Welcome to Midas Touch. Legal AF. If it's Saturday, it is legal AF live. And if it is Sunday, it is legal. AF Ben, my cell is here joined by Michael Popak V. Popokian, Michael Popak. How are you doing this weekend? Oh, it's doing great. I love Saturdays with you. I never thought I'd say that. I love Saturdays, heart.

I would say this. I love working on Saturdays, although this doesn't really feel like work. This feels like I get to spend Saturday with you, Popak. We get to talk about the legal issues. We get to speak with our community of incredible followers, supporters, fans, friends, really family at this point of legal AFers. And we've been with them now for several months, teaching.

The law, what I like about the progression of the show, Popak is that we build on the knowledge that we teach the legal AFers. So some of the earlier points, we don't have to go back to like when we talk about just how a complaint works its way through the judicial system, you know, the processes of what is discovery. What is a summary judgment motion versus a motion to dismiss our legal AFers are super bright.

They know this now. And if you're new to the show, I would just say go back, listen to some of the early legal AFs, although some of the news topics may have been changed. There may be updates, updates, updates.

You will be able to learn these key principles of law through our case discussions. What did you say, Popak?

1,000%. I know of at least one follower who's gone back and actually binged on the entire catalog of 28 or 27 past episodes. And the nice thing about this, and you're right about the build, is that when you and I started this in January, we talked about it in January.

I had a slight reservation that we wouldn't have enough to talk about every week. I'm thinking a half an hour, maybe every other week.

And it's just amazing both that the interest of our followers and listeners motivates us and just the times that we live in.

I mean, the fact that you and I are able during a week, during a day, even right before we record, are able to find interesting articles, stories and descriptions that you and I can talk about.

You and I on this podcast occupy a lane, almost to ourselves, among all the other podcasts out there. And there's a lot of podcasts that you and I like as well. And we've been on other podcasts.

But I think we occupy uniquely a lane. And that lane that we have to ourselves is sort of this litigated politics and the intersection of politics and law in the way that you and I present it from a progressive viewpoint.

And the followers and listeners seem to resonate and vibrate with us in that lane. So we're going to we're going to stay there. We know where the strike zone is. We're going to keep throwing the ball right down the middle.

Talking about the strike zone, Pope, I think that gives us an interesting illustration of the law that I wanted to talk about before getting into the news.

I am I grew up in New York met fan. I moved though to Los Angeles. Sorry to hear that. I grew up, you know, was a big family experience. My grandfather was a Brooklyn Dodger fan. And so Brooklyn Dodger fans became met fans. That's how I inherited the New York

meds the Scarlett M for New York meds there and lots of frustrating years. But I moved out to California became a Dodger fan. And while watching the Dodger Giants game this past week, the Dodgers won and they'll be in the National League finals series.

You know, there was a very controversial call at the end of the game about whether or not the Giants batter had a check swing or didn't have a check swing.

And the Empire ultimately said that the batter swung. This was in the very end of the game. The Dodgers won the game and celebrated and everyone said that call though, you know, the it shouldn't have ended like that.

You know, when you think about baseball and sports is often a great metaphor for just other aspects of life, it was a human decision by that empire to make that strike three call there in that critical moment.

Now, for all we know that umpire was not a Dodgers fan that umpire was calling balls and strikes and whether you believe that was a human error or the correct call, it was a human decision. So inherently built into systems as we talk about the legal system.

You know, there could be human errors, you know, judges try to call balls and strikes and that's the role of judges, but sometimes they don't call it the right way.

Um, just as a matter of human error. However, what we've been talking about on legal AF is something deeper, something a little bit more insidious. What happens when the umpire is actually a Dodger fan and he's talked about being a Dodger fan his entire life and that he wants the Dodgers to win.

And you get to appoint that umpire as your umpire in the game that you're playing. When we talk about our Supreme Court reviews, when we talk about um decisions that are being made by district courts, I want you to keep in mind that example because that is what our legal system is, it's not just umpires who call balls and strikes and sometimes get it wrong.

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