The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3607 - Farmers Turn on Trump; Far-Right SCOTUS Poised to Gut Voting Rights Act w/ Elie Mystal

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

It's an Emmajority Report Tuesday on the Majority Report On today’s show: U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins blames decades of farm consolidation for the rising cost of beef — an issue the Biden administration tried to address through an executive order promoting antitrust enforcement and support for small farms. But last August, Trump repealed that order, encouraging further consolidation in the agricultural sector. Meanwhile, American farmers are frustrated over Trump’s decision to bail out Argentina with $40 billion and his tariff policies that pushed China to buy soybeans elsewhere, including from Argentina. And when reporters press Trump on the topic, he gets noticeably defensive. Justice correspondent for The Nation, Elie Mystal joins the program to discuss the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and other recent rulings by the Supreme Court. In the Fun Half: Laura Ingraham hosts two "independent journalists" who claim that SEIU representatives were claiming to recruit "youths" into the DSA at the No Kings Rallies over the weekend. A clip from 2016 where RFK, Jr perfectly defines how Trump is building a vicious Batya Ungar-Sargon claims Trump has no history of racism only for Keith Boykin to rattle off a list of Trump's racist activity spanning six decades. All that and more The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: DELTEME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout. SUNSET LAKE:  Head to SunsetLakeCBD.com and use coupon code “Left Is Best” (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech Check out Matt’s show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon’s show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza’s music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com  

You are listening to a free version of The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. To support this show and get another 15 minutes of daily program, go to Majority.fm. Please. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Tuesday, October 21st, 2025. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar, and this is the five-time award-winning. majority report. We are broadcasting live

steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Ellie Mistal of the Nation magazine joins us to talk about the Supreme Court,

appearing poised to gut the Voting Rights Act. Also on the program, Israel has already broken the Gaza ceasefire predictably, killing dozens of Palestinians and Trump buys their

BS and blames Hamas. Trump's pick for the Office of Special Counsel is the latest 30-year-old Republican infant to be caught calling themselves a Nazi in a group chat

among other slurs. He's just learning how to walk. How can you be so mean? Yeah, babies are all Nazis. Isn't that even... What form of Christianity is when you're born impure, then have to... Whatever. This is...

All of it. At least four Republican senators, including the majority leader Thune, signal they will not support this avowed Nazi guy in his nomination. It is day 21 of the government shutdown and no Democratic, no more Democratic senators than before have caved yet. But there's a report that they're considering it on November 1st. Marjorie Taylor Green calls out Mike Johnson for refusing to bring the House back in session unless Democrats unilaterally agree to their demands. and they're afraid of this Epstein

a discharge petition too The Atlantic reports that ICE is struggling to find applicants who can pass personal fitness tests That is run 1.5 miles Well, we've seen the videos Apparently going across the parking lot Does not prepare you for running 1.5 miles in one go This is the toughest America has to offer.

A federal appeals court panel allows Trump to deploy National Guard troops in Portland pending litigation. By the way, the two out of three judges on the panel that's sided with Trump, Trump appointees. This seems bad. The U.S. Army has invited major private equity firms to fund $150 billion in infrastructure updates. States.

The merging of finance and the military is a hallmark of fascism. Did they, yeah, do they, like, own the bases that they build? It's unclear. And how much money? Yeah, I was just going to say, like, how much money do we give them? It's the, the point is to merge the financing with the state, I mean, I think, but, um. The military is very socialist. Yep.

Why would the military want that? All right, well, we'll discuss it later. Trump has begun demolishing the east wing of the White House to build his $250 million ballroom in a metaphor. North Carolina Republicans vote to add a Republican seat to their congressional maps. Stein doesn't have the veto power to override it. And lastly, one of the January 6th participants who Trump parting was just arrested for threatening to assassinate Hakeem Jeffries. all this and more on today's majority report. It's a majority report Tuesday.

Sam is out. He just should have touched down yesterday in Vegas for the tort conference. So tomorrow and Thursday, we are going to have, hopefully Sam will have some interviews lined up unless he's up too late gambling, which I can understand. She was offered a tour, sushi, and poker with the boys. Hopefully Sam gets some time for some poker with the boys out there. Sush and boyish. Don't eat Vegas sushi, though. It's too far from the ocean.

Right. See, that's what I'm saying. Would you feel more comfortable with Vegas sushi or West Virginia sushi? West Virginia sushi. Because of proximity? Yeah. Okay. Well, you're less snobby than I am.

You're just thinking about the geography of it. I don't know if I don't know if I would make that call. But anything's better than gas station sushi. Don't go for that, guys. So a day or two ago, Trump announced that the White House is trying to cut a deal with Argentina to import more Argentine, Argentine beef to increase supply here in the United States. and farmers, ranchers, rather, on this front in the U.S. are like, okay, so we're importing Argentine beef now?

