Shows / Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments is a law show that helps you make sense of the news! Comedian Thomas Smith and lawyer Matt Cameron help you understand not only current events, but also deeper legal concepts and areas! The schedule is M-W-F, with the main show on Monday and Friday and Vapid Response on Wednesday!
Episodes
- Opening Arguments
Voters Said No to MAGA. Grand Juries Have Been Saying No to DOJ for Months.
OA1311 - Matt runs through a string of DOJ losses this week: researcher Kseniia Petrova's smuggled frog embryos case, a grand jury's decision on Cassidy…
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Election Night: We Streamed Until We Got Tired of Winning
VR49 - Live midterms watch party! Thomas, Matt, and Jenessa parked in front of three screens on election night and just let the good vibes happen. We've got…
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Here's Why Voter Fraud Is Virtually Nonexistent, and What Experts Actually Fear
OA1310 - We all know by now that election fraud is rare, but do you know why? What mechanisms are in place that make us so sure it's rare, and not just rarely…
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"You Gotta Spend Voter Fraud to Make Voter Fraud" - James O'Keefe
OA1309 - With Matt out sick, we're doing a GG crossover, with a hot off the presses new story suitable for Rapid Response Friday. Back in August, James…
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The Christian Reboot of the Scopes Monkey Trial Nobody Asked For
WE WATCHED A MOVIE SO CHRISTIAN WE HAD TO DOSE IT OUT IN TWO SITTINGS. Thomas and Matt are joined by Lydia for Alleged, a 2010 Christian retelling of the…
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They Wouldn't Be Flailing This Hard If They Thought They Were Winning
OA1308 - The election is coming up fast, with early voting already underway in many states. With an administration that is, let's say "do we really need…
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The More We Learn About the Ilhan Omar Raid, the Worse It Looks
OA1307 - Matt's got an update on the Ilhan Omar search warrant saga. We get into the genuinely bizarre citizenship limbo they're trying to put her in. In other…
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Tommy Teepell Gets Publicly Owned, and the Worst Cornell 7 Take Yet
VR48 - Today on Vapid Response Wednesday: the extremely believable backstory of some guy named Tommy who got publicly owned by Michigan Democratic Senate…
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Can You Sue a Drug Company When You Don't Know Which One Made the Pill?
OA1306 - We're on a winning streak! ...because we picked the winners. This week we cover two cases where the little guy comes out on top against the big…
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NY Defense Attorney Calls the Tompkins County DA's Cornell Decision "Truly Stunning"
OA1305 - Matt's under the weather, so no normal Friday show this week. But don't panic, because we've got a treat instead: a crossover from Gavel Gavel where…
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What the Media Are Getting Wrong About the Ilhan Omar Raid
VR47 - Federal agents raided Ilhan Omar's house this week, possibly over a decades-old conspiracy theory. Matt Explains what the media are getting wrong about…
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This Guy Beat Qualified Immunity Twice, in Two Different Circuits
OA1304 - Qualified immunity does not strike again! In a case out of the 10th circuit, with the same plaintiff from last week's Rosales v. Lewis/Terrell, the…
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Florida Judge Says Congress Can't Make Noncitizen Voting a Federal Crime
OA1303 - Rapid Response Friday kicks off with two major under-the-radar stories that you may not hear anywhere else about major federal decisions out of…
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Samuel Alito's Victory Lap and Douglas Murray's Deportation Jetpack Fantasy
VR46 - This week on Vapid Response Wednesday: A Bari Weiss double feature! We kick off with an amuse douche from CBS News's chill hang with a cool guy from…
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The 5th Circuit Denied a Cop Qualified Immunity, So We Might Be in the Afterlife
OA1302 - Qualified immunity can be overcome! In the fifth circuit?! Come hear the good news, and learn some fourth amendment traffic stop rules along the way…
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DOJ Wants Every Federal Judge in Minnesota Recused (Good Luck With That)
OA1301 - IT'S FASCISM RESPONSE FRIDAY, and it's a lot. DOJ just filed a complaint trying to get every single active federal judge in Minnesota booted off…
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John Yoo Wrote the Torture Memos and Never Paid for It. At All.
VR45 - Today on Vapid Response: 25 years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, we look back on the Forrest Gump of monstrously bad legal takes…
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From Toga Guy to John Hinckley: A History of Pleading Insanity
OA1300 - The “insanity defense” might sound like a relic of a time when mental illness was viewed through the lens of demons and witches, and it turns out it…
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He Went to Prison for Bribing Susan Collins. She's... Totally Fine Somehow?
