Podcasts about fifth circuit

Judge Lopez's Serta ruling lands after Del Monte and American Tire, putting pro rata sharing, sacred rights and LME damages back in the spotlight.Ropes & Gray's Rachel Strickland and Eliza Hollander join 9fin Head of LMEs Jane Komsky to parse what these three cases mean for the future of in-court and out-of-court restructurings.The trio compares Judge Lopez, Judge Kaplan and Judge Goldblatt's approaches to similar pro rata sharing language in very different settings: Serta outside bankruptcy, and Del Monte and American Tire inside Chapter 11, both with DIP fights.Strickland and Hollander examine whether roll-ups, cashless exchanges and DIP subordination should be treated as payments or reductions under legacy credit agreements, and why Fifth Circuit open-market purchase analysis continues to shape the debate. They also dig into ratable-offer mechanics, Serta-style uptiers, excluded lender remedies, par participation damages and the tension between textual contract interpretation and bankruptcy court equity.They also explore whether LME fatigue, litigation costs and the 2027-2028 maturity wall will push market participants towards ratable structures or efficient Chapter 11s.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

This Day in Legal History: The Housing Act of 1949On July 15, 1949, President Harry Truman signed the Housing Act of 1949, a centerpiece of his “Fair Deal” and one of the most ambitious housing laws in American history. Its stated goal was breathtaking in scope: “a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family.” To get there, the Act poured federal money into public housing construction, expanded federal mortgage insurance, and created the urban renewal program to clear and redevelop so-called “slum” neighborhoods.The Act's legacy is genuinely double-edged, and it's worth telling honestly. On one hand, it expanded homeownership for millions and built hundreds of thousands of units of public housing. On the other, its implementation became one of the great engines of racial segregation in the twentieth century. Urban renewal too often meant bulldozing established Black neighborhoods—critics bitterly renamed it “Negro removal”—and the public housing built in their place was frequently segregated by design and concentrated in already-poor areas. Meanwhile the federal mortgage machinery it fed continued the practice of redlining, steering the benefits of homeownership toward white families and away from Black ones.That mixed legacy is why the Housing Act belongs in a legal-history conversation about civil rights. The same federal government that would, within a few years, order schools desegregated in Brown v. Board of Education was, through its housing policy, actively entrenching residential segregation—and residential segregation is what makes school segregation so durable, because in America where you live largely determines where you go to school. The story of July 15, 1949 is a reminder that the law's effects depend enormously on how it's carried out: a statute promising a decent home for every family became, in practice, a tool that shaped the segregated geography we're still litigating over today.Todd Blanche faced a high-stakes Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today in his bid to become attorney general on a permanent basis. Blanche has been acting attorney general since President Trump fired Pam Bondi in April, and before joining the Justice Department he served as Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer—a background that sits at the center of the concerns about him. The confirmation process exists because the Constitution's Appointments Clause requires the Senate to advise and consent on the nation's top law-enforcement officer, and the attorney general is supposed to serve the United States, not the president personally. That tension drove the questioning: senators pressed Blanche on the Department's $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and its prosecutions of figures perceived as Trump's political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The significance is about the independence of the Justice Department. An attorney general who was recently the president's private defense attorney raises the question of whether federal prosecutorial power will be wielded neutrally or as an instrument of the president's interests. With a pair of undecided Republicans—Senators Cornyn and Tillis—holding real leverage, the hearing was Blanche's chance to reassure a narrowly divided Senate, and most observers still expect him to be confirmed by a slim margin.Blanche to face Senate grilling in bid to be Trump's attorney general | ReutersTwo U.S.-based advocacy groups have sued the Trump administration, arguing that its sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court violate the First Amendment. The groups—Democracy for the Arab World Now and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide—are challenging the February 2025 executive order under which the administration has sanctioned ICC judges, prosecutors, and Palestinian human rights organizations, and which officials pledged this week to expand. The free-speech theory is the key. The plaintiffs say the sanctions regime is so broad that they have stopped doing constitutionally protected things—filing submissions with the ICC and coordinating advocacy with sanctioned people, like the U.N. special rapporteur for Palestine—out of fear that doing so could expose them to fines or even prison. In First Amendment law, that's a classic “chilling effect”: when a law is vague or sweeping enough that people self-censor protected speech to avoid the risk of penalty, the law itself can be unconstitutional even before anyone is actually punished. There's notable precedent here: a similar Trump order in 2020 was blocked by a judge who found it likely violated the First Amendment, before the Biden administration rescinded it in 2021. The significance is a direct clash between the executive's broad power over foreign affairs and sanctions on one side, and Americans' right to speak, associate, and petition on the other. Three ICC judges have separately sued over the same sanctions, so this order is now being attacked on multiple fronts.Trump's ICC order violates free speech, advocacy groups say in lawsuit | ReutersA federal appeals court has ended more than sixty years of federal oversight of the Concordia Parish School Board in Louisiana, lifting one of the desegregation orders that dates back to the Civil Rights era. The Fifth Circuit's decision hands a win to the Trump administration, which has pushed to wind down these long-running cases—a striking reversal for a Justice Department that spent decades on the other side, fighting to enforce them. Here's the legal framework. After Brown v. Board of Education, hundreds of Southern school districts were placed under federal court supervision and ordered to dismantle segregation. A district can be released from that oversight when a court finds it has achieved “unitary status”—meaning it has eliminated the vestiges of segregation, to the extent practicable, in areas like student assignment, faculty hiring, facilities, and discipline. The dispute in cases like this one is whether that's really been accomplished. Louisiana officials argue the orders are relics of a bygone era and no longer needed. Civil rights advocates and some parents counter that the vestiges persist—in racial disparities in student discipline, access to advanced academic programs, and teacher hiring—and that lifting oversight removes a crucial tool for addressing them. The significance is part of a broader push to close out Civil Rights-era decrees, and it raises a hard question: whether these districts have genuinely outgrown the need for supervision, or whether ending it prematurely risks letting old patterns quietly reassert themselves.Appeals court ends US oversight of Louisiana school system related to desegregation mandate | Reuters This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

This Day in Legal History: The Execution of Sir Thomas MoreOn July 6, 1535, Sir Thomas More was beheaded at Tower Hill in London, convicted of high treason against King Henry VIII. More had been one of the most powerful men in England—a lawyer, a scholar, a former Lord Chancellor, the King's own friend—and he went to the scaffold because he would not say the words the King demanded.The dispute was, at its heart, about supremacy. Henry VIII had broken with Rome and declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, and Parliament had passed the Act of Supremacy and an Act of Succession requiring subjects to swear an oath acknowledging the King's new status and the legitimacy of his marriage to Anne Boleyn. More refused to take the oath. Crucially, he did not denounce the King. He said nothing at all. He believed that by staying silent he stayed within the law—that under the old maxim, silence gives consent, and no court could convict a man for what he had not said.The Crown answered that theory with new law. The Treason Act of 1534, which took effect in early 1535, made it treason to “maliciously” deprive the King or Queen of their “dignity, title, or name”—and the government argued that More's conspicuous silence about the King's supremacy was itself a denial of it. More was tried on July 1, 1535, before a panel that included Anne Boleyn's father, brother, and uncle. The decisive testimony came from Richard Rich, the solicitor general, who claimed More had privately rejected the King's title in conversation in the Tower. More insisted the testimony was perjured. The jury deliberated for about fifteen minutes and found him guilty. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered; the King, in what passed for mercy, commuted the sentence to beheading.More's case endures in the legal imagination because it sits at the fault line between law as an instrument of power and law as a limit on power. More was a formidable lawyer who tried to use the law's own rules—the presumption that silence is not a crime, the requirement of proof—to protect his conscience, and the state simply rewrote the rules and manufactured the proof. His famous last words, that he died “the King's good servant, but God's first,” draw the line between obedience to the state and obedience to something the state cannot command. Four centuries later, we still cite More when we argue about compelled speech, about the right to remain silent, about loyalty oaths, and about what a person owes a government that has turned the machinery of law against him. He is a patron saint of lawyers precisely because he lost—because his trial shows how thin the protection of law can be when those in power decide they would rather have a conviction than a fair one.A federal appeals court has ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot detain migrants for more than ninety days without giving them a chance to seek release at a bond hearing. In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—one of the most conservative in the country—sided against the administration, a ruling that could affect thousands of people held in detention in states like Texas and Louisiana.When the government seeks to deport someone, that process can take months or even years, and in the meantime the government often detains the person. The legal question is whether the government can simply hold someone indefinitely while the case grinds on, or whether at some point that person is entitled to a hearing where a neutral decision-maker asks whether they actually need to be locked up—whether they're a flight risk or a danger, or whether they can safely be released on bond while they wait. The administration argued that certain migrants are subject to “mandatory detention” with no such hearing at all. The Fifth Circuit said that after ninety days, that position runs into constitutional trouble.Imagine being held in a jail cell for months, not because a judge decided you were dangerous, but because a statute was read to mean nobody ever has to ask the question. The core idea the court is protecting is an old one: the government generally cannot deprive a person of physical liberty without some individualized process, some moment where a human being reviews your particular case. A bond hearing is that moment. It doesn't guarantee release—it guarantees that someone with authority has to look at you and decide.The Department of Homeland Security said it disagreed with the ruling and remained confident in its legal position on mandatory detention, which signals a likely appeal, possibly to the Supreme Court. But for now, the decision draws a line: prolonged civil detention without any bond hearing is constitutionally suspect, and the length of confinement matters. The ruling is significant not only for the thousands of detainees it directly affects, but because it comes from a court that rarely rules against this administration—a reminder that even sympathetic judges have limits when the question is indefinite detention without a hearing.Appeals court bars mandatory detention for migrants past 90 days without bond hearing | Fox NewsCourt Blocks Immigration Detention Without HearingsThe Supreme Court has refused to hear Donald Trump's appeal seeking to overturn the jury verdict finding him liable for abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. With the Court declining to take the case, the 2023 verdict and the roughly five-million-dollar judgment against him stand.In 2023, a civil jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a New York department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her by branding her account a lie. He was ordered to pay her about five million dollars. Trump appealed and lost in the lower courts, then asked the Supreme Court to step in. Last week the Court denied that request. When the Supreme Court denies review—what lawyers call denying “certiorari”—it isn't endorsing the verdict or ruling on the merits. It's simply declining to hear the case, which leaves the lower court's decision in force. But the practical effect is the same as a loss: the judgment is final, and there are no more appeals to pursue.It helps to separate two things people often blur together. This is a civil case, not a criminal one. Carroll didn't send anyone to prison; she sued for money and for the harm to her reputation, and a jury of ordinary citizens weighed the evidence and believed her. The Supreme Court's role at this stage isn't to re-try the facts—juries find facts, and appellate courts generally don't second-guess them. The question the Court was asked was narrower and more legal, and the Court decided it wasn't worth their time to review.The significance here is partly about accountability and partly about the ordinariness of the outcome. A private citizen brought a claim, a jury sided with her, the appellate courts affirmed, and the highest court in the country let that stand—the system working exactly as it's supposed to, regardless of the defendant's power. It's also a marker of the limits of that power: the office does not come with a trapdoor out of a civil judgment. The verdict is now as final as verdicts get.Supreme Court rejects Trump effort to overturn E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse and defamation verdict | NBC NewsThe Supreme Court's next term, beginning in October, is already set to feature major cases involving gun rights, voting rules, LGBT rights, immigration detention, and corporate disputes. One of the highest-profile cases concerns whether states and local governments may ban assault-style rifles such as AR-15s, with challenges coming from Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois. Gun rights advocates argue that these weapons are commonly owned and protected by the Second Amendment, while government officials describe them as military-style firearms that pose serious public safety risks.The Court will also hear a voting rights dispute over Arizona rules that would impose stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration and allow removal of suspected noncitizens from voter rolls. A lower court blocked parts of that law after finding that they conflicted with federal voter registration protections. Another case involves whether certain immigrants with criminal convictions can be held for long periods during deportation proceedings without receiving bond hearings. The Trump administration is asking the Court to uphold that detention policy, while a lower court found that prolonged detention without a hearing can violate due process. The Court will also consider a religious rights case from Colorado involving Catholic groups that want an exemption from nondiscrimination rules tied to a state preschool funding program. That case adds to the Court's ongoing disputes over how to balance religious liberty claims against LGBT anti-discrimination protections. The term will also include business-related cases involving ExxonMobil and Suncor, Apple and Epic Games, and PepsiCo.US Supreme Court to hear gun, LGBT, voting rights cases in next term | Reuters This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

The most recent numbers show that two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. are medication abortions, while 29 percent of all U.S. abortions were telehealth medication abortions. Dr. Angel Foster, researcher at the University of Ottawa in the Faculty of Health Sciences, global abortion researcher, and co-founder of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project (MAP) sits down to talk with us about the work that MAP performs and the importance of shield laws for reproductive health care and gender-affirming care.Mifepristone, the first of two medications that people will take during a medication abortion, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000. Decades of evidence shows its safety and effectiveness. Access to the two-drug regimen increased significantly via telehealth during the pandemic, which required a new regulatory framework in 2023. MAP, through state shield law protections, allows licensed Massachusetts clinicians to prescribe medication abortion to those anywhere in the country, regardless of the legal status of abortion in their state. This year, the Fifth-Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that would prevent providers from sending medication abortion through the mail—thankfully, MAP was able to shift to a misoprostol-only regimen (also safe and effective)—but the mass confusion had been immediately impactful. As of now, a stay has been issued to halt this decision by the Fifth Circuit. For more information, check out That Aged Well: https://pod.link/1446333312Support the showFollow Us on Social: Twitter: @rePROsFightBack Instagram: @reprosfbFacebook: rePROs Fight Back Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.socialBuy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store Email us: jennie@reprosfightback.comRate and Review on Apple PodcastThanks for listening & keep fighting back!

