What's up, Rannon?
How's they going?
What's going on? I'm down the Jersey Shore, so it's gonna be a lot of.
That every.
Coming to laundry GTL down the Shore.
YO, Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three point fifty one, Episode two of Dardilly's gust a production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's share consciousness. And it is Tuesday, August thirteenth, twenty twenty four, Tuesday the thirteenth, famously Spooky. My name is, of course the Spooky Friday, the thirteenth ghost who coprom surrounding goes woo Jason Board He's famous line, Yes, my name's.
Jack O'Brien aka JJ Redrick tracking down the tweet JJ Redrick is water ice, not pee, JJ Redrick.
You don't believe me, but it's the truth. It could have happened, no to you, not pee. That is courtesy of halcyon Salad on the Discord, kind of a mashup reference to a run of rhetoric nicknames that Miles and I got on last week. For reasons I don't remember. We hit rhetoric Taylor Drederick Taylor Simpson's reference and of course JJ Rederick and then also referring to the time I went on a scary ride at Ocean City's Wonderland Pier and might have peed my pants. As a full adult,
I might have. I don't. Don't this calls for another OOO scary That is what I did after I said oOoOO to try and distract people. I don't know. My pants were just wet. I don't think I peed my pants, but everybody else thinks I did. Also update on that theme park I am down the shore and that dilapidated amusement park I grew up going to. It's just this like massive dirty smells, like roller coaster grease. Even though they shut the Big roller coaster down in nineteen ninety
nine when it killed two people. A few days ago they announced it has been sold and is shutting down after like ninety four years in operation. It's what a shame like. And it's like a I think the owner of the person who like the landlord, is like a hotel developer, like a full eighties movie back, trying to shut down the like the children's dancing the Comunity Center. Yeah the fuck anyways, rip to Wonderland peer. I will be taking my kids there tonight and I will not
be pissing my pants. That is the Jack O'Brian guarantee. I am thrilled to be joined in our second seat today by very special co host, talented writer, stand up comedian, co host of The Bechdel Cast, one of the great film podcasts. They also happen to have a master's degree in film. The most anagrammable name in the English language, so if you've been given their name in a jumble of out of order scrabble tiles, you may know them as Lauren d Titanic Latin dancer, Uti nine tit Dracula.
But to us they will always be Caitlin Doronte.
Thank you for having me. I have a new one AKA, And do I feel silly saying this in front of such an.
Esteemed guest world. We've already just jumped off the cliff of good taste, so don't worry about it.
You're talking about pissing your pants, et cetera.
I thought that would maybe take the pressure of.
Thank you so much, Okay, Caitlin Dronte aka A rancid lun tit, A rancid lun tit. Yeah, this is a new one. I haven't I haven't discovered this one until today. L u n e l u n e. Which if you're like, what's that? What's I thought it was l o o n you know, a bird? Maybe I'm not sure, but a luon l u n e. Let me just do a quick.
And of course that is and we all know it, folks, So I don't know why I'm even having to tell you.
Yeah, you know, I just want to get this exactly correct. It's a crescent shaped figure formed on a sphere or plane by two arcs intersecting at two points. We all know exactly what that is.
Yes, the moonlike crescent. Yes, Caitlyn, the moonlight crescent. Amazing. Well, it's great to have another Caitlin Durante anagram in the family, in the zeke loon, in the zeitgeist, and it has entered the zeitgeist, the rancid lun tit.
Thank you so much, and I would be remiss my responsibilities as co host today. I have to say that today, August thirteenth is National Filet Mignon Day. Okay, national is our International left handers Day. You're left handed, it's your day.
And I was pumping my right hand, but I am left handed.
Okay, very good. And then also National Prosecco Day, so we've got to kind of fancy, you know, prosecco filet mignon if.
You're feeling Nazi, fucking fancy.
Have a dinner. I don't think prosecco really goes with filet mignon. You would have probably a red wine with with a steak.
But you know, prosecco is like a non champagne champagne.
Yeah, it's champ it's the poor man's champagne.
Yeah, sham champagne, but not fully champagne.
It's sham champagne.
It is in no way the file mignon of champagne. It is no no, no, no, no no no, no, no no no, it is yeah. It's the skirt steak. It's the the hot dog, the hot dog. Anyways, Caitlin, we are thrilled to be joined by one of the hosts of popular Cradle podcast, a podcast about Palestine. Also co hosts five to four, a podcast about all the ways the Supreme Court is a fucking disaster. She's a supervising attorney at Texas Law, has worked as a public defender in Rio Grande City, Texas and an act of who
got arrested for protesting Israel's ongoing atrocities against Palestine. Please welcome back to the show, Rihann.
And Hama Me. I didn't prepare any akaa's, but yeah, I guess that Rihann and hammam aka jailbird. I don't know.
Yeah, that's right, that's right. You've been arrested since we last spoke.
That's right. Yeah, great to be back.
Thank you for having me, Thank you for being here. Yeah, you got arrested protesting on the campus of University of Texas, do you I'm sure you've talked about it. I know you've talked about it on five four. I heard you talk about it on five four. Yeah, but can you talk about kind of what what that experience was like has been like.
You know, it was it was it was super crazy. It was super crazy. It was really quite random, you know, if people kind of followed this of course, you know, like things like the student encampment movement and that kind of like tactic of protests on campuses was really intense and widespread over the spring at UT. On the day that I was arrested, there wasn't even a student encampment.
