Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews - 7/02/24 – SCOTUS Declares (Some) Presidents Untouchable

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Tonight on Skews we’ll be joined by Dr. Scott Lemieux, professor of political science and constitutional law at UW-Seattle, to help us make sense of the recent tear SCOTUS has been on (culminating with yesterday’s decision that Presidents are Kings now). Just exactly HOW terrified should we be? We’ll discuss that, as well as all things Biden, on the show. Support the show

what's up everybody welcome back and happy i guess skeers day to you and also a dubiously happy early birthday to america it's a we're ringing it in a hell of fashion this week i'm tray that's mark how you doing mark yeah trey what would you do for your last birthday right yeah that's a good point yes i love the president we've given america for this birthday is just uh you know tearing apart from the foundations up so was the uh the fed the the quote from the office christmas party episode happy birthday jesus sorry your party sucks uh i'm having a good one mad i missed her misgendered a dog earlier in some pretty hilarious fashion uh was walking my dog and she was making friends another dog like a bass and hound and you never see you rarely see a done castrated dog right

dog had big junk i said my dog's name's fanny i'm like oh fanny for a boy and he goes oh it's a girl. She just had puppies. And I was like, well, that's a... Oh. So I just like, oh, I just implied your dog at a fat cooter. Yeah. A very, yes. That's a hell of a dog coater if you interpreted it the other way.

So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So a good start. Here we go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here we go. So I'm going to do some international news around up for politics before we get to the show. So over in Japan, they're having a gubernatorial election for, I guess, Tokyo has a governor. And they had a lot of knowledge. And they had a lot of novel to candidates over there. There's a guy running for a Tokyo governor who's running as

Joaquin Phoenix is the Joker. And he is platform. He gave a speech of the night delivering his platform, which is to legalize polygamy and to require women to pay for half their bill on dates. Finally, someone says it. And he got interrupted by another candidate named the AI mayor, who I guess is outsource this old. There's a couple of these guys running in England too who's going to outsource his whole platform to an AI. I don't understand why God made these people who stuck us with him. But the Joker guy, the cops,

he put up a bunch of campaign posters of him with the naked ladies and the cops made him take him down. If you got this picture of the Joker posing with the naked lady posters, Matt, you throw it up there. There you go. Just the Joker was, like, I just want everybody to know it's not just us.

He's like this. Oh, no, I think people know that Japan is also pretty wild, at least in certain way. I mean, this seems, this is like, I don't know, seems like it's straight out of a Japanese game show to me. but you know it's real life I gotta say if he wants to do polygamy but also require women to pay their half then it's like he's kind of spreading the cost out a little more you know what I mean it's not just one woman with half of it it's five or six does he pay one half and they split the other half or they split it six ways that's the these are my questions for this policy questions a true men's rights platform where a guy goes on a date with five women and they have to pay for half their own dinner and then each pay for a fifth of his yeah right yeah yeah yeah yeah uh So let's go over to France for a second, where the Olympics kick off in a couple of weeks.

And they're doing the anti-sex beds this time. And the beds made a cardboard. They're supposedly too weak to hold two people. They did this the last Olympics, too. But the French are saying these aren't anti-sex beds because that's bad for the French brand. Instead, they're saying the cord war beds are better for the environment. Which go, I don't understand this need to stop Olympians from having sex. I don't get it.

I don't either. It also seems to me like, I don't know. know you'd think it would be a bigger fuss amongst the olympian community or something not just because they're you know cock blocking them but also like i would imagine that like restful getting a lot of rest and a lot of like good sleep is probably a huge part of performance in the olympics if a cardboard bag can't hit that hard but like but a bunch of them have like their first their events are done after the first two or three days right so you've got your gold medal you've been training for four years now you're ready to party and you've got a bunch of other

young hot athletes in the Olympic Village stuck with you and they want to have a good time. Why is it the international communities? I don't know why they try to keep them having sex either, but I'm just saying even outside of that it just seems like it's treating them. You'd think they'd get a higher level of

treatment in return for representing their country at the Olympics or whatever, like instead of a cardboard bed. Yeah, but the French, to make sure that everyone can have sex, because I don't know if this is a rebellion against a cordboard bed thing, but

they person, the Lawrence Deller, who's in charge the first aid health services of Paris for Paris 2024, say around 200,000 condoms for men and 20,000 for women we've made available for athletes.

So my thing is like France is doing perfect, in perfect French style is doing being extremely pro-sex but also sexist as hell. Right. So the men can have sex 10 times every once a woman can have it.

Yes. There we go. Appropriately French. Have you been following the poop protest movement in France? Okay. No. So they haven't put it problems over there.

Yeah, so the plan to use the river sand for a few Olympic events, including the triathlon, the marathon. I think part of the opening ceremony that happens on the water. But the set is filthy and has been that way for a long time. Like it's been illegal to swim in the sand for it since 1923. So the government spent like a billion and a half dollars should I clear the E. coli and shit out of the river. But it didn't work because it rained.

No one foresaw that happening. But to quell fears about it, Emmanuel Macron and Mayor Paris has said they're going to swim in it. So French people have declared their intent to shit in the river upstream of when they go swimming when they swim. I do respect to French as like capacity for protests, protesting creatively and also enthusiastically. So, yeah, this is. Like, having the Olympics in your city sucks. Everyone hates it. Aren't we up next?

Yes, L.A. gets it next or soon. and it was a big movement here to try to stop it because what happens is they spent a bunch of public funds on infrastructure that will never ever be used again no matter how much they lie about it. It's an economic development, but it doesn't it waste. Cops crack down everything, make everyone miserable to shoot the homeless people away for optic purposes.

And it's just like, and also it makes traffic fucking suck. You got a bunch of people. That part alone, think about it being in LA, just that part. Like this, you know, this is apocalypse every day out here and everybody knows that. And then you add in like, you know, visitors from every corner of the globe all in the same place at the same time in this city

it definitely seems like it's going to be nightmarish. Having said that, I'll try to go watch some diving or something. Yeah, yeah, I'll watch the basketball. But yeah, so like, yeah, but you can imagine how infuriating it. It's got a river you haven't been able to swim in for 100 years. They spend a billion and a half year tax dollars cleaning it up so people from other countries can swim in it

for a week. Right. It's like, okay, I'm going to take a shit in this river. Which brings us to the status of French politics, because they just had elections were kind of fascinating. It's not, Macron, French president, called a snap election. No one knew why he did it because he did it right after the far right took a bunch of EU parliament seats.

