April 23, 2024 • 63 mins
In episode 1663, Jack and Miles are joined by public defender and co-host of 5-4 Pod, Rhiannon Hamam, to discuss… The Problem With SCOTUS, Too Much Money In Politics, Federalist Society = Movie Villains? The Fallout Of Citizens United, Legally Punishing The Unhoused, Is Trump IMMUNITY GOD? And more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three thirty five,
episode two of Days Day Air production of iHeartRadio. This
is a podcast where we take a deep gut in
New America share con and it's also an ASMR podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Officially. Okay, all right, ying Yang in this Tuesday, April
twenty third, twenty twenty four. Hey, a lot of things
going on to school bus driver Appreciation Day. Yes, thank
you for being sober or at least my eyes sober
as you drove for example, functionally sober. Yeah, you know,
giving me something to aspire to. National Lost Dog Awareness Day.
(00:35):
All that's said, National Cherry Cheesecake Day, National Take a
Chance Day, National Picnic Day, and national talk like Shakespeare
my Lord Day. That's all I could do. I don't
I can't speak an Iambic pantameter.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
But I can't say my Lord like the vegas of accents,
talk like Shakespeare will He was doing a hand curl
the front of his hat. So we're just on the
end of No.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Shake Spirit Day, Spirit Days Miles. Speaking of days, I
would be remiss not to mention that we skipped right
over because it was a weekend. We didn't record because
we're lazy that we skipped over four twenty.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, Bro, I know, Bro, Yeah, it's talk about it's
about June ninth, Bro, sixty nine. You know we're we've
moved over from four.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Twenty, so we moved on from four to twenty.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Fuck it?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah all right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Honestly, and I've said this on the show more and
more like it's it's diminishing returns after you hit the
heights of eighteen years old on four twenty, Like yeah, yeah,
it'll never matter as much as it does when it's.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
It's like what New Year's is to alcoholics, that is,
to people.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Who smoke weed. Yeah, it's like it doesn't matter. I'm
drinking it every day. Any Yeah, well okay, yeah, amateur Hour.
I am a functioning alcoholic. I drink where I get
to work, to school. Yes, my name's Jack O'Brien. AKA.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I saw the news today. Oh boy, I had it
printed from the internet. Can't bring my phone into a trial.
Go get me a big mac and then I'll take
a nap. We're alternately, go get me a big mac
(02:27):
and now we know how many diet coach it takes
the heart to stop that AKA. Courtesy of Shawny Pawne
on the discord the alternate version the four thousand Holes
in Blackburn, Lancashire verse from Steaming Chuck on the discord
on a bit of a roll, Steaming Chuck on a
bit of a roll. We shouts out to you both
(02:48):
and for z Gang in general. Someone was telling me
how like British soccer anthems, like British soccer crowds like
get together and do like loose, weird allification of songs
to like represent their players. Oh yeah, And I was like, oh,
we do that on our podcast. Yeah, our dumb podcast.
Our brilliant listeners make less dumb by doing that for us.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh no, these are this is just terrorist culture. It's
terrorist culture from the UK. That's what we're thinking. Yes,
it's all yeah, that's right, Ultras. Yeah, because for Arsenal
there is our our most famous manager, Arsen Wenger. We
did it to the tune of one time of meta Benga.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
There's only one awesome Benga.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
There's be and it's like easy because it's I think
that's everybody knows that. That's why that's why I gravitated
more towards European soccer, because like, I'm like, bro, they're
doing more ship than like defense. They're like talking about
the like who's the wanka and the green because the
referees wear green shirts, and it's just like, you know, anyway,
(03:52):
it's all, it's all fun, It's all anyway.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Shout out to the gang. Yeah, I'm throw to be
joined as always by my co host, mister Miles Ground Miles.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Break, Freckle Freak, freakl freak, I lovesw Okay. Shout out
Cleo Universe because Yeah, I told you I'm a bit.
I'm a bit of a I stand for the freckle,
you know what I mean, And I'm not ashamed. So yeah,
thank you for putting that into a Rick rick jamification.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Of that Rick jammification. I had fried pickles over the
weekend at a foot team match at l A f C.
And they were bad.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
They're not good.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
They promised cheeto, what's the spicy cheeto?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Flaming hot, flaming hot.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
They promised flaming hot Cheetoh, and they were flaming hot
Cheeto in color only, Yeah flavors.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Look, we'll do a Frickle tour eventually. You know the
places I trust. Yeah, the Frickle Tour. All right, Miles,
we are thrilled to be joined by one of the
hosts of the incredible podcast five four, a show about
all the ways the Supreme Court is a complete disaster.
It's also a supervising attorney at Texas Law has worked
(05:00):
the public defender in Rio Grande City, Texas. Please welcome
to the show, Rihann and home on.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Hello do I sing? Am I gonna do like a
little jingle for myself?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
One?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, I'm here, you're great, hot girl, summer coming up?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, right predicted here here here. My shoulders started moving
a little bit. Yeah. I was like, shit, yeah, I'm
feeling that. One. What's your what's your the thing I
always ask people and they're like, should I sing it?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
What's your karaoke go to?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
I do have?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
The go to karaoke is always TLC no scrubs. Shit,
you start there right like you can. The sky's the
limit after that. Yeah, but once you get going on that,
the vibes are going on that, your power is sort
of centered in a no scrubs direction. Yeah, karaoke is boundless, and.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
That's brave because karaoke bars are usually full of so
many scrubs. I can't imagine that's very popular.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, you know, they're like.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
They start booing and hissing, she's.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Talking about me. But I just think I do think
I'm fine and people. I'm also known to be a buster. No, no, no, sometimes.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I hang out the passenger's side of my best friend ride.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I did get fully hanging out the passenger side of
my best friend's ride the whole time. I just did
get in the car and I'm hanging out the whole time.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I had a friend who and then when the first
song first came out, they could have swore they were saying.
It's also known as a bus stop. I was like,
you need to hang out around different people.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That's like a that sounds like a Joe Biden slang,
like yell the bust up.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
He's one of the scrubs.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
He's also known as a bus stop.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Corn Pop was always hanging around the bus stop.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I'm serious.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
He was a cannibal and I'm serious man, I'm serious.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
No, we know you think you're serious.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Rather, no, you're not a serious person in your brain.
You're serious.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, but I mean that was what I mean. Is
I mean what I'm saying, you know, we.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Know we want to do though we wish you didn't,
but yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Because your ice cream is melting all over your suit, sir,
it's just really unemly. Forget about his ice cream too, imagine.
I feel like that would do a lot of damage
to his campaigns, just sloppy, melted ice cream all over
his suit. He'll be like, oh, you know what, that
was it for me somehow, I think.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
That's how they They need that damage on top of
like genocide or yeah, oh okay, okay, okay, the ice
cream is gonna yeah, he'll.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Do yeah, maybe he'll do that to distract from his
lack of action there. And he's like, but I got
his ice cream all over Oh most sloppy for me.
But secretly I'm really mad at BB really secretly, not.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Out Yeah, yeah, no, of course.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
All right, Rhann, And we're gonna get to know you
a little bit better in a moment. We're first we're
gonna tell our listeners what we're talking about five four
Just what one of my new favorite podcasts I want.
I want Deep on the Federal List Society with you. Yeah,
so we're going to talk about just the Federalist Society.
I was aware of them, but I didn't I didn't
(08:07):
know just how brazen and evil. I didn't know the details.
So I do want to go into the Federalist Society,
and then we're going to talk about some just like
what the Supreme Court that brought this Supreme Court brought
to you by the Federalist Society is up to this.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Week and just in general.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
But first we do like to get to know our
guests a little bit better by asking you, what is
something from your search history that's revealing about who you are?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Okay, you know, listen a lot of these personal questions
about like what's on your mind right now, what do
you think's underrated? That kind of thing. It's tough. I
am Palestinian. There is a genocide happening, so like my internet,
my like media intake, all of that is real focused
on all of that. But something that I did see
in my Google search that is really relevant and maybe
(08:57):
not directly genocide related, Adida's traits. Okay, ready, I'm ready
to be suited up in the three stripes, down the arms,
down the legs. I want it to be a bright
color red, yes, maybe a popin kind of lime green.
Kind of thing. Yeah, you know, I just it's it's uh,
it might not be every hot girl summer vibe, but
(09:20):
it is my hot girl summer vibe distract suit.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Wait, what brought you? What brought you around on? Like
the breakdancers uniform, like the real og hip hop outfit.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
You know, it is also a kind of Palestinian uncle
vibe is Adida's tracksuit, right, that kind of thing. And
so yeah, just uh, going back to my roots, I
guess we could say, hey, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
We all become our uncles at the end of the day.
I played.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I played soccer too. I played soccer really seriously for
my youth, and so yeah, that was the brand, you know, yeaheah.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
For sure, for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I started putting my seven year old in a just
black Adidas tracksuit like the one you're describing, and it
like the way that it transforms his energy. It's all
stolen valor. He doesn't he doesn't play.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Soccer, boy, right, where'd you come up at?
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, it doesn't play soccer, doesn't break dance yet, but
it's really like the that is a powerful, powerful article.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I feel like I've always been a coward. I've only
gone pant or jacket, like I've never actually bought a
full blown like one of my favorite I remember eighth grade,
I wore the fuck out of these gray Adidas three
stripe pants that I had, like to the point they
were just gnarly. But then I remember I didn't have
money for the matching jacket. So then later on when
I was like, dude, am I a full track suit? Guy?
(10:41):
I then I fell back because I knew a lot
of breakers, and I was like, they're gonna just flame
me because I'm not a breaker. Yeah, and now now
you know what I need to embrace. I need to
embrace the energy that is the old head three three
stripe suit. But I feel like it's coming back anyway.
Like it's just because everything's so cyclical, like it's it's.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
All right, and everybody's wearing sambas. The sneakers, Yeah those
are It's crazy. I was wearing those in seventh grade,
like not as a cool kid.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Right, that's you know the soccer nerd kids where they're
like yo, yes, not even on the pitch, and they
wear it. They can't. Yeah, kick the shoe game, okay.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, next snap bracelets coming back.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Then we're going to be all the way back.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, what is something you think is underrated?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Okay, you know I gave a lot of thought to
this as well, and I'm going to say having a
crazy cat underrated. I'm not a cat person, didn't think
I was a cat person, but just recently got my
first cat. She's orange, her name's Petra. She is psychotic,
She's truly psychotic. I can't say it's a rewarding experience,
(11:50):
but there is something to it. A certain Jena se
Quah to coming home and there's a little critter climbing
up the wall, right, just free sola claws in the
dry wall.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Oh wow right.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Yeah, no, there's It really adds a little something to
your day. So yeah, I would recommend everybody get a cat.
Mix up your mix up your daily routine. Maybe the
you know, the chaos is coming from inside the house.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Right for sure? The climbing up the walls, that sounds like, uh,
I just saw the security deposit goal poof thinging about.
I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I didn't know that orange cats are in particular crazy.
Oh yeah, apparently they are and I am living it,
so yeah, right right, Scaling the curtains, scaling the walls.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Wow, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
So not Garfield crazy, but crazy in a different way,
a little bit more energy. There's.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, there's a little bit more chaos to it rather
than the kind of four to twenty Garfield right right, right?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Have you?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Like? Because I have cats too, and they were just
shredding up like our furniture, so like people were like,
you know, like you could declaw them, Like, I'm not
doing that, are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (13:01):
No, no way.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
But we did put the little rubber finger tip things
on the claws, and I don't know if it was
worth the effort of trying to basically give a cat
a manicure. Drank cats manicures on like both of their
front paws, But yeah, we gave up on that pretty quickly, Like,
you know what, maybe just fuck the couch up. That's
what you want to do.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Couch is yours now, you're right for you.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That was stupid to me to have this air.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I've discovered that double sided tape. She really doesn't like it.
But then your couch has double sided tape on it,
you know, so there's.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Just a little trim of popcorn around the bottom of
your couch like it's Santa's suit. Yeah, cover the popcorn
and pennies. I don't know why pennies, but.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Just good couch stuff. That's couch stuff. That's stuff you
find a couch.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
What is something you think is overrated?
Speaker 3 (13:50):
My answers for this, I don't want people to scream
at me. You know. I was like, instantly, my body,
my heart, my mind went Taylor Swift. I can't say
that we're gonna be so so mad at me on
the internet. But yeah, all right, so you know Taylor Swift. Obviously.