It was just students gathering for like, you know, a teaching and some art activities and talking about the genocide. And yes, State of Texas through ut basically just called the cops on this crowd, called the cops on a bunch of kids standing on standing on the lawn at their school. So yeah, I got arrested there. It was
really it was. It was so wild. You know, it's hard to like derive really like any like strong lessons out of it, like about the law or something like that, because it's just like, no, the lesson is like the state will call in cops to beat up some kids if they don't like what you're saying, right, Like, that's that's kind.
Of it, and we'll rescue and do and do violence regardless of whether you respond, you know, do respond to what they're telling you to do. Yeah.
Yeah, all for exercising your first Amendment.
Exactly, exactly, Yeah, kind of like I guess I learned the wrong first Amendment in law school, but something different than what the uh than what state troopers in Texas learned, I guess.
Yeah. Yeah, I like that they weren't ready on the day of the actual protests, so they were like, that's not going to work for us, but there are people here, so can we just like kind of go through with this. I already have like the shit on me, like I have all the got on. I brought a huge but comfortable and I.
Also brought thirty massive horses. So can I just let loose on these nineteen year olds or what? You know?
That's right? All right, Well, I'm sorry you went through that, but thank you for your courage in the face of state violence and you know, just fucking the ongoing horrors of this civilization we live in. We are going to talk a little bit about the Supreme Court with you.
Another horror, another horror.
Specifically, I want to talk about Trump the United States. I knew this was bad when it happened. I didn't really get how bad it was until listening to five four the Supreme Court decision that was basically like we have King now. Yeah. I know, I know you thought that was like one of the founding things. No, we have King now, So yeah, I want to talk about that.
I also want to talk about the first episode of five to four was about Bush v. Gore throwback, throw way back, but it's I know, it turns out I don't know. I've been thinking a lot about that lately, just because it feels like the the Trump or the Trump campaign is gearing up to try to do another election where the Supreme Court determines who won the election. So we'll talk about that, and we might get to Navajo water rights, which another recent opinion where written by
none other than Brett Kavanaugh, just fucking killing it. Just what a Jesus Christ.
You don't even need Trump for that kind of evil. Yeah, turned out the Court is delivering doling out those decisions with or without the Trump as president.
Yeah, can do bad all on their own.
Exactly.
Before we get to all of that, we do like to get to know you a little bit better by asking what is something from your search history that's realing about who you are?
Okay, search history right now is a lot of used cars, and you know what, I know we're going to go into underrated and overrated and this is this is this is very much connected. So right now used cars, I'm looking at how much is how much is a Honda Civic going for these days? How much is a how much is a Kia Soul? You know, yeah, so that's the search history really stacked with used cars right now?
Are you?
Are you in the market for one? Well, nope, curious.
Should I go ahead and tell you my underrated I think so? Yeah, so underrated rip twenty fourteen Kia Soul, one thousand miles on it. It served me so well. Salute the twenty fourteen Kia Soul because she died.
She died just last week.
Thank you, Michael, Michael Wizza. I know, I know listeners at home think Justin is piping that in from an actual military funeral, But no, that is our very on Kaitlin Durante revealing themselves to be the this generations. Michael Winslow.
Yeah, so underrated. Is that beautiful Hamster car, the Kia Soul.
Yeah that was the Okay, that was the Hamster car.
Oh yeah, what a swing image, what a big swing and she did so much for me.
Yes, The car commercials have been the same for the past twenty years. They have been, for the most part, a glamour shots of the car driving through a for whatever reason.
The windiest road that's ever happened.
Completely depopulated landscape for some reason. Yeah and yeah, they were just like what if we like some fun giant human sized hamsters. Yeah, just fucking speeding around on.
This camster's in close and also like dancing to the beat of an LMFAO song. Yeah, and that was That was the Kia Soul marketing plan.
Yeah.
And it worked.
It worked. It clearly worked. It clearly worked. And you know what, it was a good car. I'll say it. I'm brave and the twenty fourteen Kia Soul is one of the best cars ever made. Well, maybe maybe I'm feeling sentimental.
You know, twenty fourteen. That's a good run for a car ten years.
Yeah, one hundred and fifty thousand miles. Not crazy, but it is a lot.
Yeah. Is that one of those cars that got in before everything became computerized?
Like the word Yeah, no, no, it didn't. By the end, it didn't even have bluetooth.
Okay, it doesn't have a My car doesn't have a backup camera. So I'm using my note. I'm swiveling my head around like a peasant. Yeah, I'm trying to back up.
No camera, no.
Layness, nothing. No, it was a It was a car in the in the in the real in the real sense of the word, a car. Not a computer, you know.
Yeah, fuck your computer on musk.
Your computer on wheels.
Yeah, fucker fucking drive around in my iPad out of here. What is something you think is overrated?
All right? This one also quite close to home. I think you know it's overrated getting a full set, getting your nails done, having ten beautiful, gorgeous, brand new acrylics. You know why, because it's been so long since I've gotten my nails done that I have one thumb acrylic left, and I've just been rocking that for for weeks at this point, and I am, Yeah, I'm telling myself it's because it's overrated to have a fresh, beautiful, sparkly new set.
I'm doing just fine with my one thumb acrylic nail.
I personally would assume that was intentional.
