Advisory Opinions - Welcome to the Goat Rodeo

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

David and Sarah talk about everything from COVID, to goat rescues, to the Supreme Court, to TikTok in this wide-ranging first pod of 2022. Do you wonder how you rescue a goat? Why is John Roberts the most popular federal official in the land? Is it lawful to discriminate on the basis of race in medical treatment? What's it like to live with a person who's set to argue the biggest SCOTUS case of the new year? Are kids on TikTok fair game for the media? If these are your questions, this podcast has the answers.   Show Notes: -NY State Department of Health eligibility for Paxlovid or Monoclonal Antibody Treatment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That's the sound of unaged whiskey transforming into Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. This ad for Fizz is only 25 seconds long, but we had to pay for 30. Those leftover five seconds shouldn't just disappear, right? It's kind of like what happens to your unused mobile data at the end of each month, except at Fizz, your unused data from the end of the month rolls over, so you can use it the next month.

Hey, you paid for it, so keep it. Try the other side. Get started at Fizz.ca. If you need some time to think it over, here's five seconds. Certain conditions apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Ready? I was born ready. Welcome to the Advisory Opinions Podcast. I'm David French with Sarah Isker. And Sarah, I have a feeling that there was just much rejoicing in advisory opinions land over the music that our listeners just heard. If you're a new listener, you may be confused about the music change, but a year ago, legendary producer Caleb made the fateful decision

to, when our license expired on that music, to get new music. And there was a revolt. That revolt really lasted throughout the year. And we heard you. Legendary producer Caleb heard you. And he went back and got the old music. So congrats to all of us. Happy 2022. We hope this starts us off on the right foot. I think it did. I think it did. And it was, you know, the word revolt almost undersells it. I think it was an insurgency, um, a guerrilla war in the comments that was waged day after day, week after week, relentlessly against poor Caleb. Um, and you know, uh, like an occupying army dealing with a restive population, he just had to kind of give up and leave. Also, can I give another note to our new listeners? Maybe it's 2022 and you decided to

have a New Year's resolution to listen to an awesome legal podcast. And so here you are for the first time. This episode, today's episode is not going to be that usual of an episode i just want to warn you so like if you're listening for the first time this is more this is more year in review than it otherwise would be so when they listen to it and they and they hear a good podcast which they will what you're actually saying is it's even better than this normally? That's right. Well, and look, there's some highlights in this. We have behind-the-scenes SCOTUS argument prep going on in this house.

Yes, yes. So let's just run through the show notes here, the lineup. We're going to have a brief holiday update, which is going to feature a literal goat rodeo. Sarah is going to tell us why Justice Roberts is the most popular federal official in the whole nation. We're going to talk about some really blatant racial discrimination. Sarah is going to take us inside prep for the most important oral argument of the new year. And we're going to talk a little bit about TikTok and Ted Cruz's daughter. But we're not going to do it the way the Dallas Morning News did it. We're actually going to talk more about the Dallas Morning News

than Ted Cruz's daughter. But let's start with a little holiday update. Sarah, at my family, we usually end our days, we have dinner together, and we go through our high lows. What was the high and what was the low of your day? So let's do that. What was your high lows for this holiday advisory opinions break that we took. Well, I don't want to give away anything on the behind the scenes prep for SCOTUS. So I'm going to set that aside. The high was definitely, you know, Nate got one Christmas present this year and it was a steering wheel and just, I mean, so much joy. So much Christmas joy.

He got a steering wheel. It's mounted on like a piece of wood. Yeah. I mean, so much joy. So much Christmas joy. He got a steering wheel. It's mounted on like a piece of wood. Yeah. That is amazing. I love it. I love it. Well, I can sum up my highs and lows in one sentence. The high was saving a goat's life.

The low was COVID. Yeah. So it was an interesting holiday season. But I'll start with COVID. I'm fine now. I'm at about 90%. After rigorous contact tracing and a Google degree in epidemiology,

I have discovered something about transmission of this new highly contagious variant of COVID, Sarah. If you ride in a car for an hour with somebody with COVID, you're probably getting COVID. Are you it, though? Because your whole family got it. Who's patient zero? The question is, there is some dispute as to who is patient zero. Is it my son or is it my son's friend? But either way. Either way, we were in the car together for an hour and no masks. And every single person who was in the car got COVID.

Every single person in the family who was not in the car did not get COVID. So there's my amateur epidemiology. But that car ride was notable, Sarah, because we're driving through downtown Columbia, Tennessee on Christmas Eve morning. It's very busy. The traffic is very, very busy. And we see a guy running after what looks like to be a big dog that got off its leash. And it's one of those things where you're kind of gasping for a minute because this is a big dog running towards four lanes of traffic. Right.

And so we look and we're like, is he going to catch the dog? And then he just stops running after it. Like he just stops. And we're thinking the guy's not running after his dog, and the dog is about to hit traffic. And then we look closer, and I'm thinking, that's the funkiest looking dog I've ever seen. And then, nope, nope, that's not a dog. That's a goat running around with a leash off the leash, a goat off the leash running around through

downtown Columbia. Now, this is four lanes of traffic in either way coming in together. So we, the French's, decide immediately we're saving the goat. Nobody's moving. This goat's now dodging through the traffic. And so everyone, Nancy, Austin, Naomi, boom, they pop out of the car and start running after the goat through the traffic because we don't want the goat to die screaming in front of us on Christmas Eve. That's a terrible thing. So then they start chasing the goat. This goat, Sarah, I don't know the last time you tried

to chase a goat and I'm sure you have. I'm sure you have. But you may not remember how fast those things are. They're very fast. I have questions of why this one's wearing a leash. Maybe we can circle back to that. There is actually a picture of me. I'm probably two. And my mother took me to a petting zoo. And she couldn't find me for some amount of time.

And then she found me. And I was sandwiched at the trough, at the water trough, in between all the goats. It was just like goat, goat, knee, goat, goat, goat. And we were all just drinking from the trough. Is that right? There's a picture of this, yeah. That is fantastic.

