LUTHMANN NOTE: This is not about whether Lisa Lee knows a subpoena exists. It is about whether Jeremy Hales and Randy Shochet may transform somebody else’s bankruptcy into a private intelligence operation against a YouTube content creator, her guests, and her audience. They want the public broadcast, private messages, financial records, editorial preparation, metadata, and the identities of viewers. That is not a request. It is a raid. Rule 45 protects nonparties from undue burden; it does not hand vexatious litigants a crowbar. If Hales wants to know whether Preston was paid, ask Preston. The rest looks like retaliation, intimidation, and another invoice-producing fishing expedition. This piece is “Litigation By Exhaustion.”

By Richard Luthmann

The Process Server’s Fairy Tale

(GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA) – Jeremy Hales and his attorney, Randall “Randy” Shochet, have opened another front in their expanding campaign of litigation-by-exhaustion.

This time, the target is Lisa Lee, host of “Two Lees in a Pod,” a nonparty YouTube content creator and commentator who provided a public forum for discussion of the Lynette Preston bankruptcy controversy. Rather than narrowly seek a copy of a public broadcast, Hales and Shochet unleashed a sprawling subpoena demanding private communications, financial records, editorial materials, metadata, promotional files, and the identities of viewers and subscribers. It is not discovery in any ordinary sense. It is a dragnet aimed at the newsroom, the audience, and the critic simultaneously.

The service attempt was equally troubling. Lee says process server Mark Newby first contacted her by telephone and admitted the subpoena had to be delivered directly to her. She says she told him she was away from home. The next morning, Newby allegedly approached her husband, Gabriel Weeks, without asking his name or whether Lee was present.

According to Lee and Weeks, Newby announced that “Lisa told me I could leave this with you.” Lee says that was false. She never authorized substitute delivery and never appointed Weeks to accept federal process.

Lee also says her security cameras captured the encounters. During the podcast, she described Newby approaching neighbors, misidentifying another woman as Lee, entering the enclosed patio area, and ultimately leaving the papers after Weeks walked away. Those allegations turn a disputed service attempt into a credibility contest with video evidence potentially waiting in the wings.

When federal contempt power may ultimately be invoked, the service record must be clean. This one appears contaminated from the start.

Litigation By Exhaustion: The Fishing Expedition Comes Into Focus

The subpoena’s scope reveals why Lee views the maneuver as retaliation disguised as discovery. Hales and Shochet did not stop at requesting the July 11 broadcast. They demanded months of communications between Lee, Preston, John Cook, and anyone supposedly acting on Preston’s behalf. They sought revenue records, payment logs, scripts, promotional material, metadata, and the identities of viewers and subscribers. In practical terms, they asked for the operating system of Lee’s reporting platform: her sources, internal discussions, business data, and audience.

During the podcast, Lee called the subpoena a fishing expedition designed to obtain through the bankruptcy court what Hales failed to secure in earlier litigation. She pointed to prior federal claims involving Hales, Shochet, Lee, and other critics that were dismissed with prejudice. Her argument was simple: Hales already tried to build claims around criticism and online commentary. Now he is attempting to mine a separate bankruptcy case for private information that might support another lawsuit, another accusation, or another content cycle.

Luthmann agreed with the central characterization. He advised Lee that the subpoena should be met with written objections and a motion to quash, arguing that the demands sweep far beyond any legitimate question concerning whether Preston was compensated for appearing on the program. If that is the real issue, the narrow solution is obvious: ask Preston, examine her financial records, or accept a declaration stating whether Lee paid her.

Viewer identities prove nothing about an estate asset. Private editorial communications do not establish compensation. Full platform revenues do not show money paid to Preston. The subpoena is not calibrated to answer a bankruptcy question. It appears calibrated to identify people, map relationships, and create leverage.

That is why the conduct looks vexatious.

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Litigation By Exhaustion: Cameras, Enclosures, and the Paper Trail

The podcast discussion also supplied details that may become important if Shochet or Newby submits a contested affidavit of service. Lee said she had multiple security-camera recordings covering the process server’s visits. She described Newby entering the front patio enclosure after being unable to gain access through one entrance and then approaching through the side. Luthmann reacted that the alleged entry made the situation more serious because Newby was no longer simply standing at a public-facing threshold.

The legal significance should not be overstated before the footage is reviewed. But the evidentiary significance is considerable. Video may establish where Newby stood, whether Weeks accepted the papers, whether Newby retained them as he walked away, whether anyone asked for Lee, and whether the account eventually placed in an affidavit matches the physical events.

That is the difference between rhetoric and evidence. Hales may post a triumphant video claiming Lee was served. Shochet may rely upon a process server’s return. But a timestamped camera does not care about anyone’s litigation narrative. If the footage shows Weeks walking away without accepting the papers, or Newby departing with them still in hand, any contrary affidavit would face immediate impeachment.

Lee said she filed a complaint concerning Newby’s conduct and intended to challenge any claim of valid service. She also emphasized that she is a nonparty. She was not commanded to attend a deposition under this subpoena; she was ordered to produce documents. Yet the rhetoric surrounding the dispute quickly escalated online into suggestions of warrants, federal agents, and dramatic enforcement.

That theater became a joke on the podcast.

The humor lands because the underlying intimidation strategy is so obvious: inflate ordinary discovery into a federal manhunt and hope the target panics.

Litigation By Exhaustion: The Vexatious-Litigation Machine

There is now a recognizable pattern. Hales and Shochet repeatedly transform criticism into litigation, reporting into discovery, and public commentary into alleged misconduct. Every disagreement becomes another docket entry. Every critic becomes a potential defendant, subpoena target, copyright respondent, or object of public denunciation. The apparent objective is not merely to obtain discrete evidence. It is to impose cost, fear, distraction, and attrition.

That is the essence of vexatious behavior.

Vexatious litigation does not always arrive as a frivolous complaint with a scarlet label across the caption. Sometimes it comes dressed in procedural clothing: a subpoena broader than the proceeding, a demand for irrelevant audience identities, a threat of sanctions before any court has found wrongdoing, or a disputed service account built around consent the target denies ever giving. Each maneuver is presented as routine. Together, they form a machinery of harassment.

Lee’s proposed response exposes that machinery. She intends to contest service, challenge the subpoena’s procedural foundation, invoke the protections owed to nonparties and journalists, and resist the effort to identify viewers and subscribers. She has also offered a practical alternative: if Hales truly lacks the public broadcast, provide it; if he genuinely wants to know whether Preston was paid, answer that narrow question by declaration.

That should satisfy any legitimate bankruptcy purpose.

If Hales wants to know what Preston said publicly, he can watch the program. If he wants to know whether she received money, he can ask her. What he should not receive is Lisa Lee’s newsroom, audience list, private correspondence, and commercial records merely because he dislikes her coverage.

The bankruptcy court is not Hales’s private intelligence bureau. Rule 45 is not Randy Shochet’s fishing license. And federal process should never become a prop in an online retaliation campaign. At some point, vexatious tactics must meet firm judicial resistance.

This is that point.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Washington has constructed a political Ponzi scheme that depends upon tomorrow always being larger than today. More workers, more taxpayers, and more economic growth were supposed to arrive automatically and finance every promise the permanent political class refused to pay for itself. But the cradles are emptying while the Treasury’s printing presses keep running. Politicians cannot endlessly expand entitlement promises, import debt and punish family formation through unaffordable housing, childcare and taxation. A civilization that will not produce, protect and prepare its next generation is not planning for a future. It is liquidating one. This piece is “The Great American Shrink,” also available on FL Gulf News.

By Greg Maresca

Throughout American history, economic and population growth have paced together. A growing population means more workers, more consumers, more taxpayers, and more families investing in the future.

Today, however, two troubling trends are moving in opposite directions as the population is in decline, while the national debt continues to grow. It is a dual threat to which few seem to be concerned.

According to CDC data, the American birthrate continues its historic decline, with a one percent decrease in births in 2025, a trend that began in 2007. The total fertility rate is now 1.57 births per woman, well below the replacement level of 2.1.

Moreover, the Institute for Family Studies said the U.S. population will begin shrinking by 2054. A shrinking population will affect nearly every aspect of national life, from economic growth and national security to retirement and community stability.

Economies depend upon a continuous supply of workers entering the labor force. When birth rates fall below replacement levels, fewer fill jobs, start businesses, buy homes, and support an aging population.

Shrinking school attendance, aging communities, and slowing economic growth are all symptoms of the same demographic decline.

Japan and most of Europe are struggling with this reality. Americans have avoided this due to our historically higher birth and legal immigration rates, but the demographics are promptly changing.

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Compounding the problem is the enormous debt of the federal government that grows unabated. Much of the national debt represents promises made today that future taxpayers must finance. The problem turns grave when the number of future taxpayers dwindles.

Social Security, Medicare, and numerous other government obligations rely on a large working population to support retirees. If fewer Americans are born while life expectancy remains relatively long, the ratio of workers to retirees shrinks. A smaller workforce must carry a larger financial burden.

This, in turn, will cause taxes to increase, while benefits would be reduced. None of these options are politically easy, yet demographic realities will force difficult decisions.

The combination of population decline and mounting debt creates a dangerous cycle. Slower population growth reduces economic growth, which makes it more difficult to service debt. Growing debt will limit the government’s ability to invest in infrastructure, research and defense. Those reductions would make the country less competitive and less prosperous, further complicating efforts to encourage family formation and economic opportunity.

Beyond economics lies a broader cultural concern. A nation confident in its future invests in the next generation. Families, schools, churches, civic organizations and local communities all depend upon the young to carry traditions forward. When fewer children are born, society is more focused on maintaining the present than building the future. Innovation and risk-taking will decline.

None of this means America’s future is predetermined, nor is the country’s decline inevitable. Demographic trends can change. Legislation can help make it easier for families to afford housing, childcare, and education. Economic growth can create optimism that encourages family formation. Legal immigration can help offset labor shortages.

A society that values children and plans beyond the next election cycle can rewrite its future.

Yet ignoring the facts would be a mistake. The report’s projection that our country will be shrinking by 2054 should serve as a wake-up call rather than just another headline.

A nation cannot endlessly borrow against a future that contains fewer people to pay the tab. Debt and demographics are not separate challenges; they are on a collision course.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Elite Washington loves a costume. It loves the ceremonial prayer, the soothing slogan, and the carefully selected “moderate” who assures the ruling-class machine that radicalism is merely a misunderstanding invented by bigots. Omar Suleiman was useful because he spoke the language the Deep State-media complex wanted to hear: peace, justice, compassion and coexistence. Then Lindsey Graham died, and Suleiman stopped reading from the approved script. Out came the sneer. Out came the curse. Out came the demand for eternal ruin. This is how the fraud works. Public tolerance is performed for cameras. Private hatred is rewarded by the tribe. The mask did not slip accidentally. It finally became too heavy to hold. This piece is “The Imam of Hate,” also available on FL Gulf News.

By Greg Maresca

The death of anyone, especially a public figure,e has long been treated as a moment for restraint, reflection, or at the very least, silence. Even in this polarized political age, most Americans respect the basic decency of not celebrating someone’s passing. That is why the reaction of Texas Islamic Imam Omar Suleiman to the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham was needless and disgraceful.

Imam Omar Suleima, posted on social media, “Bye Lindsey. May you live an eternity in ruins for the ruins you helped create in Gaza.” This was not a political critique; rather, it was the unmasking that revealed far more about Suleiman than it did about Graham.

Suleiman is no ordinary storefront imam but is arguably America’s leading Islamic voice. This American-born Islamic is the president and co-founder of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. On May 9, 2019, Suleiman delivered the opening prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives that spoke of “peace, not war” and “love, not hate.” It was a message that resonated with legislators who love to showcase just how tolerant they are.

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Dismissed outright is Suleiman’s long-documented pattern of radicalism that runs counter to the peaceful image he has tried so hard to cultivate. He is another paradigm of a public figure who speaks the language of compassion when the cameras are rolling and says something very different when they are not.

If this is the first time you are hearing about it, you can thank the elites who sit in a bubble at these dying news organizations.

Suleiman has praised Aidh al‑Qarni, a Saudi cleric, who preaches how Christians and Jews are “enemies of Islam” and that their “throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered” and called al‑Qarni “one of the greatest scholars and thinkers of the world.”

Suleiman continues to justify concubinage that is essentially sex slavery and argues how it “solved a real problem.” He supports Aafia Siddiqui, a convicted terrorist, who attempted to murder American military personnel while calling for a third intifada. If that is not enough,h Suleiman also meets with Muslim Brotherhood leaders banned from the United States and celebrated being named a top antisemitic influencer by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.

Such views are not compatible with the values of a society that believes and is founded on individual liberty and human dignity.

Speaking ill of the dead is not a political act; it is a moral one. Suleiman’s remarks about Sen. Graham were not merely indecent. They were revealing. They exposed the hollowness of his message of “love, not hate.” Apparently, those virtues are reserved only for people who share his political worldview.

When a proclaimed religious leader celebrates someone’s death, he is not offering analysis or criticism. He is glorifying hatred. That is corrosive in any society, but especially in one already strained by divisions. Our divisions have grown deeper and more dangerous than many Americans are willing to acknowledge.

That is why Suleiman’s diatribe deserves condemnation.

The episode stripped away Suleiman’s fake facade and revealed who he truly is.

As U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas observed on social media: “A U.S. Senator dies — and an Imam in Texas celebrates. We are at war — and only one side understands it.”

Whether one agrees with Roy’s choice of words or not, his broader point is difficult to dismiss: a society cannot long endure when hatred becomes a virtue, and the death of a political opponent becomes a cause for celebration.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: John Steele’s death is not an invitation for conspiracy theories. It is an invitation for institutional honesty. Steele served the federal judiciary for decades and remained responsible for a vast body of work until the end. That is a tribute to his endurance, but it is also an indictment of a system that depends upon aging judges carrying enormous caseloads until they retire voluntarily, become incapacitated or die. Judicial independence must be protected. Judicial succession must also be planned. The Constitution created life tenure to prevent political retaliation—not to force litigants, lawyers and courthouses into chaos whenever an elderly judge’s robe suddenly becomes empty. This piece is “The Empty Robe,” first available on FL Gulf News.

By Frankie Pressman and Richard Luthmann

The Judge Who Built the Fort Myers Federal Bench

(FORT MYERS, FLORIDA) – Senior U.S. District Judge John E. Steele is dead at 77, and the federal courthouse in Fort Myers has lost more than a judge. It has lost one of the central load-bearing walls of justice in Southwest Florida.

Steele arrived when the Fort Myers Division was still treated like a distant judicial outpost. Before his appointment, visiting district judges routinely traveled from other parts of the sprawling Middle District of Florida to handle the region’s federal docket.

President Bill Clinton nominated Steele on June 6, 2000. The Senate confirmed him on July 21, and he received his commission five days later. He had already served as a federal magistrate judge since 1991. When Steele took the district bench, Fort Myers finally had a permanent Article III judge of its own. He assumed senior status in 2015 but continued carrying a substantial caseload.

That history matters because Steele did not merely occupy chambers. He helped construct the modern Fort Myers federal court.

For more than three decades, his signature appeared beneath orders affecting liberty, property, businesses, families and constitutional rights. He presided over fraud prosecutions born from the housing collapse, early COVID-relief cases and bitter civil disputes.

In 2022, he sentenced contractor Casey Crowther after Crowther was convicted of fraudulently obtaining more than $2 million in Paycheck Protection Program funds.

Steele also handled the long-running Noshirvan v. Couture litigation, sanctioning Danesh Noshirvan, reprimanding attorney Nicholas Chiappetta and eventually setting a $62,320 fee award, an unprecedented sanctions amount for the Fort Myers Division.

Judges leave behind opinions. Steele leaves behind an institution—and an unfinished mountain of work.

The Empty Robe: Death Came with the Gavel Still Falling

Steele did not quietly retreat from the courthouse years ago. He died with active cases, scheduled proceedings, unresolved motions and future trials still attached to his initials.

The Middle District’s own records show Steele issuing orders as late as July 10, 2026. Those included immigration habeas matters requiring immediate decisions about whether federal detainees would remain behind bars. Public dockets also show civil cases assigned to Steele with hearings, deadlines and trial settings extending deep into 2026.

That is where the obituary ends and the institutional emergency begins.

Every matter assigned to Steele must now be examined. Pending motions must be identified. Hearings must be canceled, reassigned, or conducted by another judge. Trial calendars must be reconstructed. Criminal defendants have speedy-trial rights. Immigration detainees may be seeking emergency relief.

