Make America Grift Again

Since the nation's founding, the values of religious liberty and pluralism have been central

“to the American identity. These values are now under accelerated attack.”

The government has no authority to pick and choose which religious beliefs to promote and which to marginalize. Religious freedom for only some is religious freedom for none. The Trump Vance Administration's Religious Liberty Commission is pursuing a culture of Christian nationalism that seeks to divide and isolate people across our nation. The fatally flawed way this commission was assembled makes clear that the pre-determined

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“The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it”

are being silenced. So we're going to ease 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Pretty was executed by Ice and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life, and it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. Of course they're doing all these horrible

bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst than they have absolute immunity, and they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show runaway country we go where the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of runaway country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

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Here's how you're going to have the latest work. She's small, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity, she said, "I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet or for my next." Hello, and welcome back to strict scrutiny. Your podcast about the Supreme Court and the

legal culture that surrounds it. We are your hosts, I'm Cachea. I'm Leo Littman, and I'm Melissa Murray, and on today's episode we are going to cover some of the legal news of the past week, and we'll also share with you another highlight from one of our live shows in California. This one is from the LA show, and it is a terrific interview

with Congressman Jimmy Gomez. But first, we want to start our coverage of recently

legal news by focusing on the corruption that we are seeing from the administration, and by walking through the many ways that that corruption is directly connected to the Supreme Court. We are still working on a name for what obviously has to be and should be a recurring segment. There's so much going on, but people should still be aware of the extent of the grift, even with everything else, so should be call it "cortruption", like "corruption", "cortruption", "roboured

“sparence", I know I've loaded this time. I think that one's growing on me. Okay, quid-proskotus,”

bivocracy, um, okay, uh, "Brotus and the Braulagarki" make America grift again. Yeah, rubber sparence. And then this mauga variation, I think are okay. So I do think I'm struggling at least a little, and it's not because I've been dipping into an ambient jar, which again, is not a thing that exists certainly in my house. But we welcome your suggestions listeners if you have an idea for this segment. But more seriously, last week, the New York Times had a really

important story about federal campaign contributions in 2024, and their analysis found that

quote 300 billionaires, and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion,

total of $10 million each, most of the money went to Republicans for every dollar to Democrats,

five went to Republicans. We should emphasize that that is an enormous change to the electoral landscape. So if you go back to 2008, that's five presidential elections ago. This was the election that Barack Obama won, and coincidentally, maybe I don't know, it was the last election before the Supreme Court issued its decision in Citizens United versus FEC, which struck down the ban on corporations spending their own money to advocate in elections because the first amendment.

In that 2008 election cycle, the share of billionaire spending was wait for it, almost zero. 0.3%. Now look at it. And when you look at that escalating number, you have one man to thank for it. John G. Roberts. Thanks, bro. No, I do feel compelled. The way Melissa describes it as United is the way the majority describes it. But in Justice Stevens descent, like he emphasizes, and I just,

“I think this remains true. It wasn't a ban on corporations. It was a ban on this very”

narrow period of time right before an election when this spending could be done. They could spend all the other times they wanted to, and in all kinds of other ways, they just couldn't do it as themselves for 30 or 60 days before an election. So a modest regulation, and even that was too much for the Supreme Court to permit. But this times piece is just full of case studies and anecdotes about specific billionaires and particular races, where those billionaires intercede,

and where their money is hugely influential, and is really worth reading in its entirety. The opening anecdote is about the Montana Senate race that unseated the Democratic incumbent, John Tester, it describes how Steve Schwartzman, the billionaire chairman of Blackstone,

steered a $150 million investment. So this is before politics, actually, just a business investment

to now Republican Senator Tim Scheehy's company. I was like a fire fire fighting from the air

“kind of company that was struggling until this money helped shore up his business, and then helped”

seed his Senate campaign. Schwartzman later hosted a fundraiser for Scheehy donated $8 million to a PAC supporting Scheehy 64 other billionaires also donated to Scheehy's campaign. And then they're just details in the times piece about state races that in some ways like get even crazier, in Illinois in the most recent gubernatorial cycle, 87% of the money given came from billionaires. And then maybe just one last observation, which is that the asymmetry that Leah mentioned at the

outset that just way more of this billionaire money goes to Republicans than to Democrats is actually also a pretty new development. Once upon a time, rich people gave roughly comparable amounts to Republicans and Democrats to kind of like hedge their bets, and that is just no longer remotely the case. Kate, I feel I have to remind you that it is not unconstitutional to have rich friends who bail out your flailing business, and then your business actually improves, and you're able to

“capitalize on those improvements to seed your run for a U.S. Senate seat. So you can then go forward”

with the kind of derregulatory policies that your billionaire friends want. That's not unconstitutional Kate. Actually, every single step in that chain is unconstitutional in my constitution. It's a people Kate, I wrote a timeline about all fine. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Neither people do have such an annotation on the First Amendment that sets forth all of the

rights that you just described as obviously flowing from those figures. Obviously, you'll have to preorder the book to find out. Good answer. But again, we the people in order to form a more perfect oligarchy. Actually, that's a good next book, just like a red line of the constitution with the constitution that they think exists. Maybe let's put that on the list. Let's put that out there for our publishers. We could do that. Oh, three of us could do that together. Oh yeah.

That would be bleak. Well, the second amendment would be in like all caps and bold and underline except for the Profitory class. And then anyways, a lot of those of ideas. The thought bubbles were like, you know, you stretch out some and compress other texts. Right. The ninth amendment just big X. Right. Right. Exactly. The plus and minus 14 amendment also acts. Right. Yeah. So, right. So, getting back to the Supreme Court's view of the Constitution,

one of the lines that has aged the worst from the Court's opinion in Citizens United was the claim about how unlimited corporate expenditures do not give rise to corruption or even the appearance of corruption. Oh, really? Because every day of the second Trump administration gives us an opportunity to revisit that. So, let's talk about some of what we saw just last week. In our live share, we actually talked about the litigation that was ongoing between

live nation and ticket master. Well, guess what? Last week, Trump's Department of Injustice announced that it has agreed to settle the lawsuit against live nation and ticket master. Again,

to the lawsuit contributed to a stranglehold on live music sales. One that weirdly did not

run down to the benefit of music fans. But rather, we're down to the benefit of the two companies. The settlement, which was announced in the trial, came as something of a surprise to both the court and the 39 states in the district of Columbia, which had joined as co-plaintives in the suit. Notably, the lawsuit had actually survived a motion for some re-judgment, meaning that the

“case would then proceed to a trial. So, why does all of this seem to be very corruption adjacent?”

Well, for one thing, the states are objecting to certain terms in the settlement, like the fact that the damage is to the states, are capped at less than 1% of live nation's 2025 revenue. It doesn't sound like a gentleman. Just the tip of the profits, if you were, I don't know expert, but that doesn't look like a great deal. They say you're not getting screwed, but you kind of are. Yeah. In terms of sort of other, at least circumstantial evidence that this might not be

totally on the level prior to the settlement, the DOJ anti-trust chief gale slater abruptly left the DOJ, along with the person who had been her top deputy. So, the timing is at least curious. More circumstantial evidence, live nation had hired Magan Nuttjob Mike Davis to lobby

“the administration. The company also named Trump's buddy Rick Grinnell, the current head of the”

so-called Trump Kennedy Center, aka the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to its board of directors and hired Kellyanne Conway as a lobbyist. Once again, quite curious. No, I can't believe you forgot to throw in the second definite article, the Donald Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Sorry. Yeah. Okay. So, one other sort of curious

fact is that live nation donated half a million dollars to Trump's presidential transition fund.

