Why is SCOTUS Hoarding Opinions?

The Trump administration's excessive Christian national's rhetoric is only building,

“as we move toward the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.”

Those most caught in the crossfire are federal workers. Specifically, a multi-faith group of federal employees filed a new lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violating the Separation of Church and State, and their religious freedom promised in our constitution.

Our friends at Americans United for Separation of Church and State received emails from multiple USDA employees. A handful of employees reached out, saying the proselytizing Easter email sent by Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke L. Rowland, to more than 100,000 USDA employees,

isn't abusive power that violates a separation of Church and State promised in First Amendment.

They are absolutely right. We've tried to explain to these guys before. You can overall limit and call it a band in all you want. The first sentence of the First Amendment still says, "No establishment of religion." But it's just keep on coming from this administration.

And Americans United is doing their best to keep up the fight against Christian nationalism.

“If you want to help, head to AU.org/crugget to learn more about their work and how you can get involved.”

Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR politics podcast to make sense of the biggest news from Washington and beyond. They don't just tell you what happened, they explained how decisions made in Washington could affect you, from gas prices and affordability to elections and other issues shaping or community. Listen every afternoon to the NPR politics podcast.

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 our next. "My court captured. My rights shattered. My democracy still alive." "Mix in five."

"Hello, New York City." "Happy Juneteenth to all who celebrate." And a very special Juneteenth to all who do not celebrate. And yes, I'm looking at you, Pete, Sam, Clarence, Marco, JD, Mark Wayne, no spaces. Okay, okay, I'm going to stop you there, Melissa, because we cannot name the entire cabinet.

The entire Supreme Court, we celebrate Juneteenth and we are strict scrutiny. Your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We are your hosts. I'm Kate Shaw. I'm Melissa Murray, and I'm Leah Lipman, and we are delighted to be here.

And so appreciative of the big parade you through for us two days ago.

We hear a million people showed up, so thanks.

Really, we are so excited to be here in New York for another live show. It's going to be a great one, no thanks to the Supreme Court. Listeners, audience members, we had to work to ring a show out of the pitens that the Supreme Court gave us last week. Yes, that's right, folks.

We are literally a week away from July. And this court still has 17 cases that it has not yet issued. And these are not little cases, these are big cases. The birthright citizenship case, the TPS case, the independent agencies cases, the ban on trans-athletes cases, absentee ballots are so much more.

These folks are literally quiet quitting. And they have the nerve to quiet quit the week that we had a live show in New York. The absolute audacity of them. I am going to float a theory as the eternal optimist in our trio. Is it possible that the court held off on dropping the biggest and the worst decisions of the

“term to allow all of us to experience just a few more days of unfettered, nicks-induced joy?”

I think it's possible. No, okay, no, okay, not possible.

Maybe issuing consequential terrible bad decisions within a week of a White House

cage match and an unconditional surrender and humiliation on the world state at Versailles of all places would be just a little too much. I'm going to go with, they are trying to starve us of content.

“That's what they're doing. And that's just one way to silence your critics, but you know what?”

We will not be silenced. It would take a lot more than that to silence us. Even though the court has yet to fully let its freak flag fly, whether right side up or upside down preferred, we still have a lot to talk about. We are going to cover the opinions we did get. We will also be joined by a very special guest and not just any special guest. This is a

repeat player who we can always count on to help us live and things up. Even when the court

is doing its level best to give us no material to work with for this live show. All right, so after we do that, we are going to begin with some of the legal news from last week, but before we get started with all of that, we have some real business to attend to.

“We are recording this episode the day before the official start of summer, and you know what”

summer means at strict scrutiny. It would not be summer at strict scrutiny without the official summer cocktail. Yes. Yes, I'm going to need more than that. It's time to unveil the official cocktail of the strict scrutiny summer, all right. So let's recap what we've had on deck in years past. Okay, so, you know, we've been in this game for a minute, we have had some epic summer cocktails in years past. There was the Ginny Tonic.

OG listeners will recall premium, gin, lots of bitters. Very bitter. Possibly a fax machine unconfirmed. There was also the Martha Rita. Extra salty, not regular salt. This was road salt that you put on the rim. And whenever you had it, you were free to let your freak flag fly upside down per usual. Yes. We did try a fall cocktail once that was the secretary build a bear raw milk and will juice cocktail.

It never quite caught on, but we've got Jordan the intern working on it. This summer,

the strict scrutiny mixology team, that's Jordan the intern, decided that we were going to give you something very special, not court-focused but politics forward, right? So this is something that we came up with for you as we speed into the midterm election cycle. So this is the cocktail for you when you're out canvassing for your favorite candidates, when you're getting out the vote, take your strict scrutiny emergency relief flask and fill it with summer's signature cocktail.

Wait for it? The Susan Collins!

“You don't need a lot of persuading for this one, okay?”

A Susan Collins is a little like a Tom Collins. It is a refreshing cocktail made with gin, lemon juice, sugar, and club soda served in a very tall glass. Usually it's garnished with a lemon wedge or a Maricino cherries, but I think to truly make this a Susan Collins, we're going to skip those traditional garnishes. And instead garnish this drink with concerns and absolutely no regrets.

Delightful, very good. I can taste the concerns. Obviously this summer cocktail is an homage to Maine Senator Susan Collins who is of course up for reelection in November and who once all of us to know she has no regrets about her decision to put aside her concerns about Roe vs Wade and its future and cast her vote for Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation. It's part of our villain origin story as a podcast actually. But since we're talking midterm

elections and elections generally and we are in New York, reminder for everyone here tonight and listening on Monday morning that Tuesday is primary day in New York. Thank you listeners,

at every election including this one because the vibes right now in New York make clear that democracy

“can actually deliver joy. It takes a lot of work and participation in committing to every single”

election so let's drink to that shall we? Sticks Grootney is brought to you by smalls. Kitty girls it's our world but the world of cat food is pretty shocking. For example, some cat foods contain so much carbohydrate filler that they're closer to a granola bar than a prey animal. Really,

dry kibble can be 30 to 50 percent carbs despite cats having almost no dietary need for them.

But smalls is here to help so smalls had one of their customers say this. This is from Emmy, quote "Small's changed my cat's life and I know she would no longer be here if it weren't for finding you. She will be 20 in April within two months of starting smalls she was like a kitten again." Another customer said quote their litter box now has no smell at all it's crazy and I feel good that I am feeding them quality ingredients that are good enough for humans.

