Social Justice - A Conversation

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Charles Stanton 0:18
Good evening. This is Professor Charles Stanton. I'm a professor of Boyd School of Law,

Blanca Pena 0:23
and my name is Blanca Pena. I am a third year law student at the Boyd School of

Charles Stanton 0:26
Law, and this is social justice, a conversation,

Blanca Pena 0:29
a conversation.

Charles Stanton 0:33
Well, good evening, everybody. Professor Stanton here, along with my partner, Blanca Pena, and we're going to have a sort of an interesting conversation this evening. We were thinking together about what we were going to put on our show tonight. And there's like 50 things we could have put on. We could have put on about how, basically, Obamacare is going to be defunded, basically, how if you're pregnant, Tylenol will not give your child autism. We had a whole bunch of stuff, but that was washed away. That was washed away. Oh, the UN address too. That was also worthy of note, the embarrassment, the embarrassment, yes, yes. The embarrassment, the the mind boggling talk that left everybody who listened to it in shock, both people who were in the hall and people who were watching by way of television. But all that is, all that has been, has been swept away. And what we're going to talk about tonight is, you know, the power and authority that our president has taken to basically dictate to the Justice Department, and what really now is the remnants of our legal system as to who to prosecute for what. And basically render any kind of independent prosecutorial power that United States attorneys were given is basically gone. It's out the window. And basically you have a list of people who were considered enemies of the President, and in the case of James Comey, of course, there had been a prosecutor of James Comey who had was supposed to bring forth an indictment against James Comey, he would present it to the grand jury. He told the President that he was unable to present the indictment to the grand jury because there was no valid evidence that the grand jury could have even considered which did not please the president. So the gentleman was fired, and he replaced this gentleman with with with a woman who became the new prosecutor whose specialty in the law was Insurance Law. So I turn it over to Blanca.

Blanca Pena 3:18
It's a very recurring theme we have here on this show, where we talk about people who aren't qualified for their jobs and somehow get them and then those same people turn around and trash, dei, but that's not what you were prompting me to start ranting about. So so the way that I liked to perceive the criminal justice system was that if both sides did their jobs correctly, and if both sides tried their best, justice will be served whether whoever is in the middle of it all, whoever the defendant is, gets jail time or not. It was all supposed to be justice because both sides acted in good faith and tried their best. Now we're dealing with power dynamics, and we're dealing with someone who wants to be a king, and people who, I mean, people who are okay with that, just as long as they get the paycheck, they'll go and do whatever they are told to. And it's very scary, because you just never know who's gonna be next. You don't know who's gonna be fired next, and you don't know who's gonna replace them, and who's to say that. You know, by this time next year, things will not look the same anymore. They just keep changing at such a rapid pace. I mean, it's kind of crazy to think he was, he only took office, what, like nine months ago, barely, something like that. And it feels like it's been 10 years. Yeah, it's really, really sad to see.

Charles Stanton 4:52
Well, I think, I think that what he's done. Yeah, seems to be very rapid fire, yeah, but I think what he's done was an agenda that was years in the preparation agreed, I think, and I really believe this, and it's going to sound a little odd to say it, I think he's really a figurehead this man. I think the forces behind him, the people who put the project 2025, manifesto together, have been working on this thing for many, many years, and they have an anonymous toward diversity, equity, inclusion, as you said. But I think it goes, I think it goes a lot further than that. I think they want, I think they want the old America. This is what I think they want. They want an America which basically does not have people who they judge as equals, and so the immigration removals and all the rest of those things are part of that. I think in addition to that, when you see how the law itself has been minimized, that's also very scary, because if you look at not just James Comey, but Leticia James in New York, Adam Schiff in who's the senator from California and and other people like that. Oh, the woman who was on the, you know, federal, the Reserve Board, they're all suspected of mortgage fraud. Now, how would anybody know that? Where would that come from, that they were they were involved with mortgage fraud. And I think that basically, you have a legal system that is completely broken down because of the fact that the Supreme Court gave the president, you know, this total immunity thing. But I think it, I think it goes way beyond the court system. I think it goes way beyond just a few people. It's the Congress that we have that's failed. It's the Democratic party that's also failed in, you know, being a strong, aggressive voice and voice in opposition to all this stuff. So, so that's the So, that's the other problem that you have. And then the Congress is at a standstill. Nothing seems to be able to get to be able to get done. Laws can't be passed. And in the case, and I bring it up again, like I bring it up every week, the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, again, where weeks have gone by now, weeks are becoming months, and we're still waiting for the approval of the Congress to release these documents. Now as of, as of a day or two ago, basically, with the with the with the special election in Arizona, where the where there was a Democrat elected, they currently would have the 218 votes in the in the House of Representatives to move this along. But the caveat is that there's all kinds of ways the vote can be manipulated into actually not happening, and also that they're putting enormous pressure on three or four of the Republicans who said that they would go along with this. But what kind of I often wonder was, what kind of pressure could they could they have? What kind of pressure could they have on United States senators who were recently elected and they're going to serve a full term of six years? What pressure would there be, though? Would it be the pressure of blackmail? Would that be the kind of pressure would be? Would it be the kind of pressure, basically, of people being physically afraid and having their families be physically afraid that something would happen to them if they didn't, you know, toe the line and vote in a certain way? I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, I know. I know for sure, and I'm not, I'm not saying this. You know, out of turn, the powers that be do not want this newspapers to come out. Yeah, that is a certainty.

