Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Shakespeare Theatre company bard Associations Annual dinner and mock trial. Before we begin murder in mycenae, please take this time to silence all electronic devices. Photography of tonights trial is strictly prohibited. Now, please join me in welcoming chair of the Bard Association. [applause] thank you so much for joining us. I said earlier that all the things we all do watching plays, being on the board, the mock trials and Bard Association is the most joyous. Tonights dinner and mock trial is presented by the Bard Association, an Affinity Group among many that support this theater. As you know, tonights argument is based on the text of the oresteia, which was adapted thellen mclaughlin with chronicles, the deluge of violence that can only be stopped when society peers into its own soul and sees a way out. Our performance, and i hope everybody got a chance to see it, which was our beloved artistic directors last here at the end of 33 years of being our artistic director. [applause] it closed not too long ago to critical acclaim both those who write about it and those in the audience. If you didnt see it, let me set tonights stage for you. Agamemnon killed his youngest daughter as a sacrifice for military success in the war against troy. After 10 years of war, greece, enraged, he returns home and is murdered by his wife, clytemnestra. Following this tradition, their son, orestes, with the encouragement of his sister electra, then murders clytemnestra, a crime for which he is ultimately pardoned. In other words, with all going on in his family, it was kind of like the greek early version of an episode of keeping up with the kardashians. [laughter] upon orestes return, he is plagued by nightmares. He hears voices in his head. Orestes files a lawsuit seeking compensatory and punitive damages against his sister, alleging it was her actions that were the proximate cause of his mental state and the damage to his reputation. Orestes case was tried before a jury, who found in favor that electra had intentionally taken advantage of his mental state and her act was the proximate cause of his emotional distress. Electra appeals, arguing that the jurys verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence and contrary to the law, and that the award was excessive. The Circuit Court of appeals of athens affirms the verdict and electra successfully petitioned the court of athens for review of the following question. Did electra intentionally or recklessly use orestes as the instrumentality to murder their mother, thereby causing psychological and or reputational damage to orestes . At the conclusion of tonights argument, you will be asked, as always, to serve as the jury and vote on the following question did electra intentionally or recklessly use orestes as the instrumentality to murder their mother . If at the end of the arguments, you believe that Trial Court Decision was correct and should be upheld, please vote with a blue token. If you believe it should be overturned, please vote with a red token. Please first welcome United State Supreme Court marshall pamela talking. [applause] and counsel for the petitioner electra. [applause] counsel for the respondent orestes from the constitutional accountability center. [applause] and in just a moment, we will welcome the members of the esteemed bench and they will be called to the bench by the supreme marshall, and presiding in the Supreme Court of athens for the scenario will be United StatesSupreme Court justices ginsburg and breyer, from the United States court of appeals for the third circuit, and from the United StatesDistrict Courts of the district of columbia. Thank you for being with us tonight. Enjoy the trial. Please, marshall, take the gavel. [applause] all rise. [applause] oh yay, oh yay, oh yay. The Supreme Court of athens is now in session. Please be seated. The Supreme Court of athens will now hear arguments in the case of orestes versus electra. And we will first hear from the council brickman, who is representing electra in seeking to overturn the judgment of the courts below. You may proceed. Madam chief justice, and may it please the support, id like to reserve five minutes of time for rebuttal. King orestes is not pleased that he is unpopular in the public polling. He brought this suit against his sister electra to diver diver attention from his failure to make athens great again. [laughter] the court should say no to this attack. Orestes tells this court a story thats different from the one that he told the other court that acquitted him of murder. There, he claimed it was apollo through the oracle at fox and friends that induced him to murder his mother. [laughter] as for the kings claim of a proximate cause, electra did not recklessly, let alone intentionally cause injury to her brother. When she spoke with orestes at the tomb of agamemnon, she was caught off guard. She thought orestes was dead. Orestes repeatedly spoke of himself as a stable genius and how he knew more of everything than did electra. Its plain as day that orestes already had resolved to murder his mother when he snuck back into the city. Otherwise, orestes wouldve arranged a homecoming as heir apparent and demanded the Buckingham Palace banquet approach that he prefers. [laughter] oraclecourse, the hannity explained orestes should return to arrest his mother to free up his ability to take the throne and become king. And