Strict Scrutiny - Make America Grift Again

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Leah, Melissa and Kate go on Corruption Watch to catch up on all the sketchy things happening in the judicial and executive branches. Then, they cover some recent oral arguments and opinions from The Court before bringing you a conversation from last week’s live show in LA with Representative Jimmy Gomez of California’s 34th Congressional District.Favorite things: Kate: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans; Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir; Vladimir on Netflix (adaptation of the book by Julia May Jonas) Leah: Kacey Musgraves, “Dry Spell”; Judge Young’s opinion denying a stay of the remedies he ordered in response to the federal government’s illegal targeting of students & noncitizens based on pro-Palestinian speech; Sonja Starr & Genevieve Lakier, The War on DEI as a Project of Constitutional Subversion Melissa: The Devil is Busy on HBO Max; Good Woman: A Reckoning by Savala Nolan; Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette on Hulu and Disney+ Preorder Melissa’s book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern ReaderBuy Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad VibesFollow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

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When I argue, men, argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word. She spoke not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our next. Hello and welcome back to strict scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We're your hosts. I'm Kate Shaw. I'm Leah Littman. And I'm Melissa Murray. And on today's episode, we are going to cover some of the legal news of the past week. And we'll also share with you another highlight from one of our live shows in California. This one is from the L.A. show. And it is a terrific interview with Congressman Jimmy Gomez. But first, we want to start our coverage of recent legal news by focusing on the corruption that we are seeing from the administration, and by walking through the many ways that that corruption is directly connected

to the Supreme Court. We are still working on a name for what obviously has to be and should be a recurring segment. There's so much going on, but people should still be aware of the extent of the grift, even with everything else. So should we call it court option, like corruption, court option? No. Roberts Barons. I know I floated this one before. I think that one's growing on me. Okay, quid pro scotus, fivocracy, okay, brodus and the broligarchy, make America grift again. Yeah, Robert's Barrens and then this maga variation, I think,

are mostly favorites. Okay, so I do think I'm struggling at least a little, and it's not because I've been dipping into an ambient jar, which, again, is not a thing that exists, certainly in my house. But we welcome your suggestions, listeners, if you have an idea for this segment. But more seriously, last week the New York Times had a really important story about federal campaign contributions in 2024. And their analysis found that, quote, 300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion, $19 of all contributions in federal elections in 2024.

Billionaire families gave an average total of $10 million each. Most of the money went to Republicans for every dollar to Democrats. That's five went to Republicans. We should emphasize that that is an enormous change to the electoral landscape. So if you go back to 2008, that's five presidential elections ago. This was the election that Barack Obama won. And coincidentally, maybe, I don't know, it was the last election before the Supreme Court issued its decision in Citizens United versus FEC, which struck down the ban on corporations

spending their own money to advocate in elections because the First Amendment. In that 2008 election cycle, the share of billionaire spending was, wait for it, almost zero. 0.3 percent. Now look at it. And when you look at that escalating number, you have one man to thank for it. John G. Roberts. Thanks, bro. Now, I do feel compelled.

The way Melissa describes Citizens United is the way the majority describes it. But in Justice Stevens' dissent, like he emphasizes, and I just, I think this remains true. It wasn't a ban on corporations. it was a ban on this very narrow period of time right before an election when the spending could be done. They could spend all the other times they wanted to and in all kinds of other ways. They just couldn't do it as themselves

for 30 or 60 days before an election. So a modest regulation, and even that was too much for the Supreme Court to permit. But this Times piece is just full of case studies and anecdotes about specific billionaires and particular races where those billionaires intercede and where their money is hugely influential and is really worth reading in its entirety.

The opening anecdote is about the Montana Senate race that unseated the Democratic incumbent, John Tester. It describes how Steve Schwartzman, the billionaire chairman of Blackstone, steered a $150 million investment. So this is before politics, actually, just a business investment to now Republican Senator Tim Sheehe's company. It's like a firefighting from the air kind of company that was struggling until this money helped shore up his business and then helped seed his Senate campaign. Schwartzman later hosted a fundraiser for Shehee, donated $8 million to. PAC supporting Sheehee. 64 other billionaires also donated to Sheehe's campaign. And then there are just details in the Times piece about state races that in some ways

get even crazier. In Illinois, in the most recent gubernatorial cycle, 87% of the money given came from billionaires. And then maybe just one last observation, which is that the asymmetry that Leah mentioned at the outset that just way more of this billionaire money goes to Republicans than to Democrats is actually also a pretty new development. Once upon a time, rich people gave roughly comparable amounts to Republicans and Democrats to kind of like hedge their bets. And that is just no longer remotely the case. Kate, I feel I have to remind you that it is not unconstitutional to have rich friends who bail out your flailing business.

And then your business actually improves and you're able to capitalize on those improvements to cede your run for a U.S. Senate seat. So you can then go forward with the kind of deregulatory policies that you're building. billionaire friends want. That's not unconstitutional, Kate. Actually, every single step in that chain is unconstitutional in my constitutional. We the people, Kate. I wrote a whole book about it. In this timeline, it's all fine. Yeah. Right. We the people. Do you have like an annotation in the First Amendment that sets forth all of the rights that you just described as obviously flowing from those few words? Obviously, you'll have to pre-order the book to find out. Good answer. The book is available for pre-order at all of your favorite outlets. But again, we the people, in order to find out. We the People, in order

to form a more perfect oligarchy. Actually, that's a good next book, just like a redlining of the Constitution with the Constitution that they think exists. Maybe let's put that on the list of projects. Let's put that out there for our publishers. We could do that. All three of us could do that together.

Oh, yeah. That would be bleak. Well, the Second Amendment would be in like all caps and bold and underline, except for the prefatory clause. And then, anyways, lots of ideas coming in. The thought bubbles where, like, you know, you stretch out some and compress other text.

Right. The Ninth Amendment, just big X. Totally. Right, exactly. Possibilities are really endless. Fourteenth Amendment also next. Right. Yeah. So, right. So getting back to the Supreme Court's view of the Constitution, one of the lines that has aged the worst from the court's opinion in Citizens United was the claim about how unlimited corporate expenditures do not give rise to corruption or even the appearance of corruption. Oh, really? Because every day of the second Trump administration gives us an opportunity. to revisit that. So let's talk about some of what we saw just last week. In our live show, we actually talked about the litigation that was ongoing between Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Well, guess what? Last week, Trump's Department of Injustice announced that it has agreed to settle the lawsuit

against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Again, this was an antitrust suit challenging the arrangement between the two companies that, according to the lawsuit, contributed to a stranglehold on live music sales, one that, weirdly, did not redound to the benefit of music fans, but rather redounded to the benefit of the two companies. The settlement, which was announced mid-trial, came as something of a surprise to both the court and the 39 states in the District of Columbia, which had joined as co-plaintiffs in the suit. Notably, the lawsuit had actually survived a motion for summary judgment, meaning that the case would then proceed to a trial. So why does all of this seem to be very corruption adjacent? Well, for one thing, the states are objecting to certain terms in the settlement,

like the fact that the damages to the states are capped at less than 1% of live nations' 2025 revenue. Doesn't sound like a great settlement. Just the tip of the profits if you were. I'm no expert, but that doesn't sound like a great deal. They say you're not getting screwed, but. You kind of are. Yeah. In terms of sort of other, at least circumstantial evidence that this might not be totally on the level.

Prior to the settlement, the DOJ antitrust chief, Gail Slater, abruptly left the DOJ, along with the person who had been her top deputy. So the timing is at least curious. More circumstantial evidence. Live Nation had hired Maga nutjob Mike Davis to lobby the administration. The company also named Trump's buddy Rick Grinnell, the current head of the so-called Trump. Trump Kennedy Center, aka the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, to its board of directors, and hired Kellyanne Conway as a lobbyist. Once again, quite curious.

No, Leah, I can't believe you forgot to throw in the second definite article, the Donald Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Sorry. Yeah. Okay, so one other sort of curious fact is that Live Nation donated half a million dollars to Trump's presidential transition fund. Hmm. As one does.

