Our Favorite Things, 2024

In the spirit of the holidays, Leah, Kate & Melissa force themselves to say something nice about each Supreme Court Justice. Yes, all of them. Then they take a break from the tomfoolery at One First Street to share their favorite things. Whether you’re doing some very last-minute holiday shopping, looking to indulge yourself, or craving a good book or podcast, there are ideas for everyone. Programming note: we’re taking a break next week, but will be back on January 6, 2025 with a very special–and timely–episode on the presidency. Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025! 3/6/26 – San Francisco 3/7/26 – Los Angeles Learn more: http://crooked.com/events Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Lawless/Leah-Litman/9781668054628 Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/strictscrutinypodcast/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@strictscrutinypodcast, and Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/strictscrutiny.bsky.social

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Mr. Chief Justice, may it please be poured. It's an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  She spoke not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, "I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks."

• 0:44Leah Litman?

  Hello and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We're your hosts. I'm Melissa Murray. I'm Leah Litman.

• 0:53Kate Shaw?

  And I'm Kate Shaw. Every year for the last few years, we have done a Favorite Things episode, and we wanted to keep up that tradition. So, per usual, we're going to offer some gift-giving ideas, kind of guides of our own you can use if they're helpful. But we're also adding, and we've added a bit over the years, and we're going to continue to add today, some, hopefully, fun new traditions that, if they work, will add some levity, some warmth, maybe some joy to what has been a trying few months. So, we hope you enjoy the episode.

• 1:24Leah Litman?

  So, first up, we are going to start a new tradition, and it's going to be a go-around game. And we are going to say our favorite things about each justice. So, should we go in order of seniority?

• 1:38Kate Shaw?

  Sure.

• 1:39Leah Litman?

  Okay. Let's start with the Chiefy Chief.

• 1:42Kate Shaw?

  I love that he showed his true colors last year.

• 1:46Leah Litman?

  Wow, that's a good one, Kate, that he's really not an institutionalist.

• 1:50Kate Shaw?

  I think it's hard for anyone with a straight face to claim that now, and I appreciate that the wool has fallen away from the eyes of all. And by not only joining, but actually writing the insanity that it was Trump versus the United States and also Loper Bright, I think he showed us who he is, and I think that's actually useful information.

• 2:10Leah Litman?

  I like that. I was going to say, I appreciate that he doesn't do weird shit to cover up his male pattern baldness. Respect.

• 2:18Leah Litman?

  I also, like, this is kind of related to yours, Kate, if I'm going to be forced to say something not about appearances and looks. Like, he is the savviest politician in the entire world, because it was looking like he was losing control of the court. And he regained it and showed us that with a vengeance. And I just think people might have something to learn about the insane political instincts and long aims and machinations of John Roberts.

• 2:51Melissa Murray?

  So, yeah, he was like the Tom Hanks character in that pirate movie when Sam Alito was like, "I'm the captain now." He's like, "No, bitch, you're not, actually." And, yeah. I was actually going to also say a hair thing, but I don't, I wasn't thinking about his male pattern baldness. I, I really like that he is committed to the George Clooney circa 1995 male forward Caesar. And I like that for him. And...

• 3:15Kate Shaw?

  I'm sorry, you're gonna have to explain that with that.

• 3:17Melissa Murray?

  But he, he really...

• 3:18Kate Shaw?

  Is that a haircut?

• 3:18Melissa Murray?

  It's like a haircut. It's like, it's a very sort of forward haircut. Yeah, yeah. And it's, I'm, I'm trying to say nice things.

• 3:27Leah Litman?

  Yeah.

• 3:28Kate Shaw?

  This is, this is, I feel like this is not the same without JVN, but we will press on. I mean, I don't know if we're gonna go hair on all of them.

• 3:33Leah Litman?

  No, no, no. Okay. Next up would be Justice Thomas. Who wants to go first on this one?

• 3:41Kate Shaw?

  I think I have one.

• 3:42Leah Litman?

  Okay.

• 3:43Kate Shaw?

  I don't know if you guys feel this, but I have sensed this slight vibe shift, which is, I think, six months ago, we were pretty sure that if Trump won, he would be out the door quickly to make space for somebody much, much younger. And I think his ego is getting in the way, and he's not going anywhere, at least right away. And that could save us from someone 40 years younger than him, which I appreciate. So that's what I'll say about...

• 4:10Melissa Murray?

  I don't know if it's ego in as much as... What would the utility of like giving him private jet travel and fancy vacations be if he weren't on the court? So I like that he is just so unabashed about it. Like, the man had a whole separate income stream that basically duplicated his actual salary.

• 4:30Leah Litman?

  Well, so what I was gonna say is, he seems to be good at asking for things without asking for them, right? Like, the conversation that ProPublica reported between him and the Republican legislator, where he was like, you know, unless you raise those salaries, you're gonna get some retirements, after which, you know, the billionaires stepped up to basically offer said alternative funding stream. You know, the guy knows how to drop a hint.

• 4:59Melissa Murray?

  Passive aggressive. I like it.

• 5:00Leah Litman?

  Yeah. Okay. Next up would be friend of the pod, Samuel Alito. What can I say about Sam? So my highlight for him would be, or my favorite thing would be, every hero needs a villain. And I feel like he is very good at being ours. So, thank you, Sam.

• 5:22Kate Shaw?

  He gave Leah a whole book, and I will always appreciate that.

• 5:27Melissa Murray?

  I'm just, I'm gonna go be shallow. Like, I do think it's amazing that he's managed to be post 70, and his skin looks relatively supple. It has fallen off in the last couple of years. I'm not gonna lie. He was a lot better when we started the pod, but still pretty strong. And I also like how supportive he is of his wife.

• 5:49Leah Litman?

  Yeah. And her rights. And her flags. Next, Justice Sotomayor. So, I think it is truly admirable, the pains she goes to, to continue doing her job, like with such care and attention to details and to every litigant, even while her colleagues are just embroiled and descending into madness. You know, I think about, Kate, you mentioned your colleague Karen Tany is forward to Harvard Law Review about how the court curates its own docket, right? And like, the cases that it chooses to give attention to, and the litigants it chooses to give attention to. And I think Justice Sotomayor really models

• 6:33Leah Litman?

  someone who gives attention to every case and every litigant in a way that is really admirable.

• 6:40Kate Shaw?

  Have recently had occasion to reread the immunity decision and that dissent remains one for the ages. And I just really appreciate that she gave us that in this unbelievably shitty term the court had last year that had produced that dissent.

• 6:58Melissa Murray?

  So I obviously like a lot of things about Justice Sotomayor, but I think related to the court, my favorite thing about her is she is always willing to try and find the kernel of good in her colleagues, even where most of us might really question if it exists. Like she, I mean, she's on this-

• 7:18Leah Litman?

  Well, hey, we've been going around saying our favorite things about all of them.

• 7:21Melissa Murray?

  No, but I mean, she really digs deep. I mean, she's on this like girls' trip with Amy Coney Barrett. I mean, she really, she, she really tries to make it congenial and even when I don't even know how she does it. So, good for her.

• 7:35Kate Shaw?

  Justice Kagan.

• 7:35Melissa Murray?

  Justice Kagan. I like how cheeky she is.

• 7:41Leah Litman?

  Yeah, so that would definitely be one thing. I, I feel like I have repeatedly expressed this, but the utter frustration she evinces, sometimes with cheekiness, sometimes with like barely-

• 7:53Melissa Murray?

  Concealed.

• 7:54Leah Litman?

  -sealed rage. But the frustration, like she clearly has at the stupidity and hackishness of her colleagues and some lower court judges is so eminently relatable. I love it. And I also think the way she writes makes, not makes me, but like helps me want to stay in the fight and to keep fighting, right? And it feels like a shout of like, we ride at dawn, that is just like energizing.

• 8:26Kate Shaw?

