What Happened to You, Todd Blanche?
Opening Arguments
OA1279 - This week on Rapid Response Friday: A federal judge rips up the corrupt “settlement” Trump reached with his own IRS at the unprecedented request of a group of 35 former federal judges just in time time for aspiring Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing, humanizing the latest victims of ICE, and a metafootnote about a DC judge who hates footnotes nearly as much as Matt loves them. The Agenda: Check out the OA for all the places to go and things to do!
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Nancy Mace Thinks Anyone With a Foreign Name Is Disloyal
Opening Arguments
VR38 - This week in Vapid Response Thomas, Lydia, and Matt review some truly awful takes from a MAGA economist on the true cause of low crime rates, Rep. Nancy Mace on her extremely real and not-at-all-racist concerns about the dangers of judges with dual citizenship, and a then-20-year-old Rolling Stone columnist in 1969 on his immediate disdain for what would become one of the greatest rock albums of all time. “,” John R. Lott, Jr, The Federalist (July 9, 2026) FBI’s data “,” Rep. Nancy Mace, Newsweek (July 4, 2026) Judge Sparkle Sooknanan’s preliminary injunction order...
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The MAGA Justices Get Torched by... Amy Coney Barrett?!
Opening Arguments
OA1278 - On its face, the decision in Watson is a pretty narrow ruling. Some states allow ballots postmarked on or before election day, but arriving after election day, to be counted. The court decided they can continue to do so. But at stake was so much more. Bubbling under the surface, election deniers were trying to open a door to far more aggressive limitations on voting rights. With this decision, that door is quite firmly shut… by Barrett? Come hear Jenessa try to survive the cognitive dissonance of finding an ACB opinion extremely well-written, thorough, and appropriately critical of...
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It's Not Just Prairieland and Broadview. More Lives Are Being Ruined by Unjust Prosecutions.
Opening Arguments
OA1277 - We continue our coverage of the Trump administration’s criminalization of dissent with a brief update on the sentencing of the last remaining Prairieland defendant and a closer look at similar federal prosecutions of ICE protesters in Minneapolis, Spokane, and a number of other jurisdictions. Matt then explains how the DOJ just complicated a case against someone alleged to have leaked the second Jack Smith report in the funniest possible way. Finally, in today’s footnote: that one time that Dan Crenshaw and William Shatner tried to make Starfleet happen. “,” The Dallas...
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Ben Shapiro is having AI write his columns, and apparently not even the good models
Opening Arguments
VR37 - Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh both wrote furious, error-riddled columns attacking the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling in Trump v. Barbara. And so Thomas, attorney Matt Cameron, and producer Lydia ran the columns through an AI detector and their BS detectors to see just how fake and how BS they were. Spoiler: it's a lot.
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Trump Is Once Again Trying to Change the Law With Memos
Opening Arguments
OA1276 - Who could have predicted this? Us! The Trump administration has made their complete disdain for people with disabilities clear since day one. We’ve called it out before, and the natural progression of those efforts came to a head mid-June when they announced their intention to turn over governance of special education to RFK Jr in HHS (least trusted man in America when it comes to the needs of your child with a disability), continue dismantling the Department of Education overall, further reduce their investigations of educational discrimination, and, just two days later, their...
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Matt's Complete Supreme Court Term Recap
Opening Arguments
OA1275 - As June ends and another Supreme Court Season wraps, it is time to look back and survey the damage: significant blows to voting and trans rights, harder times for immigrants throughout the system, and a vast expansion of executive powers. But we also go beyond the headlines to see what has been going on with some of the Court’s more routine business. What can we learn from their more mundane 9-0 decisions--and can we actually find some good news here among the wreckage? Matt does his best. Finally, in today’s seasonal footnote: why the world believed for exactly five minutes that...
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The New Cover on Alito's TPS Reports Is for Racism
Opening Arguments
VR36 - In Mullin v Doe, Samuel Alito just proudly stripped Temporary Protected Status from more than one million people who were lawfully living and working in the US as of the time of the decision--and all on the shadow docket, without even waiting for the full merits of the case to be heard. We go deep today on what may go down as his single worst majority opinion to consider Alito’s explanations of how some of the most disgustingly racist things a sitting US president has ever said in public (most of which were in support of his decision to terminate TPS for Haitians) couldn't have...
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Worst Dude Hires Even Worse Lawyer to Legally Harass Woman Who Posted About Him
Opening Arguments
OA1274 - Can you sue if someone posts something nasty about you online? I mean maybe, but not like this. In today’s episode, Lydia introduces us to the wild world of “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” and Jenessa walks us through a lawsuit that trips over its own feet while trying to take them down. It’s a great opportunity to learn about some interesting Illinois laws against doxxing and your right to your likeness, and why the plaintiff failed miserably at mobilizing those laws in his favor. …Also, it wouldn’t be a modern drama-filled lawsuit without attorneys using AI and failing to...
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Prairieland - 30 Years for Moving Magazines. These Are Real Human Lives, Ruined.
Opening Arguments
OA1273 - On June 23, 2026, eight people were sentenced in DOJ’s first so-called “Antifa” terrorism prosecution by federal judge Reed O’Connor in the Northern District of Texas to a combined 450 years in federal prison for their participation in a protest held at the Prarieland ICE detention facility on July 4th, 2025. Six of these defendants were charged with what amounted to being present at (or in the vicinity of) the protest, and one who wasn’t even there received 30 years for moving a box of First Amendment-protected publications. In this continuing coverage of one of the most...
info_outlineOA1247 - Should social media companies be held responsible for the addiction and other harms their features and algorithms have caused to users? A California jury thought so this week, and in this episode recorded within hours of this historic verdict--and the day after another similar win in New Mexico--we examine the legal basis for this suit and what this might mean for thousands of similar legal actions now pending against Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and others around the U.S. Matt also explains why Trump is sending ICE agents to US airports, and how a little-noticed new addition to an existing DHS program has turned some state and local cops into immigrant bounty hunters.
Finally, we go a little deeper than usual in today’s footnote to honor the sacrifice of a federal judge in the Southern District of New York who read more than 6,000 pages of “romantasy” fiction to determine as a matter of law that a book about a part-witch/part-shapeshifter/part-demon who moves from San Diego to Alaska after the death of a parent to meet a hot guy with mysterious powers while discovering her own in urban Anchorage is not “substantially similar to a discerning ordinary reader” to a book about a half-witch/half-gargoyle who moves from San Diego to Alaska after the death of a parent to meet a hot guy with mysterious powers while discovering her own in a remote Gothic castle.
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Complaint in K.G.M. v. Meta, filed April 28, 2025 in LA Superior Court
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Exclusive: ICE’s Bounty Hunters, Ken Klippenstein (March 24, 2026)
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Complaint in Freeman v. Wolff, filed May 23, 2022 in SDNY
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Summary judgment order in Freeman v. Wolff, March 16, 2026 (McMahon, J.)
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