This IHIP News episode, recorded on Election Day in the United States, covers a series of court rulings and government actions tied to the upcoming votes. The hosts describe an overnight Ninth Circuit decision on Justice Department interference in California, a Supreme Court rejection of a ballot challenge, and a grand jury that declined to indict in a voter fraud case.
They also discuss Justice Department election monitors, Senate races in Michigan and Texas, and Trump's remarks about the war in Iran. Listeners will hear the hosts' views on the role of courts and oligarchy in democracy, presented as their opinions rather than settled facts.
In this episode Jennifer Welch, Josh Welch
This transcript of the IHIP News episode on Election Day court rulings was made with the technology HappyScribe built to transcribe video to text.
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It is Election Day in the United States of America and to my fellow Americans, if you haven't voted, get out and vote today because our votes are only the first step. There's a lot of things happening behind the scenes in the courts, and this is something we have to keep an eye on. We can put up all the numbers in the world, but the courts have to uphold democracy. There is a huge, huge story that is breaking overnight. Josh, please unpackage this and explain this to all of us.
So last night, the Ninth Circuit, which is the appellate court for the state of California, issued a couple of different orders. And I want to take you back to last week. Some county election officials brought a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, asking a district judge to basically enter a restraining order against DOJ, telling DOJ not to interfere with how they conduct and regulate their business during elections. Not to cast aside ballots, not to have to toss different ballots that are issued, and all of that has been highly contested.
And so the district judge agreed with them. Well, last night, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, by a vote of 2 to 1, stayed that judge's ruling. In other words, ruled in favor of the Department of Justice and said that the Department of Justice could conduct business as usual, could place these demands on state officials, could try to intervene to a certain extent. And so immediately after that, then 11 judges of the Ninth Circuit all convened and overturned that decision and put the temporary restraining order back in play.
In other words, continued to allow the county officials to block DOJ from interfering and/or impeding their efforts to count ballots. And so this was a massive victory for those of us that appreciate the rule of law, that want to see every person's vote counted. And all of it happened in the middle of the night. So you wake up, you see a 2-1 decision against the county officials, and then hours later you see the 11 judges overrule the 3 judges and put the district judge's order back in play, which means that DOJ is barred from interfering with the election.
It's that simple. It's a lot of verbiage, but the rule of law stood. You had 11 judges rule a majority that DOJ can't interfere with the state officials in California. And that's a huge victory for today.
And I think this is incredibly important because as you go out and vote, we can put up all the numbers in the world. Trump and all of the degenerate cheaters that work for him are machinating behind the scenes, trying to figure out how they can subvert free and fair elections. And the courts are a way that they want to do this. As you know, they've had the Supreme Court rule with them. But even SCOTUS strikes down Trump's effort to cheat, pop this up. The Supreme Court quickly shut down President Donald Trump's effort to force California to sideline potentially thousands of ballots that the Justice Department claims may have been cast by non-citizens rejecting the administration's emergency request hours after it was filed.
And again, who is the subject of all of this? DOJ. That's supposed to be a separate entity than the executive branch, but we have corrupt pedophile-protecting Todd Blanche who gives sweetheart deals to child sex traffickers out here doing the dirty work for Donald Trump because these people can't play in a game fair and square. They have to cheat. Josh, what do you make of the Supreme Court, of all people, doing this?
So this was a separate case in the Central District of California that was taken up on the shadow docket by emergency application, and the court quickly denied it, which was refreshing to see. I think they realized these ballots had already been sent out. There is no way to cure this, and they're not going to interfere at this stage in the game. You know, DOJ brought this in October and sort of created this controversy to where they could ask the court to do this, but they, to their credit, they denied it swiftly.
They left no stone unturned here. There's no question as to whether or not the court's going to be involved or not. This, with the Ninth Circuit's decision over the middle of the night that we talked about, you know, when you've got nothing left, no other voice to stand up for you, you look at the courts. It always comes down to the courts. We remember Gore v. Bush, or Bush v. Gore, back in 2000. The courts have the final say, and this is really good news for us as we go into today to vote.