Blanca Pena 9:49
Yeah, whatever is in there is heinous, yeah. And I don't even think I can begin to imagine what, what those documents contain there is. A lot of underground corruption that doesn't seem to be so underground anymore. I remember last year, I believe, when there was that bipartisan immigration bill that was backed both by the Republicans and Democrats, and it had come out that Trump just started calling up a bunch of Republicans saying to vote against it, because he wanted to run on the issue, and he wanted to win on the issue. He didn't want Biden to take any credit for solving or improving the immigration issues. And I mean, at that point, I think all Republicans, I think felt like they had to do was comply, because if they didn't sure they're in office now. But to them, Trump is Trump is all powerful and influential, and they might not have their jobs as soon as their terms are up. And you know, it just goes back to them serving their own self interest. And it's gotten so out of hand, to the point where I think the majority of Americans do not feel represented, seen, cared about, anything like it just all feels like it's a game of chess, but with the people above, and they're all speaking for everyone, meanwhile, we don't have any control. The way that I look at all of this, actually, it's and it might have to be, because I'm in the domestic violence clinic, but narcissists have a playbook, right? Like, they they typically do the same things, maybe just in different fonts every now and then. But it's the same patterns. It's like, you start with the insults and the gaslighting manipulations. Like, it's very clear that these people play by the same book, right? Yeah. And they do it and they're successful, unfortunately, because that's like, it clearly works on the human psyche and the human mind, and when, like, love is in play, things can unravel really fast and fairly quickly. So when we talk about, like, the rapid fire of everything that's happened since Trump took office. That's that's in the playbook of of creating a dictatorship of a Nazi Germany, if you will. It's in the playbook. And we knew about these things because we've seen these things before, and it's happening right in front of our eyes, except we're just caught up in so much chaos, and there's so much to talk about. It's like, oh, this Tylenol stuff and the Jimmy Kimmel stuff, and everything is happening so fast. And then it's like, Oh, but wait the Epstein files. And it just feels like we're all in different places at all times. Just mentally, yeah, everyone has different priorities too, right? Like, I'm very passionate about immigration, but I know not everybody is because they have, you know, they have different upbringing, so they have different perspectives, different priorities, but there's just a lack of unity, especially with the Democratic Party. It's so disappointing to see them fold each and every time they try to hop on their high horse and say that we're, you know, we're not going to act like them, because we're above it. But yeah, like, unfortunately, from what it seems like, the Republicans acting the way they do, at least gets them the influence and the votes. And it's sad to see, but it's like, I I feel like there's a lack of spines, I guess, where I want to kind of a good way to put it, yeah, yeah. Where's everybody spines at? Because everyone seems to fold and not get back up at all.

Charles Stanton 13:24
Well, see the thing that's interesting to me, though, because I used to work in politics, and all these people are threatened, and they all they will cave in, yeah, but to me, I don't think they're really using the power that they have. Because if it was, if it was for me and somebody did that, I would say, Okay, I said, you know, I'm going to vote, I'm going to vote my conscience, but keep doing to me what you've been doing for the last four or five years, and you might not be able to count on me to be a vote for a lot of the other things that you want to pass. That would be one way to that would be one way to look at it. Yeah, but there's a there's a lack of it's like everybody for themselves, you know the advise and consent movie that's coming up. We're going to have it in the class 1962 it's, it's, it's 2025 it's the same, as you say, the same playbook. The other thing that's the problem, though, is that we have as a society in America is we don't have unity. Now, when I say unity, I don't mean in a sense, well that, you know, we have Democrats, we have Republicans, we have Maga, we have progressives. I don't mean it in that sense, though. What I mean is we don't have unity, basically, vis a vis. Be certain issues that we should be unified on. There should be certain things, regardless of our, you know, particular political interests that we should be unified on. We should be together as a country. Now, obviously, you know, we could say, well, we're divided by race, we're divided by no different things. But in the case, in the case of the immigration, particularly when you see the targeting and the profiling of all these people, there should be a human outcry. This is a human rights issue. It is a social justice issue that should appeal to pretty much, I would say everybody, because you have people who have been here for quite a while, the vast majority of them who are productive people in our country, who, in many cases, are being removed for what reason? The reason is race. That's the reason isn't the reason isn't that they've done anything to anybody or harmed anybody or any of that stuff, but because, because they're a certain color, they're deemed unacceptable. But who deemed them unacceptable? Who who passed the law, who said that these people that have been here for so many years are no good, and yet our country's asleep. Our country's morally asleep,