  And I feel that way about both her writing and her persona at, and substantive questions during oral arguments. Like, it is profoundly energizing to listen to her eviscerate and also listen to her lift up advocates who deserve both of those kinds of treatment. Like, listening to her, as we've highlighted with Solicitor General Prelogar, essentially just serve Prelogar these pitches that Prelogar uses to make these extraordinary arguments, and also the kind of like unsparing contempt that she demonstrates towards some of the advocates who appear before her and deserve it. Always polite and always graceful, but I do find like a real jolt of energy often comes from listening to her at oral argument.

• 9:09Melissa Murray?

  I think, again, I think she's super cheeky. I also appreciate that she goes on this like summer tour where she goes to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference and basically is just like, why can't we have an ethics code?

• 9:21Leah Litman?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 9:22Melissa Murray?

  Like, what's the problem? I mean, she's just basically trolling and everyone's like, yeah, why can't we have an ethics code? She's like, I don't know. Like, I think it'd be great. I'd be down. Love that. She's great. All right.

• 9:37Leah Litman?

  Neil Gorsuch.

• 9:39Melissa Murray?

  Neil M. Gorsuch. I like that he brings geographic diversity to the court.

• 9:44Leah Litman?

  So I like that his self-satisfaction makes him easy to criticize or OK to criticize without seeming like I am going too far or like we are going too far, just because like he's just so...

• 10:04Melissa Murray?

  He makes snarking fun.

• 10:06Leah Litman?

  Neil, right, exactly. He justifies snarking, basically.

• 10:10Kate Shaw?

  I like that he wrote a book that someone, not us, because we don't have time, but someone is going to write an extraordinarily satisfying takedown book review of, please, I'm putting this out to the universe, because his book has, I think, some profoundly dubious characterization of some basic factual dimensions of some of the cases he talks about. And we just recently finished our hate read book review of Josh Hawley's Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs. And I don't think we have it in us to do the same to Gorsuch's book, but I really would like someone to. And I appreciate that Neil wrote a book that will make that easy for the right reviewer.

• 10:53Melissa Murray?

  Next up, Justice Kavanaugh. You can keep the silence in.

• 11:02Kate Shaw?

  Okay, weirdly, I am going to say something you guys will probably jump down my throat for.

• 11:06Leah Litman?

  Oh, God.

• 11:07Kate Shaw?

  But I, during oral arguments, he seems like he's trying to be liked so hard that I sometimes almost want to like him.

• 11:18Leah Litman?

  Oh, God.

• 11:19Kate Shaw?

  It almost works. Or it's not quite that I want to like him, but I feel like his kind of keening need to please could be useful under some circumstances in substantive cases. Like, he just wants to be liked so much, it feels like that, you know, down the road, that could be helpful, it could get him onto the right side of some issues.

• 11:41Leah Litman?

  And yet it has never actually proved helpful.

• 11:43Kate Shaw?

  Not yet. It hasn't yet, but it just feels like it's out there as a real possibility.

• 11:47Leah Litman?

  Mm-hmm. False hope.

• 11:50Leah Litman?

  So, I don't know if I've said this before or suggested it before, but I look at Brett Kavanaugh as, in some ways, like, an inspiring story about how much you can achieve without having any real talent or smarts. So, you know, if I look around at the world, you know, the TikToker Addison Rae is now a Grammy nominee, right? Like, that is inspiring. And in some ways, so too is the fact that Brett Kavanaugh managed to be a Supreme Court Justice despite his mediocrity.

• 12:24Melissa Murray?

  I think it's great that he's a pretty good athlete for his age.

• 12:30Kate Shaw?

  He did run that 5K.

• 12:31Melissa Murray?

  No, that's what I'm thinking of. He was really fast.

• 12:33Leah Litman?

  Yeah, that's what she's saying.

• 12:34Melissa Murray?

  Yeah, he's a good athlete. I mean, we're all getting up there, and not all of us, I'm not looking at you, Kate, but I am looking at you, like, we're not all posting, like, sub-four marathons.

• 12:45Melissa Murray?

  Is that a thing?

• 12:45Kate Shaw?

  Well, we're talking 5Ks. He's running 5Ks. I don't think he's running marathons.

• 12:48Melissa Murray?

  But he's killing it.

• 12:49Kate Shaw?

  No, but sub-eight-minute miles. He's running good.

• 12:51Melissa Murray?

  Yeah, he's killing the genre. Good for him.

• 12:53Kate Shaw?

  Got it. Got him at that. No, that's good.

• 12:55Melissa Murray?

  I mean, I'm just being snarky, Kate, because, like, I'm not running marathons, and I'm glad you are. And I'm glad he's doing it, too. Good for him.

• 13:01Leah Litman?

  Justice Barrett.

• 13:03Melissa Murray?

  I like her school-marm energy. I like that she stays on that. Like, I mean, she reminds me of, um... Eliza Wilder in Little House on the Prairie. She was the schoolteacher and Almonzo's sister before Laura became the schoolteacher. And just like, kind of like prim and like, I feel like, you know, like, and she's an equal opportunity destroyer. Like, she will rap everyone's knuckles, like, not just her liberal sisters, but also, I don't mean sisters in that she's liberal, but they're ladies. And she will also rap the conservative brothers. Like, she's just like, she's an equal opportunity schoolmarm, and I like that for her.

• 13:44Kate Shaw?

  I think she's been conditioning her hair differently and better, and I like it. I think she's, I think there've been some improvements in her hair.

• 13:50Leah Litman?

  I appreciate the deluluness of her thinking that her Republican bro colleagues are engaged in the project of law. I just think it must be nice to be able to inhabit that type of fantasy world.

• 14:07Melissa Murray?

  That's what always gets her schoolmarming going.

• 14:09Leah Litman?

  Exactly, yes.

• 14:10Melissa Murray?

  Yeah, that's where she's, she's like, what do you mean? Like, and then she's rapping knuckles. I'm like, yeah. But I like that. Like, I like that she's there for that.

• 14:17Leah Litman?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Melissa Murray?

  All right.

• 14:19Kate Shaw?

  I'm last.

• 14:20Melissa Murray?

  Finally, last but certainly not least.

• 14:22Kate Shaw?

  Definitely not least.

• 14:23Melissa Murray?

  Justice Katanji Brown Jackson. Favorite thing about Justice Jackson. Go, Kate.

• 14:29Kate Shaw?

  I mean, that she decided to be the first Supreme Court Justice to, like, take a turn on Broadway, like, legendary. I love that. That she's been thinking about that since college.

• 14:40Melissa Murray?

  I like that, too.

• 14:41Leah Litman?

  Yeah, there is so much to like, like, the energy and positivity that she brings to the oral arguments, like, while still being able to channel, like, the righteous indignation and kind of horror, like, at what her colleagues are doing. Like, I just think that is a really tricky balance to be able to strike, and she somehow does it. And also, anyone who can secure

• 15:10Leah Litman?

  Beyonce concert tickets? That is-

• 15:14Melissa Murray?

  And disclose them.

• 15:16Leah Litman?

  And disclose them. Respect. Respect.

• 15:20Melissa Murray?

  So my favorite thing is that she's married to Dr. Patrick Jackson. And before you jump all over me, let me explain myself. It's not him per se, but I like that she has him out there being so unabashedly adoring of her. And she's just sort of thinking, you're like, yes, bitches, this is what I deserve. I am beautiful. I am smart. I am capable. And this is what I deserve. A doctor who unabashedly adores and worships me. And I think every person needs to know that that is what they deserve. Someone who unabashedly adores everything about them and is leveling on their level. And that's what I love about her. Aspire to more.

• 16:00Kate Shaw?

  And one of the many charming things about her memoir is the sort of early development of her relationship in college. They were really young when they got together, she and Patrick. Anyway, so it's a very, very-

• 16:11Melissa Murray?

  I saw your eyebrows go up, like, where is she going with this? Like, huh. Yeah.

• 16:16Leah Litman?

  You landed it. You landed it.

