Why Is Alito Like This

Transcript

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

0:00:45 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1034. I'm your host Thomas Smith, that over there is real-life crimmigration attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing, Matt?

0:00:53 Matt: If you can't find me by tomorrow morning, you must dismiss the indictment.

0:00:58 Thomas: Yeah, you can't, I can't make you do an episode. If you evade it, for you don't want to do one, and I don't find you within a length of time, it's get you free to go, there's

0:01:05 Matt: Those are the rules. What are we going to do?

0:01:07 Thomas: Of course, if you didn't see it, uh, Rudy Giuliani never fails to best himself at being bad at the law, like he's really, he was a lawyer, he was like an important lawyer, right, without being a real piece of shit oh no, sorry, you're gonna say a different thing, without hating poor people and people of color, yeah knowing the law, yeah

0:01:15 Matt: Just incredible. He was the lawyer. He was like, I mean, you don't get to be the top prosecutor at SDNY without being, well, yeah, I'm not right. Yeah, no, you have to be one of the best at doing that. I mean, that's quite a fall. I can't think of any public figure who's had just a complete fall into disgrace the way this man has. It's incredible.

0:01:42 Thomas: Wait, we'll get into that in the first segment here, just for fun. It's hilarious. And then our main story revolves around an upside down flag, which was the first sign of trouble with Supreme Court Justice Alito.

0:01:55 Matt: See if maybe we can find a few more.

0:01:57 Thomas: That one thing really blew the lid off of Justice Alido. And, and we're going to hear a deep dive from one Matt Cameron about just how Alito Alito is. I can't wait for that, let's excited. I know, you not, I promise we're not going to just update about Gavel Gavel every single episode. But there is a very exciting one that I got to tell you folks about.

We found, due to, you know, me kind of putting it out there for people to email in, someone emailed in to help out with Gavel Gavel who literally does law thingies in the very courtroom and place that the Trump trial is, and seems is to be an expert, I would say, on the relevant law in that court, and the, in the exact jurisdiction. It's so great, uh, so she'll be on the next episode. That'll be the May third episode of Gavel Gavel.

And that'll be out probably like tomorrow, very soon. We have it all recorded, and I'm excited to get it to you, cool to have someone's voice on there. That's like actually in it, you, in the area, knows the stuff, she's going to clarify. She clarified some stuff about Holt. That funny objection where we're like, what the hell's Bornholt? So she gave us a whole thing on that. Super cool stuff.

0:03:00 Matt: She's a super cool person, and she's the, she's always a public defender, but I repeat myself, of my favorite people.

0:03:04 Thomas: Yeah, yes. It. Reason to go over on patreon.com/gavelpod. And again, if you can't, I will get all those up up for free soon. We're working on that among all the other things we are working on. So that is the announcement section. I don't think there's anything else really going on. So why don't we take our usual break And then I want to hear about Rudy Giuliani.

0:03:24 Matt: Alright, see you on the other side.

0:03:29 Thomas: Matt, Rudy Giuliani, this was funny. So I bless her heart, as they say in the South or whatever. I don't know if I'm using that correctly. But Lydia, being, you know, like a good person, saw the stuff about like they can't find Rudy. They can't find him to serve him the thing. They can find him. And she's like, what if he's dead? What if he killed himself? Like, what have he whatever? She's like, yeah, he's he's such a fall from grace, which I'm like, I just don't think that guy kills himself. You know, it could be wrong. Feel free to call me out. Now, I don't think often narcissists do that. I think they always have a story about why they're amazing and everyone else sucks. Don't you think?

0:04:02 Matt: Yeah, no, no, the guy in the Borat movie who thought this young journalist was just going to have sex with him, that guy's going to kill himself? I mean, he's out of control. He is just such a narcissist, and they don't do that, usually.

0:04:09 Thomas: Oh, God. And sure enough, like that later that day, the news popped up that like, no, they got him. It was and he had tweeted. Matt, I know you have the tweet pulled up. What had he tweeted or

0:04:19 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, this tweet officially no longer exists, but I'd quote-tweet it on the OA account, and then someone helpfully screenshotted it and said, you're going to want this later. They were right. Arizona authorities can't find me by tomorrow morning, colon, one, they must dismiss the indictment. Two, they must concede. They can't count votes. And the official OA response was, one, no. Two, what?

0:04:30 Thomas: Yeah, nice.

0:04:45 Thomas: Yeah, I told him.

0:04:47 Matt: It makes no sense.

0:04:47 Thomas: It's funny. Funny. I was so distracted by the first thing being obviously not true that I did. I kind of just blurred through the second thing. And I'm like, I don't even get that. Like what, what is that? Some attempted and own, like why, what's the logical connection there? I don't Yeah,

0:04:57 Matt: Yeah, really, I stared at it for a while the other night, and I'm just like, they can't count. I mean, I guess the whole thing is invalid. I win. I guess that whole ninja inspection is fine.

0:05:11 Thomas: But it doesn't you void something, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Like if you're on the lam from murder, it's not like, well, if I stay out here long enough, I never murdered anyone. Didn't happen? No one died. It's not a murder, that's not how it works.

0:05:15 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. No, that is not how anything works. I think he might have been thinking of milk. I don't know. Something that expires? Like, I really don't know. Indictments don't expire. I will say, though, see, this is the thing. I all of us are trying to walk away from Twitter X, whatever. I Know We're Trying. But so many great things keep happening on it.

0:05:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:36 Thomas: I know, I know.

0:05:39 Matt: You just you have to keep your toe in. And so Rudy Giuliani does this. And then one hour and 14 minutes later, the attorney general of Arizona tweets, the final defendant was served moments ago. At Rudy Giuliani, nobody is above the law, and she quote tweets him, and, which is, you know, the post is now gone, but one of the best public owns on Twitter in a very long time. It's fantastic.

0:05:50 Thomas: That's So Good, yeah. At his 80th birthday party, if we didn't say. That, yeah.

0:06:02 Matt: Yes. That's right, and to general and wailing and gnashing of teeth, everyone's very, very unhappy to see Rudy go.

0:06:08 Thomas: All the people he paid to be at his birthday party were like, "Oh, I guess, uh, rest the night off, or do we have to still like pretend we want to be here, okay sure." So,

0:06:16 Matt: The photo that he posted with that weird tweet was with a bunch of young blonde women. I don't know what's going on, but, uh, yeah, you might be onto something.

0:06:22 Thomas: Weird. Man, that guy is so weird. So, Here's what I want to know first, because quick, this is OA. There, yeah, a thing he's thinking of? Like, is there any reason for any of that? Do you avoid being, what is this? Are you being served with the, how does that work? What's happening there?

0:06:25 Matt: Yeah. Just everything about him.

0:06:40 Matt: I went looking just to see, because I mean, he is a lawyer. He used to know something about criminal law. Maybe there's something to this. No, not at all. Uh, I mean the thing he's already, there's already a hearing scheduled for May 21st. Like this is going forward and they were just doing this as a courtesy. All they have to do after this is issue an arrest warrant. If they weren't going to serve him, they were just trying to be nice by just serving him properly. Um, but the next thing that happens expire. It doesn't go away. I mean, this is on the level of, there was a lawyer around here in Massachusetts who was a little unwell, who went into the clerk's office and tore up the indictment for murder that his client was facing. And I was trying to argue that that was it, that the indictment was gone because he tore it up.

0:06:47 Thomas: Brain worms.

0:07:14 Thomas: That surely can't be how it works. I don't know a lot of things, Matt. I know I'm only around 60me. On that bar exam. I, I don't think there's any possible way that could be how works. Cause I feel like we'd have a lot murderers that just just go free probably all of them actually like almost all of them would go free if you could do that crazy

0:07:16 Matt: That is not how it works.

0:07:29 Matt: Yeah. No, we can reproduce and print a new indictment. And that is Giuliani logic, it turns out. That's what he's working on. So, I don't know.

0:07:38 Thomas: So all it is is that like all what was that deadline? It was just like that was when they were gonna just say all right, bring out the big guns, final

0:07:47 Matt: I don't know that there really was a deadline. I mean, I think that at some point, yeah, they just have to serve an arrest warrant because he's not showing up because he can't be found. He's clearly dodging it. He was going, to be fair, back and forth between his New York and Palm Beach homes. It doesn't sound like he was, you know, he wasn't in Alaska or whatever, but he was findable. That's how they got him.

0:08:01 Thomas: That was my final question. Was did the tweet have anything to do with them actually finding him, or was just kind of coincidental timing?

0:08:06 Matt: Probably didn't help. I dunno. I haven't seen the full story yet, but, you're just taunting at that point. I'm sure that they were there probably had a lock on him at that point because it was only an hour later.

0:08:06 Thomas: Yeah it was close enough in time that would be like pretty crazy if that. That tweet did, but I mean, that, that has happened before. Like, it's not like it's that crazy, but I don't, yeah, I think that might have been just a delightful, amazing coincidence.

0:08:18 Matt: Yeah, sure. Mean, he did plan a birthday party. So presumably somebody found out about that. Who knows?

0:08:30 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. True. I bet you he's so gone. He actually invited them to the birthday party. Forgot what they were doing. Like, yeah you can come.

0:08:38 Matt: Right. This is Rudy Giuliani's second indictment, of course. He's already been indicted in the Georgia RICO case. I know what's going on with that on him there, but this is his second election -related indictment on top of that defamation case. And I believe he's also facing bar consequences, or already has. So it is nice to see people actually doing that in

0:08:53 Thomas: Yeah. I think he's, yeah. He's suspended or something at least, right? Yeah. Darn, boy, clients are really losing out on that sharp legal mind now.