Weren't the tariff supposed to be about making sure that America is producing everything and onshoreing this capacity? And ranchers were already hurting. The Biden administration had many flaws, but one of the strengths was, Lena Kahn and antitrust and Jonathan Cantor. And in late 2024, there was an article in Farm Aid talking about how the Biden administration had been fighting consolidation in the food systems.

Explaining here, our food system has become more consolidated and less competitive over the past several decades. This consolidation means just a few companies control most agricultural inputs, like seeds and fertilizer, as well as how and where farmers can sell what they produce. This issue is particularly dire in the livestock industry, where four large meat packers, companies that slaughter, process, package, and distribute meat

control over 80% of the beef market. This consolidation has led to lower prices paid to farmers and higher prices paid by consumers. While the farmer's share of the price of beef has dropped by 14% over the last five years, the price of beef in the supermarket has increased. So do you see what's happening there? Because of the monopoly power,

this consolidation allowed to rip off both farmers and consumers on that front. And money bags gets the benefit. Right. And with fewer meat packers, you know, bidding for the cattle here, that means that the ranchers with the cattle have less leverage.

And the Biden administration was trying to correct that. Again, this is from 2024. President Biden has made it a priority to address competition issues. His executive order on promoting competition in the American economy included initiatives that empower USDA to stop abusive practices of meat processors and encourage antitrust agents to focus efforts on agricultural markets in particular. Now, let's smash cut to today, or at least late August, Trump revokes Biden order targeting food system consolidation. President Donald Trump has revoked a Biden-era executive order that tasked the U.S. Department of Agriculture and FTC with curbing consolidation across the food system to improve fairness and competition for farmers and consumers.

So that is the underlying systemic problem here, which is the consolidation of money and the monopoly power of these meat packers into jaddy vance's pocket oh yeah vested interest in consolidating farmland that's uh that's a great point um and so then you have the tariffs that has been absolutely devastating for farmers and ranchers um on top of that bailing out argentina with to the tune of initially it was $20 billion and then it was $40 billion because Trump's buddies are in bed with the psychotic anarcho-capitalist libertarian definitely doesn't have sex with his sister Javier Malay down in Argentina and their currency has been falling apart and to protect the business interests of his friends he's giving away billions and billions of dollars in $10. taxpayer money to Argentina and then is screwing U.S. ranchers by importing beef from them while he's talking about America first. Here is a Nebraska Farm Bureau president, Mark McCarrag,

who is addressing and speaking out and saying, we're not too happy about this plan to import beef from Argentina. Hello, ag friends. Hopefully your fall. is going well. You know, some days you feel like you just can't catch a break in agriculture, but the cattle sector is one of the real bright spots here in the industry and certainly in Nebraska where we have a lot of mama cows. But unfortunately, we have administration that thinks that they need to lower the price of beef. President Trump on Friday actually made a statement that said we should lower the price of a beef and ultimately that's lowering the price of cattle. That's not something we need to do. I just want our members to know that,

Nebraska Farm Bureau is adamantly opposed to anything that would artificially lower the price of beef. We have worked hard to get our cattle market where it is. It's a supply and demand issue right now. But quite frankly, we need this bright spot here in Nebraska. So I have communicated with all of our federal delegation and let them know that we are opposed to any move that would artificially lower the price of beef cattle. They have worked that up to the leadership already today. And so stay tuned as we kind of follow this story. Hopefully we can get this tamp down, but just want to make sure that you know that I'm doing everything that I can as your president of Nebraska Farm Bureau to ensure that our beef sector here in Nebraska in the

country continues to thrive. Until next time. Dan Osborne, I would imagine, is already across this kind of thing. But thinking about his candidacy for Senate in 26, Leaning into this is important, and it's not just cattle ranchers. It's not just the beef side of things. The soybean farmers are perhaps even more outraged by this because when I mentioned that bailout to Argentina, a few days after he announced the initial $20 billion before upping it to $40 billion, Chinese importers and, ended up buying over a million metric tons of Argentine soybeans, and this was right as the harvest season in the United States began. And since I think the middle of the year, China has not imported basically any zero soybeans from the United States. I think since like April, May. Soybeans are 14% of all U.S. agricultural exports. And China is the biggest importer. So here is this Illinois soybean farmer speaking about this to CNN in a

segment from a few days ago. John Bartman is a soybean farmer whose family has been working Illinois land since before the Civil War. Here in Marengo, a farming community where the land and sky feel endless. John sees a crisis on the horizon. So this is 4,134.000. That's roughly $40,000 worth of soybeans that we have harvested. And a couple of years ago, that was easily $60,000. It's what we do in this country. We export food. And we can't do that right now.

The price of soy dropped under the Trump administration, largely the result of the Trump administration's trade war with China. John's crops diligently planted, meticulously cared for, are losing their value. Are you angry? Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm totally mad. There's no reason for it. This is absolute stupidity. This is a man-made crisis caused by Donald Trump, period. Soybeans are the largest agricultural export from the U.S. Last year, the value was more than $24 billion. China bought 52% of those soybeans. Since May, the country has placed zero orders. Instead, China bought the bulk of its soybeans from South American countries like Brazil and Argentina. And that Argentina piece is what I mentioned, happening right after that bailout.

