What Now?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:00 Thomas: Well How does one begin? You know Andrew and I were actually just having a wonderful time recording a Law'd Awful Movies literally in the middle of it And we got the got the news and neither of us had the slightest chance of continuing that recording so Andrew I'm gonna go ahead and guess you're not fantastic right now

0:00:19 Andrew: Yeah, no, Um, it... I do, you do this right, like, so, so what happened was we were yucking it up recording Law'd Awful Movies on this thoroughly mediocre Keanu Reeves film, and and you said, I don't think I can go on because Ruth, Ruth Bader Ginsburg just just died, and and I immediately went to the bargaining stage, right?

0:00:56 Andrew: I said, oh, that, I, I went and I googled, and I had to click on two separate links, right, before, because I, I just wanted not to believe that that that was the case. Um, I don't know if you went through that, but, um, I I had I had an alternative facts moment,

0:00:56 Thomas: Yeah Mm-hmm. Yeah Yeah. Yeah. I, um, I think I, I hear you. Cause I, you know, that's definitely happened with people where there's been some, some hoax or some whatever, but, um I just happened to, you know, I, uh, I had my phone visible. Maybe I shouldn't have, we could have finished the recording. I had my phone in invisible range and a text popped up, you know, like just end of the world type texts. And I couldn't, there's no, I could not, you know, it wasn't going to be like, Oh, I'll check if that's true later. You know, I was like, I need to know this now.

And once I saw that NPR had reported it, it just, you know, yeah, I didn't really question it. Because why wouldn't this year be the worst fucking year in the history of time? Why not? We're so close, Andrew. We got so goddamn close, you now, to maybe, maybe being able to just patch things out, just get duct tape this fucking country and get get through this election and maybe start to to fix things and I I don't know if you're going to be able to talk any of us off the ledge but this this feels like we were you know we're the the greatest of plans we we had this you know pot this tiny window of being able to yeah I know it's Joe

0:01:17 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. No, that I

0:02:26 Thomas: Biden I'm who I'm not in love with but at least we could have started fixing things things could have gotten better. What does this mean now? I mean, are what are you, what are your initial thoughts? That's

0:02:36 Andrew: Will not be able to talk you off the ledge. My initial thoughts are this. It is considerably easier to schedule and ram through a judicial appointment than it is to steal a Supreme Court seat. And I I know this really well, uh, puppy barking in the background but it's gonna happen yeah, puppy's distraught too, yeah

0:03:11 Thomas: Fine yeah why yeah you're gonna people everybody can learn that when we do a live reaction edit how much your dog barks but you know it's comforting, it's comforting in a way right now, I'll take it. That that that sweet doggy Andrew doesn't know what's going on right now

0:03:18 Andrew: I love my puppy so I happen to know that Antonin Scalia died in in either February or March of 2016, because as I often tell the story at live shows and get togethers, which we can't those either. This is fantastic. Right. That's what brought you and I together. And I talk about the fact that I think Scalia died in March because the way I remember it, and human memory sucks, and I promise this will connect up to RBG in a minute, but um I I

0:04:06 Thomas: Yeah well I mean it's it's the most recent precedent just but yeah yeah

0:04:10 Andrew: I reached out to you in in February of 2016, you had a guest on who, uh, you were doing your usual like, uh, excellent interview and um and then and then, you know, it was great, and then the guest said, you know, opined something on um on uh on legal matters and uh and I was like, well, you know, this sort of went off the rails at that point. And if you ever need a law guy, uh, feel free to to give me a call. And, and to your infinite credit, instead of just filing me with your crank emails, uh you uh, you held on to that. And a couple weeks later you you wrote back when Scalia died and said let's talk about that.

And that was the first time I ever went on, uh, what was then Atheistically Speaking, what is now Serious Inquiries Only. And what what birthed the show, um, so uh, so in other words, Republicans had to stonewall for an additional six months in 2016, um, of refusing with control of, with just control of the Senate right, um uh I I pulled up uh the the the Senate calendar. The Senate is, I mean, they have gone home for the weekend, but they reconvene Monday the 21st. And if you don't think Mitch McConnell is going to table absolutely everything in order to hold Senate judiciary confirmation hearings for whatever lunatic Donald Trump puts up, um, then you're way more optimistic than I am

0:04:36 Thomas: Yeah with with with control of the Senate. So yeah. Yeah. I am

0:05:56 Andrew: Um

0:05:57 Thomas: Not even going to waste a second of my energy with the, well, didn't they say in an election, fuck off. We know it's bullshit. We've always known it's it's not, he already admitted it. There's no, it doesn't matter.

0:05:57 Andrew: Yeah it was McConnell has openly admitted, he was asked the question he said yeah no if, yeah, okay, and and again, uh, yeah, it's yeah

0:06:16 Thomas: I, you know, long since has pointing out Republican hypocrisy lost all meaning to me. You know, I, I guess it's still from time to time. You can't help it. You Can't help, but be like, well isn't it weird that, that, you know, Lindsey Graham the other day tweeted about how his opponent hadn't released his tax returns. And you're like, oh, well, oh my God, we got it. And it's, I don't blame people. Yeah. I don't blame people, but it's just, it's it doesn't matter anymore. They don't care. They do not care one bit about consistency. So if any of you are sitting there thinking that's going to have some impact on Mitch McConnell, it'S not sorry.

0:06:24 Andrew: Yeah we got Yeah, that that that could. So there are six full weeks plus three partial weeks left in the Senate schedule for 2020. And that means that that Mitch McConnell is coordinating with the White House right now about who their candidate is and and how to cram him through my I mean, they could be exceptionally evil about this. Right. Like it. And let me give you what I just thought of. Right. As as kind of the ultimate twist, a twist of the knife.

0:07:44 Andrew: Trump could decline to name a nominee until after the election. Right. Which is November 3rd. And the Senate still meets the weeks of the 9th, the 16th, the 30th, December 7th and December 14th. So in other words, Trump could say, oh, no, I'm not. I'm definitely not going to do any of this. And of course

0:07:50 Thomas: Hmm.

0:08:07 Thomas: I don't think he would do that but I but it I take the point yeah but so I guess I'll pose it in the in the in the form of the question that I'm sure we're asking, basics wise, what is the minimum time that they can legally get a nominee through? I mean, how much time do they have to take, because I mean, traditionally there's the, you know, you got the subcommittee, they get, you get, you do a nomination, they kind of do some stuff where they interview the, you no, there's a process, and uh, how, but is, is all that kind of, you know, it's, it's not like there's a rule per se about that, can they just do it incredibly quickly and bypass all of that, or what can they do? It

0:08:09 Andrew: Not. But but but yes. Like what? Yeah. So what they have.