This Day in Legal History: Ada Kepley GraduatesOn June 30, 1870, Ada H. Kepley became the first woman in the United States to graduate from law school. She earned her degree from Union College of Law in Chicago, an institution later associated with Northwestern University School of Law. Kepley's achievement came at a time when women were largely excluded from the legal profession, not only by custom but often by formal barriers to admission. Her graduation showed that women could meet the academic demands of legal education, even when courts and bar authorities were not yet ready to treat them as full members of the profession.After earning her law degree, Kepley faced the central contradiction of the era: a woman could study law, but that did not mean she could practice it. Illinois did not yet permit women to be admitted to the bar, so her degree did not immediately translate into the professional status it would have given a man. That barrier reflected a broader legal culture that treated law as a public profession reserved for men, while assigning women to private and domestic roles. Kepley later became active in reform causes, including temperance and women's rights, using her legal training as part of a wider campaign for social change. Her story also overlaps with the long struggle of women lawyers such as Myra Bradwell, whose exclusion from the Illinois bar reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1873.The issue was not simply whether one woman could become a lawyer, but whether the legal system would recognize women as independent civic actors. Kepley's graduation therefore marked an early victory in legal education, even though the fight for professional admission continued after her. It reminds us that access to education and access to legal authority are related, but not the same. On this day in legal history, Ada Kepley's law degree stood as both a milestone and a challenge to a profession still trying to decide who belonged inside it.The Supreme Court ruled that President Trump could not immediately remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook while her legal challenge continues. In a 5–4 decision, the Court denied the government's request to pause a lower-court order that kept Cook in office. The majority said the government had not shown it was likely to win on its argument that the president has broad, largely unchecked power to remove a Fed governor “for cause.”The Court emphasized that the Federal Reserve is designed to be politically independent, especially because it controls monetary policy, interest rates, and other decisions that should not shift simply because a president wants different policy outcomes. The majority rejected the idea that the president's stated reason for removal is automatically beyond judicial review. It also rejected the argument that almost any concern about a governor's conduct, ability, or integrity is enough to satisfy the “for cause” requirement. Instead, the Court said “cause” must be meaningful and connected to whether the governor is truly unfit for the position, not just a pretext for replacing her with someone more politically aligned.The Court ultimately resolved the stay request on a narrower ground: Cook had not received the basic process required before removal. At minimum, she was entitled to notice of the evidence against her, a chance to respond, and some deadline or procedure for doing so before a final decision was made. Because that did not happen, the Court allowed the injunction keeping her in office to remain in place. The ruling does not necessarily mean Cook wins the entire case, but it means she stays on the Fed board while the litigation continues.The decision is a major statement that the president cannot treat Federal Reserve governors like at-will employees. It preserves the Fed's independence, at least for now, and signals that courts can review whether a claimed “for cause” firing is legally valid.Court prevents Trump from firing Fed governor | SCOTUSblogThe Supreme Court upheld Mississippi's rule allowing certain absentee ballots to be counted even if they arrive after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and received within five business days. In a 5–4 decision, the Court reversed the Fifth Circuit and held that federal election-day laws set the deadline for when voters must make their choice, not the deadline for when election officials must physically receive the ballot.Justice Barrett's majority opinion treated the case as a narrow timing dispute. The challengers argued that because federal law sets a single national Election Day for federal elections, all ballots must be received by that day. The Court disagreed, explaining that the word “election” has historically referred to the voters' act of choosing a candidate. Under that view, a voter has made the choice when the ballot is cast or mailed by the deadline, even if the ballot arrives later.The Court also relied on federal law governing military and overseas voters, which repeatedly assumes that states can set their own ballot-receipt deadlines. That mattered because if federal election-day statutes already required all ballots to be received by Election Day, those references to state receipt deadlines would make little sense. The majority also rejected the challengers' arguments about election integrity and voter confidence, saying those are policy arguments for legislatures, not reasons for courts to rewrite the federal statutes.The dissent, written by Justice Alito, saw the issue differently. In his view, having an election on a particular day historically meant completing the collection of ballots on that day. He argued that the electorate's collective choice is not fully expressed until ballots are received by election officials.States may continue to count mail ballots that are sent by Election Day but arrive shortly afterward, unless Congress clearly says otherwise. The decision does not require every state to adopt Mississippi's rule, but it confirms that federal Election Day statutes do not automatically ban late-arriving, timely mailed ballots.Justices uphold state law allowing for late-arriving mail-in ballots | SCOTUSblogIn my Bloomberg column this week, I argue that Coca-Cola's transfer pricing fight with the IRS is more than a dispute over one company's tax bill. It is an early stress test for what tax administration looks like after the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Loper Bright, which ended Chevron deference and gave courts more power to decide what ambiguous statutes mean. Coca-Cola is trying to use that shift to challenge a major Tax Court loss, arguing that part of the IRS's victory depended on regulatory deference that no longer exists. The company has already paid roughly $6 billion, and its total exposure could be far higher, so the stakes are enormous.The underlying tax issue involves transfer pricing, or how related companies price transactions between themselves. The IRS says Coca-Cola's foreign affiliates paid too little for the right to use the company's valuable trademarks, formulas, and other intangible property, which left too much profit overseas and too little taxable income in the United States. Coca-Cola's argument focuses in part on “blocked income,” where foreign law limits what a local affiliate can pay to a foreign parent. The IRS says Section 482 gives it broad authority to reallocate income to prevent tax avoidance, even when foreign payment restrictions are involved. Coca-Cola says the IRS regulation supporting that position was upheld in a world where courts deferred to agencies, and that world is now gone.I'm not arguing that Coca-Cola is necessarily wrong. The IRS can overreach, and courts should not automatically uphold tax regulations just because the tax code is complicated. But I do argue that the post-Chevron shift may have a strong distributional tilt toward large corporations, especially multinationals with the money and incentive to reopen old disputes or press aggressive refund claims. If Coca-Cola succeeds, other companies will likely look for similar arguments, particularly in areas of international tax where Treasury regulations have long depended on broad statutory language and judicial deference.What I think Treasury and the IRS should do now is take inventory. They need to identify which regulations were built on assumptions of deference, which parts of the transfer pricing system are most vulnerable, and which international tax rules are most load-bearing. Congress also has a choice to make, even if it makes that choice by doing nothing: should Treasury write the practical operating rules for multinational taxation, or should federal judges decide those questions case by case? The key point of my column is that statutory ambiguity did not disappear when Chevron died; it simply moved from agencies to courts.Coca-Cola Transfer Pricing Fight Is a Post-Chevron Stress Test This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

In This Episode It's an ACP Round Table, and we're celebrating 400 episodes (a week early)! Join Erin, Weer'd, Oddball and David as they discuss: a shooting spree in Montreal, Canada; SCOTUS' 9-0 ruling that marijuana use no longer disqualifies you for gun ownership, but... ...SCOTUS continues to pass on Second Amendment cases. after 27 years of insanity, the "Gary v. Glock" case is finally dead; the circuit split on suppressor laws between the 5th and 4th, 9th, and 10th Circuits; a great documentary on "Ring of Fire" guns; the 5th Circuit standing firm on its ruling in favor of hobby distillers; and Flock cameras are not just scanning your license plates Did you know that we have a Patreon? Join now for the low, low cost of $4/month (that's $1/podcast) and you'll get to listen to our podcast on Friday instead of Mondays, as well as patron-only content like mag dump episodes, our hilarious blooper reels and film tracks. Show Notes Police officer killed after Montreal shooting rampage Female Officer Shoots Civilian During Active Shooting in Montreal Rabbi Michael Mizrahi Declared Dead After Emergency Surgery BWC: Wash. officer shoots gun-wielding man as he approaches bystander Supreme Court ruling sides with marijuana user charged with illegally owning gun under federal law SCOTUS wrecks government's attempt to prosecute gun owner who tokes up on marijuana 'a few times a week' Noah Feldman: The absurd gun case that unified the Supreme Court SCOTUS continues to sit on a bunch of important 2A cases After Nearly 27 Years, It's Finally Over The Hobby Distillers Association is pleased to report that the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has denied the federal government's request for rehearing in our landmark legal challenge. 5th Circuit also creates a circuit split on suppressors Cheap, Dangerous, and Outlawed: The Ring of Fire Story If you thought Flock cameras were concerning, meet what comes next.   

Depression. Insecurity. Seven-figure verdicts that didn't feel like enough. Michael Cowen — national trucking lawyer, trial veteran with 130+ cases, and host of his own podcast — had achieved the kind of success most lawyers dream about, and it still wasn't working for him psychologically. The turning point came when he stopped chasing a specific result and started trusting the process. In this conversation with guest host Przemek Lubecki, recorded live at TLU Huntington Beach 2026, Michael opens up about the mindset overhaul that unlocked eight-figure verdicts, the mantra he still repeats while waiting for a judge to take the bench, and the firm-wide case review system he uses to prevent his lawyers from undersettling cases. Train and Connect with the Titans☑️ Michael Cowen | LinkedIn☑️ Cowen Law on Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, & YouTube☑️ Przemek Lubecki | LinkedIn☑️ Trial Lawyers University☑️ TLU On Demand Instant access to live lectures, case analysis, and skills training videos☑️ TLU on X | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeEpisode Snapshot★ Michael graduated from law school, clerked on the Fifth Circuit, and joined a big law firm in New York City.★ After moving back to Brownsville, Texas for his future wife, Michael joined a plaintiff firm under mentor Ed Stapleton, tried four cases in his first year, and inherited his own law firm just four years out of law school.★ Michael describes a prolonged period of cyclical depression, weight gain, and insecurity — driven by taking too much personal responsibility for case outcomes.★ His mindset transformation came through intensive coaching with Sari De La Motte, daily use of "The Miracle Morning" routine, and a mantra about trusting judges and juries that he still repeats silently in the courtroom.★ Michael explains that truly earning courtroom confidence requires two experiences: winning a case to prove it's possible, and losing a big one to prove you survive it.★ At Michael's firm, no commercial-policy case is allowed to proceed to a demand or mediation until the attorney has first presented it to the full firm at their weekly Tuesday lunch — a structured review designed to prevent undersettling.★ Michael's Big Rig Bootcamp (July 9) will feature live cross-examination demonstrations, medical testimony training, and a deep dive on why facet joint injuries treated with radiofrequency ablation are million-dollar cases.Produced and Powered by LawPods