So I am one of the goats, yeah. That's fantastic. Well, we really needed you because I haven't tried to catch a goat in a long, long time. So they're running on foot, which the goat's a lot faster than them. So I take off. I see the goat heading through some parking lots. And so I take off and I try to get in front of the goat and to block the goat in so that

we can then easily catch it. Well, all of a sudden, here we are heroically so far the only people trying to block the goat in so that we can then easily catch it. Well, all of a sudden, here we are heroically so far the only people trying to catch the goat. And the goat, as I'm pulling in, and I have to go into this parking lot, otherwise the cars heading towards me are going to collide with me. So I have to get in the parking lot. Well, the goat decides to run straight towards my moving car. And I'm thinking for about one full second, I'm killing the goat we're trying to save. The goat fortunately stops and I stop about six inches from each other. And then at that point, it's like half the pickup trucks in Columbia, Tennessee pulled off,

pulled over. And it took, and then, yeah, exactly. So it was three of us. Then it became four of us. And then it became about 15 of us. Wow. And the entire town of Columbia turned out and circled the goat. And I kind of got behind some people. I couldn't see the exact moment when the goat was captured, but I could hear the moment. Because as clear as day, you heard, ah.

And then the goat was seized. I i just want to the goat is wearing a leash so at any point you could have gotten within a foot of the goat you could have stepped on the leash yeah that which tells you how far you ever got from the goat yes see that's the thing if if i could have gotten within a foot of the goat or if any of us could have gotten within a foot of the goat so the funny of us could have gotten within a foot of the goat. So the funny thing was, as soon as the goat was seized, about half the people who are surrounding the goat knew exactly who that was, who the goat was. Because apparently for three days, the goat's owner had been saying, where's my goat? I lost my goat. And they were saying she lost her goat at TSC. and they were saying she lost her goat at TSC.

Well, TSC is Tractor Supply Company. So she lost her goat at Tractor Supply and she'd been asking for people to find it. And so apparently people have been sporadically chasing goaty jinx. That's the goat's name, goaty jinx. Have been sporadically chasing goaty jinx around town for three days. But it took Team French to initiate the final, the final capture. So that was my high. Did, uh, did you get to like pet Goatee Jinks? Um, very little contact with Goatee Jinks. Goatee Jinks was immediately hustled off into a truck and somebody.

And then about 45 minutes later on Facebook, there was the owner holding Goaty Jinks, public reunification of owner and Goaty Jinks. And we all felt great about it until the next morning when we woke up with COVID. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And new listeners were typically light on goat anecdotes. So Arlo, somewhat similar, kind of.

I think I mentioned on this podcast, actually, back right after Thanksgiving, we got stomach flu, norovirus in this house. And I cleaned the house and it didn't matter. And so then I started doing research. Scott's best friend came over for a slumber party, got it. I did research. It turns out nothing kills norovirus, not Lysol, not hand wipes, all of that. It can live on surfaces for up to 45 days. And so, David, I hired professionals. I bought about $100 worth of cleaning supplies, bleach and hydrogen peroxide. I bleached every fork, every plate, every surface was gone over three times. Bleach.

And it has to sit. Just wiping it doesn't work. It has to be liquid, wet on the surface for five minutes to kill the virus. Every sheet was put into quarantine. All of Nate's toys, quarantine. Anything that could not take a bleach bath, out. Christmas decorations, out. Any Christmas presents that had been put into stockings before times,

still there, not touched. And my parents arrived and got norovirus. Oh my goodness. I don't understand. So that has been our low light and now our house is in quarantine for 45 days starting today nobody can come to our house

who has not already had norovirus from us which actually the list is not that short that's so hidden within the Omicron outbreak in DC is an isger focused neurovirus that's right oh and i i mean lots of people have gotten this from us and we're very sorry um and i really i've tried so

hard i actually my lips got a very specific type of chemical chap from 48 hours in such close contact with that much bleach. Goodness gracious. Now, what is norovirus? This is the most viral and goat-focused legal podcast in history, but what is exactly norovirus? Norovirus is a type of stomach bug, but it is so hard to kill because it is encased. It has its own little pea pod, basically. And so you've got to break through the pea pod to get to the virus to kill it. And that's where the bleach and hydrogen peroxide come in. And that's why, for instance, hand sanitizer, which is majority rubbing alcohol, basically, can kill COVID because it's not encased. So you just need to get to the virus and kill it itself. A lot of things kill viruses,

encase. So you just need to get to the virus and kill it itself. A lot of things kill viruses, but that encasing a norovirus is a real problem. But this kind of proves, I mean, again, this is now a virology podcast. We've talked about before in other capacities how, in general, and I'm very general about this, That the transmissibility of mutations, like as transmissibility increases, the seriousness can go down. Norovirus, incredibly transmissible. If you come into contact with it, you have a 70% chance of getting it. Basically, you're getting norovirus. Very, very high. However, it's not that serious. You're basically sick for one to three days, and you're not, you know, other than dehydration

or if you had some preexisting condition, maybe, like, this isn't that bad. But it's unpleasant. It's very unpleasant. You know, so that's all to say we've been fighting our own battles here. Oh, my goodness. Well, was it a good holiday in spite?

Look, it was. But I will tell you that for people like you and I, there is a particular harm to our psyches that is caused by trying your very, very best at something and it not being good enough. Because a lot of the times in our lives, when we have tried our very, very best, put our whole selves, our brains, our bodies, all of us into something, it has worked out. We have succeeded at those things. LSAT, law school, trials, whatever. Norovirus beat me despite what i thought were extraordinary lengths

yeah and i will tell you that a little piece of me is not over that yeah i i can understand that and i can understand that yeah well you know i think that that's actually something that's happening to a lot of people with this omicron variant there's a lot of people who have successfully navigated the whole season and era of COVID without catching COVID and maybe thought that they were going to come through this whole thing, you know, vaccinated, boosted. And that thought crossed my mind that the thought crossed my mind and nope, it came, it came to the house and it came. Well, for me, for everyone else, it was pretty, pretty mild. For me, there was three to four days that were not fun at all

before I got pretty dramatically better a couple of days ago. But shall we move on from viruses and goats? Yes, let's do that. All right. So Sarah, can you explain to me this? I'm going to read a paragraph to you. Chief Justice Roberts, John Roberts received the highest rating among the 11 federal leaders included in a poll of, of, you know, prominent federal, prominent federal officials. Placing him just ahead, a Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell,

Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Anthony Fauci. He earned a 60% approval rating in a Gallup poll. And that included approval from 55% of Democrats, 57% of Republicans, and 64% of independents. So Justice John Roberts has done the impossible. Everybody, a majority of every major faction in American politics likes him. And he's also, faction in American politics likes him. And he's also, if you're going to read Twitter, one of the most maligned people, probably one of the most consistently maligned justices that I see online. And yet he is the most popular federal official in the entire United States of America.