that knife proves nothing. Orestes demanded electra hand her the knife. He had other knives. Orestes has invoked executive privilege to refuse to provide an answer to our subpoena for the sword. [laughter] and he refused his tax returns to be released so we can deduct purchase of weaponry. [laughter] finally, there is no evidence to support king orestess claim to damage. Damage to reputation . Seriously. [laughter] the word shorted is etched in stone at the house. Infanticide, matricide, cannibalism, incest, and treachery of every sort has long been attached to orestes family name. And damages to mental state . Orestes continues to rule. He presented the people with his personal physicians letter that hes the healthiest person to ever be king. As a pall of apollo, the god of healing. In fact, king orestes claim of damage is a subterfuge. Electra is a woman, and therefore denied to property. So a damage award for electra may mean debt imprisonment or worse. May i ask . This is all well and good what you said, but we all know your client had an unusual talent. She put things into peoples heads. She gave clytemnestra bad dreams. Now, isnt it likely that with that talent, she did the very same thing to her brother orestes . She put ideas into his head that would not have been there if she hadnt put them there. Beth well, electra did not plan to put any ideas into orestes head. She had been 10 years a servant. She had been serving in a position without any decisionmaking, without any ability to be out in the world like orestes. And indeed, your honor, if electra had had the intent and the obsession to kill their mother, she had all that time to use a much more feminine guile of poisoning against clytemnestra, and yet she never took that upon herself. But she repeatedly said, i will have my revenge. It will be to my brother, my brother. [laughter] beth she commiserated. She commiserated with her brother. [laughter] beth this was only after orestes came back and was explaining to her what apollo and the oracle had told him to do. I think your version of this conversation does not match the transcript released by wikileaks. [laughter] beth well, your honor, my client was not able to record or release any recording of that transcription. We all know the credibility of orestes is at core questionable because of his inconsistent story. He saved his own life by blaming apollo, and now he comes to this court and blames his sister electra. I wonder if there is another culprit involved that might be consistent with your theory of innocence. Is it possible that orestes, during his travels, had a stay at a resort in the Dominican Republic . [laughter] beth certainly, orestes was a man of the world and had traveled far and wide, and came back to mycenae under the dark of night and viewed his sister as a noncitizen. Indeed, he would label her an alien. He suggested he could build a wall to exclude all women from the city. Its implausible. Well, could i ask you another question . In your brief, you suggest apollo is to blame because hes the god of medicine and he somehow failed to treat oreste health condition. What im wondering is doesnt that depend on orestes coverage . [laughter] i thought that his Mental Health state was a preexisting condition. And shirley ely [laughter] [applause] surely he is still not on his Parents Health coverage. Beth well, now with his parents both dead, i assume that Health Coverage has expired. [laughter] beth as a ruler of the kingdom, he certainly has access to health care that he has attempted to deny to citizens, let alone the aliens within his jurisdiction. Foreign language] you are in the court of appeals of athens and you dont speak greek . [applause] [laughter] beth i come here as a mere noncitizen myself, your honor. I have been denied the ability for a true education, your honor, so i feel lucky enough to be here. Certainly one can hope of the day women are afforded the same rights of education as the men. [applause] ruth how can you possibly answer what electra has said . Shes condemned herself from her own mouth. She said he held the knife, its true, but only because i handed it to him. So she is waiting and waiting for her brother to return. She has a knife especially made for him. He wielded a knife, but she gave it to him. Beth but she gave it to him not out of voluntariness. This was her brother, who had been gone for 10 years, who she had yearned for to commiserate the loss of their sister at the rivers and of their father agamemnon. Then the death of their father at the hand of clytemnestra. She looked to him as a soulmate, someone to commiserate with. But again, your honor, it was only after he came to her at the tomb of agamemnon and surprised her and brought forth to her the story from the oracle and apollo that he was destined. I read on orestes twitter account that he has been cocked and loaded and ready to commit the murder. [laughter] asked his general how many people might die, and he called it off. [laughter] [applause] beth your honor, i think that goes again back to this court question, though, that he already planned to carry this out after speaking with apollo. The question is was he lying then or is he lying now . I dont understand this i am very confused about the facts. [laughter] i mean when you talk about incest, infanticide and murder, youre not just referring to. Erving children of the gods he didnt decide he was going to murder somebody else atreus