• 16:18Melissa Murray?

  I did. I did. It's all very PG.

• 16:25Speaker 05

  Crooked Con is coming up right after the election, and we have just added a bunch more great names to the lineup. We got Governor JB Pritzker coming, Senator Chris Murphy, and then over from the House side, Ilhan Omar, Robert Garcia, Sarah Jacobs, Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride. We also have Carlos Eduardo Espina, Simone Sanders, Townsend, Eugene Daniels, David Pakman, Jessica Tarlov, Heather McGee, and then all the other people that we've announced on the website, plus more to come. Great list. Check out the full lineup and get tickets right now at crookedcon.com. We'd love to see you there. That's crookedcon.com.

• 17:01Leah Litman?

  Next up is our gift giving ideas. We are going to go around and offer recommendations for something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read.

• 17:14Melissa Murray?

  You should also use this if you have grabby, asky kids, like just limit them to four gifts, something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read. Follow us for more parenting tips.

• 17:25Leah Litman?

  So first up is something you want. I'm going to go big in my asks here. So I want an album recordings of all of the acoustic surprise songs from the Eras Tour, especially the mashups. Like, I just think she has to release that as an album. It would be incredible. I would love it. So that's one thing. Second, smaller portrait of my dog. I already have like three or four, but you can never have too many.

• 17:53Melissa Murray?

  My wants are pretty minimal, I guess, a bit like the Fifth Circuit. I would really like the Elena Kagan gold paperclip chain necklace. Like, I know it's not just her gold paperclip chain necklace, but I saw her wearing it once and I really loved it. It's just like really simple and it looks really nice. And I'm hoping that someone will get one for me for the holidays. Quince has a very good one, but lots of other jewelry stores like Anna Louisa have them as well. But it's just kind of a classic thing and you can layer it. It's really great. The other thing I would want is like just a totally rando gift. I want a consumer classic retro manual typewriter. I don't know if I'll actually type on it, but I would like to put it in my background

• 18:37Melissa Murray?

  and have it on the shelf, just looking cute.

• 18:39Leah Litman?

  As Taylor Swift said, who uses typewriters anyways?

• 18:43Melissa Murray?

  Well, maybe not me, but I think I would like to decorate with it. Like, I just love the idea of like an old school typewriter. And then I just saw this new green pan non-stick ceramic cookware. And you all know I cannot stand to cook, but maybe I would if I had these really great pans. And then the last thing I just really want, I want an alternative to Amazon Prime so I can stop being Jeff Bezos's bitch.

• 19:09Leah Litman?

  I like the go big asks, dream big.

• 19:13Kate Shaw?

  There are small, local efforts so to do like alternatives to Amazon Prime. So there's a, like in New York, there's a grocery delivery app called Mercado, which will get from, like, lots of Sahatis will deliver from there, like this. There's like a seafood place in Brooklyn by me, Mermaid's Garden, I think it's called, that is on there. Anyway, so it's, they do like Italy now also. Anyway, so if you want to like avoid Instacart and like Whole Foods slash Amazon, but for grocery delivery, Mercado, I think, is an alternative. There's like an annual fee, but it might be worth it. But you're saying like, that's not everything under the sun I need. I need, but it's impossible for somebody to enter the market and be a genuine competitor. So I think you need to replace with multiple alternatives that fill some of the Amazon-shaped gap.

• 19:58Melissa Murray?

  What I need is someone to send me like three Styrofoam balls and some acrylic paint and pipe cleaners the night before a diorama is due. Like, that's what I, I need someone who's gonna do that in two days or less.

• 20:12Kate Shaw?

  But I do think you're, you said something completely offhand to me the other day about going to the Legos website. And, you know, there are things that you will sometimes do on Amazon because it's fast, and Amazon does have some Legos. But you know what? You know where you can find a lot more Lego sets?

• 20:27Melissa Murray?

  The Lego store.

• 20:28Kate Shaw?

  If you go to the fucking Lego website. And so I actually ordered a couple of really good sets from the Lego website. So, yes, do you have to like, sometimes, depending on what, whatever device you're using, enter your credit cards?

• 20:40Melissa Murray?

  Jeff Bezos bitch.

• 20:41Kate Shaw?

  Well, no, no, I'm saying like, no, you have to, it's a little, that's the, that is the cost and the benefit is like the ease and like, you know, seamless transactions. But sometimes you have to put in a credit card. Just make yourself spend a couple of extra minutes doing your online shopping in order to diversify the places that you give your monies, beyond just Jeff Bezos.

• 21:01Melissa Murray?

  What's your something you want?

• 21:03Kate Shaw?

  So, a couple of things that I want. I feel like this might be related to that necklace that you mentioned. I have not seen Elena Kagan's paperclip necklace, but I do have a paperclip-ish necklace from a designer named Jennifer Fisher. My husband got this for me. I love it. I would kind of like more of her jewelry. And if folks don't know her, now, now you do. Okay, so there is a designer on the Lower East Side. Named Callmire, who makes beautiful suits. So my friend Issa dressed me for both of our live shows in June, including this like mustard suit I wore to the Tribeca live show that is by this designer, Callmire. And I want one of her suits that I actually own as opposed to just borrow. So that's another thing I want.

• 21:46Kate Shaw?

  I have, so this is literally me just sharing something that I have found incredibly useful in my life and with my family, is we have an electric scooter that we are now on our second electric scooter. We had one last year that we just kind of rode into the ground and we have a second one. Rides two people. We like ride our kids around in like the one to two mile radius where we have to take people for basketball practice and you know, piano lessons and things like that. And it's actually kind of amazing if you are in an urban place and don't have a lot of access to a car and sometimes need to go places that are just a little far to walk with a kid and the subway doesn't conveniently go to. Electric scooter is actually amazingly helpful.

• 22:21Melissa Murray?

  Are you worried about getting hit by something? Or do you wear a helmet when you ride?

• 22:25Kate Shaw?

  We wear helmets. So we, I wear a helmet and the kid wears a helmet. And I mostly go where there are bike lanes and I feel like people are pretty acclimated to bike lanes. But like, yeah, there's you know, a non-zero risk that happens. So I think you have to be super, super vigilant. But I've been an urban cyclist for you know, 25 years. And so I'm really used to being very active, monitoring kind of the movements of cars and pedestrians around. So I feel like I'm a good defensive scooter. But yeah, there's obviously a risk. Okay. And the last thing I want is I want some WNBA tickets.

• 22:54Melissa Murray?

  I want those too.

• 22:55Leah Litman?

  I want to see Ellie the Elephant so badly.

• 22:59Kate Shaw?

  It's, so I, the games are, so we're talking about the New York Liberty, but if you live in a city that has, there's not one in every city. There are like a dozen teams now. There were eight, six or eight when they started 20 some years ago. But the WNBA is an unbelievable delight and it's exploding in popularity, but it's still a lot cheaper to go see a WNBA like playoff game than it is to see like NBA playoff game. Like my, the games are now, the finals are five games, not seven. But my kids and I and my husband went to two of the five of the playoff games that the Liberty won this year. And they, the tickets were totally reasonable. And the The team is amazing. Yeah, Ellie the Elephant is amazing. The crowd is amazing.

• 23:40Kate Shaw?

  It's like, I wish when we had been kids, there had been women professional athletes like this. I just think I would have, at least as a kid, developed a very different relationship to professional sports spectatorship than I did. I just like, was a little annoyed that it was all men in all these sports that seemed to select for like, the things that men's bodies were better at, or that they trained better at. And I was just kind of irritated by the whole enterprise. And so I just never got super into watching professional sports. And I think I would have if the WNBA had been a big thing when I was a kid. And I love that my kids are super into it. And it's not just my 13 year old daughter, but like, my 10 year old boy and his like, super bro-y friends know the New York Liberty stats like they know the Nets.

• 24:18Melissa Murray?

  Sabrina Ionescu.

• 24:19Kate Shaw?

