0:01

A report from the Wall Street

0:03

Journal questions the mental fitness of

0:05

President Joe Biden. Sinclair Broadcasting Group

0:08

has bought up local TV news

0:10

stations across the country, and hometown

0:12

journalists are required to voice the

0:15

company's views. From

0:17

WNYC in New York, this is on the media

0:19

on Brooke Gladstone. And I'm Michael

0:21

Lowinger. Also on this week's show, the Supreme

0:23

Court lifted a ban on bump stocks,

0:26

which enable guns to shoot hundreds more

0:28

rounds a minute. This decision means that

0:30

the next mass shooting involving a legally

0:32

purchased bump stock can fairly be laid

0:34

at the feet of the Supreme Court.

0:37

That opinion leaned heavily on an

0:39

unreliable amicus brief written by a

0:42

gun rights group. These

0:44

advisory papers don't even go through

0:46

a fact-checking process. You're looking

0:48

for something to cement your pre-existing worldview,

0:50

and oh, look, there's an amicus brief

0:52

to support you. It's

0:54

all coming up after this. From

1:01

WNYC in New York, this is on

1:03

the media. I'm Michael Lowinger. And I'm

1:05

Brooke Gladstone. Hey, how about Thursday's debate

1:08

night? For Trump supporters, it was the

1:10

gift that kept on giving. In

1:12

a situation where there are 40%

1:14

fewer people coming across the border legally,

1:16

it's better when he left office. And

1:19

I'm going to continue to move until we get the total

1:21

ban on the total

1:23

initiative relative to what we're

1:25

going to do with more

1:27

border patrol and more asylum

1:29

officers. President Trump? I

1:32

really don't know what he said at the end of this. I

1:34

don't think he knows what he said either. For

1:37

Democrats, white knuckling throughout, there

1:39

was the usual cornucopia of

1:41

Trump deflections. He rarely answered

1:43

a question, even with multiple

1:45

prompts, using his time to

1:47

attack his opponent with a

1:49

barrage of lies and outrage.

1:52

I'd say you couldn't make this stuff

1:54

up, but obviously you can. We're

1:57

like a third world version between

1:59

weaponization of his election, trying to

2:01

go after his political opponent, the damage

2:03

he's done to our country. And I'd

2:05

love to ask him why he allowed

2:07

millions of people to come in here

2:10

from prisons, jails, and mental institutions to

2:12

come into our country and destroy our

2:14

country. Nancy Pelosi, she

2:17

said, I take full responsibility for

2:19

January 6th. They

2:21

will take the life of

2:23

a child in the eighth month, the

2:25

ninth month, and even after birth. He

2:28

even landed a delicious self-inflicted humiliation. I

2:30

didn't have sex with a porn star.

2:33

But for many, that was weak tea.

2:35

Viewers on both sides have long observed

2:37

that none of that seems to matter.

2:39

Or does it? Voters

2:41

act in mysterious ways. But

2:44

Biden, oh, Biden, his voice

2:46

was weak, his face pale,

2:49

his jaw slack, his sentences

2:51

sometimes illegible. Sure, he

2:53

has a lifelong stutter. And yes, he

2:55

is old, known to be prone to

2:58

gaffes. His campaign said he had a

3:00

cold. But for those who

3:02

tremble before the prospects of another

3:04

Trump term, it was the

3:06

stuff of nightmares. Making sure that

3:08

we continue to strengthen our healthcare

3:10

system, making sure that we're able

3:12

to make every single solitary person

3:16

eligible for what I've been able to do

3:18

with the COVID, excuse

3:20

me, with dealing

3:22

with everything we have to do

3:25

with, look, if

3:30

we finally beat Medicare. There's a

3:32

full-on panic about this performance. Not

3:34

like, oh, this is recoverable. It

3:36

is more of a, okay,

3:39

he's got to step aside. Politicos

3:41

and pundits buzz with the idea

3:43

of an open convention. They

3:46

say the vast majority of Democratic delegates

3:48

pledged to Biden would either need to

3:50

stage a revolt or he'd

3:52

need to release them. But who would

3:55

replace him? Kamala Harris

3:57

has only really emerged in

3:59

recent months. prominently with the

4:01

issue of abortion. Sending

4:03

her to fix the border earlier in

4:05

her tenure seemed like a cruel joke.

4:07

And it's only seven weeks until the

4:09

convention. On Friday,

4:12

at a rally in Raleigh,

4:14

North Carolina, an energetic Biden

4:16

was reassuringly defiant. Oops.

4:21

I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't

4:23

speak as smoothly as I used to. I

4:25

don't debate as well as I used to. But

4:28

I know what I do know. I

4:31

know how to tell the truth. I know. I

4:34

know right from wrong. But

4:38

I know how to do

4:41

this job. I know how

4:43

to get things done. I know like

4:46

millions of Americans know. When you get knocked

4:49

down, you get back up. And you

4:51

get back up. And you get back up. And

4:54

you get back up. And

4:56

you get back up. But

4:59

then there's the media coverage. CNN announced

5:01

in advance that there would be no

5:04

fact-checking by the moderators.

5:06

Writing in The Guardian, commentator Rebecca Sonnet

5:09

observed, much has been said about

5:11

the age of the candidates, but

5:13

maybe it's the corporate media whose senility

5:16

is most dangerous to us. Their

5:18

insistence on proceeding as though things are pretty much

5:21

what they've always been. On

5:23

normalizing the appalling and outrageous.

5:25

On using false equivalencies and

5:28

both-siderism to make themselves look

5:30

fair and reasonable. As

5:33

it happens, in the past six months, The

5:35

Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall

5:37

Street Journal have all published over 20 articles

5:40

on Biden's age. The number

5:42

of articles on Trump's age? Four,

5:45

two, and one, respectively.

5:47

Because it's not newsworthy?

5:50

Political junkies might note that Trump's mental fitness

5:53

seems in steady decline, but for a

5:55

casual news consumer, his

5:57

feather-light grip on reality is over. news.

6:01

But his debate performance, his

6:04

big kill on the black

6:06

people is the millions of people that he's

6:08

allowed to come in through the border. They're

6:10

taking black jobs now. I

6:12

want absolutely immaculate, clean water

6:15

and I want absolutely clean air.

6:17

And we had it. We had

6:20

H2O. We had the best numbers

6:22

ever. If he wins this

6:25

election, our country doesn't have a chance,

6:27

not even a chance of

6:29

coming out of this rut. We probably won't

6:31

have a country left anymore. That's how bad

6:33

it is. The

6:36

outlet on which most Americans rely

6:38

for trustworthiness is not CNN or

6:40

Fox or the New York Times.

