SoS 2026: Wrap Up and Look Forward

What is Civil Discourse?

This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.

Speaker 1: Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your host, Nia Rogers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, political science professor.

N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.

J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?

N. Rodgers: I am feeling all wrapped up. How are you?

J. Aughenbaugh: Because we're doing a wrap up episode, and by the way, listeners, I want to apologize. If you're hearing a chainsaw in the background today, it's because I'm lifting up the veil a little bit.

N. Rodgers: Because Aughie is a lumberjack.

J. Aughenbaugh: Nia and I actually record the podcast in the comforts of our own homes.

N. Rodgers: Generally. Yeah.

J. Aughenbaugh: The first couple seasons, we actually went to a recording studio on campus. Then COVID broke out, and we figured out that we could record just as easily and as well recording from home.

N. Rodgers: Yeah. We recognize that this is not the quality of NPR that you're looking for. We understand Mr. Beast has a much higher quality podcast than we do. But for what we do, which is two people hanging out and talking about government and politics and government documents, this generally speaking, works for us, which is why we do it this way.

J. Aughenbaugh: But one of the downsides of recording from home is-

N. Rodgers: Mowing. There's either mowing at my apartment or there's people in Aughie's neighborhood doing a variety of home improvement.

J. Aughenbaugh: Right now, the owner of the house right beside mine is fixing it up so he can go ahead and rent it again. This morning, he has a crew that is pruning back the bushes and trees of the yard.

N. Rodgers: That needs to be done because that was a little overgrown. It was a little jungly over there.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. By the way, that's how I woke up this morning.

N. Rodgers: To the melodious sound of a chainsaw.

J. Aughenbaugh: Right.

N. Rodgers: The guys who do the grass over here at the apartment complex in the summer they get started really early because you don't want to be working in the heat of day, and I don't blame them. That sometimes means that on a Thursday morning at 6:00, you're like, oh, the melodious sound of a lawnmower right outside my window. That's okay. That just helps you get up and get going.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. If you hear that, we apologize. But as Nia pointed out with the way she was describing how she felt this morning, this is our last episode in our summer of SCOTUS 2026. This is our now infamous wrap up episode where we look back at the stats and trends of the most recently completed Supreme Court term and we give you a little bit of foreshadowing, a little bit of a teaser for what you should expect from the next Supreme Court term, which will begin the first Monday of October of this year. First up, let's take a look at some recent trend lines and stats of the most recently completed term. Nia, for me, there was no other way to describe the most recently completed Supreme Court term other than Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh are basically controlling the court. The reason why I say that is they were in the majority 95% of the time. If you wanted to know how the Supreme Court was going to decide, all you had to do was take a look at Roberts and Kavanaugh. This year, they were joined by Justice Coney Barrett, 92%. She was in the majority.

N. Rodgers: All those people who are out there hating on her, right now, the far right MAGA people, not even MAGA, but the way, way far right MAGA people who are like, run her out of town. Well, if you're going to run her out of town, you got to run J Rob and Kavanaugh out of town, too, and seriously people. She's not being ideologically crazy.

J. Aughenbaugh: This takes us back to a point, our loyal listeners may remember this from last summer's review of the Supreme Court. If you think about the current Supreme Court, the accepted wisdom, particularly in the press, is that it is 6-3, and we will get to that. Six justices, conservative, three justices who are liberal. We contended last summer that a far more nuanced, accurate way to look at the current Supreme Court is that it is broken up three, three, three. You got the three far right, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch. Though, occasionally, Gorsuch lets his freak fly and he gets a little idiot.

N. Rodgers: Moves slightly to the left of where he stands, generally. Occasionally Kagan does that. Of the three liberals, she is the one who will actually nudge herself slightly right, occasionally. I don't mean all the way to the right. She would never be considered a conservative, but less liberal. But then there's those three funky in the middle. They are the three that we're talking about. Robert, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett.

J. Aughenbaugh: They are in the majority the most. Now, let's be very clear. Are they moderates? No.

N. Rodgers: No.

J. Aughenbaugh: But compared to Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch.

N. Rodgers: They are.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Compared to Brown, Jackson and Sotomayor they are Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Now, we will concede the following or I will concede the following. This term, the Supreme Court voted more ideologically split than in the most recently completed four terms.

N. Rodgers: It felt like there was more 6-3s. Is that what you mean?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Six-three ideologically split, where you had the six conservatives versus the three liberals. That happened 20% of the cases. However, let's also be very clear. What was the stat? Over 44% of the time, the court was unanimous. I think I got that in here. Forty-four percent of the cases were decided unanimously. This is consistent with the last three years. Again, folks, I just want to point this out. For those of you who worked in government, and if you will, small group organizations within government, if you can get unanimous agreement 44% of the time you would be jumping for joy. You'd be like, this is a great place for work.

N. Rodgers: That 20% is more than, you said the last three years it was 11%. That divided cases has gone up.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.

N. Rodgers: One could argue that maybe as a result of Donald Trump's presidency.

J. Aughenbaugh: Good Lord, yes.

N. Rodgers: Right. The divisive issues that he brings to the court where the divide is driven stronger than it might be with a different president. As divisive as Donald Trump is for the country, he also is for the court. They are people. I know they don't look like people because they all wear black robes and they look like vultures, but they're actually people.

J. Aughenbaugh: I don't know about the looking like vultures part.

N. Rodgers: They do. They're old and they're all little bent over. They do look like vultures. I'm just saying. But not all of them are bent over. You know what I mean.

J. Aughenbaugh: The court as an institution responds to other things going on in society. Its docket reflects that. Sarah Iskore in a recently published book points out that in some ways, the criticism of the Supreme Court is somewhat unfair simply because the court is responding to very polarized conditions in the country. For instance, by the tail end of the new deal in the early years of World War II, the nation, politically, was not all that divided. It wasn't all that surprising when the Supreme Court all of a sudden could get along with one another, though, interestingly enough, that consensus and unanimity, evaporated quickly on the Roosevelt New Deal Court. But I think she makes a really good point. The courts docket is informed by what's going on outside.

