rationally BASED

Center of the American Experiment
  • 4.7 (117)
  • Politics

Welcome to rationally BASED, a podcast about law and politics, on the edge. Law professors Josh Kleinfeld and Ilan Wurman, with co-host Kathryn Johnson, cover cutting-edge, and edgy, legal and political news, ideas, and developments from a conservative and based perspective.

  1. 9h ago

    Episode 44 | Midterm Mayhem

    A Brazilian Supreme Court justice who used to be Lula’s personal lawyer ordered the polls kept open for two hours after they were supposed to close. Another ordered the opposition candidate, Bolsonaro, to surrender his passport. He's since fled to the United States. Is that the sign of a healthy democracy, or is the global Left actually the authoritarian ones undermining democracies around the world? In Alaska, a second “Dan Sullivan” is on the ballot against the actual Republican senator of that same name. “Decoy Dan" initially filed with the incumbent’s middle initial, and filed as a Republican even though he's a lifelong Democrat. It turns out the Democrats coordinated to get him to run to confuse voters. Is that the sign of a healthy democracy, or does the American Left care more about power than the will of the people? And what legal consequences might there be for Decoy Dan, including possible criminal prosecutions? In California, the state was told that roughly 20,000 noncitizens may have received vote-by-mail ballots and refused to check. The Ninth Circuit denied emergency relief to the DOJ, with Judge Patrick Bumatay dissenting on obstacle-preemption grounds. Most Democrats don't seem to care that they have no way to check for illegal voters. Is that the sign of a healthy democracy, or is the Left once again hungry for nothing but power? Hosts Kathryn Johnson, Joshua Kleinfeld, and Ilan Wurman take on the midterm picture — and the legal fights surrounding it. The pattern is global: elite institutions, especially courts, used against conservative populists. This is the rational — and based — discussion of midterm election integrity, lawfare, and the rules of the game that you won’t hear anywhere else.

  2. Oct 22

    Episode 43 | Guns, Religion, and Immigration: The Rules Just Changed

    Trump’s Office of Legal Counsel has been on a tear, and hosts Ilan Wurman, Kathryn Johnson, and Joshua Kleinfeld explain the big developments. Guns: OLC announced that the federal ban on selling handguns to 18-to-20-year-olds is unconstitutional -- and DOJ announced it will no longer enforce it.Religion: OLC reversed federal policy that routinely barred religious charities from receiving federal grants. Religious charities can now get those grants on the same terms as secular ones.Immigration: OLC held that if a state knows about an illegal immigrant, it must report that person to the federal government—closing a 30-year loophole that let states ignore a clear statutory duty whenever they took federal welfare money.Riots in France: The hosts also briefly discuss the riots in France to argue that much of what the media calls “protest” is better termed "civic terrorism." This is the rational — and based — discussion of guns, religion, immigration, and riots you won’t hear anywhere else. Be sure to LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE to rationally BASED! Subscribe to our Substack! New Podcast Episodes every Thursday morning, find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on YouTube! Follow us on social media on Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok!

  3. Oct 15

    Episode 42 | Civic Terrorism Is Not Protest

    Chief Justice Roberts likes to take some time away from DC every summer and relax in Maine. It's a lovely community. Boats and barbecues. Neighbors and no cars. For years, it helped him reset from one of the country's biggest jobs. Then a local activist published an op-ed urging people to yell at him, give him the finger, refuse to serve him, and generally make sure he never has a moment's peace. Other activists obliged, kayaking up to his home every morning to denounce him. But is that really "protest"? The effort to make one man's life a living hell? Hosts Joshua Kleinfeld, Ilan Wurman, and Kathryn Johnson argue that: This is not protest. We need to call it by its name, and its name is "civic terrorism."Civic terrorism is illegal both criminally and civilly — and is not First Amendment protected.Civic terrorism is a form of cruelty, even when its motive is so-called "justice." It is also very effective. It is tactical cruelty.The only way to end civic terrorism is to impose consequences for it. The Right's preference for bemoaning bad behavior, rather than taking action against it, fails to meet the moment. But how to respond without falling into cruelty oneself presents deep moral questions that the Right must grapple with.This is the rational — and based — discussion of harassment, menace, and the breakdown of social norms you won’t hear anywhere else. Be sure to LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE to rationally BASED! Subscribe to our Substack! New Podcast Episodes every Thursday morning, find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on YouTube! Follow us on social media on Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok!

  4. Oct 8

    Episode 41 | Fake News and Foreign Voters

    Two big new cases just hit the courts, and hosts Ilan Wurman, Kathryn Johnson, and Joshua Kleinfeld take them on.  First, the President pulled the White House passes of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, saying: “The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS ….” The outlets sued, claiming a constitutional right to the passes, and a federal judge provisionally ruled in their favor on due process grounds. Is the due process claim sound? What about freedom of the press? Ilan answers that due process is out of hand if a press pass counts as “property,” and the President can lawfully attach germane conditions to a pass. Josh argues that major media outlets have been gradually shifting from “honest but slanted” to “outright deception.” The solution is to hold that viewpoint discrimination is unconstitutional, but calculated lying lowers the constitutional shield — even if the liar is named “CNN.” And Kathryn asks a question that cuts the other way: if a future Democratic president cannot pull the Daily Wire’s credentials, have we frozen yesterday’s media hierarchy into constitutional law? Meanwhile, a federal judge held that Congress cannot prohibit non-citizen voting in federal elections, because that power belongs to the states alone. Is that right? Or is it a trap that violates basic principles of republican government? This is the rational — and based — discussion of press access and non-citizen voting you won’t hear anywhere else. Be sure to LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE to rationally BASED! Subscribe to our Substack! New Podcast Episodes every Thursday morning, find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on YouTube! Follow us on social media on Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok!