6:43

It is their local news station,

6:45

which provides crucial information close to

6:47

home. It's part of the community,

6:50

except when it's not. Nearly 200 of

6:53

those stations across the nation are

6:55

owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group,

6:57

a private company founded in the

6:59

1970s. These stations still

7:02

bear the logos of ABC,

7:04

NBC and CVS, but their

7:06

newsrooms are subject to Sinclair's

7:08

directives, ginning up stories of

7:10

crime and homelessness, drug use,

7:12

focusing on the failing nation

7:14

stuff Trump so loves. And

7:17

the local news folks at Sinclair

7:19

stations are compelled to read scripts

7:21

from Sinclair HQ. Recently,

7:24

Judd Legum, author of the

7:26

popular information newsletter, noticed that

7:28

some of that material, especially

7:31

on Biden's age, began as

7:33

tweets from the Republican National

7:35

Committee. Unbeknownst to viewers,

7:38

Sinclair works hand in glove

7:40

with the RNC. Sinclair

7:43

runs what they call the National

7:46

Desk, and they

7:48

have been producing these

7:50

attacks on Biden's mental

7:52

fitness and then posting

7:55

them automatically to

7:57

dozens of local media.

7:59

news sites. Let's

8:02

open up the How Low Can You Go?

8:04

file. You highlighted

8:06

an article that appeared on June

8:08

6th about Biden at

8:10

a D-Day event supposedly attempting

8:12

to sit down on

8:15

three separate occasions. It

8:17

concluded that, quote, Biden's

8:20

strange, stooping motion caused

8:22

several terms to trend

8:25

on X, including diaper,

8:27

pooping and pooped. Yes,

8:30

I mean, this is such an

8:33

absurd claim that Biden would

8:35

have soiled himself at

8:37

a public event because he was

8:39

sitting down. And what

8:42

happens is and what's really

8:44

insidious about this is this

8:46

little snippet about what's trending

8:48

on X, using that as

8:50

essentially an excuse to launder

8:52

this rumor into news,

8:54

is then appended to all of

8:57

the other stories

8:59

that Sinclair is

9:01

publishing about Biden's supposed

9:03

mental issues. So it's just

9:06

being promoted again and again

9:08

and again. This

9:10

appeared on some 86 different

9:13

affiliate sites? At least. I

9:15

mean, these are just the ones that I

9:17

have been able to verify as far as

9:19

I know from talking

9:22

to people inside of Sinclair.

9:24

These pieces from the National

9:26

Desk are pushed automatically to

9:28

all of the affiliate websites.

9:30

So at least 86, but probably

9:33

much more. You

9:35

got to admit some of that video

9:37

edited or otherwise doesn't look great. He

9:40

just looks his age, which is

9:42

concerning to voters across the spectrum.

9:44

I think especially young progressives. That's

9:48

very reasonable. But that

9:50

concern should be based on

9:53

facts and not these

9:56

rumors and insinuations.

9:59

Just to. underscore the pattern,

10:01

the RNC tweets video of

10:03

Biden selectively edited to look

10:06

decrepit, then Sinclair turns the

10:08

tweet into an article released

10:10

to its stations nationwide. Do

10:13

these stories ever creep further up the

10:15

news chain, or do they not need

10:17

to? I don't think they

10:19

necessarily need to because this is

10:21

a powerful vehicle for information. If

10:24

you look at what kind of

10:26

media the swing voters are reading,

10:28

they're probably not reading The New

10:30

York Times. They're probably not reading

10:32

The Washington Post. They're probably not

10:34

watching Meet the Press, but they

10:37

are watching their local news. So

10:39

you're hitting just the type

10:42

of people that you want to reach. But

10:44

it is part of a larger

10:47

ecosystem that is pushing these messages.

10:49

A lot of Rupert Murdoch properties,

10:51

Fox News, The Wall Street Journal,

10:54

The New York Post are engaging

10:56

in a lot of the

10:58

same behavior. Of course, there's a whole

11:01

network of right-wing websites

11:03

engaging in the same behavior,

11:05

podcasts, others, an ecosystem that

11:08

includes the Trump campaign itself.

11:10

But it is unique

11:12

in that it is able to do

11:15

so without any

11:17

outward signs of bias

11:19

or ideological tilt. The

11:22

problem seems to be that Sinclair

11:24

stations look like

11:26

normal local news stations until

11:29

you actually listen. That

11:31

is the core of the problem. It's

11:34

a matter of transparency. Local

11:37

news and these local

11:39

anchors are really one of the

11:41

last bastions of trust in

11:44

the media in the United States. Upwards

11:47

of 70% of the people according

11:52

to a Gallup poll late last year

11:55

still trust local news. So it's

11:58

one thing to have this appear

12:00

on Fox News. Fox News, which

12:02

people understand is ideologically conservative. It's

12:04

another to have it appear on these

12:07

local affiliates that are

12:09

not viewed as ideological and

12:11

are trusted by people across

12:13

the political spectrum. The other

12:15

thing that viewers and readers

12:17

do not know is

12:20

that the local anchors

12:22

and the local journalists

12:24

working at these stations are

12:27

not involved at all in

12:29

this process, have no ability

12:31

to decide whether or not

12:33

to publish these articles on

12:35

their websites or run these

12:38

segments on their broadcasts. Do you

12:40

mean that they're given scripts from

12:43

up above and they are compelled

12:45

to read them? That's exactly what's

12:48

happening. Are they required to read

12:50

them? Yes, they are. There was

12:52

one very recently based on a

12:55

Wall Street Journal report that alleged

12:58

that Biden was quote

13:00

slipping in private meetings. They interviewed

13:02

a lot of people for the

13:04

piece, but the only person who

13:07

was quoted on the record was

13:09

former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, obviously

13:12

a Republican, not a fan of Biden.

13:15

And also McCarthy is someone who

13:17

when he was in office actually

13:19

publicly praised Biden's performance in these

13:22

private meetings. So not really a

13:24

consistent story from him either. A

13:27

package was produced promoting that

13:29

story and the local news

13:31

anchors were required to read

13:34

an intro, not only

13:36

questioning Biden's mental fitness, but also

13:38

saying that this issue could be

13:40

quote an election decider. A report

13:42

from the Wall Street Journal questions

13:44

the mental fitness of President Joe

13:47

Biden. Do it four o'clock. The

13:49

Wall Street Journal is out with

13:51

a new report calling into question

13:53

the mental fitness of President Joe

13:55

Biden. Wall Street Journal is out

13:57

with reporting a calling into questions,

13:59

the mental fitness President Joe Biden.