As one does. That's one does. Anyway, the DOJ's decision to enter into settlement mid-trial during the government's direct examination struck some people as very, very curious, perhaps even in bad faith. According to the presiding judge, it, quote, shows absolute disrespect for the court the jury and this entire process. The judge then described the surprising turn in the litigation as, quote, unacceptable. And the judge was not the only one concerned about how all of this went down.

Here's friend of the pod, Senator Mese Harono, back in October, asking Attorney General Pamela Joe Bondi about DOJ's antitrust posture toward ticket master. This was all before the settlement was announced. Take a listen. On January 30th of this year, the Trump DOJ's antitrust division sued to block the merger of two tech companies. Then, a well-connected lobbyist met with your political deputies who overruled the career staff and approved the merger. So, there's a settlement on that.

And separately, DOJ sued ticket master last year for monopolizing concert tickets and forcing consumers to pay outrageous fees. Ticket master has hired the exact same lobbyist who met with senior DOJ political people regarding the merger of the two tech companies. So, my question is Ms. Bondi,

“have lobbyist met with your political deputies about the ticket master case?”

Senator Harono, as I stated earlier, I am not going to discuss anything that is ongoing.

Gale Slater runs the antitrust. I was, and Gale Slater, if I can finish Gale Slater is doing an incredible

job running my antitrust unit. It's highly likely, Ms. Bondi, that the same lobbyist who met with your people basically got rid of the antitrust case, Senator Harono, I don't think a lot of people like to think they were out there protesting when they're in two five right now. Notably, in her response, Pamela Joe mentions Gale Slater. As Kate Nodec, Gale Slater was the antitrust chief who left DOJ just before the settlement was announced.

This episode of strict scrutiny is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood health centers are the nation's leading provider of sexual and reproductive health care, including cancer screenings, wellness exams, STI testing, and treatments, birth control, abortion, and more. Today and every day, Planned Parenthood is committed to providing access to the care, information, and resources that people need to make their own decisions

about their bodies and their futures. But, the Trump administration and Congress want to take away that freedom and force their own personal beliefs on everyone. As part of a year's long strategy

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or enter Strix to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's a armra.com/strix. Back to the Supreme Court. You can pretty much draw a straight line between not just citizens united and the corporate corruption, but also the court's cases on presidential power and corporate corruption. Recall that when we discuss the court's pending case and Trump versus slaughter, that's the pending case about whether the president gets to have the power to remove

commissioners of the federal trade commission without cause and also every other federal official who leads every other agency as well, except the Fed because the justice has a retirement account. We noted that giving the president that kind of sweeping power over the administrative state that itself exercises sweeping regulatory powers over corporations and industries was a recipe or corruption because it allows the president to exercise that power by ensuring that people at

these agencies go easy on his corporate studios and buddies. We should also remind listeners that when we covered the slaughter case, we noted that many of the pro-allegark bros who attended Trump's second inauguration actually headed companies that were being investigated by or were in active litigation with the FTC, not surprising that those bros want a completely deregulated environment in which to do business. What is more surprising though is that it seems like the president of the

United States and the Supreme Court are more than happy to deliver to them. And to take another example in the same vein last week, the FDA announced that it was going to open the door to e-cigarettes that come in fruit and candy flavors. So those flavors had previously been restricted out of concerns that they would be marketed to and especially attractive to teenagers. So this about phase came in the form of a guidance document that announced that the FDA

now will consider approvals for flavored babes. Now the document purports to affirm the concern for flavors that appeal to kids suggest they're likely to approve things that they at least say will

“be more attractive to adults. They mentioned coffees and mint and teas and spices. But honestly,”

if you're familiar with teenagers and and tweens and their propensity for like frappuccinos and all things chai, I am not sure this is a distinction that has any hope of actually protecting kids, but stay tuned. But you know Kate, the thing about kids is that they're really young and if they get to terms that they're early, they can be your consumers for literally their whole lives. I think that has anything to do with it. I think that really does. And that in fact is why

previous administrations have tried to protect them and of course by this administration is obviously I believe the children are a future. So do the debate I'm amazed.

And in that vein, any guesses as to which industry helped fund trumps $300 million

ballroom or among others there have been quite a few funders. But in terms of the topic at hand, any guesses? I'll tell you. Tobacco companies, Altria group and Reynolds American, both of which will benefit from the relaxed regulation at least cigarettes. They're among the companies

for them. They are really straight up selling out the American people and the public interest with a

“cash for regulatory benefits scheme. It's amazing. Anyway, pro-publica has an astonishing story”

that compiles so many connections between people in the Trump administration and the industries that those individuals are ostensibly charged with regulating. So let's tick through a few examples from that story. So deputy secretary of defense, Steve Feinberg founded a private equity firm that just so happens to own several companies that are seeking department of defense contracts. Related to missile interceptors firm he's allowed to continue in contracting with and to maintain

a financial relationship with while at DOD. Trump has appointed more than 200 people who collectively

own between 175 million and $400 million in crypto and hold positions that influence the

regulation of cryptocurrencies. This includes Todd Blanche at DOJ. DOJ has already shut down some investigations into crypto companies, dealers and exchanges. And Kate, I have to say when we were doing the just the tip of the live nation, ticket master settlement, I think I came up with a name for what DOJ is doing and what DOD is doing here. It's the deal do, right? Deals that buck over the country. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if they were listening when

“you went to the Tenderloin page and saw your first key key, I think they're going to be okay.”

I can deal do. All right. Well, I did believe that and I think we did it. I believe we didn't. So the deal do is what the whole country will be asked with kids before noon in broad daylight. Coming for all of us. Okay, and just maybe one more example and that is in New York Times recently ran a piece about the booming pardon industry, which I think is proof positive that Trump actually is the job creator he makes himself out to be because the pardon industry has resulted in just a

boom for lobbyists who have been essentially facilitating the granting of pardons to very wealthy individuals convicted of crimes but with cash on hand and hoping to get out of their sentences. I mean, the piece like the public a piece like the Times piece about the campaign contributions is just real dystopian shit. Right. Like it's the corruption stupid, right? Like it's yeah.

“But here it's like also there's the hiring of social media. It's not just like the cold hard”

cash. It's like all the mechanisms you're hiring social media influencers. You're trying to get close to Laura Lumer who is like Arby's in your pants. Or it'd make her. Definitely in the parental warning on this one, although maybe without the context, Arby's in your pants sounds totally innocent. I don't know what that means. I genuinely don't. Oh yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, Laura Lumer could even really definitely win it. This was when she was deposed

in some of the litigation and they said, you, Laura Lumer, said, Marjorie, you're agreeing that Arby's in her pants. What did you mean? And she just said, it's hilarious. I meant she has Arby's in her pants. This whole timeline is so fucked up that I'm cheering for Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yeah. I know. So messed up. Anyway. All right. We should switch to another topic. This is actually truly dystopian. Let's do some other dystopian stuff. Maybe in the vein of

Margaret Appwood. Recently, listeners, there has been even more evidence for reading what has been happening with this government and with governance through the lens of gender. Again, as Leah explained a few episodes ago, we are living through government by the Manusphere

of the Manusphere and for the Manusphere. Oh, democracy, if you will. First up, it seems like the

devil wears floor shine. Apparently President Trump is absolutely obsessed with Michael Jackson's favorite shoe brand, the Chicago-based brand, floor shine, shoes. Just a little bit about the brand for those of you who are untootered. The company dates back to the 1850s when Sigmund floor shine, a German immigrant, began putting his old world cobbling skills to work. By 1886, he had become a partner in Greensfeldor, floor shine, and company immense footwear company. Again,

based in Chicago, see what can happen when you don't have ice doing immigration detention all over the place in a major city. Anyway, the company eventually gave rise to a family company, floor shine shoes that sigmund and his American born son Milton founded, and they have been making mid-priced men shoes for over a century. I am so embarrassed, I am clearly a bad Chicago, and I'm also descended from shoe salesmen in Chicago on the north side, and I can't believe I didn't know about

this brand. Maybe they sold it. But anyway, you know, it's very familiar with floor shine shoes, Donald J. Trump, who reportedly gives them as a gift to everyone in his circle and administration.