Then I was like, no, I can't say that. Well,
what's the next thing that's like overrated? Well, Democrats, the
(14:12):
Democratic Party, they fucking suck right now. People who like
them are weird. But then I don't want people to
yell at me about that either, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
So they're pretty cool about that. They take they take
criticism pretty well.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I feel like, what do you mean? What is blue?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And so, you know what, I've landed on overrated podcasting
sitting in my damn closet once a week speaking into
a zoom.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
You know, that must suck.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
You must not have much going on.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
That's the thing too, overrated podcasting. I have. I have
a podcast. I also have a job, so yeah, it's
a lawyer job on top of that. So so yeah, man,
I'm I'm exhausted.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
That's a lot. That is a lot, but it also
makes your show so great, like the all the hosts
have legal backgrounds.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
And yeah, functional ones, yeah, not just fun.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I could have I could have passed the bar, but I.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Was like, dude, I don't need to do this. My parents.
I could go to law school anyway, but.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
That three times to my legal pot.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, and I never did as good as I thought
I should.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Have to me and amicus brief is when my homies
text me what's up tonight? You see, Oh, I know
what's up, dude. That's wrong. Legally, that was really good.
I did feel it.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So where are we on the pronunciation of amicus brief?
I've always gone as but okay, I feel like, yeah,
one of the hosts pronounced it in a different way
on you know what.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
For Yeah, for plural, so plural amicus is amaici, but
some people say amichi, that's.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
C i and.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, harsh, yes, Yeah, We're all over the map on
this one.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah, I've always heard it amaki, but I think who
you're talking about on the podcast my co host Michael,
who sometimes comes with Latin pronunciations that are just yeah
from outer space, never heard of before.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, but this is how I was pronounced in ancient Rome.
So yes, that's where we're going. We're not going to
get laughed out by them.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I'm telling you that I'll be laughed at by everyone,
but not my Latin professor, but not Cicero.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
No, yes, all right. Should we take a break and
come back and talk about the fed sock is which
I now know that fed sock means the Federalist Society. Yeah,
let's do that.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
We'll be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
We're back, and and I highly recommend everybody, upon completing
this go check out the five to four and specifically
the Federalist Society history.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It's it's. Yeah, I'm just gonna keep going.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It's it's it's And I think that communicates plenty, but
I guess so.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I always found it.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Amazing, mind blowing that there was in the earliest twenty
century something called the Business Plot, where a bunch of
industrialists and business people tried to recruit a US general
to overthrow FDR's government and just be like, now we're
we fucking fascism and like we want better conditions for businesses.
(17:41):
And it was unsuccessful, but it was so brazen, so
out in the open, and just so like counter to whatever,
like what America is supposed to stand for that it
just seemed like wild to me when I learned about that,
like ten fifteen years and now I feel like this
(18:04):
the Federalist Society just was that, and they just stuck
with it and have basically succeeded in doing what those people,
like what those the uber wealthy were trying to do
in the earliest twentieth early twentieth century, Like even early
funders of the Federalist Society were like the melon like billionaires,
(18:28):
you know, like that gilded like literally Gilded Age money
monsters who were probably involved in the business plot got
the Federalist Society off the ground, and now we live
in basically like what the business plot would have liked
America to look like.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
It feels like.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so the Federal Society. I think people
like listening to this, like you might be familiar with
like the term. They know that the Federal Society is
an organization, especially when Trump was president and was making
his nominations to the Supreme Court. It like came out
that Trump was saying explicitly, Yeah, the Federal Society is
(19:07):
providing me with these names. Right, I got the I
got the shortlist for Amie Cony Barrett, right for Amy
Cony Barrett and Neil Gorsich and Brett Kavanaugh. Those came
to me from the Federal Society. So I think people
like have a sense of like, well, who the fuck
are these guys? Right?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
You know, yeah, right, yeah, they do listicals.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
That's right. Number three will make your heart flutter.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
But what we talk about on five to four is
how the Federal Society is really kind of like the
judicial wing of the Republican Party.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Now.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
The Federal Society as an organization, it bills itself, kind
of presents itself. They call themselves a debate club. They
say they're a network of conservative attorneys, judges, conservative legal academics, professors, right,
And they say that they're just there to like talk
about ideas, debate ideas in you know, conservative legal spaces.
(20:02):
That kind of thing. Bring together all kinds of conservatives
so we can debate, and sometimes we bring liberals in
two so that we see the other side and stuff
like that's how they talk about themselves, right, and the
Federal Society, this organization, they have student chapters at law
schools all around the country and where in fact ostensibly
kind of started as a student organization at Yale and
(20:24):
the University of Chicago in the early eighties.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
But eighties Student one of those grassroots student organizations funded
by billionaires.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
That's right, exactly, So they have all.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
The best food at their meetups.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Right right, You peer behind the curtain one step and
you see that, like, this is not a student organization,
This is not a debate society. This is, like I said,
this is the judicial wing of the Republican Party. This
is the legal services provider for the Republican Party and
for the conservative legal movement. So any conservative legal mission
(21:00):
like goal right, overturning Roe v. Wade, you know, the
crushing of the administrative state. Federalist Society lawyers, Federalist Society professors,
Federalist Society judges are all on the same page about
all of this stuff and working in this network to
bring those cases to the Supreme Court and effectuate those
kind of like conservative legal goals. Because the Republican Party
(21:24):
has realized over the past fifty years, the Republican Party
has realized that its policy goals are minoritarian, They are
not popular. They actually wouldn't win if real democratic processes
were in place to vote on what they want. So
they have to use the judicial branch to reach their
policy goals.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, and they're doing it to an extent, an extent
where I mean now like everyone's just like, what is
what is the Supreme Court? Now? I mean I get
that there were ideologues in the Supreme Court in years past,
but I think obviously now that it's like there's no
breaks on the conservative side. Now, we're just getting like
decision after decision where I feel like every time people
(22:06):
are like, is is it legitimate? Do we how do
we contend with it? And yeah, Like to your point,
it's they're basically once some freaky billionaires like how do
I get this? Doney're like, oh, yeah, we'll figure out
a way, even if we have to make up a victim, yeah,
to bring to the court. And they won't even really
you know, really pry into that. I mean the last
(22:27):
few cases, we're like, this person isn't even a web designer,
and they're trying to act as if like she's suffering
damages or something by this law, and you're like, fucking
how and you get that there's a whole machine. This
is an apparatus, a machine, a whole thing pushing this all.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah, that's the case. Three ZHO three creative, really really
good example of how like the Federalist Society, the conservative
legal movement, and now six fucking maniacs on the Supreme
Court are are dealing with their issues that they you know,
it's like we call it results. It's oriented, like they
know the result that they want out of a case
and they'll get there no matter what.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, brains, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, yeah I thought they I thought they called balls strikes.
That's what. Wait what Yeah they call ball strikes. Yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
They call it a strike.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, that's a strike.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
The only aspect of the story that made me hopeful
was like how successful they they've been, Like the the
history of the Federalist Society shows how quickly things can change.
Now granted, like things have changed for the worst, like
in huge way, like just compared to the seventies when
(23:43):
this takeover kind of first started, Like guns were not
mentioned in the Republican Party's like platform until like seventy six.
Prior to that, everyone was kind of like, yeah, no,
the Second Amendment is about militia's like it like it
says in Constitution, which we're supposed to be like into
I guess as a party. And like there's a quote
(24:06):
from a conservative justice who calls, like the Second Amendment
thing that we're all familiar with and like I came
up assuming was like a permanent part of the Republican Party.
There's like a conservative justice who's like calls it the
greatest fraud they've ever heard. Like if they can so
I don't know, Yeah, it just if they can shift
(24:28):
things that far that quickly, like maybe we can shift
them back to where they were like in the seventies,
like in some of these cases where it's just gotten
so much worse because of them. But I don't know that.
That was like the thing that I found one of
the most startling things I found about it was just
how much they have changed and how quickly it's happened.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, Like it shows the power the federal of society's success,
the success of the conservative legal movement more broadly, Like
it shows the power of like building a movement, like organizing,
like taking courts seriously, right, Like it's not it wasn't
like magic that did it. It was that, like people
coalesced around their common interest in opposing the New Deal,
(25:18):
the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, and movements
to expand democracy. We can say, right, they didn't like that,
and so they started to organize against it. They made
connections with politicians all of that stuff, and over like
I said, over the past fifty years, like they are now,
you know, kind of living in the world that they built,
(25:39):
like living with their successes. And unfortunately they're still full
steam ahead because they're an incredibly powerful movement now. But
I think you're exactly right, Jack, Like people will, especially
law students, will ask us when we like go to
law schools and talk about this stuff. Law students will
ask us like they're like hopeless, They're like despondent, right,
(26:01):
They're like, what, like this world is unacceptable? How on
earth do you like fight back against the federalist society?
And I think that's because like a lot of young
people like you, just you have come up into your
adulthood in like a Trump presidency, like everything awful, like
institutions just completely illegitimate on their face, corrupt, and you're
(26:23):
just like, how do you fix this?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Right?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
But taking a step back, it's exactly like you said, Jack,
like politics can actually move quite quickly, and it just
means that, like movements need to be built, we also
can organize ourselves against what they're doing, right, And there
are lots of different methods that actually, like it's not
about like building a response twin organization of the Federalist
(26:49):
Society to oppose the Federalist Society, right, it's about like recognizing,
like you know, if you're interested in social justice, if
you're a movement lawyer, all of these people, like we
have power that is very very different from a billionaire
funded my case to go to the Supreme Court, right,
and we should be using it, right, And those things
can happen very quickly in politics. Historically they've happened very quickly.
(27:11):
So this is not like, you know, the end is
not written, Like the federal society as it is today
is not the world that we live in forever now,
like we can do something about it.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, like things EBB and flown right now, I think
if you're younger, then you've been caught up like you've
only known peak federalist society power exactly. I don't know
how the fuck does this change, but like anything, yeah,
things opinions change, and movements begin to form. And yeah,
I think this is I mean, I think because of
the like depravity of the Supreme Court, it's it's doing
(27:42):
the thing of like naturally beginning to radicalize people or
at least bring people into a level of consciousness about Okay,
so wait what how Okay? And they are able to
get there why because their corporations are now treated as
people and can also spend unlimited sums of money that
is actually affecting the legislative products. Okay, okay, okay, okay.
And I think yeah, to that end, I feel like
(28:03):
we're just I mean, we talk about this all the
time when we look at younger people, and like when
I was in college, I was like I was engaged,
but not to the degree that I even see people
that are in high school are now because the stakes
are just completely different for them. So there is like
this double edged sword thing here where with the fuckery
comes increased knowledge. But yeah, it's it's it's definitely a
(28:25):
difficult time could be existing.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah, exactly, And I think it's about like seeing where
where power is right now and how we can transfer
power right so right now, it's like not about like
building the most powerful liberal legal organization to counter the
federalist society. It's actually about saying, like, the federalist society
has too much fucking power in our politics and in
(28:47):
our law making and in you know, in the judiciary
the Supreme Court has too much fucking power. And so
you know, things like structural reforms, movement building that shift
power to the people, should who should have it, workers, consumers,
the people, right, democratic structures of government. That's where that's
(29:10):
where our focus should be.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, I was thinking about that too, right, Like you know,
I guess I was. We will talk about like what
we could do later on, but it's come up pretty
naturally now. Is like, you know, most people look at
it and go, what can we do? Like if it
like like all these people are screaming and shouting that
they don't want X, Y or Z, but they just
don't care, And I get that, Like, you know, one
(29:33):
version is to build up the people power to do
something like that. And then the other version too, is
like if we want things like term limits or like
if we want to pack the courts, we need legislators
to do that, and that means like we have to
count on them, because based on what I've seen, our
legislators move at a pace that could be described as
(29:54):
heroin snail And so that does make me a little
bit weird. But how you look at that, because I
think that is one of the ways too, Like we
do need legislation that actually arises like that intersects with
the justices out of place that they know they're like, oh, okay,
these are new rules now. Yeah, but how like how
do you sort of look at that and what do
(30:16):
you see as being like more effective versus the other
or if we should just be like no, no, no, like
for patient maybe this will work.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah, no, No, it's not about patients. It's about like
like doing some real shit, right and doing some real
shit kind of like across the board, across all of
We should be using all of the tools that we
have for this. So when like I said, we should
be decreasing the power of the Supreme Court, how do
you do that? There are lots of ways. Some of
the things that you've just described are really good ways
(30:45):
that like we should be pursuing. So packing the court,
making the court bigger, making the number of justices bigger
on the Supreme Court decreases the power that each individual
justice has, right, it spreads power over a bigger body,
meaning Sam Alito, the fuck face, Brett Cavanaugh, the psycho,
Clarence Thomas don't have that like that the power that's
(31:10):
currently consolidated in them right now. Packing the court is
a really really is a really great way to decrease
that power. And that's kind of like what you're talking
about with this kind of like short term, long term thing, right,
we should be using like the short term avenues that
are available to us in building a long term where
the Supreme Court, the federal society, corporations have less power
(31:31):
over all of us, right, term limits, that's a really
good idea. I think there are tons of ideas for
structural reform of the Supreme Court, and we should be
like talking about all of them. That's when it comes
to the politicians, right, it's a failure of the Democratic
Party that the Republicans and the federalist society, the conservative
legal movement has taken the court so seriously for decades now,
(31:53):
and they've won what they've won, and they are like
rolling around in the pig sty shit that they've created
and then love it. They're partying, right, and Democrats still
are not taking the Supreme Court seriously, still not saying, hey,
we need to reform this, Hey we need to we
need to be doing our politics around this too.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah right, what like what's the fear of the Democrats
to legislate the courts? Like what you know? I mean,
because I get part of it too. Is like, at
the same time, both parties still serve corporate interest to
a certain extent, so like obviously they're like, hey, you know,
like maybe go that. Maybe they's just the will of
the donors, aren't there or what, or is just historically
(32:32):
that there's just this like aversion to it. But that's
the one thing all I see is like things happen
and then you'll see people like Chuck Schumer or Nancy
Polsy're like, you know what, we got to do something
about the Supreme Court, just not now, and I don't
know when, but I'm gonna say that out loud because
that's what we do as a party. I mean.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I also, thing I always hear them say is that
if they packed the if Democrats pack the court when
they're in office, won't the Republicans just pack the court
back at them? And if so, it like who does
that benefit overall?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I guess yeah, yeah, okay, So I have two thoughts
about this. One is like the historical thing in history,
pressure on the Supreme Court by the other branches of
government works. So most famously, probably the most famous example
is FDR in the nineteen thirties, early nineteen forties, and
with Congress is passing all of this New Deal legislation, right,
(33:21):
getting people jobs, right as a communist, getting people jobs,
getting people to work, outlying child labor, you know, more
rights for workers, supporting unions, all of that kind of stuff.
