Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern host the panel that’s guaranteed to help you understand what happened during the Supreme Court’s latest term – examining the major decisions, the emergency docket, and the evolving dynamics on the court. Dahlia and Mark welcome the New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie, civil rights lawyer and 14th Amendment scholar Sherrilyn Ifill of Howard University, and Professor Steve Vladeck of Georgetown Law to Amicus, to discuss the implications of the cases and the controversies of the term that just wrapped. Together, they offer close analysis of the court’s decisions and the various justices’ machinations, while stepping back to set it all in vital historical and political context.
This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)Also! Sign up for Slate’s Legal Brief: the latest coverage of the courts and the law straight to your inbox.
Can we feed the world without destroying it? Zachary and Emma speak with Michael Grunwald, award-winning journalist and author known for his work on the environment and national politics. He is currently a senior writer for Politico Magazine and author of We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate. Michael discusses ways to farm using fewer acres of land, the improvements in plant-based products, and technology innovations including gene-edited crops and lab-grown meat. He points to recent growth in energy with solar panels and electric cars, hoping that farming could have a similar revolution.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
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The Trump administration’s plans to strip funding from PBS and NPR is the latest in a long line of Republican fights against public broadcasting. The House has already voted to take back over a billion dollars it had previously agreed to pay. Will the Senate sign off on it next?
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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
The end of the term arrives, and the Court is busy. We begin our dive into the cases with Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case involving inclusive books in a school, parental guidance of religious education, opt-outs, advance notification, and issues of gender and sexual education. Professor Amar goes beyond the case with an overall theory of religious accommodation; indeed, he goes beyond this into questions of parental rights and how it may interact with first amendment law. We also have some announcements of future events. And as always, CLE credit is available for lawyers and judges from podcast.njsba.com.
We dive into Nucleus Genomics, a startup backed by the Founders Fund, that wants to help you evaluate, rank, and name your embryos in a pre-IVF dashboard designed for “genetic optimization.” We talk about the junk science and wild ideologies that drive these desires to treat your genes and children like assets to be managed – with the ultimate goal of creating and enforcing a society ordered by genetic hierarchies. We then wrap up by tying these biotech visions to their AI counterparts in the “Gentle Singularity.”
••• This 25-Year-Old Biotech Founder Says His Startup Can ‘Optimize’ Embryos for Intelligence https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/kian-sadeghi-says-nucleus-genomics-can-optimize-embryos-for-intelligence/91198815
••• Controversial genetics testing startup Nucleus Genomics raises $14M Series A https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/30/controversial-genetics-testing-startup-nucleus-genomics-raises-14m-series-a/
••• Genetics testing startup Nucleus Genomics criticized for its embryo product: ‘Makes me so nauseous’ https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/06/genetics-testing-startup-nucleus-genomics-criticized-for-its-embryo-product-makes-me-so-nauseous/
••• OpenAI wins $200m contract with US military for ‘warfighting’ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/17/openai-military-contract-warfighting
••• This is the gentle singularity? https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/this-is-the-gentle-singularity
••• China shuts down AI tools during nationwide college exams https://www.theverge.com/news/682737/china-shuts-down-ai-chatbots-exam-season
Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
Robert walks the gang through the Liver King's recent arrest for terroristic threats and his rapid decline towards what will probably be an early grave.
President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is a bad piece of legislation. It includes trillions of dollars in tax cuts that are very much tilted toward the rich, along with savage cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance and green energy.
And on Tuesday, July 1, the Senate passed it in a 51-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance as the tiebreaker.
But bad policy only matters if people know about it, and a lot of people don’t — partly because there are an overwhelming number of provisions, and partly because the Trump administration is already flooding the zone with so many other major policy fights.
So I asked Matt Yglesias, the author of the Slow Boring newsletter, back on the show to go through what is in this bill and why it has been so hard to build momentum for pushback. We spoke on Thursday, June 26.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick and Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Kelsey Kudak. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal, and Kristin Lin. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
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With a shaky truce between Israel and Iran holding, activists say the Iranian government is hunting for people it suspects of collaborating with Israel. Iranian state media reports hundreds have been taken into custody in the last two weeks and some are fleeing into neighboring countries, including Turkey. We hear from some.
And, during the air war with Israel, one young Iranian woman turned to Chat GPT for information and comfort.
