankless job, dangerous job, especially now. And again, seeing this across the country, it's going to go bad somewhere. And the other thing is, you know, I have faith that the Portland Public School Board is not going to be intimidated by this, like in a way that it alters their decision. But not every city is Portland, there's lots of places that maybe are closer to on the fence about some of these things, and this math testimony or, or even intimidation tactics really can change the policy. And there are other places where, you know, they haven't talked about critical race theory or vaccines or anything, and these people are coming and dominating the conversation in lending out in lots of different states. And the impact that that's going to have on the future generations is really sad, you know, like when I was a kid, or not a kid, but like, early in my political life, when like, Republicans all seem to be like, George Bush and Mitt Romney and like, or John McCain and stuff, it was like, well, like none of my friends are supporting these old white guys, like they're going to this party is going to like die out. And you know, we're seeing that no, like, conservatism is like appeal. I mean, I like for lack of a better word, I guess, conservatism, but in some ways, like Neo Fascism is like appealing to some youth, especially poor white youth. And if we're not educating about, you know, the history of America, if we're, you know, having unsafe schools where people are getting Coronavirus, left and re and we're not even teaching them that science matters when it comes to masking or the vaccines that's going to impact the political discourse for generation. So it's really sad.
Yeah. All right. Well, on a hopeful note. I love you, Greg. And this country is making great progress on COVID. You know, now boosters are becoming even more readily available. And I agree with every leader that's made the hard choice to mandate vaccines and interesting, different workplaces that are like 98 99% vaccinated. So like, yes, we can give a lot of attention to some attention seeking hatemongers. But I do know more people everyday are getting vaccinated. Yep. And we are going to be this pandemic, eventually, on that note.
Alright. Well, have fun in Mexico cam, it's great to talk with you.
You too. Stay lovely neighbors.
Your Neighborhood black friends is brought to you by Kelly's Olympian on Southwest Fourth and Washington. Learn more at kellysolympian.com. Financial support is also provided by Underdog Law Office. Learn more at underdoglawyer.com. Thank you so much to this week's Patreon accessibility sponsor, Ed Hurtley. We really appreciate your keeping this podcast accessible. Thank you, Ed. Our music this episode was by Donovan Breakwater. Our branding design is by Lindsay Hoeft. This episode was recorded by Bryan Wollen and mixed by Nalin Silva and we are produced by me Kris Wallsmith. Thank you so much to this week's guest Athul Acharya, thank you to our Patreon and of course, thank you everyone out there for listening.