And the Supreme Court at that time was conservative and
was striking down all of that legislation left and right.
What did FDR do. FDR threatened to pack the court.
(33:43):
He was like, I'm about to add justices if you
guys don't get in line. And what did the Supreme
Court do? They got in line. They started, they stopped
striking down that legislation so that New Deal legislation could
actually go into effect. So there are historical analogs here,
like we could be looking at that or historical analogs
for Democrats actually using the fucking political power that they have, right,
(34:05):
And so there's that. And then the other thing that
I was going to say to your point Jack about
like this counter argument that Democrats will be like, well,
Republicans will pack the court if we pack the court,
and then it will be all Republicans. The thing that is, like,
the thing that people don't stop and realize is that
Republicans have packed the court. We live in a reality
(34:32):
that is a Republican packed Supreme Court and federal judiciary.
When Trump was in office, he nominated twenty five percent
of the current federal bench. All federal district court judges
were nominated by Donald Trump. That's because that Republican president
took the judiciary seriously and was like, oh, we have
all these spots to fill, let's go, right. So we
(34:55):
live in the world that is already a Republican packed court,
a Republican packedjudiciary, and so Democrats should be taking that
seriously as as sort of a method again one of
the tools that they have, and because the result would
be that when Republicans pack the courts, the results are
power is consolidated in the wealthy in corporations, et cetera.
(35:19):
If Democrats would pack the courts, the results would be
people have more power, workers have more power, women have
more power, minorities have more power. That's very hard to
take away once it's given. Right, So the threat, but
I don't know a generation to generations from now that
then Republicans would come back and pack the court. And
if Democrats packed the court first, that is so remote, Like,
(35:42):
let's actually do something with the power that we have
to give power to more people, and that is doing politics,
that is doing good governance, right, And yeah, I'm not
worried about Republicans packing the court in fifty years. I'm
worried about the Republican packed court right now.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Right because it's there. It's like it's more the Democrats
are unpacking than packing.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
You're just letting it being packed.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Really, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
The last thing that I just wanted to cover on
the federal society is there's been this narrative of, well,
the Conservatives now that they overturned Row, are kind of
like the dog that caught the car, and it's kind
of this hopeful thing of like, yeah, but that that
was all they cared about right, and now they accomplished
that it's unpopular. They're kind of fucked what what are
(36:35):
they going to do? And I think you specifically framed
it as like the Federal Society is a service provider
to the Republican Party, like they will move in accordance
with whatever the Republican Party wants. Like the gun thing
didn't start with the Federalist Society. It started with like Reagan,
(36:56):
and you know, the Republican Party kind of adopted some
of the NRA and then the Federalist Society is like,
all right, well we are the judicial wing, as you said,
of the Republican Party, so we're just gonna get in line.
So they are going to be you know, as Trump
you know, continues to wheel power or you know, let's
(37:17):
say he wins the next election, they are going to
be a fascism machine like that. It's not going to
be a thing where they're like, all right, well this
is the bridge too far. I think like January sixth,
the fact that they wouldn't like ratify a separate set
of electors like the Supreme Court, I think made misled
(37:38):
me to be like, so the Supreme Court like ultimately
is not going to just go along with Trump's bullshit.
But like a lot of people in the Federalist Society
who like put those justices on the Supreme Court were
like guns blazing, like January sixth, like election overturning, like
conspiracy theorists like that. One of the founder was like, guys,
(38:01):
this is too much like Trump shouldn't be allowed to
run for president. And they were like, you can't call
yourself the founder anymore. The title, yeah, this quest title.
And he was like, I'm sorry, I like Donald Trump again.
Juary six was tight, but it's just like I do
think the near future is just as dangerous, and you know,
(38:25):
there there are a lot of really dark possibilities with
the Federalist Society just as much as like the recent past.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah yeah, you know, we said that the Federalist Society,
you know, provided the list for Trump for who he
was nominating to the Supreme Court. Those justices. In fact,
the six conservative justices on the Supreme Court right now
are currently members of the Federalist Society or have been
at points in their past. Just want to make it clear,
like this is this is a network that is like, uh,
(38:53):
this is a network that's promoting from within its own ranks.
These are their own people, right, and there's not a separation.
There's not a separate There is not a separation between
the Federalist Society and the people on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
I think January sixth is like a really interesting like
moment in history. I guess you could say for the
Federalist Society because I think that if we're kind of
calling the Federal Society like a party, a political party,
it's it's not officially, but if we think about it
like that, they learned lessons from January sixth, right, And
(39:28):
I think a really big lesson they learned was that
you know, they can, as they were in January sixth,
leading up to January sixth and afterwards, in all of
the litigation, whether it was Trump's fraud claims about votes,
whether it was about you know, states certifying their electors,
(39:48):
all of it, Federal Society lawyers had their hands on
all of that. We're directing all of that. There are
Federalist Society lawyers who were actually took part in planning
the January sixth stuff like specifically. But I think the
lesson learned was that the public at large probably was
left with a bit of distaste about the actual coup part, right,
(40:14):
the actual invasion of the capital part, right, whereas the
Federalist Society could have and I think now has learned
the lesson that it can still be behind the scenes
doing all of the legal machinations, all of the legal stuff,
the legal work that needs to be done to effectuate
the result that they want, which is Trump winning the
(40:35):
presidency next time. Right, And so yeah, I think they've
learned that lesson, and they know that the messy coup
literal riot part was maybe something that would like kind
of made it overall unsuccessful. But they know that they
have allies on the court up and down the federal judiciary.
The lawyers have been working on this stuff for years,
(40:57):
meaning like what kind of cases to bring their red
for the litigation, and yeah, they're the Federalist Society has
always been really good at at this exactly the behind
the scenes work where they're not saying like the Federalist
Society is bringing this case. The Federal Society isn't suing anybody.
It's people in this network.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yeah, they don't give up. They've been they try and try,
and you know, they were trying to overturn Row for
decades and then they just kept trying different things until
they found a strategy packing the court with Federalist Society
people that actually worked exactly. So, yeah, this isn't going
(41:35):
to stop until an alternate force is put to work
that stops it in counterbalance that.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Yeah, and you know, like a lot of legal analysts
or journalists media at the time that Dobbs came down,
which overturned Roe v. Wade, a lot of commentators were like, oh, well,
what's the Republican Party going to do?
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Now?
Speaker 3 (41:55):
What's the Federalist Society going to do? Now? Like they
they won, they got their like big achieved their big
project of overturning Row, and now it seems like they're
going to be like kind of disorganized and they don't
really know what they're working on now false false false
false false.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
So right, it's like their was like check made assholes.
Wait wait, you just took it after I embryos yet,
right exactly, Like.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
Right, So it's like, again, if we're thinking of them
as kind of like a political party, like now it's
more like a normal political party where there's different bowls
of interest, less focused on the one single issue that
they did coalesce around over you know, since since Roe v. Wade,
since the early seventies. But they have tons of energy,
tons of political will, and and again what they're working
(42:49):
on is even more fascist stuff coming down the pipeline.
And it's all centered not just their opposition to Roe v.
Wade and abortion rights. It's all centered on their opposition
to the New Deal, to the civil rights movement, to
the women's rights movement, and to expanding democracy. So the wildest,
most fascist shit you can think of, legally, they're working
(43:10):
on it right now. It's absolutely coming down the pipeline.
Whether that's like rolling back protections for women and queer people,
whether that is saying you don't have a right to contraception,
whether you know we're talking about like prisoner's rights, the
rights of criminal defendants, all kinds of stuff. They are
absolutely still working on it. They are not disorganized now
(43:31):
that they quote unquote one overturn at Robi ways.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I think the only part that I think they're like
conflating what the aims are of the federalist society and
like the broader conservative judicial movement with like the electoral
politics of people that are a down ballot of Trump
who are like, ooh, I don't know what to do now.
It's like yeah, sure, in that narrow sense, yes, exactly,
it's difficult now to campaign. But in terms of like
a movement, like we're already saying, it's like they want
(43:55):
to basically, they really want to go back to the
nineteenth century at best, you know.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, yeah, and that's the Federal Society being that service provider.
So you best believe they are hooking up with Republican
and conservative politicians and being like, here's what you can
campaign on. We're working on this. This is what donors
care about right now, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Sarah Marshall from the podcast You're Wrong About talks about
how the right wing takeover of media and of politics
over the past like fifty years has been very similar
to like the panics that the right wing was having
about like communism, like the Red Scare, and like Satanism
(44:38):
and stuff like it's been this you know, smaller like
minority group that has imposed its ideals through. Yeah, just
like behind the scenes infiltration and all the shit that
they were worried about.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Like I feel like their.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Concerns around the Satanic panic and like the red scare.
We're just like them telling on themselves or giving them
some of ideas about like how to do this ship. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
The Republicans, conservatives in general, especially social conservatives, they'll they're
they're really good at making the issues they care about
into culture war bullshit, right, like really firing up a base,
really like, yeah, firing up this moral panic about stuff.
And then when you like take a step back, you're like, hey,
(45:26):
people voting, like you're talking about mail in ballots, like
what you know? So yeah, yeah, that's as tried and
true tale, as old as time for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and we'll
be back to talk about what's happening on the Supreme
Court this week.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
We'll be right there a lot, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
We're back, And I keep seeing the stories about what
the Supreme Court's up to. It seems bad, not good.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, this week and who bettered. I'm like, I'm like,
just I want to pick Rihanna's brain with a few
cases that we've seen kind of begin to bubble up
over the last few months. The first one is Grant's Pass,
the City of Grants Pass in Oregon. They're basically arguing
and please correct me if I'm wrong. Essentially that cities
(46:26):
will have the ability to punish people for having nowhere
to sleep as like to say that like if you are,
if you have a if you're sleeping outside or putting
up a tent, whatever that is. Now that's there's nothing
to protect you, not even the Eighth Amendment, which I
guess I mean, I was like, which cruel and unusual
punishment was that protecting us from? Because it's not us
(46:47):
capitalism for sure, but like is that? I mean I
feel like the very distilled version of that I get
is the Supreme Court is now going to basically come
down on whether or not sleeping outside is a crime.
I think that's maybe pretty broad. But how should we
be looking at that, because this feels like this has
a lot of ramifications for many people who live in cities.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. Like that that
is the essential like distillation of what's happening here. So, yeah,
people who are unhoused sleeping outside and in some cities
states what have you, you can be criminally charged for that. Now,
I think in Grant's past it's a ticket, right, Like
it's not necessarily that you you know, can go to
(47:27):
prison for this. But it is a ticket, a citation
that is under the law a punishment. If you have
to pay a fine for something, that's a punishment, right.
So the Supreme Court here is deciding, you know, if
you are punishing somebody for being unhoused, is that cruel
and unusual? And I think the specific setup actually in
(47:49):
this case is, you know, there are cities where maybe
you can get a ticket for they call it a
lot of places to call it public camping, right You're
camping on public grounds, in a park, under a bridge,
that kind of thing. There are cities where you can
get a ticket for public camping, or the police can
come and take down your tent and trash your belongings.