The closest thing to the logic behind it, anyone I've seen any one were posed that sort of makes sense is because they have a rising fascist movement is to let the fascists have some power in parliament for three years and embarrass themselves before the presidential election. Good luck with that. There's three main players here. You've got the fascist, you got the left-wing party,

Democratic Socialist sort of thing, in Macron's centrist party, all right? There's a mainland conservative party, but they don't matter just like here. So you're never Trumpers, all right? So like the first round, Macron's centrist party got their dick kicked in. The fascists and the left got more votes, all right?

So then you're coming up on the second round where pretty much every parliament district has like three people running at it, all right? So the left-wing parties all, when they're in third place, all dropped out to unite the anti-Marine-Lapan fascist vote. Right. yes so the question became to the centrist well when the districts were you're in third will you do the same thing

and they're resided for way too long then a bunch of them started dropping out right but mccrone started making phone calls to stop them from dropping out increased the likelihood of the fascist taking more seats but the happy ending here is nobody seems to be listening to him here because they've read history and understand it and the history of centrist outlying with fascist against leftist is how you get fucking hit like So, like, there's a quote here, a guy who was in Macron's government in his cabinet ministry, got third place. He's standing down even after Macron asked him not to. Here's a quote here that I want everyone to remember and it should bring true all across politics, including the situations we're not talking about in America. Quote, of course, I'm pulling out, as the left did for me two years ago, defeats happen. One never recovers from dishonor. Hell yeah.

Yeah. Mark, yeah. Seems, yes, seems particularly relevant. you said to what we'll be talking about a little later speaking of which let's get into producer matt is with us behind the scenes pulling the strings and all that this is weekly skews i'll tell you more in a little bit but first i got some announcements of course if you'd like to see me do stand up live and in person go to tray crow crowder dot com um check up coming tour dates i got tulsa coming up next and then a big northeast run upstate new york ruclin connecticut fortwayne

dallas demoyne bunch of fun places treycrouter dot com also there you can find a link to me and Horry's book, round here and over yonder, comedic travel guide. We read the audio book if you want to check that out. And lastly, if you enjoy this program, I would like to show your support. You can do so by signing up on Patreon. You go to weekly skews.com slash more or just go on Patreon and search for my name. Either way it works, $5 a month. Get you access to full link bonus episodes.

We just did two in a row. The one last week was our immediate response to the debate debacle, which had just unfolded the night before. We cover anything and everything that comes up in the interim between skews days. So you can get some more skews in your life and support the show. in the process. That's for the show. Tonight, we're being welcomed by a special guest, Dr. Scott Lemieux, who is a professor of political science, who specializes in constitutional law at the University of Washington. He also is one of the founders and a frequent

contributor to one of Mark's favorite blogs and a staple of skews, research, lawyers, guns, and money. So we'll get to him a little later, but first, we have some fun with the Daily Dumbass, Matt, graphic, please. Tonight's D.D. The lying fake news media for saying the dog I ate was the dog. This is R.S.K. Jr. He's having a week, too. I want to give you an opportunity to address it that has a picture of you holding up what looks like a carcass of a dog and pretending to take a bite out of it. It's getting a lot of attention. I want to ask you if you want to explain that photo. Is that a cheap face? Is that a real photo? What was going on there?

Now, that is a real photo. It's of me at a campfire in Patagonia, and the food life of the river, eating a goat, which is what we... Okay, you've got it, Matt. So the metadata on the photo does not say he was in Asia, not Patagonia. And also, like, they had an interview with a veterinarian. And you put the photo up, Matt, so you can see if you can see what they're talking about. So... That's pretty rough.

A veterinarian looked at this and said it's quite clearly a dog. I don't know anything about anatomy, but something about the number of ribs and one of them being a floating rib or something. I don't fucking know. I also don't care if he had a dog, people around the world eat dogs. But this is part of a story that was in Vanity Fair today about all the different skeletons in this closet. And for whatever reason, Fox News latching onto this one's kind of telling

because there's much more horrific story is in there. But basically his family is panicking all the skeletons in his closet. But it's also from Fox News's perspective, though, I mean, it's like, you know, they had the, the Christy Gnome thing. I don't know. Maybe they gave her a little hell for that, too. I don't remember her. Yeah, they did. They did.

Yeah, okay. All right. Well, I guess they love dogs over at Fox. Everybody loves dogs. Yeah, I know. But you said in comparison to some of the other things that have come out as you were saying. Yeah. So the details in the story are from his family and friends.

The person who was texted this photo was a friend of his. is who was horrified by the image of eating a dog and didn't want to be sent this photo. All right. So this vanity fair piece, the big story in it, the one Fox News isn't talking about, is that a former babysitter of his went on record to say that he tried to sexually assault her in his family's home while his wife was in the house. All right. He didn't, there's a lot of creepy shit in here. She says the first thing he did was like they had a family meeting where he was rubbing her leg under a table,

was she tried not to read anything into it. Then later she found him reading a diary entry. She wrote about him rubbing her leg while he had his shirt off in her bedroom and made him rubble lotion on her on his back. And then she was like he cornered her in the kitchen while she was trying to get a snack and attempted to sexually assault her allegedly. I'll say that for legal reasons. And but he's interrupted by a worker who walked in and said something, according to her memory,

something like don't do anything I wouldn't do anything you wouldn't want your wife to know about sort of like uh stopping a crime in progress by uh you know just being a witness to it and here's a video of him not denying this story if you got this video matt i am not a church boy i am not running like that i said in my i had a very very rambunctious youth i said in my announcement speech that i have if i have so many skeletons in my closet that have that have that it If they could all vote, I could run for a king of the world. So, you know, there is Vanity Fair is recycling the 30-year-old stories. And I'm not, you know, going to comment on the details of any of them.

But it's, you know, I am who I am. That's for a wild defense to me. Well, I mean, it's not even really a defense. It's him just being like, like, yeah, I did a bunch of shit. What about it? Yeah. You know what? Keep looking.

You'll find even. more. So what do you want me to say? Like that skeletons in the closet line is why it's like I don't if he's trying to get out in front of just everything by being like well hey I never told you I wasn't a piece of shit. I mean I will you know I'm not at all surprised to find that you know someone from this particular you know an American dynasty you know born rich and powerful or whatever that they've done a bunch of wild shit over the course of their life it's like basically a cliche, but it's, you know, still, it still is more than enough to suggest that he ought not be doing what he's doing right now, i.e. trying to be the president or anything else.