Thank you the way that like, Okay, let me tell me how much of this I have? Correct? Is it like people who do cocaine they leave a long, pinky nail. Yeah, it's like that, but different, that's right, Yeah.
Yeah, glamorous.
Yeah.
So is it the only long nail on your hand?
Yeah, that's the only one I got. Oh yeah, because the other ones, the ones are sure, Yeah, they fall off or they break so you take it off or whatever. And then so here I am with just just one and nine nine short little nubbies.
I agree that it's I like, I've never gotten acrylics at all. I get a manicure once every ten years, roughly, I've had like three in my life.
And I don't know.
I mean, if that's what if that's what people want to do and that's how you want to spend your money, go for it. But I'm just like, what if though my shitty three dollars nail polish that I apply myself badly, what if that and then and is great at Yeah, I'm.
For that as well, you know I generally, Yeah, what I'm u with this one nail is doing to my psyche is that you know, I'm a Texas girly. You know, it's a big hair, it's a lashes, it's a nail lifestyle and a clic set, full set lifestyle. And so yeah, these past few weeks, you know, I got arrested, I have my my my life is maybe summed up in h I just have this one acrylic nail holding on for Yeah.
Yeah, I think.
That's a beautiful metaphor.
Yeah, I think having ten nails done. Now, now that I've seen your one nail, I think ten nails done is corny.
Thank you?
Yeah hard? Why do all your nails match? What the is that? That's unnatural? Yeah, And thumb definitely preferable to pinky finger. I feel like, yeah, finger, although you could probably pull it off, I don't think I could pull off one really long pinky finger.
I think, yeah, thumb, it's the it's the whatever, it's the digit that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Yeah, so I'm just like accentuating.
It, Yeah, rubbing it in the animal kingdom's face.
You go to your cat and you say, oh, do you have opposable thumbs? No, well look at this.
Oh sorry, you couldn't catch that. I first got all right, let's take a quick break, and then we're going to come back and talk about the Supreme Court. Oh no, oh no, this is going to be so awkward. And we're back, and we're back, and we're back and Trump v. United States? Is that how we pronounce that? We pronounced the verses as V.
Yeah.
Yeah, in the realm of Supreme the supremes.
You got it.
Yeah, So a lot of people have talked about how scary the prospect of trumps next Trump presidency is in the context of Project twenty twenty five, and they are right. Yes, However, this ruling is just straight up feels like the Supreme Court intervening on behalf of Donald Trump to say he can do whatever he wants, like including I feel like everything he did in the first in his first presidency, right yeah, Like they're just like, yeah, he's the president,
he can do all of that shit. Like if January sixth happened with this being the law, the only thing he did wrong really was not make it a military coup. If he had used the military, then that would have been okay, in line with this ruling, because then that's part that's him using his official capacity as president.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. So, like the question here is like, okay, when do presidents get immunity? And like, well, you have to step back and think, like why why is there such a concept in the law of presidential immunity? And it's because you want the president, you want certain government officials to like be able to do some stuff that
the normal person wouldn't be able to do. You already talked about like leading the military, the president's commander in chief, Like, you know, you order the military to do some stuff, there's going to be consequences that for me to order somebody to do that, that would be a crime, right, But we want the president to be able to do it.
That's why there's presidential immunity. And so the way courts in the past have like decided, like what does where does presidential immunity lie is if basically is if the president is doing an official act, right, if it's an act that the president is doing, because the president is the president, right, so you know you could you can hold them legally accountable for doing something. Yes, they're the president,
but they're not doing an official act. So you know, the president the president, and I get an offender bender, you know, six blocks from my house, Yeah, I would be able to sue the president. He's not doing his presidential duties in rear ending my car, you.
Know, yes, but especially he kind of fucked up your twenty fourteen right, Yes he should be he must pay.
But yeah, So in this case, the Supreme Court, this is a majority decision written by John Roberts, basically says, if you're the president, almost anything you do is gonna be an.
Official acting for treason?
Yes, yes, yeah. What's so so wild is what the Supreme Court says is or what the majority the majority, let's be real, the hyper conservative six maniacs.
Yeah, but John Roberts is the middle of the road guy who was gonna save us all I thought, let.
This pass, Supreme Court term be the death of that idea. This we we've got Roberts on decisions all over the place where he is like articulating a frankly psychotic conservative vision of the law and of the constitution. This guy is not a moderate. Please stop saying that. You know, yeah, so yeah, this in in this case, they're saying like, yeah, basically everything is a presidential official act because you know, we can't decide whether something is official conduct or unofficial
conduct by looking at by inquiring into like the president's motives. Right, So that means like it doesn't matter for what purpose the president does something. It doesn't matter how self interested, it doesn't matter how violent, as long as it's like draped in the shroud of the presidential office, then the Supreme Court says, the president is insulated from prosecution. Right, So it's like kind of like I think Peter said this on the on the on the episode that we
did about this case. But he's like, Okay, if if basically like if the office of the presidency is like a gun, what the court said here is that when you become the president, you gain the completely unfettered right to use that gun however you want. It doesn't matter who you shoot at, it doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter you know how you abuse that access to the gun, right right, the only thing that matters is it's your gun.
It's an official act, and so you you are immune from prosecution for any criminal acts that you do with that gun. Right. Yes, it's it's really really really it's really wild. Yeah, and like you said at the beginning, like we have we're doing monarchy now.