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All right. And then again, the DOJ, here we are, the DOJ meddling even more in the elections. Pop this up. Ron Phillipkowski responds to a tweet from Scott McFarland that says, "Justice Department releases lists of where it is sending 1,000 election monitors." Many, many, many are heavily Democratic districts. And then they list, "All of these are basically Black and Hispanic." Ron responds, "What a surprise that Trump and his henchman, Blanche, are sending their army of, quote, 'monitors' to Democratic areas and places where there are high numbers of Black and Hispanic voters."
And this is where I just want to say to Haley Stevens, you joined the bigots. You joined the bigots. You were never, ever, ever, ever, ever a Democrat that believes in democracy because there is no fucking way somebody could hurt my feelings and then I would go side with these bigots that tried to deny my fellow Americans that happen to be Black or that are Hispanic to deny them the right to vote like I have.
And so this is where we have to, within our party, call out the people that are so quick to criticize Abdullah Al-Sayed, who was for universal human rights for everybody. And we need to clean house and have people on our team. And the tent is, you believe in equality for all. Universal human rights.
Yeah. And this brings mind Bill Cassidy. Do you remember him?
Yes.
Who voted to confirm Todd Blanche?
Yep.
I remember he gave a speech on the Senate floor. He had a tear in his eyes questioning whether or not he should or shouldn't vote to confirm Todd Blanche. I mean, what a piece of shit. Seriously. Todd Blanche has done everything that he said he would do. He advertised this. He sold himself on being Trump's lawyer. All of these Republicans, they're to blame that confirmed. And then you see these turncoat Democrats. It's disgusting. For this administration, for this, really?
I mean, what else do you say?
This is a completely different election than I've ever voted in. This is not about politics to me. This is existential. This is moral. I see the Trump regime as immoral psychopaths that want to destroy everything that I hold dear, everything that the majority of Americans hold dear. They want an oligarchy. They are not capitalists. We no longer have a capitalist society. We live in an oligarchy. They really don't want democracy. We have the veneer of democracy, and thank God the veneer is getting enforced by these courts.
But then Trump loses again in court. Pop this up. New York Times grand jury rejects bid by Justice Department to bring charges over voter fraud. A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday rejected an effort by the Justice Department to indict an individual for voter fraud who prosecutors claim voted in two jurisdictions during the 2024 election, according to four people briefed on the matter. And again, it's everyday Americans that are standing up to fascism.
It's everyday Americans. It's not the billionaires that have the fuck you money who could tell Donald Trump, "Fuck you. Fuck Stephen Miller. You're shooting people in the streets. You're disgusting. You make me sick." No, it's not those guys. It's everyday Americans that are bravely standing up to this fascism because only we will save us, and today is our day. Josh, what was the deal with this case?
Well, and this, I believe, is in the District of Columbia. And if you'll recall, we reported last week that Kat, I think it's Cassie Hutchinson or Cassidy Hutchinson, she was they attempted to indict her and the grand jury refused to issue a bill. This is the same jurisdiction. So the grand jury is coming back again on a different case, saying, "We're not going to do this." And this is rare. Now, you do see occasionally grand jury refuse to indict, but not like this. I mean, this is happening weekly. We're reporting stories about this.
And part of that is what we talked about yesterday. The sentiment amongst the public is different. People are mad. They're mad at the arrogance of this administration, how touched they are, how corrupt they are. And to another level, and you're seeing people just say, "Look," and those grand jurors, they have to go to that courthouse every single day. You have to understand that they work underneath a U.S. attorney and the court clerk. And so it takes courage for them to do this, to stand up and say, "We're not playing along with this political bullshit game of yours anymore where you attempt to charge people for political reasons.
We're not doing it." And kudos to them and everybody else that stands up to this administration. And like you said, the oligarchs, the people that got fuck you money, they don't.
No.
They don't. That's the sick, disgusting part of this, is it takes normal everyday people to do something that these other individuals with tons of wealth could stand up and do every day.
All right. And then I just want to say to all of the people out there that are going to vote for Republicans, that are going to vote for MAGA, and there's going to be millions of them, unfortunately, that are just complete either racist, arrogant, cruel sociopaths of the highest order. This is the kind of person that you're voting for. Play the clip.