As one does. Anyway, the DOJ's decision to enter into settlement mid-trial during the government's direct examination struck some people as very, very curious, perhaps even in bad faith. According to the presiding judge, it, quote, shows absolute disrespect for the court, the jury, and this entire process. The judge then described the surprising turn in the litigation as, quote, unacceptable. And the judge was not the only one concerned about how all of this went down. Here's Friend of the Pod, Senator Masey Hirono back in October, asking Attorney General Pamela Joe Bondi about DOJ's antitrust posture toward Ticketmaster. This was all before the settlement was announced. Take a listen.

On January 30th of this year, the Trump DOJ's antitrust division sued to block the merger of two tech companies. Then, a well-connected lobbyist met with your political deputies who are. overruled the career staff and approved the merger. So there's a settlement on that. And separately, DOJ sued Ticketmaster last year for monopolizing concert tickets and forcing consumers to pay outrageous fees. Ticketmaster has hired the exact same lobbyists

who met with senior DOJ political people regarding the merger of the two tech companies. So my question is, Ms. Fondi, have lobbyists met with your political deputies about the ticket master case? Senator Hirono, as I stated earlier, I am not going to discuss anything that is ongoing. Gail Slater runs the antitrust office. I would say that that... If I can finish, Gail Slater is doing an incredible job running my antitrust unit. It's highly likely, Ms. Bondi, that the same...

lobbyists who met with your people and basically got rid of the antitrust case. Senator, I don't think a lot of people like that you were out protesting with Antifa. Notably, in her response, Pamela Joe mentions Gail Slater. As Kate noted, Gail Slater was the antitrust chief who left DOJ just before the settlement was announced. This episode of strict scrutiny is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood Health Centers are the nation's leading provider of sexual and reproductive health care, including cancer screenings, wellness exams, STI testing, and treatments, birth control, abortion, and more. Today and every day, Planned Parenthood is committed to providing access to the care,

information, and resources that people need to make their own decisions about their bodies and their futures. But the Trump administration and Congress want to take away that freedom and force their own personal beliefs on everyone. As part of a year's long strategy to base, abortion care and shut down the most trusted name in sexual and reproductive care, they have defunded Planned Parenthood Health Centers. It's a dangerous attempt to cut off affordable access for millions, especially those with low incomes who rely on Medicaid. These are women, black and Latino communities, LGBTQ plus people, and those in rural and medically underserved areas. These are the places and the communities where Planned Parenthood Health Centers are often the only

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control of your own health. Armour Calostrum is nature's original solution for doing so. Colostrum is packed with over 400 bioactive nutrients that fortify gut health and strengthen immune health to build resilience at the cellular level. Because when you invest in your health, you invest in your ability to show up, think clearly, and stay in control, no matter what life throws your way. I think we need to get some Armour Colostrum to all of the conservative members of the Supreme Court. And how do I know that the justices could benefit from Armara Colostrum? Well, since I've started taking Armour, I've noticed improved hair and skin health because colostrum is packed with nutrients that work at the cellular level to ignite inside out transformation

for whole body benefits, including your hair, your skin, your gut, and so much more. And guess what, folks? We have worked out a special offer for our stricty audience. You can receive 30% off your first subscription order. Just go to armor.com forward slash strict or enter strict to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's a rmr.com slash strict. Back to the Supreme Court. You can pretty much draw a straight line between not just Citizens United and the corporate corruption, but also the court's cases on president. power and corporate corruption. Recall that when we discuss the court's pending case and Trump versus slaughter, that's the pending case about whether the president gets to have the power to

remove commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission without cause, and also every other federal official who leads every other agency as well, except the Fed, because the justices have retirement accounts, we noted that giving the president that kind of sweeping power over the administrative state that itself exercises, sweeping regulatory powers over corporations and industries, was a recipe for corruption because it allows the president to exercise that power by ensuring that people at these agencies go easy on his corporate stooges and buddies. We should also remind listeners that when we covered the slaughter case, we noted that many of the pro- oligarch bros who attended Trump's second inauguration actually headed companies that

were being investigated by or were in active litigation with the FTC. Not surprising that those bros want a completely deregulated environment. in which to do business. What is more surprising, though, is that it seems like the president of the United States and the Supreme Court are more than happy to deliver it to them. And to take another example in the same vein, last week, the FDA announced that it was going to open the door to e-cigarettes that come in fruit and candy flavors. So those flavors had previously been restricted out of concerns that they would be marketed to and especially attractive to teenagers. So this about phase came in the form of a guidance document that announced that the FDA now,

will consider approvals for flavored vapes. Now, the document purports to affirm the concern for flavors that appeal to kids, suggest they're likely to approve things that they at least say will be more attractive to adults. They mention coffees and mint and teas and spices. But honestly, if you're familiar with teenagers and tweens and their propensity for, like, frappuccinos and all things chai, I am not sure this is a distinction that has any hope of actually protecting kids. But stay tuned.

But, you know, Kate, the thing about kids is that they're really, really young. And if they get hooked on something early, they can be your consumers for literally their whole lives. You think that has anything to do with it? I think that probably does. And that, in fact, is why previous administrations have tried to protect them. And of course, by this administration is happy to throw them to the rules. Honestly, I believe the children are our future. So do the tobacco market. And in that vein, any guesses as to which industry helped fund Trump's $300 million ballroom, or among others, there have been quite two funders? But in terms of the topic at hand, Any guesses?

I'll tell you. Tobacco companies, Altria Group, and Reynolds American, both of which will benefit from the relaxed regulation of e-cigarettes. They're among the companies that have specifically urged the FDA to lessen this regulation, and looks like that's coming through for them. They are really straight up selling out the American people and the public interest with a cash for regulatory benefit scheme. It's amazing.

Anyway, ProPublica has an astonishing story that compiles so many connections, between people in the Trump administration and the industries that those individuals are ostensibly charged with regulating. So let's tick through a few examples from that story. So Deputy Secretary of Defense, Steve Feinberg, founded a private equity firm that just so happens to own several companies that are seeking Department of Defense contracts related to missile interceptors, a firm he's allowed to continue contracting with and to maintain a financial relationship with while at DOD. Trump has appointed more than 200 people who collectively own between $175 million and $400 million in crypto and hold positions that influence the

regulation of cryptocurrencies. This includes Todd Blanche at DOJ. DoJ has already shut down some investigations into crypto companies, dealers, and exchanges. And Kate, I have to say when we were doing the just the tip of the Live Nation ticket master settlement. I think I came up with a name for what DOJ is doing and what DOD is doing here. It's the deal dough, right? Deals that actually fuck over the country. Wow, Leah. Wow, Leah. You've really outdone yourself. I'm just worried about our younger listeners, but I think at this point, like... I mean, if they were listening when you went to the tenderloin, Kate, and saw your first pee pee pee, I think they're going to be okay with deal dough.

All right. Well, I did we leave that in? We did. We did. We did. It was in. The deal dough is what the whole country will get asked with. Kids.

Before noon in broad daylight. It's coming for all of us. Okay. And just maybe one more example. And that is the New York Times recently ran a piece about the booming pardon industry, which I think, you know, is proof positive that Trump actually is the job creator he makes himself out to be. Because the pardon industry has resulted in just a boom for lobbyists who have been, essentially facilitating the granting of pardons to very wealthy individuals convicted of crimes,

but with cash on hand and hoping to get out of their sentences. I mean, the piece like the ProPublica piece, like the Times piece about the campaign contributions, is just real dystopian shit. Right, like it's the corruption, stupid, right? Yeah. But here it's like also there's the hiring of social media. It's not just like the cold hard cash. It's like all the mechanisms you're hiring social media influencers.

You're trying to get close to Laurelumer who is like... Arby's in your pants. A garden maker. Definitely a parental warning on this one, although maybe without the context, Arbys in your pants sounds totally innocent. I don't know what that means. I genuinely don't.

Oh, yeah, this is an episode that Lee and I did. I think without you. It was a deposition. This was when she was deposed in some of the litigation, and they said, you, Laura Lumer, said Marjorie Taylor Green had Arbys in her pants. What did you mean? And she just said, it's hilarious.

