Hello and welcome to Positively Dreadful. I'm your host, Brian Boyler. It's

October now, which in even numbered years marks the unofficial beginning of the

final sprint to election day. But quite apart from elections or mostly apart

from them anyhow, it also marks the beginning of a new term for the Supreme Court. And this

year more than others I can remember, it was marked by these kind of incredibly

dramatic contrasts. On one more inspiring hand, Katanji Brown-Jackson began her

official service as an associate justice, the first black female justice in the

history of the court. On the other hand, it's still the Supreme Court. It's still

this Supreme Court. Titually it's the Roberts Court, but Sam Alito has been

flying around the world, acting like he owns the place. And he's not exactly

wrong. This term, the court is poised to hear just a ludicrous number of ominous

cases. Where if Alito has his way, he'll leave a wake of destruction that'll

include everything from free and fair presidential elections, to what's left

of the voting rights act, to Medicaid, to the private right to censor Nazis and

porn online. This is all after Alito and his colleagues overturned Roe v. Wade

and sent the court's public legitimacy into the toilet, a backlash that has

given this right-wing majority seemingly zero pause. And that's perhaps because

they can see the lay of the political land as well as us lowly pundits. And they

know there are unlikely to be any consequences if they continue to come and

steer the country and shape it to their personal and political whims. So that's

the contrast. And it played out in real time already. On Monday, Justice Brown

Jackson and oral arguments raised some of the most probing questions in a case

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