We're joined by Balls and Strikes' Jay Willis in this emergency episode to talk about Trump v. Anderson, which challenged Colorado removing Trump from the primary ballot. In a shocking twist, the Court held that Colorado can't do that. JK that's not shocking - the twist is that the dogs you hear barking in this episode are Jay's, not Michael's. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, jo...
Mar 07, 2024•50 min
The legal academy is losing its mind. Good news for us, the profs are talking about their broken brains in the New York Times. Today on the show, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael discuss “The Crisis in Teaching Constitutional Law” by Jesse Wegman to snark on the state of legal education. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Pr...
Mar 05, 2024•7 min
You can't sue the President if they wronged you, as long as what they did was in the course of their official duties. And maybe possibly if they did it out unofficially out of spite, or because they were just feeling crimey that day. Thank goodness we have this fantastic precedent to help us deal with Trump's many cases! If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/su...
Feb 27, 2024•1 hr
Groundhog Day but make it interrogation. The Supreme Court says cops are welcome to keep hauling you in for questioning as long as they honor an arbitrary waiting period. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our researcher is ...
Feb 20, 2024•50 min
Let's burn this motherfucker down metaphorically speaking OF COURSE! Today we're talking about how to counter Fed Soc's influence on campus and in the courts. The game plan isn't to copy their strategy - it's to play to the left's strengths. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon N...
Feb 13, 2024•8 min
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. He learned it from the Federalist Society, by watching them steadily shift the terms on which all contemporary legal issues are argued. Now even progressive jurists feel compelled to debate the debate club on its own turf. The Devil is duly impressed. For more about what Fed Soc hath wrought, check out Amanda Hollis-Brusky's Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Ox...
Feb 06, 2024•55 min
First you get the money, then you get the power. But FIRST first you get the law students. This week we're exploring the tentacles of the Federalist Society, and how a so-called debate club pulls levers across government, the legal profession, and academia, to achieve its conservative ideological goals. Hear more from this episode's contributors: Vanessa A. Bee is the author of HOME BOUND: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging (Astra Publishing, 2022). Andrea Bernstein's reporting with...
Jan 30, 2024•1 hr 18 min
There's a powerfully connected right-wing organization operating at every elite law school in the nation. It built itself by leveraging the conservative victim complex, the Reagan revolution, networks of judges and activists, and cold hard psycho millionaire cash. This is the story of the Federalist Society. If you can't get enough of these monsters, you may want to read The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law (Princeton, 2008) by Steven Teles, or lis...
Jan 23, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Every year we like to shout out organizations that inspire us or have deeply embarrassing kompromat on us. Good luck guessing which is which! https://www.icareaboutcoral.org/ https://shoutyourabortion.com/ https://www.assignedmedia.org/ https://www.librariesforthepeople.org/ https://palestinianfeministcollective.org/ https://www.newalternativesnyc.org/ https://www.projectstreetvet.org/ https://fa.urbanjustice.org/donate/ https://secure.actblue.com/donate/eoy2023pl If you're not a 5-4 Premium mem...
Dec 22, 2023•22 min
This episode was available early to Premium members. If you'd like that kind of perk, consider joining at fivefourpod.com/support. Ryna Workman and Jinan Chehade were both knocked off the Big Law course they thought they were on, after expressing solidarity with Palestine. Now they're on a mission to make some good trouble. Thanks for being a 5-4 Premium member! Your support means the world to us! 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons...
Dec 21, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Ryna Workman and Jinan Chehade were both knocked off the Big Law course they thought they were on, after expressing solidarity with Palestine. Now they're on a mission to make some good trouble. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial sup...
Dec 19, 2023•7 min
It's basically impossible to amend our crummy Constitution, as demonstrated by the litany of proposed amendments that have face planted directly into the dustbin of history. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our resea...
Dec 12, 2023•6 min
Our nation has laws, procedures, and courts for settling labor disputes. But what if you're a concrete company and you don't wannnnnnnnnnnnnna go through the system that Congress authorized specifically for this purpose? Then you take it to state court baybeeee - and see if SCOTUS will let you sneak out of the National Labor Relations Board process. Hey, did you know that if you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode? To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our S...
Dec 05, 2023•56 min
Get a load of this - this guy accepted a SALARY for TEACHING at a SCHOOL. Simply not Supreme Court justice material. Get the guy who sold a house to a billionaire instead. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. Read the book that inspired this episode: Battle for the Marble Palace by Michael Bobelian Massive thanks to Workers Defense Project in Au...
Nov 28, 2023•5 min
We want to dedicate this episode to Vermont and Maine, the only two states in this whole goddamn country that let everyone exercise their Constitutional right to vote. What are they putting in that syrup? Everywhere else, you've got Richardson v. Ramirez to thank for the movement to disenfranchise people who've been caught up in the criminal punishment system. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack communi...