them interesting, he's giving them to just the boys. The only men shoes. So this is, okay, I guess

“you guys are coming to Donald Trump's defense here. We're just like facts. I mean, I guess there's”

nobody, no, I mean, they're not into trends. He doesn't wear, like, high heels and very lady shoes. So I guess that's, I guess that makes sense. Anyway, the journal reports that he is so hot for the shoes, that he has a stack of them in the White House. Although, it also just finds this whole story so puzzling, because he is famously really cheap. And so do we think he actually went out and spent thousands of dollars on shoes to gift or receive them from one of the many benefactors we

were talking about earlier in the conversation. Part of the story is that the shoes often do not fit. Right. Okay. So then also they're a considerably cheaper than other shoes. They might otherwise be wearing. Right. So he's downgrading it. All right. All right. So in any event, he gives them the shoes

and the Daily Beast reports that staffers basically say it's, it's the case that everybody's afraid

not to wear them. One official was reportedly, quote, "rankled that he had to shelve his Louis Vuitton's

“and replaced them with a sensible leather footwear." There is, that's how I feel about downgrading”

from Barack Obama to this. This is essentially not the deal of footwear. But, yeah, same idea. When the New York, the just the downgrading. Yes. It definitely downgraded. When the New York times visited the White House in December, tweetled dumb and tweetled dumber, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, gleefully showed reporters the shoes that Trump had bought them and, quote, "vance lifted his leg in the air to show the president the pair he was wearing." And, quote, "I cannot even

imagine this scene and I tried allegedly ordered the footwear after stopping a meeting to criticize Rubio and Vance's, quote, "fucking shoes," according to Vance himself. Those who have been gifted the shoes include transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, defense secretary, Pete Hegsef, commerce secretary, Howard Lutney again. I'm just going to say, if you have more than one nanny going with you to Epstein's Island, you can probably afford to

buy yourself a pair of shoes among, oh, he can't afford, so it's a cult. So he has to wear that

“clear. And, clear. What do we call this, call this the "sunitary" executive?”

Yeah, it's, you know, you're on fire to that. You know, California, I did Emma's women's history month rock ride this morning, which I love and I've also been listening to Casey Musgrave's new single non-stop since early this week, and I feel like those two things really kind of wrapped me up. How long was that, Emma, right? Three minutes? Yeah, so manageable. Anyways, the Baga Heeman have really been on one as of late, so in addition to this, you know,

gifting of the shoes, Trump reportedly just asks these guys their shoes size and they shout something out. And now, there are all of these photos on the internet of these dudes stomping around and shoes that are way too big. For I didn't realize he asked them and they're lying about their shoes size. They're happy with his history month. Again, it is all about gender. You can

basically understand everything that is going on through these lens, like they all have complexes

about their dick size. And we are all living with the consequences of that. Oh my, wow, I genuinely did not know that. Another quick update from the Manusphere, and this does seem like a gift of pettiness along the lines of what Leah just related. So this is just in time for women's history month. Apparently, Floor Shine's parent company, the Waco group, is among the businesses and corporations that sued the Trump administration over tariffs. And in fact, Waco is now seeking

a refund from the federal government over the tariffs that it paid fine. Last month, when the Supreme Court invalidated the tariffs saw the head of the Floor Shine company, Thomas Floor Shine Jr. He's the CEO of that parent company, Waco co-authored a piece that was published in the Contrarian and the piece was titled, Business Leaders Welcome Scotist tariffs decision. He's also gone even further with his critique of the tariffs and his embrace of the Supreme Court's decision two weeks

ago in an interview with Spectrum News. Floor Shine appeared that the Trump tariffs had really hurt the business. According to him, at one point, the tariffs actually exceeded the price of the shoes themselves, forcing the company to shift their production from China to India. But then India got sacked with a bunch of tariffs and they were back to square one. All of this tariffing he says has made business planning absolutely impossible. So with all of this in mind, you'd think that

Potuses, lists of favorite things. But when he was asked about the President's gifting habits, Mr. Floor Shine said he was unaware of the President's gifting practices and he politely declined to comment further. As Mariah Carey said, I don't know her. The should have been the response of the men's hockey team. But I mean, I just want to go buy some Floor Shine shoes now. I know that he likes them but like this guy is standing on business. I appreciate it. I'm a

Floor Shine of the Waco. There are the occasional unexpected heroes in this timeline and I think Floor Shine maybe one of them. There's no business like Sue has less he said and he's here for it. Okay.

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dystopia. If you have the eye to return, catch Patel has announced that UFC fighters will now be

sure what the full scope of it is, but really disturbing. This is a time. This is a place. What better occasion date? I was going to say this actually makes a lot of sense. Nobody knows that Mark. Yeah,

“but he left the eye. You know, this is like, I feel like, no, no, no, no. Do you think molasses it on this?”

It's a unitary attack. Okay, I'm just saying he might want molasses. You can get in on the UFC as well.

I mean, this is Mark Wayne, molins moment. Like, you did not have no space between your first

middle names for nothing. Like, this is where he is going to add values. This is the first time, I think, that anyone in this cabinet may actually be trained to offer real assistance to another agency or their own agency for the purposes that they are essentially charged with deploying. This might be it. Jokes write themselves. All right, in more news from the Manisfier, Senator John Kornin has apparently abandoned his

long time support for the legislative filibuster in order to grovel before Trump to get his endorsement in the Republican primary runoff that he is now facing against Ken Paxton, the two went to

runoff when Kornin, who is the incumbent was challenged and failed to clear the threshold in the

primary and now says he supports abandoning the filibuster in order to pass the save America slash save act, which just as a reminder is a series of voting requirements, including voter ID requirements and voting restrictions, including one that requires all registering voters to provide proof of citizenship that contains their current name. And a lot of people have observed that this requirement may serve to and may even be an effort to disenfranchise the millions of women

who either don't hold a passport or don't have a browser to if I get that reflects their married name. And obviously because it would likely disenfranchise millions of people, the president

is super into it, meaning that John Kornin is apparently now super into it as well.

You would think that running against someone whose corruption is so extreme, it actually generated an impeachment in Texas, like against an impeached, profidious adulterer whose wife has sought a divorce on biblical grounds, would be enough to secure an electoral victory, but here we are. Here we are. More news flashes from the Manisfier. Last week, the Pentagon barred press photographers because they had released quote unquote "unflattering photos of

Pete Hexeth." The most surprising aspect of this story is that not all photographers were actually barred. Yes, you can laugh there. In other news, the Department of Defense has refused to provide escorts for ships that are operating in the street of Hormuz because the DOD says that the area is quote unquote too dangerous, which is weird because the president of the United States recently had this to say about conditions in the street. Take a listen.

"On today you talk to Mr. CEO of various oil companies encouraging them to use this

“street of organization. I think they should use the street." I think they should use the street.”

