Category: 3-LawSometimeCommentary

Moving with shockingly unpredictable efficiency, we respond to feedback, debate which of us is more composting-friendly, catch up on the emergency docket, and chip away at our end-of-Term backlog by digging into Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA.

Over the last six months, life has been upended for  millions of people in America as Stephen Miller's extreme immigration policies have been unleashed. And while the first weeks of the second Trump administration saw some genuine pushback from the Supreme  Court, six months in, that feint at checking and balancing has fallen away. On this week's Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick welcomes Aaron Reichlin Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council. Reichlin Melnick last appeared on the show in the days after Trump's inauguration and the initial barrage of lawless Executive Orders targeting the immigration system and the millions caught in it. Half a year into Trump 2.0, and Stephen Miller's no-holds-barred anti-immigrant plan for America, what's stuck? What's accelerated? And in light of the new budget, what's next?

Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OA1174 - Matt is coming in hot from the front lines of immigration court for an exclusive firsthand account of how a new secret memo directed to ICE's attorneys is trying to unilaterally redefine immigration reality and prime the machine for a new era of mass detention well beyond anything this country has even seen before. In better news: an actual federal judge restores sanity in the surprisingly-difficult-to-locate federal district of central California, and a footnote on why some unexpected federal job openings might be good news for people who hate fascism.

• “ICE declares millions of undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond,” Maria Sachetti and Carol Leonning, The Washington Post (7/15/25) (via MSN)

• Judge Maame Uwusi-Mensah Frimpong’s findings and TRO against ICE in Perdomo v. Noem (7/11/25)

• Board of Immigration Appeals decision in Matter of Q. Li, 29 I&N Dec. 66 (BIA 2025)

• Alito’s majority decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez (2018) 

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

And Professor Heather Varanini has brought us our next question as we study for the Bar Exam!

If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate T3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

 

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD 8) was the House manager of the second Trump impeachment in the Senate; is an outstanding constitutional scholar; a long-time law professor; a renowned author; a driving force behind the January 6th committee; and the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.  For the great privilege of interviewing him, we need all the tools a great interviewer would have.  It is therefore appropriate that we also interview Sam Tanenhaus, the biographer, in a new and magisterial work, of William F. Buckley, perhaps the best known and most fearlessly non-partisan in his selection of interview subjects.  Sam Tanenhaus has written the definitive work on Buckley, whose Firing Line project was in some ways an inspiration for our own podcast.  CLE credit is available for lawyers and judges from podcast.njsba.com.

OA1173 - More people have been to space than practice space law, and Professor Michelle Hanlon is one of its most important modern pioneers. Professor Hanlon joins to talk Star Trek captains, preserving historic sites on the Moon, and why she believes the mass privatization of space is--at least if properly regulated--the only way forward.

• Prof. Michelle Hanlon’s University of Mississippi faculty biography

• “Why Are We All So Obsessed with the Moon?”, Michelle Hanlon, New York Times  (12/7/2024)

• The Artemis Accords (signed 10/30/2020)

• “The Wild Wild West of Space Law,” Michael O’Shea, The Walrus (8/13/2020)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

Katie Phang, independent journalist and trial lawyer, joins Leah to run through the week’s legal news–and there’s a lot of it! They unpack, as KBJ puts it, “this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture” and break down the latest thirstiness from the judges angling to be Trump’s next SCOTUS pick. Then, all three hosts are joined by Strict Scrutiny’s official roadie, Chris Hayes, to talk about his book, The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource. 

Hosts’ and Guests’ Favorite Things:

• Chris: What we won on Election Day, Zohran Mamdani
• Kate: Mamdani, Trump and the End of the Old Politics, Ezra Klein & Chris Hayes (NYT); Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference, Rutger Bregman
• Melissa: Dirty Dancing; Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch & Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice, Andrea Freeman
• Leah: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab; Bone Valley: A True Story of Injustice and Redemption in the Heart of Florida, Gilbert King; Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter tour
• Katie: A Lawsuit against Alligator Alcatraz! (Katie’s Substack)

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025! 

• 10/4 – Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

In this episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick sits down with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to dissect the most recent Supreme Court term and its implications. They explore Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's emerging role and influence, the patterns of bias within the court that she’s calling out, and the broader systemic issues facing the judiciary. Their conversation also delves into the “worst possible nominee” for a lifetime appointment to a US court of appeals, Emil Bove. Next, they tackle climate inaction, Democrats’ failure to respond to the billionaire takeover of the Supreme Court, and why Senator Whitehouse is still optimistic about challenging, even fixing, these systems.

Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Supreme Court wraps up a momentous term. Dahlia Lithwick, Mark Joseph Stern and guests break down the cases and the controversies, explaining what it means for you, and for American democracy.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Supreme Court wraps up a momentous term. Dahlia Lithwick, Mark Joseph Stern and guests break down the cases and the controversies, explaining what it means for you, and for American democracy.

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.