And that's super super messed up obviously. But in a
(48:13):
lot of cities they have shelter beds, there is enough
sort of emergency housing or housing for unhoused people that
people aren't forced to do public camping in grants pass
and in the cases from the Ninth Circuit that are
the ones going up to the Supreme Court. In this case,
the issue, for example, like in San Francisco, is that
(48:35):
San Francisco has police go tear down homeless encampments, but
there aren't enough beds in San Francisco, for there aren't
enough shelter space. There isn't enough shelter space where those
unhoused people can go. So it's in that kind of
like specific legal situation that is like, is this cruel
and unusual? Because you are literally criminalizing them for taking
(48:59):
the only option that they have, right there is no
other choice. They don't have another place to sleep, right,
So is that cruel and unusual? Now, unfortunately, I hate
to break the bad news, but the Supreme Court sucks.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
When I thought you said the Supreme Court, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
How they like.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
How they got away with the Supreme thing. Supreme always
means superior, means all the top things, all the topings.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
Unfortunately, Supreme sucking in this in the in this realm.
But yeah, no, there's no expectation here that the Supreme
Court is going to be like, yeah, this is cruel
and unusual punishment. You are violating these people's constitutional rights
when you punish them for essentially being unhoused, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Because you hear what the proponents say, and it's like
such like just inhumane bullshit where they're just like, well,
I mean it's really quite simple. It's like we need
to help our lawn enforcement figure out if they even
have the ability to help keep our cities safe. And
and then like completely skirting and then you hear that
really bad talking points, like some people just want to
be out there, like even if they have help, without
(50:12):
actually talking about like the conditions some shelters are. And
for some people it's like, yeah, I'd rather take my
chances on the street than go to the shelter because
an X, Y and Z threat I have there. But
again it's mostly lost and like do you want to help,
like police make our city safer? And it's really just
about that, Like it's really.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
The chamber of commerce and right people local businesses when
in doubt they're going to I mean, especially now following
Citizens United, where like corporations are have more rights than
individual people. Anything that's like, well, this lowers our property
value or our ability to god really yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Didn't scare you want, but oh my god, your property value?
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Yeah yeah, like that is more important under the current rules.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Yeah, I think like a big kind of takeaway of
the case, or not even a takeaway, but like this
case is a good example of something which is that
social problems, the problems in our society, often end up
going to the Supreme Court, where, you know, if you're
on the side of social justice, if you're on the
side of welfare for people, if you're on the side
of equality and justice, that's that's the Supreme Court is
(51:19):
a dead end. Right, Supreme Court is not going to
solve our social problems. Here. The social problem is policing,
the idea that public safety quote unquote is about tearing
down unhoused people's tents, right, and the existence of homelessness
to begin with. The housing crisis in America is a
(51:41):
social problem, right, that is not going to be solved
by this case. And yeah, it's a good example of
politicians and people not coming together to work on actually
solving those issues and just making it a you know,
a police a law enforcement issue, taking it up and
down the federal judiciary to the Supreme Court and back again,
and nothing really gets solved. Right, people are still unhoused,
(52:04):
that's a problem.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Yeah, But then for them it's like, well, at least
legally now we can brutalize them. However, exactly exactly, the
guys of we're actually keeping them safe because some of
them don't, you know, it's like it's so unserious. And
then this, I mean, this next one I think is
probably gonna get the most attention, even though there's also
obviously the Idaho abortion ban is something that the court
is gonna hear. And also like Starbucks, like like, well
(52:26):
you help with a union bust, amongst many other things,
which I'm sure they're gonna be like, oh, yes, my good, Yeah,
my good? Is Starbuck?
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Yeah up there? Yeah, like Starbucks versus a union, Like,
oh my god, is.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
The National Labor Relations Board go off their fucking rockery?
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
I think so. I think we need to yank Delicia
a little bit today here. But the other one is
that Trump immunity is Trump immunity. God, you know that
was I think like with this one from from I'm
guessing right, especially everything I've heard, this case really isn't
gonna go anywhere because Trump's team is essentially arguing a
president cannot face charges for anything without first being impeached
(53:07):
and convicted by Congress. If that doesn't happen, they can kill,
they can do murders. Resealed Team six and it's like,
what but I feel like here the victory for him
was the fact that they were like, okay, but we're
gonna delay our decision so that can come up the
rest of your legal trials here. That kind of what's
going on.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
That's one hundred percent right. And it's also not just
his legal team delaying, right, the Supreme Court is helping.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Right exactly, yeah, right, because they would have right normally,
it would have been opening, like even the Supreme Court
be like, come on, fam because that means Joe Biden
could do whatever the fuck.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
He wants now, right exactly exactly. So, yeah, this all
has to this. This actually does come out of January sixth.
You know, Jack Smith, special counsel, brought an indictment against
Donald Trump, criminal indictment for the coup plot basically, and
this lawsuit Trump's laws are saying, well, no, you're actually
(54:02):
immune from being sued or from criminal prosecution any legal
actions against you while you are president. Right, that is
obviously a wild argument because again, like you just.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Said it, Okay, so because nobody can touch me.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
I.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
Can the president murder?
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Like? No?
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Surely not right, Like the president is not absolutely immune.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
That's what the lawyers are kind of saying, because I
remember what was the lower court that first heard them.
They're like, hold on, let me get this right. You
just so he could he could hit up Seal Team six,
just snuff somebody out.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
And they're like, yeah, this is like getting in the weeds.
But you know, the president does violence of course, nature
being the president, right, like Obama ordering drone strikes, was
Obama doing murder. They're all war criminals. But yeah, this
(54:58):
this this lawsuit kind of like on its face, Yeah,
the Supreme Court. I don't think anybody thinks the Supreme Court,
even these Supreme Court justices, I don't think anybody thinks
they're going to be like, yep, you're right. The president
is immune from everything while the president is in office.
But the little tricks they're doing is about the delay
(55:20):
so that this case doesn't actually get decided at a
time when it really matters, right, which is to say,
before the election. So the Supreme Court granted cert, which
means they accepted the case, They said they would hear
the case. They granted cert months after they could have,
and then when they said they would hear the case,
(55:41):
they scheduled the oral argument for the end of April.
When they could have heard the case much earlier there
were dates available. Scheduling it for the end of April
means we likely will not have a decision until late June.
And then if that means if the decision is no,
he's not immune from every thing, he can be taken
to trial, then that means the trial would still have
(56:03):
to happen. Right, You're talking about months and months and months,
if not years, And then you know, you got the
election coming up in November, like Trump is going to
be the president or he's not. But this decision about
whether or not he is convicted of a crime for
the January sixth coup attempt, you know that it by
that time it will be irrelevant because it will either
(56:24):
win the election or not, right right, right.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
That's just yeah, it's fun to see. It's fun to see.
I'll play it like I keep saying, November, take your time,
Please take your time, you know, let me just be
so present throughout here, all.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Right now, just give us, like a ESPN talking head,
take is Trump gonna win the presidency or not?
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Just yeah, what do you think? You hear?
Speaker 1 (56:47):
This guy's the bet?
Speaker 2 (56:48):
No. One last question as relates to Scotus because I
feel like there's always these moments right before we go.
I'm sorry, I had to I had to ask you this,
why I have you here. There's always these moments right
where you're like, man, I know how I know Kavanaugh
was gonna send it what coney barretts about sending what
Neil's about to say, and then like they they switch
it up like and find their spine in like the
weirdest ways, Like specifically Neil Gorsich, who's like tribal rights, Man,
(57:12):
I'm telling you don't fuck with that, and you're like,
but but fuck everyone else's rights, Like like how do
you how do you sort of view these like like
you know, I've heard some theories like he's so conservative
that like it intellectually brings him to a point where
he's like he has no choice but to defend tribal rights.
Others like well he grew up in the Southwest and this, this,
that and the other. But how do you see like
(57:33):
these flashes of like when you're like somehow like Amy
coney Barrett had a half decent opinion, is that them
being like I gotta kind of edge with the wacky shit.
So they don't think I'm a total scumbag, so I
just do it here and there or is there just
like how do you view this sort of like the
vacillation between like they're the being moral or not giving
(57:54):
a fuck at all? That's right?
Speaker 3 (57:55):
Yeah, you know, I think I think you just have
to remember that they're individuals, like they're beings.
Speaker 1 (58:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
Gorsic on tribal rights. Yeah, he spent a lot of
time I think, coming up as a lawyer and as
a judge in states where tribal rights were something being litigated, right,
or like tribal jurisdiction federal Indian law was an issue, right,
And so he just knows a lot about it, and
I think he can it's not about like caring about
(58:22):
the rights of minorities or people of color. I think
he just knows a lot about the law and has
totally kind of like he's totally like brought that into
his conservative legal approach.
Speaker 2 (58:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
He's a textualist, so he's able to say things like, look,
the treaties with tribes say this, this is the test.
I'm a conservative, I'm a textualist. This is how I
interpret it, right, yea, And yeah, so they're they're they're
all individuals sometimes with kind of like a little surprise
here and there, but to them, they're always working within
(58:56):
and for the conservative legal movement for sure. And I
would say the thing that is more pronounced, more than
like an occasional surprise half liberal take from a conservative
justice is actually that they're getting more conservative while they're
on the bench. So Clarence Thomas, sam Alito, John Roberts especially,
they are talking about things, writing about things in twenty
(59:20):
twenty four in their opinions that there they would not
have said, thought put down on paper in opinions, you know,
twenty years ago when they were earlier more junior justices.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
Right, because they have this little club that they go
to call the Federalist Society, where they like give speeches
and they're like, uh, it's nice to be somewhere where
people aren't protesting outside my house. And everyone's like.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
God, yeah, yeah, Hey, Harlan, come out with the money
with the money cannon. Harlen, come up with Harley Crow
about to hitch out with the money cannon?
Speaker 1 (59:53):
Right, Yeah, all right, Well, Rihannon, what a pleasure haveing you.
Thank you so much for spending some time with us.
Where where can people find you? Follow you, hear you
all that good stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Yeah, this was really fun. Thanks y'all. So the podcast
is called five to four. That's the number five dash,
the number four. We're on all social media at five
to four pod, all spelled out. I'm on Twitter. Refuse
to call it the other thing.
Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
At Awa in this household.
Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Absolutely not. At a Wa rhiannon. That's Aywa Rhannon And yeah,
come check us out five four pod dot com. We
are talking about all this shit and more weeke in
and week out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Is there a work of media, social media or otherwise
that you've been enjoying?
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Oh, you know what, I've been watching the Gaza Freedom Flotilla,
the ship that is set sale for Gaza. People from
all over the world are on this ship. They have
tons of humanitarian aid and they are going to attempt
to break the seventeen year siege of Gaza by landing
at the port in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
So God bless Yeah, amazing miles Where can people find you?
Is there a working media you've been enjoying?
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Find me where they have? The social media is at
miles of gray. I'm on most of them, you know,
So just search there. And also you can find Jack
and I on our basketball podcast, Miles and Jack And
if you like to play on ninety day Fiance. You
know where we get into the nuances of immigration reform. No,
we don't. We're just talking about trash reality. Uh, check
me out on four to twenty day Fiance. Any tweets
(01:01:30):
I like, Nah, I haven't been on the tweet thing,
but I just what did I start watching recently? Oh?
I was watching. I was just watching the rest of it. Actually, no,
I don't even recommend it. Never mind. I'm not even
gonna like, I'm like, I just have that thing that
I was gonna trash. But no, continue doing what you
do for your social media's. But yeah, I have no
no suggestions.
Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Your owner, no further suggestions. You're no further suggestions my owner.
Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
All right, Uh yeah, workimedia. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Just a twet from Christy Mgucci Man at the Wopple
House on Twitter, who tweeted, don't text right now, just
learn to the high school from Ten Things I Hate
About You is a real high school called Stadium High School.
And I don't know if you remember that high school,
but it's like it looks like like a cat like
Arkham Asylum, but then there's like a big stadium in
(01:02:21):
the middle of it. There's like a field with like
this big castle in the background.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
It's like one of the.
Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Wildest things I've ever seen. Anyways, I'll link off for
that in footnotes for worth your time. You can find
me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brian. You can find
us on Twitter at daily Zeitgeist, where at d daily
Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fanpage and a website,
daily zeitguist dot com where we post our episodes and
our footnotes where we link off to the information that
(01:02:46):
we talked about in today's episode, so well as the
song that we think you might enjoy. Miles, what's song
do you think people might enjoy?