Four hours. Zero punches pulled. The Marc Cox Morning Show delivers one of its most explosive broadcasts of the year and not a single story lands without consequence. Tucker Carlson torches his 35-year Republican career over an Israel obsession Marc Cox calls exactly what it is — anti-Semitism dressed up as principle. The Iran MOU critics are screaming into YouGov polls while a real American hero, former hostage Rocky Sickman, reminds everyone what 444 days of torture at Iranian hands actually looks like. Missouri conservatives get a masterclass on why Amendment 4 and Amendment 5 are the most important votes they'll cast this year — as Soros-funded groups, Planned Parenthood, and the Missouri Realtors Association pour millions into lies designed to keep the Constitution wide open for radical hijacking. Former Missouri Senator John Lamping joins to make the definitive case and call out conservatives sabotaging their own cause from within. The St. Louis Morning Brief covers a firefighter caught on camera doing the unthinkable at Lambert Airport, MLB's stunning double standard on Christian expression, and Pride Fest curfew chaos erupting in the Grove. Fox and Friends First co-anchor Todd Piro calls in live from a Fox News makeup room with the heartbreaking latest on the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping. It's 2A Tuesday with Mark Walters of Armed American Radio breaking down the Supreme Court's landmark nine to zero Hamani ruling, a Fifth Circuit victory for silencer owners, and the left's blueprint to destroy the Bruin precedent the moment they retake power. Kim St. Onge sounds the alarm on Brazilian parents jailed for homeschooling without DEI — and warns Christian families in America that they are already in the crosshairs. University of Minnesota law professor Ilan Wurman delivers a stunning constitutional autopsy — from New Deal power grabs to rogue district judges acting as an unchecked council of revision the Founders explicitly rejected. Ryan Wiggins brings the hard data showing Democrats hemorrhaging 275,000 voters in key swing districts, exposes the 2020 census miscounting that handed Democrats up to six stolen House seats, and dismantles the left's racist Electoral College argument for exactly what it is — pure desperation. And the show closes with three bombshells in rapid succession: $200 million laundered from USAID into Joe Biden's 2024 campaign, Fauci back in Rand Paul's crosshairs, and Chuck Schumer accidentally admitting 25 million people on Democrat voter rolls may not be legal citizens. This is the Marc Cox Morning Show — and today was one for the history books. Hashtags: #MarcCoxMorningShow #MarcCox #KimStOnge #TuckerCarlson #RockySickman #Amendment4 #Amendment5 #JohnLamping #StLouisMorningBrief #ToddPiro #NancyGuthrie #2ATuesday #MarkWalters #SupremeCourt #SecondAmendment #IlanWurman #Constitution #RyanWiggins #ElectionIntegrity #VoterFraud #USAID #Fauci #RandPaul #ChuckSchumer #SaveAct #Missouri #ConservativeRadio #AmericaFirst #CommonSense #PatriotVoices Full Guest List: Rocky Sickman — Former Iran hostage on what 444 days of captivity reveals about the Iran MOU and Trump's approach (Hour 1 reference/podcast) John Lamping — Former Missouri Senator on Planned Parenthood's Nazi endorsement, Missouri's abortion free-for-all and why conservatives must vote YES on Amendments 3, 4 and 5 Todd Piro — Fox and Friends First co-anchor on the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping update and Savannah Guthrie's emotional on-air reaction Mark Walters — Armed American Radio host and Second Amendment Foundation spokesman on the Supreme Court's 9-0 Hamani ruling, silencer protections and the left's plot to destroy Bruin Ilan Wurman — University of Minnesota law professor on how the Constitution has been hijacked, runaway federal power and out of control judges Ryan Wiggins — Wiggins America host on Democrats hemorrhaging swing district voters, the Electoral College attack and the 2020 census robbery

It's 2A Tuesday on the Marc Cox Morning Show and Mark Walters of Armed American Radio is here to break down one of the biggest Second Amendment weeks in Supreme Court history. The Hamani decision just came down nine to zero — and what it means is the federal government can no longer automatically ban an entire class of people from owning guns simply because they smoke marijuana. But Mark isn't popping champagne just yet — the liberal justices telegraphed exactly what they'll do the moment they regain power, and it's a direct shot at the Bruin precedent that's been winning case after case for gun owners. Then Marc and Mark dig into a blockbuster Fifth Circuit ruling that silencers are protected arms under the Second Amendment — setting up a circuit split that could land at the Supreme Court. And the Wohlford case could drop any day, potentially delivering a third massive gun rights victory before the term closes. The left is watching, waiting, and court-packing is on their to-do list. This is why you can't afford to miss Armed American Radio — and you can't afford to miss this segment. Hashtags: #MarcCoxMorningShow #2ATuesday #MarkWalters #ArmedAmericanRadio #SecondAmendment #HamaniCase #SupremeCourt #Bruin #Suppressors #GunRights #2A #ConservativeRadio #MarcCox #SAF #WohlfordinLopez

Hour 3 of the Marc Cox Morning Show is wall to wall and firing on all cylinders. Marc opens with Illinois Governor Pritzker's sweeping social media age verification law and exposes the left's glaring hypocrisy — ID for Instagram but not for voting. A federal judge blocks Trump administration subpoenas protecting Minnesota officials neck deep in a massive taxpayer fraud scandal, while Democratic Socialists surge to plus 17 favorability among Democrats and the left launches a fresh assault on the Electoral College. Fox and Friends First co-anchor Todd Piro calls in fresh off air to deliver the heartbreaking latest on the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping and Savannah Guthrie's emotional on-air reaction. Then it's 2A Tuesday with Mark Walters of Armed American Radio breaking down the Supreme Court's landmark nine to zero Hamani ruling, a Fifth Circuit victory for silencer owners, and why the left is already telegraphing their plan to destroy the Bruin precedent the moment they retake power. Kim St. Onge closes the hour with a chilling story of Brazilian parents jailed for homeschooling without DEI — and a stark warning that Christian families in America are already in the crosshairs. This is the Marc Cox Morning Show — and Hour 3 just delivered. Hashtags: #MarcCoxMorningShow #Hour3 #ToddPiro #MarkWalters #2ATuesday #KimOnAWhim #Homeschooling #SupremeCourt #SecondAmendment #Bruin #Pritzker #SocialMedia #NancyGuthrie #ElectoralCollege #ConservativeRadio

This Day in Legal History: The End of Roosevelt's Hundred DaysOn this day in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt signed three pieces of legislation that closed out what the country has been calling the Hundred Days ever since: the Banking Act of 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act, and the Farm Credit Act, with the Home Owners' Loan Act having been signed three days earlier. The Banking Act of 1933 is the one most lawyers know, because the popular name attached to it — Glass-Steagall — has been doing rhetorical work in financial-regulation debates for ninety-three years.Carter Glass of Virginia and Henry Steagall of Alabama, the Senate Banking chair and the House Banking chair respectively, built the statute around two structural propositions: that commercial banks should be separated from investment banking and the speculative securities business that had helped pull the country into the Great Depression, and that depositors at member banks should be protected by a federal deposit insurance scheme so that a panic at one bank did not become a panic everywhere.The deposit insurance piece became the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The separation piece was the part that got partially repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 and then revisited in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The National Industrial Recovery Act, signed the same day, set up the National Recovery Administration and the Public Works Administration and was meant to coordinate industry-wide codes of fair competition; the Supreme Court struck the centerpiece codes provision down two years later in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States in 1935 on nondelegation and Commerce Clause grounds, an opinion that nearly killed the early New Deal and prompted Roosevelt's court-packing plan two years after that. The Farm Credit Act consolidated and refinanced the agricultural lending system that the Great Depression had taken to the brink.The legal point worth remembering is that this last day of the Hundred Days was, in retrospect, the moment the federal regulatory state of the twentieth century stopped being a collection of post-Civil-War commissions and started being the integrated structure of agencies, deposit-insurance funds, securities oversight, labor regulation, and welfare administration that the country has lived inside ever since. The fact that the Schechter Court was waiting in the wings to strike down the most ambitious piece of that day's work is part of the lesson. The constitutional question of how much economic ordering a Congress and a President can do at once was not answered on June 16, 1933 — it was framed.The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up E.D. v. Noblesville School District, a free-speech challenge brought by the parents of an Indiana high-school student whose school district had refused to let her post flyers for her student-run anti-abortion club on classroom and hallway walls. The student, identified in court papers by initials because she was a minor when the case was filed, had been the founder of Noblesville High School's Students for Life chapter. The flyers she wanted posted featured images of demonstrators holding “Defund Planned Parenthood” signs. Noblesville Schools removed the flyers under a district policy giving administrators content-based authority over student materials displayed on school property, and the parents sued under the First Amendment.The Southern District of Indiana sided with the district in 2024, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed in 2025, both applying Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, the 1988 case that lets public schools regulate the content of school-sponsored expressive activities if the regulation is reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns. The cert denial leaves Hazelwood intact in the Seventh Circuit and everywhere else.The piece worth flagging is Justice Alito's dissent from denial, joined by Justice Thomas, which urged the Court to grant review and use the case to revisit Hazelwood's framework. The dissent argues that Hazelwood was wrongly decided to the extent that it lets schools draw viewpoint-based lines under the cover of pedagogical-concern review, and that the doctrinal distinction Hazelwood draws between school-sponsored speech and Tinker-style independent student speech has become unworkable in the age of student clubs, distributed school messaging, and post-Mahanoy off-campus speech. Two votes are not five votes. But two votes naming a case as the vehicle they wanted are how the next decade of student-speech cases gets queued up. The Court has now told litigants what kind of vehicle it might be looking for. Expect a steady drumbeat of cert petitions teeing up the Hazelwood revisit over the next several terms.US Supreme Court turns away free speech claim by anti-abortion student | Reuters via Maryland Daily RecordThe Supreme Court also turned away on Monday the National Shooting Sports Foundation's challenge to New York's General Business Law § 898, the public-nuisance statute the New York legislature passed in 2021 to let the state and certain private plaintiffs sue firearms manufacturers, distributors, and dealers for endangering the public through the marketing and distribution of their products.The challenge was supported by Smith & Wesson, Sturm, Ruger, Beretta, Glock, and Sig Sauer, and went up on appeal from a 2024 Second Circuit decision that held the New York statute is not preempted by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, the 2005 federal statute that broadly immunizes the gun industry from civil liability arising from the criminal misuse of firearms.The Second Circuit reasoned that the PLCAA's “predicate exception” — which preserves state-law claims when the firearms industry has violated a state or federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of firearms — covers a state public-nuisance statute that, by its terms, regulates the sale and marketing of firearms. The cert denial leaves the Second Circuit's reading in place, leaves New York's statute on the books and enforceable, and leaves the industry with a litigation exposure it had hoped to neutralize.The strategic part of the case is going to be the copycat statutes. California, New Jersey, Washington, Delaware, Illinois, and Hawaii have all enacted versions of the New York approach since 2021, and other states have similar bills in committee. Each of those statutes is going to invite its own PLCAA-preemption fight in its own circuit, and the cumulative jurisprudence is going to get built case by case until either Congress amends PLCAA or the Court decides one of these cases is the right vehicle to step in. Today's denial was not that vehicle.SCOTUS Upholds NY Law Allowing Lawsuits Against Gunmakers | The Daily SignalThe third notable cert denial on Monday was the end of the road for Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. in its long-running trade-secret fight with DXC Technology — the successor in interest to Computer Sciences Corporation. TCS had asked the Court to review a Fifth Circuit decision that affirmed a $168 million judgment against it for misappropriating CSC's life-insurance-administration software trade secrets and using them to build TCS's own BaNCS platform, which TCS then used to win a $2.6 billion contract with the insurer Transamerica.The Northern District of Texas verdict, returned in 2022, had been $56 million in compensatory damages and $112 million in punitives, and the Fifth Circuit upheld the punitives ratio in 2025 over TCS's BMW v. Gore and State Farm v. Campbell challenge to the proportionality of the punitive award and over its Defend Trade Secrets Act extraterritoriality arguments. The cert petition pressed both points and pressed a circuit split on the standard for proving misappropriation by an independent contractor that had been given access to source code under a nondisclosure agreement, but the Court declined.The practical immediate effect is that TCS will recognize a roughly $70 million one-time exceptional charge in Q1 of its 2027 fiscal year and the total exposure on the matter — combining the affirmed judgment with previously taken provisions — settles in around $220 million. The broader effect is doctrinal stability. The Fifth Circuit's analysis on cross-border trade-secret damages and on the extraterritoriality limits of the DTSA stand. Both questions are going to recur, and the next vehicle that brings them up may catch the Court in a different mood, but for now the law is what the Fifth Circuit said it was.US Supreme Court rejects TCS challenge in $168 million trade secrets case | Business Standard This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

We open with the usual grab bag—the "foot fault" pun buried in a Justice Thomas opinion, reading Justice Alito's clerk-hiring tea leaves, and a detour into the metaphysics of conditional resignations and whether you can be confirmed to a vacancy that doesn't exist yet. Then to the merits: Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, a 9-0 judicial-estoppel case that lets us ask where the doctrine even came from (Tennessee, 1857, apparently), and Abouammo v. United States, the venue case about a former Twitter employee who fabricated a document while the FBI sat downstairs. The venue talk wanders, happily, into the Yellowstone "zone of death," a C.J. Box thriller, Jim Comey's second career as a novelist, and an extended appraisal of watch brands. Highlights[00:00:53] - Podcast update, SCOTUSblog partnership, and listener reviews[00:01:49] - Justice Thomas's "foot fault" joke[00:03:48] - Sam Bray citation discussion (Aldridge v. Regions Bank)[00:05:02] - Justice Alito retirement speculation and clerk rumors[00:17:23] - Vacation schedule and the upcoming opinion gap[00:21:03] - June 11 merits decisions overview[00:23:17] - Landor and the still-outstanding big case of the term[00:27:49] - Justice Sotomayor's statement respecting denial of cert on ineffective assistance[00:29:53] - Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction: bankruptcy and judicial estoppel[00:36:10] - The Fifth Circuit's rule on inadvertence and mistake[00:38:47] - Justice Jackson's majority opinion[00:40:29] - Justice Thomas's concurrence and the history of judicial estoppel[00:48:42] - Justice Sotomayor's concurrence and totality-of-the-circumstances approach[00:52:11] - Abouammo v. United States: Article III venue and criminal prosecution location[00:55:09] - Yellowstone's "zone of death" and vicinage problems[00:59:21] - The fake invoice, FBI investigation, and venue dispute[01:06:33] - Venue, personal jurisdiction, and extraterritorial conduct[01:10:22] - Statutory venue rules and unresolved constitutional questions[01:12:30] - Reprosecution after a venue reversal and double jeopardy