And if Trump gets back in the White House, it feels like he's going, I mean, he's going to really explore the studio space with this Like this is like it feels like it's like a like a request, like a band that's doing a request for somebody, Like he's like, could you play this one?
Like it's really a dare, Like I dare you just to test the limits of this limitless power.
Question mark. Yeah, there are limitations, Like I think you guys brought up like the president doesn't have the right to regulate emissions or force federal employees to be vaccinated. Those are executive powers like a Democrat might use, but he has the green light to orchestrate a coup and subvert an election.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a it's a little bit different, but it is related. Like it's a good point, but like it's a little bit different because this is about criminal prosecution, right, so right, but yeah, it's like saying like, yeah, there are other areas of the law that are going to like rein in executive power, rein in the administrative state. Oh no, you can't do that. No you can't, you can't.
You know, the EPA can't say as part of a presidential administration that EPA can't you know, regulate waterways in this way because all of our waterways are polluted and water is poisoned in the US. No no, no, no no, that's like a that's too much power, right, but all these crimes, you can definitely do that. And what's crazy, you know you brought up like okay, like the next a next Trump term he's gonna really be trying this stuff out and really empowered by this crazy decision. And
that's true. I mean, like the decision itself is not just saying like, oh, yeah, in general, you're getting carte blanche, although it does say that, but it is about specific acts that Trump took leading up to and on January sixth, Right, and so you know that, you know, the accusation that Trump like leveraged the Department of Justice right to like open sham investigations or to threaten sham investigations into voter fraud so that states would be like coerced into changing
their electors. He also threatened to fire the acting Attorney General for not cooperating with that. Like that's those are the specific accusations that Trump or anybody else could be criminally prosecuted for. And you know, the Supreme Court John robertson this decision says, well't no, that's like part of being that's just part of the office.
Yeah, he's the president. Yeah, of course he's going to fire. Like remember how big a deal it was when he fired Komy. We were like, holy shit, we have entered and then he like went on that lesser Holt interview, and I was like, yeah, I didn't really like that he was looking into me, so I you know, it was like, oh my god, we've like entered a new world where he's just going to try and get away with it. And now the Supreme Court's like, yeah, no,
that's like totally fine. What yeah, like shut the fuck up, stop complaining.
Everything, right, right, And so if you can like misuse abuse your power with like ordering the DOJ to do illegal sham shit, right, then yeah, in the second term, like that you there's really no telling And and the Court said, yeah, it's not just this stuff for which he's immune, it's also like, here's how you think about
these cases in the future. And again that's just like if it's connected to the office of the presidency, if it's you know, just kind of draped in this, if if he can say I did this in my capacity as the president, then yeah, he's immune from criminal prosecution for anything that comes out of that.
And it really felt like a broad and unapologetic collusion between like the Supreme Court and Trump, like they delayed the ruling for him and then found even more strongly for him than what he was seeking. Yeah, it's just like now, in retrospect, I think we're having a hard time getting our mind around just like how off the
rails this has gone. Like no, yeah, yeah, just listening back to like earlier episodes of your show, of like any show like from before this, you know, like when I remember being like, oh, I'm coming back from a trip with my family on July eleventh, so that'll be like when Trump is sentenced, so we'll find that out then like that's just gone. It's like the worst case scenario was like him not seeing jail time, and now we're just like, oh no, actually, maybe what he did
is legal. Maybe like he's not a felon because because the supremeor Court is like he can do whatever the fuck he wants.
Everybody absolutely, yeah, no, it's super crazy, like the yeah, like the discourse was about like you know, I never thought Trump was going to see prison time, right, but it was like okay, like maybe he would be like on house arrest for like a couple of weeks or something, and then he's just like on probation and like that would be crazy and ha ha ha highway, like the Secret Service has to go with him on community service day, you know, right, you.
Know erased all that, and he is king, yeah.
He's going to be ca yeah yeah, Well, and he's like he's like explicitly saying this.
He's saying, like, if you vote for me, you're never gonna have to vote. Yeah, Like he's ready to just post up and be like I can't commit a crime.
Like yeah, we're good here, he's done donezo Yeah. Yeah. Really feels like we'll never get him out of office the if he wins this time and yeah, in the next act, I want to talk about how I like it feels like he's specifically signaling that this is his plan. Is like his ace in the hole is that he has like the Supreme Court on his side, or at
least a lot of judges and election officials. But the day that this came down, he was like, we should be thinking about prosecuting Liz Cheney for treason, like he knows, Yeah, he's ready to use this power. Yeah, Like the the DJ is like is his gun now he is going to be able to do the thing that he was joking about joking in quotes, but like clearly you know has always wanted to do, which is like shoot someone in the middle of fifth Avenue and like get away with it.
Yeah, exactly. He's like, it's like not that far off from what he's been talking about right for for years now,
and it's just about like him. That's that's what's so dangerous about a Trump administration in terms of things like Project twenty twenty five, all all of that that comes with it, is we've already seen it in a first Trump term, that he installs the people who allow him to do this, right, who build up, who changed laws, who interpret laws, so that when he has power, he can do exactly what he's saying he wants to do
with it, you know. And so like you know, from our from from my perspective, like watching the Supreme Court, you know, you always have to go back to Trump had three nominations to the Supreme Court. Yeah, got them,
you know, got all three confirmed. And you know, you just have to be real, I think, you know, like legal analysts, political analysts, all of that kind of thing, you have to be real that Trump installed those three people for very specific reasons, right, One which they've been super upfront about and which they already achieved, was overturning Roe v.