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
This is a song from a duo called Tandy Thha
and DII and there from the UK. But they're like
studio musicians that used to play with bands like Michael
Kiwanuka or like Salt or Cleo Soul, little sims like
groups that I definitely fuck with, and they just have
like their own project together and it's called Candy and
it's got this like DIY like sexy Rick James kind
(01:03:17):
of shit going on in this track. It's called Big
Boys Don't Cry and it's just some nice bedroom funk
I think is what I'll call this one. So this
is from Tandy. Check it out all right.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
We will link off to that in the footnotes. The
dailies Like Guys is a production by Heart Radio. For
more podcasts my Heart Radio visit there, Heart Radio Wrap,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. That's gonna
do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to
tell you what is trending and we'll talk to you
all then Bye later
Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three thirty five,
episode two of Days Day Air production of iHeartRadio. This
is a podcast where we take a deep gut in
New America share con and it's also an ASMR podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Officially. Okay, all right, ying Yang in this Tuesday, April
twenty third, twenty twenty four. Hey, a lot of things
going on to school bus driver Appreciation Day. Yes, thank
you for being sober or at least my eyes sober
as you drove for example, functionally sober. Yeah, you know,
giving me something to aspire to. National Lost Dog Awareness Day.
(00:35):
All that's said, National Cherry Cheesecake Day, National Take a
Chance Day, National Picnic Day, and national talk like Shakespeare
my Lord Day. That's all I could do. I don't
I can't speak an Iambic pantameter.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
But I can't say my Lord like the vegas of accents,
talk like Shakespeare will He was doing a hand curl
the front of his hat. So we're just on the
end of No.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Shake Spirit Day, Spirit Days Miles. Speaking of days, I
would be remiss not to mention that we skipped right
over because it was a weekend. We didn't record because
we're lazy that we skipped over four twenty.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, Bro, I know, Bro, Yeah, it's talk about it's
about June ninth, Bro, sixty nine. You know we're we've
moved over from four.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Twenty, so we moved on from four to twenty.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Fuck it?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah all right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Honestly, and I've said this on the show more and
more like it's it's diminishing returns after you hit the
heights of eighteen years old on four twenty, Like yeah, yeah,
it'll never matter as much as it does when it's.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
It's like what New Year's is to alcoholics, that is,
to people.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Who smoke weed. Yeah, it's like it doesn't matter. I'm
drinking it every day. Any Yeah, well okay, yeah, amateur Hour.
I am a functioning alcoholic. I drink where I get
to work, to school. Yes, my name's Jack O'Brien. AKA.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I saw the news today. Oh boy, I had it
printed from the internet. Can't bring my phone into a trial.
Go get me a big mac and then I'll take
a nap. We're alternately, go get me a big mac
(02:27):
and now we know how many diet coach it takes
the heart to stop that AKA. Courtesy of Shawny Pawne
on the discord the alternate version the four thousand Holes
in Blackburn, Lancashire verse from Steaming Chuck on the discord
on a bit of a roll, Steaming Chuck on a
bit of a roll. We shouts out to you both
(02:48):
and for z Gang in general. Someone was telling me
how like British soccer anthems, like British soccer crowds like
get together and do like loose, weird allification of songs
to like represent their players. Oh yeah, And I was like, oh,
we do that on our podcast. Yeah, our dumb podcast.
Our brilliant listeners make less dumb by doing that for us.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh no, these are this is just terrorist culture. It's
terrorist culture from the UK. That's what we're thinking. Yes,
it's all yeah, that's right, Ultras. Yeah, because for Arsenal
there is our our most famous manager, Arsen Wenger. We
did it to the tune of one time of meta Benga.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
There's only one awesome Benga.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
There's be and it's like easy because it's I think
that's everybody knows that. That's why that's why I gravitated
more towards European soccer, because like, I'm like, bro, they're
doing more ship than like defense. They're like talking about
the like who's the wanka and the green because the
referees wear green shirts, and it's just like, you know, anyway,
(03:52):
it's all, it's all fun, It's all anyway.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Shout out to the gang. Yeah, I'm throw to be
joined as always by my co host, mister Miles Ground Miles.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Break, Freckle Freak, freakl freak, I lovesw Okay. Shout out
Cleo Universe because Yeah, I told you I'm a bit.
I'm a bit of a I stand for the freckle,
you know what I mean, And I'm not ashamed. So yeah,
thank you for putting that into a Rick rick jamification.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Of that Rick jammification. I had fried pickles over the
weekend at a foot team match at l A f C.
And they were bad.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
They're not good.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
They promised cheeto, what's the spicy cheeto?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Flaming hot, flaming hot.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
They promised flaming hot Cheetoh, and they were flaming hot
Cheeto in color only, Yeah flavors.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Look, we'll do a Frickle tour eventually. You know the
places I trust. Yeah, the Frickle Tour. All right, Miles,
we are thrilled to be joined by one of the
hosts of the incredible podcast five four, a show about
all the ways the Supreme Court is a complete disaster.
It's also a supervising attorney at Texas Law has worked
(05:00):
the public defender in Rio Grande City, Texas. Please welcome
to the show, Rihann and home on.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Hello do I sing? Am I gonna do like a
little jingle for myself?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
One?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, I'm here, you're great, hot girl, summer coming up?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, right predicted here here here. My shoulders started moving
a little bit. Yeah. I was like, shit, yeah, I'm
feeling that. One. What's your what's your the thing I
always ask people and they're like, should I sing it?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
What's your karaoke go to?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
I do have?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
The go to karaoke is always TLC no scrubs. Shit,
you start there right like you can. The sky's the
limit after that. Yeah, but once you get going on that,
the vibes are going on that, your power is sort
of centered in a no scrubs direction. Yeah, karaoke is boundless, and.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
That's brave because karaoke bars are usually full of so
many scrubs. I can't imagine that's very popular.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, you know, they're like.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
They start booing and hissing, she's.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Talking about me. But I just think I do think
I'm fine and people. I'm also known to be a buster. No, no, no, sometimes.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I hang out the passenger's side of my best friend ride.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I did get fully hanging out the passenger side of
my best friend's ride the whole time. I just did
get in the car and I'm hanging out the whole time.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I had a friend who and then when the first
song first came out, they could have swore they were saying.
It's also known as a bus stop. I was like,
you need to hang out around different people.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That's like a that sounds like a Joe Biden slang,
like yell the bust up.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
He's one of the scrubs.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
He's also known as a bus stop.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Corn Pop was always hanging around the bus stop.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I'm serious.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
He was a cannibal and I'm serious man, I'm serious.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
No, we know you think you're serious.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Rather, no, you're not a serious person in your brain.
You're serious.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, but I mean that was what I mean. Is
I mean what I'm saying, you know, we.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Know we want to do though we wish you didn't,
but yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Because your ice cream is melting all over your suit, sir,
it's just really unemly. Forget about his ice cream too, imagine.
I feel like that would do a lot of damage
to his campaigns, just sloppy, melted ice cream all over
his suit. He'll be like, oh, you know what, that
was it for me somehow, I think.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
That's how they They need that damage on top of
like genocide or yeah, oh okay, okay, okay, the ice
cream is gonna yeah, he'll.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Do yeah, maybe he'll do that to distract from his
lack of action there. And he's like, but I got
his ice cream all over Oh most sloppy for me.
But secretly I'm really mad at BB really secretly, not.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Out Yeah, yeah, no, of course.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
All right, Rhann, And we're gonna get to know you
a little bit better in a moment. We're first we're
gonna tell our listeners what we're talking about five four
Just what one of my new favorite podcasts I want.
I want Deep on the Federal List Society with you. Yeah,
so we're going to talk about just the Federalist Society.
I was aware of them, but I didn't I didn't
(08:07):
know just how brazen and evil. I didn't know the details.
So I do want to go into the Federalist Society,
and then we're going to talk about some just like
what the Supreme Court that brought this Supreme Court brought
to you by the Federalist Society is up to this.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Week and just in general.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
But first we do like to get to know our
guests a little bit better by asking you, what is
something from your search history that's revealing about who you are?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Okay, you know, listen a lot of these personal questions
about like what's on your mind right now, what do
you think's underrated? That kind of thing. It's tough. I
am Palestinian. There is a genocide happening, so like my internet,
my like media intake, all of that is real focused
on all of that. But something that I did see
in my Google search that is really relevant and maybe
(08:57):
not directly genocide related, Adida's traits. Okay, ready, I'm ready
to be suited up in the three stripes, down the arms,
down the legs. I want it to be a bright
color red, yes, maybe a popin kind of lime green.
Kind of thing. Yeah, you know, I just it's it's uh,
it might not be every hot girl summer vibe, but
(09:20):
it is my hot girl summer vibe distract suit.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Wait, what brought you? What brought you around on? Like
the breakdancers uniform, like the real og hip hop outfit.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
You know, it is also a kind of Palestinian uncle
vibe is Adida's tracksuit, right, that kind of thing. And
so yeah, just uh, going back to my roots, I
guess we could say, hey, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
We all become our uncles at the end of the day.
I played.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I played soccer too. I played soccer really seriously for
my youth, and so yeah, that was the brand, you know, yeaheah.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
For sure, for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I started putting my seven year old in a just
black Adidas tracksuit like the one you're describing, and it
like the way that it transforms his energy. It's all
stolen valor. He doesn't he doesn't play.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Soccer, boy, right, where'd you come up at?
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, it doesn't play soccer, doesn't break dance yet, but
it's really like the that is a powerful, powerful article.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I feel like I've always been a coward. I've only
gone pant or jacket, like I've never actually bought a
full blown like one of my favorite I remember eighth grade,
I wore the fuck out of these gray Adidas three
stripe pants that I had, like to the point they
were just gnarly. But then I remember I didn't have
money for the matching jacket. So then later on when
I was like, dude, am I a full track suit? Guy?
(10:41):
I then I fell back because I knew a lot
of breakers, and I was like, they're gonna just flame
me because I'm not a breaker. Yeah, and now now
you know what I need to embrace. I need to
embrace the energy that is the old head three three
stripe suit. But I feel like it's coming back anyway.
Like it's just because everything's so cyclical, like it's it's.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
All right, and everybody's wearing sambas. The sneakers, Yeah those
are It's crazy. I was wearing those in seventh grade,
like not as a cool kid.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Right, that's you know the soccer nerd kids where they're
like yo, yes, not even on the pitch, and they
wear it. They can't. Yeah, kick the shoe game, okay.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, next snap bracelets coming back.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Then we're going to be all the way back.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, what is something you think is underrated?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Okay, you know I gave a lot of thought to
this as well, and I'm going to say having a
crazy cat underrated. I'm not a cat person, didn't think
I was a cat person, but just recently got my
first cat. She's orange, her name's Petra. She is psychotic,
She's truly psychotic. I can't say it's a rewarding experience,
(11:50):
but there is something to it. A certain Jena se
Quah to coming home and there's a little critter climbing
up the wall, right, just free sola claws in the
dry wall.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Oh wow right.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Yeah, no, there's It really adds a little something to
your day. So yeah, I would recommend everybody get a cat.
Mix up your mix up your daily routine. Maybe the
you know, the chaos is coming from inside the house.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Right for sure? The climbing up the walls, that sounds like, uh,
I just saw the security deposit goal poof thinging about.
I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I didn't know that orange cats are in particular crazy.
Oh yeah, apparently they are and I am living it,
so yeah, right right, Scaling the curtains, scaling the walls.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Wow, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
So not Garfield crazy, but crazy in a different way,
a little bit more energy. There's.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, there's a little bit more chaos to it rather
than the kind of four to twenty Garfield right right, right?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Have you?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Like? Because I have cats too, and they were just
shredding up like our furniture, so like people were like,
you know, like you could declaw them, Like, I'm not
doing that, are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (13:01):
No, no way.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
But we did put the little rubber finger tip things
on the claws, and I don't know if it was
worth the effort of trying to basically give a cat
a manicure. Drank cats manicures on like both of their
front paws, But yeah, we gave up on that pretty quickly, Like,
you know what, maybe just fuck the couch up. That's
what you want to do.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Couch is yours now, you're right for you.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That was stupid to me to have this air.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
I've discovered that double sided tape. She really doesn't like it.
But then your couch has double sided tape on it,
you know, so there's.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Just a little trim of popcorn around the bottom of
your couch like it's Santa's suit. Yeah, cover the popcorn
and pennies. I don't know why pennies, but.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Just good couch stuff. That's couch stuff. That's stuff you
find a couch.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
What is something you think is overrated?
Speaker 3 (13:50):
My answers for this, I don't want people to scream
at me. You know. I was like, instantly, my body,
my heart, my mind went Taylor Swift. I can't say
that we're gonna be so so mad at me on
the internet. But yeah, all right, so you know Taylor Swift. Obviously.
Then I was like, no, I can't say that. Well,
what's the next thing that's like overrated? Well, Democrats, the
(14:12):
Democratic Party, they fucking suck right now. People who like
them are weird. But then I don't want people to
yell at me about that either, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
So they're pretty cool about that. They take they take
criticism pretty well.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I feel like, what do you mean? What is blue?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And so, you know what, I've landed on overrated podcasting
sitting in my damn closet once a week speaking into
a zoom.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
You know, that must suck.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
You must not have much going on.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
That's the thing too, overrated podcasting. I have. I have
a podcast. I also have a job, so yeah, it's
a lawyer job on top of that. So so yeah, man,
I'm I'm exhausted.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
That's a lot. That is a lot, but it also
makes your show so great, like the all the hosts
have legal backgrounds.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
And yeah, functional ones, yeah, not just fun.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I could have I could have passed the bar, but I.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Was like, dude, I don't need to do this. My parents.