14:01

As national correspondent Matt Galka tells

14:04

us. The issue could be an

14:06

election decider. Could be an election

14:08

decider. Could be an election decider.

14:10

Sinclair has defended this practice as

14:12

standard procedure and it is true

14:14

that for instance, CNN operates

14:17

a syndicated service where they'll

14:19

produce a package on national

14:22

issues and make that

14:24

available to local affiliates who

14:26

are subscribers to this service

14:28

and provide a script to

14:30

intro these packages. But

14:33

the difference is those are

14:35

optional. These are affiliates who

14:37

are choosing to subscribe to

14:39

CNN service, choosing which stories

14:41

to run or not. There's

14:43

nothing optional about these packages.

14:45

They are must run and

14:48

the anchors must introduce them

14:50

in the way that is

14:52

prescribed by Sinclair. Has

14:55

there been any coverage of Trump's

14:57

age at Sinclair? Just this week,

14:59

many Democrats took to X to

15:02

talk about a Trump rally in Philadelphia

15:04

where he seemed to be rambling about

15:06

washing machines before Fox News cut away

15:08

from the speech. Where there's so much

15:10

water, you don't know what to do.

15:12

It's called rain, it rains a lot

15:14

in certain places. But no,

15:18

their idea, did you

15:20

see the other day? They just put, I opened it up

15:22

and they closed it again. I opened that they closed it.

15:24

Washing machines to wash your dishes,

15:27

there's a problem. They don't want you to have any water. They

15:31

want no water and I was with them.

15:33

And you were just listening to former President

15:35

Trump and we're gonna talk about some of

15:38

the things. I could not find any

15:41

story on Sinclair's websites about

15:44

Trump's fumbles and follies. There were

15:46

some that noted that both men

15:49

were among the older

15:51

people to run for president. But

15:53

nothing that would be comparable

15:56

to stories we saw

15:58

about Biden. But after

16:01

these two pieces that I published,

16:03

one focused on the broadcast, one

16:05

that was focused on the websites,

16:08

I did notice that Sinclair finally

16:11

produced a piece that acknowledged that

16:13

Trump has, quote, his

16:15

own problem stumbling over words

16:17

and mixing up dates. This

16:20

has not appeared yet on any of the

16:22

broadcasts. It did appear in one story. With

16:26

regard to its claimed neutrality,

16:28

there was a 2018 study by something called the

16:32

American Political Science Review.

16:35

That's right. What this

16:37

study found is that

16:39

when Sinclair takes over

16:41

an affiliate, two things

16:43

happen. One, there is

16:46

a rightward tilt to the

16:48

coverage. And secondly, there's

16:51

less local coverage and more

16:53

national coverage. David Smith, who

16:56

runs Sinclair, we know that

16:58

he is ideologically very right

17:01

wing and that through his

17:03

family foundation has donated hundreds

17:06

of thousands of dollars to

17:08

very conservative organizations like Project

17:11

Veritas, which does right wing

17:13

undercover operations, Turning Point USA,

17:15

which just held a huge right

17:17

wing conference that Trump spoke at,

17:20

and Moms for Liberty. It

17:22

is quite clear where his politics

17:24

are. And we

17:27

have seen as Sinclair expands,

17:29

as their tentacles reach further

17:31

out, those political

17:33

views are being expressed

17:35

through the Sinclair stations

17:38

and websites. Judd,

17:40

thank you very much. Thanks for having

17:42

me. Judd Legum is

17:44

the author of the popular

17:46

information newsletter. Coming

17:50

up, how dubious experts and dark money

17:53

groups tip the scales in the Supreme

17:55

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18:49

Radiolab. I'm like, what's going on? Is

18:51

that our house? A fire? I don't

18:54

think this could have been an accidental

18:56

fire. Once they tell me it's a

18:58

crime, I'm moving. A murder trial. Three

19:00

firefighters died. I was just totally devastated.

19:03

And a bizarre. A courageous, absurd plea

19:05

deal. Plea guilty while maintaining your innocence.

19:08

How is this allowed? Like, what? Is this

19:10

a thing? The Alfred Plea

19:12

on Radiolab was wherever you get podcasts.

19:21

This is On The Media. I'm Brooke

19:23

Gladstone. And I'm Michael Lowinger. The Supreme

19:25

Court will soon go into recess. And

19:28

just before the deadline, SCOTUS is

19:30

releasing a flurry of high-stakes, highly

19:32

anticipated decisions. The U.S. Supreme Court

19:35

this morning undid decades of precedent

19:37

in the area of government regulation.

19:39

It made it far more difficult

19:41

for federal agencies to issue rules

19:44

and regulations that carry out broad

19:46

mandates enacted by Congress. Bloomberg reporting

19:48

that the U.S. Supreme Court is

19:50

poised to allow emergency abortions in

19:53

Idaho. New this morning, the Supreme

19:55

Court has sided with the Biden

19:57

administration in a case about social

19:59

media websites. sites. The Supreme Court

20:02

threw out a lower court ruling

20:04

that said the federal government could

20:06

not pressure social media companies to

20:08

combat misinformation. A few of the

20:11

earlier decisions from this session include

20:13

some dubious facts. For instance,

20:15

two academics spoke out after Justice Samuel

20:17

Alito cited their work in written opinions.

20:20

They said he had misunderstood their research.

20:23

And this is not a new problem. A 2017

20:25

piece by ProPublica found

20:28

seven errors in majority opinions in

20:30

cases dealing with voting rights, labor

20:32

law, and police searches. Sometimes

20:35

blunders are misinterpretations of data.

20:38

Other times, bad info comes from

20:40

partisan groups that supply the court

20:43

with highly contested claims and faulty

20:45

statistics. And the consequences

20:47

of these inaccuracies are far-reaching.

