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Food Enthusiast
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Progressive Insurance Representative
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Lisa Schneider
Ten years from today, Lisa Schneider will train in her office job to become the leader of a pack of dogs as the owner of her own dog rescue. That is a second act made possible by the reskilling courses Lisa's taking now with AARP to help make sure her income lives as long as she does. And she can finally run with the big dogs and the small dogs who just think they're big dogs. That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP. Learn more at aarp.org skills this summer.
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Instacart Representative
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Expedia Representative
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Michael Popak
You've reached the intersection of law and politics, of life and law in politics of the United States Supreme Court, life, law and politics of the budget bill soon to be passed and what it means for the policies of Donald Trump we need to pin the tail on that donkey as we move towards the midterms, but we got a lot of work to do before that. I'm Michael Popo, you're on the intersection Tuesday nights, 8pm Eastern Time on the Midas Touch Network. I got a. Here it is. I got a long list of things to talk about. I guess I got to kick it off since it just happened with the Senate passing this bill, I'm not despondent the way some people are about it. It is required for the opposition, for the resistance to have actually memorialized in a law the priorities of this administration, to hold them accountable. I don't want to talk about the esoteric anymore. Page 48 of the Project 2025 playbook is being used. You know I know it. I have a dog eared copy of Project 2025. But when you look the American voter in the eye and say $1 trillion of your Medicare, your Medicaid, your food stamps are being cut, when you look 11 million people in the eye and say you're being thrown off the insurance rolls by the Republicans. Not passive voice, active voice. This isn't just happening to you. This is happening to you because of the Trump administration. Is there any doubt why? We have, for the first time in history, polling numbers that show that more Americans, a majority of Americans, are not proud to be Americans. I'm not talking about how Michelle Obama was attacked. I'm talking about 63, 64% of America, including 70% of independents, say I don't want to be an American or I'm not proud to be an American. Is there any wonder? So don't recoil from the budget bill, embrace it, because it's going to be our talking points for the next 18 months or so against the Trump administration to hold them responsible. I mean, I always knew the phrase, you hurt, you hurt, you hurt the ones you love. Donald Trump is destroying his own constituency, his own voter base. But we, we need to make him pay and connect the dots for people and not let him mask and wallpaper over the depravity of his policy decisions. Just look at the bill. I'm going to be spending a lot of time between now and when the House inevitably passes this bill and makes it law and Donald Trump signs it. I'm going to get into the molecular, the nitty gritty of all of the programs and all it does is reflect in one place, in one place the inhumane, depraved policy considerations that don't help the average American. Tax cuts for the wealthy, trillions of dollars added to the national debt. Stealing money out of your pocket. The national debt requires us to make $1 trillion and pay it on interest before we can spend anything else to help the American people. And Donald Trump is not going to get away with it. He thinks he is. You can tell by the way he acts. I mean, he's already got a very short time horizon. I don't mean just chronologically. I mean in terms of the presidency. And he knows it. And he's trying to cash in as many of his chips and pay off as many of his debts in this pay to play club kleptocracy as he can. Putting aside the big bill for a moment, soon to be law. But I want to just reiterate and reinforce it. This is not a bad thing for independents, Democrats and fair minded people. Because now he can't run away from and rhetoric his way and double speak his way away from his failed agenda. Because now it is in concrete. It's not wet cement. It is in hardened cement. And we can point to the injury to the American people. For every dollar that is diverted away from something that helps them, that helps the economy, that helps next generations, that helps this generation, we can hold them accountable. There's a series of cases this week that have happened since the last time we all got together. It's hard to believe it was a week ago. When you think about everything that's happened in that last week, it is extraordinary. At the United States Supreme Court level, I'm going to do a discussion about the United States Supreme Court. What we just watched over the last nine months, what we just watched in the last remaining moments of the term, the last gasp, and I'm emphasizing the word gasp, of decisions and orders that came out about birthright citizenship, but not quite about nationwide injunctions, but not quite about transgender people who want to serve in the military, about immigration and deportation and removal, while judges struggle with these very issues in real time, not in an academic. It's not academic. It's not hypothetical, it's real. We had a judge, Judge Boardman in Maryland look the Department of Justice for Donald Trump in the eye just yesterday at a hearing and say, are you, I want to hear it out of your mouth. Are you going to be deporting