March 24, 2022
SCOTUS Confirmation Hearings
Just when I thought it could not get any worse, I watched the Senate hearings for our next Supreme Court Justice. They said that these hearings would be conducted with decorum but the Circus got in ahead of them and the clowns showed up. Robert Hubbell and Heather Cox Richardson captured the happenings much better than I ever could, their reports are below-I watched it live and was speechless.
The unfinished work of the American promise.
March 24, 2022
Mar 24
[Audio version here]
After the first day of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing, it did not seem possible that Republican Senators could sink lower in their offensive and insulting attacks on Judge Jackson. But on the second day of the hearings, Cruz, Hawley, Graham, Cotton, and Blackburn plumbed depths of shame and depravity previously untouched by the worst segregationists and bigots to sit in the Senate. The “performance” of the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee exceeded the worst of their predecessors because much of their questioning seemed designed to attract votes from a cult that believes Satan-worshipping, sex-trafficking pedophiles control governments around the world.
What had been an outlandish internet conspiracy theory too absurd to believe (and may have started as a prank) has become part of the campaign platform for three GOP presidential “wannabes.” It was a sad, sick, perverted display by sad, sick, perverted politicians who seek power above all else, including their self-respect.
Judge Jackson will be confirmed, as she should be. The disgraceful performance of Cruz, Hawley, Graham, and Blackburn will earn them a few minutes on Fox News—and another stain on their already sullied legacies. But let’s be clear: Cruz et al. are engaging disgusting tactics because the media is treating them like they are U.S. Senators who deserve respect. If I see one more headline that says that Judge Jackson was subjected to “intense questioning,” I will throw my computer out the window (or use the The Screaming Goat sent to me by a reader).
Jennifer Rubin of WaPo appropriately called out the media for its complicity in normalizing the behavior of the QAnon Caucus. See Jennifer Rubin, Opinion | GOP grandstanders aren’t the only reason Jackson’s confirmation hearings were so disgraceful. Per Rubin,
The only thing more stunning than the off-the-rails Republican badgering and constant interrupting of Ketanji Brown Jackson [] was the utterly inaccurate and inapt media coverage. “Tense.” “Heated.” “Confrontational.” “Tough.” Was that really the proper way to describe the hearings? [¶] The media in particular fails to convey the visual image of angry White men screaming and interrupting a Black woman, who dares not show anger for fear of being labeled unprofessional or lacking the correct temperament.
Brett Kavanaugh was given free rein to shout and snarl at Senators asking him about a credible report that he sexually assaulted a woman in high school. If Judge Jackson had exhibited a hundredth of Kavanaugh’s angry, contemptuous attitude, she would have been declared unfit to sit on the Court. But White men are allowed to express anger and disdain in a way that Black women (and men) are denied. The codes of the Old South still hold sway in the world’s most embarrassing institution. Shameful!
The Supreme Court again acts to protect White control in gerrymandered districts.
As Senate Republicans were engaged in outrageous conduct in the Capitol, the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court was giving the QAnon Caucus a run for its money. On Wednesday, the Court set-aside a Wisconsin state legislative map (not congressional district maps) that created one additional “Black-majority” district. The background and facts are complicated, so I recommend Ian Millhiser’s excellent analysis of the Wisconsin Legislature case in Vox, The Supreme Court’s Wisconsin decision makes it harder to stop racist gerrymanders.
In its unsigned order—issued on the “shadow docket”—six justices intervened with virtually no briefing to overturn the judgment of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in tentatively approving a state legislative map. The unsigned order essentially told Wisconsin to go back and see if there was any other district besides a “Black-majority” district that could be drawn. Only after exhausting those alternatives can Wisconsin consider a Black-majority district. As Ian Millhiser explains, the Court’s order “flips the presumption” of the Voting Rights Act on its head.
To add insult to injury, the Court intervened only five months before the August primaries in Wisconsin. That “late-stage” intervention flies in the face of the Court’s refusal to set aside admittedly discriminatory districts in Merrill v. Milligan. In Merrill, the Court allowed gerrymandered districts to remain in place because, in the words of Justice Kavanaugh, “Federal courts ordinarily should not enjoin a state’s election laws in the period close to an election.” The Merrill decision was issued nine months before the next general election and three months before the next primary.