Wade.
He put those three conservatives because he knew those three conservatives would vote that way, right, and now with that like kind of it's very direct, like a quid pro quo, like I put you on the court to do X, Y Z, and here we go this like crazy conservative super majority. They're ready to do it. They're they're yeah.
They're doing it more than really Yeah, they're X Y and Z ing it exactly do we it does? You're right, it does feel like this has been a plan all along. I was wondering, like because John Roberts had been more like he hadn't been this out and out like right wing crazy, had he? Or am I was I just like not paying attention. It's entirely possible. I wasn't paying attention.
But like it feels like I don't know that like Brett Cavanaugh got in there and he's just like a bad influence on everyone or something like it just feels like it's like a total it's taken a real turn.
I think that's right. Like John Roberts has always been a conservative, Like he's always hated things like voting rights, you know, like there his legal career before he was ever a judge, like shows a lot of his a lot of super conservative positions on a lot of things. I think this past term might show us, the past couple of terms at the Supreme Court might show us maybe maybe two things. One is that John Roberts now is the Chief Justice presiding over cases at the Supreme
Court where the Overton window has shifted dramatically. Like the cases now being decided are not like, Okay, what's this little tiny what's this little tiny tweak that we could make in the conservative direction on Roe v.
Wade?
Right, Yeah, but it's like literally like is the president immune from criminal prosecution when the president does crimes?
Right?
Right?
And so it's like the conservative, the hyper conservative inside of John Roberts can totally jump out because because the cases in front of the Supreme Court right now are on issues that are just wildly, wildly conservative, right, So there doesn't have to be the appearance of like the questions they're answering within those questions, there doesn't have to be this kind of like sham appearance of like moderation, right, or sort of institutional legitimacy from the Court that John
Roberts was like kind of using as a tactic in in years prior. Right, Yeah, And I think another thing too, is that John Roberts and the rest of the Conservatives on the Supreme Court, and everybody on the Supreme Court is a human being who is influenced by the political moment and media and you know, shifts in popular opinion and shifts and development in conservative thought just like everybody else's. And so you know Fox News is writing is rotting their brains too.
Yeah, there, you can absolutely tell that they're just mainlining fucking Jesse Waters and yeah, oh yeah, I mean in the case of Alito As we'll get to fucking like Q conspiracies. But yeah, it's it's so wild. I mean, this is how fascism happens, right, Like the rule of law is not like it's not like fascists come in and just like say no more Supreme Court. It's exactly
the rule of law. I think it was said on five to four by Peter Like, the rule of law is whatever fascists need it to be in a given moment. Yea's inconsistent, but it is. You know, they will use it like a cudgel, you.
Know, exactly, yeah, exactly, we're talking. I mean, and there's so many cases from this past term that show that you know, I think when we were talking about like fascism and the rule of law and that kind of thing.
That was probably on our episode about Snyder, which is the case about like bribery, like bribing elected officials, where the Supreme Court said, like, hmm, well, actually you know this, this check that a trucking company gave to the mayor of this Oregon city for thirteen thousand dollars for awarding that trucking company trucking contracts. That's not bribery, Like yeah, and that's exactly like you know, all of these cases like on their own, you're like, oh, that's fucked up.
Oh that's another fucked up decision, But when you see them all together and you really like what the Supreme Court is doing, like that is the overarching goal is about ushering in right a legal order where these conservatives are in charge. These conservatives are the ones saying what the law is, and they will always use that to they will always use that to like reach the results that they want for their policy preferences, for that vision they have for the world.
And whoever has the most money becomes the most powerful exactly.
Totally, because you know, if Trump becomes president again. Uh, and he exercises this ability to commit crimes with is God given king, right, Yeah, the Supreme Court will just be like, Yep, we ruled that that was the choice, and that's great and good, do whatever you need to do, buddy. Versus if not Trump is elected and then that person tries to commit crimes, I feel like the Supreme Court would be like, well, in this case, actually no own blah, like there's no objectivity.
Yeah, yeah, no. And you see the tools that they use, right, So, like they put like the appearance of legal analysis and they say, well, like, well, you got to decide first if something is an official act or an unofficial act, right, And so you see that they're like building in the tools that they're going to use to reach the completely opposite result when they don't like the president who's doing the acts.
Right.
So in the future, what they can say as well, no, that wasn't you know, if let's say Kamala wins, right, Well, no, Kamala wasn't doing an official act as part of the office of the presidency. That was an unofficial act, and you don't get presidential immunity for unofficial acts, right, So it's all about just like recognizing like the law isn't like a mathematical equation where you go two plus two and you know what the result is going to be. Like,
the law is a tool. It's a political tool, and that's what these conservatives on the Supreme Court are using it as.
Right, They're like deliberately building in loopholes that they can exploit for whatever agenda they want carry out.
Yeah, so the Biden can't actually do Supreme Court reform right?
Right?
Is how do you think about the Supreme Court reform that Biden has very just very cautiously hinted at wanting to explore like it is obviously he probably doesn't have the time to do it. Left, But is he at least like looking in the right direction? Is he at least starting the right conversations.