  It's amazing. They have jerseys. Like, they went, there was like, a celebration at Barclays after they won the playoffs, after they won the finals. And they went and spent like, six hours, like, listening to Chuck Schumer talk and shit. Like, it was amazing. So, and these were like, this kind of free ticket they were just giving out in Brooklyn. Anyway, WNBA tickets, like, it doesn't need to be the whole season, but like, a little 10 game package or something. Melissa, we should go in on those.

• 24:40Melissa Murray?

  We should definitely go in on them. I, I do remember when the WNBA started.

• 24:44Leah Litman?

  It stinks to live somewhere else.

• 24:46Kate Shaw?

  This is what I want. I want Leah to just like, spend a year or a semester at one of the fine law schools in the New York City area. Can we please do that?

• 24:54Melissa Murray?

  Let's make this happen.

• 24:55Leah Litman?

  It's not up to me.

• 24:57Melissa Murray?

  Or you could just fly out. We can go to one of these games. But I, I remember when the WNBA got started. And you're right, Kate, when we were kids, I think the only thing where women's sports were kind of a big deal were the Olympics. Like, every, like, really episodically, every four years, we'd find some very small teenager to celebrate because she was a great gymnast.

• 25:17Leah Litman?

  Now, something we need.

• 25:20Melissa Murray?

  Oh, girl.

• 25:21Leah Litman?

  Yeah, where to start. So, one is emotional support, fill in the blank. So Kate, you mentioned, you know, how your students gave you like, the plush potato after the election. I got an emotional support pickle as a gift.

• 25:40Melissa Murray?

  Your students gave you gifts after the election?

• 25:42Leah Litman?

  No, this is not from a student.

• 25:44Kate Shaw?

  Okay, okay.

• 25:45Leah Litman?

  Just as a gift, I got an emotional support pickle. And it really makes me smile.

• 25:50Kate Shaw?

  Like a little crocheted stuffy kind of thing? Okay, I don't think I knew it was in the genre. There's a pickle, there's a potato.

• 25:55Leah Litman?

  Exactly, exactly. I really, yeah, am into that. And I think they just make nice, nice gifts. So the other thing I need is I need the Wisconsin Supreme Court race to go the way it should this next year. That is super important to maintain control of that court.

• 26:15Melissa Murray?

  Yeah. So I'm gonna start big. I need an independent media. And how do I get that? I mean, I'm already zero for one with the Amazon Prime. But I think I can make a dent in this one by getting a year-long subscription to my local NPR affiliate. So that could be WNYC here in New York. But I also really love supporting my longtime Bay Area affiliate, KQED, and all of those folks. And I think that's something I'm gonna do this year, just because independent media matters more than ever, and that is really important. Other emotional support that I think I need, Leah, I'm going to really dig into this muslin comfort sheets and blankets.

• 26:59Melissa Murray?

  So for January 20th, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be in bed with the covers over my head. And I want covers that are super soft and breathable. And I really want to try this because it's supposed to be this muslin, and it wears really well over time. And when you wash it, it gets softer and softer. So I want to try that. I also want to try the Barabie weighted blanket. So if it gets really bad on January 20th, maybe the blanket can just be weighted enough to smother me to death and put me out of my misery. That would be great. And if that doesn't work-

• 27:29Kate Shaw?

  Less weighted than that, that would be ideal.

• 27:31Melissa Murray?

  Well, and if I then have to come out of my shell and meet people and interact, I want some Jao hand refresher. So this is a hand sanitizer, but it's also hardcore aromatherapy. Every time I use it, I'm just like putting my hands in my face so I can smell it, and I know my hands are clean afterwards, too. And then I'm gonna go home after shaking all those hands with people who maybe attended the inauguration because unity. And I'm gonna use my Onsen towels. These are my absolute favorite towels. They're awesome Japanese waffle weave. They're super absorbent. They look great. They come in a variety of very fashion-forward colors.

• 28:09Melissa Murray?

  Kate, you got any needs?

• 28:11Kate Shaw?

  I have so many needs, Melissa. Um, but.

• 28:14Melissa Murray?

  Whoa.

• 28:15Kate Shaw?

  I'll just mention a few of them. I agree, I also need an independent media. We all need an independent media. Sometimes employers will even match contributions to nonprofits, including nonprofit media orgs. So that might include NPR or ProPublica. If you're in New York, The City is a relatively new outlet. If you're in Chicago, The Chicago Reader is being revived as a nonprofit. So these are all places to support and to check to see if your employer will match your support of to double your impact. That is like a real thing. One thing I feel like I need, I have, but I probably need more, and I also just think we all need in our lives, are group chats. I just feel like group chats are actually a very important...

• 28:58Kate Shaw?

  Social media, maybe you guys know this, like I'm on it, I'm not super active on it. I feel very conflicted about it. I'm very happy not to be on Twitter anymore. I do think the vibes on Blue Sky, as we have noted, are very good. And so I check Blue Sky pretty regularly. But the places that I find like the most fulfilling in sort of digital life are just various group chats. We have one, we're on with Melody all the time. I have various kind of like girlfriend groups. My husband and I have like a couple of groups that we were, people we were tight with when we lived in DC, my family group chat. And those are just these spaces that, you know, there's not like strangers reading your words and you're not, you know, reading sort of strangers or like loose mutuals words. It's just like your people.

• 29:41Kate Shaw?

  And, and that is, I feel like, the kind of digital interaction that actually is really healthy and generative. And so I feel like less social media, more group chats.

• 29:47Melissa Murray?

  I do like our group chat.

• 29:48Leah Litman?

  Yeah, I love group chats.

• 29:51Melissa Murray?

  So we've done something you want, something you need. Now I think it's time for something to wear. So Leah, what would you like to wear in the new year?

• 29:59Leah Litman?

  I am obsessed with Skims Soft Lounge. Like that fabric on the pajamas is...

• 30:06Melissa Murray?

  It's really nice.

• 30:07Leah Litman?

  So nice. I change into it, seriously, like every evening after like 8:00 PM. I just, I love it, I love it. And.

• 30:15Melissa Murray?

  It's like actual loungewear.

• 30:16Leah Litman?

  It is, it is. So.

• 30:19Melissa Murray?

  So I cannot recommend that enough. I also am obsessed with the Cozy Earth Viscous from Bamboo Crew Neck. I put it on every morning when I do physical therapy. Like it has this really nice, like buttery fabric, but it's also light. And so when I like work up a sweat, it doesn't feel like too heavy. I just, I really, really like it. Also, super into the RealReal online consignment. Basically where I get all my workwear now and they just have amazing deals. So also the RealReal.

• 30:51Kate Shaw?

  Melissa's been mentioning these for years. I should, I have not ever.

• 30:53Melissa Murray?

  I've been on the RealReal since 2013.

• 30:56Kate Shaw?

  Wow, I don't think I've been on that long.

• 30:58Melissa Murray?

  Actually ran into, I think the GC of the RealReal or the associate GC and like just completely fangirled. And she was like, no, no one's really approached me like this before.

• 31:10Melissa Murray?

  Get ready, get ready. The whole strict scrutiny team's on board. All right.

• 31:14Kate Shaw?

  All right, I got, I will get on board before next year, before our next.

• 31:16Melissa Murray?

  I'm gonna make sure you do.

• 31:19Kate Shaw?

  Like when I showed up in Austin, wearing, wearing a wool blazer.

• 31:21Melissa Murray?

  It was September. I was like, I was like.

• 31:23Kate Shaw?

  It was really hot and Melissa was like, I've seen this blazer too many times. You need to change your clothes more and also not wear a wool blazer in Austin in September. And that was true. And maybe a RealReal is the solution to that problem.

• 31:34Melissa Murray?

  I think it is the solution for you. I was just like, it was uncomfortable because it was so warm. It's a beautiful blazer.

• 31:40Kate Shaw?

  It's fine. It's nice. Oh, it's, it's an Argent blazer. It's very nice, but it was the wrong, it was seasonally off.

