 Welcome to my show. Welcome back, I should say. It's been a difficult few months. I've missed you. I'm glad to be back in this studio. We could have done some Zoom internet things. I preferred not to. Today I'm alone, but I promise you that the next show I do, I'm hopefully going to have a guest. Today I'm going to talk about three topics. The first one is the elephant in the room, the COVID-19 virus, the elephant in our lives, the elephant sitting on our chest. Ladies and gentlemen, this is without question one of the most serious things that's ever happened to our country. My grandfather, Ellsworth Runlet I, died in 1918 from the so-called Spanish flu. He was a young man, only 38 years old. And back then, if you've read about the Spanish flu, the Spanish flu was attacking healthy people. Whatever this disease was, it only wanted healthy people, young, healthy, vibrant people. That was my grandfather. He had a storage place on the waterfront. It was called Runlet Storage. You can see it in old pictures down near DeMillo's. As a result of my grandfather passing away at a young age before 40 years old, my grandmother became a widow. My father became basically a son with no father at age six. And I was 12 when I lost my father in 1958 from a heart attack. And I've discussed that on this show. This virus is serious, ladies and gentlemen. And when I see people on television that say that this is a hoax, that this is some sort of liberal agenda that's going on to change the course of politics in this country, I shudder to see people look at a TV camera and say, I don't need to wear a mask. I'm protected by the president or whatever politician happens to be in the room. When I see people saying that they don't believe that this is as serious as the doctors of our country are saying, the doctors throughout the world, ladies and gentlemen, I ask these people, why would these physicians, these very experienced men and women in disease understanding, why would they lie? What motive do they have? What political or monetary motive do they have to be making up how serious this disease is? If you are one of those people who believe that certainly this is a big hoax, or it's not as serious as you think it is. It's only a few hundred thousand people dying, then I would suggest that you take every bit of your money out of the bank, go to Oxford County, and put it all on black and take that similar gamble. With that in mind, I now want to discuss what's happening in Maine with COVID-19 and the legal system. This will be the first of several shows I intend to do as noted as a COVID-19 legal report. When this show is over, I'm gonna sit in negotiations with the manager of this station to hopefully do more programming and to offer more to this station than I've ever given before, because I think now is the time for me to give back to this station and have this station do what it has been organized to do to serve the public. So with that, let me talk to you about what's happening in our justice system. First of all, I can guarantee to you that there is one entity that does not believe that this thing is our hoax, or just some passing fad in the night, and that would be the court system of the state of Maine, the Supreme Judicial Court, the Superior Court, the District Court, and the lawyers of this state, including myself. As a member of both the Maine Bar Association and the Maine Trial Lawyers Association, I can assure you that virtually every lawyer in this state is working very hard to make sure that justice and the constitutional rights of its citizens are still upheld. With that in mind, I want you to understand what is happening in the court system. For a period of time, the court system was essentially in a state of just on hold, everything was on hold. They could not have jury trials because the jurors would have to sit six feet apart. They could not deliberate in a small room the way they've been doing. So jury trials were put on hold for both criminal cases and civil cases. The next thing that was happening is family law cases, divorces, protections from abuse, custody issues, visitation issues, all of those matters had to be put on hold. My law firm, Charles Runlet Nelschuler, does a lot of divorces, and we found that we had to regroup in almost every case that we had. So what has happened in that particular area with divorce and family law? They came up with a priority system, and that priority system was essentially the only cases that were of an emergency nature, emergency protection from abuse, cases involving domestic assault, those were the cases that had to be heard immediately by a judge. When it came to less important issues, maybe they're trying to fight over a bank account or personal property or real property, those cases were put on the so-called back burner. The next came the criminal cases, serious criminal cases in which defendants had to have their rights to be bailed out of jail or to be arraigned, those had to take place. The less serious cases, the speeding cases and some of those less important cases, parking ticket fines, whatever, those had to be put on hold. The next thing was landlord tenant. Evictions were put on hold. They had to tell the landlords of this state we cannot handle these evictions, especially if people are not paying rent because they just lost their job. The other area that has become extremely important is unemployment law. You're reading every day, every single day in the paper about unemployment law. Just before I came over here, I read