Haley Stevens versus Tom Piker. The Democrat Party has said they don't want moderates, they don't want centrists like Haley Stevens. They do want extremists, pro-jihad, America-hating, 9/11-supporting monsters like Hassan Piker.
Okay. So first of all, everything he said is a total lie there. Secondly, the Islamophobia of calling people jihadists when the people who act most familiarly to me or similarly to me as jihadists are MAGA. The people who have a goon squad out who used to be all the don't tread on me folk who have now joined the federal government, the one thing they were scared of, and now they're out shooting Americans. Stephen Miller, it is my opinion, is a white nationalist who gets his inspiration from the Nazi regime.
People have studied his speeches. They are eerily familiar to Joseph Goebbels. And the Democratic Party, one thing you're right about, Stephen Miller, is we don't want moderates in it that are cosplaying as Democrats because at Haley Stevens' core, she is an Israel-first Republican. Full stop. And as it pertains to Hassan Piker, he's a Twitch streamer. For God's sakes, it is utterly insane.
And I also just want to say this. Hassan Piker was one of the first to endorse and campaign was Zohran Mamdani, who took on all the big money and won and who is now basking in very high approval ratings in New York City. If Abdullah Al-Sayed wins, Hassan Piker was one of the first who took his group, his three, four, five million subscribers, and said, "We're going to endorse Abdullah Al-Sayed. We're going to bring energy to this campaign."
And here's why they're all so scared of Hassan. They're scared of Hassan because he makes people think about American foreign policy and about the way we spend money and about our economic system. And this is a threat to everybody. And that's why there's hardly any daylight between Stephen Miller and Haley Stevens and Stephen Miller and Chuck Schumer, because Stephen Miller is an oligarch, not himself personally, but he wants to prop up oligarchs. Chuck Schumer is a corporatist.
And so you have people within the Democratic Party now that are offering language and solutions that corporate media never gave us. We've always been fed this, "Capitalism is the only way." Well, let's look at what capitalism has done. Capitalism has incubated this nightmare oligarchy that we are living in now. And so I'm so over these pathetic white twerps that are sitting there shaking in their boots over a Twitch streamer. It's pathetic.
But I do want to say this to the Democratic Party. Hassan has a group of people and a group of supporters who feel abandoned by the Democrats and the Republicans. So for you to any Democrats that participate in this Hassan smackdown, there are millions of young people that are sitting on their sofas during elections that he can motivate to get out. And of course, it's a big tent, but it's so pathetic.
But, you know, and you and I both feel the same way about Hassan. Hassan, however, is not on the ballot, Stephen Miller.
Right.
He's not running for anything.
He's not a Democrat.
No, he's not running for anything. But, you know, I've kind of gone reverse course on this whole theory with these MAGA dumb shits like Stephen Miller. I'm like, you know, bring on the hate. Just bring it. All the fear and the hate, bring it on. Because look what it's doing for you at the polls. People aren't buying this shit anymore. So if you want to put Stephen Miller and the people that he's talking to on Fox with that message are the people that we're never going to get.
No.
We're never going to get. We could do whatever we want, backflips all night long, and we're not going to get those people over in our tent. So fuck them. Let them go. Bring on the hate. Because guess what? We reported last week that 37% of the viewers left Fox. It's because of shit like that. They want to sit there and listen to Stephen Miller drone on about a bunch of shit that's irrelevant when they're broke as shit trying to send kids to school in rural parts of the country. So fuck that guy. Keep doing it.
I agree. And I'd like to see that. Remember that UFC ring that Trump erected in the White House lawn?
Yeah.
I want to see Hassan and Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller acts like he's such a badass, such a tough guy.
I get it.
He's such a tough guy. People wrote in rainbow chalk in front of his house, "Immigrants are welcome here with hearts and rainbows." And he and his wife, chicken shit cowards, had to move to a military base. If you think you're such a badass and you think you're such a tough guy, let's erect the UFC thing. And I want Hassan Piker and Stephen Miller to duke it out in the White House lawn. Let's see it. Let's see how far they go, all these big tough guys, these chicken shit fucking cowards. I mean, I don't think Stephen Miller has ever been in the gym a day in his life.
