Leah and Kate discuss a case that isn’t even a real case involving a real law, as well as the very real and very important Affordable Care Act case on the Court’s December calendar. They also recap some Federalist Society Gala happenings and developments in the cases involving subpoenas for the President’s financial records.
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!
Share this episode with your (open-minded) Republican friends, family, and co-workers! We're happy to bring you this Thanksgiving Special a day early in which we break down the latest "trial balloon" defense of Trump's conduct: that Trump was actually encouraging a legitimate investigation into a top-secret conspiracy in Ukraine to hack the DNC servers in 2016 and throw the election to Hillary Clinton. If you don't know what "CrowdStrike" and "Chalupa" mean, you won't want to miss this one!
We begin on that key issue, breaking down the sole legal issue at stake in impeachment -- bribery -- and exactly what Congress needs to show in order to impeach and remove the President from office. From there, we turn to the next likely defense from Trumpland and explain exactly why it is bananas-in-pajamas-level bonkers.
After that lengthy breakdown, it's time to check in on the status of various lawsuits seeking to compel witnesses to appear before various House committees. What's going on, and is there any cause for optimism? Listen and find out!
Then, as always, it's time for #T3BE, in which Thomas tackles a curious fact-pattern involving a landlord, a new tenant, an old tenant who won't move out, and a surprising legal result. Can he figure out why? Can you?
Please do participate in our favorite charity event of the year, Vulgarity for Charity! To participate, just donate $50 or more to Modest Needs, and then send a copy of the receipt to vulgarityforcharity@gmail.com along with your request for a roast. You can even request that Thomas & Andrew roast the victim of your choice.
In this special bonus episode, Melissa and Kate are joined by co-editor Reva Siegel to discuss their book "Reproductive Rights & Justice Stories," in a conversation moderated by Rebecca Traister and hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!
Today's episode takes a deep dive into Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax. Is it constitutional? How will the arguments shape up? Listen and find out!
We begin, however, with an interesting proposal for a "Congressional Review Act" for the Supreme Court by law professor -- and professional Supreme-Court-fixer -- Ganesh Sitaraman. Will this proposal meet with more approval than Sitaraman's previous "lottery" idea?
Then we do a deep dive into the history of taxes in this country, looking at two very old cases -- one from 1895 (Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429), and one from way back in 1796 (Hylton v. U.S.). We also cover the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894, as well as check in on the most recent Supreme Court tax ruling from Chief Justice John Roberts, the NFIB v. Sebelius 2012 Obamacare decision.
What do we learn from all that? Well, you'll just have to give it a listen!
After all that, it's time for the answer to what some are calling the easiest #T3BE question ever about falling off a ladder. Are they right? Was Thomas? There's only one way to know for sure!
Appearances
None! If you’d like to have either of us as a guest on your show, drop us an email at openarguments@gmail.com.
Show Notes & Links
Please do participate in our favorite charity event of the year, Vulgarity for Charity! To participate, just donate $50 or more to Modest Needs, and then send a copy of the receipt to vulgarityforcharity@gmail.com along with your request for a roast. You can even request that Thomas & Andrew roast the victim of your choice.
Dahlia Lithwick wants to know what’s next in the impeachment process, so she asks Professor Michael Gerhardt, an expert on constitutional law and the relationship between congress and the president. Then, former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano takes us through the details of the DACA arguments at the SCOTUS. Napolitano rolled out DACA under President Obama and is now suing the federal government for rescinding it on behalf of thousands of students at the University of California, where she is now president.
Dahlia Lithwick wants to know what’s next in the impeachment process, so she asks Professor Michael Gerhardt, an expert on constitutional law and the relationship between congress and the president. Then, former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano takes us through the details of the DACA arguments at the SCOTUS. Napolitano rolled out DACA under President Obama and is now suing the federal government for rescinding it on behalf of thousands of students at the University of California, where she is now president.
Today's episode breaks down the significance of a packed week in Republican witness testimony before the House Intelligence Committee about the potential impeachment of Donald Trump. We continue to place everything in the context of proving that Donald Trump committed impeachable bribery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2), including evaluating the (increasingly desperate) defenses being raised by House Republicans.
We begin, however, with a slight Andrew Was Wrong and some really interesting listener feedback about the 2019 Ukraine election.
Then, it's time to take a look at the week in impeachment, with a particular focus on Amb. Gordon Sondland, a Trump donor who was hand-picked to help run the "shadow foreign policy" in Ukraine, and exactly why he's such a devastating witness. We also tease apart the legality of the OMB hold and the crafting of the narrative to show the elements of bribery.
Then, it's time for a brief update on the Trump v. Mazars litigation and the significance of the administrative hold put in place by the Supreme Court. Does that mean John Roberts is 100% in the tank for Trump? (No.)
After all that, it's time for a NEW ERA in #T3BE as we move to a new set of questions! This one asks about a potential lawsuit for a guy who falls off his ladder. Did Thomas get it right? Listen and find out -- and play along with us on social media!
Appearances
None! If you’d like to have either of us as a guest on your show, drop us an email at openarguments@gmail.com.
Show Notes & Links
Please do participate in our favorite charity event of the year, Vulgarity for Charity! To participate, just donate $50 or more to Modest Needs, and then send a copy of the receipt to vulgarityforcharity@gmail.com along with your request for a roast. You can even request that Thomas & Andrew roast the victim of your choice.
Remember that this is all about Trump's bribery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2).
On Nov. 5, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court heard argument in Allen v. Cooper, which involves a dispute over the way state sovereign immunity and federal copyright law interact when an author alleges state infringement of that author’s federal copyright. Petitioner Frederick Allen and his company, Nautilus Productions, contend that North Carolina violated their federal copyrights by publishing video and photographic footage that Allen had taken of the pirate Blackbeard’s sunken flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge. Allen also challenges the validity of a recently passed North Carolina statute providing that photographs and video recordings of shipwrecks in the custody of North Carolina are public records. This law, he contends, was enacted in bad faith to undermine his copyright claim. Allen and Nautilus sued North Carolina and various of its officials in federal district court. Although the district court rejected defendants’ invocation of sovereign immunity from suit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed that judgment, concluding that the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act does not validly abrogate Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity, which ultimately shields respondents from all of Allen’s and Nautilus’s claims. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently granted certiorari to consider whether Congress validly abrogated state sovereign immunity via the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act in providing remedies for authors of original expression whose federal copyrights are infringed by states. To discuss the case, in this special panel episode, we have Zvi Rosen, Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington University School of Law, Prof. Josh Blackman, Associate Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston, and our moderator, Kevin R. Amer, Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Copyright Office. As always, the Federalist Society takes no particular legal or public policy positions. All opinions expressed are those of the speakers.