my own town newspaper, the Cape Courier, in which the police went to over 25 homes with a report that somebody had used their name to file a false unemployment claim. It was one visit after another of the Cape Elizabeth police going to the homes of people whose identity was stolen so that people could file unemployment claims. Those range in not the hundreds, but the thousands in the state. I submit to you that many of those people that filed those fake claims, unemployment claims, might actually end up going scot-free because it just won't be enough time or resources to prosecute them. So those are the areas of law that I'm gonna discuss tonight. If you have a matter pending right now in the court system and you have a lawyer, you should have been in contact with that lawyer to find out what is happening with my case. Do not assume that because you haven't heard from the lawyer or you haven't heard from the court system, do not assume that that case is currently on hold. That is not the case. If you put your head in the sand and think that this case is just gonna go away because you haven't heard about it, you're making a huge mistake. You can reach your attorney by whatever method you've decided, text, email, telephone, and if they do not respond, if they do not respond after two or three tries, then you probably will have to call the board of overseers to have them intervene and have their lawyer, have your lawyer, excuse me, your lawyer contact you. If you do not have a lawyer, do not sit back and simply wait for the court system to notify you. Contact the court system. Ask for the clerk, who is in charge of my case? What is happening to my case that is now pending? My criminal case, my civil case, my divorce, whatever. You need to find out exactly where that case is right now and whether there are anything pending that you need to pay attention to. If you fail to do this, unfortunately, you get caught in the quagmire and it will take you more effort to get out of that quagmire than it was to avoid it in the first place. If you have a criminal case and you do not have an attorney, then you need to contact the district attorney for whatever county you live in and ask them what is the status of my case. If they say it's been dismissed, it's gone, it's gone forever, you don't have to worry about it. You should ask for that in writing if you can possibly get it, even an email to confirm that your case has been closed because otherwise you could be driving along, get stopped for a tail light out and be arrested because the police didn't know that your case had been dismissed and there's a warrant for your arrest. When it comes to landlord tenant, if you are a tenant, I'm gonna recommend to you that you be in touch with your landlord if in fact you are in arrears. You should try to work out an agreement with that landlord to either pay some rent toward your rent, if it's due, to do something other than not pay rent. If you ignore your landlord and think that you're gonna be protected by the law for the next few years or several years as this COVID thing goes on, I can assure you that will not happen because the landlords need to be paid. They pay their mortgages, they pay their expenses, the upkeep of the property and they need to be paid. So I recommend you contact your landlord and discuss it with them. If you are a landlord and you think you have to evict people because they're just not paying the rent, they're not taking care of the property, then I'm gonna recommend you get a landlord attorney. I'm gonna recommend that in the highest degree. There are several in Portland and throughout the state who handle matters specifically for landlords just as there are entities to handle matters for tenants. For the tenants, if you don't have a lawyer, you cannot afford a lawyer, you should be contacting Pantry Legal or the Common Legal Aid Clinic and they will hopefully be able to direct you. I can certainly tell you that I am well aware that the Legal Aid Clinic and Pantry Legal and all of those services that are doing pro bono work for clients are absolutely overworked and certainly underpaid. They are working many, many hours to see that justice is done here in the state of Maine. So when I do my next show, I'm gonna give you a second report on how the justice system is faring. One of the things that's happening throughout the state and throughout law firms in the state are what we call Zoom meetings. Meetings by internet, they're doing depositions by Zoom, they're even doing medical negligence hearings by Zoom where the parties are not in a courtroom, they're not in some hearing room, they are doing them by Zoom where the witnesses including doctors who are testifying and plaintiffs who are testifying and lawyers are in sometimes separate rooms and even in separate buildings. This is gonna be the wave of the future. This is how law is gonna be practiced until they hopefully come up with a vaccine and people can once again sit within a few feet from each other as opposed to six to seven feet apart. I now wanna talk about a case that just came down from the United States Supreme Court. It is of great significance to me. For those of you who have been watching this show for the past years, you will know that I'm the author of a book called Full Circle, A Father's Journey with a Transgender Child. This would be my daughter, Nicole, Nikki, the most important person in my life along with my wife and my other kids. And what I wanna say to you is that this case that just came