kills his own brother, then we have the two children of atreus, agamemnon and menelaus. And agamemnon kills his daughter, and then after he kills his daughter, a woman comes and kills clytemnestra, who murders agamemnon. No yes, murders agamemnon, exactly. Then orestes kills everybody and if youre in pursuit, this is a seriously dysfunctional family. [applause] we will respond to that and then reserve time for rebuttal. Beth yes, your honor, that proves the point that there are no damages here. What reputation could possibly be harmed through that . He doesnt need a judge, he needs a therapist. [laughter] by the way, my wife is a therapist. Beth we do know that orestes was the only one in the room where it happened. [applause] electra was not there. And regardless of the knife, it was orestes who murdered clytemnestra and cannot now be called to blame electra for that. Thank you, your honor. [applause] counsel, please proceed. Good evening, madam chief justice. My friend on the other side is impressive, no doubt, but she said nothing that would shed down on the wise advice of the oracle at delphi, to file this suit against electra for intentionally exploiting orestes Mental Illness to cause him to murder their mother. Not only are the two Lower Court Judgments on his side, as well as the law, but you seem like a really nice court, so i feel like its important to say that the favor of the god apollo and goddess athena are also on my clients side. I understand madam chief justice has a vigorous workout routine, but the goddess athena can be very vengeful. [laughter] your honor, my client orestes has suffered greatly. [laughter] his father, agamemnon, was murdered by his mother. And after hearing his fathers dying screams, orestes was haunted by a deteriorated mental state. He was confused and vulnerable. He thought he heard voices. Seizing upon his feeble state, electra coerced him into killing their mother, confessing herself , as the chief justice said, that while orestes did the deed, it was only because electra handed the murder weapon to him. This was not very cool and definitely not very legal. [laughter] electras action was the cause of a tormented mental state and damaged to his reputation and this court should affirm the findings of the courts below. Electras actions caused extreme damage to orestes soul, his psyche, his social standing. The chain of causality is clear. But for electras intentional manipulation of his Mental Illness, he would not have killed his mother. But for killing his mother, he would not have suffered an understandable postmurder meltdown. Him from a prince capable of conversation and introspection, riding down the golden escalator into mycenae, instead turning him into a madman king, calling out for his dead daddy, incapable of recognizing his sister, terrified of birds, and taking to fits of crying on the floor. He had potential to be a great ruler, but now is subject to gossip and undermining and witch hunts. [laughter] as Emperor Trumpus would say, sad. [applause] without this courts judgment and the substantial damages awarded, electra will succeed in escaping the consequences of her actions. But we should not allow that to happen. Counsel, you omitted one very important fact. When orestes returned, before he ever sees electra, he announces that he is going to kill his mother because apollo commanded him to do that. So, he has this plan from the very beginning. Hes set on doing it before he even sees his sister. And then she is a good big sister. She supports him, encourages him. [laughter] that the idea is all his. I dont know how many times in the record of the prior trials he said apollo made me do it, it was apollo, apollo. Never once did he try to cast blame on his sister. Well, madam chief justice, i think we should take orestes seriously, but not literally. [laughter] when he said apollo made him do it, he did, your honor, think at that moment that apollo was telling him to do it, but because electra put those thoughts into his mind, so it is a consistent argument that at the time, he may have thought that apollo wanted him to do it. But he kept coming back to the oracle. I dont know why you say electra was the probable cause when the oracle clearly had the most influence. It was the oracle that told them to kill his mother, to sue his sister. Honestly, the oracle has had many as distinct advisor roles as mick mulvaney. [applause] so, with that much influence, how can you say that it was electras fault . Well, your honor, i think we have an acting oracle right now. [laughter] [applause] i dont know if theyve been able to confirm the oracle. [laughter] look, i will grant you that fate did declare clytemnestra must die for her action. Im kind of worried following up on Justice Powell athena, she of the bronze biceps were messing with some pretty vengeful gods here. These furies, have they started visiting you after orestes . What is the chance they will follow up on us after your client . You know, i hate to see it, but these furies are very good at trolling. So make your dms private. Thats my recommendation. [laughter] the whole story here is a bit questionable. You claim orestes was grieving his father at the tomb when electra intervened. But some of the servantwomen with electra said why did we let bryce harper go to the phillies . [laughter] well, i dont want to step on justice beavis toes over there. But i think this is a perfect example of why we need an