Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Scotus in Complete Shambles After Major Ruling

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

In breaking news, a not so civil war has publicly erupted on the US Supreme Court, as Justice Alito of the far right publicly ridicules and chastises Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson about her calling out the MAGA right for selling out “principles” for “power” in putting its thumbs on the scale of justice and siding with Louisiana in a new order penned by Alito hat allows new Red congressional maps to be drawn even while lower courts litigate what to do about Louisianans who have ALREADY voted under the old maps. Popok takes a hard look at the new orders, and KBJ’s public statements in the last couple of weeks that are proving to be right on the nose. Pocket Hose: Text LEGAL to 64000 for your 2 free gifts with the purchase of any Pocket Hose Ballistic hose. Message and data rates may apply. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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between Justice Sam Alito on the far, far right, and Justice Katanji Brown Jackson. It has to do with congressional maps and remapping the Voting Rights Act and the protection of minority rights. And it broke out into the open over which on the top line looks like a fight about procedure, but when you get down to it, it's a struggle existentially for our democracy. I'm Michael Popock. You're on the Midas Touch Network in Legal A.F. Let's talk about the new one or two paragraph decision by Justice Alito that came out about the Voting Rights Act

and about when the actual decision that was rendered by the Supreme Court on the 29th of April will be sent down to be enforced. Will it be now or will it be in 32 more days as permitted under the regular rules of the Supreme Court? Of course, MAGA got together and said, no, let's send it down now so all the remapping can happen in Louisiana, sticking their big fat thumbs on the scale of justice and their big noses into ongoing litigating. in Louisiana going on right now about whether the Louisiana can remap and the taking away of the vote for people who've already voted in Louisiana on the old map. And then you have a, frankly, a nasty attack on Katanji Brown Jackson, who was in the dissent

by Sam Alito, joined by a couple of other on the bench, including Gorses, in Cavada. All right, let's get to it. And there's also new reporting, including through Democracy Docket, about Bert Calais. We call the case Calais versus Louisiana. And Bert Calais was on the winning side

at getting John Roberts and the other five MAGA members of the Supreme Court to tear away the last vestige of protection under the Voting Rights Act for people of color, particularly under the 15th Amendment. But who is Bert Kelly? Turns out he's an election denier. He is an election conspiracy theorist. He was listed as a non-African American voter, but a democracy docket did a good job in the last day outlining all the social media posts that show that he is an election denier to the first degree. And that was the plaintiff in the case, putting it on pretty shaky grounds to begin

with. Here's the new ruling by Alito. I'm going to play you a video of Katanji Brown Jackson, anticipating, I think, this very, very moment. This is Alito. He's actually joined by Justice Thomas and Gorsuch in the concurrence. It has to do with whether, as requested by Louisiana, whether they were going to shorten the 32-day waiting period that's in the Supreme Court rules for entry of the court's judgment

and speed it up so that Louisiana gets in advance. and some lawsuits that are going on brought by the American Civil Liberties Union to stop the remapping because it'll lead to the throwing away of votes already cast. And the Supreme Court gets in the middle of it. Rather than, as Katanji Brown Jackson says in her dissent, rather than apply what's called the Purcell doctrine, a made-up doctrine by the Supreme Court that says, well, we're getting too close to the election and chastising a lower court federal judge for getting embroiled in a primary in New York and remapping, that was five months ago,

suddenly the Purcell doctrine on the eve of an election disappears. Here's what Alito says. The dissent, and every time I say the dissent, that means Katanji Brown Jackson. The dissent in this suit levels charges that cannot go unanswered. The dissent would require that the 2026 congressional elections in Louisiana be held under a map that has been held to be unconstitutional. stop right there. As Katanji Brown Jackson points out, in the last 25 years, the Supreme Court has only bent the rules and immediately had its judgment entered twice. Okay. This is highly unusual, especially when there is ongoing litigation in the lower court, in the exact matter that was at issue at the Supreme Court. And they also say that he says two of the

reasons provided by Katanji Brown Jackson, he will address. One, he says, is trivial, and the other is baseless and insulting. Here we go. Here's the fireworks. The second reason offered by the dissent is that we should allow the 32-day period to run out in order to avoid the appearance of partiality. But the dissent does not explain why its insistence on unthinking compliance with the rules does not create the appearance of partiality by running out the clock on behalf of those who may find it politically advantageous to have the election occur under the unconstitutional map. I think he misses the point. The point is that there's litigation that the Supreme Court is now taking sides on that is currently going on about voting. The dissent goes on to claim that our

decision represents an unprincipled use of power. That is groundless and utterly irresponsible charge, says Alito. The dissent accuses the court of unshackling, itself from constraints, it is the dissent's rhetoric that lacks restraint. This is pretty ballsy stuff, to be honest with you. You don't see this. This lack of decorum among Supreme Court justices where he's taking a swing at Katanji Brown Jackson. I'm excited to tell you about the world's number one expanding garden hose and their brand new product, the pocket hose ballistic. I used to have to buy a new hose like every year due to kinks and tangles, but the pocket hose ballistic is the upgrade I've been looking for my entire life.

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Message and data rates may apply. Here's what she had to say in her dissent that got the feathered. all ruffled and nose been out of shape of Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas. Now, talks about how we got here with the case, talks about the 32-day rule, and it says on page two of her dissent, a candidate and a Louisiana voters who have already submitted their ballots, filed suits against the governor and the Secretary of State of Louisiana,

asserting that whatever might happen in the future, this election is already underway and must continue under the current maps. Meanwhile, to facilitate Louisiana's midstream redistricting rush, appellees now ask us to expedite the release of the certified judgment in Calais. These post-Calais developments have a strong political undercurrent. Normally, the Supreme Court stays out of politics, in fact, finding that it's not justiciable. And as always, the court has a choice. By my count, we have granted Katanji Brown Jackson says, an application to issue the judgment forthwith, immediately, over a party's objection only twice in the last 25 years.

Not content to have decided the law, it now takes steps the court to influence its implementation. And make no mistake, that course of action does not follow from the decision itself. The question whether our decision should affect the map to be used in the ongoing primaries raises a host of legal and political issues. There is also a so-called percelled principle, which we invoked only five months ago, she writes on page four, to chide a federal district court for improperly inserting itself into an active primary campaign. And here's the dig that Alito didn't like. The court unshackles itself from both constraints today and dives into the fray. And just like that, those principles give way to power because this abandon is unwarranted and unwise,

respectfully I dissent. And then she takes some of that. And then she takes some of the principle. on in the footnote. Footnote three, because the way the drafting of these decisions work, everybody gets to see everything before it goes out the door. So she gets the final word in footnote three of her dissent. Contrary to Justice Alito's charges, my conclusion here does not require that the elections to be held under a map that has been held to be unconstitutional. But he is correct to observe that I neither, that I am neither claiming that it is now too late for the state legislature or the district court to adopt a new map. Indeed, my preference is for the court to stay out of all this. And the best way to do that is to stick with the default procedures. It is the majority that opts

to do otherwise, thereby seemingly endorsing Louisiana efforts to change the map before the pending lawsuits have a chance to play out. That is your point, a point that was purposely missed by Alito in his dissent attacking Katanji Brown Jackson. Here's Katanji Brown Jackson just recently, talking about her problems with her brethren on the court. Play the clip. In terms of its relationships with the lower courts and the American people, they are substantial. To start, having a docket that allows the court to routinely interfere with lower court cases while they are in progress disrespects the lower court's authority and withholds the deference appellate courts have traditionally provided regarding fact-bound matters that are within a trial court's expertise.

In addition, the court is withholding its own work product by issuing summary orders, further undermining the public's confidence in our judicial colleagues. A one-line stay grant that overturns a lower court's contrary conclusion suggests that the judgment call was so easy that no deliberation or explanation is required. And that suggestion casts aspersions on the tedious work that our colleagues have done to carefully parse the evidence, weigh the various factors, and exercise their considerable equitable discretion. Summary orders on the emergency docket are also costly in terms of the court's own relationship with the public. The Supreme Court's power comes from its reasoning, so it really does need to inform the public. as to why it has decided to chart a particular course.

Issuing important decisions in such a cursory manner disrespects not only the people whose lives are upended by its rulings, but also the public that has given it, trust, and authority. And then there is the fact that significant real world harms can follow Supreme Court rulings, and when our orders don't acknowledge, don't acknowledge that reality, they seem oblivious and thus ring hollow. Similarly, given the real-world facts that a stay requests ask the court to consider,

the court's stay decisions can, at times, come across utterly irrational. We cannot expect the public to have faith in our judicial system if, without clear explanation, we consistently green light harmful acts that do real damage to litigating plaintiffs without a court decision fully and fairly determining the lawfulness of that challenged conduct on the merits. A litigant can do all that are... All right. This shows that just barely beneath the surface, we have seething ideological and jurisprudential differences. that's a nice way of putting it on the court. I think that one day if a Democrat gets control of the presidency, I think somebody like a Tangi Brown Jackson will be Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

A position Alito, who's close to retirement or resigning, will never attain. And that's part of the backdrop here of what we're watching. Jealousy, once again, rearing its ugly head. And it has not been lost on me. of the stark contrast here between a bunch of old white guys in, in a joined by Clarence Thomas for cover in Alito and Gorsuch attacking the only black woman on the United States Supreme Court in Katanji Brown Jackson about an issue about fundamentally whether there's going to be black and minority representation primarily in the South or not for the next generation.

I'm Michael Popak. Take a minute, come over to LegalAF and hit the free subscribe button as we continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. Until my next report, this is Michael. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber for a substack at Midasplus.com. They'll get daily recaps from Ron Philikowski, add three episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content, only available at Midasplus.com. Behind every F-35 jet is a Canadian company.

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