Opening Arguments

VR3 - It ’s Thomas, Lydia, and Matt versus the entire National Review editorial board! Join us as we take on the conservative magazine’s recent op-ed on why it is extremely rude to compare masked American federal agents of today who refuse to identify themselves as they grab innocent families off of the street and shove them into unmarked vans bound for concentration camps to masked Nazi German agents of 1933-1945 who refused to identify themselves as they grabbed innocent families off the street and shoved them into vans bound for concentration camps. Matt explains with historical examples why ICE is not NOT the Gestapo as we consider what we can learn from Nazi history. We celebrate the recent return of Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US after his illegal deportation to El Salvador with a take so bad that it is hard to believe that the whole thing wasn’t actually published in The Onion. What was the audience for this willfully obtuse Newsweek op-ed praising the DOJ for finding a way to bring Abrego Garcia back other than the fact that the Supreme Court told them to, and what is this trying to say to them? Has this thing already aged worse than Stephen Miller? Finally: updates from Martha’s Vineyard (last week’s patron-only story) as Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz and his crusade to bring down the considerable weight of the law against people who refuse to serve him tasty Polish food. WATCH US ON YOUTUBE! [https://youtu.be/hiwC6szbOWM] * ”ICE is No Gestapo,” The Editors, National Review [https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/08/ice-is-no-gestapo/] (8/6/25) * "Why Was Kilmar Abrego Garcia Returned to the US?", Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek [https://www.newsweek.com/why-was-kilmar-abrego-garcia-returned-us-opinion-2083606] (6/11/25)  * “Alan Dershowitz once again denied pierogi as Martha’s Vineyard residents chant ‘time to go,’” [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/alan-dershowitz-marthas-vineyard-pierogi-b2803763.html] Justin Baragona, The Independent (8/7/25) Check out the OA Linktree [https://linktr.ee/openingarguments] for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1181 - In this episode recorded almost exactly six months into the Trump administration, we check in on the progress of the Heritage Foundation’s infamous playbook to remake every part of the federal government in the second Trump administration. What is Project 2025, and who was behind it? How many of its goals have already been accomplished, how many are in progress, and what’s left?   * Mandate For Leadership: The Conservative Promise [https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf], The Heritage Foundation (2023)  * Project 2025 Tracker [http://project2025.observer] Check out the OA Linktree [https://linktr.ee/openingarguments] for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1180 - We begin with some much-needed reminders that good things are still happening and the rule of law is still (mostly) holding on before turning to a recent Trump executive order on homelessness which reads like something out of a (not very good) Batman movie. Jenessa explains how this development fits into the history of long-term institutionalization of vulnerable and unhoused people in the US as we work through what this thing is actually trying to do. In an unfortunately not-at-all-unrelated story, Matt then breaks down the situation with Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” (aka “Gator Gitmo”), the pending challenges to this completely new (and totally illegal) approach to state-based immigration detention, and where this is all going. Finally, in today’s footnote: has ChatGPT finally made its first hallucinatory appearance in a judicial opinion? We investigate not just one but two recent instances of federal judges who have now joined the many lawyers caught using AI to do their homework. * “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ending-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets/] The White House (7/25/25) * Complaint in Friends of the Everglades v. Noem [https://www.everglades.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/FOE_Alligator-Alcatraz-complaint.pdf], filed 6/27/25 * Complaint in C-M. v Noem [https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2025/07/C.M.-v.-Noem-Complaint.pdf], filed 7/16/25 * Defendants’ Unopposed Motion to Clarify in Mississippi Association of Educators et al v. Board of Trustees [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26031179-motion-to-clarify/] (7/22/25) * Judge Henry Wingate’s order in Mississippi Association of Educators v. Board of Trustees [https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mssd.129475/gov.uscourts.mssd.129475.65.0.pdf] declining to clarify decision of July 20, 2025 (8/1/25) * Defendant’s letter to Judge Julien Neals in In re CorMedix Securities Litigation [https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.njd.477937/gov.uscourts.njd.477937.123.0.pdf] (7/22/25) Check out the OA Linktree [https://linktr.ee/openingarguments] for all the places to go and things to do!

