Justice Samuel Alito’s wife didn’t attend the January 6th 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally (unlike fellow SCOTUS spouse Ginni Thomas), but in January 2021, in a leafy Alexandria, Virginia cul-de-sac, the New York Times reports that the Alito household was engaged in a MAGA-infused front yard spat with the neighbors, even as the Justice was deciding cases regarding that very election at the highest court in the land. Justice Alito told the New York Times his wife was responsible for the upside down stars and stripes flying from their flagpole and that it was in retaliation for an an anti-Trump sign.   

It’s unseemly. Undoubtedly unethical. But this intra-suburban squabble, and the very clear implications it has for a public already aware of the Supreme Court’s dwindling legitimacy, is unlikely to evoke shame, amends, or recusal from Justice Alito. On this week’s Amicus, American legal exceptionalism sliced three ways: Dahlia Lithwick on the Justice and the Flag, Slate’s jurisprudence editor Jeremy Stahl on how Donald J. Trump’s criminal hush money trial ends, and Congressman Jamie Raskin on concrete steps to supreme court reform, how to get back the rights the Supreme Court has taken away, and what a binding ethics code would look like. 

Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

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In the second part of our series on Amicus and at Slate.com, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern are back on the originalism beat. This week they’re trying to understand the mechanisms of what Professor Saul Cornell calls “the originalism industrial complex” and how those mechanisms plug into the highest court in the land. They’re also asking how and why liberals failed to find an effective answer to originalism, even as the various “originalist” ways of deciding who’s history counts, what constitutional law counts, which people count, were supercharged by Trump’s SCOTUS picks. Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap, highlights how the Supreme Court turned to originalism to gut voting rights. In 2022, the US Supreme Court’s originalism binge ran roughshod over precedent and unleashed Dobbs and Bruen on the American people - Mark and Dahlia talk to a state Supreme Court justice about what it’s like trying to apply the law amid these constitutional earthquakes. 

In today’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Dahlia talks to AJ Jacobs about his year of living constitutionally, and she confesses to an attempt to smuggle contraband into One, First Street. 

Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. 

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This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss Stormy Daniels’s testimony in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial; marijuana rescheduling; and the media’s role and responsibility in defending democracy.

Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:

Josh Gerstein for Politico: Stormy spoke. Trump fumed. Jurors were captivated – but also cringed.

Ivana Saric for Axios: Status of Trump’s criminal cases

Li Zhou for Vox: Marijuana could be classified as a lower-risk drug. Here’s what that means.

Sam Tabachnik for The Denver Post: Black market marijuana grows are popping up faster than law enforcement can take them down. But is legalization the cause?

John Ingold for The Colorado Sun: What have we learned about the arguments for and against legalized marijuana in the past 10 years?

Nathaniel Meyersohn for CNN: The dark side of the sports betting boom

C-SPAN: President Biden Remarks at White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Ben Smith for Semafor: Joe Kahn: ‘The newsroom is not a safe space’

Dan Pfeiffer for Message Box: Why Biden Won’t Do a New York Times Interview and A Response to the Editor of the New York Times

Matthew Yglesias and Brian Beutler for the Politix Podcast: The Times, They Aren’t A Changin’

Charles Homans for The New York Times Magazine: Donald Trump Has Never Sounded Like This

Eli Stokols for Politico: The Petty Feud Between the NYT and the White House

Here are this week’s chatters: 

Emily: Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice by David S. Tatel 

John: Gina Kolata for The New York Times: Locks of Beethoven’s Hair Offer New Clues to the Mystery of His Deafness

David: Randy Yohe for West Virginia Public Broadcasting: W.Va. Gubernatorial Campaign Attack Ads Vilify Transgender Children and Kyndall Cunningham for Vox: The Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar feud, explained

Listener chatter from Justin and Katie in Columbus, Ohio: Keziah Weir for Vanity Fair: The Vatican’s Secret Role in the Science of IVF.   

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, David, John, and Emily talk with Emily Lawler, Detroit Free Press. See Emily Lawler for the Detroit Free Press: Voters’ voices in Saginaw County; John Wisely: Legal troubles don’t dampen Trump enthusiasm as he visits Michigan; and Paul Egan: As Trump visits, Michigan bellwether Saginaw County is feeling its political juice. See also Arpan Lobo: Michigan lawmaker says ‘illegal invaders’ landed at DTW. They were NCAA basketball teams.

In the latest Gabfest Reads, John talks with David E. Sanger about his new book, New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West.

Email your chatters, questions, and comments to [email protected]. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Cheyna Roth

Research by Julie Huygen

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Spare a thought for the judge in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial. Justice Juan Merchan has gone from holding the former president in contempt of court… to telling Trump’s defense they probably should have objected more during Stormy Daniels’ testimony. 

Guest: Jeremy Stahl, Slate’s jurisprudence editor.

Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

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On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: prosecuting parents.

Ethan Crumbley’s parents didn’t pull the trigger that killed 4 students in 2021 — but they’ve been sentenced to prison time for it all the same. 

School shootings are devastatingly common in this country, but punishing the parents of the killer is a new tactic of handling the aftermath. Even if you think the Crumbleys were bad parents, though, the questions should be posed: why are we punishing them under the law? And is this the best way to address, or even prevent, mass tragedies?

Professor, writer, and legal contributor for ABC News Kim Wehle joins us to urge for a look at the bigger picture.

If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: [email protected]

Podcast production by Maura Currie.

Want more Hear Me Out? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/hearmeoutplus to get access wherever you listen.

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This week: A new DEA designation for cannabis means high times for pot smokers, but what about the industry? Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers discuss the future of the cannabis business, Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s lax, four-month prison sentence, and why Americans keep buying more cheap junk (but spend fortunes on ravioli). In the Plus segment: Elon Musk fired Tesla’s Supercharger network team: a bold move, or just a dumb one?