0:08:57 Matt: New York, I believe, um, I know he was charging the Trump campaign twenty thousand dollars a day and then he complained when he didn't get it, an

0:09:06 Thomas: And also, wasn't it for like, it was also for like cyber security stuff, wasn't he, wasn't that him? He had like the whole, like, he's the expert in cyber security, who

0:09:14 Matt: 80 year old man, yes, just who I want to talk to about cyber security, uh, he's suspended actually from both New York and DC at some point, so I don't know how that's going. I think, uh, one of the other might, might have stuck, but it doesn't matter. Anyway, consequences have happened.

0:09:17 Thomas: Thinks like a potato chip is a USB drive full of fake votes or whatever the hell that was. Well,

0:09:31 Matt: So yeah.

0:09:31 Thomas: Everyone remember this nice warm fuzzy feeling we had for just a moment during this episode before we get to our main story.

0:09:38 Clip: We got it!

0:09:44 Thomas: Right. So I'm sure people have seen the news. It Mrs. Alito, who, I don't know, goes to the same asshole club as Ginny Thomas maybe, or it's just coincidental, might be... Well, he blamed her. I guess it's not even... I shouldn't even say that. We don't don't even know that it's her for sure. That's just his excuse, right? So for all we know, whatever, there was an upside down flag on Alito's property right around the time of, all you the fake, the election being called rigged and all da da da. And it was very clear that the meaning behind this. And I know why we're just hearing about this now, but what's crazy about this thing, Matt, is it actually seems like this is making some amount of difference

0:09:35 Matt: Yeah which Yeah.

0:10:22 Thomas: In the zeitgeist, which is so silly to me.

0:10:24 Matt: Which is why I want to talk about it now. You know, what do our part to keep the pressure on? Because I want to talk not just about this because everybody's talking about this, but I want to talk maybe how we got here and maybe who is Samuel Leto and what's going on with him these days. But yeah, we have to talk about this. Because it is, it's one of those moments you just can't let pass in American life. And, you know, this was maybe 10 or 11 days, we're not sure in the exact dates, but it was there for maybe a week, 10 or 11 days after January 6th, that he's flying this thing in solidarity. I mean, it's clear solidarity. There's nothing else it could possibly mean. Obviously, the official cover story is that his wife got into an altercation with a neighbor who had a "fuck Trump" sign. And neighbor called her the C word and things kind of escalated from there. And of course, the thing that you do when somebody calls you the C word is well understood as you go and you fly an upside down flag in front

0:10:31 Thomas: Mm hmm. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Yeah,

0:11:09 Matt: Of your house.

0:11:09 Thomas: I know, and it's, we're all lucky that that neighbor didn't keep going, because I think she would don kind of Nazi attire and then she would go like, you just, that's what happened every time I get in any altercation. It's like, ah, stop, you're making me go right, oh, further and further right. I have to order a bunch of stuff on Amazon to, like, you know, the costumes and stuff, because I don't have it. Like, lucky that she kind of just, the flag upside down is pretty easy to do, you know, she had that on hand.

0:11:15 Matt: Sure yeah no a couple Facebook comments and she'd be leading a new January 6th. Yeah, so, and that, and again, the only person who's talked to the family since then, uh, is Shannon Bream from Fox News, and she had a four-tweet thread, again, something else I can't leave Twitter for, when these things happen, uh, in which she put forward Martha Ann Alito's account of this. And Samuel Alito, she talked to both of them, I think, uh, she's actually been a friend of the family for a while, it turns out, and she's one of the only public appearances that I could find for Martha Ann Alito was actually when she went on her show to talk about her work with homeless veterans, which again, I'm not saying anything bad about that work, but that's

0:11:34 Thomas: So stupid, yeah.

0:12:05 Thomas: Yeah

0:12:05 Matt: All I really know about her appearances for Shannon Bream, is not unfriendly journalist, and that's why they talked to her. And they had this whole explanation about how this "F Trump" sign was out there in front of a school bus stop at a time, of course, in January, 2021, when kids weren't taking the bus.

0:12:20 Thomas: Then they, and, and not just like, oh, they lied by omission, they specifically were like, this is where children line up every morning, it's like, yeah, but not then, so what are you talking about, pandemic, they weren't doing that, well,

0:12:31 Matt: Yeah. And, you know, like an actual journalist within two minutes was like, no, I just confirmed there were no buses there. So, you know, try again. And confirmed that that was the story about the whole thing I just told you, because the Times didn't have all those details. And

0:12:45 Thomas: It's important to note, I used to just blanket denialism, that's not a denial of, of it happening, like, it's, it's, I know it's all, it may sound obvious, but just to point out the obvious, like, they don't deny that this happened, they are the one they are confirming it happened, in fact, yeah.

0:12:58 Matt: His official to the New York Times is that, Well, I don't know. It wasn't my decision, which doesn't tell you anything. And that's meaningless. And that means, you know, I will the Shannon Bream, the final tweet in the series here, which, again, everything about this invites more questions from an actual journalist, but that's not what Shannon Broom is.

0:13:14 Matt: Following that exchange, Mrs. Alito was distraught and hung the flag upside down, quote, for a short time, end quote. Justice Alito says some neighbors on his street are, quote. Very political, end unquote, and acknowledges that it was a very heated time in January 2021. very heated time. Yeah, that's, uh, it

0:13:06 Thomas: Yeah uh, huh what that didn't answer any, what I

0:13:33 Matt: Does not. And, and, and he's not even pretending to care about what this might signify. And he's not denying that he knew that it signified that. Um, this is his house. He lives there. He goes and parks there and walks in every day and leaves it every day. Uh, it was a time when the court was in session. So I don't know, you know, I, I there's no, there's just, it's, I

0:13:50 Thomas: Don't know what he expects this excuse to do, like, I don't even, yeah.

0:13:54 Matt: Don't think he cares at this point. My theory, just from spending a lot of, way too much time this weekend at Samuel Alito, my theory at this moment is that he just does not care what we think.

0:13:55 Thomas: Yeah well, I mean, he's right that it doesn't matter, so there's no No, no way for any consequences. He's a god emperor of one of the nine.

0:14:08 Matt: No, yeah. One of our appointed law priests, and that's what he's going to do. I wanted to look back a bit. I know that people are probably somewhat familiar with some of his story. There is no official biography of Alito yet. Look forward to reading that someday, I read pretty much every Supreme Court biography, but I was able to sort of piece together any number of things from publicly available stuff, from his writings, from speeches, from the Princeton Alumni Journal, whatever I could find, law review articles, to kind of give some idea of who this guy is. Is. And I think it's everybody in this country at this point should be asking, like, how did we get to this place where, I mean, it was bad enough last year when we found out that Thomas and Alito also, as we'll talk about, were getting major gifts, like massive gifts from right-wing billionaires. You know, that's bad enough in itself, but that's sort of ordinary corruption.

0:14:15 Thomas: Yep.

0:14:56 Thomas: Man, what did someone call his wife for that to happen?

0:14:59 Matt: Totally. Now I've got to take this trip.

0:15:01 Thomas: Time she got called a real bad word. And so I had to take this gift from a billionaire. It was the only reasonable course of action at that point. What are you expecting me to do? I don't understand.

0:15:05 Matt: That's right. Actually, I wanted to play, I've got it here, uh, one of the only other publicly available clips of Martha and Alito talking, and it's actually about the Thomases, if you want to play that, good.

0:15:19 Clip: Oh, absolutely. And I love Jimmy N. Clarence. You know, he is just now showing the rest of the world the kind of man he truly is. And I am very hopeful that we all can bridge the distances between us.

0:15:31 Thomas: Oh.

0:15:38 Matt: Don't know what that means but. But this is 2007 when she's saying that Clarence Thomas is showing us the kind of man he is.

0:15:42 Thomas: God. Yeah. What? Was happening then, like,

0:15:46 Matt: Don't know what specifically she was responding to.

0:15:46 Thomas: They approved torture or something Yeah, maybe something awful. I

0:15:50 Matt: It was well before we knew what kind of finances he was working with, is, I think, the most revealing thing about him we've learned.

0:15:58 Matt: I think she's really kept to herself. We don't Know That Much About Her, except she's on the board of that organization for homeless veterans. And if that was the only thing I knew about her, I'd think she was just fine. But I know that she at allowed this flag to be flown in front of her house. And there's also, the one thing you might remember about her is from Alito's confirmation hearing.

0:16:16 Thomas: Assure you I don't remember whatever you're gonna say. Sorry, God.

0:16:18 Matt: Okay. Actually, there's a very dramatic moment. She was sitting behind him during the entire hearing. And actually, I sent you a clip of him talking. So let's do that first at the hearing.

0:16:28 Thomas: All Right, I'm gonna brace myself. Okay.

0:16:29 Matt: It's a C -SPAN.

0:16:30 Thomas: I gotta hear this guy talking, a sentient asshole, what

0:16:33 Matt: So I just want to say something very quickly before you play this, uh, Martha and Alito's face. I know this is an audio medium. I posted some screenshots of it.