I meant she has Arbys in her pants. This whole timeline is so fucked up that I'm cheering for Marjorie Taylor Green. Yeah. I know. So messed up. Anyway. All right. We should switch to another topic.

This is actually truly dystopian. Let's do some other dystopian stuff. Maybe in the vein of Margaret Atwood. Recently, listeners, there has been even more evidence for reading what has been happening with this government and with governance through the lens of, gender. Again, as Leah explained a few episodes ago, we are living through government by the Manosphere of the Manosphere and for the Manusphere, a homocracy, if you will. First up, it seems like the devil wears Flauchheim. Apparently, President Trump is absolutely obsessed with Michael Jackson's favorite shoe brand, the Chicago-based brand Floorsheim Shoes. Just a little bit about the brand for those

of you who are untutored. The company dates back to the 1850s when Sigmund Flauchamp, a German immigrant began putting his old world cobbling skills to work. By 1886, he had become a partner in Greensfelder, Flauchime and Company, a men's footwear company, again based in Chicago. See what can happen when you don't have ICE doing immigration detention all over the place in a major city? Anyway, the company eventually gave rise to a family company, Flauchime shoes, that Sigmund and his American-born son, Milton, founded, and they have been making mid-priced men's shoes for over a century. I am so embarrassed. I I am clearly a bad Chicago, and I'm also descended from shoe salesmen in Chicago on the north side, and I can't believe I didn't know about this brand.

Maybe they sold it. But anyway, you know, who is very familiar with Flauchamp shoes, Donald J. Trump, who reportedly gives them as a gift to everyone in his circle and administration. The Wall Street Journal reported that a female White House staffer says that all the boys have them. Interesting, he's giving them to just the boys. They only make them shoes. So this is. Okay.

I guess you guys are coming to talk. Donald Trump's defense here. I don't quite know how to make of this. Well, we're just like facts. Kate, that's are facts. I mean, yeah, I guess there's nobody. No females down here in that white house who doesn't wear like high heels and very lady shoes. So I guess that's, I guess that makes sense.

Anyway, the journal reports that he is so hot for the shoes that he has a stack of them in the White House. Although I also just find this whole story so puzzling because he is famously really cheap. And so do we think he actually went out and spent thousands of dollars on shoes to gift or receive them from one of the many benefactors we were talking about earlier in the conversation? I don't know. So part of the story is that the shoes often do not fit. Right. And also they're considerably cheaper than other shoes they might otherwise be wearing.

Right. So he's downgrading. All right. All right. So in any event, he gives them the shoes and the Daily Beast reports that staffers basically say it's the case that everybody's afraid not to wear them. One official was reportedly, quote, rankled that he had to shelve his Louis Vuitton. and replace them with a sensible leather footwear.

There is... That's how I feel about downgrading from Barack Obama to this. This is insensible leather. Footwear. I know. But... Yeah, same idea, though, right? Just the downgrade.

Yes, it definitely downgrade. When the New York Times visited the White House in December, tweedled dumb and tweedle-dummer, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio gleefully showed reporters the shoes that Trump had bought them. And, quote, Vance lifted his leg in the air to show the president the pair he was wearing, end quote. I cannot even imagine this scene. And Trump allegedly ordered the footwear after stopping a meeting to criticize Rubio and Vance's, quote, fucking shoes, according to Vance himself.

Those who have been gifted, the shoes include Transportation Secretary Sean. Duffy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegsef, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, and I'm just going to say, if you have more than one nanny going with you to Epstein's Island, you can probably afford to buy yourself a pair of shoes. Well, he can afford, but it's a cult, so he has to wear that. I know, clear. And this, this, we call this, the Shunitary executive.

Love it. Yeah, it's. Yeah, you were on fire today. You know, California did something. I did Emma's Women's History Month rock ride this morning. which I love, and I've also been listening to Casey Musgrave's new single nonstop since early this week. And I feel like those two things really kind of revved me up. How long was the Emma Ride?

30 minutes. Yeah, so manageable. Anyways. The Magahee men have really been on one as of late. So in addition to this gifting of the shoes, Trump reportedly just asks these guys their shoe size and they shout something out. And now there are all of these photos on the internet of these dudes stomping around in shoes that are way too big for- I didn't realize he asked them and they're lying about their shoe size. Happy Women's History Month.

Again, it is all about gender. You can basically understand everything that is going on through these lens. Like they all have complexes about their dick size. And we are all living with the consequences. of that. Oh my. I mean, wow. I genuinely did not know that.

Another quick update from the Manosphere, and this does seem like a gift of pettiness along the lines of what Leah just related. So this is just in time for Women's History Month. Apparently, Floorstein's parent company, the Waco Group, is among the businesses and corporations that sued the Trump administration over tariffs. And in fact, Waco is now seeking a refund from the federal government over the tariffs. that it paid. Fine. Last month, when the Supreme Court invalidated the tariffs, the head of the Flauchime Company, Thomas Flauchime Jr., he's the CEO of that parent company,

Waco, co-authored a piece that was published in The Contrarian and the piece was titled, Business Leaders Welcome Scotus Tariff's decision. He's also gone even further with his critique of the tariffs and his embrace of the Supreme Court's decision two weeks ago in an interview with Spectrum News. Floresheim averred that the Trump tariffs had really hurt the business. According to him, at one point, the tariffs actually exceeded the price of the shoes themselves, forcing the company to shift their production from China to India, but then India got sacked with a bunch of tariffs and they were back to square one. All of this tariffing, he says, has made business planning absolutely impossible.

So with all of this in mind, you'd think that maybe Floreshine might be a little excited about the fact that his brand is at the top of POTUS's lists of favorite things. But when he was asked about the president's gifting habits, Mr. Flauchheim said he was unaware of the president's gifting practices, and he politely declined to comment further. As Mariah Carey said, I don't know her. This should have been the response of the men's hockey team. But, I mean, I just want to go buy some Fulersheim shoes now. I know that he likes them, but like this guy is standing. on business. I appreciate it.

Thomas Fulersheim of the Waco. There are the occasional unexpected heroes in this timeline, and I think Fulershine may be one of them. There's no business like shoe business, he said, and he's here for it. Okay. Strict scrutiny is brought to you by Wild Alaskan Company.

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This is a time. This is a place. What better occasion, Kate? I was going to say, this actually makes a lot of sense. No, but Mark. Yeah, but he's FBI, you know, this is like, I feel like. No, no. Do you think Mullen wants it on this? It's a unitary executive.

Okay. I'm just saying he might want his people to get in on the UFC as well. I mean, this is Mark Wayne Mullen's moment. Like, you did not have no space between your first and middle names for nothing. Like, this is where he is going to add value. This is the first time, I think, that anyone in this cabinet may actually be trained to offer real assistance to another agency or their own agency for the purposes that they are sensibly charged with deploying. This might be it. Jokes right themselves.

All right. In more news from the Manosphere, Senator John Cornyn has apparently abandoned his long-time support for the legislative filibuster in order to grovel before Trump to get his endorsement in the Republican primary runoff that he is now facing against Ken Paxton. The two went to runoff when Cornyn, who is the incumbent, was challenged and failed to clear the threshold in the primary, and now says he supports abandoning the filibuster in order to pass the same. Save America slash Save Act, which, just as a reminder, is a series of voting requirements, including voter ID requirements and voting restrictions, including one that requires all registering voters to provide proof of citizenship that contains their current name. And a lot of people have observed that this requirement may serve to and may even be an effort to disenfranchise the millions of women who either don't hold a passport or don't have a birth certificate that reflects their married name.

And obviously, because it would likely disenfranchise millions of people, the president is super into it, meaning that John Cornyn is apparently now super into it as well. You would think that running against someone whose corruption is so extreme, it actually generated an impeachment in Texas, like against an impeached perfidious adulterer whose wife has sought a divorce on biblical grounds would be enough to secure an electoral victory. but here we are. Here we are. More news flashes from the Manosphere.

