Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I am your host, Ramsey's job. Big shout out to q Ward who is in the City of Angels getting you the coverage that you need and out there making it happen. And have no fear. He will be back in the studio soon enough. But in the meantime, we have a very special guest in the studio with us today. He
goes by the name of Vladimir Gagic. He is an independent, non partisan political and legal commentator. He's a former lawyer and a social media influencer found online at Toxic vlad that's t xikv la D.
So welcome to the show with thank you for having me.
Yeah, I appreciate you coming on. And the crazy thing about kind of the goings on right now around the country is that one of the things that we were concerned about when we did the episode on Project twenty twenty five when we had to kind of cover the rulings from the Supreme Court once Trump took office and his attempts to circumvent certain rulings and ultimately limit the powers of the courts. Is that for a lot of folks, they don't really know what that means or how that looks.
People hear words like authoritarianism, they hear words like tyranny. They hear all these sorts of things, and they sound like scary words. But you know, there's a way that folks can do this legally, and that Trump is doing this, and the lay person who doesn't you know, work with, you know, the law very closely, may not know about it.
So what we're going to do today is try to bring folks up to speed on what's happening and maybe even what things folks can do to support their lawyers as the lawyers support communities around the country, and so stick around for that and so much more. But before we go any further, it is time, as always for some Ebony excellence, and today's Ebney excellence comes from Black
Enterprise out of Charlotte, North Carolina. For those that know, Charlotte is one of the country's premier cities for black owned businesses, and a new effort from Kathy Dawkins and other members of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Black Chamber of commerce is set to create a hub designed specifically for those businesses.
According to The Charlotte Observer, the Chamber acquired an unused property and has poured resources into transforming the building into what Dawkins called a one stop shop for professionals in small businesses and hopes of helping entrepreneurs, improving Charlotte's economic growth,
and fighting food insecurity. The Innovation Center, as the property is now known, will feature an agritech program for farmers, event spaces for businesses and business meetings, co working spaces for startups, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits, as well as a retail
store and a distribution center for small businesses. The Chamber spent approximately thirty thousand dollars to acquire the building and is in the process of launching at three point seven million dollar fundraising campaign to attract funding but the necessary renovations to accommodate the chambers vision for the space, and this obviously is very important, especially in trump two point zero America, where things like this that you know, there
have historically been funds delineated for programs like this, community improvement, things like that, those sorts of things are limited, particularly insofar as marginalized communities are concerned. So anybody doing anything under this current administration, we want to make sure that we shout them out. We also want to take the time to shout out you know, North Carolina, it is
a resilient state and Charlotte is a resilient city. And for those locally that tune into us on ninety eight point seven every Sunday morning, So big shout out to Charlotte for holding us down out there. All right, So Vladimir Gagic there are Well, you know what, before we get into the weeds here, we wanted people to know
who they're hearing from. So talk a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your journey, and then we'll get into the weeds, just so folks know, you know what it is that you have to offer this conversation.
Well, thank you for having me on the show. Absolutely, it's nice to be here.
I was a former attorney. I was a lawyer for about twenty years. I was born in Europe. My folks are from the Old Country Eastern Europe, Yakaslavia. They escaped communism back in the day. I was born in France.
We moved to Sunny Slope in the eighties, went to school u of A University of Arizona two times, became a lawyer in two thousand and two, and I've basically been working as a criminal defense lawyers for twenty two years until the last couple of years that changed, and then I went on I want on social media just to.
Tell everybody would happen to me. Okay, that's where I am.
Well, I think twenty years certainly does qualify you to help us make heads or tails of what's going on nationally right now. Now. I also want to frame the conversation we're about to have, because again, for folks that don't know kind of what's going on nationally, for folks that are just coming to this conversation, it certainly does help. So you and I know each other through the National Action Network, the Phoenix, Arizona chapter, but it is the
National Action Network. It is all over the country, and this is a Reverend Al Sharpton's sort of organization. So they sent over a statement to me, and I want to read it in its entirety because I think it helps paint the picture for the conversation we're about to have. So for those listening, buckle up. This is going to
be a bit of a read, all right. Attorneys from across the country and even abroad have contacted the National Action Network NIX Metro Chapter, sharing deeply troubling accounts of disparate and often retaliatory treatment by their respective state bars. While many of these stories involve the Arizona State Bar, this is clearly a national issue, not a local one.
We've heard from attorneys who were disciplined over minor clerical errors, while others for more privileged backgrounds face no consequences for more serious infractions. Some have been disbarred after whistleblowing or representing marginalized clients. One attorney was sanctioned for using a routine format in a legal document. Another faced retaliation after
exposing prosecutorial misconduct. These stories share a common thread, a lack of due process, selective enforcement, and an alarming lack of transparency. Every day, new attorneys come forward asking to have their stories told. This is not just about an individual grievance, but it is a civil and human rights issue affecting the integrity of our legal system. The NA and Phoenix Metro Chapter will continue to raise these concerns nationally and work to ensure these voices are not silenced.