0:16:40 Thomas: Will have to describe it. Yeah. Going

0:16:43 Matt: I posted some screenshots of it on the Twitter account because I thought it was so obvious what's going on here. Now he's being asked directly about stare decisis and about Row. And she is just barely holding it together. Let's uh, let's play this. So

0:16:55 Clip: Is reaffirm, each time it's reaffimed, that is a factor that should be taken into it into account In making the judgment about stare decisis. And when a precedent is uh, reaffirmed on the ground that stare decisis precludes, uh, counsels against re -examination of the merits of the precedent, then I agree that that is a, that is the precedent on precedent. Now, I, I don't want to leave the impression that stare decisis is, in it, an inexorable command, because the Supreme, the Supreme Court has said that it is not, but it is a judgment that has to be based taking into account all of the factors that are relevant and that are set out in the Supreme Court's cases. Toward

0:17:12 Thomas: Now her face reads, I'm wearing a skin suit over my lizard body no

0:17:49 Matt: She's grinning and she's kind of heaving in a way that, like, she, to me, when you look very closely, it may be blowed up a little bit, um, I watched a lot of the confirmation hearing just to kind of get a sense of how it went, because I watched some of it at the time, but that was a very long time ago, in 2006.

0:18:02 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:02 Matt: And I just wanted to get a sense of who this woman was, because we don't know anything about her. She's a mystery, really. And, you know, you can learn a lot by just kind of watching as she's sitting there stoically behind her husband as being, he's being grilled by these different senators or not. There's a lot good softball stuff there for him, too. But during that time, the stare decisis and a couple other places when he's talking about Row, it just looks like she's having a hard time holding it together.

She looks to me like someone who is trying not to laugh, and she's kind of breathing heavily in that way of like, just like, keep, get through this, get through, that's what we can tell, we can get through, and she was like weirdly smiling and grinning in a way that, just he seems very disproportionate to me to what is being talked about, you know, of course he, and he's lying his ass off about Row, as we know, all the way through, he's saying that it's, you know, he says in several different ways, the way that they all do, there's always this game that they have

0:18:29 Thomas: Yeah, it is a weird.

0:18:47 Matt: Have all played, you know, where they have to pretend. Now, yeah, sure.

0:18:46 Thomas: Yeah, It's stupid. Absolutely stupid. Well, and I don't, that's one thing where I also don't. I don't even hold it against them because that's what we created this stupid system ever since Bork, you know, where it's like, I one intentionally created, but we created this dumb process whereby what you have to do is pretend you have no opinions on anything. And then everybody gets to pretend to believe you. And And then you get to be one of the nine people who decide the entire fate of our country because nothing else works. So it's stupid. And I don't even like back when they overturned Roe, there's a big thing where they were like, oh, can we get him for perjury? Because they said in the hearings that blah, blah, bla. It's like, no, sorry, That's how this works. Yeah.

0:19:00 Matt: It's just, everybody knows. And, you can always say, well, the facts were in front of me and I had a different case and, you Know, it's just not, you shame.

0:19:35 Thomas: Yeah, and even he said at that time, he was like, precedent you got there. It would be a shame if Supreme Court were to overturn it. So I don't, it's not even really like he hit it that much.

0:19:44 Matt: He also was at a disadvantage though, because he had several times in writing that did the thing that you're never supposed to do, if you want to be around the Supreme Court, where he actually wrote down some opinions, like, directly about this. He was asked about this a couple of different ways. And I will share those opinions because I do think they are relevant here. He was applying in 1985, wrote a memo when he was, let's see, in 1985, he was an assistant solicitor general.

He argued about 14 cases, I believe, in front of the Supreme Court at some point. Nothing too notable that he argued. But he wrote an advisory sort of memo about a case called Thornburg, and he was laying out a pretty direct strategy about how we can hold back and make sure that we don't overturn Roe all at once. But this is putting us on the road. This is the thing that's going to get us there if we hold to the strategy.

"To nudge the court toward the principles in Justice O'Connor's Akron dissent, find this approach preferable to a frontal assault on Roe. It has most of the advantages of a brief devoted to the overruling of Roe v. Wade. It makes our position clear, does not even tacitly concede Roe's legitimacy, and signals that we regard the question as live and open."

0:20:43 Thomas: Jeez.

0:20:44 Matt: At the same time, it's free of many of the disadvantages that would accompany a major effort to overturn Roe. When the court hands down its decision and Roe is not overruled, the decision will not be portrayed as a stinging rebuke. This is in 1985. This has been on his mind a long time.

0:20:56 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And funny is he's become definitely more radical now. That's what's crazy. Most people, you read quotes from 1985, if they were alive then, and it's like, well, I don't think those segregationists were like all that bad. You know, it stuff like that, where you're like, Jesus, oh God, we've come a long way, and then him, it's he's like, well, we should maybe take a softer touch to overturning Roe, and then you look at when he actually did it and it was like, Roe was a piece of shit and I hated it this whole time, and it's overturned completely. And to the point where, and I made this point before, but it bears repeating, if the court had done a different version of that, I think the election could have gone a different way after. They were so dedicated to their radicalism that they actually kind of screwed over the Republican Party in a lot of ways. I

0:21:01 Matt: Yes, absolutely. Nope, Oh, Yeah. Yeah. Going that hard. Happen. Is kind of one of my theses as I'm looking through all of this, is that he's always been very conservative, no question. He was a Reagan conservative, though. And, of course, Reagan conservatives were radical. I'm not saying that they were moderate.

0:21:55 Thomas: Was going to say, yeah, yeah.

0:21:56 Matt: You know, he's kind of like a down -the -line, typical kind of conservative. And I think that he has really gone off in the last 10 or 15 years, I think especially since Scalia died. Think he's stepped up into the Scalia role a little more. We'll get to that. That. The other thing that he was contending with was in 1987, when he was applying to be in Reagan's Office of Legal Counsel, which is traditionally an office that's done a lot of evil stuff that nobody notices. Wrote a little essay explaining about why he was such a good Reagan conservative. According to classmates at Princeton, this might have been pumping up his conservative bona fides a little bit, but he says pretty directly... Sorry.

0:22:31 Thomas: What? I'm in suspense. Holy shit.

0:22:36 Matt: This leads into what I I want to talk about. When I first became interested in government and politics during the 1960s, the greatest influences, in my view, were the writings of William F. Buckley, Jr., the National Review, and Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign. So again, middle of the road, not middle of road, but down the line conservative.

0:22:50 Thomas: That's, yeah that's well that's pretty, that'S a little, I think at that time that's a little radical. Yeah, yeah but

0:22:52 Matt: For that time, yeah, that's pretty radical. No, for sure. I'm just saying of that kind, of that stripe, right? College, I developed a deep interest in constitutional law, motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the establishment clause and reapportionment. So just in case you missed that, he is disagreeing with everything the Warren Court did. He actually was a product sort of of the Warren Core, because he was born on April Fool's Day, 1950. And the Warren Cort was the court that he had until he was 19. So you think about kind of growing up in the shadow of that, you know, the reactionary that you would create of somebody who's, you know, a young conservative nerd, who's paying attention to politics. And the Warren Court, of course, the time was deeply despised by conservatives. And, you know, for good reason, for the things they were doing, the leftist-leaning court that we've had.

We get to, when he talks about his work with the Solicitor General, he says, "I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." So he had to contend with that in his hearings, obviously, because he made the mistake of actually putting in writing that he didn't think that.

And of course, his thing was, "Well, I was applying for a job." And that's just what yet to say to get a job with the Reagan administration. I don't think anybody really

0:24:01 Matt: Believed that.

0:24:01 Thomas: Now I'm not just saying what I need to say to get this job. That's not what I'm doing in this moment.

0:24:05 Matt: Right. No, that's right.

0:24:07 Thomas: Now I'm giving you my true feelings, of course. So dumb.

0:24:07 Matt: No. This is 100% % me. Yes.

0:24:11 Thomas: It's just a farce. It's absolutely a farse.

0:24:12 Matt: Yep. Everybody knows it. Yeah, speaking of, there's another issue here that comes up at his hearing. Is what eventually gets his wife out of the room. I sent you a clip here.

0:24:21 Thomas: His wife out of the room? What? Oh, wow. Well, was going to say, like, at the times when the more tense, I saw her upside down flag waving arm, like start to go up, like instinctually. She's like, ah, stress response. I got to hang an upside down. Flag.

0:24:22 Matt: Yeah, she will end up leaving the room, yeah.

0:24:35 Matt: She does. That's her deal.

0:24:36 Thomas: All process stress differently. So already.

0:24:38 Clip: CAP was most noted for the fact that they were worried that too many women, and too many minorities were going to Princeton. In 1985, when everybody knew that that's what they stood for, when a prominent Republican like Bill Frist and a prominent Democrat like Bill Bradley both had condemned it, you, in your job application, proudly stated this as one of your credentials. Now, you strike me as a very cautious and careful person, and I say that with admiration, because a judge should be. But I can't believe that at 35, when you're applying for a job, that you're going to be anything less than careful in putting together such a job application.

0:25:11 Thomas: That's because I'm A piece Of Shit Is

0:25:31 Clip: And frankly, I don't know why that was a matter of pride for you at that time. My time is up. We'll come back to this. I have other questions. Well, Senator, as you said, from what I now know about the group, it seemed to be dedicated to the idea of bringing back the person that existed at a prior point in time. And as you sad, somebody from my background would not have been comfortable in an institution like that.