Last week, the Pentagon barred press photographers because they had released, quote-unquote, unflattering photos of Pete Hegsef. The most surprising aspect of this story is that not all photographers were actually barred. Yes, you can laugh there. In other news, the Department of Defense has refused to provide escorts

for ships that are operating in the Strait of Hormuz because the DOD says that the area is, quote, unquote, too dangerous, which is weird because the President of the United States recently had this to say about conditions in the street. Take a listen. Are you talking to the CEOs of various oil companies encouraging them to use this straight-up? Yeah, I think they should. I think they should. I think they should use it. I have my opinion. Look, we took out just about all of their mindships in one night. we're up to boat number 60.

I didn't realize that that big a Navy. I would say it was big and ineffective. But every one of their ships, just about all of their Navy is gone. Bottom of the same. Does the President, how did it have any minds in this straight-up or a move? We don't think so. So very, very unitary.

Love it. Really is a theme this week. Okay, so maybe last piece of big news from... Oh, no. It's not the last. They don't over promise. The Manosphere is the gift that keeps on giving. It's a three month.

They went all out. They sure did. It's not even half over yet either. Okay, fine. Not the last, but in some ways, the most insane piece of Manusphere news this week. Nope, not even Kate. Let me just tell you what I'm going to say.

We got a series of Doge Bro depositions this week. These came as part of one of the cases, one of the many cases, challenging Doge's destruction of various aspects of divisions of the federal government. And I just have to say, if you're interested in going beyond sort of ambient levels of rage to full-on incandescent rage, you should watch some of the videos of these clueless man-children who spent part of the last year destroying much of the American government in ways that we will probably feel for the rest of our lives. So we're just going to bring you a

couple of highlights slash low lights. Let's start with this clip from a case involving the National Endowment for the humanities. These moments from one of the depots also speak to just how unitary our executive is, which is to say not so unitary at all. Do you have an understanding about who is creating the directives and the priorities for your team to address? Elon had made it clear that there was a number of small agencies that needed Doge Leeds. So him. Your understanding is that Elon Musk kind of...

created the idea for the work that your team was engaged in? Based on the executive order. Right. Okay. This is a sample of Nathan Kavanaugh's, and this is with a C, so no relation, except spiritually, to Skodaspro, Brett, deposition. You don't regret that people might have lost important income to support their lives. No. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero. Did you reduce the federal does it? No, we didn't. So we've talked about boy math. There definitely seems to be some of that here. But also is this boyocracy? Like, these guys are all the things.

They accuse bureaucrats of being incompetent, clueless, out to launch, dumb. I mean, these guys basically went into the Iran war with a fuck around and find out approach. Like, oh, the straight of Hormuz, mines, the global oil market. Oh, yish, never thought of that. one. Honestly, a part of me wonders if, like, they're going to get, like, homophobic with the straight of Hormuz and start calling it, like, the gay of Hormuz or something. Like, this is the insane levels of their approach to government. And it is just the overconfidence of mediocre white men as a model for governments. Like, this is government of the Manosphere. But more Doge Bro depositions. Here is a mashup slash mixtape 404 media made of Dogebro.

Justin Fox, explaining what DEI is. How do you interpret DEI? There was the EO explicitly laid out the details. I don't remember it off the top of my head. It's okay. I'm asking for your understanding of it. Yeah. My understanding was exactly what was written in the EO. Okay. So can you... I don't remember what was in the EO.

So right now, do you have an understanding of what DEI is? Yeah. Okay. So what's your understanding as you sit here today in this deposition? Well, it was exactly what was written in the EEO. And so any time that we would look at a grant through the lens of complying with an executive order, we would just refer back to the EO and assess if this grant had relation to it. Okay. But I guess I'm stepping back from your methodology strictly in terminating the grants,

do you have an understanding as you sit here today of what DEI means? Yeah. Okay. So what's your understanding of what it means? Well, it is exactly what was written in the EO. Okay. So. And I don't have the EO in front of me, but that was, we would always reference back to the EO and make sure that this grant was in compliance with the EO. I understand that. Okay, but I'm not asking necessarily about what was in the EO.

I'm asking very specifically about your present understanding of what, of DEI. Mm-hmm. Do you have a present understanding of D.D? Yeah. Okay. Can you explain what that present understanding is? Well, it is just easier for me to be referencing back to the EO. Obviously, he was wrong, and he needs to listen to this podcast because he would know that D.E.I. means Dix, ex-husbands, imbeciles,

insels, idiots, or some combination thereof. As the New York Times reported, the Doge Bros used ChatGBT to scan contracts for DEI, and one of the prompts that they used was, quote, from the perspective of someone looking to identify DEI grants, does this involve DEI respond factually in less than 120 characters, begin with yes or no, followed by a brief explanation, end quote. Literally, this is the chat GPT version of the guy with the butterfly name. So the Doge staffer in this mashup was apparently convinced, among other things,

that a project about a woman's experience during the Holocaust was an example of forbidden DEI content. And I will just say that again. A movie about women during the Holocaust was, quote, D.E.I, and so the grant had to be canceled because women are illegally woke, especially in the month of the future, I guess. Yeah, as is the Holocaust. So the entire Doge thing is really, to me, the same vibe as having Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, like, mediocre at best. But these depositions are on a happier note. A testament to something litigation can do, even if that litigation doesn't result in a judgment that completely stops or fixes all of the harms. The American Historical Association, one of the plaintiffs in this particular case, made these depositions publicly available on YouTube for all to see these doge bro's asses hanging out. Like future employers of America, please bookmark these videos. And again, people...

I mean, can we stop and just say, there's one thing a historian group is going to do, and that's make a fucking... And I am so glad, so glad they did. After we finished recording, a judge ordered the videos be taken down from the internet because we can't have nice things. But this is the internet,

so they're still available. Back to our regular episode. Speaking of body parts hanging out, we do have more on the Manosphere this time from the judicial branch. of the Manosphere. So Judge Lawrence Van Dyke of the Ninth Circuit, the Amasexual who made a video dissent in a gun case,

that video dissent showed the judge assembling a gun. Check it out if you haven't. But not to be outdone by his own video dissent, Judge Van Dyke authored a dissent that began, and I quote, this is a case about swinging dicks. Girl, I'm just glad that he did not videotate this. Because restraint.

Because we're straight. Because he really could have gone there. He can find himself to the written word here and, yes, like a small blessings. It's a traditional dissent. I mean, the content isn't traditional, but it isn't a traditional dissent form. Which I appreciate. I really want to know why these guys are so obsessed with genitalia. Okay.

I think, yeah, right. I guess we did touch on that earlier. But the case in which this dissent appeared involved a sex discrimination challenge to a nude spa that would not admit a pre-operative trans woman or women, and the Ninth Circuit concluded the business likely was in violation of various non-discrimination ordinances, and Judge Van Dyck really whipped it all out in response. So after that opening sentence, the following lines also appeared in his dissent. Quote, you may think that swinging dicks shouldn't appear in a judicial opinion.

You're not wrong, but as much as you might understandably be shocked and displeased to merely encounter that phrase in this opinion. I hope we can all agree that it is far more jarring for the unsuspecting and exposed women to be visually assaulted by the real thing. Sometimes it feels like these supposed adults in the room have collectively lost their minds, woke regulators, and complicit judges seem entirely willing, even eager to ignore the consequences that their Frankenstein social experiments impose on real women and young girls. All right, this is where the courts and the executive are intersecting, because this is the language of all of those Trump administration EOs.

I will also note that Judge Van Dyke in his dissent notes that the owners of the spa that won't admit the pre-op trans person are Christians. So this is also the intersection of the whole First Amendment with substantive due process and anti-discrimination, all of the things. But because the judge is such a gentleman, he did take a beat to respond to his colleagues who thought his dissent was maybe just a little to edge lordy for Article 3. three. And here's what he had to say. Quote, my distressed colleagues appear to have the fastidious sensibilities of a Victorian nun when it comes to mere unpleasant words in my opinion, end quote.

