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Advisory Opinions
Advisory Opinions is a legal podcast by The Dispatch. Hosts David French and Sarah Isgur meet twice a week to talk about the law, the courts, their collision with politics, and why it all matters.
Episodes
Advisory OpinionsSwinging for the Fences
The Trump campaign is swinging for the fences in most of its litigation efforts in hopes that at least some of its legal arguments will be successful. But as…
Advisory OpinionsThe Church of Voter Fraud
Twitter is brewing with wildly unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud as election officials in battleground states continue to count ballots. For today’s myth…
Advisory OpinionsPivot Counties
It’s Election Day eve and our podcast hosts have their presidential race forecasting models at the ready. After a helpful breakdown on pivot counties in swing…
Advisory OpinionsVoting Battles Head to Court
We’ve already seen record early turnout this election cycle. Our hosts have three major takeaways from the surge: 1) It means the polls are more likely to be…
Advisory OpinionsEarly Voting Numbers Explained
Echelon Insights predicts that we will see record turnout this election cycle. How might a surge in, say, 2o million new voters this year affect the…
Advisory OpinionsDeer Jacking
Still shocked by the grand polling meltdown of 2016, many Americans on both sides of the aisle are convinced that Biden’s double digit national polling lead is…
Advisory OpinionsThat Hunter Biden Story
It’s October 15, 2020, and 12.4 percent of the votes that were cast in the 2016 election have already been cast this election cycle. Sarah and David try to…
Advisory OpinionsSupreme Court Fight Kicks Off
The Senate Judiciary Committee kicked off its confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett today with a predictably partisan spin. There…
Advisory OpinionsVeeps Make Their Case
Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence faced off Wednesday evening for their first and only vice presidential debate. But analysis of the candidates’…
Advisory OpinionsConstitutional Spelunking
Supreme Court oral arguments have resumed via telephone and our podcast hosts are nerding out. The court kicked off today with an interesting denial of cert…
Advisory OpinionsPolitics of the Supreme Court
How will Amy Coney Barrett shake things up on the bench if she is confirmed by the Senate before November 3? “Amy Coney Barrett will not be as revolutionary as…
Advisory OpinionsLitigation and Taxes
Several new polls were released over the weekend and Donald Trump is still trailing Joe Biden by roughly 7 to 10 points, depending where you look. Despite…
Advisory OpinionsElection Law Explained
A Louisville grand jury on Wednesday indicted one officer in connection with the March 13 police raid that took Breonna Taylor’s life. The grand jury declined…
Advisory OpinionsDeath of a Supreme Court Giant
Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, rocking the nation and setting the stage for a blistering Senate confirmation fight should the Senate Judiciary Committee…
Advisory OpinionsThe Owner's Manual of This Union
After reflecting on the best and worst parts of our country’s founding document for Constitution Day, David and Sarah dive into Attorney General Bill Barr’s…
Advisory OpinionsTell Somebody in Your Town
For the month of August, the Biden campaign outraised the Trump campaign by a whopping $150 million. (Biden raked in $360 million last month compared to…
Advisory OpinionsHow to Commit Voter Fraud?
Last week, President Trump encouraged North Carolina voters to test their state's election security. David and Sarah discuss how, exactly, someone commits…
Advisory OpinionsTime, Place and Manner
There’s a bit of post-2016 election PTSD among American political strategists, where any slight uptick in Trump’s polling numbers is perceived as an emergency…
Advisory OpinionsSatire Meet Reality
Ever since its humble beginnings in March 2016, The Babylon Bee—a Christian, conservative version of The Onion—has been a godsend for Americans who have become…
Advisory OpinionsFog in Kenosha
Violent riots escalated quicky in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after the police shooting of Jacob Blake. . On Wednesday, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with…
Advisory OpinionsSweeping to Gold
Today our hosts are joined by Phill Drobnick, head coach of the Olympic curling team, for some hot takes about the sport that inspired Sarah’s new campaign…
Advisory OpinionsDemocrats Go Virtual, Bannon Goes to Court
Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was arrested Thursday—along with Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea—after federal prosecutors discovered they…
Advisory OpinionsLegacy Nerds
The 9th Circuit recently heard an appeal from a challenge to the state of California’s ban on large capacity magazines (in this case, any magazine that holds…
Advisory OpinionsHere We Go Again
In 2017, an anonymous individual named “Q” began posting on a public messaging board called 4chan about “Pizzagate,” a conspiracy theory alleging that a…
Advisory OpinionsOur Place in the Stars
How realistic is the SpaceX dream to get to Mars? What does the latest scientific literature have to say about supernovae? Is there intelligent life in the…
Advisory OpinionsCastle Doctrine Differences
People who watch and comment on politics do so very differently than campaign operatives do. Campaigns use voter scores and voter modeling—which is essentially…
Advisory Opinions12 Angry Dinosaurs
Rewind millions of years and a dinosaur-killing asteroid is racing toward Earth at breakneck speed. But what exactly happened in the immediate aftermath of…
Advisory OpinionsFlip It and Reverse It: Squirrel Edition
The D.C. Circuit has decided to hear the Michael Flynn debacle en banc. For the meantime, as Sarah reminds us on today’s episode, “Michael Flynn seems to be…
Advisory Opinions99 Problems and an Election is One
Our esteemed podcast host Sarah Isgur launched her new Dispatch newsletter called “The Sweep” today, in which she broke down the effectiveness of the new…
Advisory OpinionsThat Escalated Quickly
A federal judge ordered the release of Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen from prison on Thursday. On July 9, Cohen and his lawyer went into the U.S…
Advisory OpinionsA Supreme Court Odyssey
The 2019-2020 Supreme Court term was quite the spectacle: the court canceled its March and April argument sessions, held oral arguments by telephone for the…
Advisory OpinionsJourney to the Center of the Supreme Court
After a momentous term at the Supreme Court, what are we to make of it all? Josh Blackman, associate professor of law at the South Texas College of Law…
Advisory OpinionsCrimes, Plural
With Joe Biden’s popularity rising in battleground states (according to several recent polls), Democratic lobbyists and party officials are urging the…
Advisory OpinionsNot in Oklahoma Anymore
The Supreme Court wrapped up its term today with an opinion on what counts as American Indian tribal lands and two related cases about the president’s…
Advisory OpinionsLittle Sisters 2: Vacated and Remanded
The Supreme Court has released two more religious liberty rulings into the world. Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey Berru ended up being a blow to…
Advisory OpinionsDial S for Severability
As we near the end of another Supreme Court term, speculation abounds over a Court retirement. Would the resulting nomination battle be more or less…
Advisory OpinionsSupreme Court Did What?