So, honestly, this is the kind of story that Democrats across the country, regardless even, of ideology, can capitalize on here. Well, I mean, I'm from North Dakota. I mentioned it all the time. When I was growing up, North Dakota had two senators that were in the Democratic Party and one representative that was a Democrat. It was completely represented federally by Democrats. And it was entirely because farming requires central planning. It has for 100 plus years. And you should know that.

And instead, we've had people like Bill Clinton that have sort of loosened that sort of tight connection by orienting more towards the coast, more towards professionals. But fundamentally, as Kowalski mentioned, like farmers, they can be a piece. appealed to on the capitalist sort of line, but it's the government is the big show that require, if you're going to keep a small farm in existence, that requires government action. And the reason Trump got elected in the first term in many ways is because he was so critical

of the trade deals that had decimated farmers. I mean, you talk about Bill Clinton. That was an argument that Trump successfully made basically in 2016 and convincing the voters. and farmers like this, ranchers like this, that he would be better on that. And now it's abundantly clear what he's doing. He's emiserating the industry. And by the way, likely incentivizing further consolidation because the more farmers, the more ranchers,

the more small businesses that they fall by the wayside because they don't have the margins of these conglomerates, the more that that market share can get bought up by the donors to the Republicans and Trump's buddies. And speaking of Donald Trump, he was on Air Force One, asked about this yesterday. Farmers are upset, the reporter asks. And he says, don't worry, little girl. Shut your mouth, basically.

Question is, what do you have to say to U.S. farmers who feel that the deal is benefiting Argentina more than it is them as they are? Argentina is fighting for its life, young lady. You don't know anything about it. they're fighting for their life nothing is benefiting argentina they're fighting for their life you understand what that means they have no money they have no anything they're fighting so hard to survive if i can help them survive in a free world i happen to like the president of argentine i think he's trying to do the best you can but don't make it sound like they're doing great they are dying all right they're dying what do you mean by what do you mean make it sound like they're doing great

that's not the question that's not the question Mr. America first. And we should ask, why are they doing so poorly? This is from nine months ago. I cite this a lot because Malay went on stage with Elon Musk with a chainsaw. And the implication was they're going to try to do what they did to Argentina here in the United States, this gutting of the administrative state and open corruption. On Monday, this is again from nine months ago, the National Statistics Agency announced that Argentina had Exited the severe recession, blah, blah, blah, with GDP growing.

But Malay's severe spending cuts have hit the poor hard. Statistics show that for the first half of this year, this is 2024, almost 53% of Argentina's 45 million people were living in poverty, a two-decade high, up from 41.7% in the second half of 2023. Some 18% of people were living in extreme poverty, while more than six out of 10 of under 14s, lived below the poverty line. So just to repeat that, that was over half of Argentina's 45 million people living in poverty at two-decade high, up 41.7% in the second half of 2023. That's why they're in trouble, Donald Trump. It's because of right-wing policies like yours.

Libertarian economics. And, you know, people might say, like, why is Argentina benefiting and not America? Neither is benefiting. This is not actually a nationalist issue. This is a class war that's being waged both on Americans and Argentinians. And the people that are benefiting in Argentina are not the manufacturing sector, which is being destroyed. Employment is collapsing in Argentina. What's benefiting is extractive industries that are interested, that foreign capitalists are interested in, like, commodities like beef or mining and that sort of thing.

and that sort of thing. And so this is not helping Argentina either, but it's helping a certain class of capitalists that makes money with money and doesn't care about anything else that happens in any society. And before we ended here, I just want to show how this is impacting the consumer a bit.

I don't know if this chart is included in the archived article here from the Wall Street Journal. put it in the slack, a screenshot of it, which might be easier to use. But the Wall Street Journal last week had an article about the price changes for consumers in the United States. And coffee, it's okay, we don't need to put it up. Coffee just is exploding right now because of the tariffs. But ground beef continues to increase and increase and increase. in part because in terms of what we were importing,

much of that was from Brazil. And Trump's trade war with Brazil is predicated on his personal anger towards the Brazilian government and their legal system for prosecuting Jayao Bolsonaro successfully in convicting him for trying to do a coup. because, like, for all, you know, there's rumors right now, and I don't know if this will end up being the case, but that Trump is considering pardoning P. Diddy. And people are saying, well, why would he do this? Why would he? And who knows if he will end up doing it? But just like, say he's a elite sex criminal. Right. It's this, but it's the same thing here. Like, it's not about, he's not appealing to democracy. He's not appealing to the will of the people. He's doing this as a show of, I am pro rapist. I am, no, these are my guys, the rapists. And it's to all of our, the crooks, these are my guys.