He also continues, quote, the fact that so many on our court want to pretend that this case is about anything other than swinging dicks is the very reason the shocking language is necessary. The panel majority uses slick legal arguments and deflection to studiously avoid eye contact with the actual and horrific consequences of its erroneous opinion. All right. Well, that was a truly shocking piece of judicial writing. And I guess we have the Victorian sensibilities of the majority of the Ninth Circuit, according to Judge Van Dyke.

And I think even Trump, I think, doesn't want this. Like, I don't know exactly who he's speaking to with this kind of opinion. I imagine, like, the guy in the Oval Office. But I don't think anyone wants to read this, quite honestly. I don't know. I think the whole, like, he says what he means. He's plain spoken. Like that's the kind of lane this occupies.

And if you're auditioning to be America's next top justice, maybe this is worth that. You've got, I mean, he has true portfolio now. He has visual media. He has written media. It's like L. Woods' application to Harvard Law School. Yes. Literally in the attention age, this is how you get on the Supreme Court. It's possibly right.

God, is that dispiriting. Oh, Melissa, don't call them to being. I know. Well, I've smart. If there is going to be a first sitting federal judge to launch a podcast. Do not count out Jim Ho. I think that's probably right. Yeah, it's true.

You heard it here first. Let's delve in a little further on the issue of ethics and governance in the executive branch. And we'll do this before we turn squarely to the Supreme Court. Listeners, our favorite attorney general, one Pamela Joe Bondi, has decided that there is a problem with DOJ and ethics. True. Specifically, though, she believes the problem is that D.E.O.J. DOJ lawyers might be too ethical and too hemmed in by those pesky state bar associations that police ethical standards for the profession. Pamela Joe, you were almost there.

So close. So close. Right. So what Melissa is alluding to is the fact that DOJ is trying to exert more control over state bar ethics probes that can result in disciplinary actions against federal government lawyers. State bars can actually be pretty important accountability institutions. People might recall that state bars had some success. and meeting out some professional sanctions against lawyers who had assisted in trying to undermine or overturn the 2020 election. And so, of course, as accountability institutions, Bondi wants to go after state bar associations.

DOJ proposed a new regulation that would let it let DOJ intervene in state bar disciplinary investigations, including with the authority to review allegations against DOJ lawyers first and essentially divest those bar associations of jurisdiction over those matters while DOJ is like running its own investigation. which I'm sure will be a very serious one. It's pretty obvious that this is a recipe for DOJ obstruction of any state bar investigations of current or former, because I think the regulation or at least the proposal extends to former DOJ lawyers. So I think the one silver lining here is I feel like it does actually sound like people over there are like a little bit nervous about bar associations now or in the future going after Justice Department lawyers who engage in unethical conduct. And, you know, I take some small joy in that fact.

Okay, so take small joy in that, but I mean, federalism just took a seat on the couch and would like a word. Like what the father? Pamela Joe Boddy, Butterfly, I mean, is this federalism? But, you know, do you think this is a result of the D.C. Bar Association refusing to make her brother the president? Because remember, a lot of lawyers came together. Some possible precipitating reasons for this proposed regulation, you know, among others, Deputy A.G., Todd Blanche and former DOJ official and out judge, Emil Beauvais, Dark Lord of Vell. the Third Circuit have faced ethics complaints in state bar organizations? Hmm. Also, to be added to this list of individuals facing state bar association complaints is our favorite

friend of the pod, former USA Dick Ed Martin. There is a complaint that actually stems from his time as the acting USA Dick. The bar complaint says that Martin engaged in misconduct when he sought to punish Georgetown University Law Center for things related to DEI. This is the non-DICs, ex-husbands, and imbeciles version of DEI. But obviously, Ed Martin was engaged in the new form of DEI when he was trying to punish Georgetown University Law Center for engaging in DEI, I guess.

The complaint from the Bar Association accuses Martin of conducting unauthorized ex parte communications with a judge among other things. Hmm. Let's take one more beat on ethics, the DOJ, and House Bondi. I know we just mentioned the fact that Pam Bondi's brother once ran to be the president of the D.C. Bar Association, well, guess what? He didn't win, but he's still in the news. We could have added this to the grifting segment, but it might as well be put here as well. Last week, two Democratic lawmakers, Senator Adam Schiff and Representative Dave Min, a former law professor, asked the U.S. Department of Justice's watchdog to review whether U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has properly recused herself from cases. that involve clients of her brother, Brad Bondi, who is a partner of Paul's Hastings. So in their letter, Schiff and Min said that in January, brother Bondi posted on LinkedIn

several victories he and his team won in 2025, including one on behalf of Nicola founder Trevor Milton, who was convicted of fraud in 2022 and then pardoned by President Donald Trump last year. Other defendants Bondi represented had their criminal cases delayed unnecessarily or drop. The letter then said, quote, given the troubling pattern at the Department of repeated interventions or dismissals in cases involving brother Bondi, although they called him Mr. Bondi, we are concerned that DOJ officials, including the Attorney General, may have failed to ensure the independence of internal accountability mechanisms. Hmm.

So there are lots of things that could potentially have triggered this decision to change the rules surrounding state bar associations, like maybe many of the above. But I will also just say that the conservative legal movement has actually been gunning for state bar associations and kind of accountability for federal government. lawyers since the Reagan administration. Deborah Pearlstein has a forthcoming book that actually goes through the history of this. It's fascinating. I mean, she had an op-ed in the Times this week about this latest regulation.

And so it's maybe these things, like spurred them to actually do it now, but like the roots are quite deep. Totally. Yeah. All right. Should we move on to SCOTUS? Why not? So, folks, at a public event last Monday in D.C., justices Jackson and Kavanaugh had an exchange about

the court's shadow docket. The exchange was teed up when the moderator of the event, a federal judge, asked the justices about our friend, Professor Steve Lattick's fantastic book, The Shadow Docket. And KBJ had some things to say about the shadow docket. So she suggested that the emergency filing numbers would decrease if the court didn't grant as many of the emergency applications that were filed. Does seem like sort of a supply and demand concept here. She also generally said, quote, it's not.

that is the shadow docket is not, quote, serving the court or this country well. And she referred to the court's involvement as a, quote, real unfortunate problem that reflected, quote, a warped kind of proceeding. Now, this is not breaking news if you have read her dissents in many of the court's shadow docket grants, but it is still striking to hear her speaking in a different register, like in a public forum as opposed to in her written opinions, and making clear just how serious a problem she thinks this is. Yeah. And Brett, for his part, intellectually outmatched, obviously, attempted to, both sides the issue, he noted that the court also granted some requests on the shadow docket that were brought by the Biden administration. This happened at a remarkably lower rate and where

lower court rulings were truly unhinged, like barring the federal government from having any communications with social media companies. But no matter, he also, as ever, made the court out to be the victims here, saying, quote, none of us enjoy this. And by this, he obviously meant following precedent, normal judicial process, and the rule of law. Boo-hoo, blet, it's so hard on you, I'm sure. All right, let me switch gears. We never get to do anything related to SCOTUS that we actually like, but there is actually some positive news.

It has been reported that the federal judiciary approved the creation of a new Supreme Court defender office to help with the representation of indigent defendants. The idea seems to be that the office will serve as a counterweight to the U.S. Lister General and Federal. criminal cases and that it is an effort to close the quote-unquote advocacy gap between federal prosecutors and criminal defendants who appear before the court. It is a dedicated office that will aim to offer a comprehensive global view on criminal defense and a ready-made set of resources accessible to criminal defense lawyers. Obviously, we are excited about this development.

