Chief Justice THROWS Entire SCOTUS UNDER BUS in Report

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: judiciary, Department of Justice, emergency docket, Common Sense
2. 6:00 – 9:00: Department of Justice, emergency docket
3. 9:00 – 12:00: emergency docket
4. 12:00 – 15:00: Legal AF, judiciary, Common Sense, separation between church and state
5. 15:00 – 15:35: Legal AF, Morning AF

Notable quotes from "Chief Justice THROWS Entire SCOTUS UNDER BUS in Report"

• Fresh off the press as we've got Chief Justice Roberts final retort to Donald Trump to end the year. His final report about the third branch, the judiciary.

  about judiciary · at 0:00

• The final report by John Roberts. You know you're in trouble when half of the first page is just a photo of the Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and…

  about Independence Hall · at 0:53

• Constitution. That's it. And I got news for him. You obviously haven't read Common Sense, probably the most influential pamphlet in history written you know at or around the…

  about Common Sense · at 3:03

• At war with the United States Supreme Court who is not backing the district court judges and is ruling in favor of Donald Trump on the emergency docket 86% of the time the…

  about emergency docket · at 6:30

• Judges, death threats, doxing. Where's that in the report? Where is Donald Trump's capture of the independence of the Department of Justice and corruption of the Department of Justice and what it does to our justice system? The fact.

  about Department of Justice · at 7:33

• The complete destruction of the separation between church and state in ruling after ruling.

  about separation between church and state · at 13:39

• I'm Michael Popuck. I'm glad you're here. Take a minute, come over to Legal AF Substack, hit the free subscribe button, and thank you all for helping us build our Legal AF Substack. We ran a sale over the holidays. Almost 2,000.

  about Legal AF · at 14:29

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Books & papers

• Common Sense — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 2:59
  Mentioned in the context of criticizing John Roberts' report

Companies & orgs

• Department of Justice — Company · Key institution · 4 mentions · first at 0:16
  Discussed in the context of its capture and corruption under Donald Trump

Concepts & topics

• judiciary — Concept · Core topic · 4 mentions · first at 0:08
  Main focus of the episode, discussing its role and challenges
• emergency docket — Concept · Key argument · 3 mentions · first at 2:02
  Criticized for its use by the Supreme Court to favor Donald Trump
• separation between church and state — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 13:41
  Criticized for its erosion in Supreme Court rulings

Places & events

• Independence Hall — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 1:01
  Mentioned as the location where the Declaration of Independence was signed

Media & podcasts

• Legal AF — Media · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at 14:30
  Promoted as a platform for legal analysis and independent media
• Morning AF — Media · Business focus · 1 mention · first at 15:13
  Mentioned as part of the Legal AF Substack offerings
  Over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Fresh off the press as we've got Chief Justice Roberts final retort to Donald Trump to end the year. His final report about the third branch, the judiciary. And boy, does he take on Donald Trump. Just what you would expect, folks. He goes after Donald Trump for his lawlessness, for his capture of the Department of Justice, for his corruption, his defiance of judges, his attack on individual judges leading to their getting death threats, the attack on the rule of law, the attack the attack on lawyers and law firms and unpopular causes to try to rein him in.

0:34 Yeah, it does nothing of the sort. It's seven pages of complete and utter pabum. It could have been written by Chat GBT. If your seventh grade social studies student in your life had written this, you would tell him or her to go back to the drawing board on Michael Popac with the final report by John Roberts. You know you're in trouble when half of the first page is just a photo of the Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and other things were signed. And that's how we kick it off. Like he's some sort of Ken Burns documentarian giving you a fourth grade version of how the Declaration of the Indep Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and and how they're different. Wrapping himself in a flag devoting one paragraph, this sounds familiar to actually talking about the third branch and it's only a pep talk. Get in there.

1:30 You've got an oath. Do your job. Are we ready everybody? Everything else that you would that you would want and expect in a um in a in a reasonable authentic report is missing. No mention on the attack on the judiciary. No mention in the op the about the open warfare between uh the district courts and the supreme court between the appellet court and the supreme court about the use of the shadow docket. There's no mention of the shadow docket or emergency docket at all. In fact, he cooks the books on his statistics that are put in the back of his report to prove the old saying, you know, uh there's three types of lies. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. I pull it all together for you right here. Happy New Year, Midas Touch Network. We're bigger, stronger with you than ever in 2026.