0:08:50 Andrew: So there are a couple of answers to that. Right. Right. The first is let's let's talk about all of this in in some order. Right. So we talked about the process of confirming Neil Gorsuch in in 2017 that the Republican Senate invoked the so-called nuclear option. Right. Reducing basically saying that in terms of confirming Supreme Court justices, that would not be subject to the filibuster and would therefore, by a clarification of the rules, be subject to a straight up or down vote, um, that was a radical departure, and again, no one cares, um, it doesn't remotely uh matter and and and still doesn't I

0:09:49 Thomas: Doesn't matter here, I mean I'll say this is there anything that could matter enough, to we've looked at the numbers and, unfortunately, we need four Republican senators, is there anything that could matter enough to four Republican senators, hmm

0:10:07 Andrew: I can't, yeah, we we talked about that, okay, so in terms of uh the cloture is not required, which requires 60 votes, which, yeah, you definitely wouldn't get.

0:10:22 Andrew: We then took a look at who who could potentially defect. Right. And and the Senate is currently split fifty three forty seven. So because Republicans control the White House, that means Mike Pence gets to break any ties. So it means that you need three defectors and for one Republican not to be present. Right. And and and really what that means is you need four defectors. Right, you need you need for it either to be 50.

0:10:51 Thomas: Yeah even Marco Rubio might clock in for this vote, huh, and

0:10:59 Andrew: Yeah. And so you start thinking and you're like, OK, who has a reputation for standing up to the president? Give us Mitt Romney. Never minding the fact that Mitt RomNEY almost certainly will be a supporter of whoever Trump nominates to fill Ginsburg's seat. But give us Mitt Romney. Give us Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. And then right from the political standpoint, Susan Collins is getting hammered. But the polls are still close, right? Like she still certainly believes that she can be reelected. I think that would be a travesty.

0:11:44 Thomas: Then And and I saw I've gone through that exact thought process. And then I think, well, which is the thing she'll think she needs to do if she's losing? You know, like for some senators, it might be all the more reason to jump behind the Amy Coney Barrett nomination or whatever.

0:11:45 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we're we're about to be there when you get. But but assume. Right. Again, best case scenario, let's say. Right, we get Susan Collins on board. She says, yeah, I'm very sorry. And I definitely learned my lesson the last time. And, you know, this is totally not an opportunistic move to try and keep my Senate seat. That three isn't enough. You need four. And as I go looking for a fourth vote, I cannot find it. Right. So that the when you look to vulnerable incumbents, for example, Cory Gardner in Colorado, Cory Garner is going to lose. And so he has just hardcore doubled down in his campaign of of being pro-Trump, of being extreme right, because that's you know, that's going to be his constituency. That's how he's goingto cash in when he lose. It would do him no

0:12:05 Thomas: OK, best case scenario. Sure.

0:12:52 Andrew: Good to to try and and move back towards the center. I mean, we could do this alphabetically if you want it, but I can't I can't come up. The same thing is true of Martha McSally in Arizona. I mean, she's getting destroyed and she has been a hardcore pro-Trump that she's not going to change. Lindsey Graham is potentially losing to Jamie Harrison. But like, you know, the the shame Lindsey Graham train got derailed, you know, four years ago. I can't come up with anybody because it

0:12:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's Hard because if, if somehow this were a thing that Trump was getting to do that a regular Republican wouldn't, then maybe you could say like, well, they see that he's probably going to lose. Like it does. They don't have much incentive to back. The problem is he knows, and everybody knows, he's going to nominate a horrible, uh, 27 year old right winger who Republicans would like. That's what they would do anyway. And so even the, even the Republican senators who maybe could, you could in a, in a fit of optimism, maybe you can think like, oh, maybe they, this person will, will, uh, do something about it, they, they wouldn't be incentivized to to do it because that's what they want to, you know, be one thing if they were going, if it was a battle between Trump and a Republican on something that traditionally Republicans haven't agreed with, you know, and even those battles Trump wins almost always, but like even that's not going to happen.

0:14:21 Andrew: Look the the the one thing that I will predict that should not be comforting. I don't think it'll be Amy Coney Barrett. I Said I thought that would be the next one. In a real time, like, I, all you have to do, and and I've pulled up Trump's Supreme Court list, right, all you have to do is find somebody who is going to give you all the terrible things that you want but isn't the very worst lightning rod, right? And and that's what kind of, and that, that what you need to, like, you know, shore up any, like, Marco Rubio wavering.

0:14:38 Thomas: Really? Why?

0:15:08 Thomas: Well.

0:15:08 Andrew: Right, you're just like okay OK, fine.

0:15:09 Thomas: Let me ask you what might be, I don't know if this is a counterpoint or a point in your favor. If they have time to do one, do they have time to go several? I mean, can Trump just offer up the worst version of whatever and if, oh, whoops, we lost one Republican senator, okay, well, go to next one. Go to the next nominee. And then still have time to do that.

0:15:29 Andrew: So it the answer to that is a little bit more complicated, right, because Mitch McConnell has changed the rules. And again, when I say change the rules, what I mean is to actually amend the Senate rules requires a two thirds vote. So it's never going to happen. Right. But but what you can do is you can appeal to the decision of the chair to, quote, clarify the operation of certain rules. Right. And again, since you're just appealing to your own body, right, the Senate, you know, there's nothing to stop you from saying, I want to clarify that this rule also means like, you know, we get tacos on the floor of the Senate. Right. And and you could do that. Right, there's and there's nothing to stop. You can't go to court.

0:16:24 Andrew: You kick in an injunction. These are the internal rules of the senate. So, you know, there is there is no there is no external recourse. Mitch McConnell changed the rules to radically shorten the amount of time that judicial nominees are before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Right down to three hours from 30. That has not yet been put into place for Supreme Court nominees, but you could. There's zero, there's nothing that we could do to stop Mitch McConnell from doing that. Again, that doesn't require the same, you know, for Republicans to defect. And so, you You know, is there the way I look at it?

0:17:13 Andrew: And again, I'm not a great person to role play a Trump political strategist, not only because I'm not evil, but but because I I tend to like my my approach to political advice and decision making is the sort of like, oh, well, if we've got to get something done, like let's block out the worst possible outcomes. Right. Right. And and I and we know that Trump doesn't think that way.