And that certainly was not any part of my thinking in whatever I did in relation to this group. Or my background either, Judge. Or my back ground either. Here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator Leahy. Senator Hatch, welcome, Judge Alito. We appreciate you and the services you've given, but much has been made about this, about your membership in an organization called the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. You mentioned this organization in the 1985 job application for a position in President Reagan's administration, and you've told us what you, you felt you know about your membership in that organization. So is it fair to say that you were not a founding member? I certainly was not a family member. You were not an active member of the organization to the best of your recollection? I don't believe I did anything that was active in relation to this organization. Well, some have suggested, as my friend from Massachusetts did yesterday, that by your membership in this organization, you are somehow against the rights of women and minorities attending colleges. So let me just ask you directly, on the record, are you against women and minorities in attending colleges?

0:27:21 Thomas: If it's on the Record or no

0:27:22 Clip: Absolutely not, Senator, no. Well, I thought that that would be your answer. I really did. Tough question, man. Tough question.

0:27:22 Thomas: Wow

0:27:27 Matt: So there you go. Okay. So yeah, just ask him and ask

0:27:30 Thomas: You solved it, people who have regressive really bad views that they know are unpopular, they, there's actually, it's a, it's the Air Bud rule. They have to tell the truth if you ask them in a hearing in which they need to say certain things to get a lifetime appointment to an institution that controls the country. They have to say yes. They have то be honest. If you ask him in the fact that he said no, you solvedit Wow, he's actually a feminist. He's a great guy. Amazing. He said he's not a bigot, everyone? What do you want come on of

0:27:57 Matt: Him if he's a bigot. He said he's not. I don't know what we're talking about. So I wanted to get into this for a second because I do think it's a little bit of a clue because he doesn't have that many clues in his life, but I think this one might be. Um, in 1972 he was graduating from law, Princeton, uh, his local paper ran this very famous entry in which he looks like a totally nerd, and it says Sam Alito tends to go to law school, school, and eventually to warm a seat on the Supreme Court. So he was thinking about the Supreme Court in 1972.

0:28:25 Thomas: Course.

0:28:25 Matt: And this organization was founded in 1972, he joined it sometime after, but it was founded because they were so concerned that so many women and minorities, as Leahy said, were getting in. Was a brochure in which they were complaining very loudly that it was up to 40% women and minorities, 40%. And that this is obviously an emergency.

0:28:35 Thomas: Wow. I a hard time believing it was even 40, but that we go, that makes sense, what

0:28:48 Matt: I'm sorry, no, the unannounced goal of the administration was to get there. So yeah, they're working toward it, thank you, yes. That it will largely vitiate the alumni body of the future, which is an incredible thing to say. Like, vitiated the alumni buddy. Like, it means we can't get together and go to strip clubs anymore, I guess. I don't know.

0:28:59 Thomas: What does that mean, vitiate the alum, they will still be alumni, what, I, huh?

0:29:08 Matt: Their bodies are going to be fine. You know, it's just, I don't know. So Leahy's asking, you know, you're 35 years old. You're putting this on your job application. Why did you say you were proud of this? And of course he's saying it was because I wanted to get a job with Reagan. And you know Entry Napolitano, the judge who goes on Fox News sometimes? Are you familiar with this guy? He's a real Jersey guy.

0:29:10 Thomas: Oh. Yeah, that sounds familiar, yeah.

0:29:27 Matt: Yeah, he always kind of wears pinstripe suits and he's got a big Jersey accent. And he was good friends with Alito, of course. And he has interviewed about this. And he said that there were two types of conservatives at Princeton.

0:29:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:29:41 Matt: You had to tell Ed Meese by showing him that you're a member of CAP, the Attorney General at the time. Shows him you're not a new arrival to the conservative movement. It was a way of saying, I'm the real thing. I'm an actual bigot. That's what you're saying. I signed up for this thing.

0:29:50 Thomas: Gotcha. Yeah. I've hated women and minorities since before it was cool.

0:29:57 Matt: Yeah, as made the point in this Princeton piece that he would have been receiving the magazine, which had all kinds of terrible stuff in it. That was a benefit of membership. So even if he wasn't an active member, he was just receiving this thing. And whether he was reading it or not, I mean, he continued to pay dues to this organization.

0:30:09 Thomas: What other purpose would, yeah, it's hard to, again, you just read the KKK magazine for the articles or something? I don't know. It's mixing a few things, but like, what other story is there that's at all plausible here? Do they have anything else? Or he's just like, oh, I don't know what it was. I didn't really care

0:30:24 Matt: He did. So his cover story on this was that he was mad because Princeton had kicked ROTC out. Now, he was totally silent during Vietnam. It's kind of like what we're talking about with the paper chase, right? About the author there is saying, right, that he didn't really, he just annoyed that people were active at Harvard in the 70s during Vietnam, so he actually joined ROTCs, and interestingly, he joined it because his draft number was low enough that he knew he was going to get drafted anyway, so he just wanted to have the best route through, which I can't blame for in that case, I guess. But Uh, Napolitano at the time was actually the head of the ROTC, so they got to know each other. So his official story was that he thought he remembered it had something to do with ROTC, but he he claimed at first he didn't remember the group at all or joining it, even though he had been receiving their magazine for years. Um, I don't know.

Um, is still, you know, at the end of the day, it's a regressive, uh, conservative, like to the point of, you know, trying to roll back, you know, just basic, as he said. I mean, even the way he said it about, well, it's my understanding you were trying to to bring back a Princeton of another time.

So what what he was saying to Leahy about how, I wasn't aware at the time that somebody of my background wouldn't have been welcome, that also seems strange because Andrew Napolitano, who's also an Italian -American, was the head of this organization for a little while. And what he's trying to say and what Leahy's trying do to agree with him, I don't know why he's bothering to agree him,

0:30:25 Thomas: Sure yeah sure yeah yeah yeah

0:31:32 Matt: But he's saying Italians wouldn't been welcomed at Princeton if we roll back. But that's not what anybody was trying to do. That organization was not trying to kick the Italians out and make sure we no longer have Italians or Irish people, which is what Leahy was trying to say. Uh, was specifically talking about blacks and women, like that was what they were concerned with. So yeah

0:31:48 Thomas: And it's Again, it's a different time, but it's like such a stupid way to even get to the argument. Like, well, you can't, you, a part, part of an organization that wants to roll back things a certain way because eventually that'd be bad for you, like hypothetically, it's not like, okay, well, what about just it being bad for the women and black people? Isn't that enough of a reason? I don't get it.

0:31:51 Matt: Yeah yeah No, he's, he's just like, no, I obviously, if I'd known, I wouldn't have ever joined because that would be bad for me. Yeah.

0:32:16 Thomas: Is brought to you by Trade Coffee. Trade Coffee believes anyone can be a great coffee maker. Anyone can make coffee at your home. All you need is the best beans, roasted to order and curated for your personal taste, which is exactly what they provide thanks to their in -house team of coffee experts, 50-plus small batch specialty coffee partners, and 450-plus rotating roasts. I love a good rotating roast.

0:32:40 Thomas: No, that just means they have all kinds of different options. From dark roasts to decafs, espressos to cold brew, and with graduations, Father's Day, and summer, Birthdays coming up. Not too early to begin thinking of the perfect gift. And, there is nothing better than the smell of coffee that is 100% the best. But, you love something, why would you not love even more better options for that thing? And trade coffee gives you that. And it's The delivery is so convenient, that's the thing.

Never want to wake up, go to make yourself coffee and realize you forgot to get more, you ran out of beans, you're screwed. That's the worst. If you set up these deliveries, it's always going to be there when you need it. So give Trade a try for a month and see how you can make better coffee at home. Right now, they're offering 30% off your first month of coffee when drinktrade.com slash OA. drinktrade.com slash OA for 30% off a month of coffee.

More time, drinktrade.com slash OA Arguments is brought to you by Rocket Money. Folks, true story, I was a Rocket Money money user long before they were a sponsor, and I'll tell you why. Americans think they spend about $62 per month on subscriptions.

0:33:52 Thomas: Okay, well, they didn't ask me that. I would not have gotten it that wrong, but most Americans get it that wrong. They think they spent about $62. What do you think in your mind right now. What do you think the real number is? Well, but on average it's more like $300. That is literally thousands of dollars a year. Half of which you're probably forgotten about and don't even use.

So that's why I started using Rocket Money and they found a bunch of subscriptions I'd completely forgotten about. And this is the best Part. They help you cancel the ones you don't want anymore. And That is priceless. I am a typical millennial in that that I don't want to talk to anyone at any time or anything. I shouldn't speak for all millennials. Maybe that's just me. I am me and I don'T want to TALK TO ANYONE. Ever. Rocket money can do that for you. Your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all the app's features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash opening. That's rocketmoney.com slash opening, rocketmoney.com slash opening

0:35:06 Matt: That was his, all in his confirmation, before that just very quickly, he's not that exciting. Uh Up to that point, it's a pretty standard career for somebody who gets to the Supreme Court through government service, not through any kind of private at all. He was, after graduating from Princeton, he went to Yale, of course. He was actually just a year behind Clarence Thomas at Yale. He has a very specific memory of Clarence Thomas shirtless and demonstrating at Yale, good a story that I found. Went on to, as I said, work at the Solicitor General and the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was the U S Attorney for New Jersey for a while. Apparently pretty good, pretty well little respect at doing that. It's pretty early in his career. And then he goes on to the Third Circuit, and then, of course, from there on to the Supreme Court. So I want to talk a little bit about his jurisdiction. We don't know that much about him as a person. As I said, he doesn't really have an official biography. He's been fairly private. His wife has been fairly private.

0:35:49 Thomas: Well, what literate person would want to write about him? I think is the main challenge there.

