31 Comments

Can’t wait to listen to the whole broadcast. I’ll play it instead of the radio as I eat breakfast. Thank you, Greg, for the introduction to Ethan.

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Thank you!

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Apr 26Liked by Greg Olear

SUPREME PAYBACK: How many of the Supreme Court Justices who made Bush president are now helping Trump's campaign? Check this interactive map.

https://thedemlabs.org/2024/04/25/justicecantwait-dont-let-the-supreme-court-shield-trump-from-accountability/

SUPREME CONFLICTS OF INTEREST. Use this map to tack the many ethical concerns Clarence Thomas ignored by ruling on the Jan 6th Insurrection case that his wife was at.

https://thedemlabs.org/2024/04/16/clarence-thomas-conflict-of-interest-map-on-jan-6th-insurrection-that-his-wife-attended/

Follow Trump’s ‘Catch And Kill’ election interference scheme with this visual guide

https://thedemlabs.org/2024/04/22/catch-and-kill-visual-guide-to-trumps-election-interference-scheme/

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Thanks, Deepak! This is great work.

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Very nice!

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9 squared is 81, which would give us one justice for every state in the country, according to Lara Trump. “Unpack” is way better than “expand.” Words matter!

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Second-grade me would be appalled at my frequent mathematical brain farts,

Lara pops up in my Twitter feed, in ads for the RNC. She has had so much botox and plastic surgery, she looks more like MTG. I don't know why MAGA women make themselves uglier for their king.

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Oh, but your mathematical fart was a perfect set up for crack about Lara Trump and her bonkers understanding of American history. Mistakes are gifts, at least in improv comedy. 😊

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When I heard Justice Jackson say this, I immediately thought of LB and you, Greg:

“If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes, I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

Now, back to our regular programming with the "Really American" Ethan Bearman.

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Oh, wow, she TOTALLY nails it. That's EXACTLY what they are trying to do, enabling trump!

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Me thinks she didn't get the "we need to cover his ass" memo.

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Apr 26Liked by Greg Olear

A real problem I see in the media's coverage of Trumps various legal problems is that the main focus is on Trump "running out the clock". The assumption always being he wins the election and kills his legal problems. That is acting as a "presumptive close" for Trump and can be self-fulling. Car salesman, contract negotiations, advertising use it all the time. And it works. It's already got him the nomination and may just work for the election if enough people buy in...just like 2016.

The only thing standing in the way of "unpacking" SCOTUS is SCOTUS and GOP. Funny how the Corruption always makes it improbable for the Un-corrupting

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That's a great point, Christopher, comparing it to what salesmen do. They do it in GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, one of my favorite movies, and one the real Trump could have a plausible cameo in.

The way to REALLY unfuck...er, unpack...the country is to fix the Senate representation, but that can only happen if Wyoming and South Dakota and etc relinquish their power, which will never happen. To your point.

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Apr 26Liked by Greg Olear

Except for an occasional glance, I quit twitter last Dec., but Ethan was always one of my favorite follows. Insightful, smart, sincere, Ethan appreciates all his followers and engages with them no matter how small or insignificant they may appear. I also share the same opinion he has for you, Greg. You are one of my favorite political authors. Not sure what you were doing before trump, but I sure am glad you traded genres for political genre.

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Thanks, Tracy. I'm grateful to hear you say so. Before, I wrote novels that very few people read...

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Apr 26Liked by Greg Olear

I haven't thought about the Supreme Court much lately. What has been strongly in place, "threaten to undermine our collective faith in the entire judicial branch of government," has been the regular court judges who continue to let Trump get away with violating every gag order they put in place. When someone gets the guts to put his ass in jail for 30 days for violations, my respect may change, but right now, it's firmly at zero. He doesn't care about fines. He WOULD care about jail with no phone though.

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I'm right there with ya. Since the Republican traitors started ignoring subpoenas years ago, I made the case: these people are cowards, and the FIRST TIME there are real consequences for doing this -- ie, they are sent to the hoosegow -- it will NEVER happen again. I think nobody wants to be the first judge to put him in the clink, because who wants to be a national hero for all of time? SMH.