Civil litigants may have spent years and fortunes preparing for proceedings before a judge who knew the evidence, the lawyers, and the history. Orders awaiting signatures cannot sign themselves.

Across Steele’s assigned cases, the administrative inventory may encompass more than a thousand pending or future-facing docket items—motions, deadlines, hearings, trials, reports and recommendations, compliance obligations and case-management tasks. The exact reassignment count has not yet been publicly released, but the operational burden is undeniable.

Fort Myers has only a limited judicial bench. Its listed district judges now include Judge Sheri Polster Chappell and the newly minted Judge Kyle C. Dudek, supported by magistrate judges handling delegated pretrial work.

Steele’s death does not create a new Article III vacancy because his active seat was filled after he took senior status. It creates something potentially more disruptive: an enormous active workload without the senior judge who accepted responsibility for it.

The robe is empty. The docket is not.

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The Empty Robe: The Ruling, The Firestorm, The Facts

Steele’s death came amid political combat surrounding one of his final nationally watched rulings.

On July 8, Steele ordered the supervised release of Maikel Guerra Morales, a Cuban national convicted of hijacking an aircraft and forcing it to land in Key West in 2003. Guerra Morales had served more than 20 years in federal prison before Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him while attempting to arrange his removal.

Steele ruled that the government could not imprison him indefinitely when there was no significant likelihood of deportation in the reasonably foreseeable future. His decision relied upon existing U.S. Supreme Court precedent limiting prolonged immigration detention.

The ruling did not erase Guerra Morales’ conviction, declare him innocent, or grant him American citizenship. It addressed whether the executive branch could continue holding a man after completion of his criminal sentence when removal remained speculative.

Rep. Greg Steube answered with articles of impeachment, accusing Steele of judicial overreach. The Department of Homeland Security publicly attacked the decision. Then Steele died abruptly.

The timing inevitably produced speculation. It should not produce fiction.

As of July 21, no court official, law-enforcement authority or credible public report has connected Steele’s death to the Guerra Morales ruling, the impeachment resolution or any outside actor. The cause and circumstances have not been publicly explained. Responsible journalism demands that the unanswered question remain unanswered until evidence exists.

Steele’s ruling can still be criticized. His reasoning can be appealed, dissected, and condemned. That is how the American system is supposed to work. Judges are not immune from scrutiny merely because they wear robes, and politicians are not committing sacrilege by challenging judicial power.

But death does not transform speculation into proof. The true immediate scandal is not conspiracy. It is that an overloaded federal courthouse must suddenly absorb the unfinished work of a judge who was still functioning as an indispensable judicial engine at age 77.

The Empty Robe: Lifetime Tenure’s Third Rail

John Steele’s death forces the question Washington usually avoids: Should federal judges be permitted to continue exercising enormous judicial power for life without a mandatory retirement age?

Article III provides that federal judges hold office during “good Behaviour.” In practice, that means life tenure unless a judge retires, resigns, dies, or is removed through impeachment. The design protects judicial independence. A president cannot fire a judge for an unpopular ruling. Congress cannot threaten a judge’s salary to obtain a preferred result. Those protections remain essential.

But independence is not the same thing as immortality.

Federal judges may assume senior status after satisfying age-and-service requirements commonly called the “Rule of 80.” They keep their office and salary and may continue hearing whatever caseload they are willing and authorized to accept. Steele qualified and took senior status in 2015. Eleven years later, Fort Myers still depended heavily upon him.

That dependence reveals the contradiction. Senior status creates a new vacancy that can be filled, but the senior judge may retain hundreds of existing cases and accept more work. The federal judiciary gains capacity, but it also builds court administration around judges whose service can end without notice because of illness, incapacity, or death.

Most state systems do not operate this way. Nearly every state supreme court uses limited terms, mandatory retirement ages, or both. A 2024 Brennan Center analysis found that 339 of 344 state supreme court justices lacked unrestricted federal-style life tenure. New Hampshire requires retirement at 70. Massachusetts does the same. Other states set different limits.

A mandatory retirement age of 75 would not insult experienced judges. It would permit planned transitions, orderly reassignment and institutional continuity. Congress could also require lighter, clearly capped senior-status caseloads after a designated age.

John Steele devoted decades to public service. Honoring that record does not require ignoring the warning left by his empty courtroom. No system of justice should become dependent upon one aging judge carrying a docket until the day he dies.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: The most dangerous socialist is not the street radical waving a red flag. It is the polished candidate promising “free” housing, healthcare, education, and transportation without explaining who pays, who controls the distribution, or what happens when citizens resist. The permanent political class understands the transaction: dependency produces obedience. Once government becomes landlord, doctor, employer, teacher and grocer, political dissent carries a material price. America’s young voters are being sold state control as compassion and constitutional restraints as obstacles. It’s not about generosity. It is about replacing independent citizens with managed constituencies dependent upon the ruling-class machine. This piece is “The Socialist Surge,” also available on FL Gulf News.

By Greg Maresca

Colorado’s recent Democrat primary results should be of great interest as they highlight a growing socialist influence within the party that extends beyond traditional leftist strongholds.

The upset victory of socialist Melat Kiros over longtime Congresswoman Diana DeGette rippled hard as other Colorado politicians with leftist backgrounds also prevailed over reported Democrat “moderates.”

A wave of electoral wins in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, New York, and now Colorado are building upon earlier victories in New York City and Seattle that continue to elevate candidates who align with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Kiros’ support for government-funded healthcare, free pre-kindergarten and college, rent freezes, universal health care, higher taxes, and the safe space culture of institutionalized identity politics are DSA doctrine that is gaining traction from sea to shining sea. However, the DSA platform runs much deeper. It includes abolishing the Senate, defunding the Pentagon, eliminating prisons, and defunding the police. Moreover, the DSA praises regimes like those in Cuba despite their widespread poverty.

Election exit polls continually show young voters under age 30 are driving these outcomes, with the majority claiming socialism as “beneficial.”

Provided you missed it, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used Independence Day to deliver a sweeping denunciation of America on the nation’s 250th anniversary in hopes of attracting more into his socialistic web. His speech was an effort to remake the party through division, positioning himself as the ideological force guiding its future direction.

These recent political victories are not merely anti-establishment rebellions but reflect a broader ideological shift driving headfirst toward democratic socialism that thrives on division, resentment, and a constant narrative of America the oppressor.

Mamdani’s July 4th diatribe underscores how the movement’s energy comes from attacking the nation’s history, its institutions, and anyone labeled “powerful,” while offering state control as the cure for every conceivable grievance. This worldview reduces politics to villains and victims, eroding the shared civic responsibility that holds a diverse nation together.

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Mandani, ever the man of the people, had no complaints about his NBA Finals accommodations. His perch at Madison Square Garden, given to him as “preferential political access,” runs about $43,000 a seat for the proletarians. Proving socialism delivers to those in charge.

Young folks gravitate toward socialism because they have been raised on a steady diet of America’s flaws generation after generation. Socialist activists amplify that storyline with emotional certainty, turning grievance into a worldview. When this is how you are schooled, government fixes sound less like ideology and more like rescue.

Politicos like Mamdani speak directly to party elites and media allies who reward radicalism, creating the illusion that socialism is the future solution to everything. In that environment, disillusioned young voters see division not as a problem, but as a strategy.

The Democrat establishment is no longer resisting the DSA wing of the party; instead, they are rolling out the red carpet. A weakened party has ceded ground to DSA insurgents who are capturing influence, steering policy, and reshaping the party from the inside out.

If government is supplying your housing, food, healthcare, and every other necessity, your “choices” shrink. Once government controls what you depend on, it controls you.

When government becomes the provider, freedom becomes the price.

Socialism and communism are two sides of the same coin.

They are both based on greed, laziness, and lust for power. They both follow the same path by disarming the people, while stealing and then murdering those who complain. The only variation is the rapidity with which this happens.

The left’s long march has created a culture that champions socialism under the willfully ignorant assumption that it is somehow – moral.

What the younger generation fails to realize is that socialism can be voted in, but the only way to escape is to shoot your way out.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Jeremy “GERM” Hales wants the public to believe a trademark filing makes him king of his own name. That is delusional. Nobody serious disputes that real trademarks can protect real brands against real imposters. But that is not what this fight is about. This is about whether a publicity-seeking litigant can grab a personal-name service mark for commentary and then wave it around against journalists, critics, and defendants who need to identify him by name. Luthmann will never ask permission to say “JEREMY HALES.” He seeks to remove GERM’s favorite new legal toy before he turns it into another lawfare stick. And he’s employing Game of Thrones imagery to illustrate just how it will go down. This piece is “Luthmann is Coming,” first available on FL Gulf News.

By Frankie Pressman and M. Thomas Nast with Richard Luthmann

GERM, Reek, And The Favorite Toy

(OTTER CREEK, FLORIDA) – Jeremy Hales, known to critics as GERM, has now wandered into trademark law with the same confused swagger Theon Greyjoy brought to Winterfell before Ramsay Bolton turned him into Reek. For readers who skipped Game of Thrones, Theon was the arrogant pretender who talked like a prince, chose the wrong fight, got broken by a sadist, and spent the rest of the story as a cautionary tale in cowardice, delusion, and lost manhood.

The comparison writes itself.

Both GERM and Reek became symbols of damaged bravado: noisy, insecure, delusional, and missing important pieces. Reek lost his pride. GERM lost the plot.

And now, like Theon clutching the sad relic of what he thought made him powerful, Hales appears to have found his Favorite Toy: a trademark theory he thinks will terrify critics into silence.

It will not.

GERM already had his clean shot. He agreed to Trial by Combat with Richard Luthmann as Alternative Dispute Resolution. That was the moment. No more docket fog. No more lawfare theater. No more running into court with Randy “Pocket Rocket” Shochet holding the flashlight and billing by the tenth of an hour.

Hales talked big,

Luthmann accepted, and then GERM started looking for paper shields and new legal toys before he tried to jump ship.

In Game of Thrones terms, the visual is irresistible. Ramsay Bolton’s flayed man banner was supposed to frighten cowards into obedience. But in the court of public opinion, Luthmann walking into Trial by Combat with a Robert Baratheon war hammer would make that flayed man look like a polite warning label. (That is metaphor, not choreography. Not yet, anyway.)

The point is simple: Hales prefers the performance of battle to its consequences.

Now comes the trademark pacifier. GERM apparently believes that if he trademarks his name, brand, or whatever leftover scraps of Halesverse identity he can shove into a government form, critics and journalists will suddenly lose the right to say “JEREMY HALES,” “What The Hale$,” “Elephant Shoe LLC,” “Fed 2,” or “GERM.”

GERM believes that, once trademarked, he will finally “own his name” and that “no one else will be able to use it” without him “getting paid.”

That is not law. That is Reek mistaking a broken toy for a royal scepter.

Luthmann is Coming: A Trademark is Not a Substitute for Courage or Intelligence

The point of trademark law is not complicated, unless someone is determined to misunderstand it for litigation content. A trademark protects source identifiers in commerce. It helps prevent consumers from being confused about who made, sponsored, endorsed, or sold a product or service. That is the lane. That is the castle. That is the whole kingdom.

It is not a gag order, restraining order, personal reputation force field, or emergency bunker for an influencer who got called out in public.

The Lanham Act is the federal trademark statute, codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1051 et seq. The false designation, false advertising, and dilution provisions are found at 15 U.S.C. § 1125. Nothing in that statute gives Hales ownership over public discussion about himself. Nothing in it lets him trademark his way out of criticism. Nothing in it turns journalism into infringement because GERM feels wounded.

If someone sells fake What The Hale$ merchandise while pretending to be Hales, that might raise a real trademark issue. If someone creates a counterfeit JEREMY HALES channel to trick consumers into believing they are dealing with Hales, that might raise a real trademark issue.

But if a journalist writes about JEREMY HALES, criticizes JEREMY HALES, mocks JEREMY HALES, covers JEREMY HALES’s lawsuits, or identifies JEREMY HALES as the man who talked up Trial by Combat before ducking the consequences, that is not trademark infringement. That is speech.

GERM’s problem is not that critics are stealing his brand. His problem is that critics are naming him accurately enough for the public to understand the story.

That is fatal to the scheme.

Trademark law protects against consumer confusion. It does not protect JEREMY HALES from being discussed by people who know exactly who he is.

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Legal Reality Blows Up GERM’s Magic Trick

This is where the magic trick collapses in GERM’s hands. Critics and journalists can use his name because they are identifying the subject of criticism, reporting, commentary, litigation, and public controversy. The doctrine commonly called nominative fair use exists for exactly this reason.

If the subject of the story is JEREMY HALES, the writer may say JEREMY HALES. If the subject is What The Hale$, Elephant Shoe LLC, Fed 2, Randy Shochet, Trial by Combat, or Hales’s courtroom campaigns against critics, the writer may identify the people, brands, cases, and entities involved. The law does not require journalists to speak in riddles.

Nobody has to refer to GERM as “a certain storage-unit YouTube princeling with a litigation addiction and a less-than-pocket-sized legal cannon.” We can say JEREMY HALES because JEREMY HALES is the subject. That is not infringement. That is basic identification.

The classic nominative fair-use case is New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing, Inc. The core point is simple: sometimes there is no practical way to discuss the thing without naming the thing. GERM cannot become The Mad King with a trademark filing, lopping the head off anyone with the nerve to utter his “special words.” People are still allowed to say the name.

That is how reporting works. That is how criticism works. That is how language works when it has not been kidnapped by the Halesverse.

Hales’s trademark fantasy collapses even faster when the statute is read instead of used as a prop. Section 1125(c), the federal dilution provision, expressly excludes fair use, including use of a mark to identify, parody, criticize, or comment upon the mark owner or that owner’s goods or services. It also excludes news reporting, news commentary, and noncommercial use.

That means GERM cannot turn trademark law into a private censorship franchise just because he dislikes being criticized. A writer may use his name to identify him. A commentator may use his brand to discuss his channel. A journalist may report on his litigation. A critic may mock his conduct. A defendant may identify the plaintiff suing him.

That is not infringement. That is reality with nouns.

This is the part GERM cannot meme away. The law is not a vibe, a livestream chant, or a chat mob in matching digital helmets. Trademark law protects the marketplace from confusion. It does not protect Jeremy Hales from the consequences of JEREMY HALES being discussed by people who watched the Halesverse try to turn Florida state and federal courts into a content farm.

Luthmann is Coming: Winter is Here — For GERM’s Trademark

NOTE: This section is informational in nature and should not be construed as professional advice of any sort.

Here is the part GERM probably did not explain to the Halesverse: the trademark is not registered yet. It is sitting in the opposition window, which means the drawbridge is still down and the public can still walk into the United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) – Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) and object.

The application is U.S. Serial No. 99597033 for “JEREMY HALES,” published in the Trademark Official Gazette on June 23, 2026, for Class 041 entertainment services — specifically “providing webcasts in the field of commentary.”

That matters because publication starts the thirty-day clock. The extension is due by July 23, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

Anyone who believes they will be “damaged” by registration can go online and file either a Notice of Opposition or, more practically, a Request for Extension of Time to Oppose.

The safe first move is a 30-day extension. It buys time. It is filed electronically. The USPTO says TTAB filings and extension requests must be filed electronically.

• Start here: https://ttabcenter.uspto.gov/new-submission.

• The USPTO’s TTAB filing page is here: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/ttab/initiating-new-proceeding.

• The USPTO page on choosing TTAB/ESTTA forms is here: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/ttab/index-estta-forms.

• The TTAB technical filing guidance is here: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/ttab/estta-help.

Search the serial number: 99597033. Select the form for a request to extend time to oppose, or file the Notice of Opposition itself.

Note that a 30-day extension is FREE. A 90-day extension has a $200 filing fee. The first 30-day extension is typically the cleanest opening shot. Do not wait until the last minute. Do not file garbage. Do not make wild fraud claims without evidence. That’s just general common sense.

A sharp objection is this: GERM cannot use a personal-name service mark for “commentary” as a fear-weapon against critics, journalists, and commentators who must identify him by name to report on him. You can even say something like this:

Potential Opposer Richard A. Luthmann, Jr. requests a 30-day extension of time to oppose Application Serial No. 99597033 for the mark JEREMY HALES.