excessive damage award against electra. But when it comes to damages, its very difficult to understand why youre maintaining this suit, because electra is afraid. Shes judgmentproof. So if this is just an attempt to humiliate her, knowing you will knowing he will not be able to collect any damages from her. Your honor, i respectfully disagree. First, she can afford this cozy burlington down jacket. [laughter] secondly, she has married a prince, and actually its one of the few greek provinces where women are permitted to own properties. I thought she had an agreement with mexico to pay. I think theyre paying in theory. [laughter] no, she does have resources. She married this wealthy crown prince. Shes able to own property in that state. Her claims of poverty here should not fly with this court. Is this in the record . I believe that the oracle told me about this. The oracle, wikipedia. I dont understand why your claim is based on the argument that orestes suffered reputational injury. Over the past few years, his aides have repeated over and over again that he is the best and able king mycenae has ever had, with the biggest crowds and most devoted followers. I hear that any will fireworks celebrations will be turned into an orestes fest and everyone is fine with it. [laughter] cant deny that if orestes shot you cant deny that if orestes shot someone on 5th avenue, the attorney general wouldnt prosecute him. He has a great reputation. Orestes does hear voices in his head, so i cant take all of his claims exactly literally. Look, this is ancient greece. Well, if this is ancient greece, im still confused. Orestes falls in love with hermione, and hermione is in love with pyrrhus and he has a son and then my god, what happens is hermione talks orestes into killing pyrrhus. And orestes goes crazy, get it . Get it . You dont get it . Ill spell it out. He now says, orestes, that hermione talked him into killing pyrrhus. And he is now saying that it was electra who talked him into killing clytemnestra. I mean, really. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. [applause] your honor, your question perfectly illustrates the foolishness of the claim of electra that because it involves family drama, it is not appropriate for the court. This is ancient greece. Our entire belief system is built on family drama. Lives in ther country and i go to visit her every christmas. [laughter] you know, the goddess athena did not just spring from zeus head yesterday. She knows orestes should have been pardoned because he is innocent. He was taken advantage of by his sister. Who hasnt had their sister convince them to kill their mother . [laughter] what rational leader would want to avenge a father who killed his helpless daughter . I mean, if agamemnon shipped his sale, why didnt he just act as defensive defense secretary to move his ship . [laughter] i believe he did put out a couple of tweets to that effect. But you know, look, he had an extra daughter. [laughter] thats why you have more than one. The jury only got acquitted because Kim Kardashian begged athena to pardon him. Look, i think that what we need to do is move further away from lock her up and more may it please the court. And thats what orestes is trying to do today. Can i ask you a hypothetical . Not to upstage my dear colleague. [laughter] what new information about orestes motivation is discovered in the documents after the untimely passage of one of his associates . [applause] sure, as counsel, you can represent one thing to us in litigation. We could be told that orestes believed that the question, hey, why dont you kill our mother . Was a legitimate one. Because it would somehow protect minorities in mycenae, but what if everyone realized orestess real motivation was to redraw the electoral maps and secure power for themselves . Shouldnt we just vacate this case . [applause] that is an excellent, excellent, excellent question. I think well find out probably later this week. But absolutely, your honor, the motivation here is important. He was manipulated through conniving machinations through electra. That is the only reason that he murdered his mother. But electra said it was apollo and the furies were involved. Why didnt you join them . Do we have jurisdictions over the gods . What kind of tribunal can be imposed . Look [laughter] im not saying im going to resist a subpoena if you try to subpoena the furies and the god apollo, but i do think there is claim of executive privilege here. There is something fundamentally wrong with your argument, i think. This is a story about vengeance. And orestes idea is that the vengeance has the end. Stop. Lling has to so the conclusion cant be for orestes to continue the vengeance. There must be a different solution. Madam chief justice, i feel like this is that end. Here we are in court. We are not battling it out with knives and bloodshed. We are here with this panel to blame someone else. [laughter] [applause] the blame lies where it appropriately belongs. But why not with the chorus . The jury observed it all and they couldve stopped it, and they didnt. Your honor, that was a fair whot, but it was electra locked the door when clytemnestra tried to free. The chorus is the chorus, they are not the main player here. So it is appropriate that electra should suffer this judgment and it needs to be a substantial reward because of her substantial newly married wealth. If she does not pay today, we will all pay tomorrow. Thank