2382 – Massive Sex Discrimination Case At Supreme Court w/ Ian Millhiser

It’s News Day Tuesday! Sam and Emma speak with Ian Millhiser, senior correspondent at Vox, to discuss some of the oral arguments going on in front of the Supreme Court this week. First, Sam runs through updates on South Korean President’s declaration of martial law, Israel’s myriad violations of their ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, the continued gutting of the IRS, US military domestic operations, Scott Walker’s Act 10, the nomination of Kash Patel, Trump’s plurality win, Dinesh D’Souza’s apologies, Trump’s threat to Gaza, US military aid to Ukraine, and Elon’s legal problems, also touching on Democratic Establishment’s staunch opposition to getting money out of primaries. Ian Millhiser then joins, diving right into the impending oral arguments on United States v. Skrmetti, marking the first full hearing on the constitutional question of the government’s ability to restrict the rights of (and explicitly target) transgender people (a term first used at the Supreme Court in 2010), outlining the case’s origin in the extensive red-state backlash to trans rights under the Biden Administration, with myriad prohibitions and restrictions placed on gender-affirming care for people under 18. After stepping back to tackle Skrmetti’s connection to Bostock v Clayton County (2020) and the Court’s decision (held by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Gorsuch) that any discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation constitutes, no matter what, a form of sex discrimination, Millhiser and Sam parse through the various problems that still face the prosecution, including the extension of this question beyond the workplace, and the added context of exceptions for presumptively unconstitutional governmental actions, whether the Court is likely to get fully on-board with the defense’s conspiracy-centered argument about “trans ideology,” and what a more limited (though still devastating) decision in favor of the State’s right to discriminate against trans people could look like. Next, Ian looks to the FDA v. R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co, a case centered on the FDA’s ability to regulate tobacco and tobacco products, first walking through the history of the FDA’s right to regulate tobacco products, and their initial (and very late) attempts to reign in the ever-growing vaping industry beginning in 2016, before wrapping up by expanding on the role of the Chevron doctrine – the deference of the Courts to federal agencies when it comes to reading the ambiguity of federal legislation – in problematizing what should be an open-and-shut case for the Conservative majority. And in the Fun Half: Sam parses through the stream of denunciations from the past life of Trump’s new Defense Secretary nomination Pete Hegseth, including statements from a former non-profit he worked at, and his mother. Gary from North Carolina unpacks the “landslide” and “mandate” narratives about Trump’s victory, a Texas A&M student asks about assessing DEI and fairness, and the Heritage Foundation provides a detailed example of how the right-wing uses the language of economic populism to further entrench the power of capital. Bill Maher gets schooled by Jane Fonda over the “threat” of the far-left, Muhammad from Ohio tackles the role US foreign policy has played in shaping the Arab vote in Presidential elections, plus, your calls and IMs!

Check out Ian’s writing on Vox here: https://www.vox.com/authors/ian-millhiser

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