Whoa! Trump Judges make Shock Ruling and Block Maps

0:00Michael Popok:In response to Supreme Court instructions to consider whether Alabama's congressional maps remain unconstitutional and illegal under the new interpretation of the Voting Rights Act, a three-judge panel in Alabama, of all places, has said that map is too racist even for us. and intentional racism having been found at the highest levels of the Alabama legislature, the three-judge panel has said you're not using the racist map for the midterms and has struck it down despite, a month ago, the United States Supreme Court doing everything it could to gut the Voting Rights Act. They left one pin standing.

0:43Michael Popok:It's like bowling, except racism. The one pin standing is if a court finds intentional racism by the mapmakers, then they can still use the Voting Rights Act. And there we have a three-judge panel has found intentional racism in this breaking decision. This is a boon to the Democrats and the democracy and to black empowerment in the South, which is being picked off one by one by legislatures. I'm Michael Popok. You're here on the Midas Touch Network. And let's get down to the new result. Supreme Court sent back to various states like Alabama and said, reconsider whether you would strike down this map under our new interpretation of the Voting Rights Act in Section 2 issued by Judge Alito.

1:30Michael Popok:In a moment in this hot take, I'm going to explain to you why Judge Alito's premise is based on faulty data and false statistics and should never have been issued. That's for later in the hot take. But let's talk about Alabama. Three judge panel, two of them Trump appointees in Manasco and Moorer and senior judge Marcus. So the three Ms got together for the second time related to these maps. And here's what they had to say about the legislature trying to put some sort of sheen or imprimatur over blatant racism. Quote, from the order, which will post on Legal AF Substack. These events, along with the legislators' contemporaneous statements about race, meaning in the House for Alabama, they talked openly about getting rid of black representation.

2:22Michael Popok:Support only one inference, the panel ruled. The purpose of the 2023 map was to distribute black voters across districts to dilute their votes, to crack the black districts, right? And to spread them out among, and then to pack them into one. The panel wrote,

3:11Michael Popok:It wasn't about make more Republicans. It was about eliminating black people. They say further in their order, which the Alabama governor has already said she's going to appeal. The panel led by Judge Marcus said, we reject in the strongest possible terms the state's attempt to finish its intentional decision to dilute minority votes with a veneer of legislative regularity. You're not going to get away with, oh, you passed the law and therefore your racism's okay. Now, this is all that's left to federal courts under the Calais decision from a month ago, which said under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, only if there's intentional racism reflected in the record can a map be struck down.

4:00Michael Popok:Well, now federal judges, even in the South, are on the hunt for just such record evidence. That's all they're left with. You know, just as now legislatures are trying to hide behind the veneer of we're just trying to make more Republicans. We're not trying to eliminate black people who all happen to be Democrats in the South. No. Now federal judges are going to have to look carefully in the record to determine whether intentional racism exists. And they found it in Alabama for the second time. So hats off to this three-judge panel. I mean, Manasco and Moore are Trump appointees. Marcus comes from the Neiman Marcus family fortune, I believe, the department store fortune, been on since Clinton.

4:46Michael Popok:Now, this is the second time they ruled these maps were wrong. In 2022, they said that eliminating another black district was clearly racist. The Supreme Court supported it, but then came out a month ago, 6-3 alt-right MAGA majority, 6-3, written by Alito in the Calais decision that left standing only intentional racism as a ground to strike a map. Oh, I'm very 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 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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6:06Michael Popok:Just text legal to 64 ,000. That's L-E-G-A-L to 64 ,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Text legal to 64 ,000. Message and data rates may apply. Now, let's talk about Calais for a minute, shall we? Then I'll talk about what happens in the intersection of law and politics. Calais, the new reporting is that Judge Alito relied on false data or at least false data analysis to reach the conclusion that we can get rid of Section 2 because in the 60 years or so since the Civil Rights Act in 1965, we've become a post-racial world, everybody. Good news. No more racists. And he used data that he got wrong.

6:54Michael Popok:In particular, he relied on data that said that that there was, let me read it to you from page 26 and 27 of the Calais decision. Section two does not require abandonment of the framework, but we need to update it. First, he says on page 26, vast social change has occurred throughout the country and in the South. The Voting Rights Act led to great strides in the ensuing decades. Voting tests were abolished, disparities in voter registration and turnout due to race were erased and African-Americans attained political office in record numbers. Yes, all being picked off now under the guise of we're just doing it for partisan reasons.

7:39Michael Popok:And here's the lie about the data. Black voters now participate in elections at similar rates as the rest of the electorate, even turning out at higher rates than white voters in two of the five most recent presidential elections, citing the Commerce Department, the Census Bureau, and tables. Those are all wrong because they take as a percentage the total number of 18 years or older people, regardless of whether they're voters, regardless of whether they are citizens. If you just take registered voters, every year voter registration and participation by the Black community has gone down and widened the gap between white participation and Black participation.

8:26Michael Popok:You can only make this conclusion, which is the premise of Sam Alito's decision in Calais to destroy Section 2. You can only reach that conclusion if you fudge the numbers and cook the books and you use as your denominator total 18-year-olds instead of 18-year-old voters. In reality, voter participation by the Black population, Black Americans has declined every year. It hasn't outperformed whites in two of the five presidential elections, only one since 2015, the one involving Barack Obama. So this again is the fraud. It's not the first time that Alito has been accused of cooking the books on data or using fake data or fake historical references in order to support his opinion.

9:12Michael Popok:Look at the amount of plaintiffs, appellants that come to the Supreme Court who are fraudulent. And that's never ignored by the Supreme Court, who just wants any old case in front of them so they can make a ruling that supports Trump. I mean, you have the phony baker who said that they didn't want to bake a cake for a gay family, and that led to a destruction of gay rights in America. The baker didn't bake cake, bake cakes for weddings or the phony website designer who said they didn't want to design a website for a gay marriage, for a gay couple, for a gay marriage. They don't design websites either.

9:51Michael Popok:And how about Calais himself? Burt Calais of the namesake of the case? He's an election denier and a MAGA MAGA. But the Supreme Court doesn't care. The MAGA six don't. Fortunately, the three judge panel in Alabama at the trial court level do. See, this was not an appellate panel. This was a three judge specialty panel put together to review maps. And when they, based in a 102-page decision, when they find in the record that there is this level of actual racism, you know it exists. Here's what it means for the Democrats and those that protect the democracy going forward. After the Calais decision, Tennessee immediately got rid of its black representation.

10:38Michael Popok:Louisiana, the same thing. South Carolina on Tuesday night is going to decide whether to get rid of Jim Clyburn, the civil rights leader and the sole black in Congress, the congressional delegation for South Carolina. Missouri and Georgia say they're going to do the same thing in 2028. We got to win in Alabama. and these are the arguments that have to now be raised by advocates like Democracy Docket and Mark Elias and the ACLU. They've got to argue intentional racism. They got to look hard in the record. They got to find those statements. They got to search social media to see that these have nothing to do with trying to make new Trump Republicans, but have everything to do about eliminating black empowerment in the South.

11:27Michael Popok:Plain and simple. So we're going to continue to follow it. And now it's going to land on the doorstep of the United States Supreme Court on some sort of emergency docket. I'm sure I'm going to be back here on Midas Touch and Legal AF reporting about a shadow docket, emergency briefing coming up through probably Sam Alito or Clarence Thomas out of Alabama, you know, as they take the appeal. This goes directly now to the United States Supreme Court. It skips the 11th Circuit for Alabama, and it's on a fast track to the Supremes. The question is, is it going to be an emergency docket with just two briefs and no oral argument and some sort of ruling?

12:10Michael Popok:Or is it going to be on full briefing and an oral argument over time? Given the fast approaching primary season, you know they're going to take it on a fast, short-circuited track with an improper record and then make whatever decision reflexively, ideologically, that the six who control the Supreme Court want to make. How far will John Roberts go now that he's been called out for his own racism? How far will he go to destroy black empowerment in the South and have that be part of his legacy? He's already gotten rid of women's rights. He's already gotten rid of reproductive rights on his watch.

12:48Michael Popok:He's already given a presidency criminal immunity. And we see what's happened with that, with Donald Trump being out of control. Will he go so far as to take away black empowerment and send us back to the Jim Crow era in the South? We'll be watching carefully here on Midas Touch and Legal AF. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button over on Legal AF as well. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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