Many of the attorneys who have come forward to the National Action Network Phoenix Metro Chapter have not only been disbarred or disciplined unjustly, but have also suffered devastating personal and professional consequences as a result. When an attorney is disciplined, especially without due process or for politically or racially motivated reasons, the impact goes far beyond professional embarronment embarrassment. It affects their ability to maintain a livelihood, to support their families,
and to serve the communities that rely on them. Their client base often disappears overnight, and their reputation is irreparably damaged. We've spoken with attorneys who have dedicated their entire lives to this profession, some of whom have also served this country and the armed forces. They upheld the law both in the courtroom and on the battlefield, only to return home and face institutional retaliation simply because they didn't align
with the Arizona State Bar's way of doing things. These are not people who neglected their duties or violated ethics. These or individuals who stood up for what is right, who represented marginalized communities and who sometimes challenge power for
that they were targeted. This is a systemic problem that raises serious civil and hu rites concerns, and it exactly why ANA in Phoenix Metro continues to elevate these stories and to ensure that attorneys are not signs for doing the very thing the profession calls them to do advocate for justice. Attorneys from across the country and even abroad, have reached out to the National Action Network Phoenix Metro chapters, sharing their personal experiences of unfair and disparate treatment by
state bar associations. This is not an isolated event. This is widespread and each day we continue to receive new accounts from attorneys whose careers and lives have been derailed. These stories must be heard, not just for justice to be served in individual cases, but to ensure systemic accountability and restore our faith and legal institutions. So a lot
of stuff going on. Obviously, the lens that we're viewing the country is through the lens of Arizona based on that document, But this is something that has been happening nationally. So how this affects, you know, people on the ground. Obviously, the topic of the day is you know, the protests in Los Angeles, and on this show, we've covered Donald Trump's decisions to ignore the Supreme Court's rulings or circumvent the rulings. Indeed, there was a conversation that we had recently.
I had with a gentleman named Amy Horowitz, who is a sort of a Fox News political pundit, and he was surprised to learn that the Big Beautiful Bill has a section to actually seven zero three zero two which seeks to limit the ability of the courts and the Supreme Court from enforcing court orders, which would again limit the power of the courts, but also allow more power in the executive branch of the government. The president himself
would have more power. And you know, one of the big things that happened over the weekend was Donald Trump deploying the National Guard in the state of Los Angeles, which is something typically that a governor would do. And now Governor Newsom is suing him. So I guess the question that we're going to start with is is this something that why is this something that people should be
concerned about. Limiting the powers of the judicial branch and ignoring the executive branch, ignoring court orders by the legislative branch.
Well, I would say, in theory, we have three co equal branches of government, and the idea is that the courts interpret the law. But it's I forget which Supreme Court justice or which president was.
I think it was actually Andrew Jackson.
You know there was a if you remember Andrew Jackson from eighteen twenties, there's a court decision.
Yeah, I remember that guy, just the name, but he said that commedy divisions.
Does the Supreme Court have the Supreme Court? The power of the Supreme Court to enact its rulings is predicated on a president who's willing to enforce it.
Sure, So in nineteen was in.
Nineteen fifty four or nineteen sixty four to Brown versus Board of Education?
I think it was nineteen fifty.
Four, Eisenhower says, I'm going to enforce broad versus Board of Education. I'm going to put I think it was eighty second Airborne, one hundred first Airborne, and I'm going to enforce these kids they can go to school. Because if Eisenhower doesn't do that, nothing happens. So how concerns should the public be ignoring? It should be very concerned it should be very concerned. I will caveat that, and saying, though, is he is he ignoring? I mean, can you say
genuinely that he's doing something different from other presidents? Like what is the thing that Donald Trump has done or the instrument administration has done that's different from other presidents. Because as far as the National Guard goes, I distinctly remember after the Rodney King riots that I think the Marines, even from Camp Pendleton, were deployed in the Rodney King riots, if I remember right, and that was President Busher did that.
Okay, so the president deployed the Marines, and the now things are not the governor the Marines is doz. Yeah, So that's actually and that was in nineteen I remember Marines walking.
Through Indy streets in ninety two. You remember that during the Rodney Kings, the Rodney King riots. So I don't think that's on President Well in New Orleans too, I think.
So, So here's the thing you're going to know more than I do and all of our listeners do. But my understanding is that typically a governor calls out the national Guard. So there may be what he federalized.
That's what happened in nineteen fifty four, the president federalizes and because so this is actually Browns's board of education. The governor didn't want to call out the National Guard because he was it was that one.