down from the Supreme Court took place several years after the famous landmark decision in which gay marriage was recognized and allowed throughout the entire country. My daughter was one of the first people in Maine to have a gay marriage in August of 2013. I presided over that ceremony at a place known to many of you in this county and that would be Portland Headlight. After the wedding was over, my daughter kindly gave me this beautiful picture of Portland Headlight. Here we go. Of Portland Headlight with quotations that I said when I was presiding over that wedding. And one of the quotations was this. 100 years ago, a wedding between a so-called white person and a Native American would have been illegal and I would be prosecuting for performing that ceremony. Less than two years ago, a wedding between two people of the same gender would have also been outside the law. You, Nikki, and your wife could have had a ceremony with you where you could declare yourselves committed. You could have referred to yourselves as life partners or significant others and you could use any other word to describe your relationship except the word married. There are those who still strongly believe that such a word and such a legal declaration should only be used by a male and a female. Thank God for progress and I closed with this. It is my declaration that not our children, for they are the very ones here who have fought that legal battle and not our children's children because they have been witness to that battle. I am positive that the children of our children's children will ask this question. Why was this ever an issue in the first place? Just as we wonder how anyone with a soul and a conscience could pass a law that says that people of a different color should have to walk miles to a school while others ride a brand new bus. That would be Brown versus Board of Education. This past week, one of the most important decisions in Supreme Court law came down the pike. It was a gay rights case called Bostock versus Clayton County. It involved a man who was fired from his job because they saw photos of him in a picture with a gay softball team and he was discharged. Ladies and gentlemen, what's the most amazing about this is that we knew that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the finest justices who ever served would rule against discrimination. We knew that her fellow justices, Briar and Sotomayor, would go the same way. But what we did not know is that the chief justice of the Supreme Court, appointed by a Republican and a justice by the name of Neil Gorsuch, appointed by Donald Trump as his first Supreme Court nominee would not only join the majority in the opinion outlawing discrimination in the workplace against people who are gay or transgender or bisexual or lesbian or any other difference based upon that. That judge was David Roberts and none other than Neil Gorsuch. It is one of the biggest fakes, that's Jock fake, somebody who's never heard about faked out of your Jock. They are amazed when this case gets discussed in the constitutional law classes of this country, this will be the first thing the constitutional law professor will discuss is the amazing part of this decision. Why? Because the president himself had legal advisors argue for discrimination. When the president was running for election, he said several times, look at the sign behind me, the gays, the gays and the lesbians, they're all on my side, they are all on my side. Come to find out after he was elected, one of the first things he did was to go after the transgender community in the military with respect to health coverage and other attacks upon transgenders. These were making front page news, these weren't under the headlines, they were making front page. I once sat with a couple of friends who are gay, these men got married in Las Vegas, they are dear friends of mine. And I asked them, how are you going to feel if the Supreme Court nominees of Donald Trump, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh vote against you and vote that you can be discriminated against for either your job or to even go in a restaurant and be served or get a room in a hotel or take a ride in a amusement park. Their comment was this, we will trust that justice, we will trust Justice Gorsuch, we will trust Justice Kavanaugh. Amazingly enough, Justice Kavanaugh, who was confirmed by the United States Senate with a vote from Susan Collins, voted a large dissent, a very vocal dissent in this case. It's amazing because when Susan Collins said that she was going to confirm his commitment, she quoted some opinions in which she thought that he would be a very pro-gay rights person. Who knows how he will rule on other issues that may come before him. But I will tell you that to the gay community, Neil Gorsuch is without question a hero. I wish to quote from his opinion. He wrote and I quote, it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex. If a company fires a male employee for no other reason other than he is attracted to a man, the employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his female colleagues. In other words, if you fire a man because he is attracted to men, but you allow a woman who is also attracted to men and marries men, then you have discriminated against. Why is it so hard for Kavanaugh and the other dissenters to not understand that? How can they say that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which the Congress and Kennedy and Johnson and all those people fought so