N. Rodgers: Yeah. Because those are questions that people want to get settled and they change over time. In the '60s, what people wanted to get settled were civil rights questions. Who has the right to vote? Who has the right to get on a bus? Who has the right to do these various things? The Supreme Court was not fighting. They were wrestling with those questions. Now we are wrestling with different kinds of questions. We're wrestling with, just in the last few cases, who can be fired and how is money used? A lot of corporate issues are being played out in the court right now. Google's liability, which was earlier in the last semester, I think, was are they liable for what third parties do on their platforms. The questions shift as society shifts.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.

N. Rodgers: But also, Donald Trump will sue a molecule of error for moving around. I think he's also driving some of it because we have had more president's name V something in the last year.

J. Aughenbaugh: Even if he's not filing a lawsuit, here's the other thing. Many presidents and many people who work in government are risk averse, meaning that they won't do something if they think they're going to get sued. Donald Trump is not bound by that concern. Because there is a lot of things that he has done with executive orders and his agencies have issued.

N. Rodgers: He's like, do it and find out later if it's going to be found legal or not.

J. Aughenbaugh: There's the difference between, Nia, you and I have talked about this off record, many people live their lives to where they always ask for permission before they do something.

N. Rodgers: Donald Trump asks for forgiveness.

J. Aughenbaugh: He asks for forgiveness.

N. Rodgers: Then half the time he doesn't even ask forgiveness. He just blusters through like he was right all along and you were stupid for thinking anything else. You have to admire his hot spur if you don't admire anything else.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because a lot of other presidents are just like I just don't want to be spending all that time in political capital in court. We always talk about which justices vote together the most. In this year, we get a lot of justices voting the same. For instance, Kagan and Sotomayor, Kavanaugh and Roberts, Jackson and Sotomayor, Thomas and Alito all voted the same way 94% of the time. Those are pairs. Kagan and Sotomayor, Jackson and Sotomayor, Kavanaugh and Roberts, Thomas and Alito. Note the two that don't fit there.

N. Rodgers: Coney Barrett and Gorsuch. They are a little more independent. They're willing to say, no, I don't think so.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.

N. Rodgers: Who wrote the most? That's always interesting to me who wrote the most.

J. Aughenbaugh: Once again, and this is a repeat from last Supreme Court term, the most prolific writers, Justice Thomas and Justice Brown Jackson. Thomas authored the most opinions, 28, and 15 of those 28 were concurrences.

N. Rodgers: We got it right, but I want to argue about how.

J. Aughenbaugh: Jackson wrote 26, and she led the way with the most dissents, 10. She does not go quietly into that good night.

N. Rodgers: She got things to say, and she's going to say them.

J. Aughenbaugh: For the second year in a row, the justice who wrote the least Chief Justice John Roberts. He wrote six opinions total. Think about that.

N. Rodgers: He's working on the cafeteria menus. He's got all things to do.

J. Aughenbaugh: No, he doesn't even do that. Remember, the justice with the least amount of tenure chairs the cafeteria committee. That's Jackson.

N. Rodgers: That's Brown Jackson. She's writing all the things.

J. Aughenbaugh: Interestingly enough, all of Robert's opinions were majority opinions. If you look back at our most recent episodes, you will see that in a lot of these "important cases", it was Roberts writing the majority opinion.

N. Rodgers: Yeah. It's funny. When it's the majority opinion, I guess its least controversial. It's least controversial to write those because you're not going to get any dissents. Because dissents are controversy. There's somebody who says, no, this is wrong. This is not the way this should be adjudicated.

J. Aughenbaugh: I think Roberts' tendency not to write dissenting opinions. Certainly, he doesn't write concurring opinions. I'm trying to recall the last. The last time I think he wrote a concurring opinion was in Dobbs versus Jackson, when he tried to walk a middle ground between Alito's majority opinion and the jointly authored dissent, and he could get nobody to join it. It was embarrassing. I'm sorry, Chief. But I think Roberts believes that the court's institutional legitimacy is strongest when there is not a lot of opinions and differences expressed in the opinions.

J. Aughenbaugh: Other chief justices have felt the same way. John Marshall was that way, Earl Warren was that way.

N. Rodgers: They didn't write a lot of dissents.

J. Aughenbaugh: No, they really worked hard on getting the court to write unanimous opinions or nearly unanimous opinions. Now, we had some really long case opinions this term. The longest overall was Trump versus Barbara, which was the birth right citizenship case.

N. Rodgers: Which did require a huge amount of.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, discussion.

N. Rodgers: In fairness, it would have been crazy if that had been one of the nine, and they had just written 60,000 words to just be expository, that would be weird.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, so that case had over 60,000 words written. The longest individual opinions were Justice Thomas' dissent in Barbara in Justice Kavanaugh's dissent in the learning resources case, which was about Trump's tariff policy. John Roberts' majority opinions were the longest, typically averaging 7,000 words. Again, if you're assigning yourself only the most controversial cases, you're going to have to write some words. Now, this is in marked contrast to last term. Last term's longest opinion was Justice Thomas' dissent in the Glossip versus Oklahoma case, which was a death penalty case. That was about 14,200 words. Thomas' dissent in the Barbara case was over 29,000 words. That's twice as long, Nia.

N. Rodgers: Had lot to say.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Most of the really long opinions, this term were in dissents.

N. Rodgers: Can I just say that I would be cautious about writing a 29,000 word dissent in part because other people will parse it to find fault with you, to find fault with the dissent.

J. Aughenbaugh: The more you write, the larger the target. We give those who think differently than you more to disagree with.

N. Rodgers: Exactly.

J. Aughenbaugh: Now, let's be very clear. Let's remember who wrote the two longest dissents the last two years, Justice Thomas. Justice Thomas, by all accounts, has a very thick skin. He does not care if you disagree with him.

N. Rodgers: Which is probably pretty good because I suspect he is the least popular justice.

J. Aughenbaugh: Among the American public, yes. Now, on the court itself, as we've discussed in previous podcast episodes, by pretty much universal acclaim by his colleagues, he is the most popular justice among the Supreme Court staff.