• 31:45Melissa Murray?

  Seasonally off. That's okay. And that's why I'm here for you. I'm here to tell you these things in a non-judgmental, but judgmental way.

• 31:51Kate Shaw?

  Little judgmental, yeah.

• 31:52Melissa Murray?

  A little bit.

• 31:52Kate Shaw?

  Okay. So in addition to the RealReal, what are your something to wear recommendations?

• 31:56Melissa Murray?

  Well, if you're going out and you're wearing like a fancy dress and you want like a smooth line or you just want to make sure that you've got lots of support with your outfit. I cannot recommend highly enough Honey Love Shapewear. It's really fantastic. It smoothes everything. And the best part is your internal organs don't move around. It's not like you're like, whoa, is that my kidney that's now like up by my liver?

• 32:20Kate Shaw?

  It's not a literal corset?

• 32:21Melissa Murray?

  Yes, exactly. I mean, I mean, there was this period where people were really into waist shapers because the Kardashians were into it. And like, I mean. Honestly, it just looks so uncomfortable. Like, this is not that. It's just really nice and it's comfortable. It's easy to get on. I mean, some of the shapewear, like, I mean, it's like hydraulics. You're trying to get into that. You need a spotter. This is much easier and very effective. I really like it. So I highly recommend Honeylove, and they've got lots of different kinds of shapewear for all kinds of things. I really love the Aritzia Super Puff Belt Bad, which holds a little bit more than the very ubiquitous Lululemon Fanny Pack, but it's still very lightweight and stylish, comes in a lot of different colors and different fabrics. It's fantastic.

• 33:07Melissa Murray?

  This is not a clothing recommendation, but I am totally into Danessa Mirick's Yummy Skin Blurring Balm Powder, which is this really interesting, like, no makeup kind of foundation situation. Like, you take a little brush and you just dab it on, and it kind of just blurs your skin tone. So you don't need more makeup on top. It just kind of smoothes everything out, and a little goes a long way. So you pay like $39 for this, but I think it will literally last until the rapture. It's so, like, it's just a little goes a really long way. And then finally, I really love the Veronica Beard Iconic Scuba Dicky Jacket. So it's a classic blazer that you can wear on your own,

• 33:50Melissa Murray?

  or they have these little zip-in inserts that you can use to change the look. But here's my caveat. It's crazy expensive. It's almost $700 for the blazer and then in addition for the inserts. But, and this is where the RealReal comes in, sometimes you can find really gently used or even new with tags versions of this blazer on the RealReal, and you can pick them up at a sizable discount. Or if you really want to try something new, Quince has a really fantastic dupe of the Scuba Blazer, and it's just $89 for the blazer and then a little bit more for the inserts. And it looks really great, super professional, very, very versatile.

• 34:29Kate Shaw?

  This is so pathetic that what I, I, but I'm listening to your recommendations and I will heed them and make them my own because. As we've discussed, I just like, I'm not attentive enough to, I don't like know enough even to know really what I want. So I, we do need to work on my wardrobe in 2025. One thing I do want, I actually have a version of it, but I want a better version of it, is a really good like running water backpack, like that to kind of carry your water with you while you run. Cause I ran my first marathon like a month ago.

• 35:05Melissa Murray?

  Congrats.

• 35:06Kate Shaw?

  And, thank you. It was not fast, but I ran like a five hour marathon, which in the marathon world is like not a fast marathon. It's actually like, there was definitely like an 85 year old lady in front of me as I was like in the last mile of the marathon. But I ran it. It was an awesome experience. But the training often happened like out of the city and I did not, like when you're running like 10 or 15 miles, like you do need to have water with you. Cause if you're not in the city with water fountains, you just, you know, you can't like stop to drink along the way. Anyway, Solomon is like one brand that makes like nice water backpacks. So I invested in one, but it was like not super big. And so I think I need a little bit more water because I want to keep running.

• 35:41Melissa Murray?

  I think the camel back has one. That's really what people seem to like a lot.

• 35:45Kate Shaw?

  I should try that kind. Yeah, maybe I should. But anyway, isn't that a sad addition to my.

• 35:50Melissa Murray?

  So you want a water backpack. That's what you want to wear.

• 35:50Kate Shaw?

  Something to wear. That's what I want to wear. A water backpack.

• 35:53Melissa Murray?

  Okay.

• 35:53Kate Shaw?

  I also, I want, but I've also already ordered these. So I more want to share it with you guys and our listeners. I think family jammies are really fun.

• 36:01Melissa Murray?

  I do that.

• 36:02Kate Shaw?

  And we do Hannah Anderson family jammies.

• 36:04Melissa Murray?

  Aww.

• 36:04Kate Shaw?

  The dog ones, pretty cute. In the two years, three years, I guess it's been since we've, this will be our third year with Shadow and some family jammies. She's like a big girl now. So like they don't always have the extra large and whatever pattern that, you know, people jammies come in, but I found some this year. But yeah, the Hannah Anderson ones are my rec.

• 36:22Melissa Murray?

  Those are, I used to love Hannah Anderson when my kids were really little.

• 36:26Kate Shaw?

  Yeah, turns out though.

• 36:27Melissa Murray?

  It was really soft. Yeah.

• 36:28Kate Shaw?

  Yeah. It's good, high quality kids clothing, but they also excel in the matched family jammies sets.

• 36:34Melissa Murray?

  And dog jammies apparently.

• 36:36Kate Shaw?

  Yeah, and dogs are well part of the family.

• 36:37Melissa Murray?

  So you want a water backpack and pajamas for you and your dog? Anything else?

• 36:42Kate Shaw?

  Yeah, that's the, these are my, uh.

• 36:45Melissa Murray?

  I am going to take over your wardrobe this year.

• 36:47Kate Shaw?

  I think you might need to do that. Yeah, yeah.

• 36:50Leah Litman?

  So, final category is something to read. We will start with some friend of the pod favorites. So some of our, I think, collective favorites from people who are friends of the pod. One is Vigilante Nation by John Michaels and David Knoll. This is a book about kind of laws that are empowering vigilantes, you know, as the title suggests, kind of like SB8 and other laws like it, and kind of what that structure is doing to our democracy. Second is The Interbellum Constitution by Alison Lacroix. This book is a phenomenal, rich, exhaustive look at federalism before the Civil War.

• 37:33Leah Litman?

  I think so much of the book is really going to change how we teach and understand federalism going forward. So we'd definitely recommend that. Also, Anti-Democratic by David Daly, understanding and unpacking the different anti-democratic pathologies within the United States. So those are, I think, kind of the group ones. My particular ones that I loved last year, you might have heard me mention this in the bookshop.org ads, but Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll. I absolutely loved, it's not a bright, happy book, but it's just like a very powerful read from the perspective of, you know, the victims of a Ted Bundy-like serial killer.

• 38:18Leah Litman?

  And it's fantastic. It just like looks at all of the different ways that misogyny infected, like our understanding of the crimes, the coverage of the crimes, the way they were dealt with. It's really, really good. Funny Story by Emily Henry, another delightful read. You Should Be So Lucky by Kat Sebastian, another kind of like romantic book that, you know, has some like light fun elements to it. The Women by Kristin Hahn. I think that was pretty popular this last year. Fight Like Hell by Kim Kelly about the history of the labor movement. The Hunter by Ta-Nehisi Coates and The Blue Stockings by Susanna Gibson, which is a history of this early cadre of like women writers. And I just love that.

• 39:03Leah Litman?

  Also, not books, but recommend to read subscriptions to Lawdork, Chris Geidner's legal newsletter, Abortion Every Day by Jessica Valenti and One First Street by Steve Lattick. And one book I am anxiously waiting for in 2025 is The Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean. I love her, you know, historical romance books. This is going to be a modern one, and I'm just super psyched to see what she does with it.

• 39:30Kate Shaw?

