Opening Arguments

VR2 - Vapid Response Wednesday returns live on video for another round of bad-faith legal takes from the American right’s leading--well, let’s just go with “minds.” We begin with a quick check-in on the divided state of the U.S. “sovereign citizen” movement via a short explainer video in which one of its leading grifters denounces a whole new set of grifters who are promoting the concept of an “American State National.” We then plumb new depths of dumbassery from Harvard Law school professor/crypto-theocrat Adrian Vermeule. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Vermeule has called out the true villains of the American judiciary: lower court judges who aren’t doing exactly what Adrian Vermeule imagines the Supreme Court has told them to do. Matt breaks down why this column doesn’t provide a single example of the trend it purports to be exposing, and Lydia has the details on one of MAGA’s favorite legal scholars. Who is Adrian Vermeule, what is “Catholic integralism,” and why is a man who has previously gone to so