babies, removing babies born on American soil probably from now until the time I make my ruling at the end of July, yes or no. And the Trump administration filed a piece of paper that said maybe we are. And then we're going to talk about the case in front of Judge Boardman, we've got a new, a new case, a new, new injunction. The first injunction since the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, maybe ruled on Friday that federal judges should not use nationwide injunctions if they discover constitutional violations and abuses of power by the presidency. Okay, what do you expect us to use? Well, use class actions. Well, use, use emergency injunctions on top of class actions. But what if there are states involved? What if there are 19 or 20 states involved? They left that door open. And in walks Judge DeBose. The youngest shall lead us. She is the youngest judge in Rhode Island. She was just appointed by Joe Biden before the end of his, before the end of his term. And she just made a 58 page ruling in a case blocking the first injunction since Friday's ruling by the United States Supreme Court. It looks a lot like a nationwide injunction, but she found a way around that federal order, that Supreme Court decision, in a very novel and crafty way. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you how that was. She's not the only judge in the resistance, but just doing her job. Judge Murphy up in Massachusetts, he took a look at another United States Supreme Court decision that gave Donald Trump the green light to continue to deport and remove people to third countries like South Sudan and Libya without really any due process, blocking an injunction of his from April, but not blocking a remedial order of his from May that had to do with the Trump administration violating his orders. And he gathered everybody together in his courtroom and he said, you may have blocked my April order, but the Supreme Court didn't divest me of jurisdiction and I have a May order. And Donald Trump ran screaming through a Solicitor General John SAUER to the U.S. supreme Court before their vacation started on Friday and said, please, motion for reconsideration. Please, motion for clarification. Judge Murphy's being defiant. And then they went all went on vacation. We'll talk about that case as well. Abrego Garcia got new developments there in Tennessee and in Judge Zinnis's courtroom in Maryland, first time in history somebody is begging and it's being accommodated, begging to stay in federal detention in order to protect himself, protective custody from Donald Trump's immigration gestapo. And Judge Holmes, a magistrate judge, agrees. And even in, even in their own way, the Trump administration agrees that they don't have, they can't, they don't trust themselves because they told Judge Holmes, we're okay if you want to stash him away in federal detention so we don't accidentally deport him. Judge, I mean, they didn't put it exactly like that, but that's what they meant. We'll talk about Abrego Garcia and then I'll touch on Alligator Alcatraz. I mean, I'm in Miami. I guess I have to. One element of disclosure, I've been to the Everglades. I have ridden a bike through there in winter and almost died. I mean, it was that unbearable. The Everglades are a thing of beauty. But, but it's not a place to put 3,000 migrants without any suitable housing in tents, without air conditioning, without toilets guarded by National Guard to make a political point. And the architect of the Alligator Alcatraz that Donald Trump went and visited with DeSantis down in Florida is the attorney general of Florida who was Ron DeSantis presidential campaign advisor for his failing campaign, his chief of staff, this yahoo, this architect. He got found in contempt by Judge Judge Williams down in Miami in which she quoted Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland. We'll cover that all at the repeat after me the intersection. And no, my last news is not going to be that I grew back my beard. For those that are listening to me on podcasts, it was a very controversial decision for me to allow my one year old daughter to see my bare face. And I've decided along with my wife's consultation that I'm going to be I'm growing it back. So this is five days into my regrow. Let's continue. Let's start with I think I've talked enough about the bill. We need to use it to our political advantage. One thing I've learned in my history, in my life and from meeting and talking to people on Legal af, you know, I just interviewed Senator Doug Jones. Talk about a blue dot in a red sea. He was the senator from Alabama shortlisted to be on Joe Biden's to be Joe Biden's attorney general in the next term. And he is out there. I mean, he is a human guardrail. And he spoke to me on Legal a. I've got a couple of interviews up right now about the rise in violent political rhetoric about the Emil Bovey, the number three lawyer in the Department of Justice, Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer, who's up for this lifetime appointment to be an appellate judge and is obscenely unqualified. And when I talk to people like Senator Doug Jones, when I talk to people like the representative from New York in the Bronx, Richie Torres, who's now a regular, when I talked to and I just did an interview and I'll be doing a new one tomorrow with Sky Perryman. Perryman, who runs Democracy Forward, who's filed 70 different lawsuits against the Trump administration. She just filed one about an hour ago, which I'm actually here right hot off the printer. She filed it in Maryland. Democracy Forward did. Against the Trump administration, seeking an injunction related to the attempts to shrink and throw people, several million people, off the rolls of Obamacare. And she's