0:17:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:40 Andrew: Right. So if it were not Trump. So. So, look, I said it's not going to be Amy Coney Barrett because that's the Andrew Breen applying here.

0:17:47 Thomas: Yeah, I don't really agree with that argument.

0:17:50 Andrew: You might be right. I want to walk that back. If it were me, if I were advising Trump, I would be like, yeah, let's take. And look, either researched any of these.

0:17:59 Thomas: It's almost like you'd be like an Obama who nominated Merrick Garland to try to...

0:18:02 Andrew: No, no, no. No, like because I'm I'm putting myself in the sort of evil mindset. But, you know, it's hard for me to get all the way in.

0:18:07 Thomas: Yeah, evil Obama. Like An evil... Like the Obama with a mustache or something that came from the other dimension evil mustache Obama from another dimension would would do that but I think Trump would just nominate the worst piece of shit conservative possible Well.

0:18:09 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. From from the Star Trek dimension. Yeah, he he might. But but so look, that Supreme Court list. Right. That had Ted Cruz on it. I'm just scrolling through right here. Again, I want to be clear. I haven't researched any of these judges. Right. Right. But as I look through. Right.

0:18:39 Andrew: Former Solicitor General Paul Clement, for example. Right. That would be that would lose that that would loose zero Republican votes. Right. Arch conservative, former Scalia clerk. But, you know, ex Soliciter General of the it fits the fits the mold of Trump's two prior Supreme Court appointees.

0:19:02 Thomas: Not only that, I think, um, I could be wrong and maybe this will agree with your point. Like, I think Trump, you know, he's obviously just outsourcing this, right? So whoever, whoever Trump has decided is in charge of this, you know, I guess it's we need to get in their head, right, which is just the Federalist Society, society also,

0:19:02 Andrew: Right, yeah, it's uh, it's it's Leonard Leo of the of the Federalist Society is is who he's outsourced this to, uh, McGann Was heavily involved, um, so yes, that he's

0:19:21 Thomas: Wasn't McGann, uh, heavily involved in what? The hell is he doing these days? Is he still involved? I don't, yeah,

0:19:31 Andrew: Yeah, he's still just evading, uh, subpoenas but um, yeah, so Clement Clement is Clement is 54, right, so, okay, you know, you don't get the fact that like, you know, you don't get a a Cory on the court, um, but you'd have to be very very happy if you are the Republicans right now with, uh, replacing Ginsburg with a Clement, right? Go ahead.

0:19:34 Thomas: I I want to take a second to say, yeah,

0:20:04 Andrew: I'm sorry, it

0:20:04 Thomas: You know, in a weird way I almost wonder if, you know, Trump would have rather this not happen because now he, it's like having the the the judge appointees was, you know, his biggest thing to win over Republicans who may may not necessarily like him, and like this is, you know, now, now if he replaces Ginsburg, which he's going to, right, now it's almost like that's another thing he he can't be running on, like he's already doing it. So, but anyway, um, I just wanted to say, um, sure.

0:20:34 Andrew: It no, no, I want to, I want to amplify that a a tiny bit, um, because because, uh, I think this will also, uh, empower the defeatist, uh, wing of of the Democratic Party, right, the, oh well, it doesn't, right? He's gonna, right, it doesn't fucking matter, right? Like the the, we we've, we've had the the very easy thing to say to those on the far left is, you really Donald Trump, you know, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement, and um, and and that with that weapon gone, I promise you, given our listenership, uh, that we will see that. By the way, if you want me to defriend you on Facebook, uh, post that, um, say, "Oh well, doesn't matter, don't don't have to support Joe Biden anymore." Yeah, go ahead, post that, and I'm

0:20:38 Thomas: Yeah, I hear

0:21:27 Andrew: Happy to to, uh, to defrend you on on on Facebook, uh, and block you on Twitter.

0:21:29 Thomas: You I think the, um, I think I think that the the simple truth is those aren't the people deciding the election, honestly, I don't pick it is, and and that's not to say it's any better that it's a bunch of centrists who are deciding between not voting or voting for joe biden that's that's honestly who it is there aren't there aren't that many people who are like honestly deciding between trump and biden it's that we need the numbers game is that need to activate voters who might have sat out or whatever and the and the I just listened to a really good episode uh on I think it was ezra klein that was had somebody talking about like, OK, who are these the voters that we actually can and hopefully will get to swing this election?

They're just they're just not. If you're listening to the show, if you're an avid listener of the show or you're any sort of politics junkie, you know nothing about those people like you're not. And by that, I mean, and I absolutely include myself. I don't know how to relate to the people who are like don't Know enough about Joe Biden yet to have decided You know, like it's it's weird.

0:21:36 Andrew: I agree. I agree.

0:22:32 Thomas: They, the polling that they did, it was like they don't know enough about Joe Biden. Everybody already knows that Trump is the worst. And so it's a question of like the people who are going to decide that they want to actually take, do the work to go vote Joe Biden, and knowing what's going to appeal to those people is very counterintuitive to people like you and I who are like just way into this all the time. So, but, um, but anyway, I, I did want to say, I just want to take a second, you know, I mean, yes, we've gone 24 minutes or whatever here on my account and, you know, there's going to be plenty of time to, to do better tributes to the life of RBG.

0:23:13 Thomas: Um, and it's, it's this is just, this is just, we instantly are afraid and, and feel horrible and scared and everything. And it's, you know, I don't mean this to, to, you know, not address the fact that RBG was an amazing person and, and that, part capturing that part of it, but I just don't think we're, we're ready to do that yet, at least I'm not. We'll

0:22:57 Andrew: Yeah. Oh God. Yeah, yeah. It, I, I, I'm really glad that, that, you said that because, um, uh, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was, uh, an amazing person, an amazing legal mind, um, and, and we 100 percent will, um, will it it

0:24:03 Thomas: Do a more fitting tribute put a, put a, oa style pin in that topic for later

0:24:05 Andrew: And and and look I, I want and, you know, and, and you and I went back and forth on this right before we started the record. It is important to remember, remember, right, we think of these Supreme Court justices as pieces on the chessboard, right, and, and in some sense that, they that in a very real sense they are, right, like that, that, that they decide, uh, the, the, the longitudinal future of, uh, of, of civil rights, uh, in this country. I mean, we just, I don't know if it was on Friday's show or if it was part of the record for Tuesday's show. But, you know, the, the, the number of the number of things that we think of as being firmly entrenched rights that are, you know, 50 years old or younger from, and we owe to the Supreme Court, are, it's a staggering, it's staggering, 50 to 60 years old. It's a staggering number. But, but yeah, like that, this, this was also a real person and, and, um, you know

