The HHS Massacre
Opening Arguments
Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code OPENING at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: OA1145 and T3BE65 - Lydia joins this Wild Card Wednesday to discuss the awful, inhumane HHS layoffs. Workers were lined up around the block to wait hours to find out if they were fired or not. These are human beings. The people responsible for this should be imprisoned. (awkward transition) and then it's time for a bar exam question! If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, , find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your...
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Rap on Trial - Young Thug Was Not the First and Won’t Be the Last
Opening Arguments
*** Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code OPENING at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: *** OA1144 - Professor Jack Lerner joins us for a follow up to OA1055 as we dive deeper into case law surrounding the usage of rap music in litigation, including discussion of the fight for lyrics to be admitted as evidence in the Young Thug trial in Fulton County, Georgia, and what mechanisms are being explored to address this at the state level in places like New York. Check out the OA for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show...
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Big Law Firm Paul Weiss Caved to Trump's Bogus Order in 4 Days. It Was Cowardly and Inexcusable.
Opening Arguments
*** Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code OPENING at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: *** OA1143 - In the past month, Donald Trump has issued a series of truly fascist orders targeting some of the country’s best-known law firms for crimes ranging from hiring people Trump doesn’t like personally to doing some favors for special counsel Jack Smith to flagrantly hiring non-white non-men. What is actually in these orders, and how bad is it that one of leading litigation firms in the country gave in to Trump’s demands without a fight? And what will...
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State Bar of California Fails the Bar Exam
Opening Arguments
Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code OPENING at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: OA1142 and T3BE64 - The State Bar of California wanted to save a buck or two, so they switched from paying a company to administer a real bar exam to a company that... didn't do that. It's an absolute fiasco. Heather is pulling double duty today on Wildcard Wednesday (tm) as she is our expert on this nonsense, in addition to giving us the usual Thomas Takes the Bar Exam treatment! If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, , find the post that has...
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How One Lawsuit Targeting Trans Rights Could Undermine Disability Protections for Everyone
Opening Arguments
OA1141 - Are Republican AGs really trying to have some of the most important federal protections for disability rights declared unconstitutional? Attorney Jenessa Seymour joins to explain the history and purpose of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the pending challenge to a Biden-era regulatory update intended to protect trans health care rights. Check out the OA for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at !
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Not in a Gang? That’s Actually a Common Indicator of Gang Membership
Opening Arguments
OA1140 - The Trump administration has openly defied a court order--and that’s only the third worst thing about today’s main story. Also: what exactly does it mean to “sign” something into law? What is actually in all of these articles of impeachment which Republicans keep filing against federal judges who have defied Trump? And is there a First Amendment right to communicate with monkeys? , March 15, 2025 (3:53 PM) (filed 3/15/25) by Rep. Brandon Gill (3/18/25) Check out the OA for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!),...
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Magical Mister Trumpstoffelees
Opening Arguments
OA1139 and T3BE63 - Lydia's back this week to walk us through Trump's very fashy takeover of The Kennedy Center. She watched it unfold in real-time and while it is obviously disturbing, listening to some leaked audio from the first board meeting provides a lot of laughs. It's somehow real, folks. And we've got Professor Heather Varanini as always to walk us through the answer to T3BE62, and to set up the question for T3BE63! If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, , find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, and look for the...
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It Sure Looks Like Mayor of Istanbul Eric Adams Is Going to Get Away With It
Opening Arguments
OA1138 - Is a federal judge really about to sign off on dismissing the federal corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams even in the face of everything that we now know about the corrupt deal which led to DOJ’s request? Why did appointed attorney Paul Clement recommend dismissing the case with prejudice, and what might it mean for future prosecutions by Trump’s DOJ if Judge Ho agrees? Superstar NYC public defender Liz Skeen returns to go beyond the headlines with some local perspective on the current state of one of the most important federal criminal cases in our...
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FREE MAHMOUD KHALIL
Opening Arguments
Brought to you by Trade Coffee! Get 40% off your first order with Trade at OA1137 - The arrest and detention of U.S. lawful permanent resident Mahmoud Kahlil in direct retaliation for his Constitutionally-protected speech and association as a campus organizer at Columbia University is the single greatest violation of any one individual’s right committed by the second Trump administration to date. Matt explains how an obscure Cold War-era provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act is being used for in one of the only times in modern history to justify the Trump administration’s...
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The SAVE Act Could Disenfranchise Millions of Voters. Democrats Must Stop It.
Opening Arguments
Brought to you by Trade Coffee! Get 40% off your first order with Trade at OA1136 and T3BE62- Matt swings by a Wednesday episode, and we welcome Dr. Jenessa Seymour as well! Jenessa is a disability voting access advocate and New York attorney, and she's here to break down the What exactly is it supposed to be "saving" for voting rights, who is going to be most impacted by its provisions, and do we have any chance in stopping this thing? Professor Heather Varanini joins after, of course, to share the answer to T3BE61 and present the next question in the Bar Exam! If you'd like to...
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OA 1128 - First: an urgent question from a patron on Trump’s latest executive power grab. Matt explains the history of the “unitary executive theory” and the Federalist Society-backed movement to give the President more power than an actual king.
Then: Rutgers Law professor Katie Eyer studies, teaches, and litigates the law of anti-discrimination with a specialty in LGBTQ rights. She joins to discuss the current state of the law in the shadow of the Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti and the wake of Donald Trump’s recent anti-trans executive orders. Which, if any, of these orders should we actually be concerned about? What does it mean that the fight for trans lives is now becoming a federal issue? Can Trump really just instruct the federal government to ignore the Supreme Court’s extension of employment protections to LGBTQ employees in Bostock v. Clayton County? Professor Eyer takes up these questions and many more as we find reasons both for concern and for hope.
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“Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies,” (2/18/25)
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Professor Katie Eyer (Rutgers Law bio)
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Anti-Transgender Constitutional Law, 77 Vanderbilt L. Rev. __ (2024) (forthcoming)
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Transgender Constitutional Law, 171 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1405 (2023)
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Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 US ___ (2020)
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