N. Rodgers: He remember everybody's name. He remembers their spouses and their kids. He asks after people. He's polite. He's friendly. He's kind. On a personal level, which is why it's so weird how much his justice work is so hated by so many people. You know what I mean? You're, Wow. His work is just reviled in some areas. Yet, he, as a person is considered to be quite a gentleman.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Which is also weird considering the Anita Hill thing. It's all just very confusing. Justice Thomas is an enigma wrapped up in a mystery, wrapped up in an RV.

J. Aughenbaugh: Well, I've read a number of books. I read his memoir. I think Justice Thomas, in many ways, is a good example of how somebody's adult behavior is shaped by what they encountered while they were a child and while they were growing up.

N. Rodgers: I should have asked the first question, which is, how many cases did they have?

J. Aughenbaugh: They decided 67 cases. This is slightly.

N. Rodgers: That's a question I should have started with. Sorry, Aughie.

J. Aughenbaugh: No, that's right. That is slightly more than what they've decided on average the last five years.

N. Rodgers: It's been in the 60s, but low 60s.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Low 60s. Barely 60 some years. What accounts for this is a number of their decisions were got on their docket through the interim or shadow docket. Again, this is an artifact of the Trump administration.

N. Rodgers: We can point to those extra cases and say, they almost all have Trump V in the title. Who is the most disagreeable? Because you were mentioning all the partners. Who's someone who's just standing in a field alone? Is there anybody?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Again, I led off with which justices were in the majority the most. The justice who was in the majority the least, Justice Brown Jackson. She was in the majority only 67% of the time. Roughly a third of the cases she was not in the majority. Forty one percent of the time in non unanimous cases. When there was a divide, chances are she was in the dissent. That number, by the way, is shrinking, meaning she is in the majority less than she was last term.

N. Rodgers: Really?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Maybe what you have is that first couple of years where you're, I was about to say a really foul word, pardon me. I'm going to change this situation. I'm going to fix it. Then they start grinding you down to the point where you're, maybe I won't be fixing it.

J. Aughenbaugh: On a heck with this, I might as well just go ahead and write separately in the descent.

N. Rodgers: It's not a huge, but it's 10%. It's 10% that's a difference between that she's out standing in her field alone. The last time it was more than 50%, and now it's 41%. I won't say she's conforming because that is way the wrong thing to take from that.

J. Aughenbaugh: There's two numbers there. On one hand, she is conforming more in regards to the non unanimous cases. But overall, she's in the dissent even more than she was last term. Even more than so do Mayor and Kagan.

N. Rodgers: She's choosing to argue dissents. She's choosing the, I'm playing the long game, which is these will come back eventually as someone's argument.

J. Aughenbaugh: We always talk about how the lower courts did, because remember, folks, pretty much the overwhelming majority of the Supreme Court's cases are appeals from lower courts.

N. Rodgers: Who got overturned the most?

J. Aughenbaugh: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Which, again, challenges the accepted wisdom. If this was truly a really conservative Supreme Court, then the Supreme Court would be upholding the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which by all accounts is today, the most conservative federal appeals court.

N. Rodgers: Fifth Circuit is?

J. Aughenbaugh: Texas, Alabama, Mississippi. Two thirds of those judges have been appointed by Republican presidents.

N. Rodgers: Those states are conservative states?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. But of the 11 Fifth Circuit course and think about this. The Supreme Court out of 67 cases, 11 of them, they accepted were appeals from the Fifth Circuit. Now, you do the math, but that's like one out of every six cases was an appeal from the Fifth Circuit. Eight of those 11 cases the Supreme Court overturned the Fifth Circuit.

N. Rodgers: You would think that if this were a locked up then there would have been none overturned and the 11 would be standing.

J. Aughenbaugh: Three circuits were reversed 100% of the time, but they only had six cases. The seventh, eighth, and 11th. Now, the two most liberal Federal Appeals courts, the fourth, which is where we reside, and the ninth, which covers the West Coast, they were also reversed seven and six times respectively. In particular, the fourth and the ninth got reversed rather prominently in the transgendered athlete cases. Now, here's, I think one of the last points I want to go ahead and make in terms of trends and stats. This is a court that and again, I'm going to challenge the accepted wisdom that you read in the newspaper. Yes, there was a lot of 6-3 voting, but there were a lot of ideological splits, and the liberals were, shall we say, much more assertive in their dissents than you saw in previous terms. This runs counterintuitive. It's conflicting. On one hand, you got some really less than predictable Supreme Court rulings in the last few weeks.

N. Rodgers: Some things didn't turn out the way I was expecting that they would turn out. We just can't even begin to touch my irritation with cook and slaughter and the decision there that makes no sense.

J. Aughenbaugh: No sense whatsoever. How do you say that Congress can limit the president's removal authority of a member of the Federal Reserve Board. But on independent regulatory commissions like the Federal Trade Commission, Congress cannot restrict there. They're inconsistent.

N. Rodgers: I can't imagine we won't be saying something about that again, because that made no sense. That was a moment of schizophrenic behavior.

J. Aughenbaugh: When we discussed Trump versus Barbara, before the case was decided and after. Nia, you and I both were of the opinion the Supreme Court was going to go ahead and declare it unconstitutional. What surprised me, and I said it in our podcast episode was, I didn't think the vote would be as close as it was. It was 5.5-3.5.

N. Rodgers: That was weird.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's a lot closer than what I thought when I listened to the oral argument. Also remember, on one hand, the Supreme Court giveth to the president, on the other hand, the Supreme Court taketh away. See the tariffs ruling. You want to talk about a smackdown of a major policy initiative. That rivals Obama administration EPA regulations. That rivals Biden administration loan forgiveness program. This is a Supreme Court that on one hand give presidents the authority to act and on the other hand, say, No, you don't get to do that. The one thing I want to go ahead and mention the Roberts Court is forcing the liberals on the court to be in the position that we saw the conservatives on the Warren Court. I think there is some really good analogies here. The Warren Court, as we moved into the late 1950s, early 1960s was dominated by liberals, at least 7-2, sometimes 6-3. If you were conservative on the Warren Court, you basically had a decade and a half of always being in the minority. This is where I think the liberals are. I don't think the Roberts Court is any more conservative than the Warren Court was liberal. I'm going out on a limb here. I think a lot of it, as you pointed out earlier in the podcast episode, Nia, is about what's going on in the country. If we had a different president today, one who was not as assertive, not as norm breaking as Trump, would the Supreme Court's docket look different? Would they agree more? Likewise, the Warren Court? The Warren Court was during the civil rights revolution in the United States. People of color, women, those accused of crime, those who were discriminated against in voting, were all bringing their cases where? To the Supreme Court. Unless the Supreme Court basically was completely out to lunch and didn't want to do any work they would have been forced to go ahead and tackle those issues head on.