0:24:08 Thomas: Yeah yeah an amazing person and we, I think we'll likely, you know, we can do a nice OA deep, deep dive on some, some great RBG decisions and all that. That's, that's not where we are right now. I just wanted to mention that, you know, it's

0:25:19 Andrew: Yeah yeah yeah no I'm glad I'm really glad you did this look, look we're hurting right here, this is yeah

0:25:31 Thomas: Yeah. So, so let's, let's yeah, yeah. I'm just terrified. Let me, let me pose a question. I guess, I don't know if this is, I dunno if this is optimistic or what, but like, what if somebody were to, to ask, look, we already, we we already essentially had five conservative justice majority. So could somebody, you know, if somebody asked you the question, Andrew, why, why are you guys so terrified? Why, why are ye so worried? It's like, they already controlled the court anyway. It doesn't really do any good to win 6-3 rather than 5-4. That doesn't matter, right? I mean, so what would you say to, I guess, some optimist out there or somebody who was, who is, who, who's not with us on how just absolutely catastrophic this is? Yeah.

0:26:23 Andrew: I, I would say a couple of things. Number one, I would point you to just the sheer number, right? I would, I would point you to the Sheldon Whitehouse brief, right, that we've talked about on the show. We have, if you go and type in Whitehouse, is all one word, on OpenArgs.com, or if you go to the OA wiki, you can pull that up. And he documents mathematically the enormous number of 5-4 politically divided decisions that we have had.

0:27:01 Andrew: And so I want to say, I guess, a couple of things under that. Right. So I mean, that is just a fact. Right. Right. And so then the question is, those become six, three. Why is that a big deal? Here's why that's a big deal. Right. Because eventually, right, you have I mean, you know, Clarence Thomas is is not young. I have to, you know, Google his his his age. Right, but that's let's pull that up right now. Right? Right. Clarence Thomas was born in 1948. So he is 72. Right.

0:27:30 Thomas: He's pretty old, oh he's younger than my dad, so yeah

0:27:44 Andrew: It is you know, is it is it implausible that, you know what you do again, you fight the holding actions first. Right? Right. So what what you absolutely have to do is right. You have to replace again prior to an hour ago. The thought was Joe Biden will almost certainly replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that probably Stephen Breyer, born 1938.

0:28:11 Thomas: He is quite old, I remember looking that one up, so

0:28:12 Andrew: Yeah. So he is 82 years old that that he would probably retire under a Biden presidency. So you would get two holding actions. You would get you'd be replacing two liberal justices, presumably with two additional liberal justrices. And, you know, and then you would just be looking and you would say, all right, you know, I want to be macabre, you're playing in a dead pool here or whatever. But like you, you, this now makes that right. A swing makes that almost impossible. Right. Like because now.

0:28:54 Andrew: Right. Even if, even if Biden wins and, and Breyer retires and, you know, something happens to Clarence Thomas, you're now right back where we started from, right, and, and, um, so yeah

0:29:06 Thomas: I wanna also answer, I don't know why I posed as the optimist, but I'll answer my own question, which is it's not just a matter of, you know, losing 5-4 rather than now losing 6-3 instead of 5-3, imagine, fucking, you know, just, sorry, my brain is so scrambled, I better pull it, you know, uh, Chief Justice Roberts being a part of the liberal dissent, you know, like, I mean the idea that, so who is the center of the court now?

0:29:18 Andrew: Yeah yeah yep yeah that this, if, if we get, so, so suppose that happens, right suppose the

0:29:42 Thomas: It'll be, uh, it'll be Gorsuch probably. Right. He'll be the centerof the court.

0:29:45 Andrew: The the swing vote, right, yeah, I mean, that, that's yeah

0:29:50 Thomas: No, I'm not saying the swing, the swing. Well, no, I guess I am saying the swing Yeah. Yeah. That's the same thing.

0:29:54 Andrew: Right yeah the fulcrum Right. That the center, the swing vote goes from shame John Roberts, which and this is I was getting to that point, but but I'm glad that you sort of steered it quickly. Right. So five, four. Look, we had cases in which we successfully shamed John Roberts. Right. The without a doubt, right, that the citizenship question on the census would have been on the consensus, if not for successful shaming of John Roberts with the discovery of the Hofeller tapes. We've talked about that on opening arguments a lot in a 6-3 Supreme Court that now becomes right. I mean, in an RBG list court, as you point out, that that decision goes the other way. And and the strategy shifts from shame.

John Roberts, a doctrinaire conservative who cares about his institutional legacy to appeal to the vanity of a Neil Gorsuch on, you know, on a case like, and there are only two of these, right, that are that are six three with that alignment, on a a case like the, um, uh, Zarda versus Altitude Express, right, in which, uh, as it turns out, uh, that, uh, that Gorsuch's view of textualism, uh, enabled him to be picked off. But but but I, I want to, I want to be clear, right, under a, under an Anthony Kennedy, right, somebody who might be a plausibly a 75 on a scale of zero to 100, right, zero most liberal, 100 most conservative, it was find good arguments that appealed to a right of center justice in

0:29:55 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Boy,

0:31:43 Andrew: The middle, yeah, and and again, you're starting on a two to one disadvantage, three to one advantage, he was a conservative guy, but he could be persuaded, he had an open mind, particularly on LGBTQ issues, with John Roberts, 92, 93, right?

0:31:43 Thomas: Those were the days, weren't they?

0:31:59 Andrew: Um, that, in

0:31:54 Thomas: Yeah. We always bring it up. He wrote a horrible dissent in Obergefell.

0:32:03 Andrew: In Obergefell. Yeah, and and and that shifted from make very very good arguments to, uh, shame John Roberts, but but but, and so that constricted the realm of cases in which you thought you had a plausible chance of winning, right? Like, when you look at it, you know, there there are cases that you just write off now going before the Supreme Court. You're like, "Oh, well, this is not going to embarrass John Robert's to vote with the conservatives, so he will." So moving that center to Gorsuch means that the game plan is you have to do both. You have to shame John Roberts and you have to appeal to the hairline distinction between textualism and originalism.

The idea that this decision is hanging on something, right? It's hanging on the plain words of the statute, as opposed to what Clarence Thomas would like the plain words of the statutes to mean, and so imagines that the founding fathers thought that they meant it, is, and and and if you don't, see, let me not phrase it that way, that constrains it, it greatly shrinks the range of cases, uh, and the default rule is just going to be, on cases that have a conservative political outcome, uh, those are going to b63 rubber stamped from from here to eternity. And again, and we've talked about that.