"On my report you look we took out just about all of their mindships in one night. We're up to both numbers six, I didn't realize that big a navy. I would say it was big and ineffective, but every one of this, if this about all of their navy is gone, it's bottom of the city." So very, very unitary of it. "Really is a theme this week. Maybe last piece of big news from, oh no, it's not a national asset. It's not a national asset. It's not a national asset, it's just a

matter. It's just a gift that keeps on giving. But a few months ago, they went all out. "They sure did, it's not even half over yet either. Okay fine, not the last, but in some ways, the like most insane piece of Manisfier news is not even came." Let me just tell you what I'm going to say. "We got a series of Dogebro Divisions this week. These came as part of one of the cases, one of the many cases, challenging doge as destruction of various aspects of and divisions of the

federal government. And I just have to say if you're interested in going beyond sort of ambient levels

“of rage to full-on incandescent rage, you should watch some of the videos of these clueless”

mancheldron who spent part of the last year destroying much of the American government in ways that we will probably feel for the rest of our lives. So we're just going to bring you a couple of highlight slash lowlights. Let's start with this clip from a case involving the national endowment for the humanities." These moments from one of the depots also speak to just how unitary are executive is, which is to say not so unitary at all. "Do you have an understanding for

about who is creating the directives and the priorities for your team to address?" Elon had a medical ear that there was a number of small agencies that needed Dogelyts.

your team was engaged in based on the executive order. This is a sample of Nathan

Kavanaugh. And this is with a C, so no relation, except spiritually, to scot his bro, Brett, deposition. "You don't regret that he might have lost

“important income to now." Now I think it was more important to British the federal deficit from”

a $2 trillion to close to zero. So we've talked about boy math. There definitely seems to be some of that here. But also is this boy rock racy? These guys are all the things they accused bureaucrats of being incompetent, clueless, out-to-lunch, dumb. I mean, these guys basically went into the Iran War with a fuck-around and find out approach. Like, "Oh, the straight of

foremoose, mine's the global oil market. Oh, you should never thought of that one."

Honestly, a part of me wonders if they're going to get like homophobic with the straight of foremoose and start calling it like the gay of foremoose or something. Like, this is the insane levels of their approach to government. And it is just the overconfidence of mediocre white man as a model for governments. Like, this is government of the Manisfier. But more Dogebro depositions, here is a mash-up slash mixed tape, 404 media made of Dogebro, Justin Fox,

explaining what DEI is. How do you interpret DEI?

“There was the E.O. explicitly laid out the details. I don't remember it off the top of my head.”

It's okay. I'm asking for your understanding of it. Yeah, my understanding was exactly what was written in the E.O. So, can you? I don't remember what was in the E.O. So, right now, do you have an understanding of what DEI is? Yeah. Okay. So, what's your understanding? Yes, you sit here today in the step position. Well, it was exactly what was written in the E.O. And so, any time that we would look at a grant through the lens of complying with an executive order, we would just refer back

to the E.O. and assess if this grant had relation to it. Okay, but I guess I'm stepping back from your methodology strictly in terminating the grants. Do you have an understanding as you sit here today of what DEI means? Yeah. Okay. So, what's your understanding of what

“it means? Well, it is exactly what was written in the E.O. Okay. So, and I don't have the E.O.”

in front of me, but that was, we would always reference back to the E.O. and make sure that the

grant was in compliance with the E.O. And I'm saying that. Okay, but I'm not asking necessarily about what was in the E.O. I'm asking very specifically about your present understanding of what of DEI. Do you have a present understanding of DEI? Yeah. Okay. Can you explain what that present understanding is? Well, it is just easier for me to be referencing back to the E.O. Obviously, he was wrong and he needs to listen to this podcast because he would know that DEI

means Dixx husbands, imbosals, insels, idiots, or some combination thereof. As the New York Times reported, the Doge Bros used chat GPT to scan contracts for DEI and one of the prompts that they used was, quote, "From the perspective of someone looking to identify DEI grants, does this involve DEI respond factually in less than 120 characters, begin with yes or no, followed by a brief explanation," and quote, "literally, this is the chat GPT version of the

guys this time." So the Doge staffer in this mashup was apparently convinced among other things that he project about a woman's experience during the Holocaust was an example of forbidden DEI content. And I will just say that again, a movie about women during the Holocaust was quote DEI and so the grant had to be canceled because women are illegally woke, especially in the month of the Holocaust. So the entire Doge thing is really to me the same vibe as having Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme

Court, like mediocre at best, but these depositions are on a happier note, a testament to something litigation can do. Even if that litigation doesn't result in a judgment that completely stops or fixes all of the harms, the American Historical Association, one of the plaintiffs in this particular case, made these depositions publicly available on YouTube for all to

And again, people, I mean, can we stop and just say there's one thing a historian group is going to do,

and that's made up of things. And I am so glad they did. After we finish recording, a Doge order the videos be taken down from the internet because we can't have nice things, but this is the internet, so they're still available back to our regular episode. Speaking of body parts hanging out, we do have more on the manifest fear this time from the judicial branch of the manifest fear. So, George Lawrence Van Dyke of the Ninth Circuit, the MS Actual

who made a video descent in a gun case that video descent showed the judge assembling a gun, check it out if you haven't, but not to be outdone by his own video descent. George Van Dyke authored a descent that began and I quote, "This is a case about swinging dicks." Girl, I'm just glad that he did not video take it out of the straight. Because we're afraid. Because he really could have gone on. We could find himself to the written word here,

and I guess it's like a traditional descent. I mean, the content isn't traditional, it's a traditional descent, which I really want to know why these guys are so obsessed with

“genitalia. Okay, I think you know, right? I guess we did touch on that earlier,”

but the case in which this descent appeared involved a sex discrimination challenge to a new spa that would not admit a pre-operative trans woman or women and the Ninth Circuit concluded the business likely was in violation of various non-discrimination ordinances, and Judge Van Dyke really whipped it all out in response. So, after that opening sentence, the following lines also appeared in his descent. Quote, "You may think that swinging dicks shouldn't appear

in a judicial opinion. You're not wrong, but as much as you might understandably be shocked and displeased to merely encounter that phrase in this opinion. I hope we can all agree that it is far more jarring for the unsuspecting and exposed women to be visually assaulted by the real thing. Sometimes it feels like the supposed adults in the room have collectively lost their minds, well, regulators and complicit judges seem entirely willing, even eager to ignore the consequences

that their Frankenstein social experiments impose on real, women, and young girls." All right, this is where the courts and the executives are intersecting, because this is the language of all of those Trump administration eos. I will also note that Judge Van Dyke in his descent notes that the owners of the spa that won't admit the pre-op trans person are Christians. So, this is also the intersection of the whole first amendment with substantive

do process and anti-discrimination. But because the judge is such a gentleman, he did take a be to respond to his colleagues who thought his descent was maybe just a little too edge-lordy

for article three. And here's what he had to say, quote, "My distressed colleagues appear to

have the prestigious sensibilities of a Victorian nun when it comes to mere unpleasant words in my opinion." And quote, he also continues, quote, "The fact that so many on our court want to pretend that this case is about anything other than swinging dicks is the very reason the shocking language is necessary. The panel majority use a slick legal argument's inflection to studiously avoid eye contact with the actual and horrific consequences of its erroneous opinion."

All right, well, that was a truly shocking piece of judicial writing. And I guess we have the Victorian

“sensibilities of the majority of the nine circle according to Judge Van Dyke. I think even”

even Trump, I think, doesn't want this. Like, I don't know exactly who he is speaking to with this kind of opinion. I imagine like the guy in the Oval Office, but I don't think anyone wants to read this, quite honestly. I don't know. I think the whole like he says what he means, he's playing spoken. Like, that's the kind of lane that's occupies. And if you're auditioning to be America's next tap justice, maybe this is where it's at, you've got, I mean, he has two

portfolio now. He has visual media. He has ratings. It's like he wants to adaption to Harvard law school. Yeah, literally in the attention. Yep. This is how you get on the Supreme Court. I'm, it's possible. It's a podcast. Disbearing. Oh, unless I don't call that into being. Well, I, I, if there is going to be a first sitting federal judge to launch a podcast,

“it's probably not count out Jim Ho. I think that's probably right. Yeah, that's true.”

