Justice Alito and his wife seem to have some pretty deep and dark feelings about the people they dislike. Tim Miller also asks Lauren Windsor about the ethics of her undercover recordings. Plus, Ben Wittes shares his predictions for a presidential immunity ruling, his praise for Amy Coney Barrett's handing of the case, and his observations about the criminals Trump unapologetically hangs out with.
A few comments. First, while I'm not wild about Lauren Windsor's investigative method, it just didn't seem the secret discussion with the justices were even newsworthy. I have been at events where someone annoying comes up to you and you try to placate by giving them some reassurance their views are valid while trying to get away. Justice Alito's comments weren't that bad, and sounds like he might have been placating to get away from Lauren. (Chief Justice Roberts' comments were ideal and deserve a gold star.) Alito's wife's comments were utterly reprehensible. No defense of those. But she's not the one who is the Supreme Court justice. I have a bit more understanding of the Alito marriage situation, however.
Finally, there were a lot of derogatory comments about the "selective editing" of the Project Veritas videos. I'm not familiar with all of Project Veritas videos, but I am very familiar with the abortion videos. The charge was that those videos were selectively edited to make what they were doing look worse than it actually was. First of all, all video is edited for publication. Second, I'm very sympathetic to situations where video is edited to give people a misleading view on some issue. But as much as I can fault Project Veritas for its dishonest investigatory techniques, those edits were not misleading. Plus, it never gets mentioned by those which claim the abortion videos were edited to be deliberately misleading that Project Veritas actually made available the entire full length videos so people could judge for themselves if the edited version was fair. I know. I watched them.
Now since those abortion videos were aired, Project Veritas has done some awful MAGA type things and their leader has proven himself to be a totally reprehensible human being. I hate defending Project Veritas and it's awful investigatory techniques, but I thought the record about the videos should be set straight.
👋 hey! I have take too dark for JVL! People think it would be bad if Merrick Garland tells Jack Smith to stand down on his cases due to the election. But Imagine by some miracle Merrick Garland actually lets Jack Smith take the Jan 6th case to trial during the fall. And it takes Trump off the campaign trail for a month plus!!! What happens when Trump is out of the public eye? His polls go up. What if the verdict gets handed down the week after the election, is guilty, but he won it fair and square because all people saw that last month was Biden on the stump doing normal things!
A consideration: if Jack Smith pares down and narrows the J6 charges, Chutkin’s offer of 88 days to prepare can be reduced significantly, and the trial could take much less time.
Tim's interviews are always on point. When Lauren said don't compare me to Project Veritas I thought, "We not going to let that go just like that right? Tim gonna bring it up." Sure enough he proved worthy of my trust
It's super rare that I gotta give Trump any props but Chuck Zito is truly a badass. Nothing like these fake masculine debate me bro idiots that Trump is constantly surrounded by. Zito was a bodyguard to celebs like Sylvester Stallone (whom he resembles in appearance at times), Mickey Rourke, and Charles Bronson.
He was awesome playing Chuck Pancamo, the leader of the wiseguys in Oz. Fun fact was that he was the only convicted felon of all the actors in Oz, the signature prison show on HBO. He was the leader of the Hell's Angels bikers in the late 1970s I think.
I recently watched a great podcast of him appearing on Chazz Palminteri's (legend of legends) show. It was quite insightful and entertaining:
Great interview with both of them. The entitlement and contempt for others coming out of Mrs Alito's mouth is astounding. Having Ben on to update us on the court situations is very helpful and gives perspective and insight that is not readily available elsewhere.
Tim is a really skilled interviewer (and Charlie’s shoes are hard to fill). Loved the discussion with Ben Wittes and also appreciated how Tim challenged Lauren’s approach by revealing his own self examination.
Listening to Lauren Windsor's description of Martha-Ann Alito talking about her hate flag made my skin crawl. My mother and father moved from Italy to the US in 1960. As you can imagine, they are Catholic. I grew up in a suburban part of Madison, WI. My parents sent me and my sister to Catholic schools. In 1979 a gay couple moved into the house kitty corner from our back yard. In 1979 being an openly gay couple was not an accepted thing, at least not in our neighborhood. Neighbors whispered and did not do the customary bringing of baked goods to welcome the new neighbors. But my Italian, deeply Catholic, parents did. Because they always remembered that at the center of Catholicism, like all Christianity, was this guy named Jesus Christ who taught them, us, that although you may not agree with everything that others are doing or stand for, you still showed the love of Christ. So to Martha-Ann I say, you are the vergogna.
