Listen to “School Wars, Explaining John Roberts, Kanye 2020” on Spreaker.
Join Jim and Greg for three crazy martinis today! First, they wade into the battle over how schools should open, with President Trump and teacher unions unsurprisingly on opposite sides of the debate. Jim offers a highly entertaining theory on how a recent head injury may explain some of his troubling decisions. And they have a lot of fun dissecting the new presidential campaign of Kanye West.
Listen to “Supremes & Faithless Electors, China & the Plague, NBA & Free Speech” on Spreaker.
Greg and Jim are both here! Today, they welcome a Supreme Court decision extolling the importance of honoring the verdict of the people in each state during presidential elections. They also shudder as China reports at least one case of the bubonic plague. And they have fun with the NBA allowing “personalized” messages on players’ jerseys that must come from a pre-approved list of messages.
Listen to “Supreme Court Saves DACA” on Spreaker.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration did not give a sufficient explanation for wanting to end the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program.
Also known as DACA, the program was created through an executive order from President Obama in 2012 to give legal status to people in the country illegally after coming here as children.
Supporters of the Trump policy were stunned at the court rejecting the president’s ability to terminate one executive order with one of his own.
So how should the court’s decision be interpreted? Why did the majority rule against the administration? And is the court deliberately deferring decisions on hot-button issues?
Listen to “Great Scott, Roberts Rules Wrong Again, Trump vs. Bolton” on Spreaker.
Join Jim and Greg as they applaud South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott for a pragmatic approach to police reform and for rightly hammering the Democratic characterization of his legislation as a “token” approach. They also rip Chief Justice John Roberts for siding with the four liberal justices in blocking the Trump administration’s effort to end DACA, which was unconstitutionally created in the first place. And they wade into the ugly back and forth between President Trump and former National Security Adviser John Bolton over Bolton’s scathing new book.
Listen to “Supreme Court Amends Civil Rights Act” on Spreaker.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act affords protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In the majority opinion for the 6-3 ruling, Justice Neil Gorsuch concluded that the court was required to interpret the Civil Right Act in the broadest terms possible. Dissenting justices argued the authors of 56-year-old legislation were clearly not referring to sexual orientation and gender identity when drafting the law.
So did the majority exercise their role properly or did they engage in overt judicial activism? What should legal conservatives make of Justice Gorsuch’s role in the case? And what impact will this ruling have on society?
We ask these questions and more to Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver.
Listen to “Hawley Hammers Lawmakers, NBC’s Ugly Hit Job, NFL Courting Kaepernick” on Spreaker.
Join Jim and Greg as they cheer Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley for calling out the Supreme Court’s recent judicial activism but also for upbraiding legislators for being too fearful to take up difficult issues and leaving them to the courts to resolve. They also slam NBC for attempting to get Google to deplatform The Federalist and Zero Hedge – largely based on objectionable content in the comments section. And they discuss NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suddenly encouraging teams to sign Colin Kaepernick.
Listen to “Supremes Demand Unanimous Verdicts for Convictions” on Spreaker.
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday ruled that criminal jury verdicts must be unanimous to result in convictions, a decision addressing laws in Oregon and Louisiana that allowed convictions even with two jurors voting to acquit.
“Wherever we might look to determine what the term ‘trial by an impartial jury trial’ meant at the time of the Sixth Amendment’s adoption—whether it’s the common law, state practices in the founding era, or opinions and treatises written soon afterward—the answer is unmistakable,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in an opinion. “A jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict.”
So how did Louisiana and Oregon wind up with laws not requiring unanimous verdicts for convictions and why did three justices rule in favor of the existing laws?
We ask Andrew C. McCarthy, former chief assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. We also discuss the push to release prisoners in many parts of the country to mitigate the spread of coronavirus and the inexplicable surprise by some local officials when the freed inmates commit more crimes.
The Three Martini Lunch has you covered as the presidential race narrows yet again. Join Jim and Greg as they react to Elizabeth Warren dropping out of the 2020 field and chronicling how this top-tier candidate turned into an electoral dud. They also dissect Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s bizarre threats against Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday and his pathetic response to the rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts. And they sigh as the coronavirus panic leads the National College Players Association to suggest the NCAA play its March Madness games with no audiences in the arenas.
Listen to “The Pro-Life Woman Exploited to Legalize Abortion” on Spreaker.
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide through the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. The plaintiff in the second case was known as “Mary Doe.” Her real name was Sandra Cano. Only Sandra Cano had no idea she was the plaintiff.
Cano passed away in 2014, but in this interview from 2013, she explains how she got entangled in the fight to legalize abortion, how she found out she was the unwitting plaintiff in the case, the reaction of the pro-abortion attorneys when they realized she knew what they did, and her pro-life advocacy ever since.
Listen to “Immigration: DACA in Court, Dems Getting More Radical” on Spreaker.
Immigration remains a highly volatile issue and the odds of finding common ground on any meaningful reform seems less and less likely as the nation heads into a presidential election year.
Immigration was also front and center at the Supreme Court Tuesday, as justices heard arguments concerning President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA.
DACA was created by the Obama administration in 2012 to grant legal status and work permits to people brought to the U.S. illegally when they were small children. Roughly 700,000 people enrolled in the program.
But Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian says Americans need to understand what the court is actually deciding here.
“This case is not about whether DACA is a good idea or not or whether it will cause people hardship to have their work permits not be renewed,” said Krikorian. “This is purely about whether a president has the authority to end a program that a previous president made up.”
Krikorian says that question is a constitutional no-brainer in Trump’s favor and he is appalled that the matter even reached the Supreme Court.
Krikorian, who is firmly in favor of lowering the number of legal immigrants, believes keeping DACA could be useful if the accompanying legislation limits practices such as chain migration.
However, he places the odds at any significant immigration reform in the next year at zero. Krikorian says election year politics and the leftward lurch of many Democrats in this debate make common ground hard to find.
Recently, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, said if elected he would move to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. He would also decriminalize illegal immigration, making it a civil offense. In addition, Sanders would suspend deportations and allow 50,000 climate migrants into the U.S. in his first year in office.
Krikorian says those are quickly becoming the standard positions inside the Democratic Party.
“It has become truly radicalized on immigration and I don’t use that word lightly,” said Krikorian. “That fringe perspective on immigration, that immigration control of any kind is illegitimate, that borders are illegitimate, that’s not fringe anymore in the Democratic Party. That is the basic mainstream position of Democratic elected officials.”
Listen to the full podcast to hear Krikorian’s full breakdown of the Supreme Court arguments and the dwindling prospects for any constructive immigration reform.