It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Heather Digby Parton, contributing writer at Salon.com and proprietor of the blog Hullabaloo to round up the week in news. First, Sam and Emma dive into SCOTUS officially taking out a chunk from the administrative state, Biden’s decision to nominate an anti-abortion judge to a federal bench, and the Republican desire to tell us that Dobbs changed nothing. Then, Digby joins as they get right into this week as a culmination of, at a MINIMUM, the last six years, assessing the decisions on Roe, gun control, and the EPA, and to hear a case next session on states’ rights to send alternate electors despite vote tallies. Diving deeper into the state of the conservative court’s commitment to the Independent State Legislature doctrine they explore Kavanaugh first citing this theory in 2020 via shadow docket as the culmination of minoritarian control, before getting into the reactions from the right and the surprise at their clear fear of electoral backlash. Next, they expand on the repercussions we’re already seeing from the overturn of Roe, largely centered on the unreliability of exceptions, and whether doctors can take a risk that will jeopardize their career and freedom, and look to the Democrats’, once again, stone-cold inaction, doing less in the wake of the biggest rollback of rights in US history than they did for anti-abortion Democrat Henry Cuellar. They wrap up the interview by assessing the obvious extremism in the Republican party, from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent statements that aborted babies can be found in the COVID-19 vaccine to everything we’ve seen at the 1/6 hearings, and the refusal of Biden to even consider his opposition anything but respectable as very representative of Democrats’ messaging impotence.

And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma discuss Biden putting the feelers out for a second presidential campaign as Harris’ replacement lane gets narrower and narrower, Liz Cheney has a congressional debate with a bunch of conspiracy theorists, and Jeff from Atlanta expands the discussion on Biden’s anti-abortion judicial nomination. Dave Rubin proclaims himself as the “should-be conservative hero,” and Mike Cernovich confronts his demons and says, respectfully, no! Johnny from Houston talks calling racists racist, Pat the Hippie explores the future of Minnesotan politics, and Donald Trump takes responsibility for DeSantis’ success (sowing the seeds of his own replacement!), plus, your calls and IMs!