And as soon as I saw that poll, I thought, Sarah is going to have a reason why this is the case. And I'm looking forward to hearing it. Yeah. Okay. The reason is very easy. So first of all, let's, well, no, we'll start with this. Most people are not on the far right or left of Twitter SCOTUS conversations. And so they have no opinion of John Roberts. John Roberts is like the GI Joe of judges. He's vaguely a guy who wears a robe. Maybe they could conjure some image of him. I bet most of those images are incorrect. him. I bet most of those images are incorrect. But yeah, so he is an amalgamation of justice for most people. They don't hear a lot about him. And so it's really a stand-in for the Supreme Court as a whole, which if you will look, very similar in terms of the ranking on institutions of where SCOTUS is compared to those. Now, Mitch McConnell,

you'll notice really low on that list. Very, very low. 34%. Indeed. And compare that to the approval ratings of Congress, also very, very low. So these people become totems, if you will, for their institutions because most Americans do not,

cannot name very specific feelings that they have. This, of course, is my whole beef with issue polling. This is another form of issue polling. Now, it's telling you something interesting, but it is not telling you what people feel about John Roberts, the dude. Yeah. I'm reminded of several years ago, back when American Idol was very popular, more people knew that Randy Jackson was a judge on American Idol than knew that John Roberts was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. That feels right. And what else tells me that this is a poll of institutions. He was just ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. I don't know if I can tell you anything about Jerome Powell. I have no opinion about Jerome Powell. And I like to think of myself as somebody who

tries to keep up with the, you know, I try to be on the power curve of keeping up with current events. And I have no opinion of Jerome Powell, but 53% of Americans like Jerome Powell. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that. 53% of Americans cannot tell you what the Federal Reserve does. I assure you of that. I'm in that 53% of...

100%. I could not fully explain to you right now what the Federal Reserve does. I think I could sound very smart for 15 to 30 seconds at a cocktail party enough to segue into a topic that I do know something about. Like I could start with the Fed, talk about interest rates, get to inflation and supply chain issues, and then I'm off, right? Then I'm good. But I need to get off of the Fed and reserve rates. Yeah.

In about 15 seconds. Yeah. It's got to be really quick. Oh, well, I mean, the real key to 2020's economic future is how the Fed really views the inflationary threat and what they're going to do with interest rates in the first quarter. Right. And then we move. Then we pivot. Well said, Sarah. Well said. This is why this is that sweet, sweet punditry that I do for a living. So the other thing that happened, speaking of Chief Justice Roberts, is he issued his end of the year report. He does this every year for those court followers. It's

like a little New Year's treat that you get. And this year was no different. It was nine pages that included the appendix. And it was pretty boring. Even if you're into this sort of thing, it was pretty boring. Some highlights, though. One, it has a nice little chart of Supreme Court cases argued. 171, 95, 90, 05, 90, 15, 82, 20, 73. It's going down. Yeah. We're yelling timber. Okay.

However, all of them are going down. So regional courts of appeals filings were down substantially in FY21 compared to 20. And bankruptcy, new bankruptcy filings fell by a third in the fiscal year 2020 to 2021. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Lots of interesting stuff there. I mean, I have theories of that on the bankruptcy side is just because, frankly, we're actually putting off a lot of bankruptcies because landlords, the things that would normally trigger the debt required for bankruptcy for businesses, for instance, can't rent that place to anywhere else in the middle of a pandemic. And so there's no particular need to force evictions, debt collection, et cetera, if you're not going to collect it from anyone else. And so that's for stalling bankruptcies that may come in a bit of a wave in the future. As for the rest of the report, very Taft heavy. if you want the Chief Justice's thoughts on his predecessor, Chief Justice

William Howard Taft, this is the year-end report for you. I want to tell you- The demand for that probably cannot be calculated. Right? So I want to read one paragraph to you. In a New Year's message to his brother Horace in December 1921, Taft wrote that he was, quote, going to pursue a policy, I don't know how successful, of trying to come in touch with the federal judges of the country so that we may feel more allegiance and do more teamwork, end quote. He sought to harness the power of collaboration and collective effort as a means of addressing common court problems of inconsistent procedures, uneven workload, congestion, and delay. Taft sought

to supplant the prevailing culture of isolation in which each judge was, in his own words, left to, quote, paddle his own canoe. Once you get past the image of Big Bill paddling a canoe, what? Did the Chief Justice just throw some shade at Taft's rotundness. Well, that's the sense of humor that gets him a 63% approval rating, Sarah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway, lots of Taft love. When you're working out at Planet Fitness, it's a judgment-free zone, so you can really step up your workout. That's why we've got treadmills. And our team members are here to help, so you can be carefree with the free weights. There're also balanced balls, bikes, cables, kettlebells, and TRX equipment, but like no pressure. Get started at Planet Fitness today for $1 down

and then only $15 a month. Hurry. This great offer ends April 12th. $49 annual fee applies. See Home Club for details. Okay, before everyone bails on this goat-heavy, taft-heavy, virus-heavy podcast, let's move on to some real controversy, shall we? Looks like the... And this is going to be actually a segue into what I think is an important conversation. It's one we've had before. But over the holiday, the New York State Department of Health was put out notification that it doesn't have enough Paxlovid or monoclonal antibody treatment for everyone who could be otherwise, for every COVID patient,

let's just simplify it in that way. And so began to put out eligibility criteria. And so we can put this in the show notes, you can read the full document. But essentially, the key and controversial part of it was this, says that oral antiviral treatment is authorized for patients who meet all the following criteria, age 12 years and older, weighing at least 88 pounds, for Paxlovid, 18 years and older, and I'm not even going to try to really print it, Manulperivar. It's positive COVID test, mild to moderate COVID symptoms, able to start treatment within five days, and they have to have a medical condition or other factor that increases their risk for severe illness.

