Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearings, Day Three: Only 58 More Hours To Go!
Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearings, Day Three: Only 58 More Hours To Go!
We haven't keeled over yet.
And just like that it was day three!
Today we'll begin with a couple senators who didn't get to go yesterday, and then they'll start all over with 20-minute rounds of questioning. Yep, another longass day.
9: 11:Dick Durbin begins the proceedings by explaining that these Republicans are full of shit, that one of Josh Hawley's favorite judges ever has the same record on child porn as KBJ does, because 80 percent of federal judges have the same record, and did he mention Republicans are full of shit?
9: 13:John Cornyn is V. MAD that every time Republicans launch lie-filled lie attacks at Jackson, Dick Durbin just factchecks them afterward. How can they inject racism and lies into the political discourse about this judge, if they get factchecked in real time?
9: 15:Well now John Kennedy needs to talk and say he agrees with John Cornyn because he just doesn't think this is appropriate. Durbin kindly explains that he is the chairman and the chairman gets chairman's time and eat shit.
9: 17:Jon Ossoff is like yeah OK it is my turn so if old shitholes could shut their mouths please. He HUMBLY asks. And Durbin says in the name of Ossoff's humility, we should def do that.
9: 18:Chuck Grassley says Democrats are doing a good job being civil, UNLIKE HOW THEY WERE DURING THOSE HEARINGS FOR an actual credibly accused sexual predator.
Hey, anybody think it's weird that Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton were sooooooooo upset about the lies they made up about KBJ's record on child porn, when they all couldn't stop giggling over their support for an actual credibly accused sexual predator?
9: 23:OSSOFF: Sorry about this intrusive, disgusting process. Some parts of it are necessary and normal, but sorry Republicans are being intrusive and disgusting.
Now Ossoff has asked Jackson to tell the story of her brother. who was a Baltimore police officer and served in the military after 9/11.
9: 31:Also, closest you're going to get to the tearful "I LIKE BEER!" moment.
Ossoff asks if Jackson likes coffee or tea and she screamed "I LIKE BEER. I STILL LIKE BEER." Wait, no, sorry I was having a flashback.
— Elie Mystal (@Elie Mystal) 1648041987
9: 34:Just FYI last night Tucker Carlson said Judge Jackson's views are just like all the rich white liberals he knows and that if you wanted a SCOTUS nominee that was actually more like Americans, you should pick "a rap star off the street." You know how rap stars are, just hanging around the street saying "Pick me, Tucker!" Of his bet that a "rap star off the street" has views closer to the average American than KBJ, Tucker said "I've got money on it actually."
Which is just a weird bet. How do you even set up that bet? Who agrees to it? "I'll bet you five dollars I can find a very famous rap star on the street and their views will be more average American than Ketanji Brown Jackson's!"
Tucker Carlson is a racist.
9: 40:Ossoff asks KBJ about how she'll approach press freedom. She says there's very solid case law on this, the press has to put out things that are "knowingly false," there has to be "actual malice." And so on and so forth.
As usual, a Democrat is having a discussion about actual things with the nominee, while we wait for the next clown.
9: 47:Now a discussion about the 4th Amendment and unreasonable search and seizure. We're not a lawyer, but we think she was using a little bit of Originalism! to explain her position on it. Ossoff wants to urge Jackson to really stay on the issue of ever-changing technology as it applies to these sorts of principles.
9: 51:And Ossoff is finished, and Thom Tillis starts. He said he didn't get any rest last night, and KBJ agrees.
Thom Tillis said he watched a channel he never watches this morning -- probably MSNBC -- and he thought it was amazing they were making fun of his Republican colleagues for their behavior in the Kavanaugh hearings! How amazing!
GFY dude.
9: 56:Thom Tillis has done the math and Texas is bigger than North Carolina is bigger than New Jersey is bigger than Rhode Island in square miles, and this is somehow related to HIS CHART about how DEMOCRAT DARK MONEY made today's hearings happen, and how court-packing is bad.
Or something.
We had a delivery at the door, we might have stopped paying attention to the boring white man on the television.
