Dana Milbank writes this morning on the race-baiting, slanderous, rancid Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on the opening day of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson:
“We won’t try to turn this into a spectacle,” proposed Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the committee’s ranking Republican.
“It won’t be a circus,” promised Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.).
Even Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), a regular ringmaster, said “this will not be a political circus.”
Then the clown car rolled in. Republicans used their opening statements to portray Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the high court, as not just a pedophile enabler but also a terrorist sympathizer with a “hidden agenda” to indoctrinate Americans with the “racist vitriol” of critical race theory.
The Republicans on the panel piously announced they would not have a repeat of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation, during which he was accused of past sexual impropriety. Instead, they hit Jackson with factual impropriety.
In addition to those mentioned above, there was also the hatchet-faced insurrectionist Sen. Josh "Haw Haw" Hawley (Sedition-MO) who took the lead in smearing Judge Brown Jackson, the mild-mannered media fave from Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, and these other two- legged rats:
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) scolded Jackson, a former public defender, for the way she represented “people who have committed terrorist acts against the United States,” saying her “zealous advocacy has gone beyond the pale.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) seemed to be trying to associate the nominee with a host of evils in an inchoate tirade about “anarchists, rioters and left-wing street militias,” the “breakdown of society,” and “Soros prosecutors” who “destroy our criminal justice system from within.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), the final Republican to speak, accused Jackson of providing “free legal services to help terrorists get out of Gitmo and go back to the fight,” supporting “the radical left’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court” and harboring a “hidden agenda … to let violent criminals, cop killers and child predators back to the streets.”
Judge Brown Jackson has more intelligence and integrity in her pinky toe than all of these cynical, anti- democracy, racist shit- stains have in their entire lineage. She's filling a "liberal" seat on a Court dominated by
right- wingers. Her confirmation won't change the equation. These "yokels" know that full well.
Rather these are the scorched earth tactics of a party with no motivating force beyond stoking resentment and white grievance as a means of gaining and maintaining power. They're locking in and testing bogus and scurrilous themes they'll be using in the upcoming midterm elections to rile up their lowIQAnon base: Democrats are soft on crime; they defend terrorists; they're breaking down law and order; they're blaaah people -- just look at the deranged, risible comments above. Never doubt the effectiveness of slander if it's repeated and repeated, which is what the Republicans are relying on.
So, as the hearing unfolds today and tomorrow, Democrats on the committee have a duty to preempt these narratives and fight with righteous anger and the power of facts on their side. The circus is in town, and it's time for Democrats to crack the whip.
BONUS: Calling Cornyn, Blackburn, Cotton, Hawley, Cruz, Grassley et al --
In this era, with the exception maybe of Kavanaugh's tear-soaked beer endorsement, these hearings reveal more about how low the bar is in some states to nab a senate seat than anything pertinent about the nominee.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 21, 2022
(Photo: Saul Loeb/ AFP/ Getty Images)
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