It's the Brian Lera Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Coming up today, I would you like to have open primaries, non-party primaries in New York City mayoral elections and other New York

City elections. A commission and panel by Mayor Adams is proposing it in this chaotic mayoral

election year. We'll talk to the commission chair, Richard Bury, and take your calls, pro and con,

and your questions. The New Yorker economics writer John Cassidy will be here

today with his sweeping new history book, Capitalism and its critics, a history from the Industrial

Revolution to AI, very relevant to affordability in your wallets right now in a whole host of ways

in addition to the fascinating layout of history that he does.

And on the lighter side of history, in our 100 Years of 100 Things, WNYC Centennial series,

it's episode number 92, 100 years of Yogi Berra, who was born 100 years ago today.

This will include clips from Yogi Berra's appearance on this show. But we'll start

here. Supreme Court justices have been speaking out recently, directly or indirectly, about their

role in preserving democracy during the Trump administration. Politico reported on a speech

by Justice Katanji Brown Jackson to a judicial conference in Puerto Rico, where she used terms like threats and harassment, attacks on our democracy with respect to the legal system, said, quote, the attacks are not random, and that, quote, they seem designed to intimidate those of us who

serve in this critical capacity.

Slate legal affairs reporter Mark Joseph Stern noticed that report in Politico and wrote about it,

and we'll talk to him in a minute.

But it's not only Justice Jackson, most notably perhaps Chief Justice John Roberts, in a public appearance recently, in his understated way, you know how he is, also seemed to feel the need to reinforce the idea of judicial independence.

The only real political science innovation in our Constitution. I mean, you know, parliaments have been around for 800 years and obviously executives, is the establishment of an independent judiciary.

Even places you think are similar to ours, like England.

The judiciary in England was part of parliament.

I mean, they sat in the House of Lords,

because Parliament was supreme.

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