OA1299 - This week on Rapid Response Friday: what crimes might Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) have been complicit in, and why won't she ever be prosecuted for…
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The Real Reason Coyote v. Acme Was Buried (It's So Much Worse Than a Tax Write-Off)
Coyote vs. Acme is such a fun movie. Thomas and Lydia saw it with the kids, Matt tried to borrow some kids to see it with, and has some fun legal observations…
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The USPS Ballot Scheme Was Even Worse Than You Thought
OA1298 - Voting rights attorney Jenessa is back with a sprawling tour of election chaos, starting with the Supreme Court's unsigned order in USPS v…
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Kash Patel Screws the Pooch
OA1297 - This week on Rapid Response Friday: SCOTUS once again confirms the color of the sky, the latest failures in DOJ’s attempts to prosecute Trump’s…
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Manosphere's Favorite Juror Had Active Restraining Order During Clancy Trial
VR44 - This week on Vapid Response: we survey some of MAGA’s worst takes on the recent mistrial of Lindsay Clancy, all the way from “women are too woke and…
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A Blizzard of Lies - Dave Wedge on the Karen Read Trial
OA1296 - Dave Wedge is a veteran Boston reporter and New York Times bestselling author who covered (among many other things) hundreds of murder trials as a…
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The 5th Circuit Says You Have No Right to Clean Water
OA1295 - Today on Rapid Response Friday: your questions about the Lindsay Clancy mistrial, actual justice for the Tate brothers, Trump’s mystery meat, and the…
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Milo Yiannopoulos Lied About His Immigration Status (And We Can Prove It)
VR43 - Today on this special edition of Vapid Response: ICE boot enthusiast Milo Yiannopolous is not a particularly interesting person, but his recent…
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The First Openly Autistic Lawyer in Florida on What Law Firms Get Wrong
OA1294 - Haley Moss was the first openly autistic woman to practice law in Florida, and she is now an advocate for disability, autism, and neurodiversity in…
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Most Lindsay Clancy Coverage Has the Law All Wrong
OA1293 - In this extra-special Rapid Response Friday, Thomas visits Boston to record live in Matt’s office and talk out two very different legal stories in the…
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ICE Went Undercover To Expose a Vast Antifa "Conspiracy"
Hey folks, no VR this week because Lydia and I are traveling. (We're in Boston, going to record RRF live together with Matt!) But folks NEED to hear this…
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Supreme Court Says Why Prevent Trump Violating the Constitution Before It Even Happens?
OA1292 - Jenessa takes us through the Supreme Court's 6-3 shadow docket ruling in Trump v. California, which lifted a preliminary injunction blocking Trump's…
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Meta Must Pay, Bannon's Judge Pushes Back, and a Dolly Parton Shoutout from the Bench
OA1291 - This week on Rapid Response Friday: the single biggest consumer protection settlement ever reached with any U.S. company puts new guardrails on…
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Stephen Miller's America First Legal Has a YouTube Show (and it sucks real bad)
VR42 - Today on Vapid Response Wednesday: Lydia, Thomas, and Matt check in on the official podcast of Stephen Miller's America First Legal, and Matt brings the…
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A Mayor Declared a State of Emergency to Save Flock Cameras
OA1290 - Jenessa returns with a surveillance grab bag: a New York mayor declares a bizarre "emergency" to keep her city's Flock cameras running after the city…
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Trump Messed With the Mouse. Now He Gets the Ears.
OA1289 - Is Disney/ABC’s bold new legal action against the Trump administration one of the most important First Amendment challenges of our lifetimes, or just…
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Baseball Crank Asks "What Have Refugees Done for Me Lately"
VR41 - What does a “moderate conservative” sound like in August 2026? Thomas and Matt take a closer look at two very different self-proclaimed “moderates”…
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Police Sued for Blatant Misuse of Facial Recognition. It's NUTS.
OA1288 - What happens when a hotheaded cop who isn’t interested in putting in much effort to solve a crime meets up with another cop who thinks computers are…
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The Tates Seek Release, Super-Duper Promise They Won't Flee
OA1287 - Today on Rapid Response Friday: Todd “Two Taints” Blanche flexes his new freedom as two Tates blanch at the loss of theirs, and a lawsuit over a…
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Ross Douthat Leaves NYT for Bari Weiss. Here Were Some of His Worst Columns.