We'll see how it plays out and as the details get worked out. But we just want to commend all of the individuals who work so hard to make this happen and to say, plus, one, we are on board too. So let's briefly turn to argument recaps. We wanted to just note the other arguments the court heard the same week that it went wild on guns and drugs in United States versus Hamani. We covered Himani in depth at our West Coast live shows. Yeah, we literally went all the way to the bottom of the NBN jar in those live shows. We did, which meant we didn't have a chance to really talk about at all about the other two oral arguments, so we're going to briefly cover them now. Okay, the first oral argument was in Hunter versus United States. And in that case, the court is

considering the scope of appellate waivers. Appellate waivers concern the rights that defendants give up when they sign a plea agreement waiving their right to appeal. And in Montgomery v. Carribe Transport, the court is considering whether federal law precludes state common lawsuits against a broker who allegedly negligently selected a motor carrier. The argument in Hunter was just wild. If you ever listen to oral arguments, I would definitely recommend listening to this one. And part of why we at least wanted to mention this one, is the case was argued by one Lisa Blatt, which meant we were again treated to the Lisa Blatt show of interrupting justices and talking to them like they're real people. And she was really on another level in this one. And honestly, the federal government

lawyer was too. But here is an exchange that was in a slightly different register that also kind of made my skin crawl. So naturally had to share it. I like that. I mean, yeah, that sounds good. I hadn't heard that one. But yeah, but I just think in. terms of just courts that's the four circuits standard i'm just trying to get justice alito's vote and what i'm trying to say to justice alito is i care about the rest of you too but um thank you very much very few advocates have that i'll just stop that goal um yeah um yeah um he seemed to really like he really did yeah but then there's another moment also in blat's argument that that showed a different side of Justice Alito.

And this was him taking, apparently, offense to something Justice Sotomayor had said about his previous colloquy with Blatt. And Alito using that to kind of have what I read as a minor temper tantrum about how wronged he is by the current questioning format, which, you know, means that a lot of people get to go after him and he doesn't get to have the last word. So let's play that clip here. Justice Alito. Well, let me begin with Justice Sotomayor's rebuttal. of what she took me to be asking about regarding constitutional rights. Now, she will have the right to surrebuttal, which I won't have a chance to answer under this

questioning regime that we have now. Apparently, seniority doesn't have its purple chips. I love it. He is, as always, a messy bitch from New Jersey who leans into the drama. He's so worried. Like, I get to go too early in the order, and so I don't get to go. Then so to my or I just get to say whatever she wants about me. Okay, justice for New Jersey.

He's like, I get the last word. I get the last word. I mean, come on. This is like the Real Housewives series where they flip tables. I love Jersey. I love the Jersey Shore. Oh, my God. Is he the Teresa Judice of the court?

You can hear him slapping the tables. You know he's trying to flip the lector. I think it's bolted to the floor. So I probably won't work there. He'll probably have a grievance about that too. Probably. This is reminding me of that flight to, and I was going to a national constitution

Center conference, and Melissa and Joe Gorga were on the flight. Also on the flight was Robbie George from Princeton, and surprisingly, they didn't know each other. But I knew both of them. Well, I know Robbie George's, but I have no idea who the Gorgas are. But we will. You'd be in the Robbie George camp for this one. I don't think he knew. He was up there with the Gorgas. The two of us share so much. Okay. So moving on, let's briefly cover the opinions we got from the court last week. First up is Galette v. New Jersey Transit Corporation, in which the court unanimously held that the New Jersey Transit Corp is not an arm of the state for interstate sovereign immunity purposes. Sovereign immunity is protection from lawsuits, basically, which states enjoy. The New Jersey

Transit Corp was created by the state of New Jersey, but it's structured as a legally separate entity from the state and from the New Jersey Department of Transportation, and it has the traditional powers to sue and be sued and hold property and make contracts and incur debt. And all of that meant, the court concluded that the Transit Corp was not an arm of the state or part of the state, which would entitle it to sovereign immunity, so that two individuals who had been struck by New Jersey transit buses, one in New York, one in Pennsylvania. These were two separate cases that came up to the court together. But this finding meant that they could sue the transit corporation in their respective state courts for their injuries. We also got an opinion in Urius or Alana

v. Bondi, where the court unanimously decided that when federal courts of appeals are reviewing a Board of Immigration Appeals determination that an asylum seeker didn't experience persecution based on a set of facts that are undisputed, the courts are to review the BIA's determination under what is known as the substantial evidence standard. That's a very deferential standard, which means that most asylum seekers will likely lose. But importantly, the court's opinion, which was written by Justice Jackson, did not extinguish the prospect of federal court review entirely. As she explained, the courts can set aside a BIA determi a that an asylum seeker didn't experience past persecution or doesn't have a well-founded fear of future

persecution if the finding isn't supported by substantial evidence. So last beat on the Supreme Court, the latest NBC News poll suggests that the percentage of voters with, quote, significant levels of confidence in the Supreme Court has dropped to its lowest point since NBC began polling on the issue in the year 2000. So 22% of voters said they had a great deal or quite a bit of confidence. 40% had some. 38% had very little or no confidence. It's working people, continue sending strict scrutiny

to friends and family challenge, continues. So that's the legal news for the last week, and now you'll get to enjoy another part of the Bad Decisions Tour, West Coast version, and that's our interview with Representative Jimmy Gomez of California.

Well, hello there, Los Angeles. Thank you so much for being here, Representative Gomez. You are the perfect person to kick off this show because you are literally in the thick of things. You're here on the ground in L.A., which has been the site of a lot of, shall we say, unconstitutional things over the course of the last couple of months. And you also sit on numerous House committees in D.C. So you, sir, have all of the tea. And it's time to start spilling it. So we're actually going to start by ask.

Most of it. All right. We'll spill what you can. Yeah, the stuff I won't get arrested for, I will definitely spill. You figure out where those boundaries are. Yeah, yeah. This is a legal podcast, so. Okay, so, and actually, that's a good segue to the first topic we wanted to ask you about,

because you are part of ongoing litigation to ensure that Congress can exercise its oversight responsibilities, which are secured by statute, and they include visiting detention centers without advanced notice. And, you know, that's actually an issue that's close to home for us. your colleague, Representative LaMonica McIver, who's a friend of the pod, is actually being criminally prosecuted for daring to engage in exactly the kind of oversight that the statute protects. So last week, we had a development, which is that a district court blocked the administration's latest effort to obstruct members of Congress from accessing federal immigration facilities.

Can you talk to us a bit about that litigation? Yeah, that came about when, first, during the first Trump administration, we inserted language into an appropriations bill that said that, that no money could be used to block members of Congress from doing surprise inspections of any facility that held immigrants or undocumented or people that were accused of being in the country illegally. And we put that language in.

We were being able to go and do spot inspections because if you give them notice, they'll clean everything up. There won't be anybody there. So when we started doing this, when the raid started here, in June. The first thing I did the day after I got off the plane from D.C., I went to the detention center to do a spot inspection, and they denied my ability to enter. And what we found out later is what they do very often is they lie. And when they said... I'm shocked. Shocked. And they said that I wasn't allowed in or other members of Congress because there was a thousand

protesters outside. There was no one outside except attorneys and the press. So we saw this, so we got together and I was looking at suing myself for the fact that are denying members of Congress access. And the thing was, they denied people from all over the country. We ended up getting 12 members to sue with Joe Noghous, myself, Norma Torres, and it took months, but we won the first temporary injunction. What ended up happening, they allowed. us to get in and then they said well it doesn't apply any longer because the one big beautiful bill the 175 billion dollar slush fund didn't go through the normal appropriations process therefore it doesn't apply so then they even try to say it didn't apply to downtown LA what they call

B-18 because that is a field office and not a detention center so they were just making shit up every single step of the way. And then we finally got to the point just last week where we won another injunct temporary relief. And then it only applied to the 13 members of Congress, but then they just expanded it to the entire 435. So we can stop. And during the summer, one member said,

oh, I'm going to get us an appointment. Do you want to come? I said, they're just going to clean it up. So they moved it back seven days. then it moved it back another seven days, so we finally got in after two weeks. That facility can hold up to 244 individuals and nine different cells.

So can we actually talk a little bit about what you've seen in the visits to the detention centers? Because last week we got news that another detainee, Emmanuel DeMas, died in ICE custody because of an untreated tooth infection. And earlier today, the Associated Press and Mother Jones reported that staff at the largest

iced detention facility camp east Montana are apparently taking bets on which detainee will be the next to die by suicide. So can you talk about what you saw in your conversations with people who have loved ones who have been detained or

who themselves have been detained? So that visit I was just mentioning, we show up, we finally get inside, no one was inside except two people. It can hold to 244 and it smelled like they just used bleach to glean every part of the of the detention facility. So that's why we have to do these spot inspections because we know they're cleaning it up.

