Opening Arguments

Kat Abughazaleh spent years reporting on right-wing media and movements, and she is now running to represent Illinois's 9th District in Congress on an explicitly anti-authoritarian platform. Kat joins to talk about her uniquely candid platform and community-based campaign, the state of the Democratic Party, how ICE is terrorizing Chicago during the most intensive urban immigration enforcement oper...

In our continuing Still Good Law series, Jenessa explains how a dispute arising from a parking garage in Wilmington, Delaware became the foundation for one of the most important concepts in civil rights: determining that a private or quasi-public individual or entity is operating “under color of law.” How does this concept help to hold law enforcement and other governmental agencies accountable, a...

OA1205 - It’s another good news Friday! Voting rights expert Jenessa runs down some of the highlights of the off-year blue sweep in this week’s elections, as well as some recent unsung national victories for voting and disability rights. Matt then checks in on the Supreme Court’s oral arguments from the challenge to Trump’s unprecedented tariffs and why it is looking like he might actually lose hi...

VR12 - Yes, we absolutely thought this was coming out pre-Halloween. Halloween may be over, but NEVERTHELESS THE SPOOKTACULAR PERSISTED! In this Vapid Response double feature, Thomas, Matt, and Lydia are haunted by two ghoulish takes from the past:  FEATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON: Politico’ s insanely longform access journalism piece from August 2024 on how Project 2025 was so totally over, just ne...

OA1204 - As House Speaker Mike Johnson continues to pretend that he doesn’t have to seat Democrat Adelita Grijalva well over a month after she was elected to represent Arizona’s 7th Congressional district, we take a closer look at the last time that Congress refused to swear someone in and what the Warren Court had to say about it. Who was Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, why was the House...

OA1203 - Happy Halloween! We take shelter from a year of ghoulish legal news in the COURTHOUSE OF HORROR, a cabinet of macabre legal curiosities including: “SO I TRADEMARKED AN AXE MURDERER”: The historic Lizzie Borden House takes a whack at a nearby coffee shop “THE BONE DETECTOR”: Recent patent bar survivor Jenessa Seymour brings us the unbelievable story of the spookiest--and silliest!--lie det...

OA1202 - We are pleased to welcome American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick for this unique conversation between a practitioner and a policy expert. The AIC is one of the country's leading sources of information and advocacy on US immigration matters, and Aaron watches and comments on these issues like no one else out there right now. Topics include, among many other thing...

OA1201 - This Rapid Response Friday, Matt and Jenessa play a few rounds of “Can They REALLY Do That?”, with topics including: The legal mechanism and filings behind Trump’s $230 million demand for DOJ having the audacity for investigating him for crimes that he did Arizona’s lawsuit against House Speaker Mike Johnson asking a DC federal court to require him to seat incoming Congresswoman Adelita G...

VR11 - Today on Vapid Response Wednesday: Thomas, Lydia, and Matt review some of the worst takes to last weekend’s 2700+ “No Kings” events around the U.S. But first, we savor an instant classic of an amuse douche : a recent video of a real-life encounter between a drunk-driving ICE officer and actual law enforcement. We then learn why the National Review is definitely not mad about the No Kings ev...

OA1200 - We've got another great law and science episode for ya! Are polygraphs admissible? Do they work? Matt and Jenessa talk about the history, law, and science of polygraphs, and how criminal courts treat scientific testimony in general. Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1199 - Voting rights expert Jenessa Seymour takes us through this week’s oral arguments in one of the most important cases before the Supreme Court this term: Louisiana v. Callais , which has the potential to end some of the most important protections in the Voting Rights Act and allow states to openly racially gerrymander their electoral districts. Also discussed: a related New York state case...

It’s Vapid Response Wednesday, and Thomas, Lydia, and Matt are back to take apart more bad-faith nonsense from some of the worst people in public life. First up: The Atlantic 's Caitlyn Flanagan on why it is totally fine that her good friend Bari Weiss is taking over one of the most prestigious news organizations in the United States after running a glorified blog which has been liberated from any...