I didn't really, like, I didn't, like, I haven't followed the life in terms of R.F.K. Jr., I didn't know he had, like, a 15-year heroin problem that, like, he was, I guess, an assistant DA in Manhattan. And while he was a heroin addict, which you took about the hypocrisy of the American criminal justice system. But he was only, he only, he only went to, he only went to rehab after you discovered passed out in an airplane bathroom and his family I was just about to say it's wild how some people can

do any like he was an assistant DA while also a heroin addict I mean I know you know some people have been globally famous rock superstars while being heroin addicts and jazz icons and stuff but it's just you know because it seems like it lays you down

pretty good like the type of drug that also makes you pass out in an airport bathroom and you're found unconscious just would prohibit you from performing your duties adequately. But, you know, I guess some people just roll with it better than others. I don't know. Or people just don't give a shit.

And they just let him sleep in the burn closet all day at the office. I got a friend who went to pill rehab and said that some of the people in rehab with her were there for heroin. And they were like three different NFL professional football players who were using to deal with pain management. And then one ever talks about the high functioning heroin addicts, man. Right. That's what I'm saying.

You think of them just like, you know, wrapped, huddled up with a blanket, like nodding off on a street corner or something like that. But yeah, you know, hell. Some of them are back carve. Yeah. I guess his was pills. But, you know, pills is he'll be in heroin, whatever. He could have been on heroin. We don't know.

But, yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, his first time of the public eye was like sort of as an environmental lawyer, you know, fighting for environmental causes. He made a whole documentary with his sister. and she couldn't like he was the star of it HBO was trying to like get more Rob give more Bobby more Robert in a documentary but she couldn't put it in there because he was just making up stuff

and bullshitting and lying it couldn't pass legal right so she had to recut her whole documentary because he was so full of shit I was like why why is American politics cursed with these assholes dude I don't understand it it's a I think it's like I think it's just that it's one of those things

it's like the same reason we have a problem with so many shitty cops or something it's like and also I so many CEOs or sociopaths and stuff like that. It's like, you know, it attracts a certain type of person and then also they like propagate within that ecosystem. You know what I mean? I think it's hard to, I'm just like with cops and anything, you know, some of them, some

politicians I think are probably okay, but it's like it just, you know, they thrive and it attracts a certain type of person and then they thrive within that system and they, you know, help each other to do so and it's just you know yeah self-fulfilling thing yeah the article's full of quotes from his family begging him to drop out but he but he seems to have a messiah complex where he think he's called to be president even though like he's like like I didn't realize he had like spent a big chunk of his life trying to get his cousin off for the like sexual assault and murder of a 15 year old girl that he probably definitely did Jesus I didn't either but that's let's say that sound like was his cousin of Kennedy too or like on the other side or something you know the last

name's skakle but that doesn't like I'm not sure exactly how they're related but uh yeah yeah so like as far as him being a pervert one other part of this stuff is like like he would see he would remember we talked about how you like cheat on his second wife all the time and keep yeah he had a diary right yeah right yeah right yeah right yeah right yeah he would also i guess take pictures of the women he was with not clear whether they knew he was taking pictures of them while they were having sex and then text it to his friends who were all horrified it's like are you are you are you making me an accomplice this unwitting porn operation it's just obviously

it's so goddamn bad man what a scumbag what a Charlottom how's he polling by the way do you know he's like he was like 8% national but the thing is when third party polling this early is people people usually throw away their delusions about third party candidates

but as the election gets closer you know as the stakes become more clear and they get less fantastic if you think you America needs a third party and like you can try to build momentum for it up until a certain point, then you realize you're throwing your vote, you know, you're wasting your vote unless you live in a safe state. I still don't have a good beat on like who his core demographic is at this point.

You know, it's been a lot of times as it benefit Biden or Trump more or which one is it works for or whatever, but like whoever it is, do you think that all these, this like laundry list of scandals, the cheating and the dog eating and the brain worms and everything else that's coming out like you think it's like affecting those. But you know, like with Trump, it's like, I feel. like we all know with his like base base it literally does not matter what happens with him you think of our gay people are like that or do you think they're like oh i can't do this because i don't even are there's a there's a chuck a burn it all down nihilist among them but some of them were just

like anti-vaxxers and some of them are just like you know yeah we need to burn we need to burn down the system man which i you know i feel you i feel like that a lot of these too but yeah it's quite a period all right matt says we're good to go our guest is in the green room we're going to out here, like I said, Dr. Scott Lemieux is a professor of political science at the University of Washington, where he teaches courses on everything from American government to the presidency, constitutional law, the Supreme Court,

the politics of power, all seemingly very relevant. It sounds to me, and as I mentioned, he's also one of the founders of the blog, Lawyers, guns, and money, which if you're not familiar with, you should check out, like I said, it's a research staple here at the skews. We're glad to have him. Dr. Scott Lemieux, everybody. Hey, there he is.

Hi, very nice to be on with you. Yeah, thanks for joining us. do we pronounce it incorrectly it's lemieux yeah that's good you can say lemur if you're really but i actually grew up in an english household so lemieux i i went to bilingual school and uh my friends would come home and call my parents mr lemieux and they'd be like what the hell who's that right so either one is either one works my name's french too but uh we have my family's been here for so long their pronunciation spelling's all fucked up so uh i feel you yeah so dr lemieux it's been a heck of a week right you've been busy keeping up with a lot.

It seems like the Supreme Court, one of your areas of expertise, really been on one. Yeah, and I was in Europe for the first time, a long time, which made it actually easier to read Supreme Court opinions when I had wireless than is on the West Coast. Harder to watch the Stanley Cup finals, but I found it. Yeah. Channel 326 in Turin, I matched to try it down. But anyway, but yeah, it was obviously not a good week. You know, what did Les Moondvis say?

It's good for constitutional law. professors bad for America. That's pretty much. There's obviously a lot of interest in this. But Monday was, you know, I think that one thing is, you know, when Dobbs comes down, it's really horrible, but it's completely obvious. You know, it's not surprising.

Right. You know, this was probably even worse than I expected. You know, the immunity one really is, I don't know that I have the capacity to be shocked, but it was about as bad as it could have been. So, I mean, even, even you are saying that because we that came up on our patron episode and I was saying like I feel like there'd been a lot of the narrative around it leading up to it was like well you know

the thing about this one is you know by there's a democrat in office right Biden's the president it's like can they even really it remains to be saying whether they'll actually do something like this because of you know how it could be used against them and I don't think they'll go that for even this even this iteration of the court I don't think they'll go that far and then but then they did they totally did. Yeah, and I think one of the many things going on here is that's the real significance of, you know, the Supreme Court getting a super majority, you know, that, you know, and a lot of people say in an opinion like this, well, you know, did Ginsburg getting replaced by Cody Barrett really matter? This was on most points six to three. But I think that it's not just that the majority's

larger, but that there's so little prospect of there being a Democratic median vote in the court for a long time. So they can create these broad principles. And then, And if it turns out that they're, you know, they apply to a Democratic president, they can always say, oh, well, that's the, you know, that's not an official act, you know, or sort of what they did in the gun control case. Like, wait a minute, what do we say? Like, oh, no, we didn't mean domestic abusers could have, hold on, you know. So, you know, I think that's the thing is that that, you know, if you have a five to four majority, that keeps you a little honest because, you know, and again, we were, you know, a slightly different outcome in 2014 or 2016. from Democrats having the median vote of the Supreme Court for the first time since 1970.

