The Unknown Episode 53

Note: the current events segment is above. The other two segments are split below.

Richard Luthmann and I were back for the 53rd edition of The Unknown.

Current Events

In the current events segment, we agreed on nothing, and that’s because I believe in the first amendment and small government, while Richard is MAGA.

He favored President Trump’s executive order threatening to jail flag burners, despite numerous US Supreme Court cases stating that flag burning is covered by the 1st amendment.

Richard argued that Trump’s executive order was a signal to the current US Supreme Court to revisit the issue.

Rich also loves the idea of federal troops in Chicago, despite policing being a local issue. The tenth amendment should apply, but Trump loves to declare emergencies and use extraordinary power like he did with the Aliens and Enemies Act.

What the Hales

In the What the Hales segment, we talked about another police force doing Jeremy Hales’ bidding.

In July, his neighbor, Michelle Preston, went to Levy County, Florida Sheriffs to report an alleged false report he made.

Neither of us could understand how the Levy County Sheriff’s Deputy determined that if the State of Florida was the victim, it would be up to the state to report. Who would report; wouldn’t the Levy County Sheriff’s Department count as a state agent? Once again, Hales got away with a potential crime.

Check out the full segment below.

Family Court and other investigations

In the final segment, we both ran through some of our investigations, including Rich hoping to confront one time friend turned nemesis, Ron Castorina, and a very important appeals court ruling in California.

We also detailed my recent interviews with Gabriella Fields and Stefanie Shepherd. Both described anecdotes which suggest that cases are routinely fixed in their respective areas. Check out the full interviews below.

We ran through Rich’s recent article entitled: Mainstream Media’s Journalistic Treason: The Family Court Cover‑Up.

The article argued that the mainstream media has failed family court victims by refusing to cover their stories.

Protective parents, mostly mothers, who plead for media attention are often met with indifference or skepticism. In some cases, they’re painted as “disgruntled exes” or conspiracy cranks. This media apathy – or outright bias – has real consequences: it enables the corrupt court cartel to continue operating in darkness. As Weigel warned, reporters who stay silent are “complicit in the fraud model,” effectively handing abusers a victory through their silence.

By abdicating their watchdog role, mainstream outlets have become enablers of the very abuse and injustice they are supposed to expose.

Why the silence? Critics point to the “swampy” ties between big media and the legal establishment. Family court corruption is not a comfortable beat – it implicates judges, lawyers, and even politicians. Many media organizations rely on legal advertisers or are funded by wealthy donors connected to the bar. Challenging the family court system means upsetting powerful interests.

As the Bassi incident highlighted, even a non-profit news outlet can be pressured by “advertisers and donors” to quash a story. It doesn’t take a detective to suspect that major outlets face similar pressures. Trial lawyer associations and influential law firms pour money into campaigns and media sponsorships, cultivating a public image of the court system that omits its dirty secrets.

The result is a kind of willful blindness. National newscasts devote hours to political drama and petty scandals, but have scarcely mentioned that American family courts separate children from fit parents for profit. Even when confronted with ironclad evidence – parents jailed without due process, court officers caught taking bribes, children handed to abusers – the big outlets largely look away or couch the issue as “he said, she said.” This negligence has not gone unnoticed.

This is something I have talked about for over a decade.

This group of manipulators is bold and brazen because it knows the media will have no appetite for any story of this kind, but will deem it a case of “he said/she said” and a private matter best left unchronicled.

Along with the reasons I gave in the article above, family court is ripe for a defamation lawsuit, and it doesn’t fit the liberal/conservative paradigm. As a result, it generally does not appeal to pet issues of most MSM journalists.

I have a less cynical view now. In the last five years, the MSM has shown far more willingness to cover these issues, something I talked about in 2022.

Pro Publica has covered numerous family court cases.

When SB 1372 in Arizona, which bans reunification camps, was being debated, the issue received local and national coverage. My interview with Tori is below.

The task forces in Idaho and Arizona have also received local coverage.

While local coverage remains lacking, I think the media is in the middle of a revolution embracing these stories.

Check out the full segment below.