We once again revisit the idea that a bribe is only a bribe if it's in a pillowcase with a dollar sign on it, or from a check with "in exchange for illegal favors" on the memo line. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get first dibs on live show tickets, dig into our Premium episode catalog, membership in our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and...

This case includes descriptions of domestic violence. Please take care while listening. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get first dibs on live show tickets, dig into our Premium episode catalog, membership in our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our researcher is Jonathan DeBruin, and our website was...

Take a deep breath. John Roberts just handed Donald Trump the keys to the country and said "don't bother bringing it back in one piece." If you're not a 5-4 Premium subscriber, you won't hear that Rahimi episode that we've got planned for next week. Just sayin! 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our researcher is Jonathan DeBruin, and our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy...

Citing Urban Dictionary and wikiHow*, Clarence Thomas argues that a gun that can kill hundreds of people with a single trigger pull is not a machine gun. *Not actually true but those are the vibes. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get first dibs on live show tickets, dig into our Premium episode catalog, membership in our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon...

The Court is back at again, pretending like they don't understand politics, while handing conservatives a victory that cements their power in South Carolina.  To buy tickets for our DC show, head here: https://www.seetickets.us/event/5-4-live/604614 To buy tickets for our NYC show head here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/5-4-live-tickets-912709608007 If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To hear the entire Premium archive, first dibs on live show tickets, access...

Harvard invited us back (so that's on them) to talk about the speciousness of originalism, inclusive constitutionalism, and how to get serious about court reform. Featuring Balls and Strikes' Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back (out now!) and Ryan Doerfler of Harvard Law School. To get access to this and other Premium-only episodes, membership in our Slack community, first dibs on live show tickets, and...

Run a January 6th insurrectionist flag up the pole and see who salutes. Oh look! It's appointed-for-life Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito! Did you know that the majority of tickets to our DC and NYC shows were sold before the shows were even public? That's because our beloved Premium subscribers got first dibs. Plus they'll get to listen to the full version of this episode! If you're jealous, come on board at fivefourpod.com/support! If you haven't gotten tickets for our second NYC show on...

Brett Kavanaugh might have had a better shot at writing a reasonable decision if Arizona v. Navajo Nation revolved around beer rights instead of water rights, but instead the associate justice barfed up a garbled opinion about property rights. Did you know that our Premium subscribers got first dibs on our live show tickets? One of those shows is already sold out! Does that give you FOMO? If so, you can join at fivefourpod.com/support and also get membership in our Slack, exclusive episodes,...

In the movies, detectives trail a suspect until he messes up and throws his DNA-soaked paper cup into the trash. In real life, they just pretend like they don't understand the word "identify" in order to abuse the 4th Amendment. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To hear this and other Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon...

What to do if you get arrested (not legal advice™), why are the liberal justices just sitting back while conservatives devour the judiciary, and whether or not to vote for Biden - you've got questions, we've got … maybe not "answers," but definitely "responses." If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To hear this and other Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects....

Rhi got locked up. The food was bad, the comrades were immaculate, and while the friendless centrist pundits on Twitter were wrapping themselves in knots to try to argue protests aren't speech, the kids were keeping the focus where it belongs: On Gaza. If you don't think laws are real either you can get a sick shirt about it from Shout Your Abortion: https://shout-your-abortion.square.site/shop/apparel/3 If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive...

E Pluribus Unum, more like E Pluribus Sue Them! In America, if your landlord refuses to do repairs, you sue 'em. If you get food poisoning from a chain restaurant, you sue 'em. But if you're stripped of your bodily autonomy by your state legislature via a bounty hunting scheme, you CAN'T sue your state in federal court, because of Hans v. Louisiana. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and...

Listen, we're not going to do the whole merch thing again, but it's time to hang up the robe and hit the beach. Or: another episode where we call for Sonia Sotomayor to retire. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our...

Santa isn't the only one who keeps a naughty and nice list. And if your organization winds up on the United States' list of bad boys (designated terrorist organizations), you can forget about receiving legal representation or assistance from US-based firms. That's material support, according to this holding, even if that support doesn't contribute to terrorism in any way. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to...

Texas passed a law that allows it to police the US border with Mexico without regard to federal policy. That may seem like a little oopsy but actually it's a big "f**k you." If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our...

The Court does not want you to plead not guilty by reason of insanity and to enforce that, they'll happily sign off on you being institutionalized for far longer than the prison sentence that you would have served.  You'll need a mental health day after this one for sure. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects....

This is the story of a man with the worst luck in the whole world, and how Jay-Z called the whole thing. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our researcher is Jonathan DeBruin, and our website was designed by Peter Murphy....

We're joined by Balls and Strikes' Jay Willis in this emergency episode to talk about Trump v. Anderson, which challenged Colorado removing Trump from the primary ballot. In a shocking twist, the Court held that Colorado can't do that. JK that's not shocking - the twist is that the dogs you hear barking in this episode are Jay's, not Michael's. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more,...

The legal academy is losing its mind. Good news for us, the profs are talking about their broken brains in the New York Times. Today on the show, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael discuss “The Crisis in Teaching Constitutional Law” by Jesse Wegman to snark on the state of legal education. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue...

You can't sue the President if they wronged you, as long as what they did was in the course of their official duties. And maybe possibly if they did it out unofficially out of spite, or because they were just feeling crimey that day. Thank goodness we have this fantastic precedent to help us deal with Trump's many cases! If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at...

Groundhog Day but make it interrogation. The Supreme Court says cops are welcome to keep hauling you in for questioning as long as they honor an arbitrary waiting period. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our researcher...

Let's burn this m**********r down metaphorically speaking OF COURSE! Today we're talking about how to counter Fed Soc's influence on campus and in the courts. The game plan isn't to copy their strategy - it's to play to the left's strengths. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To get exclusive Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. Rachel Ward is our producer....

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. He learned it from the Federalist Society, by watching them steadily shift the terms on which all contemporary legal issues are argued. Now even progressive jurists feel compelled to debate the debate club on its own turf. The Devil is duly impressed. For more about what Fed Soc hath wrought, check out Amanda Hollis-Brusky's Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution...

First you get the money, then you get the power. But FIRST first you get the law students. This week we're exploring the tentacles of the Federalist Society, and how a so-called debate club pulls levers across government, the legal profession, and academia, to achieve its conservative ideological goals. Hear more from this episode's contributors: Vanessa A. Bee is the author of HOME BOUND: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging (Astra Publishing, 2022). Andrea Bernstein's reporting...