No, he would run.
Stephen Miller.
Guys like that, he would run. Like they're total pussies, pardon my language, but guys like that, he would run.
All right. And then Trump goes on Fox and says the war in Iran is over. Play the clip.
What we've done is amazing. Now tell me about the war. We haven't been I mean, what's a war? A war is a war. A war is fighting. Take a look at World War I, World War II. When was the last time you saw us fighting with them? We go months and months. We talk. They're in not a good negotiating position. Their economy is cratering because of us.
All right. And then this happened hours before the interview that he just gave. Pop this up. US says they launched strikes on Kesman Island in Iran. So clearly, he's just either he doesn't know what's going on or he's just lying. It's just so, you know, firsthand, or he knew and then he forgot because of the dementia, all of those things. But then after all of that, this is what he posted at 1:00 a.m. last night. Abdullah Al-Sayed hates Jews and hates blacks. Don't feel bad.
He also hates whites. Only fools would vote for him in the Michigan race for the US Senate. He will 100% do UN, vote for Mike Rogers. This is a president of the United States that we some people asked AI what they thought his IQ was, five different AI models. He never broke 100 on any of them. People who study language patterns say that he speaks at a fifth grade level. And this is exactly the way I and our children spoke in fifth grade. Abdul hates Jews and he hates blacks.
Don't feel bad. He also hates white people too. I mean, grow up. The fact that there are people that are educated that listen to this shit and have listened to it since 2015 and go, "That's my guy."
Yeah.
I'm going to go vote for him.
They'll do that. That you could hear him speak about the war like that with Hannity and you still think to yourself, "Yeah, the country's doing well. I support that guy." But let's get back to his Truth Social. So he clearly exhibits this Islamophobia and racism toward Al-Sayed. That's not a secret. And so this race is going to be a referendum on Trump if Al-Sayed wins this. And then we can also go back last week to Elon Musk when he tweeted out about Talarico.
And it was the same type of tweets. It was like, "Talarico hates Texas. Talarico this." I mean, it's like these bullet points for fifth graders. And they both have dug in with this thing. So if we come back this evening or tomorrow and we talk about this race and Abdullah Al-Sayed, James Talarico have won by vast majorities, by a huge turnout, then what does that say about Donald Trump and Elon Musk and their political power to sway an election?
It's a referendum on them as well, especially down in Texas with Ken Paxton. It's completely a referendum on Elon Musk. And I think this race is going to be a referendum on whether or not people believe any of this Islamophobia that Trump and his cronies spew out, as well as I think it's going to be a little bit of a front against the corporate Democrats too, to say, "Hey, fuck you guys. We can put up candidates we want to."
I completely agree with you on that. This is just a massive, massive election. We have to win first. As we laid out at the beginning of this episode, the courts are an integral part of that. That's why we dove into all of that at the beginning, because the courts, as Josh mentioned in 2000, in my opinion, wrongly gave the presidency to George W. Bush when Al Gore actually had more votes. And that changed the trajectory of our entire nation. George Bush normalized having stupid presidents. He said stupid shit.
He acted stupid. He committed he and Dick Cheney committed war crimes. It incubated this stuff. So the courts are so, so, so important to our free and fair elections. And more than anything, this election, I agree with you, Josh, is a referendum on these oligarchs. These are the people that will be in have their wealth longer than any of these politicians on the ballot ever will. And we need to send them a message. No. You will be regulated. You will be taxed. Quit trying to buy your way into elections.
We don't want you. If you want to be a politician, Elon Musk, put your name on the ballot and run. Let's see how many people show up for your rallies. Let's see how many people vote for you once you remove all the bots from your Twitter popularity. All right. That's all we have, you guys. I'm a nervous wreck. I'm sure you are too. Go vote. Go vote in the comment section. Tell us if you voted, where you voted, how it went. Let's build community. Let's stay online. Let's be together today. And we'll be back shortly with more news.
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