VR49 - Live midterms watch party! Thomas, Matt, and Jenessa parked in front of three screens on election night and just let the good vibes happen. We've got Mike Johnson saying something out loud on camera that he absolutely should not have said days before results came in. We've got Idaho forcing its voters to pick one official state gun (you can't have them all, Idaho). And we've got Ken Paxton's unhinged AI attack ad against James Talarico, possibly the worst political ad ever produced. Plus a genuinely enormous amount of good news that none of us were quite emotionally prepared for.

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OA1310 - We all know by now that election fraud is rare, but do you know why? What mechanisms are in place that make us so sure it's rare, and not just rarely reported? Jenessa walks us through election security protocols, what happens to your ballot at every step in the process, and what election security experts are actually worried about.

Cases and sources discussed:

• Brennan Center Election Cybersecurity Summit
• Voting Rights Lab election risk heat map
• We recorded this before charges were filed against James O’Keefe because he decided to prove me right by getting caught attempting voter fraud

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OA1309 - With Matt out sick, we're doing a GG crossover, with a hot off the presses new story suitable for Rapid Response Friday. Back in August, James O'Keefe's rebranded operation, now calling itself the Citizen Justice League, sent people dressed in racist Muslim garb into Minneapolis polling places to test Minnesota's voter "vouching" law. Does the full footage actually show what the viral clips claim, or do the poll workers do exactly what they're supposed to? And what happens when the "random" names O'Keefe and Cameron Higby used to vouch for strangers turn out to belong to real, very surprised Minnesota voters? Thomas and Lydia go through the new documents and the county attorney's press conference, line by line.

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WE WATCHED A MOVIE SO CHRISTIAN WE HAD TO DOSE IT OUT IN TWO SITTINGS.

Thomas and Matt are joined by Lydia for Alleged, a 2010 Christian retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial that somehow decides the real villains were the evolutionists. We've got Nebraska Man resurrected as a gotcha, H.L. Mencken slandered into oblivion, and a wildly invented eugenics subplot that never happened in Tennessee. Matt actually read the real trial history, so we get to find out just how much of this is "alleged" fact and how much is pure fan fiction built to make William Jennings Bryan the hero.

• Alleged (2010), dir. Fenton Bailey (fictionalized Scopes Monkey Trial drama)

Cases discussed:

• State v. John Thomas Scopes (Scopes Monkey Trial, Rhea County, TN, 1925)
• Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)

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OA1308 - The election is coming up fast, with early voting already underway in many states. With an administration that is, let's say "do we really need elections?" curious, how did we get here? Elections are running more or less as expected so far, because heroes are fighting for your right to vote across the country. Check out some pivotal lawsuits you probably missed in all the chaos.

Cases and sources discussed:

• A comprehensive list of on-going election lawsuits hosted by Democracy Docket
• Unfortunately, right after we recorded, SCOTUS ruled to take that mixed result in New Hampshire and turn it into a big L

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OA1307 - Matt's got an update on the Ilhan Omar search warrant saga. We get into the genuinely bizarre citizenship limbo they're trying to put her in. In other news, FEMA told Congress this week that it just doesn't want to do its job anymore. And we close out with a 1962 oldies song that somehow broke the Supreme Court.

Cases discussed:

• Vetter v. Resnik
• Maslenjak v. United States (2017)
• Baker v. Coates

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VR48 - Today on Vapid Response Wednesday: the extremely believable backstory of some guy named Tommy who got publicly owned by Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and the single worst take on the Cornell 7 case from within the Ivy League.

Finally, we take our minds far, far away from Cornell to enjoy a galactically bad 1983 take on the most beloved film series in world history from one of America's crankiest critics.

Cases and sources discussed:

• Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul Al-Syed answers a question posed by Tommy Teeple at a town hall in Caro, Michigan (Oct. 17, 2026)
• “The Cornell 7 Is Really About Liberalism,” The Sundial (Oct 13, 2026)
• Condemnation of The Sundial’s publication of “The Cornell 7 Is Really About Liberalism” from the editorial board of the Columbia Political Review,
• “Now It’s Really About Liberalism,” The Sundial, Shoshana Aufzien (10/18/2026)
• “Star Wars Nightline Discussion,” ABC News (1983)

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OA1306 - We're on a winning streak! ...because we picked the winners. This week we cover two cases where the little guy comes out on top against the big corporation, and learn some key torts concepts along the way. Maybe your neighborhood billboard personal injury attorney isn't such a bad guy after all.

Sources:

• Election Protection Hotline
• Brennan Center statement/information on ICE at the polls
• The SALUTE reporting method
• Civil litigation statistics
• Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories
• Mobil v Ellender

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OA1305 - Matt's under the weather, so no normal Friday show this week. But don't panic, because we've got a treat instead: a crossover from Gavel Gavel where criminal defense attorney Liz Skeen joins Thomas to talk about the Cornell case, and she is PISSED. Liz has real, on-the-ground New York experience with how the system treats people who aren't privileged kids from an Ivy League school, and it shows. If you want the backstory first, Thomas and Lydia already went through the complaint in the previous two Gavel Gavel episodes.

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VR47 - Federal agents raided Ilhan Omar's house this week, possibly over a decades-old conspiracy theory. Matt Explains what the media are getting wrong about the incident. Along the way we hear from Russian foreign correspondent Benny Johnson and his "deep research."

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OA1304 - Qualified immunity does not strike again! In a case out of the 10th circuit, with the same plaintiff from last week's Rosales v. Lewis/Terrell, the court once again refuses qualified immunity to an officer who was wildly out of line. Learn about immunity for municipalities and standing rules, the multi-factor tests for excessive use of force against an armed civilian, and a unique alternative perspective on how qualified immunity should work from the concurrence.

Cases and sources discussed:

• Check the deadlines and criteria to request a mail-in ballot.
• Check the dates and times of early voting.
• Rosales v. Bradshaw, (10th Cir. 2023)
• Governmental immunity by state

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