you, counsel. Thank you. [applause] minutes . W many five minutes. Thank you, your honor. I wanted to talk about those lower courts that my friend on the other side invokes. This court should say no to this notorious rbgg, ruling by greek guys below. And denies citizenship, electras peers were excluded by the jury and judiciary. That cast a shadow of a dutch illegitimacy illegitimacy that is contrary to democracy. I understand that nowadays, even in productions of trial by jury, there are women on the jury. Yes, we can only hope that the prophecy of athena comes forward to fulfillment with her feminine wisdom, reason, and law. Indeed, we can look forward to the day where she says on this very day in history at some point in the far future, we should expect a group of swift footed women warriors of soccer to sail the sea to defeat the kingdom of spain and advanced to advance to the quarterfinals on their holy quest. [applause] finally, your honor, this is a ruse that there is any ability to get recovery of damages from electra. Perhaps my friend on the other side had a wikipedia entry that had been edited. But the ability to not inherit your own property would present prevent a damage award against her own husband or satisfy her own award. So really, this is an effort to lock her up in debt bondage. We urge the court to say no to orestes and not allow electra to be made another metoo with her slaughtered sister and mother. [applause] we urge the court to reverse and give justice to electra, to bring back the reason law not to let orestes continued blood feud and cycle of hatred override what athena has established. Thank you, your honor. [applause] the court will take a brief recess. The honorable bench will now deliberate. [applause] please be seated. As the bench deliberates, our audience will cast their vote by placing a red or blue token in the circulating baskets. The question is, did electra use intentionally or recklessly use orestes as the instrumentality to murder their mother . Please vote red for yes if you believe electra did use orestes and the Trial Court Decision should be upheld. Please vote blue for no if you believe the decision should not be upheld. Again, the question is did electra intentionally or recklessly use orestes as the instrumentality to murder their mother . Yes. E vote red for blue for no if the Trial Court Decision was incorrect. Please vote once. [laughter] ladies and gentlemen, please welcome abbe lowell for tonights discussion. [applause] abbe as i indicated before, the night has great moments for all of us. Let me please welcome my guest tonight. You know who he is. I will not state his name yet for a purpose, so i will tell you something you know something about, but not all about. Our guest is the ceo of monumental sports and entertainment, which owns the nhl 20 stanley cup champion washington capitals. The soontobe champion nba washington wizards. Both of whom play across the street. Well come back to that. The wnba washington mystics, the 2018 arena bowl champion washington valor, the baltimore brigade, and the nba 2k leagues wizard district gaming. Quite an accomplishment. Our agreement was if he participated, the Shakespeare Theatre company comest we would never do an Opening Night when theres a home game across the street. [laughter] our guest is nationally recognized philanthropist and when to report our, awardwinning filmmaker. He sits on a variety of boards, and is the former Vice President and former vice chair of aol. Please identify yourself for the audience. Is my real name. [applause] ted when my father and his brother came to ellis island, they went to different processing lines. And my father came out lewis leonsis, and my brother came out stanley lewis. Abbe so the first question is just the obvious, as it alludes to the obvious. Our company has the name shakespeare. We all know he was dramatically influenced by the greek tragedies. But as ive just shown in michaels production of the oresteia, the greek plays themselves have lasting power. They have lasting relevancy. Were talking not just hundreds of years since the 16th century of shakespeare, but thousands. What is so compelling that people will come because it means something . Ted why do you assume shakespeare was a man . Abbe did i use a he . Ted you did. Very off trend right now. The great thing about greek drama, greek tragedy is it set the architecture for everything were about. Not just democracy, but the way we communicate in storytelling. There are three great acts. It used to be boy meets girl, boy misses girl, boy gets girl back. It morphed into outsider comes from nowhere, surprises the experts, becomes very, very publicly successful, and people are rooting for their success. And then, because of hubris, an act of god, evil competitor, there is a very, very public and humiliating fall, and then there is the come back. And at any one time, all of us are in one part of that. If you carbon dated our president , he was in all three of those acts. American drama, we value the comeback more than we do those first two acts. And i think greek tragedies are i like greek comedies a little bit better. I know youll ask me if i liked electra as a play. I did until just now. [laughter] i think frogs is an interesting play. But the theory of telling a story and then watching it as art you look at the iliad and the odyssey, and in media res, thats powered most of our dramas. I met Quentin