20:50

Take a case from earlier this

20:52

month, Garland v. Cargill. Major decision

20:54

from the Supreme Court striking down

20:56

a federal ban on bump stocks

20:58

enacted by the Trump administration. Bump

21:01

stocks are accessories that essentially

21:03

allow semi-automatic rifles to fire

21:06

more quickly. The court

21:08

said a law aimed at banning

21:10

machine guns cannot be interpreted to

21:12

include bump stocks. So

21:14

this is a challenge to the

21:17

ban on bump stocks that the

21:19

Trump administration actually enacted in 2018

21:21

after the Las Vegas shooting, which

21:23

was the single most deadly mass

21:25

shooting in history. Mark

21:27

Joseph Stern covers the courts and

21:29

the law for Slate. He

21:32

recently wrote about the historical

21:34

errors and far-right talking points

21:36

featured in Clarence Thomas's majority

21:38

opinion. The heart of the case

21:40

lies in the wording of a law from the 1930s.

21:44

It's written in these very broad terms.

21:46

It bans any kind of part that

21:48

can turn a regular rifle into a

21:50

machine gun. And the administration

21:52

decided, you know what, these devices,

21:54

they have only one purpose. It's to

21:57

create automatic firing. We are going

21:59

to announce that they are unlawful and

22:01

require individuals who have them to

22:03

give them up. But a

22:05

number of bump stock owners abetted

22:08

by the firearms industry filed

22:10

litigation arguing that the ban

22:12

was unlawful and that it

22:14

exceeded the authority that

22:16

was created by the federal ban on

22:19

machine guns and could not

22:21

stand on its own. Yeah, let's talk

22:23

about this difference between a semi-automatic rifle

22:25

and a machine gun because the definition

22:28

it turns out matters a lot to

22:30

the decision. Yes, a huge amount. So

22:32

the definition of a machine gun is

22:35

a weapon that can fire automatically

22:37

with a single function of the trigger.

22:40

That language is really important but we'll

22:42

get back to that. Bump stocks just

22:44

create the continuous spray of bullets without

22:46

the individual having to pull his finger

22:48

back and forth and allows

22:50

for much more carnage. And I'll just

22:52

note, you know, bump stocks make rifles less

22:55

precise and they're firing. The weapon we're

22:57

talking about here, it's not like something you

22:59

would really use for hunting or any kind

23:01

of lawful activity. This is a weapon that's

23:03

made for mass shooters. Justice

23:05

Clarence Thomas wrote the majority decision for

23:08

Garland v. Cargill. He ruled that the

23:10

ban on bump stocks should be lifted

23:12

because he thinks the devices cannot be

23:15

classified as machine guns or helping turn

23:17

a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun.

23:19

He included annotated images of rifles in

23:21

his explanation. How did he

23:23

come to that ruling? So there's really two

23:26

factual errors here that are really important to

23:28

understand. So the first thing is that he

23:30

zeros in on this this phrase a

23:32

single function of the trigger. Here he's looking

23:35

at a 1934 definition of a machine gun.

23:37

Yeah, and he claims that that was

23:39

meant to limit this to a very narrow

23:41

set of fully automatic guns where all you

23:43

had to do was pull down on

23:45

the trigger once and this internal mechanism sprung

23:48

forth a spray of bullets and he claims

23:50

well with a bump stock it's different

23:52

you have to hold your finger on the

23:54

trigger and that is a kind of human

23:57

input that changes the game. Well in

23:59

reality In reality, Congress used that language because

24:01

there were a bunch of different ways that

24:03

you could fire a fully automatic weapon

24:05

as they were developed in the 1930s. Some

24:08

of them had triggers, some of them had buttons,

24:10

and you just put your finger down on the

24:12

button. Some of them you had to use belts

24:15

on them. You had to lean on them a

24:17

certain way. So this single function, it was about

24:20

one human doing one thing

24:22

to make the gunfire continuously.

24:24

It wasn't, as Clarence Thomas

24:26

said, about some kind of

24:28

super technical inner workings of

24:30

the gun that a bump

24:32

stock allows for that original

24:34

semi-automatic guns didn't. Yeah, it

24:36

should be pretty obvious that

24:38

what matters here is legalizing

24:40

weapons that with very

24:42

little effort and very little training can

24:45

produce mass bloodshed in a short period of

24:47

time. You know, Clarence Thomas,

24:49

this is perhaps the most laughable part

24:51

of his decision. He analogizes bump stocks

24:54

to a shooter who has a lightning-fast

24:56

trigger finger. So he suggests that there's

24:58

really no difference between using a bump

25:00

stock and moving your trigger finger back

25:02

and forth really quickly. I defy you

25:05

to find a human who could move

25:07

their trigger finger back and forth 800

25:09

times in

25:11

a minute. But that is the rate of fire

25:13

for a weapon with a bump stock. And that

25:15

leads to the other problem, which is he says,

25:18

well, the law requires these guns to be

25:20

automatic. But when you fire with a bump

25:22

stock, you have to lean forward on the

25:24

gun. And that means it's not automatic because

25:27

you have human input. You know, you're leaning

25:29

on it. It's no longer automatic. That

25:31

is a history-blind misreading of the text

25:33

that I think does a lot of

25:36

violence to what Congress was trying to

25:38

do here. How do we

25:40

know that Congress anticipated that gun

25:42

manufacturers would try to get around

25:44

it? Because it's in the

25:46

congressional record and all over the floor debates

25:48

from the time. In the

25:51

1930s, there was this huge emerging problem

25:53

of gangsters using what were sometimes called

25:55

Tommy guns to do these killing

25:58

sprees that ended up killing lots of And

26:00

this sort of comes through if you watch like

26:02

gangster movies from the 30s. There

26:05

was this fear that gangsters weren't just shooting

26:07

each other anymore, that they were shooting into

26:09

the public, that they were spraying these bullets

26:11

everywhere. This was a brand new kind of

26:13

gun. And so if you

26:15

read the floor debates surrounding this bill

26:17

and look at what Congress wanted to

26:19

do here, it was to ban every

26:22

kind of gun in this genre and

26:24

not allow for gun makers and bad

26:26

guys to carve out these loopholes that

26:28

essentially Clarence Thomas has now carved out.

26:31

Some of the talking points that he

26:33

cited in his opinion, the images that

26:35

he copied and pasted, they

26:37

came from an amicus brief authored

26:39

by a group called the Firearms

26:41

Policy Coalition. I hadn't heard of

26:43

these people. Who are they? This is

26:46

a group that makes the

26:48

NRA look moderate by example.

26:50

This is essentially an extremist

26:52

group that often promotes violent

26:54

rhetoric. It sells various

26:56

merch and t-shirts supporting the abolition

26:58

of ATF and various gun laws.

