Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Supreme Court DROPS A BOMB on First Day Back

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

On it’s very first day of the new term, MAGA controlled Supreme Court in a 6-3 vote has ruled that women should die rather than obtain life-saving abortions. Michael Popok reports on the new decision upholding a Texas ban on abortions even to save a woman’s life even when a federal law says they must. Go to https://WashingtonPost.com/LEGALAF to subscribe for just 50 cents per week your first year! Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF 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 The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does possible sound like for your business? It's more cash on hand to grow with up to 55 interest-free days. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit mx.ca slash business platinum. This is Michael Popock, Legal AF. First Monday in October, Supreme Court opened for business.

First rule they come out with is against women and their reproductive rights and health. They have a 6-3 decision without any elaboration and no, apparently, a dissent, at least in writing. They have ruled against the Biden administration in its attempts to overturn a Texas ban on effectively all abortions, even in the case of the danger to the woman's life or health. So in Texas, if you're a woman and you're in danger and your health is at risk, you can't get an abortion even if it means the life of the mother is substantially at risk because of the six to three decision that just came out. Now the Biden administration has been desperately trying to use a federal law that's been on the books

called MTALA, which is the Emergency Medical Training and Active Labor Act. We call it MTALA, which is saying if you're a hospital or a medical provider and you are taking federal funds, which almost all of them are, through Medicare or Medicaid or other funding for research or otherwise, then you're going to have to comply with EMTALA, meaning if a woman's life is in danger, you're going to have to give her whatever treatment is required, including an abortion at that time. But Governor Abbott and Ken Paxton,

its attorney general, and the right-wing MAGA legislature in Texas put up a barrier to block. In Texas, you can't even get an abortion if the life of the mother is in danger. I don't care what they say publicly. The reality is that's not happening and that people in the medical community didn't know what to do. Well, now they know what to do. They cannot because they'll be violating Texas law apparently. They cannot provide abortion services and the United States Supreme Court doesn't care. They don't care. They've just given license to allow women to die and the balance between a woman's right to choose and an unborn life, they've sided with the unborn life. There's

no other way to put it. Now, I got concerned during the oral argument that happened about six or seven months ago. It was sort of led on the left of the progressive side by Contagi Brown Jackson and on the right by Amy Cote Barrett and the right wingers like Alito and Thomas. And I knew we were sort of in trouble. And what the major argument of the right wing was, well, you've got a law in the books in Texas, you no longer have a federal constitutional right for a woman to choose. So we've taken that away from you. We've left it as Donald Trump likes to say to the states, right? State by state. And now we see what happens. In 22 states, a woman is a second class citizen. There's no other way to put it because she doesn't have equal rights. She doesn't have equal protection under the law,

and she doesn't have right to her own bodily autonomy. I mean, we just had a judge in Georgia in writing his abortion decision, finding a right to choose in the Georgia Constitution, that there's no government rationale for forcing a woman against her will to carry another life in whatever form. And that is her ultimate decision of bodily autonomy, not in Texas, and not to this United States Supreme Court. And if it's six to three, that means that Amy Coney Barrett sided with it. I know she has seven children and she's a big Catholic, but we are all so tired of the Supreme Court, a bunch of white old guys and Amy Coney Barrett shoving their laws and their policies and their morals down our throat and through our body parts. I mean, it's enough. It's enough. And I was hoping that the Biden administration would be able to use EMTALA, that new law,

in order to serve as a firewall to protect women. And it would have worked if it wasn't for the United States Supreme Court. Now I get the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which leans completely to the right and is dominated by Trumpers. I mean, six out of the 17 were appointed by Donald Trump and another three or four right-wing conservatives appointed by other Republicans. And I know why, just so you know how this works. As you would expect, and with our news cycle, I've sent a lot of articles in the last week to friends from our next sponsor, The Washington Post. If you listen

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That's 80% off their typical offer. So this is truly a steal. Once again, that's washingtonpost.com backslash Legal AF to subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year. The MAGA purposely file lawsuits in single judge districts in Texas federal court, take the appeal up to the fifth circuit, which is right wing leaning. So they choose their judge, they choose their appellate court, and more cases this coming term come up from the Fifth Circuit on appeal to the United States Supreme Court than any other circuit almost combined.

There's a reason for that, because MAGA is pressurizing and using a pressure hose to send cases through the Fifth Circuit, Texas and Louisiana, to get it up to the United States Supreme Court where they have the numbers. That's why so many cases are coming up. It's not because those cases are, well, Fifth Circuit screws up so many times, they need to have their cases fixed on Supreme Court reversal.

No, it's because what we're watching in plain sight is the hijacking of the federal court system by MAGA and the Federalist and the Heritage Foundation and the right-wing donors and Leonard Leo, where they are using this strategy effectively to get cases presented to the United States Supreme Court so they can legislate from the bench. That's what we're watching. I got some great news though. Sunshine is the greatest antiseptic. On the new Legal AF MTN channel, we got a new collaboration with Court Accountability and Court Accountability Action, who is exposing,

you know, in their own way investigative reporting that rivals ProPublica is exposing the corruption at the federal court level all the way up to the United States Supreme Court level through dark money, MAGA money, Trumpers, Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, and others of their ilk. Court accountability. Look for their exclusive content on Legal AF MTN, Midas Dutch Network, on YouTube, along with a new show we call Unprecedented, which I'm doing once a week with Dina Dahl sitting at the intersection of law, politics, and this United States Supreme Court every week, bringing you stories just like this one.

Take a moment, free subscribe, Legal AF MTN. So we got the result. What's, I like to leave these hot takes with what you can do about it in a hopeful way. November, if you haven't figured it out yet, get registered to vote. Make sure you're registered. Make sure you jump through every hurdle and every barrier that MAGA has put up since 2020.

Just try to suppress the vote. Register to vote and vote every way they allow and vote as perfectly as possible. Show up with the right IDs on November the 5th. Show up with the right IDs during whatever limited early voting your state allows. Show up in the right precinct. Leave yourself enough time to vote. Use mail-in voting if you can. If you're allowed, use absentee ballots in voting if you qualify. If you're in the precinct itself and they try to take one of your properly cast ballots and move it over to a provisional pile because they try to take one of your properly cast ballots and move it over to a provisional pile because they try to challenge something about it.

Make sure you bring all your identifications and your voter registration card and try hard to get that ballot out of the provisional pile into the actual pile for vote counting. It's that important. Every vote counts. Every vote matters. Democrats and progressives don't believe in voter suppression. We believe in enfranchising people, not disenfranchising them. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF MTN YouTube exclusive, this is Michael Popak and I'm reporting.