This Day in Legal History: Loving v. Virginia DecidedOn this day in 1967, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion in Loving v. Virginia striking down Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and, with it, the anti-miscegenation statutes that sixteen states still had on the books. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the Court. The case had come up from a county courthouse in Caroline County, Virginia, where Richard Loving, a white bricklayer, and Mildred Jeter, a Black and Native American woman, had been arrested in their bedroom in the middle of the night in 1958 by a sheriff acting on an anonymous tip — they had been married in the District of Columbia and returned home to Virginia, where their marriage was a felony. The Lovings pleaded guilty, accepted suspended sentences on the condition that they leave the state for twenty-five years, and lived in exile in Washington until Mildred wrote a letter to Attorney General Robert Kennedy that landed eventually with the ACLU, which took the case.The Supreme Court's opinion did two things at once. It held that Virginia's statute violated the Equal Protection Clause because it drew an explicit racial classification with no legitimate state purpose beyond preserving “White Supremacy” — the Court used the phrase the Virginia statute itself had used — and it held that the statute violated the Due Process Clause because the freedom to marry is “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” That second holding, the marriage-as-fundamental-right strand, is the through-line that runs from Loving to Zablocki v. Redhail in 1978, to Turner v. Safley in 1987, to Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 — every one of those decisions cites Loving and treats it as the foundational case. Whether the Court's substantive due process marriage doctrine survives the next decade is, as we discussed earlier this week, one of the open questions in American constitutional law. But Loving itself remains intact, and on June 12, 1967, the Court said something it had not said cleanly before: that the right to marry is the kind of liberty interest the Constitution actually protects.The Supreme Court on Thursday reversed the Second Circuit in FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd., holding 6-3 that the Investment Company Act of 1940 does not give private parties a cause of action to seek rescission of fund bylaws or other contractual terms. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority. The dispute came out of a campaign by Boaz Weinstein's Saba Capital against eleven closed-end funds — funds that, under Maryland's Control Share Acquisition Act, had adopted bylaws limiting the voting power of any shareholder who accumulated a disproportionate stake without the consent of other shareholders. Saba sued under Section 47(b) of the ICA, which makes contracts that violate the Act unenforceable, and the Second Circuit held that Section 47(b) implied a private right to rescind the bylaws.The Court told the Second Circuit to look harder at the modern implied-cause-of-action doctrine, which since Alexander v. Sandoval in 2001 has been hostile to inferring private rights of action that Congress did not write into the statute. The opinion reads as a continuation of that line: the ICA's enforcement structure is committed to the SEC, not to private plaintiffs, and Section 47(b) is a defense against contracts the SEC has already determined to be unlawful, not an offensive cause of action. The dissent, by Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, argued that this is a misreading of Section 47(b)'s text and that the majority is gratuitously narrowing the enforcement of the federal securities laws. The practical impact is significant. Activist investors who had been pushing closed-end funds to convert to open-end form, or to alter investment strategies, lose a federal-court tool they had been using; the funds themselves and their independent directors gain a meaningful structural defense. Expect the next round of activist campaigns to move to state-court fiduciary-duty theories instead.US Supreme Court rules against private suits brought under key securities law | US NewsThe Court on Thursday also decided Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, Inc., vacating the Fifth Circuit 9-0 in an opinion by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The case is small in its facts and large in its doctrine. Thomas Keathley filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2019 and failed to disclose, on his schedule of assets, a personal-injury claim he later brought against a construction company over a truck accident. The Fifth Circuit barred the personal-injury suit on judicial-estoppel grounds — the longstanding equitable doctrine that prevents a party from taking one position in one proceeding and a contradictory position in another — using a three-factor test under which a debtor's mere knowledge of the facts plus a motive to conceal was enough to bar the later claim.The Supreme Court said no.To determine whether the omission was inadvertent or mistaken for judicial-estoppel purposes, the Court held, the lower courts must look to the totality of the circumstances, not just to whether the debtor knew of the facts and had a motive. The doctrinal interest of the case lies in two concurrences. Justice Sotomayor, concurring, wrote that judicial estoppel should likely never apply in an open bankruptcy case at all — the trustee can simply amend the schedule and pursue the claim for the estate, which solves the problem judicial estoppel was invented to address. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, went further and questioned whether federal courts have any inherent authority to apply judicial estoppel as a freestanding doctrine, period — a position that, if it ever gets five votes, would unwind a doctrine that has been part of American practice since the 1850s. None of that is the holding. But the votes to revisit one of the duller corners of equitable estoppel are now visibly on the table.Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, Inc. | SCOTUSblogThe third unanimous decision of the day was Abouammo v. United States, in which the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and vacated the obstruction-of-an-FBI-investigation conviction of Ahmad Abouammo, a former Twitter employee whose underlying case was one of the more striking Saudi-Arabia infiltration prosecutions of the last decade. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion. The facts are simple and the constitutional point cleaner than the facts. Abouammo, while working at Twitter's San Francisco office in 2014 and 2015, accessed and passed on confidential user information about Saudi dissidents to a Saudi official, in exchange for a $42,000 watch and $200,000 in wire transfers. The FBI eventually came to interview him at his home in Seattle, where he had moved by 2018, and during those interviews he created and emailed agents a fake invoice intended to make the wire transfers look like a legitimate consulting fee. The Justice Department charged the obstruction count along with foreign-agent and wire-fraud counts in the Northern District of California, and a San Francisco jury convicted him on all of them.The Supreme Court held that the obstruction count belonged in the Western District of Washington, not California, because the act of creating and sending the false invoice — the only act that supported the obstruction charge — happened entirely in Seattle. Article III's venue clause and the Sixth Amendment's vicinage requirement together do not let the government try a defendant in a state where no element of the charged offense occurred, no matter how convenient the prosecution. The obstruction conviction is vacated. The foreign-agent and wire-fraud convictions, which had different venue facts and were not before the Court, stand. Abouammo will not walk free. But the prosecution will need to decide whether to retry the obstruction count in Seattle, and the case is now a clean precedent that the venue clause has real teeth in a multi-district federal investigation.US Supreme Court overturns ex-Twitter employee's obstruction conviction in Saudi spy case | US News This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Breaking! The president is bugf*** insane! But first … docket alerts. Dun-dun-DUNNNNN.   We've reached the "yelling at chestnuts for being lazy" stage of the presidency, as Trump barks out ever-nuttier orders.    Meanwhile in Texas, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk managed to moot the appeal of an LGBTQ+ student group at West Texas A&M which sued in 2023 to enjoin their school's ban on drag shows. All he had to do was rush out an opinion in 48 hours saying that drag shows are not expressive conduct covered by the First Amendment. And lie about Fifth Circuit precedent!   TG we have at least one good legal development, this time out of Minnesota!   For the main show, we'll break down the legal implications of Elon Musk building a chatbot in his own abusive troll image. Will the Take It Down Act put a stop to AI generation of deepfake CSAM and NCII?    Meanwhile over at the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Kristi Noem and her minions are a wee smidge confused about the Fourth Amendment. If you can even believe it! But even a blind squirrel gets a nut once in a while. DHS wins a round against legislators seeking to inspect ICE detention facilities thanks to some creative accounting. But the victory may be short-lived.]   And subscribers will get another visit with that Overstock.com weirdo Patrick Byrne, who managed to lose a defamation case against the most defamation-proof defendant in America. Guest starring: Stefanie Lambert. Show Links: https://www.lawandchaospod.com/ BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod Threads: @LawAndChaosPod Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod  

An ICE whistleblower reveals a secret memo where DHS lawyers say agents can arrest people in their homes without a warrant. The Fourth Amendment says otherwise! And the Supreme Court's conservatives were extremely unimpressed with Trump's plan to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on Truth Social. We'll break down Wednesday's oral argument in detail but first, we've got approximately one million ...   DOCKET ALERTS (Dun dun DUNNNN):   Former Special Counsel Jack Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Watch it for yourself here.   The Justice Department arrested three people in relation to the protest on January 18 at Cities Church in St. Paul. Nothing has appeared on the docket, but the DOJ claims to have charged them under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, meant to protect women seeking abortion care.   The Eighth Circuit administratively stayed District Judge Katherine Menendez's preliminary injunction barring DHS goons from brutalizing protesters.   A jury in Chicago took just three hours to acquit a man of trying to hire someone to murder CBP's head thug Greg Bovino. Don't drunk text!    Donald Trump's latest trollsuit targets JP Morgan Chase and its CEO Jamie Dimon. It's filed in state court in Miami and seeks $5 billion for tortious debanking.   Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson secured a standstill order barring the government from looking at the computers and hard drives it seized from her house in Virginia as part of its investigation into classified leaks by government contractor Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones.    The Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, reheard a challenge to Louisiana's HB71, which required every public school classroom to display the Ten Commandments. Background here.   Judge Paul Engelmayer rebuffed a request by Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna to enforce the Epstein Files Transparency Act and order the government to disclose all materials on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Remember this next time you hear some rightwing pundit railing against "activist judges."   And we bid a fond farewell to Lindsey Halligan, who finally quit trying to pass herself off as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Well … fond-ish. After getting benchslapped by a federal judge and seeing her job posted online by the chief judge in EDVA, she finally took the hint.   Show Links: https://www.lawandchaospod.com/ BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod Threads: @LawAndChaosPod Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod  

Docket Alerts:   In Jeffrey Epstein news: Ghislaine Maxwell showed up for congressional testimony, but says she's taking the Fifth unless and until she gets a pardon. Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed to testify, averting a vote to refer them to DOJ for contempt of Congress. Paul Weiss managing partner Brad Karp stepped down after his emails to the noted pedophile were published.    Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty, but will face trial this summer.   Main Show:   The Trump administration is trying to magic away Steve Bannon's contempt of Congress conviction with an assist from SCOTUS. It's called a GVR, and it's filthy.   The DOJ sued in state court to get Fulton County's 2020 ballots. They sued in federal court. And then they got a criminal warrant and just took them. Now Georgia election officials are suing to get their ballots back.   What is going on with that Tulsi Gabbard whistleblower report?   The Fifth Circuit greenlights ICE's batcrap insane legal theory that the government must hold immigrants in detention indefinitely without a hearing. Should the challengers petition for en banc review, or go straight to SCOTUS?   And for subscribers, we'll break down FCC Chair Brendan Carr's threat to investigate the ladies at The View for daring to interview Texas Senate candidate James Talarico — a known Democrat!   Bannon Rule 48(a) Motion to Dismiss  https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.237437/gov.uscourts.dcd.237437.207.0.pdf   Bannon Cert Petition https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-453/395803/20260209141144273_25-453_Bannon_cert_resp_file.pdf   US v. Alexander [DOJ civil suit to see Fulton County ballots] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72028229/united-states-v-alexander/   Pitts v. US [Fulton County suit to recover ballots] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72247417/pitts-v-united-states/   NSA detected foreign intelligence phone call about a person close to Trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/07/nsa-foreign-intelligence-trump-whistleblower   Whistle-Blower Report Involved Intelligence About a Trump Contact https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/us/politics/whistle-blower-gabbard-trump.html   Buenrostro Mendez v. Bondi https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71870107/buenrostro-mendez-v-bondi/   Show Links: https://www.lawandchaospod.com/ BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod Threads: @LawAndChaosPod Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod  