You heard it here first. Let's delve in a little further on the issue of ethics and governance in the executive branch. And we'll do this before we turn squarely to the Supreme Court. Listeners, our favorite attorney general, one Pamela Joe Bondi, has decided that there is a

problem with DOJ and ethics. True. Specifically, though, she believes the problem is that DOJ lawyers

standards for the profession. Pamela Joe, you're almost so close. Right. So what Melissa is

“alluding to is the fact that DOJ is trying to exert more control over state bar ethics probes”

that can result in disciplinary actions against federal government lawyers. State bars can actually be pretty important accountability institutions. People might recall that state bars had some success in meeting out some professional sanctions against lawyers who had assisted in trying to undermine or overturn the 2020 election. And so, of course, has accountability institutions Bondi wants to go after state bar associations. DOJ proposed a new regulation that would let it let DOJ

intervene in state bar disciplinary investigations, including with the authority to review allegations

against DOJ lawyers first. And essentially divest those bar associations of jurisdiction over those

matters while DOJ is like running its own investigation, which I'm sure will be a very serious one. It's pretty obvious that this is a recipe for DOJ obstruction of any state bar investigations

“of current or former because I think the regulation or at least the proposal extends to former”

DOJ lawyers. I think the ones overlining here is I feel like it does actually sound like people over there like a little bit nervous about bars associations now or in the future going after justice department lawyers who engage in unethical conduct and you know, I take some small joy in that fact. Okay, so it takes small joy in that, but I mean, federalism just took a seat on the couch and would like a word like a pathological body butter for, I mean, is this federalism? But,

you know, well, do you think this is a result of the DC bar association refusing to make her brother the president? So, we've got through a lot of orders to feel precipitating reasons for this proposed regulation. You know, among others, deputy AG Todd Blanche and former DOJ official and

out judge Amiel Bovet, dark lord of the third circuit have faced ethics complaints and state bar

organizations? Hmm. Also, to be added to this list of individuals facing state bar association complaints is our favorite friend of the pod former USA dick at Martin. There is a complaint that actually stems from his time as the acting USA dick. The bar complaint says that Martin engaged in misconduct. When he sought to punish Georgetown University Law Center for things related to DEI. This is the non-dix ex-husband and embezzles version of DEI. But, obviously, Ed Martin was engaged in the

new form of DEI when he was trying to punish Georgetown University Law Center for engaging in DEI, I guess. The complaint from the bar association accuses Martin of conducting unauthorized ex-parteate communications with a judge among other things. Let's take one more beat on ethics, the DOJ, and House Bondi. I know we just mentioned the fact that Pam Bondi's brother once ran to be the president of the DC bar association. Well, guess what? He didn't win, but he's still in the news. We could have

added this to the grifting segment, but it might as well be put here as well. Last week, two democratic lawmakers, Senator Adam Schiff and Representative Dave Min, former law professor, asked the U.S. Department of Justice's watchdog to review whether U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has properly produced herself from cases that involve clients of her brother, Brad Bondi, who is a partner of Paul's Hastings. So, in their letter, Schiff and Min said that, in January,

brother Bondi posted on LinkedIn several victories. He and his team won a 2025, including one on behalf of Nicola Founder Trevor Milton, who was convicted of fraud in 2022, and then pardoned by President Donald Trump last year. Other defendants Bondi represented had their criminal cases delayed unnecessarily or dropped. The letter then said, quote, "Give in the troubling pattern at the department of repeated interventions or dismissals and cases involving

brother Bondi, although they called him Mr. Bondi." We are concerned that DOJ officials, including the Attorney General may have failed to ensure the independence of internal accountability mechanisms. So, there are lots of things that could potentially have triggered this decision to change the rules surrounding state bar associations, like maybe many of the above. But I will also just say that the conservative legal movement has actually been gunning for state bar associations and

kind of accountability for federal government lawyers since the Reagan administration. It's

never pearl sign has a forthcoming book that actually goes through the history of this. It's fascinating.

I mean, she had an op-ed in the times this week about this latest regulation. And so, it's maybe these things like spurred them to actually do it now. But like, the roots have been built in.

“Totally. Yeah. All right, should we move on to Scotus? Why not?”

So, folks, at a public event last Monday in DC, Justice of Jackson and Kavanaugh had an exchange about the court shadow docket. The exchange was teet-up when the moderator of the event,

the shadow docket. And KBJ had some things to say about the shadow docket. So, she suggested that

“the emergency filing numbers would decrease if the court didn't grant as many of the emergency”

applications that were filed. Does seem like sort of a supply and demand? You know, concept here. She also generally said, quote, "it's not." That is the shadow docket is not, quote, "serving the court or this country well." And she referred to the courts involvement as a quote, real unfortunate problem that reflected, quote, "a warped kind of proceeding." Now, this is not breaking news if you have read her dissents and many of the court's shadow docket

grants. But it is still striking to hear her speaking in a different register like in a public forum as opposed to interwritten opinions and making clear just how serious a problem she thinks this is. Yeah. And Brett, for his part intellectually, outmatched, obviously, attempted to both sides the issue. He noted that the court also granted some requests on the shadow docket that were brought by the Biden administration. This happened at a remarkably lower rate and where lower court rulings

“were truly unhinged, like barring the federal government from having any communications with social”

media companies. But no matter, he also, as ever, made the court out to be the victims here, saying, quote, " none of us enjoy this." And by this, he obviously meant following precedent, normal judicial process, and the rule of law. Boohoo, but I so hard on you, I'm sure.

All right, let me switch gears. We've never got to do anything related to scotists that we actually

like, but there is actually some positive news. It has been reported that the federal judiciary approve the creation of a new Supreme Court defender office to help with the representation of indigent defendants. The idea seems to be that the office will serve as a counterweight to the US-listed general and federal criminal cases, and that it is an effort to close the quote-unquote advocacy gap between federal prosecutors and criminal defendants who appear before the court.

It is a dedicated office that will aim to offer a comprehensive global view on criminal defense and a ready-made set of resources accessible to criminal defense lawyers. Obviously, we are excited about this development. We'll see how it plays out, and as the details get worked out, but we just want to commend all of the individuals who work so hard to make this happen and to say plus one, we are on board too. So let's briefly turn to argument recaps. We wanted to just note

the other arguments that court heard the same week that it went wild on guns and drugs in the United States versus Hamani. We covered Hamani in depth at our West Coast live shows. Yeah, we literally went all the way to the bottom of the end of the chart in those live shows. We did, which meant we didn't have a chance to really talk about at all about the other two

oral arguments, so we're going to briefly cover them now. The first oral argument was in hunter

versus United States, and in that case, the court is considering the scope of appellate waivers. Appellate waivers concern the rights that defendants give up when they sign a plea agreement waving their right to appeal. And in Montgomery versus Caribbean transport, the court is considering whether federal law preclude state common lawsuits against a broker who allegedly negligently selected a motor carrier. The argument in hunter was just wild. If you ever listen to oral arguments,

I would definitely recommend listening to this one. And part of why we at least wanted to mention this one is the case was argued by one Lisa Blatt, which meant we were again treated to the Lisa Blatt show of interrupting justices and talking to them like their real people. And she was really on

“another level in this one. And honestly, the federal government lawyer was too, but here is an”

exchange that was in a slightly different register that also kind of made. My skin crawl, so naturally had to share it. Like that. I mean, yeah, sounds good. I hadn't heard that one, but yeah, but I just think in terms of just, or circuits, that's of course, or could standard. I'm just trying to get Justice Lito's vote and what I'm trying to say to Justice Lito is I can't care about the rest of you, too. But thank you very much. It's very, very few advocates of that. I'll just stop

goal. Oh, yeah, I didn't, yeah. He seemed to really like he really did. But then there's another moment also in Blatt's argument that I showed a different side of Justice Lito. And this was him taking apparently offense to something Justice Lito, my or had said about his previous colloquate with Blatt and Alito using that to kind of have what I read in some minor temper tantrum about how wrong he is by the current questioning format, which, you know, means that a lot of people

get to go after him and he doesn't get to have the last word. So let's play that clip here. Justice Lito. And well, let me begin with Justice Lito. And well, let me begin with just the sort of my ors rebel with what she took me to be asking about regarding constitutional rights. Now, she will have the right to serve a model, which I don't have a chance to answer under this

I love it. He is as always a messy bitch from New Jersey who leans into the drama.

