Opening Arguments

OA1310 - We all know by now that election fraud is rare, but do you know why? What mechanisms are in place that make us so sure it's rare, and not just rarely reported? Jenessa walks us through election security protocols, what happens to your ballot at every step in the process, and what election security experts are actually worried about.

Cases and sources discussed:

• Brennan Center Election Cybersecurity Summit
• Voting Rights Lab election risk heat map
• We recorded this before charges were filed against James O’Keefe because he decided to prove me right by getting caught attempting voter fraud

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OA1309 - With Matt out sick, we're doing a GG crossover, with a hot off the presses new story suitable for Rapid Response Friday. Back in August, James O'Keefe's rebranded operation, now calling itself the Citizen Justice League, sent people dressed in racist Muslim garb into Minneapolis polling places to test Minnesota's voter "vouching" law. Does the full footage actually show what the viral clips claim, or do the poll workers do exactly what they're supposed to? And what happens when the "random" names O'Keefe and Cameron Higby used to vouch for strangers turn out to belong to real, very surprised Minnesota voters? Thomas and Lydia go through the new documents and the county attorney's press conference, line by line.

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WE WATCHED A MOVIE SO CHRISTIAN WE HAD TO DOSE IT OUT IN TWO SITTINGS.

Thomas and Matt are joined by Lydia for Alleged, a 2010 Christian retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial that somehow decides the real villains were the evolutionists. We've got Nebraska Man resurrected as a gotcha, H.L. Mencken slandered into oblivion, and a wildly invented eugenics subplot that never happened in Tennessee. Matt actually read the real trial history, so we get to find out just how much of this is "alleged" fact and how much is pure fan fiction built to make William Jennings Bryan the hero.

• Alleged (2010), dir. Fenton Bailey (fictionalized Scopes Monkey Trial drama)

Cases discussed:

• State v. John Thomas Scopes (Scopes Monkey Trial, Rhea County, TN, 1925)
• Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)

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OA1308 - The election is coming up fast, with early voting already underway in many states. With an administration that is, let's say "do we really need elections?" curious, how did we get here? Elections are running more or less as expected so far, because heroes are fighting for your right to vote across the country. Check out some pivotal lawsuits you probably missed in all the chaos.

Cases and sources discussed:

• A comprehensive list of on-going election lawsuits hosted by Democracy Docket
• Unfortunately, right after we recorded, SCOTUS ruled to take that mixed result in New Hampshire and turn it into a big L

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OA1307 - Matt's got an update on the Ilhan Omar search warrant saga. We get into the genuinely bizarre citizenship limbo they're trying to put her in. In other news, FEMA told Congress this week that it just doesn't want to do its job anymore. And we close out with a 1962 oldies song that somehow broke the Supreme Court.

Cases discussed:

• Vetter v. Resnik
• Maslenjak v. United States (2017)
• Baker v. Coates

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VR48 - Today on Vapid Response Wednesday: the extremely believable backstory of some guy named Tommy who got publicly owned by Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and the single worst take on the Cornell 7 case from within the Ivy League.

Finally, we take our minds far, far away from Cornell to enjoy a galactically bad 1983 take on the most beloved film series in world history from one of America's crankiest critics.

Cases and sources discussed:

• Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul Al-Syed answers a question posed by Tommy Teeple at a town hall in Caro, Michigan (Oct. 17, 2026)
• “The Cornell 7 Is Really About Liberalism,” The Sundial (Oct 13, 2026)
• Condemnation of The Sundial’s publication of “The Cornell 7 Is Really About Liberalism” from the editorial board of the Columbia Political Review,
• “Now It’s Really About Liberalism,” The Sundial, Shoshana Aufzien (10/18/2026)
• “Star Wars Nightline Discussion,” ABC News (1983)

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OA1306 - We're on a winning streak! ...because we picked the winners. This week we cover two cases where the little guy comes out on top against the big corporation, and learn some key torts concepts along the way. Maybe your neighborhood billboard personal injury attorney isn't such a bad guy after all.

Sources:

• Election Protection Hotline
• Brennan Center statement/information on ICE at the polls
• The SALUTE reporting method
• Civil litigation statistics
• Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories
• Mobil v Ellender

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OA1305 - Matt's under the weather, so no normal Friday show this week. But don't panic, because we've got a treat instead: a crossover from Gavel Gavel where criminal defense attorney Liz Skeen joins Thomas to talk about the Cornell case, and she is PISSED. Liz has real, on-the-ground New York experience with how the system treats people who aren't privileged kids from an Ivy League school, and it shows. If you want the backstory first, Thomas and Lydia already went through the complaint in the previous two Gavel Gavel episodes.

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VR47 - Federal agents raided Ilhan Omar's house this week, possibly over a decades-old conspiracy theory. Matt Explains what the media are getting wrong about the incident. Along the way we hear from Russian foreign correspondent Benny Johnson and his "deep research."