Docket Alerts:   Exactly zero grand jurors voted to indict the members of Congress who made a video in November reminding active duty service members of their duty to refuse illegal orders. And Judge Richard Leon told Secretary Hegseth to pound "Horsefeathers!" with his attempt to demote Senator Mark Kelly and dock his naval retirement.   The Justice Department hasn't stopped trying to evade senate confirmation for US Attorneys. Hours after judges in New York exercised their legal right to appoint someone competent to run the office, the Trump administration fired him.    Subscribers will get a deep dive into AG Bondi's efforts to ONE WEIRD TRICK a "triumvirate" of lawyers into the US Attorney spot.   MAIN SHOW:   Two hundred federal and state agents descended on a Mexican heritage festival in Idaho in October. They leveraged five arrest warrants for illegal gambling into a massive detention operation to brutalize hundreds of families. Now those families are suing under 42 USC § 1983, alleging a conspiracy between the feds and local law enforcement.   In DC, Trump appointee Judge Tim Kelly blocked the administration from taking revenge on inmates whose death sentences were commuted by President Biden by moving them all to Supermax.   After the Fifth Circuit's terrible ruling last week allowing for indefinite detention of all non-citizens, district court judges are still finding ways to grant habeas petitions.   Back in DC, Judge Ana Reyes barred Secretary Noem from ending temporary protected status for 350,000 Haitians. She also had some frank words about the threats that rain down on judges who rule against the Trump administration – and why they won't succeed.   Rodriguez v. Porter https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72256071/rodriguez-v-porter/   Taylor v. Trump [Death Row Commutations] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71717101/taylor-v-trump/   Kelly v. Hegseth https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72131361/kelly-v-hegseth/   US v. Naviwala [US Attorney New Jersey] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68269162/united-states-v-naviwala   Cumbe Lema v. De Anda-Ybarra [Texas Habeas] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72210802/cumbe-lema-v-de-anda-ybarra/   Hassen v. Noem [Texas Habeas] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72143519/hassen-v-noem-secretary-us-department-of-homeland-security/   Lesly Miot v. Trump [Haitian TPS] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70965949/lesly-miot-v-trump/   Show Links: https://www.lawandchaospod.com/ BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod Threads: @LawAndChaosPod Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod  

DOCKET ALERTS:   Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on the stolen documents case must remain sealed forever in perpetuity.   Kouri Richins goes on trial for murdering her husband in Utah. She's not being charged for writing a terrible children's book about dealing with grief over the loss of a parent … but maybe she should be?    The Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, allowed Louisiana to require the display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom statewide. The law had been blocked, but the Court decided that no one had been injured yet, so the case is unripe.   Elon Musk is being sued for securities fraud in California. But they can't seat a jury because everyone hates him.   MAIN SHOW:   It's all about tariffs. We break down the Supreme Court's Learning Resources v. Trump, and explain why dragging this case out for a year ensures chaos as importers try to recoup money they've already paid. And we'll talk about Trump's plan to impose new illegal tariffs based on a  gross misinterpretation of yet another internal statute.   The opinion is particularly contentious, revealing the justices' angry, internal feuding over the future of the court. And subscribers will get a deep dive into the origins of this conflict, reaching back to Justice Kagan's famous 2015 "Antonin Scalia Lecture Series" lecture at Harvard Law School and extending through Justice Jackson's concurrence in Learning Resources.   US v. Trump [stolen documents case] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67490070/united-states-v-trump   Kouri Richins Warrant https://www.scribd.com/document/654496602/Kouri-Richins-Warrant   Contempt for Musk clouds jury selection in Twitter takeover trial https://www.courthousenews.com/contempt-for-musk-clouds-jury-selection-in-twitter-takeover-trial/   Roake v. Brumley [Fifth Circuit Ten Commandments] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.221848/gov.uscourts.ca5.221848.389.1.pdf   Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump [tariffs case] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf   Congressional Research Service, "Congressional and Presidential Authority to Impose Import Tariffs" https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48435/R48435.1.pdf   Elena Kagan "Antonin Scalia Lecture Series," Harvard Law School (2015) [via YouTube] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpEtszFT0Tg   Show Links: https://www.lawandchaospod.com/ BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod Threads: @LawAndChaosPod Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod  

The Fifth Circuit is crossing out laws just for sport. This time it's a 140-year-old ban on making homebrew hooch, because YOLO.   Trump's lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over an article describing his creepy birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein was dismissed. But … that dismissal was without prejudice, so he can take another swing at it. The trollsuit against the BBC is still limping along.   Deputy General Counsel at the Department of Education Josh Kleinfeld makes an interesting pitch to George Mason's Antonin Scalia Law School, which is currently under investigation by … the Department of Education.   And Trump's ballroom blitz takes a tumble in court.   MAIN SHOW:   Trump discovers one weird trick to make the Presidential Records Act disappear. All he has to do is order the Office of Legal Counsel to come up with a memo saying it's unconstitutional and — hey, presto! — he can steal or shred or delete any document he likes.   SUBSCRIBER BONUS:   Are we the pirates now?   Trump v. Murdoch https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70843413/trump-v-murdoch   Trump v. BBC https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72040010/trump-v-british-broadcasting-corporation   Fifth Circuit Home Distillers Ruling https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-10760-CV0.pdf   Trump Admin Lawyer Applies To Be Law School Dean, Suggests It Might Help Investigations Go Away https://abovethelaw.com/2026/04/trump-admin-lawyer-applies-to-be-law-school-dean-suggests-it-might-help-investigations-go-away/   Ballroom Blitz Blocked https://www.lawandchaospod.com/p/ballroom-blitz-blocked   National Trust for Historic Preservation v. National Park Service https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73127510/national-trust-for-historic-preservation-v-nps   April 1, 2026 OLC Memorandum on the Presidential Records Act https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/1434131/dl   Judicial Watch v. NARA ("Socks Case"), 845 F.Supp.2d 288 (DC Cir. 2012) https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15818036517066124081   Trump v. Mazars, 591 US 848 (2020) https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2096461232780826445   Nixon v. Administrator of General Svcs. et al., 433 US 425 (1977) https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11884364268460571560   Show Links: https://www.lawandchaospod.com/ BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod Threads: @LawAndChaosPod Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod

DESCRIPTION:   Capitol police officer Shauni Kerkhoff has sued Glenn Beck's outfit The Blaze for defamation after they said she "kinda walked like a criminal" – and she's brought out the big guns. The Trump administration funneled another $1.25 million in taxpayer dollars to campaign stooge Carter Page. The Fifth Circuit hit us with another terrible decision, this one permitting states to force public schools to display the Ten Commandments. We wrote about it on the blog, and it's even worse than you imagine. And   And   In the main show, we have an extended interview with electoral maps expert Joe Dye over the Virginia Constitutional Amendment that passed on Tuesday and will replace Virginia's existing Congressional districts (that are 6 Democratic and 5 Republican) with a new map that is 10-1 Democratic. For now, a Republican judge in Tazewell County has enjoined the amendment.   SUBSCRIBER BONUS:   We discuss the Trump administration's bogus indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Kerkhoff v. Blaze Media, LLC [docket via CourtListener] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73220023/kerkhoff-v-blaze-media-llc/   "Fifth Circuit Cosplays As Historians So It Can Burn Down The Wall Between Church And State" [lawandchaospod.com] https://www.lawandchaospod.com/p/fifth-circuit-cosplays-as-historians   Rosado v. Bondi [docket via CourtListener] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72259284/rosado-v-bondi/   Text of Virginia's Constitutional Amendment https://www.elections.virginia.gov/election-law/proposed-amendment-for-april-2026-special-election/   Existing Virginia Congressional District Map (6-5 Democratic, drawn by independent commission) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Virginia_Congressional_Districts%2C_118th_Congress_%282%29.svg   New Virginia Congressional District Map (10-1 Democratic) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Virginia_Congressional_Districts%2C_120th_Congress_%282026_Redistricting_Amendment%29.svg   Judge Hurley's injunction issued in Tazewell County, Virginia [text via Meidas Touch News] https://meidasnews.com/news/virginia-judge-voids-redistricting-amendment-invalidates-all-votes-from-tuesdays-special-election   Indictment of Southern Poverty Law Center [via CourtListener] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.almd.90264/gov.uscourts.almd.90264.1.0.pdf   Show Links: https://www.lawandchaospod.com/ BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod Threads: @LawAndChaosPod Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod

DOCKET ALERTS:    Sadly, recurring L&C segment "Justin Baldoni Teaches CivPro" is canceled. He and Blake Lively settled their civil suit today. Now we'll just have to rely on Trump and his minions to show us how law does not work.   The DOJ subpoenaed a Rhode Island hospital for patient records on gender affirming care. When the hospital failed to respond (oh no!), the DOJ moved to enforce the subpoena … in Texas, before a hand-picked conservative jurist. Judge Reed O'Connor granted the motion, and now the hospital is seeking to block the demand in a Rhode Island federal court.   Trump says the War Powers Resolution doesn't count because of the ceasefire. He's full of s***.   Law and Chaos's first inaugural Doofus of the Day is Justice Neil Gorsuch, who went on Fox News to hawk his book and tell us all about the Christian Founding Fathers.   MAIN SHOW:   On Friday the Fifth Circuit purported to ban the abortion drug mifepristone nationwide based on a letter from HHS Secretary Robert "Bear Carcass" Kennedy implying that the dispensing protocol had been arbitrarily decided. On Monday, the Supreme Court stayed that order temporarily.    Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Alina Habba — what even is her job these days??? — both appeared on TV and undermined the Comey seashells case.    Democratic candidate Lindsay Garcia and a local voter have sued Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry over his executive order that suspends that state's primary elections – but only for the US House of Representatives races.   And for subscribers: US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro is ready to pick up the slack for Justin Baldoni. Today she'll teach us how Munsinwear vacatur doesn't work.    In Re: Administrative Subpoena 25-1431-032 [Texas action] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73276712/in-re-administrative-subpoena-25-1431-032/   In Re: Motion to Quash Administrative Subpoena to Rhode Island Hospital [Rhode Island action] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73290254/in-re-motion-to-quash-administrative-subpoena-to-rhode-island-hospital/   US v. Russotto https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70649950/united-states-v-russotto/   Collins v. Landry (Louisiana elections lawsuit) [Docket via CourtListener] https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/2026-Executive-Orders/JML-Exective-Order-26-038.pdf   Executive Order 26-038 (order suspending elections) https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/2026-Executive-Orders/JML-Exective-Order-26-038.pdf   Louisiana v. FDA (5th Cir) [docket via CourtListener] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73207799/state-of-louisiana-v-fda/   Louisiana v. FDA (W.D. La. trial court) [docket via CourtListener] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.213952/   Sec. Kennedy Letter re: Mifepristone https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.213952/gov.uscourts.lawd.213952.1.110.pdf   Supreme Court stay order https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/050426zr_l5gm.pdf   In re grand jury subpoenas [Federal Reserve] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72490330/in-re-grand-jury-subpoenas/   Show Links: https://www.lawandchaospod.com/ BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod Threads: @LawAndChaosPod Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod

DESCRIPTION:   Kash Patel is not as think as you drunk he is … again. And if you tell someone about it, he'll strap you to a polygraph.   The DC Circuit seems likely to side with Senator Mark Kelly in his lawsuit against Pete Hegseth for trying to steal his pension.   The DOJ subpoenaed a hospital in Rhode Island for medical records of kids receiving gender affirming care. While the parties were negotiating, the DOJ filed a petition to enforce in Texas, which their hand-picked Judge Reed O'Connor instantly granted. Now the hospital has appealed to the Fifth Circuit (ughhh) and the Rhode Island Child Advocate has filed a motion to quash in the District of Rhode Island.   Our Doofus of the Day is Chief Justice John Roberts. It won't always be someone on the Supreme Court, but when you stand up in front of hundreds of lawyers to whine about how unfair it is that people think your obviously political Supreme Court is political, how could we resist?   MAIN SHOW:   The 11th Circuit has joined two other circuit courts of appeal in ruling that the Trump administration cannot use the mandatory detention provisions of the Immigration and Naturalization Act to hold any immigrant, anywhere in the US, for any length of time and with no opportunity for a bond hearing.   The DOJ is so desperate to hire lawyers that they're offering signing bonuses and tipping current employees with "retention incentive allowances" to keep them from fleeing. Turns out, competent lawyers don't like harassing trans kids for sport and indicting Democratic politicians on spurious grounds.   Judge Coleen McMahon ruled that DOGE illegally dismantled the National Endowment for the Humanities when the bros fed the grantee database into ChatGPT with an instruction to find grants were "DEI."   The Southern Poverty Law Center says the government's public lies about the case — lookin' at you, Todd Blanche — are so egregious that the court should hand over the grand jury transcript.   Judges in Rhode Island and Texas are dueling over the DOJ's subpoena for the medical record for transgender minors.   READING LIST: How Professional Wrestling Prepared Linda McMahon for Trump's Cabinet   Kash Patel's Personalized Bourbon Stash https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/kash-patel-fbi-bourbon/687066/   Kash Patel ordered polygraphs of more than two dozen members of his team, sources tell MS NOW https://www.ms.now/news/kash-patel-ordered-polygraphs-of-more-than-two-dozen-members-of-his-team-sources-tell-ms-now   DOJ Offers Lawyers $25,000 Signing Bonuses as Hiring Lags https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/doj-offers-lawyers-25-000-signing-bonuses-as-recruitment-lags   US. SPLC https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73223865/united-states-v-southern-poverty-law-center-inc   In Re: Administrative Subpoena 25-1431-032 [Texas action] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73276712/in-re-administrative-subpoena-25-1431-032/   In Re: Motion to Quash Administrative Subpoena to Rhode Island Hospital [Rhode Island action] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73290254/in-re-motion-to-quash-administrative-subpoena-to-rhode-island-hospital/   "Chief Justice John Roberts says American public wrongly views the justices as 'political actors'" [NBC News] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/chief-justice-john-roberts-says-justices-are-not-political-actors-rcna343958   Hernandez Alvarez v. Warden (11th Cir. immigration) [docket via CourtListener] https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2026/05/06/ismael_perez_v._assistant_field_office_director_krome_north_service.pdf   American Council of Learned Societies v. McDonald https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70035052/american-council-of-learned-societies-v-mcdonald/   How Professional Wrestling Prepared Linda McMahon for Trump's Cabinet https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/27/linda-mcmahon-profile   Show Links: https://www.lawandchaospod.com/ BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPod Threads: @LawAndChaosPod Twitter: @LawAndChaosPod