hard to come up with, why do they think that that act does not apply to every human being? And I have to tell you, if someone is going to be discriminated against because they're different, they wear a blue shirt instead of a red shirt. They are black instead of white. They are brown or yellow instead of white. Or they are gay, or transgender, or bi, or whatever they wish to be. Why should they be discriminated against? Well, the answer is from now on, at least in the workplace, they cannot. In my next show, I intend to have one of the best civil rights lawyers in the state of Maine to come on this show and discuss this very important decision. And of course, it's important to me because my daughter, Nikki Rundlund, is both gay and transgender. Well, that's it for the serious topics of COVID and gay rights. I now want to talk about a topic that is very near and dear to me. And that topic is lobster rolls. As you enter the summer and you're gonna drive around and you're gonna see signs everywhere, the best lobster roll, best lobster roll in Maine, best lobster roll in Cumberland County. I recall driving by a store near Bethel, coming back from Gulf one day, and the sign said best lobster roll in Maine. I thought this was pretty strange for a store about 40 miles from the nearest water, but I thought, my God, why would they say that if it wasn't true? Maybe it is. So I went into the store, I ordered the lobster roll. When it came out, I went outside to eat it and I realized this was not a good lobster roll at all. I went back inside the store and I said, sir, I'm sorry to tell you this, but this is not only not the best lobster roll, it is the worst lobster roll I think I've ever had. He was very upset with me and said, well, you're still gonna pay for it. I said, well, sir, I don't mind paying for it, but when I leave this store, some critters that exist in the woods about 20 feet from here are gonna have the best lobster roll in Maine. Well, I now wanna talk about what I think are the best lobster rolls in this area. There are a lot of them, folks. Some of the restaurants in town have great lobster rolls. Over at Fort Williams Park where I live, there are two establishments, one is called Bight in the Maine, the other one is the Cousins Lobsters. They have both been nationally recognized, Bight in the Maine has articles, the best lobster roll in Maine, one of the best in the country, best this, best that, and I have to admit they are excellent lobster rolls without question. They have like five different kinds and people wait in line to get it and they have blueberry soda and they've got whoopee pies and you have the view of the very light house that I just showed you a few minutes ago. And then there was another place that I can see the lobster rolls to be very good. The Ocean House variety on Route 77 on the way to Cape Elizabeth, they have what is called a giant lobster roll and indeed it is, it's about this big. I think it's just close to $20. And when my friends from the happenings was on a cruise with me that sailed into Portland Harbor last summer, the first thing I did was we took a limousine over to Portland Headlight and I had one of those lobster rolls. But in my humble opinion, the best lobster roll in this area based upon freshness, quality of the lobster meat, quality of the roll, the way the roll is cooked, the fact that you can eat this meat right out of the roll and then eat the roll by itself and it just tastes wonderful. The best lobster roll in my opinion, ounce for ounce, both of all is the Higgins Beach Market located on the Spirwink Road right at the entrance before you go down the road to Higgins Beach. Based upon all the qualifications that I think deserve to go into a good lobster roll, that place has in my opinion, the best lobster roll in the area. And I'm sure there are many, almost as good or possibly as good, but I'm gonna vote that one as the best I've had in recent times. And make sure you tell the proprietors, Ilse and her husband that I sent you. And by the way, I get nothing for free, not even a free soda. I might get an extra napkin and that's it. Before I close and before I sum up today's show, I wanna wish all of you the best summer you could possibly have, even with all this difficulties going on with the COVID virus and Black Lives Matter. On my next show, I also wish to discuss an issue that I consider to be very important. It's being brought up every day now. It's now taken over front page news, even above the COVID virus and that of course is Black Lives Matter. We are fortunate to live in a city and in a state where hopefully these incidents of police brutality or racial discrimination do not take place, at least very often. I have to tell you that the police departments of this state based upon my representation of both victims and people charged with crimes, my firm does both, I have yet to find more than a handful of incidents where we thought that the police conduct even aborted on the kind of conduct that we've seen on television. My position with respect to defunding the police will be quite strong. I believe very strongly that we should not defund the police. You would result in anarchy and I'm gonna discuss that in my next show because I think it's important to address the issue of Black Lives Matter without penalizing police in this state, including not only my son-in-law who works for the Westbrook Police Department, but others. Folks, thank you for watching and I will see you the next time on The Dairy Run That Show.