Our site has a rule of law problem because we really have not absorbed that at the end

of the day the law is where we're going to live.

Hi and welcome back to Amicus.

This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law.

The rule of law is Supreme Court.

I'm Dahlia Lithuek.

I covered those and other things for Slate.

And since we last met, the justices have heard oral arguments in several cases, including

one testing whether President Biden's loan forgiveness was constitutional.

We previewed that case with Mark Stern in our Slate Plus segment last time.

And Slate Plus members are going to get to hear the post-argument gaming on it later

on in this show.

We'll talk about that more in a minute.

For the main attraction this week, it's been a while since we've talked to someone on

this show who looks at the court through a really wide-angle lens and who maybe looks

at the court for the political beast that it is rather than the institution we might once

have been able to suspend disbelief around long enough to imagine that it is in fact

not political.

So this week, we are checking in with one of my personal favorite political analysts

and thinkers, Michael Podharser.

He's former political director of the AFL CIO, a long-time political strategist for labor

unions and the chair of the Analyst Institute, which is a collaboration of progressive groups

...