I know this is way beside the point, but: In some previous commentary, I had read that Lauren Windsor was effective in being disarming in this setting in part because of her southern accent. Now I’ve heard the audio. What? Does anyone else hear a Southern accent in this audio? She does drop a few “g”s at the end of some words, but I don’t think that counts. People with other accents do that too.
I just went and listened to a snippet. Heard a vowel sound or two that connote mountain South to my ear, but not much. Like a girl that left Kentucky or east Tennessee for school in the Northeast a long time ago. She's probably a good code-switcher though, so she might lay it on more in other contexts.
1. The claim that Justice Alito never rules in favour of liberals on standing is incorrect. For example, he did just last week in the Mifepristone case (look it up). This should have been immediately fact checked as it is simply an incorrect claim.
2. This seems to confirm that the flag was all Martha Anne’s idea and that Justice Alito had nothing to do with it. Worth mentioning that this confirms that he didn’t want the flag raised and in no sense suggests that he agreed with her (or with the shame flag). I’m not saying that what she said sounded reasonable, I’m just saying that it confirms the story that it was her and not the justice who was involved.
3. Lauren is very like project veritas. Martha Anne Alito is only a public figure in that she was in a dispute which was reported about publically. Justice Alito was not the one who brought her into the public sphere. This mode of reporting is gross. Nobody should be valorizing it and honestly I don’t think it was appropriate to interview her.
The Mifepristone case was denied based on standing; GOP will find another way to get it to SCOTUS and Alito will rule with them.
Alito never said in his less than fact checked comments that he didn't want the flag raised -- in fact, he said it was his wife's decision. Period. Sounds like she wears the pants in that household (as my mom would say)
Veritas tactics were fine with the right but when they shoe is on the other foot, well, we just can't have that. So tired of the double standard.
I see no basis that the mifepristone case will be accepted by scotus. But in any case, I was responding to the specific claim that Alito never rules for liberals on standing. This is false.
Alito did say he that he didn’t want her to raise the flag in his comments. And she also said that he “begged her not to”. And I’m genuinely staggered by the “she wears the pants.” Firstly, this comment is overtly sexiest and I doubt you would make it about a liberal. Secondly, is it relevant outside of their house in any way? Are their marital dynamics our business?
Finally, like the left, the right is not totally monolithic. I didn’t like veritas tactics then and I don’t know. And the bulwark shouldn’t valorize them. I subscribe to the bulwark partially because of its ethical standards. Let not become so trump obsessed that we forget who we want to be (and how we want to be perceived).
The mifepristone case was a win for women, their families and their physician. It wasn't a liberal win.
Oh their marriage is certainly our business, the same as the Clintons was for the right. Let's not be a hypocrite now. And sure, if you want to call it 'sexist', then fine. But that would be the way my mom, a Republican and a Catholic, would refer to Alito on this issue.
Totally agree with Alex's points. I don't want the Bulwark to become so biased against Trump that it loses it's objectiveness. I'm not a fan of L. Windsor's tactics and the claim that Alito never rules in favor of liberal standing is just factually incorrect.
Moreover, I'm not sure what Alito said was particularluy daming. It's ok for a justice to be a Catholic conservative, just as it was OK for RBK to be a liberal Jew. Alito's wishing the country was more Godly does not show judicial bias.
On point #3, I agree. I really don’t care for Alito but this isn’t journalism. It’s activism and it’s a bit lazy. We shouldn’t deploy unethical tactics just because we think our cause is righteous. I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know about Alito from his writing, public comments and the flags controversy. He’s pretty obvious. He’s not stepping down or getting impeached. Lauren achieved nothing excepting proving Mrs Alito is nutty.
Alas. Despite substantial guilt for never leaving a review about a single product I’ve purchased on Amazon, it turns out that the inspiration for my first ever comment posted to the world wide web is not, in fact, my latest delivery of fine-point dry erase markers, but rather Lauren Windsor. I respect, and duly empathize with the idea that Lauren’s tactics challenge the notion of ethical journalism. And similar to any practice that evokes the question of “right and wrong”, we could argue about it for longer than it’s taking the Supreme Court to decide if a president can shoot someone in broad daylight. But Lauren Windsor isn’t waiting around any longer for the rules to get posted; and my guess is that’s because she knows that her opponent, this country’s opponent, not only doesn’t follow the rules, they don’t acknowledge there are any. Lauren Windsor is getting off the ropes. And Lauren Windsor is doing so using armor that pales in comparison to the armor being used by our opponent in the form of misinformation, coverups, and coups. Lauren Windsor is going into the trenches because she recognizes that this war is not being fought above board, and she’s not willing to lose it for the sake of having a perfect record at the pearly gates. Holding onto a democracy that’s being ravaged by a collective group of hateful, bigoted, incompetent puppets who have a hold on half the country was never going to be a clean fight. The democrats, the never-trumpers, the respectable news outlets…we all have our gloves on. We’re all fighting. And we should continue doing so with respect for the systems and standards that have built the exact thing we’re fighting for. But when the playing field isn’t level, and when the rules have been thrown out, we need someone brave enough to actually take their gloves off. Lauren Windsor, thank you. What you’re doing isn’t easy, it isn’t comfortable. Figuring out a way to show the true colors of destructive liars comes with a social, professional, and personal risk that you’re clearly willing to endure for all of us. Keep going girl. Tape up those knuckles. Get off those ropes. Hit the one in the middle.* And when you do get to those pearly gates, I think there’s a good chance you’ll be told to slam them on the assholes you were brave enough to reveal.
In what world is it an official act to fire an attorney general in order to appoint a guy who is prepared to lie and steal an election on his behalf? Hiring and firing attorney generals may nearly always be construed as a president's prerogative, but when it's done with intent to collude to commit a coup, are we really saying we have to ignore that criminal intent?
And one other question - shouldn't we assume that the Trump team will challenge whatever the judge determines to be within and without the parameters of official acts and just file another appeal? Unless they're prevented from doing that, we should assume that they will, right? Won't this just give them more opportunities to find more motions and delay even further? Just the result the SCOTUS apparently is working to achieve.
It seems to me that the most reasonable resolution to the Trump immunity claim is to hold that there is complete immunity for official acts; no immunity for personal acts; and that the question of whether an act is official or personal is a question of fact for the jury
A few comments. First, while I'm not wild about Lauren Windsor's investigative method, it just didn't seem the secret discussion with the justices were even newsworthy. I have been at events where someone annoying comes up to you and you try to placate by giving them some reassurance their views are valid while trying to get away. Justice Alito's comments weren't that bad, and sounds like he might have been placating to get away from Lauren. (Chief Justice Roberts' comments were ideal and deserve a gold star.) Alito's wife's comments were utterly reprehensible. No defense of those. But she's not the one who is the Supreme Court justice. I have a bit more understanding of the Alito marriage situation, however.
Finally, there were a lot of derogatory comments about the "selective editing" of the Project Veritas videos. I'm not familiar with all of Project Veritas videos, but I am very familiar with the abortion videos. The charge was that those videos were selectively edited to make what they were doing look worse than it actually was. First of all, all video is edited for publication. Second, I'm very sympathetic to situations where video is edited to give people a misleading view on some issue. But as much as I can fault Project Veritas for its dishonest investigatory techniques, those edits were not misleading. Plus, it never gets mentioned by those which claim the abortion videos were edited to be deliberately misleading that Project Veritas actually made available the entire full length videos so people could judge for themselves if the edited version was fair. I know. I watched them.
Now since those abortion videos were aired, Project Veritas has done some awful MAGA type things and their leader has proven himself to be a totally reprehensible human being. I hate defending Project Veritas and it's awful investigatory techniques, but I thought the record about the videos should be set straight.
Nothing stops Alito and the mrs from walking away from the conversation. They didn't and shared their views.
👋 hey! I have take too dark for JVL! People think it would be bad if Merrick Garland tells Jack Smith to stand down on his cases due to the election. But Imagine by some miracle Merrick Garland actually lets Jack Smith take the Jan 6th case to trial during the fall. And it takes Trump off the campaign trail for a month plus!!! What happens when Trump is out of the public eye? His polls go up. What if the verdict gets handed down the week after the election, is guilty, but he won it fair and square because all people saw that last month was Biden on the stump doing normal things!
I mean…Falcon Heavy here I come!
A consideration: if Jack Smith pares down and narrows the J6 charges, Chutkin’s offer of 88 days to prepare can be reduced significantly, and the trial could take much less time.
🙏🏽🙏🏻🙏🏾🙏🏼🙏🏿🙏
Tim's interviews are always on point. When Lauren said don't compare me to Project Veritas I thought, "We not going to let that go just like that right? Tim gonna bring it up." Sure enough he proved worthy of my trust
Project Veritas edited comments, removing words and phrases. She just lets fools speak for themselves.
It's super rare that I gotta give Trump any props but Chuck Zito is truly a badass. Nothing like these fake masculine debate me bro idiots that Trump is constantly surrounded by. Zito was a bodyguard to celebs like Sylvester Stallone (whom he resembles in appearance at times), Mickey Rourke, and Charles Bronson.
He was awesome playing Chuck Pancamo, the leader of the wiseguys in Oz. Fun fact was that he was the only convicted felon of all the actors in Oz, the signature prison show on HBO. He was the leader of the Hell's Angels bikers in the late 1970s I think.
I recently watched a great podcast of him appearing on Chazz Palminteri's (legend of legends) show. It was quite insightful and entertaining:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QrItwiQ43s
Great interview with both of them. The entitlement and contempt for others coming out of Mrs Alito's mouth is astounding. Having Ben on to update us on the court situations is very helpful and gives perspective and insight that is not readily available elsewhere.
Tim is a really skilled interviewer (and Charlie’s shoes are hard to fill). Loved the discussion with Ben Wittes and also appreciated how Tim challenged Lauren’s approach by revealing his own self examination.
Listening to Lauren Windsor's description of Martha-Ann Alito talking about her hate flag made my skin crawl. My mother and father moved from Italy to the US in 1960. As you can imagine, they are Catholic. I grew up in a suburban part of Madison, WI. My parents sent me and my sister to Catholic schools. In 1979 a gay couple moved into the house kitty corner from our back yard. In 1979 being an openly gay couple was not an accepted thing, at least not in our neighborhood. Neighbors whispered and did not do the customary bringing of baked goods to welcome the new neighbors. But my Italian, deeply Catholic, parents did. Because they always remembered that at the center of Catholicism, like all Christianity, was this guy named Jesus Christ who taught them, us, that although you may not agree with everything that others are doing or stand for, you still showed the love of Christ. So to Martha-Ann I say, you are the vergogna.
I know this is way beside the point, but: In some previous commentary, I had read that Lauren Windsor was effective in being disarming in this setting in part because of her southern accent. Now I’ve heard the audio. What? Does anyone else hear a Southern accent in this audio? She does drop a few “g”s at the end of some words, but I don’t think that counts. People with other accents do that too.
I just went and listened to a snippet. Heard a vowel sound or two that connote mountain South to my ear, but not much. Like a girl that left Kentucky or east Tennessee for school in the Northeast a long time ago. She's probably a good code-switcher though, so she might lay it on more in other contexts.
Good points. Whoever made that comment may have heard her in a different situation where she was deliberately using a Southern accent.
Entrapment…..slippery slope when you use these tactics…..Just gives ammo to the other side
Entrapment is a criminal law term. Whatever idiocy somebody chooses to spout in a one-party state is on them.
I had a lot of thoughts about this episode:
1. The claim that Justice Alito never rules in favour of liberals on standing is incorrect. For example, he did just last week in the Mifepristone case (look it up). This should have been immediately fact checked as it is simply an incorrect claim.
2. This seems to confirm that the flag was all Martha Anne’s idea and that Justice Alito had nothing to do with it. Worth mentioning that this confirms that he didn’t want the flag raised and in no sense suggests that he agreed with her (or with the shame flag). I’m not saying that what she said sounded reasonable, I’m just saying that it confirms the story that it was her and not the justice who was involved.
3. Lauren is very like project veritas. Martha Anne Alito is only a public figure in that she was in a dispute which was reported about publically. Justice Alito was not the one who brought her into the public sphere. This mode of reporting is gross. Nobody should be valorizing it and honestly I don’t think it was appropriate to interview her.
The Mifepristone case was denied based on standing; GOP will find another way to get it to SCOTUS and Alito will rule with them.
Alito never said in his less than fact checked comments that he didn't want the flag raised -- in fact, he said it was his wife's decision. Period. Sounds like she wears the pants in that household (as my mom would say)
Veritas tactics were fine with the right but when they shoe is on the other foot, well, we just can't have that. So tired of the double standard.
I see no basis that the mifepristone case will be accepted by scotus. But in any case, I was responding to the specific claim that Alito never rules for liberals on standing. This is false.
Alito did say he that he didn’t want her to raise the flag in his comments. And she also said that he “begged her not to”. And I’m genuinely staggered by the “she wears the pants.” Firstly, this comment is overtly sexiest and I doubt you would make it about a liberal. Secondly, is it relevant outside of their house in any way? Are their marital dynamics our business?