going to come on. Sky Perryman is going to come on and talk to me about that as well. And what I like about it is I'm talking to people and letting them brief the audience on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, who are in the trenches, who are in the courtrooms, who are fighting it out, who are in the halls of Congress or state legislators. You know, we have a new two new contributors who are coming on Legal af. We got Senator Tiara Mack, state senator from Rhode island, and her friend Rachel Cohen. Rachel Cohen, who noisily quit. Talk about good, good noise and good trouble. She quit Scaddin Arps after they bent the knee and gave $100 million of aid to Donald Trump and is now in the resistance working for a law firm that represents people who are being targeted by the Trump administration and joining together with her friend Senator Tiara Mack for a new show on Legal AF we call pragmatic Optimists. They are the pragmatic optimist because they tell you what, what you can do about this information that we are telling you about now in the state houses in the state, local municipal, federal places in the streets. And when I talk to these people, I am encouraged about how deep the bench is in resistance against the Trump administration and how successful for a good reason. The lawyers are in the courtrooms with the judges. Now look at the United States Supreme Court level. We have our work cut out for us. Let me talk about the United States Supreme Court here for a moment. Supreme Court just got done with its term. 60 or so decisions were rendered. And you'll hear the statistics by John Roberts, the chief justice, who's going to brag about it. And I'll say, well, here's the statistics. 40% of our decisions were unanimous. Okay, good for you. And only 4% of our decisions broke along ideological lines. Except now let's talk about the 10 cases on emergency application by the Trump administration to the Supreme Court in which Donald Trump has batten 800. He won eight out of 10, including about presidential power, about the Alien Enemies act, about transgender people trying to serve in the military, about about transgender and gender Affirming surgery and care about birthright citizenship in a way, and the rest. And so that is, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. That is not great. I said it before. Trump figured out in his first term that if he, if he exploited the emergency docket for the Supreme Court with calling everything an emergency, everything's a hair on fire. File the emergency application to send the court immediately into their ideological corners. He was going to win more than lose, 6 to 3, 5 to 4, because he had six votes already. And when you're on an emergency application, there's no oral argument. So it's a shadow docket the public doesn't get to see. The briefing is limited, the record is limited, the deliberation process is limited. Everything short circuited, everything short tracked. And that's the Donald Trump's advantage. When you have the numbers, press the numbers. And that's all we watched. With the complicity of the six MAGA right wing judges. I asked Leah Littman, who I just had a good interview with, a constitutional scholar out of Michigan, co host of Strict Scrutiny. Join me again today to talk about Supreme Court over on Legal af. And I said to her, leah, what would you call back in the day when you and I were in school and studying the Constitution and Supreme Court? Oftentimes the court would get a name named after a judge who was really controlling things because they were voting with the majority more than, more than not. The Kennedy Court, we used to call it, because Kennedy used to, you know, control based on his vote, because he was a moderate, although he got very conservative towards the end, but he was a moderate and so on. I said, do we have, do we have somebody who's controlling the court? She said, no, the best name for this court is either. And she then said, either the Reconstruction Court or the Redemption Court. I said, why is that? She said, because this is like that period just after the Civil War in which the Supreme Court lagged behind the rest of America in terms of civil liberties and civil rights, as pushed by Lincoln in the Reconstruction. And they were much more conservative than the public at large or the president at the time. And they refused and found ways to undermine the Reconstruction plan, the civil rights protection of newly freed, now black Americans. And that's what constitutional scholars believe they're watching now, a Supreme Court that's not only circling the drain of history, but is out of touch. If you look at the polling about where people are about gay marriage, about transgender issues, about cultural issues that have been used as a wedge to divide the American people, by the Republicans. They side with being fair minded, with being, dare I say, progressive without it being a four letter word. They side with diversity, equity, inclusion when they understand the concepts are explained to them. This Supreme Court is completely out of step because it's just pressing, pressing, pressing in order to support a rogue, out of control president and placing that presidency above the other two branches of government, wrecking our checks and balance process that was delicately created so, so perfectly but delicately created by our framers and our founding fathers. And so what I want to talk about when I come back from the, from our break is the decisions that are now coming out. I want to talk about the Abrego Garcia decision. I want to talk about Judge debose decision up in Rhode Island. I want to talk about The Alligator Alcatraz 8th Amendment, cruel and unusual punishment violation and the architect, the brains behind that being found in contempt himself by a federal judge in Miami. But now let's talk about the ways to support what we do here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal af. Firstly, firstly, since we have no outside investors, since we are completely independent, since we have no censorship, nobody tells me what to say. Nobody knows what I'm going to say. If anybody's picture that before I get on the air, there's some smoke filled room or zoom call where the brothers and I get on the air and talk. Polpock, what are you going to say tonight? First of all, that's my cheat sheet for tonight. I don't even know what I'm going to say tonight so that doesn't happen. But if you like that kind of unvarnished, unfiltered, uncensored analysis, you know where we're putting ourselves out there against a retaliatory, vindictive administration. I mean the Midas Touch brothers and others have gotten death threats along the way, including recently. And but we're willing and able and desirous to be leading and helping you form this fellowship. We vibrate on the same frequency and we need to speak truth to each other before we can take it to the streets and be a part of and be participating in that participatory democracy that we are part of. We got to put the participation into participatory democracy. We got to put get rid of the silent from the silent majority. We don't have the luxury any longer. And so there's many ways, right, you're here on the Midas Dutch network. Boom. Help them get the 6 million. I got a little channel that I do a collaboration with the Midas Dutch network called Legal af, Legal F M D N. You can find it right now. Subscribe there. Hit the reminders. We're doing videos about every hour or two at the intersection of law and politics. And I got a great group over there. I told you about Tiara Mack, Tierra Mack and Rachel Cohen and their pragmatic optimists. We've also got Court Accountability Action looking at the corruption of the federal court system up to the United States Supreme Court led by Alex Aronson and Lisa Graves. We've got our resident legal and political historians. Literally, I joke that it's like Murders in the Building, but without Selena Gomez, but with Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz. Who better to put everything in historical perspective and talk about how history is gonna judge the actions not only of us, but of course of the Trump administration than Sidney and Sean. I do a Supreme Court roundup with Dina Dahl called Unprecedented every week. We'll be doing it throughout the summer as well. Shan Wu, former prosecutor, former general counsel to the Attorney General of the United States and amazing lawyer in his own right. Shan Wu, under color, does his hot takes regularly for us. Dave Aronberg, Florida law guy, Florida law man of the Palm Beach County State attorney at the time. You know, we. I'm sure I'm leaving somebody out, but this is what we call Legal af. We also have Asha and Renato on a podcast called It's Complicated and Asha doing a show she does on hot takes called Ask Asha. Why am I mentioning all this? Because I want you to know you're not alone and that there is comfort in. In solidarity. There's comfort to know we're vibrating on that same frequency and I'm glad you're here for it. So that supporting us there and here, downloading the audio podcast version of this new podcast, this new podcast needs some help. I mean, we're in the top 100 YouTube podcasts because of you, but audio downloads matter in this ecosystem. So download. Leave a five star review for this, the Intersection with Michael Popak. And then of course, we've got our pro democracy sponsors who know what our audience is all about, know what our content is all about and is not here in spite of it, but because of it. And here's a word from our sponsors. You know, sometimes the news is so wild these days, it makes me just want to crawl under a blanket with my cat. Honestly, there are so many similarities between Chanel and the news cycle. Unpredictable, a little chaotic, but. But somehow comforting. Now, while I can't fix all the craziness in the world. There's one thing I can absolutely control what I feed Chanel, and that's thanks to our sponsor, Smalls. This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. If you listen to this show, you already know my cat cannot live without smalls. To get 60% off your first order plus free shipping head to smalls.com and use our promo code legal AF. But only for a limited time. Smalls cat food is packed with protein and made from preservative free ingredients you'd.
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MDHearing Representative
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- [26:14]
Michael Popak
Plus it's delivered right to your door. No wonder cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. Last night I fed Chanel her favorite flavor, the Tuna feast, and she was all in. She actually prefers Smalls way more than her old food. I did a taste test with two bowls side by side and no joke, she immediately went for Smalls. Since switching, she's had fewer hair balls, more energy, a shinier coat, and the litter box smells way better. Still skeptical? Forbes ranked Smalls the best overall cat food and buzzfeed said my cats went completely ballistic for this stuff. What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve for a limited time only because you're a legal AF listener, you can get 60% off your first smalls order plus free shipping by using my code legal AF. That's 60% off when you head to smalls.com and use promo code legal AF. Again promo code legal AF for 60% off your first order plus plus free shipping@smalls.com it was great seeing my mother in law from abroad over the holidays.
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MDHearing Representative
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Michael Popak
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Michael Popak
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Michael Popak
Welcome back to the Intersection with Michael Popak exclusively on the Midas Touch Network. Let's get down. We're in the home stretch now of the podcast. Let me talk about the first it's like breaking news. The first federal injunction to be issued since the Supreme Court questioned whether federal judges have the power to issue nationwide injunctions in their cases. So the Supreme Court rules on Friday that except for special exceptions that they weren't mentioning, but we think it means when states are involved, they don't want judges issuing nationwide injunctions. They only want the United States Supreme Court to issue nationwide injunctions. Which means it takes a considerable tool out of the judge's tool bag, especially when they're dealing with nationwide harm cases like in civil rights constitutional violations, a president out of control just to just name a few. And so Judge DeBose, who was appointed by Joe Biden and confirmed first openly LGBTQ plus, first Black member of the Rhode Island Federal judiciary. Super smart, Whip smart. She issued her ruling just today in the case involving the Department of Health and Human Services. That's our health department. It's currently just to remind you, being run by a non scientist, non doctor, vaccine and science denier who's busy wrecking our public health and destroying the relationship between the American people and their health and the American people and the states and the various agencies and sub agencies and departments of the Department of Homeland Security that help keep us safe and keep us healthy and keep us alive. And in her order, she goes through and reminds me and us about all the ways that the Department of Health and Human Services protect life, health and safety, the center for Disease Control and Infectious Disease Control, pregnancy health, child health, cancer prevention, things related to Head Start, making sure children's health is set in the right path from the very beginning, tobacco regulation, keeping it out of the hands of children. These are all things that run through the center, run through the center of Disease Control and Healthy Human Services. And under the guise of reformation and abuse and whatever, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Under Donald Trump's command, started to defund and reorganize the Department of Health and Human Services to the detriment of all of us. 19 states ran into Judge DeBose, filed their case, and now she's ready to rule on her preliminary injunction. She's seen what the Supreme Court did. Supreme Court left open the door as to whether judges handling cases in which multiple states are in front of them still won't be able to issue nationwide injunctions because you have a nationwide harm. Yeah, the destruction of Department of Health and Human Services isn't a New Jersey, New York, Washington, et cetera problem. It is a nationwide problem. So the judge, after going through under 58 pages, all the irreparable harm and the likelihood of success on the merits for The Group of 19 states, focused on, not on the constitutional, not on the separation of powers. Although she quotes the separation of powers as being at the forefront of this, she said, I can do it under the Administrative Procedures act because the decision by RFK Jr was arbitrary and capricious. It was not based on science. It was not based on math. It was not based on a proper calculating analysis. It wasn't based on any of that. He even admitted publicly that he was overcutting and that he would figure it out later and probably have to rehire 20% of the people like, what are you even talking about? You're talking about public health, you buffoon, you moron. And so the judge, although dripping with sarcasm during parts of her decision, which I'm going to post on the legal AAF substack so you can read it for yourself, she issued her injunction. And in her injunction, she said the following. I enjoin, I block the Department of Health and Human Services. And they've already been state until now from restructuring, reordering, defunding, firing people at the moment until we continue to discuss these issues over time. And she said, my injunction, which I'm not going to stay and I'm not going to require a large bond, I believe fits the contours of what the United States Supreme Court just said in their Friday decision. And if you disagree, I love this, the creative way around the brick wall, then you, and I'm looking at you, Trump, you file in the next 10 days or so a piece of paper that tells me that you think this does or does not comply with the Supreme Court precedent. I believe it does. You can tell me how, if at all, that case, we call it CASA Incorporated, maps onto my injunction power and my injunction ruling. And good day. I added the good day. That's what Judge DeBose just did. First judge to have to deal with the issue, having the benefit of watching, listening and learning to the dozens and dozens of other cases are out there. We also have a decision that's going to be upcoming very, very soon. I want to switch gears now and go to Maryland and talk not about Abrego Garcia, but about babies, babies, babies born in this country since February 2025 to present, born on American soil, born in American hospitals, whose citizenship is now up for grabs because Donald Trump has a birthright citizenship executive order where the merits of whether it violates the 14th amendment or not has not been decided by any court because of the way that the Supreme Court has ordered and reorganized the procedure here. And so now what are we left with? We're left with right after the decision on Friday that said, we're not going to allow nationwide injunctions, which Judge Boardman in Maryland had already issued to block the enforcement of the executive order, which she found to be unconstitutional, ripping away the 14th Amendment right to birthright citizenship. Now she had to revisit her injunction, and quickly, smartly, the lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union from the Georgetown Law center, they filed lawsuits in courts, telling the judges, we heard the Supreme Court. We're here now as a class action. The class is all babies born or to be born since February 2025 that need protection in one court. So Judge Boardman pulled everybody together for a hearing yesterday, and she grilled Mr. Rosenberg for the Department of Justice. She says we don't want to get, I want to get down to brass tacks. I've set a briefing schedule, she said, from now until the 27th of July for class certification, which has to be litigated, and for the temporary restraining order that would go with it. Are you going to deport the Trump administration going to deport babies and remove them who have American US Birth certificates. While I'm working on my decision, yes or no? No. He said. Now you can, you can, I think, understand why this federal judge does not believe a word coming out of the Department of Justice and their mouth. Right. I mean, you know, there's the old joke. How do you know when the Trump administration and the Department of Justice is lying? Their lips move when they speak. I mean, this is against the backdrop of the whistleblower Erez Reuveni, who used to be the head of immigration litigation, who dropped a 27 page bomb last week and said that his boss, Emil Bovey, who's up for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals but is now the number three lawyer in the Department of Justice who got rewarded because he was the criminal defense lawyer for Donald Trump. He instructed at a meeting, according to Rouveni, all the lawyers present to tell judges to go F themselves literally and to, and to not give them information and to effectively lie to their face, not be candid to the tribunal, as we like to say, in my world, Judge knows that. So she said, no, that's not going to do it. I want you to file by tomorrow, which is today, on Tuesday, a document that tells me your position as to whether under the court's ruling in that same birthright citizenship nationwide injunction case, I talked about the CASA case, whether you are going to be removing and deporting and when. So they filed. It did not give, I'm sure it did not give the judge any great comfort because it didn't give me any great comfort. It didn't say, which is what I would do if I were somehow in the upside down world, in the evil world. I was representing Donald Trump for the Department of Justice. I was at Judge, we see what's on your mind. And to alleviate any concern, we will represent and stipulate that we will not deport, remove any child, baby born in America while you're making your decision. Does that make you feel better? And we'll sign, we'll sign at the bottom line on that. That's not what they did. What they said was, you asked us to tell you what we're going to do. We start with a full paragraph reproduction of the one paragraph decision by the United States Supreme Court last Friday. And then them saying, the earliest based on this order that we believe we can remove is 27 July, which is exactly the date that the judge is just getting around to making decisions about class action. And then they say, but we Also think there's a 30 day ramp up period. So there's that. That's what they wrote. I'm only barely paraphrasing. So if I'm the judge, I'm like, this doesn't give me any comfort whatsoever. I'm going to expedite my emergency procedures. I'm going to move up the dates for when everything is due. I'm going to provisionally certify a class right now. I am going to enter a temporary restraining order right now. I am not going to wait to see what happens on the 27th of July and not on my watch. Are babies going to be flying literally out of hospitals in America to El Salvador, Guantanamo? Fill in the blank. How about this? How about this for a horror movie? Babies being sent to the alligator, Alcatraz in unair conditioned open tents in the middle of pythons, mosquitoes and alligators. Why not? How is that any less? How is that any more depraved than anything else Donald Trump is considering? So now having gotten from the Trump administration the response, which is like, go f yourself. If I'm Boardman and I'll be reporting on it on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network, I just say that's not good enough. That did that. That's the opposite of making me feel better or having me have confidence in your decision. Judges are quickly recognizing that they have to use extraordinary measures to protect people from the Trump administration, which is completely out of control. Which brings me to the Abrego Garcia case. So in Tennessee, there's a magistrate judge, Judge Holmes, and she would. And the request that Judge Holmes for from Abrego Garcia's lawyers, just to remind you, that's the guy kidnapped from Maryland in the middle of the night, sent on a plane to El Salvador to be put in a supermax prison without due process, even though he had an order in his back pocket from a federal judge, an immigration judge, preventing him from being sent to El Salvador. His return is ordered 90 by the Supreme Court, by Judge Zitis in Maryland. And yet he only comes back after Donald Trump manufactures an indictment about human smuggling from three years ago during a traffic stop. And now he's in Tennessee, at least so he's under the power and jurisdiction of the federal court there. Judge Crenshaw, the Article 3 Judge, Magistrate Judge Holmes, who magistrate judges in federal court handle most of the day to day in the criminal world from bond and bail, conditions of release, discovery before it gets to a trial and bigger questions at Judge Crenshaw's level If you don't like the response you get from a magistrate judge, you can always quote, unquote, appeal it to the, to the federal judge, to the Article 3 Judge. This issue now is the judge already ruled after nine days and hearings and trials that she had no grounds to keep Abrego Garcia on the human smuggling charge in pretrial detention. We presume liberty in this country. We presume somebody is innocent until proven guilty. And so the default is not that you go to jail and stay there until your trial, it's that you're out subject to your trial. And she found no grounds to hold them in. There's only three grounds. There's a minor child involved in the crime that didn't happen. There's evidence of potential to witness tamper. Like, you leave this person out on the street, they're going to start killing witnesses. That's how. And the other one is flight risk. And she didn't find any of those things present. But she also understood that Trump had already made some declarations through his Homeland Security office and Department of Justice that he was going to. Well, they spoke with forked tongue. On one hand, they said, we're going to try him in Tennessee for human smuggling, and then we're going to deport him. And on the other hand, they said we're going to deport him and we're not going to let him stand trial. And that confusion, that conflicting, contradictory statements in this administration led Abrego Garcia's lawyers to run to Judge Holmes and say, keep him. Don't release him yet, because if you release him, a white van's going to show up and we'll never find him again. And he'll be accidentally, you know what I mean, accidentally disappeared to a country not named El Salvador. And she agreed. And in fact, the Trump administration ultimately agreed. It's almost like they know they can't be trusted. They know that there could be another accidental deportation. So to protect him, they agreed to let him stay in the federal detention center under the auspices of the federal marshals, rather than be transferred to Immigration World. So think about this. Somebody now has to beg to stay in federal detention in a case about wrongful detention in order to protect themselves. You know, this is perverse. As a child, it reminds me in a bad way of this episode of a cartoon that I liked involving Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck where, you know, Bugs Bunny outsmarted Daffy once again, using Elmer Fudd the hunter to try to convince Elmer Fudd to shoot Daffy Duck. Now, because it was Duck season, not rapid season. They kept going round and around. It's rapid season. No, it's duck season. And finally he got, you know, bugs Money got daffy so tongue tied that he actually had daffy say out loud, you don't have to shoot me now. You can shoot me when you get home. That's where we're at now. We got people begging to stay in prison to be kept away from Donald Trump. And so he's going to stay in federal detention for now until he can. And then Judge Zinnis, not to leave her out of the equation. She's trying to figure out whether she still has jurisdiction over him to order his return to Maryland because she was the original one that the family, the wife and the family of Abrego Garcia ran to her once. They found out through watching video that he was sent in the middle of the night to El Salvador. And she's the federal judge the Supreme Court and the fourth Circuit has supported not once, but twice. So that's where we are with Abrego Garcia and continuing sort of judges wrapping this whole thing together with that terrible, horrific imagery I left you with, which is babies being sent to Alligator Alcatraz. What the heck is alligator Alcatraz, you might be asking. Well, Donald Trump figured out that for political game and political theater, that he and Ron DeSantis, who I guess is a candidate for 2028, are going to open a federal detention center for migrants not in Guantanamo Bay, but in a, in a 3,000 bed, no tent location in the Everglades, of all things. In middle of July, when it is 120 degrees in the shade and there is no shade there, without running water, without proper hygiene, they're going to put migrants there in termite, sorry, in mosquito infested with python, Burmese pythons that exist in there along with alligators. And the attorney general for Florida, you know, he takes to the airwaves and starts bragging about it. Oh, we're swamp people in Florida. We like our swamp. Only alligators and the mosquitoes create a natural barrier to keep these people in like Alcatraz, all, ha, ha, ha. There's an 11,000 foot long airstrip. We're going to be bringing them in. I got a couple of words for you. Besides the fact that you've been found in contempt on a, on a related case by a Florida, Florida, Miami, Florida, federal judge, we got a little thing in The Constitution called 8th Amendment cruel and unusual punishment. And I think that putting you other human beings whose only crime apparently is that their migrants are undocumented. Putting them in tents in Florida, in South Florida, in July or anytime without running water, toilets and no air conditioning is cruel and unusual punishment. And as people die there, and they will, the blood is on the hands of this administration. Let me read to you from what Max Frost are young and vibrant congressperson from Florida. Here's what he had to say about it all today. Donald Trump, his administration, and his enablers have made one thing brutally clear. They intend to use the power of the government to kidnap, brutalize, starve, and harm every single immigrant they can. They target migrants, rip families apart, and subject people to conditions that amount to physical and psychological torture. Now they want to erect tents in. In the blazing Everglades sun and call it immigration enforcement. They don't care if people live or die. They only care about cruelty and spectacle. Max Frost invited him onto our show to have him on with me on Legal af. But he's right about that. Now, what's the brains behind this operation is this attorney General in Florida, and he has decided he's gonna take a page out of Donald Trump's playbook and start attacking