10: 03:Tillis is on an extended whine about how nuking the filibuster would destroy the WHOLE Senate, and how packing the court would destroy the WHOLE Supreme Court.
You, know, by making it "political." That's what would make it political.
Not three partisan hack justices placed on the court by an illegitimate president. The first of those justices was confirmed after Mitch McConnell stole a seat from President Obama. The second was a credibly accused sexual predator. And the third was crammed through when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, to get there ASAP before the presidential election, a schedule that wasn't important with that first nominee.
That's not what made it political.
Sorry, but extreme conservative rulings from this Court are already suspect, because much of the current Court is suspect.
Anyway, now Thom Tillis is talking about "buffer zones" for anti-abortion dickweeds at clinics. This could get interesting.
10: 11:It did not get interesting.
Also we are pretty sure Tillis just lightly suggested that maybe some of what his GOP colleagues have been spewing about "sentencing" (which would be code for their obsession with child porn cases) might possibly be bullshit, since they don't quite have all the details in front of them.
10: 14:Tillis is kind of babbling. He keeps bringing up things then saying "I don't want to dwell on that," then he'll move on.
Now he's discussing some offhand line KBJ wrote at the beginning of the pandemic and saying it suggested to HIM that she wanted all the inmates in DC released. "Am I reading this right?" Tillis asks. "No," says KBJ. Explains that if he reads two sentences down he can answer his own question.
At least he's kind of letting her explain instead of treating her the way Cruz, Hawley and Cotton treated her.
10: 21:Wait, did Tillis just say KBJ is maybe too nice ? We think that happened. Yes, yes it did.
So Jackson is again explaining how she worked as a trial judge, and how she made defendants sit there and listen to victim statements and listen to her read into the record exactly what they did and why they are being punished. She says this actually came from her time as a defender, and her experience of finding that defendants often really didn't understand the consequences of their actions.
Tillis ends by saying that he'll just still note that about half of the people KBJ sentenced ended up back in jail within eight years. You know, because recidivism is Jackson's responsibility.
Anyway, now we go to the 20-minute rounds of questioning, and Dick Durbin starts it off.
10: 27:NOTABLE: Mitt Romney thinks his GOP colleagues' attacks on Jackson are some horseshit, saying "there's no 'there' there." Also, from Joe Manchin:
“It’s Hawley, right?” Manchin said to reporters. “Take that for what it’s worth.”
Hahahahahahahaha, that's right. Josh Hawley has so little credibility that the mere fact that it's him opening his mouth makes people less likely to pay attention.
10: 40:Chuck Grassley just wants to know if SCOTUS should overrule precedents if the conservative justices think it was wrongly decided COUGH ABORTION COUGH. Oh that's not the words he said, but it was between the lines.
10: 42:KBJ, unsurprisingly, says there's a hell of a lot more to determining if an old precedent is no longer workable. Apparently it's not just precedents that make Brett Kavanaugh make this face:
10: 47:Grassley asking really broad questions about whether nationwide injunctions are unconstitutional, or if judges have the authority to ignore enhancements in sentencing guidelines if they want to. She's of course comporting herself well and explaining how judging works within the current state of the law, as she's done so many times in the past two days.
10: 51:We are noticing that Grassley will ask about something, or somebody else will, and she'll start by defining it for the people at home. Just now it was "forum shopping." She defined it, and then noted that if Grassley wants things changed related to that, Congress is free to do so. Again, not her job as a judge.
10: 56:GRASSLEY: You say you're so great, well here's three cases where other judges disagreed with you. Care to explain?
KBJ: [ Explains how appeals courts work sometimes .]
10: 58:And now Pat Leahy!
We can report with mathematic certainty that 20-minute rounds go faster than 30-minute rounds.
10: 59:Leahy says some Republicans were just trying to get sound bites with their attacks that they could put on "political website where it now is." Typical Republicans. Always doing attacks for "political website where it now is."
11: 14:Just really good conversations about the roles of judges and where the authority of the judicial branch comes from, the changes she's witnessed, the changes her parents have witnessed. The most qualified nominee in the history of the Supreme Court right here. She says her being here, on some level, is about the progress this country has made in a relatively short amount of time.