0:32:47 Thomas: Yeah, well,

0:33:31 Andrew: I want, I mean, we've spent the 35 minutes we've been on the air, the 15 minutes we spent, you know, sort of, you know, as a support group for each other before hitting record. I can't come up with a strategy to stop this. I can't.

0:33:48 Thomas: Let me try something on you. Well, But before that, though, I think I still want to talk about just the depth of the fuck that we are. What are the decisions you're most worried about? What about election crap? What, know, what about the, you know, Bush v. Gore style stuff? Where does that go now? I mean, is there, god, I, what are you most worried about in terms of, say, we get an immediate right-wing ghoul, you know, the worst worst case, which I think will likely be the real case, we're in, we no longer really have to say worst case scenario, we're living the fucking worst case scenarios all the time, but anyway, what are most worried with that would

0:33:49 Andrew: Go ahead.

0:34:27 Andrew: So what I did for that, while you asked that question, is I just pulled up the cases in which the Supreme Court has already, no, no that they've already granted cert and are, you know, pending to be briefed and to be decided. And just scrolling Let me give you a couple of examples that that pop up right here. Right.

0:34:36 Thomas: Be five four the other way. Oh, oh, gotcha, yeah, oh,

0:34:55 Andrew: California versus Texas, which is a challenge to the entirety of the Affordable Care Act and an invitation to a right wing court to revisit the narrow Roberts compromise in the Sebelius decision from 2014. The Supreme Court has absolutely zero compunctions about overturning precedent, particularly precedent from six years ago that

0:35:23 Thomas: Yeah, there's no chance of that mattering whatsoever, and can I take a second to say we just had a Donald Trump town hall in which he campaigned, this is this is the upside down world we're living in, he campaigns on protecting pre-existing conditions over his opponent who's going to get rid of pre-existing conditions, while doing the exact opposite of that. Like, like, isn't that incredible? I can't think of when, when has that ever happened? It's, it's, it's unbelievable. He's gutting preexisting conditions. And this court, as you say, in this decision here, could just strike down the whole damn thing while

0:35:27 Andrew: That case is pending, um, so, uh, and and yep, yeah,

0:36:06 Thomas: Campaigning that he's the one who's going to save it. It's it's a nightmare. Well,

0:36:10 Andrew: Um, how, how about, uh, cert granted July 2nd, we talked about on the show, in the DOJ versus House Committee on the Judiciary, as to whether the House Committee gets an unredacted copy of the full Muller report, would love, would love to see, uh, that happen, that's probably not going to happen.

0:36:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:36 Andrew: How about Fulton versus City of Philadelphia, in which the court will decide a bunch of different free exercise questions and raised in the cert petition. Now, this is this cert was granted earlier in February. Right. Raised in the CERT petition is that the court should overturn employment division versus Smith. Right, that, you know, liberal decision authored by Antonin Scalia. And essentially read into the First Amendment RFRA at this court is, you know, already terrible on on religious issues. Issues.

0:37:11 Thomas: Yeah. How

0:37:19 Andrew: How about Jones versus Mississippi? This is an Eighth Amendment case. And this is a question of whether Mississippi must find that a juvenile is, quote, permanently incorrigible before it may impose a sentence of life without parole. So, you know, if you like the idea. Yeah. Yep.

0:37:39 Thomas: Do you find that, um, that a kid is permanently anything? How does that work to

0:37:43 Andrew: Yeah. Well, and and that is think of how thin that protection is. Right. That it doesn't say you can't impose the most severe penalty in the state on a juvenile. It just says you have to make a separate finding. And Mississippi has asked this Supreme Court and to to not require that level of protection. Intersection.

0:38:06 Thomas: Not even require that? That oh my god What do you think is the status of, you know, uh, abortion rights, gay rights? I mean, what do what do you see happening there, yeah.

0:38:18 Andrew: It it it's I told you what I thought a Roberts-led court would do. I thought a Robert's-led cort

0:38:28 Thomas: And do you think you were wrong there? I mean, you predicted the downfall of a Bergafell and it hasn't happened yet. They

0:38:28 Andrew: Yeah it Would they haven't had a... they haven't had a case to to challenge it, those cases, and and I can't find it on the pending list, um, but but there are cases coming out of the Fifth Circuit involving differential treatment in Texas uh of uh same, same sex marriages versus opposite sex marriages. You've got to tee that up before the court. They have not had the opportunity to revisit. Nobody has said, because they, they, I think there was some sense of like, you know, toe in the water. Is that, is that a bridge too far to ask John Roberts? But you put somebody else who doesn't care, right? And and and just like they've, they've now said, right, like I read you the case in which the cert petition says, as one of the questions presented, the court should overrule Employment Division versus Smith.

0:39:25 Andrew: There will be cert petitions filed within the next six months that say the court Should overrule Obergefell versus Hodges. Right. Hasn't been yet. But but that question will come before the Supreme Court. The ADF will tee it up that way. Let's go. Let's go back to abortion rights. I told you that what I thought a Roberts-led court would do is, and I think there's every reason to believe this, is preserve at the margins but essentially gut real protections by defining narrowly what counts as an undue burden. And we saw that even in the decisions that were sort of hailed as a victory for abortion rights, the whole women's health versus Hellerstedt.

We broke that down on the show that it sort of paved the way for the analysis just to be, oh, you don't have to show that the law, that the benefits of the law outweigh the burden. You just have to show that the burden is not undue. And what counts as undue? You know, what Clarence Thomas thinks is an undue burden. ClarenCE Thomas, who, by the way, in his also something we've talked about on the show, repeats provably false falsehoods about Margaret Sanger and the David Barton level of rewriting of American history in his concurrences and dissents on abortion issues. Right. You have a lunatic zealot who rewrites history on the court who will now be in an unambiguous majority of justices who said, well,

0:40:15 Thomas: Actually weren't really yeah well

0:41:09 Andrew: Yeah, obviously Roe v. Wade is is is garbage.

0:41:10 Thomas: You're you're probably Right, but I will say, you know, Margaret Sanger wasn't great, but like, who the fuck cares? It has nothing to do with anything, yeah.