N. Rodgers: They had a president in Kennedy. They had a president in Johnson who supported those efforts. That also plays into it a little bit, I think. But I think that the liberals now, if they are smart one, they will write thorough dissents that give future lawyers something to point to. But also in the cases, and this is not an instance of this, but it's the one that comes to mind. Kavanaugh who wrote how they could.

N. Rodgers: I can't remember which case that was where he wrote a detailed roadmap of this is where you want to go, this is how you would get there. They can do a lot of that.

J. Aughenbaugh: Athlete cases.

N. Rodgers: I'm sorry, the trans athlete. They could do that with some of their cases where they could say, I'm in a dissent and here's what you could do if you are coming 10 years from now, and you want to try to overturn this or fix it or whatever. I did want to before we wrap up on this season, bring up that Donald Trump has already asked for them to reopen birthright citizenship. But they don't have to do that.

J. Aughenbaugh: They hardly ever do.

N. Rodgers: It's pretty rare, isn't it? Then to overturn after you reopen is even more rare than that, isn't it?

J. Aughenbaugh: Less than 1/10th of 1%.

N. Rodgers: He doesn't really stand a good chance.

J. Aughenbaugh: No.

N. Rodgers: Especially considering how long that opinion is.

J. Aughenbaugh: I have a better chance, Nina, of being the starting catcher for the New York Yankees this season. Now, here's the other thing. You've heard the expression. If everybody's hating you, then you must be doing a good job.

N. Rodgers: It's true with actors. If there's an actor in a film that everybody hates that person is a really good actor, because they're probably not that evil in real life. But they do an exceptional job of being the bad guy. Ray Fines in the Harry Potter. Ray Fines, by all accounts, one has a nose, and two is a relatively personable individual.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: But is soundly hated as the bad guy in all of those movies because he's an excellent actor.

J. Aughenbaugh: Sure.

N. Rodgers: I'm just saying if everybody hates you, you might be doing something right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Liberals hated some of the decisions, conservatives hated some of the decisions.

N. Rodgers: There was a lot to go around.

J. Aughenbaugh: A lot to go around, and when Amy Coney Barrett is being targeted by hardcore Trump supporters, when she, by all accounts, is a solidly consistent conservative vote on the current Supreme Court, then you know you got to be doing something right. Now, before we go to the future case docket, we would be remiss if we did not mention one of the major errors committed by a well known Supreme Court reporter, Nina Totenberg.

N. Rodgers: Nina Totenberg.

J. Aughenbaugh: Nina Totenberg, who is the and has been for over 30 years reports on the Supreme Court for NPR. The last day of the term, after the justices issued their opinions, Nina Totenberg went ahead and told her editors at NPR.

N. Rodgers: She overheard a conversation in which she heard the retirement. She assumed.

J. Aughenbaugh: That Chief Justice John Roberts was announcing the retirement of Justice Sam Alito. Now, for those of you who.

N. Rodgers: Who has been murmuring. He does that every so often. He's like, I'm just going to retire.

J. Aughenbaugh: Well, he doesn't say it, but there has been a lot of speculation. That Alito won't do to a Republican president what Ginsburg did to a Democratic president. Ginsburg could have retired when Obama was president, she chose not to. Trump gets elected. She gets her fourth bout of cancer and eventually succumbs to it, which allowed Trump to appoint her replacement, Amy Coney Barrett. There are a number of prominent Republicans who have hypothesized that if Alito wants to make sure that his successor is somebody who will further his jurisprudence on the court, he should retire when Trump is president in the Senate is controlled by the Republican Party.

N. Rodgers: Before this upcoming midterms where they may or may not.

J. Aughenbaugh: Retain control. That's right.

N. Rodgers: Retain control.

J. Aughenbaugh: Of the Senate.

N. Rodgers: Usually when people retire, they retire at the end of a.

J. Aughenbaugh: Term.

N. Rodgers: Of a term. They don't wait till November to see the elections and then go, piece out. I'm done. They don't, that's generally not how they do, unless they're ill. But if they're retiring on purpose, they usually plan it through the convenience of the court.

J. Aughenbaugh: For instance, Stephen Breyer let Joe Biden know he was retiring the spring before he actually did. Byron White did the same thing for Bill Clinton, even though it took Bill Clinton over three months to pick his replacement. That's for a different podcast episode. But nevertheless.

N. Rodgers: But she heard retirement.

J. Aughenbaugh: Alito is not retiring.

N. Rodgers: He made an assumption.

J. Aughenbaugh: Almost immediately, the press officer for the Supreme Court said, Justice Alito is not retiring. In fact, he has had four clerks hired, for almost a year.

N. Rodgers: What happens is newspapers because they know these things happen. They have two stories sitting on a computer somewhere. One is, Justice Alito died today from complications due to fill in the blank thing. Then they have a whole long paragraph or three or four paragraphs about his career as a justice. The other file says, Justice Alito announced his retirement today, and then it has five paragraphs about his career as a justice.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Those files sit somewhere, and they do it for everybody. They do it for all public figures. They have a death notice and I'm leaving for whatever reason notice. She said to her editor, Go on the retirement notice.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: The editor put it up on their website. Then, Justice Alito was like, I'm sure his first phone was to Roberts, "Did I get fired and I don't know about it?" No, well, then we need to put out a press that says, this isn't true. She apologized. She apologized to him. She apologized to the court. She was a known long-term friend of Ginsburg. She knows them. I'm sorry.

J. Aughenbaugh: They lived in the same apartment complex. They had weekly dinners, which only became public after Ginsburg died.