  Awesome. So I've read some, but not all of those. So that is a great list. I too am going to repeat a few that I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before. So I really loved Miranda July's All Fours and Percival Everett's James. I mean, just the the formal conceit of James was just so brilliant. And I was a little bit like, I don't know if I even like love Huck Finn that much. Do I really? Do I need to re read? It's a little bit like Demon Copperhead. I was like, do I need to reread David Copperfield to actually read and get Demon Copperhead? And the answer is absolutely not. James is, you know, for many people was like the best book of the year. It is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim in the book, James in this book, who is the enslaved person who accompanies Huck on, and Tom Sawyer for part of it, on this, you know, kind of journey down the river to an island and much, much, much more.

• 40:12Kate Shaw?

  And I don't want to say too much about the formal conceit and the language of the book, but it is stunningly brilliant in conception and execution. I absolutely loved it. Highly, highly recommend it. Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Sower, I had somehow never read and read sometime earlier this year, and it's set in 2024, which is pretty wild and has shockingly current resonance, including some.

• 40:39Kate Shaw?

  There's dystopia and political figures who will just like ring very, very current, even though the book is, you know, decades old. Elena Ferrante's Days of Abandonment, I had never read, even though, you know, I've read other books of hers, and that's a tough but really excellent book. Adele Waldman's Help Wanted is a fiction book, but it's kind of in the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, which is, that's a reported book where she goes undercover and like works a retail job. Waldman kind of did the same to research this book, but then the book itself is not this memoir, but in fact, a fictional account of this kind of like big box store in upstate New York and this amazing cast of characters in the store. And it's just incredibly well done.

• 41:24Kate Shaw?

  I also really loved Hilary Leichter's Terrace Story, a very, very weird sort of couple of short stories woven together, but you know, neither kind of defies the novel or novella versus short story distinction. Anyway, really loved that. And then a handful of nonfiction books. One is Eve by Kat Bahannon. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing her last name properly, but it is kind of an evolutionary biology book about women's bodies and has chapters on everything from menopause to breastfeeding to why women are better distant athletes. And it is lyrical and beautiful. She's like a PhD in fiction and I, she's not a doctor or a PhD scientist, but it is deeply researched medicine and science in the book.

• 42:08Kate Shaw?

  And I thought it was incredible. And then we've had on the show before, the authors of a couple of wonderful books that Leah didn't mention, so I did want to shout out Rebecca Nagels' By the Fire We Carry and Dylan Penningroth's Before the Movement, two extraordinary books published in the last year.

• 42:23Leah Litman?

  By the Fire We Carry has made like several best book lists. And then Dylan Penningroth's Before the Movement and Steve Laddick's Shadow Docket just won the Order of the Coif Book Award, both of them. So, yeah.

• 42:36Kate Shaw?

  Two more. One, I finally read David Blight's Frederick Douglass: Project of Freedom, a Douglass biography that got a lot of praise when it was published a few years ago. I say read, but I actually listened to it. But it's a great, it's beautifully read. And, you know, I don't know, what, 20 hours or something? So it takes a long time. But I highly recommend it if you have not read it. And then I reread To Kill a Mockingbird with my seventh grader who was reading it in seventh grade, so last spring. She's in eighth grade now. And I'm glad I did. I actually, as a lawyer, had not revisited it. I hadn't revisited it since I was a kid. And so I really enjoyed that. So that's what I got.

• 43:14Melissa Murray?

  Okay. Those are all really good ones. I also read James, and we talked about it. I thought James was absolutely fantastic. I also like Percival Everett's Erasure, which is the basis for the movie American Fiction starring Jeffrey Wright, which is fantastic as well. And that got me down a big rabbit hole where I figured out that one of my favorite authors, Danzey Senna, is Percival Everett's wife, which I did not know. And Danzey Senna had a great debut novel back in the day called Caucasian. But she just wrote a new book this year called Colored Television, and it's just a fantastic novel. She's a terrific writer in her own right. And colored television is a hilarious setup of academia and literary

• 43:57Melissa Murray?

  culture. And it's about Jane, a mixed-race writer and college teacher who is desperate for money and struggling to finish her second novel and somehow talks her way into a meeting with a Hollywood producer who is making a sitcom about a biracial family. And it's kind of hilarious. So highly recommend that. I also read Jonathan Eads' King A Life, and it is just amazing. It's going to be the definitive biography of Martin Luther King. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography this year. Just absolutely fantastic and sweeping and amazing. So highly recommend. I also loved Colm Toibin's Long Island, which is the sequel to his wildly successful Brooklyn. And this one finds Eilish Lacey

• 44:42Melissa Murray?

  20 years later, trapped in a marriage on Long Island with Toni, who was her love interest in the first book. And there is a surprising turn of events that requires her to return to her Irish hometown and reconnect with old friends and an old love. And I'm just going to leave that tantalizing detail there. I also read Illyon Wu's Master Slave Husband/Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom. And this was also a Pulitzer Prize winner. And it is just absolutely fantastic. It reads like a novel, but it's actually nonfiction about these two enslaved people,

• 45:21Melissa Murray?

  William and Ellen Craft, who basically went undercover to escape from Georgia to the North and then everything that follows. It's just absolutely amazing. So riveting and just, it should be made into a movie. Full stop. Fantastic. And then my last one, which is absolutely fantastic, is Rob Sears' The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump: The Strictly Unauthorized Version. And Sears realized after reading some of Donald Trump's tweets that this is a man who has a way with words. And so he combed all of Trump's tweets and all of his speeches for signs of poetry and realized that if he just rearranged some of the phrases and words, beautiful verse emerged.

• 46:05Melissa Murray?

  And the results are stunning and surprising and of course hilarious. And I highly recommend it. It's completely sold out on bookshop.org because it's that great.

• 46:16Kate Shaw?

  Okay. So that is, I think, I hope, a useful list of book recs for your book gifting and just general reading pleasure over the holidays and in the coming year. Let's now mention a couple of podcasts. And I just have two that I wanted to mention, but I'm curious if there are others that you all are listening to that we should tell our listeners about. The first is one that friend of the show Cliff Sloan flagged for me. It's called Ear Witness. And it's a story of Toforis Johnson, who really appears to be, I haven't listened to the whole, it's like eight, I think, episodes, but really appears to be an innocent man who has been on Alabama's death row for a quarter century for the murder of a police officer. He was convicted basically on- An ear witness testimony, which is where the title comes from. So I'm really enjoying that and looking forward to finishing it.

• 47:01Kate Shaw?

  And I also want to mention a podcast called Less Radical, which is about Dr. Bernie Fisher, who is a fascinating figure who really revolutionized our understanding of and treatment of breast cancer. The show was produced by our own fabulous producer, Melody Rauw. The thanks that Dr. Fisher got for his revolutionary work was being dragged before Congress for a misguided hearing that destroyed his reputation. And the themes of the podcast are just all too familiar. Politicians, strong-arming scientists, women being cut out of their healthcare choices. And it's a six-part series. Episodes are all out now, if you want to binge it.

• 47:36Melissa Murray?

  All right. Mine are pretty quick because I don't have time to listen to any other podcasts but the ones on the Crooked network. But when I do, I listen to Mind Your Own with Lupita Nyong'o. This is by Lemonada, and it's a storytelling podcast in which the Oscar-winning actress narrates stories from the modern African diaspora. It's really great. There's also a really terrific podcast. It's a series called Rebel Spirit with Akela Hughes, and it's a documentary where Hughes goes back to her hometown in Florence, Kentucky, to convince her town to abandon their longtime high school mascot, the Rebel, in favor of the humble southern buttermilk biscuit. What ensues is a very richly reported meditation on race and culture and sports.

• 48:21Melissa Murray?

  Really fantastic. And then finally, this isn't a podcast. It's a Netflix documentary, and it's called Yacht Rock, the documentary. And it's absolutely fantastic, and I will not hear a word against it. It is the Meghan Markle of 1970s, 1980s music documentaries, and I've loved it.