VR40 - This Vapid Response Wednesday, we note the end of Ross Douthat’s 17-year run as the resident New York Times conservative columnist with a drive-by…
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Melissa Murray Gives the Constitution Some Strict Scrutiny
OA1286 - NYU Law professor and Strict Scrutiny co-host Melissa Murray joins to discuss (among many other things) her new book, Sonia Sotomayor’s dance moves…
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Cornyn and Tillis Negotiate Meaningless Concession from Blanche
OA1285 - This week on Rapid Response Friday: regulators, mount up! We take a closer look at the actual documents provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by…
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Did Mamdani Wipe Little Italy Off the Map?
VR39 - Vapid Response Wednesday returns with a tasteful pairing of stories about alleged anti-Italian discrimination that go together like chianti and red…
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How a Bank Robbery Became a Fourth Amendment Landmark
OA1284 - Can a modern court implement modern solutions? It really depends on your perspective. Despite some baffling misconceptions about how… anything works…
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The Most Brazen and Corrupt Heist in American History (GG Crossover!)
Apologies for being a little late on this one! Donald Trump sued the IRS, an agency he currently runs, for leaking his own tax returns, and asked for a cool…
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LAM1015: Outlaw
LAM1015 - Jimmy Smits stars as a gambling, sports-shooting Supreme Court Justice with a law clerk paid to fend off his advances, in NBC's forgotten 2010 flop…
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How SCOTUS Paved the Way for Flock Cameras
OA1282 - Is anything private any more? Depends which Supreme Court Justice you ask. To kick off a series of episodes around data privacy and the law, first…
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Todd Blanche Can Also Lie and Dodge Questions in Writing Too!
OA1281 - As we wait on the final vote tally for Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche, we take a look at written responses which he recently provided into the…
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Law on the Spectrum, with Peter O'Neil
OA1280 - Peter O’Neil was preparing for retirement after decades of practicing law when he learned that he was autistic at the age of 65. This realization…
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What Happened to You, Todd Blanche?
OA1279 - This week on Rapid Response Friday: A federal judge rips up the corrupt “settlement” Trump reached with his own IRS at the unprecedented request of a…
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Nancy Mace Thinks Anyone With a Foreign Name Is Disloyal
VR38 - This week in Vapid Response Thomas, Lydia, and Matt review some truly awful takes from a MAGA economist on the true cause of low crime rates, Rep. Nancy…
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The MAGA Justices Get Torched by... Amy Coney Barrett?!
OA1278 - On its face, the decision in Watson is a pretty narrow ruling. Some states allow ballots postmarked on or before election day, but arriving after…
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It's Not Just Prairieland and Broadview. More Lives Are Being Ruined by Unjust Prosecutions.
OA1277 - We continue our coverage of the Trump administration’s criminalization of dissent with a brief update on the sentencing of the last remaining…
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Ben Shapiro is having AI write his columns, and apparently not even the good models
VR37 - Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh both wrote furious, error-riddled columns attacking the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling in Trump v. Barbara…
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Trump Is Once Again Trying to Change the Law With Memos
OA1276 - Who could have predicted this? Us! The Trump administration has made their complete disdain for people with disabilities clear since day one. We’ve…
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Matt's Complete Supreme Court Term Recap
OA1275 - As June ends and another Supreme Court Season wraps, it is time to look back and survey the damage: significant blows to voting and trans rights…
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The New Cover on Alito's TPS Reports Is for Racism
VR36 - In Mullin v Doe, Samuel Alito just proudly stripped Temporary Protected Status from more than one million people who were lawfully living and working in…
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Worst Dude Hires Even Worse Lawyer to Legally Harass Woman Who Posted About Him
OA1274 - Can you sue if someone posts something nasty about you online? I mean maybe, but not like this. In today’s episode, Lydia introduces us to the wild…
- Opening Arguments
Prairieland - 30 Years for Moving Magazines. These Are Real Human Lives, Ruined.
OA1273 - On June 23, 2026, eight people were sentenced in DOJ’s first so-called “Antifa” terrorism prosecution by federal judge Reed O’Connor in the Northern…
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Why Is Alito Like This? with Peter Canellos
OA1272 - We are excited to welcome veteran journalist Peter Canellos to discuss his new book Revenge for the Sixties: Sam Alito and the Triumph of the…
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He's Literally the Worst Dealmaker Ever. EVER.
OA1271 - The single stupidest war of choice the U.S. has ever gotten itself into may finally be coming to an end--or at least the concept of a plan for an end?…
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The National Review’s Defense of Todd Blanche Is So Bad It's Confusing
VR35 - In this episode released on the 54th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, the Vapid Response team raids the archives of the New York Times to retrieve…