We found out they diverted anybody that would normally go into that facility to Orange County and to Santa Ana. So what we're looking for, do they have proper medical treatment? Do they have, is it overcrowded? Do they have access to attorneys? Do they have proper food? that's what we're looking for. And what we've learned,

there's been more deaths in detention centers in 2025 than the past 10 years combined. So we look for people that were picked up and detained to see if they're not getting forced to sign what they call expedited removal orders. And one woman, just recently when I went back to see, she got arrested the day before. She was eight months pregnant.

Couldn't find her using something called the aid number. Next day, people were like, well, she called and told her boyfriend, her husband, she was arrested by ICE. The next day, we find out she was already in a different country. Like, never included, they never, and when I went and asked for her, they said she wasn't there. So they, like, I think they're also hiding what they're doing with people. Well, let's back up a few steps before we even get to the detentions. Like, there are all of these immigration stops that have been happening here,

in Los Angeles. And I'd like to talk with you about a case that we've covered on the podcast, Nome versus Vasquez Pardomo. And the case is named for Crispy Nome, more on her in a little bit. But again, it's about immigration stops here in Los Angeles and a federal district court issued an order that blocked ICE from making immigration stops that were based on the individual's apparent race, ethnicity, language spoken, as well as a number of other traits. But then, the United the state's Supreme Court on the shadow docket stayed the district court's order, which then freed ICE to do exactly the kind of racial profiling that the district court had said was impermissible. And because this was the shadow docket, the court didn't explain itself, as is so often the case

on the shadow docket. But Justice Kavanaugh did write separately to offer a pretty magical thinking account of what the immigration stops at issue really looked like. So on his telling, these stops are short, they are respectful, they end, I know, they end whenever the officers realize that an individual they are targeting is a citizen or is lawfully present. So that is the Kavanaugh account of what these stops look like. And I have a feeling, Congressman, that that doesn't align with what you have heard from constituents about what folks are actually experiencing on the ground at the hands of ice. So can you talk about that? Yeah, well, we've seen, right after these raids started,

I pointed out that they were targeting people just based on their ethnicity, the jobs that they were doing, and if they had an accent or not. And this is, we just see it. There's 500,000 people who are undocumented of European and Canadian descent. You think they're on the west side pulling people over?

Fuck no, right? They're not pulling, like, they're not doing, like, sorry. You guys can beep it out, right? afterwards. Oh, no, we swear gratuitously. We're keeping it in. We're keeping it in. But here's the thing.

So I said that on cable. Fox News made a big deal out of it, but you just see it over and over and over again. It is obvious what they were doing. I don't know MS-13 gang members being day laborers at a Home Depot, right? Or working on the back of a kitchen at some restaurant. So they are deliberately targeting people

because if you look like me, you look like anybody of Latino descent, you're guilty. And that's what they basically allowed to be legal in this country. Yeah, and that's what the district court found exactly as you're describing. And the Supreme Court just basically sashied in and said, like, no, we disagree. And then Kavanaugh had the kind of gumption to write separately. The Caucasity. The Caucasity.

I guess that's what you call it. Mighty white of him. Mighty white of him. To write separately, to essentially, excuse it. And, you know, there was, you know, many, many things wrong with that separate concurrence, but one of the many was the sentence that I'm going to read right now, which he says, the interest of individuals who are illegally in the country in avoiding being stopped by law enforcement is ultimately an interest in evading the law. That is not an especially weighty legal

interest. So not only is there the obvious targeting of a subset of a potentially undocumented to population based on things like race, ethnicity, language-spoken, job worked. It is also the case, even if there are obviously some undocumented individuals, there are many, many individuals who identify as Latino or Hispanic millions in the Los Angeles area who are also subject to the targeting that Kavanaugh just blessed, and that I think has set in motion much of what we have seen in the last year in Los Angeles and across the country. I think of my mom.

My mom's been in this country for 40-plus years. She became a citizen after Pete Wilson was threatening to take away people's benefits, Social Security, like he was going after undocumented, and people who were Latino descent. And I was worried about her getting pulled over because she doesn't speak. Her English is pretty broken up. She has an accent. And she doesn't carry her passport on her or an ID that says, oh, I'm a U.S. citizen. So she could be arrested.

And then when she was in Mexico for a number of months, we thought about sending one of us down there to escort her back because she would be targeted just because of who she is. And that's a reality. And that's what people live and fear in every single day in Los Angeles and across the country. Kids all of a sudden are not going to school. All of a sudden, people who are diagnosed with certain diseases

are not going to get those treatments. Somebody told me that one of their patients needed to get dialysis and stop showing up. Like you have to have functioning kidneys to be able to live. But that is happening every single day because of the fear that this administration has caused through every single neighborhood that I represent. And not just the administration, but that the Supreme Court has permitted. Brett Kavanaugh owns kind of everything that you just listed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes. But it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know? And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going.

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So let's shift gears a little bit. You are on the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We are obviously living through a wildly irresponsible, reckless, catastrophic attack slash strikes slash regime change against Iran. And as ever, it feels like there's a disconnect between what Trump and those surrounding him are saying and what reality actually is. You know, on one hand, nuclear facilities were destroyed last summer. On the other hand, they were on the cusp of a nuclear weapon. So how does all of the noise surrounding what the administration is doing, speak to the wisdom and sanity or lack thereof

of what the administration is doing vis-a-vis Iran? This administration has no respect for the law, for Congress, for facts, and what they will do is they'll try to develop a fact pattern to justify any course of action. So when it came to investigating these facilities, oh, too many people protest, oh, it's not a detention center, it doesn't apply, so they just develop these facts.

When it comes to Iran, same thing. They are lying. I have not heard anything that supports their views. And even if you look at the public record, it's all there. Tulsi Gabbard, who she's crazy as they come. and should never be trusted. But she spoke in front of Congress and said that Iran, last spring,

she said Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. Trump on the plane, a reporter asks him, and he goes, Tulsi doesn't know what she's talking about. That's why he made her Director of National Intelligence, right? Yeah, great, great role for someone who doesn't know what she's talking about. Exactly. And then they do Operation Midnight Hammer when they drop the bomb on Ferdot. then he said, oh, it was beautiful, it was great,

it was all of a sudden we obliterated their program. And there was public reporting that it only set back that program by a few months. And that person got fired, right? They asked them to actually go back and look at that intelligence again, and then the person came back with the same intelligence and got fired. And then other people got fired because they were going against the public, the narrative that Trump,

put out. So same thing is happening now. Like how many different rationale has he given? One, it was, oh, to help the protesters. Two, to stop the ballistic missile program, but that doesn't, the Department of Defense says that's not going to be operational to actually get a missile to the United States into the 2035. Three, a nuclear program that was supposed to be obliterated last summer. They're only weeks away, but all intelligence says that they've actually they have, they're not actively pursuing, right?

That is in the public sphere, that intelligence. And Trump is just using it as an excuse. Then you have Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, well, we had to attack because if Israel attacked Iran, then Iran might attack our facilities. So they're trying to find a legal rationale to support their actions, but their actions are illegal. This sounds like originalism.

This sounds like originalism. Exactly. They're strict constitutionalists or constructionists. No, everything they're doing, they engage in a war of choice and they're trying to disguise it as a war of necessity. And when all the facts come out, the people who either voted no on the war powers resolution

or are justifying these actions, it's going to come back to bite them in the ass. and I hope that we hold them accountable for lying to the American public. So Representative Gomez, you've mentioned so far Marco Rubio, Telsi Gabbard, President Trump. We've mentioned Brett Kavanaugh. All of these are guaranteed buzz kills. So let's shift the vibes a little bit. You are like Brett Kavanaugh a father.