0:35:52 Matt: That's true. It is not that exciting, honestly. He's, for the most part, been very careful about the things he says and does, as you will when you're trying to get on the Supreme Supreme Court, just those couple little lapses that we were talking about. In the last few years, he's gotten much more vocal and much angrier, much whinier, actually. Meant to mention before, he is from Trenton, New Jersey, which has the whiniest city slogan of any city that I've ever been to. I've been through Trenton a few times. And written on a giant bridge as you're driving through Trenton, it says, Trenton makes, the world takes. And I've just always thought that was so whiny.

0:36:24 Matt: We get it. You make stuff. The world is taking from you? I don't know. They're purchasing it.

0:36:27 Thomas: Yeah. I assume they buy it. Yeah.

0:36:30 Matt: Probably. They're not rating you.

0:36:31 Thomas: Jeez. Somebody ought to tell the police about this.

0:36:34 Matt: Just thinking about the effect of growing up with that, you know, looking at that slogan every day, maybe turning into Samuel Alito. But anyway, that's not that important. So that came up during his confirmation hearing was a Third Circuit case called Dovey-Grudy, which is a little peek into his feelings on cops. He's generally very, very pro-law enforcement. Even for a pro-law enforcement guy, this is pretty extreme. This was a strip search of a 10-year-old girl and her mother that was executed while doing a search warrant on a drug dealer's house.

0:36:37 Thomas: Yeah, God.

0:37:01 Thomas: Come on.

0:37:02 Matt: And the arrest warrant, the search warrant rather, was only for this one person, for this John Doe, and they just decided to take it upon themselves to do this to these women who were in the house. So Alito thought this was perfectly fine and that qualified immunity should apply because it was a good faith mistake or whatever, I don't know, even though he acknowledges that there was only one name on the search warrant. And he says, "I share the majority's visceral dislike of the intrusive search of John Doe's young daughter, but it is a sad fact that drug dealers sometimes use children to carry out their business and avoid prosecution. Know of no legal principle that bars an officer from searching a child in a proper manner if a warrant has been issued and that warrant is not illegal on its face." So just fine. No problem.

0:37:11 Thomas: Cool.

0:37:40 Thomas: Jesus.

0:37:40 Matt: Wish it didn't happen, but okay. Also concurred in the The Casey decision, the fun part would be Casey that would go in front of McConner. Too exceptional there, but he didn't have that much to work with from his Third Circuit jurisprudence. But I want to look more at his Supreme Court cases. And what's interesting, too, is there's some marquee stuff that we're going to talk about we all know from his work.

Just picking a random couple of decisions out of just the long list of decisions that he's worked on, I found one called Rodriguez I wantto talk about for a second. I just want to start with a lesser -known case. Case. Involved a traffic stop. This was in 2015. And it was a traffic stop in which there was found to be no reasonable suspicion. So obviously, if You know about sort of the Terry Stop thing, where you can hold on to somebody for a second if there's some reasonable or particular suspicion that something's going on. So a traffic stopped. There's like too much air freshener. The cop is like a little bit concerned about this, but decides that he's going to hold the car and call in a dog, call in backup so he can do a dog sniff on the car. And And he has no reasonable suspicion at this point.

There's nothing that can really actually get in there. And Dark shows up and there's meth in the car in the trunk. Not even sure how this got to the Supreme Court because it's pretty well established that once a traffic stop is over and there is no reasonable suspension, you have to let people go. And that's basically what Ginsburg said, a majority. Majority.

This is just a little peek into, because when you go looking for things about Alito, there's a lot of talk about what a brilliant jurist he is and how reasonable

0:37:41 Thomas: Mm hmm.

0:38:59 Matt: He is and how he just really up and down. Yeah, no, he has supporters. A lot of people talk about this. But the thing he did in his dissent here, and it's so easy to ignore dissents because they really don't matter at the end of the day. His dissenting style is not as hyper of breath, as Scully as always was. But his dissents are pretty dishonest, like a lot of his jurisprudence, just directly dishonest. And in this case, he just blatantly ignored what was going on in this case. He just completely, not even factually, but legally, and he says, this is an unnecessary, impractical, and arbitrary decision.

It addresses a purely hypothetical question, whether the traffic stop in this place would be unreasonable if the police officer, etc., etc., did did not already have reasonable suspicion that the car contained drugs. And again, the magistrate found below and the 8th Circuit did not question that there was no reasonable suspicion. So there was No Reason at all for the cop to be doing this. So Alito premises his entire dissent on the idea that, well, I would have found there was a reasonable suspicion and therefore this is just fine. And I just thought that was interesting to pick out a case that nobody really cares

0:38:59 Thomas: There is now.

0:39:25 Thomas: Yeah?

0:39:58 Thomas: What?

0:39:58 Matt: About, didn't really make the headlines.

0:39:59 Thomas: How would you have found that there's a of reasons what I don't even understand yeah

0:40:01 Matt: Yeah. Just decided that under our standards, if it was in front of me, that's what I would've done, But he's not the trial judge, obviously, and that's not what he's supposed to be doing. He's supposed to be looking at the case in front of him, and he talks about how he does that all the time. But for his criminal law cases, I somewhere that a few years ago, at least as of a few years ago—about 17% of the time—he'd found in favor of the defendant. It's probably less now. And generally speaking, he's very pro -law enforcement, pro -government. He is interested in digital privacy, digital surveillance, protecting from that. That's one thing I can can agree with him on. Know, you for the most part, he has not been favorable to criminal defendants or criminal defense rights. Because again, that was one of the things that motivated him to go to law school was to undo the Warren court's protections for defendants.

0:40:38 Thomas: I just gotta say this is reminding me that there's a time in fact most of the time before a few years ago where it was just assumed that Alito and Thomas had a batshit dissent that no one needed to care about like that was that was just like the stick correct me if I'm wrong but that's my memory of it as not an expert but somebody would you know follow the news and I was always like dissent from Thomas and Alito and it was like boy boy, those are batshit. How the hell are they even on the court? Anyway, that doesn't matter. And now it's like, no, that's like what the opinions are now. I mean, it really is. They're not, I wouldn't say they're like the median justice. They're obviously far right, but like their opinions matter now. They actually make our law.

0:40:51 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what happens when, yeah when these people take over. And actually that's one thing I was doing. And one thing, I started to notice, I did a lot of reading this weekend. And, you know, we all know, like, the big fiery Scalia dissents. And obviously, when Scalia and Alito were on the court, they aligned almost all the time. They occasionally disagreed. But for most part, Alito was kind of under the cover of Scalia, and Scalia could write the kind of nutty stuff, and Alito would write the more straight-up and down-sounding kind of thing. So, for example, Obergefell, right, where marriage equality was affirmed, right? Big decision, very important decision. And Scalia just lost his shit, right. You might remember this is one of the most unhinged dissents he's ever written, and he's written a lot of unhinge dissents. But this was the one, if you remember, where Scalia included the lines, ask the nearest hippie when he's talking about intimacy. At one point, he just says, huh? H -U -H question mark.

0:41:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Really?

0:42:04 Matt: It's a bad, it's a terrible dissent. It might actually be worth doing a dramatic reading of at some point because it's something people need to hear. Um, It's It was, Yeah, no, I didn't think,

0:42:10 Thomas: Okay. That's actually, that'S a great idea. We can do, instead of a lot of awful movies, we can do a lot awful dissents.

0:42:17 Matt: Descents.

0:42:18 Thomas: It's, yep.

0:42:18 Matt: Yeah, Casey's a big fan of this descent too, this would be a fun one. Uh, is really like it's like a Fox News editorial piece.

0:42:22 Thomas: Okay, no, for real, let's do this. I'm in. I like I'm Chris Farley in that sketch where he's all, you know, like super angry about it. Yeah, yeah, okay. We

0:42:25 Matt: Yeah, Perfect. It's Perfectly fun, it'll be a great piece of work, perfect. Um, My point is, obviously the Scully descent is nuts, and it's near the end of his career, near the beginning of his life, but the Alito descent is much colder and much more straightforward, and I hadn't ever read it because, you know, I don't care that much about reading dissents in a case that I completely agree with, and, you know, I'm hoping it will never be changed, and it was fun to read the Scalia one, everybody was making fun of it, we all, we all a good day on Twitter with that, but, but the Alito one, it's interesting just to think about now: "Today's decision will have a fundamental effect on this court and its ability to uphold the rule of law. If a bare majority of justices can invent a new right and impose that right on the rest of the country, the only real limit on what future majorities will be able to do is their own sense of what those with political power and cultural influence are willing to tolerate."

0:42:31 Thomas: Got it.

0:43:13 Thomas: Yeah, that but unironically.

0:43:16 Matt: Yes, even enthusiastic supporters of same -sex marriage should worry about the scope of the power that today's majority claims. He's just saying it right there. Like, this is what we're doing. Now, this Is what he already wanted to do.

0:43:23 Thomas: Yeah, that is what you do. Yeah, here's

0:43:29 Matt: Yeah, that's right.

0:43:29 Thomas: The thing. That is what the whole thing is, dude. It's all made up. I want the team that like does good things to be in control though. And you want the team that does bad things to be in control, that's our difference. We don't really need to talk about this other stuff where it's like, well, if we do this, it's like, no, that is the game. That is what you do.

0:43:31 Matt: Yeah. Right. Pretty much. Yeah.

