The Powell Memo [TEASER]

Before he was ever a Supreme Court justice, Lewis Powell was an enterprising corporate attorney representing tobacco companies and calling on CEO’s to get off their asses and flood American politics with money. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To hear this and other Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support http://fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our researcher is Jonathan DeBruin, and our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Follow the show at @fivefourpod on most platforms. On BlueSky, find Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social, Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social, and Rhiannon @aywarhiannon.bsky.social. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information. Our Sponsors: * Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/fivefour for a great deal: https://www.mintmobile.com * Check out Quince and use my code FIVEFOUR for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Is that my good butter?

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Can't discuss that now, Marge. I have to write another delicious memo. Mmm, memo.

• 0:12Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prologue Projects. On this subscriber-only episode of Five to Four, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are talking about the Powell Memo. Louis Powell was a conservative Supreme Court Justice who sat on the bench from 1972 until 1987. But before joining the court, Powell wrote an influential memo laying out a strategy for corporations to build political power in the courts, the academy, and the media, and to mount a counterattack against the social movements of the 1960s. As you'll hear, the Powell Memo can now be seen as an opening salvo in the conservative legal movement's organized campaign to transform American politics.

• 0:53Speaker 03

  I think we're seeing the culmination of the Powell doctrine, so to speak, which is that corporations should not be checked, should not be fettered, and that they have free rein of the land.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  This is Five to Four, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court and corporations suck.

• 1:19Peter Shamshiri?

  Welcome to Five to Four, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have stretched our patience like an Adrian Brody speech at the Oscars.

• 1:27Michael Liroff?

  Nice.

• 1:29Peter Shamshiri?

  I'm Peter. I'm here with Rhiannon.

• 1:31Michael Liroff?

  Hey.

• 1:32Peter Shamshiri?

  And Michael.

• 1:32Michael Liroff?

  It was the worst. It was truly...

• 1:36Peter Shamshiri?

  Real rough.

• 1:36Michael Liroff?

  It was truly the worst. You know, I thought when those Amelia Perez songwriters started singing in their acceptance speech, that would be the lowlight of the show. And Brody was like, "I can beat that." Yeah. "I can beat that." Real racist.

• 1:51Speaker 06

  The bottom.

• 1:52Peter Shamshiri?

  A lot of terms like toxic masculinity get overused, but I'm sorry, a woman would never have done that. It just doesn't. It's just one of those things where you're like, this is us, you know what I mean? Like, there's something in our brain that allows us to do this and women are like, no. And that doesn't mean that the ladies are free of sin. That lady did start singing at the end of her speech.

• 2:16Speaker 06

  Right, right.

• 2:17Peter Shamshiri?

  You know what I mean?

• 2:18Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:18Peter Shamshiri?

  But it's different. There's just different things. We're all cursed in different ways and my God, what a burden that man is.

• 2:28Peter Shamshiri?

  And by the way, I don't care how good people say the brutalist is. Four hours long?

• 2:33Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:33Peter Shamshiri?

  No, thank you. Absolutely not.

• 2:36Speaker 06

  I'm gonna say pass on that one.

• 2:39Peter Shamshiri?

  The Irishman was 330 and that was a gangster movie. That's built for me. Even like by the end of that, I was like, oh.

• 2:44Michael Liroff?

  Yeah. Yeah. I just watched Barry Lyndon, which I enjoyed and it's like, you know, people say a masterpiece from one of the great filmmakers of all time. And I was like, three hours, three hours. That was indulgent.

• 2:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's a lot.

• 2:59Michael Liroff?

  Yeah. So longer than that. And then people I trust have told me that like, the first half of the movie, they were like, I think this might be the best movie I've ever seen. Not only did it stick the landing, it like compound fractured its ankle on the way down.

• 3:14Speaker 06

  No.

• 3:15Michael Liroff?

  Bones sticking out and bleeding all over the place.

• 3:19Speaker 06

  Real brutal. Yeah.

• 3:20Michael Liroff?

  Yeah.

• 3:21Speaker 06

  Before we move on, I should say, I might sound a little bit different. Number one, I'm a little sick. Number two, I have a new mic set up here. So listeners be patient.

• 3:32Peter Shamshiri?

  You're in a different room.

• 3:33Speaker 06

  I'm actually in a room. I'm usually in the closet of this room. Yeah.

• 3:37Michael Liroff?

  Your mellifluous tone is still coming through beautifully in my.

• 3:42Speaker 06

  Thank you so much.

• 3:44Peter Shamshiri?

  All right. So today, we are talking about Louis Powell, former Supreme Court Justice, now dead, and his famous memo from the early 1970s, nicknamed the Powell Memo, which many people believe to be a blueprint for the intrusion-

• 4:06Peter Shamshiri?

  Hey, folks. If you want to hear the rest of this episode, you're going to have to subscribe. This episode is one of our premium Patreon-only episodes. Membership starts at just $5 a month. If you want to hear the rest, join us at patreon.com/54pod. That's 5-4-pod, all spelled out. Members get a bunch of stuff. Not only do you get access to the premium episodes, but access to subscriber-only events, discounts on merch, and at the $10 a month level, you get bigger discounts on merch and membership in the incredibly rowdy 5-4 Slack. So again, that's patreon.com/54pod, 5-4-pod, all spelled out. Become a member today.