27:01

They really don't accept any kind

27:03

of gun regulation at all. And

27:05

Clarence Thomas copied and pasted materials from their

27:07

brief in this case. It's

27:09

really notable anytime that happens because for a

27:12

justice to do that, it says right there

27:14

in Thomas's opinion, copyright, Firearms Policy Coalition, you're

27:16

essentially as a justice giving the thumbs up

27:18

to that group. You're giving them the green

27:21

light. You're saying I approve of them. I

27:23

trust them as a worthwhile source. This

27:26

is a far, far right anti-government

27:28

group that has a kind of

27:31

feverish fantasy of every gun owner

27:33

one day taking their weapons and

27:36

potentially overthrowing a tyrannical government. For

27:39

them to appear in the United States

27:41

Supreme Court's decision, which will of course

27:43

be memorialized for as long as we

27:45

have a Supreme Court and a country

27:48

now, it suggests that the court is

27:50

taking its cues not from any kind

27:52

of expert or neutral party, but

27:55

from radicals who want to strike down

27:58

every gun law that exists. not just

28:00

bump stocks. Are there

28:02

other recent examples that come

28:05

to mind of this larger

28:07

phenomenon of right-wing donors funding

28:09

interest groups that in turn

28:12

supply the Supreme Court with

28:14

unreliable or highly contested information?

28:17

So West Virginia versus

28:19

EPA was this major

28:21

case about regulation of

28:23

power plants, emissions at power plants.

28:26

And the actual plaintiff in the case

28:29

was West Virginia, which was a red

28:31

state that was arguing that it needed

28:33

to be freed from these owners' regulations

28:36

of its power plants because they need

28:38

to be able to emit more pollution,

28:40

right? But if you

28:42

look at who's filing amicus briefs,

28:45

there are groups like Americans for

28:47

Prosperity, which is the Koch group

28:49

that is largely supportive of pro-industrial

28:52

moves and that is heavily intertwined

28:54

with the same network of donors

28:56

who stand to benefit from the

28:59

decision that allows for more emissions

29:01

from a power plant. The Buckeye

29:03

Institute, which is a group that's

29:06

dark money funded and supports deregulation,

29:08

the Southeastern Legal Foundation, the Claremont

29:10

Institute, even the Cato Institute, these

29:12

groups that all come in on

29:15

the side of industry, they're also

29:17

funded by industry and they look

29:19

official. Not as though they're made

29:22

up of real lawyers and

29:24

experts and analysts who are just putting their

29:26

best foot forward and trying to explain to

29:28

the court what's at stake. But in reality,

29:31

they have a vested interest in a particular

29:33

party winning, in this case, in West

29:36

Virginia winning because what it really means

29:38

for West Virginia to win this case

29:40

is that industry wins the case and

29:42

coal-fired power plants get to keep pushing

29:44

out these emissions and nobody's going

29:46

to stop them because the Supreme Court has prevented

29:49

the government from stepping in. And

29:51

when John Roberts wrote his majority

29:53

opinion joined by the

29:55

other conservative justices, did we see

29:57

once again these talking points? from

29:59

amicus briefs make their way into

30:02

the justification? Absolutely, and I would

30:04

argue that one of the chief

30:06

holdings that John Roberts put forth

30:08

in West Virginia versus EPA is

30:11

bolstered by some of these amicus briefs,

30:13

because what John Roberts says is that

30:15

this really important provision of federal law

30:18

that allows the EPA to impose a

30:20

new kind of system of regulations on

30:22

emissions from power plants, that it's just

30:24

like a regulatory backwater, okay, that it

30:26

doesn't really matter, that Congress didn't think

30:28

about it, that it's just kind of

30:31

stray language that shouldn't mean anything, and

30:33

the EPA can't use it to cite

30:35

any power. Well, Roberts ended up running

30:37

with that. That was like the heart

30:39

of his opinion. He said, this is

30:42

a backwater, it doesn't mean anything. It's

30:44

nonsense, but I think that he was

30:46

only able to get there because all

30:48

of these amicus briefs came in, egging

30:51

him on, rewriting the history of this

30:53

statute, claiming that the Clean Air Act

30:55

was much more modest than it actually

30:58

was. This is a landmark statute, a

31:00

landmark statute that had been amended over

31:02

and over again in order to capture

31:04

more and more kinds of pollution. And

31:06

yet when Roberts looks at it, he

31:08

sees only this kind of minor statute

31:11

that does almost nothing to protect Americans

31:13

and the environment from emissions from coal-fired

31:15

power plants. Why is that? Well, at

31:17

a minimum, he gets his priors confirmed

31:19

by amicus briefs that put forth a

31:22

reading that I just don't think aligns

31:24

with what we see in the congressional

31:26

record or the plain text. We

31:28

know that all kinds of political and

31:31

social groups file amicus briefs, right? It's

31:33

not just conservatives who are trying to

31:35

bring cases before the court or sway

31:37

opinions. Like the ACLU, for instance, has

31:39

been active for decades doing this, but

31:41

you've argued that conservative groups are better

31:43

funded and more sophisticated at supplying the

31:45

court with information than groups on the

31:47

left. Absolutely, and I think there's two

31:49

main ways this happened. So first is

31:51

like in the West Virginia case where

31:53

if you just look at the groups

31:55

that are filing amicus briefs,

31:58

it's all groups funded by... industry. So

32:00

industry is coming in and saying, hey

32:02

guys, here's some money. We want you

32:04

to go tell the Supreme

32:07

Court that the EPA can't regulate

32:09

power plants. Well, there's no left

32:11

side that's gonna do the same

32:14

with their groups. Like the ACLU

32:16

isn't gonna get a million dollar

32:18

check from some pro-environmental industry that

32:20

doesn't exist saying, hey, go convince

32:23

the Supreme Court to approve more

32:25

regulations. There's just a bias in

32:27

the system that's built toward deregulation.

