Schedule

Future

• Friday at 9ish pm eastern: Betting w/ Barnes AMA
• Saturday Night at 9 pm eastern: Movie TBD
• Sunday at 6 pm eastern: Viva & Barnes, Law for the People

Book Recommendation: Have in a Heartless World by Christopher Lasch. The Family vs. the State.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/724188.Haven_in_a_Heartless_World

Art of the Day: The last photo of my father with the family around Christmas 1985. I sit right in front of him, with my brother and mother next to him, and my sisters Martha, Brenda and little Laura rounding out the family photo. My father loved Christmas, and lived for it, and it remains my first thought whenever I think of him. I think about this as I try to defend a father stripped of the chance to even talk to his son; I can only imagine what horrifying effect such an action could have had on my father, and it reminds me why taking on difficult cases against difficult odds remains critical to defend people like him from the harms the more powerful can inflict. The family remains the haven in a world especially when that world turns heartless.

Wisdom of the Day: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Frederick Douglas.

The Library: Five Curated Articles of the Week

1. Zelensky Exposed
2. IRS Leaks
3. Trump tariffs
4. Bureaucracy Revealed
5. Epstein files hidden

*Bonus: Math to the rescue?

Top 5 Cases TBD Sunday

1. Senseless in Seattle
2. Big Tech vs. Parents
3. Hollywood drama: Privacy in Discovery
4. SCOTUS: Trump
5. SCOTUS: Prosecutorial Duties

*Bonus: Washington Right to Parent

Closing Argument: Senseless in Seattle

• The upcoming trial of Kurt Benshoof is a most peculiar one – the government seeks to imprison him for a decade or more. What purports to justify this? Benshoof texted his son, sought legal claims to his car, home and custody of his son, and texted and called his son’s mother concerning his son. The government labels this “stalking” and “harassment.” Why? Because Benshoof’s real crime is his beliefs.
• Anyone familiar with family disputes and divorces knows that people involved in such disputes can be quite unkind to one another, but rarely is it prosecuted as a crime. Benshoof’s case reveals a new front of the culture conflict: weaponizing the legal system to take away the parental rights of dissidents in a war on the family, and especially a war on fathers.
• Benshoof objected to trans ideologies being taught to his son, objected to vaccine and mask mandates on his son, and objected to his son being given the Covid 19 vaccine. As a consequence, his son’s mother got the son vaccinated in secret, without the father’s notice or knowledge, and without informing their teenage son of any of the risk of the vaccine.
• After the father protested, the mother took him to court. The court also did not like Benshoof’s beliefs about Covid, the vaccine, and trans ideologies being taught his son, with guardians ad litem reporting him as a “transphobe” that should be denied contact with his son. The court ultimately agreed, and prohibited Benshoof from even contacting his son or responding to his son. When Benshoof responded to his son and told him he could live with him if he wanted when he was upset, the government charged Benshoof with the crime of stalking and harassment for talking to his son and for any attempts at communicating with his son’s mother about his son. How? Because dissident belief is now “abuse”. Dissident belief is now “stalking”. Dissident belief is now “harassment.”
• This is why the Benshoof case is consequential beyond him. It’s the fundamental right to parent one’s own children without the government dictating what beliefs are ok to share or not share with your own children, what values they will be imparted with, and whether they have to be the guinea pig in a medical experiment.
• I took on the case despite the difficult odds – a Seattle jury pool and judicial officials hostile to Benshoof and his beliefs and fully onboard the woke cultural revolution to impose on kids – because the family is still the haven in a heartless world, and we need more fathers to care for their sons, not fewer.

Schedule

Past

• Live w/ Duran
  

Future

• Friday at 9ish pm eastern:  Betting w/ Barnes: SportsPicks Subscribers Exclusive AMA
• Saturday Night at 9 pm eastern: Movie TBD
• Sunday at 9 pm eastern: Viva & Barnes, Law for the People
• Tuesday-Thursday February 25 to 27, Bourbon w/ Barnes at 9ish eastern

Book Recommendation: Lords of Poverty detailing the fraudulent way many “aid” NGOs work. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53331.Lords_of_Poverty

Art of the Day: From one of the meme maker maestros, an elegant image of simply luxuries to end a hard day’s labor – a smooth glass with a big piece of ice draped in the inviting bourbon sharing the space with a lit cigar, against the backdrop of a whiskey cast with the name slipped in Viva/Barnes…very well done!

Wisdom of the Day: “I still remember, 40 years ago, when I was shackled and put in prison…Being an American citizen didn’t mean a thing then.” Fred Korematsu.

The Library: Top 5 Curated Articles of the Week

1. A new disease: post Covid vaccination syndrome
2. Language police
3. Populist left protest
4. Homeless rise
5. Left uncovers why young people shifted                                                                                        

*Bonus: King of late night

Top 10 Cases TBD Sunday

1. SCOTUS: Civil Rights
2. SCOTUS: No Justice
3. SCOTUS: Qui Tam Fraud
4. SCOTUS: Prejudicial evidence
5. Senseless in Seattle: Benshoof Case
6. 1^st Amendment Prosecutions
7. Indentured servants
8. Parental rights undermined
9. Trans protections in prison
10. Doge in court

*Bonus: High Seas power.