“Look, vet bells can really rack up. They can get to thousands of dollars but the thing is”

smalls may help offset some of those vet bills. Smalls fresh cat food is protein packed recipes that are made with preservative free 100 percent human grading ingredients you'd find in your fridge and it's delivered right to your door. Smalls works because most of nutrients and smalls food are digestible so less junk comes out the other end. That means less stinky poops. Smalls cat food leads to high protein and improved hydration. That equals strong bones and toned muscles, experts,

cat owners agree. After switching to smalls, 88 percent of cat owners reported overall health improvements. So stop serving your little carnivore, a bowl of processed shortcuts for a limited

time because you are a strict scrutiny listener get 60 percent off your first order plus free shipping

and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com/strict. On last time that 60 percent off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com/strict. Strict scrutiny is brought to by Babel. I actually used to speak Spanish pretty fluently. I even read books in Spanish then like adults I gave it up but I plan to relearn it and whether you're trying to learn a new language for the first time or trying to relearn one you knew but then

forgot. Try Babel. Even just 10 minutes a day with Babel can help you start having real conversations in as little as three weeks. Instead of memorizing random vocabulary, you will be learning phrases, you'd use ordering dinner, asking for directions or talking with locals. What I like about Babel is it's built for real life, not vocabulary lists, not verb charts, but real conversation practice. Lessons are quick, practical and built by more than 200 language experts. They have interactive

dialogue, personalized reviews, even podcasts, all designed to get used speaking quickly and confidently, and unlike cramming before a trip, Babel fits into your actual schedule, coffee break,

commute, or a few minutes before bed. Babel's award-winning app has sold over 25 million subscriptions

and it's backed by a 14-day money-back guarantee. If you've got some or travel coming up, now's the time to start so you can actually use what you learn on the trip. Right now, Babel is offering listeners up to 60 percent off. Go to Babel.com/strict. That's Babel, B-A, B-B-E-L, dot com/strict for up to 60 percent off. Rules and restrictions may apply. All right, we're going to dig into the opinions the court did give us such as they are, but before

we do, we kind of want to talk a little bit about the court's workflow and pacing, or lack their of correct. They're bad, it's bad. The pacing's bad, the workflow is not flowing, particularly, so our goal is so sucks. We've noted previously that the court typically issues all of the opinions in argued cases by the end of June, and before the week of the July 4th holiday. Right now, as we've already said, we are still awaiting decisions in 17 cases,

“likely to produce 16 opinions, and that number includes several massively important cases.”

This is all to say that there is almost no freaking way that the court will release all 16 opinions in a single week, which means that this bad decision season and God forsaken term is going to be even longer than we thought, which leads me to the question, why are these guys cockroaching? Why do they refuse to go away? Just get it over with. Release the opinions. No one needs this insane ritual, a frantically refreshing, our web browsers to figure out what constitutional

rights we still have. No need to dilly dally on completely reconstituting the entire constitutional

When did you start dragging that? That's fair. That's fair. I'm at a 10. I'm going to be up to like

a 50. Maybe they're taking their time because their emotional support billionaires

“are not inviting them on the yacht, the summer. I think it's time for a little rank speculation.”

Yeah, rank speculation. That would be a good drink too. Rank speculation. Let's put on our tinfoil hats and do some conspiracy theorizing for a moment about why the court is doing all of this and I want to focus on a particular set of opinions that we're waiting for. Those TPS cases, right? We are working under the theory that maybe last Thursday the court actually did have an additional set of opinions that it wanted to issue in the TPS cases. But they held off

because of some blockbuster reporting that surfaced at the last minute. Are you intrigued? Okay, lean and closer. Are you intrigued? I thought so. Let's dish. Okay, let's go.

All right, first as a refresher, the TPS cases are about whether the administration can

“pull the rug out from under Haitian and Syrian nationals in the United States by canceling”

temporary protected status or TPS. Under the TPS regime, again Haitian and Syrian nationals who underwent a rigorous vetting process have been permitted to stay and work and build lives and have families and pay taxes and contribute to their communities in the United States because of conditions in their home countries. So here's a theory and again, this is just rank speculation. But we're all squirrel friends here. So maybe the court opted to pull the TPS opinions because of some new

reporting that suggests and you're not going to believe this, but hear me out. The administration

may not have been completely transparent or honest in describing its decision-making process about whether to cancel TPS. I'm shocked, Leah. This is so shocking. Oh my God, so shocking. Here's the quick and dirty. The relevant statues here required the department of home land security. It was then under the domain of one crispy gnome, haven't heard that name in a while. But it requires DHS to consult with other agencies about whether to cancel TPS. And the

plaintiffs in these cases say that this required consultation did not actually occur. And the government responded by saying, "Aha, it totally did occur. We totally consulted with everyone we needed to consult with." And anyway, it's totally not reviewable by a federal court whether or not we consulted. So it kind of doesn't matter anyway. DHS out. That was sort of the TLDR of the administration's argument. Well, twist or maybe entirely predictably. The New York Times now reports that new emails

show that although DHS asked the State Department to weigh in, DHS then went ahead and canceled TPS for Haitian nationals without waiting to hear from the State Department or getting its input. Remember, the statute requires consultation. Is it consultation if you ask for the consult, but then don't wait for the consultation? The administration says yes, but that can be right.

“So this, I think, is the question, will that complicate the court's consideration, right? As the”

Times put it, these newly obtained DHS emails make clear there was no such consultation. Now, compare that reporting to what solicitor General John Sauer said during the oral argument, quote, they initially said she and the she is again, then Secretary Chris B. Known didn't consult at all, but it turns out she did. There is an exchange with the Department of State. So it's not just interesting, this brings up for me the man with the butterfly meme. Is this poetry?

What is consultation, Melissa? It's probably not poetry, but it is proof positive that these people love to cut corners and make their paid lawyers look like absolute morons in court. Here's the question. Like, there's all of this new additional evidence of the New York Times reporting has surfaced that this consultation did not actually occur. Is this going to be a situation where John Roberts noted institutionalist decides that maybe we can't go forward and decide this case

because the record below is kind of all jacked up now. I mean, so maybe they decide that they're not going to decide this and they just kick it back to the lower courts actually build a record based on the new factual evidence that's surfaced. That is what the plaintiffs in the TPS case

previous favorite cases. I think we're thinking the same case, which is Department of Commerce

“versus New York, another hometown case. Yeah, so listeners, here's a quick refresher of that case,”

if you have not been with the pods since the beginning. Back in Trump 1.0, the administration wanted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census and Wilbur Ross, then the Secretary of Commerce, justified this unorthodox change on the ground that it was necessary to enforce the voting rights act. Yes, that would be the same voting rights act that the administration just encouraged the courts to nullify. The rationale was obviously bullshit as several civil rights groups noted,

adding a citizenship question, but likely suppressed census participation in certain communities, and after some pretty masterful loyering by then ACLU attorney and now federal judge, Dale Ho, a New York district court. Yeah, New York district court agreed that the voting rights act rationale was pre-taxedual. And so then the administration ran directly to the Supreme Court and said, "Oh, my God, a district court judge has totally had the nerve to call me out

for my completely nefarious and pre-textual rationale." And so, I just want to note, it's so weird to be talking about this thing that happened back in 2018 because then it seemed to us so novel and innovative, but now this is what they do every single day, right? So they're

always making stuff up, courts are always shooting them down, then they run to the Supreme Court

and say, "I can't believe they did this, they don't believe my pre-text." And here we are. Same circus, different clowns. Yeah. Anyway, we will see what the court does with this TPS case, especially in light of this new

“information. It raises, I think, the question, "How much egg is the court willing to have on its”

face because of this administration?" There was a limit in the first Trump administration. That is what we saw in the census case. The court was not willing to go along with that pre-textual justification. The vibes feel different now, and we will see how different. Well, as the immortal Katie Herron would say, the limit does not exist. I mean, Donald Trump does now say there are no limits on his powers so this would track.