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OA1304 - Qualified immunity does not strike again! In a case out of the 10th circuit, with the same plaintiff from last week's Rosales v. Lewis/Terrell, the court once again refuses qualified immunity to an officer who was wildly out of line. Learn about immunity for municipalities and standing rules, the multi-factor tests for excessive use of force against an armed civilian, and a unique alternative perspective on how qualified immunity should work from the concurrence.

Cases and sources discussed:

• Check the deadlines and criteria to request a mail-in ballot.
• Check the dates and times of early voting.
• Rosales v. Bradshaw, (10th Cir. 2023)
• Governmental immunity by state

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OA1303 - Rapid Response Friday kicks off with two major under-the-radar stories that you may not hear anywhere else about major federal decisions out of Florida and Massachusetts which may remove two important tools from Trump's fascist toolbox. We also explain how the subject of Matt's exclusive OA report from the front lines of deportation defense last July on how ICE was trying to rewrite the law of mandatory ICE detention has just become the single most important immigration case in the Supreme Court's coming term.

Finally, Matt goes gorilla mode for today's footnote to share the story of how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went ape on a Mexican zookeeper in one of the wildest cases of federal entrapment in American history.

Cases discussed:

• Opinion and Order in Maria L and Nancy M. v. Mullin (9/30/26)
• SDFL judge David Bernstein’s order dismissing U.S. v. Cox (10/1/2026)
• Order in Barbosa de Cunha v. Freden, (2nd Cir., 4/28/26)
• “ICE Just… Decided that Millions of People Are Ineligible for Bail. This is Bad. Like, Really Bad.” Opening Arguments, OA1174 (July 18, 2026)
• “U.S. Agent in Gorilla Suit Catches Primate Smugglers,” LA Times (1/27/1993)

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VR46 - This week on Vapid Response Wednesday: A Bari Weiss double feature! We kick off with an amuse douche from CBS News's chill hang with a cool guy from Trenton. Samuel Alito grew up with a dream: doing incalculable damage to women's healthcare by destroying the Constitutional abortion rights previously guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, apparently because no one was really using them anyway? Does Samuel Alito even hear himself talk anymore?

We then take up the closest thing the Trump era has seen to an intellectual case for mass deportation from one of its poshest warriors: "intellectual dark web" alum Douglas Murray, who outlines a completely new strategy so brilliant, so internally consistent, and so obviously rushed to print without a second thought for what he was actually trying to say that it could only have been published in The Free Press.

Cases and sources discussed:

• “Extended Interview: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito,” CBS News, Oct 5, 2026
• “How the West Lost Its Will to Reverse Mass Migration,” Douglas Murray, The Free Press (9/24/2026)

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OA1302 - Qualified immunity can be overcome! In the fifth circuit?! Come hear the good news, and learn some fourth amendment traffic stop rules along the way.

CHECK YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION. Deadlines for your state can be found here.

Cases discussed:

• CHECK YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION. Deadlines for your state can be found here.
• Rosales v. Terrell, 25-30650 (5th Cir. 2026)
• Dashcam footage from the Rosales case
• Milligan v Lewis
• Reporting on trial of Lewis for alleged misconduct
• Rosales v. Bradshaw, (10th Cir. 2023)

USPS v. California et al.

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OA1301 - IT'S FASCISM RESPONSE FRIDAY, and it's a lot. DOJ just filed a complaint trying to get every single active federal judge in Minnesota booted off immigration cases, and the "evidence" is a judge telling the New York Times the truth. The Supreme Court just let deportations to countries people aren't even from happen again. And we cannot stop laughing about the executive order that just declared this the "era of superintelligence." There's good news too, but you'll have to listen for that.

Cases discussed:

•

Complaint Against Judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota (filed under 28 U.S.C. § 351)

•

D.V.D. v. DHS (Supreme Court stay on third-country removals)

•

Trump v. Internal Revenue Service (11th Circuit, the "slush fund" case)

•

CNN et al. v. Trump (White House press access)

•

USPS v. California et al.

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VR45 - Today on Vapid Response: 25 years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, we look back on the Forrest Gump of monstrously bad legal takes: former DOJ lawyer and current UC Berkeley law professor (!) John Yoo. We go back to the primary sources to show how the Office of Legal Counsel explicitly authorized torture, indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay, and warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens before giving Secretary of State Marco Rubio a chance to explain why the world should never hold the United States accountable for any of it.