And then here is the part that really caught people's eye. There's a bullet under this that says non-white race or Hispanic Latino ethnicity should be considered a risk factor as longstanding systemic health and social inequities have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19. So for purposes of distributing Paxlovid, if you are not white, that is considered to be a risk factor that entitles you to receive this treatment. Or to put it in different terms,les you to receive this treatment. Or to put it in different terms, if you're white, you need a pre-existing medical condition. If you're not white, you don't in order to be eligible to receive this treatment.

And it is solely based on race. Yes. And ethnicity. Yes. And so there was a lot of questioning when that popped out. Is that legal? Absolutely not. No.

Oh, sorry. I jumped the gun there. Yeah. Was that a rhetorical question? Yeah. No. Not legal. And it also reminds me and reminds us of a policy that we've seen, and this is not health-related,

but there's a controversy in Florida in that the Florida Supreme Court has reaffirmed a decision that's barring Florida lawyers from receiving CLE credit for programs that require diversity among panelists. In other words, if a person, if the panel that you're, if you go to a continuing legal education program and the panel says that a certain,

there has to be a particular racial composition to the panel, then what the Florida Supreme Court is saying is that is racially discriminatory and we're not going to permit you to have any to gain any cle credit from a program whose composition is explicitly racially discriminatory and what this what both the new york state and the florida case raise is this there how does how, how do civil rights laws apply in the category of what you might call reverse racism or the use of racial classifications to ameliorate or for the intention behind the racial classification is to ameliorate racial disparities. Under what circumstances can you create racial classifications to try to achieve a degree of racial justice, so to speak? And that's the legal question that's behind a lot of this. And the answer to that question is

the legal question that's behind a lot of this. And the answer to that question is almost never. No, it's always similar. Well, I want to read a paragraph from the Florida court's opinion. Yeah. We note that on their face, the business law section and ABA policies make no attempt to connect a person's, quote, diversity to the subject matter or educational content of the CLE program. The ABA's submission to the court indicates that it administers its diversity requirement this way, quote, program planners ask potential speakers to voluntarily answer the following question, do you identify yourself as diverse? A person's answer to this question is then used to determine how to categorize a person, diverse or non-diverse, for purposes of compliance with the diversity policy. This approach smacks of stereotyping or naked balancing. It does not invite a holistic

assessment of whatever unique perspective an individual might bring to a panel. That is actually a fairly good summary of the current law on higher education admissions policies. It has to be a, quote, holistic approach. Race can be part of that holistic picture of a student applying to your university that makes them, will allow them to add a voice to your student body that you think will benefit all of your students. But you cannot simply say, do you identify as diverse with no relationship? Like you yourself, the person asking this question, do not know why that person's diverse. If that person's diverse based on their own answer, what they're adding to your panel, if anything,

the panel might be on something totally unrelated to what makes them diverse, for instance. And that, of course, is also the problem with the antibody New York rule, where if you are white, you have to have a preexisting condition. But if you are not white, you are eligible. It is considered a preexisting medical condition to be non-white because of, and I'm quoting now, longstanding systemic health and social inequities. Again, not holistic. Now, it's very possible, I think,

if you could write this, non-white race or Hispanic Latino ethnicity could be considered a risk factor based on a showing that that person has faced systemic health or social inequities that have contributed to an increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19. I actually think that just changing those two words would save this legally. Because then it would have to be an individual assessment. Now, race would be the trigger for that individual assessment in this case, that probably is okay. Yeah, there is a difference between using race as a complete proxy and substitute for all other factors. And as you said, in certain circumstances, it is part of a mix of factors that can be,

for example, under current law, when you're talking about does an employer or does a university have an interest in diversity? Under current law, there is, for example, an interest in diversity. And so there is a holistic mix of factors that can be applied. Now, whether or not that actually is a proxy for a blunt racial quota, i.e. what's at issue in the Harvard University case, is often a question of fact here and something that requires a very, very, very close look. But to simply say, But to simply say, because you are a certain race, that factor alone is going to grant you a preferential position in line for medical treatment, for example. That is going to be, again, it's difficult to imagine the circumstance where that's going to be upheld lawfully. None. No circumstance. Zero. The way this is written is like a textbook. This would not be a good law school exam question. It's too easy. Yeah. Yeah. But one of the interesting things is

that I think what ends up happening often is this is a product, Sarah, and I've seen this happen. There are a lot of really bad policies that are the product of groupthink. You have a lot of people without a broad depth of experience or different, without a broad depth of experience, without a broad depth of competing. Maybe not a lot of diversity in the room. Ideological diversity. And they get way ahead of themselves. And that this is something that I think is a product of that kind of dynamic. The same with the ABA and a blatant quota system in CLE panels.

I've seen it in higher education. When you get into a room, I was on admissions committee at Cornell Law School, and I was the entirety of the ideological diversity on the admissions committee. And it's very interesting, though, to see what can happen even if you just have one voice at a table that is in disagreement with or interjects an alternative point of view. It can prevent an awful lot of mistakes.

I also have questions on that Florida CLE thing of who wasn't checking the diversity box. So for instance, not white, you can check the diversity box, I would assume. Female, that's diversity of a kind in a lot of professions, including the legal one often. Okay. So we're left with white males who are currently checking the non-diversity box. But if you had a disability, for instance, you'd be checking that diversity box. Maybe you grew up in a really rural part of the country. That's certainly diverse in a lot of CLEs, I would think. Maybe you're the first in your family to go to college and certainly to law school. That's a type of diversity. By just saying, tell us

whether you are diverse or non-diverse without regard to the topic at issue. Do you know how stupid I would look if I checked the diversity box and then the topic was on something very unrelated to my type of diversity? Or if they had a panel about, you know, the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and they put on diverse people, but none of them were women. Yeah. Again, that'd be an interesting conversation maybe, but

not fulfilling at all what Florida says they're trying to do on this. So this is why you don't use hammers for every nail. Well, and also to circle back to the Harvard case that we've talked about a number of times, every week that passes and with every new controversy along these lines, whether it is, there's going to be preference for somebody in medical treatment simply because of their race, or we're going to, um, require that X percentage of CLE panels be diverse, whatever that means, or whether we're going to say, hey, we're going to have affinity groups at work, and hey, if you're Jewish, you're going to be in the white affinity group, i.e. a Stanford case that we've talked about before. It just demonstrates to me, I think there's a greater and greater need for the Supreme Court to take this Harvard case, not just because of the individual injustice that's occurring in the Harvard, under the facts of the Harvard case itself, which again, we've talked about, but Harvard has put a function. There's a tremendous amount of

evidence that Harvard has put a functional cap on the percentage of Asian admittees. has put a functional cap on the percentage of Asian admittees. And the result of that functional cap on the admission of Asian admittees is that if you're an Asian applicant to Harvard, you have to basically do better than everybody else on average to be admitted. This ends up, interestingly enough, giving an advantage to white guys in admission to Harvard. It ends up giving an advantage to people of other races. But there is a, looks like to be a functional cap on the admission of Asian admittees.