Potential Opposer is a journalist, publisher, and commentator who reports on Jeremy Hales and related public controversies. Potential Opposer requires additional time to review the application, prosecution history, specimen, claimed use in commerce, and potential grounds for opposition, including whether the applied-for personal name functions as a service mark for the identified Class 041 commentary/webcast services and whether registration may damage Potential Opposer’s lawful reporting, commentary, criticism, and nominative use of the name “Jeremy Hales.”

And that is EXACTLY what Luthmann did:

A few hours later, Luthmann received a response from the TTAB.

His request was GRANTED:

Fed 2 Already Showed the Pattern

Fed 2 is not internet folklore. It is Hales et al. v. Preston et al., No. 1:25-cv-00058, in the Northern District of Florida, Gainesville Division. That case matters because it showed the pattern before GERM ever started waving his new trademark toy around.

Hales and his company, Elephant Shoe LLC, dragged critics into federal litigation that looked less like clean legal redress and more like punishment by process. The case began with Hales suing ten people; the amended complaint later added Richard Luthmann as a defendant.

The amended complaint contained sixteen counts, including malicious prosecution, tortious interference, civil conspiracy, Florida statutory claims, deceptive trade practices, and false advertising under the Lanham Act. That is not spin. That is what the federal court’s public record says: Hales and Elephant Shoe put the Lanham Act directly into Fed 2.

That history matters because the Lanham Act did not become GERM’s magic anti-critic sword in Fed 2. The case moved through a pile of dismissal practice, and on April 24, 2026, the Clerk entered judgment pursuant to the Court’s order, dismissing all claims against John Cook, Bruce P. Matzkin, Lisa Lee a/k/a Lisa Weeks, Marla Hughes, Patti Diagostino Plummer, David C. Helm, Robert J. Keszey, David Michael Teschendorf, and Raymond G. Bonebrake, Jr. with prejudice for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted.

The same docket states that Judge Robert L. Hinkle granted leave for a third amended complaint against two remaining defendants and directed entry of judgment for the other defendants.

In plain English, Hales already tried broad litigation warfare against critics, including Lanham Act theories, and a large part of that machine got thrown out with prejudice.

That is why the pending JEREMY HALES trademark application deserves scrutiny. Hales is not approaching trademark law like an ordinary business owner trying to stop counterfeit merchandise. He is arriving with litigation history where he has already tried to convert online criticism, commentary, and public dispute into federal claims, including a Lanham Act false-advertising theory.

Now Hales seeks registration of his personal name, JEREMY HALES, for Class 041 “Entertainment services, namely, providing webcasts in the field of commentary.”

That is the same battlefield: speech, commentary, public identification, and online criticism. The concern is not theoretical. It is grounded in the record. If Hales gets a registration and then waves it around against journalists, critics, commentators, or defendants who use his name to report on him, Fed 2 already tells the public what the next move may look like.

The legal point is simple: calling criticism “confusion” does not make consumers confused. Calling commentary “unauthorized use” does not turn journalism into counterfeiting. Calling a critic’s accurate reference to Jeremy Hales a trademark problem does not make it one.

Luthmann is Coming: The TTAB Objection is the Firewall

This is why Luthmann’s TTAB objection is not a stunt. It is a substantive response to risk, backed by pattern recognition. Fed 2 already showed how the Hales machine can try to convert criticism, controversy, and commentary into federal litigation. Now the same battlefield reappears in trademark clothing, with JEREMY HALES presented as a service mark for webcasts in the field of commentary.

For a journalist who covers Hales, the danger is obvious: a registration can become a paper weapon in takedown demands, threats, and nuisance claims, even where the law does not support censorship. The TTAB does not exist to bless future misuse. If JEREMY HALES is merely the name of a person appearing in or being discussed in online content, rather than a true source-identifying service mark, registration should fail.

That is not Luthmann bluster. It is basic trademark law. TMEP §1202 requires a mark to function as a trademark or service mark, and TMEP §1202.04 recognizes refusals where wording fails to indicate source. TMEP §904 and USPTO specimen rules require actual use of the mark in commerce with the identified services. A YouTube page bearing a person’s name may show the person is online. It does not automatically show service-mark use.

The Supreme Court also punctures GERM’s fantasy. In KP Permanent Make-Up, Inc. v. Lasting Impression I, Inc., the plaintiff still must prove the trademark claim. Critics do not lose nominative, descriptive, journalistic, critical, and noncommercial protections because GERM waves paper. Luthmann has substantial authority, a concrete journalistic interest, and a fact pattern showing why this application should be treated with suspicion.

Fed 2 already showed the pattern. The dismissed claims already showed the weakness. The pending trademark application now shows the next move. GERM keeps searching for a magic legal object that will make critics disappear.

Trial by Combat did not work because he ducked. Fed 2 did not work because law and facts matter. The Lanham Act did not work because criticism is not confusion. And this trademark application should not work if the TTAB applies the ordinary rules requiring real service-mark function, proper use, and registrability.

Winter is not coming because Luthmann says so. Winter is coming for GERM because the law is already standing at the gate.

Randy “Pocket Rocket” Shochet and the Meter That Never Sleeps

This is where Randy “Pocket Rocket” Shochet should be on notice. A client may be clueless, but a lawyer is supposed to be the adult in the room. From the outside, it looks like GERM keeps wandering into the legal woods with a frying pan on his head while Shochet walks behind him with an invoice pad, nodding solemnly as if this is all very serious.

Maybe Randy does not have the heart to tell him, or maybe he does not want to. Perhaps the “Pocket Rocket” has discovered that GERM’s legal fantasies are a renewable energy source, and every dumb theory can be converted into another round of fees.

That is opinion, but it is a fair question. When a client repeatedly mistakes the courthouse for a personal revenge machine, and counsel keeps fueling the engine, observers are entitled to ask whether the lawyer is offering sober legal judgment or just mining the client’s delusions.

Rule 11 is the line. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 requires legal claims to be warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument to change the law. It also bars filings presented for improper purposes such as harassment, delay, or needless increase in litigation cost.

A trademark complaint designed to punish journalists or critics for accurately naming Jeremy Hales should trigger immediate Rule 11 scrutiny. Not polite concern. Not judicial patience.

Scrutiny.

If a lawyer signs a pleading pretending that ordinary criticism, commentary, news reporting, or nominative reference is trademark infringement, the court should ask hard questions fast. Lawyers are not supposed to be vending machines for a client’s tantrums. If they are truly officers of the court, that title should mean something.

If not, then they are no different than one of Littlefinger’s brothel whores.

Luthmann is Coming: So Are Sanctions

If GERM uses trademark law for legitimate brand protection against real imposters, fine. Nobody serious cares. Protect the logo. Stop the fake store. Chase the counterfeit merch. That is what trademark law is for.

But if he tries to use a trademark on “JEREMY HALES” or related branding to stop critics, journalists, defendants, commentators, or public watchdogs from naming him, that should be the day the court drops the hammer.

The first courthouse filing that turns this trademark gimmick into a censorship weapon should be sanctions day. It should be met with a motion to dismiss, a Rule 11 safe-harbor letter, fee demands where available, and serious discussion of bar consequences for any attorney who signs off on the theory.

Courts have enough real disputes. They do not need another Halesverse content script dressed in federal-question clothing.

Trial by Combat exposed the truth. GERM likes the performance of battle more than the battle itself. He likes the posture, the noise, the audience, the drama, the little legal props, and the illusion that he is always one filing away from victory.

But when the fight becomes real, he looks to jump ship.

First it was lawfare. Now it is trademark law. Next week, maybe he tries maritime law because somebody said “shipwrecked” in a livestream.

Jeremy Hales can trademark a brand. He cannot trademark public accountability. He cannot trademark criticism. He cannot trademark newsworthiness. He cannot trademark the right of journalists to identify the subject of a story. He cannot trademark his way out of Fed 2, Trial by Combat, or the public record.

GERM’s Favorite Toy is not a sword. It is a pacifier with a ™ sticker.

And if Randy “Pocket Rocket” Shochet carries it into federal court as a weapon against protected speech, the judge should take it away and sanction the grownups who pretended it was real.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: America does not need more marble statues with no pulse. It needs reminders that great men are made before the world knows their names. Young Washington matters because it takes George Washington down from the pedestal just long enough to show the struggle, hunger, failure, discipline, and providence that forged him. Before he was the Father of His Country, he was a young man on the frontier learning what leadership costs. As America approaches its 250th birthday, that is exactly the story we need: not nostalgia, but instruction. This piece is “Forged On The Frontier: Young Washington,” also available on FL Gulf News.

By Greg Maresca

The trailer for the upcoming film Young Washington highlights something Americans seldom pause to consider.

Most identify with the Washington legend far better than the man.

We are familiar with the general, the president, the “Father of Our Country,” but the young Washington remains largely out of focus, his early life blurred by myth, half-baked tales and a history more imagined than truly understood.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, Angel Studios continues its meaningful run of producing values-driven content, subtly weaving themes of providence and purpose, underscoring how Washington’s journey was guided by a sense of divine destiny.

Offering a refreshing and overlooked perspective on the nation’s most iconic founder, the film focuses on his formative years when he was fatherless, undereducated, and hungry to prove himself.

Mary Louise Parker delivers a formidable performance as Washington’s mother, shaping the young lad’s discipline, sense of duty, and moral compass with a mix of tenderness and steel. Kelsey Grammer brings gravitas to Thomas Fairfax, the influential Virginia landholder who becomes an early mentor and steadying paternal presence. Together, their portrayals illuminate the human forces that helped forge the character of the man who would be president.

This celluloid masterpiece traces Washington’s arduous journey navigating the rugged and uncertain frontier of colonial America as a surveyor and militia officer. The cinematography is rich and captures the rawness of the French and Indian War and the tranquil beauty of the early American landscape.

Oscar winner Ben Kingsley brings a calculating edge to Robert Dinwiddie, the Virginia lieutenant governor whose ambition and political instincts set Washington’s fate in motion. Kingsley plays him as a colonial power broker who can change a young man’s life with a single stroke of a quilled pen, and he does so in giving Washington his first command.

These experiences are portrayed not merely as historical milestones, but as crucibles that forged his character. The harsh conditions of frontier life, the constant threat of conflict, and the burden of leadership at a young age all contribute to a narrative that emphasizes growth through adversity.

Andy Serkis plays a severe, lived intensity to the role of General Edward Braddock, the pampered British commander whose disastrous campaign becomes a crucible for the young Washington. Serkis plays Braddock with the right mix of entitlement and bluster, the kind of officer who mistakes pedigree for competence.

Braddock’s fate is not just a plot point; it is the moment that forces Washington to sharpen his instincts, trust his own judgment, and begin the long climb toward real leadership. Braddock becomes both a cautionary tale and an unlikely catalyst, the failure that helps forge a future commander‑in‑chief.

Washington’s rise is anything but predestined, emphasizing resilience, failure, and growth on the untamed frontier. It strips away the marble myth to reveal a determined, sometimes uncertain young man shaped by hardship and questions of duty and honor.

For today’s audience, particularly one accustomed to larger-than-life portrayals of historical figures, this film offers a more grounded and accessible narrative. It challenges the notion that leaders are born and instead highlights the importance of character development over time.

An Army first lieutenant who also previewed the film remarked, “I think we need more movies like this as it is a good reminder of where we came from and why it still matters.”

As the nation approaches its 250th birthday, Young Washington arrives as both a timely tribute and a compelling reminder that great leaders are forged long before history remembers their names.

The film introduces William Franklyn-Miller, who captures the young Washington’s mix of doubt, grit, and emerging purpose.

Young Washington opens nationwide on July 3.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Jennifer Couture’s story is a demand for proportion, context, and humanity. The internet has become very good at creating “defendants” who never get a courtroom, a defense, or an ending. Couture was turned into cancel culture content by strangers who did not have to live with the consequences. But she is not a clip. She is a mother, a worker, a Fort Myers woman, and part of a real medical practice with real patients and real people behind the doors. The mob saw a target. This story sees the person. This piece is “Targeted But Not Erased,” first available on FL Gulf News.

By Richard Luthmann

The Woman Behind The Frame

(FORT MYERS, FLORIDA) – Before the internet turned Jennifer Couture into a cancel culture target, she was something much harder to reduce: a Fort Myers mother, a beauty-and-wellness professional, a working woman, and a familiar figure inside one of Southwest Florida’s established aesthetic medical practices.

That is the story the mob never wanted to tell.

Online outrage has a brutal talent for flattening people. It takes one clip, one allegation, one ugly caption, one court fight, one stranger’s rage, and tries to make that the whole human being. It does not ask what came before.

The cancel culture mob does not care who depends on the person. It does not pause to ask whether there is a family, a workplace, a staff, a patient list, a community, or a private life being dragged behind the viral wagon.

Jennifer Couture became one of those people: a private woman pulled into a public punishment machine. But the factual record shows a broader life: a manager at Garramone Plastic Surgery in Fort Myers, roots in beauty and wellness, including cosmetology training in Fort Myers, and later continuing education in New York.

That is not the résumé of an internet character. That is the background of a woman who spent years around presentation, confidence, patient care, service, and the daily art of helping people feel more comfortable in their own skin.

That matters because the internet’s favorite trick is to strip people of context. In Jennifer’s case, context is the whole story.

Targeted But Not Erased: Fort Myers Roots And Real Work

Jennifer Couture grew up in Fort Myers. In a transient state, in a region where money, medicine, real estate, and reputation often move faster than memory, local roots still mean something.

Fort Myers is not merely where the controversy found her. It is where her professional identity was built, where her family life was centered, and where she became part of a practice known across Southwest Florida.

Inside a medical office, especially an aesthetic medical office, a manager is not decorative. That person is often the human hinge of the place. The phones, the schedules, the consultations, the staff coordination, the nervous patients, the follow-up, the vendor issues, the office tone, the crisis response — it all passes through the operational bloodstream.

Patients may remember the surgeon, but they also remember whether the office made them feel safe, respected, and seen.

That is where Jennifer’s real public profile belongs: not in a viral outrage file, but in the world of patient-facing service, wellness communication, staff culture, and business survival.

Her portfolio includes writing: “Healthy is the New Beautiful.” That is a better clue to her actual public voice than the caricature built by strangers.

She writes about health, aesthetics, and the pressures that come with changing bodies and changing faces, not trying to become famous. She was working in the same ecosystem where women, aging, self-image, and confidence collide every day.

Targeted But Not Erased: The Practice The Mob Tried To Define

Garramone Plastic Surgery is not a social-media rumor. It is an internationally renowned plastic surgery practice with a public address, staff, patients, and a long regional footprint. The practice’s team is focused on personalized care, safety, comfort, and patient vision.

Dr. Ralph Garramone, Jennifer Couture’s husband, is board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and has practiced in Fort Myers for more than two decades. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and has performed thousands of surgeries over a long career.

That factual foundation matters because it explains the stakes. When online accusers attack a medical practice, they are not just attacking a logo. They are attacking a workplace. They are attacking the receptionist who answers the next call, the patients who may be walking into the most vulnerable appointment of their lives, and a staff that has to steady the room while strangers try to poison the well outside.

The mob can laugh at that. Real business owners cannot.

Jennifer Couture’s position inside that practice puts her directly in the blast zone. She is not a distant bystander. She is part of the daily operation. When the phones ring, when the reviews come in, when the allegations spread, when the staff has to keep working, she must live the collision between internet spectacle and real-world responsibility.

That is where admiration begins: not because a person is perfect, but because she keeps showing up.

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Targeted But Not Erased: Community Is The Part They Missed

There is another part of the story that online mobs almost always erase: community. A person who is hated online can still be known locally. A business dragged through a feed can still sponsor local causes, attend civic events, and remain part of the social architecture of a region. That is not a magic shield.

It does not answer every legal allegation. But it does remind readers that human beings are bigger than the worst things the internet mob ever said about them.

Garramone Plastic Surgery has appeared in Southwest Florida civic, professional, and charitable spaces in ways that complicate the cheap online caricature. This was not some anonymous internet brand floating in the outrage economy. It was a Fort Myers medical practice with local roots, public-facing patients, staff, community visibility, and charitable touchpoints.

One example is the Tommy Bohanon Foundation, which is sponsored by Garramone Plastic Surgery. The nonprofit’s mission focuses on children, adolescents, youth athletics, scholarships, sports equipment grants, football camps, leadership seminars, and programs for at-risk youth.

In plain English, that means the practice’s name was attached to one of the most important kinds of local work: helping young people build confidence, discipline, opportunity, and leadership through sports and community support.

