Legal AF by MeidasTouch - WTH! Trump Judge Makes SHOCKING DECISION in Texas

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

A Trump Texas federal judge just put labor and employee lives at risk by finding that the National Labor Relations Board has no power to enforce its own regulations or use its own expert regulators and judges to enforce its rules. Michael Popok explains why the real culprit is a little-covered decision back in June by the United States Supreme Court penned by Chief Justice Roberts that completely dismantled how the government protects people through federal agencies and their regulatory enforcement actions. Visit https://upliftdesk.com/legalaf and get four free accessories, plus an extra discount off your entire order. 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

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Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. This is Michael Popak, Legal AF. Well, that didn't take long. The United States Supreme Court's decision in June in a case called Jenksy versus the Securities and Exchange Commission, in which Chief Justice Roberts effectively dismantled the whole of all regulatory enforcement power for all agencies in America, the Securities and Exchange Commission,

the National Labor Relations Board, the Office of Environmental Protection, all of that. We said that at the time, that the Janksees decision will go down as probably the decision that most impacts in a negative way everybody's day-to-day life. Well, we now see the result. We have a Texas judge, Judge Pittman, of all things, in Fort Worth Division in the Northern District of Texas, who just ruled that the National Labor Relations Board and its use

of an administrative law judge, which is an internal judge which is used for people to deal with NLRB complaints against them, is unconstitutional because the NLRB's administrative law judge can't be removed and has insulated itself from the powers of the presidency under Article 2. Let me put that in English. Under the Janksy decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled in June that people that are in a regulatory enforcement process have the right to have an Article III judge, a judge at the federal court level, and a jury trial to decide their issues.

And the 50 years or more of history in which all enforcement proceedings against anybody brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities and Futures Trade Commission, the EPA, and any other agency that you can think of, all got done sort of hermetically sealed within the agency itself with the experts of the agency and an administrative law judge. That's gone. That's wrecked. Now, there is no more administrative law judge, effectively.

And so, it does not surprise me that in this new case called, wait for it, I love when sometimes cases have funny names and you have to keep repeating them, but here we go, Aunt Bertha versus the National Labor Relations Board, this new case by Judge Pittman, who hold your thought, it is the same judge that threw out President Biden's loan forgiveness for students issue. We'll talk about that in a minute. And some other national injunctions that he's issued, which even the right wing of the United States Supreme Court don't like national injunctions. But let's leave it for a minute.

Aunt Bertha is really not Aunt Bertha. Aunt Bertha is really a business called Find Help, and Find Help brought an emergency application for preliminary injunction arguing to this federal judge that the entirety of the National Labor Relations Board and its use of an administrative law judge as part of its enforcement proceedings is illegal and unconstitutional. And Pittman bought it, mainly referring to the case that came out of the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, all the way to the United States Supreme Court called Janksy versus the Securities and Exchange Commission. We said at the time, I had been my Salas and me during our weekend Legal AF, we said at

the time, this case alone, throwing over the apple cart of 50 to 75 years of regulatory enforcement powers and proceedings to make people's lives better. The Environmental Protection Agency to make clean water and air now has to go back to the drawing board about how to implement their enforcement power, have to wind their way through a four, five or 10 year federal trial process instead of, let's say, in less than a year in an administrative law proceeding. We said that's going to touch more lives in a negative way than mainly anything else that we're talking about. I mean, we think the immunity decision is terrible for our Constitutional Republic, but your day-to-day life, clean water, clean air, energy, how much you pay, how much you pay at the pump, how labor unions are treated, work conditions and things like that. That comes out of the

administrative state, administrative law judges. We have something. Let me do a quick Patreon legal AF breakout session here. Congress speaks and issues laws and regulations, but the details of those regulations and how they are once the law is passed, that's left to the agencies, the experts in the area, the scientists, the economists, the people that are in that industry to create through the code of federal regulation,

regulations that need to be followed and administered by that agency. As part of that, there's something called the Administrative Procedures Act, the APA, we're taught it in law school. And the APA governs how you use administrative law judges and how issues of dispute resolution and enforcement proceedings are done

in every agency in America. That was all completely ripped away. The heart was ripped out of the Administrative Procedures Act, the APA. All of the ALJs, administrative law judges who work inside of agencies was called into question, said to be unconstitutional, and then everybody had the right to go run to your local federal district court and get in line in a four or five year period. You're on a runway in an airport, that's when your airplane's taken off four or five, ten years from now. Administrative law judges, yes, were experts in the field and understood this area of the law, usually from the industry itself. And they were independent, but they were arbiters. And if you

didn't like that ruling, you had very limited effects on appeal. Now look, when I used to work on Wall Street and worked inside of a Wall Street firm, we hated the administrative law judges. We hated the Securities and Exchange Commissions, at least I did, the Securities and Exchange Commission's ability through regulatory enforcement actions

to use their handpicked judges to make decisions. So I kind of get it. But now that I'm on the other side, you know, throwing over and replacing our administrative state, administrative regulatory environment enforcement proceedings, and then just substituting it for getting lined at the local courthouse with some judge who doesn't have any time or attention or knowledge or background in this area, it's terrible. But now we've got in Aunt Bertha, Judge Pittman, who's made the decision in a seven-page decision that since the administrative law judge is protected from being removed, therefore the president can't remove them like any Article

3 judge would. We call federal judges Article 3 judges. He can't use his Article 2 power of the Constitution to remove an Article 3 judge. Unconstitutional use of a judge. Get rid of him. Granted. Injunction granted. Aunt Bertha, you don't have to go through an NLRB, National Labor Relations Board hearing that's headed by an administrative law judge at all. In fact, you get to go to court under the Jenksy decision, which came out of the Fifth Circuit binding precedent up to the United States Supreme Court. That's what Judge Pittman said. I spend most of my day in front of a screen and a microphone.