It's absolutely in it's absolutely looking in the right direction
and starting the right conversations. You know, it was looking in the right direction and starting the right conversations, you know four years ago when he ran on a platform of court reform, and when he took the presidency and struck the Biden Commission on Supreme Court Reform had people lawyers, judges, law professors from quote unquote both sides of the Aisle come together and talk about where necessary court reform could take place, how it could take place, what it would entail.
Biden and the Democrats I think are speaking to that at least, at the very least giving lip service if you're kind of cynical like I am, because they know that actually it's publicly quite popular, like people know right now that the Supreme Court is super fucked up and that there needs to be court reform, and so yeah, the Democratic Party will kind of throw that out that they're willing and able to look at it, and and you know, want to get the conversation started and that
kind of thing. So yeah, the conversation, Yeah, it needs to be started and should have been started. And I think it's about like demanding that like the reforms actually happen.
There was just a really intense earthquake in California.
Oh my god, we are okay, yeah, yeah, justin Victor, everybody okay, Yeah, I'm good.
Shook my house still pretty hard?
Oh my god.
Oh it's still going. Still feeling like.
Victor died, reported that he died. I'm sorry, Victor, Oh my god. Well hope everybody listening also, okay, listening a day in the future. All right, let's uh take a quick break to gather ourselves to just steady, steady our our quakings and quaking hearts, and we'll come back to talk about how the Supreme Court might We've already talked about how if Trump gets elected, we're fucked. Let's talk about how the Supreme Court can help get him elected.
We'll be right back and we're back. And Donald Trump, yes, have you heard about this? He has been talking a lot about the Georgia Election Board and how much they're fighting the good fight. Basically, they got like three mega people on a board of five and they're they just want to do everything they can to fuck with the process and get in the way of certification if Donald Trump doesn't win. This past weekend, they ordered an investigation
into the twenty twenty results. They're going back to that one. Also, there was that great New York Times article about like Trump's challenging three months by Haberman and co. Where they were like all his big mega donors like had a meeting with him where they're like, okay, like how are we going to change the messaging on this? And he was like Okay, First of all, we need to stop the steal. Still talking about the twenty twenty election, the
fuck but anyways, he's still stuck on that. But given what we know about the state of the Supreme Court following Trump the United States, I feel like there's no doubt that they would cooperate in an attempt to fuck with the certification the counting of votes if there's any chance that they can do it. And this has made me think a lot about like one of the first political moments that I remember, which is the election between Al Gore and George W. Bush, which is what the
first episode of five to four is about. Yeah, and it is straight up the Supreme Court being a five to four conservative majority determining the two thousand election. Yeah, along partisan lines, based on nothing so much as like, yeah, that's who we want to win.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Do people need a refresher?
I do?
I think people like really forget. I mean, you know, we're we're all pretty young. I was in eighth grade during the two thousand elections, so like I didn't.
Even know what I think really, yeah, thirty eighty year I was born in nineteen nineteen. I just forgot how numbers worked.
For a second.
I was born in eighty six, Yes, okay, I was. I was maybe I was a freshman or oh, I don't know. I was some age around.
I was in my mid fifties, but I just hadn't paid attention to politics before then. Yeah.
So I learned more about this case in law school, and it is it's so wild, and it's so wild to harken back and be like, oh, okay, so the exact same thing could happen.
Cool.
Yeah, So George W. Bush al Gore running for president, it came down to Florida. Whoever won Florida was going to win the presidency, right, Like, literally neither one of them had enough electoral votes. You had to get Florida, and Florida was contested.
So because of the chads, the hanging chads.
There, Yes, it was hanging chads. It was all kinds of issues with counting the votes in Florida.
So Jalo's jokes about hanging chads is what got me interested in comedy in the first place. That's there's so many good ones. You heard about this.
So what happened was now Florida did get called for Bush. Right, the Florida division of elections, like called Florida for Bush. But the thing was is that the margin of victory was so low, it was less than two thousand votes, which put that in according to Florida state law said that there needed to be a mandatory recount. Right, So there was this machine recount and that came back again with Bush winning, but it was by even fewer votes, right, it was like three hundred votes. Right.
Then the counting system is not accurate, right.
Right, like, and that sometimes at the margins, right, Like a recount does need to happen.
So you're like, so Bush won, and they were like, right, well, yeah.
So what happened? You know, when the machine recount showed that like Bush had won maybe by something like three hundred votes total in the entire state, the Gore campaign requested a manual recount in some of these counties, right, and then the litigation was off to the races. Right, That's where the court cases went cuckoo. It was in Florida State court. It went up to the Supreme Court. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a state wide manual recount. Okay,
no more machines across the state. Every county recount your votes by hand, we need to figure out how many votes each candidate got. Okay, seems reasonable, right, Florida Supreme Court like, let's just do a recount, you guys.
Everybody's vote gets count right, exactly, Let's actually count the votes. Maybe, like that's that was the that was the right, right, And so what did the Bush campaign do?
The Bush campaign challenged that order for a recount. They challenged it at the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court took the case and they granted a stay, meaning they were saying, stop the recount until we fully decide. And Justice antonin Scalia ultra conservative. Yeah, psycho, one of the worst. Yeah,
one of the absolute worst. At the time he wrote that they were granting the Supreme Court of the United States was granting the stay like saying, no, no, we really need to pause the recount and take this seriously because there's a threat of irreparable harm on the Bush campaign. If there is always like this shroud of like like a question that maybe Bush's win isn't legitimate if they
do the recount like that, that would be irreparable harm. And the other justices there were liberal justices who were like, how would it be irreparable harm if we count all the votes.