N. Rodgers: Because Totenberg did not use inside information theoretically. We're not going to go there. We're not going to adjudicate that, but for the most part, and if Ginsburg chose to be friends with a journalist, that's on her, too. There's issues there on both sides. But she did apologize, but for a while there, it was like, wait, what? That is not good reporting, and so we're calling Nina Totenberg out just a little bit with, you should have asked somebody to confirm. That is basic Journalism 101, is that you go up to the press office and you say, is Justice Alito retiring? You don't just put that out. Not so good that. But, Justice Alito, to our knowledge, is not retiring. We don't know that he is not retiring, but we do know that Justice Thomas will retire over his cold dead body. He is not going to retire. He has already said, "You will pre me out of this place like never because I'm not going to retire." Which is why everybody thinks it's Alito, because you're like, wait, but isn't Justice Thomas older? Isn't he, but he's not going anywhere.

J. Aughenbaugh: Before we get to the cases the courts already accepted for the next term, I want to point something out. For those of you who don't know this, Nina just mentioned the fact that when there are prominent government officials who are getting older or have had health problems, it is the practice at your major news organizations to already have either retirement articles or obituary articles already written.

N. Rodgers: You don't want to be doing that on the fly. You want to have had time to edit that and make appropriate.

J. Aughenbaugh: For instance, it's been widely reported that Republican Senator Mitch McConnell has been in the hospital for weeks.

N. Rodgers: Thank you for mentioning him.

J. Aughenbaugh: Has not been at the Senate during this period of time. It would not surprise me if he retired today or God forbid, he dies. All the major news organizations will almost immediately have an article ready to post.

N. Rodgers: Within 10 minutes on their public website, it'll be up.

J. Aughenbaugh: Once they get the details of why he died.

N. Rodgers: The final details.

J. Aughenbaugh: Or why he retired. Then they will go with stuff that they've written in some instances years ago.

N. Rodgers: That they've just been adding to. Every time there's an accomplishment, somebody goes in and adds a sentence.

J. Aughenbaugh: The publisher for the Washington Post, I recall saying out loud when Strom Thurman died. They had an article that was initially drafted in the early '90s.

N. Rodgers: When he was old enough to start dying. Not that we in any way, and I'm knocking on wood, I hope you can hear that sound. Wishing anything on Donald Trump, but because of his age and because of his health concerns.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: They would be remiss not to have an article with all of his accomplishments ready to go so that they could publish that and have a respectful, and thorough historical article. What I think is interesting about Mitch McConnell is that Governor Beshear is like, "Could you please tell people you're alive? They're starting to stress me out by asking me every single time they see me, is Mitch McConnell dead or not?" He's getting so much heat from the press that he's asking his state senator to just announce that he's alive, so that people will leave Beshear alone. That's how bad that's gotten. He hasn't been seen in three weeks.

J. Aughenbaugh: What's interesting is until about, I think, four or five years ago, Kentucky was one of those states where the governor would appoint an interim senator. If for whatever reason, a senator had to relinquish their seat. But when Mitch McConnell ran for his current term, the state legislature, which is heavily controlled by the Republican Party.

N. Rodgers: I was going to say it's like 80% or some 70% or 80%. It's huge.

J. Aughenbaugh: Passed a state law over the veto of Governor Beshear, who is a Democrat to take that authority away from the governor. I think it's ironic Beshear is like, are you still alive? I know I don't get to go ahead and appoint your successor anymore, but nevertheless.

N. Rodgers: I'd like to just have a talking point when people ask me. I'd like to be able to say, sure, he's alive. He's fine, or he's not fine, and I would like you to keep him in your prayers. Whatever it is that they want to say. But this silence thing and then his wife going to China, to visit family? Is it China or Vietnam? I can't I'm sorry. I don't remember exactly where his wife is from.

J. Aughenbaugh: She's from Southeast Asia initially.

N. Rodgers: She's gone to visit family and they're like, that's it. It's led to conspiracy theories and all kinds of stuff. That's like I would just be so much easier if they would just say, Mitch McConnell is indisposed. Please keep him in your prayers. There you go. It's like that guy from New York who just disappeared for three months.

J. Aughenbaugh: The representative from New Jersey.

N. Rodgers: New Jersey, King? Who just got missing one day. Boom.

J. Aughenbaugh: Finally, went ahead and announced, what was it? Last week that he checked himself into a facility because he was diagnosed with depression.

N. Rodgers: Which we wish him all great good mental health going forward.

J. Aughenbaugh: I really wish you would have announced it because there are a lot of people who suffer from depression. To have an elected official come out and say.

N. Rodgers: You can get help.

J. Aughenbaugh: This is a condition that affects people no matter their walk of life, no matter how successful or not you are. I'm taking steps to get help, so I can have a meaningful productive life going forward. But anyways, real quick, we got some cases that the Supreme Court has already decided to accept. They have accepted a little over 20 cases. They'll fill in the rest of their docket when they return in late September and then they will fill it out the rest of the year. I'm just going to highlight about a handful of really prominent cases the court has already accepted. By the way, folks, if you thought this past term was a doozy.

N. Rodgers: That's because you haven't even, y'all need to sit down and grab an adult beverage because we're about to take you on a little bit of a ride.

J. Aughenbaugh: It has the potential to be a bumpy ride. First of all, voting. A dozen states currently require voters to show proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate or a passport when they register to vote. This term, the Supreme Court will consider the legality/constitutionality of these requirements because they have accepted a case that challenges Arizona's latest proof of citizenship law. The case is the Republican National Committee versus Mi Familia Vota. Arizona's law is currently blocked by a ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that called some of the provisions quote, "Unlawful measures of voter suppression." The Republicans have asked the court to overturn that decision and allow the requirements in Arizona and elsewhere to remain in effect. Depending on when the court hears the case and issues a ruling, it could possibly have an effect on the midterms. I don't think the Supreme Court will act that quickly. It will have a bigger effect in the federal elections for 2028.

N. Rodgers: The 28 presidential election. What's fascinating about this is there are not wide pockets of non-American citizens voting. It's just factually not accurate. It continues to be a stone that sticks in the craw of one Donald Trump voting and elections, and he just can't let it go. He just can't. I'm fascinated by the assault weapons ban case.