0:41:17 Andrew: But but repeating it to go through. I mean, the the the importance is reiterating David Barton authored talking points. Right. Like it is it's it's not litigating the question of like, you know, again, nobody nobody in the first half of the 20th century is really great on a lot of things. And as you point out, yeah, it's

0:41:31 Thomas: Yeah yeah the people who won. You know, a lot of the suffragettes were like horribly racist, honestly. Like it doesn't mean that they were wrong to win women the right to vote, you know. Like it has nothing to do with, you know, the underlying rights there, yeah.

0:41:58 Andrew: So so this is bad. And that's a ridiculous understatement. If if you want it,

0:42:07 Thomas: Do you think they go even further? So we've we've kind of gone through a phase here the last, what, four years, two years, whatever, whatever the hell it is, of, as you, as you said, decisions that seem like they're not rejecting Roe per se, but are actually making things a lot worse and making it even harder for women in red states, uh, to get abortions. So do you think they take it to the next level and just say, fuck it? Uh, just reverse Roe?

0:42:34 Andrew: Here's, so I think that is, I think that is plausible. And and I would add, if you want to be truly terrified, a position that is 100 percent nonsense, that that that I would have said up until an hour ago has zero chance of ever being argued before the Supreme Court, let alone becoming the law of the land, all of a sudden becomes terrifyingly plausible. And that is the ADF bringing a case before the Supreme Court to argue that fetuses are persons under the 14th Amendment.

0:43:25 Andrew: In other words, so let's explain the implications of that. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, then states may ban abortion entirely. Entirely, right. If fetuses are persons under the 14th Amendment, then no state may permit abortion. That is the implication of that position that is what that means. That is the fevered wet dream of the crazy Christian conservative right and

0:43:42 Thomas: I was just gonna, Oh my God. I was going to ask that as my next question, but holy shit. I mean, that's Gilead shit, like, well,

0:43:53 Andrew: Yes and you might say, like, oh, well, that that's that's nonsense. You would be right, but it is no more nonsense than the position that ultimately won the day in DC versus Heller. It is, it is absolutely preposterous. It is without legal support. It is insane. Uh, and I, I, no, I mean, it's something John Roberts can't, wouldn't sign on to. Uh, I'm, I'm not confident that, you know, Josh Hawley, uh, Chief Justice Josh Hawley, uh, wouldn't. Ran that through well he would be Chief Justice.

0:44:27 Thomas: I get I mean, the key question is Kavanaugh Kavanaugh

0:44:30 Andrew: But yeah

0:44:31 Thomas: And Gorsuch, right, that's the key questions. We know that Alito and Thomas are just fucking out of this world, like, they're just, there's no hope there, right? I mean, so is it just Kavanaugh seems to often be that way, maybe not 100% of the time with them. Gorsuch, you know, do you think he, but

0:44:32 Andrew: Yep Gorsuch wrote a, a surprisingly, I mean, we've talked about this, uh, it is, it is worth revisiting, right, the uh, Gorsuch's decision was surprisingly well-informed and humane in the Zarda and Altitude Express, right, in those, those consolidated cases, right. We talked about how it, you know, it did not use, you know, problematic concepts like born biologically female or what I write, like, it, it, it that even sort of well-meaning liberal judges have used, right, like it. It it it was 100%, you know, a woke decision.

0:45:35 Andrew: But there is nothing I have been through.

0:45:37 Thomas: That's based on a, it's wasn't woke so much as based on a textualist interpretation, but you're saying the way he wrote it was.

0:45:42 Andrew: Yeah, but but but no, but it's it but but it but it worth saying the rhetoric was woke. Right. You could write a textualist decision and say, and I'm not going to manufacture trans slurs here because God help.

0:45:47 Thomas: Yeah. A bunch of bad stuff. Yeah, yeah. So let me ask you

0:45:54 Andrew: You know, they're they're suffering way more than we are. Um, it, it, it, I will say this, having prepped for the show when we did both uh Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, there's absolutely nothing in their judicial history that would lead me to believe that they're anything other than a vote to repeal Roe v. Wade. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised uh but you know that's just hope, that's not, there is, there is nothing you can find uh in their, in their opinions um that would leave me to leave that sorry, I just wanted to

0:45:54 Thomas: This. Yeah?

0:46:12 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:23 Thomas: So let's talk about No,

0:46:25 Andrew: Wrap that up, so yeah, yeah.

0:46:25 Thomas: Yeah, sure. Let's talk about RBG. I mean, we'll see maybe again, we're reacting right after the fact maybe, maybe things could change. Maybe plans could unfold. But the only, only thing I can think of off the top of my head in terms of resistance, in terms of what to do, besides, you know, just a crowd of like five million people outside of the uh the Supreme Court or whatever, you know, the White House, whatever it would be, um, threaten that we will pack the court immediately if, if Trump replaces

0:46:32 Andrew: Yeah I, it yeah you are reading my right, Joe Biden should explicitly campaign on packing the court, that that you

0:46:54 Thomas: Yeah okay and I wonder if that's the kind of thing that that maybe could work on for republican Republican senators. If, if, if you had an explicit promise that if you replace RBG and violate, you know, we can pretend that they set the rule of not, you known, whatever. Uh, if you replace RPG, we will pack the court and look at our fucking poll numbers right now. Uh, odds are, I mean, I know a lot of people are wary of polls, but like odds are, you know, um, Biden is going to win. Do you think that kind of promise could, maybe that, that, that threat of action could maybe sway for Republican senators to say, you know, we don't think it's a good idea to rush through a nominee right now before the election.

0:47:01 Andrew: Uh I, I love thinking about that, but I, again, I, I, I look at, I look at the composition of the Senate and I, you find me that fourth guy, I, I can't I can't find him

0:47:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don'T know. So you're thinking more along the lines of that's not going to work to sway any behavior. That's just something we have to do. Like we're just going to, we are going to have a new shitty Supreme Court justice. We're just gonna have to pack the court.

0:47:55 Andrew: Um correct yeah yeah I, I, I wish, yeah, you know, I mean, you know, that, that's not, that's not where my I'm an institutionalist I would I would love to say here's the grand bargain that, that can, um, and again, part of me would, would say fuck that bargain too, right? Like, like it, it, it, we're talking about preserving a five-four Supreme Court where the fulcrum is arch conservative but institutionalist John Roberts. Right. Like it.

0:48:17 Thomas: Yeah, you're an an institutionalist you would love to not have to do this yeah right, I

0:48:49 Andrew: That's not right at the time. The time to do a grand bargain was was Anthony Kennedy. You know.