Intellectual Property: Maynews aggregator apps legally display news publisher content via embedding without securing explicit licenses or paying fees? - Argued: Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:48:59 EDT

Federalism: May the United States and Texas jointly invalidate a Texas law providing for in-state tuition for undocumented students? - Argued: Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:45:46 EDT

What employers should know about key developments this week: EEOC Proposes Eliminating EEO-1 Reports: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is proposing the complete elimination of EEO-1 reports (which include employee demographic data, such as race and gender), along with the rescission of EEO-2, EEO-3, EEO-4, and EEO-5 reports.  Fifth Circuit Rules on Remote Work Accommodations: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that in-person attendance is an essential job function and that COVID-era accommodations do not define that standard today—a ruling that could prove informative as more employers implement return-to-office policies. New Non-Compete Restrictions in Tennessee: Beginning July 1, 2026, non-compete agreements will be unenforceable in Tennessee for employees who earn less than $70,000 a year (inclusive of wages, salary, commissions, nondiscretionary bonuses, and other forms of remuneration). - Visit our site for this week's Other Highlights and links: https://www.ebglaw.com/eltw436 Sign up for notifications: https://www.ebglaw.com/eltw-subscribe Visit https://www.EmploymentLawThisWeek.com - Epstein Becker Green is a national law firm focused on health care and life sciences; employment, labor, and workforce management; and litigation and business disputes. This video is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Viewing this video does not create an attorney-client relationship.  EMPLOYMENT LAW THIS WEEK® and #WorkforceWednesday® are registered trademarks of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. © Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. All Rights Reserved. Attorney Advertising.

Bob Harringson and former FDA commissioner Rob Califf discuss medical misinformation, its impact on public and individual health, and how to fight against it. This podcast is intended for healthcare professionals only. To read a transcript or to comment, visit https://www.medscape.com/author/bob-harrington  Is a Long-Simmering Crisis Boiling Over? U.S. Primary Care Today https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMms2510425 The Global Wellness Economy Hits a Record $6.8 Trillion and Is Forecast to Reach $9.8 Trillion by 2029 https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/press-releases/the-global-wellness-economy-hits-a-record-6-8-trillion-and-is-forecast-to-reach-9-8-trillion-by-2029/  Life's Essential 8: Updating and Enhancing the American Heart Association's Construct of Cardiovascular Health: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000001078  Effect of potentially modifiable risk factors associated with myocardial infarction in 52 countries (the INTERHEART study): case-control study https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(04)17018-9/abstract  Here's What We Know https://weillcornell.org/heres-what-we-know  Fifth Circuit sides with ivermectin-prescribing doctors in their quarrel with the FDA https://www.courthousenews.com/fifth-circuit-sides-with-ivermectin-prescribing-doctors-in-their-quarrel-with-the-fda/  SNAP Tracker: People Are Losing Food Assistance as the Republican Megabill Is Implemented https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-people-are-losing-food-assistance-as-the-republican-megabill  Chronic Conditions and Food Insecurity in US Children https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2839376  As Unregulated Peptides Flood the Market, Clinicians Encouraged to Counsel Patients https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/unregulated-peptides-flood-market-clinicians-encouraged-2026a1000e63 Coethia https://coethia.com/  You may also like: Hear John Mandrola, MD's summary and perspective on the top cardiology news each week, on This Week in Cardiology https://www.medscape.com/twic  Questions or feedback, please contact news@medscape.net

This Day in Legal History: Rhode Island Ratifies the Constitution, 1790On this day in 1790, Rhode Island became the thirteenth and final original state to ratify the United States Constitution, doing so by a margin of 34 to 32 at a convention in Newport. Rhode Island's hesitation had been considerable: the state refused to send delegates to the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, and twice rejected ratification in popular referenda — a curiously democratic method for refusing to join a constitutional union founded in part on the premise that pure direct democracy is dangerous. The state's small-farmer and debtor classes, the same constituencies that had backed the paper-money policies that horrified Madison, were deeply suspicious of a strong federal government that would constrain state-issued currency, ban impairment of debt contracts (Article I, Section 10), and override state-level debtor protections.Ratification finally came under the gun: Congress, frustrated by the foot-dragging, was openly threatening to treat Rhode Island as a foreign nation for tariff purposes, which would have devastated the Providence merchants. The convention's narrow margin reflected a hostile deal more than a meeting of constitutional minds.Importantly, Rhode Island's ratification was conditioned on a lengthy list of proposed amendments — many of them mirroring the Bill of Rights that James Madison had already shepherded through Congress in September 1789 and that would be ratified in December 1791. With Rhode Island in, the original Union was at last complete, and the practical question of whether the new federal government could function with one stubborn holdout fell away. The episode is a useful reminder that the constitutional founding was not so much a singular moment as a slow, contested, occasionally coerced bargain — one that ended in Newport on a humid Saturday in May.The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday handed down a narrow 5-4 ruling in Pitchford v. Cain, reviving a Mississippi death row inmate's challenge to the prosecutor's race-based use of peremptory strikes at his 2006 capital trial. Justice Kavanaugh, writing for a majority that included Chief Justice Roberts plus Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, held that the Mississippi Supreme Court unreasonably applied Batson v. Kentucky's three-step framework for challenges to peremptory strikes.The Court found the trial judge accepted the prosecutor's race-neutral explanations without giving defense counsel a meaningful opportunity to argue that those reasons were pretextual, and the state appellate court compounded the error by treating that omission as a waiver. The prosecutor, Doug Evans, used four of his twelve strikes to remove four of the five Black prospective jurors, leaving a jury of eleven white jurors and one Black juror in a Mississippi county that was then roughly 40 percent Black.The Court leaned heavily on its 2019 Flowers v. Mississippi decision, which involved the same prosecutor and the same trial judge and had already found Evans's pattern of striking Black jurors discriminatory. Federal habeas relief was appropriate because the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act's deferential “no fair-minded jurist could agree” standard cannot rescue a state-court ruling that simply skips Batson's third step. Justice Gorsuch dissented, joined by Justices Alito, Thomas, and Barrett, arguing the record showed counsel chose silence rather than being denied an opportunity. The case now returns to the Fifth Circuit for further proceedings.Justices Revive Mississippi Death Row Inmate's Batson Claim | Law360Caesars Entertainment agreed Thursday to be acquired by Tilman Fertitta's privately-held Fertitta Entertainment in an all-cash deal valued at roughly $17.6 billion, including the assumption of approximately $11.9 billion of Caesars' outstanding debt. Shareholders will receive $31 per share, a 49 percent premium over Caesars' unaffected share price as of February 25, and the company will be delisted from Nasdaq upon closing. The agreement includes a go-shop period running through approximately July 11 — a Delaware deal-protection mechanism that lets the target board solicit competing bids without triggering a termination fee, and that helps insulate the sale process from a Revlon-flavored fiduciary-duty challenge by signaling the board actively tested the market after signing.Latham & Watkins and Skadden are representing Caesars (the latter on antitrust), White & Case is advising Fertitta, and Freshfields is counseling the Carano family, which holds a roughly 5 percent stake and will roll part of its equity into the combined entity. The combined company would control more than 60 casino resorts and over 200 retail sports betting locations under the William Hill brand. Antitrust review will be the inflection point given the overlap on the Las Vegas Strip — where Caesars operates eight properties — and across digital betting. Funding will come from Fertitta equity and committed debt financing arranged by a syndicate of ten banks.4 Firms Steer Fertitta's $17.6B Caesars Entertainment Buy | Law360The Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday finalized a long-awaited overhaul of the federal Independent Dispute Resolution process under the No Surprises Act of 2021, the statute that pulls most out-of-network billing fights out of the patient's hands and into a baseball-style arbitration between provider and payer. The headline change slashes the per-party administrative fee from $115 to $15 per case, undoing a sharp 2023 hike that providers had successfully challenged in the Eastern District of Texas as having been adopted without notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act.The rule also expands batching, so economically similar items and services can be bundled into a single arbitration, which the agency says will cut transaction costs and ease the chronic IDR backlog. HHS is also rolling out a centralized federal dispute portal and a payer registry intended to fix the persistent problem of providers being unable to identify which entity is actually on the hook in any given case. Reactions from physician and radiology groups have been mixed, with broad support for the fee cut but lingering concern that the qualifying payment amount methodology — the benchmark arbitrators must consider — still tilts the field toward insurers. APA Section 706 challenges to portions of the earlier IDR framework remain pending in the Fifth Circuit.US HHS finalizes rule to streamline dispute resolution under No Surprises Act | ReutersABC's New York affiliate WABC-TV filed an objection with the FCC on Thursday, calling Chairman Brendan Carr's April order requiring early license renewals for all eight ABC-owned stations an “unconstitutional” act of viewpoint-based retaliation barred by the First Amendment. WABC submitted its renewal under protest, arguing the agency has not demanded simultaneous early renewals from a commonly owned station group in more than fifty years and that the Media Bureau's stated rationale — possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC's nondiscrimination rules — is pretext for punishing disfavored editorial speech.The doctrinal hook is the Bantam Books line of cases through last term's NRA v. Vullo, which holds that government officials cannot use the implicit threat of regulatory sanction to coerce private intermediaries into suppressing protected expression. The order followed a separate FCC inquiry into whether “The View” has been violating the agency's equal-time rule for political candidates, and came against the backdrop of repeated White House demands that Disney fire Jimmy Kimmel. Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez has openly urged Disney not to “flinch.”On the same day, the FCC issued a broader notice warning all broadcasters that licenses could be reviewed early if stations are deemed to be failing their statutory public-interest obligation — a posture that drops the question of broadcast licensing back into Red Lion-era First Amendment territory.FCC Targeting ABC Licenses To Punish Speech, Station Says | Law360 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

In this episode, Imani and Jess unpack the Supreme Court's order on mifepristone access and explain where it fits in the Trump administration's crusade to redefine motherhood nationwide. Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what's at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

In this episode, Imani and Jess unpack the Supreme Court's order on mifepristone access and explain where it fits in the Trump administration's crusade to redefine motherhood nationwide. Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what's at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

One of the leading voices in the pro-life movement, Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America discusses the latest on the abortion pill showdown. We'll discuss the growing legal battle over the abortion pill mifepristone, the Supreme Court's latest actions involving the Fifth Circuit ruling and Louisiana case, and why pro-life advocates are fighting against telehealth prescriptions and mail-order abortion drugs. Students for Life of America is the largest pro-life youth organization in the world with more than 1,600 campus groups nationwide. Kristan has spent nearly two decades training the next generation of pro-life leaders and was on the steps of the Supreme Court when Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

