John Roberts is on Substack, U.S. Attorneys are Fake, and the DNC is a Scam [TEASER]

Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael dig into some recent headlines including plans to ban halal food in Texas, John Roberts’ Substack debut, the disturbing truth behind DNC spam texts, and more. Check out Adam Bonica’s investigation here. https://data4democracy.substack.com/p/hook-and-squeeze 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 Alli Rodgers. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Transcriptions of each episode are available at fivefourpod.com http://fivefourpod.com Follow the show at @fivefourpod on most platforms. On BlueSky, find Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social, Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social, and Rhiannon @aywarhiannon.bsky.social. 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.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prologue Projects. On today's subscriber-only episode of Five to Four, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are diving into some recent headlines they haven't been able to stop thinking about. Among other things, they're talking about a legislative brainstorm from Texas Republicans that could severely curtail snacking rights. Plus, Chief Justice John Roberts' bizarre foray into Substack, reporting from Adam Bonica about the seedy underbelly of small-dollar donation packs, and the precarious position of many Trump-appointed state attorneys general. This is Five to Four, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court and many other things suck.

• 0:48Peter Shamshiri?

  Welcome to Five to Four, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have banned our civil rights, like Texas banning halal food. I'm Peter. I'm here with Michael.

• 0:57Michael Liroff?

  That can't be constitutional.

• 0:59Peter Shamshiri?

  And Rhiannon.

• 1:00Speaker 03

  Hey, everybody. Well, Texas might try it out. I mean, we...

• 1:04Peter Shamshiri?

  What amendment does it violate?

• 1:06Speaker 03

  Point to the Constitution, Michael, where it says you have a right to eat halal food.

• 1:13Peter Shamshiri?

  Is there a right to snacks in the Constitution, Michael?

• 1:15Speaker 03

  Is there a right to shawarma in the Constitution?

• 1:18Michael Liroff?

  There should be. There absolutely should be. I want my shawarma on, like, a lavage wrap, please. Thank you.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  And I want it guaranteed by the Constitution.

• 1:28Michael Liroff?

  That is... It's a core tenet of my liberty.

• 1:32Peter Shamshiri?

  I was gonna say that should be the First Amendment, but it sort of is.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it sort of is the First Amendment. I don't know if you guys... Obviously, I brought this up to you guys in the chat yesterday, but it's not like a ban yet, but I guess the ledge is not in session. The Texas ledge is only in session every two years. So Texas Republicans had some sort of, like, conference or convening or something, like, a week ago.

• 1:57Peter Shamshiri?

  Annual brainstorming session from the Texas Republicans.

• 2:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And they said that it was a priority to eradicate Islam from Texas. And as part of that, there was, like, this whole slate of legislation that could be proposed to, like, meet that goal. Among them, banning the wearing of hijab in public places, banning selling halal food, lots of other bullshit. You know, some of this, like, kind of serious, but, like, banning halal food? Come on.

• 2:27Peter Shamshiri?

  I want them to do it so bad. Because, I mean, you know, I imagine most listeners know this, but halal food is not some, like, special category of Muslim snacks or whatever, right? It's like kosher food. Like, many foods are halal, right? Many foods that non-Muslims eat are halal.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  Or it's like a method of preparing food that makes it halal.

• 2:46Peter Shamshiri?

  Right. There's gonna be a large percentage of foods that non-Muslims are eating without thought every single day that qualify as halal.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:56Peter Shamshiri?

  So a ban would... I don't know. I mean, it wouldn't happen, because at some point, they would find out about a treat that they would no longer have access to.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:03Peter Shamshiri?

  And they're... It's a treat-based political party at the end of the day, right?

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. But you could also see them being stupid enough to, like, word the statute in a way that, like, bans foods they don't... They're not intending to ban.

• 3:15Peter Shamshiri?

  Yeah, of course.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  And it's like, oh, God, this is circus down here, guys. I'm sick of it.

• 3:21Peter Shamshiri?

  I'm picturing them, like, halfway through the legislative debate, and, like, a man who just loves to eat comes up to the podium. He's a Republican, but he's like, folks...

• 3:28Michael Liroff?

  Have you ever had chicken over rice? Come on.

• 3:31Peter Shamshiri?

  We can't let this happen.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  You're telling me, wait a minute. I didn't know this was taking away my Friday afternoon hero.

• 3:38Peter Shamshiri?

  Right.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  You know? Like, what? Oh, no. Dang.

• 3:43Michael Liroff?

  What if I told you that this turkey sandwich is halal?

• 3:47Speaker 03

  That's a pretty good George W. Bush.

• 3:51Peter Shamshiri?

  Thank you. I appreciate that you think it's good. It's actually not. All right. So we've got a few things to discuss today. We're doing another one of these sort of grab-bag premium episodes, because there were all these things that we wanted to talk about. About a week ago, Michael hit us up in the group chat and was like, did you guys know John Roberts wrote a Substack post? And so we made him read it. And we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about a... 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 54pod, all spelled out. Members get a bunch of stuff.

• 4:35Peter Shamshiri?

  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 Five to Four Slack. So again, that's patreon.com/54pod. 54pod, all spelled out. Become a member today.