Strix scrutiny is brought to you by Jones Road Beauty. I'm a makeup skeptic or just lazy, maybe both. I don't know. I just don't like faces that look super made up, and I also don't like taking the time in the morning to make up my face. I've got shit to do. But now, one of those things is dabbing some Jones Road Beauty Miracle Ball on my mug. So here is the Miracle Ball.

It's basically the dictionary definition entry for glow-up. It doesn't mask your skin. It just

“gives it a sparkle, which means it offers a natural look in one that can replace a bunch of”

steps like highlighter bronzer and blush. That also means it saves a lot of time. You can get that effortless, glow-y look in under 60 seconds with just a little smear and dab. And when you're traveling, you don't have to cram whole makeup bags into your suitcase. Instead, just a few go-to products that do everything, which means more room to pack snacks for the return trip. Miracle Ball goes on my skin after my morning swim. As I head into work, post swim, post shower,

it's just that sun-kissed look. The best part of Jones Road Beauty, all their products are actually good for your skin. Every formula is packed with skin, loving, and ingredients. It nourishes your skin instead of clogging it or taking it. It looks and feels natural, like you're not even wearing makeup at all. All Jones Road formulas are clean and high-performing. Because clean beauty should just be the standard. And Jones Road has just launched a new product, their foundation stick.

This skin care forward foundation delivers buildable, real coverage, while feeling completely weightless on your skin. You'll love how it gives you medium to full coverage without ever looking cakey or heavy. It's dermatologist tested and packed with skin, loving, ingredients, like ceramides, squalane, and sodium, hyaluronate to nourish while you wear it. And it's available in 30 shades to match a wide range of skin tones. Modern day makeup, that's clean, strategic, and multifunctional

for effortless routines. For limited time, our listeners are getting a free full-size mascara

on their first purchase when they use code strict at checkout. Just head to Jones Road Beauty.com

and use code strict at checkout. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. This episode is presented by planned parenthood Federation of America. If you listen to this show, you already know. This administration, Congress and the courts, has spent the past few years making it harder to get healthcare in this country. And it's patients who are paying the price. Take the

Supreme Court. It paved the way for states to exclude planned parenthood health centers from state Medicaid programs. In Medina versus planned parenthood, this undoubtedly violates patients

and Congress defunded planned parenthood, trying to shut down planned parenthood and block

patients with low incomes from birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing, and more.

“That's why planned parenthood is fighting back. But fight like these take resources and”

supporters like you. No matter the size, your donation makes a real difference. Helping planned parenthood meet this moment and protect patients' access to care. When and where it matters most. If you believe all people should get healthcare, no matter their income, don't eat now at planparenthood.org/defend.

Enough ranks speculation, though. It's time to dive headfirst into bad decisions season.

We're about to drag 'em. Let's go. And to help with the dragging, we are so delighted to welcome to the stage. One of our favorite friends of the pod, the one, the only, the Ellie Mistall. What's up New York? Can I just quickly say, because you mentioned primary day already. I just want to remind everybody here and everybody listening to the show that in New York, there are candidates who care about the Supreme Court. They are candidates, they are running

in a primary on Tuesday, they are not named Chuck Schumer and you can vote for them. And if you

do vote for them and you say that you're voting for them because they care about the Supreme Court,

that is a huge way to start to turn the ship of state that is the Democratic Party towards the kinds of reforms. You just cut into your intro. This is my friend, Ellie. I'm kidding. Ellie needs no introduction, but I'm going to give you some because it's Juneteenth. All right, here we go. Ellie is the justice correspondent for the nation and he is also the author of two New York Times bestsellers, allow me to retort and bad law both of which we have covered extensively

on this podcast. He joined us at our live show at the Tribeca Film Festival two years ago and

“the energy was honestly so chaotic. He was filling in for Leah who is recovering from her bike”

accident, but it was so chaotic that we were like, what would it be like if Leah and Ellie were on stage at the same time? And so here we are. Welcome, Ellie. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. The principal at my kids' school says that I am an agent of chaos. So let the wild rampus begin. This cocktail is pretty good, but I can't help feeling a little disappointed. Have some concerns. Have some concerns when I drink it. We are going to dive into the opinions

as we just mentioned, but before we do, Ellie, wondering if you have any theories, we floated a couple about what on earth is taking these guys so long and why they want to go into the holiday week as they seem to want to? Yeah, I think it comes down to two words birthright citizenship. If we win, birthright. And when I say we, I mean we who agree in a multi-racial multi-ethnic

“democracy where bigotry is not part of the Constitutional way, right?”

When I say them, I mean mouth breathing graces to got their asses kicked at Gettysburg and haven't got no. That's not the distinction. If the we win birthright, what does that do to the media on the way out the door? So the court can put themselves in a position where they can win on birthright a whole birthright citizenship and then run out of town and you've got three months of mainstream idiot media being like, oh my god, the court is so impartial. Sometimes you do where

a hobble can think, sometimes you do democrat things, but really they're just trying to do the law. Like you get three months of that ridiculously bad narrative. Well, and it's three months and they leave and then it's the fourth of July and so that dominates the kind of coverage of the fourth of July. I think that's a good theory. John Roberts in his office stroking your hairless cat, I did it. Yeah, I did it. In the alternative, if we lose birthright, one of the things you have

to remember is that these people are cowards and if you're going to, if you're going to take away a constitutional right taking away and then skidaddling at a town before anybody can, and just just going to, as you were calling, they're emotional support billionaires. And getting out of town before the reaction to that happens and then by the time they come back to work in October,

we win or lose birthright, I think dropping birthright and then leaving is their idea.

“Okay, so let's go into the opinions we got. We got three last Thursday. One was in the case that we”

actually focused on during our live shows in California. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, and non-binary listeners. This is your Supreme Court, and this is your Supreme Court on drugs because we got the

opinion in United States versus Hamani, where the court held that the second amendment does not

allow the federal government to disarm people just because they use drugs in violation of federal drug laws. The intro was something of a joke. The outcome here is pretty sane and in my opinion probably correct, but of course the court gave all of the wrong reasons for reaching said right result. So the result in the case was unanimous and Neil Gorsuch had the opinion for the court, which probably gives you a clue about how the opinion read, as Leah said, right outcome,

wrong reasons. And importantly, the majority emphasized that it was a very narrow ruling. All the court did was reject the Trump administration's view that the federal law could prohibit unlawful users of controlled substances from possessing firearms. The court emphasized it wasn't addressing questions about firearm possession by people who are addicted to drugs or firearm possession by people who are presently intoxicated. I will say that in rejecting the Trump

administration's arguments here, the court made clear that yes, it is actually more amosexual than the Trump administration, which is saying something, right? The Trump administration had argued that the government could ban unlawful, controlled substances users from having guns, and this wasn't the first time that the Supreme Court actually was more ammo forward than the Trump administration. This also happened a few terms ago in Garland versus Cargill,

that was the case where the Trump administration argued that federal gun laws allowed them to ban bump stocks and the court said, nope, nope, not at all, because ammo sexuality, right? Yes. A lot of wins. So because this is a Gorsuch opinion in a second amendment case, the court applied its ridiculous history and tradition test from NYSPR versus Bruin under Bruin, the court asks whether a federal law at issue in the case is sufficiently similar to and consistent

with the nation's historic tradition of firearms regulation. That's right, no matter how many times

you say it or hear it, it just never makes any sense gun laws today, have to look like ye oldy gun laws,

no matter how different everything else looks today or the laws get struck down. That is the test.