0:43:47 Thomas: I don't know. The left hasn't done that as much, unfortunately. I want them to. But yeah, no. That's the game

0:43:52 Matt: It's a perfectly cold distillation of the whole thing to just say, if we can invent a new right and impose that right, the only real limit.

0:43:58 Thomas: I love the language of invent a new right and impose a right Like, who looks at rights as something imposed on you? Like, who in the world has that as their default view? Like, if you're just like, oh, oh, civil rights, yeah, all those things that are imposed on me, yeah, I know, isn't that a telling on yourself

0:44:00 Matt: Yeah. Well, it did take a while to get that divorce after I had that forced gay marriage in Massachusetts. That was a rough year, but

0:44:15 Thomas: Yeah made me marry a dude, it was, god man, do we ever talk about that, I don't know if we ever talked about that, but back, those younger listeners, back when they made that decision, we all, I had to marry a due, like every dude, I know, how to marry dude, it was forced, you

0:44:22 Matt: Yeah, no.

0:44:33 Matt: A wonderful tweet the other day where someone was saying they were talking to a younger person who's very engaged in political stuff. And this person had only just realized that as of 2015, it was, it took until 2015 for marriage equality to be recognized. They could not believe. And it's, it's actually kind of refreshing to have somebody be surprised by that. Want to mention the other dissent from, from the other marriage equality case, Windsor, where they struck down DOMA. Again is a very chilling Alito dissent where he takes through why DOMA was fine and why the Defense of Marriage Act, to be clear what that is for everybody and why it was okay. And there's a great law review article I think I want to link to by Christopher Leslie from UC Irvine Law. And he makes the very good point that if you read this dissent just straight through the legal reasoning, what he's doing, this could have been a dissent in Loving v. Virginia, which was the case

0:44:44 Thomas: It's crazy yep yeah god

0:45:16 Matt: That struck down interracial marriage bans, right? So, I mean, he's saying that you could just easily copy and paste this entire thing, change a couple of words, and you've got a dissENT for Loving. And There was no dissENT in loving, obviously, at that point. I thought that was interesting, too. Couple other things while we're talking about some Alito highlights. We all know about Hobby Lobby, of course, the case in which wrote that employers can deny birth control to employees on religious grounds. But interesting thing about Hobby Lobby that kind of presaged Dobbs, besides the obvious, was that it turns out either he, his wife, or both leaked it. I don't know if if you remember this, but 2014, this was leaked.

0:45:16 Thomas: Yeah yeah did wait we found out it was them for sure

0:45:52 Matt: Well, we have a testimony under oath I from Reverend Robert Schenk, who has reformed, but he used to be somebody who was actually part of something called Operation Higher Court, which unfortunately was not providing the justices with cannabis. That would have been a much better use of that name. It was an operation to actually get the justices paired up with what they called missionaries, who were kind of like prominent people that would encourage them in their religious beliefs and basically confirm the things they already knew. And this man took it upon himself to come in front of Congress and tell his story. And Robert Cenk apologized to Congress for his role in doing this and working to actively recruit justices to stay the course on their religious principles and applying those in the law. And he said he knew for sure because he talked to the people that had dinner with Alito's, that

0:45:52 Thomas: Uh that's right I remember remember now yeah did

0:46:37 Matt: This was leaked to them and you know, obviously Alito denied it but

0:46:37 Thomas: I remember now yes and this was a massive revelation and nothing happened, that's right, but

0:46:43 Matt: Yeah, no, nothing happened at all, that he had just been bragging to his friends about how he was going to make sure this went in, and nothing that happened at all. And of course we all know that, at this point maybe we don't all know this, but I believe that there's really at this point no doubt, and Schenck says this on the record under oath, that he believes that Dobbs was leaked by Alito as well.

And I think that's the most likely explanation of the Dobbs leak, which of course was massive Supreme Court history. I think he had every reason to leak it, not just to make sure that he locked in the votes of Kavanaugh and Barrett, but to be sure that that's what we were talking about. Because for two months, had we some cushion basically to get ready for the idea that Roe was going to be overturned.

So instead of having the big revelation at the end of June, it was already kind of a fait accompli, right, by the time it came out, and the news had been that there'd been a leak and that was what we were talking about, I think that was pretty pretty smart. There was a very long eight-month investigation that spent a lot of money trying to find out who actually was responsible for this leak. It came up with nothing because they didn't talk to the justices, they

0:47:34 Matt: Did find that the security was very bad in the court, uh, that they really need to work on their IT, and like, they don't even keep print logs apparently in the Supreme Court, so they couldn't keep track of anything, um. Know, they didn't ask any of the justices, and it's pretty clear that, at at least according to Schenck, and I think at this point it's becoming pretty well understood, that Alito was almost certainly responsible for that himself. We don't really need to talk about Dobbs, I don't feel like. I feel like it's been in the air enough, but obviously very bad decision and very badly written and very suspect use of history and originalism, which is, I guess, what I want to talk about very quickly, is, is Samuel Alito actually an originalist? It's a question that kept coming up as I was looking at all of this, and he's not really, calls himself a practical originalist, which really just means that he's an originalist when he wants to be.

0:47:34 Thomas: That's what originalism already means, so that's even worse, yeah but

0:48:19 Matt: So the rest of them are pretending that they're real historical originalists, and they're doing it in a neutral kind of way. But he's saying, you know, I'll just use it when I need it. And his originalism, the word didn't even come up, I looked all the way through, in his confirmation hearing. It was not something that was discussed. He was not in his radar, really. Started off kind of making fun of Scalia for it.

There was a famous moment in those hearings where they're talking about video games, where he's asking Scalia, like, on the record, kind of ribbon him, asking what James Madison would think about video games. Then in the US v. Jones criminal case, interesting case because it was actually about GPS tracking and about cops attaching GPS to cars. And Scalia wrote the majority on that one, and he wrote this lengthy originalist decision about 18th century property law.

He refused to even apply any kind of Fourth Amendment principles, and he just said this is a violation of property law. And Alito actually wrote an interesting kind of concurrence that went down the line around Fourth Amendment and said, the court suggests something like this might have occurred in 1791, this being GPS being attached to cars, but this would have required either a gigantic coach, a very tiny constable, or both, not to mention a constable with incredible fortitude and patience.

So again, just kind of making fun of Scalia for his originalism in that kind of fun way. And even in his confirmation hearing, he seemed to even almost almost sound like a living constitutionalist, which almost happens when you're an originalist, it almost kind of comes around that

0:49:35 Matt: You're talking, you know, yeah almost um way that I can kind of respect, I think she's a pragmatist, which is how I consider myself as well, you get to the outcome you want, um, just I don't like his outcomes, so I guess that's the the difference. Very quickly on immigration, because I have to, but he was the only dissenter in a very important immigration case called Pereira v. Sessions, which means a lot to us in our practice.

0:49:34 Thomas: Horseshoe theory of stupid jurisprudence yeah yeah yep well wait a minute he's Italian and at a certain point, I know, Italians, you immigrants, so he should be totally cool with all of that, right, and

0:49:58 Matt: He said in his confirmation hearing that every time he looks at an immigration case, he tries to think about what his grandfather would have wanted, and that I don't, that does not match up from what I've seen.

0:50:09 Thomas: His grandfather hated brown people, so and

0:50:11 Matt: Yeah, that's pretty much it. That explains it, actually. That would pretty much be it. His confirmation hearing, there's a professor, Nora Lisnetter, I think, she identifies as fairly liberal, and she was a clerk for him at some point and liked him and said that, you should give him credit for the fact that he worked on this asylum case, the Third Circuit, where he recognized that just gender and sex can be a basis for asylum, which in 1983 was a little more radical than it is now. That's very well established, she really mention that he still denied the claim and thought she should be deported, even though she had said that she was going to be jailed or tortured and around for wearing a hijab.

0:50:42 Thomas: Trump administration got rid of all that, that right, or is that a different thing right

0:50:45 Matt: It for domestic violence. Yeah, they tried to. And they did it for a few years. But for Pereira, that was something that involved notice and when notice is appropriate for immigration court. Very important case in my world. We got a lot of cases dismissed and a lot of good work done because of this case. He was the only dissenter, and he said that somehow that entire majority got it wrong under Chevron, which as you know, Chevron is about administrative law and about when things are ambiguous about how much the courts can interpret and how much they have to defer to the agencies. Don't understand his dissent at all because this is, again, this is my field, this my area, and this is the statute. This is not a Chevron issue because it's directly in the statute that it's not a notice to appear unless it has the time and date of the hearing. And he's like, yeah, well, time and day, whatever, whatever, they can fill that in later, it's fine.

0:51:27 Thomas: Well his grandfather didn't understand Chevron deference, so yeah

0:51:30 Matt: That's true. Uh, there's also a 2020 case involving a Sri Lankan asylum seeker whose name I'm going to butcher, unfortunately, but, uh, Asagam. Found that this is a little concerning to me, uh. Because it could come back around in any kind of number of ways. But he found no violation of the suspension clause for habeas corpus when they were denying habeas to this man who was detained at the border, when he'd failed his credible fear interview when he was seeking asylum.

It sounded like he had a pretty valid asylum claim from Sri Lanka. Basically that because he's not in criminal custody and just doesn't really fall under anything the Constitution recognizes, he can just be held. So that was a concerning opinion back in 2020. So, pretty you much what you'd expect, you and down. The Janus case, obviously, a huge blow to unions, if you remember that one, finding that government employees were part of unions, don't have to pay dues.

