Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts

Informative and clearsighted Supreme Court podcast

To call this show partisan or biased would be too charitable—and mistakenly imply the presence of coherent arguments. What you get instead is a cloying slurry of sanctimony and selective outrage, offering little more than affirmation for listeners already convinced that any ruling they dislike is not just wrong, but illegitimate. Amicus is not useful. It’s ideological performance art masquerading as legal analysis. As a law professor reviewer put it here, it’s “more partisan hacker than clear and sober thinking.” Sadly, it seems the show’s true function is not to illuminate or educate but to inflame. It substitutes moral preening for legal reasoning, and treats disfavored rulings as heresy. Ironically, while paying lip service to the judiciary as an institution, it performs its own assault by undermining the legitimacy of any decision that doesn’t align with the host’s (strikingly leftist) political preferences as “dangerous” without bothering to unpack the court’s reasoning about questions presented. If you’re looking for intelligent insight into the law, the courts, or a deeper understanding of our constitutional system, Amicus does not deliver that. I recommend Advisory Opinions or SCOTUSblog.

Love this its like hanging out with your two nerdy law friends picking their brains. They pick apart the issues regarding the supreme court in an easily digestible way

Yikes. Recent episodes show so little introspection and awareness of how issues are viewed outside the bubble on the extreme left. Lithwick and guests are more about being on a sports team or in a creepy cult than applying rigorous analysis. “What is Kagan’s strategy!?!” Forgive me but her job is not to be a political operative, it is to interpret statutes and the constitution. The fawning interview of Strangio was ridiculous. He asserted that his side was upholding science. Well that’s funny because the medical orgs internationally that have conducted scientific reviews have asked for a pause on minor gender transitions. U.S. orgs have not conducted reviews or have suppressed ongoing reviews. It is absolutely grotesque and shameful.