The practice has also appeared in Southwest Florida’s civic and professional society orbit, including Gulfshore Life’s Top Doctors coverage honoring physicians recognized through Castle Connolly. That matters because medical reputation is not built only by advertising. It is built through professional visibility, local recognition, patient relationships, community events, and the quiet trust that accumulates over years.

Those charitable and civic relationships do not make anyone perfect. But they do matter in a public-character story. They show the part of the record the cancel culture mob usually leaves out: the local practice that supports youth opportunity, participates in the region’s medical and civic life, employs people, serves patients, and remains part of the Fort Myers community even while strangers online try to reduce its people to a viral frame.

This is why Jennifer Couture’s story should not be written as a courtroom sidebar by media hacks or ambulance chasers. Hers is a local story about reputation, resilience, motherhood, service, and the limits of digital punishment.

Targeted But Not Erased: Private Mother, Public Fire

The ugliest thing about internet vigilantism is the way it pretends to defend humanity while stripping humanity from its targets. It uses family language when it helps the prosecution. Then it forgets families exist when the target is the mother on the other side of the screen.

Jennifer Couture is not a government agency, a faceless corporation, or an elected official who campaigned for a life under public fire. She is a mother and a working woman whose private life became content for people who did not know her, did not care about her, and did not have to live with the consequences of what they posted.

That does not mean she gets canonized. It means she gets seen.

There is courage in that kind of survival. Not the theatrical or bumper-sticker kind. The daily kind. Getting up. Going to work. Answering the phone. Standing beside family. Keeping the business moving. Walking into rooms where people already think they know your story because an algorithm fed them a version of you designed to provoke contempt.

Jennifer’s strongest public story is not that she was attacked. It is that she remained a person under attack.

The viral machine tried to make her a symbol. The better story makes her human again: Fort Myers roots, beauty-industry training, wellness writing, medical-office leadership, community visibility, charitable support, and a private family life that never should have been treated like a public punching bag.

The Story The Mob Never Wanted Told

There is a simple reason this story matters beyond Jennifer Couture. If it can happen to her, it can happen to any professional, any spouse, any parent, any local business, any woman who makes one enemy with a platform and suddenly finds her name dragged into the town square.

The old America judged people across time. Family knew one part. Coworkers knew another. Neighbors knew another. Patients knew another. Character was not supposed to be decided by strangers racing for likes. It was supposed to be measured against a life.

The new digital punishment economy has no patience for that. It does not want whole people. Whole people are inconvenient; they complicate the mob’s script. Whole people have mothers, children, employees, friends, patients, church pews, charity tables, local photos, professional histories, and ordinary routines.

Jennifer Couture’s life is larger than the frame her critics built for her.

She is a private mother who became a public target, a Fort Myers woman whose professional life runs through beauty, wellness, and medical-office leadership. She is part of a practice that has spent years serving Southwest Florida and appearing in the region’s civic and professional life.

Jennifer Couture is someone the internet tried to reduce, and someone reality refuses to shrink.

That is the article the mob never wrote.

And maybe that is exactly why it needs to be written now.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: This is not just a pier story. This is a recovery story, a bureaucracy story, and a Fort Myers Beach morale story. Hurricane Ian destroyed homes, businesses, landmarks, memories, and routines. The pier became one of the most visible scars on the island. Now Lee County says the federal permit approval is in hand, and the rebuild is moving into pre-construction. Good. But residents deserve more than vague “behind the scenes” language. They deserve dates, milestones, visible mobilization, and honest updates. Fort Myers Beach has been patient. Now it needs progress. Build the damn pier. This piece is “Ian’s Scar Starts Healing,” first available on FL Gulf News.

By Richard Luthmann

(FORT MYERS BEACH, FLORIDA) – Fort Myers Beach just got the kind of news this island has been waiting to hear for almost four years: the pier is finally moving forward.

Not another “stakeholder process.” Not another bureaucratic vapor trail. Not another government promise wrapped in a press release and buried under a federal delay.

Lee County says the Fort Myers Beach Pier rebuild has received the required federal permit approval, allowing the county to move into the critical pre-construction phase after Hurricane Ian ripped the landmark apart in September 2022. The original promise was a rebuild by August 2027.

The county is now working through contractor meetings, final schedule reviews, construction submittals, regulatory coordination, and the alphabet-soup blessing parade that comes with anything involving FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

That is the official version.

The real version is simpler: Fort Myers Beach has been staring at a scar where its front porch used to be, and now — finally — somebody in government found the permission slip.

The pier was never just wood, pilings, railings, and a fishing deck. It was the handshake of the island. It was where tourists took sunset pictures, locals cleared their heads, families watched the Gulf roll in, and fishermen told lies big enough to deserve their own charter boat. When Hurricane Ian destroyed it, the storm did not just take out a public structure. It took out a symbol.

And symbols matter, especially in a town still crawling out from under the wreckage of one of the worst hurricanes in Florida history.

Lee County officials say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit has now been received, after the county had been waiting on federal approval since last year. County Commissioner David Mulicka said work could begin as soon as August and take about 12 months, while county representatives cautioned that FEMA funding sign-off and final federal paperwork still remain before construction can truly start.

That is the part that should make every taxpayer twitch.

Because this is exactly how recovery gets strangled. First comes the hurricane. Then comes the debris. Then comes the insurance fight. Then comes the federal grant maze. Then comes permitting. Then comes coordination. Then comes another agency. Then comes another review. Then comes another “final” step.

By the time the shovels hit sand, the public has already survived the disaster and the paperwork.

Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers got it right when he said the pier process “has been going on for a long time.” That is politician-speak, but the meaning is clear. Everybody knows this has been too long. Everybody knows the beach needed this win sooner. Everybody knows the island has been asked to be patient while Washington, Tallahassee, Lee County, consultants, contractors, regulators, and environmental reviewers passed the file from desk to desk.

Still, this is a win.

Not because the process was pretty. It was not.

Not because government moved fast. It did not.

Not because residents should be grateful for bureaucracy finally doing the thing it should have done already. They should not.

It is a win because Fort Myers Beach needs forward motion, and the pier is forward motion you can see, touch, walk on, fish from, photograph, and point to when people ask whether the island is really coming back.

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Lee County says the public may not see visible construction immediately. The county is holding coordination meetings, reviewing the contractor’s schedule, handling construction submittals, and working with regulatory agencies and stakeholders before crews mobilize. The county also says preparing equipment, staging materials, and starting a project of this size safely takes time.

Fair enough. But there is a difference between patience and amnesia.

People on Fort Myers Beach remember what this island looked like the morning after Ian. They remember the boats in yards, the gutted homes, the missing businesses, the empty lots, the FEMA paperwork, the insurance denials, the blue roofs, the heartbreak, and the slow-motion rebuild. They also remember when the pier stood there like the island’s public living room.

That is why this project carries more weight than a typical county construction job. It is not just a rebuild. It is a morale marker.

Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce President Jacki Liszak said she was “thrilled, over the moon,” and called the pier the “number-one visited spot in the county.” She is right. The pier is a postcard, a gathering place, a tourism engine, and a psychological anchor. It tells visitors the beach is alive. It tells locals the island is not frozen in Ian’s shadow. It tells businesses that the recovery story can finally shift from ruin to return.

The new pier is also expected to be bigger than the one Ian destroyed. Lee County previously released renderings for a replacement pier funded through FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, with construction anticipated to begin in 2026 and take about a year, weather permitting. County materials describe the project as a finalized design, still subject to minor adjustments.

That matters because Fort Myers Beach cannot simply rebuild yesterday. It has to build for the next storm, the next generation, and the next version of the island economy.

Nobody wants a fake recovery. Nobody wants a ribbon-cutting ceremony over half-measures. Nobody wants a pier that looks good in a consultant rendering but cannot take the beating that Gulf weather eventually delivers. If the extra time produces a stronger, safer, more durable landmark, residents will live with that. But if the extra time was just the normal government swamp dance, then taxpayers have every right to be angry.

This is the line Lee County must now walk. Celebrate the approval, yes. Keep the public updated, absolutely. But do not hide behind process. Do not bury the island in vague language. Do not tell people “behind the scenes” forever. The public has heard enough of that. They need dates, milestones, photos, mobilization, visible progress, and honest explanations when something slips.

Fort Myers Beach has earned that much. Hurricane Ian tried to erase the island’s old life. The bureaucracy then took its sweet time approving the island’s next chapter. Now the permit is in hand, the funding path is moving, and the rebuild is finally inching toward reality.

So let the contractors stage the equipment. Let the agencies finish their checklists. Let the county line up the crews. Let the Coast Guard, FDEP, FEMA, and the Army Corps do whatever final paperwork ritual remains.

Then build the damn pier.

Because Fort Myers Beach has waited long enough.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: This is the kind of sports column that sneaks up on you. It starts with two guys laughing about not watching soccer and ends up at the heart of the American argument. That is because the World Cup is never just the World Cup. Not when Team USA starts winning. Not when the roster reflects immigration, birthright citizenship, first-generation strivers, and old-school assimilation. Greg Maresca gets it right: the point is not open borders, and it is not ethnic bean-counting. The point is America. Legal immigration, assimilation, and one flag still work. Even soccer can remind us of that. This piece is “Observing Without Watching,” also available on FL Gulf News.

By Greg Maresca

The bossman asked if I had watched any World Cup soccer. Before I could answer, he proudly announced that he had watched about three seconds of it. I told him that was three seconds more than I had.

We laughed, but it was the truth.

My interest in soccer has always hovered somewhere between mild curiosity and complete indifference.

However, in many places soccer is a strict religious construct.

In Qatar, if their national team does not win, heads might roll.

Literally.

For many Americans, this might actually make the game more interesting. High stakes do wonders for a sport that often feels like 90 minutes of running back and forth with a goal tossed in for good measure.

The American breakthrough arrived with an unexpected 2-0 victory over Australia that did not just secure a win; it ended a 96-year drought, giving the United States its first back-to-back World Cup wins in nearly a century.

Suddenly, most of the country perked up.

Maybe we really do have top-tier soccer players. Maybe the sport isn’t just for suburban kids and Europeans anymore. And, as one of my fellow sports scribes jested, maybe Joe Biden’s open border policy was finally paying dividends.

That political jab opened the floodgates.

Here we are in a world where even three seconds of soccer can drag you into a macro discussion about immigration, nationalism, birthright citizenship and the meaning of America itself.

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial informed how a quarter of the U.S. team was born outside the country. Others were first-generation Americans. One player, Folarin Balogun, was born in Brooklyn to a Nigerian mother visiting from London.

Under a proposed change to birthright citizenship, Balogun would not be an American.

This is where the conversation stopped being about soccer.

Some insist that legal immigration is good, illegal immigration is bad, and the two should never be merged. Others argue that birthright citizenship is being abused by “birth tourism,” while still others counter that America has always thrived because it welcomed strivers from everywhere.

Ironically, folks who could not name two American soccer players had strong opinions about who should be allowed to play for the U.S. Those who never watched a game were now experts on citizenship law. The World Cup became a proxy battlefield for every cultural anxiety in America.

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And all of it started with a simple question at work: “Did you watch any World Cup soccer?”

I didn’t.

What I did watch was the country’s reaction to it, and that was far more revealing. Soccer, for all its global popularity, is still a fringe sport in the U.S. despite nearly every kid who is five years old is seemingly enrolled in a soccer league as if it is a birthright.

Yet, the moment America showed a glimmer of success, the debate wasn’t about the game. It was about who counts as American.

Maybe that is the real story.

The U.S. team reflects the country itself as a diverse, complex place that is impossible to fit into a neat ideological box.

Some players were born here, some were not. Some have immigrant parents, while some have American parents living abroad. Some came from privilege, others from struggle. Together, they form a team that looks like the United States – a patchwork of origins, languages and stories stitched together under one flag.

The boss watched for three seconds.

I watched none.

But I did see something worth noticing: a reminder that America’s strength has always come from the people who assimilate whether by birth or by legal immigration.

Best of all, you don’t have to be a soccer fan to appreciate that.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: There is no Q in MLB. There is no Q in North American sports. Fans do not buy tickets to be dragged into another corporate struggle session. They buy tickets to watch athletes compete. The ballpark is one of the last places Americans can sit next to people who vote differently, pray differently, live differently, and still cheer for the same team. That fragile common ground is worth protecting. Respect everybody. Harass nobody. But stop pretending every player, fan, and family must wear the same political costume to prove they belong. This piece is “No Q In MLB,” first available on FL Gulf News.

By Matt “Sully” Sullivan and Fernando Jiménez Burke

Major League Baseball became America’s pastime because it offered something larger than entertainment and simpler than politics. It gave generations of fans a common ritual: the anthem, the lineup card, the first pitch, the seventh-inning stretch, the hot dog, the box score, the long summer argument over whether the manager pulled the starter too soon. Baseball was a shared language before every shared institution in America got dragged into ideological trench warfare.

That is why the latest Pride Night controversy around the San Francisco Giants matters beyond one team, one city, or one set of caps. Several Giants pitchers reportedly responded to Pride-themed uniform elements by writing Bible verses on their hats, including Genesis 9:12-16, which identifies the rainbow as the sign of God’s covenant with all living creatures. Others objected or opted out. MLB then faced the predictable firestorm: activists furious, conservatives mobilized, media swarming, league officials explaining, and baseball itself shoved into the background.

This is the problem. The issue is not whether LGBTQ fans deserve dignity and respect. They do. The issue is whether professional sports leagues should put athletes in a position where wearing the uniform becomes a public ideological statement. Reasonable people can support equal treatment under the law, oppose harassment, and still reject the idea that every social cause must be stitched onto the cap, jersey, warm-up sweater, scoreboard, or promotional calendar.

Baseball does not need to be a monastery. Teams can welcome everybody without turning the uniform into a referendum. The moment a league makes symbolic participation feel mandatory, it stops uniting fans and starts sorting them.

No Q In MLB: The NHL Already Saw This Movie

The NHL learned this lesson the hard way. Pride-themed warmup jerseys, once presented as harmless inclusion gestures, became controversy machines. Some players objected on religious grounds. Some teams backed away. Media outlets turned individual athletes into ideological defendants. Fans who came for hockey got a cable-news panel in skates.

Eventually, the NHL moved away from specialty warmup jerseys because the spectacle was overtaking the sport. That was not cowardice. It was institutional survival. A league exists to run games, build stars, preserve competition, sell tickets, and grow the sport. It does not exist to force every employee into choreographed moral theater.

MLB should understand this before it wanders deeper into the same swamp. Baseball already has enough problems: pace, attention spans, regional sports network chaos, young fan engagement, gambling saturation, injuries, payroll imbalance, and the eternal struggle to make a 162-game season feel urgent before September. The league does not need another front in the culture war.

The average fan is not asking for less kindness. He is asking for less pressure. She is not demanding cruelty. She is asking for a night out where the game comes first. Families want to cheer, eat, argue, laugh, and escape. They do not want to decode whether a player’s hat, sleeve, patch, warmup jersey, or refusal to wear one will become tomorrow’s national scandal.

Sports should be one of the few remaining places where Americans can disagree about everything else and still agree that a 3-2 count with two outs matters.

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No Q In MLB: Respect Is Not Compulsion

Every person deserves basic respect. That should not be controversial. No fan should be abused at a ballpark because of who he or she is. No player should be smeared, threatened, or degraded because of private life, religious belief, or conscience. A league can and should enforce rules against harassment, discrimination, and abuse.

But respect is not the same thing as compelled endorsement. That distinction matters. When a team or league creates a themed uniform or public display tied to a contested social issue, it places athletes in a bind. Participate, and some will see it as a political agreement. Decline, and others will accuse them of hatred. Modify the symbol, and the controversy explodes.

That is an unnecessary trap.

This is where league offices lose touch with the paying public. Executives and marketing teams often confuse activist approval with broad fan consensus. They listen to the loudest voices on social media and assume the stadium agrees. But the ballpark is bigger than the internet. It includes religious families, secular liberals, conservatives, immigrants, veterans, union workers, business owners, parents, kids, and old-timers who still keep score by hand. Many simply want sports to remain common ground.

There was a time when American public life understood the virtue of privacy. President Bill Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” formulation was imperfect and controversial in its own context, but the broader cultural instinct was clear: not every private matter needs a bullhorn, and not every institution needs a loyalty test. Today, too many organizations have replaced tolerance with performance.

Baseball should not follow that road.

No Q In MLB: Let The Score Matter More Than The Slogan

The solution is not complicated. Let sports be sports. Celebrate excellence. Celebrate teamwork. Celebrate community. Honor military families. Support youth baseball. Help sick kids. Feed the hungry. Build fields in poor neighborhoods. Promote sportsmanship. There are countless ways for leagues to do good without forcing athletes and fans into divisive symbolic battles.