Millet, this is my guy. This is about getting his folks out of power and showing to the rest of his movement that you can operate with impunity. And it's to all of our detriment, because places like Brazil are responding by just deepening their relationships with the people that we consider enemies like China. Yep. In a moment, we will be speaking with Elie Mistal, but first, a word from our sponsors. Right now, the headlines are chock full of data breaches and regulatory rollbacks, making us all vulnerable on the internet. But there is something that you can do about it.

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and use the code left as best for 20% off. That's sunset lake sebeda.com. Use code left as best for 20% off. Quick break and when we come back we'll be joined by Ellie Mistal. We are back and we are joined by the great Ellie are joined by the great Ellie Mistal. all justice correspondent, columnist at the nation,

and Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. Ellie, thanks so much for coming on the show. Hi, thanks for having me. Sorry, my dog is being annoying, so we're just going to have to do with it. Not being annoying to me. I would like to know a name, and I would like to see a face. Oh, it's Cassandra. She, like me, she sees the future, but nobody believes her.

Oh, so she's a leftist. It's about being right too early. Mm-hmm. That's right. All right. Good to know that she's a comrade. Well, we'll get right into it here, Ellie, because I'd covered this a few weeks ago prior to the oral arguments, but the oral arguments were last week. The Supreme Court heard arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, which is basically centered around Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But maybe let's just back up really quickly to speak about. how the Supreme Court in recent years has already gutted the Voting Rights Act to give us some

context as to where we are with this case. Yeah. So, Emma, it really goes back to John Roberts. People need to understand that John Roberts has made his entire career to oppose the Voting Rights Act and oppose the equality in voting. He's got his start as a Reagan lawyer arguing against the expansion of the Voting Rights Act back in the 1980s. Now, he lost that fight because the Voting Rights Act used to be a bipartisan issue. Even Republicans realized that they couldn't be so openly racist to the concept of a full and equal government. But then he became, then he got onto the Supreme Court. And for the past 20 years, this year is his 20th year as Chief Justice. He has been a consistent enemy of the Voting Rights Act and has done everything in his power to take it down.

case last week is just the latest example of that, but there's a long history here with Roberts and his opposition to black voting rights. I've argued that Roberts has been the biggest enemy to black people and their equality in this country since Chief Justice Roger Tanny, who authored the Dred Scott decision and famously said that a black man has no rights. The white man is bound to respect. Roberts is that guy updated for the modern age. people think, oh, it's San Alito, because Sam Alito's always run around with his flag hanging out of his pants or whatever. And I get that. And Roberts is a more genteel version of it.

But make no mistake, Roberts is the guy, you know, in the Matrix kind of dotology. He is the guy guarding every door and holding every key, preventing black people from voting equally and fairly in this country. And the previous attacks on the Voting Rights Act are in many ways why we are where we are today, basically, because it made it easier to undercut the law when essentially the premise from the Supreme Court in previous cases, if you don't mind explaining this a bit, was just like, it's been enough time. it's been racism's kind of done so it's been enough time we don't need this anymore yeah i argue that you can draw a direct line from john roberts gutting the voting rights act in 2013 and shelby county beholder through the election of donald trump and our current eruption of white supremacist's fashion there is a linear progression from what roberts did in 2020 2013 to where we are now and emma you're exactly right the core argument from roberts and other conservatives has been racism has been

solve, that we are beyond this, that we don't have to continue to worry about protecting black voting rights because white people are over their racism. And it fails, you know, that argument fails every time. It never survives its first contact with reality. I like to think of it. I like to use the Ruth Bader Ginsburg phrase that throwing out things like the Voting Rights Act is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet yet. That's kind of what the conservatives want us to do. The Republicans want us to do because these laws and these policies have been effective, they say that we don't need to use them anymore. And to get to the current case, that came up directly in oral

arguments in this voting rights case that happened last week, where Brett Kavanaugh essentially argued that we don't need Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act anymore because white people are over their racism, that there should be a sunset provision to the Voting Rights Act, which was a wild thing for Brett Kavanaugh to say because Congress passed the Voting Rights Act and did not put in a sunset provision. They did not put in a time limit when they passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. They do for other laws. There are laws that Congress passes with what's called a sunset provision where they say after a certain amount of time, if it's not reauthorized, then this law laps. Like, that is a thing Congress does all the time. Not with the voting rights act.

So Brett Kavanaugh is saying, like, well, there should be a sunset. Well, that's great that you think so, Brett, but nobody elected you to make that call, right? You're not in the legislative branch. You're in the judicial branch. You're supposed to follow the law, and this law has no sunset provision. But Brett Kavanaugh, like John Roberts before him, there they always want to say that, oh, racism is over, and so we don't have to be concerned about voting rights anymore. It is how conservatives win. It's how Republicans win, because if you don't protect the Voting Rights Act, if you don't protect the ability of black people to vote, there's no version of events where the Democratic Party wins. And that's hard for Democrats,

I think, sometimes to get their minds around. But there's no version of events where the Democrats exists as a national party without robust support from black and brown individuals. And the estimates about if they rule to overturn Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in this case, about the amount of seats that Republicans could add, essentially eliminating Democratic representation in southern states. It's up to 19 that they could add. So to get into the specifics of the case, the case involves a Louisiana congressional map, that was initially made with five majority white districts and one majority minority district. Now, that makes no mathematical sense.