In fact, you are the founder of the Congressional Dad's Caucus. So what is the Congressional? Dads Caucus doing right now to help all of us raise the nation's children and make this a safer, more productive environment for them. Well, the Congressional Dads Caucus, we're up to 50 members now. They're only Democrats. Democrats in Republicans. So weird. And what we're doing, we're trying to put forward an agenda that works for working families. And what does that end? And, also lead the Democratic caucus in a direction that kind of boxes the caucus in, so when we take the majority, that these issues remain at the top of the legislative agenda. So on March 17th,

we're hosting the first ever national summit on the caregiving crisis. And we're doing that in order to highlight the needs of people that are taking care of newborn babies and kids, but also the sandwich generation that's also taking care of their elderly parents. And how there's not enough support and what does it do to the family? What does it do to our economy? An average family pays 26% of their income towards childcare. And then you add in housing, that's another 30%. And we had a National Summit on the housing affordability crisis in September.

So what we're doing is we're trying to build. this support and box people in. And then at the same time, getting dads to, and that are members of Congress to say, dads have a responsibility to take care of our kids, not only at home, but also in the halls of Congress. Yes, yes, all of those things. Yeah, it is, I think, in terms of a hopeful note to end on,

kind of recasting caregiving as an issue that dads need to have some ownership in is so important. So thank you for that work and for leaving us. with a bright spot of hope, especially the kind of embedded premise, that is that when the Democrats take the majority, we want to have the agenda ready to go on day one, and it sounds like you are hard at work at that.

So thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Representative Gomez, it was great to have you. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. That was a fun conversation, and it reminds me of something to share

before we get to our favorite things. So people are probably aware of this, but I'll remind you in case you're not. We are less than nine months away from the midterms, and there is a lot of work. that you can do right now, November, will decide control of Congress and also tell us whether Trump is going to maintain his Republican trifecta. And our friends at Vote Save America are here to help if you are eager to get started doing your part now. They will give you tips, which you should be.

Which you should be. They will give you tips on how and when and where to donate to make sure your money goes the furthest, how to confidently talk to people in your life about midterms and key issues and opportunities to take action with your community in real life. I'm already hosting a fundraiser for a state race this upcoming weekend. So yes, people. need to start doing things now. Yeah, it's like nine months is not that long. It's even time. It's go to vote save America.com. You can sign up to be part of the work this year and then send the sign-up link to five friends. This is paid for by Boat Save America. Learn more at Votesaveamerica.com. This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Now on to our favorite things,

which is authorized by a candidate in the candidates committee, namely the president in Fulersheim's shoes. J.K. Just kidding. No. One of my favorite things is people doing work for the midterms starting now and signing up for boatsafeamerica.com. Also, as I mentioned earlier, Casey Musgraves has a new single, Dry Spell, a new album that will come out in May. I'm obsessed with the single. It calls to mine like earlier work in Golden Hour. And I, it's just great, very catchy. Judge Young, a Reagan appointee, had a fantastic district court opinion on a stay issue, denying a stay of the remedies he had ordered in response to the federal government's illegal targeting of students and non-citizens based on pro-Palestinian speech.

And the opinion wrote, quote, now that it suits their interests, it is ironic to hear the public officials wail that they are but bit players in a fractured government, claiming that the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service is somehow not before the court and unrepresented here. As this court recognizes, the entire theory of this administration is that of a unitary executive, with no agency independence where every single employee within the Article 2 executive dances to the tune of the president, end quote. Receipts. Exactly.

Love it, favorite thing. There's also a forthcoming law review article I recently read and really enjoyed. It is by Genevieve Lakeier and Sonia Star, forthcoming in the Texas Law Review called The War on DEI as a project of constitutional subversion. So would definitely recommend that as well. Awesome. I wonder, Melissa, we should, I guess it's too late to add any citations, but it sounds

like there might be some kind of connections between we are sort of arguing that at least the gender-related executive orders are part of this kind of constitutional reimagining that the administration is pursuing. So that's what we argue in this forthcoming Supreme Court review piece. So I'll have to check that one out. I am going to totally shift gears and recommend a little bit of fiction. So I just read the correspondent, which my book club discussed. And I actually liked it kind of a lot, but it was extremely divisive in my book club.

And that actually makes for a good book club book because we really debated it. And so recommend it if you're looking for a book club book. I also just started the Hail Mary Project, which my 11-year-old read and, or actually he and my husband listened to back and forth to travel basketball like over many weekends. And I thought it was YA, but it's more kind of sci-fi. I don't know if it's technically Y-A., but it's incredibly fun. And there is a big movie based on the book coming out later this month with Ryan Gosling, who plays this, well, the scientist, middle school teacher, the kind of protagonist.

Anyway, it's incredibly riveting. Finally, I think I've previously recommended the novel Vladimir, which I loved and is now a Netflix show that I started watching and have been enjoying. But if you haven't read the book, really read the book maybe before you watch the series and then do that too. That's it. I also wanted to plus one Vladimir. Kate has been literally pouring this book into my ear for months, but I still haven't read it. So I just decided instead to watch it on Netflix because it stars some people I really like. Rachel Weiss, for example, Leo Woodall. Really, really cute. And also my personal favorite,

the Silver Fox, John Slaughtery. So it's really fun. It has a lot of like break the fourth wall moments that are really funny. So highly recommend that. Also wanted to recommend the documentary that's now out from HBO and Soledad O'Brien. The Devil is Busy, which is all about the post-row landscape. Really fantastic. Out in the Bay Area, I should have mentioned this then, but I actually didn't start reading the book until on the way back from the Bay Area. So this is Thavala Nolan's Good Woman, A Reckoning, which is a fantastic collection of feminist essays. And if you're not familiar with Thavala Nolan's writing, you should be. Her debut's collection, don't let it get you down. Essays on race, gender, and the body was an absolute tour divorce. And this new

collection is, I think, even better. So very, very highly recommend. I'm also watching Ryan Murphy's love story like everyone else about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Beset. And although I am thoroughly enjoying it, the thing I really want to recommend or like wish for bring into existence is a soundtrack from this because the music is absolutely fantastic. It is a time capsule of all of the great hits from the 1990s. Intern Jordan would be absolutely obsessed. The music is so on point. The cranberries, better than Ezra, James, absolutely amazing. And of course, the clothes are nostalgia-inducing and amazing too. I'm also really excited to report that there have been more Stricties in the wild. Saw a couple of you at the airport in Los Angeles. Great to see you.

And had the good fortune to be seated next to Strictie Justine at a dinner last week. She enjoys the podcast and I enjoyed chatting tour and we were still basking in the glow of our warm West Coast welcome. So thanks to everyone who made that tour such a resounding success. That reminds me. I also met a strictie in the wild Hillary at the University of Michigan, who is a student here, and on the West Coast glow. I am wearing a shirt that was given to us by one of our West Coast listeners that features the Portland Frog and says, ribbet, resist, repeat, and no hope without hop. And I love it. And it's sort of a shepherd fairy-esque, right? Redition of the Toad, for those of you not watching on YouTube.

Portland Frog, not Toad. Oh, forgive me. Sorry. Sorry. Kate. I also just read Tuck Everlasting with my eight-year-old, and there's a toad who appears in sort of a couple of pivotal moments. I think that's why Toad was front of mine. Also, I'm not sure I could totally tell that that was a frog and not a toad.

But I guess he is the Portland Frog. Totally. Strict scrutiny is a Crooked Media production, hosted and executive produced by Leah Lippman, Melissa Murray, and me, Kate Shaw. Our senior producer and editor is Melody Rowell. Michael Goldsmith is our producer. Jordan Thomas is our intern. Music by Eddie Cooper, production support from Katie Long and Adrian Hill. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Thanks to our video team, Ben Hethcote, and Johanna Case.

Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to strict scrutiny in your favorite podcast app and on YouTube at Strictney Podcast, so you never miss an episode. And if you want to help other people find the show, please rate and review us. It really helps. If you love Positive America and want more of my political analysis, you should subscribe to my newsletter, The Message Box. I'm Dan Pfeiffer, former senior advisor to Barack Obama, and in Message Box I break down what's actually happening in politics. and what it's going to take to beat Donald Trump MAGA. If you follow every poll and every twist-in-turn in the campaign, message boxes for you. This isn't just hot takes.

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