J. Aughenbaugh: Over the past couple decades, the Supreme Court has issued a series of decisions that have expanded gun rights. The courts taking up the next issue in regards to gun rights. They are looking specifically at two different laws that ban semi-automatic assault weapons, most prominently the AR-15. For our listeners who may be unaware, semi-automatic assault weapons were banned by federal law until 2004. When that law expired, the United States Congress did not renew it. A number of states have issued bans on semiautomatic assault weapons.

N. Rodgers: Is this going to come back to the question of commonly owned guns?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Because the Supremes have said you cannot ban commonly owned guns, which I assume mean things like glocks and other guns.

J. Aughenbaugh: Unfortunately, for those who have issued these bans on semi-automatic assault weapons, the statistics I've seen, and this is a pretty accepted number. Nearly 16 million Americans legally own AR-15s or their equivalents.

N. Rodgers: What's common? Then you're going to get them defined in common the way you got them this time arrived at. What we're basically turning the Supreme Court into is Miriam Webster. What does this word mean? We're turning them into a dictionary. They're doing all these word-defining things anyway.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because of the Brown decision, the majority opinion was written by Thomas. States can go ahead and regulate guns if they can show an analog that was in place at the time the Second Amendment was written. The problem for those who have passed those bans on semi-automatic assault weapons is that there were a lot of popular weapons that individuals had at the time the Second Amendment was written. That's part of the difficulty. But I'm going to be fascinated to see this.

N. Rodgers: Many rifles have bayonets these days.

J. Aughenbaugh: But again, what are common use and ownership?

N. Rodgers: That's what I'm saying.

J. Aughenbaugh: You got to show the analog. If you got 15 million Americans or 16 million Americans with semi-automatic assault weapons.

N. Rodgers: Is that enough?

J. Aughenbaugh: Is that enough?

N. Rodgers: How much is enough to make common? Again, we're going to see definitions.

J. Aughenbaugh: Nia and I are particularly interested in that case because we live in a state that just passed a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons.

N. Rodgers: We're curious to see what they're going to do with that. Virginia right now is frozen because we're all waiting to find out what's going to happen.

J. Aughenbaugh: Three or four state judges have issued an injunction on the law being implemented. Next, transgender rights. One of the many points of debate around transgender rights in recent years has been the extent of parental authority over decisions involving trans-identifying children. The court will weigh in on the issue when they look at a challenge to a Washington law that gives operators of emergency shelters the option not to contact parents of runaway transgender youth who are seeking gender-affirming care. A group of parents is sued arguing the law violates their parental rights "to raise their child in accordance with the child's biological sex." The Washington case is very similar to a case that the courts decided this past term in California where the justices ruled in favor of parents seeking to block a California law that limited when schools can out transgender parents to their families.

N. Rodgers: You have to tell the family.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. In effect, that's what was the Supreme Court's decision.

N. Rodgers: I am not a parent, so I'm going to not wade into that because that is complex. I think that's true of any. For me, this falls into, and I know they're not the same, so please hold your hate mail. Parents often assume their rights to determine things like what religion their child belongs to and what school their child attends. Do they go to a private school? Do they go to public school? There's this weird thing with parental rights. I not being a parent, I'm going to stay all the way out of that question and just watch what the court does. I think almost everybody on the court is a parent.

J. Aughenbaugh: Or was. Actually, there were two justices who were never parents, so do Laura and Kagan.

N. Rodgers: It'll be interesting to see what that comes down to.

J. Aughenbaugh: Hang on just a second. By the way, listeners, if you want to know on what constitutional grounds the parents are making the claim in regards to parental rights, they are basing it on two decisions by the US Supreme Court in the 1920s that said that parents have privacy rights to decide how to raise and educate their children.

N. Rodgers: If you're a big fan of homeschooling, there's some interesting questions here.

J. Aughenbaugh: Speaking of schooling, segue alert. We are once again seeing the Supreme Court wade into the issue of schools and religious freedom. In 2020, Colorado, voters approved a ballot measure to establish universal preschool throughout the state. This is based on a number of studies that show that children who go to preschool usually have an easier transition when they go to kindergarten and first grade, and they tend to do better in school. As a part of the program, state funding is only available to private preschools that meet certain equal opportunity students or standards, including a willingness to enroll LGBTQ students. Two Catholic preschools have sued the state, arguing that they were being discriminated against on the basis of their religion by being denied state funding for standing by their beliefs. The state contends there is no discrimination present because the rules apply to all schools, whether they are religiously affiliated or not. As we've discussed on this podcast, in two similar cases over the past decade, the court has come down on the side of religion, ruling that states can't exclude religious schools from public programs simply because they are religious.

N. Rodgers: But that's what they're saying.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.

N. Rodgers: It'll be interesting to see this case. This case is different. It is, but it's interesting.

J. Aughenbaugh: This is, again, the tension of the two religion clauses of the First Amendment. Colorado is arguing that they are avoiding an establishment of religion violation. Because we have the establishment clause.

N. Rodgers: But the schools are arguing that their freedom to practice religion.

J. Aughenbaugh: Religious beliefs are being discriminated against. I think what this is going to come down to. I'd be shocked if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state. The reason why is the Supreme Court has said in these two previous cases, if you're going to make a program available to everybody, you can't discriminate simply because of somebody's religious practices. Which then forces Colorado in a difficult position. Do they scrap the entire program? Or do they allow private preschools to participate in the program?

N. Rodgers: I know. That's not going to be pretty either way.

J. Aughenbaugh: If you think the Supreme Court dealt with immigration last term, wow, gosh.

N. Rodgers: Then you don't know Donald Trump?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. The Supreme Court has already decided to take two immigration cases for the next term. One deals with, can immigrants with a criminal history be held in immigration detention centers indefinitely, or do they have the right to challenge their detention in court. The second immigration case involves immigrants who had once been granted asylum in the United States, had their status revoked, and now argued that they should be eligible to become lawful permanent residents. The government argues, and so far, the lower courts have agreed with the Trump administration that only immigrants with active asylum protection can apply for a green card.