And I think that keeps you a little honest. But when there's just so little possibility that the other side will take over, I think that just encourages you to just get, you know, and you know you have the protection of at least 40 senators so there's really nothing Congress can do. I really do think that it just gives you the incentive to just take whatever you want and just not care.

So that's, you know, and I just think that it's, It's, you know, you could make, you know, that four years ago, I might have thought that, you know, this Supreme Court would be strongly committed to conservative principles, but not necessarily to Donald Trump. I mean, that's the striking thing is just how obviously this decision was engineered to protect Trump specifically. Right. I blogged about today, but there's that amazing sentence at the end of Roberts's opinion about how, well, this ruling will apply to every, you know, president of every party or Carlos Falls. You know, first of all, I don't really find, well, presidents of all parties will be kings. I don't find especially reassured.

I don't really like Democrats grossly abusing power either, quite frankly. But it's also just that it's so protesting too much. You know, it's just it's so obvious how much this opinion was like, well, you know, what, you know, what might get Trump, you know, office charters in New York? Oh, say you can't even use his state of mind. You can't even use anything from what he does as evidence, even for, you know, stuff you did before he came into office or that I'd not, you know, It's just that just so, you know, it just seems so care.

It was just so obviously versus engineered. And it's just so little in the majority opinion to even describe what went on in one six and what Trump did that was really left to Sotomayor and Jackson even described that. And I think it's just, you know, given how Republican elites reacted to one six as it was happening, the fact that it's just become completely normalized now, I think, again, is pretty disturbing. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's like, like, they give away the game because, like, you know,

You can, you can look, you can squint and look at the opinion in a bunch of different ways, right? You could say, like, okay, well, there's still the distinction between official acts and private acts, right? And, like, they hangs on, like, well, you only get immunity for official acts, but then the courts are going to decide on the distinction between an official act. So it pretty much is just the lens of the beholder. They can just come back and say, well, everything a Democratic president does is a private act. Everything a Republican president does is an official act. And, like, J.D. Vance, like, it's a hilarious headline I read here from Politico. Yeah.

Vance says presidents must have immunity, though, possibly not. right yeah that's how you can see exactly no will Hoyt's law is like all of conservative jurors yeah you know and i think that that's um you know adam surer had a really great piece in the atlantic you know at this point but there is it's a classic sort of roberts faux minimalism and i did see some places reported as you know trump has immunity for official acts but not for you know kind of you know that's how roberts wants it reported um but if you look at it more carefully um you know there's a very strong presumptive uh immunity for any official act. And then the fact that you can't even, and again, this is where

Connie Barrett got up the bus, the fact that you can't even use what he did in office, even as evidence about things he did as not an official act. You know, it's really a very maximalist opinion. And again, to the extent that it leaves any wiggle room, that's of anything even more disturbing, because again, there's the possibility that, you know, for a politician, they like less than Trump, all of a sudden, you know, they will define an official acts differently. But, you know, either way, I think that it's, it's, it's not in any way a minimalist opinion. It comes about as close to saying that, you know, that presidents have immunity for almost

everything they do. And then the other rules they create make prosecuting somebody even for non-official acts enormously difficult. So it's definitely, you know, a very, very maximalist opinion. And one we should say that just, you know, it has no foundation the text of the Constitution. And it's, you know, and again, I'm not, you know, I don't want to be like the conservators like, duh, the Constitution doesn't mention privacy, so only, you know, but there's, you know, it's true that everybody reasons, you know, you also have to look at the structure of the

Constitution and what it applies, but the structure of the Constitution does not imply us with absolute power. Right. I mean, kind of equivalent about excellent power. That's like, right. It seems to be the opposite. It's like some one of the like founding principles of, you know, this country in our democracy was, you know, no king.

No kings. No king. Right. Wasn't that the revolution? I don't remember the revolution being. The mark isn't powerful enough to have it. So, and it just seems obvious to at least all of us sitting here and probably almost everybody listening to, but I was going to ask you alluded to it. Like, you know, as an expert on this, as someone who knows constitutional law or whatever, I mean, ostensibly, they're supposed to make some kind of like based in reality or legal history or case president or whatever case for having these opinions, right?

Like, from your perspective, what is there when it comes to this one? Like, are they just, there's nothing and they're just doing it because they can do it and just saying deal with it? Or, I mean, how, you know? It's not a lot better than that. You know, the stuff is like, you know, Roberts has this thing. Well, you know, George Washington said that, you know, some of the, you know, the paper, the president's papers may not be exposed to view. And it's like to go from there to, you know, the president is completely immune from any criminal prosecution from, you know, it's like, you know, if the president orders the bill. military to kill his political rivals, he's, you know, it's not, uh, it's pretty, it's from here

to there, you know, it's, yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, again, I just, I just don't see, um, you know, just the structure of the, you know, again, the, the articles of confederation had no executive branch at all. And obviously, there was a recognition that that was a mistake, but it tells you, you know, sort of how concerned the framers were that, you know, executive power is the one, you know, sort of most likely to be abused. And it's 100% true that, you know, the, the constitution established an energetic executive and independent executive, but separation of powers means checks.

It means limited powers. It does not mean, you know, so that the opinion is just all about, well, what are the negative incentives if a president might be prosecuted? Well, you know, we want to have a chilling effect on that for everybody else in society. You know, the fact that they might get prosecuted

for doing bad things, that's good. You know, we don't want, you know, that. Yeah. So I just don't, you know, it's just like they're just solely concerned about, you know, it might prevent the president from, doing things, but, you know, without saying, you know, what's the public interest and what of the interest of the other branches? And just that that's so absent, you know, that it really

just takes this sort of one. And again, the, the, the, the truism that the Constitution establishes an energetic executive, as if that's the only story, as if the Constitution isn't also about, you know, make, constraining the executive and ensuring there isn't abuse of power, you know, And it's clear that the impeachment power, given partisan norms, is just not an effective check. Right. You know, and that's whether the framers were in denial about political parties or didn't anticipate them, whatever, it just doesn't, you know, in a different partisan environment, it might work, but it doesn't. But even aside from that, you know, I don't think impeachment was ever intended. And this is the irony, right?