Cases and sources discussed:

• “Time to Think About Torture,” Jonathan Alter, Newsweek (11/4/2001)
• “Is There a Tortuous Road to Justice?” Alan M. Dershowitz, LA Times (11/8/2001)
• Memorandum for John Rizzo, Acting Counsel for the CIA, DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (August 1, 2002)
• Possible Habeas Jurisdiction Over Aliens Held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Patrick Philbin & John Yoo (December 28 2001)
• Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the "Purpose " Standard for Searches, John Yoo (9/25/2001)
• “Why We’re Dismantling the ICC,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio (July 14, 2026)

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OA1300 - The “insanity defense” might sound like a relic of a time when mental illness was viewed through the lens of demons and witches, and it turns out it is… but also maybe it’s kind of woke? Jenessa walks us through the history of Old English and Early American iterations of the defense, various tests that are applied today, and what happens afterwards that most people don’t get to see.

Cases and sources discussed:

•

Chris Liberati-Conant “It’s Time To Take ‘Hygiene’ out of the Mental Hygiene Law”

•

Legal Information Institute summary of insanity defenses

•

NY Criminal Procedure Law § 330.20

•

“Law and the Mental Health System”

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OA1299 - This week on Rapid Response Friday: what crimes might Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) have been complicit in, and why won't she ever be prosecuted for any of them? We go deeper into the law behind the facts exposed in ProPublica's outstanding investigation into her SuperPAC's coordination of illegal campaign contributions from a naval defense contractor.

We then take a closer look at another damning investigation, this time of the Florida state-run immigration facility formerly known as "Alligator Alcatraz" from a surprising source: the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General. We already knew this place was an illegal black site polluting a delicate Everglades ecosystem on tribal lands, but this report documents something much worse. If a Trump loyalist is willing to put some of this stuff into writing how much worse must the truth be?

Finally, in this week's footnote: yet another dismal milestone for AI in the law as a New Mexico attorney is forced to defend an appellate brief in which ChatGPT made up the law and the facts.

Cases and sources discussed:

• “The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way,” William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden, and Kristen Berg, ProPublica (9/22/2026)
• Indictment in U.S. v. Kao https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.240076/gov.uscourts.dcd.240076.1.0_1.pdf et al (2/10/2022)
• “Unannounced Inspection of ICE’s Florida Soft-Sided Facility (“Alligator Alcatraz”) in Ochopee, Florida,” Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (9/11/2026)
• In Re Stephen Aarons, New Mexico Supreme Court #S-1-SC-40845
• Show Cause Hearing: State v. Sandoval, S-1-SC-40845 (8/21/2026)

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Coyote vs. Acme is such a fun movie. Thomas and Lydia saw it with the kids, Matt tried to borrow some kids to see it with, and has some fun legal observations for us.

BUT! Before that, it's a special series premiere of ACCOUNTING'ed AWFUL MOVIES! Because there is some real financial shenanigans with this movie. Everyone says it got shelved for tax reasons. But that's wrong! It's actually so much worse than that...

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OA1298 - Voting rights attorney Jenessa is back with a sprawling tour of election chaos, starting with the Supreme Court's unsigned order in USPS v. California: nobody knows the vote count, and the real fight on the merits waits for 2028. Then: the USPS whistleblower letter reveals a system built on oral-only instructions and batch ballot rejection for any single problem, from a mismatch to a misscanned barcode. Meanwhile, a district court in DSCC v. Trump adds another layer: an injunction that even bars states from volunteering. Next, a USCIS whistleblower letter exposes an unlawful voter-fraud investigation targeting naturalized citizens, built on private corporate databases and vibes, with data gaps the training video promises will be filled by, quote, “supplemental magic.” Finally, Missouri redistricting: how the chaos unfolded from dueling maps to a secretary of state whose compliance plan was apparently to “evaluate options” until a judge told him otherwise, all captured in a contempt hearing you have to hear to believe.

Cases and sources discussed:

• USPS v California, 609 U.S. ___ (2026)
• DSCC v Trump, (D.D.C. 2026)
• USPS whistleblower letter (August 31, 2026)
• USCIS whistleblower letter (September 13, 2026)
• Hugh Cameron (September 10, 2026), Missouri’s Midterm Map Fight: How the Chaos Unfolded, Newsweek.
• Contempt hearing for Hoskins at Missouri Supreme Court

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OA1297 - This week on Rapid Response Friday: SCOTUS once again confirms the color of the sky, the latest failures in DOJ’s attempts to prosecute Trump’s political opponents, why the most important immigration agency you’ve never heard of has decided as a matter of law that Trump fixed Venezuela by illegally kidnapping its president, and how NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani is trying to stop Trump 2.0 from bringing new life to one of the worst failed immigration policies of 1.0.

Finally, in today’s footnote: Kash Patel screws the pooch while trying to explain the FBI’s bizarre new hiring guidelines in some of the funniest Congressional testimony we’ve ever heard.

•

USPS v. California et al, 609 U. S. ____ (2026)

•

Audio from Fourth Circuit oral arguments in U.S. v. James (9/15/26)

•

Matter of A-E-V-M-, 30 I&N Dec. 20 (BIA 2026)

•

Complaint in New York et al v. Mullin et al, SDNY Case #1:26-cv-07978 (9/14/2026)

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