This week on Amicus, hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern break down a whirlwind stretch of reproductive rights legal battles, from the Fifth Circuit's sweeping nationwide ban on telehealth medication abortion, to the Supreme Court's emergency order blocking it. Madiba Dennie (Deputy Editor, Balls and Strikes; and author of The Originalism Trap) joins to explain what the furious dissents from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito reveal about where this is all headed.Then, Dahlia sits down with writer, activist, and former NARAL president Ilyse Hogue for a wide-ranging conversation about why the assault on medication abortion and the assault on voting rights are the same fight — and why progressives keep losing the narrative battle even when public opinion and shared values are on their side. They also discuss an overlooked but hugely significant win for free speech in the Media Matters v. FTC case, and why fighting back against government bullying matters more than ever.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Amicus, hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern break down a whirlwind stretch of reproductive rights legal battles, from the Fifth Circuit's sweeping nationwide ban on telehealth medication abortion, to the Supreme Court's emergency order blocking it. Madiba Dennie (Deputy Editor, Balls and Strikes; and author of The Originalism Trap) joins to explain what the furious dissents from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito reveal about where this is all headed.Then, Dahlia sits down with writer, activist, and former NARAL president Ilyse Hogue for a wide-ranging conversation about why the assault on medication abortion and the assault on voting rights are the same fight — and why progressives keep losing the narrative battle even when public opinion and shared values are on their side. They also discuss an overlooked but hugely significant win for free speech in the Media Matters v. FTC case, and why fighting back against government bullying matters more than ever.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Amicus, hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern break down a whirlwind stretch of reproductive rights legal battles, from the Fifth Circuit's sweeping nationwide ban on telehealth medication abortion, to the Supreme Court's emergency order blocking it. Madiba Dennie (Deputy Editor, Balls and Strikes; and author of The Originalism Trap) joins to explain what the furious dissents from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito reveal about where this is all headed.Then, Dahlia sits down with writer, activist, and former NARAL president Ilyse Hogue for a wide-ranging conversation about why the assault on medication abortion and the assault on voting rights are the same fight — and why progressives keep losing the narrative battle even when public opinion and shared values are on their side. They also discuss an overlooked but hugely significant win for free speech in the Media Matters v. FTC case, and why fighting back against government bullying matters more than ever.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jackie Papish, Partner, Barnes & Thornburg LLP, speaks with Brandon Helms, Shareholder, Hall Render Killian Heath & Lyman PC, about issues that arise during delays in Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations under the False Claims Act (FCA). They discuss potential reasons for these delays and what they mean for providers in terms of time and cost; how a 2023 case from the Fifth Circuit, United States ex rel. Aldridge v. Corporate Management, Inc., illustrated excessive DOJ delays; whether Congress intended for these kinds of delays when it passed the modern FCA; and possible ways to improve the system. Brandon recently co-authored an article in Health Law Connections magazine about this topic. From AHLA's Hospitals and Health Systems and Fraud and Abuse Practice Groups.Watch this conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuEj2w0wlTsRead the Health Law Connections article: https://www.americanhealthlaw.org/content-library/connections-magazine/article/e157919b-1308-48af-b1a0-d41f1dba2f66/Behind-the-Seal-Why-DOJ-Investigations-Drag-On-and Learn more about AHLA's Hospitals and Health Systems Practice Group: https://www.americanhealthlaw.org/practice-groups/practice-groups/hospitals-and-health-systemsLearn more about AHLA's Fraud and Abuse Practice Group: https://www.americanhealthlaw.org/practice-groups/practice-groups/fraud-and-abuseEssential Legal Updates, Now in AudioAHLA's popular Health Law Daily email newsletter is now a daily podcast, exclusively for AHLA Comprehensive members. Get all your health law news from the major media outlets on this podcast! To subscribe and add this private podcast feed to your podcast app, go to americanhealthlaw.org/dailypodcast.Stay At the Forefront of Health Legal EducationLearn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community at https://www.americanhealthlaw.org/. 

Environmental Law: When does a city's failure to maintain a safe water supply violate the constitutional rights of its residents? - Argued: Tue, 12 May 2026 17:41:33 EDT

Constitutional Law: Does the constitution require Congress to vote in person? - Argued: Tue, 12 May 2026 15:59:56 EDT

This week, the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a Texas law requiring public schools to display a copy of the Ten Commandments in classrooms does not violate the First Amendment's Establishment or Free Exercise Clauses. The court explained that Stone v. Graham, which relied upon the now-defunct Lemon test to invalidate a similar Kentucky law decades ago, is no longer controlling. In the place of Lemon and its progeny, the en banc court explained, courts must ask whether a challenged law resembles a founding-era religious establishment. The court also held the challengers here failed to show the law substantially burdened their free exercise. Join us for a litigation update breaking down this ruling and what it may hold for Establishment and Free Exercise cases in the future. Featuring: Prof. Stephanie Barclay, Professor of Law and Faculty Director for the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, Georgetown University Law Center Prof. Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law (Moderator) Joe Davis, Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty

On Tuesday, Indiana and Ohio held primary elections. Chris Butler joins Russell Moore and Clarissa Moll to discuss how Republican candidates endorsed by the Trump administration fared. President Trump heads to China next week to discuss trade with President Xi Jinping. Mark Tooley from the Institute on Religion and Democracy shares what these conversations mean for Taiwanese independence, and how China and Taiwan are both taking notes from Russia's war in Ukraine. On Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit paused the distribution of abortion pills-by-mail for patients who did not first have an in-person doctor visit. John Mize from Americans United for Life joins us to discuss why the Supreme Court subsequently blocked that decision. REFERENCED IN THE EPISODE: CT's Reporting on Religious Freedom GO DEEPER WITH THE BULLETIN: Join the conversation at our Substack. Find us on YouTube. Rate and review the show in your podcast app of choice. ABOUT THE GUESTS: Chris Butler is the director of Christian civic formation at the Center for Christianity and Public Life, and he has pastored at Ambassador Church in Chicago for nine years. Chris co-authored Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement. Mark Tooley is president of The Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and editor of IRD's foreign policy and national security journal, Providence. He worked eight years for the CIA and is a graduate of Georgetown University. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, World, Law & Liberty, and National Review. John Mize serves as CEO of Americans United for Life, advancing the human right to life in culture, law, and policy. He previously served on the Senior Leadership team at the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, a leading patient advocacy organization devoted to supporting people impacted by inflammatory bowel disease. ABOUT THE BULLETIN: The Bulletin is a twice-weekly news analysis podcast from Christianity Today, with editor-at-large Russell Moore and executive editor of news Clarissa Moll. Each episode offers commentary on current events and headlining news with a roundtable of premier guests, and shares a Christian perspective on issues that are shaping our world The Bulletin listeners get 25% off CT. Go to https://orderct.com/THEBULLETIN to learn more. “The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today Producer: Clarissa Moll Associate Producer: Alexa Burke Editing and Mix: Kevin Morris Graphic Design: Rick Szuecs Music: Dan Phelps Executive Producer: Erik Petrik Senior Producer: Matt Stevens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kash Patel is not as think as you drunk he is … again. And if you tell someone about it, he'll strap you to a polygraph.The DC Circuit seems likely to side with Senator Mark Kelly in his lawsuit against Pete Hegseth for trying to steal his pension.The DOJ subpoenaed a hospital in Rhode Island for medical records of kids receiving gender affirming care. While the parties were negotiating, the DOJ filed a petition to enforce in Texas, which their hand-picked Judge Reed O'Connor instantly granted. Now the hospital has appealed to the Fifth Circuit (ughhh) and the Rhode Island Child Advocate has filed a motion to quash in the District of Rhode Island.Our Doofus of the Day is Chief Justice John Roberts. It won't always be someone on the Supreme Court, but when you stand up in front of hundreds of lawyers to whine about how unfair it is that people think your obviously political Supreme Court is political, how could we resist?MAIN SHOW:The 11th Circuit has joined two other circuit courts of appeal in ruling that the Trump administration cannot use the mandatory detention provisions of the Immigration and Naturalization Act to hold any immigrant, anywhere in the US, for any length of time and with no opportunity for a bond hearing.The DOJ is so desperate to hire lawyers that they're offering signing bonuses and tipping current employees with “retention incentive allowances” to keep them from fleeing. Turns out, competent lawyers don't like harassing trans kids for sport and indicting Democratic politicians on spurious grounds.Judge Coleen McMahon ruled that DOGE illegally dismantled the National Endowment for the Humanities when the bros fed the grantee database into ChatGPT with an instruction to find grants were “DEI.”The Southern Poverty Law Center says the government's public lies about the case — lookin' at you, Todd Blanche — are so egregious that the court should hand over the grand jury transcript.Judges in Rhode Island and Texas are dueling over the DOJ's subpoena for the medical record for transgender minors.READING LIST:How Professional Wrestling Prepared Linda McMahon for Trump's CabinetKash Patel's Personalized Bourbon Stashhttps://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/kash-patel-fbi-bourbon/687066/Kash Patel ordered polygraphs of more than two dozen members of his team, sources tell MS NOWhttps://www.ms.now/news/kash-patel-ordered-polygraphs-of-more-than-two-dozen-members-of-his-team-sources-tell-ms-nowDOJ Offers Lawyers $25,000 Signing Bonuses as Hiring Lagshttps://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/doj-offers-lawyers-25-000-signing-bonuses-as-recruitment-lagsUS. SPLChttps://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73223865/united-states-v-southern-poverty-law-center-incIn Re: Administrative Subpoena 25-1431-032 [Texas action]https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73276712/in-re-administrative-subpoena-25-1431-032/In Re: Motion to Quash Administrative Subpoena to Rhode Island Hospital [Rhode Island action]https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73290254/in-re-motion-to-quash-administrative-subpoena-to-rhode-island-hospital/“Chief Justice John Roberts says American public wrongly views the justices as ‘political actors'” [NBC News]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/chief-justice-john-roberts-says-justices-are-not-political-actors-rcna343958Hernandez Alvarez v. Warden (11th Cir. immigration) [docket via CourtListener]https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2026/05/06/ismael_perez_v._assistant_field_office_director_krome_north_service.pdfAmerican Council of Learned Societies v. McDonaldhttps://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70035052/american-council-of-learned-societies-v-mcdonald/How Professional Wrestling Prepared Linda McMahon for Trump's Cabinethttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/27/linda-mcmahon-profileShow Links:https://www.lawandchaospod.com/BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPodThreads: @LawAndChaosPodTwitter: @LawAndChaosPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

IT'S BEEN A WEEK!!! Lizz and Moji have been chugging Imodium the last seven days as they follow the twists and turns of the Fifth Circus Court ruling that created a federal ban and put the mail distribution of the abortion pill mifepristone on the chopping block. Between Sam Alito giving us a week of reprieve to dial back our panic to 23/7 and the FDA assessing the fate of abortion medication using a debunked “study” (really just a forced-birth fever dream scribbled on fishwrap), we were already hanging by a thread. Then Oklahoma decided to do the absolute most by funneling money to FAKE clinics. So yeah, you're gonna need an emotional support drink, spliff, snack, or whatever survival instincts you have left for this episode.   GUEST ROLL CALL:   We had to call in backup for this one! We are joined by Michigan-based OGBYN PA-C, Author, and Creator, Nikki Sapiro Vinckier – the ultimate reproductive health sherpa! Nikki is going to talk about her new book, “We Deserve More,” her latest citizen-led repro win in Michigan, and guide us through EVERYTHING that is happening to access to medication abortion right now. Can we still get pills? How do we get pills? What pills can we still get? Will Sam Alito give me pills? WE NEED ANSWERS, AND NIKKI IS DELIVERING!   PLUS! THE ONE AND ONLY, RaeShanda Lias is here and queeeeer, babay! The absolutely fabulous Digital Creator & Diversity Advocate joins the Buzzkills to fill our joy cups back up by making us laugh, reminding us that Black queer love is indeed thriving, talking to us about clapping back online, her new podcast, and checking the board about RFK Jr. being absolute trash. You're welcome.   Times are heavy, but knowledge is power, y'all. We gotchu.   OPERATION SAVE ABORTION: You can still join the 10,000+ womb warriors fighting the patriarchy by clicking HERE for past Operation Save Abortion trainings, your toolkit, marching orders, and more.   HOSTS: Lizz Winstead IG: @LizzWinstead Bluesky: @LizzWinstead.bsky.social Moji Alawode-El IG: @Mojilocks Bluesky: @Mojilocks.bsky.social   SPECIAL GUESTS: Nikki Sapiro Vinckier IG: @NikkiVinck Bluesky: @NikkiVinck.bsky.social RaeShanda Lias IG: @RaeShanda_Lias / @itsreallyverysimplepodcast TikTok: @shopaif   GUEST LINKS: Nikki's Website BUY: Nikki's New Book, “We Deserve More: Why Reproductive Healthcare Is Broken And What You Can Do About It” Take Back Trust RaeShanda's Website RaeShanda's TikTok   NEWS DUMP: Secret Service Officer Arrested for Indecent Exposure in Miami After Trump Golf Event Member of Trump's Secret Service Arrested Senate Committee Approves Bill to Pay Out-Of-State Groups With Oklahoma Choosing Childbirth Southwest Airlines Finally Pays Flight Attendant Nearly $1 Million After 9-Year Abortion Case Louisiana Says Men Are Spiking Women's Drinks With Abortion Pills. There's Scant Evidence of That. Josh and Erin Hawley's ‘Love Life Initiative' Signals a New Phase of the Antiabortion Fight With Legal Briefs In, Supreme Court Weighs Telehealth Access for the Abortion Pill Facebook Took Down Lizz's Post Talking About Abortion  TROLL JOSH HAWLEY'S HOTLINE: (202) 224-6154   EPISODE LINKS: ADOPT-A-CLINIC: Choices Rising 6 DEGREES: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy to Run Amok in ‘Hocus Pocus 3' SUBSTACK: Abortion Access Front Operation Save Abortion Expose Fake Clinics BUY AAF MERCH! EMAIL your abobo questions to The Feminist Buzzkills AAF's Abortion-Themed Rage Playlist   FOLLOW US: Listen to us ~ FBK Podcast  Instagram ~ @AbortionFront Bluesky ~ @AbortionFront TikTok ~ @AbortionFront Facebook ~ @AbortionFront YouTube ~ @AbortionAccessFront   TALK TO THE CHARLEY BOT FOR ABOBO OPTIONS & RESOURCES HERE! PATREON HERE! Support our work, get exclusive merch and more!  DONATE TO AAF HERE! ACTIVIST CALENDAR HERE! VOLUNTEER WITH US HERE! ADOPT-A-CLINIC HERE! GET ABOBO PILLS FROM PLAN C PILLS HERE! When BS is poppin', we pop off! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Imani and Jess unpack the historic attack on voting rights from the Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais and explain what's next from the Court on the fight to block mifepristone access.    Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what's at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

