Kate, Leah, and Melissa dive into the legal pushback over ICE and the National Guard in Chicago and Portland, anti-marriage equality goblin Kim Davis’s unwelcome return to the courts, the administration’s lawless strikes on boats in the waters around South America, and the specter of Trump 3.0. Then, they preview November’s SCOTUS cases, including Learning Resources v. Trump, which challenges Trump’s authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Favorite things:

• Leah: Task (HBO Max); West End Girl, Lily Allen; The Kavanaugh Stop - 50 days later, Chris Geidner (Law Dork); The Supreme Court’s Self-Defeating Supremacy, Steve Vladeck (The Supreme Court Review); God’s Chief Justice, Doug Bock Clark (ProPublica); Lawyers March for Democracy on November 15 at 1-3pm.
• Kate: The Emergency, George Packer; Expert Backgrounder on War Powers Resolution 60-Day Clock for Boat Strikes Expiring Monday, Rebecca Ingber and Jessica Thibodeau (Just Security)
• Melissa: Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy, Judith Resnik
• Hurricane relief for Jamaica:
  • The WalkGood Jamaica Relief Fund
  • The American Friends of Jamaica
  • Global Empowerment Mission
  • Mercy Corps
  • Food for the Poor Jamaica

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 3/6/26 – San Francisco
• 3/7/26 – Los Angeles

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Get tickets to CROOKED CON November 6-7 in Washington, D.C at http://crookedcon.com

Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

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Kate and Leah dig into a very busy week of legal news as Trump wields his SCOTUS-enabled executive power in increasingly unhinged ways. They also discuss continuing challenges to the president’s deployment of the National Guard in blue cities, ProPublica’s reporting on “Kavanaugh stops,” and, for dessert, the bonkers text exchange between Trump lackey–turned–U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan and Lawfare’s Anna Bower. Then they speak with author Irin Carmon about her new book, Unbearable: Five Women and the Perils of Pregnancy in America. Presale for the West Coast tour starts Tuesday, Oct 28 at 10am Pacific time and runs through Thursday, 10/30 at 9AM Pacific. The code is DISSENT.

Favorite things:

• Leah: Resistance Is Cringe—But It’s Also Effective, Quinta Jurecic (The Atlantic); The Democrats' Main Problem Isn’t Their Message, Chris Hayes (NYT); The Peril of a White House That Flaunts Its Indifference to the Law, Charlie Savage (NYT); Everybody/Elizabeth Taylor Mashup (Backstreet Boys/Taylor Swift)
• Kate: Five Tuesdays in Winter, Lily King; I’m Still Here

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 3/6/26 – San Francisco
• 3/7/26 – Los Angeles

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Get tickets to CROOKED CON November 6-7 in Washington, D.C at http://crookedcon.com

Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Leah, Kate, and Melissa break down last week’s agonizing two-and-a-half-hour oral argument in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that could see the already weakened Voting Rights Act gutted even further. They highlight the themes that emerged and dig into the case’s broader context with Sam Spital, Associate Director-Counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, then recap the week’s other arguments and the latest legal news. Finally, Leah talks with Joyce Vance about her new book, Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy.

Favorite things:

• Leah: The Bow Street Runners series, Lisa Kleypas; Flirting Lessons, Jasmine Guillory
• Kate: What Are We Living Through? By Jedediah Britton-Purdy & David Pozen (Boston Review); Originalist ‘Bombshell’ Complicates Case on Trump’s Power to Fire Officials, Adam Liptak (NYT)
• Melissa: The Lawyer, the Witch, and the Witness: Proving Witchcraft in the English Courts, Trace M. Maddox (Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities); Slow Dance, Rainbow Rowell; One Battle After Another

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!

• 3/6/26 – San Francisco
• 3/7/26 – Los Angeles

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Get tickets to CROOKED CON November 6-7 in Washington, D.C at http://crookedcon.com

Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.