The Litmus Test
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
Slate Audio
4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 October 2020
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America and the author of The Lie that Binds to discuss the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett and what her nomination to the Supreme Court means for reproductive rights.
In our Slate Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Professor Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School to discuss all the other questions that went unanswered at the hearings.
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Podcast production by Sara Burningham.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The hearing to confirm Judge Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court will now begin. |
| 0:12.4 | The GOP has long been aware that they should focus on the wrapping paper and not the toxic mess that is inside. |
| 0:22.4 | It's a sincere question. I'm generally curious. No hints, no previews, no forecasts. |
| 0:31.6 | Hi, and welcome back to Amicus. This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the rule of law and the U.S. Supreme Court. I'm Dahlia Lithwick. I write about those things for Slate. |
| 0:45.6 | This week, usually an off week for us on the show, is of course, an on week for us on the show because we spent it watching the historic hearings of Judge |
| 0:56.4 | Amy Coney-Barritt, who will likely be voted on and confirmed and seated at the |
| 1:02.5 | highest court of the land in a matter of weeks. There's a good deal to say about these hearings |
| 1:07.5 | and also not much to say. The hearings themselves went off without much variance from the usual script. |
| 1:16.0 | Four-year president fills five years' worth of vacancies. |
| 1:19.6 | Why? |
| 1:20.1 | Well, because he can. |
| 1:22.2 | And as our guest Robert Rabin predicted last week on this show, |
| 1:26.6 | Senate Democrats tried to highlight the real-world |
| 1:29.8 | impacts of what it's going to be like to have a six to three Supreme Court that will |
| 1:35.7 | empirically be the most conservative court we have seen in over a century. But as Lindsay Graham was |
| 1:43.1 | quick to note, none of that really mattered because he had |
| 1:46.3 | the votes. He had them before the curtains even rose on Monday. Now, later on in the show, |
| 1:51.8 | we're going to talk to Professor Pam Carlin of Stanford Law School. She's the person that |
| 1:57.2 | Twitter, and if you'll recall, Ellie Mistal on this show just a few weeks back, had broadly |
| 2:03.3 | all selected to do 100% of the questioning by the Democrats in these hearings. Slate Plus |
| 2:10.2 | listeners are going to get an extended version of that interview with Pam Carlin. And if you're |
| 2:16.3 | not a Slate Plus member yet, you can go to slate.com |
... |
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