As Sotomayor points out, during the impeachment, Trump's lawyers like, well, we don't need to be impeached because he can be criminally prosecuted. Right. And then, no, no, he can't be criminally prosecuted because he could have been impeached, you know, it's this catch-point, too. And now, again, Trump's lawyers can say whatever they want, but the Supreme Court of the United States is supposed to show some principle. You know, and the fact that they gave Trump more immunity than Trump's lawyers claimed that he had in 2021, I think should get pretty disturbing. Right. I was trying to spitball in scenarios. Everyone immediately made the same joke about, like, you know, I mean, Sonia, Sotomayor said it in her dissent, right, about, like, it's like, it's like, you, how.

having a SEAL Team 6 assassinate your political rivals, that's, you know, you get that, that you get immunity for that, right? And I don't, I've never thought of it's just a Sotomayor as like, uh, you know, a fringe conspiracy there. No, no. She's pointing out the logic of the law. And like they, they like, I was trying to like spitball scenario is like, if Bill Clinton, when the, when the, when the, when the affair with Monica Lewinsky was going to come out, if he'd strangled her to death in the White House, could he've just said, I thought she was a Russian spy and there not been any legal consequences for it? what's amazing is that the majority doesn't respond to somebody more by saying well no of course the president can't do that is pretty much the president wouldn't do that right right yeah and that was the other thing when my i assume you saw that when mike johnson said well you know obviously no president would do anything illegal or right that's like that's the whole reason we're talking about this is could right is because one did right it's the whole reason we're even talking about any of this is because the president did there's some illegal shit and now you guys are saying that

that it's okay that he did. And then, yeah, the circular logic, it just goes round and round. It's very, very worrying. I wondered, you know, we saw a take that someone says that this was the worst Supreme Court decision in this country since the Dred Scott case. I was wondering what your take on that is. Like, where do you rank them? How, where's this rank? It's a lot of the worst.

You know, it's got a list going. This one of my hobbies, I really should on my blog, just I started a series of worst opinions ever that I haven't kept up on it. But, you know, I mean, there's a couple ways of looking at it. So there's sort of, you know, A, you know, sort of, you know, the decision's morality, you know, sort of B, you know, how is it there any legal defense and see how much did it alter facts on the ground? So, you know, if you compare this to something like Plessy versus Ferguson, you know, Plessy is obviously a deeply immoral decision and the logic, I think, can be fairly called gaslighting the idea that, oh, segregation is not intended to connote inferiority. But the thing about Plessy is that it really didn't affect the facts on the ground, you know. that segregation was well established, you know, there was no will on the part of the federal government to do anything about it.

You know, frankly, had that case been decided correctly, it probably wouldn't have made that much difference. So that, you know, the problem there was just that, you know, pretty much the entire American political elite, you know, believed in segregation and white supremacy. The Supreme Court was really no better, but no worse than, you know, any other institution in the federal government. I think what's striking about this is that, you know, this idea of near total immunity for the president is basically a novel concept.

You know, it's not some, even some longstanding conservative principle, you know, it's really just, you know, sort of comes out of nowhere and really is, you know, could create really bad things going forward. You know, so how you compare that? And again, the Roberts Court has had a lot of terrible, you know, between Shelby County. And, you know, my pet favorite is Rucho, the case that, that refused to strike down extreme partisan gerrymanders. You know, it's misreadings of the voting rights.

You know, they're just countless ones, you know, but this is really up there, you know, that if you combine it in terms of, you know, its impact, you know, the fact that it'll mean that a criminal president isn't accountable, the bad incentives it creates going forward, and just the total lack of legal justification. I mean, I think Dobbs is terrible. I don't approve of Rovers's way being overruled, but reasonable people can disagree about whether the text of the Constitution protects abortion. I can't honestly say that that's, you know, that the wrong opinion.

You know, it's an opinion with bad consequences, but it's not completely legally indefensible. You know, there are lots of conservative conclusions that I disagree with and I would not vote for, but I can't say have no, you know, nothing to favor of them. You know, this is really pretty close to that. You know, there's just, I just don't see anything text, history, precedent, you know, this really is something that comes out of nowhere. And again, it's just so transparently, you know, and again, I think that, you know, we, you know, only an incredibly naive person expects the Supreme Court to be.

be, you know, apolitical or non-ideological. But during Bush v. Gore, the political science, Howard Gilman, kind of made the distinction between high politics and low politics, you know, that it's one thing to have, you know, so, for example, when, you know, the Bush administration seized medical marijuana, the court's four liberals said, this does not violate the commerce cause, you know, that we don't like this. It's wrong. But, you know, our conception of federal power is that, you know, it doesn't exceed federal power.

And similarly, three conservatives said, you know, we hate these pot smoking hippies, but we think this is beyond federal power. I mean, I think that's what we expect that there's an ideology, but at least you apply it in ways that are always in your immediate political interest. You know, this is much more about protecting a single individual. It's much more partisan than ideological. And I think that's really bad. And I think that's right up there with Bush versus Gore in terms of just, you know,

just completely unprincipled and just really about. protecting one particular candidate. Again, I really strongly recommend, if you have it at your paywall, Adam's service piece in the Atlantic, I think, does a great job of just talking about how this isn't just a Republican court now. This is a Trump corner. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's what they, like, like, talking about the, like, people used to, like,

disagree with their own values and sort of high, higher values places, like high, we described as high politics versus low politics, but, like, this Supreme Court doesn't just act like Republicans, they act like particularly crazy state legislators. Yeah, that's a great way of looking at it. And like, so like, and you talked about like the difference between a five, four majority and six, three majority is like they're just talking to each other and they're just kind of like up there podcasting. Like it's like their opinions are just like rambling like theoretical stuff with no connection. Like like so like we talked a lot about Chevron, the Chevron deference and like I knew Gorsuch really, really wanted to get rid of it. But I didn't think they pulled, in my heart of hearts, I didn't really think they'd pull the trigger on it because they have to drink water and eat food and fly on planes too.

