When Alito’s Jurisprudence Is Kavanaughs All the Way Down
Release Date: 05/18/2026
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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.
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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_outline
Why Is Alito Like This? with Peter Canellos
Opening Arguments
OA1272 - We are excited to welcome veteran journalist Peter Canellos to discuss his new book Revenge for the Sixties: Sam Alito and the Triumph of the Conservative Legal Movement. In this first-ever biography of Samuel Alito, Canellos draws from extensive interviews and years of research to provide a complete portrait not only of Alito as a person and a jurist, but of the reactionary conservative legal revolution which helped get him to the Supreme Court. In this conversation we go beyond the basics of the book to discuss (among many other things) who Alito really is, how his early life...
info_outline
OA1262 - How are a car accident in California, a tax fraud case in Nevada, and two bus accidents in New York and Pennsylvania all connected to the Dobbs abortion case? Find out on this week’s accidental too-deep dive into state sovereignty. Jenessa read a bunch of extra cases just to be thorough, and accidentally uncovered Kavanaugh planting the seeds that would grow into the “egregiously wrong” “rule” for ignoring stare decisis. But also mostly we’ll talk about the weird world of state sovereignty, Clarence Thomas being obnoxious and ahistorical while accusing everyone else of being ahistorical, and Sotomayor getting some peace for a change to write a pleasant little 9-0 decision about some non-partisan procedural legal nerdery that benefits injured plaintiffs.
-
Nevada v. Hall, 440 U.S. 410 (1979)
-
Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, 587 U.S. 230 (2019)
-
Listen to oral arguments on Oyez: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/17-1299; Timestamp for Kavanaugh dropping the “egregiously wrong” bomb: 50:47
-
-
Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83 (2020), Kavanaugh concurrence
-
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022)
-
Galette v. New Jersey Transit Corp., 607 U.S. ___ (2026)
-
The “major questions doctrine” Kavanaugh inception timeline:
-
U.S. Telecom Association v. F.C.C., 855 F.3d 381, 422-423 (D.C. Cir 2017), Kavanaugh dissent
-
Repeal of the Clean Power Plan, 84 Fed. Reg. 32520, 32529 (proposed Jul. 8, 2019) (to be codified at 40 C.F.R. pt. 60).
-
West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, 597 U.S. 697 (2022)
-
Additional sources:
-
Episodes 1229 & 1230 for an in-depth explanation of immunities, including state and federal sovereign immunity: “The complicated web of immunities that makes accountability so difficult”
-
Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793)
-
Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1 (1890)
-
Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908)
Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!