XXceedingly Persuasive

This episode is dedicated to celebrating the Mother of the Disability Rights movement, Judith "Judy" Heumann. Judy passed away this weekend and I feel tremendously lucky to have chatted with her last year. In addition to countless personal, nationwide, and worldwide achievements, Judy helped get the Americans with Disabilities Act (r ADA) passed and was featured in the Oscar-winning Netflix documentary "Crip Camp." As we begin Women’s History & Disability Awareness Month, here’s to Judy

Therapist-in-training Amita Padiyar and I watched the "Casey Anthony: Where the Truth Lies" docuseries on Peacock, so you don't have to (& honestly, came away with more questions than we thought we'd have)!

A recap of the 2022 US midterm elections, which are (mostly) completed: the issues that motivated voters (abortion, inflation, party frustration); false predictions of a "red wave;" state/senate/house highlights; and what the results mean for the next few years!

In part two of the pre-midterm-election VOTE PLEASE! series, we are talking about voting third party or abstaining from voting: from the history of third party presidential candidates, the laws that make third parties unlikely to win, and-- by comparison-- some long-term strategies to implement systemic change (while doing what we can to minimize immediate harm in the meantime).

In the first part of a miniseries on voting, election law, and pre-midterm desperation, public interest lawyer Mackenzie Joy Brennan talks about voting in a two-party, federalist system; harm reduction strategies; and our short-term versus long-term goals when we go to the ballot box.

In reproductive rights pt 2, we're piecing together the lineage n legal framework of the right to choose: from the Framers' regard for natural rights (like the right to privacy), to Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey using the due process liberty interest, to the current Supreme Court's disregard for these rights and precedents.

Plus, a whirlwind tour debunking abortion misconceptions (no pun intended). Tune in to our repro stream with Jackie Zebrowski & Dr. Jordan at twitch.tv/ohnoitsjackie May 17 at 8 pm PST/11 pm EST!

Find citations, reproductive services, or learn more at mkzjoybrennan.com

Roe & Casey's reproductive protections have been all but scrapped by the US Supreme Court (with honorable mention to Texas). Let's arm ourselves w/ medical facts, stats, precedent, and other paper bullets of the brain!

In part 1, we're talking about the realities of abortion procedures and reproductive rights. In part 2, we'll dig into the jurisprudential and constitutional-interpretive history from the framers to the present.

Cites and other repro' resources at mkzjoybrennan.com

Justice Stephen Breyer has announced that he's stepping down from the US Supreme Court. While he's far from the first Justice to retire, Breyer is responding to mounting pressure for the Court's older, liberal members to leave while Democrats control the Senate and Presidency. Political influence on the Court has been mounting ever since Reagan's controversial nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, and has carried through to the constitutional violations and nomination battles that shaped current SCOTUS.

(Watch this ep as a two-part video on mkzjoybrennan.com !)

The baby on the album cover of Nirvana's "Nevermind" has re-filed his lawsuit against the band after his initial complaint was dismissed last month. The baby (now-adult Spencer Elden) claims what, you ask? CHILD PORN. Child porn is a reprehensible scourge on human existence but Nirvana's album cover depicting a naked baby swimming is not, per se, pornographic (in the opinion of this humble description writer)...

Will this lawsuit hold water?!

In the early 2000s, everyone was certain Scott Peterson had murdered his pregnant wife Laci. We all “knew,” thanks to sordid & relentless media coverage, that there was no doubt in his guilt.

BUT almost everything we heard on the news was incorrect, the investigation was flawed, the facts don’t add up, and the trial was rife with misconduct. Scott Peterson is now appealing his conviction and death sentence n I’m parsing through it (thanks to the A&E docuseries, "The Murder of Laci Peterson" on Hulu)