32:29

But I think the bigger problem

32:32

here, and this is one that's

32:34

very prevalent in the gun rights

32:36

context, is that conservative

32:38

donors are really smart about building

32:41

up an entire ecosystem of thought

32:43

that trickles down to the Supreme

32:46

Court. And that was true of

32:48

guns because basically the gun industry

32:50

started funding scholarship. First white

32:53

papers, then law review articles, entire

32:55

centers for so-called originalist jurisprudence. The

32:57

gun industry would fund them to

33:00

churn out this scholarship that purported

33:02

to show that the Second Amendment

33:04

protects basically an unlimited right to

33:06

bear arms. It's not always

33:09

easily traceable because they're so good at erasing

33:11

those connections, but there's enough evidence right there

33:13

for us to see that the conservatives are

33:15

playing this game in a way that liberals

33:17

just aren't. Katonji Brown

33:19

Jackson drew criticism for quoting

33:21

misleading information cited in an

33:24

amicus brief about the mortality

33:26

rate for Florida newborns. Do

33:28

you know about this? Yeah,

33:31

this was an unfortunate error in Justice

33:33

Jackson's opinion and she was trying to

33:35

defend affirmative action. I think it

33:37

ended up somewhat undercutting her authority in

33:39

the rest of the dissent. At the

33:41

same time, it was one mistake in

33:43

what was a string of accurate empirical

33:46

data talking about the adverse outcomes for

33:48

black Americans. I don't think it's the

33:50

same thing because it didn't really lie

33:52

at the heart of her argument. You

33:54

could cut out a bunch of other

33:56

stuff that she said, even if it's...

33:58

debatable and she would still have this

34:00

basic point that no one can really

34:02

deny, which is that on the whole

34:04

black Americans do worse than white Americans.

34:07

And her ultimate point was that that

34:09

is a legacy of slavery and Jim

34:11

Crow. I just think that's

34:13

a different kind of mistake than what

34:15

we're talking about with say Clarence Thomas

34:17

or, or Neil Gorsuch, where they're manipulating

34:19

the record to make history or make

34:21

laws say something that they don't say.

34:24

And you know, sometimes the liberals make

34:26

mistakes and they go back and incorrect

34:28

it. Justice Kagan had this account of

34:30

early religion in the United States that she made

34:32

a mistake about. She had to go back and

34:34

fix it. She did it. It wasn't a big

34:36

deal when it doesn't lie at the heart of

34:38

their opinions. It doesn't matter nearly as much. Are

34:41

false facts you think showing up more often

34:43

than they used to? I think

34:46

so. And I think part of that is because the

34:48

Supreme court is more aggressive than it's ever been. It

34:50

has been turbocharging second amendment rights

34:53

and it has also lost pretty

34:56

much all faith in regulatory agencies like

34:58

the EPA that it is traditionally deferred

35:00

to, to make these factual findings. So

35:02

what I think we are seeing is

35:04

a court that just has a lot

35:06

more faith in its ability to declare

35:08

the truth once and for all. And

35:11

I think it's no surprise that these errors

35:13

tend to come out in highly contested cases

35:15

that split the conservatives versus the liberals.

35:17

That's when the conservatives will cling onto

35:19

what we might call alternative facts in

35:21

order to make sure they can reach

35:24

their desired end point and make it

35:26

look like the truth aligns with their

35:28

goals. Is there a

35:30

way to hold the Supreme court accountable

35:32

for these factual errors? Is there anything

35:34

to do about it? So direct accountability

35:36

for the Supreme court, almost never. These

35:39

are people who were never elected to

35:41

their position who have lifetime tenure. And

35:44

the only way to overrule

35:46

them is to amend the

35:48

constitution, which we all know can't happen. So

35:51

one area that I do think there's

35:53

some promise in is Congress coming back

35:55

in and changing the law in response

35:57

to the Supreme court's mistakes. cases

36:00

like the machine gun case, Congress

36:02

can absolutely come back in and

36:05

fix the law and say, you don't understand what

36:07

we were trying to do 100 years ago, so

36:09

we'll have to do it again and be even

36:11

clearer. Congress, more than anyone else, needs to look

36:13

at what the Supreme Court is doing and

36:16

say, we have to be the

36:18

ones to say what the facts

36:20

are, to put that in the

36:22

law itself, to put it front

36:24

and center before the courts, and

36:26

to make them see that we

36:28

are trying to enact a policy

36:31

that's rational, that can't be undermined

36:33

with loopholes, and that isn't susceptible

36:35

to a kind of judicial deconstruction,

36:37

which is seemingly the Supreme Court's

36:39

modus operandi these days. Bleak,

36:43

Mark, thank you very much. Thanks

36:45

so much for having me on. Mark

36:47

Joseph Stern is a senior writer at

36:49

Slate covering courts and the law. Coming

36:53

up, we follow a common route whereby false

36:55

facts quietly make their way to the high

36:57

court. This is On The Media. America's

37:04

founding fathers, you know, the people who

37:06

designed our democracy, never really wanted too

37:08

much democracy. So what do they want?

37:10

I'm Kai Wright, and next time on

37:12

Notes from America, I'm joined by journalist

37:14

Ari Berman, whose latest book unpacks how

37:16

majority rule has

37:18

been historically compromised by a design that

37:20

protects the power of the elite. We'll

37:23

talk about the consequences of that history on

37:25

Elections Today. This

37:35

is On The Media. I'm Brooke

37:37

Gladstone. And I'm Michael Lowinger. Falsehoods

37:39

can arrive at the court via

37:42

dishonest lawyers or misunderstood research, but

37:44

in the bump stock case we

37:46

just heard about faulty research was

37:48

codified into law by way of

37:50

an amicus brief. That's a

37:52

document submitted by so-called Friends of

37:54

the Court to advise and inform

37:57

the justices. I

37:59

called up Allison Orr Larson, professor

38:01

of law at William & Mary,

38:03

to learn how false facts get

38:05

through the amicus machine unchecked, and

38:08

whether it was always this way. No.

38:12

I mean, if you go way back across

38:14

the seas to England, the amicus brief wasn't

38:16

a brief, it was just a

38:18

lawyer who happened to be in the courtroom who

38:20

would help a judge out with a point of

38:22

law that the judge may not have been familiar

38:25

with. And since the amicus brief came to America,

38:27

it's become an advocacy tool and

38:30

everybody knows that. What

38:32

I think is more recent is the use

38:34

of it to fill in factual gaps. That's

38:37

something that I think became increasingly popular

38:39

in a digital age when that

38:41

information was so easy to find. Unreliable

38:44

amicus briefs aren't a new

38:46

phenomenon either. There was a 2011 case

38:49

called NASA versus Nelson, which

38:52

concerned background checks for contractors.

38:54

And an incorrect statistic from a brief was

38:57

referenced in the majority decision for that case.

