Author: Opening Arguments Media LLC

OA1081.

We're taking a broad survey of the 2024 elections, starting with the many, many 2020 election deniers who are still in--and seeking--public office. How many of these people are still around, and how many are up for re-election? What kinds of threats to democracy are still built into the system and how could we do better? What would real reform look like, and what is it going to take to get there? 

• “The Story of Election Denial in America," ElectionDeniers. org

• SCOTUS decision in FEC v. Cruz for Senate (2022)

• “Interactive U.S. House Election Map,” 270towin. Com

• “At least 30 election deniers and 2020 fake electors serving as Trump electors this year,” CNN (10/17/2024)

• Fifth Circuit’s decision in Lamb v Wetzel (10/25/24)

• “A Comprehensive Look at the Freedom to Vote Act,” Jonathan Diaz, Campaign Legal Center (9/17/21)

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OA1080 - As a weary nation watches the world's richest man try to buy a federal election in plain sight, we stop to consider the question which has so long plagued Elon Musk: There's gotta be a crime here, right? Somewhere?

There has been plenty of debate this week about the legality of Musk’s $1 million daily lottery for registered US voters in swing states, but there is something far more insidious going on in this story beyond the headlines. Matt explains how the Federal Elections Commission has recently taken the Supreme Court’s perfectly good joke way too far before we consider what the rapidly evolving rules around super PACs could mean for the future of fair elections in the United States. 

Finally, we drop a seasonal footnote to discuss how some Massachusetts 8th graders recently helped to close out a 332-year-old criminal case.

• “Judge Aileen Cannon, who tossed Trump's classified docs case, on list of proposed candidates for attorney general”  ABC News (10/22/2024)

• “Elon Musk’s Big Business and Conflicts of Interest With the U.S. Government” The New York Times (10/20/2024)

• “A Democrat, Siding With the G.O.P., Is Removing Limits on Political Cash at ‘Breathtaking’ Speed,” Shane Goldmacher  The New York Times (6/10/2024)

• The Illusion of Independence: How Unregulated Coordination is Undermining Our Democracy, and What Can Be Done to Stop It, The Campaign Legal Center (11/30/2023)

• FEC Advisory Opinion 2024-01 (3/20/2024)

• FEC Vice Chair Ellen Weintraub’s dissent from Advisory Opinion 2024-07 (addressing Lindsay Graham campaign’s question re: super PAC campaign fundraising coordination)

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It's OA Bar Prep with Heather! First we get the answer to last week's pizza predicament, and then we get question 45 - the case of the uneasy easement!

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OA1079 - An OA Spooktacular! But also a normal episode.

We continue our ongoing series on fascism and the law with a fresh perspective on a familiar American legal horror story. Matt explains the terrifying legal context surrounding the 1692 Court of Oyer and Terminar which sentenced dozens of innocent Massachusetts colonists to hang for the extremely real felony of practicing witchcraft--and an unexpected defense strategy which could have spared them. What can the most terrifying run of wrongful executions in US history teach us about the dangers of governance by rumor, paranoia, and conspiracy theories 332 years later?

SOURCES: 

• In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Mary Beth Norton (2003)

• “Salem Witchcraft Trials Research Guide,” Congregational Library (2024)(links to primary sources)

• 18 USC 611 (voting by aliens)

• Order granting preliminary injunction against Oklahoma’s anti-Sharia law amendment in Awad v. Ziriax et al, W.Dist. of OK (2010)(later upheld by 10th Circuit

 

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OA1078 - The Supreme Court is back from their vacation and is set to ruin a bunch of lives again! They start off with Glossip v. Oklahoma, another opportunity for the Republican ghouls on the Court to execute a potentially innocent man.

But not to worry, Matt's Footnote Fetish(tm) will bring us wayyyy back into happy territory, as a favorite character from OA past is in the news in the best way!

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It's OA Bar Prep with Heather! We get the answer to last week's hot firefighter question, and then a new question involving pizza and promised payment!

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OA1077, Part 2 of Matt's MAGA is Fascist series.

The MAGA movement has just taken a hard turn  to the extreme right with openly fascist messaging from Donald Trump about “migrant crime,” “occupied cities,” and “bad genes.”  We take a moment to absorb this alarming reality before Matt also explains how US immigration policy has always been the leading edge of American protofascism--and why Adolf Hitler personally admired it--before taking a look at Trump’s actual 2024 immigration promises and what keeping them would mean for us all.

• Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law, James Q. Whitman (2017)

• “Trump Apparently Has a List of Things He Loves About Adolf Hitler,” Tori Otten The New Republic (3/11/24)

• “Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps, and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans,” Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, The New York Times (11/23/2023)

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OA 1076: In the wake of the devastation left by hurricanes Helene and Milton, we examine the state of FEMA’s Congressional funding. Has disaster relief actually become a “partisan” issue, or is this really just a Republican thing? How are these funds distributed, and why can’t Congress ever seem to fully fund anything? Matt explains why the current state of Congressional appropriations has him looking for flights to Denmark. Then: Why is Ron DeSantis’s Department of Health threatening to bring criminal charges against local TV stations airing pro-choice ads in support of Florida’s proposed Amendment 4?

Finally, we drop a footnote to check in on the current state of the longest-running criminal trial in Georgia history and listen in on what the judge most recently assigned to the Young Thug RICO case has had to say to Fani Willis’s office about how they are handling it.

• “Disaster Relief Fund State of Play: In Brief,” Congressional Research Service (8/14/2024)

• “The Congressional Appropriations Process: An Introduction,” Congressional Research Service (11/30/2016)

• Letter sent by Florida Department of Health General Counsel John Wilson to WFLA-TV dated 10/3/2024

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It's T3BE43! First, Heather gives us the answer to last week's question about the 6th amendment right to a jury trial, and then we get a fun question involving an issue not talked about enough: discrimination against hot firefighters.

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Is it okay to call Trump a “fascist”? Is our democracy itself really on the line next month? And what might our legal system look like after a second Trump term? We look behind the headlines to begin to examine the nuances of these questions in this first of several planned episodes on the current state of the American right.

• The Anatomy of Fascism, Robert Paxton (2004)

• “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,” Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, Journal of Democracy (April 2002)

• They Thought They Were Free (full text), Milton Meyer (1955)

• The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, Timothy Snyder (2018)

• Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, Peter Pomerantsev (2015)

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