11: 18:And now for a 15-minute break!
11: 39:Oh good, it's time for Lindsey Graham. Will he complain more that Joe Biden didn't pick the woman he demanded she pick? Haha, no he is whining more about Janice Rogers Brown, because it's UNFAAAAAAIR that nobody thinks Black conservatives who racist white conservatives like are historic choices, WAAAAAAAH!
11: 41:Lindsey says we are not going to live in an America anymore where conservative nominees aren't historic when they're minorities, not gonna live there!
Then he asks a very serious question about whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to vote.
11: 42:LINDSEY: Did you know unborned babbies feel pain at 20 weeks?
( It's bullshit. )
By the way, if you wanna know how batshit Janice Rogers Brown is, a sampling:
She has described liberal democracy as a form of “slavery” and post-New Deal regulations as “the triumph of our socialist revolution.”As a judge on the California Supreme Court, Brown made waves with speech in 2000, a discursion on the evils of Marxism, socialism, big government, and everything about the New Deal.
Right.
11: 50:Lindsey, after holding up a chart and accusing Jackson of making up laws, says he'd like to talk about child porn some more. So add him to the list of Repubican senators who can't stop talking about child porn cases.
11: 51:LINDSEY: JUDICIAL ACTIVISSSSSSSSSSS! OK now let's talk about child porn. You know how much kiddie porn there is? I do! You think it's gross? I think it's gross. Here's how many child porns there are. There's 85 million child porns! I bet you don't like child porn, you're a mom.
KBJ: Thank you for letting me address this weird thing for the 75th time.
11: 54:LINDSEY: Do you think child porners use computers?
KBJ: Yes.
LINDSEY: Dontcha think we should stop people from using computers? Computers! Child porn! You should go to jail more if you used computers! I think it's better to put 'em in jail! Why don't you want to put them in jail!
KBJ: I didn't say that.
LINDSEY: I SAID YOU SAID THAT THEREFORE THAT'S WHAT YOU SAID!
Don't know why Lindsey thinks his shouty Gone With The Wind accent is comporting itself well here.
11: 59:Lindsey closes by bitching and moaning and crying more about the Kavanaugh hearings, let's see if he can break down crying. Also we think he's accusing KBJ of "filibustering" his questions? What, by answering them, Lindsey?
Lindsey's point is that he will never get over the audacity of those women who said Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted them, which is why all good people believe those women to this day. Jackson said she really has no interest in answering Lindsey's question about whether she'd be mad about whatever blah blah bullshit Lindsey is asking about the Kavanaugh hearings. She will answer his bad-faith questions about child porn sentencing enhancements, though, if he'll fucking shut up.
12: 05:LINDSEY: I'm mad! I hope the judge can't finish her answer about why I'm such a dipshit! I hope she can't give a real answer about her sentencing methods, because her full answers make me look like the dumbest peacock in the whole zoo!
Seriously, she is making him look so stupid right now.
12: 08:Lindsey knows how to stop the child porn! You lower the boom on these people! You lower the boom!
Lindsey Graham is stealing attacks from Josh Hawley, that is how desperate he is.
12: 11:Anyway, now it's Dianne Feinstein, who's going to give Jackson an opportunity to really speak about sentencing without having Lindsey Graham yip-yapping over her.
12: 18:FEINSTEIN: Why has the public's perception of the court declined?
WONKETTE: Hahahahaha, how do you answer this without saying "Brett Kavanaugh" or "Amy Coney Barrett"?
12: 29:Dianne Feinstein wants to know what kind of judge Jackson will be, because we guess that hasn't been covered in the past 24 hours.
12: 30:Oh good it's John Cornyn. Maybe he can be a vicious anti-gay bigot again like he was yesterday.
But first he's mad because he got factchecked with his stupid accusation of Jackson calling Dubya and Rumsfeld war criminals.
CORNYN: If you accuse somebody of a crime are you saying they're a criminal?
KBJ: It depends ...
CORNYN: Oh so you're saying it's subjective like what a biological woman is!