I mean, when they're not getting free plane rides from billionaires. But they don't want them to fall out of the sky. Right. So, like, I didn't think they'd do that, but they just did it. And the through line to all these opinions besides the general belief that, you know, we'll just kill them all, let the money God sort them out, is like they cleared the board in the last week for Project 2025 in, like, a scary way to me. Like, it's not just Chevron's, but other regulatory opinions like the SEC,

and then this this this this this may be this immunity claim Trump can basically fire the whole executive branch violate all these like like federal labor laws and like what are you supposed to do about it you know yeah I mean one way I remember when you know I owe my very small branch of internet fame to uh Sam Rosenfeld with the American prospect you know basically seeing the blogs I wrote about how you know that to compare Alito to Scalia would is unfair to Scalia you know but in 2005 you know, this was a contrarian position because, you know, if you read Alito's opinions when he was an appellate court judge, he was amazing at just, you know, having these incredibly ideological opinions that sounded bland and technical. But the reason people thought he was less conservative than Scalia was that he was less showy, you know, Scalia wrote in this like, you know, funny biting prose and he was, you know, whereas, you know, Alito was much calmer. And you had to look really carefully to just note that all of his opinions reached the conservative conclusion, which you can't say about Scalia or even Thomas.

Like occasionally, they could be surprising. Alito never was. But if you look at it now, all that's gone. You know, Alito used to be the kind of, you know, careful, you know, sort of quiet brains of the operation. Now he just writes like a, you know, it's like reading transcripts of a regional talk show. You know, and part of that is just the epistemic closure, right? The fact that these justices are getting all their media from Newsmax or Fox, you know, the basically Fox News grandpas.

Right. But it really is striking that if you look at, you know, Alito's a bit. opinions when he first came on the court and Alito's opinions now, like in the social media case, for example, it's just, uh, they came out money. It's just, it's just so striking, um, you know, how deeply these guys are marinating in, in, uh, conservative media in ways that, again, it's just really apparent and really obvious. Um, and hasn't always, you know, even in cases where it wasn't always true. Again, that's not, you know, Alito has always been, uh, extremely reactionary, but, but he's becoming a, in a much cruder,

more partisan way even. Do you think part of that is because of like, and I feel like with Kavanaugh too, with his whole confirmation debacle and him getting furious, these people don't like to be pressed on things or called on things or have your authority questioned. And like Alito's been, you know,

people have been raising complaints recently and he's been getting a lot of bad press and stuff. Do you think it like pushes them further into this like more extremist position out of like, you know, defiance or something? They like push back because they're, they're offended at the notion of being questioned on how they feel or what their beliefs are about

this stuff. Yeah, and that dynamic has always been really clear with Thomas, obviously, you know, this kind of resentment against liberal elites. And, yeah, with Lido, you can definitely see that, you know, that he's always been a very sore winner, you know, going back to, you know, sort of talking back to the State of Union when Obama said something completely accurate about Citizens United, you know, again, going back to my friend Adam, when he wrote in the Atlantic that, you know, when the Supreme Court allowed Texas's abortion law to go into effect before Roe was overruled.

This was effectively overruled Roe. Alito literally gave a speech calling out that article basically, oh, that's inaccurate. That's not, I'm saying anything with the merits of the opinion. And of course, Adam's 100% right. Everybody knew it. You know, but there's this just sort of resentment that anybody, you know, and then after Dobbs, he had that really resentful speech in Europe about how world leaders are criticizing me. You know, it's just that they have everything they want, but they still just, you know,

hate being criticized um you know the fact that you know that these you know the trips that he and thomas don't disclose um that really is it um you know that despite you know the positions of power they have and that they're getting almost everything they want um you know any pushback is still too much right um you know and i think that that's that's clearly driving them uh even even further in that direction i've never seen more miserable winners in my life like they've got everything and they're so mad about it all the fucking time it's so it's so crazy. I remember I listened to a legal podcast a

week ago and someone made the point that I might be a common phrase among lawyers that I'm butchering, but it's something like if you don't use common sense when applying the law, you end up with nonsense. And when you take the Chevron case, the deference decision of law, and again, I want

the immunity case, by the way, perfect poetry was named Trump v. U.S. and decided for Trump, I just wanted to point that out. Yeah. It's really is. Yeah, it's very, yeah. The writer's getting lazy as this. Yeah. It's like, so basically the Supreme Court right now, according to their views, Chevron deference no longer exists, but can be enforced by threatening assassination of the litigants. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Claire and Jeffrey, Mother Jones said that yesterday. I don't really understand the idea that the president can assassinate his political enemies, but can't regulate smoke stacks under the clean air. How is that? How is that? They neutered the executive branch in terms of having the power to regulate and whatnot while also making the executive himself, you know, all powerful seemingly. Or is he? Or I don't want to get to talk about Biden. A lot of people brought up, they said, well, Biden, you know, he should do, he should teach him a lesson with this, called her bluff, utilize this in some way to illustrate how insane this decision is. And I felt like I knew, I felt in my head as soon as I heard that. And I'm sure a lot

of other people did too, like he's definitely not going to do that. And then he came out and said what I knew he would say was like, you know, I'm not going to do that. That would be. wrong. I'm not going to abuse his power, you know, and I'm wondering what you think about that, you know, that notion that Biden or the Biden administration should somehow, you know, weaponize this or try to make a point with it and the idea that he won't. Like, is that even possible? What do you think about that whole argument? I think that's the right thing. I think that I would have been more forward to for Biden to say, like, this immunity is wrong and I'm going to take advantage of it. I do think that's the right, you know, not only because it's the right thing

do, but also, you know, this jujitsu won't, you know, it's like when, you know, when Texas, going back to that Texas anti-abortion thing about how, oh, well, it's not criminally enforceable, it's just civil, so you can't bring suits. And Gavin Newsom says, so what if you do that about gun control? And the answer is, if you do it with gun control, the conservative courts will rule it. You know, so it's got a fun to play gotcha, but the problem is that it won't, you know, it's sort of, it suggests that the court's decision is right and you probably can't get away with it. You know, and again, I do think that we have to worry down the line that, you know, if we start this precedent, that, you know, future presidents of both parties will abuse their

power. But I do think that, you know, whatever issues we may have with Biden's performance over the last couple weeks, I do think that's the correct response. You know, I think it's to say that that's such a, no, I do not believe that the president is a monarch and I'm not going to act that way. But I understand. I mean, I, I, it's not that I don't feel that instinct. So, well, sure, okay, then send the Navy SEALs to, uh, right. You know, I understand that. Having, having said that, and you also mentioned earlier, like, just because the way our system works, impeachment is not a viable option either, because IOC already said she's going to file articles of impeachment on them and all that. But it's like,

so, I mean, so what, I mean, what can you do? Is it, is it just come down to basically what Biden said? Like, well, it's up to you guys. You've got to vote. Keep voting. I mean, we vote for the right person. Maybe we'll figure it out eventually. Like, what can you do in a situation like we're in right now? I mean, and I mean, if you are the Democrats, not just the three of us sitting there. Yeah, I mean, honestly, the short term, there's kind of the short term and the long term. You know, the short term, there just aren't a lot of good options.