  5. Oct 1

    Episode 40 | Missouri’s Map Fight and the Gerrymandering Arms Race

    Midterms are around the corner. Democrats have a shot at the House and Senate. And the maps that will decide those races are being fought in courtrooms as much as in legislatures. Hosts Kathryn Johnson, Joshua Kleinfeld, and Ilan Wurman take on the gerrymandering arms race — and the deeper question underneath it: Should courts referee election maps, or does that hand too much power to judges who never have to face the voters? They start with Virginia, where Democrats tried to turn a 51 percent state into a 10–1 congressional map, then lost on a technicality. Then Texas and California: two states with 60–40 splits in 2024 but maps that look nothing alike. Josh argues that partisan gerrymandering is exactly the kind of attack on democratic machinery courts exist to stop — and that Rucho v. Common Cause was one of the Supreme Court’s great mistakes. Ilan disagrees on the merits: the Fourteenth Amendment protects civil rights, not political rights, and nothing in the Constitution forbids a political gerrymander. Then the Missouri firestorm. Republicans passed a new congressional map. Democrats put it to a referendum. State and federal courts issued conflicting orders to the same official. The U.S. Supreme Court stepped in three times — on the shadow docket — and Missouri will go to the midterms with the old, more Democratic-friendly map. The hosts ask who was right, what the Purcell principle actually requires, and why the Left’s sudden silence about the “shadow docket” is so revealing. This is the rational — and based — discussion of gerrymandering, judicial power, and election maps you won’t hear anywhere else. Be sure to LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE to rationally BASED! Subscribe to our Substack! New Podcast Episodes every Thursday morning, find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on YouTube! Follow us on social media on Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok!

  6. Sep 24

    Episode 39 | Woke Universities, Foreign Campus Radicals, & Free Speech

    A public university is “We the People” spending our money on our children. A foreign student with a visa is a houseguest, not a relative. So why are judges telling states they cannot stop DEI dogma in public classrooms — and telling the United States it cannot send home non-citizens who preach hatred of the country? Hosts Ilan Wurman, Kathryn Johnson, and Joshua Kleinfeld take on two new cases that split conservatives from libertarians. First, a divided Eleventh Circuit held that Florida’s “Stop Woke Act” violates the First Amendment. Second, a California district court held that the Trump Administration cannot revoke student visas for anti-American, antisemitic, or other speech contrary to U.S. national interests. The hosts draw two lines.  On immigration, citizenship is the line: speech that is fully protected from an American may still be reason to send a guest home.  As to universities, public versus private is the line: a private university may teach what it likes on its own dime, but the people of a community should be able to oversee the institutions they create and fund for the sake of a public mission. This is the conservative/libertarian fight that will decide whether the Constitution is a charter of self-government or a suicide pact. And this is the rational — and based — discussion of free speech, woke ideology, and immigration you won’t hear anywhere else. Be sure to LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE to rationally BASED! Subscribe to our Substack! New Podcast Episodes every Thursday morning, find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on YouTube! Follow us on social media on Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok!

  7. Sep 17

    Episode 38 | Conservatives Are Getting the Lindsay Clancy Case WRONG

    Lindsay Clancy sent her husband out of the house, strangled their three children one by one, and then claimed a voice told her to do it. Was she insane? Eleven jurors voted to acquit. Has the jury system failed us? The conservative media sphere is getting this wrong, hosts Ilan Wurman, Kathryn Johnson, and Joshua Kleinfeld argue. The rage is justified. The insanity defense and the jury — ancient foundations of Anglo-American liberty — are the wrong targets. The disease is identity politics: a culture in which women side with women, and every group sides with its own, no matter the crime. Dead children become an inconvenience. Justice becomes secondary. Fake compassion becomes a tool of power. This is the most passionate episode we have ever recorded. Josh, who has taught criminal law for fifteen years, explains what legal insanity actually is, why it is vanishingly rare, and why this jury still almost acquitted. This is the rational — and based — discussion of crime, gender, and justice you won’t hear anywhere else. Be sure to LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE to rationally BASED! Subscribe to our Substack! New Podcast Episodes every Thursday morning, find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on YouTube! Follow us on social media on Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok!

  8. Sep 10

    Episode 37 | Family Reconciliation = Hiding Kids From Their Parents?!

    Washington State’s “Family Reconciliation Act” — arguably the most Orwellian name in recent memory — requires shelters NOT to notify parents if runaway children say they want “gender-affirming treatment.”  Meanwhile, the chief medical groups pushing gender transitions for children — WPATH and the AAP — now claim, in the face of lawsuits for fraud, that their medical standards of care were just “opinions” protected by the First Amendment. Hosts Ilan Wurman, Joshua Kleinfeld, and Kathryn Johnson break down the cases and ask the hard questions: Do the parents challenging Washington’s law have standing – and does it matter if standing doctrine is just a political football anyway?  Should conservatives use substantive due process to defend parental rights or try to get rid of substantive due process as the judicial invention it is?  And were those “standards of care” claims of fact, or just more politics? This is the rational — and based — discussion of transgenderism and the law that you won’t hear anywhere else. Be sure to LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE to rationally BASED! Subscribe to our Substack! New Podcast Episodes every Thursday morning, find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on YouTube! Follow us on social media on Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok!

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4.7
out of 5
117 Ratings

About

Welcome to rationally BASED, a podcast about law and politics, on the edge. Law professors Josh Kleinfeld and Ilan Wurman, with co-host Kathryn Johnson, cover cutting-edge, and edgy, legal and political news, ideas, and developments from a conservative and based perspective.

Information

  • Creator
    Center of the American Experiment
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    47
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 rationally BASED
  • Show Website
    rationally BASED

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