VR2 - Vapid Response Wednesday returns live on video for another round of bad-faith legal takes from the American right’s leading--well, let’s just go with “minds.” We begin with a quick check-in on the divided state of the U.S. “sovereign citizen” movement via a short explainer video in which one of its leading grifters denounces a whole new set of grifters who are promoting the concept of an “American State National.” We then plumb new depths of dumbassery from Harvard Law school professor/crypto-theocrat Adrian Vermeule. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Vermeule has called out the true villains of the American judiciary: lower court judges who aren’t doing exactly what Adrian Vermeule imagines the Supreme Court has told them to do. Matt breaks down why this column doesn’t provide a single example of the trend it purports to be exposing, and Lydia has the details on one of MAGA’s favorite legal scholars. Who is Adrian Vermeule, what is “Catholic integralism,” and why is a man who has previously gone to so much effort to hide his true beliefs behind “common-good Constitutionalism” showing his entire ass in the pages of the NYT? Then, we preview a *patron-only* bonus where we go into overtime to witness the spectacle of Alan Dershowitz’s lengthy but extremely unconvincing arguments as to why everyone should be required to sell him pierogi under force of law. If you want to be sure to not miss that, you'll have to go to patreon.com/law! * Watch this episode on YouTube! https://youtu.be/-GyGbd-GUbs [https://youtu.be/-GyGbd-GUbs] * "What is the difference between American National and American State National [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiuCf6bM36Y&t=88s]?" Kelby Smith (Youtube link) * “Someone is Defying the Supreme Court, But It’s Not Trump,” [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/opinion/supreme-court-trump-judges-defiance.html] The New York Times, Adrian Vermeule (7/25/25) * SCOTUS shadow docket order in Trump v. Wilcox (05/22/2025) [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a966_1b8e.pdf] * SCOTUS shadow docket order in Noem v. Doe (05/30/2025) [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1079_p86b.pdf] * SCOTUS shadow docket order in DHS v. D.V.D. (06/23/2025) [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1153_l5gm.pdf] * SCOTUS shadow docket order in DHS v. D. V. D. (07/03/2025) [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1153_2co3.pdf] * Harvard Students' Letter to Administration re: Vermeule [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cUndEtTmFYVdRZ-tC56Iz4C_2AV7ITOMF54BPocgGL8/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.fqinh6jk2df5] (11/09/2020) * Vermeule Responds to Harvard Law Faculty's Letter [https://thenewdigest.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-my-students] to Students re: The Rule of Law under the Trump Administration (03/30/2025) Check out the OA Linktree [https://linktr.ee/openingarguments] for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law [http://patreon.com/law]!

OA1179 - Dr. Timothy Leary is best remembered today as the Harvard psychologist who told America to “turn on, tune in, and drop out” with psychedelics in the 1960s. But did you know that “the High Priest of LSD” was also one of the most famous people ever to bring a criminal case to the U.S.. Supreme Court?  Jenessa shares her scientific perspective on Leary’s “research,”  and Matt explains how a minor California marijuana possession charge led to Leary’s unbelievable life on the run as an international fugitive across four continents and his eventual association with not just one but three of the era’s most notorious radical groups. We then review Dr. Leary’s conviction under the Marihuana [sic] Tax Act of 1937 and how Leary v. U.S. changed everything about drug enforcement. (Also discussed: the unexpected origin of the Beatles song “Come Together,” the benefits of podcasting on acid, and what psychedelic research and regulation might have looked like in an alternate Leary-free timeline.) * Leary v. US [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/6/], 395 U.S. 6 (1969) * Letter from the American Medical Association [https://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/t8.htm] opposing passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 (7/10/1937) * The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD, Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis (2018) [https://www.amazon.com/Most-Dangerous-Man-America-Fugitive/dp/1455563587] Check out the OA Linktree [https://linktr.ee/openingarguments] for all the places to go and things to do!