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Opening Arguments: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Opening Arguments Media LLC
Opening Arguments is a law show that helps you make sense of the news! Comedian Thomas Smith brings on legal analysts to help you understand not only current events, but also deeper legal concepts and areas! The typical schedule will be M-W-F with Monday being a deep-dive, Wednesday being Thomas Takes the Bar Exam and patron shoutouts, and Friday being a rapid response to legal issues in the news!
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- Yesterday51 min
Biggest Democratic House Since Nixon Resigned, and Red States Moved the Most
OA1312 - Just how big was this blue wave? Jenessa has some exclusive homemade analysis for you to illustrate how the tides are flowing and where the biggest shifts happened. Plus coverage of the remaining procedural steps in Mississippi, what this could mean for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and some signature wins and loses. Cases and sources discussed: Debunk of some myths about the NPVIC Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.
- 4 days ago45 min
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 Hutchinson, and Trump's libel suit against the Wall Street Journal over the Epstein birthday letter, an exit package you have to hear to believe. We close out with a Canadian tourist charged with animal cruelty for abducting a flamingo from the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas. Cases discussed: United States v. Kseniia Petrova (dismissed vindictive prosecution case) Grand jury declines to indict Cassidy Hutchinson Trump v. Dow Jones ($10 billion Wall Street Journal libel suit, dismissed) Trump v. BBC (defamation suit over January 6th footage) Nevada v. Mitchell Fairbarn (the Peachy the Flamingo case) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.
- 5 days ago1h 3m
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 Mike Johnson saying something out loud on camera that he absolutely should not have said days before results came in. We've got Idaho forcing its voters to pick one official state gun (you can't have them all, Idaho). And we've got Ken Paxton's unhinged AI attack ad against James Talarico, possibly the worst political ad ever produced. Plus a genuinely enormous amount of good news that none of us were quite emotionally prepared for. Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.
- 1 weeks ago55 min
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 reported? Jenessa walks us through election security protocols, what happens to your ballot at every step in the process, and what election security experts are actually worried about. Cases and sources discussed: Brennan Center Election Cybersecurity Summit Voting Rights Lab election risk heat map We recorded this before charges were filed against James O’Keefe because he decided to prove me right by getting caught attempting voter fraud Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.
- 1 weeks ago53 min
"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 O'Keefe's rebranded operation, now calling itself the Citizen Justice League, sent people dressed in racist Muslim garb into Minneapolis polling places to test Minnesota's voter "vouching" law. Does the full footage actually show what the viral clips claim, or do the poll workers do exactly what they're supposed to? And what happens when the "random" names O'Keefe and Cameron Higby used to vouch for strangers turn out to belong to real, very surprised Minnesota voters? Thomas and Lydia go through the new documents and the county attorney's press conference, line by line. To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.
- 1 weeks ago44 min
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 Scopes Monkey Trial that somehow decides the real villains were the evolutionists. We've got Nebraska Man resurrected as a gotcha, H.L. Mencken slandered into oblivion, and a wildly invented eugenics subplot that never happened in Tennessee. Matt actually read the real trial history, so we get to find out just how much of this is "alleged" fact and how much is pure fan fiction built to make William Jennings Bryan the hero. Alleged (2010), dir. Fenton Bailey (fictionalized Scopes Monkey Trial drama) Cases discussed: State v. John Thomas Scopes (Scopes Monkey Trial, Rhea County, TN, 1925) Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! $2+ patrons already have the full episode at patreon.com/law!
- 2 weeks ago51 min
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 elections?" curious, how did we get here? Elections are running more or less as expected so far, because heroes are fighting for your right to vote across the country. Check out some pivotal lawsuits you probably missed in all the chaos. Cases and sources discussed: A comprehensive list of on-going election lawsuits hosted by Democracy Docket Unfortunately, right after we recorded, SCOTUS ruled to take that mixed result in New Hampshire and turn it into a big L Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.
- 2 weeks ago46 min
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 news, FEMA told Congress this week that it just doesn't want to do its job anymore. And we close out with a 1962 oldies song that somehow broke the Supreme Court. Cases discussed: Vetter v. Resnik Maslenjak v. United States (2017) Baker v. Coates Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! $2+ patrons also get a new Law'd Awful Movies every month.
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About Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments is a law show that helps you make sense of the news! Comedian Thomas Smith brings on legal analysts to help you understand not only current events, but also deeper legal concepts and areas! The typical schedule will be M-W-F with Monday being a deep-dive, Wednesday being Thomas Takes the Bar Exam and patron shoutouts, and Friday being a rapid response to legal issues in the news!
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