And why does this case beyond the individual injustice? I like what Justice Roberts said. I mean, again, not to build his already sky high approval rating, but wasn't it Justice Roberts who said, one of the best ways to stop discrimination on the basis of race

is to stop discriminating on the basis of race, even whether it's a factor in a holistic look. There are civil rights statutes that apply, and the 14th Amendment, the language there, equal protection, prohibitions and discriminations on the basisth Amendment, the language there, equal protection, prohibitions and discriminations on the basis of race, the language there is pretty clear. And by allowing the door to open a crack as part of holistic analyses, et cetera, what you've done is you've essentially allowed discrimination to stampede through that crack

in the door and i think that door needs the the door on racial discrimination needs to slam shut that's what the statutes say equal protection means equal protection i think that the harvard case is an ideal vehicle to make that statement but we don't know if they're going to take it. I agree, because otherwise you end up having to carve out, as you said, benign, affirmative discrimination, and then you end up with weird situations about race versus race and which ones benefit over the other, and you end up with a hierarchy of privilege, which again, just doesn't make sense if you're painting with such a broad brush as someone's race or ethnicity. Oh, well, your race falls below this race. So if you're pitted against each other, then this race gets to win. It's not as easy as saying it's every other race versus white, as we've seen in the Harvard case. It doesn't end up working that way in the end,

because then you have to justify why you can't have the white affinity group or why Asian students can be discriminated against, but all Asian students or only the ones from certain Asian countries. What about Southeast Asian students? What about Iranian students? Anyway, it gets very, very messy quickly. And that's why, as you said, David, it seems that the obvious answer is yes. So don't discriminate on the basis of race. Treat people as individuals, not set aside whether it's the right thing to do, but because actually it's the only way it will work legally. Right. I mean, I've been in rooms in higher education

where people talk about, well, Cuban-Americans should receive less of an admissions break than Mexican-Americans, and Filipino-Americans should receive more of an admissions break

than Chinese-Americans. And at some point, you're just like, whoa, wait a minute. I mean... At some point, you end up looking at someone as an individual regardless. Good.

Right. And if you put in legal structures that make that harder, prevent that, create this hierarchy, bad and unworkable. That's my point. It is bad. I think it's very bad, but it's also unworkable. Yeah, absolutely unworkable. And so that's why this

Harvard case I think is absolutely key. Look, at some point I want to write a piece that essentially makes the argument, what would the world be like if civil rights statutes meant what they said? And this gets into my qualified immunity hobby horse, Sarah, because the civil rights statutes, the Klan Act say that if your civil rights are violated, you shall be compensated. You shall be, but we've interpreted it to mostly shall not be. Our civil rights statutes say prohibit discrimination on the basis of race. Yet there are, through these holistic analyses, discrimination on the basis of race takes place all of the time. And only when you get blatant,

like New York did, and you get blunt, like New York did, is it going to be virtually always struck down. But if you get fuzzy and hazy, like Harvard, there's way too much discretion and way too much play in the joints. So, and we'll take a quick break to hear from our sponsor today, Aura. like Harvard, there's way too much discretion and way too much play in the joints. And we'll take a quick break to hear from our sponsor today, Aura. Ready to win Mother's Day and cement your reputation as the best gift giver in the family? Give the moms in your life an Aura

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to save. Terms and conditions apply. Anyway, I guess enough on that topic because we also need to know, Sarah, you've got, in your house, husband of the pod is prepping for the biggest oral argument of 2022 so far and it may end up being the biggest oral argument of 2022 so far, and it may end up being the biggest oral argument of 2022, period, and it's taking place on the 7th. And Scott's hard at work on this. So, A, what's it like to be in the same house as somebody who is prepping for the biggest

oral argument of the year? And B, how's it going? As much as you can sort of share about sort of the thinking on the merits and what are going to be sort of the key kinds of issues, let's hear it. Well, let's do the fast version to catch everyone up to speed. So after Joe Biden said that there would be a vaccine mandate for private businesses, about two months later, OSHA promulgated an emergency mandate that they can do under their emergency powers that doesn't have to go through notice and comment. There were immediately lawsuits filed in circuits around the country because the rule is

that there will basically be a lottery, ping pong balls in a bucket, to pick which circuit will hear these based on the circuits that have been filed in. This is just for OSHA's emergency powers, basically. I mean, there's other times that this comes up, but it only in this case is because of the OSHA emergency. So lots of cases filed everywhere. We talked about that. In the end, the ping pong ball came up sixth circuit. But previous to the ping pong ball, the fifth circuit had put a stay in place that the mandate would not go into effect. And so the sixth circuit got to review the stay. There were some shenanigans with whether they would decide that en banc. They said no. The panel then lifts the stay, meaning the vaccine mandate was all but set to go into effect. Then everyone filed at the Supreme Court for basically to review the stay application or in the alternative,

accept cert, certiorari before judgment, just take the case. I have not gone back and looked, but we're talking dozens of these cases were filed at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court then issues an order. I think, was it the 23rd or was it even Christmas Eve? It was, might've been the 23rd. It was late, late in the game here. And takes two. They take Ohio, which represents all of the states that filed about this,

and takes the business trade associations that represent, you know, in terms of number of workers represented in any one of these cases, the vast, the largest of the number of businesses and workers represented. And the counsel of record on that case was one Steve Lahatsky. So before I get into all of this, I just want to talk about what goes into putting a coalition together to bring a case like this. They had 26 trade associations. Now you'll note it's not individual businesses. Trade associations exist for a lot of reasons, but this is one of them to be able to bring lawsuits. So that way you as, I don't even want to name companies, but like you as Acme Trucking don't have to take sort of the hit and the attention of that. You instead do the American