Nov 21, 2023•39 min
War! Huh! Yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely suppressing speech! Read "The Anti-Surveillance Coalition's Highest-Stakes Gamble" by Spencer Ackerman https://foreverwars.ghost.io/the-anti-surveillance-coalitions-highest-stakes-gamble/ Listen to Know Your Enemy: Elon Musk, the Jews, and the ADL, with Mari Cohen, Alex Kane, and Peter Beinart https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-elon-musk-adl/ If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Pr...
Nov 14, 2023•54 min
You are a person with power. Now is the time to use it. Call your representatives: https://ceasefiretoday.com/ Join a protest: https://www.shutitdown4palestine.org/ Follow: @palestinianyouthmovement @motaz_azaiza @byplestia @wizard_bisan1 @mohammedelkurd @pal_legal Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 07, 2023•6 min
A conversation about Legally Blonde has to do with the Supreme Court … how? Because we assume in Elle's universe she's now chief justice, and John Roberts teaches PE at a middle school in Buffalo. 5-4 Premium members get this full episode, and our extensive back catalogue of Premium-only episodes. To make sure you can hear every episode we release, and get access to our Slack community, first dibs on live show tickets, invites to monthly events and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is p...
Oct 31, 2023•6 min
We're sharing this episode of Rhiannon's movement lawyering series with all of our listeners. Our Patreon subscribers heard it first, back in March. In this episode, Rhiannon talks with Palestine Legal's senior staff attorney Radhika Sainath and staff attorney Dylan Saba about their mission to protect Palestinian activists from harassment, and the power of intersectional liberation movements. You can learn more about Palestine Legal here: https://palestinelegal.org/ And if you'd like to join the...
Oct 24, 2023•55 min
This case about discrimination on the basis of pregnancy might have you thinking that Potter Stewart said "trans rights are human rights." Absolutely not. Mans said "get back in the kitchen, wench." If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial...
Oct 17, 2023•55 min
In a world where the police are charged with protecting your Constitutional rights, they'd be climbing all over themselves to read you your Miranda Rights. We don't live in that world. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support...
Oct 10, 2023•1 hr
Proving once again that the sequel is always worse … we present Brown v. Board of Education II, and the rest of the cases that southern states used to try to delay integration, circumvent the Supreme Court's authority, and develop new legal strategies to preserve de facto segregation. 5-4 Premium members get this full episode, and our extensive back catalogue of Premium-only episodes. To make sure you can hear every episode we release, and get access to our Slack community, first dibs on live sh...
Oct 03, 2023•7 min
My life is a movie! A movie where a federal agent sets me up to do a drug deal by providing the buyers and the drugs but somehow that's not entrapment! A horror movie if you will. Here's the This American Life episode that Michael recommends, "What I Did for Love." https://www.thisamericanlife.org/457/what-i-did-for-love If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/su...
Sep 26, 2023•53 min
Doesn't it feel like we JUST did a term recap episode? What if the Supreme Court just like took a gap year or something, and left us all in peace for once. Wouldn't that be nice? Alas, no such luck. You're losing more rights this year … AGAIN. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon ...
Sep 20, 2023•1 hr 14 min
We have the smartest, most curious listeners in the business and in this episode we're answering your burning questions with a fire extinguisher of wisdom and insight straight to the face. 5-4 Premium members get to hear the full episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our researcher is Jo...
Sep 12, 2023•5 min
We're joined by Nick Estes, of The Red Nation podcast to talk about Indigenous sovereignty, land back, and how stupid Mount Rushmore is. You can find Nick's work at www.therednation.org. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Ou...
Sep 05, 2023•44 min
Just like clockwork, the Spirit Halloweens are popping up and law students are heading back to campus, which means it's time for our Welcome to Law School episode. Come for the updates, and stay for the milk crate challenge! If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew...
Aug 29, 2023•1 hr 11 min
Jump int the RV kids, we're exploring Clarence Thomas' dissents, concurrences, and the mind of the man. Buckle up, because it's a twisted road. 5-4 Premium members get to hear this whole episode, and a whole bunch of other episodes you're not hearing if you don't subscribe. To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide edi...
Aug 22, 2023•7 min
The Supreme Court has overturned one of our nation's only proactive strategies for addressing its foundational sin. But what's worse, the most annoying guy on the cross country team just lost his last best excuse for why he didn't get into Harvard. Enjoy SUNY Binghamton, Bronckton! If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue...
Aug 15, 2023•1 hr 16 min
The lapsed memberships of your youth can be held against you in immigration proceedings. It's only a matter of time until all Neopets users are deported. Is this a weird time to mention our Premium subscription? If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons prov...
Aug 08, 2023•50 min