He also gets, like, I get to go too early in the order. So I don't get to go, then so to my orages get to say whatever she wants about me. Okay, Justice for New Jersey, GZ, the last word, I get the last word. I mean, come on. This is like the Real Housewives series where they flip tables. I love Jersey. I love the Jersey Shore. Oh, my god. Is he the Teresa? Did you dice of the court? You can hear him slapping the tables. You know, he's trying to flip the letter.

“I think it's both into the floor. So I'm probably won't work there.”

People probably have a grievance about that, too. He probably. This is reminding me of that flight to, and I was going to a national constitution set our conference in Melissa and Joe Gorga right on the flight. Also on the flight was Robbie George from Princeton and surprisingly, they didn't know each other, but I knew both. Well, I know Robbie George has been a no idea who he was already.

But we will. You'd be in the Robbie George camp for this. And I don't think he knew he was up there with that. The gorgeous. That's too much. Sure. So much. Okay. So moving on.

Let's briefly cover the opinions. We got from the court last week. First up is Gallet versus

New Jersey Transit Corporation in which the court unanimously held that the New Jersey Transit Corp is not an arm of the state for interstate sovereign immunity purposes. So sovereign immunity

“is protection from lawsuits, basically, which states enjoy. The New Jersey Transit Corp was created”

by the state of New Jersey, but it's structured as a legally separate entity from the state and from the New Jersey Department of Transportation. And it has the traditional powers to sue and be sued and hold property and make contracts and incur debt. And all of that meant the court concluded that the transit Corp was not an arm of the state or part of the state, which would entitle it to sovereign immunity. So that two individuals who had been struck by New Jersey Transit

buses, one in New York, one in Pennsylvania, these were two separate cases that came up to the court together. But this finding meant that they could sue the transit corporation in their respective state courts for their interviews. We also got an opinion in Eurias or Alana versus Bondi where the court unanimously decided that when federal courts of appeals are reviewing a board of immigration appeals determination that an asylum seeker didn't experience persecution based on a set of

“facts that are undisputed, the courts are to review the BIA's determination under what is known as”

the substantial evidence standard. That's a very differential standard, which means that most asylum seekers will likely lose. But importantly, the Court's opinion, which is written by Justice Jackson, did not extinguish the prospect of federal court review. And currently, as she explained, the courts can set aside a BIA determination that an asylum seeker didn't experience past persecution or doesn't have a well-founded fear of future persecution if the finding isn't supported by

substantial evidence. So last beat on the Supreme Court, the latest NBC News poll suggests that the percentage of voters with, quote, "significant levels of confidence in the Supreme Court has dropped to its lowest point since NBC began pulling on the issue in the year 2000. So 22% of voters said they had a great deal or quite a bit of confidence. 40% had some. 38% had very little or no confidence. It's working people, continue sending

strict scrutiny to friends and family challenge continues. So that's the legal news for the last week. And now you'll get to enjoy another part of the Bad Decisions Tour, West Coast version, and that's our interview with Representative Jimmy Gomez of California. Well, hello there, Los Angeles! Thank you so much for being here, Representative Gomez. You are the perfect person to kick

off this show because you are literally in the thick of things. You're here on the ground in LA, which has been the site of a lot of shall we say on constitutional things over the course of the last couple of months. And you also sit on numerous house committees in DC. So you sir have all of the tea and it's time to start spilling it. So we're actually going to start by asked of it. Most of it or the spill what you can. The stuff I won't get arrested for

I will definitely spill. You figure out what those boundaries are. Yeah, yeah. This is a legal podcast.

Okay, so and actually that's a good segue to the first topic we wanted to ask you about because

you are part of ongoing litigation to ensure that Congress can exercise its oversight responsibilities which are secured by statute. And they include visiting detention centers without advanced notice. And that's actually an issue that's close to home for us. Your colleague Representative Lamanica McIver who's a friend of the pod is actually being criminally prosecuted for daring to engage in exactly the kind of oversight that the statute protects. So last week

we had a development which is that a district court blocked the administration's latest effort

us a bit about that litigation? Yeah, that came about when first a few during the first

“Trump administration we inserted language into an appropriations bill that said that no money could”

be used to block members of Congress from doing a surprise inspections of any facility that held immigrants or undocumented or people that were accused of being in the country illegally. And we put that language in, we were being able to go and do spot inspections because if you don't, if you give them notice, they'll clean everything up. They won't be anybody there. So when we started doing this and when the raid started here in June, the first thing I did, the day after I

got off the plane from DC, I went to the detention center to do a spot inspection and they denied my ability to enter and what we found out later is what they do very often as they lie. And they shocked, shocked, shocked. And they said that I wasn't allowed in or other members of

“Congress because there was a thousand protesters outside. There was no one outside except attorneys”

and the press. So we saw this, so we got together and I was looking at suing myself for the fact that we're denying members of Congress access. And the thing was, they denied people from all over the country. We ended up getting 12 members to sue with Jonah Goose, myself, Norma Torres, and we won the, it took months, but we won the first temporary injunction. What ended up happening, they allowed us to get in. And then they said, well, it doesn't apply any longer because

the one big beautiful bill, the $175 billion slush fund, didn't go through the normal appropriations

process. Therefore, it doesn't apply. So then they even tried to say it didn't apply to downtown a way, what they called B-18 because that is a field office and not a detention center. So they were just making shit up every single step of the way. And then we finally had, we finally got to the point just last week where we won another in junk, temporary relief. And then that was, it only applied to the 13 members of Congress, but then they just expanded it to the entire 435. So we can stop.

And during the summer, one member said, oh, I'm going to get a disappointment. Do you want to come and say they're just going to clean it up? So they moved it back seven days, then they moved it back another seven days. So we finally got in after two weeks. That facility could hold up to 244 individuals in nine different cells. So can we actually talk a little bit about what you've seen in the visits to the detention centers? Because, you know, last week we got news that another

detainee, a manual to mass, died in ice custody because of an untreated tooth infection. And earlier today, the Associated Press and Mother Jones reported that staff at the largest ice detention facility camp East Montana are apparently taking bets on which detainee will be the next to die by suicide. So can you talk about what you saw in your conversations with people who have loved ones who have been detained or who themselves have been detained? Well, so that visit I was just

mentioning, we show up, we finally get inside, no one was inside except two people. It can hold up to 244. And it's smell like they just use bleach to clean every part of the detention facility.

“So that's why we have to do these spot inspections because we know they're cleaning it up.”

We found out they diverted anybody that would normally go into that facility to Orange County in to San Ana. So what we're looking for, do they have proper medical treatment? Do they have is it overcrowded? Do they have access to attorneys? Do they have proper food? That's what we're looking for. And what we've learned, there's been more deaths in detention centers over in 2025 than the past 10 years combined. So we look for people that were picked up and detained to see if

they're not getting forced to sign what they call expedited removal orders. So one woman just recently when I went back to see, she got arrested the day before, she was eight months pregnant, couldn't find her using this something called the aid number. Next day, people were like, well, she called and told her her boyfriend or husband she was arrested by ICE. The next day we

find out she was already in a different country. Never, never included. They never, and when I went

and asked for her, they said she wasn't there. So they, I think they're also hiding

to the detention centers. There are all of these immigration stops that have been happening here

“in Los Angeles. And I'd like to talk with you about a case that we've covered on the podcast,”

"Nome vs. Vasquez Perdomo." And the case is named for crispy gnome, more on her in a little bit. But again, it's about immigration stops here in Los Angeles. And a federal district court issued an order that blocked ICE for making immigration stops that were based on the individuals of parent race, ethnicity, language spoken, as well as a number of other traits. But then the United States Supreme Court on the shadow docket stayed the district courts order, which then freed ICE

to do exactly the kind of racial profiling that the district court had said was impermissible.

