Cruel and Unusual

As students go back to school, colleges and universities across the country are preparing for the continuation of protests against the Israel-Hamas war—and claims by other students that the protests are violating their own civil rights. Institutions and courts are now weighing the question: whose free speech matters more?

What’s the connection between former President Donald Trump's attacks on the so-called “Deep State" and a tiny silvery fish? The Supreme Court, of course.

We’ve got a preview of a new miniseries for you called Not Built for This, created and hosted by Emmett FitzGerald. It’s a show about climate change, but not in the way you might think. It’s about how the complex systems that govern our lives are not designed for the tectonic changes that are coming our way. Because right now we’re all living in a world that was just Not Built for This. You can find Not Built for This in the 99% Invisible feed starting August 20th on SiriusXM, Pandora, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 1960, a man named Lawrence Robinson was sentenced to 90 days in jail for violating a California law that made it illegal to be addicted to narcotics. This summer, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order telling agencies to clear “dangerous” homeless encampments on state land. What links these two situations? The Eighth Amendment.

After an unprecedented several weeks in politics, some on the right are advancing far-fetched arguments to challenge Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, and a federal judge in Florida threw out the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump. Neither of these are based on established constitutional precedent.

The concept of presidential immunity is not explicitly stated anywhere in the Constitution. That hasn’t stopped the Supreme Court from essentially creating what Justice Sonia Sotomayor called "a law-free zone around the President."What does this mean for the criminal cases against former President Trump? And what are the implications for the office of the presidency?Note: this episode was recorded before the assassination attempt on President Trump.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Disqualification Clause was adopted to ensure that former officials and soldiers in the Confederacy would be barred from serving in public office.And for the first time in 153 years, an elected official has been disqualified for future office for his role in an insurrection: a New Mexico county commissioner who marched to the Capitol on January 6, 2021.Voters have filed lawsuits against Trump, arguing that the former president’s role in inciting his followers to disrupt the election certification makes him an insurrectionist, and therefore, disqualified from becoming president again. What does all this mean for Trump and his 2024 presidential candidacy?  

Gag orders are usually put in place to protect a defendant's right to a fair trial by limiting inflammatory statements. What happens when it's the defendant making the inflammatory statements and that defendant is a current candidate and former President of the United States?

On August 14, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced that the grand jury had returned a criminal indictment against Trump and eighteen other defendants for what they did in the days and weeks after the 2020 election. The story told by the indictment is that this group were part of a criminal enterprise that worked towards one singular goal: overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.One of the people indicted is former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. He is trying to get his case tried in federal court instead of Georgia state court. In his petition, Meadows cites a 1899 case about margarine.  Yes, margarine.

19th century "zombie" laws are shambling into the abortion debate. The Comstock Act of 1873 made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious,” “immoral,” or “indecent” material through the mail. Does that include abortion pills?Comstock Zombies