OA1196 - This week in our continuing Still Good Law series, Matt and Jenessa take on the 1963 Supreme Court case which is still believed to hold the record for angering the most Americans at the same time: 1963’s Engel v. Vitale. Find out why a decision which even the Warren Court’s conservative justices did not see as particularly controversial to keep New York school administrators from publicly making one 22-word statement to students every morning kicked off a firestorm which is still at the heart of the American culture wars.
During the continuing government shutdown, President Trump has posted memes depicting Russel T. Vought, the White House budget director, as the grim reaper.
Coral Davenport, a Washington correspondent for The Times, explains how Mr. Vought, a once obscure official, has become one of the most influential figures in Washington.
Guest: Coral Davenport, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, focusing on the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal rules.
Background reading:
Mr. Vought has exerted his influence over nearly every corner of President Trump’s Washington with his command of the levers of the federal budget.
A judge issues a restraining order, telling the White House it cannot send any National Guard troops, from any state, to Portland, Oregon. Israel and Hamas spark hope in Gaza by moving forward with a potential peace plan. And the Supreme Court begins its new term today, with questions about executive power looming large.
The economist Yanis Varoufakis found himself in the eye of the storm as Greece’s Minister of Finance in 2015, at the height of the country’s debt crisis. Now he reflects on his political awakenings and the women who influenced him in Raise Your Soul. It’s a family story that starts in Egypt in the 1920s and traces Greece’s tumultuous century through Nazi occupation, civil war, dictatorship, socialism and economic crisis.
The historian Professor Mary Vincent focuses on the Spanish Civil War and has written about fascism, political violence and its impact on the people. She sees both similarities and stark differences between the Greek and Spanish Civil Wars and ponders the question of how global politics influence what happens in nation states.
As a new translation of Thucydides’s The History of the Peloponnesian War (by Robin Waterfield) is published, the classicist Professor Paul Cartledge explains why this ancient text has remained essential reading for military leaders and politicians for centuries. Thucydides’s account of the war between Athens and Sparta that began in 431 BCE depicts the devastation of civil war and reflects on the nature of political power.
After one federal judge blocks President Trump from sending the Oregon National Guard to Portland, Trump instead sends the California National Guard.
The Sunday shows drudge up retired generals to complain about the Secretary of War’s higher standards in the military.
Text messages from a Democrat candidate for Attorney General calling for the murder of a Virginia politician and his wife and family may drag down the Virginia Democrat ticket.
Today we’re turning tiny tips into big wins. Khuyen Tran, creator of CodeCut.ai, has shipped hundreds of bite-size Python and data science snippets across four years. We dig into open-source tools you can use right now, cleaner workflows, and why notebooks and scripts don’t have to be enemies. If you want faster insights with fewer yak-shaves, this one’s packed with takeaways you can apply before lunch. Let’s get into it.
CodeCut: codecut.ai Production-ready Data Science Book (discount code TalkPython): codecut.ai
Why UV Might Be All You Need: codecut.ai How to Structure a Data Science Project for Readability and Transparency: codecut.ai Stop Hard-coding: Use Configuration Files Instead: codecut.ai Simplify Your Python Logging with Loguru: codecut.ai Git for Data Scientists: Learn Git Through Practical Examples: codecut.ai Marimo (A Modern Notebook for Reproducible Data Science): codecut.ai Text Similarity & Fuzzy Matching Guide: codecut.ai Loguru (Python logging made simple): github.com Hydra: hydra.cc Marimo: marimo.io Quarto: quarto.org Show Your Work! Book: austinkleon.com
Using artworks by Berthe Morisot, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others, The Art of Parisian Chic: Modern Women and Modern Artists in Impressionist Paris (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Justine De Young explores how women and artists in Impressionist Paris (1855-1885) crafted their public images to exploit and resist stereotypes. French societal expectations and beauty ideals shaped how women were seen and how they chose to present themselves in public – whether on the street, in a photograph, or in a portrait on the walls of the annual Paris Salon. On Paris's broad new boulevards and in its public parks and theaters, women dressed to impress anonymous strangers as well as their friends. They even circulated aspirational photographs of themselves. Looking at a rich array of visual sources – from portraits to modern-life paintings, and from photographs to fashion plates – Dr. De Young reveals how women were seen, how they aspired to be seen, and how they navigated public life in Second Empire and Belle Époque Paris. This book considers how fashionable feminine “types” made famous in books, caricatures, and paintings created a visual lexicon and stylistic guide for women. Men and women alike relied on these types – cocotte (mistress), jeune veuve (young widow), amazone (independent equestrienne), demoiselle de magasin (shopgirl), and Parisienne (chic Parisian woman) – to judge the class, character, morality, and worth of strangers. With a rich set of illustrations from the Impressionist canon and beyond, The Art of Parisian Chic shows how modern women used fashion and these stereotypes to construct and reinvent their identities.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Kate, Leah, and Melissa preview what fresh hell SCOTUS has in store for us this term, including challenges to the Fourteenth Amendment and the Court’s continued obsession with fighting the culture wars. Then, after breaking down the latest legal news, the hosts welcome Lieutenant Governor of Illinois–and Senate candidate–Juliana Stratton to discuss Trump’s plan to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, how state and local governments can push back against this administration, and what gives her hope in this fight. Finally, a game to commemorate Chief Justice Roberts’ 20 long years on the Court. This episode was recorded live at the Athenaeum Center in Chicago.