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and an additional segment of our regular show every week. You’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Slate Money. Sign up now at slate.com/moneyplus to help support our work.

Podcast production by Jared Downing and Cheyna Roth.

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In this, the first part of a special series on Amicus and at Slate.com, we are lifting the lid on an old-timey sounding method of constitutional interpretation that has unleashed a revolution in our courts, and an assault on our rights. But originalism’s origins are much more recent than you suppose, and its effects much more widespread than the constitutional earthquakes of overturning settled precedent like Roe v Wade or supercharging gun rights as in Heller and Bruen. Originalism’s aftershocks are being felt throughout the courts, the law, politics and our lives, and we haven’t talked about it enough. On this week’s show, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern explore the history of originalism. They talk to Professor Jack Balkin about its religious valence, and Saul Cornell about originalism’s first major constitutional triumph in Heller. And they’ll tell you how originalism’s first big public outing fell flat, thanks in part to Senator Ted Kennedy’s ability to envision the future, as well as the past.

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Get your tickets for Amicus Live in Washington DC here. 

This past week (that lasted about a year) at the Supreme Court began badly and only went downhill from there. By Wednesday, justices were trying to set aside the facts of women being airlifted out of states where they can no longer access care to protect their major organs and reproductive future, if that emergency healthcare indicates an abortion - in favor of pondering the spending clause. On Thursday, the shocking reality of the violent storming of the Capitol on January 6th 2021, and former President Trump’s many schemes to overturn the election and stay in power, were relegated to lower-case concerns as opposed to ALL CAPS panic over hypothetical aggressive prosecutors. 

On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by leading constitutional scholar and former assistant Professor Pam Karlan of Stanford Law School and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. Slate’s senior legal writer Mark Joseph Stern also joins the conversation about the MAGA justices flying the flag in arguments in Trump v United States.

In today’s bonus episode only for Slate Plus members, Jeremy Stahl gives Dahlia Lithwick a view from inside the courtroom of Donald Trump’s hush money trial. 

Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

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True crime is a hot topic for movies, television, and –yes– podcasts. At the center of many of these stories is a missing woman. In the She Has A Name podcast, veteran journalist Tonya Mosley tries to reconstruct the death –and life– of a woman who went missing in 1987, a woman who happens to be her long lost sister. On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by Tonya Mosley to talk about uncovering the mystery around her sister Anita’s disappearance and death, and how the podcast helped her connect to a family that she never knew. 

Guest: Tonya Mosley, host of the podcast She Has A Name

Podcast production by Ahyiana Angel

Want more A Word? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/awordplus to get access wherever you listen.

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This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the testimony of prosecution witness David Pecker in Donald Trump’s criminal trial, student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, and the Supreme Court argument on presidential immunity. 

Here are some notes and references from this week’s show: 

Matthew Haag for The New York Times: David Pecker, Ex-National Enquirer Publisher, Details How He Aided Trump

Richard L. Hasen in the Los Angeles Times: Opinion: Why it’s hard to muster even a ‘meh’ over Trump’s New York criminal trial

J. David Goodman, David Montgomery, Jonathan Wolfe, and Jenna Russell for The New York Times: Campus Protests Over Gaza Intensify Amid Pushback by Universities and Police

Spectator Editorial Board for the Columbia Spectator: Is Columbia in crisis?

Minouche Shafik in The Wall Street Journal: Columbia University President: What I Plan to Tell Congress Tomorrow

David Schizer in CNN: Opinion: To combat antisemitism, start by following the law

Michael C. Dorf for Verdict: Federal Antidiscrimination Law Does Not Require Campus Crackdowns

J Oliver Conroy for The Guardian: ‘Media firestorm’: Israel protest at professor’s home sparks heated free-speech debate

C-SPAN: Supreme Court Hears Case on Former President Trump’s Immunity Claim

Ann Marimow for The Washington Post: Supreme Court seems poised to allow Trump trial, but not immediately

Ian Millhiser for Vox: Donald Trump already won the only Supreme Court fight that mattered

Here are this week’s chatters:

John: Stephen Clark for Ars Technica: Recoding Voyager 1—NASA’s interstellar explorer is finally making sense again

Emily: Abbie VanSickle for The Washington Post: Supreme Court Appeals Sharply Divided in Emergency Abortion Case and Angela Palermo for The Spokesman-Review: Idaho has lost 22% of its practicing obstetricians in the last 15 months, report say

David: Exploring a Secret Fort on airbnb; City Cast: Work with us.; and Eve O. Schaub for The Washington Post: Don’t waste your time recycling plastic

Listener chatter from Michael Starr in New York City: Patrick Page in All The Devils Are Here; Richard the Third by Paul Murray Kendall; and Nancy Shute for NPR: No Hunch Here: Richard III Suffered From Scoliosis Instead

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, David, John, and Emily talk about a question before the Supreme Court: can a city regulate homelessness? See Amy Howe for SCOTUSblog: Court divided over constitutionality of criminal penalties for homelessness; Esteban L. Hernandez and Meira Gebel for Axios: Supreme Court weighs case that could affect Denver’s approach to homelessness and Alayna Alvarez: Denver’s urban camping ban brings 10 years of turmoil; and Eli Saslow and Todd Heisler for The New York Times: A Sandwich Shop, a Tent City and an American Crisis. 

In the latest Gabfest Reads, John talks with David E. Sanger about his new book, New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West.

Email your chatters, questions, and comments to [email protected]. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Cheyna Roth

Research by Julie Huygen

Hosts

Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz

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Who is Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s attorney in the hush-money trial, and how did he end up representing the former president? 

Guest: Andrew Rice, features writer for New York Magazine. He’s also the author of The Year That Broke America.

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