OA1198 - In this very special episode, Matt catches up with his Constitutional law professor for the first time in 23 years!  We follow up with our closer look at the science behind Brown v Board (OA1186) with University of Michigan Law professor Michelle Adams, who takes us through the fascinating and ultimately tragic story of how the promise of Brown ended twenty years later in the struggle to...

OA1197 - The National Guard is being federalized and sent into cities that the President doesn’t like against the explicit will of state governors and local populations. Matt covers as much as we know from the legal developments around this ongoing national emergency, and Jenessa shares some good news which is already coming out of NY’s recent recently-enhanced equal protection amendment. Finally,...

We welcome CNN anchor Jake Tapper to discuss his latest book Race Against Terror , a nonfiction legal thriller set in the long-ago world of 2011 in which the U.S. Department of Justice is dedicated to vigorously defending national security through strict adherence to due process and the rule of law. Also discussed: the current state of the media, why the world needed a book about Joe Biden’s menta...

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 publicl...

OA1195 - How much of the federal government has actually shut down, and why? We explore the truth behind the spin, and Matt breaks the exclusive story of how at least one part of the executive branch appears to be illegally operating at full capacity. We then then connect some of the most fast-moving stories of the past few weeks to bring out the terrifying relationship between the obvious legal i...

OA1194 - NY defense attorney Liz Skeen joins to talk about the evolution (or devolution?) or our Miranda rights in the past several decades. How does an actual criminal defense attorney who deals with these issues every day think about them?

OA1193 - Could Tylenol sue RFK Jr. for libel? Does the pressure the FCC put on Disney/ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel constitute a First Amendment violation? Is the Trump administration really going to charge rural hospitals $100,000 for the privilege of being able to hire foreign doctors? In today’s Rapid Response Friday we answer all of these recent patron questions and more, and Jenessa shares a perso...

We watched the newly-released final episode of HBO’s The Case Against Adnan Syed , and we have questions.  Are the producers really trying to pin the murder of Hae Min Lee on a Black man with obvious mental health issues who was already cleared as a suspect--and did they really need to show the world a fully-nude photo of him to make that case? What is the story that they are trying to tell here,...

OA1192 - This week in Still Good Law: Katz v. U.S. , the 1967 Warren Court case which on its face decided that the Fourth Amendment may apply to a public phone booth. But that’s hardly all: the federal prosecution of nationally-famous bookie Charles Katz also completely changed the entire framework for how U.S. courts understand and interpret the law of searches and seizures and completely upended...

OA1191 - In today’s Rapid Response Friday, we examine some of the legal questions raised as the Trump administration throws as much political capital as possible behind the recent assassination of Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk and their implications for the future of the First Amendment rights they claim to revere Kirk for championing. Is there any legal basis for Trump to designate a “dom...

VR 7 - Part 1 of 2. Vapid Response Wednesday has been blessed with a surplus of truly awful takes in the days following the murder of MAGA luminary Charlie Kirk. After a brief reminder of who this man actually was in his own words, we go on to see who has achieved honors in categories ranging from Worst Obituary to Most Pretentious Response and beyond. (Next up: more of the worst, but also some of...

OA1190 - “You have the right to remain silent.” Anyone who grew up on American crime dramas can recite the rest of these famous warnings from memory, but do you know the whole story of Miranda v. Arizona (1966)? In today’s entry in our “Still Good Law” series Matt and Jenessa voluntarily waive their rights, cautiously accept a cigarette and a Styrofoam cup of bad coffee from an alcoholic cop with...

OA1189 - The Supreme Court’s next term may not start until October, but their infamous shadow--sorry, “interim”--docket is in rare form as they issue snap decisions on everything from exactly where one 14-year-old boy can pee to just how openly racist ICE gets to be. Matt and Jenessa review which major precedents the conservative majority is ignoring to enable Trump’s worst policies this week befo...