I could go to law school anyway, but.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
That three times to my legal pot.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, and I never did as good as I thought
I should.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Have to me and amicus brief is when my homies
text me what's up tonight? You see, Oh, I know
what's up, dude. That's wrong. Legally, that was really good.
I did feel it.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So where are we on the pronunciation of amicus brief?
I've always gone as but okay, I feel like, yeah,
one of the hosts pronounced it in a different way
on you know what.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
For Yeah, for plural, so plural amicus is amaici, but
some people say amichi, that's.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
C i and.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, harsh, yes, Yeah, We're all over the map on
this one.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah, I've always heard it amaki, but I think who
you're talking about on the podcast my co host Michael,
who sometimes comes with Latin pronunciations that are just yeah
from outer space, never heard of before.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah, but this is how I was pronounced in ancient Rome.
So yes, that's where we're going. We're not going to
get laughed out by them.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I'm telling you that I'll be laughed at by everyone,
but not my Latin professor, but not Cicero.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
No, yes, all right. Should we take a break and
come back and talk about the fed sock is which
I now know that fed sock means the Federalist Society. Yeah,
let's do that.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
We'll be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
We're back, and and I highly recommend everybody, upon completing
this go check out the five to four and specifically
the Federalist Society history.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It's it's. Yeah, I'm just gonna keep going.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It's it's it's And I think that communicates plenty, but
I guess so.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I always found it.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Amazing, mind blowing that there was in the earliest twenty
century something called the Business Plot, where a bunch of
industrialists and business people tried to recruit a US general
to overthrow FDR's government and just be like, now we're
we fucking fascism and like we want better conditions for businesses.
(17:41):
And it was unsuccessful, but it was so brazen, so
out in the open, and just so like counter to whatever,
like what America is supposed to stand for that it
just seemed like wild to me when I learned about that,
like ten fifteen years and now I feel like this
(18:04):
the Federalist Society just was that, and they just stuck
with it and have basically succeeded in doing what those people,
like what those the uber wealthy were trying to do
in the earliest twentieth early twentieth century, Like even early
funders of the Federalist Society were like the melon like billionaires,
(18:28):
you know, like that gilded like literally Gilded Age money
monsters who were probably involved in the business plot got
the Federalist Society off the ground, and now we live
in basically like what the business plot would have liked
America to look like.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
It feels like.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so the Federal Society. I think people
like listening to this, like you might be familiar with
like the term. They know that the Federal Society is
an organization, especially when Trump was president and was making
his nominations to the Supreme Court. It like came out
that Trump was saying explicitly, Yeah, the Federal Society is
(19:07):
providing me with these names. Right, I got the I
got the shortlist for Amie Cony Barrett, right for Amy
Cony Barrett and Neil Gorsich and Brett Kavanaugh. Those came
to me from the Federal Society. So I think people
like have a sense of like, well, who the fuck
are these guys? Right?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
You know, yeah, right, yeah, they do listicals.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
That's right. Number three will make your heart flutter.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
But what we talk about on five to four is
how the Federal Society is really kind of like the
judicial wing of the Republican Party.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Now.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
The Federal Society as an organization, it bills itself, kind
of presents itself. They call themselves a debate club. They
say they're a network of conservative attorneys, judges, conservative legal academics, professors, right,
And they say that they're just there to like talk
about ideas, debate ideas in you know, conservative legal spaces.
(20:02):
That kind of thing. Bring together all kinds of conservatives
so we can debate, and sometimes we bring liberals in
two so that we see the other side and stuff
like that's how they talk about themselves, right, and the
Federal Society, this organization, they have student chapters at law
schools all around the country and where in fact ostensibly
kind of started as a student organization at Yale and
(20:24):
the University of Chicago in the early eighties.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
But eighties Student one of those grassroots student organizations funded
by billionaires.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
That's right, exactly, So they have all.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
The best food at their meetups.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Right right, You peer behind the curtain one step and
you see that, like, this is not a student organization,
This is not a debate society. This is, like I said,
this is the judicial wing of the Republican Party. This
is the legal services provider for the Republican Party and
for the conservative legal movement. So any conservative legal mission
(21:00):
like goal right, overturning Roe v. Wade, you know, the
crushing of the administrative state. Federalist Society lawyers, Federalist Society professors,
Federalist Society judges are all on the same page about
all of this stuff and working in this network to
bring those cases to the Supreme Court and effectuate those
kind of like conservative legal goals. Because the Republican Party
(21:24):
has realized over the past fifty years, the Republican Party
has realized that its policy goals are minoritarian, They are
not popular. They actually wouldn't win if real democratic processes
were in place to vote on what they want. So
they have to use the judicial branch to reach their
policy goals.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, and they're doing it to an extent, an extent
where I mean now like everyone's just like, what is
what is the Supreme Court? Now? I mean I get
that there were ideologues in the Supreme Court in years past,
but I think obviously now that it's like there's no
breaks on the conservative side. Now, we're just getting like
decision after decision where I feel like every time people
(22:06):
are like, is is it legitimate? Do we how do
we contend with it? And yeah, Like to your point,
it's they're basically once some freaky billionaires like how do
I get this? Doney're like, oh, yeah, we'll figure out
a way, even if we have to make up a victim, yeah,
to bring to the court. And they won't even really
you know, really pry into that. I mean the last
(22:27):
few cases, we're like, this person isn't even a web designer,
and they're trying to act as if like she's suffering
damages or something by this law, and you're like, fucking
how and you get that there's a whole machine. This
is an apparatus, a machine, a whole thing pushing this all.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah, that's the case. Three ZHO three creative, really really
good example of how like the Federalist Society, the conservative
legal movement, and now six fucking maniacs on the Supreme
Court are are dealing with their issues that they you know,
it's like we call it results. It's oriented, like they
know the result that they want out of a case
and they'll get there no matter what.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, brains, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, yeah I thought they I thought they called balls strikes.
That's what. Wait what Yeah they call ball strikes. Yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
They call it a strike.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, that's a strike.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
The only aspect of the story that made me hopeful
was like how successful they they've been, Like the the
history of the Federalist Society shows how quickly things can change.
Now granted, like things have changed for the worst, like
in huge way, like just compared to the seventies when
(23:43):
this takeover kind of first started, Like guns were not
mentioned in the Republican Party's like platform until like seventy six.
Prior to that, everyone was kind of like, yeah, no,
the Second Amendment is about militia's like it like it
says in Constitution, which we're supposed to be like into
I guess as a party. And like there's a quote
(24:06):
from a conservative justice who calls, like the Second Amendment
thing that we're all familiar with and like I came
up assuming was like a permanent part of the Republican Party.
There's like a conservative justice who's like calls it the
greatest fraud they've ever heard. Like if they can so
I don't know, Yeah, it just if they can shift
(24:28):
things that far that quickly, like maybe we can shift
them back to where they were like in the seventies,
like in some of these cases where it's just gotten
so much worse because of them. But I don't know that.
That was like the thing that I found one of
the most startling things I found about it was just
how much they have changed and how quickly it's happened.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, Like it shows the power the federal of society's success,
the success of the conservative legal movement more broadly, Like
it shows the power of like building a movement, like organizing,
like taking courts seriously, right, Like it's not it wasn't
like magic that did it. It was that, like people
coalesced around their common interest in opposing the New Deal,
(25:18):
the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, and movements
to expand democracy. We can say, right, they didn't like that,
and so they started to organize against it. They made
connections with politicians all of that stuff, and over like
I said, over the past fifty years, like they are now,
you know, kind of living in the world that they built,
(25:39):
like living with their successes. And unfortunately they're still full
steam ahead because they're an incredibly powerful movement now. But
I think you're exactly right, Jack, Like people will, especially
law students, will ask us when we like go to
law schools and talk about this stuff. Law students will
ask us like they're like hopeless, They're like despondent, right,
(26:01):
They're like, what, like this world is unacceptable? How on
earth do you like fight back against the federalist society?
And I think that's because like a lot of young
people like you, just you have come up into your
adulthood in like a Trump presidency, like everything awful, like
institutions just completely illegitimate on their face, corrupt, and you're
(26:23):
just like, how do you fix this?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Right?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
But taking a step back, it's exactly like you said, Jack,
like politics can actually move quite quickly, and it just
means that, like movements need to be built, we also
can organize ourselves against what they're doing, right, And there
are lots of different methods that actually, like it's not
about like building a response twin organization of the Federalist
(26:49):
Society to oppose the Federalist Society, right, it's about like recognizing,
like you know, if you're interested in social justice, if
you're a movement lawyer, all of these people, like we
have power that is very very different from a billionaire
funded my case to go to the Supreme Court, right,
and we should be using it, right, And those things
can happen very quickly in politics. Historically they've happened very quickly.
(27:11):
So this is not like, you know, the end is
not written, Like the federal society as it is today
is not the world that we live in forever now,
like we can do something about it.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, like things EBB and flown right now, I think
if you're younger, then you've been caught up like you've
only known peak federalist society power exactly. I don't know
how the fuck does this change, but like anything, yeah,
things opinions change, and movements begin to form. And yeah,
I think this is I mean, I think because of
the like depravity of the Supreme Court, it's it's doing
(27:42):
the thing of like naturally beginning to radicalize people or
at least bring people into a level of consciousness about Okay,
so wait what how Okay? And they are able to
get there why because their corporations are now treated as
people and can also spend unlimited sums of money that
is actually affecting the legislative products. Okay, okay, okay, okay.
And I think yeah, to that end, I feel like
(28:03):
we're just I mean, we talk about this all the
time when we look at younger people, and like when
I was in college, I was like I was engaged,
but not to the degree that I even see people
that are in high school are now because the stakes
are just completely different for them. So there is like
this double edged sword thing here where with the fuckery
comes increased knowledge. But yeah, it's it's it's definitely a
(28:25):
difficult time could be existing.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah, exactly, And I think it's about like seeing where
where power is right now and how we can transfer
power right so right now, it's like not about like
building the most powerful liberal legal organization to counter the
federalist society. It's actually about saying, like, the federalist society
has too much fucking power in our politics and in
(28:47):
our law making and in you know, in the judiciary
the Supreme Court has too much fucking power. And so
you know, things like structural reforms, movement building that shift
power to the people, should who should have it, workers, consumers,
the people, right, democratic structures of government. That's where that's
(29:10):
where our focus should be.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, I was thinking about that too, right, Like you know,
I guess I was. We will talk about like what
we could do later on, but it's come up pretty
naturally now. Is like, you know, most people look at
it and go, what can we do? Like if it
like like all these people are screaming and shouting that
they don't want X, Y or Z, but they just
don't care, And I get that, Like, you know, one
(29:33):
version is to build up the people power to do
something like that. And then the other version too, is
like if we want things like term limits or like
if we want to pack the courts, we need legislators
to do that, and that means like we have to
count on them, because based on what I've seen, our
legislators move at a pace that could be described as
(29:54):
heroin snail And so that does make me a little
bit weird. But how you look at that, because I
think that is one of the ways too, Like we
do need legislation that actually arises like that intersects with
the justices out of place that they know they're like, oh, okay,
these are new rules now. Yeah, but how like how
do you sort of look at that and what do
(30:16):
you see as being like more effective versus the other
or if we should just be like no, no, no, like
for patient maybe this will work.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah, no, No, it's not about patients. It's about like
like doing some real shit, right and doing some real
shit kind of like across the board, across all of
We should be using all of the tools that we
have for this. So when like I said, we should
be decreasing the power of the Supreme Court, how do
you do that? There are lots of ways. Some of
the things that you've just described are really good ways
(30:45):
that like we should be pursuing. So packing the court,
making the court bigger, making the number of justices bigger
on the Supreme Court decreases the power that each individual
justice has, right, it spreads power over a bigger body,
meaning Sam Alito, the fuck face, Brett Cavanaugh, the psycho,
Clarence Thomas don't have that like that the power that's
(31:10):
currently consolidated in them right now. Packing the court is
a really really is a really great way to decrease
that power. And that's kind of like what you're talking
about with this kind of like short term, long term thing, right,
we should be using like the short term avenues that
are available to us in building a long term where
the Supreme Court, the federal society, corporations have less power
(31:31):
over all of us, right, term limits, that's a really
good idea. I think there are tons of ideas for
structural reform of the Supreme Court, and we should be
like talking about all of them. That's when it comes
to the politicians, right, it's a failure of the Democratic
Party that the Republicans and the federalist society, the conservative
legal movement has taken the court so seriously for decades now,
(31:53):
and they've won what they've won, and they are like
rolling around in the pig sty shit that they've created
and then love it. They're partying, right, and Democrats still
are not taking the Supreme Court seriously, still not saying, hey,
we need to reform this, Hey we need to we
need to be doing our politics around this too.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah right, what like what's the fear of the Democrats
to legislate the courts? Like what you know? I mean,
because I get part of it too. Is like, at
the same time, both parties still serve corporate interest to
a certain extent, so like obviously they're like, hey, you know,
like maybe go that. Maybe they's just the will of
the donors, aren't there or what, or is just historically
(32:32):
that there's just this like aversion to it. But that's
the one thing all I see is like things happen
and then you'll see people like Chuck Schumer or Nancy
Polsy're like, you know what, we got to do something
about the Supreme Court, just not now, and I don't
know when, but I'm gonna say that out loud because
that's what we do as a party. I mean.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I also, thing I always hear them say is that
if they packed the if Democrats pack the court when
they're in office, won't the Republicans just pack the court
back at them? And if so, it like who does
that benefit overall?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I guess yeah, yeah, okay, So I have two thoughts
about this. One is like the historical thing in history,
pressure on the Supreme Court by the other branches of
government works. So most famously, probably the most famous example
is FDR in the nineteen thirties, early nineteen forties, and
with Congress is passing all of this New Deal legislation, right,
(33:21):
getting people jobs, right as a communist, getting people jobs,
getting people to work, outlying child labor, you know, more
rights for workers, supporting unions, all of that kind of stuff.