Louisiana is 56% white, not 83% white. In fact, Louisiana is 30% black. So, again, simple math would tell you if you a third of the population, you should probably have a third of the congressional districts, which means you should have two majority minority districts, not just one. So a court under the Voting Rights Act ordered Louisiana to draw a second map with two majority minority districts. They did so. And that is the map that got challenged and is up at the Supreme Court right now because white folks, white voters in Louisiana argued that the second majority minority district violated their constitutional rights to equal protection. White people in

Louisiana are literally arguing that they have a constitutional right to be over represented in Congress, to have more representation than their population would allow as a constitutional principle. And that's the case that went up to the Supreme Court. Specifically, what stopped Louisiana's initial racist map was Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which critically does not look at intent, right? Other sections of the law, other sections of the you have to prove, you know, that somebody intended tried to be racist. Section 2 does not. Section 2 looks only at outcomes.

So Louisiana can run around and say, I don't have a racist bone in my body and I've have lots of black friends or whatever they want to say. It doesn't matter if the outcome of your map is racist, then Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is allowed to operate. And that, that core is what the Republicans want to take away. They want to change the analysis so that you have to show intent to be racist in order for the Voting Rights Act to operate. And obviously, Emma, I mean, I don't think I'm sitting out of school here to say that for the most part, white people don't admit to being racist. They don't confess to being racist.

There's always some other reason that they're doing these racist things, right? And so you're never going to get that kind of proof, that kind of, as Junae Nelson, who argued the case for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund put it, you're never going to get that confession or admission of racism. They're always going to say, oh, we had some other reason. I mean, this, I'm often bringing up the genocide in Gaza just when I can. But like, it reminds me of the arguments about saying it can't be a genocide because they didn't write, I am committing genocide on some sort of paper. Like, they're not going to admit that. I mean, this is part of how it works, at least in terms of like what's been written down, which is also why, I mean, I want to continue to stay on this case, but just emphasizing how impactful Shelby is, you know, that that case from 2013, which destroyed section four of the Voting Rights Act, which required basically preclearance from these southern states from the federal government when they were creating their congressional maps. It almost appears like they decided that case so that they could do.

do what they're doing now, this like ad hoc determination? Because as you write in your piece, their arguments, if they rule the way they're indicating in their oral arguments, it is completely contradictory to their own precedent in the 2023 case, Allen versus Michigan, where they sided the right way against a racist Alabama map. I don't understand how you can side with these white plaintiffs. who are arguing basically reverse racism in Louisiana and have sided in the exact opposite way in Allen v. Milligan

because the facts are almost identical here. The cases are almost a carbon copy of each other, but what's different is the lawyering. And, you know, people have said at the time when Alan v. Milligan came out because it was a decision that upheld the V. Rights Act and upheld the forcing Alabama to create a majority minority district, which was surprising from these conservatives, Roberts and Kavanaugh joining the liberals to uphold the Voting Rights Act, that's, again, that is that is the, that is unusual for these guys. So why was it? Well, Alabama lawyer at their case, I think, particularly bad. As I said, Roberts likes to pretend that racism doesn't exist unless people show up in his courtroom and are like, I'm doing some racism today, right? Like then Roberts is like, well, you're like, and so.

this idea of like do white people have to confess to being racist in alan v melligan they kind of war right they they they got as close as you possibly come to to a confession of racism they the way they argued and lawyer their case was not that oh Alabama is in compliance with the voting rights act they said oh we don't have to be in compliance with the voting rights act because the voting rights act is stupid and that i think was the bridge too far for Roberts and Kavanaugh, right? In the Louisiana case, Louisiana is saying, no, no, no, we're still complying with the Voting Rights Act, even if we only have one majority minority district for reasons. They're terrible reasons. They're bad faith reasons. They're incredible reasons,

but they're giving reasons why they can still be seen in compliance with the Voting Rights Act. They're saying, we're not trying to be racist. The lawyer representing Louisiana literally said, And this honestly made me laugh out loud before I started crying. If Louisiana would have drawn the exact same map in the exact same way, even if the races were reversed, right? That their goal was to discriminate against Democratic voters, not discriminate against black voters. Now, that argument is another Roberts special that comes to us from John Roberts in a 2019 case now called Rucho v. Common Cause, where Robert, said that political gerrymandering was okay, that as long as you're only discriminating to protect Republican incumbents, you're good, right? And so Louisiana is saying we were only