The uniform should represent the team. The cap should represent the franchise. The field should represent competition. When every symbol becomes a social statement, the game shrinks. Instead of talking about pitching matchups, prospects, pennant races, and walk-off home runs, everyone argues over who wore what and what it meant.

That is not healthy for baseball. It is not healthy for hockey. It is not healthy for football. It is not healthy for fans.

Professional sports are strongest when they belong to everybody. That does not mean pretending cultural disagreements do not exist. It means understanding that the stadium is not the place to settle all of them. A father should be able to bring his son to a game without getting a political lecture. A mother should be able to take her daughter to a game without worrying that the night will become another ideological battlefield. A player should be able to wear his team’s uniform without being conscripted into a marketing department’s moral campaign.

There is no Q in MLB. There is no Q in North American sports. There is a scoreboard, a schedule, a standings race, and a fan base desperate for one place where the game still comes first.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: This is the kind of story the modern Church needs to understand. The answer to decline is not another committee, another consultant, or another watered-down slogan trying to make Catholicism sound like a nonprofit brand deck. The Church already has the weapon: beauty. Old stone. Sacred music. Stained glass. Memory. Awe. Luminiscience works because it does not apologize for the sacred. It illuminates it. In an age drowning in noise, the cathedral becomes a counterattack — not with politics, not with panic, but with transcendence. The pews may be emptying, but the light is not out. This piece is “The Sacred Strikes Back,” also available at FL Gulf News.

By Greg Maresca

Recent headlines speak of a growing return to the faith of our fathers, but the hard numbers tell a harsher story. Weekly church attendance has fallen from roughly 42% at the turn of the century to about 30% today, while church membership has dropped from 70% to under 50% in a single generation. Church closures now outpace openings with roughly 4,000 shutting their doors in a single year.

Revival may be whispered about, but the empty pews and darkened sanctuaries underscore how the road back is long and nowhere near a revival.

In the midst is an encounter called Luminiscience, a production already making waves across the country. It made its American debut in Minneapolis, where the Basilica of Saint Mary became the first American cathedral to host the vision before it later expanded to Philadelphia.

Now installed at the Catholic Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, it transforms one of the city’s grandest religious landmarks into something more than a serene, majestic space for worship. It has become a point of fascination, drawing interest not only from Philadelphians but from well beyond the city of brotherly love.

Romain Sarfati’s French team of artists adds a jolt of spectacle to the basilica’s imposing brownstone facade, vast domed interior, ornate altars, and stained glass with a tightly choreographed surge of music and light, creating an immersive chronicle that transforms the basilica into one unyielding opus of religious imagery.

Using projection, music, and voiceover, the production tells the history of the basilica, its architecture, its founding, its struggles, and its role as the centerpiece of a longstanding Catholic community. The basilica is not merely a structure of brownstone and glass; it is a monument to faith, immigration, and perseverance. Yet like so many sacred spaces, its significance is often overlooked by those who pass through its doors.

“The premise is relatively simple: if the walls could speak, what would they say?” explains Clayton Ferguston, who specializes in faith-centered storytelling and whose credits include the Chronicles of Narnia, Amazing Grace, and The Passion of the Christ. “The archdiocese of Philadelphia got behind our efforts right away.”

Luminiscience has become a globetrotting cathedral spectacle, lighting up sacred spaces across France, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Brazil, where too often those same cathedrals stand as museums of a faith remembered rather than a faith lived.

To their credit, the Philadelphia archdiocese recognized both its evangelistic and practical potential. While Luminiscience serves as a certifiable outreach, it also generates revenue for churches with proceeds helping to fund restorations from organs to ceilings to stained glass window repairs.

Visitors and long-time parishioners alike who have stepped into the Philadelphia basilica more times than they can count suddenly find themselves seeing it with startling freshness.

Light sweeps across the vaulted ceiling, usually lost in shadows, that reveals its storied architecture with a kind of quiet drama. Music rolls through the vast interior, not merely filling the space but animating it. Details that have blended into the background for years step forward with new clarity. What was once familiar becomes newly illuminated both literally and in a deeper sense of rediscovery.

“This is outreach but not in the traditional sense, but through beauty and art,” reminds Ferguston.

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The creators understand something that the contemporary church sometimes forgets. Before belief is reasoned, it is often felt. The experience does not lecture or proselytize. Instead, it points upward toward transcendence, toward history, toward something beyond the immediate. In doing so, it creates space for curiosity, reflection, and perhaps reengagement that is all unfolding in real time.

Interest in this approach is already spilling beyond Philadelphia, drawing attention from Catholic dioceses across the United States. What began as a local experiment in sacred storytelling is now being scrutinized as a model with national potential, and conversations about expansion are not theoretical; they are active and growing.

It is a reminder that faith and preservation, spirit and structure, remain forever intertwined.

There is also something distinctly communal about the effort.

Ferguston says that in each city, they hire local musicians, choirs, and staff, embedding themselves into the fabric of the community they seek to serve. It becomes a shared experience that draws in both believers and the curious.

Without question, no event, no matter how sophisticated, can reverse decades of a faith decline. The deeper cultural forces reshaping Christianity in the United States are not so easily countered. But efforts like Luminiscience suggest that renewal may not come only from the pulpit, but from a broader rediscovery of what churches are and what they offer.

Not just doctrine, but beauty.

Not just catechism, but encounter.

The play of light across old stone, the swell of music rising beneath a cathedral dome, it is in moments like these where there is a quiet possibility that the way back may begin not with argument, but with awe.

In an age that so often mistakes the letter of the law for the fullness of faith, experiences like this return us to the spirit, where beauty, not debate, does the real proselytizing.

As Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen once prophetically reckoned decades ago, the future of the Church would not be secured by the ordained, but by the laity willing to live the faith with conviction.

Luminiscience is the laity doing exactly what Sheen foresaw, reviving the faith not by decree, but by illuminating the sacred through light and music.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Greg Maresca is right to frame this as more than another Elon Musk wealth-gawk piece. The media class loves trillionaire outrage because it gives them a clean villain and a cheap morality play. But the real story is that America still has enough economic oxygen for a paper dream to become a rocket company, a rocket company to become a public-market monster, and employees with stock options to ride the wave. That does not mean every valuation is rational or every billionaire is noble. It means envy remains a lousy substitute for enterprise. The scoreboard moved. America should study why. This piece is “Wealth Inflation Skyrockets,” first available on FL Gulf News.

By Greg Maresca

There was a time when the word millionaire carried an almost mythic weight. In 1973, when George Steinbrenner bought the New York Yankees for $10 million, it was an incredible sum to a paper boy and his buddies, whose only millionaire they knew was Bruce Wayne, and he was a comic book character.

Millionaires were rare, unknown, and unquestionably elite.

The financial landscape has shifted so dramatically that millionaire barely registers anymore. Today, they are the folks in those retirement commercials asking if you have saved “your first million” like it’s one of life’s routine benchmarks.

The millionaire has become middle-class mythology.

The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances says 9.4% of Americans are millionaires, thanks largely to home values, decades of inflation, and the institution of the various retirement accounts now available.

Then along came the billionaire era of Bezos, Buffett, and Gates, a tier so distant from everyday life that their wealth felt almost abstract.

Last week that was surpassed as we entered the rise of the trillionaire, a term once unimaginable.

With SpaceX’s recent record-shattering $75 billion IPO, its valuation pushed it to $2.1 trillion; Elon Musk became the first to cross that new frontier.

The numbers have grown so vast they take on a Monopoly game feel that is impressive on paper but detached from reality.

This economic excursion from millionaire to trillionaire shows how fiscal benchmarks inflate, expectations shift, and envy always adapts. What once symbolized extraordinary success is now just the starting line in an inflated era of wealth.

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While many are fixated on Musk’s wealth, the real story is how innovation, risk taking and economic growth can stimulate broader prosperity, job creation, and opportunities that ripple across entire communities.

SpaceX’s IPO has created thousands of worker-shareholder millionaires across the company through stock options that challenge the narrative that billionaires thrive by exploiting labor.

With employees and investors able to share in future gains, they enable venture capitalists to reinvest their returns into new technologies that grow the innovation ecosystem. Musk’s wealth reflects the rewards of American entrepreneurship, underscoring how financial incentives are essential for the risks that ultimately benefit the common good.

Musk’s critics are motivated by envy and often by hostility toward capitalism itself. They resent entrepreneurs because they misunderstand the free market while seeking government control over private enterprise.

Many lament how the system is “rigged.”

They are correct.

It is rigged in favor of unyielding work, risk-taking, and vision. Musk embodies the entrepreneurial ideal of what is possible in a free market system: a visionary who built world-changing companies and shared the rewards with employees and investors.

The foundation of financial freedom is discipline: spending less than you earn. Americans struggle with this because prioritizing immediacy over long-term goals is the creed of contemporary society.

Wealth is not just about personal finance.

It is tied to the broader engine of progress that is innovation, entrepreneurship, and the freedom to turn ideas into reality. Concentrated capital, for all its controversy, has historically underwritten advances in science, medicine, and our living standards.

Attempts to centrally manage or confiscate that capital often do more than redistribute wealth, it withers the very system that creates it.

None of this guarantees happiness.

Wealth never has.

Wealth’s real power isn’t status; it’s space – the margin to choose, to make, to imagine, and to follow what truly matters.

Even Bruce Wayne understood that.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Palm Beach 2000 is not folklore, and it was not treated like a fever dream when Democrats thought the machinery cost Al Gore the presidency. Statistical work showed Pat Buchanan’s Palm Beach vote was a screaming outlier: one model predicted 371 votes, while the official count gave him 3,407. The famous “Butterfly Did It” analysis concluded more than 2,000 Democratic voters likely punched Buchanan by mistake. Fine. Scrutinize it. But then apply the same rule everywhere. If odd numbers mattered in Palm Beach, odd numbers matter in Los Angeles 2026. This piece is “Democrat Ballot Hypocrisy Exposed,” first available on FL Gulf News.

By Richard Luthmann

One Standard, Not Two

Election scrutiny is not a conspiracy theory. It is civic hygiene. The people who scream loudest about democracy when the result hurts them should be the first people demanding sunlight when the result helps them. That was the standard in Florida in 2000.

It should be the standard in Los Angeles in 2026. No special rules. No partisan exemptions. No “nothing to see here” sermon from the same political class that once treated every hanging chad, dimpled punch, confusing ballot line, and statistical anomaly as a national emergency.

The point is not that Spencer Pratt won the Los Angeles mayoral primary. The point is not that Nithya Raman or Karen Bass committed fraud.

The point is that the system produced a result pattern that raises legitimate questions.

Pratt looked positioned for a runoff on election night. Raman sounded like a candidate tearfully bracing for disappointment.

Then the slow-motion California count began, and the late-arriving mail-ballot universe turned the race into something else. That may be lawful. That may even be explainable. But lawful and confidence-inspiring are not the same thing.

Democracy does not run on official assurances alone. It runs on public confidence. If the process looks opaque, if the vote count takes days, if third-party ballot collection exists on a scale ordinary voters cannot independently verify, and if the late count breaks so hard in one political direction that it reverses the apparent election-night storyline, scrutiny is not only fair. It is mandatory.

The appearance of election integrity must satisfy the appearance of election integrity.

Democrat Ballot Hypocrisy Exposed: The Palm Beach Rule

In 2000, nobody on the Democrat side wanted to hear lectures about accepting the first number on the screen. Palm Beach County became a national courtroom, a statistics seminar, and a media circus because Pat Buchanan received thousands of votes in a place where the political profile made no sense.

Buchanan was not the natural hero of Democrat Palm Beach precincts. He was not the candidate one expected elderly Jewish retirees and Gore-Lieberman voters to stampede toward in a sudden burst of Reform Party enthusiasm. The numbers smelled wrong, and the left said so loudly.

They were right to ask questions.

That is the part today’s election-integrity scolds want erased. The butterfly ballot was not dismissed as “routine.” It was examined. It was litigated. It was analyzed by statisticians. It was turned into a national lesson on ballot design, voter intent, machine counting, and whether a technically legal election process can still fail the public.

The press did not say, “Stop undermining democracy.” The press said, “Explain the anomaly.”

That is the Palm Beach rule: when an election result produces a glaring statistical and procedural anomaly, the burden is not on citizens to shut up. The burden is on officials to open the books, show the process, and prove that the voters—not the machinery, not the ballot design, not the political operatives, not the counting pipeline—produced the result.

That rule cannot expire the moment Republicans start asking the questions.

If Buchanan’s Palm Beach total deserved scrutiny because it appeared wildly out of character, then Los Angeles’ late-ballot reversal deserves scrutiny for the same reason. The standard is not who benefits. The standard is whether the result can withstand inspection.

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Democrat Ballot Hypocrisy Exposed: Los Angeles And The Late-Ballot Fog

Los Angeles now has its own version of the “explain this” problem. Not the same mechanism, ballot design, or election. But the same basic civic injury: a result that many voters cannot reconcile with what they watched unfold in real time.

Pratt was not some invisible protest candidate. He had name recognition, a clear anti-establishment lane, and an election-night showing that made a runoff look plausible. Then came the post-election ballot flow, and his path disappeared.

The publicly available count data does not yet show “smoking gun” fraud, but it does show a stark voting-pattern shift. Pratt’s share in the later Election Night count was about 34.5%. In the post-Election Night late-counted ballots, it collapsed to about 18.7%, while Raman surged. That is not proof of wrongdoing, but it is exactly the kind of anomaly that deserves transparent explanation, batch-level disclosure, and public scrutiny.

California defenders will say this is normal. They will say late mail ballots skew progressive; the state has rules, signatures, deadlines, and counting procedures.

Fine. Then prove it cleanly. Show the batch reports and chain-of-custody safeguards. Show how many ballots were collected by third parties. Show where the late ballots came from, when they were received, how they were cured, how many were rejected, and how the late vote compared precinct by precinct with election-day and early-count ballots.

That is not extremism. That is basic audit logic.

The left understood it when the outlier helped George W. Bush. They understood it when Pat Buchanan’s total looked politically absurd. They understood that “the rules were followed” was not enough if the design itself may have distorted voter intent.

Here, the concern is not a butterfly ballot. The concern is a ballot ecosystem where mass mail voting, third-party collection, slow counting, and partisan late-ballot patterns combine to create a black box. That black box may contain perfectly lawful votes.

It may also contain abuse, coercion, harvested ballots from vulnerable voters, or sloppy list maintenance.

The public has a right to know which it is.

Democrat Ballot Hypocrisy Exposed: That Is The Tell

The hypocrisy is the tell. When Democrats believed confusing ballots harmed Al Gore, election skepticism was patriotism. When conservatives question late-arriving mail-ballot surges in California, election skepticism becomes sedition, disinformation, and dangerous talk.

That is not a principle. It’s a protection racket.

A serious country would reject both extremes. It would reject wild claims without evidence. It would also reject the smug bureaucratic demand that citizens accept opaque systems on faith.

No election official, party lawyer, media hall monitor, or voting-rights nonprofit gets to say, “Trust us,” and call that transparency. Trust is earned by disclosure, audit trails, speed, clarity, clean rolls, verifiable custody, and a process ordinary citizens can understand without needing a political science fellowship and a sedative.

The answer in Los Angeles is not to declare the race stolen without proof. The answer is to investigate the anomaly with the same seriousness the country brought to Palm Beach.

Publish the data. Explain the late vote. Identify the sources of ballot collection. Audit the voter rolls. Review rejected and cured ballots. Test the assumptions.

If Raman’s surge was legitimate, sunlight will strengthen her position. If the system was vulnerable, sunlight will expose the weak points.

Election integrity does not belong to one party. It belongs to the voter. The left demanded that standard in 2000.

Los Angeles deserves it now.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Danesh Noshirvan is not protecting immigrants. He is putting them in the crosshairs. His race hustle took a local Arlington contractor dispute and blasted it into a national digital mob event, inviting more scrutiny, more records requests, more legal exposure, and potentially more federal attention. Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg asked for paperwork. Arlington now confirms the crew lacked required permit verification on site. That is the story. Not racism. Compliance. Danesh wanted a villain, so he created one. But if workers, families, contractors — or even his own family — now face immigration scrutiny, Danesh should look in the mirror. He exposed them. This piece is “Danesh Gives ICE The Roadmap,” first available at FL Gulf News.