0:48:51 Thomas: You know what you're right like in in my mind, yeah right yeah, no, you're correct. I think part of my brain is still in the mode of like, as you outlined earlier, it wasn't, there was a path to sort of gaining back the court eventually, but now it's like, that, that's so far gone, with short of any court packing, anything, I mean, when, when would we possibly have a majority in the Supreme Court again? I mean, it's going to take forever.

0:49:19 Andrew: Yeah.

0:49:21 Thomas: So can you briefly refresh us on the court packing? I mean what does that take? Is that just a simple majority? How does that work?

0:49:27 Andrew: Yep. Here's how that works. Uh, the number of Supreme Court justices is not fixed in the Constitution. Um, Article Three just says uh that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time establish, that is damn near a direct quote. So uh, um, and so what we need is a judiciary act, uh, that, that, uh, it's just, just it's just a law. So super duper important. Right. If we now, then this was always the case. But it means that it is crucial to take back the Senate. And, and, and yes, that means going out and actively working in places that seem like a massive uphill battle.

0:50:19 Andrew: Right. The polling numbers for Jamie Harrison in South Carolina are amazing. Get out, fucking work and vote for Jamie Harrison. And if you live in South Carolina in in Georgia, right, that those those two seats are both up. They are both trending Republican. But we can work in Georgia in Montana, for God's sake. Right. And I know like Senator Steve Bullock is is going to, you know, quickly replace, you you Joe Manchin, as the Democrat you're going to hear, I don't care if if if we elect Joe Biden and lose the Senate, you can't do anything.

0:50:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:59 Andrew: And so, but if we, like, Joe Biden, and have the Senate, then what we need to do is for, if he doesn't blow up the filibuster in its entirety, um, you blow up the filibuster for purposes of legislation. Right. You clarify, again, you do the same change the rules trick. Uh, and you clarify that for purposes of legislation to confirm uh changes to Article Three appointments, uh, that, that requires, you know, that, that's not subject to cloture and uh requires only a bare majority. Uh, and, and you pass a law that says, oh, um, we're gonna, you know, know, add eight Supreme Court seats and double the size of the federal judiciary.

0:51:46 Andrew: And I would the only thing you can do this campaign on that.

0:51:50 Thomas: I really wonder if if I wonder if Biden will do that.

0:51:53 Andrew: I don't know. So let me give you my my quick institutional slash provocative slash troll the libs picks.

0:51:54 Thomas: I don't know.

0:52:08 Andrew: And and and they would they would go like this. If if Trump is if and really all this is is this is if if Mitch McConnell persuades Donald Trump to make his life easier, then then you will get either Paul Clement, who we discussed earlier, or you will get Gregory Katsas, whom we have talked about, who has been a he's he's the other reliable Trump appointee on the D.C. Circuit. Um, I don't know his age, uh, but I assume he's young. Clement, as I said, is 56. Let's type in Gregory Katsas here real quickly. Um, and and obviously, uh, you know, our listeners know you usually have researched all of this in advance, but um, uh, Gregory Katsas, yeah.

0:52:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:58 Thomas: But sorry. We were busy doing a Law'd Awful Movies and researching Keanu Reeves, and uh, those were the days. I'm little old.

0:53:00 Andrew: Yeah. Uh, uh, Gregory Katsas was born 1964, so uh, he He

0:53:11 Thomas: Yeah, wait, way too old. So

0:53:12 Andrew: 56. That's, you know, uh, Clement is Clement is 54, so I would say right, Clement or Katsas are your institutional safe choices. Um, if you want the most aggressive choice that, uh, uh, that nevertheless I think sadly, uh, would, uh, would almost certainly sail through. Um, Trump went out of his way to add Missouri Senator Josh Hawley to his list of potential Supreme Court nominees. Josh Hawley is 40 years old, and he was a staff attorney with the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty.

0:53:57 Thomas: Wait, is he gonna lose or something, why?

0:53:59 Andrew: No, but if if a I believe Missouri has a Republican governor.

0:53:59 Thomas: Oh, Missouri? Oh, I thought, I'm sorry, I thought you just said Minnesota. I was. Oh, okay.

0:54:07 Andrew: Yeah. Nope. I, who, If I did, uh I, yeah.

0:54:15 Thomas: Yeah, I was confused. You gotcha, yeah.

0:54:15 Andrew: Yeah, Missouri. Um, so right, Republican governor, will be easily replaced. He's 40, and unless he's Ted Cruz, right, he's probably made friends with the Republicans in the Senate, right, and it's harder, right, even for somebody like Mitt Romney. Like, if if you're like, oh, yeah, John, I like Josh. We, you know, we go get caffeine-free tea together, right? I mean, who, the Hawley would be so safest choice, Paul Clement, most aggressive choice that nevertheless, I would say, has a 100% chance of sailing through is is Josh Hawley. And and Hawley is the way to think about this is Hawley is the exact opposite of Andrew Seidel. I mean this with 100% sincerity. He is a staff attorney for the Beckett Fund, was a staff attorney for The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, which is the right-wing equivalent of the FFRF, right? He's their Andrew Seidel. And so if you could imagine Joe Biden appointing Andrew Seidal and his glorious butt to the Supreme Court,

0:54:31 Thomas: Yeah, I'm gonna say, what's, how's the butt on this other guy?

0:55:23 Andrew: I have.

0:55:25 Thomas: Does he have a convex butt or something, or what's the opposite, concave, yeah.

0:55:27 Andrew: Oh, man, if he had the worst butt in the Senate, that would that would truly make him. Uh, but

0:55:31 Thomas: Hopefully, hopefully, yeah. There's no realistic possibility of Ted Cruz, right? I mean, that nobody likes Ted Cruz.

0:55:35 Andrew: Yeah, no, No, and Trump hates Ted Cruz, right? So yeah, it, that was on there to troll the lips. Um, so uh, Clement, um, Holly, if you want to be hyper aggressive but but still win, and if Trump is spoiling for a fight, then uh, then you go back to Barrett, right? Um, Amy Coney Barrett, it, oh, Let's find out, shall we? Yeah.

0:55:40 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah. How old is she? Google how old, yeah, we can just uh, activate everybody else's Alexis.

0:56:04 Andrew: Oh, My goddamn word, 48.

0:56:13 Thomas: What, yep, I think that's the pick, yeah.

0:56:17 Andrew: That, look, that will set up a fight that will lose Susan Collins. Uh, that might lose, uh, it will lose Collins and Murkowski, it might lose Mitt Romney. Um, and and and you, may I mean, again, it's it's hard to get in their mindset. Um, that they, that may be what Trump wants, right. Trump may want us divided on partisan lines so that we're not talking about.