“That's what the court applied here. The administration argued that historical laws that”

disarmed habitual drunkards and vagrants and the like were sufficiently similar to the federal law at issue in Hamani to satisfy the Bruin test. But the court said, no, these laws, those laws were all different. Although the reason that the majority gave for why those analogs were not analoguing were pretty unconvincing. Okay, Ellie, how much credit does Neil Gorsuch get here? Especially for rejecting a view that should have been rejected, but for using these wildly unconvincing

reasons and a really damaging and destructive method to get there? Look, I fundamentally agree with Neil here. When you go back and look at Richard the long shanks and whether or not he could be have his sword on, it's incredibly stupid. It's incredibly stupid that in the year 2026 we have to go back to habitual drunkenit laws around the founding

to figure out if I have somebody can have an oozy like that's just dumb. Now the problem is that when

you make that dumb argument, yes, Gorsuch is totally capable of ripping it to shreds as he should, right? Because there's no way that you can argue realistically that the Americans at the founding were not completely sourced when they were like, "Hey, let's take on the British." "Well, we'll kick your ass." Like, that's not a sober decision, right? Nobody stole Kosober being like, "This tea overboard you take that brick." That's not, that doesn't make no sense, right? So of course,

of course, people at the founding were drunk while art, like that, that's a thing that happened. And if you're going to say that because that's a thing that happened literally 250 years ago,

“then that's a thing that has to happen now, well then you're done, right? And so I think Gorsuch”

was right to rip up the analogy. We're all given a little bit of extra credit and I can't believe I'm saying this about the last Justice of the Mojicans, but... I manifested this.

tripped up on the difference between top Asian, he knew. I don't know if he's had some cholerao candies in this past, I don't know. But like, he didn't let that stop his analysis. He went for he analyzed correctly the modern use of marijuana to the historical use of alcohol and just kept on going. So I'll give him a little bit of credit for not having the hangar like lodged so far up his ass that he couldn't see that. So, Eliardi jestered to the founding

father is being sourced and it turns out Niel Gorsuch really agreed with that. So this opinion

is basically a call back to Niel Gorsuch's greatest hits from the oral argument in Hamani,

which if you recall was basically giving what if Pete Kegsbreth were a Supreme Court Justice vibes. The founders were totally fraught, bros, energy. So here is chapter social chair, Niel Gorsuch at the oral argument. "Bitchell drunkard the American Temperance Society back in the day," said eight shots of whiskey a day. "Only made you an occasional drunkard." We have to remember

“the founding era, if you want to invoke the founding era. To be a "bitchell drunkard," you had to”

do double that, okay? John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn't much of an user of alcohol. He only had three or four glasses of wine a night. Niel Gorsuch was a theater kid, right?

I never said. Look, he's right, of course, but he- but you notice how he doesn't finish the sentence,

right? He wasn't the only one who was really bought into this. So Chief Justice John Roberts noted institutionalist allowed Niel Gorsuch to write this opinion and to memorialize this episode of Drunk History in the annals of the United States reports. To be very clear, Gorsuch takes this opportunity to go on and on and on about this culture of copious drinking that existed at the founding, including all of these anecdotes about how Madison and Jefferson and Adams were

just chugging and chugging and chugging, which happened to be a lot. It does prompt me to ask, though, when this court is taking up the 14th Amendment, are they also willing to talk about how many

“people these folks owned at the time? Because it was also a lot. Like, why won't we talk about that?”

No, actually illegal to talk about that. Niel Gorsuch's personal episode of Drunk History was just focused on how the law protects America's history and tradition of getting hammered. Ali, do you think Brett Kavanaugh had any qualms about joining this opinion that basically normalized being shit-faced? I do not. Brett Kavanaugh likes to join opinions that justify his own behavior. He just, you know, there was the opinion earlier a couple of terms ago where he legalized

bribery because we believe that he's probably kind of into that as well. So I don't think Kavanaugh had a problem with that. I think what the conservatives in the majority did that was really

a disservice, and you saw it even in that clip that you played, is that they never finished the

second half of the sentence. Yes, the founders were sauce. They were also using rifle muskets. I would love to take the Pepsi challenge with that. Bring me Snoop Dogg. Put him right here, give him a whole bang, and then let's see how long it takes him to reload a musket. Just, let's see. Let's see how many innocent people he can mode out while he has to reload the musket. One ball at a time, every time before he takes another shot. That's the other part of the sentence

that these guys never got to. Absolutely. And also, we're not going to re-litigate now two decades of Supreme Court Second Amendment jurisprudence, but they're not keeping guns at home for personal self-defense anyway. Fire on possession was in conjunction with malicious service or potential malicious service at the founding anyway, but obviously all water under the bridge at this point. But I do think they're disinterest in the difference in firearms between the founding era

“and today is conspicuous in all of these second Amendment cases. To James Madison, have a bump stock?”

You're not allowed to ask that. It's the problem. So the history of these heavy drinking fratty founding fathers was not the only aspect of the oral argument in the case that then surfaced in the opinion. In fact, Justice Gorsuch included a number of callbacks to the oral argument. And just to refresh your memories, here's a snippet from one of the other memorable moments

Ambien to sleep. So let's assume that someone takes their spouses Ambien prescription.

“The spouse takes it too, lawfully, with the prescription, but then you take it”

unlawfully because you break into your spouse's Ambien jar. Yes, that is Amy Barrett asking a hypothetical about when a hypothetical spouse, pilfer is from the other spouses, hypothetical jar of Ambien. Well, guess what? Although he hangs with the originalist, Neil Gorsuch is not very original. He repeated Amy Coney Barrett and included an Ambien

hypothetical in the opinion. Sir, Sir. It's so oddly specific, right? It is. Also, Ambien

doesn't come in a jar. So you have a jar of Ambien. You have a jar of Ambien. You have a jar of Ambien, you've got bigger problems. Yeah, it was obviously an Amy Barrett. Easter egg, it did make me wonder, was it intended for us? Does he hate listen? And does he know how much mileage we got out of that Ambien hypothetical on the pod? Or is he also Ambien maxing now? Maybe out of a jar? All right, there were also some concurrences in the

Hamani case that were absolutely wild and we really have to talk about them. But before we get to them, we want to play a little game with you, the audience. Are you ready? Okay, so it's just like law school. We're going to ask the questions and you're going to shout out answers. Okay, are you ready to tease or to the longer game? We're going to play later. To warm you up, these are warm ups. All right, so Hamani said get it wrong. We'll make you cry. Sorry. Maybe that was just

“me. No, yeah, I think Elena Cagan is a tougher user of this erratic method, at least at least”

than I am. I'm sure Melissa has made students cry in her day. I would not be surprised. Okay, question. Which justice used his concurrence in Hamani to normalize weed usage? Shout it up. Yes, you guys read the concurrences. Justice, Samuel, Alito, stay tuned. We're going to come back to this. Which justice wrote about taking a mild gummy? It was meal gorsage or as we're now calling him, meal mild gummy gorsage.