39:00

Another case that you write about is Gonzalez

39:02

v. Carhart. Right. I wrote this

39:04

law review article in 2014. It

39:06

was called The Trouble with Amicus Facts. And

39:09

it cataloged different sorts of errors

39:12

amicus briefs make. But

39:14

the one that I think has gotten the most

39:16

attention was an abortion case from 2007, I

39:19

believe, called Gonzalez versus Carhart. Justice

39:21

Kennedy cited an amicus brief

39:24

for the factual claim that

39:26

although he says there's no

39:28

reliable data, women tend to

39:30

regret their abortions. And

39:33

then the self-esteem drops and depression

39:35

follows. And he cites for this a

39:38

brief that was filed by women

39:40

who allegedly had those feelings after

39:43

having abortions. The women who felt

39:45

this way were represented by a

39:47

group called Operation Outcry. Exactly right.

39:49

So the brief says it's just

39:51

filed by the women. But if

39:53

you dig into the brief, you

39:55

realize that there's this advocacy group

39:57

called Operation Outcry. And

40:00

the The way that the testimony, as

40:02

they call it, was collected is just

40:04

by the women clicking a box on

40:06

a survey. Most

40:08

of the research that was cited in

40:10

this brief and then ultimately cited by

40:12

the Carhart decision comes from a

40:15

person named Dr. David Reardon, who I

40:17

think he was an electrical engineer or

40:20

something, but he has a PhD in

40:22

bioethics from a school that doesn't exist

40:24

anymore and was not accredited. He

40:27

has this very specific view

40:29

about the emotional consequences

40:32

of abortion on women,

40:34

and it's a minority view in

40:37

the field, not endorsed by the

40:39

American Medical Association or the American

40:41

Psychological Association. And what's really interesting

40:43

about this example is

40:45

that after Justice Kennedy

40:47

cites to this brief that

40:51

vein of abortion advocacy,

40:53

the self-esteem, the depression, all

40:55

of those claims, it

40:57

really got a boost. It's

40:59

like the citation to the

41:02

brief ended up elevating

41:04

the significance of that type of

41:06

claim in the real world. That's

41:09

so backwards. Yeah. Well,

41:11

it's just interesting for people that say, who cares? Maybe

41:14

no one's reading these briefs. No, it

41:16

matters. There's significant downstream consequences. Wow. I

41:19

mean, that's just shocking. Interesting

41:21

too when you consider the fact

41:23

that in a trial court, there

41:25

are so many rules about the

41:27

kinds of facts and evidence that

41:29

can be brought into the case, right?

41:32

The level of amicus participation at the

41:34

US Supreme Court is significantly different than

41:36

what you might see at a trial.

41:38

So the reliance on an amicus brief

41:40

to fill the shoes of an expert,

41:43

that's something that's like a US Supreme

41:45

Court phenomenon. So this

41:48

is something that I remember scratching my head

41:50

about when I first studied the US of

41:52

amicus briefs in this way. There's

41:54

a lot of rules of evidence that govern

41:56

which expert witnesses can testify and about what,

41:58

who done it. Why did that person do

42:00

it? Did they stop at the red light?

42:03

Those are adjudicated facts or

42:05

specific case facts. And none

42:08

of those rules apply to

42:10

so-called legislative facts. Legislative

42:12

facts are facts that a legislature might use

42:14

to make a new law. It's a fact

42:16

about the way the world works. Like, I

42:19

am taking judicial notice that today is a

42:21

Friday. I am taking judicial

42:23

notice that, you know, the moon is

42:25

a full moon today. Objection. And

42:29

those don't have to go through adversarial

42:31

testing because it's just exempt under the

42:33

rules of evidence. The number

42:35

of amicus briefs that are being filed

42:38

in these big Supreme Court cases has

42:41

just exploded. Can you give

42:43

us a sense of the way it used

42:45

to be and how many amicus briefs justices

42:48

might be exposed to now? Sure.

42:51

Maybe it's helpful to give you a bit

42:53

of comparison. In Roe versus

42:56

Wade, which is 1973, there

42:59

were, I believe, 23 amicus briefs. And

43:02

in Dobbs, which, of course, was two years

43:04

ago that overturned Roe versus Wade, there were

43:07

something like 136. What

43:10

accounts for this sharp increase? Think

43:12

about your own personal way you answer questions

43:14

about the way the world works. You now

43:17

want to Google it, right? Like, it's all

43:19

that information is accessible to you on your

43:21

phone. So the justices are

43:23

the same way. They don't want to

43:25

just look at a cold record or see what

43:28

the experts said. They can Google it, too. They

43:30

are hungry for that type of information. And

43:32

the amicus briefs are right in front of

43:35

them. So I'm a little confused by that.

43:37

The justices don't get to decide who submits

43:39

an amicus brief. Well, not

43:41

directly, but if they're citing them, they're

43:43

creating the market for them. I mean,

43:45

then everybody's going to file if the

43:47

Supreme Court is listening. So

43:49

it's a sort of self-reinforcing logic

43:52

here. The more curious

43:54

they seem about a larger number of

43:56

briefs, the more likely people are to

43:58

try to target them. Right.

44:00

It's actually a pretty coordinated effort right

44:02

now. You have often a

44:05

well-heeled client and you have sophisticated

44:07

lawyers who think about, well, what

44:09

type of information are the justices

44:11

going to want to know? And

44:13

what's the most effective way to get them

44:15

that information and from whom? And

44:18

then they match up the client with the

44:20

lawyer with the topic. Can you give an

44:22

example of that? So sure.

44:24

One of the most famously successful

44:27

amicus campaigns was in the affirmative

44:29

action cases in 2003 that came

44:32

from the University of Michigan. There

44:35

was a brief that was filed by

44:37

military leaders on the importance of having

44:39

a diverse officer corps and having that

44:41

officer corps come from elite universities. And

44:44

it was so influential that not only did

44:46

Justice O'Connor cite it in her opinion,

44:48

but she mentioned it by name when they

44:50

announced the decision. And

44:53

that's an example of

44:55

a very smart lawyer for the

44:57

Supreme Court bar thinking, well, this

45:00

is an unusual pairing, like to have this argument

45:02

from the leaders of the military. That's

45:05

probably surprising to the justices. And it's

45:07

something that might be influential. And sure enough, it

45:09

was. And that's actually

45:12

standard now is to have that

45:14

kind of strategic amicus practice. Okay.

45:16

So the justices get to wade

45:18

through more information. More information is

45:20

a good thing, right? I mean,

45:24

why, why are we talking about it? Like it's a bad thing.