0:56:40 Thomas: Well, that's just it, what about Trump's strategy has suggested that what he's really trying to do is get a few moderates over to him, that he's no, I know, I'm not targeting this at you. I'm just saying that, like, I think you are doing the thing you said earlier. And maybe, you know, who knows? Maybe you're right. I'm wrong. But like, I think I are, I'm thing earlier where you put yourself in the mind of a or in the spot of a Trump or whatever, and you're not able to do that because you're just such a delightful, nice fellow. He you know. This is a person who is campaigning on his base.

0:56:47 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I don't. Yeah, I will say he did not. I mean, yeah,

0:57:17 Thomas: He thinks he will stop everybody else from voting except his base, or he will just say it was fraud anyway, and it's cheating anyway, or while all the while he's cheating. I do not think he's going to do anything other than try to do the worst, most conservative possible thing that maybe you're right that, you know, somebody else in the room who will probably be in charge or something might make a different choice or want to not pick a fight with certain Republicans.

0:57:21 Andrew: And

0:57:42 Thomas: That's possible.

0:57:42 Andrew: That's right. And and look, it I'll say it both ways. Right? Right. You know, listeners to the show know I successfully predicted both the Kavanaugh and Gorsuch opinions. And what I did was got in the head of Don McGahn. Well, Don McGahan isn't there anymore. So it the the question is, is the is the methodology that I used to predict those picks still valid? If it is, then I think it's going to be Clement.

0:57:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

0:58:16 Andrew: If it isn't. And and and look, I am coming around to this point of view that like if you asked.

0:58:23 Thomas: Hey, no, I mean, that's important to emphasize. You were correct on the last two picks before they were announced. One of them, we stupidly released the episode late, so it was after it was announced, but we had recorded it before. And the other one, you just guessed before.

0:58:24 Andrew: No, no. But man, that would have been great. Right. Yeah.

0:58:38 Thomas: I think the Gorsuch, yeah, anyway, who was, Kavanaugh was, I don't know, Gorsich was first? Gorsuch was first, right? Yeah. Anyway, the point is, you have the track record, so So, you know, hope, you know, you're likely right on this and but that you does scare me to know that it's not no longer Don McGahn. It's someone worse

0:58:44 Andrew: Yeah, yeah. It it. But but but. And and and let me say this explicitly, right? Right. The argument for your perspective, the argument for Amy Coney Barrett is if you're Donald Trump and his team, you would much rather the next 40 days be about Republicans and Democrats fighting over a judicial nominee than Republicans and Democrats fighting over the fact that he's completely mishandled the COVID-19 crisis.

0:59:19 Thomas: COVID and I think that's going to happen regardless. Don't you think? I mean, there's just no helping that.

0:59:25 Andrew: Yeah. Yep. Yep, yep. It.

0:59:28 Thomas: I mean what if this fucking Tom my God, what if this timing is such that even despite a pandemic killing 200,000 people in this country and it's going to just keep going up, that like this is such a horrible issue that this becomes the focus? Gosh, I didn't think about that. Wow, all

0:59:30 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. It's, well, I, yeah, I think, yeah. Why don't we call it? Yeah. It is rare. I'll end with where I began. I do not have hope and optimism on this. I do not see a path forward. And I think that the only thing to do is to is to fight back is to say, yep, that there is there's... there's nothing. And again, I'm on record in 2017 saying, you know, that's

0:59:55 Thomas: Right, any final final words, yeah, pack the fucking courts. Yeah,

1:00:29 Andrew: Not the strategy.

1:00:29 Thomas: You have made the full Breaking Bad transition. You went from Walter White to uh, to Heisenberg, full-on.

1:00:31 Andrew: Yeah, I have broken bad. Yep. Yeah. I'm Heisenberg. I am a judicial Heisenburg right now. Sorry.

1:00:37 Thomas: Yeah, well, I just, you know, it's hard. Again, this is a live reaction. We will do a more fitting, fitting tribute to uh, to the great RBG. Uh, may she rest in peace, absolutely. But we're terrified, you know, and like honestly RBG is great, we do intend to do that, but like what's more important to me right now, you know, than honoring somebody who is gone is how many millions of people's rights might be taken away. Like I'm scared, and uh, so, so this, this episode was more geared toward that.

And, and uh, it turns out we should be scared, and I now, now the only thing, you know, in a, in a twisted way, the fact that we just have to go nuclear now is maybe more encouraging, you know? Maybe the fact the things are so bad that we, that even Andrew Torrez is like, let's pack the courts, maybe that means okay, let's win and pack the courts, and, and, and maybe that has some chance of happening. So I, I don't know. I guess that's that's what I'm pinning my hopes on right now, what little hopes they are, but that doesn't mean, you know, there isn't still so much catastrophic traffic risk on the way.

1:00:49 Andrew: Yeah. Yep.

1:01:45 Andrew: Yep, I agree.

1:01:47 Thomas: Well, we appreciate you guys so much, especially at times like these, like we really love the community we have. And I just also, you know, I want to do a shout out anybody who is doing what we need to be doing, who is making calls, knocking doors. Well not really doing that right now, but making calls and organizing all that stuff. We love you so much. You're doing a great job. Keep it up. The times are absolutely fucking terrible. And that's why it's even more important to have amazing people like so many of our listeners who are doing that work. Yeah.

1:01:47 Andrew: Well, yeah.

1:02:14 Andrew: And I love that you end with that. Let me end with my own sort of plea and pitch. Some of you are not on Facebook for good reasons. Instance, if you are and you haven't joined the OA Facebook community, give it a join. Again, we get nothing out of that. This is not like pitching Patreon.

1:02:29 Thomas: Yeah, that doesn't benefit us, but it is a nice place. Yeah,

1:02:42 Andrew: It's work for us. But it's good people. And it is not a debate forum. And I want to add in sort of as the pitch to people in the community, know that we're all hurting right now and take an extra minute to be kind to each other because we need that support. So if you're looking for support in these socially distant times, it's a great place 99% of the time. And we're trying to up that to 99.5% of the time if you're already there you know be be kind be good because we need it we love you guys

1:03:04 Thomas: Well, said well said. Thanks so much, Andrew, for uh, for doing this uh, rapid reaction, and we will see you, you know, I assume, I assume on Thursday we'll, we'll see you for more uh, more OA in detail about RBG, but uh, yeah, in the meantime, enjoy Monday's episode, which has nothing to do with this and was recorded in the before time. So we'll see you then.

1:03:39 Andrew: Yeah yep