That was too easy because he actually discussed that at oral arguments. He talked about gummy bears. Yes, he said gummy and then he quickly added bears. So it didn't sound like he was too comfortable with just references to gummies. In addition to the mild gummy reference, the opinion noted the proliferation of state laws, obviously decriminalizing marijuana and federal downgrading of some marijuana from schedule one to schedule three, it also observed correctly that millions of

Americans regularly use marijuana and that all of those users are certainly not unusually dangerous. Which prompts me again to reference the butterfly meme that Melissa already referred to and to ask

“is the kind of discussion of the millions of contemporary marijuana users. Is this originalism?”

Is this history in tradition? No. I think the answer is no, but okay, back to the concurrences

because it is time for an evergreen segment, which is we need to talk about Clarence Thomas. I'll begin. So, in Hamani, Justice Thomas wrote a concurrence where, per usual, he said that he would go further. And for context, four years, Justice Thomas has had a B in his bonnet about the commerce class. So the commerce class is part of article one section eight and it authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce and it has been a major head of

congressional authority for enacting legislation, including major civil rights legislation. Now, obviously, Justice Thomas has a problem with the people's elected representatives enacting laws to protect the said people from rampant discrimination. So, for years, he has argued that the commerce class should be limited and in this concurrence, which nobody joined in Hamani, Justice Thomas decided to hard launch his view that the commerce class does not allow or authorize

Congress to enact federal gun legislation solely because it is not enough for guns to travel in interstate commerce. That's not enough to trigger the commerce class. I will just say that if

federal gun laws, it likely would also invalidate other civil rights laws that are enacted

“under the commerce class. So this is another one of those cases where Justice Thomas decides to”

so a few seeds for the future. You, boo hit. I can't emphasize how insane his argument is. Again, as Professor Murray just explained, the interstate commerce class is not something that you need to go through three years of law school to understand. If something is going from one state to another, that means the government has the right to regulate that. And Thomas is saying, "No!" Just because something is going from one state to another, that's not enough to regulate.

Like, what is he talking about? It makes absolutely no sense. I'm trying to think of an analogy

for exactly how stupid this is. And I'm falling short because the dumbest thing that I've ever heard, like, you can't, how could you possibly say that being an interstate commerce does not trigger the interstate commerce class. It says like, it's like saying being pregnant does not trigger you being pregnant. Nope. You are pregnant. It's there. We can all say it, right? And so, so then what

“would you have to start to think through is like, what kind of insane person writes this down?”

Like, what kind of adult person puts pen to paper to write this down and explain to the entire world how insane he is and then you remember his billionaire support friends. Right? And then you remember that Clarence's Thomas's entire almost now 30-year history on the bench has been as the troll under the bridge. The poison pill, you know, I could say the shit in your ice cream, right? Like, you know, you can, you can, you can have the beautiful Sundays. It's a little corner shit. It's right

there. You can't unsee it. You can't not know that it's there. And he's been incredibly effective because he will make the argument that is ridiculous in his time, but then over the course of years or decades, the rest of the conservatives can rally around and push his insane idea forward. Right? So the reason why this concurrence is here in saying though it may be is that he's telling the Wayne Loppiers of the world, this is the next front. Like, the next front is to fight the government

“ability to regulate guns at all. That's, that's what he's giving out. And he knows he's going to”

lose now because it's stupid. But just, but he has shown over the course of his career that just because he's stupid doesn't mean he doesn't win. So I think it's important to underscore this is the theory would invalidate all federal gun laws and as Melissa alluded to, maybe all federal civil rights laws because the commerce clause is the constitutional foundation for those laws too. And maybe that actually is the long game that Clarence Thomas. Happy to cheat.

Exactly. One other small detail about the concurrence that I just have to mention at the end Thomas says, hey, it's been 26 years since we struck down a law under the commerce clause. And I'm just jonesing for a little commerce clause action that's an actual argument he thinks the court is going through a commerce clause dry spell and Clarence Thomas is horny as fuck for a commerce laws freak off. Here's my actual hot take. Maybe for last week's opinions was that the girls are

fighting. There were a ton of intro right wing fights about what the right wing dogma is so in homony there's this intro right wing fight about the commerce clause should be used the commerce clause to take us back to the Stone Age Clarence Thomas says yes, Samolito says no then there was

another intro right wing fight about whether the right cares about the second amendment or

prosecutors more here justice. Thomas is suggesting maybe let's take down all gun control laws Samolito right separately to say no I actually like laws that prohibit felons from possessing firearms and that's going to lead to a divide between him, Thomas, gorsage, etc. I like that explained to me why my former professor Lannicagan joined Alito's concurrence. Yeah because she wants to capitalize on the intro right wing fights and basically ensure that the court doesn't strike down felon and possession laws

and so my guess is she was encouraging Samolito along and thought okay I like sign on to this and kind of make him own it. Yeah yeah that's a ticket right you're so smart you're so smart you're so smart

Susan Collins maybe do it. No I'm laughing because there's zero regrets molesta zero regrets so many I'm laughing just because like it's embarrassing how easily it is to handle men right like that would work on me that does work on me. I was used car shopping on my wife yesterday and I mean she

“was literally just like no I was like that car's too big and she was like no honey I think you can”

handle that car. But I guess I can exactly you're right. All right there are two other concurrences

that we should mention. The first concurrence was by Justice Jackson who was joined by Justice

Sota Mayore and per usual Justice Jackson continued her righteous crusade against the incredibly fococta and terrible ruin history and tradition test and she argued the drunk history and tradition test. So she argued that the court should abandon ruin's drunk history and tradition test and instead return to the test that had been in place before which is basically a means and an end test where effectively those considering and reviewing firearms regulation have to think about why the law was

passed in the first place and then consider whether the imposition on the second amendment right

“is justified given what the legislature is trying to achieve. Seems very normal and reasonable”

definitely not going to get five votes. All right. All right. Allie, what did you think of KBJ's concurrence? You're vibrating. I know you got ideas. I love this concurrence. I love it on two levels right. One, it is Juneteenth. That's the blackest ask concurrence you're going to see right? Because it's it's a little bit of like she's saying you know what I do not truck a ruin as a staff label or motherfucking crew. Like she is going to object to ruin for the rest of her fucking life and she's

never going to let you forget it and I just love that I love that aspect of it to just object and

object and object every single time. So that's really cool. But the other thing the reason why that concurrence is great is that it gives you the other answer for how to reach this conclusion