N. Rodgers: They should have done it in the time that they were granted asylum, is what the Trump administration is saying?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: The argument on the other side is, but if they were able to get asylum before, then we clearly believed that they needed asylum why do they have to still be under an asylum order in order to ask for a green card? That'll be an interesting question.

J. Aughenbaugh: On the first case, what's fascinating is the Trump administration has basically argued, if we allow these immigrants with criminal histories, bond hearings to where they may be released from detention facilities.

N. Rodgers: We'll never find them again.

J. Aughenbaugh: We're never going to see them again.

N. Rodgers: They're asking, do immigrants with a criminal record or criminal activity have the same rights as immigrants who don't have that? That's how the courts going to split that hair, I think, is to say, "But when you commit crimes in the United States, you give up certain rights. That's true for anybody who commits crimes in the American citizen or not, if you commit a crime in the United States, there are certain rights you give up. If I murder Aggie, which I would never do. But if I murdered Aggie, I give up my right to wander the streets free. Like I am now going to be imprisoned because I've made that choice. There's an interesting question there.

J. Aughenbaugh: But if you are challenging your arrest for murdering don't you have an opportunity to get bail before the hearing? That's going to be the difficult thing.

N. Rodgers: That's true. Because if I'm not here legally, my instinct will be to run.

J. Aughenbaugh: This is where the Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, do they apply to individuals that the United States says have criminal histories and thus should be detained and deported? The federal courts are like, but wait a minute, here. Do we know for sure that they have criminal histories? Don't we allow individuals per due process of law an opportunity to be released on bond so they can participate in their challenge? The federal government's response is we will never see them again.

N. Rodgers: Although one could argue to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, who want people to self-deport, that would be a way to encourage people to self-deport. I'm just saying if you never see them again, but anyway.

J. Aughenbaugh: There's going to be two more cases I want to emphasize before we conclude this episode. One is climate change. The Supreme Court has significantly narrowed.

N. Rodgers: No. There's no climate change, Aggie. I don't know what you're talking about. The hottest 4th of July in the record of human history, 100 billion degrees in Richmond. No, there is no climate change. I refuse to believe it.

J. Aughenbaugh: Notwithstanding Nia's sarcastic policy analysis, the Supreme Court has significantly narrowed the government writ large power to regulate greenhouse emissions in a series of landmark rulings.

J. Aughenbaugh: They will have another opportunity in a case that arose from Boulder, Colorado. Lawmakers in that city have sued oil and gas companies for their role in perpetuating climate change. These companies have asked the Supreme Court to block the lawsuit. The companies contend, and the Trump Administration agrees, that only the federal government has the power to seek these types of damages because of the impact of climate change. Their argument is based on the Commerce Clause. The impact of climate change goes far beyond Boulder, Colorado's jurisdiction.

N. Rodgers: Right. What the companies are arguing here is, no, no, my destruction is too widespread to be contained by the government of Boulder, they cannot sue me. That is essentially what they're arguing. Only the federal government can control something as big as my swath of destruction. Silly little boulder, please, you're a tiny microcosm of the destruction of which I cause on the planet. Is that not what they're arguing, more or less?

J. Aughenbaugh: Well, sarcastically, the answer is yes. But now I'm going to go ahead and sarcastically respond. Nia, you believe federalism is more important than the Commerce Clause?

N. Rodgers: I hate the Commerce Clause because everything comes back to the Commerce Clause. But I do understand the argument. I do understand the argument of this needs to be done at the federal level, and the feds are letting us get away with it, so I don't know why you're complaining. You can't put us through this because it is essentially a federal crime.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Therefore, it should be prosecuted by the feds, and if the feds aren't prosecuting, it's because our lobbying dollars are doing their work, or whatever.

J. Aughenbaugh: The argument of these companies is twofold: First of all, they still, by and large, deny climate change is taking place, or the impacts are as bad as people are saying.

N. Rodgers: Which is in their financial best interests.

J. Aughenbaugh: But their second argument, which is a constitutional argument is, well, if climate change is as pervasive as you all say, then it crosses state lines, and per the US Constitution, which level of government can only regulate interstate commerce, and interstate commerce is the feds. Therefore, we're immune from being sued by either these cities or these states because of our alleged role in perpetuating climate change.

N. Rodgers: It's a little bit in the nature of Monsanto versus the EPA, which is the whole idea, no, no, the EPA has said, our stuff doesn't kill people, so the local municipalities and individuals cannot sue us because of that, only the federal government. What's our other case?

J. Aughenbaugh: The last one just absolutely fascinates me. Many Americans assume that criminal trial juries must have 12 jurors.

N. Rodgers: Well, that's because of the movie, 12 Angry Men, which is one of the best movies ever made about courts.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. I still show it in my politics and film class. But what many Americans don't know is a half a dozen states allow criminal trials to have as few as six jurors.

N. Rodgers: It freaked me out when you told me that the first time. I was like, wait, what? It's not 12? But the movie says it's 12. You were like, yes, but the movie doesn't cover all these states where it says it's six. It's not very many, and it's the suspects you would expect. But anyway.

J. Aughenbaugh: The case centers on a Florida chiropractor who was convicted of practicing after his license had been suspended following allegations of inappropriate contact with patients. His attorneys argue that the small jury violated his constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial. To me, this is going to be fascinating to see how the conservatives deal with this.

N. Rodgers: Well, because the states are mixed. When I say it's the suspects that you would think of, it's the independent weirdo states, is what I think of them as. Florida, Utah, Massachusetts, Indiana, Connecticut, and Arizona, which are all those kinds of states where people are like, "I do what I want." It's not surprising to me.

J. Aughenbaugh: Wait, minute, how did you just describe those states?

N. Rodgers: I do what I want.

J. Aughenbaugh: No, no, no. The blank weirdo states? Independent weirdo states. I don't imagine that's going to be on their website for please come and visit Utah because [inaudible] .

N. Rodgers: We're an independent weirdo state. Sorry. But that is an interesting question. Is six people enough to make a reasoned decision about [inaudible] ?