Trucking Association. I just think it's very impressive. Steve Lohotsky came from the Chamber of Commerce, where obviously he had worked with a lot of general counsel CEOs from around the country. And to not only be able to put together 26 trade associations and sort of the biggest trade associations in the country, but to not have any fracturing along the way. I mean, it'd be very easy to imagine that one trade association is like, no, we're going to do our own thing. And you end up with like three or four lawsuits representing different trade associations. But it is a credit to Steve Lohotsky that he was able to wrangle all the cats. And they had 26 because I think that's why, in fact, the Supreme Court took it. It's sort of in some ways a very easy vehicle to hear from the employers of America

rather than some of these other cases that we talked about. And I'm going to pick on friends here. So I, you know, the Republican National Committee filed its own lawsuit. You know, the Supreme Court's not going to take the Republican National Committee as to argue on behalf or against an employer vaccine mandate. That's clearly political. They don't have that many employees. So that is the question. And I've been calling it a vaccine mandate. We're going to get lots of comments. It's vaccine or testing, obviously. So the rule that OSHA put out was, roughly speaking, if you have a business with 100 or more employees, they must be vaccinated or you must test them weekly and bear the burden of that testing regime. And David, you and I have talked about the buckets, if you will, the legal buckets,

basically does Congress have the authority to do this by itself? Can Congress give that authority to OSHA? Did Congress give that authority to OSHA? Did OSHA use that authority correctly when it comes to COVID? Did OSHA use its emergency powers correctly? Is this an emergency? Does this need to go through notice and comment rulemaking? So that's what will be argued then this coming Friday by husband of the pod. He'll split time with Ohio. And so husband of the pod will argue the first 15 minutes at 10 a.m. They will be in

person as of right now, although everyone has to get COVID tested the day before. You have to show up to the court and do that. So it'll be 15 minutes for Husband of the Pod, 15 minutes for Ohio, and then Husband of the Pod, I believe, is also getting the rebuttal. So David, I just figured I'd talk a little bit about how this actually works when,

like from soup to nuts. So what happened is right before everyone else found out, husband of the pod's phone rang. His name's Scott. I'll just call him Scott. Or just H-O-P. H-O-P. H-O-P, yeah.

All right. So Scott's phone rang as we're like sort of getting ready to like do Christmas stuff. And we're watching Nate. We don't have child care. It must have been Christmas Eve, I guess. And we're running around and his phone rings and he takes it. And it is the person who handles the emergency docket for the Supreme Court. Now, worth taking a second to talk about who all works in the Supreme Court. Yes, worth taking a second to talk about who all works in the Supreme Court. Yes, there's the justices, and in their chambers, there's clerks, and there's some administrative staff, a secretarial type person who helps them with a bunch of stuff. But across the Supreme Court, there's a lot more people. There's, of course, security,

there's cafeteria workers, there's librarians. There are also the people who do all of the site checking and like making sure that the printing is going to look right on every page, writing the syllabus. And then there's the people who handle the emergency docket. So that person called Scott and said, I would like to read you an order from the Supreme Court. And then they read the thing that was posting simultaneously online that the rest of us saw on Twitter moments later. Um, of course, like Scott's in his office taking this phone call and I'm like looking on Twitter just randomly and like seeing it as the phone call continues. And I'm like, whoa, I need to tell Scott. I didn't, I didn't realize they called you. I didn't know that. So that person just reads the order, and that's about it. They tell you what day the argument's going to be, what time, some of the protocols, for instance, that the day before you're going to show up to the court

to do a COVID test, the split time in this case, some details like that. And then you're kind of just off to the races. So in this case, Scott's going to call Steve Lohotsky. By the way, they did try to call Steve first, but Steve didn't pick up his phone. Or maybe it was just that they called the firm number and the firm number automatically redirects to Scott's phone. I don't quite know why that happened because Steve is listed as counsel of record. They were trying to reach Steve, but they got Scott. So Scott and Steve discuss,

you know, who's going, how they're going to do this. Because at this point, by the way, the court accepted the question on the emergency stay. So it is still within the emergency docket. And that way it's very different than what happened with SB8, the Texas abortion thing, David, because that, even though it came up in emergency posture, they actually took it as cert before judgment, which means it was then put in out of the emergency bucket into the merits bucket. And that means you start briefing over again. In this case, because it stays in the emergency bucket and they had filed the brief with the court to take the case and then just went to

the government to file a reply brief to them and then back to them to file their reply to the reply the sir reply um so you've got to put together your briefing schedule your mooting plans like how are you going to practice for this yeah in om In Omicron. In Omicron. By the way. Yeah. So they planned three moots and I was like, how, what? And he's like, oh yeah, we're going to like go in person. And I was like, no, I was like, I am keeping you in a little bubble here because on Thursday morning you have to test negative for Omicron while everyone around us has it. No, you're not going to go sit in a conference room with a bunch of people for three hours, four hours.

Yeah, so all three moots at this point are remote. And I will say the next day I walked in, you know, just as one does to like give a little drive-by kiss in the office. I literally couldn't get him to turn his face toward me. So I had to kiss his shoulder. And that's about how it's been going. You know, this is a very tight schedule to write a brief prep for an argument.

Two weeks for all of it. Yeah, you know, when we were talking rather flippantly a few weeks ago about how, hey, look, the Supreme Court needs to go ahead and hear these oral arguments because the litigants, they're ready to make the arguments. There's no reason not to hear these arguments.

What we didn't also say at that time, which we should have said was yes the supreme court a completely absolutely supreme court should hear arguments and by the way and yes the litigants will be ready but it wrecks their life it does and i will say there's something very ironic about us having this conversation about like oh obviously they should be doing this. And like in doing so, I destroyed my own Christmas and New Year's. I know. It's hilarious, actually. It's so funny.

I just ended them. Yeah. Just they're over. They never happened. They never happened. Between that and norovirus, the Christmas decorations are gone. Scott has had to work every day.

Yeah. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's absolutely. And my one piece of advice, if you have an N95 mask, have him wear the N95 on the way to get the test done. In the car, yeah. But yeah, I tell you, getting ready for an oral argument is a monumental task. It really is.

