Conservative Depravity

to wear universities loyalty lies. Right. We send young people to hire institutions, right, to hire ed institutions in order to have them think critically about the world around them, how they're going to choose how to build a profession right with the information that they learn that they are supposed to be these you know, microcosms of the world around us, but really a place where you can really delve into critical thought and then exercise what it is

that you learn. But what we have seen over the last couple of weeks as the protests on college campuses have grown in their response to wanting universities to one be transparent about their investments, two to divest investments from

Israel that are contributing to death and destruction. Right, how I've been framing this is that college tuition has gone up two levels once unheard of in like the six figures to send your kid to school for a fucking year because you're told that if you don't have a college degree, right, then you're never gonna get a good job.

But honestly, I'm really starting to look at these institutions as just one big fucking Ponzi scheme, because what it has become is an apparatus for young people to go into debt, right, and like extraordinary debt, not like a little bit of debt that gets paid off in a couple of years. But you're talking about high six figures worth of fucking debt. Because unless you are the super rich,

I don't know who can afford these college numbers. So when now students are looking around, they're saying, so I basically and myself and my family are going into extraordinary debt, and I'm not supposed to have a say on where that fucking money is going, Like I'm not supposed to know or ask questions. And then when I do, all of a sudden, I'm the problem and not the institution.

So you have these places that are supposed to be the you know, thought cells of the future, right future industry leaders now being arrested for exercising their right to free speech, their right to assemble, and their right to question the very institution who, without their tuitions wouldn't exist. But now it turns out that universities really don't give a fuck about their students, who they see as disposable.

What they really do care about are those endowments. And as it would turn out, those endowments argually come from quote unquote conservatives who are on the side of Donald Trump and the Republicans and don't believe in free speech, don't believe in the right to protest, don't believe in democracy. And so now you have these universities being quote unquote pressured by major donors to quell critical thought and protests and democratic values on college campuses. Folks, this is what

the right has always wanted. When you look at textbook fascism, who do they go for first, Right, They go after the academics, they go after the students, because without those thinkers, what you're left with, right, are the workers. And so those that are more likely or easily to be controlled because they're locked into an economic status that does not afford them the luxury of thinking abstractly and big about

our critical issues. So it you know, as I see this crackdown happening, and as young people are making the decisions this very month, right about what colleges and universities they're going to be going to where they want to enroll. You know, for those of you who are listening to this that have high school's age kids or college age kids, they need to really think about what institutions that they

are going to. You know, one of the things that I will say too, that was just recently in the news is that Howard University, right, one of the historically black colleges and universities in Washington, DC, has seen an uptick of about fifty percent in applications. Thirty seven thousand

young people applied to attend Howard University. Now, Howard has been in the news for a whole host of other reasons, as it pertains to mishandling of funds and low investment into student housing and just horrific things that we have seen horrific housing conditions. But what it goes to show you is that as you're seeing arise in white supremacy and fascism, that young black people are saying they don't want to go to predominantly white institutions or pwise, they

would rather go to HBCUs. And so again, as we're thinking about the few of colleges and universities. I think that this is a really critical moment, right. The prices are skyrocketing, the democratic values are taking are plummeting, right, and young people are trapped someplace in between. There has never been student protests that were on the wrong side

of history, right. So, whether it be the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, apartheid in South Africa that brought on mass protests at colleges and universities, they were always on the right side. So I would think really hard if I am the current administration, if I am current members of Congress, about who I'm going to be cracking down on. Coming up next, dear friends, my conversation with our friend Jennifer Tobb, who makes her return to wok F Daily

to break down the latest legal woes of Donald Trump. Folks, it has been far, far too long since we have had a friend of the show, gentile law professor, author of Big Dirty Money on wok F Daily, and I'm so appreciative to have you back to have some of your time because the legal news. I honestly I don't know how professors are teaching right now, and every time that I have either a professor of political science a law professor on I'm just like, I don't even know

how you make sense of what's happening. But what I will say is the Supreme Court, this unelected body of nine black robes that reigns over the rest of us without any repercussions, without any I don't know. I guess I didn't realize Jen that there was just like no safety valve when it came to the Supreme Court. And so right now as we're speaking, you have the immunity case, Presidential immunity oral arguments are happening. You have the Idaho

emergency abortion case that is happening. Not to mention what is on their slate as they barrel towards the end of their term in July. It's wild as fuck. And so as like, I guess I'll just say, the question is what are we doing here? Like, how do the Supreme Court even decide to take up this immunity case and pretend that they're not in the pocket of Donald Trump? And I guess it doesn't really matter, right, It doesn't

matter if they're overt covert. It doesn't matter because on either side, will they ever be held accountable for anything?