And determine the actual legitimate outcome of the election.
Yes, exactly. It starts from the premise that we want Bush to win already, and so that would because but it's going to be so harmful to his legitimacy if he doesn't win the election, Yes, then people won't even let him be president.
It was.
That crazy. So then the Supreme Court considered the whole case and they decided that the Florida Supreme Court was wrong when they ordered this statewide recount because it would be impossible for Florida to do it fairly because each county in Florida. Here's the hanging Chad's issue. Each county in Florida had different men thids of counting, right like, each county election board had a different system for counting. The Supreme Court said that would be unfair, So we're
not going to do a recount. No recount. Now forget that. They could have ordered the same recount method across the counties to fix that problem. They could, Yes, exactly, they could have said that. They're like, nope, no, we can't. Actually, this would be super super unfair. It would It would violate equal protection of the laws.
So and it would hurt recount George W. Bush's feelings.
Can we not take that into account? It will hurt right.
So that's the story of bushby gored Like it really is that kind of like boldly political, boldly partisan. It is. It was at the time the five Conservatives on the Supreme Court being like, m we want Bush to win.
Yeah, so I took the l SAT at one point, very whoa dag, Yeah, that's right, I did.
Okay, okay, here I am over here with the amasly master's degree in screenwriting from Elliston University. You know what never mentioned I've never taken the l SAT.
No, you know what the real brag is is that Jack took the l SAT but then didn't go to law school. That's actually the flex.
Right walked my way out of it by that time, fortunately, But like there's a whole logic section on that test where you're supposed to be able to like suss out the arguments, and the idea is that the legal system is based on logical arguments, and their logical argument for this finding that determined the presidency of the United States, like didn't it doesn't make any sense, like on a surface level, like in a you can't explain it in one sentence, you can't explain it in a thousand sentences.
But yeah, so this is what the Supreme Court is. Like the Supreme Court, yes, is it claims to be like these balls and strikes, impartial philosopher kings and queens who will you know, just that they're just there to like call it like it has no political influence and they are just increasingly an apparatus of the Republican Party in a way that is really fucking scary, scary, And
so that's right, Jason Vorhees is back. So like you could say, like, yeah, but that was a unique situation where like there was this recount and everything was very strange. But we have like one of the Supreme Court justices seems to be on the like Q, Like Samuel Alito was flying a upside down American flag in the immediate like on January sixth, or like right after.
Like yeah, on inauguration day, right, yeah, Biden's inauguration day.
Yeah, for their life bought in on the like the big lie, He's fully bought in on, Like I'm pretty sure he has to be like reading Q, shit like, and so I I don't think they're going to necessarily need things to be as fucked up as they got in Florida to intervene this time around, because Trump already seems to be like openly working with election officials to like throw things into chaos like the way he was
trying to do the last time around. Yeah, so yeah, I don't know, Like what are your thoughts on that, Like, do you think there's a way for them to without the initial controversy of like, man, this was so close in Florida and they designed the ballots like at random, just randomly designed them, So like, do you think there's a way for them to get involved and give it turn the election towards Trump without something like that?
Yeah? There are there are plenty of ways, And it's like I don't think it's the.
Most legitimately hoping you were like, well not really.
No, no, no, there are shaloada ways. No, there are shaload a ways. And I don't even think it's about like necessarily predicting the specific way that it'll happen in this election. You know, from the vantage point of August twelfth, August thirteenth, twenty twenty four. But the point is, and I think Bush by Gore is the really good example
because it's like that was also unforeseen. Right. You couldn't you couldn't have seen you couldn't have foreseen that, like hanging chads in two counties in Florida were going to you know, put into question, you know, a few thousand votes, right.
But it was about installing a system and apparatus, in this case, a legal one, right, that would be ready primed, right, political and biased in a specific way, so that when that issue came before them, right, the decision making power was with people who you know, were primed to come out a certain way. And that's the same thing with Trump. Right, This Supreme Court has six maniacs on it. This is not six, right, Like we think about the Supreme Court
as like we say this all the time. It's got to be you know, these are the smartest best lawyers judges in the country. Right, it is not true, sam Alito, I would guess, Sam al you know it's not even it's not just Fox News. He's watching o An, he's watching the crazy shit on YouTube. Right, yeah, and uh exactly and elsewhere, right, I mean four years ago Clarence Thomas,
another one, another absolutely cuckoo psycho. Right, his wife Jenny Thomas putting out that, like, you know, the bidens were gonna be like imprisoned on a barge at Guantanamo, right, like this is not this is this? These are these are yeah, conspiracy theory, rabidly conservative, quite violent in their
world vision. Right, these are the types of conservatives who are on the Supreme Court, you know, just like the crazy just like your local crazy Republican politician from whatever county who you know runs on a platform of uh, disgustingly like anti trus anti immigrant, right like that. You have to have to we have to understand conceive of Supreme Court justices also as a kind of politician, and they have those same biases, They have those same foundations
from which their politics are born out of. They just also know how to speak in legalise. Right. So for Trump, it'll be whatever situation comes up, Trump is saying, I'm gonna ensure chaos in this situation, I'm going to ensure chaos in these in this election and in whatever procedures there are, so that whatever issue it might be that gets teed up for the Supreme Court. Yeah, John Roberts and the rest of those nasty losers. They're they're ready for it. They're gonna do yeah whatever he wants.