I mean, back in my practice days, getting ready to argue, say, a Fourth Circuit case or whatever, you spend an enormous amount of time on it. Spend an enormous amount of time on it for a circuit court. Then double it, triple it, quadruple it for Supreme Court. That's just the way life is. When somebody's got a Supreme Court oral argument on their calendar, you just kind of say goodbye to them and then multiply that by 30 when you have, what was it, two and a half weeks to prepare. So yeah, but how many arguments has Scott had? This will be his 12th at the Supreme court.

I know he's triple, triple. So he's, you know, like a triple double, like he's double digits at the Supreme court, double digits at the fifth circuit and double digits at the Texas Supreme court.

Yeah. So that the vaunted, the triple double. So triple double, I said, triple, triple. Yeah. He's the triple, triple double so triple double i said triple triple yeah he's the triple triple double yeah yeah exactly so he's kind of like the russell westbrook of

supreme of litigation and not antonio brown his shirt has stayed on throughout preparation um he has not left the stadium yeah although i would say i would say how incredible would it be for somebody who's frustrated during the middle of a Supreme Court argument to just go ahead and rip off the shirt, reveal the ripped abs, and just leave the field. Just be gone. Just go. I will tell you some proud moments. So I was driving with Scott. I'm keeping him in this little bubble.

And by the way, again, just on Twitter, folks, you don't know what's happening in someone else's life. So just stop assuming all these people dunking on me because I was trying to get at home testing kits. And they're like, if you're so sick, how can you wait in line? I was like, well, first of all, my mother's quite sick at home and I think it's norovirus, but I'd like to know whether it's norovirus or COVID because it turns out with Omicron in particular, norovirus symptoms can be symptoms of COVID. But also I have to test Scott to make sure that he's going to be able to do this argument on Thursday. So just like chill, folks. You don't need to care why I want like at home tests. Don't worry about it. So but David, maybe my my, you know, the high low when it comes to this. So low having your husband have to work through the holidays.

But it's for a good cause. You know, like that's fun for, you know, that he got the argument, but the high is definitely that we were driving to get food. I keep him outside. He's not allowed indoors. I pick up the food, all that. But, um, I was doing a little mooting of my own as wife of the pod. And for like, he then like is on his phone, like after i ask him the question and i was like what are you doing he's like i'm writing down the question for the team so it can be part of the moot oh wife of the pod as such good moot questions outstanding i love it i love it so by the way i try to say when we have a conflict on this pod like based on you know whether i was a doj or

something else i assume it goes without saying that i am so deeply conflicted on this pod, like based on, you know, whether I was a DOJ or something else, I assume it goes without saying that I am so deeply conflicted on this that I'm not going to try to not be conflicted by not helping him prep or something like, no, we're, we're currently snowed in our house, terrified of all other humans because everyone has COVID in DC. Uh, yeah, I'm helping him. Yeah. I don't know, Sarah, do you want your husband to win one of the most important cases of his career? Huh? Wow. Yeah. This, but I, before we leave this, cause I do want to talk about the TikTok situation. Cause I do think that's interesting before you leave this one thing. And we'll talk about this more. I am of the mind that what we are seeing in not just the OSHA case or the CMS, which is the Medicare, Medicaid, public, the healthcare worker vaccine mandate, but in a host of other administrative law cases is we may well be in the midst of a either very slow motion or somewhat faster motion kind of reordering of our government

to de-emphasize the power of the executive branch a bit, to have less discretion in the hands of executive agencies. And I think that's one of the things that's going to be extremely interesting in this argument because it's going to be covered like this. We know how it's going to be covered here. It's going to be covered as, if you like vaccine mandates,

you should hope the Biden administration wins. If you don't like vaccine mandates, you should hope the Biden administration wins. If you don't like vaccine mandates, you should hope the Biden administration loses. That's probably not even going to end up being the question here. It's going to be a question of authority and process. But those matters of authority and process are really important for our system of government going forward. Because a lot of the questions that we face is how much can we continue to govern this country with a Congress that is essentially completely dysfunctional? Indeed.

I think there's two. So for instance, the Omicron wave here, I think has helped and hurt both sides. So I think the emergency-ness of it, like there is certainly now a huge wave. COVID is back in the news every single day of every hour, et cetera. That makes a vaccine mandate, I think, more top of mind, more reasonable seeming. On the other hand, the Omicron wave has also made clear that vaccines do not prevent the spread of COVID. They, in fact, prevent you from dying of COVID. Well, OSHA's interest is on the spread side. It's not on the dying side.

And so because otherwise it's like that would be the individual employee's health. OSHA's interest is that they're trying to protect employees from COVID from it spreading at the workplace. Hence why it's over 100 people. If you work remotely, you're not covered. It is about the spread. And so if vaccines do not prevent the spread of COVID, especially the Omicron variant, which it appears, David, as someone who has gotten both vaccines and a booster and is very, very sick, it's about not dying. It's not about not getting it. And that, I think, hurts the government's case.

So this whole thing, the timing of it, everything, it's going to be fascinating. this whole thing, the timing of it, everything. It's going to be fascinating. And don't you worry because I will have lots of thoughts as I listen to the argument Friday at 10 a.m. And I don't get to go, by the way. Isn't that a huge bummer? If this were any other time, I would get to sit in the lawyer's part. I'm a Supreme Court barred attorney, but I will be listening with everyone else. And by everyone else, I mean the dozens of us who tune in to C-SPAN at 10 a.m. on argument days. Well, and I can tell you, Monday's advisory opinions is going to be some primo content. It will be.

It really will be. And just one thing on the vaccine. So, yeah, I got Omicron when I was vaccinated and boosted, but I am not in any way backing down from saying, get vaccinated. Oh, David, you were so sick. You absolutely, I think, would have been hospitalized without all those vaccines,

but I think there's a chance the outcome could have been far worse given how sick you were. Yeah, it was, for four days. It was not great at all. But I will tell you, I had this peace of mind because I knew if you're vaccinated, the odds of hospitalization are dramatically lower. The odds of death are dramatically squared lower. But just to give you a sense of kind of the differences at the exact same time that I was having four hard days at home a friend I've had for more than 30 years is fighting for his life who's not vaccinated is fighting for his life in the ICU and so I am a huge and the my encounter

with COVID in no way diminished my and in fact in many ways enhanced my, and in fact, in many ways, enhanced my appreciation for the fact that in the middle of the pandemic, we were able to rapidly develop these vaccines that no, do they mean that you won't get COVID? Obviously not. Do they give you a much greater chance of coming through it and getting on the other side? A near certainty. And getting on the other side. Yeah. Near certainty of not dying of COVID. And that is part of, I think, also why the two cases that the Supreme Court picked are interesting because the companies in these trade associations are not anti-vaccine. They are the largest companies in the country. They're pro-vaccine. They've offered financial incentives to their employees to get vaccinated in many cases.