And because this was the shadow docket, the court didn't explain itself as is so often the case

on the shadow docket. But Justice Kavanaugh did write separately to offer a pretty magical thinking account of what the immigration stops that issue really looked like. So on his telling these stops are short, they're respectful, they end, I know, they end whenever the officers realize that an individual, they are targeting is a citizen or is lawfully present. So that is the Kavanaugh account of what these stops looked like. And I have a feeling congressman that that doesn't

align with what you have heard from constituents about what folks are actually experiencing on the ground at the hands of ICE. So can you talk about that? Yeah, well, we've seen right after these raids started, I pointed out that they were targeting people just based on their ethnicity, the jobs that they were doing, and if they had an accident or not. And this is, we see, we just see it. There's 500,000 people who are undocumented of European and Canadian descent. You think they're on

the west side pulling people over? Fuck no, right? They're not pulling, like they're not doing, like, sorry, you guys can beat that out right after it. Oh no, we find swear, we're keeping it in,

“keeping it. But here's the thing. So I said that on on cable, Fox News made a big deal out of it,”

but you just see it over and over and over again. It is obvious what they were doing. I don't know MS 13 gang members being day laborers at a home depot, right? Or working on the back of a kitchen at some restaurant. So they're deliberately targeting people because if you look like me, you look like

anybody of Latino descent, your guilty. And that's what they basically allowed to be legal in this country.

Yeah, and the district court found exactly as you're describing. And the Supreme Court just basically saw Shaden and said, like, no, we disagree. And then Kevin, I'll have the, kind of, gumption to write sexy. The Caucasity? I guess that's what you call it. Mighty, mighty white of him. To write separately, to essentially excuse it. And, you know, there was, you know, many, many things wrong with that separate concurrence. But one of the many was the sentence that I'm

going to read right now, when she says the interests of individuals who are illegally in the country, and avoiding being stopped by law enforcement is ultimately an interest in evading the law. That is not an especially witty legal interest. So not only is there the obvious targeting of a subset of potentially undocumented population based on things like race, ethnicity, language spoken, job worked. It is also the case, even if there are obviously some undocumented individuals,

there are many, many individuals who identify as Latino or Hispanic millions in the Los Angeles area who are also subject to the targeting that Cavanaugh just blessed. And that I think has, like, said in motion, much of what we have seen in the last year in Los Angeles and across the country. Now, I think, by my mom, my mom has been in this country for 40 plus years. She became a citizen after Pete Wilson was threatening to take away people's, you know, benefits,

so security. Like he was going after undocumented and people who were Latino descent. And I was worried about her getting pulled over because she doesn't speak her English is pretty broken up. She has an accent. And she doesn't carry her passport on her or an ID that says, oh, you're a US citizen. So she could be arrested. And then when she was in Mexico for a number of months, we thought about sending one of us down there to escort her back because she would be targeted

“just because of who she is. And that's a reality. And that's what people live in fear in every”

single day in Los Angeles and across the country. Kids, all of a sudden, are not going to school. All of a sudden, people who have our diagnosed with certain diseases are not going to get those treatments. Somebody told me that they're, one of their patients needed to get dialysis

live. But that is happening every single day because of the fear that this administration has caused through every single neighborhood that I represent. Not just the administration, but that the Supreme Court has permitted. Brett Kavanaugh owns kind of everything that you've just listed. The next street needs brought to you by dose. We're all trying to feel healthy, right? We're drinking

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life, and it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know? And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that

the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard.

“New episodes of runaway country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts”

or watch on YouTube. So let's shift gears a little bit. You are on the United States House permanent select committee on intelligence. We are obviously living through a wildly irresponsible reckless catastrophic attack slash strike slash regime change against Iran. And as ever, it feels like there's a disconnect between what Trump and those surrounding him are saying and what reality actually is, you know, on one hand nuclear facilities were destroyed last summer. On the other

hand, they're on the cusp of a nuclear weapon. So how does all of the noise surrounding what the

administration is doing? Speak to the wisdom and sanity or lack thereof of what the administration is doing vis-à-vis Iran. This administration has no respect for the law, for Congress, for facts. And what they will do is they'll try to develop a fact pattern to justify any course of action. So when it came to investigating these facilities, too many people protest, oh, it's not a detention center, it doesn't apply. So they just develop these facts. When it comes to Iran, same thing,

they are lying. I have not heard anything that supports their views. And even if you look at the

public record, it's all there. Tulsi Gabbard, who she's crazy as they come, but um, and should never

be trusted. But she spoke in front of Congress and said that Iran, last spring, she said it, Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. Trump on the plane, a reporter asks him, and he

“goes, Tulsi doesn't know what she's talking about. Then they, um, that's why I made her director of”

National Intelligence, right? Yeah, great, great role for someone who doesn't know what she's talking. Exactly. And then they do Operation Midnight Hammer when they, uh, they drop the bomb on for no, um, then he said, oh, it was beautiful. It was great. It was all of a sudden we obliterated their program. And there was public reporting that it only set back that program by a few months. And that person got fired, right? They asked them to actually go back and look at that

intelligence again. And then the person came back with the same intelligence that got fired. And then other people got fired because they were going against the public, the, the narrative that Trump put out. So same thing is happening now. What, like how many different rationale has he

“given? One, it was to help the protesters to, uh, to stop the ballistic missile program. But that”

doesn't, uh, the Department of Defense says that's not going to be operational to actually get a missile to the United States into the 20, 20, 20, 35. Three, uh, a nuclear program that was supposed to be obliterated last summer. There are only weeks away, but all intelligence says that they've actually, uh, they have, they're not actively pursuing, right? That is, in the public sphere, that intelligence, um, and the, and Trump is just using it as an excuse. Then you have Secretary of State

Marco Rubio said, well, we were, we had to attack because if Israel attacked Iran, then Iran might attack our facilities. So they're trying to find a legal rationale to support their actions, but their actions are illegal. The sounds like originalism. Exactly. There's, there's strict constitutionalists or constrictionists. No, they're, like, everything they're doing, they, they, they engage in a war of choice, and they're trying to disguise it as a war of necessity. And when

all the facts come out, the people who either voted no on the war power's resolution, or, like, justifying these actions, it's going to come back to bite them in the ass, and I hope that we hold them accountable for lying to the American public. So representative Gomez, um, you've mentioned, so far, um, Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump, we've mentioned Brett Kavanaugh. All of these are guaranteed buzz kills. So let's shift the vibes a little bit. Um, you are like Brett Kavanaugh,

a father. In fact, you are the founder of the Congressional Dad's Caucus. So what is the Congressional Dad's Caucus doing right now to help all of us raise the nation's children and make

we're up to 50 members now. Uh, they're only Democrats, Democrats will report. So weird.

“Yeah. So, uh, and uh, and what we're doing, we, we, we're trying to put forward in a agenda”

that's that, that works for working families. And what does that, and also lead the Democratic Caucus in a direction that kind of boxes the caucus and so when we take the majority that these

issues remain at the top of the legislative agenda. So in a March 17th, we're hosts in the first

ever national summit on the caregiving crisis. Um, and we're doing that in order to highlight the needs of people that are taking care of newborn babies and kids, but also the sandwich generation that's also taking care of their, their elderly parents. And how there's not enough support and what does it do to the family? What does it do to our economy? Um, a 20, an average family pays 26% of their income towards childcare. And then you add in housing, that's another 30% and we had a national summit on the

housing affordability crisis in September. So what we're doing is we're, we're trying to build this support and box people in. And then at the same time, getting dads to, uh, and that are members of Congress to say, dads have a responsibility to take care of our kids not only at home. Yes. Also in

“the halls of Congress. Yes. Yes. All of this things. Yeah. It is, I think in terms of a hopeful”

note and on kind of recasting caregiving as an issue that dads need to have some ownership in is so

important. So thank you for that work and for leaving us with a, uh, a bright spot of hope, especially the kind of embedded premise that is that when the Democrats take the majority, we want to have the agenda ready to go on day one and it sounds like you are hard at work at that. So thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Representative Gomez, it was great to have you. Thank you so much for being with us. That was a fun conversation and it reminds me of

something to share before we get to our favorite things. Um, so people are probably aware of this, but I'll remind you in case you're not, we are less than nine months away from the midterms. And there is a lot of work that you can do right now. November will decide control of Congress. And also

tell us whether Trump is going to maintain his Republican trifecta and our friends at Voseva,

America are here to help if you are eager to get started doing your part now. They will give you

“justice, which you should be. They will give you tips on how and when and where to donate to make”

sure your money goes for this, how to confidently talk to people in your life about midterms and key issues and opportunities to take action with your community in real life. I am already hosting a fundraiser for a state race. Um, this upcoming weekend. So yes, yes, people need to start doing things now. Yeah, it's like nine months is not that long. It's even time bitches. Yeah, it is. Um, okay. So go to votesavamerica.com. You can sign up to be part of the work this year and then send the

sign up link to five friends. This is paid for by votesavamerica. Learn more at votesavamerica.com. This ad is not been authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Now onto our favorite things, which is authorized by a candidate in the candidate's committee, namely the president and floor time shoe. J. K. Jessica. No, not one of my favorite things is people doing work for the midterms starting now. Um, it's onion up for votesavamerica.com. Also, as I mentioned earlier, Kacey Musgraves

has a new single dry spell, a new album that will come out in May. I'm obsessed with the single, it calls to mine like earlier work in golden hour and I, it's just, great, very catchy. Judge Young, a Reagan appointee, had a fantastic district court opinion on a stay issue, denying a stay of the remedies he had ordered in response to the federal government's illegal targeting of students and non-citizens based on pro-Palestinian speech. And the opinion

wrote quote, "Now that it suits their interests, it is ironic to hear the public officials whale that they are but bit players in a fractured government claiming that the US customs and immigration services somehow not before the court and unrepresentate here." As the court recognizes, the entire theory of this administration is that of a unitary executive, with no agency and a penance or every single employee within the article, two executive dances to the tune of

the president and quote. Receipts, exactly. Love it, favorite thing. There's also a forthcoming larvae of you article, I recently read and really enjoyed. It is by Genevieve Lake here in Sonia Star, forthcoming in the Texas larvae of you called the War on DEI as a project of constitutional subversion. So, would definitely recommend that as well. Awesome. I wonder Melissa, we should, I guess it's too late to add any citations, but it sounds like there might be some

kind of connections between, we are sort of arguing that at least the gender related to this executive order is our part of this kind of constitutional reimagining that the administration is pursuing, so that's what we are given this forthcoming, super in court review piece.

fiction. So, you just read the correspondent, which my book club discussed, and I actually liked it

kind of a lot, but it was extremely divisive in my book club, and that actually makes for a good book club book, because we really debated it. And so, recommend it if you're looking for a book club book. I also just started the Hail Mary Project, which my 11-year-old read and, or actually he and my husband listened to, like, back and forth to travel basketball, like over many weekend, and I thought it was YA, but it's more kind of sci-fi, I don't know if it's technically YA,

but it's incredibly fun, and there is a big movie based on the book coming out later this month with Ryan Gosling, who plays this, well, the scientist, middle school teacher, the kind of protagonist,

“anyway, it's incredibly riveting. Finally, I think I've previously recommended the novel of”

Vladimir, which I loved and is now a Netflix show that I started watching and have been enjoying, but if you haven't read the book, really read the book, maybe before you watch the series and then do that too. That's it. I also wanted to plus one of Vladimir. Kate has been literally pouring this book into my ear for months, but I still haven't read it, so I just decided instead to watch it on Netflix, because we stars some people I really like. Rachel Vice, for example,

Leo Woodahl, really, really cute, and also my personal favorite, the Silver Fox John Slattery. So it's really fun. It has a lot of, like, break the fourth wall moments that are really funny, so highly recommend that. Also, wanted to recommend the documentary that's now out from HBO and so the dot of Brian, the devil is busy, which is all about the post-row landscape, really fantastic. Out in the bay area, I should have mentioned this then, but I actually didn't start reading the book

until on the way back from the bay area. So this is the Voila Nolan's Good Woman, a reckoning, which is a fantastic collection of feminist essays. And if you're not familiar with the Voila Nolan's

“writing, you should be her debut's collection. Don't let it get you down essays on race gender and the”

body was an absolute tour de force, and this new collection is, I think, even better. So very, very, highly recommend. I'm also watching Ryan Murphy's Love Story, like everyone else about JFK Jr and Carolyn Besette. And although I am thoroughly enjoying it, the thing I really want to recommend, or, like, which for bringing to existence, is a soundtrack from this, because the music is absolutely fantastic. It is a time capsule of all of the great hits from the 1990s.

In term Jordan would be absolutely obsessed. The music is so on point. The cranberries, better than

Ezra, James, absolutely amazing. And of course, the clothes are nostalgia inducing an amazing too.

I'm also really excited to report that there have been more stricties in the wild. I'm saw a couple of you at the airport in Los Angeles, great to see you. And had the good fortune to be seated next to Stricty Justine at a dinner last week. Got it. She enjoys the podcast and I enjoyed chatting to her. And we were still basking in the glow of our warm West Coast welcome. So thanks to everyone who made that tour such a resounding success. That reminds me, I also met a Stricty

in the wild Hillary, the University of Michigan, who is a student here. And on the West Coast glow, I am wearing a shirt that was given to us by one of our West Coast listeners that features the Portland frog and says, "Ribbit, resist, repeat, and no hope without hope." And I love it. And it's sort of a shepherd fairy-esque right rendition of the toad for those of you not watching on YouTube. Portland frog not toad. Oh, forgive me. Sorry. It's okay. Kate. I just, I also just

read, talk everlasting with my eight-year-old, and there's a toad who appears in sort of a couple

“of pivotal moments. I think that's why I told it was front of my. Also, I'm not sure I could totally”

tell that that was a frog not a toad, but I guess he is the Portland frog. Totally. Strict scrutiny is a crooked media production hosted in executive produced by Lea Lipman, Melissa Murray, and me, Kate Shaw. Our senior producer and editor is Melody Rable. Michael Goldsmith is our producer, Jordan Thomas is our intern, music by Eddie Cooper, production support from Katie Long, and Adrian Hill. Matthew Groot is our head of production. Thanks to our video team, Ben Hethcote, and Johanna Kase.

Our production staff is proudly unionized with the writer's Guild of America East. If you haven't already be sure to subscribe to Strict scrutiny in your favorite podcast app and on YouTube,

at Stricts for a new podcast, so you never miss an episode. And if you want to help other people find

the show, please rate and review us. It really helps. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolet Avenue, which is where Alex Pretty was executed by Ice and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life, and it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in

And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible

“bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to”

get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that

nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show runaway country, we go where

“the headlines hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard.”

New episodes of runaway country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

or watch on YouTube.