You know, given the current skew in the Senate, you know, the court is in a really strong position right now. You know, that's just the reality of it. You know, one thing that my branch of political science always wants to make clear. is that judicial power is inherently very fragile, you know, that in periods of American history where there's been a real showdown between the political branches and the courts, you know, the political branches win. You think of, you know, the Jeffersonians, you know, sort of pushing back against the court packing by the Adams administration. You think of Lincoln saying, you know, saying in 1857 he wasn't going to enforce Fred Scott and then following through

what that as a president. Just, you know, I don't care if Congress passes legislation in banning slavery in the territories. I'm signing it. I'm issuing passports, staffing Americans, I don't care. You know, the less savory example being Andrew Jackson, obviously, ignoring positions on indigenous rights. You know, and I think that, you know, if in different circumstances, you know, I think that had the court continued to rule against the new deal, I think FDR would have been able to add justice to the court, and that would be constitutional.

But the problem is that FDR had something like, you know, 70 centers. You know, that's the difference, you know, that historically, you know, and then the same thing, that Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and Lincoln and FDR all had huge majorities. And that's what's, I think, really disturbing. And the potential for Supreme Court abuse has always been there. But the thing is, for most of American history, the Supreme Court has pretty closely tracked the political branches. You know, and the Supreme Court was really conservative in the late 18th or late 19th or 20th century. You have to admit that so were the presidents and so were Congress.

It wasn't really like the court was an outlier. And the same thing, you know, the war in court was at the height of LBJ and the great society. I think what's really disturbing is that you have this extremely conservative Supreme Court, even though Republicans have won the popular vote once since 1988. I was just about to say, that's what's so frustrating about this. Yes, exactly. They don't, they're not popular. They don't win the popular.

More Americans are against all this than for it. And they're in this position of extreme power, despite the president being a Democrat. And none of that matters because the way the system works. and there's the filibuster and all this stuff. And it's just, it's so deflating and defeating, you know, when you're like, well, I guess we've got to deal with it. There's not another room in America outside of a church with six conservative Opus Day Catholic Senate, which just doesn't exist.

Yeah. Like, where are they? Yeah, exactly. But I will say that in the longer term, though, I think things are trickier. You know, let's say, you know, Republicans get rid of the filibuster to, you know, repeal the Affordable Care Act or pass a national abortion ban or whatever, you know, things change in terms of, you know, that, that some, you know, rural whites start coming back in the Democratic fold.

Like, we don't know. In 20 or 30 years, you know, the sort of, you know, abuse of power by the Supreme Court could produce pushback. So it's not as if nothing can ever happen. You know, there are a lot of tools that Congress has. You know, they can expand the size of the court. They can reduce its jurisdiction. I think one unfortunate thing is that the sort of best way of dealing at this would be term limits

and just ensure at least that each president gets to nominate two justices and can stay in power forever. But the problem is that would almost certainly require a constitutional amendment. So in a weird way, a lot of radical things you can do with simple majorities, whereas more modest measures might require constitution, which again, it's just the problem is Republicans, again, they have no incentive to cooperate. When they have a 6-3 majority, you're not going to get a constitutional amendment because why would you give up that power? I mean, I think that's the problem. So it's just, again, that just so much, we were so close to the other way, but it's just that the nature of how this came out just makes it a very difficult problem to solve in the short term. And I know, you know, keep Democrats in power is kind of a boring answer. Right.

It's about all in the short term, although not long term is a definition. On that note, like a lot of people said, you know, if Trump is disempowered and if he wins again, a lot of people said, like, I mean, that's it. Like, what's to stop him from just changing? You know, we don't even have a democracy anymore, essentially. Like, they just, what's to force him to ever leave if he's deemed all powerful and it only applies to him? But if he actually becomes the president again, like, I mean, is that alarmist? Or are we really staring down the barrel of that? Like, could this be the end of American democracy?

Right. I mean, you know, and there's certainly a lot of gradation, right, that if this, you know, this may not lead to Nazi Germany, but it could certainly lead to a situation like Hungary, you know, or Poland, the sort of, you know, kind of quasi, you know, democracies where, you know, there's still elections that involve multiple parties, but, you know, things are so skewed in favor of one party that they're not fair, you know, one party takes increasing control of the media and over other institutions, you know, so that, you know, full out, you know, you know, know, authoritarianism, you know, that may not, you know, I mean, again, I would never rule anything out. But I think certainly, I think there's a lot of concern about, you know, democratic backsliding and towards the kind of, you know, sort of managed, you know, democracy or kind of quasi-authoritarianism. And we know that Trump and a lot of Republicans admire Orban and other sort of, you know, they admire Putin, who's obviously closer to being a dictator. You know, so I think there was there is a lot of concern about that. And I think it's pretty

clear at this point that the Supreme Court is not exactly like to push back. And that's where I get, I think the Rucho opinion, which has gotten a lot less attention to stuff like Citizens United and Dobbs, you know, just saying, you know, that this incredibly, you know, interventionist and activist court saying, oh, well, you know, politicians just giving themselves permanent majorities. We can't do anything about that. You know, and I think of that, that really just shows

that, you know, that they're very comfortable with kind of, you know, Republicans perpetuating themselves and rules. So, you know, I do think, and again, that, you know, transition democracy is not my field of expertise. I'm sure you could bring in other people who are better on that, but, you know, from what I know about that literature, I mean, I think that's what a lot of people don't understand, that they think it's kind of an on-off between democracy and fascism, but there's also a lot of scale, yeah, in the middle. And I think if there's a real danger of kind of moving on that spectrum where we're not quite authoritarian, but, you know, and again, it's not as if that's unknown. I mean, you know,

in, you know, it wasn't that long ago, you know, that the United States, you know, do not hold democratic elections in about a third of its states, you know, and, and there's also things like the electoral college, which are made, you know, obviously, you know, counter-majoritarian mechanism. So, you know, it's not as if, you know, this nation was born in absolute full-fledged liberal democracy and has been. It's, you know, democracy is a hard-earned struggle. Right. Yeah. And it's a fragile accomplishment. That's the thing that kills me is we barely tried it.

And we've only tried it for a couple of decades. I'm just like giving up on it. It's like it's absolutely. Yeah, that's what I always thought too. It's like I always imagine it being more like Orban's hungry or with a little bit of Pinotchet throwing in. But like it's like the American brand is too violent. Like becoming fascist America full on is like new Coke.

Like America's stock price will drop and I have to go back a little bit. So I think about it. That's like the. only thing I've been able that I've tried to hang my hat on in recent years is thinking that's like, well, we're a plutocracy, really, and there's too many people making too much money with the things, you know, the trains run the way they do right now to let it get completely derailed, but that's just, I don't know how much of, you know, like a defense mechanism that is telling myself that I can sleep at night, you know.

And there are also some problems with fractured power in America, but, you know, the same mechanisms that make it very difficult to pass health care reform or, you know, to sort of impose natural civil rights legislation, you'll also make it hard to do a complete takeover. You know, that it's, that, you know, it'll be difficult for the federal government. Now, it's obviously less consolation for those of you living in Tennessee than it is here in Washington State, obviously. And I don't want to make light of that, by the way. You know, I really can't stand.

People in blue states are like, ah, fuck it, you know, let people in Texas and Mississippi. You know, particularly, I mean, A, there are actually a lot of Democrats in those states. Correct. Yeah. But also, I mean, frankly, even. your ordinary conservative voting citizen doesn't deserve to have dirty water or have their health care taken away

right. So I'm not somebody who says just abandon it, whatever, but it's just that there are at least the sort of the way power is dispersed and fractured, which often has kind of conservative implications, does at least provide some sites for resistance and make it tough for a total Trumpist takeover. And so that at least I think is one thing

that we can do some work at the state local level leads to sort of to push back and you know I think of that little glimmer of hope we should start to wrap up Marr do you have something else for the doctor before we let him go I wanted to do like so

you know that it's seen in every superhero movie where a person tries up the new powers like Spider-Man falls off a building Superman can't fly that kind of stuff I was trying to spitball some stuff some non-violent non-murderous stuff Joe Biden could do with his new powers that would advance like liberal causes, right? So the first one, like you,

so the Supreme Court's that he can't forgive student loan debt, but could he order the U.S. Marshals to smash up all the records of the loans? I like that. And yeah, and by the way, that's another thing, too, that's another example of tyranny that, and I think, because I've kind of disturbed

that a lot of liberals, you know, seem to have internalized the idea that, oh, that obviously Biden's student loan program was a huge reach, obviously. I mean, look, the Congress passed legislation, giving the Secretary of Education the power to waive or modify student loan payments. And the Supreme Court's conclusion was literally, oh, that doesn't mean modify student loan payments. Like, what?

Right. Biden was not abuse. I'm sorry. That was not a tyrannical abuse of me. He was not stretching the meeting. That was a very, very explicit piece of legislation. And I think even a lot of liberals have just kind of given, you know, because the Supreme Court was probably going to strike it down, acting as if, you know, Biden was abusing his authority.

he really wasn't. But it's amazing. Even just using the authority he's given as seen as this kind of stretch. But I do think that, you know, Democratic, you know, and I would say that, you know, that the Democratic presidents can't give up. You know, obviously it's not a great situation for judges. But I do like on student loans how, you know, Obama's going to say, okay, if you can't do this, we'll try something else. And that's what good for our household, you know, my wife got a student loan debt erased

for public service contributions, that even doing simple things, like streamlining the process, making easier to apply, you know, all that stuff. You know, so that, I do, I would, that's the other non-dispair thing I would say is that, yes, the Supreme Court is going to stop you from doing some things, but keep looking. Keep looking for other sources and make them. You know, if they're going to stop you, make them do it. Don't preemptively concede. Right.

And I do think that, you know, that, you know, if the court is going to broadly construe executive power, obviously they're not going to give the same leeway to Democratic presidents, but, you know, think about ways to use. use that to help people. And even if you don't get political benefits from it, you're still helping people. Yeah, the student loan one thing, because usually what the concern is do is like,

they follow a hyper-technical reading of some obscure language. It's like sort of you can see it if you squant. Like the sign-filled episode where it says the card says moops when it's supposed to be moors. Like that healthcare case, that was exactly. Yeah. But the student-alone thing that is pretending the language didn't say what it said. It was like, okay.

The last one I have for you Actually, I had another idea, but I sort of like, since Congress won't let doesn't want the president to negotiate drug prices, could Joe Biden just do like an Ocean's 11 thing and steal some insulin to give out, right? I like that. Or doing a Ron Contra

thing, like, you know, sell some arms and use the money to buy prescription medications from Canada. There you go. Let's do her own Iran contra. You guys are working and I out. This last one's more of a can of God make a rock so a be can't lift it type question. But after the Grant's Pass case, I said it's illegal to be homeless and the presidential immunity case. Can a president legally sleep outside?

Yeah, that's at least not in Grant's Pass. Yeah, right. You know, that's another one where it's just, and again, it's, you know, if this court were a lot more modest, I might be willing to say, okay, maybe the Eighth Amendment isn't the best way of addressing this, although I actually think that Sotomayor's case was pretty compelling. But again, it's striking that the court is willing to sort of be this aggressive in so many ways about, you know, basically declaring itself the head of all environmental policy and educational policy of the country, you know, but, you know, allowing a municipality to literally say like, you cannot sleep in your own car. You know, I mean, I think that that's, you know, that's pretty disturbing, you know, and that's just this, you know, this sort of combination of, of, this sort of whipsawing between extreme libertarians. and extreme authoritarianism is right uh depending on it's weird right it's like where the libertarians you know where they like how how do you square like you said like freedom versus authoritarianism and so many things that seem you know diametrically opposed they just roll up into one and nobody blinks an eye

and that's just how it goes but i don't know and gorsuch at least occasionally has a cut like you do see as libertarianism occasionally show up on criminal justice issues and obviously on indigenous rights But, you know, other than that, it really is just, you know, again, there's not really any principle there. It's pretty much, you know, punish people the Republican Party wants punished. And law does not bind people the Republican Party likes. Yep. Will Hoyt's law. Yep.

Yeah, well, it's right. Well, gentlemen, I am actually off to see Drive by Truckers. I just saw them Thursday night. I just saw them on the Southern Rock Opera Tour Thursday night. Yep, so getting to see SRO play line. Yes, it's great. Perfect day to be on this. It's a great show.

Yeah, so we'll let you go to do that. If you want to tell everybody real quick, the blog or whatever else you wanted to check out, and thanks for joining us. Yep. So you can find me at Lawyers, Guns and Money blog.com, and on what I will never call X on Twitter at Lemieux, LGM and same handle on Blue Sky. So I really want to thank you guys for having me on. It was fun.

Thank you again. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Dr. Scott, you everybody enjoy the show all right and thank you all for watching we appreciate it remember go to tray crowder dot com to check up my upcoming tour dates uh check up me and cori's book and you can go to weekly skews.com slash more or go on patreon and search for my name to sign up on patreon five dollars a month support the show and get two extra bonus episodes per month with that said

as long as america is still here next tuesday we will be to see you then yeah