And the Supreme Court at that time was conservative and
was striking down all of that legislation left and right.
What did FDR do. FDR threatened to pack the court.
(33:43):
He was like, I'm about to add justices if you
guys don't get in line. And what did the Supreme
Court do? They got in line. They started, they stopped
striking down that legislation so that New Deal legislation could
actually go into effect. So there are historical analogs here,
like we could be looking at that or historical analogs
for Democrats actually using the fucking political power that they have, right,
(34:05):
And so there's that. And then the other thing that
I was going to say to your point Jack about
like this counter argument that Democrats will be like, well,
Republicans will pack the court if we pack the court,
and then it will be all Republicans. The thing that is, like,
the thing that people don't stop and realize is that
Republicans have packed the court. We live in a reality
(34:32):
that is a Republican packed Supreme Court and federal judiciary.
When Trump was in office, he nominated twenty five percent
of the current federal bench. All federal district court judges
were nominated by Donald Trump. That's because that Republican president
took the judiciary seriously and was like, oh, we have
all these spots to fill, let's go, right. So we
(34:55):
live in the world that is already a Republican packed court,
a Republican packedjudiciary, and so Democrats should be taking that
seriously as as sort of a method again one of
the tools that they have, and because the result would
be that when Republicans pack the courts, the results are
power is consolidated in the wealthy in corporations, et cetera.
(35:19):
If Democrats would pack the courts, the results would be
people have more power, workers have more power, women have
more power, minorities have more power. That's very hard to
take away once it's given. Right, So the threat, but
I don't know a generation to generations from now that
then Republicans would come back and pack the court. And
if Democrats packed the court first, that is so remote, Like,
(35:42):
let's actually do something with the power that we have
to give power to more people, and that is doing politics,
that is doing good governance, right, And yeah, I'm not
worried about Republicans packing the court in fifty years. I'm
worried about the Republican packed court right now.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Right because it's there. It's like it's more the Democrats
are unpacking than packing.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
You're just letting it being packed.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Really, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
The last thing that I just wanted to cover on
the federal society is there's been this narrative of, well,
the Conservatives now that they overturned Row, are kind of
like the dog that caught the car, and it's kind
of this hopeful thing of like, yeah, but that that
was all they cared about right, and now they accomplished
that it's unpopular. They're kind of fucked what what are
(36:35):
they going to do? And I think you specifically framed
it as like the Federal Society is a service provider
to the Republican Party, like they will move in accordance
with whatever the Republican Party wants. Like the gun thing
didn't start with the Federalist Society. It started with like Reagan,
(36:56):
and you know, the Republican Party kind of adopted some
of the NRA and then the Federalist Society is like,
all right, well we are the judicial wing, as you said,
of the Republican Party, so we're just gonna get in line.
So they are going to be you know, as Trump
you know, continues to wheel power or you know, let's
(37:17):
say he wins the next election, they are going to
be a fascism machine like that. It's not going to
be a thing where they're like, all right, well this
is the bridge too far. I think like January sixth,
the fact that they wouldn't like ratify a separate set
of electors like the Supreme Court, I think made misled
(37:38):
me to be like, so the Supreme Court like ultimately
is not going to just go along with Trump's bullshit.
But like a lot of people in the Federalist Society
who like put those justices on the Supreme Court were
like guns blazing, like January sixth, like election overturning, like
conspiracy theorists like that. One of the founder was like, guys,
(38:01):
this is too much like Trump shouldn't be allowed to
run for president. And they were like, you can't call
yourself the founder anymore. The title, yeah, this quest title.
And he was like, I'm sorry, I like Donald Trump again.
Juary six was tight, but it's just like I do
think the near future is just as dangerous, and you know,
(38:25):
there there are a lot of really dark possibilities with
the Federalist Society just as much as like the recent past.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah yeah, you know, we said that the Federalist Society,
you know, provided the list for Trump for who he
was nominating to the Supreme Court. Those justices. In fact,
the six conservative justices on the Supreme Court right now
are currently members of the Federalist Society or have been
at points in their past. Just want to make it clear,
like this is this is a network that is like, uh,
(38:53):
this is a network that's promoting from within its own ranks.
These are their own people, right, and there's not a separation.
There's not a separate There is not a separation between
the Federalist Society and the people on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
I think January sixth is like a really interesting like
moment in history. I guess you could say for the
Federalist Society because I think that if we're kind of
calling the Federal Society like a party, a political party,
it's it's not officially, but if we think about it
like that, they learned lessons from January sixth, right, And
(39:28):
I think a really big lesson they learned was that
you know, they can, as they were in January sixth,
leading up to January sixth and afterwards, in all of
the litigation, whether it was Trump's fraud claims about votes,
whether it was about you know, states certifying their electors,
(39:48):
all of it, Federal Society lawyers had their hands on
all of that. We're directing all of that. There are
Federalist Society lawyers who were actually took part in planning
the January sixth stuff like specifically. But I think the
lesson learned was that the public at large probably was
left with a bit of distaste about the actual coup part, right,
(40:14):
the actual invasion of the capital part, right, whereas the
Federalist Society could have and I think now has learned
the lesson that it can still be behind the scenes
doing all of the legal machinations, all of the legal stuff,
the legal work that needs to be done to effectuate
the result that they want, which is Trump winning the
(40:35):
presidency next time. Right, And so yeah, I think they've
learned that lesson, and they know that the messy coup
literal riot part was maybe something that would like kind
of made it overall unsuccessful. But they know that they
have allies on the court up and down the federal judiciary.
The lawyers have been working on this stuff for years,
(40:57):
meaning like what kind of cases to bring their red
for the litigation, and yeah, they're the Federalist Society has
always been really good at at this exactly the behind
the scenes work where they're not saying like the Federalist
Society is bringing this case. The Federal Society isn't suing anybody.
It's people in this network.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yeah, they don't give up. They've been they try and try,
and you know, they were trying to overturn Row for
decades and then they just kept trying different things until
they found a strategy packing the court with Federalist Society
people that actually worked exactly. So, yeah, this isn't going
(41:35):
to stop until an alternate force is put to work
that stops it in counterbalance that.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Yeah, and you know, like a lot of legal analysts
or journalists media at the time that Dobbs came down,
which overturned Roe v. Wade, a lot of commentators were like, oh, well,
what's the Republican Party going to do?
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Now?
Speaker 3 (41:55):
What's the Federalist Society going to do? Now? Like they
they won, they got their like big achieved their big
project of overturning Row, and now it seems like they're
going to be like kind of disorganized and they don't
really know what they're working on now false false false
false false.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
So right, it's like their was like check made assholes.
Wait wait, you just took it after I embryos yet,
right exactly, Like.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
Right, So it's like, again, if we're thinking of them
as kind of like a political party, like now it's
more like a normal political party where there's different bowls
of interest, less focused on the one single issue that
they did coalesce around over you know, since since Roe v. Wade,
since the early seventies. But they have tons of energy,
tons of political will, and and again what they're working
(42:49):
on is even more fascist stuff coming down the pipeline.
And it's all centered not just their opposition to Roe v.
Wade and abortion rights. It's all centered on their opposition
to the New Deal, to the civil rights movement, to
the women's rights movement, and to expanding democracy. So the wildest,
most fascist shit you can think of, legally, they're working
(43:10):
on it right now. It's absolutely coming down the pipeline.
Whether that's like rolling back protections for women and queer people,
whether that is saying you don't have a right to contraception,
whether you know we're talking about like prisoner's rights, the
rights of criminal defendants, all kinds of stuff. They are
absolutely still working on it. They are not disorganized now
(43:31):
that they quote unquote one overturn at Robi ways.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I think the only part that I think they're like
conflating what the aims are of the federalist society and
like the broader conservative judicial movement with like the electoral
politics of people that are a down ballot of Trump
who are like, ooh, I don't know what to do now.
It's like yeah, sure, in that narrow sense, yes, exactly,
it's difficult now to campaign. But in terms of like
a movement, like we're already saying, it's like they want
(43:55):
to basically, they really want to go back to the
nineteenth century at best, you know.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, yeah, and that's the Federal Society being that service provider.
So you best believe they are hooking up with Republican
and conservative politicians and being like, here's what you can
campaign on. We're working on this. This is what donors
care about right now, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Sarah Marshall from the podcast You're Wrong About talks about
how the right wing takeover of media and of politics
over the past like fifty years has been very similar
to like the panics that the right wing was having
about like communism, like the Red Scare, and like Satanism
(44:38):
and stuff like it's been this you know, smaller like
minority group that has imposed its ideals through. Yeah, just
like behind the scenes infiltration and all the shit that
they were worried about.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Like I feel like their.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Concerns around the Satanic panic and like the red scare.
We're just like them telling on themselves or giving them
some of ideas about like how to do this ship. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
The Republicans, conservatives in general, especially social conservatives, they'll they're
they're really good at making the issues they care about
into culture war bullshit, right, like really firing up a base,
really like, yeah, firing up this moral panic about stuff.
And then when you like take a step back, you're like, hey,
(45:26):
people voting, like you're talking about mail in ballots, like
what you know? So yeah, yeah, that's as tried and
true tale, as old as time for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and we'll
be back to talk about what's happening on the Supreme
Court this week.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
We'll be right there a lot, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
We're back, And I keep seeing the stories about what
the Supreme Court's up to. It seems bad, not good.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, this week and who bettered. I'm like, I'm like,
just I want to pick Rihanna's brain with a few
cases that we've seen kind of begin to bubble up
over the last few months. The first one is Grant's Pass,
the City of Grants Pass in Oregon. They're basically arguing
and please correct me if I'm wrong. Essentially that cities
(46:26):
will have the ability to punish people for having nowhere
to sleep as like to say that like if you are,
if you have a if you're sleeping outside or putting
up a tent, whatever that is. Now that's there's nothing
to protect you, not even the Eighth Amendment, which I
guess I mean, I was like, which cruel and unusual
punishment was that protecting us from? Because it's not us
(46:47):
capitalism for sure, but like is that? I mean I
feel like the very distilled version of that I get
is the Supreme Court is now going to basically come
down on whether or not sleeping outside is a crime.
I think that's maybe pretty broad. But how should we
be looking at that, because this feels like this has
a lot of ramifications for many people who live in cities.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. Like that that
is the essential like distillation of what's happening here. So, yeah,
people who are unhoused sleeping outside and in some cities
states what have you, you can be criminally charged for that. Now,
I think in Grant's past it's a ticket, right, Like
it's not necessarily that you you know, can go to
(47:27):
prison for this. But it is a ticket, a citation
that is under the law a punishment. If you have
to pay a fine for something, that's a punishment, right.
So the Supreme Court here is deciding, you know, if
you are punishing somebody for being unhoused, is that cruel
and unusual? And I think the specific setup actually in
(47:49):
this case is, you know, there are cities where maybe
you can get a ticket for they call it a
lot of places to call it public camping, right You're
camping on public grounds, in a park, under a bridge,
that kind of thing. There are cities where you can
get a ticket for public camping, or the police can
come and take down your tent and trash your belongings.