“that everybody up here agrees was the right conclusion, right? And so one of the way the original”

is sometimes try to get people, try to trick people is that if we don't do originalism what else can we do? There's no other way, no idiot. There's always another way and Jackson lays it right out and she says in her concurrence we could have decided this case by asking for familiar questions that were used to ask before we did this dumbass ruin thing and one of those questions for in this case would have been really simple. Does smoking weed make you a greater risk to misuse

handguns? Does anybody think that it does? I mean like this anybody in their right mind think that smoking weed makes you more of a danger to have a gun. Okay so I'm going to interject right here because not only did Katie J say this, it's also something that Alito said in his concurrence. Like so maybe the girls aren't all fighting right? So Justice Alito also wrote a concurrence in which he was joined by Alena Cagan for the reasons that Leah has suggested and basically in this concurrence

Justice Alito talked about how marijuana use has basically become normal. Lots of people smoke a doobie and sometimes a doobie is just a doobie said Justice Alito I'm paraphrasing obviously. That shouldn't stop them from having guns obviously. I read this concurrence and I seriously thought he was fucking with us like I mean this was wild to me. I just did not have Sam Alito writing a concurrence that rested on the normalization of pot on my October term 2025 bingo card

and yet he wrote quote marijuana consumption is increasingly common in this country it is widespread and increasingly considered socially acceptable in many quarters. Is this the rapture or is this just what working with Neil Gorsuch does? Wait a minute like imagine being so exercise having a wife who is so exercised about the pride flag but you're totally cool with your lot. Also everything is so personal with him and it does feel like there just must be some people in his life who are

recreational marijuana users. I don't think like in his immediate household like he and

Martha Annoldova I guess you never know but but it felt like maybe that was it? See I'm not going to

I think he writes that concurrence specifically because he still wants to put brothers and jale

“like people needs to remember what the law is actually used for. I saw a lot of the media saying”

this is the this is the hunter Biden statute a little bit not quite as a little bit different I don't want to get into the weeds with that but the way this law is used most often let's say right is the cops stop somebody they think that they're drug dealer they think they're a gang banger they're think that they're a bad guy but they don't got anything on them right they don't have any crime that person committed they stop somebody for driving while black and the tail light

was just out right but what they do find is a gun all right we're going to get you on a gun talked well in it your gun is license damn all right well you have a dime back we're going to get you on the drug charge I man it's just the misdemeanor you know it's two ounces apart would it oh but you got the pot and you have the gun now you can go away for 15 years and the carceral state starts going right because you got a little you got a drug offense with the gun even though

it's a legal handgun now you can get the carceral state rolling in a person right and this opinion takes a big chunk out of that carceral state because weed is so ubiquitous but there are other drugs that Alito is still trying to leave space to be like all right we're going to let you off on the weed because it's habitual because it's like alcohol because of what but the crack

“had not your ass is still going to jail for 15 years right that's that's what he's trying to”

still leave space for with this concurrence they still want to be able to stop people for minor infractions and then ratchet up that infraction to 15 years in jail which starts an entire carceral process one other possible theory which that all sounds very plausible is that there were echoes I thought in the Alito concurrence of this dissenting opinion from Justice John Paul Stevens in the case that is colloquially known as the "Bong hits for Jesus" case which some people might

know that was a banner that some high school students held up and then were punished for doing so and they raised a first amendment claim and the court ruled against them but Stevens descended

and just wrote this amazing descent that was like talked about his own childhood in prohibition

because he had lived through it as a kid and basically said essentially you know our war on on marijuana now is a lot like our experiment without lying alcohol when I was a boy and we're going to kind of come around and anyway my very charitable view of the Alito concurrence

“is that he's come around to the Stephen's position so at least possible I think Emily will tell”

that at least take it out or or just let's go with Ellie okay for those listening at home the audience with that we take this out who's here for Kate's Justice Stevens advocating for term whether thank you I see a few hands in the crowd no ones thank you so we did get two other opinions just going to quickly summarize this was kind of a fed court's fest in one case hunter versus United States the court said eight to one that even though a plea deal with the government agrees

that the defendant won't appeal their sentence that doesn't prevent a defendant from appealing acclaimed that would result in a miscarriage of justice this case involves some intra right-wing fights between justices bear and Thomas in particular about supervisory power and procedural

common law again stuff that really matters to the right then the second opinion was the Rooker

Feldman opinion I know you all wanted us to spend the entire episode on this I apologize this case tm versus university of Maryland medical system the court held five to four that the so-called Rooker Feldman doctrine applies to state court trial and intermediate appellate decision so Rooker Feldman had said you can't appeal or effectively ask a federal court to invalidate a state supreme court opinion and tm said that applies to state trial and state

intermediate appellate court decisions as well this two involve the intra right-wing fight between justice Thomas and other Republican appointees since justice Thomas wanted to take the position that Rooker Feldman is correct which tracks because everybody hates Rooker Feldman exactly exactly exactly exactly yeah so the intra right-wing fights are this kind of theme that Leah has identified as linking the three cases we got last week we're talking about today

there is also like a lower brow through line which is these are all cases about drugs like different gay RFK too hundreds of a white castle hunter is a case about the individual wanted to appeal a condition of a sentence which involved taking medication he didn't want to take and actually the Rooker Feldman case also had to do with involuntary confinement and the administration of

strict scrutiny is brought to you by first day feeling off day to day isn't always just

supreme court related stress it's not even just stress whether it's low energy mood swings or just feeling rundown that can come from not getting the right nutrients consistently and here's the thing I didn't realize when I was a we-young less sometimes just eating healthy isn't enough you still might be missing out on some nutrients and a need of a system to cover those gaps

“and that system is a first day it's a blend of 21 organic superfoods and key vitamins there are”

no added sugars no artificial dyes and first day is really transparent about the ingredients they actually make different formulas for toddlers kids teens and adults so it's all tailored to your stage of life and I feel better knowing I'm covering my bases all it takes is two gummies a day so it's easy to stay consistent even supreme court dustices can count that high over a

million families use first day they also have a 45 day money back guarantee for a limited time only

our listeners are getting an insane deal use code strict to get up to 57% off at first day.com that's up to 57% off any free gift code strict at first day.com. At you purchase they will ask you where you heard about them please support our show and tell them our show sent you so we have one more topic that we want to cover before we let Ellie off the hook for the rest of the night and that is scotus reform okay so you all in the audience are here on a Saturday night to talk scotus