OMG WTF
12: 32:Why do people view the Court as a partisan hack institution full of partisan hacks who don't deserve our respect? Here's an example:
This is an absolutely shocking decision. The maps were adopted by a Republican justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This appeal was considered a Hail Mary, and it prevailed. I am stunned by this ruling.https: //twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1506667215554326534 …
— Mark Joseph Stern (@Mark Joseph Stern) 1648052709
And now John Cornyn wants to talk about abortion. Because Republican white racists think Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, then they can overturn it!
12: 35:CORNYN: Fetuses can be babies at 23 weeks! Wouldn't you agree?
KBJ: I am not certain.
CORNYN: But "viability" isn't even a good way to decide abortion is evil, wouldn't you agree?
KBJ: This is literally at the court right now, I cannot comment on it.
CORNYN: I am going to call a 20-week fetus a "child" now, because I am a moron and a demagogue.
KBJ: I am not a biologist.
CORNYN: It doesn't even say abortion in the Constitution!
KBJ: Right.
CORNYN: It doesn't say marriage either!
KBJ: Right.
CORNYN: How can gay abortions be a right if they're not even in the Constitution!
12: 43:John Cornyn is just lying and saying Jackson is saying she supports abortion all the way up to birth sometimes.
Like we said, moron and a demagogue.
12: 45:And finally, Cornyn needs to talk about why it's important for people to be able to impose their religious beliefs on employees by denying them contraception coverage. Specifically he's talking about those Little Sisters of the Poor assholes.
12: 48:Cornyn's point is that he needs to know if KBJ will let people use their religious beliefs to hurt other people, as is their God-given constitutional right.
12: 53:Oh damn we thought they were gonna take a lunch break now but instead it's Sheldon Whitehouse. Oh well, it's good, because he's talking about how "judicial philosophies" are kind of bullshit because they're preconceived notions judges have. For example: originalism, which they only really rely on when as Whitehouse just said, it helps the people they want to help.
12: 59:Whitehouse also says there's more than one way to pack a court. For instance, the way Republicans use dark money to "capture" agencies with handpicked idiots.
1: 06:And now we move on to Mike Lee, because we guess we are never going to lunch.
1: 09:Weird, Mike Lee wants to talk about things that are specific to Western states, like he is a senator with real things to talk about, as opposed to John Cornyn or Josh Hawley.
1: 12:Oh good, Mike Lee is talking about "partial birth abortion," which is not a medical term and not a thing. It's something Republicans made up to demonize abortion supporters.
1: 16:Did you notice what Lee just did there? He asked an irrelevant question asking Jackson to say the difference between two cases, she said she didn't have them in front of her but thought it was something or another. It had nothing to do with anything . And Lee acknowledged that when he just accepted her answer and decided to talk about court-packing, which is another thing that has nothing to do with today's proceedings.
Perhaps Mike Lee didn't actually want to discuss abortion with Jackson. Perhaps he just wanted to read the religious right's lie about fake "partial-birth abortion" into the record on TV.
Fucking hack.
1: 22:This long-winded boring history lesson is Mike Lee's way of saying it's not just bad to pack the court, it's bad to TALK about it.
And now Mike Lee wants to talk about sentencing, because we guess he wanted to get in on the child porn chit-chat.
1: 26:Well, that was another white Republican man who wanted to talk about child porn. Stay tuned, because there are a bunch more white Republican men who want to talk about child porn!
1: 30:Amy Klobuchar notes that SCOTUS just shamefully used the shadow docket to throw out Wisconsin's new electoral maps, so yeah she wants to talk about the shadow docket and the way the partisan hacks on the Court use it today.
1: 40:Ha, Klobuchar notes that in like 550 cases, Jackson was reversed like only three percent of the time, and some of those she ended up being affirmed later by the Supreme Court. HUH. It's almost like she's good at this judging thing.
1: 45:Klobuchar finishes by talking about how Ginsburg's dissents were "blueprints for the future" and asks Jackson to comment on that. She notes the lone justice who dissented in Plessy v. Ferguson .
LUNCH!
2: 42:Hopping over to a new thread! Here!
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