trying to protect Republican incumbents. But here's the thing, Emma. Again, we have math here on our side to like understand things better, right? And the math says in Louisiana in particular, but generally across the South, that white voters, white Democratic voters, won't vote for a black candidate, even if it's in the same party, right? The numbers say that white Democrats in the South would rather vote for a white Republican than a black Democrat. That is a statistical reality, right? So if you are going to have black representation in Congress, you literally kind of need

majority-minority districts because white people won't do anything better. Like, white people won't go for it, even if you're talking about a person of color from their own party. That's the reality here that the Voting Rights Act is trying to, again, correct. And that's the reality that Robertson-Cavanaugh won't let happen. Well, I mean, it's also just so pathetic to have an argument, which is basically, trust me, bro, being enough to flatter the, you know, the chief justice of the Supreme Court to get him to do what he already wanted to do. It's just there's no evidence to support this claim. I'm not even, can you give me some insight into what the legal arguments are that would support

their, trust me, bro, it's not racist thing? It's their, it's their own testimony. They're promising you that's it. That's all, that's all they're providing to the court. to support their claim? Roberts is saying that's all they need, right? Like, Roberts is saying that's all they need. Roberts is saying that you can, if you can show that you are trying to discriminate against

Democrats and not discriminate against white, against black people by the way that they drew their map, by the initial 5-1 map that was just protecting Republicans. Whereas when you draw the two-majority minority district map, I mean, people are, This came up a lot with Alito because he was saying, well, the districts that are not compact, right? That we want districts that are close together. To get your two-majority-minority district, you have to kind of split Louisiana kind of down the center. You have to kind of diagonally go across the state. There's like a black belt in Louisiana where black people live.

So you make two districts in a kind of diagonal line. That's how you do it. And that doesn't look pretty to Sam Alito. I mean, his argument was that it wasn't, make no, you know, who cares? is the fact that the white districts are also all oddly shaped and weird. No, no, no. We don't care about that. We only care about the fact of the black districts look weird to Sam, and that's apparently enough to kill the Voting Rights Act. And again, as you've brought up a couple of times, if they rule this way, that immediately flips one seat from Democrats or Republican.

Right? If you go back to the 5-1 map, that's taking one black seat out of Congress and putting it back in the white corner and most likely that's going to be a white Republican who wins that seat, right? Some analysts have said that if states can gerrymander fast enough after they release this decision, and we don't know when they'll release this decision, but if they're certainly going to release it before the midterms. And if states can move fast enough, some analysts say that as many as 19 seats across the south could be in jeopardy, right? I mean, you're talking about majority minority districts. You're talking basically about the congressional black caucus. And this case kills them. I mean, like, it's designed

to kill the ability of black people to be represented in Congress. And that has huge implications on the upcoming midterms. So in addition to their legal strategy here, people need to understand the political strategy from the Republicans on the Supreme Court, because let's be fair, they are politicians in robes. They are Republicans on the Supreme Court. There's a direct electoral strategy here. All of this talk that we have about gerrymandering and Republicans trying to protect themselves in the midterms, this case, this one case can flip the whole thing. So in theory, does this give, say, California passes the prop, which I'm forgetting the exact, is it 80, prop 80 in the ballot referendum in the measure. Does that in theory give them the

ability to eliminate Republican days? districts from their maps? California is already trying that, right? Like you don't need this case to do that. That's under, again, the 1990, the 2019 Rucho v. Common Cause decision. California, according to Roberts, is allowed to gerrymander its state as much as it wants to to discriminate against Republicans. What's stripping up California is its own state law.

50. I just want to correct myself. Thank you. Is its own state law processes. That's why you have a voter referendum because you need to change the state law. In New York, where I live, and I looked into this, like, pretty hard. You kind of can't change New York state law, and certainly not in time for the 26 midterms. There's a chance, there's a possibility that you could change in time for 2028. But because, and that's not a Supreme Court issue, that's a function of New York state law and New York's state constitution.

One of the problems, and I think I've talked about this on the show before, one of the problems that we have is that we don't have one of federal electoral system. We've got 50. Each state is generally allowed to do its own thing, and it becomes a race to the bottom, right? When Texas decides to drop their drawers and show their ass, that almost forces Illinois to do the same thing, which then requires Tennessee and Florida to do something stupid,

which then makes California also go to the bottom. And then New York is trying to catch up. Like, it's a race to the bottom because it's, If political gerrymandering is the rule of the day, then if you are in charge of a statehouse, you are stupid. You are committing political non-practice. You are hurting the country if you don't gerrymander your state as much as possible using whatever means, to quote Lewis Gosser Jr., fair and unfair, to get what you want, right?