Thus, in Kavanaugh’s view, nine months is “too close in time” to overturn racially gerrymandered districts that favor Whites, but five months is sufficient time to set aside Wisconsin’s Black-majority district created in accordance with the Voting Rights Act. (Because the order was unsigned, I assume that Kavanaugh was in the majority—a safe bet.)
I hope I have conveyed the outrageous double standard that appears to turn on the Court’s hostility to Black-majority districts but its acceptance of districts that are gerrymandered to maintain voting control for Whites. Unless and until the Court issues an opinion that explains the inconsistency between the Merrill and Wisconsin Legislature cases, the simplest explanation is that the reactionary majority on the Court is helping to defend racially gerrymandered districts that preserve GOP control in ways that violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
Putin’s war on the Ukrainian people.
Putin and the Russian military have continued their war crimes against the people of Ukraine—targeting civilians, depriving them of food and water, and forcibly removing them to Russia. The U.S. declared that Russia has committed war crimes in its assault on Ukraine, calling out the siege of Mariupol and the bombing of a maternity hospital.
Against the backdrop of increasingly ominous and depressing news from Ukraine, President Biden arrived in Brussels for a meeting with NATO allies. The fact of the meeting—combined with new sanctions and more explicit warnings—is another stabilizing move by Biden, who continues to handle the crisis with calm but resolute leadership. We are fortunate to have him as our leader at this unsettled moment in world history.
Per the NYT story linked above, NATO plans to double its forces on its eastern flank. Good. Russia’s beleaguered army is in no shape for additional fights and a hefty presence of NATO troops should discourage further expansionism (at this time).
The war continues to go badly for Russia, with increasing concerns that Russia plans to use chemical weapons to inflict damage that its degraded and demoralized troops cannot. One ominous report says that a leaked document from the Russian Ministry of Health is mobilizing medical staff in Russia in anticipation of a “mass casualty event.” See Business Insider, Ukraine Invasion: Leaked Document Shows Russia Foresees Mass Casualties. Ukrainian sources interpret the document to mean that Russia has decided to hunker down for a long war of attrition against Ukraine.
In a war of attrition, Russia appears to be at a distinct disadvantage. A must-read story in The Daily Beast, details a dysfunctional, demoralized, wounded Russian army. See The Daily Beast, Russian Troops Are Now Turning on Each Other. ‘It’s a Sh*tshow,’ One Soldier Is Recorded Telling Another. The article is based on an intercepted phone conversation between Russian soldiers. I don’t know if the recording is authentic, but some of the details match reports of casualties in mainstream Russian media. Among the comments made in the conversation,
· A Russian soldier claimed that he intentionally “ran over” his commander during battle, causing severe injury to his commander;
Fifty percent of the soldier’s unit is suffering from frostbite on their feet;
A Russian plane bombed the soldier’s unit;
The Russian troops are “surrounded on all sides” by Ukrainian forces;
The soldier’s unit was forced to carry their dead comrades for five days because of logistical failures; and
The solider was told by commanders that the special military operation would be over in four days.
Meanwhile, back in Russia, citizens are engaging in panic buying of goods as sanctions start to clear shelves in stores. See The Guardian, ‘We’re going back to a USSR’: long queues return for Russian shoppers as sanctions bite. And one of Putin’s longest-serving advisers resigned from his government position on Tuesday and has left Russia. The Guardian, Putin adviser Anatoly Chubais quits and leaves Russia over invasion of Ukraine.
While none of Russia’s difficulties match the crimes against humanity being inflicted on the Russian people, they indicate that Ukraine may win simply by holding on—despite the incredible death and destruction being inflicted by Russia. As I wrote yesterday, if Ukraine can do that, the entire world will benefit from the bravery and sacrifice of the Ukrainian people.
Trump’s crimes.
Two developments on Wednesday highlighted the need for the DOJ to indict Trump. The resignation letter from a Manhattan prosecutor asserted that there was ample evidence of multiple crimes to sustain a conviction against Trump. See NYTimes, Trump Is Guilty of ‘Numerous’ Felonies, Prosecutor Who Resigned Says. I urge you to read the entire resignation letter. It is damning.