By Richard Luthmann

The Race Hustle Backfires

(ARLINGTON, TEXAS) – Danesh Noshirvan thought he was doing what Danesh always does: grab a clip, slap a race label on it, feed the mob, and move on before the facts catch up.

But in Arlington, Texas, he may have done something far more destructive than smearing Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg. He may have helped trigger the very governmental and ICE scrutiny that immigrant workers, their families, and the companies using them were supposedly trying to avoid.

That is the grim joke at the center of this story. Danesh postures as the great defender of “brown people” while his reckless race-baiting may have just dragged J&L Utilities, ANSCO, AT&T, Dianna Tovar, the workers, and everyone connected to the crew into a deeper government spotlight.

The City of Arlington has now confirmed that J&L, the subcontractor of ANSCO and contractor chain under AT&T, had a valid permit — Permit No. 25-101782 — but was required to have verification of that permit on site and did not. That means Dr. Rigg’s central complaint was not racism. It was compliance.

The City also confirmed that AT&T is responsible for vetting contractors and subcontractors as to employment eligibility and criminal background. Read that again. Danesh tried to make this about skin color. The record pulled it back to permits, worker eligibility, documentation, right-of-way rules, and contractor responsibility.

So congratulations, Danesh. By screaming “racist” where a permit file belonged, you may have handed ICE the roadmap.

Dr. Rigg Was Right About the Paperwork

Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg did not walk into his Arlington driveway looking for a fight. He saw workers near his home, near underground infrastructure, near sprinkler lines, fiber lines, gas lines, water lines, and his family’s property.

He asked the questions that every homeowner should ask when strangers begin tearing into the ground: Who are you? Who sent you? Where is your identification? Where are the permits? Who is responsible if something breaks?

Those are not racist questions. Those are lawful questions. They are adult questions. They are questions Texas law appears to protect.

Texas Utilities Code § 55.017 says a telecommunications provider, video provider, or cable service provider with an easement or right-of-way over real property must show proof of identification to the owner when entering the property if the owner requests it.

Arlington’s rules add the practical machinery: permits, city registration, plans on site, marked vehicles, utility locates, homeowner notice, professional conduct, and an on-site contact who can communicate clearly with residents.

Now Arlington’s own response confirms that the crew had a permit but lacked the required verification on site.

From: Lyndsay Mitchell <Lyndsay.Mitchell@arlingtontx.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2026 5:13 PM
To: Tom Ware <Tom.Ware@arlingtontx.gov>; Cherish J ONeal <Cherish.ONeal@arlingtontx.gov>; Charles Munoz <charles.munoz@arlingtontx.gov>; Sarah Stubblefield <Sarah.Stubblefield@arlingtontx.gov>; Tabb Hendrick <Tabb.Hendrick@arlingtontx.gov>
Cc: Trey Yelverton <Trey.Yelverton@arlingtontx.gov>
Subject: RE: Contact Council Member District 4

Councilmember Ware,

We have confirmed that J&L (subcontractor of Ansco, contractor of AT&T) did have a valid permit to perform construction at the site (Permit #25-101782). They are required to always have verification of their permit with them on site and did not on this occasion. To address this, our ROW inspector held another meeting with J&L and Ansco to remind them of requirements in our ROW Ordinance and Construction and Permitting Manual, including having an on-site contact who can communicate clearly with homeowners, having the required permits on-site, providing proper notification to homeowners, and expectations of professionalism while conducting business in Arlington.

It is AT&T’s responsibility to vet their contractors and subcontractors as to employment eligibility and criminal background. We understand [Dr.]. Rigg’s frustrations and have shared the concerns with AT&T so that they may address the matter with their contractors.

I hope this provides some clarity on the situation and the differing roles and responsibilities of the City, AT&T, and AT&T’s contractors. Please feel free to share with [Dr.] Rigg and let me know if you need additional information. Thank you,

Lyndsay

That is the ballgame.

Dr. Rigg was right to ask, insist, and push the contractor chain for answers. The City’s response shows that after the incident, officials held another meeting with J&L and ANSCO to remind them of right-of-way obligations, homeowner communication, permit requirements, notification duties, and professionalism.

Danesh did not check that. He did not care. He saw an opportunity for a race hustle and went hunting.

Danesh Gives ICE The Roadmap: Dealing With Danesh Puts People at Risk

Here is the warning for every worker, immigrant family, contractor, subcontractor, activist, and online clout-chaser who thinks Danesh Noshirvan is your friend: if you deal with Danesh, you are putting people at risk.

Danesh does not protect immigrants. He exploits them. Danesh does not shield workers. He monetizes their pain. Danesh does not calm a situation. He pours gasoline on it, lights the match, and then tells the crowd he is saving the world.

Danesh’s involvement turned a local contractor dispute into a nationalized digital mob event. That means more eyes, more records requests, more city scrutiny, more corporate scrutiny, more legal scrutiny, and more federal scrutiny.

Our investigation shows that several workers connected to this operation had immigration-status problems, criminal-background problems, employment-eligibility problems, documentation problems, and/or fake-paperwork problems.

Danesh did not help them. He put a spotlight on them.

That is why I call him a race hustler. He sells outrage to an audience that wants villains, and he does not care who gets crushed after the upload.

What do I think? I think Danesh looks less like an activist here and more like a collaborator against the very people he claims to defend — a RAT against his own cause. He took a local contractor dispute, turned it into content, nationalized it for clout, and may have invited the exact scrutiny immigrant workers and their families dread most.

That is a sad existence for someone who claims political activism is at his core. If his supposed mission is protecting vulnerable people, then using them as props in a race-hustle video is not activism. It is exploitation. It is the textbook definition of hypocrisy: posture as the defender, monetize the outrage, then vanish when real people face government scrutiny, job loss, detention, deportation, legal exposure, or family panic.

So yes, if immigrants get detained, deported, investigated, fired, exposed, or dragged into enforcement because Danesh decided to turn their job site into content, that belongs on the smear machine. He did not calm the situation or protect anyone. He put a spotlight on the workers, the contractor chain, the permit problem, employment eligibility, criminal background vetting, and every weak spot in the operation — then called himself righteous while other people absorbed the blast.

And the ugliest part is that Danesh will never pay the price his targets pay. He will still be behind a screen, still chasing attention, still pretending he is morally superior, while real people deal with lawyers, government agencies, employers, police reports, ICE interest, and family panic.

Danesh is not accountability. He is collateral damage with a Wi-Fi signal.

Danesh Gives ICE The Roadmap: The Marine Historian Brought the File

Danesh picked the wrong man when he picked Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg. Rigg is not a disposable target for the outrage economy. He is a historian, author, former professor, former Marine Corps officer, father, financial professional, and scholar whose work includes Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers.

Dr. Rigg has spent years studying Jewish identity, Nazi racial law, military history, and the poisonous insanity of state-sponsored racial classification. Calling that man racist because he asked for documentation was not merely false. It was grotesque.

Danesh’s attack also carried the stink of ideological targeting. Dr. Rigg’s IDF-related background, his Jewish-history work, his Marine Corps service, and his refusal to bow to the mob made him the perfect villain for Danesh’s audience.

The smear was never about truth; they never are. It was about fitting Dr. Rigg into a prebuilt cartoon: white man, homeowner, law-and-order, asks about documentation — therefore racist.

That is not journalism. That is lazy race-baiting for children.

But Dr. Rigg did what serious men do. He documented and preserved. He went to counsel and demanded retractions. He pushed the contractor chain, pursued city officials, and forced the record into daylight.

Now that record is moving. Arlington has confirmed the missing on-site permit verification and pointed to AT&T’s responsibility for vetting employment eligibility and criminal background.

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Danesh Gives ICE The Roadmap: What Hath Danesh Wrought?

The irony may now be eating its own tail. Danesh Noshirvan set out to weaponize Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg’s lawful demand for documentation at an Arlington, Texas, job site, but sources tell us the blowback may not stop with J&L Utilities, ANSCO, AT&T, Dianna Tovar, and the workers Danesh blasted into the public square.

The scrutiny is widening, and sources say ICE and DHS have picked up the trail.

Now, those same sources say federal officials have received information concerning the immigration and naturalization history of Danesh’s own mother, identified in records supplied to this newsroom as Helen Akram Noshirvan, including allegations that she may still hold allegiance to the Islamic Republic of Iran and that her citizenship may have been procured by fraud.

Those allegations are not findings. They are leads. But in this climate, leads become files, files become referrals, and referrals become court fights.

That is where Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche and Trump’s Justice Department enter the picture. The Trump administration has reportedly intensified denaturalization efforts against naturalized citizens suspected of immigration fraud, including by moving USCIS lawyers into DOJ workstreams and prioritizing cases involving allegedly fraudulent naturalization applications.

The Trump DOJ has shortlisted hundreds of potential denaturalization targets, while USCIS has identified thousands of potential cases, with USCIS guidance calling for dramatically higher monthly denaturalization referrals than historical averages.

So here is the question the Mega Influencer should answer: What hath Danesh wrought?

He wanted a race clip. Danesh’s content created a municipal file. He wanted to humiliate a Marine historian.

Danesh’s content helped pull contractors, workers, employment eligibility, criminal background vetting, and now possibly even his own family’s immigration history into the same furnace.

Danesh brought a cancel-culture mob, an AI-bot army, and plenty of virtue-signaling noise. But what he really brought was heat on vulnerable people he claims to defend, including his own mother.

Danesh Noshirvan does not expose racism. He exposes workers, families, and immigrants for content. Even his own.

And he does not apologize, because that is what race hustlers do.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Judge Hinkle’s problem is not that he insulted Luthmann. Luthmann has been insulted by “Don Rickles-level” professionals. The problem is that Judge Hinkle may have proved Luthmann’s point. If Luthmann is “detached from reality,” why is he being measured like Cravath with a fax machine and four associates? Jeremy Hales calls him “Paint Chips,” sues him over satire, and then demands lawyer-grade precision. Randy Shochet files certificates, shifts theories, and calls it advocacy. Fine. But if the Fed Two case now pending in Gainesville Federal Court becomes a circus, do not blame the clown. Blame the man who bought the tent and dragged him into the ring. This piece is “Judge Hinkle’s Reality Problem,” first available on FL Gulf News.

By Rick LaRivière with Richard Luthmann

The Circus Came to Court Because Hales Dragged It There

(GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA) – Richard Luthmann went on Two Lees in a Pod and said the quiet part out loud: Jeremy Hales has used Gainesville federal court litigation as content for years, and now Luthmann is doing the same thing back to him.

That is the entire “Fed Two” problem in one sentence.

The Halesverse cheered when Judge Zachary Bolitho denied Luthmann leave to file a reply. They cheered again when Judge Robert Hinkle backed him up. They thought it meant Luthmann had lost the plot. They missed the bigger story.

Luthmann turned the ruling into a media weapon, a Substack piece, a Florida Gulf News piece, and a live-show lesson on judicial time, legal class privilege, and the ordinary nature of federal judges.

On the livestream, Luthmann said he was “having fun in Fed Two” and argued that “a legal case is the perfect catalyst for media,” because Hales already proved that model.

That is the part Hales and Randy Shochet never seem to understand. You do not sue a broke, bombastic, “paint-chips eating,” “mentally impaired” journalist over satire and then cry when he turns the complaint into a bonfire.

Hales makes YouTube from litigation. Luthmann makes litigation from exposure. That is not chaos; that is symmetry.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

If the Plaintiff’s business model is POLAMOP—Protraction Of Litigation And Multiplication Of Proceedings—then the defendant is allowed to document it, mock it, and broadcast it.

Hinkle’s Latest Order Throws Gas on the Fire

Then came the latest Judge Hinkle order. In overruling Luthmann’s additional objections, Hinkle wrote that Luthmann had made a “baseless suggestion” that the clerk’s office mishandled earlier objections, possibly because opposing parties had infiltrated or bribed clerk’s office employees. Then came the money line: “The assertion is detached from reality.”

That is the kind of phrase judges write when they think they are ending an issue. In this case, it may have opened three new ones.

First, Hales himself has told audiences that he has people inside the Levy County courthouse. Luthmann points to old Hales livestream clips where Hales discusses courthouse contacts and ex parte-style access, and argues that suspicion of courthouse-side influence is not pulled from the moon.

Whether that proves anything in Gainesville federal court is another question—but it makes the issue germane.

In any event, Judge Hinkle’s blanket “detached from reality” language is a gift to Luthmann’s next argument: If the Court believes Luthmann’s thinking is detached from reality, why is the Court holding him like a polished white-shoe lawyer with a litigation department?

Second, the order’s caption still reads Jeremy Bryan Hales et al. v. John Cook et al. even though John Cook was dismissed months ago.

The docket shows Cook was terminated on April 24, 2026, and the clerk’s judgment dismissed claims against Cook and others with prejudice.

“Senior status does not mean senile status,” Luthmann said. “But if Judge Hinkle is going to call me detached from reality, I’m going to ask whether the Court’s own caption is also stuck in a different procedural universe. Hinkle and Bolitho look like they could pilot the Millennium Falcon.”

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Paint Chips, Accommodations, and the Problem Hales Created

Here is the real trap: Hales has allegedly spent months calling Luthmann “Paint Chips” on YouTube. According to Luthmann’s Local Rule 7.1 accommodation email to attorney Randall Shochet, Hales has repeatedly used the nickname to suggest Luthmann suffered brain damage from eating lead paint chips and even implied he continues to do so.

Luthmann does not adopt the insult. He weaponizes the notice. If Hales publicly portrays Luthmann as cognitively impaired, then Hales cannot turn around and demand that federal Court treat Luthmann like a lawyer with unimpaired judgment, full ECF access, staff support, and professional litigation training.

That is why Luthmann’s email to Shochet matters.

He asked for reasonable procedural accommodations: additional time where appropriate, liberal construction of pro se filings, courtesy electronic service, and a chance to cure defects before forfeiture, waiver, contempt, or sanctions. He cited pro se solicitude, access-to-courts doctrine, and Judge Jack Weinstein’s prior warning in United States v. Luthmann about the dangers of ignoring mental health problems in practicing lawyers.

Then Hinkle added his own phrase: “detached from reality.” At that point, the accommodation argument stopped being abstract. Hinkle supplied the exhibit.

This is not a demand for immunity. It is a demand for procedural sanity. If the Court believes Luthmann is unstable, it should not spring lawyer-grade traps on him and call that justice. The law does not require the judiciary to admire pro se filings. It does require courts to read them with some practical understanding of who is writing them.

Randy Shochet’s Record Problem Gets Worse

Randy Shochet has his own problem, and it is not just a matter of style. In Doc. 212, Shochet’s response to Luthmann’s sanctions motion claims that Luthmann’s attack is procedural gamesmanship and that Hales’ characterization of the challenged video is “reasonable, accurate, and fully supported.”

The filing argues that Luthmann admitted the media was edited, satirical, composite, manipulated, or altered, and tries to convert that into an admission that the video depicts Hales’ likeness in sexual scenarios.

Luthmann’s email conferral notice called that move what it is: a retreat from the literal statement. Hales and Shochet originally told the Court the video depicts Jeremy Hales engaging in oral sex with a journalist. Luthmann’s position is simple: identify the timestamp, frame, or portion that literally shows that. If they cannot, then the statement is not fact—it is advocacy dressed up as fact.

In the June 16 conferral email, Luthmann said Plaintiff’s opposition had shifted from “the challenged video depicts Jeremy Hales engaging in oral sex” to a softer theory about digitally manipulated sexual imagery, semantic dispute, and developing law.

Then came another issue: service. Shochet’s certificate of service represented that Doc. 212 was served by email. Luthmann says he was not.

Luthmann sent a “#HeyRANDY” email saying he had no record of receiving it and demanded proof. Maybe Shochet has it. Maybe he does not.

But in Fed Two, every certificate, every timestamp, and every claim of service is now part of the show.

Senior Status, Judicial Time, and Forced Retirement

Judge Robert Hinkle is no rookie. He is a senior federal judge in the Northern District of Florida, nominated by Bill Clinton in 1996, confirmed that year, and on senior status since 2016. He was born in 1951, making him 74. He served as chief judge from 2004 to 2009 and remains part of the federal judicial machinery.

That history cuts both ways. Experience can sharpen judgment. It can also calcify it. Luthmann’s argument now is not that Hinkle is corrupt. It is sharper and more dangerous: Hinkle may be acting like the case is ordinary paperwork while missing the media volcano under his feet.