2:28 we're going to need to be because you see what the feckless weak uh judiciary is doing about it. 2025 year end report on the federal judiciary comes out. I'm one of the first readers of it on Gen One. Can't wait to get my hands on it. In the past, John Roberts was at least a bit more robust, a bit more willing to take on Donald Trump. A couple of veiled references to something that Donald Trump had did or a case before the court. Not this time. Now it's about to Thomas Payne and Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence versus the Constitution. That's it. And I got news for him. You obviously haven't read Common Sense, probably the most influential pamphlet in history written uh you know at or around the time of our founding by Thomas Payne because what Thomas Payne would say about John Roberts and the Supreme Court would go something like this.

3:25 Uh the Supreme Court, like the monarchists that we left, believe through title they have superior knowledge and intellect to be able to tell the rest of us what to do. And they are wrong. He would be a critic of John Roberts, not a fan, and of this United States Supreme Court. And this goes on for most of the seven pages, that's it, of John Roberts. We get that. We get pictures of Thomas Payne. We get pictures of the Declaration of Independence. This is the This is This is called This is called Make. Again, if your seventh grade or younger social studies or history student gave you this to turn in as a report, as a parent to review, you tell him to start all over again. All right, we go through the whole and then things that he just misses the irony of like the irony that he's relying so heavily on Thomas Payne and Thomas Payne would hate John Roberts and what the MAGA Supreme Court has done. He says on

4:30 um page five, for instance, that uh the concrete provisions of the 1787 Constitution fell short of honoring the abstract principles set forth in the 1776 Declaration regarding liberty and equality. Well, you're doing a good job at screwing up liberty and equality and your rulings. Why don't you try to actually move towards the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence in the way that you rule? But of course, that's lost on him. Here's the one. All right, one and a half paragraphs on page seven. And I'll tell you what's missing.

5:10 Those of us in the third branch must continue to decide the cases before us according to our oath, doing equal right to the poor and the rich. Is that what we're watching? Equality before the court, poor and rich, and performing all of our duties faithfully and impartially under the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Then he quotes Calvin Culage with the following quote. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken.

5:55 And this is how he ends it. This is his commentary. True then, true now. True. Well, just write true. Uh I have an honor of being a judge. I mean, this is just, you know, you just want to throw up in your mouth. What's missing? All right, let's let's let's cap off this year. open warfare between the district court judges who are ruling in favor of democracy and justice and the rule of law more than 95% of the time in the more than 400 cases before them brought to to reign in a lawless department of justice and Donald Trump at war with the United States Supreme Court who is not backing the district court judges and is ruling in favor of Donald Trump on the emergency docket 86% of the time the appellet courts caught in the middle also at war with the United States Supreme Court in a way I've never seen in 35 years of practice and probably in our history. How about that? How about Donald Trump's

6:51 destabilization of the rule of law and his flouting the rules and uh undermining our justice system and the third branch through his frequent and constant open defiance of court orders. He's already been found in criminal and probable. The Justice Department has been found, pardon me, the Justice Department has been found in probable criminal uh contempt and the administration by one judge. They're about to get another case tossed this year for vindictive prosecution in Tennessee. You've got um the attacks on individual judges. You have a violence against judges, death threats, doxing. Where's that in the report? Where is Donald Trump's capture of the independence of the Department of Justice and corruption of the Department of Justice and what it does to our justice system? The fact that grand juries are rejecting this justice system, this Department of Justice because they have no faith in it

7:54 and is not returning indictments. Juries are doing the same thing. judges who do not give the Department of Justice the uh the assumption or presumption of regularity because nothing is normal in the Department of Justice. Where is that? Where is a discussion about ethics at the United States Supreme Court level as Clarence Thomas and the MAGA 6 continue to line their pockets with money from their donors and trips from their donors? Where is that? Nowhere. How about the use of not just the use of the emergency shadow docket to bring on dozens and dozens of cases which he conveniently le conveniently leaves out John Roberts in this report from his statistics.

8:35 But the fact that the Supreme Court MAG 6 is complicit in empowering overempowering the presidency under Donald Trump to defeat the other two branches through the use of the shadow docket. no mention. Instead, I got to be subjected to a sophomoreic immature um third grader, fourth grader interpretation of American history like he fell asleep during Ken Burns American Revolution on PBS recently. Or maybe he left his chat GBT on and that's what came out. Maybe. Let me go to the statistics that he puts to the back again without any commentary and he leaves out big parts of it. Let's start with his um overview of the Supreme Court and the uh Supreme Court filings.

