Opening Arguments

Latest Episodes:

Do You Swear You're Not A Subversive Person? Sep 08, 2025

Show notes

Continuing their "Good Law" series, Matt and Jenessa talk about Baggett v. Bullitt. This case held that "a State cannot require an employee to take an unduly vague oath containing a promise of future conduct at the risk of prosecution for perjury or loss of employment, particularly where the exercise of First Amendment freedoms may thereby be deterred." Jenessa gives a fascinating science breakdown on cognitive dissonance and what the effect of these vague oaths actually is. It's counter-intuitive and very interesting!

BREAKING: Federal Courts Correctly Notice Color of Sky, Pope’s Religious Affiliation Sep 05, 2025

Show notes

For this week’s Rapid Response Friday we take up three major judicial rulings pushing back against executive overreach on three completely different topics: removals under the Alien Enemies Act, the use of the National Guard to conduct domestic law enforcement, and the imposition of tariffs as an executive action under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Also: it turns out a DC grand jury really can't indict a ham sandwich, and why Brazil is so much better at prosecuting insurrectionists than the US is.

Fifth Circuit's decision in W.M.M. et al (9/2/25)
Judge Charles Breyer’s decision in Newson v. Trump (9/2/25)
Federal Circuit’s decision in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump (8/29/25)

Douchebag Ben Shapiro knock-offs keep thinking they're smarter than Ketanji Brown Jackson Sep 03, 2025

Show notes

VR6 - For today’s Vapid Response Wednesday, Thomas, Lydia, and Matt review two examples from a newly-popular genre of lazy right wing op-eds: insecure white guys complaining about Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. What is with these losers who are so obsessed with trying to prove that one of the most qualified nominees to the high court in our lifetimes isn’t fit for the job? We take dark-money sugar baby Josh Hammer up on the joke to compare his life achievements to someone who began her SCOTUS career with four times as much courtroom experience as John Roberts, Elena Kagan, Clarence Thomas, and Amy Coney Barrett combined--before moving on to trying to even understand what Federalist weirdo Shawn Fleetwood thinks he is saying.

“Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is an Insult to the Supreme Court,” Josh Hammer, Newsweek (7/1/2025)
“KBJ Could Learn a Few Lessons in ‘Professionalism’ From Justice Barrett,” Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist (8/20/2025)
Ketanji Brown Jackson’s career timeline from the Southern Poverty Law Center (4/7/22)

Watch on YouTube!

Brown v. Board v. Science Sep 02, 2025

Show notes

OA1186 - We continue our series on some of our favorite Warren-era Supreme Court decisions with the one Warren-era decision--and very likely the only Supreme Court decision that is still good law--that most people can name from memory. The desegregation of American schools in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) stands today as one of the greatest moments of justice in American legal history, but did you know that it was also an equally important moment for social science? Matt tees up the legal and historical context and Dr. Jenessa Seymour, Esq. brings her unique background as both a lawyer and a PhD in neuroscience to provide a singular perspective on the science behind Brown and what it has meant for both law and science in the 71 years since then.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)
Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (Pivotal Moments in American History), James T. Patterson (2001)

Did a Federal Judge Really Just Shutter Alligator Alcatraz? Aug 29, 2025

Show notes

OA1185 - The rule of law has never been put more to the test in this country, and we do our best to keep up with at least a few of the most important decent developments. We begin with a brief review of the current status of wrongfully-deported Salvadoran asylum seeker Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Why is the Trump administration desperately trying to re-deport this Central American man whom they already fully admit was deported to hell by mistake to… Uganda? Matt explains. Then: Did a federal judge really just shutter Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz”? We consider the history of this surprisingly significant swampland and why an environmental challenge to its existence was so much easier to win than one based in due process, while also celebrating a major win for native rights.

Another major presidential first this week: for the first time in US history, the President has claimed the authority to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Could this one decision really have global economic consequences? How much does it matter that Trump has done literally the one thing that the Supreme Court has ever told him *not* to do? We review some basics to try to understand the full magnitude of what this all means for our current moment before moving on to today’s footnote: an outstanding decision from a Virginia federal judge which should stand as a model for how the judiciary can stand up to American fascism.

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

Maxwell's Silver Yammer, Part 2 Aug 27, 2025

Show notes

VR5 Part 2 - we continue our analysis of Ghislaine Maxwell's podcast interview on the Todd Blanche Experience. Make sure you caught part 1!

Watch the video here!