J. Aughenbaugh: Think about this, listeners. The purpose of trial by jury is to have the public given a role to act as a check on the behavior of government. Now, if you want to make sure that the public is represented, is six jurors enough to represent the diversity, the complexity of that public?

N. Rodgers: Which is why Massachusetts doesn't fit, but Utah does, Arizona does, they're fairly homogeneous. I can see why they would think, but Florida's not homogeneous, and this guy's case happened in Florida. I'm sure that he's like, dude, six people is not enough. You didn't get enough diversity on this jury, meaning enough backgrounds, enough racial, enough ethnic, enough gender diversity in here to give me a fair trial, is what he's saying.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. To me, this is going to be interesting on how this goes ahead and how the conservatives deal with this.

N. Rodgers: If you live in those six states, prepare for jury duty because if it goes from 6-12, they're going to need double the number of people.

J. Aughenbaugh: This only applies to certain cases. One of the reasons why Florida has this is that he lost his license to practice.

N. Rodgers: He was a chiropractor, right?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. It's not like he received jail time, so the logic is this was a misdemeanor. He attempted to practice.

N. Rodgers: He had inappropriate contact with patients. As a chiropractor, I assume that means he's feeling people up. But I don't know what he did. But he lost his license, and he said, that's not enough people to decide whether I should lose my license or not.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, because he attempted to practice after he lost his license.

N. Rodgers: He was going to continue to be an unlicensed chiropractor, which is not a good thing. I'm sure he didn't tell his patients, oh, I've lost my license, why don't you go ahead and come in anyway.

J. Aughenbaugh: I feel really confident when an unlicensed chiropractor says, let me go ahead.

N. Rodgers: Let me crack your back.

J. Aughenbaugh: Let me work on that tight spot in your neck.

N. Rodgers: No Thanks. No, thank you. Although, in fairness, and we shouldn't call Mr. Hamed Kian into question, we are not saying that he did medical malpractice.

J. Aughenbaugh: No.

N. Rodgers: He was convicted of inappropriate contact with patients. That is very different. We're not saying he was a bad doctor.

J. Aughenbaugh: No, those were allegations, he wasn't convicted.

N. Rodgers: Oh, right. His license was pulled because of those allegations, and then he was convicted of practicing anyway without a license. He's a chucklehead. But he does ask an interesting question. In Florida, really, you couldn't find 12 people who would sit on a jury? Come on now.

J. Aughenbaugh: Again, the reason why I think this has the potential to divide the Conservatives is that, somebody like Gorsuch is going to be, "What is the original purpose of a jury trial?" Whereas, Alito, who is a law-and-order Conservative might be tempted to go ahead and say, "Yeah, whatever. The dude was trying to practice without a license. Do you really need more than six jurors to go ahead and decide whether or not he violated Florida law?" Then the Liberals will be in a difficult spot because, again, Florida is regulating a practice to where patients should be protected from touchy-feely chiropractors or those who want to practice without a license. That ain't a good thing, right?

N. Rodgers: Right. Can six reasonable people make a decision? I don't know. It takes nine of you all. Maybe the minimal number should be nine, not six. But anyway. We thank you for sticking with us. We know it's been a slightly longer episode. The wrap-up episode always is because it's always interesting, everything that has been and is about to be, these cases that Aughie has pulled out are going to be the Russel cases, they're going to be the ones where the oral arguments will be contentious, where the answers won't come for probably a very long time. We'll get some in between that are not nearly this dramatic, and then we'll get some that are added to the docket by Donald Trump because he will continue to be president, and he will continue to be litigious. Some of that will happen just in real time. But these are cases where there's some real, if asylum seekers have their asylum, there's some real thorny questions there with at what point are you no longer "worthy" of asylum. You know what I mean? That's a really sticky question.

J. Aughenbaugh: To what extent does the Constitution apply to people who are not US citizens? That's always been a fundamental question in regards to immigration. Or think about the religion in schools or parental rights.

N. Rodgers: The parental rights questions are always thorny because, how do you avoid a nanny state while still protecting children from bad parents, right? But protecting good parents from systems that could conceivably harm their children. There's a lot of competing interests there.

J. Aughenbaugh: Then you got voting. Again, to what extent do people avoid voting if the process becomes more burdensome, meaning you got to show up with a passport or birth certificate? What is the public good that is trying to be achieved by these state laws that require proof of citizenship? Voting is the fundamental behavior of the social contract in a democracy, right?

N. Rodgers: Right. It's the least you have to do. You need to vote, and you need to show up and vote. In Australia, if you don't show up and vote, they fine you. There could be ways to get the entire vote out. But I don't know, in fairness to our system, if our system could handle if all 330 million people decided to vote. Well, that wouldn't be that many because there's kids. But I mean, even if it's 200 million, we don't ever have that kind of turnout in this country, and if we did, I don't know if our system could handle it. I think people would stand in line for days because we just don't have enough apparatus.

J. Aughenbaugh: Then if you required them to show a birth certificate and passport would slow down the process even more.

N. Rodgers: Even more.

J. Aughenbaugh: You have some serious capacity and efficiency issues if we ever did go to a mandatory voting system, but at the same time, required proof of citizenship.

N. Rodgers: Right. Or just if you require proof of citizenship now for the people who are standing in line in Georgia to vote for nine hours, is it now going to be 11 hours because it's going to slow everybody down by having to get out their, because you're not standing in line with it, you're going to have to get it out of your bag or your wallet, or your whatever. I think there's some real interesting questions and complications that this could bring up. But thank you, Aughie.

J. Aughenbaugh: Thank you, Nia.

N. Rodgers: It's been another excellent Summer of SCOTUS. Nobody is retiring. Me, Aughie, Alito, none of us are retiring currently. Nina Totenberg, she's not retiring either. We're all going to be here, and we'll all be back in the fall.

J. Aughenbaugh: See you, Nia.

Speaker 1: You've been listening to Civil Discourse brought to you by VCU Libraries. Opinions expressed are solely the speaker's own and do not reflect the views or opinions of VCU or VCU Libraries. Special thanks to the workshop for technical assistance. Music by Isaac Hobson. Find more information at guides.library.vcu.edu/discose. As always, no documents were harmed to the making of this podcast.