For this week’s Rapid Response Friday we take up three major judicial rulings pushing back against executive overreach on three completely different topics: removals under the Alien Enemies Act, the use of the National Guard to conduct domestic law enforcement, and the imposition of tariffs as an executive action under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Also: it turns out a DC grand jury really can't indict a ham sandwich, and why Brazil is so much better at prosecuting insurrectionists than the US is.

1. Fifth Circuit's decision in W.M.M. et al (9/2/25)

2. Judge Charles Breyer’s decision in Newson v. Trump (9/2/25)

3. Federal Circuit’s decision in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump (8/29/25)

VR6 - For today’s Vapid Response Wednesday, Thomas, Lydia, and Matt review two examples from a newly-popular genre of lazy right wing op-eds: insecure white guys complaining about Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. What is with these losers who are so obsessed with trying to prove that one of the most qualified nominees to the high court in our lifetimes isn’t fit for the job? We take dark-money sugar baby Josh Hammer up on the joke to compare his life achievements to someone who began her SCOTUS career with four times as much courtroom experience as John Roberts, Elena Kagan, Clarence Thomas, and Amy Coney Barrett combined--before moving on to trying to even understand what Federalist weirdo Shawn Fleetwood thinks he is saying.

1. “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is an Insult to the Supreme Court,” Josh Hammer, Newsweek (7/1/2025)

2. “KBJ Could Learn a Few Lessons in ‘Professionalism’ From Justice Barrett,” Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist (8/20/2025)

3. Ketanji Brown Jackson’s career timeline from the Southern Poverty Law Center (4/7/22)

Watch on YouTube!

OA1186 - We continue our series on some of our favorite Warren-era Supreme Court decisions with the one Warren-era decision--and very likely the only Supreme Court decision that is still good law--that most people can name from memory. The desegregation of American schools in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) stands today as one of the greatest moments of justice in American legal history, but did you know that it was also an equally important moment for social science? Matt tees up the legal and historical context and Dr. Jenessa Seymour, Esq. brings her unique background as both a lawyer and a PhD in neuroscience to provide a singular perspective on the science behind Brown and what it has meant for both law and science in the 71 years since then.

1. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

2. Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (Pivotal Moments in American History), James T. Patterson (2001)