And that's super super messed up obviously. But in a
(48:13):
lot of cities they have shelter beds, there is enough
sort of emergency housing or housing for unhoused people that
people aren't forced to do public camping in grants pass
and in the cases from the Ninth Circuit that are
the ones going up to the Supreme Court. In this case,
the issue, for example, like in San Francisco, is that
(48:35):
San Francisco has police go tear down homeless encampments, but
there aren't enough beds in San Francisco, for there aren't
enough shelter space. There isn't enough shelter space where those
unhoused people can go. So it's in that kind of
like specific legal situation that is like, is this cruel
and unusual? Because you are literally criminalizing them for taking
(48:59):
the only option that they have, right there is no
other choice. They don't have another place to sleep, right,
So is that cruel and unusual? Now, unfortunately, I hate
to break the bad news, but the Supreme Court sucks.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
When I thought you said the Supreme Court, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
How they like.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
How they got away with the Supreme thing. Supreme always
means superior, means all the top things, all the topings.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
Unfortunately, Supreme sucking in this in the in this realm.
But yeah, no, there's no expectation here that the Supreme
Court is going to be like, yeah, this is cruel
and unusual punishment. You are violating these people's constitutional rights
when you punish them for essentially being unhoused, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Because you hear what the proponents say, and it's like
such like just inhumane bullshit where they're just like, well,
I mean it's really quite simple. It's like we need
to help our lawn enforcement figure out if they even
have the ability to help keep our cities safe. And
and then like completely skirting and then you hear that
really bad talking points, like some people just want to
be out there, like even if they have help, without
(50:12):
actually talking about like the conditions some shelters are. And
for some people it's like, yeah, I'd rather take my
chances on the street than go to the shelter because
an X, Y and Z threat I have there. But
again it's mostly lost and like do you want to help,
like police make our city safer? And it's really just
about that, Like it's really.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
The chamber of commerce and right people local businesses when
in doubt they're going to I mean, especially now following
Citizens United, where like corporations are have more rights than
individual people. Anything that's like, well, this lowers our property
value or our ability to god really yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Didn't scare you want, but oh my god, your property value?
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Yeah yeah, like that is more important under the current rules.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Yeah, I think like a big kind of takeaway of
the case, or not even a takeaway, but like this
case is a good example of something which is that
social problems, the problems in our society, often end up
going to the Supreme Court, where, you know, if you're
on the side of social justice, if you're on the
side of welfare for people, if you're on the side
of equality and justice, that's that's the Supreme Court is
(51:19):
a dead end. Right, Supreme Court is not going to
solve our social problems. Here. The social problem is policing,
the idea that public safety quote unquote is about tearing
down unhoused people's tents, right, and the existence of homelessness
to begin with. The housing crisis in America is a
(51:41):
social problem, right, that is not going to be solved
by this case. And yeah, it's a good example of
politicians and people not coming together to work on actually
solving those issues and just making it a you know,
a police a law enforcement issue, taking it up and
down the federal judiciary to the Supreme Court and back again,
and nothing really gets solved. Right, people are still unhoused,
(52:04):
that's a problem.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Yeah, But then for them it's like, well, at least
legally now we can brutalize them. However, exactly exactly, the
guys of we're actually keeping them safe because some of
them don't, you know, it's like it's so unserious. And
then this, I mean, this next one I think is
probably gonna get the most attention, even though there's also
obviously the Idaho abortion ban is something that the court
is gonna hear. And also like Starbucks, like like, well
(52:26):
you help with a union bust, amongst many other things,
which I'm sure they're gonna be like, oh, yes, my good, Yeah,
my good? Is Starbuck?
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Yeah up there? Yeah, like Starbucks versus a union, Like,
oh my god, is.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
The National Labor Relations Board go off their fucking rockery?
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
I think so. I think we need to yank Delicia
a little bit today here. But the other one is
that Trump immunity is Trump immunity. God, you know that
was I think like with this one from from I'm
guessing right, especially everything I've heard, this case really isn't
gonna go anywhere because Trump's team is essentially arguing a
president cannot face charges for anything without first being impeached
(53:07):
and convicted by Congress. If that doesn't happen, they can kill,
they can do murders. Resealed Team six and it's like,
what but I feel like here the victory for him
was the fact that they were like, okay, but we're
gonna delay our decision so that can come up the
rest of your legal trials here. That kind of what's
going on.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
That's one hundred percent right. And it's also not just
his legal team delaying, right, the Supreme Court is helping.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Right exactly, yeah, right, because they would have right normally,
it would have been opening, like even the Supreme Court
be like, come on, fam because that means Joe Biden
could do whatever the fuck.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
He wants now, right exactly exactly. So, yeah, this all
has to this. This actually does come out of January sixth.
You know, Jack Smith, special counsel, brought an indictment against
Donald Trump, criminal indictment for the coup plot basically, and
this lawsuit Trump's laws are saying, well, no, you're actually
(54:02):
immune from being sued or from criminal prosecution any legal
actions against you while you are president. Right, that is
obviously a wild argument because again, like you just.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Said it, Okay, so because nobody can touch me.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
I.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
Can the president murder?
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Like? No?
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Surely not right, Like the president is not absolutely immune.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
That's what the lawyers are kind of saying, because I
remember what was the lower court that first heard them.
They're like, hold on, let me get this right. You
just so he could he could hit up Seal Team six,
just snuff somebody out.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
And they're like, yeah, this is like getting in the weeds.
But you know, the president does violence of course, nature
being the president, right, like Obama ordering drone strikes, was
Obama doing murder. They're all war criminals. But yeah, this
(54:58):
this this lawsuit kind of like on its face, Yeah,
the Supreme Court. I don't think anybody thinks the Supreme Court,
even these Supreme Court justices, I don't think anybody thinks
they're going to be like, yep, you're right. The president
is immune from everything while the president is in office.
But the little tricks they're doing is about the delay
(55:20):
so that this case doesn't actually get decided at a
time when it really matters, right, which is to say,
before the election. So the Supreme Court granted cert, which
means they accepted the case, They said they would hear
the case. They granted cert months after they could have,
and then when they said they would hear the case,
(55:41):
they scheduled the oral argument for the end of April.
When they could have heard the case much earlier there
were dates available. Scheduling it for the end of April
means we likely will not have a decision until late June.
And then if that means if the decision is no,
he's not immune from every thing, he can be taken
to trial, then that means the trial would still have
(56:03):
to happen. Right, You're talking about months and months and months,
if not years, And then you know, you got the
election coming up in November, like Trump is going to
be the president or he's not. But this decision about
whether or not he is convicted of a crime for
the January sixth coup attempt, you know that it by
that time it will be irrelevant because it will either
(56:24):
win the election or not, right right, right.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
That's just yeah, it's fun to see. It's fun to see.
I'll play it like I keep saying, November, take your time,
Please take your time, you know, let me just be
so present throughout here, all.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Right now, just give us, like a ESPN talking head,
take is Trump gonna win the presidency or not?
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Just yeah, what do you think? You hear?
Speaker 1 (56:47):
This guy's the bet?
Speaker 2 (56:48):
No. One last question as relates to Scotus because I
feel like there's always these moments right before we go.
I'm sorry, I had to I had to ask you this,
why I have you here. There's always these moments right
where you're like, man, I know how I know Kavanaugh
was gonna send it what coney barretts about sending what
Neil's about to say, and then like they they switch
it up like and find their spine in like the
weirdest ways, Like specifically Neil Gorsich, who's like tribal rights, Man,
(57:12):
I'm telling you don't fuck with that, and you're like,
but but fuck everyone else's rights, Like like how do
you how do you sort of view these like like
you know, I've heard some theories like he's so conservative
that like it intellectually brings him to a point where
he's like he has no choice but to defend tribal rights.
Others like well he grew up in the Southwest and this, this,
that and the other. But how do you see like
(57:33):
these flashes of like when you're like somehow like Amy
coney Barrett had a half decent opinion, is that them
being like I gotta kind of edge with the wacky shit.
So they don't think I'm a total scumbag, so I
just do it here and there or is there just
like how do you view this sort of like the
vacillation between like they're the being moral or not giving
(57:54):
a fuck at all? That's right?
Speaker 3 (57:55):
Yeah, you know, I think I think you just have
to remember that they're individuals, like they're beings.
Speaker 1 (58:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
Gorsic on tribal rights. Yeah, he spent a lot of
time I think, coming up as a lawyer and as
a judge in states where tribal rights were something being litigated, right,
or like tribal jurisdiction federal Indian law was an issue, right,
And so he just knows a lot about it, and
I think he can it's not about like caring about
(58:22):
the rights of minorities or people of color. I think
he just knows a lot about the law and has
totally kind of like he's totally like brought that into
his conservative legal approach.
Speaker 2 (58:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
He's a textualist, so he's able to say things like, look,
the treaties with tribes say this, this is the test.
I'm a conservative, I'm a textualist. This is how I
interpret it, right, yea, And yeah, so they're they're they're
all individuals sometimes with kind of like a little surprise
here and there, but to them, they're always working within
(58:56):
and for the conservative legal movement for sure. And I
would say the thing that is more pronounced, more than
like an occasional surprise half liberal take from a conservative
justice is actually that they're getting more conservative while they're
on the bench. So Clarence Thomas, sam Alito, John Roberts especially,
they are talking about things, writing about things in twenty
(59:20):
twenty four in their opinions that there they would not
have said, thought put down on paper in opinions, you know,
twenty years ago when they were earlier more junior justices.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
Right, because they have this little club that they go
to call the Federalist Society, where they like give speeches
and they're like, uh, it's nice to be somewhere where
people aren't protesting outside my house. And everyone's like.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
God, yeah, yeah, Hey, Harlan, come out with the money
with the money cannon. Harlen, come up with Harley Crow
about to hitch out with the money cannon?
Speaker 1 (59:53):
Right, Yeah, all right, Well, Rihannon, what a pleasure haveing you.
Thank you so much for spending some time with us.
Where where can people find you? Follow you, hear you
all that good stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Yeah, this was really fun. Thanks y'all. So the podcast
is called five to four. That's the number five dash,
the number four. We're on all social media at five
to four pod, all spelled out. I'm on Twitter. Refuse
to call it the other thing.
Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
At Awa in this household.
Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Absolutely not. At a Wa rhiannon. That's Aywa Rhannon And yeah,
come check us out five four pod dot com. We
are talking about all this shit and more weeke in
and week out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Is there a work of media, social media or otherwise
that you've been enjoying?
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Oh, you know what, I've been watching the Gaza Freedom Flotilla,
the ship that is set sale for Gaza. People from
all over the world are on this ship. They have
tons of humanitarian aid and they are going to attempt
to break the seventeen year siege of Gaza by landing
at the port in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
So God bless Yeah, amazing miles Where can people find you?
Is there a working media you've been enjoying?
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Find me where they have? The social media is at
miles of gray. I'm on most of them, you know,
So just search there. And also you can find Jack
and I on our basketball podcast, Miles and Jack And
if you like to play on ninety day Fiance. You
know where we get into the nuances of immigration reform. No,
we don't. We're just talking about trash reality. Uh, check
me out on four to twenty day Fiance. Any tweets
(01:01:30):
I like, Nah, I haven't been on the tweet thing,
but I just what did I start watching recently? Oh?
I was watching. I was just watching the rest of it. Actually, no,
I don't even recommend it. Never mind. I'm not even
gonna like, I'm like, I just have that thing that
I was gonna trash. But no, continue doing what you
do for your social media's. But yeah, I have no
no suggestions.
Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Your owner, no further suggestions. You're no further suggestions my owner.
Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
All right, Uh yeah, workimedia. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Just a twet from Christy Mgucci Man at the Wopple
House on Twitter, who tweeted, don't text right now, just
learn to the high school from Ten Things I Hate
About You is a real high school called Stadium High School.
And I don't know if you remember that high school,
but it's like it looks like like a cat like
Arkham Asylum, but then there's like a big stadium in
(01:02:21):
the middle of it. There's like a field with like
this big castle in the background.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
It's like one of the.
Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Wildest things I've ever seen. Anyways, I'll link off for
that in footnotes for worth your time. You can find
me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brian. You can find
us on Twitter at daily Zeitgeist, where at d daily
Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fanpage and a website,
daily zeitguist dot com where we post our episodes and
our footnotes where we link off to the information that
(01:02:46):
we talked about in today's episode, so well as the
song that we think you might enjoy. Miles, what's song
do you think people might enjoy?
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
This is a song from a duo called Tandy Thha
and DII and there from the UK. But they're like
studio musicians that used to play with bands like Michael
Kiwanuka or like Salt or Cleo Soul, little sims like
groups that I definitely fuck with, and they just have
like their own project together and it's called Candy and
it's got this like DIY like sexy Rick James kind
(01:03:17):
of shit going on in this track. It's called Big
Boys Don't Cry and it's just some nice bedroom funk
I think is what I'll call this one. So this
is from Tandy. Check it out all right.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
We will link off to that in the footnotes. The
dailies Like Guys is a production by Heart Radio. For
more podcasts my Heart Radio visit there, Heart Radio Wrap,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. That's gonna
do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to
tell you what is trending and we'll talk to you
all then Bye later
The Daily Zeitgeist News
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Jack O'Brien
Miles Gray
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