collar criminal has gotten away with it. But the thing that is the most upsetting to me, that I couldn't listen to and couldn't even read about till this morning, was that Idaho m TALA case. AMTALA is standing for that federal law emergency what is it, Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, because it's visceral, you know, Danielle, I mean I feel it. You know, I have been through a very dangerous labor. I know what it's like to

have to have an emergency intervention. Thank goodness, everybody survived. I also feel for these, you know, people who go in you know, pregnant and are hoping for you know, the continuation of their pregnancy and are in critical condition or I shouldn't even say critical, or in a dangerous condition where it's clear the pregnancy isn't going to survive, but there is a chance for them to give birth in the future. But if you wait and don't perform

the abortion, you could damage their reproductive organs forever. So for you know, there are a lot of people who will say who are anti abortion. They'll say, you know, I wouldn't be alive if my mother had had an abortion. Well, there are a lot of people who wouldn't be alive if their mother hadn't been given a medically necessary abortion.

And certainly people even if it wasn't medically necessary, which has nothing to do with the Idaho case, there are people who aren't ready to be parents, and if they had been parents, that future child wouldn't be born. So all this stuff, I think the access to abortion is the pro life position, and we can see that really

clearly here pro women's life. If you are a pregnant person and you can shape your destiny, you should not have to be in sepsis, near death with organ failure in order for a doctor to perform an abortion on you. And I was shocked to hear that in Idaho they're trying to gaslight us. The argument saying, oh, there's no

you know that if there's no big thing here. And the Idaho law is the same as a federal law that how come over six women or at least six women have been airlifted from Idaho to other states so they could get treatment. The reason why this federal law exists it's not just for emergency abortions. It's also for any emergency condition because in this mostly affected poor women, poor women, poor black women especially. You come to the

a hospital emergency room in distress. You might not be pregnant, it could be something else, and hospitals could turn you away if you didn't have insurance.

could be. They could be outsourcing the anesthetic, They could be doing things that could cost you tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars that you have now ruined your entire family for because they're forcing you to sign that, or they're forcing your spouse to sign that just to stabilize you so you won't die, and that is coercive in this law, you know, is meant

to deal with all of that. And so for me, what I heard about the argument yesterday and this in the case, was it only the women justices were actually carry at all about the lives of people coming into hospitals in danger.

Like that's the kind of bullshit that they offer, and it just shows you, Like the male justices were in conversation about the particulars around the law, and the women justices are talking about the reality on the ground of women and their bodies and the fact that pregnancy is a high risk situation totally, and it doesn't matter if you are old or you're young. You are what do they say, you are never a woman is never closer to death than when she is giving birth.

So you don't see me coming to your job and telling you how to do it right because you don't actually don't know how to do it. So I just wonder, like the polling jen polls come out ah Supreme Courts in the toilet. We all know about Clarence Thomas and the grifting, but there's nothing we can do about it,

and there's nothing we do do about it. As they take us back to literally the dark ages, they might as well take us back to the law that was just narrowly overturned in Arizona in the House, with the eighteen sixty four law that they have on abortion.

and find something good to say. And I think the only recourse is making sure that you know that Joe Biden wins and that he in his next term expands the Court to thirteen justices, because we have essentially thirteen circuits, and because several of these justices, the ones who facilitated the end of Roe v. Wade, I believe, deceived Congress when they were at the Senate, when they were at their hearings. Number one, so you can't, you know. I

think that's step one expanding the court. And I think step two is we really have to fight countries have for a nationwide law that allows for abortion. We cannot do this state by state thing. It's not safe for

any of us. And it's barbaric. And we can see where this is going, you know, and this idea that women are merely this sort of vehicle and if there's any blood or guts involved in giving birth, that's on you, Like you should just pop this baby out like it's like like you're a plastic doll and the baby's popping out of some you know, plastic hole and there's no blood, there's no guts, and it's like Barbie Land. You know that, No,

that is not that is not what this is. And you know it's it's our lives depend upon this, you know. This is I always thought when people were referring to the Handmaid's Tail that it was a little okay, a little too too.