Rep. Mo Brooks, coup-plotter and candidate for U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, has had Trump’s endorsement for months. But Brooks committed the cardinal sin of wavering on claims that the election was stolen. Trump withdrew his endorsement, and Brooks gave an interview in which he confirmed that Trump intended to “rescind” the 2020 election and remove Joe Biden as president. If you were an overly-cautious Attorney General worried about how you could prove Trump’s intent, Mo Brooks just delivered the smoking gun. It is time for Merrick Garland to convene a grand jury and begin presenting evidence!
Opportunity for high school students to develop leadership skills.
The Civics Center is accepting applications for the spring sessions of Future Voters Action Week (FVAW). FVAW is a five-day virtual workshop for high school students interested in developing their leadership skills. The program trains students to create public narratives and voter registration action plans and offers an opportunity to collaborate with other students. There is no cost to apply or to attend.
The Civics Center will be hosting one session for Southern California (April 11-15 at 4:30 PM Pacific / 7:30 PM Eastern) and one national session (April 18-22 at 4:30 PM Pacific / 7:30 PM Eastern). Applications for both sessions of FVAW are due April 1.
Concluding Thoughts.
On a day when Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson demonstrated what it takes for a Black woman to succeed in America, we lost a trailblazer who demonstrated what it takes for an immigrant and a woman to rise to the highest levels of government. When Madeleine Albright was appointed Secretary of State in 1997, she was the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in the U.S. government. She left an outsized mark on U.S. foreign policy, now described as the “Albright Doctrine.” Her path to leadership was remarkable, as described in a Washington Post article in 1999, Becoming Madeleine Albright,
[I]t is hard to conceive of another [Secretary of State] from as unusual a background as Madeleine Albright’s: escapes from Nazism and communism; a buried Jewish past; a marriage that brought her into the charmed circle of America’s elite; a divorce that spurred a new, career-driven focus to her life; and finally, the triumphant moment in January 1997 when she emerged as America’s first female secretary of state.
From immigrant refugee to U.S. Secretary of State within the span of 49 years. Only in America! Each in her own way, Judge Jackson and Secretary Albright demonstrates the greatness and unfinished work of the American promise.
March 23, 2022
Heather Cox RichardsonMar 24
“O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.”
Langston Hughes wrote these words in a poem published in 1936. He wrote as the Dust Bowl baked in the heat, Louisiana senator Huey Long died by gunfire, the Supreme Court invalidated much of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, a serial killer terrorized Cleveland, workers finished Hoover Dam, the Depression dragged on, and Black and Brown Americans fell even farther behind their white neighbors.
Today, at the Senate confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) recited some of Hughes’s poem, and the choppy era in which we are living made Hughes’s words apt.
Russia’s war on Ukraine is four weeks old. The State Department announced today that “the U.S. government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine” and that the government is committed to bringing the perpetrators to account. President Joe Biden today flew to Brussels, where he will meet tomorrow with leaders of the 29 other NATO nations to discuss the conflict. Biden is expected to unveil a plan to replace the Russian oil and gas cut off by sanctions with supplies from the U.S., helping Europe to avoid a crisis even as the U.S. imposes still harsher sanctions on Russia. The meeting is also expected to discuss contingency plans in case Russian president Vladimir Putin deploys chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.
At home, former president Trump is in the news.
The New York Times today published the resignation letter of former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who quit his job after the new Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, stopped the process of seeking an indictment against the former president. In his letter, Pomerantz wrote, “I believe that Donald Trump is guilty of numerous felony violations of the Penal Law in connection with the preparation and use of his annual Statements of Financial Condition. His financial statements were false, and he has a long history of fabricating information relating to his personal finances and lying about his assets to banks, the national media, counterparties, and many others, including the American people. The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes—he did.”
Pomerantz suggested that Bragg stopped the forward motion of the case out of concern about “the legal and factual sufficiency of our case and the likelihood that a prosecution would succeed.” Pomerantz countered that “a failure to prosecute will pose much greater risks in terms of public confidence in the fair administration of justice.”
Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been under investigation in North Carolina for claiming a false residence for purposes of voting, a deception that might constitute voter fraud. News broke today that his wife, Debra Meadows, filled out two official forms claiming the couple lives in a trailer in rural North Carolina, although they actually live in a condo in Old Town Alexandria in Virginia. One of the forms she signed reads: “Fraudulently or falsely completing this form” is a Class I felony.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and a convicted felon, was taken off a plane in Miami because his passport had been revoked. The plane was headed for Dubai.
Today, Trump withdrew his endorsement of Alabama Representative Mo Brooks, such a staunch supporter he spoke at the January 6 rally at the Ellipse, for suggesting that the party needs to move on past the rehashing of the 2020 election. Brooks has been trailing in the polls.
After Trump’s announcement, Brooks said that Trump had “asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency,” all of which would have been an illegal attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the election. Brooks said Trump was pushing this plan as late as September 2021.
Today, at the third day of the Senate confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, Trump Republicans turned in a performance for right-wing media, expressing outrage over their manufactured concern that certain of Judge Jackson’s sentences for child pornography were too short and that she is a secret warrior for Critical Race Theory in the schools.
This is such a transparent reach for base votes that will score an interview on right-wing media that immediately after Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) spoke about Critical Race Theory, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) said "I think we should recognize that the jackassery we often see around here is partly because of people mugging for short-term camera opportunities." Sasse’s point was borne out when a camera then apparently caught Cruz checking Twitter for his own name.
Certain Republican senators badgered and bullied Jackson, who could not fight back without endangering her chances of confirmation. It was an abusive dynamic that spoke ill of the process and of the senators themselves: the abusive Republicans, but also the many Democrats who, as legal analyst Dahlia Lithwick pointed out, did little to remind viewers that the Republicans have stacked the court with extremists who are poised to take away our fundamental rights, and instead just let the Republicans beat up on Jackson.
Tonight Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) illustrated the profound difference between Jackson, who demonstrated a profound understanding of our founding documents and our legal system, and those browbeating her when she tweeted: “The Constitution grants us rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—not abortions.”
It is, of course, not the U.S. Constitution but the Declaration of Independence that declares: “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It goes on to say “[t]hat to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….”
Senator Booker, though, pushed back against the Republicans as Jackson could not. In an impassioned speech, quoting Langston Hughes’s vow that “America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath—America will be!” Booker said “There is a love in this country that is extraordinary.”
He spoke of Jackson’s parents and how they “didn’t stop loving this country even though this country didn’t love them back.” Jackson has talked of how the life of civil rights attorney Constance Baker Motley inspired her; Booker said: “Did she become bitter” when no one would hire her after law school? “Did she try to create a revolution? No, she used the very Constitution of this nation. She loved it so much she wanted America to be America….”
“That is the story of how you got to this desk,” he told Jackson. “You and I and everyone here: generations of folk who came here and said, ‘America, I’m Irish. You may say no Irish or dogs need apply, but I’m going to show this country that I can be free here. I can make this country love me as much as I love it.’ Chinese Americans forced into mere slave labor building our railroads connecting our country saw the ugliest of America, but they were going to build their home here and say, ‘America, you may not love me yet, but I’m going to make this nation live up to its promise and hope.’ LGBTQ Americans from Stonewall women to Seneca…. All of these people loved America.”
“And so you faced insults here that were shocking to me—well, actually not shocking. But you are here because of that kind of love.”
Finally, today brought the passing of Madeleine K. Albright, whose parents were Czech refugees from the Nazis and the Communists, at 84. Albright served the United States as a diplomat and then as Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, the first woman to serve in that role. Her most recent op-ed, published by the New York Times just a month ago, illustrated just how deeply she still engaged with the nation’s interests. She warned that invading Ukraine “would ensure Mr. Putin’s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance.”
Her extraordinary career was a fitting backdrop today to Booker’s illumination of Judge Jackson. “The act of striving,” Albright once said, “is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.”
—
Notes:
https://www.state.gov/war-crimes-by-russias-forces-in-ukraine/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/us/politics/biden-russia-nuclear-weapons.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/23/biden-russia-sanctions-brussels/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/nyregion/mark-pomerantz-resignation-letter.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/23/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-hearing-gop-what-matters/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/23/cruz-jackson-hearing-critical-race-theory-school/
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/cory-booker-democrats-ketanji-brown-jackson.html