Like, that's where we're going. Well, I mean, what's the what kind of the voting rights act was necessary, but insufficient even in what we're talking about here. Like the there should have been, frankly, an effort by Democrats to say this is where we build off of things like the voting rights act or at the very least try to codify something stronger because without some movement towards like a standardized process. of, say, proportional representation, this kind of game is going to continue to get played, and we know that they have money, they have capital, and they've got the white supremacists on their side. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, look, the Democrats tried to restore the Voting Rights Act in 2021 after both of these decisions that we keep talking about, Shelby County and the Rucho decision,

they tried that bill, that, you know, that first Senate bill was scuttled by Mansion in cinema. It was scuttled by Mansion and Center, and it was scuttled by the Democrats' own refusal to break the bullabuster. But they tried, arguably, I, look, I don't know what else you could have done to Mansion. I don't know what else you could have done to cinema. I would have kidnapped their dogs. I mean, like, I would have gone to Paul Monty to get them on board, but, you know, they voted against it. Mansion and Cinema would not let us restore the Voting Rights Act when we had a chance in 2021. And now this is a time of consequences.

Now we are living with that failure, that inaction, and this is what you get. The Republicans understand, look, I always say that it's an electoral strategy, but I understand the brass tax here. Republicans understand that if everybody who wants to vote can vote and has their vote counted, Republicans can't win. Republicans understand that they are the unpopular party, that they are the minority party, that they can't achieve their goals through free and fair elections. And so their response to that is almost rational self-interest to do everything they can to sully and muddy elections. The problem is that Democrats don't seem to have the same focus.

They don't seem to have the same focus on protecting voting rights when they have the chance, knowing full well the Republicans are going to do everything they can to take away voting rights when they have the chance. And that is the asymmetry in the battle we're fighting. Democrats understand it is in their political advantage if everybody votes. It's in their political advantage to have high turnouts, but they don't do the things that we need to do in order to have everybody voting and to have high turnouts. Like, that's the, that's the, that's the core of the problem here. And I don't see it getting solved any time soon. Lastly, before we let you go, Ellie, can I ask you about two cases separately from this that I just want people to keep their eye on. Absolutely. There's a good chance I've read them.

Hemini or Jimani or Hemini versus the, U.S., about that that's the gun case. And then surrounding, I think really, it was like the Hunter, Biden, usage of the drug charge to prosecute him. And then Charles v. Salazar on the legality of conversion therapy, which is immensely important for LGBTQ kids across this country. Yeah. So I got a little bit of a contrarian on the guns case. I think it's a trap. I think it's a trap for the left because the at issue is whether or not having a federal conviction for marijuana use is enough for somebody to take away your gun rights. This is how it can, this is how it gets wrapped up in Hondra Biden because he's, Hunter Biden was a drug user,

and he had a gun, and he was convicted, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And so the left, progressives generally are like, well, no, hypocrisy here can't be allowed, right? Like if you can have a gun when you do all these other things, then surely you can have a gun if all you've done is smoke some lead of all you've done is taken as a habitual drug user. We shouldn't take guns away from people for habitual drug use. And the reason

why it's a trap is that to get there, what the Supreme Court is going to do is expand gun rights even further and potentially saying that being convicted of federal crime is not enough for them to take away your guns. Which is terrible.

Which is not something that we should want. We should want people. who have been convicted of federal crimes to not be able to have firearms. That's just intelligence, right? That's just smart, right? Well, you just hate freedom. You just hate freedom. The way to solve the Hunter Biden issue, the way to solve the marijuana use issue,

is to stop criminalizing habitual drug use, right? Smoking weed should not be a federal crime. And therefore, the people who smoke weed shouldn't have their guns taken away, because they shouldn't have been convicted from a crime to begin with. But we can't fall into the trap of saying, like, and therefore people who are federal criminals shouldn't have their gun rights taken away.

No, no, no, no. Those are the first people should have their gun rights taken away, right? Like, the focus on the criminalization of drugs as opposed to how it's being played out in this particular marijuana case. So that's the gun case. And then really quickly on Charles v. Salazar,

look, the Republicans have been trying to stamp out the LGBTQ community for at least 20 years, at least since Roberts came on the court, most likely very much longer. And this is the latest example of it. It is a case where Colorado has a ban on conversion therapy and a white Christian lady who wants to practice conversion therapy objected to the ban saying that it violated her free speech rights. This is a credible argument, right? We want therapists to be able to say what they want to say.

the problem is that she's a licensed medical professional. And for the licensing to have any value, it is so that we know that when we go to a licensed professional, we are getting the license medically agreed on consensus therapies, not random Christian crazy fascist therapies, right? And that should be the distinction here. And that's what the court is going to ignore and let her preach conversion therapy and bully gay kids.