Of course, Ledbetter, early on in his career, 2007, where he wrote in the majority finding that this woman, Lily Ledbetther, who'd been very clearly suffered from pay discrimination while working at Goodyear, broke from prior precedent multiple ways, basically found that Title VII, which is obviously supposed to be protecting the civil rights of people based on any number of grounds, that it actually protected employers more than it protected employees. So it's more important that they protect Goodyer in this situation, even though they'd obviously discriminated against her, paid her differently. That her claim was too late and denied her. And Congress actually, at that point, was so annoyed with that decision, they passed the Lily Ledbetter Act to actually

0:52:11 Thomas: I

0:52:47 Matt: Overrule his decision.

0:52:48 Thomas: Was wondering if it was yeah same

0:52:49 Matt: Yep, same person, same bill. Of course, he was in the majority in Citizens United. That goes without saying, I think. McDonald, which is the case that formally applied Heller, the Second Amendment gun case. Scalia's, I Think, really, to me, Heller is, it's hard to compete between But two of the worst originalist decisions. I think Heller might be the worst of the originalist decisions. It's just a nightmare. Alito, of taking course, the second string he was doing to Scalia at that times, extends the majority opinion from Heller to the states without getting in all that originalist stuff. And that's when actually in 2010, that's, when there actually was an individualized right to own a firearm. I always like to ask people who was president when and nobody ever gets it right. It was Barack Obama.

0:52:49 Thomas: Yeah yeah yep

0:53:30 Matt: Yeah, that's a review of some of his high and lowlights, mostly lowlights. Otherwise, we've got any number of public appearances, especially recently, where he is just getting whinier and whinyer. Was caught last year right after the Clarence Thomas thing, having had his own thing with a billionaire, Singer, who had taken him to a fishing retreat. And there was a very famous explanation at that point about how it was very important and that he'd take that vacant seat because it wasn't getting used on the plane, on the private jet. And the really astonishing thing about that, because at this point, this was a couple months after the Clarence Thomas thing, I think we're all getting used to the idea that right-wing billionaires are paying a lot of money for our Supreme Court justices to go have some fun. But he got so mad when he got called by ProPublica because they're about to run this story that he ran to the Wall Street Journal. Remember this?

0:53:39 Thomas: Yeah right yeah I do and he did like a preemptive like to it on it unreal

0:54:12 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Unheard of. Unheard of. Like, I mean, It's just, you of just giving them a quote or doing whatever he's going to do, and the Wall Street Journal shouldn't have let him publish that either. I mean it's just irresponsible. But yeah, maintained throughout the last 10, 15 years that the court just cannot be controlled, that it can't be regulated, that there's nothing we can do about any of this.

Made some very confusing statements that actually we were just talking to Steve Mladak about this a couple weeks ago about how obviously Congress does have constitutional control over the courts in a number of ways and he's denying that, just saying it's not true. Later that year he gave an opinion piece to the Wall Street Journal. He basically created the whole thing by doing four hours of interviews, and it was written by a lawyer who was going to end up appearing before him in the next term.

He knew that, unethical to have an opinion peace, very favorable opinion piece written by lawyers going to be appearing in front of you. Uh, you know, spilled the tea about all kinds of other justices and all kinds of other things that were happening. And, you know, this is how he's been. He's just been much more vocal, outspoken. Know, um, from telling the Federalist Society that we're living in, you know, one of the worst and most restrictive times in history.

Um, even just, uh, last week, May 11th, he was speaking at, uh, University of Steubenville, I think, telling them about how we're in this time of crisis with First Amendment rights and religious freedoms, and, you, you know, he's just been out there doing his thing. This breaks and nobody seems to be able to stop him.

0:54:17 Thomas: Yeah I want to say, Matt, who would have thought, again, this one little upside-down flag have uncovered all this that we definitely knew about this entire time? I've seen so many articles and headlines about, well, even the appearance of bias, blah, blah. And I'm just like, I get the strong sense that the media and the talking heads would be fine if this flag just hadn't gone up. And it's like, that doesn't mean anything to me. Like, I cannot express, I can't find the words for how meaningless that is to me because that's nothing. That just means he wouldn't have a flag up, but he'd still be doing all the exact same things. It doesn't mean anything.

0:55:53 Matt: Yeah.

0:56:09 Matt: We all heard him a few weeks ago when he said pretty directly in oral argument that democracy requires that we don't prosecute presidents. Right. That we have to, you know, he's clearly in favor of him. And this is I mean, it is I know what you're saying about the flag thing. I think it is significant, especially because at the time they were taking up an election challenge. But he's got two election related cases in front of him right now. The immunity case and then the January 6th thing. I know what you're saying. And I agree with that.

0:56:17 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:56:32 Thomas: No, no. It's one of those things where I do like I get it like I will. I'm happy to. Yeah. OK, let's all pile on this thing because it seems to have energy behind it. Like, sure. This is one of Those things where in the same way that I think a lot of people needed to hear Trump like, you know, use a slur or something to believe he was racist. I think that that we do have this thing as a nation where apparently a vast majority of us can't comprehend that, like, bigotry, even if you say like in that hearing that you're not a bigot, you you still can be some that's just to some people.

It's like that doesn't make sense. They can't understand that. And so, yeah, sure. The flag. Wow. Crazy. This is a step too far. Let's get rid of them. Like, I do like that there's a ton of energy behind this. And don't know what it's going to do. Have you seen any? He, again, it's the same old bullshit where you would need 66 67, I guess it is, senators to agree to impeach, to convict, I gas. You need a house to impeache him and them to convict him. And it's not going to happen. So guess what? He can do whatever he wants. He can shoot someone on First Avenue.

0:56:34 Matt: But yeah, never much right in front of the court there. That's and don'T even need a new rule. There's already an ethics rule about political displays, which is what this was. Is. Will say, I mean, I completely understand what you're saying. I'm with you. But this is shocking still, even on top of that. I mean it's, we'd just been saying in the last episode that he's a Fox News guy, but this is stuff that even Fox News at this point, yeah, Yeah. This is like a way in, and it's pretty far out there. Know, if they were actually sort of even entertaining these ideas 10 days after January 6th, that is deeply concerning. That's why I wanted to be sure to talk about them as much as we could today. Yeah.

0:57:47 Thomas: Yeah, that's fair. Now, fair point. Yeah. It's like QAnon. Yeah that's We should still be shocked by it. Yeah, you're right. Is I crazy. I this will do something. It just sucks. I think it's worth having the fight. And I think it's making the we need to make and try to do what we can, even though it's a losing battle every time. I Think it is important that we don't pre -give up. I think that's something we learned during Trump. Lot of things where it's like, well, it's not not going to work. So let's just not do it and let him do whatever he wants without any resistance. It's like, no, that actually just makes everything worse. So, you know, by all means, let's let's put up a fight on this and see if we can move the needle at all.

0:58:16 Matt: Sure. Yeah.

0:58:41 Clip: You graduated from law school six years ago. What have you been doing since? Studying. For the bar.

0:58:46 Thomas: Now it's time for T3B Thomas Takes the Bar Exam. This is question 24. Excited to hear the answer to this one. We've got some killer fish.

0:58:55 Matt: Do some very, very aggressive fish on a fish farm. Um, we're talking about a group of divers that enter Jack's property without permission and are attacked by the aggressive fish that he's keeping on his farm, and they get some injuries. So they're suing under strict liability for these injuries, and the question is how the court would likely rule. And your options are, A, in favor of Jack because the divers were trespassing, B, in flavor of divers because Jack is strictly liable for injuries caused by his dangerous animals, regardless of divers trespassing, in favorite of Jack, if he can prove that he posted adequate warning signs about the aggressivefish, and D, in favored of the divers, but only if they can prove that Jack was negligent in securing the area where the aggressive fish were kept.

0:59:33 Thomas: Yes, we get to hear finally why strict, liability isn't strict li - I can't wait, I just have this feeling.

0:59:41 Matt: You went with B about strict liability because we are assuming under strict liability. So let's talk about how strict liability works with animals and with abnormally dangerous activity. So I think we'd both agree that these are dangerous animals known to be aggressive, and it is legally considered to be an abnormally dangerous activity to keep a dangerous animal on your Property. So if you know, you know, we're not talking about, uh, you know, guinea pigs here. We've got, let's just say, piranhas. I've been trying to imagine what these fish Are. I don't know why You're keeping piranhos in your fish farm, but that is up to you. It's your lake, so

1:00:02 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah, yeah. I can't remember if it's a deleted scene or the real scene from Austin Powers 2, but he wants the sharks with laser beams on their heads. And then number two is like, get that. But he's like, what do we have? Sea bass. Are they ill-tempered? Very. Well, that's a start. It, yeah.

1:00:30 Matt: Propensity. That's an important part of this, actually, is they have known propensity for ill temper. Um, the issues with strict liability around animals come down to, uh, you know, if you've got an animal that you already know is dangerous, and you, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, you are strictly liable most of the time.

1:00:50 Matt: So there are exceptions to that strict liability, unlike other kinds of strict liability.

1:00:54 Thomas: One Of them Is When Thomas is trying to answer your bar question. That's like the main exception to it, weird. That's Written Into the law. Yeah.

1:01:00 Matt: That's right. Strict liability is motivating you. Yeah. But let's talk about it, because you were vacillating between B and C. You ended up with B being that he is strictly liable no matter what, regardless of trespassing. C being if he can prove that he posted adequate warning signs, presumably some sort of beware of fish sign.

1:01:17 Matt: And I'm going to tell you up front, I hadn't actually pictured that sign until just now. That's a pretty funny sign.