Finally, like the left, the right is not totally monolithic. I didn’t like veritas tactics then and I don’t know. And the bulwark shouldn’t valorize them. I subscribe to the bulwark partially because of its ethical standards. Let not become so trump obsessed that we forget who we want to be (and how we want to be perceived).
The mifepristone case was a win for women, their families and their physician. It wasn't a liberal win.
Oh their marriage is certainly our business, the same as the Clintons was for the right. Let's not be a hypocrite now. And sure, if you want to call it 'sexist', then fine. But that would be the way my mom, a Republican and a Catholic, would refer to Alito on this issue.
Totally agree with Alex's points. I don't want the Bulwark to become so biased against Trump that it loses it's objectiveness. I'm not a fan of L. Windsor's tactics and the claim that Alito never rules in favor of liberal standing is just factually incorrect.
Moreover, I'm not sure what Alito said was particularluy daming. It's ok for a justice to be a Catholic conservative, just as it was OK for RBK to be a liberal Jew. Alito's wishing the country was more Godly does not show judicial bias.
On point #3, I agree. I really don’t care for Alito but this isn’t journalism. It’s activism and it’s a bit lazy. We shouldn’t deploy unethical tactics just because we think our cause is righteous. I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know about Alito from his writing, public comments and the flags controversy. He’s pretty obvious. He’s not stepping down or getting impeached. Lauren achieved nothing excepting proving Mrs Alito is nutty.
Hi Tim! What was the outro for todays pod? Loving your music selections! Thanks 😊
I had to set playback at .5x to determine “Undercover” by Broncho.
Thanks so much!!
Alas. Despite substantial guilt for never leaving a review about a single product I’ve purchased on Amazon, it turns out that the inspiration for my first ever comment posted to the world wide web is not, in fact, my latest delivery of fine-point dry erase markers, but rather Lauren Windsor. I respect, and duly empathize with the idea that Lauren’s tactics challenge the notion of ethical journalism. And similar to any practice that evokes the question of “right and wrong”, we could argue about it for longer than it’s taking the Supreme Court to decide if a president can shoot someone in broad daylight. But Lauren Windsor isn’t waiting around any longer for the rules to get posted; and my guess is that’s because she knows that her opponent, this country’s opponent, not only doesn’t follow the rules, they don’t acknowledge there are any. Lauren Windsor is getting off the ropes. And Lauren Windsor is doing so using armor that pales in comparison to the armor being used by our opponent in the form of misinformation, coverups, and coups. Lauren Windsor is going into the trenches because she recognizes that this war is not being fought above board, and she’s not willing to lose it for the sake of having a perfect record at the pearly gates. Holding onto a democracy that’s being ravaged by a collective group of hateful, bigoted, incompetent puppets who have a hold on half the country was never going to be a clean fight. The democrats, the never-trumpers, the respectable news outlets…we all have our gloves on. We’re all fighting. And we should continue doing so with respect for the systems and standards that have built the exact thing we’re fighting for. But when the playing field isn’t level, and when the rules have been thrown out, we need someone brave enough to actually take their gloves off. Lauren Windsor, thank you. What you’re doing isn’t easy, it isn’t comfortable. Figuring out a way to show the true colors of destructive liars comes with a social, professional, and personal risk that you’re clearly willing to endure for all of us. Keep going girl. Tape up those knuckles. Get off those ropes. Hit the one in the middle.* And when you do get to those pearly gates, I think there’s a good chance you’ll be told to slam them on the assholes you were brave enough to reveal.
* $5 to anyone who can accurately name that movie
Rocky IV. Send my $5 to Sherrod Brown, please and thank you.
In what world is it an official act to fire an attorney general in order to appoint a guy who is prepared to lie and steal an election on his behalf? Hiring and firing attorney generals may nearly always be construed as a president's prerogative, but when it's done with intent to collude to commit a coup, are we really saying we have to ignore that criminal intent?
And one other question - shouldn't we assume that the Trump team will challenge whatever the judge determines to be within and without the parameters of official acts and just file another appeal? Unless they're prevented from doing that, we should assume that they will, right? Won't this just give them more opportunities to find more motions and delay even further? Just the result the SCOTUS apparently is working to achieve.
The tactics you are suggesting would work with Judge Cannon, but probably not with Judge Chutkan.
It seems to me that the most reasonable resolution to the Trump immunity claim is to hold that there is complete immunity for official acts; no immunity for personal acts; and that the question of whether an act is official or personal is a question of fact for the jury
Vergognati, Martha Ann.
I think the neighbors should get ahead of Mrs. Alito and replace their rainbow flag with a Vergognati flag.