Blanca Pena 16:33
if you know they're either asleep or they're just very ignorant. And I think it's the latter, if I can be honest with you, I think people are led by what they want to think, because it's like, I see it all the time, like, it's these common talking points of like, and they never make any sense either. They're never logical, right? But, you know, I think

Charles Stanton 16:56
not only are we, you're asking for logic,

Blanca Pena 16:59
I'm asking for logic. Yeah, it might be too much. It might be too much, but it's like, oh, immigrants come here and they commit all of this crime, and they're rapists and they're looters and they're gonna ruin your neighborhoods, and they are just the absolute worst, not only that, but they're feeding off of the government welfare that you pay taxes for, and that's why you can't afford health you know, your health insurance. That's why you can't afford to put food on the table, put a roof over your head. And you know, whose fault is that it's always the immigrants. That's why we have the high crime rates. That's why the economy is bad, whatever. And they villainize us so bad. And people who don't care to do their research. They just go ahead and they say, Oh, my God, these people are the worst. Let's get them out of here, where the truth of the matter is like immigrants commit the least amount of crimes. They don't even qualify for any public welfare, anything like that. They don't qualify, but they sure do pay into it, billions of dollars actually, a year do immigrants pay to the government, so the government can then disburse these welfare I mean, so the government can go and give Israel money, but that's a different conversation. But, and they're hard workers, and they're working for way less money than they deserve horrible working conditions because they're not protected by any employment laws like and people just don't know that. Either they don't know it or they choose to ignore it, because brown doesn't matter to them, and that's why they're silent, because they think that it's the right thing to do, and they have stripped us of our humanity at this point that it's like, oh, they lost their due process rights. Well, it's because they're less human than I am. That'll never happen to me, so I'll just go ahead and let it happen to them. Yeah, oh, yeah. And that's, that's why, you know alligator Alcatraz was built, and you had these people take pictures in front of the signs of that concentration camp. And come to find out, just a few days ago, 1/3 of all of the prisoners who went to alligator Alcatraz were missing. They had no idea where they went. Where are those people?

Charles Stanton 19:10
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's when endowed played the race card. When endowed played the race card and what's happened in the country is there's a there's a profound ignorance that the conditions that are going on in America have nothing to do with the immigrant population. They have to do with the economic structure of our country, whereby, because of the repeal of Citizens United, you have a country basically that caters to a very, very small group of people, maybe one. 100 of 1% they basically run the country. They run the Congress. They own everything. They own everything. And so when we talk about our prices and things are unaffordable, etc, etc, that's where, that's where it all comes from. What is going to happen, though? What is going to happen? And and I'm not going to, I'm not going to fully amplify it, amplify on it in this program, is that there's going to be a crunch point. The crunch point is going to come when Obamacare is defunded, Medicaid is drastically reduced, and you're going to have a situation basically, where people aren't going to get to be able to see a doctor. And then when that happens, where are those people going to go? They're going to start hitting the ers of the hospitals, but the ers in the hospitals aren't going to be able to take care of all those people. So a lot of those hospitals are going to go under, and we're going to have, we're going to have a major crisis. We're going to have a second crisis, because we don't have a unified policy now on covid. So covid, and there have been, there has been an upsurge in covid. I was just reading an article the other day about seven or eight states where there's been a big upsurge in covid. We're going to have, we're going to have a resurgence of covid, but we're not going to have people getting vaccinated, and we're having a health care system that's crumbling right in front of our eyes. Yeah, and maybe tragically, that's what we need to wake people up. But a lot of this has to do with people not being informed the information as to what's going on in our country. The truth is out there, but you have to be interested about finding that information. Now, I'm a progressive, okay, but, and I don't have any more access to information than anybody else does, but somehow, somehow, I'm able to read the New York Times, which is a very liberal newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, which is a very conservative newspaper, and the USA Today, which is in the middle now, how can it be that, you know, I'm able to do that, and yet it seems like a whole bunch of people can't do it. And I'm not saying this. I'm not saying this and an attitude of superiority either. I'm just saying it because this stuff is out there for anybody and everybody that wants to get it, but you have to want to get it. You have to want to know what the truth is. When you see on television and you see in person, as I've seen in a few places, people being dragged out of their place of employment, that should have some effect on you, because these are human beings. You are no better than they are. We are all and created equal. That is what America was supposed to be founded on. And I think, I think the immigration issue is really it goes beyond that. It's a moral catastrophe. It's a moral catastrophe. Just as what's going on in the Middle East is a moral catastrophe. It's not something that you can just say, Well, you know, it's not that important. It is that important because it goes to the it goes to something very profound, the sanctity of human life, that all life, all life, is precious, yeah. And when you start downgrading the value of that life because of the ethnicity of the person who is suffering from it, you are doing wrong, yeah.