Complete enhanced audio of Ghislaine Maxwell's proffer session with DOJ deputy Todd Blanche on July 24-25, 2025 (Thomas's Version)
Maxwell transcripts and source audio from DOJ
US v Maxwell indictment

The Ghislaine Maxwell Interview Was Institutional Corruption Like We've Never Seen Before. Truly. Aug 27, 2025

Show notes

Due to unprecedented corruption not getting enough of a call out, Vapid Response has taken over the Monday slot this week! It's VR5 Part 1. The Trump administration's corruption of the US Department of Justice hit new depths last week when it released audio and transcripts from convicted Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell's so-called “proffer session” with current top DOJ deputy (and former Trump defense attorney) Todd Blanche. OA NYC bureau chief Liz Skeen joins to help us understand just how completely unprecedented everything about this interview and its public release have been, and we discuss why DOJ's flagrantly stupid efforts to minimize the President's well-known close ties with the most notorious sex trafficker in modern US history portends a new level of American authoritarianism.

Watch the video here!

Complete enhanced audio of Ghislaine Maxwell's proffer session with DOJ deputy Todd Blanche on July 24-25, 2025 (Thomas's Version)
Maxwell transcripts and source audio from DOJ
US v Maxwell indictment

Republicans Are Messing with Texas Aug 22, 2025

Show notes

OA1184 - The saying pretty explicitly tells us to don't, and yet here they are not don'ting. This week on Rapid Response Friday: why is a Texas lawmaker filing a habeas petition asking a federal court to release her from the state capitol building? What’s the deal with redistricting, and is Texas’s plan to tip the balance in the U.S. House of Representatives actually legal? Jenessa brings her voting rights expertise to explain why this plan is so bad that state Democratic leaders had to go on the lam on threat of arrest to try to stop it. We then briefly discuss the import of Attorney General Pam Bondi pulling back from her attempt to take over DC’s entire police force before Matt takes on a couple of little-noticed immigration policy memos in which the Trump administration has given itself dangerously broad new powers to determine things like an immigrant’s “good moral character” and “anti-American” activities and associations.

Finally in today’s footnote: it’s Columbia-on-Columbia violence as the West Coast sportswear company goes to war with the East Coast Ivy League university over some IP nonsense which gives Matt yet another excuse to be correct about fonts.

Texas state representative Nicole Collier’s habeas petition (filed 8/19/25)
“Restoring a Rigorous, Holistic, and Comprehensive Good Moral Character Evaluation Standard for Aliens Applying for Naturalization,” USCIS (8/15/25)
“Clarifying Discretionary Factors in Certain Immigration Benefit Requests,” USCIS (8/19/25)
Columbia Sportswear v. Columbia University (complaint filed 7/23/25)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

The Boston Globe put out two bootlicking Trump op-eds in one week. What are we DOING Aug 20, 2025

Show notes

VR4 - It’s a Boston doubleheader for this Vapid Response Wednesday as Thomas, Lydia, and Matt take on two truly awful takes from the pages of Matt’s hometown paper last week within 24 hours of each other. But first: a vintage amuse douche from Tucker Carlson on the evils of the National Guard’s occupation of DC--in January 2021 (and apparently no other time)!

Then in today’s main stories:

(1) Conservative opinion-haver Heather Mac Donald on why she supports Trump’s absolute right to send American military personnel to occupy American cities just because he wants to.

(2) Project 2025 collaborator Hillsdale College dispatches its finest journalistic mind to explain why Donald J. Trump (yes, that Donald J. Trump) is 2025’s best possible candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize (yes, that Nobel Peace Prize).

Watch on YouTube!
“Trump was right to send the National Guard to Washington,” Heather Mac Donald, Boston Globe (8/13/25)
“Breaking down the White House lies about D.C.”, Radley Balko (8/13/25)
“Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize,” John J. Miller, Boston Globe (8/14/25)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

The Most Important LGTBQ Rights Case You’ve Never Heard Of Aug 18, 2025

Show notes

OA1183 - We continue our ongoing look at some of our favorite Warren Court-era Supreme Court cases with this one-line 1958 decision finding as a matter of law that one of the most important LGTBQ magazines in U.S. history was not publishing obscenity. We begin by trying to find anything resembling smut in the archived pages of ONE magazine before Matt explains a bit more about the history of obscenity law in the U.S. and how Roth v U.S. changed everything just before ONE’s cert petition was taken up. Jenessa gets into the proven psychological benefits of being allowed to be who you are in public, and we consider the state of obscenity law today and who still might want to use it.