Affirmative Action for Mediocre Men
6/8/20261 hr 24 min
Leah and Melissa break down what may be a new low for the Court: granting Alabama’s request to reinstate racially discriminatory voting maps. Then, they turn to the big questions: how dead is Trump’s slush fund for insurrectionists? Just how awful are Acting AG Todd Blanche and Acting DNI Bill Pulte? Will Michigan’s Democratic senators stand up to Trump’s appalling nominee for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan? They also cover three SCOTUS opinions from last week before Melissa speaks with Yale Law Professor Judith Resnik about her recent book, Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy.
Favorite things:
- Leah: Maria Collett’s speech to the PA Senate on LA v. Callais; Autocratic Judging, Rebecca L. Brown and Lee Epstein (UCLA Law Review); AOC for President, Megan Wachspress (Liberal Currents); A Shocking Betrayal of Black Americans, Mara Gay (NYT)
- Melissa: Imar Lyman at the Kreeger Museum in DC
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026!
- 6/20/26 – New York City
Learn more: http://crooked.com/events
Preorder Lawless in paperback (out June 16)
Buy Melissa’s bestselling book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMelissa Murray· Host0:00
Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The Trump administration's excessive Christian nationalist rhetoric is only building as we move toward the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and those most caught in the crossfire are specifically federal workers. A multi-faith group of federal employees filed a new lawsuit against the US Department of Agriculture for violating the separation of church and state and the religious freedom promised in our Constitution. Our friends at Americans United for Separation of Church and State received emails from multiple USDA employees. A handful of employees reached out saying the proselytizing Easter email sent by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins to more than 100,000 USDA employees is an abuse of power that violates the separation of church and state promised in the First Amendment, and they are absolutely right. Again, separation of church and state. If you can read the First Amendment, you see that the government cannot establish a national religion, cannot endorse a national religion, and here we are sending a proselytizing Easter email to 100,000 federal employees. The hits just keep coming from this administration, and Americans United is doing their best to keep up the fight against creeping Christian nationalism. If you want to help, head over to au.org/crooked to learn more about their work and how you can get involved.
Speaker 21:24
[upbeat music] Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park,