He calls Luthmann detached from reality while signing an order caption that still names a dismissed defendant. He rejects procedural concerns while the docket itself shows a long history of service fights, email-service disputes, returned mail, struck filings, default vacatur, and repeated deadline management. That is not a simple case. That is a Halesverse debris field.

So yes, ask the ugly question: should federal judges face forced retirement? The Constitution says Article III judges hold office during good behavior, not until public confidence evaporates. But lifetime tenure was designed for independence, not immunity from public scrutiny. Senior status should mean wisdom, not drift.

Hinkle made judicial time ordinary. Fine. Then judicial error is ordinary too. And ordinary public servants get criticized when they miss what is right in front of them.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Some court orders sting because they close a door. Others matter because they open a window. The Bolitho order denied me leave to file a limited reply, but it also said something bigger: judicial time is ordinary, not extraordinary. I can live with that. I do not need judges treated like temple priests, and I do not want litigants treated like peasants outside the castle gate. If court time is real time, then court criticism is real criticism. Sharp. Fair. Sourced. Public. That is not an attack on the judiciary. That is the Republic reminding the judiciary what it is. This piece is “Hinkle Makes Judicial Time Ordinary,” first available on FL Gulf News.

By Richard Luthmann

(GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA) – There are court orders you lose and hate. There are court orders you win and forget. Then there are court orders you lose and quietly admire because they say something larger than the immediate fight.

That is where I am with the recent Judge Robert Hinkle / Magistrate Zachary Bolitho “no extraordinary circumstances” ruling in the Jeremy Hales / What the Hales federal case now pending in Gainesville federal court.

On paper, I lost a small procedural point. Magistrate Judge Zachary C. Bolitho denied me leave to file a limited reply. Judge Robert L. Hinkle did not treat that denial as some grand constitutional drama. The basic message was simple enough: judicial time is ordinary. Replies are not automatic. Local rules mean what they say. A party generally gets one clean shot. Then the court moves on.

Fine. I’ll take the “paper loss.” But time may very well prove me the winner. Ask Michael Volpe’s favorite U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson. (I swear, Mike holds séances with Jefferson and Ulysses S. Grant because he’s always talking about them.)

Jefferson won the immediate fight in Marbury v. Madison. William Marbury did not get his commission, and James Madison did not have to deliver it. The Jefferson administration avoided a direct order from the Supreme Court that it might have ignored, and the disputed scraps of Federalist patronage stayed buried where Jefferson wanted them.

But Chief Justice John Marshall won the war over the Constitution. The case became far more than a quarrel over signed, sealed, and undelivered commissions. It announced judicial review: the power of the federal judiciary to interpret the Constitution and to refuse to enforce laws that violate it.

In the formative years of the Republic, that was no small thing. Jefferson’s Republicans captured the political branches, but Marshall’s Federalist judiciary secured a generational foothold over constitutional meaning. The result was a classic American irony: Jefferson prevailed in the case, while Marshall turned the loss into institutional conquest.

This piece is not a grievance opera, and Judge Hinkle is no villain. In fact, I think the ruling is more useful than the win would have been. It strips away one of the most poisonous myths in American law: that judicial time exists in some holy category separate from everyone else’s time.

The butcher has time constraints. The baker has time constraints. The candlestickmaker has time constraints. So do Judge Hinkle and Magistrate Bolitho.

That is not an insult. It is a compliment. It is also a public-service announcement to the judicial class.

Hinkle Makes Judicial Time Ordinary: The One-And-Done Rule Comes For Everybody

The immediate fight was narrow. I asked to file a limited reply on a statutory-timing issue. The question was not whether I could relitigate the entire motion to dismiss. It was not an effort to sandbag Jeremy Hales or his lawyers. It was not delay dressed up as procedure. It was a short request to determine which version of Florida’s cyberstalking statute governed a January 2025 publication, after later amendments took effect on October 1, 2025.

The video at issue is now federal court evidence.

Video Player

That is a real legal issue. In a diversity case, the timing and substance of state law matters. Statutes generally operate prospectively unless the Legislature clearly says otherwise. A later amendment does not automatically govern an earlier alleged publication simply because it is more convenient for the plaintiff’s theory.

So I asked to reply.

Judge Bolitho said no. Local Rule 7.1(I) says a party ordinarily may not file a reply memorandum. Only extraordinary circumstances justify one. The court found none.

As a litigant, I could complain. As a writer, I see the better story. The court effectively said, “One and done.” Even to me, a pro se defendant not appearing with a lawyer. Even though the late, great Judge Jack Weinstein previously said my mental-health issues, my collapse as a former practicing lawyer, and the danger of ignoring those issues in the legal profession showed that I couldn’t render sound legal advice to anyone, let alone myself.

That is the tension. A federal court can recognize that I am not in any real-world sense operating as a trained, active, competent attorney in my own case, and still hold me to a brisk procedural lane. That sounds harsh until you look at the other side of it.

The court did not create a special protected caste for judges either.

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Hinkle Makes Judicial Time Ordinary: Judges Are Pedestrian. Good.

The hidden assumption in too much American legal culture is that judges are different. Not merely different in function, but different in class. Their time is treated as rarefied. Their frustration becomes doctrine. Their convenience becomes policy. Their irritation becomes an order.

That is where Judge Hinkle’s treatment of the issue matters. By refusing to inflate the dispute into a moral emergency, Hinkle did something useful. He made judicial time ordinary, placing the judiciary back into the world with the rest of us. Judges are not temple priests floating above the marketplace. They are government employees with hard jobs, heavy calendars, limited hours, and human constraints.

That is exactly how it should be. I do not need Judge Hinkle to pretend my filing was extraordinary, nor do I need Judge Bolitho to stop the courthouse machinery so Richard Luthmann can get the last word.

The ruling says the court’s time matters, but it does not say judicial time is divine. It says judges must manage cases, but it does not say judges are a superior species. That is the egalitarian part.

The legal establishment may not like where that logic leads. If judges are ordinary, then criticism of judges is ordinary too. Not threats. Not lies. Not unhinged personal abuse. But criticism. Public criticism. Legal criticism. Policy criticism.

The kind of criticism every butcher, baker, cop, mayor, journalist, school-board member, prosecutor, and defendant already lives with.

If a judge’s time is not extraordinary, then a judge’s ego is not extraordinary either.

That is a healthy rule. It is a very American rule. It is also a rule the judicial class should embrace before the public imposes it more rudely.

Hinkle Makes Judicial Time Ordinary: This Is Not The Larry Forman Routine

There is a difference between criticizing judicial power and throwing reckless insults at judges. That distinction matters right now because the Halesverse has been orbiting around Kentucky lawyer Larry Forman, who has made public comments about Florida Judge Craig DeThomasis that raise an entirely different set of issues.

Calling a judge a liar without proof is not legal analysis. It is not reform journalism. It is not First Amendment heroism. It is gasoline in a paper courthouse.

That is not what I am doing here.

I am not saying Judge Hinkle is corrupt. I am not saying Judge Bolitho is dishonest. I am not saying either man acted from bad faith, bias, favoritism, or personal hostility. I am saying their ruling carries a broader public-policy meaning. It rejects judicial exceptionalism by implication. It treats the court’s workload as real, but not sacred. It treats procedure as procedure, not priestcraft.

That is fair commentary.

It is also why lawyers should be careful when they put on clown makeup and call it advocacy. A law license is not a costume. Judicial criticism should be sharp, sourced, disciplined, and aimed at conduct, doctrine, process, and power. It should not be a cheap insult factory for internet applause.

I have spent enough time on both sides of the courtroom to know the difference. I have also spent enough time in the federal system to know that judges have enormous power and are subject to ordinary human limits. Both truths can exist at once.

That is why the Hinkle / Bolitho order is more interesting than a routine denial. It gives the public a clean principle: courts are busy, judges are human, and not every complaint becomes a federal event.

The Breath Of Fresh Air

The old courthouse mythology says the judge enters, everyone rises, and ordinary life stops. The better view is simpler. The judge enters, everyone rises because the office deserves respect, and then ordinary life continues under rules that apply to human beings.

The parties have burdens. The lawyers have burdens. Pro se litigants have burdens. Judges have burdens. Nobody gets magic immunity from time, error, pressure, criticism, or common sense.

That is why I like this ruling.

I lost the procedural point, but the courthouse gained a democratic one. Judge Hinkle did not pamper the bench as some separate and distinct estate. He did not act as if judicial inconvenience were a constitutional injury, nor did he turn a one-page denial into a marble monument. He let the practical rule breathe: court time is real time.

That does not mean pro se parties should be crushed under lawyer standards. They should not. Courts still have to account for the fact that a non-lawyer party is not a trained advocate or may have recognized limitations. The Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit have long recognized that pro se filings get liberal construction for a reason. A person standing alone in federal court is not standing in the same shoes as a silk-stocking law firm.

But liberal construction is not endless indulgence. That is the hard edge of the lesson. I can live with that edge if the same principle runs both ways. And here, it does.

Judges are pedestrian. That is not an attack. It is the highest civic compliment. Our Republic does not need robed aristocrats. It needs ordinary public servants doing difficult work under public scrutiny.

To paraphrase the words of Judge Hinkle: it “will not end well” for Larry Forman.

And, in the deeper sense, Judge Hinkle’s ruling should not end well for judicial exceptionalism either.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: This is exactly how institutions lose the plot. They stop trusting the thing that made them matter and start chasing cultural noise. The Orioles are not some expansion act trying to invent a personality. They are a historic baseball franchise with real heroes, real memories, and real civic value. If the front office thinks it needs gangsta celebrity packaging to make Camden Yards matter, then the problem is not the fans. The problem is the people making the decisions. Baseball does not need to become a flea market of unrelated gimmicks. It needs to remember why people loved it in the first place. This piece is “A Bobblehead Too Far,” also available on FL Gulf News.

By Greg Maresca

(BALTIMORE, MARYLAND) – Major League Baseball (MLB) ballpark giveaways are pogey bait to get folks through the gates, keep them spending, and turn a random night game against a weak team into something fans feel like they can’t miss. The formula is straightforward: offer something limited, desirable, and tied to the team. Then step back and let human nature do the rest.

The most famous draws fall into two camps: popular collectible-driven gear like hats, jerseys and bobbleheads to unforgettable promotions like Disco Demolition and Ten-Cent Beer Night that have become part of baseball lore.

Bat day at Yankee Stadium made good sense to a youngster in more than just one way, especially one acquainted with the South Bronx of the 1970s.

But I digress.

Not to be outdone, on a Friday night last month, the Baltimore Orioles, a team dripping with baseball history and infused with Hall of Famers, MVPs, and Cy Young winners, muscled their way onto baseball’s list of unforgettable promotions.

Initially, I thought the whole enterprise was a joke.

The Orioles decided the best way to honor their legacy was – a Tupac Shakur bobblehead – a rapper who was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas 30 years ago. Shakur has about as much to do with the Orioles as Babe Ruth has to do with the Baltimore Ravens.

Shakur is not a baseball player, an Oriole, or anywhere near Cooperstown. His lone stop in the “Charm City” is having attended the Baltimore School for the Arts as a teenager. The Orioles went bargain hunting for promotional relevance in the deceased gangsta rap aisle.

This was not a misunderstanding. It was a choice.

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This game resembled a flea market featuring a plastic rapper bobblehead trinket with a baseball diamond and scoreboard set in the background. Some admitted they came just for the bobblehead with the intent to flip it online. When the giveaway becomes more important than the game, the narrative is lost.

Critics didn’t mince words. Why embrace Tupac’s gangsta rap mythology when the city is full of real-life role models who actually embody Baltimore’s roots and values, including a baseball team that is one of the most tradition-rich franchises in the game?

You want a true baseball bobblehead promotion? Try Brooks or Frank Robinson. Try Boog Powell. How about Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, Jr. or Jim Palmer? These are figures who wore the uniform and carried the franchise.

Baseball has always marketed itself as something more than entertainment, a family experience, a connection across generations; a sport anchored in continuity and tradition. Promotions like this chip away at that identity. They turn a night at the ballpark into something transactional. Get your souvenir and leave as many did.

MLB already struggles to maintain its identity in a crowded sports and entertainment landscape. The antidote is not gimmicks that blur the line between the game and a marketing circus. It is doubling down on what makes the game great: its history, its traditions and its players.

There is something quietly telling about all of this. The Orioles did not just hand out a bobblehead. They sent a message that the legacy of their own players is not enough to draw. The Orioles, whether they want to admit it or not, sent a message that their own legends are not enough. The game itself is not enough.

Instead, they need outside help.

Gangsta celebrity help.

That is not innovation.

It is surrender.

When the promotion becomes the headline and the game the footnote, you lose the narrative, and the Orioles followed up by losing their game that night.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Larry Forman wanted the fun part of being a YouTube lawyer: the title, the clout, the audience trust, and the ability to make Halesverse enemies look legally guilty before a court ever got there. But the law license is not a costume, and the Kentucky Rules do not disappear when the camera turns on. Forman’s Judge DeThomasis attacks, his alliance with Jeremy Hales and Randall Shochet, and his role in multiple Florida litigation controversies all raise the same question: did the YouTuber forget he was still a lawyer? This is not merely content anymore. This is the ethics file. This piece is “Larry Forman Under Fire,” first available on FLGulfNews.com.

By Dick LaFontaine and Richard Luthmann

The Law License Is Not A Costume

(FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY) – Larry Forman’s problem is not that he talks on YouTube. It is not that he comments on court cases, criticizes judges, defends friends, attacks enemies, or plays to an audience that wants courtroom drama served with outrage sauce. America still has a First Amendment, and lawyers do not surrender all of their speech rights when they get sworn into the bar.

The problem is that Forman did not enter the Halesverse as some anonymous basement heckler with a webcam and a grudge. He entered as “Attorney Larry Forman,” and that title was the whole point. It gave his commentary weight, gave his opinions legal flavor, and gave the Halesverse something more powerful than noise. It gave the machine legal oxygen.

That is where the analysis starts. Forman cannot use the attorney brand for credibility and then claim he is just another YouTuber when the Kentucky Rules of Professional Conduct come knocking. A lawyer carries the license into public life, especially when the lawyer intentionally trades on that license in public commentary. The moment Forman used legal status to shape public perception of judges, litigants, court rulings, and pending disputes, he stepped into professional-responsibility territory.

This was not a private citizen muttering at the courthouse steps. This was a licensed Kentucky attorney using a public platform to attack judicial integrity while wrapped in the authority of the bar.

That is why this story matters. The Halesverse has always had loudmouths, clout chasers, phone-call tough guys, lawsuit hobbyists, and content grifters. What it needed was a lawyer with a microphone. Forman became that lawyer. Now the same law license that gave him authority may become the instrument of accountability.

Larry Forman Under Fire: Judge DeThomasis Was Turned Into A Target

The centerpiece of the Forman problem is Florida Judge Craig DeThomasis.

Judicial criticism is fair game. Judges are not kings. Their rulings can be criticized, appealed, reversed, dissected, mocked, and challenged. A journalist can call out a bad ruling. A lawyer can explain why he thinks a judge got the law wrong. A citizen can be furious about a court decision and say so loudly. None of that is the issue.

The issue is what happens when a licensed lawyer goes beyond criticizing a ruling and starts attacking the integrity, honesty, and qualifications of the judge himself.

Forman crossed that line repeatedly. He did not merely say Judge DeThomasis made an error. He did not merely argue that the judge misunderstood the record, misapplied the law, or reached a conclusion that should be reversed. Forman called the judge a liar. He participated in or promoted content describing the judge as unhinged, the worst judge in Florida, and someone who defended perverts.

The clown-nose imagery was not the whole offense, but it showed the character of the campaign. The judge was not being analyzed. He was being converted into a Halesverse target.

That distinction matters because calling a judge wrong is legal commentary, while calling a judge a liar is an accusation of dishonesty. A lie is not a mistake. A lie is intentional falsehood. A lawyer who says a judge lied is not simply challenging reasoning; he is attacking judicial integrity.

Under Kentucky Rule 8.2, that is dangerous ground. The rule exists because lawyer speech about judges carries special public force. When a lawyer uses that force recklessly, the damage is not just personal. It is institutional.

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Larry Forman Under Fire: He Forgot Kentucky Rule 8.2

Kentucky Rule of Professional Conduct 8.2 is not hard to understand. It says a lawyer shall not make a statement the lawyer knows is false, or makes with reckless disregard for truth or falsity, concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge. That language matters because the rule does not merely cover formal court filings. It covers statements.

A YouTube livestream is still a statement. A thumbnail is still part of a public presentation.

