Sarah Isgur and David French discuss the surprisingly complicated Suncor SCOTUS oral argument, Justice Samuel Alito and his AI usage, and circuit cases on child sex abuse material, vaccine exemptions, and racial harassment.
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Isgur → discuss → material
The Agenda:
–An appropriate use of AI by Justice Alito?
–“I don’t think Justice Alito has DraftKings on his phone.”
–Will Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition ever get overturned?
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Ashcroft → think → Coalition
Advisory Opinions is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective.
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Opinions → cover → perspective
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access → access → articles
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you → like → experience
I was born ready. [rock music playing]
Welcome to Advisory Opinions.
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music → bear → Opinions
We have got a pod for you today, our first oral argument of OT 2026.
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It's the Suncor climate change case, and, um, that got complicated.
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that → complicate → ?
we'll get the bottom line up front on who we think is coming out ahead in this case, but, eh, eh.
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we → get → case
Uh, we've also got more Alito book tour stuff.
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Turns out he's used AI.
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he → turn → AI
The headlines this week in law world were very zombie-focused.
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headlines → focus → world
And then we've got circuit cases, Seventh Circuit, Ninth Circuit, First Amendment abounds
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Uh, we've got child sexual abuse material protected by the First Amendment.
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we → get → Amendment
We've got vaccine exemption dissent about the First Amendment, actually Title VII, and a racial harassment case under the Equal Protection Clause coming out of the Ninth.
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David, let's start out the podcast with our first oral argument of the year, OT 2026.
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I have said that I think this is the biggest case of the year for me.
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Uh, this is Boulder, Colorado suing, uh, some energy companies.
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We have cases like this around the country, depends exactly what you count, but we're at several dozen now, whatever the number may be.
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number → have → dozen
Boulder's theory is state tort, nuisance, misleading advertisements,
you know, state law harm done by these producer companies.
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you → mislead → companies
They're not emitters, they're producers, so they're getting the fossil fuels out of the ground, and they're saying that that has led to, through a chain of events, global climate change, and that that global climate change has caused injury to people who live in Boulder, Colorado.
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who → get → Boulder
Just like any other tort, they can sue for that.
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they → sue → that
Just disclosure real quick for those tuning into this podcast for the first time, or not since recently, uh, my husband now works for Chevron.
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husband → tune → Chevron
And like Justice Alito, who recused himself because his wife owned stock in different energy companies, same thing kind of applies here because this will have effects on other producer companies.
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this → recuse → companies
But unlike Justice Alito, I'm not recusing myself.
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I → recuse → myself
But I did want to mention [chuckles] that, you know, potential problem.
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you → want → problem
The Aporia