And it will literally their decision will lead to more gay suicides. I mean, it's also, it's insane because these states have, this is, this should be a hundred percent within the state's jurisdiction to ban this kind of thing. I don't know what the precedent would be that they're going to use eventually, as you say, to likely allow for this kind of abuse to happen. Like, how they, how they're going to justify infringing on states' rights here to make, to, to litigate the, or to draw legislation to combat this. It reminds me of Jordan Peterson complaining all the time about how he's been like canceled because he had to do some sensitivity training because he was advocating for like deeply anti-trans abusive forms of

therapy. He's calling doctors butchers. Yeah, talking trans affirming doctors, butchers. Like that is that you should not be able to do to say that kind of thing to a patient. That's crazy. If you want to practice conversion therapy, strap yourself to sandwich board and go to the nearest street corner and do your business, right? Like, nobody's stopping you from doing that. Nobody's stopping a priest from telling some kid prayed away, like, whatever you want to do. That's fine. We're talking about licensed medical professionals here. And just like a licensed doctor is not allowed to tell me to, I don't know, take bleach to deal with COVID. That's not a licensed medical practice, right? When you were licensed by a state, you were supposed to follow some basic form of standards.

conversion therapy has been shown to be bunk quack science. It's not science. It is just bullying. It is a form of child abuse. And you shouldn't be allowed to practice that while under the imprimatur of expertise from a state licensing ward. Ellie Mistal, thank you so much for your time today. Always appreciate your insights, justice correspondent, and columnist at the nation. You can check out his work there. It's great stuff. Thanks so much for your time to thank you so much for having me of course all right folks with that we're going to wrap up the free part of this program head into the fun part of the program where i believe we will take your calls today um if the computer is working the phone computer well well knock on wood

tut tut tut tut and uh we will we will see uh in the break tut tut tut too too yeah i i think i I think I mispronounce. It's more like tut-t-tut-tut. Sam's potty humor is rubbing off on me, I guess. Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning? As a guy who is focusing so much of my effort on ending human suffering on the planet Earth. That's what we're focused on over at Left Reckoning. Tonight, we're doing that by...

Self-aggrandizing, Matt. I mean, look, all human suffering. I don't know why you keep on talking to talk about Israel. I'm trying to talk about human suffering over here. One of my favorite writers slash podcast personalities, Dano Sullivan, who is on this show to talk about his program. The Outfit is going to be joining Left Reckoning tonight. We talk about Al Capone and the outfit, which I'm interested in because it is, it features prominently. And then a Thomas Pynchon novel, The Shadow Ticket.

Also, we get into Cuba and its relationship to organize crime, including potentially a little bit about the JFK assassination. And we also talk about the Kray twins. for the Brits in the audience. So a really fun show tonight. Patreon.com says left reckoning it's on YouTube at 7 o'clock Eastern Time. Awesome. All right, folks.

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Q, playing the game called capitalism. All right, guys. See you in the fun half. One second. Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking in the majority report. Wait, look, look, Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World.

So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday. Yeah, I think you need to take over for Sam, but that's cool. Sir, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. So it's offered a twerk, sushi, and post.

We're Sushi and poker with the boys Who was offered a tour? Yeah, sushi and poker with the boys. What? Twerp, sushi and poker. Uh, Tim's upset? Twerp, sushi and poker with the boys.

He was offered a twerk, sushi, and... Ah, that's what we call this. Twirl. Sushi and poker with the boys. Right. Twerp, sushi and poker. We're going to get demonetized now. I just think that what you did to Tim Poole was mean.

Free speech. That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about it because I think you're responsible. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the meltdown here. Twir? Ugh. Sushi and poker with the boys.

Oh my God. Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. So what's offered a twir? Yeah. Sushi and poker with the voice.

Logic. Twerk. Sushi and poker with the boys. Boy, boy, boy. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. Twerk. I think I'm like a little kid.

I think I'm like a little kid. kid. Add this debate seven thousand times. A little kid. I'm like a little kid. A little kid. I'm losing my fucking mind. Some people just don't understand. So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like, I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids. That's not what we're talking about here.

It's not a fun job. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Willie Walker. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing.

Thank you. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's got a real thing. Please gentlemen, Joe Rogan has done it again. Offered it to work. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's got poker with the boy. I think he might be blown it out proportion. Real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a poker. Let's go, Joe. Twere. Sushi and poker with the boy. Take it easy. Twere. Suzy and poker. Things have really gotten out of hand.

Sushi and poker with the boys. It's illusion. You don't have a clue as to what's going on. Live YouTube. Sam has like the way to the world on the shoulders. Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore. We can't do it anymore. It was so much easier.

When the majority report was just you, you were happy. Let's change the subject. Rangers and Nick are doing great. Now, shut up. Don't want people saying reckless things on your program. That's one of the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro-killing podcast. I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury the hatchet.

Left is best. Trump. Violet twir? Don't be foolish, and don't fucking tweet at me, and don't ditch. The way that I just cucked all of these people. I love it. That's for my heart is, so I wrote my honor's thesis about it. Oh, I guess I should hand the main mic to you now.

You are to the right of the foreign policy. We already fund Israel, dude. Are you against us? That's a tougher question. I don't have to answer. incredible theme song i bumbler emma viglin absolutely one of my favorite people actually not just in the game like period