The Supreme Court denies cert to an abortion case, grants cert to a case over Mueller's secret evidence, and the Biden and Trump campaigns are lawyering up for…
Advisory OpinionsWhatever Happened to Baby Blaine?
Espinoza is finally here, and David and Sarah are here for a proper deep dive into the Supreme Court's decision. Plus their reflections on the legal and…
Advisory OpinionsThe Cheese Stands Alone
David and Sarah discuss another big day at the Supreme Court, from the court's decision to strike down a Louisiana abortion law to its ruling on the Consumer…
Advisory OpinionsThe Bridge on the River Mandamus
David and Sarah discuss Joe Biden's polling lead in six swing states, the latest development in the Michael Flynn case, the Supreme Court ruling on asylum…
Advisory OpinionsWhat Would James Madison Do?
David and Sarah discuss the president's rally in Tulsa, the firing of the U.S. attorney in New York, the lawsuit over John Bolton's book, and they process last…
Advisory OpinionsArbitrary and Capricious
David and Sarah discuss the Supreme Court's ruling that blocks the Trump administration from ending DACA for now, return to their discussion over the Title VII…
Advisory OpinionsTitle VII: Originalism vs. Textualism
The Supreme Court declined to take up new cases dealing with gun rights and qualified immunity. The court ruled that federal anti-discrimination laws protect…
Advisory Opinions'Twas the Night Before Brisket
It's Brisket Eve and David and Sarah are celebrating by diving into the latest polls on the protests around the country, the legal weeds of Confederate…
Advisory OpinionsThe Sound of Reform
David and Sarah discuss calls by protesters to "defund the police," ideas to reform police departments from no-knock raids to police unions, incorporation…
Advisory OpinionsBecause They Stand on a Wall
David and Sarah discuss the stunning critique of the president from James Mattis, the events of the last 24 hours from Mark Esper breaking with the president…
Advisory OpinionsFrom 1918 to 1968
David and Sarah discuss the latest news out of the Supreme Court including the court denying a California church's lockdown challenge, Rep. Justin Amash's plan…
Advisory OpinionsHow Do You Square a Circle?
The president has a new social media executive order. What happens if Trump loses in November, but doesn't want to leave? Qualified immunity and the Fourth…
Advisory OpinionsGolden Handcuffs
David and Sarah discuss the growing partisan divide over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the legal fights over church openings, Rachel Maddow's SLAPP…
Advisory OpinionsUltimate Supreme Court Nerdery Part II
David and Sarah finish their preview of a number of upcoming Supreme Court decisions from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to DACA and the Title VII…
Advisory OpinionsUltimate Supreme Court Nerdery Part I
David and Sarah discuss the end of Rep. Justin Amash's short-lived presidential bid, preview a number of upcoming Supreme Court decisions from Little Sisters…
Advisory OpinionsMeet the Faithless Electors
David and Sarah discuss 'unmasking' and Michael Flynn, Supreme Court oral arguments over the president's financial records and "faithless electors," and…
Advisory OpinionsTime's Up. Let's Do This...
The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru. Secretary Betsy DeVos releases new regulations to overhaul Title IX…
Advisory OpinionsJustin Amash vs. Death Star
Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan joins David and Sarah to discuss his announcement that he is exploring a presidential run as a candidate of the Libertarian…
Advisory OpinionsOur Lady of Guadalupe Goes Supreme
David and Sarah discuss the Supreme Court's first day of oral arguments via teleconference, preview the court's May calendar, get the latest in the U.S…
Advisory OpinionsThe Flynn Saga
David and Sarah discuss the latest after Michael Flynn’s defense claims FBI notes show agents tried to entrap him, the viability of third-parties as Justin…
Advisory OpinionsSmothered and Covered
David and Sarah discuss the latest polls looking at the 2020 election, the Supreme Court's decision to dismiss a New York gun rights case, and talk with Steven…
Advisory OpinionsQueso Burro
Supreme Court opinions, the president's immigration executive order, homeschooling controversies, and the longterm cultural effects of coronavirus. David and…
Advisory OpinionsShowing a Little Ankle
David and Sarah discuss the Supreme Court's decision in Ramos v. Louisiana that held that the Constitution requires unanimous jury verdicts for convictions in…
Advisory OpinionsThe Mostly Meaningless Podcast
Wisconsin primary results, regulatory taking in Pennsylvania, adjournment clause, 2020 veepstakes, and much more. David and Sarah have thoughts. Learn more…