1:01:19 Thomas: No. That's Awesome. No. Yeah.

1:01:26 Matt: And nobody would take that seriously anyway. Like who would be like, you

1:01:29 Thomas: That'd Be hard. That would be, you, you obviously think that was a joke. There's no way. Yeah.

1:01:34 Matt: Have to put like actual photos of piranhas and be like no seriously these are, these

1:01:37 Thomas: And Then Your Sign pointing to that sign saying, no, really, this is a real sign. I'd be like, god, that's a great bit too, that's awesome. These Are great bits. Fish And bites All over me, your honor. I, there's no way you could think that was serious. Like, come on, it's so funny. Huh.

1:01:44 Matt: Here's a picture Yeah. I will tell you that it doesn't matter if you post warning signs. Beware of dog actually doesn't necessarily keep you from liability for your dog. If your dog is already known to be dangerous, and of course pit bulls get a lot of hate for this, but we do have every so often, once a dog has gotten that bite, they've gotten their free bite, they're known to be dangerous. So sign won't necessarily protect you from liability. D was if he's negligent securing the area. So we're turning the liability back on Jack and saying that maybe there was a hole in his fence for the piranha farm.

I'm going to tell you that actually doesn't matter either. Your negligence, you can be keeping it just fine. So for example, if this is a venomous snake in a zoo and the snake gets out, no matter all the precautions you've taken, you are still keeping an abnormally dangerous animal known to being be dangerous. And if it gets out and bites somebody, you're responsible for that. So you were thinking in the right direction about strict liability, but there is an important factor here distinguishes this case. That is the fact that divers were trespassing. So that does rule out B, unfortunately. And A was the answer because their strict liability

1:02:31 Thomas: The Simple Answer

1:02:50 Matt: Doesn't apply if they're trespassing now you're correct about other things, right? If there's some other under other circumstances, but when we're talking about dangerous animals in particular, this kind of strict liability that they're suing under, and it's clear what they're getting at here as they're talking about strict liability that applies to animals, then that's it. They're trespassing, so Jack wins this one.

1:02:50 Thomas: Yeah Was a rare double fail. Too bad. So I didn't even get my second chance.

1:03:11 Matt: Was that strict liability that spooked you, I think, after that last one.

1:03:13 Thomas: Because last time it was very clear that because of strict liability, they were strictly liable. So what does it mean to sue under strict liability? Does it means to sue under something? I don't even understand what that phrase means then.

1:03:16 Matt: Mm -hmm.

1:03:28 Matt: Bringing your complaint, you have to say what law you're applying here and why you're doing it. So that's their best option under this case. They thought it was, but of course they're a trespasser, so it doesn't matter. Couldn't really think of another kind of tort that might apply here because, you know, law and the stuff is pretty clear. It's not really that negotiable. Will say I did have a case a while back where I was defending an animal owner and were actually being charged with a criminal offense for this is pretty creative. But the prosecution was trying to charge them with animal abuse because they let the dog off the leash and it went and actually, unfortunately, killed another dog. It was really sad.

1:03:57 Thomas: Oh, wow.

1:03:59 Matt: And, you Know, I'm an animal lover and it's not like I want to defend this kind of conduct. The dog was off the leash, but at the same time, it should not be a crime. And it certainly shouldn't be a criminal animal abuse. That's not, it's not what it falls under at all. And, you know, the magistrate dismissed the claim and said, this really has to be a civil claim, which is what it is. And you, especially, I don't remember, but hypothetically, let's say, I'm not talking about that case, but hypothetical, if that was known to be dangerous dog and you let it off the lease, you're absolutely responsible. There's no question.

1:04:22 Thomas: Yeah.

1:04:22 Matt: So, um, that's, it's not necessarily a crime to keep aggressive fish and allow them to bite somebody. So.

1:04:26 Thomas: What I remembering? I swear there's like Like, if you're trespassing, that doesn't necessarily get the owner, the property owner, out of all trouble, does it?

1:04:34 Matt: Right. Well, if you're doing something like the um the infamous shotgun trap, you might remember that one where they're uh there was like a shotgun that was rigged to go off as soon as you open the door and you know the court was like you can protect yourself but come on, like you can't have an automated thing that's going to blow somebody's leg off, like you have to you have do a little better than that, um and yeah Well

1:04:39 Thomas: Yeah. Jeez. And so, so what is, Yeah, how would that apply here? What also spooked me about A was, in favor of Jack, because the divers were trespassing on his property. Is there any set of facts about how these fish were kept or anything that could have made Jack at fault? Or just because I took a to be, well, you trespass, then if something meets you, who cares? There's nothing you can do. But I mean, I know that's not the law, is it? That? Is it just because it is animals and not shotguns? Like, my pet shotguns, I'm keeping them here. And that's a different thing than if it's animals. Is that what it is?

1:05:27 Matt: So If you're doing something that's just willfully harmful, like is just supposed to hurt people and has no other purpose, or if there's, my understanding, and this is really variable by jurisdiction, so I don't want to make really broad statements about this, but there are some circumstances where you can be liable to a trespasser if it's just, if you have, I don't know, like there's an old hunting trap on your property or something that has been left out, that something is just obviously completely broken that somebody steps into. To. I mean, there's possibilities here, but I know what you're thinking of, but it's not quite that clear.

1:05:55 Thomas: Hmm. Big fail for me, um, that's a double fail too, bad. All right, but we've got to see, I'm sure we had plenty of much smarter, better patrons and uh listeners who took this test, so we got some winners.

1:06:10 Matt: Do. Actually, there weren't that many, though. Most people were also misled by this question, so you can feel better about that. But we do have a good one from Patreon. Let was this answer correct, but but it was absolutely loaded to the gills with puns. So, sorry. I didn't even plan to say that. I can't. I have a disease, Thomas. I need help. There's something wrong with me.

1:06:25 Thomas: Uh Nice No That's Good, I Like it Wait For this specific bit, it's good, otherwise the puns I don't like them, but

1:06:35 Matt: I'm with you. They just keep coming, and I can't do anything about it, but it could be worse. Is from I Am a Philosophical Hole. I

1:06:39 Thomas: Yeah I am a philosophical hole who was, uh, you know, thanked as a one of the new patrons from last week, even though again I'm catching up on those, but uh yeah, there's something fishy about whoever, whomever is representing the divers, either he's clowning around, being coy with stupid, being coy avec his clients about their chances of winning, or Or Salmon needs to check if he went to an official law school. The answer is A, in favor of Jack, because the divers were trespassing on his property. Whilst Jack may be liable for negligence if he didn't post adequate warning signs, or the divers could prove Jack didn't secure the fish, this is a separate tort. The question asks about whether the divers can sue under strict liability.

Strict liability is where intentions or fault of the party causing the injury do not get considered, but injuries caused during the act of the plaintiff's trespassing are an exception to the strict liability doctrine, so strict liability cannot apply here. Wow, thank you for that explanation, because that's a fantastic answer. I'm going to need you to scale back the fish puns a little bit, because that's too many. All right, sorry, by editing that out, uh

1:07:06 Matt: Yes. I wanted to make you read it.

1:07:57 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

1:07:59 Thomas: It's time to thank our new patrons, and as I noted, this is going to be a catch-up for a while, because, uh, you were fuzzy and now they're not, and now I want to catch up on everybody who joined since the stuff. Now, this, I don't think this is gonna necessarily be returning patrons, because that patron, um, since date, if you're returning patrons, still I think uses your original date, uh, but new patrons nonetheless. And tell you what, Matt, why don't you read some names and

1:08:23 Matt: I'd love to. All right. We've got Logomancer, Corey Thompson, Kevin Wojcik, Katie Malou, Golden Sun, Can You See, Chaney, Alexander, Craig Couillard, Baldwin, Lacey J., and Professional Grade In -Car Audio Guide.

1:08:39 Thomas: Liam, Child Marzipan, wait, didn't you, oh, there's Marzipans, Googleplex, and now there's Marsupan, wow, okay, Baba Corva, Nick and Pines MD, Nova Alex Gent, Vincent Dripping Through Space, Colin Barnes, Joey Johnson, Emrys M, Reverend Bill, Robert Page. Some people have funny names. I don't. Well, actually, that was the funniest one of this group. So there you go. And Kenneth Anderson, thank you so much. New patrons circa, I don't know, February or something. We'll catch up. It won't take too long.

You so much for supporting the show on patreon.com/law. You get rid of the ads. You get the goodies. We have a lot of movies coming at you very soon, for realsies. I can't wait to get that to you. So all good reasons to join. Thank your new patrons. And that's it for the the show. What a, what a deep dive, Matt. Thanks for doing all that research. Uh, the definitive Samuel Alito sucks. Although afraid that we can't call it the definitive Samuel Alito sucks because any like sampling of him would also be the definitive Samuel Alito. Like it just, there's didn't have to filter much. Like, it's just like he sucks. And then you grabbed a bunch of examples. You know what I mean?

1:09:32 Matt: Have a few days to recover, at least

1:09:48 Thomas: It's not like detective work is all I'm saying. No, no, no. Not to disparage your, your effort by any means.

1:09:48 Matt: Oh Yeah No This No, it could be a ten-parter, there's a lot to talk about, just

1:09:55 Thomas: Batting average. Unreal. All right. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. We'll see you very soon. Check out Gavel Gavel. And, you if you want to hear us sooner, that's where we will be. See you then.

1:10:05 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.