Closing Argument: Politicized Punishment

From my sentencing brief in the Senseless in Seattle case:

• How much is enough? Mr. Benshoof has lost his car, lost his home, lost the right to contact his son, and lost his liberty for months in jail. He faces another trial on related charges. The Prosecution suggests an 81-year prison sentence, and formally now seeks an unprecedented, harsh, punitive six-year prison sentence with de facto termination of parental rights in a 5-year no contact order with his own son – for what?  A father texting his teenage son. The son often sought out the contact, and never complained about the contacts. Instead of the facts of this case, the government focuses on everything but this case, while ignoring the punishment that has already been imposed on the defendant. A just sentence conforming to Constitutional principles calls for a time served sentence, not a sentence longer than what some rapists get.  
• Indeed, the entire case is predicated on a serious Constitutional offense – punishing a defendant for asserting his fundamental right to parent. A court cannot circumvent the Constitutional and statutory processes for terminating parental rights with “no contact” orders. The government’s sentence, if imposed, raises additional Constitutional questions, including terminating parental rights without due process of law and punishing defendants based on the individual interest of prosecutors and courts because the defendant brought legal complaints against them. 
• Few fundamental rights are more important than the parental right to contact, control and custody of their minor children. Indeed, “[a] parent's right to control and to have the custody of his children is a fundamental civil right which may not be interfered with without the complete protection of due process safeguards.” In re Dependency of K.N.J., 171 Wash. 2d 568, 574, 257 P.3d 522, 526 (2011) (quoting Halsted v. Sallee, 31 Wash. App. 193, 195, 639 P.2d 877 (1982)). Mr. Benshoof, as a “natural parent, has a fundamental liberty interest in his custody and care of” his son. Id. (quoting In re Custody of C.C.M., 149 Wash.App. 184, 203, 202 P.3d 971 (2009)).  “Procedures used to terminate the relationship between parent and child must meet the requisites of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” Id. at 574 (quoting Lassiter v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 452 U.S. 18, 24–32 (1981)). Indeed, the Court of Appeals has previously noted that relocation and dependency proceedings are distinguishable from termination proceedings because they do not “sever all contact between the nonresidential parent and child.”  In re Marriage of Wehr, 165 Wash. App. 610, 615, 267 P.3d 1045, 1048 (2011). Here, however, the no-contact order at issue in the case, and the no contact order recommended by the prosecution would sever all contact between Mr. Benshoof and his son: without Due Process or the required statutory termination procedures.
• None of these steps ever occurred: the prior court order stripped the Defendant of his fundamental rights without conforming to Constitutional or statutory process, and punishing him for asserting that right is as problematic as now seeking to create a new no contact order stripping him of those fundamental rights into the future. The Prosecution seeks to skip right over all of the Due Process protections built into a termination procedure and skip directly to the results of the termination: preventing Mr. Benshoof from seeing or contacting his son ever again. The Prosecution is essentially demanding a constructive termination of the parental relationship. Worse still, they demand this against the wishes of Mr. Benshoof’s son – who has the legal right to choose which parent he wishes to retain custody.
• The government asks this court to commit the very abuses of power that led to standardizing sentencing in the first place: the need to treat similarly situated people similarly. The government’s punitive sentencing request invites yet another legal error: it demands punishment because the defendant has brought legal action against prosecutors and judges. This demand violates the defendant’s right to petition the government for redress of grievances, a Constitutional policy that prevents people seeking extra-legal remedies. While the government objects to the defendant constantly seeking out the courts for remedy, the government ignores his Constitutional right to do so, including the defendant challenging the service of process of the no-contact order at issue in this case, and challenged its constitutionality and jurisdictional authority as well. No one – until now – has sought to imprison someone for petitioning the court for redress of grievances, a First Amendment protected right. Aside from the Constitutional concerns, the government’s complaints about the defendant’s pro se litigation ignores that this case doesn’t concern those matters and that the defendant had already been punished. Mr. Benshoof has already been penalized with denial of the right to sue without advance court permission, dismissal of his petitions, denial of his complaints and appeals, and financial fines. By contrast, a time served sentence conforms to other comparable cases, Constitutional principles, and just sentencing.
• It is apparent the legal authorities of the Seattle area dislike Benshoof’s pro se litigant and Covid policy protest past, but that is not the basis for imposing the harshest punishment ever imposed on a middle aged defendant with very little criminal history, who has already lost his ability to seek judicial redress without advance judicial permission, lost his car, lost his residence, and lost custody of his son, when that sentence will undermine confidence in the legal system and not be a truly just sentence. How much is enough? 

Schedule

• Friday at 9ish pm eastern: Betting w/ Barnes: AMA
• Saturday Night at 9 pm eastern: Movie TBD
• Monday at 9 pm eastern: Viva & Barnes, Law for the People

Book Recommendation: Essential Federalist & Anti-Federalist Papers.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/110335.The_Essential_Federalist_and_Anti_Federalist_Papers

Art of the Day: As a 12-year-old boy, just a bit removed from the death of my father (who died 12 days from my 12^th birthday), I looked for role models, and I found two that baffled some of my schoolmates. Inspired by two books I carried around with me everywhere, the texts I turned to for inspiration were Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal and Robert Kennedy’s To Seek a Newer World. Now, I helped bring the two movements together in RFK Jr. and Trump, completing an extraordinary journey. I never forgot Trump’s pearl of proverbial wisdom to expect the best but also plan for the worst, a brilliant balancing act of mindset I find useful to this day. I also never forgot the quote on the screen, that we must not just ask why things are but also why not change them? A simple question with a revolutionary effect for both men – dream big, and believe those dreams, and you might be surprised just how much those very actions can make them come true.

Wisdom of the Day: “Look at what can be, and ask – why not?” Robert Kennedy.

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