Elie Mystal — Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America - with Mark Stern

In Bad Law, the New York Times bestselling author of Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution brings his trademark legal acumen and passionate snark to a brilliant takedown of ten of what he considers the most egregiously awful laws on the books today. These are pieces of legislation that are making life worse rather than better for Americans, and that, he argues with trenchant wit and biting humor, should be repealed completely.On topics ranging from abortion and immigration to voting rights and religious freedom, we have chosen rules to live by that do not reflect the will of most of the people. With respect to our decision to make a law that effectively grants immunity to gun manufacturers, for example, Mystal writes, "We live in the most violent, wealthy country on earth not in spite of the law; we live in a first-person-shooter video game because of the law."But, as the man Samantha Bee calls "irrepressible and righteously indignant" and Matt Levine of Bloomberg Opinion calls "the funniest lawyer in America," points out, these laws do not come to us from on high; we write them, and we can and should unwrite them. In a marvelous and original takedown spanning all the hot-button topics in the country today, one of our most brilliant legal thinkers points the way to a saner tomorrow most brilliant legal thinkers points the way to a saner tomorrow.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781620978580?ic_referral=4s-Ufhdxrm4e4I7lsJaRpmBJecBqWP06oI9g7lOWCNwwMzxMy8Jw6cujmQP0NSqznBbySngAOPyZXJ5pyUN6q3XruBnavyFc5z9PG0BAXYzWv3g3QUki_Rd6aS1dK0ylRykufQElie Mystal is the New York Times bestselling author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution (The New Press) as well as The Nation's legal analyst and justice correspondent, and the legal editor of the More Perfect podcast on the Supreme Court for Radiolab. He is an Alfred Knobler Fellow at Type Media Center, and a frequent guest on MSNBC and Sirius XM. He lives in New York.Mystal is in conversation with Mark Joseph Stern, a senior writer covering courts and the law for Slate and a regular MSNBC contributor. Based in Washington, D.C., he has covered the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appellate and district courts, and state and local courts since 2013. Mark holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and is a member of the Maryland Bar. He is the author of The Roberts Court Arrives, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. *recorded 4/3/2025