Tarantino once at sundance. And we talked for a couple of minutes and he said that the iliad and the odyssey was the most important influence on his work. Hes going to do 10 movies. I think the one thats coming out is his ninth. But if you look at his greatest work, it starts in the middle of things and then weaves back and forwards. And so the greek tragedies all the way through shakespeare all the way to hollywood today really set an architecture on how will you grab an audience, how you will influence that audience, and it also drove politics. Its not inconsequential that are the people we consider our greatest president s are orators. We believe in their stories. We believe the narrative they try to create for themselves. We have a president right now that is creating his own narrative in 140 character soundbites, but its honestly no different than telling stories and being able to motivate large audiences with your narrative. Abbe so among the things we now recognize is not just the influence of Greek Literature and tragedies and plays on things we still perform, but almost everything that we do has a profound impact from what happened thousands of years ago. Our form of government is based on greek democracy. Were talking about the Supreme Court here. Look at the Supreme Court building, look at the parthenon. Right across the street, theres this arena that does something about sports. And sports was so influential in greek society. You take all those things, what do you think is the fundamental 4000n that again, 3000, years later, these are influences in modern america . I think weve lost the soul of what democracy was. It was supposed to be of the people, but there was a responsibility of the people to understand what government was. I sat next to bill gates and david rubenstein. David was talking about civics and how theyve done a test. Immigrants have to pass an exam. I think you have to get a 70 to become a citizen. Immigrants are much more educated now on what our country is about and that if you asked a young student in high school, they cant name the three arms of the government. And so we have to get back to educating people so that they understand what is involved with managing our own country. Weve lost a lot of that. I would also say that we should never lose sight in democracy. Theres 7 billion people on earth. There are 350 million or so in america. We have become a very, very small part of the overall population. Now 4 billion people on the internet. The internet has become the great democratizer, for good or for bad. Abbe you started that was the idea. Our goal was to make more democratic the access of information, the ability to communicate, the ability to bring lots of people together so that you could do polling, you could understand what a community was thinking. And to be able to share knowledge because at the heart of what the internet should be, and now well see regulations abbe do you think now is the time we need to have the regulations . Because your concept of a vehicle of democracy has been used in making democracy. Ted oh, yeah, facebook, twitter jack dorsey, mark zuckerberg, theyve flown too close to the sun. Abbe nice analogy. [laughter] ted yeah, because the idea behind this was to have the majority of the people benefit. And whats happened on twitter and facebook is bad actors have taken control. And today, when we were meeting and talking woman pulled out her , a iphone and talked about when someone tweets and how it lights up over the world, server by server, undoing what that voice was, and the bots have taken over, the machines have taken over. Thats about as far away from empowering the people as imaginable. All thats only powering the algorithms. Abbe im curious given youre so well read. What is your favorite greek play or piece of literature . Ted well, i ended up with my career by going to georgetown. I had to write a senior thesis. And i was a little bit lazy, so i went into the library to find the smallest book there. Abbe and it was . Ted old man and the sea. And i had a fantastic mentor, father joseph durkin. He wrote 99 books. He lived to be 101 years old. He was a fantastic man. So, what was the book about . I said, it was about a guy going fishing. It was hot out. It was sticky in cuba. The father said im really disappointed in you. You should go and read it in the context of what was happening in the time. And theres deep spiritual power in the book. And so i did read it again and i fell in love with hemingway and i started to read all of his books. And i noticed that hemingways style had changed. It had gone from a journalistic journalistic style to more journalistic style to more faulkneresque, very long stories and intertwined narrative. So the father said, whats your idea . I said, i think hemingway wrote old man and the sea when he was a journalist. He probably needed the money. He wasnt as successful, he freshened it up a little bit. He said thats an interesting theory. How will you prove it . I said i dont know, maybe write a letter to mary hemingway. The father said lets use a computer. We had one computer at georgetown. To make a long story short, we used the ibm 360 and input thousands of books from his career, wrote the first liberal arts algorithm, and asked the computer when did hemingway write the old man and the sea . It said 1930, not 1951. It was a breakthrough in the first time liberal arts and technology had come together. And thats