They want everyone to get vaccinated because they don't want employees out of work. What they don't want to do is have a billion dollar testing regime that they can't afford and or fire their employees, which will put a lot of the things that you're taking for granted right now, even in supply chain issues, will make that harder. Right, right. All right. Should we talk TikTok? Yeah. So Ted Cruz's 13-year-old daughter got on TikTok a couple nights ago and was answering questions in a live and in doing so said that she disagreed with most of her father's political opinions. And the Dallas Morning News wrote up a story that basically said exactly that. Headline, Ted Cruz's daughter disagrees with most of his political opinions. Look, this was...

And embeds the TikTok. Okay, and embeds the TikTok. Embeds the TikTok, which included a complaint about being asked to wear a longer halter top or something like that. complaint about being asked to wear a longer halter top or something like that. Important to note, I worked for Ted Cruz. I've known his family and the girls since they were itty bitty. So first of all, it's weird that she's 13 for me. But yeah, look, I don't want to say that, you know, the Dallas Morning News led their head, you know, paper with this. It was a one story. It wasn't.

But it goes to a question of why was this worth a news organization covering at all? There's a newsworthiness aspect to it that I will acknowledge. Right. There's a reason people clicked on the story. At the same time, the reason it's newsworthy is only because she is the child of a politician. She did not put herself in the public eye. And the sooner we can realize that social media is different, but it's not, it doesn't change that fact. You know, a 13 year old who's the daughter of a senator, you know, standing at a pep rally talking, you know, answering questions from her peers and saying she disagrees with her dad. On issues, that's not a news story there. The fact that it's on TikTok, we just need to be it's like the angry cheerleader case, David.

read cheerleader case, David. We need to think of these things in a context and be the adults. Yes, would it matter what her age was? I guess kind of, but not really, because if still the only thing about her is that she's the daughter of a senator, then no, I still don't think you cover it. Versus, for instance, Ivanka and Jared taking jobs at the White House. Okay, well, now they're not the children of the president. That is context for who they are, but they are also White House officials. People said, well, you would never do this with a Democrat. Of course I would. There's all sorts of minor children of politicians of every stripe who find themselves in little problems, drunk driving problems. The one that is most interesting to me are the minor children who go and destroy yard signs of their parents' opponent.

Right. No. Just no. Leave it alone. I think that the candidate owes an apology to his opponent, but we do not need to embarrass a child for doing something misguided to help their parents. Well, and the reality is that is quote unquote news for one reason and one reason only is that there are people who really, this is about

hostility to Ted Cruz. Okay. Now there are a lot of things I disagree with Ted Cruz about. And a lot of the Hunter Biden stuff, by the way, is hostility to Joe Biden. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So there are a lot of things that I think that I object to about Ted Cruz. But you know what? I'm going to talk about the things that I object about what Ted Cruz did, But you know what? I'm going to talk about the things that I object about what Ted Cruz news that should make Ted Cruz feel bad or embarrass Ted Cruz?

Or embarrass a member of his family or hurt a member of his family or cause distress to a member of his family? Didn't we learn about this with Kellyanne Conway's daughter? I thought that was so exploitative. Oh, unbelievably so. Unbelievably so. You have a family that's, there's obvious distress in the family, obvious distress in relationship between parent and child. And it is not my business. It is not my business. And we have increasingly in the social media era basically said, once somebody becomes a public figure or once a person becomes a public figure and so it's public figure plus I don't like something about them, then any kind of ammunition that I can find is then therefore fair game. And any kind of ammunition that I can find is then therefore fair game. And the mere fact that people are interested in that ammunition then verifies or validates its newsworthiness. But this is where when you talk about media ethics, there is such a thing, and there should

be such a thing as media ethics, where not everything that people are interested in is newsworthy. That is not the definition of newsworthy. And a couple notes. One, the reporter whose byline is on this story, don't go dunk on that person. This story was assigned to them by their editor, most likely,

or could have been. You don't know who picked this as a story for the Dallas morning news. No need to go beat up on people. Um, second, there was some discussion of like, well, he let her have Tik TOK on her phone. Yep. Maybe, um, maybe this is some, you know, a decision that they may question. They've certainly turned her account to private now. Maybe they didn't know Tik TOK was on her phone. Maybe they now. Maybe they didn't know TikTok was on her phone. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't know about the privacy settings.

I don't know. Doesn't actually change anything about the analysis from a news organization standpoint. That, you know, because her parents used poor social media hygiene on her phone, potentially, that then we turn a 13-year-old into a, you know, something, a banner against her father? Yeah. Nope. Nope, nope.

And then the rule is, so then the rule is, unless senators make sure that their children are treated differently, maybe than virtually every other child in their school, then their child can be a weapon against them. Or even if it's turned to private, the fact that somebody might do a screen record of,

you know, the, the, her tick tock a moment on tick tock. Yeah. Anyway, it was something that I think was very, very,

very unfortunate that that occurred. And we should be, I don't, regardless of your feelings about Ted Cruz or any other politician that you may have problems with, we have to draw these lines. If we continue to erase these lines,

we are, I mean, there are various lines that we're just busy erasing, such as, do you protest at somebody's home? Do you interrupt somebody when they're going to the bathroom? Do you use their children as weapons against them? We're just busy erasing line after line after line after line. And it's not that we're going to regret it.

We should already be regretting it. All right. Well, this was a weird podcast. It was a weird podcast. Began with goats, ended with TikTok. Like so many things in my life. I do watch a lot of goat content on TikTok, so that works. Yeah. Yeah. So we will be back on Thursday. So until then, please go rate us on Apple Podcasts. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Please check out thedispatch.com.

And, you know, look, if you're feeling a little blue or feeling a little down, you can just go back to this podcast's first 30 seconds and listen again to the opening music and revel in your victory over poor legendary producer Caleb. But until then, we'll talk to you Thursday. At Real Canadian Superstore, our colleagues collectively speak over 100 different languages and counting.

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