The Common Good with Sam Epstein

Sam takes on the Cornell fraternity case in full, walking through what changed between the 2024 police report and the 101-page 2026 civil lawsuit, why New York's actual incapacitation statute is narrower than most people think, and why "wrong" and "rape" got collapsed into the same word by a culture that only has consent left in its moral vocabulary. Along the way: Justice Scalia's Lawrence v. Texas dissent gets its vindication tour, the Duke lacrosse case gets cited as a structural warning rather than a parallel, and Sam argues due process is owed to everyone in this story, not just the side currently getting it.

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Sam breaks down a Middle East unraveling on three fronts at once: a Houthi offensive that's seized islands inside a critical shipping strait and left Saudi Arabia begging for American help it won't get, Trump threatening Iran with regime collapse the same week Iran's own proxy is doing the dismantling, and Israel's president pardoning a soldier convicted of executing a subdued Palestinian attacker. Then: why Daily Wire's new film about a Delta Force veteran hunting down Islamic terrorists and campus protesters is right wing pornography, no better than its left wing mirror image, and why Nikole Hannah-Jones just made the strongest case for school choice she never meant to make.

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Sam breaks down the biggest AI news week of the year: a researcher's public resignation warning AI could kill us all, an autonomous AI agent hack at Hugging Face that OpenAI's own systems missed for two months, and a Fed rate hike tangled up in fears of a bursting AI bubble. Then: why Curtis Yarvin's diagnosis of a government too short-sighted to handle the threat might be right even if his cure isn't, what the national debt has in common with it, and why a decade of climate doomsday dates that kept moving has left an entire generation unable to tell real danger from noise. Plus a personal update on wearing a Charlie Kirt shirt to school.

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One year since Charlie Kirk was killed. Sam breaks format for a full episode: the GOP's real three way fracture, ten years since the golden escalator, the ugly fight over who "really" killed Kirk, and why Sam wore his TPUSA hoodie to school today. His most personal episode yet.

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Sam breaks down the strangest week in Anglo-American relations in years — Trump threatening the Falklands over Britain's Iran war absence, Milei and the Netanyahus wading in, and the UK breaking sharply with Israel over West Bank settlements — and puts his own realist foreign policy framework to the test in the process. Then: AfD's landslide win in Germany and the "firewall" keeping them from power, tied back to the same establishment-vs-base fracture playing out in both parties here at home. Plus a follow-up on the Lindsay Clancy mistrial. Special one-year Charlie Kirk retrospective coming Thursday.

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Sam and Max return with a full episode: a federal court ruling exposes how far behind the law has fallen on AI, JD Vance defends his friendship with Tucker Carlson hours after addressing Israel skepticism at the Republican Jewish Coalition, and Trump announces what he's calling the biggest oil deal in history with Venezuela. Plus: Max weighs in on what it all means for the market.

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Sam breaks down the South Carolina Senate runoff, where Darlene Graham wins her late brother Lindsey's seat, and asks the uncomfortable question of who America is actually voting for: the candidate, or the grief. Same question applied to Erika Kirk stepping into Charlie Kirk's movement. Then: Hasan Piker's latest comments draw condemnation from across the political spectrum, including from his own supposed ideological mirror. Closing out with Trump's presidential rankings graphic, and what it actually reveals about how this administration measures greatness.

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Sam defends Flock Safety’s license plate cameras against backlash from across the political spectrum. Real cases, constitutional law, and where the line for real abuse actually is. Plus why the people cutting these cameras down aren’t the resistance they think they are.

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James Fishback gets crushed in Florida's governor primary but concedes like it's the opening chapter of a movement, backed by Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson despite their own public feud. Sam breaks down what that says about low-propensity online politics, and why he's glad Fishback lost even while agreeing with him on policy. Then: the Lindsay Clancy case, the Matt Walsh firestorm over postpartum depression, and the astrology-fueled campaign to defend her online, a hard look at who gets to be called a victim in America right now.

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Sam corrects the record on Wisconsin, breaks down AOC's egg-freezing announcement and the fiancé she didn't mention, digs into Trump Media selling early access to the president's own posts for $100K a month, and reacts to Luigi Mangione's potential federal plea deal, and why a quiet legal maneuver shouldn't be mistaken for justice.

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