really whats powered the social media, combining the front end with a back end platform. Question, i know everybody in this audience wants to know. When are we bringing the championship back . Ted next year. You know, there are three acts in a great drama. [applause] ted so everyone loves a comeback. The ambassador of greece, whos sitting behind me, who likes me and respects me, says, what happened this year . [laughter] abbe so stay tuned. Well, everybody please thank ted. [applause] all rise. Please be seated. As the court has deliberated conscientiously, and im pleased to announce that we have reached a unanimous judgment. Now our reasons differ [laughter] ill ask each of my colleagues to explain why they reached the judgment that they did. So, i will start. We have agreed, unanimously, to reverse judgment of the court of appeals and to remand to dismiss the suit. Now, this has nothing to do with the quality of counsel. Both sides were excellent. [applause] but my reasons, this whole purpose of the oresteia is to end the cycle of vengeance. The chorus, at one point, realizes were all in it together. We were there. We watched. We didnt do anything to stop it. But what must be stopped is the cycle of vengeance. We cannot let orestes continue this cycle of vengeance. We have to find a way that people can come together. Those of you who saw the oresteia i think appreciated the brilliant ending that was modeled on the truth and Reconciliation Commission in south africa. Let everybody tell his or her story. Lets all listen and learn from listening. And then there will be war no more. So, for that reason, the cycle of vengeance must end, orestes cannot prevail in my judgment. And now i will call on my colleague, justice breyer, to explain the reasons for his joining the judgment. I would say the deep reason is the reason Justice Ginsburg just said. The more frivolous reasons, important as they are, is first there is no jurisdiction. Quite clearly in the sport, its a Circuit Court. Its a federal court, and we know nothing about family matters. Go to the family court if you are having dysfunction. But i have another reason and the other reason is simply this. It is obvious apollo did this. Apollo is mean, nasty, horrible, and tough. Now, i knew apollo. Apollo was a friend of mine. And all i can tell you is electra was no apollo. [laughter] [applause] ill have just one comment on my brilliant colleagues in this statement. This case doesnt belong in our court. What about john dice versus john dice . That was in england. Who can understand english . [laughter] and next, secretary. I joined the judgment in part because men have been blaming women for their failings since [applause] adam blamed eve for the apple, henry blamed his wives for failing to produce an heir, yoko ono was blamed for breaking up the beatles, and Homer Simpson blamed marge for his doughnut addiction. How can we progressed to a civilized state, valuing the contribution of all of its citizens if it perpetuates the strategy of men blaming women for their inability to exercise selfcontrol . [applause] i too would reverse. Apollo enjoys theocratic immunity and im not about to cross him. [laughter] [applause] and finally. Judge jackson. Thank you. I joined the judgment for perhaps the most frivolous reason of all, which is that a District Court judge, i just follow what the majority tells me to do. [laughter] [applause] [laughter] do we hear from the audience . Yep. Please welcome back abbe to read the jurys decision. [applause] so, chief justice said the judge had the last word. And of course in our theater, the true democratic theater, the people have the last word. The red, if youll remember, and we kind of faked you out in the middle, but you got this right, would be to sustain the lower court and find for the judgment that occurred. The blue would be to overturn the verdict for electra. I said that right. This is to find that orestes judgment will prevail, and this is to overturn. [inaudible] say it again. [laughter] wait, you guys are saying you didnt vote in that fashion . Hold on, im looking for chad. [laughter] alright, whatever you thought you voted for in red, this is it. [laughter] whatever you thought you voted for, this is blue. [laughter] [applause] all rise. [laughter] this concludes murder in mycenae. Presented by the Shakespeare CompanyBard Association. We hope you enjoyed the evening and enjoy the rest of your night. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up sunday morning, well discuss labor union and workforce issues with national right to work Legal Defense president. Then with the center for american progress, lyrica and workers project. Watching cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern sunday morning. Join the discussion. Weekend, independent senator bernie sanders, running for the democratic residential nomination, held a town hall and ice cream social in raymond, new hampshire. Watch sunday on cspan, online at cspan. Org, or listen live with the free cspan radio app. Housefridaym the oxford held a convention focused on the Opioid Epidemic and Substance Abuse recovery epidemic. It again with keynote remarks by john kelly. Oxford house was established in 1975 to provide sober living environments for people in recovery from addiction. This is just over three hours. I think given the time scenario here, i might just have to talk it through and you might not see the slides, unfortunately. [applause]