What's I know what you're talking about, you.
Know, siguration now seguration to Mars.
Yeah, I know.
He didn't want to do it.
He didn't want to let the integrate the schools, and so the president needed to deploy the Star.
So that's so the ultimately, because I know I saw that lawsuits like by Gavin Newsom got to me is show like a governor can't sue the president and say you can't use the army this way. Like the president can bomb anybody he wants. He bombs Cambodia if he wants to, He bombs Iran if he wants to. He I think it's theatrics on his part, that's what That's how I interpret it, because he is the commander in chief.
Sure. Sure, So with that in mind, this this remember when I talked about the big beautiful building section right, right, So let's make that live a little bit more because that's been widely covered as almost like a secret like back door, like a sneaky like provision or section or whatever that many of the people that voted on it didn't know about. It was rushed and it was like really long, and then that was just kind of buried in the middle, and it had nothing to do with
budgets or anything like that. It just kind of limited the court's capacity to hold people that violated lawful orders in contempt, meaning that the president would be able to or you know, anyone, anyone who aligns with the president. I'd imagined this is how it will be used, would be able to go against a judge's ruling as long as they're reacting behaving on behalf of the president, and they would kind of exist outside of judicial reach. This
is sort of my basic level understanding of it. So talk about that, right.
So the way I understood and looked up the law is whoever is a plaineff? So this is talking about like a pri a party. Let's say it's like someone like the not thenac like the ACLU see somebody, right, plan parent who sue somebody and the other side isn't isn't falling the judge's order that the planiff, the private party has to put up some amount of money to make sure, it's insurance. Basically, it's what it's saying right. The way around it, though, is the judge can just
make it a dollar. You can literally just say, all right, the amount of money the planeff has to post for me to enforced to have a contempt order is a dollar. So it's not saying what the minimum amount is that because there's a security provision, it's requiring security posted by the planiff before any contempt order is issued. That's kind of boiler plate. As far as I do criminal law, right, I'm not a doorce lawyer. I don't see big law firms.
I don't do any of that stuff. But when I did do a little bit of it, like like you know, like forcible entry entertainers, that sort of stuff. A plaintiff having to put like a bond to protect the other guy in case something goes wrong. That's not Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. That's pretty straightforward stuff.
So if that's if that's the case, then why is this buried?
I don't know.
In uh, you can never use much So how could how about this? How could this benefit Trump? With what many people feel is a very authoritative approach to my way or the highway.
So I get and I understand what you're what the question is, and the point being is that he's going to ignore a judge's order. And the enforcement provision is that a judge says, I'm going to hold you contempt if you don't follow my order. And this makes it harder for a judge to have a contemporaruling because he has the plane if has to post a bond. But think about it, though, the problem Okay, so Trump is using this this loophole, let's say, to ignore a judge's order.
He's ignoring a judge's order. What difference does it make if that's really the case, if this dude, if this president is King Trump and he doesn't care what a judge says. Now, what difference does it make if it's even easier for him to ignore an order?
Like what like he's ignoring an order.
Okay, But it's going to make him easier for ignoring order. Okay, So it's going to make him easier for him to do what he's already doing anyway, Like what's the well as.
Far as I think that, I think that at least for those of us who've been like paying a little bit of attention. Donald Trump is still somewhat mindful of the fact that he is playing a game that involves all of us. And if he can appear decent enough, if he can gives optics, if he can give people enough cover to say, see, he's still a good guy.
Right.
If Donald Trump went and like chopped the head off of a baby and everyone saw it happen, then he would obviously everyone would turn on him. Right, That's an evil thing to do objectively, Right, But if Donald Trump said, you know, if he manipulated the optics somehow, you know, there's a group of people that need to believe Donald Trump's version of the truth, whether or not it's the shared reality for all of us. Right, and he does this in real time, he will change the optics of
the narrative in real time. And so my estimation is that something like this might serve to provide him some cover, something to fall back on, something to you know whatever.
And again, if he's ruling, one of the things that he did initially when he was signing all the executive orders was, you know, when judges would would hold up his executive orders with lawsuits or rulings or whatever, he would start to say, oh, well, this judge is an American, this judge is you know, somehow it would be the judges a personal attack on the judge, rather than accepting and respecting the fact that this is a coequal branch of government and this is a kill that the administration
has to we have to meet this challenge, and you know, and so forth. So so, having something buried in a in a budget bill like this feels a little sneaky. And maybe it's to that end, but you know, I don't know, so your thoughts.
So just let me say one caveaty or disclaimers. I hate judges.
I absolutely hate judges.
I think judges are the lowest form of life on wow. So any so, not pro Trump, not anti Trump, none of that. Anything that has judges on one side and anybody else on the other side, I'm going to side with the other side, all right. I don't care snake oil salesman. I'm with the snake oil sales. I don't care who the other side is. I will never ever take side with judges.
Ever, will you? Will you admit that in this country that framework that was established by the Frown founding fathers based off of previous empires, going back perhaps to the dawn of civilization, where you know, this society learned from society society before and so forth and so on. We got to where we are, and this is a newer
country in terms of like superpowers. We got the sum total of all that human knowledge and all these great societies, and our founding fathers built this country based on that, so that this empire could last, you know, like five thousand years, like a China or something like that. Right, And so far it worked, and so far there hasn't been any challenges to the foundation of the country like this one. So would you at least would you allow for judges to have some place in society.
I think it's been recent.
I think, you know, my disdain for judges and the judiciary, it's very very recent. I think, you know, I started practicing in two thousand and two, thought that all the judges back two thousand and two pretty much up until twenty fifteen or so ish, were awesome, just awesome, straight shooters, like it really worked the way it's supposed to.
So I think just recently it's changed.
So what changed. I think the Russia Gates stuff had a lot to do with it personally. I think, personally, for me, just with my own background and my own name, having to share the same first name as the president of Russia, I think the Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia all the time. I think I felt that personally. I think I felt with my name, I'm always the bad guy, no matter what, like literally, no matter what, I'm always the bad guy. And I think judges are just as partisan as anybody else.
Oh okay, okay, I see what you're saying. So the judges, Yeah, okay, gotcha, Yeah, that makes sense all right. Now now for the people. For the people, talk like, give us your reaction to maybe Trump's general approach to how about this when we'll call it, half the country is half the country, for the most part, voted for Kamala Harris. Half the country voted for Donald Trump. It's typically the way that things
like that go. Democrats famously lost a lot of They lost the White House and then lost the races in the Senate and the House, and everything after that became at least for a moment, Okay, Now our fight goes
to the courts. Democrats are going to take their fights to the courts, and for a lot of people that really respect the two party system in this country, or people that respect the coequal branches of government, people that expect and respect a democracy where people have voices and they can say how they feel, air out their grievances. All these people that respect the constitution and so forth,
things have worked. And when Democrats are down, there are still some recourse, there's some path for them to be heard and to affirm their reality and have representation. And then Republicans are down. They Republicans have never really gone anywhere. But you know, the same thing holds true. We saw it under Obama. Obama was blocked at every turn. That
was Republicans exercising their limited power at the time. So when Democrats say, okay, after they losing the last election, we're going to take the fights to the courts, and then again for half the country to see Donald Trump ignore the courts or launch a tax on the courts based off of things that many folks read in Project twenty twenty five. You know document, do they have a right to be concerned about this because and when people say that this erodes the foundation of a democracy, are
they correct? Your thoughts?
All?
Right? So one thing I wanted to say too, and you had brought it up. Is about how the provision was kind of snuck in at the last minute. One thing I will say, though, is you can never be wrong by just assuming government is incompetent and lazy and.
Does everything.
Don't. Of course there'sences. Of course there's cynicism and evil and things like that, but something like that. I have a really hard time believing that Donald Trump had this master plan of.
Sticking in this person.
No, I don't know that it's Donald think I had anything. Yeah, he's not a writer. But the people that want to fortify him, Yeah.
It's just such a weird It's just such a weird provision. And I don't see Trump as being the kind of guy who resorts to the technical. Don't look right to resort to technicalities like I see. My opinion is the appeal of Donald Trump is I'm going to do it. I don't care if I have this legal provision or I do have this legal provision. He's not the kind of guy who resorts to technicalities. The appeal of Donald Trump is I'm going to do it because I can
do it. Period. As far as eroding the democracy is I will say this, and this goes back to my own name and my own experiences with Russia Gate. I saw them, I saw the Democratic Party impeached Donald Trump. And I'm not even Russian, right, my name is Serbian,
so I'm not Russian. But I took it very personally that the Democratic Party, of this party of equality, of of egalitarianism, of your identity doesn't matter, It doesn't matter if you're black, you're white, you're gay, you're straight, you're religion, any of that doesn't matter, really really hates Russians. And
I took that very personally. So I find it very rich for all of a sudden the Democratic Party to be griping about him fighting the courts and eroding democracy when his entire and I'm not saying I agreed with his positions or any other politics, and you forget all that. I'm just saying that the man was blamed for being a Russian agent. And you could not have said that about any other country.
In the world.
You couldn't have said that about Israel. You can have said that about Mexico. You could not have said that about any other country but Russia. And I'm still and I felt that personally okay
All right, Well, obviously we have a lot more to talk about, so, you know, as we make sense of what's going on in the country, hopefully you'll stick around for this, Okay, appreciate it.