In this episode, Imani and Jess unpack the historic attack on voting rights from the Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais and explain what's next from the Court on the fight to block mifepristone access.    Expert Repro Journalism That Inspires. Episodes like this take time, research, and a commitment to the truth. If Boom! Lawyered helps you understand what's at stake in our courts, chip in to keep our fearless legal analysis alive. Become a member today. B*itch, Listen now has its own dedicated feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. If you already subscribe to Boom! Lawyered, sign up for B*tch, Listen so you won't miss it.

As the 10 commandments case makes its way towards the Supreme Court, we add another chapter to our study of the historical events and factors that went into the American constitutional tradition when it comes to religious freedom, religious establishment, and the relationship of government and religion as a whole.  We begin this episode where The Words That Made Us began - in 1760.  We take it forward through the revolutionary period, into the Articles and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and then wind up with the Civil War and Reconstruction, leaving us poised at last to take a serious look at what the Fifth Circuit thought it was doing, and what it actually was doing, when it allowed a law to stand that mandates posting of the Ten Commandments in every classroom.  CLE credit is available for lawyers and judges from podcast.njsba.com.

DOCKET ALERTS: Sadly, recurring L&C segment “Justin Baldoni Teaches CivPro” is canceled. He and Blake Lively settled their civil suit today. Now we'll just have to rely on Trump and his minions to show us how law does not work.The DOJ subpoenaed a Rhode Island hospital for patient records on gender affirming care. When the hospital failed to respond (oh no!), the DOJ moved to enforce the subpoena … in Texas, before a hand-picked conservative jurist. Judge Reed O'Connor granted the motion, and now the hospital is seeking to block the demand in a Rhode Island federal court.Trump says the War Powers Resolution doesn't count because of the ceasefire. He's full of s***.Law and Chaos's first inaugural Doofus of the Day is Justice Neil Gorsuch, who went on Fox News to hawk his book and tell us all about the Christian Founding Fathers.MAIN SHOW:On Friday the Fifth Circuit purported to ban the abortion drug mifepristone nationwide based on a letter from HHS Secretary Robert “Bear Carcass” Kennedy implying that the dispensing protocol had been arbitrarily decided. On Monday, the Supreme Court stayed that order temporarily. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Alina Habba — what even is her job these days??? — both appeared on TV and undermined the Comey seashells case. Democratic candidate Lindsay Garcia and a local voter have sued Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry over his executive order that suspends that state's primary elections – but only for the US House of Representatives races.And for subscribers: US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro is ready to pick up the slack for Justin Baldoni. Today she'll teach us how Munsingwear vacatur doesn't work. In Re: Administrative Subpoena 25-1431-032 [Texas action]https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73276712/in-re-administrative-subpoena-25-1431-032/In Re: Motion to Quash Administrative Subpoena to Rhode Island Hospital [Rhode Island action]https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73290254/in-re-motion-to-quash-administrative-subpoena-to-rhode-island-hospital/US v. Russottohttps://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70649950/united-states-v-russotto/Collins v. Landry (Louisiana elections lawsuit) [Docket via CourtListener]https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/2026-Executive-Orders/JML-Exective-Order-26-038.pdfExecutive Order 26-038 (order suspending elections)https://gov.louisiana.gov/assets/2026-Executive-Orders/JML-Exective-Order-26-038.pdfLouisiana v. FDA (5th Cir) [docket via CourtListener]https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73207799/state-of-louisiana-v-fda/Louisiana v. FDA (W.D. La. trial court) [docket via CourtListener]https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.213952/Sec. Kennedy Letter re: Mifepristonehttps://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.213952/gov.uscourts.lawd.213952.1.110.pdfSupreme Court stay orderhttps://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/050426zr_l5gm.pdfIn re grand jury subpoenas [Federal Reserve]https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72490330/in-re-grand-jury-subpoenas/Show Links:https://www.lawandchaospod.com/BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPodThreads: @LawAndChaosPodTwitter: @LawAndChaosPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today’s episode is in lieu of one on Friday because of the importance of federal court decisions over the last four days. I address the importance of understanding recent decisions by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and SCOTUS regarding the FDA's rule allowing mifepristone (RU-486) to be dispensed by mail. What could a favorable mean for ending the scourge of abortion in the United States? The answer may surprise you.Support the show: https://www.factennessee.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The president had 60 days to ask Congress for permission to keep fighting a war with Iran. Today was the deadline. He didn't ask. He sent a letter saying the war is "terminated," while 50,000 troops remain deployed, the naval blockade continues, oil sits at $118 a barrel, gas is at $4.12, and the Secretary of Defense told the world he could resume strikes "at the push of a button."Meanwhile, his sons signed a Pentagon drone deal. The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. The Fifth Circuit blocked mifepristone from being mailed anywhere in the country. A whistleblower revealed the DOJ rushed the SPLC indictment. Infowars went dark forever. The new surgeon general nominee has spent years publicly calling out RFK Jr. And the owner of Politico told his journalists to support Israel or resign.Robin breaks down the entire week: the War Powers Resolution deadline and why Trump's "ceasefire means the war is over" argument is constitutionally indefensible. The Trump family drone company Powerus and how Don Jr. and Eric are positioned to profit from their father's unauthorized war. The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling eviscerating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the DOJ's gleeful "we are ON IT" response, and the state-by-state domino effect already underway in Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and beyond. The Fifth Circuit's nationwide ruling blocking mail-order mifepristone and what it means for abortion access in every state. The SPLC whistleblower who says Associate Deputy AG Aakash Singh ordered prosecutors to rush a weak indictment against a civil rights organization for the crime of infiltrating white supremacist groups.Casey Means getting pulled and Nicole Saphier's history of criticizing Kennedy's anti-vaccine empire. Alex Jones' slurred champagne farewell and The Onion's plan to turn Infowars into a parody of itself. Axel Springer CEO Mathias Dopfner demanding Politico journalists back Israel or leave. And the DNC burying its own autopsy to protect Kamala Harris' 2028 bid.This is what a single week looks like when every guardrail fails at once.New episode. We Saw the Devil.KEYWORDS:War Powers Act Iran, War Powers Resolution 60 days, Trump Iran hostilities terminated, Trump Iran ceasefire war powers, Iran war 2026, Pete Hegseth war powers testimony, Susan Collins war powers vote, Trump sons drone deal, Powerus drone company, Eric Trump Donald Trump Jr Pentagon, Trump family war profiteering, drone deal Air Force Iran, Supreme Court Voting Rights Act 2026, Section 2 Voting Rights Act gutted, Louisiana redistricting, Callais Supreme Court ruling, Harmeet Dhillon minority voters, DOJ target minority districts, Alabama redistricting special session, Florida redistricting 2026, voting rights midterms, mifepristone ruling, mifepristone mail ban, 5th Circuit abortion pill, mifepristone access blocked nationwide, abortion pill telehealth banned, SPLC indictment, Southern Poverty Law Center DOJ, SPLC whistleblower, Aakash Singh DOJ, Todd Blanche acting attorney general, Jamie Raskin SPLC letter, Casey Means withdrawn, Nicole Saphier surgeon general, RFK Jr surgeon general, MAHA movement, Infowars shutdown, Alex Jones Infowars dark, The Onion Infowars takeover, Sandy Hook families, Ben Collins Onion, Politico Axel Springer Israel, Mathias Dopfner journalists resign, press freedom 2026, DNC autopsy 2024, Kamala Harris 2028, dark money Democratic races, Israel US ammunition 6500 tons, midterm elections 2026, oil prices Iran blockade, gas prices 2026, Trump defense budget 1.5 trillion, We Saw the Devil podcast, WSTD podcast, Robin Coleman podcast, political commentary podcastBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/we-saw-the-devil-crime-political-analysis--4433638/support.Website: http://www.wesawthedevil.comPatreon: http://www.patreon.com/wesawthedevilDiscord: https://discord.gg/X2qYXdB4Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/WeSawtheDevilInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/wesawthedevilpodcast.

The Dean's List with Host Dean Bowen – In a razor thin 9–8 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit confirmed Texas Senate Bill 10, overturning the lower-court injunctions that had barred the 2025 law from taking effect. The ACLU lamented the decision. “We are extremely disappointed in today's decision. The Court's ruling goes against fundamental First Amendment principles and...

From the DOJ's targeting of the Southern Poverty Law Center for its anti-KKK work to Kash Patel's outrageous lawsuit against The Atlantic for its reporting on his unfitness for office to the Fifth Circuit's legal contortions allowing Texas to mandate the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms, it's been a wild week in the law. Kate and Leah unpack it all before recapping the week's oral arguments, which featured the welcome return of former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar to One First Street's hallowed halls. For the second part of the show, Kate and Leah speak with University of Pennsylvania law professor Shaun Ossei-Owusu about his new book, Law on Trial: An Unlikely Insider Reckons with Our Legal System.Favorite things: Kate: Sexistential, Robyn; USAID Whistleblower Says It Was Even Worse Than People Knew, Vittoria Elliott (Wired); Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID, Nicholas Enrich; Enrich's interview on Pod Save the World; Melissa on the Work Friends podcast Leah: The Great Divide, Noah Kahan; Kahan's Tiny Desk Concert; It Is Time for Ruthless Aggression, Jonathan V. Last (The Bulwark); The Gerrymandering Fight Should Be A Dress Rehearsal For Court Packing, Brian Beutler (Off Message); Sanewashing the Emergency Docket, Steve Vladeck (One First); The SPLC indictment, the Klan history behind it, and the ignominy of Todd Blanche, Chris Geidner (Law Dork); LEGO Kash Patel videos Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026! 6/20/26 – New York City Learn more: http://crooked.com/eventsPreorder Melissa's book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern ReaderPreorder a signed paperback of Leah's book, Lawless, here.Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Why Did Trump Fire His Own Navy Secretary In The Middle Of A War? Trump Plots A Revenge Tantrum At The Press Dinner. Republican appointed Judge blocks Virginia from using new House maps, Just 1 day after the “people's vote.” The Strategy That Built America's Middle Class Still Works, So Why Won't Democrats Deploy It? And Did the Fifth Circuit Just Bulldoze the Wall Between Church and State?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Leah, Kate, and Melissa preview this week's arguments at the Court, including Watson v. Republican National Committee, a challenge over when election offices must receive absentee ballots in order for them to be counted. They also cover a flood of legal news, including the quagmire that is the New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office, rulings from lower courts both encouraging (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) and grim (the wrong-like-clockwork Fifth Circuit), and the showdown between Senator Rand Paul and Trump's pick for DHS head, Markwayne “NOSPACES” Mullin.Favorite things: Kate: How to stop a dictator, Zack Beauchamp (Vox); The Case of Kristie Metcalfe (NYT's The Daily); Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir Leah: The Epic transcript from NJ; luck…or something, Hilary Duff (producer Melody's pick: Future Tripping; producer Michael's pick: Adult Size Medium); Her giveaway to celebrate Melissa's new book (enter here);  Melissa: Love Story Official Playlist (Spotify); Paradise (Hulu); Risk and Resistance: How Feminists Transformed the Law and Science of AIDS, Aziza Ahmed. Preorder Melissa's book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader and enter the giveaway for a t-shirt HERE.Buy Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad VibesFollow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky