Neutral Laws of General Applicability
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2020
⏱️ 70 minutes
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Summary
It's conundrum season! Pass along your most pressing conundrums here: www.slate.com/conundrum. Our annual Conundrum holiday show is coming soon.
Emily, John and Jamelle discuss presidential pardons; coronavirus exemptions for houses of worship; and David joins in for a conversation with Australia's former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull about disinformation.
Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:
Jamelle Bouie for The New York Times: “It Started With ‘Birtherism’”
Greg Nunziata for The Atlantic: “Republicans With Any Love of Country Must Acknowledge That Trump Has Lost”
Spencer S. Hsu for The Washington Post: “Court-Appointed Adviser in Michael Flynn Case Says Justice Dept. Yielded to Corrupt ‘Pressure Campaign’ Led by Trump”
Amy Howe for SCOTUSblog: “Christian School in Kentucky Asks Justices to Intervene in Dispute Over In-Person Classes at Religious Schools”
Emily Bazelon for the New York Times Magazine: “The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation”
A Bigger Picture, by Malcolm Turnbull
To celebrate our 15th anniversary we'd love to know about your clever, politically themed, original cocktail! Please send us the details here: www.slate.com/cocktail
Here are this week’s cocktail chatters:
Jamelle: Jamelle chatted about the superior experience of watching films on a Blu-Ray player, as opposed to streaming.
John: Caroline Lange for Food52: “A History of The American Milkman”; Matt Novak for Smithsonian Magazine: “The Milkman’s Robot Helper”; Atticpaper.com’s prints from the Mid-century advertising campaign “Beer Belongs”
Emily: The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
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For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment David, Emily, and John learn about navigating water sports in shark-infested waters from Former Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull.
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Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for Thursday, December 3rd. You're going to know that I am hosting the show when you hear the title that I have chosen. The Neutral Laws of General Applicability Edition. I'm Emily Bazelan from the New York Times Magazine and Yale Law School. |
| 0:23.9 | David Plotz is away this week. |
| 0:25.6 | Well, he's kind of mostly away. |
| 0:27.2 | He will reappear later. |
| 0:28.7 | But for now, I am delighted to be joined by Jamel Bowie, who, of course, is a columnist for the New York Times. |
| 0:35.0 | Hi, Jamel. |
| 0:35.8 | Hello. |
| 0:36.9 | And also with us is John Dickerson of 60 |
| 0:39.9 | Minutes at CBS. Hey, John. Hello. Hello. Um, I don't know where that's the first time I've |
| 0:49.4 | ever used that intonation on this show in 15 years. I thought I'd break out something new. I know. |
| 0:55.0 | It did seem slightly unfamiliar, but it's good to try out new greetings. You know, it's the holiday |
| 0:59.6 | season. You may have to greet more people. No, actually, you won't because we will all be going |
| 1:04.0 | nowhere and seeing no one. Anyway, on the show today, we will have, as usual, three topics. First, |
| 1:10.7 | we will talk about the |
| 1:11.8 | presidential pardon power. How has it been used in the past? How does President Trump perhaps |
| 1:17.2 | plan to use it before the end of his term? And will he break through yet more norms that have |
| 1:22.2 | prevented other presidents from pardoning themselves? For our second topic, we'll talk about |
| 1:27.3 | the Supreme Court and its |
| 1:28.5 | recent ruling in favor of religious groups in New York that challenged New York's restrictions |
| 1:33.1 | on gatherings and houses of worship. Those were restrictions New York put in place, it said, |
| 1:38.5 | to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Third topic, we are going to have a special guest, |
| 1:43.9 | former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who turns going to have a special guest, former Australian Prime Minister |
... |
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