A monetized commentary stream does not become ethics-proof because it comes with graphics, chat comments, and applause from a friendly audience.

Forman’s “that is a lie” problem goes directly to the heart of Rule 8.2. If he had evidence that Judge DeThomasis knowingly made a false statement, then he should produce it, explain it, and ground the accusation in facts. If he did not have that evidence, then the statement looks like exactly the sort of reckless judicial-integrity attack the rule was designed to stop.

Lawyers can say a judge was mistaken. Lawyers can say a ruling was unsupported. Lawyers can say a court got the law backwards. But a lawyer who accuses a judge of lying is making a much more serious charge, and the bar is entitled to ask what factual basis existed before that charge was broadcast to an online audience.

This is where Forman’s YouTube act becomes an ethics exhibit. The issue is not one spicy sentence in isolation. It is the pattern: attorney branding, Halesverse alignment, judge attacks, clown imagery, “defended perverts” language, and public legal commentary presented with the authority of a licensed lawyer. Forman wanted the megaphone that came with the law license. Rule 8.2 is the bill that comes due.

Larry Forman Under Fire: The Matzkin UPL Fight Adds A Second Ethics Front

The Judge DeThomasis issue is not Forman’s only problem. The Bruce Matzkin unauthorized-practice-of-law fight opens a second ethics front, and it may be even more dangerous because it connects YouTube commentary to litigation leverage.

Matzkin’s position is that a Florida UPL finding was entered against him even though he was not a party, not counsel of record, not served with process, not subpoenaed, not ordered to show cause, and not given a meaningful adversarial hearing before a finding with professional consequences was entered.

If that order is vacated or narrowed, the Halesverse loses more than a talking point. It loses a weapon.

That is where Kentucky Rule 3.4(f) comes into view. The rule bars a lawyer from presenting, participating in presenting, or threatening to present criminal or disciplinary charges solely to obtain advantage in a civil or criminal matter. A disciplinary process is supposed to protect the public. It is not supposed to become a crowbar in a civil fight.

If the UPL finding was pushed, promoted, cited, or threatened as leverage against Matzkin, then the scrutiny does not stop with the order itself. It moves upstream to the people who used it, benefited from it, and folded it into the Halesverse pressure machine.

This is not a side issue. It is the structural issue. The Halesverse pattern has always been grievance, content, pressure, filing, and more content. Forman’s role matters because his lawyer status helped make that pattern look legally serious. If he used that status to amplify a defective UPL narrative or help convert a disciplinary cloud into civil leverage, then Rule 3.4(f) becomes part of the same misconduct conversation.

Larry Forman Under Fire: Questions For the Kentucky Bar

We contacted the Kentucky Bar for general information about clear ethical lines for lawyers appearing on YouTube. Here is what we asked:

From: Richard Luthmann <richard.luthmann@protonmail.com>
Date: On Thursday, June 11th, 2026 at 12:54 PM
Subject: Press Inquiry: Kentucky DUI Lawyer YouTube Content, Judge Attacks, and Larry Forman, Esq.
To: sroberts@kybar.org <sroberts@kybar.org>, ukcle@uky.edu <ukcle@uky.edu>, jcheek@kybar.org <jcheek@kybar.org>, kybar@kybar.org <kybar@kybar.org>, lcole@kybar.org <lcole@kybar.org>, sduncan@kybar.org <sduncan@kybar.org>, ckilgore@kybar.org <ckilgore@kybar.org>, info@kybar.org <info@kybar.org>, jherrick@kybar.org <jherrick@kybar.org>, rclements@kybar.org <rclements@kybar.org>, abergeron@kybar.org <abergeron@kybar.org>, ldeaton@kybar.org <ldeaton@kybar.org>, agillispie@kybar.org <agillispie@kybar.org>, hmatics@kybar.org <hmatics@kybar.org>, srastoder@kybar.org <srastoder@kybar.org>, msmith@kybar.org <msmith@kybar.org>
CC: Michael Volpe <mvolpe998@gmail.com>, Dick LaFontaine <RALafontaine@protonmail.com>, Rick LaRivière <RickLaRiviere@proton.me>, Frankie Pressman <frankiepressman@protonmail.com>, Modern Thomas Nast <mthomasnast@protonmail.com>, Sully <msully0916@gmail.com>, Two Lee’s In A Pod <twoleespod@gmail.com>, Anna <lannaonthego@gmail.com>, robbie@keszeybrothers.com <robbie@keszeybrothers.com>, Bruce Matzkin <brucematzkin1@gmail.com>, John Cook <jmcook987@gmail.com>, Marla Hughes <MarlaHughes@live.com>, Ray Bonecrusher <rbonecrusher@gmail.com>, Supa Dave <miltownsbestrawfootage@gmail.com>

Kentucky Bar Association / Office of Bar Counsel:

We are independent journalists preparing a news report concerning Kentucky attorney Larry Forman and his public YouTube commentary involving Florida litigation, Judge Craig DeThomasis, Jeremy Hales, and related Halesverse controversies.

Michael Volpe Investigates

The YouTuber who forgot he's a lawyer

Larry Forman, the DUI Guy on YouTube, has built his online brand by making provocative videos, while giving off an air of legal authority…

Read more

2 months ago · 33 likes · 2 comments · Michael Volpe

We are not asking the KBA to give legal advice or prejudge any disciplinary matter. We are requesting general guidance and any public comment the KBA can provide about the ethical line for Kentucky lawyers who use YouTube or other social media platforms to discuss judges, pending litigation, and litigation opponents.

The central question is blunt:

When a Kentucky lawyer publicly calls a sitting judge a “liar,” portrays or describes a judge as defending “pedophiles” or “perverts,” labels a judge the “worst judge” in a state, or uses clown-nose imagery and other ridicule aimed at a judge, does that type of public content potentially implicate SCR 3.130(8.2), SCR 3.130(8.4), or other Kentucky lawyer-conduct rules?

Our reporting concerns public statements and thumbnails attributed to Attorney Larry Forman, a Kentucky lawyer and YouTube creator, including commentary about Judge Craig DeThomasis and Florida litigation connected to Jeremy Hales, Randall Shochet, Bruce Matzkin, and related parties. The issue is not ordinary criticism of a judicial ruling. The issue is whether a lawyer may use the authority of a bar card and the reach of a monetized YouTube platform to attack a judge’s honesty, integrity, and fitness in personal and inflammatory terms.

We would appreciate guidance on the following:

1. Does SCR 3.130(8.2) apply to a Kentucky lawyer’s public YouTube or social media statements about judges outside Kentucky?
2. Does the rule apply when the lawyer is not counsel of record in the case being discussed but publicly comments as an attorney?
3. Does monetization, subscriber reach, or use of the “attorney” brand affect the analysis?
4. Does calling a judge a “liar” constitute a statement concerning judicial integrity for purposes of Rule 8.2?
5. Does accusing or implying that a judge protects, favors, or defends pedophiles or perverts potentially trigger Rule 8.2 or Rule 8.4 review?
6. If the public has video clips, thumbnails, transcripts, and links, what is the proper procedure for submitting those materials for review?
7. Since the KBA website states that formal complaints cannot be submitted by email, should a media inquiry like this be treated separately from a sworn disciplinary complaint?
8. Is the KBA able to confirm whether public YouTube content by lawyers is reviewed under the same professional-conduct standards as public speeches, writings, interviews, or other statements?

We intend to publish that the Kentucky Bar Association was contacted for guidance and comment. Please let us know whether the KBA has a statement, whether this should be directed to another person or department, and whether the KBA can explain the proper public process for reporting lawyer YouTube conduct that appears to attack the judiciary.

This is a press inquiry concerning general rules and public-facing lawyer conduct. It is not intended as a substitute for a sworn disciplinary complaint.

We intend to go to press shortly. If you respond after press time, we will incorporate your statements into a follow-up.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

Regards,

Richard Luthmann

Writer, Journalist, and Commentator
Tips or Story Ideas:
(239) 631-5957
richard.luthmann@protonmail.com
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Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

We received no response as of press time. If we receive relevant communications from the Kentucky Bar, we will update the readership.

The Halesverse Lawyer Problem Is Now The Story

The Halesverse has always depended on confusion. It confuses accusations with evidence, filings with facts, livestreams with litigation, and mob excitement with legal merit.

That is why Forman’s role is so important. He was not just another character in the circus. He was one of the people who gave the circus a legal costume. He helped make internet grievance sound like courtroom analysis, and he helped make Halesverse targets look legally guilty before a court ever made a valid finding against them.

That is also why the next phase will be boring, methodical, and devastating. Build the binder. Preserve the clips. Save the thumbnails. Archive the URLs. Record the timestamps. Capture the exact quotes. Identify every time Forman invoked his lawyer status, attacked Judge DeThomasis, discussed Matzkin, referenced discipline, mentioned UPL, spoke about disbarment, or commented on litigation where he had a personal stake.

Do not rely on vibes. Do not rely on outrage. Let Forman’s own words do the work.

The bottom line is simple. Larry Forman did not forget how YouTube works. He forgot how lawyering works. He wanted the benefits of the attorney identity without the burdens of attorney discipline. He wanted the trust of the audience without the restraint required by the rulebook. He wanted to swing the law license like a flamethrower and call it commentary.

But the Kentucky Rules do not disappear when the livestream starts.

The law license is not a costume, YouTube is not an ethics-free zone, and the Halesverse lawyer problem has now become the story.

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LUTHMANN NOTE: Some livestreams inform. Some entertain. Some accidentally become evidence. This one did all three while wearing designer frames and laughing at the lunacy of internet lawfare. When I joined Lisa Lee and Robbie Keszey on Two Lees in a Pod, with Leslie Ferderigos jumping into the furnace, the Halesverse sideshow delivered exactly what it always delivers: threats, weird phone calls, recycled smear tactics, and cartoon-grade legal fantasies. The difference was that this time, the comedy gods clocked in. DJ Rattis called. The mugshot glasses came out. And “Tuboku Damages” entered the American legal imagination like a flaming briefcase through a courthouse window. This piece is “Halesverse Humor Division,” first available on FLGulfNews.com.

By Frankie Pressmann with Richard Luthmann

The Live Stream Becomes A Comedy Courtroom

(GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA) – Richard Luthmann’s appearance on Two Lees in a Pod began like most late-night internet war councils: part legal strategy session, part creator-drama autopsy, part therapy session for people trapped inside the endless Halesverse hamster wheel in the Northern District of Florida Federal Court, Gainesville Division.

Lisa Lee was laying out the copyright and harassment battlefield. Robbie Keszey was in the mix. Leslie Ferderigos was on the panel, bringing her own front-line account of the bizarre conduct orbiting the What The Hales ecosystem.

Then Luthmann entered the room and did what Luthmann does: he turned the whole thing into a courtroom comedy club with subpoenas in one hand and a whoopee cushion in the other.

The best part was the contrast. The underlying subject matter was not small. The panel discussed harassment, copyright infringement, platform complaints, cease-and-desist letters, creator brigading, and the growing paper trail attached to Halesverse drama. These are real issues in the modern creator economy, where online mobs, platform rules, public records, and lawfare tactics collide in ways most people still do not understand.

But Luthmann’s genius in that room was not to make the issues smaller. It was to make the panic merchants look small.

That is the whole trick. When someone says “you’re all going to jail” enough times, you can either flinch or you can start shopping for mugshot glasses. When someone tries to intimidate a panel with a crank call, you can either freeze or you can turn the caller into the punchline.

That night, Luthmann chose laughter as a defensive weapon. It worked because it was not random clowning. It was ridicule with a legal education behind it, and that is a dangerous thing.

Halesverse Humor Division: DJ Rattis Calls In And Gets Fed Into The Woodchipper

The DJ Rattis segment was the kind of livestream chaos that producers dream about and lawyers pretend not to enjoy. Leslie Ferderigos said she received a voicemail during the live broadcast from Rattis, describing it as part of a pattern of unwanted contact. Lisa Lee tried to play the message for the audience, but the audio was low.

Luthmann, naturally, became the FBI Humor Division’s sound engineer and helped amplify it. The panel replayed the message, parsed the voice, and discussed the surrounding conduct like a late-night evidentiary hearing with better lighting and worse judgment from the caller.

Then came the moment. Rattis later called Luthmann live on the air. Rich answered. Whatever Rattis expected to happen, it did not happen. He did not get fear. He did not get confusion. He did not get a trembling defendant begging for mercy from the mighty prince of crank-call theater. He got Luthmann, fully caffeinated, fully armed with sarcasm, and absolutely delighted to have fresh meat walk voluntarily into the comedy grinder.

The exchange was brutal because Rattis brought nothing. The alleged tough-guy call collapsed into stale insults, silence, and dead air. Luthmann responded like a man who has argued with judges, prosecutors, inmates, informants, bureaucrats, grifters, political operators, and internet goblins. A prank caller with no material was not going to rattle him.

Instead, Rich framed him as a wannabe nuisance, a roaming mascot of the Halesverse fringe, a man trying to become relevant by dialing into someone else’s show.

That is why the clip works. It is not just “Rich yells at caller.” It is a perfect little parable of the whole ecosystem.

These people run around promising consequences, exposure, arrests, investigations, and doom. Then they get someone on the line who actually knows how to fight back, and suddenly the big bad wolf sounds like he needs a script supervisor.

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Halesverse Humor Division: The Mugshot Glasses Hearing Was The Funniest Pretrial Conference Of The Year

The mugshot glasses bit may be the cleanest, funniest, most shareable moment of the entire appearance. The premise was simple: the Halesverse has spent so much time fantasizing about enemies going to jail that Luthmann decided to prepare properly. Not with a bail bondsman. Not with a criminal defense team. With eyewear.

If the imaginary arrest was coming, the mugshot needed branding. Trump had the glare. Luthmann would have the frames.

Rich then staged a live fashion hearing. Glasses A through F came out like exhibits in a style-conscious suppression motion. There were tortoise-shell frames, black round frames, thin-rim “bail glasses,” oversized “Uncle June” frames, and what Rich jokingly framed as the more dangerous celebrity-party look.

Lisa, Robbie, Leslie, and the audience weighed in. The chat became a jury. The panel treated the decision like it might determine bond status, media coverage, and commissary respect.

The brilliance was not just that it was funny. It was that it converted menace into merchandise. “You’re going to jail” is supposed to be an intimidation line. Luthmann turned it into a costume problem. Which glasses get bail? Which glasses look harmless? Which glasses say, old-school gangster? Which glasses say “do not put me next to the wrong cellmate?”

Every frame became a joke at the expense of the people who have spent months trying to scare creators with legal thunderclouds and fantasy handcuffs.

That is how you beat performative lawfare in public. You do not merely deny it. You mock the ritual. You take the mugshot threat and make it a poll. You make the audience laugh at the machinery of intimidation. By the end of the bit, the only thing truly on trial was the seriousness of the people making the threats.

Halesverse Humor Division: Tuboku Damages And The Luthmann Doctrine Of Internet Absurdity

Then came the doctrine nobody asked for, and nobody can now forget: “Tuboku Damages.” The setup was a discussion about physical damages, stress, and the real-world consequences of relentless online attacks. Lisa discussed her own stress-related issues. The conversation had a serious foundation: what happens when creator conflict, harassment allegations, and litigation pressure spill into health, home, livelihood, and sanity? Then Luthmann did what he does best. He detonated the seriousness with a mock-legal theory so ridiculous it became instantly memorable.

“Tuboku Damages” was Luthmann’s crude comic invention, a fake damages category framed as “the physical manifestation of Halesverse stress and internet fuckery.” It was not a real legal doctrine, and was not meant to be one.

It was satire aimed at the inflationary madness of online lawfare, where every slight becomes a federal case, every insult becomes a campaign, every livestream becomes a preservation letter, and every crank in the peanut gallery suddenly imagines himself general counsel for the republic.

The joke landed because it exposed the absurdity underneath the drama. The Halesverse world is always trying to sound grave, dangerous, and official. It is always “the FBI is involved,” “you’re going to jail,” “the investigation is coming,” “the judge will see,” “the police are handling it.”

Luthmann responded by inventing a fake tort from the fever swamp and threatening, jokingly, to litigate it to the top.

That is the Luthmann Doctrine in one segment: meet absurdity with superior absurdity, but keep the receipts close. The show had legal issues, platform issues, evidence issues, and reputational issues.

But it also had something more powerful than fear. It had laughter. In internet warfare, that matters. Once the audience starts laughing at the monster, the monster has already lost.

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