In this the 26th episode of The Law Is My Ass, Sid and Joe break down the week's TWELVE new Supreme Court decisions, have a great discussion (only moderately impacted by a lousy Skype signal) with podcast-regular Lena Zwarensteyn about pending judicial appointments, answer listener questions, and along the way provide valuable insight into pressing issues like "Does Sid have a comedy album available and is it charting?" (Hint: yes, and yes); "Can a Green Bay Packers fan sue the Chicago Bears organization for being jerks?" (Hint: probably not, and that alone is wronger than wrong!); "Did a progressive Asian-American rock band just accidentally help the Washington NFL franchise continue to insult native Americans?" (Hint: you know it!); and "Is there anything normal about how President Trump is appointing judges to their lifetime gigs on the bench?" (Hint: not much).
Check it out - we hope you enjoy it. And in all events: keep it legal!
For this the Silver Anniversary Edition of The Law Is My Ass (it's our 25th episode! How crazy is that?) - we welcome back to the podcast the always brilliant and funny Jamie Lee Williams of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to talk about whether the government can track all of your movements all the time (Hint: at the moment, probably). We also talk about how to protect your text messages and your computer browser history (hint: imperfectly).
Before we get to that we talk about the Ninth Circuit's landmark decision in the Hawai'i travel ban appeal - ruling against the Trump administration on STATUTORY and not constitutional grounds! We round up the week's five (count 'em - FIVE!) mostly unanimous Supreme Court decisions including Justice Ginsburg's equal protection opinion in Sessions v. Morales Santana.
And as if all that weren't enough, we talk about new suits against the Trump administration, good news for DACA dreamers bad news for your Christmas plans in Havana, good news for high powered criminal defense attorneys in Washington DC; this morning's mixed news for Bill Cosby; the crime of encouraging suicide; and the Philando Castile verdict.
In a heavy news week, we had six (count 'em: SIX) newsworthy actions by the Supreme Court, drug criminals, criminal attorneys, attorneys who represent criminals, attorneys who become nuns, boyfriends who kill ex-girlfriends and frame junk yard owners for their crimes only to have it all made into a Netflix documentary, and as if that weren't all enough ...
We also have a fabulous interview with former prosecutor Vernon Grigg who helps us answer the questions on everybody's mind: has the President obstructed justice (Hint: probably not yet, provably speaking); is James Comey some kind of sneaky genius (hint: all signs point to yes); is James Comey a good employee (hint: probably not); do Senate hearings sometimes resemble scenes from the movie Fargo (hint: indubitably); and for the first time in months, NO TRAVEL BAN LITIGATION UPDATE! Because nothing happened.
Give it a listen, send your questions to lawmyass@gmail.com, and keep it legal!
In this the twenty-third episode of The Law Is My Ass, Sid and Joe march through some of the more interesting legislation and litigation of the week, including a thorough discussion of all four of the week's mostly-almost-unanimous Supreme Court decisions. Then we have a great interview with Sachin Chheda of the Fair Elections Project to talk about partisan gerrymandering and the status of the Wisconsin gerrymandering suit now in front of the Supreme Court, in which they answer just how rigged do electoral districts have to be in order to be illegal (hint: 7%); would a stay tell us anything about the court's views on the merits (hint: probably not); and who will we blame for the Packers' shortcomings now that we don't have Olivia Munn to kick around anymore (hint: probably the fans). All that and a great listener question! Give it a listen, and keep it legal!