the federal judge who I know well, Trump, Judge Williams and Obama appointee. And he posted on his social media, obama appointee finds me in contempt for failure to comply with a federal order. Yeah, yeah. She issued an order blocking a state new law as being unconstitutional that would criminalize being undocumented or being a migrant under Florida law. And Judge Williams blocked it and then ordered that the attorney General for Florida issue an order to all law enforcement under him, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, fdle, to not arrest people under this law. And he did. He sent out one letter that said, I disagree with the. With the judge and she's wrong, but I'm instructing you to that there's an injunction in place and you are not to arrest pursuant to these statutes. And then four days later, he sent out another letter that said, I disagree, as if he has the right to disagree. I mean, in terms of not complying with a federal order with this federal judge's order. And then went on like podcast World and social media World and said, I'm not going to rubber stamp a federal judge. I mean, I feel like I'm back. You know, we said. I said earlier today that people are calling the Supreme Court, the Redemption Court or the Reconstruction Court because it's just like the court just after Reconstruction that was against black people and civil rights. Right. I feel like we're there again. I feel like this is the 1960s in the south with all these attorney generals and governors who were against the civil rights movement and refused to comply with federal law, refused to comply with Brown versus the Board of Education to integrate schools. We're there again in this moment. This is the moment that you're living in. And the judge said in her order, you're in contempt. You're not allowed to tell the people that my court order is invalid. You're not allowed to tell the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and others that they should not and don't have to comply with my federal order. The words in my injunction mean what they say. And then she quoted Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland, from Lewis Carroll. And you know where Humpty Dumpty tells Alice, words mean exactly what I say and what I intend them to mean, and no more, no less. And Alice basically challenges him and says, but what if there's multiple meanings of that? You know, what would we do there? And the judge said, there aren't multiple meanings and there aren't multiple interpretations. And you are to comply and to tell me every two weeks who's been arrested under this order and how my order has been violated. But look what federal courts have to do. And now they have no backup and no support at all from the United States Supreme Court. As Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote, you've just crapped all over the federal judiciary below and told them that they have no backup. They have no support at the United States Supreme Court level. And that puts us in a scary moment. But there's a way around it, and it's the community and fellowship that we've built here. We vibrate on that same frequency. We speak truth to each other. I give you the download without blowing smoke or sunshine at the Intersection on Legal AF Hot takes on the Midas Touch Network on Legal a YouTube channel that I curate along with the Midas Touch Network on the Legal AF substack. Got some amazing reporting and writing going on there. And all of these orders and judgments of are being posted on Legal AF substack for you to read yourself as well. And the way to kind of vote yes for this type of content, this type of community, to give you the action plan you need to participate in our participatory democracy is to hit the subscribe button on Legal AF and to support this new podcast, the Intersection. Leave a Comment I read them. It helps me. It helps improve what we do here. Leave a five star review on the audio version, download the video version, tell your friends about it. That keeps this kind of content on the air that signals to us that you want this at the intersection of law and politics. You need it. And I'll continue to bring it to you right here exclusively on the Midas Touch Network. So till until next Tuesday where I'll be doing a remote vacation version of the Intersection, I'm Michael Popak and I am reporting. I'm Michael Popak and I got some big news for our audience. Most of you know me as the co founder of Midas touches Legal AF and the Legal AF YouTube channel or as a 35 year national trial lawyer now building a what we started together on Legal af. I've launched a new law firm, the POPOC Firm, dedicated to obtaining justice through compassionate and zealous legal representation. At the POPOC Firm, we are focused on obtaining justice for those who have been injured or damaged by a life altering event by securing the highest dollar recoveries. I've been tirelessly fighting for justice for the last 35 years. So my own law firm, organically building on my Legal AF work just feels right. And I've handpicked a team of top tier trial fighters and settlement Experts throughout all 50 states known as Big Auto Injury Attorneys who have the know how to beat heartless insurance companies, corporations, government entities and their attorneys. Big Auto's attorneys working with my firm are rock stars in their respective states and collectively responsible for billions of dollars in recoveries. So if you were a loved one but on the wrong side of a catastrophic auto motor vehicle rideshare or truck accident, suffered a personal injury, or been the victim of medical malpractice, employment, harassment or discrimination, or suffered a violation of your civil and constitutional rights, then contact the popoc firm today at 1-877-popocaf or by visiting my website at www.thepopocfirm.com and fill out a free case evaluation form. And if we determine that you have a case and you sign with us, we don't get paid unless you do. 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