• 48:43Speaker 06

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• 50:14Leah Litman?

  Okay, so now to bookend our gift guides with another Favorite Things Go-Around game. We are going to usher in a new tradition about saying our favorite things about each other.

• 50:29Kate Shaw?

  One thing collectively, which is that this is like an aspiration, in addition to Favorite Things, which is, I absolutely love it when we very occasionally in our insane lives, get a little bit of downtime together to hang out, like when we were in Hawaii like a year and a half ago. That was so fun, and I just really wish we had more time in our lives to occasionally do that.

• 50:49Melissa Murray?

  We had a great roadie carrying our luggage, and that was absolutely critical.

• 50:53Kate Shaw?

  He's fun, but with or without any spouses of the pod, I really wish that we were able to do that more. I don't, you guys, I'm going to do a little bit of collective. You guys are both so goddamn fast at synthesizing everything and writing and thinking, and I just admire the shit out of it, both the speed and the depth that you both bring. And I constantly am like, ah, I saw the Fifth Circuit issued this crazy-ass opinion with 150 different concurrences, and by the time I process that, Leah has read them all and written up a show note about them. It's out of control, and you're just so generous and selfless, Leah, on the labor front.

• 51:33Kate Shaw?

  And Melissa, I don't understand how you fire across all of the different literary, cultural, genre, like spaces that you do at any given time, deep history, you know. Greek philosophy, reality TV, like it's insane and so impressive. Anyway, you two are just, I'm doing collectively, hope that's okay. Yeah, I'm just like endlessly impressed by both of you and feel deeply lucky that I get to spend time, you know, basking in your auras on a weekly basis, but I just wish we got to do it on the beach.

• 52:06Leah Litman?

  Totally agree. I'll go next because I don't want to go after Melissa because I feel like Melissa's very good at this and I don't want to follow her. So Melissa, I'll start with you. I feel like you are so good at the pull and the like in the moment reference where you can just immediately take something someone said and do this like crazy pull either from pop culture or like philosophy or literature and whatnot and just make it hilarious, like the references are out of control. Also, I don't think our listeners appreciate how fucking funny you are because you make us edit out all of the funny things or not all of the funny things, but many of the funny things you say.

• 52:50Kate Shaw?

  We leave it a lot, but there are so many that come out.

• 52:52Leah Litman?

  There's so many that come out.

• 52:53Kate Shaw?

  Because they get a little cheeky.

• 52:54Leah Litman?

  Yeah, but they're so funny.

• 52:56Melissa Murray?

  Try and not go to jail.

• 52:59Leah Litman?

  Also, uh, style is off the hook. One time you said you liked a blazer I wore and I was like, fucking put it in the Louvre because I know I made it.

• 53:10Melissa Murray?

  It was a good blazer. It was such a good blazer.

• 53:12Leah Litman?

  There we go. So Kate, I can't believe you just said like you are jealous of like the speed and depth we go into because I feel like you are like one of the craziest, busiest people I know and like you are constantly jetting around, but then you have like five to 10 minutes to, I don't know, like pop in to a note and then immediately add like these like high level thoughts that I feel like make an episode and like make our commentary really work that I just like wouldn't have come up with. And second is you managed to be very cool without making me feel bad about myself and

• 53:54Leah Litman?

  I feel like that is a really admirable quality and I'm not sure how you do it because I don't know many people who do.

• 54:01Kate Shaw?

  Thank you.

• 54:03Melissa Murray?

  All right. So it's my turn. I have to land this. Okay. Let me just call out the folks in the background who are not on the camera right now. Melody and Michael, who make us sound great all year long. You guys are absolutely fantastic. Melody, I so appreciate your patience with us because we are always turning it around. Be like, hey, what about a whole new series this summer that we plan to take off on Project 2025? And, you know, I appreciate that you roll with it. You chide us gently sometimes and really sort of pull us back and try to keep it contained. But you're really good about letting us do our thing and we really appreciate that. Michael, you are such a great new addition to the team.

• 54:45Melissa Murray?

  I love how you very graciously invite us to record. So this isn't all for naught and we always have backup recordings. Thank you for that because like some of us are not tech savvy. And thank you for getting Crooked to give me a new microphone in the new year. I appreciate that a lot.

• 55:02Leah Litman?

  And also, Michael has to endure our pre-recording chatter at the beginning of every episode. And he handles it like a champ. So cannot.

• 55:13Melissa Murray?

  Because it's wild.

• 55:14Leah Litman?

  It is. It is.

• 55:15Melissa Murray?

  It's actually wild.

• 55:16Leah Litman?

  Off the chains. And Melody, I feel like she keeps me cool and hip with the kids. Like she's the one that got me into TikTok. So, yeah, really.

• 55:27Melissa Murray?

  She's an agent of the Chinese.

• 55:29Leah Litman?

  No, she is not. But she is just very generous and positive, but also has this like cutting humor. So, yeah, great combo.

• 55:39Melissa Murray?

  Melody and I have like some good book talk. Not, they're not talks really, but like good side book conversations. And she's the one who turned me on to book of the month. Kate, I think you are like the most generous person about other people's work. Like you always find a way to highlight other people's work and make it relevant to what we're talking about. And like, you're just really, really good at. Calling out and giving people credit where we're just like, we're so busy that it's sometimes hard and we can miss things that are really important, but you're always really great about calling attention to people whose work is really relevant and but might go overlooked.

• 56:19Melissa Murray?

  And you're especially good about doing it for people who are junior. I also love how gracious you are when we snark on your pop culture. Like, it's a running bit. I think we have to keep doing it just because everyone expects it. But I love that you're trying to like, add more popular culture to your repertoire. Like, no one else tries as hard to get up to speed. I mean, if Brett Kavanaugh could just apply this kind of work ethic to other things, like, everything would be totally different. And I love that about you. Lea, you're like, the heart and soul of this whole enterprise. You're always like, I was supposed to write the show note for the December recap. I went to go do it and found that you had

• 57:02Melissa Murray?

  already done most of it. Like, that happens all the time. You were like, the beating heart of this. And you have such a clear vision for the show and like, what we should be doing and, and how we can be impactful, even when it feels like everything is just going to shit. So, one of your best qualities that you are unbelievably pessimistic and realistic, and yet you channel your rage into something positive. And it's so nicely complimenting Kate's incredibly delusional optimism. It's just the perfect marriage.

• 57:44Melissa Murray?

  We are the perfect marriage, if you will. We are three people, so maybe we are polyamorous in that respect. And that's interesting, too. But I love everything about this. I don't think I could have made it through November 6th through 10th without knowing I had you all to come back to you, because it was like, kind of a dark time. And like, knowing that I would be able to come back and talk to you guys about it, made it easier. I will also say, Lea,

• 58:10Leah Litman?

  You should go into your own T-shirt making business. Like, you just made me the best in search of emotional support billionaire T-shirt. And you're always doing stuff like that, like making these great T-shirts. You know, back in the day when we used to make all that merch, it was really all Leah, just making merch constantly. And yeah, those were the, those were the salad days when we just made merch all the time. And it's, it's your genius, like all of it. And we just wear it and we wear it proudly. So I'm glad we are all in this together. I'm excited for 2025. I'm not excited for 2025, but I'm excited for 2025 with you all.

• 58:46Kate Shaw?

  Together. It's gonna be great. One of the only things about 2025.

• 58:49Leah Litman?

  Ish.

• 58:50Kate Shaw?

  Is gonna bring some comfort.

• 58:51Leah Litman?

  We're gonna be the real Project 2025. That's what we're gonna, we're gonna rename this podcast, The Real Project 2025. And watch what happens.

• 58:58Kate Shaw?

  No, no, girl. We're not. All right. Finally, we have a tribute to our most favorite thing, you, our listeners. Earlier this year, we asked you to send in voice memos telling us a little bit about yourself and when you listen to the pod.

• 59:12Leah Litman?