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TGIF🎉🎉🎉⚖️

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Apr 26Liked by Greg Olear

“It’s a six-week ban in Florida. It’s really brilliant, isn’t it? Even before women know they’re pregnant — is that brilliant?”. Biden wasn’t done. “Trump describes the Dobbs decision as a ‘miracle.’ ... Maybe it’s coming from that Bible he’s trying to sell,”Biden said. “Whoa, I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell’s in it.” 📖

Just F**King Vote 🌊 - Nikki Fried, FL Dems

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I love when Joe is on one of those rolls.

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The gloves are off 😎 #DarkBrandon

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9 squared is 81. C'mon: numeracy does inflect credibility

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I toggle between 27 and 81, is why I messed it up. But I always fuck up basic math lately. I used to be good at math, I swear.

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I agree wholeheartedly that the Supreme Court needs to be exp… (oops, unpacked), but I couldn’t have imagined a court with 27 justices! (Which is not nine squared, BTW, but … did I have to point that out just because I was a math major?) I can’t imagine that an even number is a good idea. Let’s go to 11 or 13 for starters!

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27 is 9 squared, and sometimes I say we should have 27 justices, and sometimes 81, which is 9 squared, and I think I changed it from 81 to 27 at the last minute.

With that said, I was better at math when I was 12 than I am now...you know, 125 years ago, if I'm doing the arithmetic right....

It has to be a big number, because the GOP will increase it again as soon as they take power.

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27 is 3 cubed. 3x3x3. 81 is 9 squared. 9x9. But no shame in making math mistakes, of course you were better at it back in the day. If you don’t use it, you lose it, right? I agree that we should increase the number of SC justices to match the number of circuits. Keep writing, Greg! So glad you do what you do.

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If we have nine to complement the former 9 circuits, why not have 13 to complement the current 13 circuits? I say 13 because:

"A 13th appellate panel, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, is a unique court. It is based in Washington, D.C., and has nationwide jurisdiction to hear appeals in specialized cases. The court hears appeals from the U.S. Court of International Trade, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It exclusively hears certain types of cases appealed from the district courts, primarily those involving patent laws."

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Thanks!

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The problem with today's media is lazy people who only want to hear what they want to hear. When old media tries to adapt, they are chastised for giving up on what they were, selling out. Open mindedness has become a thing of the past. A no win by people who fail to accept they are the problem.

In today's world one wakes up, dresses for work, drives through the McDonald's to get breakfast. Parks at work, eats at desk. Lunch, in today's gig economy supplied by employer, not too far from desk. After work drives to CVS drive through, collects Ozempic, heart med, etc. Home has dinner, settles into comfy chair to scroll through a hand held device which already knows what to populate the screen with. Of course much of it is old news as your watch has been pushing notifications throughout the day.

We can blame disrupters, scold traditional media for not keeping up with the times. Reality, the individual, one who used to do things to improve their place in the universe is no more. Give them what comforts them, don't challenge, you lose their click you lose ad money. We have succumbed to algorithms, the easy way out. The Twilight Zone broadcast an episode depicting humans as evolving into a brain in a jar. What the program got wrong was that the brain wanted to grow, improve, not simply be mush.

Thanks Greg for the opportunity to voice my rant for today. BTW, not sure there is any point to this rant other than helping myself stay sane. I so revered the Supreme Court, this week that reverence has turned to total and utter despondency, my worldview has suffered a major blow.

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How about “unstack” the court, because it’s stacked now by tRump in Ultra Conservative’s favor. Like Minority Republican rule, it’s rule by the few. I agree the terminology is tricky, like “defund the police”. No, we just want more measures to insure that we don’t live in a police state. The tech bros are due for a comeuppance or at least be subject to more laws that evenly distribute the wealth of Google etc. Extreme headlines a la the National Enquirer have morphed onto YouTube channels in order to get clicks.

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Apr 29·edited Apr 29

Thank you, Greg, as always.

The five #GOP toolwankers on #SCOTUS are desperate to have a Republican president in 2025, otherwise their 30 year GOP plan to end democracy will fail.

#GOPtraitors

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