BLAKE TAYLOR: Arax vs. Thomas & FUSD ruling, Could Gov. Newsom commute death penalties?, First grade school shooter also has a foul mouth + Big $$ donated to Cen. Calif. Food Bank!

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It's The Ray Appleton Podcast from Kmj and kmjnow.com.

Blake Taylor (0:08)

Happy Thursday to you. It's Blake Taylor in for Ray Appleton today on the Appleton program here on News Talk 580, 105.9 Kmj, kmjnow.com. Anywhere you stream, around the world. We've got a great first hour lined up for you today. I'm gonna cover the 11 to 12 hour, and then 12 to 2, we're gonna give you Armstrong and Getty, if you've never heard their show, which airs 9 to midnight here on Kmj. A little preview for you, because they're fantastic. They're great guys, they're awesome hosts, and they dive deep into some really interesting stories day in and day out. Again, that's Armstrong and Getty coming up. Noon to 2 here on Kmj. Then Philip Teressi will drive you home from 2 to 6 We've got some really good stuff though in this first hour here on Kmj. Did you hear my interview the other day with Manuel Cunha, the president of the Nisei Farmers League? He got into the fact that the ICE officers were in the valley and making some raids, some arrests, some apprehensions of illegal immigrants or suspected illegal immigrants here in the valley. I want to replay some of that audio for you because it has come to fruition. We're learning more about the ICE raids here in the Central Valley. Speaking of, why is Microsoft under the gun? Well, the Trump administration is blasting Microsoft for employing foreign workers and getting them green cards instead of American workers. We'll talk about that a little bit later on in this hour of the Appleton program. Why are the youngsters fleeing the Golden State? Gen Z is packing their bags, and they are moving out of California. We'll tell you what's behind that. We've got a chef slash kidnapper story to talk about. A referee, a wrestling referee killed in the ring. We'll tell you how it happened. It's kind of sad, really sad actually. Lots of stuff to get to. Tuition being slashed by colleges because students these days are simply apparently starting to not value a college education as much as it used to be. But first, we've got to start with the fact that Fresno Unified and Kiesha Thomas are in deep doo-doo. Deep. A Fresno County Superior Court judge this week issuing a formal ruling yesterday in favor of former Bullard High teacher and football coach Don Arax in his defamation suit against Fresno Unified trustee Kiesha Thomas and the Fresno Unified School District. Now, this is going to cost a pretty penny in the end, it looks like. At least that's the way it's leaning. Of course, Kiesha Thomas made headlines a few years back when she accused Coach Arax of using a racial slur against her son. Turns out, it was not true. And here we go. We're heading full steam into a trial that could cost FUSD millions of dollars. And quite frankly, I got to tell you, it's looking that way, and that's where the compass is pointing. And it's deserved, in my estimation. Arax got screwed. He lost his job. He was unjustly accused of being a racist.

And the truth is starting to really emerge now, as the legal process goes through. So a judge this week, yesterday, as a matter of fact, the judge, by the way, is Christy Culver Capitan. You might recognize that last name. Christy Capitan, siding with Arax and his attorney, Brian Whelan's motion to keep Kiesha Thomas or the Fresno Unified School District lawyers from arguing that the racial slur allegation that she made and she did against Arax was truthful or protected speech. Now, we got this press release yesterday afternoon. Right before Philip Torezzi was about to take the microphone yesterday afternoon, I got it in my inbox and I forwarded it on to Philip. We asked the attorney, Brian Whelan, to come on the air. He kindly declined and I requested that he come on the air almost immediately to talk about what he was saying as a result of this decision by Judge Capitan.

He declined, but hopefully we'll get him on as this legal process continues on and we get a resolution likely in the month of December, when this thing is expected to go to trial. Also, Whelan in the news release yesterday said that Capitan's judgment justified what Arax had been saying all along for years. Claims of him being a racist were not true. For more than four years, Don Arax has lived under the cloud of a public accusation that he used a racial slur toward a bullied student on his team. Today, the legal defense has finally caught up with the facts. Nobody is willing to defend that accusation as true. Ms. Thomas publicly denies making the statement and denies that her son ever attended Bullard. Fresno Unified abandoned its truth defense and today, the court struck it from the case. They were willing to spread the accusation, but they were not willing to defend it. So again, a jury trial is set for December. And boy, howdy, is Coach Arax going to get a payday?