“I was because Melissa oh thank you thank you but also I think because you understand that something”

has gone very very wrong at the Supreme Court and yet although you all know this too many people still don't realize it and there are definitely going to be a lot of end of term stories praising the court for slowing the pace of these insane pro-Trump decisions on the shadow docket likely for rejecting the flagrantly unconstitutional birthright citizenship executive order and the wall us attempt to fire fed governor Lisa Cook so it'll be great if those predictions just they're

come to pass but this court will still be an enormous problem in need of a solution and you all can be key messengers in helping push for a solution and in helping to bring people about to understanding that this court is a genuine threat to a functioning democracy

“may I allow you to retort obviously I think court reform is the most important issue facing our”

country and it's the most important issue in the 2020-26 election the 2020-28 election the 2030

like it is it is the thing and the reason why and I'll take it back to Louisiana versus Clay the decision that is as you've all talked about kill the voting rights act the historical doppelganger for Louisiana versus Clay is on plusy bee Ferguson right it's the that's the case that affirmed segregation right how do you get over plusy right how do you how do you overcome the segregation in plusy well you have to have the 1964 civil rights act you have to have the 1965

owner rights act you have to have the 1968 fair housing act but none of that happens before you have the 1954 decision and Brown report of that you change the court first and then you have the ability to pass all the legislation that you want to fix the problem the changing the court doesn't fix the problem it opens the door so the problem can be fixed if you don't control the court if you had in 1964 the same court that you had in 1896 when plusy was decided guess what happens

to the civil rights act it gets ruled on constitutional guess what happens to the voting rights act it gets John Roberts guess what's happened to the fair housing act it gets clearance Thomas like you don't get these laws these these piece of legislation unless you change the court first and that is the message that I try to give to every person especially young people I say this all the time I can go to a bar in Texas I mean I like to go to Texas but like when I do

I go to Austin but I can go and then like just fly out like I'm not trying to say but I can go to a random conservative person in Texas and talk to them about the Supreme Court and they will tell me well I don't know about no Spanish but I know I got to get my guns I'm gonna keep my guns I got to keep my court they know that right you go to a demo I can go to

going access right and he can be like oh my god dude are you using a plastic straw you know that's

“so bad man like micro plastics are terrible for the environment like yeah I know we have to have like a”

green New Deal yeah so we have to do corporate form right like what court what no man we just need a green

New Deal like you don't get a green New Deal if you don't reform the first the court first

because if you don't do it first then the green New Deal gets overturned before breakfast by these people course it in a little fight over who gets to write the opinion punching the green New Deal into the sun so if you care about any of the brilliant wonderful legislative fixes that you can think of to restore abortion rights to restore the voting rights act to do to end jerryman none of that matters if you don't take control of the spring court first great you speech to hold

word that's a whole that was a whole word do you hear this Elie's tell your friends tell your friends

“like seriously remember that time we went to the White House and we were like are you guys going to”

talk about yeah we were at the White House and we were like are you guys going to talk about court reform in the upcoming elections after jobs they're like we don't think people can understand it and like you know what they can understand not having rights yeah yeah we we we we have a ways to go in kind of getting people on the legal and political left to understand how central the Supreme Court is but I do think that Elie is going to help make hot Supreme Court reform summer happen

and so can all of you thank you nothing but respect for my chief justice Elie missed all that is the Supreme Court reform that we need Elie missed all replacing Clarence Thomas manifested matter for her to hear folks all right let's go very quickly through some

“legal news we are going to start first with some legal news made possible by John Roberts and Coe”

so first of all we're going to begin by laying the blame for the return of the insurrection

a slush fund right at the feet of John Roberts and Coe here us out all right so in the immunity decision issued a few terms ago the court told president Donald Trump that he had unfettered plenary authority over investigations prosecutions and the DOJ what could go wrong the slush fund for January 6 is how the president and tandem with his auditioning attorney general Todd cart launch have wielded that power yeah and then second in a bunch of shadow document orders the court

turned its cheek to very substantial allegations that the Trump administration had defied lower court orders even going so far as to grant the administration extraordinary and discretionary relief from orders it had very likely defied so what did Todd blanch do this week he said

fuck you to the federal courts just as a meal bovay now the dark lord of the third circuit

but previously a high ranking official at DOJ had allegedly encouraged the administration to do if and when courts tried to stop them and in one of the cases challenging the slush fund the eastern district of Virginia concluded the case was not moved and enjoying the administration from moving forward with the slush fund unless blanch submitted a declaration saying the slush fund was indeed dead well guess what cart blanch decided not to do to submit that declaration

instead the department submitted a filing stating that such a declaration was unnecessary it was frankly rude for the court to even ask quote literally from the pen of John Roberts in the immunity decision quote such declarations are unnecessary and the compelled testimony of senior officials from the executive branch implicates serious separation of powers questions really these are the separation of powers questions here I mean this is giving a ton of Shiree

Whitfield who gone check me boo vibes right yes if you've been at this pod before you know and it does make you wonder why would Todd blanch not want to submit to a federal court in writing under penalty of perjury a statement saying that the insurrectionist slush fund had been dropped off at a local fire station in a lockbox and was now abandoned why wouldn't he do that why would he

comeback like Jason in Friday the 13th does this possible yeah it also does make me wonder though why is he writing things in briefs that he won't swear to under penalty of perjury like what are these legal briefs to you glorified blog posts it's just bananas okay a little bit more legal news to

“cover and one is I think maybe complicated but mostly happy news which is we did get the restoration”

of the John F. Kennedy Center for the performing arts I mean there was something quite profound about kind of getting to see the removal of Trump's name from the Kennedy Center you know this kind of ruling and then its implementation was honestly a concrete reminder that the courts and in particular the lower courts do matter and it did feel like this kind of tiny taste of what it could be like post Trump as we try to undo the damage physical structural and constitutional

that this administration has wrought and also how hard they're going to fight to prevent that as evidence by the fact that they put tarps up to cover the removal of the name and it's still not

“entirely clear that all of the letters are gone because we haven't been able to confirm it”

with our own eyes all right there's so much news to cover and we don't have on night in this theater let's just be honest we've got to let you guys go home at some point but we could not let you leave without covering the fact that our president the commander in chief lost a big ol war this week

you think I'm talking about the war with Iran and the memorandum of understanding that basically

gives Iran money to rebuild allows them to continue operating the state of Hormuz and maybe eventually charging fees for it and maybe continuing to have nuclear capabilities all things that we said we got into this work to stop I'm not talking about that war I'm talking about the president's war with mother nature and possibly the color wheel right yes listeners this is a reflecting pool sub tweet yes we cannot get enough of this story can you like it's just too

good so as we have obviously talked about and I'm sure you're all aware Donald Trump undertook a

14 million dollar renovations slash defacing defilement of the reflecting pool this spring only for

said reflecting pool to me immediately overtaken with algae sometimes nature is healing yes but obviously the swamp story got even swampier this past week when the times reported that a contract to purify this algae written reflecting pool was awarded outside of the competitive bid process that is standard for most national park services contracts to a company held in trust by a trump friend and donor who also happens to be the president's neighbor at Marlago

and because it always gets worse said recipient of the million dollar no bid contract

had previously been convicted for bribery and the piece the resistance on is that the name of this company is and I'm not making this up greenwater services they tried to tell you