Yeah, well, we'll all be out in the streets protesting after that. And if you want to see how will all be treated, just look at the protests in favor of Palestine.
Yay, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, And maybe uh that's why I was like, wow, people really are not giving a fuck about these students and willing to just let this, let the mainstream media just discount them and be like, well we heard one person who wasn't a student say something anti semitic, So.
Right, right, that's the thing. That's the thing that every you know, you have to that's the thing that everybody has to realize. Like when you you know, when you accept it for somebody else, yeah, you are accepting it to happen to you too, you know.
It's uh yeah, So I don't know. The one thing I've heard people throw out is like, well, Biden now has these powers of monarch, supreme monarch, can't he do something like present Supreme Court please something?
I mean, what's so crazy is like the solutions, Caitlin, Like you're talking about like court reform, like it's actually not even illegal. You know, gonna have to have presidential immunity to do it, Like we just have to have like political will, like just fucking.
Just do something, yea, do something.
Here's some brilliant joke. I've been trying to legend this whole conversation the Supreme Court more like the Suckpreme Court.
There it is, and it is, this whole conversation.
Yeah, summed up.
Yeah, we're going to change the name of our podcast to Suckpreme Court.
Yeah, more Likepreme Court. And you're all welcome. Well Rihann and what a pleasure having you on the show.
Hey, it's always a blast. Thanks.
Where can people find you? Follow you all that good stuff?
Well you can follow at five to four pod all spelled out for following the podcast. Also at Popular Cradle for my new podcast that's about Palestine, Palestinian resistance and history, all that kind of good stuff. I am on Twitter not so much, but I'm there at a wa rhiannon aa is a y w A. So yeah, we're we're out here, all right.
And is there a work of media that you've been enjoying?
Australian break dancing at the line.
Yes, yes, that's right, and I've been a fan since way back. I knew of ray Gun's work coming in and Ygun is excited for the world.
To Raygun and I came up at about the same time Raygun, I'm regun.
Yeah, we we go way back.
Yeah, that's right. Beautiful, Oh my god, what a well that was. That was a lot of fun, like also bad, like for any breakdancers who didn't get to go to the Olympics, and I feel that for break dancing on the other hand, holy ship to.
See a woman fail upwards from you.
Yeah, Caitlin, Where can people find you? Is there a work of media you've been enjoying?
I'm mostly on Instagram these days at Kaitlyn Durrante. You can sign up for screenwriting classes that I'm teaching using that aforementioned but never mentioned screenwriting Master's degree that I have. But yeah, I'm teaching online screenwriting classes. You can find information about those on my website kaitlindurante dot com slash classes. I have a couple starting in mid September, so check
those out. You can listen to my podcast, The Bechdel Cast, that I co host with Jamie loftis where we examine movies through and through an intersectional feminist lens, and a piece of media that I've been enjoying because I know you're gonna ask, oh my god, wait, that's fucking crazy.
I know you figure out that is.
There's something spooky foot the piece of me. I just saw Kneecap yesterday. It's the movie kind of biopic, but I think a lot of it is fictionalized about the Irish rap group also called Kneecap, that is, through their music, trying to preserve the Irish language. And it's a really fun movie and it's very funny and I liked it a lot. So everyone check out Kneecap in a theater near you.
That's fun like like Gaelic, yeah, like oh yeah.
People still don't speak it. It turns out I.
Don't believe you.
They're lying.
They're just making vaguely Irish sounds. You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien. Tweet I've been enjoying was from John Levenstein, who, upon watching Olympic volleyball, tweeted, if I were on a volleyball team that huddled after every point, I would start to get irritated and say I've got nothing new for you. You guys, It's like I always wonder, like, what the fuck are they saying in there after every single Yeah, it's just like I don't know, guys the same ship every time.
Yeah, we do.
We do need the touch. Everybody needs to, like athletes need to touch each other. Apparently they perform better. Anyways, you can find me. It's a contact sport in more ways than one. The contact, heart on heart contact is really what it's about. You can find me on Twitter
at Jack Underscore O Brian. You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist where at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram, we have a Facebook fan page and a website, Daily zei gast dot com where we post our episodes and our footnotes where we like to the information that we talked about in today's episode as well as that really threw me for some reason. It's good. It's very well done. It's never been done.
Before, so I didn't innovate that.
Yeah, that was really well done. I'm gonna have to tell Miles about that. Yeah, you do it. We also like to lack off to a song that we think you might enjoy. With Miles being out, we always like to ask super producer Justin Connor if there is a song that he's been enjoying that he would like to recommend.
Yeah, if you love two thousands and nineties R and B, this will really make you smile, the kind of warm nostalgia. This is a track called Strange Things by Double. It's a simple love song from two thousand and two, but it switches between Japanese and English language singing and it sounds like if SWV or three LW spent some time in Japan, became fluent in the language and just sang their hearts out. So this is Strange Things by Double and you can find that song in the footnotes footnotes.
The Daily Zeit Guys is the production of by Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio Wrap, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to tell you what's trending, and we'll talk to you all then. Bye bye bye