we'll just kick it back to the lower court. Lower court makes a decision and says, yeah, presidents don't have full immunity, and now kicked up to the Supreme Court and they're like, maybe we'll hear it, you know, when the cherry blossoms come out. Right. So here we are. I'm listening, as you're listening, tell me your thoughts on what you're hearing. And to me, I'm like, if I was a lawyer, the only question that would be posed would be, so, how do the other forty four presidents

serve without presidential immunity? Like how were they able to serve over the last two hundred and fifty years of this country before this criminal comes and now all of a sudden, we need presidential immunity. Something the Framers never offered.

I you know, I trust them, but I also trust my I wouldn't call myself a labors and because I'm a law professor, but I'm not a constitutional lawyer. So I'm listening. I think more like a member of the public,

and I think that I guess there's takeaways. I'm going to give you the most practical thing first, The most practical thing, which I've always been listening for, is are they going to decide this it quickly enough and in such a way that allows Judge Chuckkin to move forward immediately and you know, finish the discovery period and start the trial. That's like the practical thing I'm looking for, right, And from what I hear, that doesn't appear like it's

going to happen. It could, but we'll talk about that. So, you know, justice delayed, justice denied. Right. The second thing. And this is more of the you know sort of What is the most striking and shocking thing is that when Elena Kagan asks Trump's lawyer whether if a president had staged a coup against the United States while he was president in order to try to stay in office but then it was unsuccessful, could you, after he was

out of office prosecute him for that crime? And this answer that he gave came out in several different parts because other justices followed up, including KBJ and Barrett. His answer was, the only way that you could prosecute a formal president for having broken the law by staging a coup would be if first House impeached and the Senate convicted.

And wait, but there's more, so that that alone, and he said that that would probably Keke and said, well, do you consider that a private act or an official act? And he said, well, it depends on all the context,

but it might be an official act. Okay, with there's more, and then you get later Barrett and then KBJ, you know, and as as Trump's lawyer further aside, and on top of all of this, if you were able to prosecute him, because if it were considered a private act, you would need a stack that explicitly said, and this also applies to the president, not just anyone else. So you know, that was to me the most outrageous argument he made.

Now the most important the legal thing, which my friend Steve Vladdock pointed out, I think both in his tweets and privately, the most significant thing was that Barrett got Trump's lawyer to admit that some of the allegations in the Special Council's case. Remember this is involving the essentially coup attempt, that some of the allegations were definitely private,

not official acts. And doing that is the most significant thing because if that is the case, arguably the court could truncate this and say, Okay, we're going to you've admitted that some of them are, so we're going to allow the court to you know, she has jurissm. We know that she at least the judge at least has jurisdiction over something, so discovery can continue at least, and we can get the clock moving because she had thinks there's like two months left she thought of discovery and

then they're gonna this part. I think it's gonna happen no matter what. I think the court's gonna kick it back down to Chuckkin. I've always thought this would be the case and say it's up to her to decide which of the things she believes are our official which are private, and she'll probably say everything's private, and that

will be Unfortunately, there might be an interlocuatory appeal. But I think they're going to quickly affirm her at the DC Circuit and then I think Scotus will quickly affirm and you could actually have a trial before September.

lectures learning about the law. Has there been any like, what's a question that they have asked about, you know, how I guess, how has their understanding of the law changed from how they entered in into what we are seeing now about you know, why they wanted to be lawyers or judges or you know what have you.

think that, you know, they're very interested. One of them, we haven't really talked that much about Donald Trump, but one of them brought up the question and a paper that she is writing whether Trump is a dictator similar to other powerful authoritarians, because we're looking at money, law and power, we look at you know, not just you know, oligarchy, but.

And I think I often say, you know, yeah, you might make this argument, but this isn't going to happen to your ordinary client.