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a universal injunction across the country. Now he stopped short of a national or universal injunction. What does that mean? That means a district court judge sitting in a small little division in Texas. And there are a number of them, Abilene, Waco, this one, there's usually one judge or two judges, and the MAGA run into those courtrooms to try to get these results. And then they take that result, they get a national injunction, meaning it's imposed

across the entire country. country, right? Like when Judge Casmeric in Amarillo, Texas decided to issue a nationwide injunction against the use of methamphetrysone as part of a medicated abortion. One judge sitting by himself as ruler of the universe. Even the Supreme Court finds abhorrent universal or national injunctions being issued by district court judges. And where are they generally coming out of? The Fifth Circuit, which is Texas, Louisiana, a right-wing, alt-right appellate court in the Fifth Circuit. And so I was fearful that Pittman did that. Oop, here we go. He's's gonna challenge the entire National Labor Relations Board under JNCCC, Securities and Exchange Commission,

the United for the Supreme Court. He didn't do that. He didn't go quite that far. This decision only on its face applies to Aunt Bertha. But of course it's gonna be used as binding precedent because it's the only decision of the district court. It's consistent with the Fifth Circuit's decision in J Jankse and the United States Supreme Court decision. So it might as well be a universal injunction until somebody takes an appeal from there, hopefully the National Labor

Relations Board, takes the appeal to the Fifth Circuit where they will lose under Jankse and then it will get to the United States Supreme Court. Maybe this term that starts the first Monday in October for the Supreme Court and maybe not. But Pittman, we got to explore here for a minute. Pittman actually worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission back in the day in Texas as an enforcement attorney. So he kind of knows his way around agencies, I guess. He was also put on the bench in 2019 by Donald Trump. And then he's had a series of decisions that have gone against the Biden, the Biden-Harris administration. In November 2022, he found, and not once, but twice, that the Biden-Harris administration

did not have the authority to forgive student loans, which is why Joe Biden has constantly tried to help the American people, going back to the drawing board time and time again, to try to find a way to forgive student loans. But that's because of Pittman. He also found that it was unconstitutional given the United States Supreme Court ruling about guns in the Bruin versus New York Rifle Association case in which gave broad Second Amendment powers, Second Amendment rights to people to carry their own guns, including concealed weapons.

He found that bans on teenagers carrying concealed weapons in Texas was unconstitutional. So he was in favor of teenagers in Texas carrying concealed weapons. Even Texas and Governor Abbott there thought that went too far. You know, that's saying something. When the governor of Texas thinks

maybe 18 to 20 year olds mental states and what's going up up here in the old cranium is not properly developed enough or mature enough to be carrying a concealed weapon into the public space and marketplace, Pittman goes, no, no unconstitutional United States Supreme Court. He's very good at taking the messaging

out of the United States Supreme Court and applying it very good at taking the messaging out of the United States Supreme Court and applying it immediately to cases in front of him. So what does this mean, Popak, to ask my own question, to my daily life? It means that all of the agencies that were put in place, the Consumer Protection Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the CFTC, the Department of Justice, if you will, the National Labor Relations Board, things that matter that address our logistics, our supply chain, our work conditions for laborers, for union members and workers, the rights of people not to violate the law

and what their rights will be if they violate the law. The Environmental Protection Agency on water and clean energy and nuclear power and all of that, it's all been destroyed by the United States Supreme Court and the district court judges like Judge Pittman are applying it in this way. Meaning the new administration, the new Harris administration is gonna have to go back

to the drawing board and design an enforcement mechanism for each of these agencies that gets past this right wing alt-right Supreme Court. And fix it because we can't have no enforcement power for these agencies, all bark and no bite. We can't live in a Hobbesian society where anybody just does whatever they want to make whatever money they want,

no matter how many bones are broken. Can't allow that. So it's gonna be something that's gonna have to be the top of the mind, top of the head for Kamala Harris in executive orders in the first 180 days when she gets back in. It looks like under the Supreme Court, she's gonna have to allow federal district judges to be the final arbiter, to be the judges of the cases and destroy all the administrative

law judges. Fire them all. There's not going to be able to be a design that I can see that's going to allow an administrative law judge to continue to operate under the rulings of the United States Supreme Court. But that's all right. Stop pinning your head against the brick wall. Let's design something new. Enforcement is what's necessary. And we're running up against it with test cases like this one with Judge Pittman in Texas. We'll continue to follow it all on the Midas Touch Network. We sit at the crossroads of law and politics so you don't have to as practicing lawyers in these courtrooms telling you our best analysis of what we think is going to happen. In fact, there's nowhere in YouTube that has the level of commentary and analysis

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