Blanca Pena 24:00
I mean the only difference between being who you are, whether it's a US citizen or otherwise, right, and you being someone that is being actively persecuted in El Salvador or actively running away from bombs in the Middle East. It's literally just luck and timing like that. That is the only difference between whether you're born in one place to a certain family or another, yeah, and people are so quick to think that they are better because, you know, they had other circumstances. And I like the point that you bring up about, you know, you reading three separate news sources and getting really, you know, down into the information and having the time. But even right now, I can pull up on my phone videos if I don't want to read I can there are apps that exist that break things down for you. There. I heard of some app, but this is not an ad. I heard of some app, but it's supposed to kind of tell you, like, what certain news sources or headlines or articles, where they fall in the spectrum, and how biased they are. So you can be. Aware of what you're reading. Yeah, it's like, it's made so easy nowadays to simply be informed, even if, like, my algorithm on Twitter, like it, even that I get things, and if I want to learn more about it, I take the time to and that's, you know, and I'm a law student, and you're a law professor, and we have all these things to do, but we still make the time, but that's because we care. And I think not a lot of people care, maybe not even because they they are not human enough, but I just don't think it has affected them enough to really get up and do something. Yeah, it hasn't affected them. They're they're still living their life. And, you know, I don't wish bad on people, but, like, one day, it might happen that they are affected, and they are going to want to be seen and heard and understood, and everybody else is going to be like, well, welcome. We've been here this entire time. We've been here all along, and I don't know if we'll ever see that unification that we want so badly, because it's I remember people talking like, post 911 like that was the last time that the US was really together, because we all felt attacked and and whatever. But like looking I have friends who are middle eastern. I have one of my best friends, she's Afghan, and she told me how, growing up in Vegas after 911 she was bullied so much for her looks, and she was called the terrorists and all these things. And was it really unity, or was it unity to, like the majority of people, or the people that are louder about it, like, were we ever unified, ever even when the founding fathers were, you know, at the bar is writing the Declaration of Independence and then the Constitution, like they never kept in mind the slaves, like there was never any unity. And I don't know if we'll ever see one. Not to be pessimistic,

Charles Stanton 26:43
but, but, but the unity, the Unity should be created by issues that transcend, that send that transcend this. I mean you, you see people who are working, people are pulled out of the store. You see people that are starving? Yeah, I did when I was going to law school. I did a lot of work studying international law and military law, because at one time I had thought of possibly going into the Judge Advocate General corps when I was when I was going to law school, there are rules. There are rules of war. You know the idea like, well, anything goes right in that context, or because a person's an immigrant, anything goes no, no, that's unacceptable. Yeah, that's unacceptable. This is a human being, and the thing that strikes me also is the irony of people, people always talking about God, and people talking about religion and all the rest of these things. Well, what true religion, true belief in God, is helping other people, doing good, being humane, being merciful, being compassionate, being kind, that's what it's all about. That's what it's all about.

Blanca Pena 28:09
And even me, who isn't really all of that religious, religious, I can even I can find my morality within myself and within people, even without having to have a God or a book or a church tell me what to do. I almost find it ridiculous that I can see these things and be like, well, it's common sense to not bomb children. Yeah, others use it as a as a play in their in their game.

Charles Stanton 28:36
So I always say, I always say it to the to my classes, and you've heard me say it. I said, you know, I believe in God. I believe you know, I say my prayers. I ask for help. I go to services, but But more than that, help other people. When you see people that are in need, help other people. Well, on on that I hopefully hopeful note for all of you listening, who we who we value and treasure. So much, I want to thank you for listening and we, we hope to have you as listeners next week.

Blanca Pena 29:16
Thank you. Good night. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai