Speaker 1: A public school superintendent faces deportation, the Secretary of War
dishes out some long overdue fat shaming, and a preview
of the most important cases about to be argued before
the US Supreme Court. All that and more on the
Kylie Cast. Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Kylie Cast.
I am Kylie Griswold, Managing editor at The Federalist. Please
like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and if
you're just listening to the show, be sure to go
check out the full video version on my personal YouTube
channel or the Federalist channel on Rumble, and then like
and subscribe there too. If you'd like to email the show,
you can do so at radio at the Federalist dot com.
I would love to hear from you. A couple of
crazy and seemingly unrelated stories have my attention this week,
but it turns out they are not completely disconnected. First
is it's the absolutely insane case of Ian Roberts, an
a legal immigrant who somehow became the superintendent of Des
Moines Public Schools, which is the largest school district in Iowa.
Roberts was arrested by Immigration and Customs enforcement on Friday,
and the details of the case are truly wild. According
to Ice, Roberts came to the US in nineteen ninety
nine on a student visa, so more than twenty five
years ago. Fast forward to twenty twenty and he becomes
the superintendent of a school district in Pennsylvania. That was
also the year he was charged with illegal weapons possession
because he had a firearm. Even though people here without
legal status can't legally possess a gun or ammo, it's
against federal law. So he works in this Pennsylvania district
for about three years, and then in twenty twenty three,
he was secretly elected behind closed doors to be the
first person of color to lead the Des Moines School District.
This is despite the fact that he's in al legal
immigrant without work authorization. Mind you, the Des Moin district
contains more than thirty thousand students, so, in other words,
tens of thousands of students were under the care and
direction of an illegal alien. So finally, in May of
last year, an immigration judge decides he's got to go
gives him a final deportation order. Then this past Friday,
officers find Roberts in his vehicle. They approach the car
and he speeds away to evade arrest. Later, they find
the abandoned car, which was a school district supplied vehicle
by the way, and they arrest Roberts, who, despite his
prior weapons charge, was in possession once again of a
loaded handgun, a hunting knife, and three grand in cash.
An Ice Field Office director said it best. He said, quote,
this suspect was arrested in possession of a loaded weapon
in a vehicle provided by Des Moines Public Schools after
fleeing federal law enforcement. He went on to say, how
this illegal alien went hired without work authorization, a final
order of removal and a prior weapons charge is beyond
comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district
couldn't agree more. And yet reportedly thousands of people have
shown up in protest outside the detention facility where Roberts
is being held. Absolutely insane. This is today's Democrat party,
not protesting on behalf of the kids and parents who
got completely scammed by Ian Roberts, but on behalf of
the illegal alien con man. Anyway, we'll come back to Roberts. Meanwhile,
another horrific story caught my attention this week. And that
was the murder of Logan Federico, a twenty two year
old college student who was shot to death during a
burglary in South Carolina earlier this year. Just awful. And
as if the details of the crime itself weren't bad enough,
the suspect, thirty year old Alexander Dickey, had reportedly already
been arrested thirty nine times and had twenty five felonies.
Here's Logan's dad recounting the details of his daughter's death
in a now viral clip before the North Carolina House
Judiciary Subcommittee meeting this week.
Speaker 2: Think about your.
Speaker 3: Child coming home from a night out with their friends,
laying down, going to sleep, feeling somebody come in the
room and wake them.
Speaker 2: And drag her out.
Speaker 3: Of bed, naked, forced on her knees with her hands
over her head, begging for her life, begging for her hero.
Speaker 2: Her father me, that couldn't be there.
Speaker 3: She was five foot three, she weighed one hundred and
fifteen pounds.
Speaker 2: Bang dead gone.
Speaker 3: Why because Alexander Devonte Dickey, who was arrested thirty nine
goddamn times twenty five felonies, was on the street. How
about that? How good are we doing? For our family.
How good are you doing for your kids? He should
have been in jail for over one hundred and forty
years for all the crimes he committed. You know how
much time he's spent in prison, a little over six
hundred days in ten years.
Speaker 2: He's only thirty years old.
Speaker 3: He was committing two point sixty five crimes a year
since he was fifteen years old. But nobody could figure
out that he couldn't be rehabilitated. Well, you'd have to
put him in prison to see if he could be rehabilitated.
Speaker 2: Isn't that the idea of prison.
Speaker 3: You need to fight for the rest of our children
to the innocence and stop protecting the people that keep
taking them from us. Please, you have the power. We
put you in the power to do what you have
to do. We're asking you, we're begging you all to
stop this. Thirty nine crimes in ten years, twenty five felonies.
Can anybody they hear explain to me, well, how possibly
he could be on the street, possibly be on the street,
How is it possible? And that curer criminal an hour later,
went on a spending spree with her debit card. When
they saw his face on a video. They didn't have
to do a check. He was arrested so many times.
I knew who he was, they knew exactly where to
go get him. Pathetic, Absolutely pathetic that I'm here today.
Speaker 1: So both of these stories, the story of Ian Roberts
and the story of the murder of Logan Federico, are
shocking and awful for very different reasons. The story of
Logan Federico's murder is shocking for what it exposes about
the abject failure of law enforcement, the courts, and soft
on crime nonsense that we have allowed to fester in
this country now for years. The Ian Roberts story is
shocking for what it exposes about the rot within this
country's broken and corrupt education system, as well as the
failures of decades of bad immigration policy, the effects of
which we're just barely beginning to root out. I mean,
Roberts has been in this country since nineteen ninety nine
and has been at the helm of public school districts
as an illegal immigrant without work authorization four years. But
there is one major thing both these stories have in common,
and that's that they both occurred in deep red states.
Republicans have controlled the governorship the State Senate and the
State House in Iowa for nine years almost a decade,
and in South Carolina for twenty three years twenty three.
There is no reason why any judge who contributed to
Alexander Dickie being out on the street after dozens of
serious arrests and felonies shouldn't be impeached by the Republican
controlled state House and Senate. If the problem turned out
to be as some reports indicate that for some reason
Dicky's fingerprints weren't taken or recorded as they should have been,
then the law enforcement personnel involved in NAS grew up
should resign or be fired. And all of this is
ultimately the result of a soft on crime ethos where
the criminal justice system is turned into a revolving door
of violent repeat offenders that officials get lulled into releasing
thanks to ridiculous rehabilitative and restorative justice rhetoric that's at
the expense of law abiding Americans who just want to
work and play and sleep without fear of being gunned
down for no reason. Any systems that focus on restorative
and rehabilitative justice cannot do so at the expense of
law abiding Americans. We cannot have Red states with deadly
levels of incompetence like this. The Trump administration is obviously
already cracking down on the third world blue cities like
d C and Portland, where violent crime is through the roof,
but we also can't let repeat offenders through the cracks
and tolerate incompetence like this in red states either, even
if it is less frequently as for Ian Roberts. This
should put to bed any and all criticism of Trump's
push to shutter the Department of Education. What an absolute
sham of a bureaucracy. But also, how on earth does
a Republican trifecta state like Iowa not vet immigration status
before hiring government employees. This is absolute insanity. Federalist executive
editor Joy Pullman right, and a piece this week quote
public documents show Roberts made many outrageous and contradictory claims
about his history that should have prompted due diligence from
numerous US education employers, including that he worked on a
security detail for Queen Elizabeth. In just the last five years,
Roberts built American taxpayers out of more than one million
dollars in superintendent salaries plus four hundred thousand dollars to
settle three lawsuits accusing him of hiring women over men
while leading a Pennsylvania school system. That district could not
verify his credentials, but still paid him one hundred and
eighty three thousand dollars per year, plus benefits for three
years end quote failures, failures, and more failures. You know self,
government requires just that that we can govern ourselves. And
moments like these where beautiful young women are murdered by
violent repeat criminals who never should have been out on
the street, and illegal aliens with criminal charges and no
work authorization are elevated to the highest ranks of a
government education system, really call into question whether we're capable
of governing ourselves. Democrats might reliably suck at governing, but
incompetent Republicans need a better pitch to the American people
than well, we're not Democrats. That's the Kamala Harris way
of campaigning.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I'm obviously not Joe Biden, and so
that would be one change services. But also I think
it's important to say with you twenty eight days ago,
I'm not Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: We've got to do better than that. If you cannot
safeguard your state's resources and your constituent's most basic rights
and freedoms, then by all means give your seat to
someone who will all right. Next up. Secretary of War
Pete Hegseth had a message for military leaders this week.
He convened of them at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia,
on Tuesday, and his speech was refreshing, to say the least.
Speaker 5: When it comes to combat arms units, and there are
many different stripes across our joint force, the era of
politically correct, overly sensitive, don't hurt anyone's feelings. Leadership ends
right now. For too long, we've promoted too many uniform
leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based
on gender quotas, based on historic so called firsts. This
administration has done a great deal from day one to
remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage
that had infected our department.
Speaker 2: To rip out the politics.
Speaker 5: But when it comes to any job that requires physical
power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be
high and gender neutral. If women can make it excellent,
If not, it is what it is. If that means
no women qualify for some combat.
Speaker 2: Jobs, so be it.
Speaker 5: It's tiring to look out at combat formations or really
any formation and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable
to see fat generals and admirals in the wholes of
the Pentagon and leading commands around the country, in the world.
Speaker 2: It's a bad look.
Speaker 1: Among other things, he condemned DEI. He stressed peace through strength.
He said, it's time to make our allies share the
burden of defending the free world. It's about time and
emphasize that personnel is policy.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes and dresses, no
more climate change worship, no more division distraction or gender delusions,
no more debris. As I've said before, and we'll say again,
we are done with that. To say it was a
dramatic improvement in messaging from the previous administration is the
understatement of the century. Joining me now to discuss pete
Hegseth's speech and more is Fedalist staff writer Sean Fleetwood,
who has an excellent piece today on the site about
the military called it turns out the military's Biden era
recruitment crisis was a leadership problem after all. Sean, thanks
so much for joining me today. It's great to see you.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me, Kage, It's great to be here.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah, always a pleasure. I'm so curious you watched
the Pete heggsas speech, as did I. What stood out
to you most from it?
Speaker 6: There was plenty there, Yeah, I mean, I definitely would
say it's a lot different than the typical speeches that
you'll hear from past defense are now war secretaries, but
different in a good way. I mean, he went up
there and just told it like it was highlighted so
many of the existing problems that have been in the
Defense department in the Pentagon for many, many years, under
many different presidents. You've seen the pushing of this radical
Dei ideology, this focus on personal identity over efficiency and lethality.
He talked about the need of just basic physical mental
fitness standards, making sure that our troops and that includes
officers in generals are just up to par and making
sure that they are actually fit and able to serve
in our forces. And it's not every day that you
see the war secretary tell the generals to their face
like you can't be fat to be in the military.
That was pretty great, But I mean, it was just
the type of boldness that's been so lacking and do
D leadership in the past. Just really needing to get
our military back on track and correcting a lot of
the long standing issues that we've been seeing over prior generations. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, It's one thing to hear Pete Hegseth say something
like fit not fat in in a workout video with
RFK Junior. It's another thing to see him gather all
of the generals in the same room and tell them, hey,
you need to be fit not fat. That was definitely
a change of tune from previous administrations. To put it mildly,
you write in your piece that as of this week,
actually the Marine Corps has hit its recruiting target for
the year, which follows on the heels of the Army,
the Navy, and the Air Force all hitting their goals
even ahead of schedule, which of course was not the
case under the Biden presidency, even though, as you point
out in your piece, during that administration, many traditional standards
were actually relaxed, so it should have been easier for
them to hit their recruiting targets. What changed in that regard?
Why are we suddenly hitting our goals.
Speaker 6: Gee, I wonder what changed between last year. This the
most amazing thing about this entire crisis, because it really
was a crisis. I mean, you can't bring in enough
young men and I guess you could say women to
our forces. I mean, that's a major problem for all
kinds of national security reasons. But the most amazing part
has been watching the media and the Democrats twist themselves
into pretzels blaming everything except the leadership issue. They'll say
it was COVID, They'll say it was the declining mental
and physical health of our youth. They'll say it was
a competitive job market. And those latter two are just
issues that predated COVID that made it more difficult for
the military to bring in new talent. But leadership matters
at the end of the day. Leadership absolutely matters. And
when you see a president that is pushing this racist
dei ideology, that is kicking troops out of the military
for not getting an experimental vaccine, that is repeatedly looking
at his watch as the bodies of thirteen American soldiers
that he got killed in Afghanistan are coming down the
tarmac and flag draped coffins that stuff matters. Young people
look at that, and that is not going to encourage
them to serve in the military. And so when you
have a president like Donald Trump, when you have a
war secretary like Pete Hegseth, people who actually show that
they have genuine care for the well being of our
troops and our service members, and people who understand that
the purpose of the military is to protect to the
American homeland, that that's the number one and only priority
of our military is to win wars. That stuff matters
to people who are making big career decisions and looking
and seeing if they want to serve in the military.
And what I think was the most distressing part under
the Biden presidency was you had grandparents and fathers who
are saying, I don't want my grandkids or my kids
to serve in this military because that's not the military
that I served in. It's just this left wing social
experiment that's pushing this leftist dogma and telling patriotic Americans
of all backgrounds that, sorry, if you love your country,
if you have conservative mainstream beliefs, you're not welcome here.
And so I think now that we've kind of gotten
back on course, that's why you're seeing such a massive
spike in recruitment months ahead of schedule for several of
the branches. And why the media refuses to acknowledge that
the failures of Joe Biden and the people in his
administration have wrought on the military.
Speaker 1: You write in your piece, from the very beginning, the
Biden Pentagon's message to patriotic Americans was clear, You're not
welcome here. Can you explain some of the ways that
the Biden administration seemingly actually tried to weed conservatives out
of the military.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, one of the first things that the DoD
did when the Biden administration came into power was it
issued a stand down order on rooting out so called
extremism within the military. And keep in mind, this was
right after the whole January sixth stuff, and you had
some veterans and service members that were involved in the
protests and demonstrations in DC, and so really that was
used as the kind of the prerequisite to go after
these mainstream conservative thoughts within the military. And I actually
think that there was a university era in Arizona that
had done a study on the efficiency of this effort
to root out so called extremism and it basically turned
up nothing. And then you also had later on in
the administration, of course, the COVID shotman, which now Secretary
Hegseth has said is unlawful, and the DoD Or Department
of War, I should say, is making efforts to bring
some of those people back into service. But there were
over eighty four hundred service members that were fired for
declining to get this experimental injection. That the administration barely
made any medical or religious exemptions, granted any of those exemptions,
and the very few that they did grant were of
people mostly who are just leaving the service anyways, who
were on their way out the door. And so that
was I think kind of those key moments that showed
the Biden administration saying, Okay, who's really going to stand
up for what's true, who's really going to stand up
for the constitution? And those are the people that we
need to kind of shuffle out the door so that
we have a military that is more than willing to
just be basically yes men and do whatever we order
them to do. And of course there's a certain allegiance
that you've of course pledged when you go into the military.
And obeying orders, but you also have an obligation to
the Constitution and to the American people, and I think
that that obligation is something that they were definitely trying
to shatter with these type of various efforts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if I'm not mistaken, during the Trump administration
this current one, didn't they reinstate members of the military
who had been dismissed over the COVID vaccine will or
the COVID shot as with their rank and backpay. Wasn't
that part of the Trump's Trump administration's efforts.
Speaker 6: Correct, So that was one of the executive orders that
President Trumpet issued when we came back into office. Hag
Seth has issued a couple of memoranda to kind of
further that along. But then you've been getting some reports
from outlets like The Daily Caller about some of the
I guess slow walking that we're seeing among the Pentagon
bureaucracy to get these people fully reinstated. So it's still
an ongoing process. I know that some veterans had recently
just met with heg Seth and other officials at the
Department of War involved in the reinstatement process. Hopefully we
can get that sped up and get these people fully
reinstated and with the full back pain and everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, super important, But just such a contrast between the
two administrations, Like you know, as you say, you're not
welcome here. What an obvious obvious contrast between the two.
Speaker 7: Are we in a labor force participation disaster?
Speaker 2: The Watch Doot on Wall.
Speaker 7: Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack
the connection between politics and the economy and how it
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men were in the labor force nineteen eighty seventy eight percent.
Now we're down to just sixty six percent. Think about that.
Government handouts and giveaways are not helping. Whether it's happening
in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially.
Speaker 6: Be informed.
Speaker 7: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1: As I'm sure you saw, the media reacted to heg
Seth's speech almost immediately, as did the armchair pundits on
Twitter with cries of racism and sexism. Specifically, Oh, Pete
Hegseth is banning women from the military. Oh, this is
the worst thing that's ever happened. Everything's racist, everything's awful.
One of them was journalist John Harwood, who had this
lovely tweet that I'm going to put up for you
all to see. Pete Hegseth has made clear that if
he had his way, the US military would have no
blacks and leadership positions and no women at all, which
is interesting because heg Seth actually said that people who
are too fat and lazy to fight in combat also
aren't fit to be military leaders. So it's interesting that
journalists would interpret this as black Americans and women. Kind
of seems like if there's any racism here, it might
be coming from the other side. Shot in your thoughts
on this.
Speaker 6: I have a lot of thoughts, A lot of things
probably aren't printable or can be said on this podcast.
But if I'm not mistaken John Harwood, like he like
what's the word, he like oversaw a Republican presidential debate,
like he moderated debate. If I'm not mistaken, like that's
who this guy is. I mean, it's just completely ludicrous
and such a disservice to all Americans who serve in
the military. I mean, if you're an American in the
military who's not white, why would you want DEI policy?
Why would you want these types of racial quotas. If
you're getting a promotion, and you're getting promoted to a
colonel or whatever rank, can you honestly say, like, yes,
I got this based on the merits. I know that
I got this based on the merits, And now you're
putting those types of service members in a position where
they have to wonder, did I get this because of
my meritocracy, because of my efforts, because of the hard
work and years of service that I put in, Or
is it because the bureaucrats at the top and the
woke generals want to check some sort of box here.
It's just just complete disservice to everyone around. But of course,
people like John Harwood don't think about that, because all
they care about is fulfilling this leftist dogma, this leftist
ideology that they are so wholly devoted to. And at
the end of the day, our military suffers because.
Speaker 1: Of it, Yes, absolutely, as it does when we lower
physical standards as well. I would love to hear your
reaction to Hegseth just mentioning that, like the military is
going back to one standard for combat, but for people
who will be in combat, no more of this like
one standard for women, one standard for men, to make
sure that women can be admitted into combat. What do
you think about that?
Speaker 6: It's great. I absolutely love it. The idea of women
in combat is actually a relatively new phenomenon. It was
actually something that was instituted during the Obama administration, so
it hasn't been around long. But what we've seen has
not shown that it has improved the efficiency or lethality
of the military at all. I believe the Marine Corps
did a study under the Obama administration comparing an all
male unit to a mixed sex unit, and the all
male unit vastly outperformed the mixed sex unit. And so
the message from head Seth and the Trump administration is
we're going to have one set of standards for everybody,
at all male standards, and if you can't meet that,
then you're not qualified. It's that simple. And I think
that that's so long overdue, because again, the Left has
made the Pentagon the military this social experiment that they've
been trying out for several years now, and they're more
focused on checking boxes than they are about fulfilling the
number one mission of the military, which is to win
wars and to protect the American homeland. And the thing
about the military is it's supposed to be discriminatory. It's
not for everyone. It's not for the weak carded or
the weak minded. It's for strong capable individuals who have
an interest in serving their country and who need to
be the strongest to serve their country. Because these people
protect us every day. They protect our freedoms, the ability
for us to have this conversation right now, and so
if you want to maintain those freedoms, you need the
best in, the brightest, and the strongest and have clean,
efficient one standard for everybody is the only way that
you're going.
Speaker 2: To get that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's so cool, especially just when you put
it in the context of this isn't just a military
specific recognition of biological reality. This is something that we're
seeing across the board of the administration where it's just,
you know, going back to the basics, boys and girls
are different. They're they're capable of doing different things. They're
capable of doing some of the same things, but like
these are just fundamental, immutable truths and it's so refreshing
to finally see people in leadership who who are willing
to just come out and say, hey, boys and girls
are different. You know, if women can meet these standards,
that's amazing. We're not intentionally discriminating against women, but we
need to we need to maintain a standard of physical
ability here and if women can't meet it while then
they just they can't. They can't be in combat in
this way, so super refreshing. I also loved hearing Pete
Hegseth just just put to bed this stupid mantra that
we heard throughout the whole prior administration and continue to
hear from Democrats on the regular, which is diversity is
our strength. That is the most meaningless, stupid, counterproductive phrase
maybe ever. And just to hear heg Seth say no,
diversity isn't our strength. Unity is our strength. That was
just such a breath of fresh air to hear from
this administration.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, the idea that diversity is our strength
doesn't really sit well when you're in the middle of
a battlefield and getting shot out by the enemy and
you're sitting next to someone who's having a mental breakdown
and they don't know what gender they are and can't
figure out any of that stuff. I mean, when stuff
like that was being perpetrated by the Biden administration and
actively pushed like let's have all these pride events, let's
celebrate gender identity and all of these great wonderful things.
I mean, China and Russia and all of our adversaries
just laugh at us. I mean these people, I mean,
as egregious in you know, communists and horrible as these
countries are, they actually understand that in order to win
these worldwide geopolitical conflicts, you need to have a strong military.
And that doesn't mean diversity is your strength. That means
finding the best, most capable warriors you can to uphold
your national priorities, and so the idea of diversity is
our strength. I absolutely agree. It's the stupidest thing that
anyone could dream up, especially when it comes to the military.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, It is really so crazy because under the previous administration,
I think we were just bombarded with so much reality
denial and just like stupid platitudes like that that meant
nothing and were just totally totally opposite to what is
true and good, and to the point where there would
be like tiktoks for recruiting people to the military. And
it's a service member who's also a drag queen who's
going from their uniform to their drag uniform whatever dumb
like full makeup and the hair and all the rest,
and that was supposed to recruit people to the military
or be like a sanctioned thing, like how do these
will not get in trouble for doing this? I think
it was actively encouraged. Now looking back on that from
where we are now, where you have Pete Hegseth saying
no fatties, no beardos, no climate alarmism, priorities, all of
this stuff that you know under the Biden administration that
feels like a fever dream. Now it is so crazy
that we actually lived through that insanity. And it's just
so cool that we now have a Department of a
War that is focusing on fighting wars or being prepared
to fight wars.
Speaker 6: So cool.
Speaker 1: So I want to change gears a little bit. Sean
to the Supreme Court, you also have a great piece
on the Federalist this week that everyone should go and
check out. We have oral arguments coming up for the
next Supreme Court term. Go read Sean's piece, The Federalist's
Guide to the twenty twenty five Supreme Court term. Sean,
can you please preview what you think will be the
three most important cases at the Supreme Court this term.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we got a lot of great issues before the
Supreme Court this year, as we always do. One of
the most prominent cases, I would say is a case
called Childs b. Salazar. This is about a woman named
Kaylee Chiles. She's a Colorado resident, a Christian, and she's
a counselor, and she often meets clients who are dealing
with things like trauma, addiction, and also issues related to
sexual orientation, so called gender identity, gender dysphoria, that type
of stuff. Well, in twenty nineteen, the state of Colorado
passed a law that prohibited so called conversion therapy for minors,
and so this basically prohibited Childs from fulfilling her obligations
as a counselor and helping children who are dealing with
these issues related to sexuality and helping them come to
a biblical understanding of these issues and gender and stuff
like that. And so in twenty twenty two, she filed
a lawsuit alleging that the statute in question violates her
First Amendment rights to free speech. The Tenth Circuit had
ruled against her in I believe twenty twenty three, twenty
twenty four. I'm having trouble remembering the year, but the
Supreme Court announced earlier this year in March that it
would be taking up the case. That'll be one of
the first or arguments that we have. I believe it's
taking place next week for the Supreme Court. Then you
also have a case called Louisiana versus KLA. This is
a case that dates back to twenty twenty two when
the state of Louisiana passed a congressional map with a
single black majority district Federal A group of plaintiffs, excuse me,
had filed a lawsuit immediately after, represented by left wing
groups like the ACLU, and they alleged that this new
map violated Section two of the Voting Rights Act, which
basically says you can't discriminate on the basis of race
in the voting context, and that the new map dilutes
the voting power of Black Americans. And so a district
court judge comes out places an injunction that pauses that
decision and orders the state to redraw the map. The
Supreme Court steps in blocks that injunction temporarily. Litigation continues
in the case, and the state ends up drawing a
new map, this time with the second black majority district.
A different group of plaintiffs sue, this time alleging that
the state unlawfully prioritized race in the creation of the map,
and they alleged that it violates the Fourteenth Amendments Equal
Protection clause. A separate district court comes out and issues
an injunction blocking enforcement of this map, and ultimately the
Supreme Court paused that and ended up taking up the case.
So what you have here in this situation is kind
of this quandary that states have been put in where
if you take race into consideration too much in the
redistricting process, you're going to be sued under the Fourteenth Amendment.
But if you don't take race into consideration enough in
the redistricting process, you're still going to be sued. This
just this time it's under Section two of the VRA.
And so what the Supreme Court hopefully is going to
address is whether race is permissible in the redistricting process,
whether it violates the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments. This is
an issue that's been plaguing the lower judiciary for decades.
It's an issue that Justice Clarence Thomas has been shouting
about in his opinions for quite some time. So hopefully
the Supreme Court will finally put this issue to bed
once and for all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Sean, you would know because you live to
read Clarence Thomas shouting in his descents.
Speaker 6: I listen, Clarence. If you're out there, you want to
grab lunch sometime, I'll shamelessly ask you to. I'm always free.
Speaker 1: Clarence's biggest fan right here on the Kylie Cast to
Day Sean. There is also there's also a case at
the court this term Trump be Slaughter, which could call
something called Humphrey's executor into question. Can you explain for
us that case and also why Humphrey's executor is important
what it means.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So this is a case that actually kind of
heated up in the past two weeks. So President Trump
earlier this year had fired Rebecca Slaughter. She's a Democrat
member of the Federal Trade Commission, and she ensued over
her firing. District Court judge placed an injunction on that decision,
basically allowing her to keep her job, and the Supreme
Court granted a request from the Trump administration last week
or the week prior temporarily staying that injunction. But they
also announced that they would be taking up this case
on the merits and hearing oral arguments later this year,
and one of the most notable questions that they asked
the litigants to address was whether Humphrey's executor should be overturned. So,
Humphrey's Executor is a case that dates back almost one
hundred years to the early nineteen thirties when President Herbert Hoover,
a Republican, nominated William Humphrey to serve as a member
of the Federal Trade Commission. Humphrey was confirmed by the Senate.
I believe it's a full seven year term. And then
FDR comes into office, who is a Democrat, and he
asks Humphrey to resign, and Humphrey says no, and FDR
ultimately ends up firing him. Now, there was a legislation
that Congress had passed at that time called the FTC Act,
which basically attempted to constrain the ability of presidents to
fire executive officials like Humphrey. So it basically said you
can only fire these certain officials for these very specific reasons.
And so Humphrey had died shortly after FDR fired him,
which is really a heck of a way to go.
But his estate, his executor sued on his behalf and
he claimed that Humphrey was unlawfully terminated and basically challenging
the executive power of the president to do this. Well,
the case makes its way up to the Supreme Court,
and in nineteen thirty five, the justices and a unanimous
decision ruled against Roosevelt, and they basically say that the
provisions of the FTC Act are constitutional and that the
firing of Humphrey was in fact unlawful. And so what
this ruling basically did was it constrained the ability and
kind of took away powers of the president to have
full oversight of what have now been dubbed independent agencies
and basically helped birth what is now known as the
administrative state is kind of de facto fourth branch of
government that kind of operates outside of the confines of
the Constitution and the traditional role of separation of powers.
And so I think what the Court is signaling by
agreeing to take up this case is that they are
finally willing to definitively strike down Humphrey's executor and kind
of return the powers that the Court in the nineteen
thirties had taken away from the President and kind of
moving us back towards a system of proper separation of
powers of our Constitution had established.
Speaker 1: Right right, because the administration, the administrative state isn't just
outside the three branches of government that the Constitution establishes,
it's also outside of the accountability of the American people.
If an elected official cannot get rid of somebody who
is technically under their purview, then who exactly are they
accountable to? Certainly not the American people in that case.
It's just this sprawling bureaucracy that doesn't have to really
answer for anything if they're not firable. Which this is
not the only case this term that deals with a
gruntled Trump fired person. We also have Trump versus Cook,
which is another case coming down in another Trump case
actually might be a pair of cases related to Trump's tariffs. So, Sean,
I don't know if you have anything interesting to say
about either of those cases. But lots of Trump related
cases this term.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure. There the pair of cases I believe
it's called Learning Resources Inc. Versus Trump, and then Vos
Solutions versus Trump. Those will deal with the president's tariff
power under a federal law and whether he has the
power to kind of universally implement these tariffs. And then
Trump v. Cook, which centers on the president's firing of
the Federal Governor Board member Lisa Cook, who is a
Democrat appointee. But all of both of those cases are
kind of all of these cases center around what's known
as the emergency docket, which if I could just kind
of address what exactly that is, because I think the
media have done such a you know, to give them credit,
a good job of sowing disinformation on this issue. The
Supreme the only thing, absolutely so. There are two key
tracks that cases take to get to the Supreme Court.
The first is called the merits docket, which is the
more traditional way the cases make their way to the court,
which is they are fully the case is fully litigated
at the trial or district court level, they're fully litigated
at the appellate level, and then either one of the
parties can decide to petition the Supreme Court to take
up the case. You need at least four justices to
agree to hear a case. The court can decide whether
they take it up or not. And so that's the
more traditional route. The emergency docket is a bit different,
and so I guess using the administration is the best
way to do this. You will have let's say the
Trump administration orders a certain policy or fires a certain
official that immediately gets challenged, and the plaintiff requests the
district court to place an injunction on that decision. The
district court grants the injunction, and the Trump administration wants
to appeal to the appellate level, you know, to have
them pause that. If the appeals court rejects that motion,
they can then appeal to the Supreme Court's emergency docket.
And at that point, the Supreme Court can decide whether
they want to pause that injunction thereby granting the administration
or party's request, or they can deny it and allow
that injunction to remain in place. And so what we've
seen in a lot of these cases, not all, but
a lot of them is the Supreme Court will in
fact issue a temporary stay on those lower court injunctions.
It's not a final ruling on the merits of the case.
It is simply a temporary pause on that specific court
action while litigation on the merits of the issue percolate
and continue throughout the lower judiciary. So the issue and
the merits of the issue might ultimately come back up
to the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court is basically
saying in that moment that this specific court action, we
believe that the party that made the request to pause
it has shown that they will be irreparably harmed if
the injunction, if the injunction is allowed to stay, and
that they will likely succeed on the merits of the case.
So again, it's not a definitive final ruling on the
legal issue at question. It is simply a temporary or
interim is Justice Kavinall likes to call it court action
to allow the case to fully litigate throughout the lower judiciary.
Speaker 1: Very helpful. Thank you for correcting the media's disinformation here
on the Kylie cast. You heard it here. No, this
is all super helpful and Sean readers should definitely check
out your piece for more helpful information about these cases.
The Federalists guide to the twenty twenty five Supreme Court term.
Before I let you go, Sean just in the last
minute here, you are not for listeners who don't know this.
You are not only the resident Clarence Thomas fanboy, but
you are also the Federalist's office quote in chief. So
I have not been able to do a culture cut
on the Kylie Cast in the past few weeks because
there's just been so much news that we have to
get to. I likely won't get to a culture segment
today either, so I just have to ask you, as
the office quoter in chief on staff, have you watched
the paper yet?
Speaker 6: I have not. It is on my to watch list.
I've been kind of busy finishing out watching New Girl,
which I had recently gotten into. The first four seasons
are great, but the last couple are kind of slow
for me. Don't really do it for me. But yeah,
I haven't watched the Paper yet. I'm kind of hesitant to.
But I did tell one of our colleagues that I
would watch it and write a review on.
Speaker 1: It, so I am excited to see it.
Speaker 6: Stay tuned at the Federalists for my likely negative reviews.
Speaker 1: I do have to say, and maybe it's just because
I went in with the lowest expectations imaginable, but I
have really enjoyed the paper. I finished it a night
or two ago, and I was pleasantly surprised. It's definitely
a different pace than The Office because the lead characters
are not quite a Michael Scott character, so it doesn't
have that, you know, there is no Michael and Dwight
to keep the clip going quite as quite as fast
as The Office. But it was not nearly as woke
as I thought it would be, despite how I thought
they were about to set up some of the characters.
And it was shockingly funny, Like it had me laughing
out loud at numerous points, and after watching the preview
for it, I really really had very low expectations, but
I thoroughly enjoyed it. My husband and I both did
tons of fun. You should definitely watch it. And there's
like a few little nuggets where they reference the Office
through Oscar. Not to spoil anything, but if you should.
Now everyone knows already that Oscars in it, but those
were like a little hokey and cheesy, but also kind
of cute. It's like Okay, this is a beloved show,
so it's okay to reference it. But beyond that, truly
very fun show. So I'm curious to hear if your
review matches mine or if you're gonna just be way
harsher on it than I was. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yeah,
and I love to hear that you're watching New Girl too,
because Jess is the worst part of that show. The
boys are where it's at. The boys are the reason
to watch New Girl.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cool. Well, I look forward to hearing your review.
Show the best character, yeah, hands down, hands down the
best character. Nick is a close second, so yes, yeah, well, Sean,
thanks so much for joining me. We are all, I
think I can speak for all of our listeners and readers.
We are all waiting with beta breath for your paper review.
But everyone, please go check out Sean's recent piece on
the military. Let me see here once again that title is.
It turns out the military's Biden ra Or recruitment crisis
was a leadership problem after all, and his piece The
Federalist's Guide to the twenty twenty five Supreme Court Term.
Thanks so much for being here, Sean. Thanks for having Katy,
great to see you all right. That's all for me today.
Thank you all so much for tuning into this week's
episode of The Kylie Cast. Once again, please like and
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and I'll be right
back here next week with more. Until then, just remember
the truth hurts, but it won't kill you