“all right so to close out this segment I think it's time to offer some um unfiltered thoughts about”

their reflecting pool um Leah why don't you go first I love this this is the new maga make algae great again I did wonder did green water services sign a memorandum of understanding with the algae in Versailles right like unconditional surrender to the algae just like the memorandum of understanding is a worse version of the deal that Barack Obama made with Iran this greenwater services is a worse version of a green new deal this is their green new deal yeah that's all I've got so

in addition to turning the reflecting pool strike green there's also the fact that green water services was also charged with refacing the pool so they had to repaint it and now it seems like

pool right I mean this again is the president's edifice complex writ large it's like like

sir we didn't need this but if you're going to pick someone to do it maybe pick someone who's good it is job but we could say that about the whole cabinet right you're to do it pick somebody's good

“it is job and I mean you know just a sort of prosik observation but I think an important one”

is that we do have you know as like uninteresting or on sexies it is like we have processes in place for a good reason like there's a bid process to make sure that people who get these contracts know what they're doing and if there's a silver lining here I think that government processes and government workers can get a bad rap I think in a cross-ideological fashion but like maybe the complete hash that these unqualified like lackeys have made of the reflecting pool and owed the

federal government writ large will remind everyone before it is too late of the value of a federal government that is merit-based and it actually does the work of the laws and the people so again

“Kate I honestly didn't think you could do it but you have managed to ring a silver lining”

out of the reflecting pool and we can all get a little piece of the blue paint peeling from the bottom just as a souvenir I think we'll be doing all right this was a DEI contract a true Dix X husbands and missiles contract absolutely and we're seeing it the effects yes and just to take it back to the Supreme Court for a second you know Kate you were talking about how government can and should be full of experts based on merit when not if the Supreme Court over rules or just limits

Humphrey's executor and gives Donald Trump the power to control who heads all of these agencies he they are going to be making it possible for him to install people at these agencies who will engage

“in this kind of grift and make government just a spoiled system rather than a meritocracy run”

by experts so I love the guilty age the re-gilded it is coming back yeah okay so as we always do

at the end of our episodes we will offer our favorite things and then we will have one favor to ask of you so I will start with the favorites my favorite one of my favorites was Barack Obama's speech at the opening of the presidential center specifically the part where he shouted out quote those ordinary people in the twin cities who braved frigid temperatures risked their own safety standing shoulder to shoulder to look out for their neighbors and sometimes for strangers because

they knew that was the right thing to do we actually have some people in the audience tonight from Minnesota so wanted to shout them out as well one other just small thing sappy note so this past week the three of us learned that an article that we have co-written that we friends reference on the podcast but haven't actually released into the wild was the recipient of the American Constitution Society cudahi prize for regulatory and administrative law and in like a very rare

against type silver lining positive message for me I just wanted to encourage everyone to find

their own people like women working together is incredible professional networks of women

female friends are the best and I feel like one one of the reasons why you know I wanted to we wanted to start the podcast I'll just speak for myself is like this persistent feeling that women are just undervalued in the legal profession the legal academy and so creating this space where we could do our own thing and do it for ourselves was just a wonderful opportunity and I am just very grateful for all of the things that have come from it. Amen second everything Leah just said

and she mentioned President Obama's speech I'm at the opening of the presidential center I will also mention Michelle Obama's speech there and it was extraordinary watch it you'll cry I am sure

opening of that center and just on a quick personal note so all the former administration staffers

“from the Obama administration were invited to go to the opening last week and I was a lawyer in the”

administration and I got an invitation and I had all of these like end of school year obligations with my kids and I didn't think I could swing it and I so I didn't go and so I've watched with a heavy dose of

FOMO all of the incredible videos and images from the center but I mean I'm kind of glad I just

got to experience it the way everybody else did and I have to say that in the same way we started with the next we'll end the show with the next but the victory and the kind of ensuing joy felt like it restored some balance in the universe it did feel like the opening of the Obama presidential center in Chicago was like the real 250th anniversary the country deserves we have been better before there's no guarantee but we can be again it's going to take a lot of work

but I did feel a lot of optimism in the last week and even though I probably feel more than than

like my co was at times it was much more than even I have felt in a long time and I'm grateful

to the Obama's in the folks who put all that work into making that center such an extraordinary place go see it if you haven't that's it maybe one related piece all say since the end of our show is often a gemelbuy appreciation space he had a recent column Obama and Mamdoni show how it's done

“which I think just sort of encapsulated a lot of the themes I just shared so those are my favorite things”

so going last means that you're pretty much plus wanting much of what was said before so I will plus one I really enjoyed the Obama speeches at the opening of the Obama presidential center I loved seeing Malia and Sasha all grown up so cute all of this I thought was an antidote to the nonsense that we saw on the White House lawn earlier this week and I don't want to bring down the vibe but I it's Juneteenth so I'm going to call it out I know a lot of people were really

incensed about Josh hokits viral remarks about Mrs. Obama and I'm just going to implore you to let it go right that man has a painted on beard and looks like a thumb all right he's got bigger

“problems you got bigger problems forget him if it really makes you mad and again this is not”

me doing a Michelle Obama when they go low we go high because I firmly believe when they go low we go to hell but it just shows how the Obama's who are classy and elegant and brilliant just live

rent free in these people's heads because they know they will never be like the Obama's they

will never be like the Obama's and it kills them and it kills them so if you really want to get them where they live instead of talking about what he said go to Netflix download becoming and put it on a perpetual loop for the whole weekend which I may or may not have done and allow it to go to number one on the Netflix chart right because that listeners is how you clear a bitch okay by being elegant unbothered successful moisturize on top of the Netflix charts and I just want to shout out some

folks who worked with me recently the audio book for my recent book the US Constitution a comprehensive and annotated guide for the modern reader the audio book was recently recognized by Kirkus reviews and audio file magazine with an earphone award for outstanding contributions to the audio book medium and thank you so I read the annotations but I really want to shout out the great deon Graham who actually read the text of the Constitution was my co narrator on the

audio book and I especially want to thank Karen Pearlman and the rest of the audio book team at Simon and Chooster who are here tonight for their outstanding work I could not have done this without you your fantastic thank you okay and of course New York we couldn't have done all of this without you so this is the greatest city in the world Stricties are the greatest audience in the world and we have one last favor

we have one last favor to ask in addition to downloading us on all of your favorite podcast

modern reader and also the next live show we got to shout out the next live show and buying tickets

for the next live show which is going to be in November in Washington DC at Cricket Cod it's going

“to be so fabulous but before you do all of those things can we take a selfie with you?”

Yeah! All right thank you New York!

Stricts scrutiny is a crooked media production our show is produced by Malie Raoul and Michael Goldsmith

“Jordan Pammus is our intern our team include Matt DeGrope, Ben Hethko, Johanna Case, Kenny Moffitt,”

Eric Shude and our music is by Eddie Cooper our production staff is probably unionized with the

writer's guild of America East