45:26

I know. So my husband always teases me and he

45:28

says, all of your writing makes it sound like you're

45:30

like a 90 year old who hates the internet. It's

45:32

not that I don't want them to be educated about

45:35

the decisions they make. It's just that the tool that

45:37

they're using to do so is old

45:39

fashioned and outdated. There's no

45:41

real fact checking. They're, they're all filed

45:43

by motivated groups. They're filed at the

45:45

11th hour and the litigation. So there's

45:48

not a lot of time for even

45:50

the parties to respond. And

45:52

when that happens, mistakes are

45:54

going to be made, not to mention

45:57

the significant temptation of confirmation bias, right?

46:00

You're looking for something to cement your

46:02

pre-existing worldview and, oh, look, there's an

46:04

amicus brief to support you. How convenient.

46:07

Let's talk about some of the different ways

46:09

we can make the so-called amicus machine, that's

46:12

your term, better. This

46:14

month, a judicial panel approved a

46:16

rule that would require clear disclosure

46:18

of who is funding amicus briefs.

46:21

Is this new rule enough to make a

46:24

difference, you think? I think that's a step

46:26

in the right direction. It would

46:28

be even better to have disclosure, not just

46:30

of who funds the brief, but who is

46:32

funding the studies that the brief relies upon.

46:35

You wrote, quote, if the justices

46:37

are blind to the actual funders

46:39

of the amici, then they have

46:41

no way to evaluate critically the

46:44

submissions coming from them, or

46:46

at the very least could be too embarrassed

46:48

to cite them. Yeah, I think

46:50

that's right. Of course you think it's right,

46:52

you wrote it. Yeah, okay, that person's

46:54

a genius. Did you explain

46:56

what you meant? Yeah, I

46:58

mean, I think the justices care

47:01

about how they're perceived, particularly

47:03

how they're perceived by people in

47:05

the legal profession. And

47:08

so they don't want to be

47:10

citing garbage, so there's a reform

47:12

potential in that, which is allow

47:15

them the information so that

47:17

they can police themselves. I

47:19

also think there's things we can do

47:22

to limit the pool

47:24

of experts who are actually submitting to

47:26

the Supreme Court, drawing a

47:28

distinction between amicus briefs that make

47:30

legal arguments and those that make

47:32

factual claims. So when you

47:35

let in an expert witness at trial,

47:37

that expert is not allowed to testify

47:39

on questions of law. And

47:42

I think you could just import that same rule

47:44

to the amicus practice. If you're going to give

47:46

the court some history, let's

47:49

not mix it with your advocacy. I mean,

47:51

I think that's a small tweak that could

47:53

happen. In addition to

47:55

greater transparency about who is

47:57

funding... the

48:00

information that ends up in the briefs.

48:02

You said another solution is just

48:05

require that interested parties send the

48:07

amicus briefs earlier so that the

48:09

court has more time to vet

48:12

the information. And the parties.

48:14

Like I think if you adjust the timeline

48:16

so that the parties can poke holes in

48:18

the claims that are unreliable, that's another way

48:21

to leverage the adversarial system to be a

48:23

little bit of a fact checker. It's not

48:25

perfect, but I do think that the

48:28

best system we've had for years and

48:30

years and years is one that relies

48:33

on two sides battling out and

48:35

pointing out flaws in one another's evidence. So

48:37

until we come up with a better solution,

48:39

that seems to be what

48:42

we should be leaning into now. No

48:44

one is holding the justices' feet to

48:47

the fire when they make a factual

48:49

mistake. These sort of structural changes that

48:51

you're describing, they only

48:53

really work if the justices

48:55

themselves are committed to the project

48:57

as well, right? Well, sure.

48:59

I mean, but that's true of the

49:02

entire legal system. If you believe that

49:04

everybody's a bad apple, then I'm going to be

49:06

out of a job. I

49:09

mean, it's easy to get cynical and think

49:11

that all hope is lost because there's no

49:13

truth anymore and facts don't matter

49:15

anymore and you just believe what you want to

49:17

believe. I mean, look, I get that. I think

49:19

there's a lot of evidence to support that cynical

49:21

view. There are some

49:24

counter examples, but they involve

49:26

trial courts outside of the

49:29

spotlight, not with celebrity

49:31

justices. And one example that

49:33

I found, there was some

49:36

vaccine litigation years ago and there

49:38

were some faulty claims about a

49:40

bad side effect of a vaccine.

49:43

And you end up with these

49:45

trial courts that are doing some

49:47

very time-intensive, labor-intensive work by asking

49:50

on cross-examination these experts. Well,

49:53

where did you find that, you know,

49:56

tell me about that decimal point and where you made

49:58

like that, like really nitty-gritty. That

50:00

takes a lot of time and maybe

50:02

we don't have the appetite for it,

50:05

but that's an example of the adversarial

50:07

system working to expose unreliable fact-finding in

50:10

trial at the court. It happened also

50:12

in the marriage equality cases in California.

50:14

There was a trial in the Northern

50:16

District of California and the

50:18

experts, when they get on the stand

50:20

and they present some faulty information about

50:22

the fate of children raised by gay

50:25

couples, that information is

50:27

exposed as unreliable, not state-of-the-art,

50:30

not peer-reviewed. We have

50:32

the tools to fact-check. I don't

50:34

believe that's happening at the U.S. Supreme Court

50:36

level and maybe it's not possible, but

50:39

I do think it's possible on a more

50:41

general theoretical level. You're

50:44

saying the court system is capable of

50:46

fact-checking bad claims. Yeah, that's okay. I'm

50:48

just saying, all hope is not lost.

50:51

What we've done is used an old

50:53

tool for a new purpose without any

50:55

upgrades and that's a mistake. What

50:58

do you think is at stake here?

51:00

We see justices quoting amicus

51:03

briefs in their decisions that the number

51:06

of briefs that are being submitted is

51:08

growing and the briefs are filled

51:10

with information that is

51:12

not vetted. I

51:15

think the stakes are very high and here's why. In

51:18

the law, reasons, that's our currency.

51:20

We're not supposed to just be

51:23

traveling in the power market. We make decisions and

51:25

then we have to back those decisions up with

51:28

reasons. So if the reasons are

51:31

tainted, if the reasons are backed

51:33

up by authorities that aren't really

51:35

authorities, then what are we

51:37

doing? I mean, it's sort of existential

51:39

in terms of the types of questions

51:41

that the law is supposed to answer

51:44

and the function of a judicial system

51:46

in our democracy. Thank you,

51:48

Alison. You're

51:50

welcome. Alison Orr-Larson

51:52

is a professor of law at William

51:54

& Mary. That's

51:59

it for this week's show. All

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