Hi and welcome back to Amicus.

This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the Supreme Court and the rule of law in America.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick and I cover the courts and the law for Slate.

There is mourning in America more than 180,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States,

but almost no masks on the South lawn as the Republican National Convention wrapped up at a White House festooned with Trump regalia.

The president performed this really quite staggering violation of the Hatch Act as a simple

act of patriotism.

Remember when on this show we used to think about the emoluments clause and the ways that it

might matter?

Yeah, me too.

Oh, also under patriotism, crossing state lines,

armed with a semi-automatic rifle bent on defending blue lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

A 17-year-old has been charged with five felonies for murdering two protesters and wounding a

third, but in the eyes of some,

he is a full-fledged rule of law gladiator. Later on in the show, we're going to talk to Slate's

own Mark Joseph Stern about the quasi-legal defenses that are being offered by the people who believe

the Second Amendment encompasses the right to shoot protesters, unsettled by the people who believe the Second Amendment encompasses the right to shoot protesters,

unsettled by the presence of heavily armed militia members in their midst.

In these waning days of August, the new Supreme Court term is still a month or more away,

but there has still been an immense amount of action on

consequential and exigent questions around voting around COVID openings in the various

states, the death penalty, immigration. And all of these decisions emanate from the

...