Haiti has suffered under decades of crises, but the latest may be its most intractable. Violent criminals are now effectively in charge of the country, after years of assassinations and political instability left a power vacuum. As a new international force prepares for an intervention, A Word host Jason Johnson discusses the current troubles with Patrick Gaspard, leader of the Center for American Progress. They explore how Haiti fell into such dire circumstances, the role that American guns and policy have played, and how Haitian Americans and the U.S. government could help Haiti find stability.

Guest: Patrick Gaspard, chief of the Center for American Progress

Podcast production by Kristie Taiwo-Makanjuola

Want more A Word? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/awordplus to get access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s right-wing flag-flying; David Leonhardt’s take on A New Centrism; and OpenAI’s use – or not – of Scarlett Johansson’s voice. 

Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:

Jodi Kantor for The New York Times: At Justice Alito’s House, a ‘Stop the Steal’ Symbol on Display; Jodi Kantor, Aric Toler, and Julie Tate: Another Provocative Flag Was Flown at Another Alito Home; Jodi Kantor and Abbie VanSickle: Display at Alito’s Home Renews Questions of Supreme Court’s Impartiality; and Abbie VanSickle: What Do Judicial Rules Say About Alito and a ‘Stop the Steal’ Symbol?

V: The Original Mini Series on Prime Video 

Mark Sherman for AP: Roberts, Trump spar in extraordinary scrap over judges and Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst: Supreme Court Justices Barrett and Sotomayor, ideological opposites, unite to promote civility

David Leonhardt for The New York Times: The Rise of a New Centrism and A New Centrism Is Rising in Washington

John Dickerson for Gabfest Reads and New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the Westby David E. Sanger

Bobby Allyn for NPR: Scarlett Johansson says she is ‘shocked, angered’ over new ChatGPT voice

Nitasha Tiku for The Washington Post: OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show and Molly Roberts: Scarlett Johansson’s ChatGPT face-off confirms our fears about AI

Midler v. Ford Motor Co., 849 F.2d 460 (9th Cir. 1988) on Justia

Blake Brittain for Reuters: New York Times denies OpenAI’s ‘hacking’ claim in copyright fight

Michael Sainato for The Guardian: Consultant behind deepfaked Biden robocall indicated for Democratic primary scheme

Her by Warner Bros. Pictures

Here are this week’s chatters:

Emily: Hacks on Max 

John: Lauren Aratani for The Guardian: Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden

David: 99% Invisible: Towers of Silence

Listener chatter from Aaron Tax in Washington, D.C.: Andrea Sachs for The Washington Post: A beloved alley cat now lives in the Watergate. Was she kidnapped, or rescued?  

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Emily, John, and David talk about Republican politicians’ answers to the question: will you accept the results of the 2024 presidential election? See Alec Hernandez for NBC News: Here’s what top Trump VP picks say about the 2020 election results – and whether they’ll accept the 2024 outcome; Justin Green for Axios: Listen to Republicans on whether they’ll accept 2024 election results; and Patrick Svitek for The Washington Post: Top Republicans, led by Trump, refuse to commit to accept 2024 election results.

In the next Gabfest Reads, David talks with Sierra Greer about her new book, Annie Bot: A Novel.

Email your chatters, questions, and comments to [email protected]. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Cheyna Roth

Research by Julie Huygen

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Allegations about Sean “Diddy” Combs had been circulating, but it wasn’t until surveillance footage of the mogul assaulting his then-partner Cassie began circulating on social media, that his response changed from defensive to apologetic. 

Guest: Sidney Madden, reporter for NPR Music and co-host of Louder Than a Riot.

Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the third and final part of our How Originalism Ate the Law series, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern are joined by Justice Todd Eddins of the Hawaii Supreme Court and Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap. Being trapped by originalism is a choice, one that judges, lawyers, and the American people do not have to accede to. Our expert panel offers ideas and action points for pushing back against a mode of constitutional interpretation that has had deadly consequences. And they answer questions from our listeners. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Perry was sentenced to 25 years in prison for murdering Garrett Foster at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott just pardoned Perry and restored his rights, including the right to own and carry a gun. 

Guest: Christopher Hooks, contributing editor at Texas Monthly.

Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Justice Samuel Alito’s wife didn’t attend the January 6th 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally (unlike fellow SCOTUS spouse Ginni Thomas), but in January 2021, in a leafy Alexandria, Virginia cul-de-sac, the New York Times reports that the Alito household was engaged in a MAGA-infused front yard spat with the neighbors, even as the Justice was deciding cases regarding that very election at the highest court in the land. Justice Alito told the New York Times his wife was responsible for the upside down stars and stripes flying from their flagpole and that it was in retaliation for an an anti-Trump sign.   

It’s unseemly. Undoubtedly unethical. But this intra-suburban squabble, and the very clear implications it has for a public already aware of the Supreme Court’s dwindling legitimacy, is unlikely to evoke shame, amends, or recusal from Justice Alito. On this week’s Amicus, American legal exceptionalism sliced three ways: Dahlia Lithwick on the Justice and the Flag, Slate’s jurisprudence editor Jeremy Stahl on how Donald J. Trump’s criminal hush money trial ends, and Congressman Jamie Raskin on concrete steps to supreme court reform, how to get back the rights the Supreme Court has taken away, and what a binding ethics code would look like. 

Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get your tickets for Amicus Live in Washington DC here. 

In the second part of our series on Amicus and at Slate.com, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern are back on the originalism beat. This week they’re trying to understand the mechanisms of what Professor Saul Cornell calls “the originalism industrial complex” and how those mechanisms plug into the highest court in the land. They’re also asking how and why liberals failed to find an effective answer to originalism, even as the various “originalist” ways of deciding who’s history counts, what constitutional law counts, which people count, were supercharged by Trump’s SCOTUS picks. Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap, highlights how the Supreme Court turned to originalism to gut voting rights. In 2022, the US Supreme Court’s originalism binge ran roughshod over precedent and unleashed Dobbs and Bruen on the American people - Mark and Dahlia talk to a state Supreme Court justice about what it’s like trying to apply the law amid these constitutional earthquakes. 

In today’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Dahlia talks to AJ Jacobs about his year of living constitutionally, and she confesses to an attempt to smuggle contraband into One, First Street. 

Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss Stormy Daniels’s testimony in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial; marijuana rescheduling; and the media’s role and responsibility in defending democracy.

Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:

Josh Gerstein for Politico: Stormy spoke. Trump fumed. Jurors were captivated – but also cringed.

Ivana Saric for Axios: Status of Trump’s criminal cases

Li Zhou for Vox: Marijuana could be classified as a lower-risk drug. Here’s what that means.

Sam Tabachnik for The Denver Post: Black market marijuana grows are popping up faster than law enforcement can take them down. But is legalization the cause?

John Ingold for The Colorado Sun: What have we learned about the arguments for and against legalized marijuana in the past 10 years?

Nathaniel Meyersohn for CNN: The dark side of the sports betting boom

C-SPAN: President Biden Remarks at White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Ben Smith for Semafor: Joe Kahn: ‘The newsroom is not a safe space’

Dan Pfeiffer for Message Box: Why Biden Won’t Do a New York Times Interview and A Response to the Editor of the New York Times

Matthew Yglesias and Brian Beutler for the Politix Podcast: The Times, They Aren’t A Changin’

Charles Homans for The New York Times Magazine: Donald Trump Has Never Sounded Like This

Eli Stokols for Politico: The Petty Feud Between the NYT and the White House

Here are this week’s chatters: 

Emily: Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice by David S. Tatel 

John: Gina Kolata for The New York Times: Locks of Beethoven’s Hair Offer New Clues to the Mystery of His Deafness

David: Randy Yohe for West Virginia Public Broadcasting: W.Va. Gubernatorial Campaign Attack Ads Vilify Transgender Children and Kyndall Cunningham for Vox: The Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar feud, explained

Listener chatter from Justin and Katie in Columbus, Ohio: Keziah Weir for Vanity Fair: The Vatican’s Secret Role in the Science of IVF.   

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, David, John, and Emily talk with Emily Lawler, Detroit Free Press. See Emily Lawler for the Detroit Free Press: Voters’ voices in Saginaw County; John Wisely: Legal troubles don’t dampen Trump enthusiasm as he visits Michigan; and Paul Egan: As Trump visits, Michigan bellwether Saginaw County is feeling its political juice. See also Arpan Lobo: Michigan lawmaker says ‘illegal invaders’ landed at DTW. They were NCAA basketball teams.

In the latest Gabfest Reads, John talks with David E. Sanger about his new book, New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West.

Email your chatters, questions, and comments to [email protected]. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Cheyna Roth

Research by Julie Huygen

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spare a thought for the judge in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial. Justice Juan Merchan has gone from holding the former president in contempt of court… to telling Trump’s defense they probably should have objected more during Stormy Daniels’ testimony. 

Guest: Jeremy Stahl, Slate’s jurisprudence editor.

Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: prosecuting parents.

Ethan Crumbley’s parents didn’t pull the trigger that killed 4 students in 2021 — but they’ve been sentenced to prison time for it all the same. 

School shootings are devastatingly common in this country, but punishing the parents of the killer is a new tactic of handling the aftermath. Even if you think the Crumbleys were bad parents, though, the questions should be posed: why are we punishing them under the law? And is this the best way to address, or even prevent, mass tragedies?

Professor, writer, and legal contributor for ABC News Kim Wehle joins us to urge for a look at the bigger picture.

If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: [email protected]

Podcast production by Maura Currie.

Want more Hear Me Out? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/hearmeoutplus to get access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices