Supreme Court To Voting Rights Act: AND STAY DEAD!
IT'S A BAD COURT BRANT.
Yesterday, the US Supreme Court, which loves "state's rights" just as long as you're attacking women's bodily autonomy, trans people, or people of color, decided to jump into Wisconsin's redistricting war. Because why not?
And, of course, this Court is never just going to fuck things up in the normal Republican-evil way of the past. No, they are in the midst of an all-out attack on voting rights — especially for Black and brown Americans. (Full disclosure: In my other life, I'm the Policy Director for Wisconsin Voices and have been working on redistricting and ensuring Black and Brown voices are represented in our state's maps. This is not my first rodeo.)
When this Court goes for it, they really go for it. And so, the Court didn't just issue a stay or decide to hear Wisconsin Legislature v. Wisconsin Elections Commission; in an unsigned opinion, it summarily reversed the Wisconsin Supreme Court's ruling on the state's electoral maps without any argument or briefing on the merits. And in that unsigned opinion, they made it pretty clear that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is next on the chopping block.
Here's the background
Since before the 2020 Census results were even released, we knew redistricting in Wisconsin was going to be a shitshow and that a court was going to end up drawing our maps. The Wisconsin Constitution requires that the legislature and the governor agree on electoral maps, and we have a batshit insane legislature hell-bent on destroying our democracy as well as a reasonable governor in Tony Evers. When the legislature and the governor can't agree, the issue goes to the courts.
In the past, the Seventh Circuit has drawn Wisconsin's maps when there was no agreement, but this year our state supreme court decided to step in. The majority-conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that it would choose the maps that presented the least change from our uber-gerrymandered 2011 maps. And earlier this month, the court did just that, finding that Governor Evers's maps presented the least change from the 2011 maps and also complied with the Voting Rights Act by creating a new majority-Black district in Milwaukee because of the increase of Black voters in the area.
Let's talk law
When race can be considered in redistricting is a very normal legal doctrine — by which I mean it's one full of rules and exceptions and "well, it depends" answers to what sound like simple questions.
The general rule is that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibits making race a primary consideration when drawing political maps. To use race as a predominant factor in map-drawing, you have to pass the strict scrutiny test: You have to show the maps are (1) narrowly tailored to further a (2) compelling state interest.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race. This includes a ban on diluting minority vote by doing things things like packing minority voters into a small number of districts or cracking minority voters across several districts. Since 1965, the Supreme Court and lower courts have considered compliance with the Voting Rights Act to be a compelling government interest.
After the US Supreme Court decimated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder (aka the Plessy v. Ferguson of our time), Section 2 became the most important federal tool for challenging racist election practices. But don't you worry, racists who hate it when Black and brown people vote, because our esteemed Supreme Court justices are working to destroy Section 2, too.
Last summer, the Court weakened Section 2 by ruling in Brnovich v. DNC that it was totally fine for Arizona to enact racist voting laws that target racial minorities, as long as those laws might also disenfranchise some poor white people. And yesterday, the Court showed us once again just how excited it is to do away with these so-called "voting rights" once and for all.
Let's talk Milwaukee
During the five months the Wisconsin Supreme Court spent on the redistricting litigation, all parties pretty much agreed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act applies to Milwaukee. Per long-standing SCOTUS precedent (Gingles v. Thornburg), Section 2 applies when a minority population is "sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district," is "politically cohesive," and the "majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate."
Milwaukee ticks all of those boxes. And I agree with Governor Evers that Section 2 requires seven majority-Black districts in Milwaukee. The problem isn't the idea of an additional majority-Black district, but ensuring any Section 2 districts actually create opportunity for minority voters.
As Senator Lena Taylor, one of just three Black Wisconsin state senators, argued to SCOTUS, the issue with the maps wasn't carving out seven majority-Black districts — it was creating "majority-Black districts" that didn't have enough Black people to comply with the Voting Rights Act. (The Republican maps would have reduced the number of majority-Black districts from six to five, despite a growth in Milwaukee's Black voting age population and a corresponding drop in Milwaukee's white voting age population, but that's an issue for another court and another day.)
But this, of course, is not the Supreme Court's problem with our maps. Rather, the Court stepped in here to try to ensure the Wisconsin Supreme Court takes even more power from Black voters if possible, Voting Rights Act be damned.
For most of the redistricting litigation, it was essentially undisputed that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act applied to Milwaukee. Even Wisconsin's 2011 maps, often declared the most gerrymandered in the country, created six majority-Black state Assembly districts in Milwaukee County. But now, the US Supreme Court is saying that the analysis done by the Wisconsin Supreme Court wasn't enough to justify the creation of seven majority-Black districts.
One of the scariest parts of all of this is that Governor Evers never argued that his maps were primarily drawn to create majority-minority districts. Historically, the rule has always been that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits using race as the predominant factor in map-drawing. The maps that were submitted weren't drawn specifically with race in mind — they were created to follow the Wisconsin Supreme Court's guidance of creating the least change from the 2011 maps. They also created seven majority-Black districts in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
The posture of this case is different from normal Voting Rights Act cases. Usually, when a court is considering a Section 2 issue, it is in a Voting Rights Act case filed in federal court — and the court creates a large record analyzing maps, legislative history, historic voting patterns, and the local history of minority disenfranchisement. That gives the courts the ability to consider all of the relevant facts and do a full analysis.
That just isn't going to be possible in certain cases where courts are acting as map drawers. The Wisconsin Supreme Court was creating the maps, not reviewing them for Section 2 compliance. The governor submitted maps to the court specifically to follow the court's "least change" measure. The governor also considered compliance with the Voting Rights Act when drawing his maps.
This is what should happen! It has been the law for decades that compliance with the Voting Rights Act is a valid reason to take race into consideration when drawing maps. Requiring states to completely ignore Section 2 compliance when drawing maps will, at the very best, result in justice delayed. Minority voters will be required to wait until illegal maps are drawn and then litigate the issue, likely for years, before any corrective measure can be taken. But that is essentially what SCOTUS said must happen when it wrote:
The question that our VRA precedents ask and the court failed to answer is whether a race-neutral alternative that did not add a seventh majority-black district would deny black voters equal political opportunity. Answering that question requires an "intensely local appraisal" of the challenged district. When the Wisconsin Supreme Court endeavored to undertake a full strict-scrutiny analysis, it did not do so properly under our precedents, and its judgment cannot stand.
The rule in Section 2 cases has never been that the court must consider race-neutral alternatives. And if this is applied in all Section 2 cases, that part of the Voting Rights Act is, at least in practice, probably going the way of Section 5 à la Shelby County.
The Court's suggestion to the Wisconsin Supreme Court is that "the court is free to take additional evidence if it prefers to reconsider the Governor’s maps rather than choose from among the other submissions. Any new analysis, however, must comply with our equal protection jurisprudence."
No mention of the Voting Rights Act.
This is fine
While the impending decimation of the rest of the Voting Rights Act is the scariest thing about this opinion, it's far from the only fucked up part. The Court issued a summary reversal without full briefing — parties had only filed briefing on the legislature's request to stay the state court ruling and had not even briefed the merits. Summary reversal is rare and generally requires six justices to sign-off, so even though the opinion is unsigned (cowards), we can be reasonably sure John Roberts, who hates Black voting rights as much as anyone, sided with the five fullblown fascists. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan were the only noted dissents.
This case is also another example of the Supreme Court using the "shadow docket" to make important rulings. Most major Supreme Court rulings come after months of briefing, oral arguments, and consideration by the Court. But in recent years, the Roberts Court has increasingly enjoyed issuing major rulings on the merits of cases without any of this. Precedents intended to last for decades if not longer are created, as in this case, after just a couple of weeks and no full picture of the issue at hand.
Between this case and the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Merrill v. Milligan (another shadow docket case), the Voting Rights Act is, at best, on life support. In Merrill, the Court overruled a decision requiring Alabama to create a second majority-Black congressional district. (The very "liberal activist" three-judge panel the Supreme Court overturned included two Trump appointees.)
In the Alabama case, the judges said it was just too close to the state's May primary to bother worrying about the Voting Rights Act. Sorry, Black voters!
Here in Wisconsin, on the other hand, our maps were summarily reversed and sent back despite the Wisconsin Elections Commission repeatedly saying that it needed the state's maps finalized by March 15 at the latest. That's because the candidate nomination period starts April 15 and people need to know what district they live in. Oh well! If you don't know what district you're going to be in for the next decade, too bad, so sad.
For the record, I part from most Dems in that I don't think it's a bad thing for a court to take a second look at Governor Evers's maps. But my issue is that the governor's maps didn't give enough power to Black voters — and SCOTUS is out here trying to diminish the power of Black voters even more than they already have.
But all of this is par for the course with the Roberts Court. I'm almost surprised they didn't just force the Wisconsin Supreme Court to just choose the Republican maps, like the legislature asked them to.
[ SCOTUS ]
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A List Of Josh Hawley's Lies About Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson In Handy F*ck You Josh Hawley Form
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In the Trump years, factchecking came to feel like an almost Sisyphean task. There was just so much complete bullshit, and so many of the Trump faithful didn't care that it was bullshit, that the task seemed fruitless — but still necessary to make sure reality got on the record. Which brings us to our post-truthiness era, where a majority of Americans voted for reality and an entire political party has convinced itself that living in a world of lies is just plain more satisfying.
That's fully on display this week in the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Out here on Reality Earth, she's an extremely well-qualified jurist with impeccable credentials and a commitment to justice, even Justice with a capital J. On GOP Planet, she's automatically unqualified because Joe Biden said he'd appoint a Black woman, and that means he automatically excluded more-qualified candidates like Justice Freeze-In-Your-Truck And Justice Rapeybeer.
But just in case the obvious racism weren't enough, Sen. Josh Hawley and s few other Republicans have decided to lie outright about Jackson's record. In mere reality, the sentences Jackson gave as a federal judge were in line with those of her peers. But in GOP moral panic world, Hawley has taken a bunch of cherry-picked examples and misleading quotes, taken out of context, to smear her with the false claim that she's a big fan of people convicted in child pornography cases. It's bullshit, and you can find very good, detailed fact checks of Hawley's lies at Vox, the New York Times, the Washington Post (here, have a paywall-free linky!), and even at the National Freaking Review.
The chief thing to remember about Hawley is that he's using a load of dishonest claims about Jackson's record. He has already insisted that critics are being super unfair to him, because everything he claimed about her is a "fact." But nah: Without proper context, they're still misleading bullshit. Josh Hawley is a smart but evil man who knows how to twist the truth; that doesn't make him any kind of truth-teller.
As WaPo's Glenn Kessler points out, Hawley posted a 17-part Twitter thread last week in which the senator offered a whole load of lies about KJB's record. Most of the lies he told fell into three basic areas.
1. Out Of Context Quotes
Hawley quoted questions Jackson asked during US Sentencing Commission (USSC) hearings and pretended those questions about child porn defendants reflected Jackson's own views. In each case, Jackson had restated something a witness had said in testimony, then asked for more information or a clarification, because the whole point was to revise sentencing recommendations that federal judges had been complaining about.
For instance, when Jackson asked expert witnesses about "less serious offenders," and about people who might access child porn not because they're pedophiles but as a way of proving their computer skills, she was asking for more information about the experts' research, and how prevalent they thought such behaviors were. She was not, as Hawley claimed, presenting her own "troubling" views. And as Kessler notes, the witness said that people who persist in collecting the stuff over time tend to become more serious offenders.
In reply to a request for comment, Hawley preemptively issued a news release on Twitter and accused WaPo of simply "regurgitating White House talking points," although the column hadn't yet run. Also too, Hawley seemed to deny that context exists, because if Jackson quoted any words, they now are her words:
Judge Jackson’s words are right there in print, and they speak for themselves. [...] When she does quote from or refer to previous testimony, she does so with approval and indicates the witness has changed her mind on child porn offenders.
After all, she must approve, since look at "her" words right there. (See WaPo for a detailed breakdown, which makes clear, that, NUH-UH.)
2. Pretending Unanimous Recommendations Were Jackson's Weird Radical Ideas
Hawley also pretended on Twitter that Jackson had personally "advocated for drastic change in how the law treats sex offenders" when in fact all the USSC's recommendations were the result of consensus among the seven members of the bipartisan commission, which had three Republican and four Democratic members.
The New York Times points out that the commission
noted in a 2012 report to Congress that existing sentencing guidelines on crimes involving images of child sexual abuse “fail to differentiate among offenders in terms of their culpability” and result in penalty ranges that “are too severe for some offenders and too lenient for other offenders.”
At WaPo, Kessler adds that the report noted that the guidelines also didn't make distinctions as to how dangerous the various types of offenders were. Since there was no mandatory minimum sentence for possessing child porn, but there was a five-year minimum for sending, receiving, or distributing it, Kessler explains, the commission found that
prosecutors and courts were gaming the system, seeking ways to limit sentence exposure by, for instance, charging someone only with possession even if they had committed other related crimes.
Judges didn't care for the inflexible guidelines either:
A 2010 survey showed 71 percent of judges said the mandatory minimums for receipt of images were too high. Moreover, in 2010 only 40 percent of convicted offenders for non-production — people who use existing images but do not make them — received sentences that matched the guidelines.
As a result, the commission suggested changes in minimums for non-production offenses, but not for people who make child pornography. It also recommended equalizing the punishment for possession and for receipt, transportation and distribution.
The members of the commission were divided on whether mandatory minimums were actually necessary for non-production crimes, but agreed unanimously that Congress should equalize the penalties for possession with those for the other charges, and that any minimum sentence be less than five years. Again, that was all the members, not Jackson on her own, and Congress didn't act on the recommended changes. Kessler notes that in 2021, the USSC again called for the changes.
Hawley's very smart answer to the critique was that even if it was the USSC's unanimous recommendation, Jackson nonetheless called for it, so it's on her. Also too, the other commissioners who made the very same recommendations "probably shouldn’t be on the Supreme Court either.” One of the commission's Republicans, Dabney Friedrich, was appointed to a federal judgeship by Donald Trump in 2017, before Hawley was elected. She was confirmed on a 97-3 vote, with all Senate Republicans supporting her.
3. OMG Her Sentences For Child Porn Were What Prosecutors Asked For!
Hawley also listed seven cases in which we're supposed to be horribly outraged that Jackson sentenced convicted child-porn offenders to less time than recommended in the federal sentencing guidelines. As should be clear by now, those guidelines are widely disliked by actual federal judges, who depart from them fairly regularly, as Kessler points out:
The 2021 USSC report noted that in 2019, only 30 percent of non-production child-porn offenders received a sentence within the guideline range. “The non-production child pornography guideline has been subject to longstanding criticism from stakeholders and has one of the lowest rates of within-guideline range sentences each year,” the report said.
After Hawley tweeted his thread of lies, another former member of the Sentencing Commission, NYU Law professor Rachel E. Barkow, tweeted that Hawley's complaints were "silly," explaining that Jackson's sentences for non-production child porn offenders were in line with "what most of the federal bench does," because "just about [every] federal judge realizes these Guidelines are too severe."
Kessler compared what prosecutors and US Probation officers had recommended in pre-sentencing reports for each of the nine cases, and found that in three of the seven cases, Jackson had imposed a longer sentence than the recommendation (and in one, Hawley had entirely misstated the details, claiming Jackson's sentence was much lower than the guidelines; in reality, it was within them). In two others, she had given the same sentence probation had recommended. Only two of the cases had sentences that were shorter than the prosecutors or probation had recommended.
Further, in US v. Sears, a case that Hawley had cited as a horror story because Jackson gave a shorter sentence (71 months) than the guidelines recommended (97 to 121 months), Kessler notes that Jackson later returned to the case in 2020 when the offender asked for a compassionate medical release. She denied the request, noting in her ruling that
The possession and distribution of child pornography is an extremely serious crime because it involves trading depictions of the actual sexual assault of children, and the abuse that these child victims endure will remain available on the internet forever.
She said the offender's behavior — which included showing clothed photos of a young female relative and a friend's child to an undercover cop — made him a likely danger to children, especially since he hadn't undergone the treatment she'd ordered in his original sentence.
It's difficult to read that order and decide Jackson is a pal to child pornographers. But then, Josh Hawley is all about smears, not about honesty.
[Vox / NYT / WaPo / National Review]
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LIVE: Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmation Hearings Wonkette Liveblog, Day One!
We'll be here all week.
Clarence Thomas is in the hospital right now, and that is all we are going to say about that.
Today, confirmation hearings start for Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman ever nominated to the highest court in the land. She's been confirmed by the Senate several times, so this should be smooth sailing, but Republicans are assholes, so they're going to need to launch some lie-filled attacks at her.
Today we will hear from all the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and their opening statements. Will GOP Senator Josh Hawley do his little dance today, or will he wait until later this week during his questioning? Dunno, but you probably should send your children out of the room when he starts talking just in case.
11:05: Good morning! We have started, and committee chair Dick Durbin is introducing the proceedings. There's something fucked up with the sound, both on MSNBC and in the PBS livestream, so we guess it's not the networks, it's the Senate's problem itself.
So that's awesome.
Dick Durbin says [technical difficulties with sound] and also [technical difficulties].
11:08: By the way, even the National Review thinks Josh Hawley's nasty bullshit attacks on KBJ's record on child porn are gross. But this is what Hawley does. He's a seditionist and he's not a serious person. He wants to be famous, so he makes up some bullshit that's so ridiculous that even his dumbest colleagues won't follow him. Everybody clap for Josh Hawley, yaaaaaaaaay.
Oh look, sounds like the Senate figured out its sound problem.
11:14: Haha, Durbin just is going ahead and noting that Josh Hawley's upcoming attacks are bullshit. (He had already addressed them before the hearing.) Also says any upcoming attacks on Jackson based on who she defended as a public defender where that was her job are just obvious bullshit as well.
Now it is Chuck Grassley's time to say once upon a time there was a butter cow at the Iowa State Fair and he can't wait to see it again, in summary and in conclusion, Chuck Grassley.
11:17: Chuck Grassley says today is going great because people aren't interrupting like they did at the beginning of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.
We'd say this is going better than those hearings because the SCOTUS nominee isn't a credibly accused sexual predator.
11:19: Grassley talkin' about elephants in mouse-holes or something. This is his argument about "originalism."
11:20: Pretty sure Grassley just made a up a new word for "racist" and it was "racious."
11:25: Chuck Grassley says don't worry about them cherrypicking Jackson's opinions, Republicans will have bullshit to say about all her opinions.
Also he is whining about "dark money" and nefarious groups, which is funny in a world that includes the Federalist Society that literally vomited nominees up Donald Trump's butt and that's why we have to endure Amy Coney Barrett's Aunt Lydia song and dance on the court for the next 700 centuries.
11:30: Haha, MSNBC cuts away just in time for Pat Leahy, we guess because pfffffffft. They say if you want to watch the whole hearing live, you may scan "QR code."
Also there is that thing where Russia is currently on its 26th day of massacring Ukraine for literally no reason beside Vladimir Putin is having a temper tantrum. And all the other things in the world.
11:34: Leahy notes, like Durbin did, how ridiculous the "soft on crime" accusations are, considering all the support she has from police groups and how she comes from a cop family full of cops.
11:40: It is Lindsey Graham's turn, aren't we all excited? Graham says it is good to have a Court that looks like America, but he also wants the Court to "play a particular role in America" and "operate in the confines of the Constitution." Yeah, we know what white Republicans mean when they say things like that.
Hey, remember Graham screaming and wailing during the Kavanaugh hearings? That was funny.
Anyway, now Graham is whining about unqualified awful garbage asshole Republican nominees who didn't get confirmed even though they were racial minorities, just because they were unqualified awful garbage asshole Republicans.
He is also mad Joe Biden did not pick Michelle Childs as his nominee, even though that was the one Lindsey Graham liked.
Look at this loser:
11:47: Lindsey Graham is also very mad that KBJ will not have questions asked about what her church believes or anything like this. (It's because Democratic nominees aren't batshit like Republican nominees are.)
And Lindsey is STILL whining that Michelle Childs didn't get picked.
God, listening to Republicans whine that Joe Biden didn't obey and pick the person they demanded he pick is just ridiculous.
11:54: Dianne Feinstein is giving her opening statement and it's fine, but we can't stop thinking about how amazingly complimentary she was during Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearings.
11:58: John Cornyn also patting self on back for how "civil" Republicans are going to be. They will never stop crying about the fact that Democrats were willing to say out loud that Donald Trump's nominees were unqualified partisan hacks unfit to sit on the Court.
12:02: Cornyn is also superGRRRmad that we all say out loud right now that Trump's justices are unqualified partisan hacks who are only there to make Republicans' wet dreams bucket list goals happen with their gavels. Oh well, that's just true. Watch what happens in June when they either overturn Roe or gut it beyond all recognition.
12:05: Cornyn saying words about "pro-abortion" and "anti-religious liberty," so go ahead and start drinking.
Now Sheldon Whitehouse, who is literally actually the expert on dark money groups, who will hopefully talk about what full-of-shit assholes Republicans are. He already used the words "dark money turnstile" and that Jackson has been confirmed by the Senate three times before, so he's off to a good start.
12:10: Whitehouse says Jackson is here on her own merit, not based on some weird dark money pre-selection process. He's bringin' it.
12:14: Utah GOP Senator Mike Lee talking now, let's see how he can make this weird. He's always good for that.
12:15: Mike Lee is also very mad about "politics of personal destruction," because (unspoken) obviously he is also mad those people said Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted them. How unfair of them to do "politics of personal destruction" to him!
12:18: Lee saying weird thirsty things about the founders being "raised up by God" to found America. Get a room with a bust of George Washington, dude.
12:21: Mike Lee says it's very important to understand the law the same exact way the (white) men who wrote it understood it. They were omnipotent and nothing ever changes in the world, that's why originalism makes sense as a philosophy for serious people.
Mike Lee also says it sickens him when people "delegitimize" the Court by talking about court-packing and such. It says nine Supreme Court justices in the Bible! Just kidding, no it doesn't. But nine is the best number, nine is the only number, Mike Lee likes nine!
12:23: Here is Amy Klobuchar to bring things back to an adult level, thank god.
12:32: Klobuchar's opening statement has been just very good, but now she's closing by talking about what's happening in Ukraine, and her own experiences last week going to the Polish-Ukrainian border. She's talking about how this is showing us the fragility of democracy and just ... it's just a good opening statement. We'll post the video when we see it.
12:35: Ted Cruz sounds like he's got some crap inside his face. Is he doing a confirmation hearing while sick?
12:37: Ted Cruz blah blah "Democrats don't want the Supreme Court to be democratic" blah blah blah.
12:38: Cruz says only liberals really attack nominees for being disgusting and unacceptable like Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, just because they're disgusting and unacceptable. And oh he is also very mad that the Democrats allowed sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh to be aired.
Ted Cruz promises nobody will ask Jackson about her "teenage dating habits" or ask "do you like beer?" Because that's what that was really about, to white Republican men.
12:43: This is what it looks like when you have to smile respectfully at a person who doesn't deserve smiles or respect.
12:45: Ted Cruz wants to know if SCOTUS judges will stop "abominations like partial birth abortion," which is an imaginary thing right-wingers made up. Will Ketanji Brown Jackson stop things Republicans make up in their lying dumb brains?
Anyway, here is Chris Coons, another serious person.
12:55: These Democrats are mostly just being normal people talking about normal things and being kind, so we don't feel the need to make jokes about all of it. A bad Republican will be next.
12:56: It is Ben Sasse, who isn't bad like Josh Hawley, but we are sure he'll say somethin' real stupid. He says it's hard to follow Chris Coons, who ended with a section about Ruby Bridges.
1:00: Ben Sasse used the word "jackwagon" and is talking about "evidence-free personal attacks." So he's going to whine about every piece of shit Republican nominee from Robert Bork forward. Says Amy Coney Barrett was the victim of "religious bigotry." (You know, because of her vicious religious beliefs.) And that Brett Kavanaugh was accused of "serial rape." (Just because there were these people who said he sexually assaulted them.)
Occam's Razor says unacceptable illegitimate presidents like Donald Trump nominated unacceptable illegitimate people who are exactly the partisan hacks we said they were. Simple as that.
1:05: Richard Blumenthal now. Watch it and tell us how it is! We will be back to comment on the next dumbass Republican.
1:15: Here's Josh Hawley! This is the part where he pulls out his pee-pee (figuratively!) and shows it to everybody in hopes we will be impressed.
Now he is reading out the cases involved in his completely debunked child porn smear.
1:22: Mazie Hirono goes after Josh Hawley in the order of questioning. This may end up being important in the question-and-answer sections, in case she needs to call bullshit on Hawley. She's good at reading these fools for filth.
1:32: After many wonderful words and stories, Hirono ends by saying she has no doubt Jackson will push back HARD against all the bullshit Republicans are saying about her.
And now there will be lunch for 30 minutes, and then five more senators, and then Jackson will speak.
2:08: Uhhhhhh, we just clicked back on the hearing and it is Tom Cotton shaking his teailfeathers around about "lawlessness" or something. You know, in case you weren't sure there was a bigger child in the room than Josh Hawley.
2:10: It's got to be so weird being Ketanji Brown Jackson just listening to Tom Cotton making up imaginary things about Merrick Garland being mobilized against conservative parents. How do you keep a straight face?
2:12: Tom Cotton: "WE ARE WITNESSING A BREAKDOWN OF SOCIETY!"
We feel like what is really happening here is that Tom Cotton is telling Ketanji Brown Jackson that he is scared of Black people.
2:15: Tom Cotton says it's not enough for KBJ to say she will fairly apply the law. Does he need her to promise that she'll rule like a white Christian supremacist?
2:16: Tom Cotton says living constitutions are by definition dead. That's not how that works.
2:17: And now we have Cory Booker. Hopefully he'll get a chance during the hearings to call Tom Cotton a piece of shit.
2:20: Haha, Cory Booker says we shouldn't diminish the contributions of the 108 white dudes that have been on SCOTUS. Good job, 108 white guys! But really wants us to take in how historic this is.
2:26: The judge is doing a fine job keeping her composure in the face of white garbage Republican men, but the smile she gives when good people are talking to her is wonderful.
2:30: Get ready for something jarring, because we move now to John Kennedy of Louisiana, one of the biggest clowns in the entire Senate.
2:31: John Kennedy wants to, "implicitly if not implicitly," talk about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. How can we enhance it? (We have ideas.)
Kennedy says sometimes the majority of what America wants means "all the fools are on the same side." So folksy, this guy who went to Oxford.
2:48: Democratic Senator Alex Padilla from California has been saying many good things, and now he's speaking in Spanish, because he's one of the only people in the Senate who can do that.
2:51: Raise your hand if you are tired of Republican senators. Will be nice to actually hear from the nominee here in a few minutes! We ... think? ... Thom Tillis is last.
2:55: Thom Tillis is blah blah blahing about how he's going to keep an open mind and he's reading KBJ's thesis and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
2:57: Oh just kidding Thom Tillis is not last, here is Jon Ossoff.
3:02: Oh God this committee is endless. Wanna see the yokel from Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn, talk about how the SCOTUS decision that guaranteed married couples access to birth control was "confusing"? We have a post about that right now!
3:05: Blackburn says Tennessee parents are real worried about transgender people in sports, that's what they're worried about. "Americans need a Supreme Court justice" who will "protect our children" and stand up for parents, against, um, transgender people.
Blackburn is upset that Jackson is on the board of a school that says people can "choose their gender" and also even mentions white privilege, OMG!
3:08: LOL Blackburn says Jackson was always advocated for "greater freedom for hardened criminals." Blackburn really needs us to know that she's the stupidest Republican in the Senate. She's even repeating Josh Hawley's made-up child porn attack on Jackson.
3:10: Blackburn, like many Republicans, is using Jackson saying she really doesn't have a judicial philosophy against her. Blackburn says a judge without a philosophy is "adrift." That's right, Marsha Blackburn is saying somebody else's brain is adrift.
Anyway, this is just paint-by-numbers babbling from Blackburn.
3:12: Literally, a portrait of good vs. dumbfuckingevil:
Now special guests are going to introduce Jackson officially.
3:25: And we didn't feel like liveblogging those!
But here is the judge with her opening statement. Durbin just swore her in, and here she goes!
3:31: Awww, KBJ's daughter smiling at her dad as he wipes away a tear, while KBJ talks about how great he is.
3:39: And that's today, folks! The real questioning starts tomorrow AM.
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All The Crazies Flocking To Idaho Again
Oh, another child custody fight with insane militia ties? Must be something in the air.
My home state of Idaho has gone a little funny these days, although there's always a high level of background crazy here. Hot on the heels of Ammon Bundy's followers' fight to return a malnourished baby to the parents who allowed the baby to become malnourished, we have an all-new outbreak of crazy in the Gem State.
Like the Bundy story, it involves a child custody case. If anything, it's even more batshit crazy, and the militia dude who's gotten involved is, Crom help us all, probably far more dangerously off-kilter than Ammon Bundy. Nothing in the previous sentence should be misinterpreted as an endorsement of the stability or trustworthiness of Ammon Bundy.
QAnon, Sovereign Citizens, And Family Court: Not A Great Mix
Earlier this month, East Idaho News published a story about a custody fight between Lee Jennings, of Seattle, and Sarah Stanley, of god-knows-where-she-is because she's hiding from authorities to keep Jennings from seeing their son, three-year-old River. He's a dangerously cute little guy, as you can see in this photo, which in a decent world wouldn't have to be in the context of a "Missing" poster:
The story itself is very sad, and no doubt just one of many that will eventually be collected in a doctoral dissertation on the mass psychosis of Trump and QAnon adherents in the last few years. The two met online in 2016, and broke up in November 2018, when River was just eight months old. Before they'd actually arranged custody, Stanley took off for Arizona with 1) the baby, and 2) no advance notice. After a complicated series of court appearances, Stanley ended up back in Idaho, and eventually refused to let Jennings see River at all.
Jennings has been granted full custody, but that doesn't impress Stanley, who insisted in an interview with East Idaho News that River is just fine, she's not "missing," and that she's actually a victim of government persecution. Also, a whole LOT of Sovereign-Citizen word magic hooey.
Stanley argues the family court system is a “fake system with abusive males against women who are just trying to protect their babies.” She says judges in her case do not have valid oaths of office and claims her American Disability Act rights have been violated, along with her due process rights.
“I have filed a federal lawsuit against many people,” Stanley explains. “We the people need to realize courts don’t have power over you. People’s rights are being stolen left and right. I’m standing up for my rights and I’m being retaliated against.”
Stanley argues the family court system is a “for-profit corporation” and “the largest human child trafficking sector in the state.” In her eyes, the rulings from judges on child custody are unconstitutional and illegal.
"I have not done one wrong thing. I do not consent (to the proceedings). You need my consent. What is the opposite of not consent? It’s rape. And that is what the court system is. It’s a ‘legal rape system,'” she says. “They need my consent per the constitution to continue what they’re doing, and they do not have my consent. I have said that on record time and time again.”
Funny how that never seems to carry any weight with judges. Guess that just proves how illegitimate the courts are.
Enter Conman
And now we get to the dangerous bucket of crazy who's moving events along. Ms. Stanley refuses to "co-parent with the government," and instead says the custody case should be taken care of through her "church," an outfit called "Walking for the Forgotten Ministry," founded by one Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer of Tucson, Arizona.
If those four names sound vaguely familiar, that's because Yr Wonkette has covered Mr. Meyer previously: He's the guy who was briefly Wingnut Famous in 2018 when he found an abandoned homeless camp in the desert near Tucson and proclaimed it a "child sex trafficking camp," because what else could it be? Police said no, it's a homeless camp, which just proved they were covering up for the international Soros-Clinton cabal and all that. Meyer also operates a grifty border militia he calls "Veterans on Patrol," although predictably enough, he's never been in the military.
It says a lot about the guy that his desert militia cosplay shenanigans were too flaky for the Oath Keepers and for Gateway Pundit.
Read More:
Why Did Hillary And George Soros Put Child Sex Ring In Homeless Camp? GATEWAY PUNDIT KNOWS!
Tucson Militia Loon Will Smash Soros Child Sex Ring By Stealing Water Left For Migrants
Meyer told East Idaho News that, as "pastor" of Walking With the Forgotten Ministry, he's protecting Sanders from the evil government, and that she's staying in one of the "dozens" of "safe houses" that he very definitely operates all across America. Here's that audio interview, in which Meyer explains that he's ready to protect Sanders and River as long as they need it, and to mediate the situation just as he's done "dozens of times" previously.
Meyer explains that Sarah Stanley is "in a safe location with her son, and everything she needs will be provided for her and her son." Further, he insists he's really good at helping the helpless, since he claims to have run nine homeless shelters, and to have rescued more than 5,000 children at the border, plus another 14,000 immigrant children who'd been "dumped on my property" in Arizona in July 2021. Oddly, that appears not to have made the news, which again shows how deep the conspiracy goes.
Also, Meyer explains, River has to be protected from his father's nefarious plan to "vaccinate him and virtue signal to other families in Seattle. That’s not going to happen. We’re not going to allow anyone to inject the child with a bioweapon." Meyer apparently means not just the COVID vaccine (which isn't yet approved for kids under five anyway), but all childhood vaccines. He also accused Jennings of domestic abuse, a claim Stanley has also made, although there's no evidence, Jennings has no record, and of course Jennings denies being abusive.
Needless to say, he rejects the jurisdiction of the Family Court system, because "I don’t care what law enforcement says. I don’t answer to the government. The government works for me,” and Stanley "doesn’t have to comply with any of these court orders.”
Shit Gets Scary
Also, reverting to his usual strategy, he accuses everyone in the case of being criminals and "child predators." He's been doxxing most of them, too. Meyer earlier this week posted a nice video of himself standing outside the Idaho Falls office of Jennings's attorney, Laurie Gaffney, saying she's a "democratic socialist" and that he's simply there as a "border journalist," mmm-hmm.
Arizona border vigilante Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer has posted increasingly troubling rants recently regarding a child custody case in Idaho. Today, he shared a video from the front door of an Idaho Falls lawfirm involved in the case and warned: "We'll be seeing you again."pic.twitter.com/mWHjBxhOHD— Nick Martin (@Nick Martin) 1647374568
Nothing chilling there, just a guy accusing an attorney of perjury and of being "directly responsible for attempting to abduct 3-year-old River Stanley from his loving mother," then carefully naming the law firm: "Banks and Gaffney Trial Lawyers. Idaho Falls. We’ll be seeing you again."
This is actually getting into some potentially very dangerous territory; when he was chasing imaginary child smugglers around the desert, Meyer could confabulate all he wanted about rescuing thousands of kids, but now he's "protecting" a very real little boy, and the boy's mother appears to agree with Meyer's delusions.
In the latest turn, Meyer left a threatening phone message for Nate Eaton, the reporter who wrote the East Idaho News story.
Mr. Eaton, I want to know why you continue to pursue a woman and child in our safe house program. Do you want to get other women and children harmed? Are you interested in children getting hurt? Is that what your goal is? I’d advise you to remove your Facebook post; otherwise, you’re going to be seeing a whole lot of attention you don’t want. This woman is in protected custody. You are putting her life in danger, Mr. Eaton, and I’ll be knocking on your front door in a few days with a camera and a lot of people, your personal house, if you do not get off of her back. Leave her alone. Goodbye, Mr. Eaton. See you soon.
Eaton has filed for a protective order against Meyer; a judge signed off on it, but it can't be enforced until Meyer is served with the order. That's a bit of a challenge, since at the moment he doesn't seem to have a fixed address. Probably hanging out at one of his dozens of safe houses.
As of this morning, it appears nobody knows where Meyer is, or whether Stanley and River are with him. We're hoping this all has a peaceful resolution.
No, Mr. Bundy, we don't think your help is needed.
[East Idaho News / East Idaho News]
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