  And a brief kind of side note here, a special thank you to the listeners who responded to my desperate cries and pleas when I needed to go to the Eras Tour after I couldn't go this past summer. And they literally made it possible. So Gianni Janki, Jennifer Buttrick, Laura Pedo, Alyssa Frederick, like the insane grace and generosity you showed was like truly moving. And I now have a video of myself seeing Cornelius Street live in which I like burst into tears the moment like I realized like what song is playing.

• 59:52Leah Litman?

  And yeah, I just cannot even articulate like how meaningful that was. But back to the listener voice memos. Okay, so we can't play all the listener voice memos, but we did listen to them all and they mean so, so much to us. Our reviews aren't always the kindest and there are challenges to doing the podcast. And again, the best thing about this is you are listeners and we wanted to give you a taste of the strict scrutiny audience that makes this all possible and this community so wonderful.

• 1:00:27Speaker 07

  Hello ladies, or should I say bonjour mesdames?

• 1:00:30Leah Litman?

  Hi, strict scrutiny. I'm coming to you from Zog, Switzerland. Greetings from Germany. From the upper valley of Vermont, New Hampshire. I'm calling from the great southwest. I am an AP US government teacher and debate coach who works at an international school in Taipei, Taiwan. I'm a financial analyst, listening to you from my home in Newcastle, Australia.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  I just finished my second year of law school at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. I'm Isaiah. I'm a first-generation law student, and I just finished my one L year at Mizzou. I am currently a law student in the southeastern United States, also known as hell. I have completed my PhD and started a position as assistant professor of musicology at Wichita State University.

• 1:01:10Leah Litman?

  I am a veterinary student at the University of California, Davis. I'm in Mill Valley, California, and I sell real estate here. I'm listening to you from Butte, Montana. I'm an attorney who works on offshore fisheries.

• 1:01:22Speaker 06

  I'm actually a physician. I practice anesthesiology here in North Dakota.

• 1:01:26Leah Litman?

  For work, I'm an applied mathematician, working on problems in the ocean domain. I'm a dairy farmer in Wisconsin. I'm a sign language interpreter from Melbourne, Australia. I am a bat biologist.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  I'm a patent examiner.

• 1:01:38Leah Litman?

  I am an OB-GYN and a full-time abortion provider in Chicago. I always listen to the podcast on my Monday morning runs. And I have had strict scrutiny in my ears on cross-country flights, on cross-country drives. I am a mother to a nine-month-old, and I have been listening to the pod during my maternity leave. And what I wanted to recommend you for was empowering me to be a court watcher.

• 1:02:11Speaker 07

  That is a genuine train sound. And in my small French town, I listen to you, and I shake my head, thinking that we are living in a strange world at strange times.

• 1:02:25Leah Litman?

  I've been listening a lot while mucking horse pens and stalls. And given the Supreme Court decisions y'all have been going through, it just feels like the fact that I'm actually shoveling horse manure is relatable content. You've helped me learn about the law whilst flinging a lot of poop. I mean, it's literally got to be in the thousands of pounds by this point. So, thank you for inspiring me each and

• 1:02:50Melissa Murray?

  Every one of you for being true to who you are and making law approachable and fun, even in the face of the demise of our democracy. I am just so appreciative of all your work and for making the Supreme Court and all its shenanigans so accessible.

• 1:03:12Kate Shaw?

  Now I listen to your podcast to keep abreast of how the right is dismantling the rule of law and get ideas for how I can help defend democracy and civil rights.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  It feels like a voice of sanity and reason.

• 1:03:26Leah Litman?

  You guys allow me to process it along with you and release all of that rage that I feel.

• 1:03:33Speaker 06

  As a fellow Swiftie, I'll say that I definitely enjoyed the collective excitement over Taylor releasing the tortured poets department. I think that Taylor should absolutely make an appearance on the show.

• 1:03:41Speaker 07

  I love you guys and thanks for the Taylor Swift references, too.

• 1:03:45Melissa Murray?

  I'm really just gonna keep doing abortions by day and keep listening to you all by night. Keep on fighting the good fight. And I'm sipping a Martha Rita and a gin tonic cheersing to you three.

• 1:03:57Leah Litman?

  Please know that somewhere out there, there's a pretty run-of-the-mill transactional attorney brewing coffee in a firm and saying out loud with a grin, all I ask of our brethren is that they take their motherfucking feet off our necks.

• 1:04:18Melissa Murray?

  Some concluding notes. If there are positive or unhinged court developments you want us to highlight in the new year, please feel free to write in with them. We love being able to celebrate the great things some of our listeners are helping to do. We all need to find positives these days. And a note on our programming, we will be off next week, but will return in the new year with a special episode tailored to the day. The episode will be released. So in the meantime, happy holidays from everyone at Strict Scrutiny and we will see you in the new year. Before we go, some additional thoughts. From gripping hidden histories to mysterious cold cases, Crooked's limited series are your Ultimate road trip or cozy couch companions.

• 1:05:03Melissa Murray?

  Whether you're driving to your in-laws, relaxing in front of the fire, or just avoiding those awkward family convos, unravel the mystery of a prominent judge's death in Killing Justice. Follow the shocking transformation of a Chinese civil rights activist into a MAGA Trump supporter in Dissident at the Doorstep. Or immerse yourself in the hidden history of America's largest police force with Empire City, the untold origin story of the NYPD, named one of the top podcasts of 2024 by Time Magazine, Vulture, and The New York Times. You can binge these series and more, including Strict Scrutiny, at crooked.com or find them wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:05:41Kate Shaw?

  Strict Scrutiny is a Crooked Media production, hosted and executive produced by Leah Littman, Melissa Murray, and me, Kate Shaw. Produced and edited by Melody Raul. Michael Goldsmith is our associate producer. Audio support from Kyle Seglan and Charlotte Landis. Music by Eddie Cooper. Production support from Madeline Herringer and Ari Schwartz. Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Thanks to our digital team, Phoebe Bradford and Joe Metuski. Subscribe to Strict Scrutiny on YouTube to catch full episodes. Find us at youtube.com/stricksrutinypodcast. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to Strict Scrutiny in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. And if you want to help other people find the show, please rate and review us. It really helps.

• 1:06:16Melissa Murray?

  Only if you're nice.

• 1:06:19Kate Shaw?

  Only if you're nice, not if you're naughty.

• 1:06:21Melissa Murray?

  Coal for you.

• 1:06:31Speaker 05

  Right now, the midterms are the biggest story in American politics. But however they go, the Democratic Party is going to have to do some serious soul searching. Join us, Washington DC, November 5th through 7th, at the Second Annual CrookedCon. It's going to be the Pod Save America hosts and some of the smartest people in politics. We're going to try to answer some big questions. Stuff like, if we won, how did we win? If we lost, how could we possibly have lost? And with 2028 around the corner, where do we go from here? If you believe in democracy, community, and fighting for the future, now's the time to grab your tickets to CrookedCon 2026. Head to crookedcon.

• 1:07:05Kate Shaw?

  ...to get your tickets now.

• 1:07:13Kate Shaw?

  Relax and get ready for bed with Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray. Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals powered by pure Epsom salt and natural Dead Sea salt, Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray is designed to help you unwind and get in a nighttime state of mind. Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray is wellness you can feel, and you can find it in your local bath aisle. Dr. Teal's. Yep, you needed that.

• 1:07:41Kate Shaw?

  We know kids don't hold back, and I wouldn't want them to. Get in there, make a mess, slide for home, bring on the stains. I've got OxiClean Versatile Stain Remover. It works on over 100 stains, and it's America's number one stain fighter additive brand. It's color safe and chlorine free, so I use it on whites, colors, and dark fabrics. And OxiClean isn't just for laundry. Mix it with water for use all around the house, kitchens, bathrooms, and even floors. When my kids go all in, I say go for it, because I've got OxiClean to get the stains out. It's not clean unless it's OxiClean.