9:36 He starts with sort of bragging about the amount the lower amount of cases that have been filed at the court. So here on page eight of 10, he puts up a chart about Supreme Court cases argued by term. When I graduated law school, they were doing about a 100 cases a year out of tens of thousands of cases that are filed every year. Now he says it's down to 73 cases this past year. It's a decrease of 9% everybody. Okay, that's because you took 20 cases on the emergency docket that are not reflected in the stats. These are just Supreme Court cases argued. That means oral argument. That's code word for actual proper rid of Sir Shirari appeals. You know what I mean? Three briefs, oral argument, deliberation, and an opinion. you know, the oldfashioned way, the way we way we expect our decisions and then a 50 or 100 pa or a 100page opinion with dissents and concurrences that can guide the lower courts instead of one

10:47 paragraph coming out of a shadow docket and then claiming that that is precedent to go bash district court judges. You didn't follow our president and district court judges like Judge Young in Massachusetts are saying that one paragraph was your president. What kind of guidance is that? But because he he slightly uses the word Supreme Court cases argued, he gets to cut off all the shadow docket. Doesn't mention the shadow docket. Doesn't mention it at all or their complicity in working with the Trump administration effectively to do an end run around and come in the back door to the Supreme Court on a short track, short circuit, no oral argument.

11:30 you know, just go to your political corners and make a vote. No mention. Uh he then talks about the increase in certain courts, of course, under the Trump administration. We have we have over 400 cases filed against the Trump administration. Is there any wonder that um cases about administrative agencies and all other like constitutions is up is up 12% and 16%. That's the Trump effect, don't you think? No mention of it on criminal cases. Listen to this stat. In criminal cases, immigration, criminal immigration up 30, almost 30%.

12:11 Drugs are down, firearms are flat, violent crime is flat, justice system attacks down 9%. But 27% up on immigration. Who paid for this? Who's paying for this? Who voted for this? But this this um pablum issued by Roberts tells you everything you need to know that he's completely it's not only that he's given up because that suggests that he's been in opposition to Donald Trump. He's not in opposition to Donald Trump. He has been since the moment he got onto that court and then got the numbers with the additional bought and paid for members of the Supreme Court by lobby groups like the gun lobby and the and the abortion lobby, anti-abortion lobby, he finally got the numbers to reshape the court in his image. And all he's wanted to do is empower the presidency and put it above the other branches, including the judiciary. And that if any other branch is going to get empowered, it's going to be his branch. and

13:13 Congress is going to be a doormat. That's the legacy among other things of John Roberts, the worst chief justice in our history. He will go down that way. The the destruction of president and starry decisis, the destruction of a woman's right to choose, ripping out a constitutional right, first time in our history that a constitutional right once given by the Supreme Court was taken away in the DOS decision about a woman's right to choose. uh the complete destruction of the separation between church and state in ruling after ruling after ruling.

13:47 The uh allowing the completely unauthorized unconstitutional reshaping of the relationship between the executive branch, the presidency, the federal government, and the US people. I mean, I could go on. All that conveniently missed. Instead, I've got to hear this is how he starts his thing. I'll end it this way. I'll end where he starts. Page one. 250 years ago this week, a recent immigrant to Britain's North American colonies put the finishing touches on a manuscript in which he hoped to express plain truths about his newly adopted home.

14:24 This is this is the third graders version of Thomas Payne Common Sense. I'm Michael Popuck. I'm glad you're here. Take a minute, come over to Legal AF Substack, hit the free subscribe button, and thank you all for helping us build our Legal AF Substack. We ran a sale over the the holidays. Almost 2,000 people joined us. Come over to Legal AF Substack. That's where Independent Media is living. That's where you can support us. Become a paid member for about seven bucks a month. That keeps us on the air. So, until my next report, I'm Michael Popac.

14:57 Can't get your fill of legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hottake, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Where? Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Chief Justice THROWS Entire SCOTUS UNDER BUS in Report"?

In order: 0:00 judiciary, Department of Justice, emergency docket, Common Sense; 6:00 Department of Justice, emergency docket; 9:00 emergency docket; 12:00 Legal AF, judiciary, Common Sense, separation between church and state; 15:00 Legal AF, Morning AF.

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including judiciary, Department of Justice, emergency docket, Common Sense, separation between church and state, Legal AF. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Chief Justice THROWS Entire SCOTUS UNDER BUS in Report"?

The episode runs 16 min; the transcript is about 2,452 words in 19 timestamped sections.

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