Tag Archives: Ketanji Brown Jackson

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GOP senators show ugly side

Ketanji Brown Jackson is going to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate and will take her seat soon on the U.S. Supreme Court. I feel comfortable making that presumption. However, I cannot let go of what we all witnessed from the Republican Party side of the dais at the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.

What did we see? We saw senators parse and nitpick their way through the judge’s stellar judicial record and question her on issues that have next to nothing to do with the cases that will come before the nation’s highest court.

Sens. Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn were especially reprehensible in their conduct as they grilled President Biden’s nominee to the court, where she will succeed Justice Stephen Breyer at the end of the court’s current term.

What stood out to me first and foremost was the poise that Judge Jackson exhibited as these senators took turns interrupting her while she sought to answer the questions they threw at her. I sat in my North Texas home watching this spectacle unfold and I actually thought: How in the world would I handle this kind of hectoring, haranguing and harassment? My answer? I couldn’t! I would storm out of the hearing room!

Thus, I would hand Judge Jackson the highest praise I can muster for the way she exhibited the poise and grace that her questioners all lacked. Indeed, it was Sen. Graham who huffed and puffed his way out of the hearing twice after completing his interrogation of Judge Jackson, who remained seated for hours on end, answering ridiculous question after ridiculous question.

It is clear that the GOP Senate caucus was aiming at a constituency beyond the room, the QAnon-loving cabal of voters who embrace notions of child molestation and pornography among politicians. Hence, we saw senators asking Judge Jackson to speak to sentencing practices involving criminal defendants accused of child porn crimes, which the judge referred to as a “small subset” of her entire legal career.

The GOP caucus behaved disgracefully. The target of their vile behavior, though, will take her place among the ranks of justices who interpret the Constitution. She made history already by being the first Black woman ever nominated to ascend to this high court. I remain confident Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s history-making career only will glorify her … and the nation she serves.

I also am quite sure history will be unkind to those who sought to besmirch her.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Mitch says ‘no’ on KBJ

Let’s put Mitch McConnell’s announcement today that he would vote “no” on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court into some perspective. So, bear with me for a moment.

The Senate Republican leader can’t support Judge Jackson because she declined to say whether she supports progressives’ call to expand the high court from nine members to, say, 15. McConnell said Judge Jackson should have offered an opinion, even though the jurist erred on the side of remaining impartial or, shall we say, above the battle that surely would erupt if such a notion were to gather momentum.

Let’s examine briefly McConnell’s recent political history, too.

This man obstructed President Barack Obama’s effort to name a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly in early 2016. McConnell said that because a presidential election would occur 10 months later, we needed to wait to see which candidate would win and then allow that person to make the nomination. Obama selected Judge Merrick Garland, but Garland never got a hearing … thanks to McConnell’s obstruction and raw political power grab.

McConnell also blamed Donald J. Trump for the insurrection that erupted on 1/6. He said in a Senate speech that The Donald was “singularly” responsible for “provoking” the riot that sought to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost! Then he voted against convicting The Donald on the impeachment article that came from the House as a direct result of the riot that McConnell said Trump instigated. Go figure.

So, for this obstructionist and coward to offer a negative critique of a stellar jurist such as Ketanji Brown Jackson is simply, to be candid, not credible.

He sickens me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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She’s become ‘KBJ’!

2 Comments

This is excellent news! I just read — or maybe I heard it in the background noise of the TV set — that someone has referred to Ketanji Brown Jackson, the next justice to be seated on the Supreme Court, as “KBJ.”

Why is that cool? It’s because the media along with the public usually reserve those identifications by name initials to those who are held in generally high esteem.

You know: JFK, LBJ, RFK, MLK Jr., FDR. I have taken to referring to other more contemporary individuals as well by their initials: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, aka AOC is one and, yes, I have referred to the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene as MTG and Donald Trump as DJT.

It is a strange phenomenon that not all public figures get that designation as a matter of regular practice. BHO is one of those who’s been left out of the initial-ID name club. George W. Bush is known as just plain W., or Dubya.

So … welcome to the newly formed Club of Iconic Figures, Judge Jack … er, KBJ.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Enter the Three Stooges

It is tempting, I suppose, to attach some sort of label to three U.S. senators who “distinguished” themselves with their pitiful performances at the Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson, selected by President Biden to join the Supreme Court.

Three Amigos? Nah! Three Musketeers? Nope.

How about … Three Stooges? Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Sens. Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley all were disgraceful in their own respective ways as they sought to tear down a distinguished jurist’s record by ascribing all sorts of phony nefarious motives to decisions she made from the bench and in practice as a public defender.

They all sickened me. Yes, I am on record as wanting Judge Jackson to take her place on the nation’s highest court. I also am on record as loathing the way Republican senators reacted initially to President Biden’s selection of Judge Jackson and then to the way they behaved during the confirmation hearing.

I will hold out a sliver of hope that some GOP senators — maybe two of ’em — will see fit to confirm her when the full Senate casts its vote.

As for the Three Stooges — two of whom (Hawley and Cruz) apparently want to run for POTUS in 2024 — I just will be content to scoff at their antics and to hope eventually they all get booted out of the Senate. I don’t want any of them voting on laws that affect my family and me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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The system is broken

This is no great flash, but I feel obligated to say it anyway: The confirmation hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson shows that the U.S. political system is broken and it needs immediate urgent care.

What also is not exactly news is that the system has been broken for too long and it has needed repair for as long as we have witnessed the system’s fraying.

Judge Jackson wants to join the U.S. Supreme Court, succeeding the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. She is eminently qualified and she deserves to take her place with the rest of the court.

She will get there, or so it appears. Democrats have enough Senate votes to confirm her. The Senate Democratic caucus likely will hold together to confirm this excellent nominee. Indeed, when a president exercises the prerogative given by the public that elected him, it falls on the president to find the most qualified nominee for this critical post. President Biden has delivered the goods by nominating Judge Jackson.

Senate Republicans, though, have spent the past two days dredging up phony excuses to oppose Jackson’s nomination. Their scurrilous misrepresentation of Jackson’s stellar record only demonstrates the broken political system that needs repair.

I long have adhered to the notion that presidential prerogative should grant presidents the right to make recommendations to these critical posts, even lifetime jobs to the federal judiciary. Yes, the Senate has the right granted by the Constitution to offer “advice and consent” on nominees. However, Judge Jackson’s nomination has been twisted and perverted into a form that needs to be straightened out.

The system that has created the great partisan divide in Congress is the culprit. Ketanji Brown Jackson deserves far better than what she endured.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Stupidity abounds!

Of all the questions I have heard over many decades listening to Senate and House hearings, I believe I have listened — hands down — to the stupidest question ever uttered by a U.S. senator directed at a witness before the committee on which she sits.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, actually asked Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson — President Biden’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court — to “define a woman.” I will admit that I wasn’t entirely dialed into the topic on which Blackburn was seeking an answer.

However, I watched Judge Jackson’s frozen facial expression after she heard it and was stunned beyond belief that she didn’t bust out laughing at the absurdity of the question.

I am not at all clear how Blackburn intended for Judge Jackson to answer that idiotic query. Does she offer a detailed description of the female anatomy? Blackburn also asked Jackson to “define a man.” Again, does she offer detail on the, um, characteristics that comprise the male anatomy?

When Jackson did not answer Blackburn’s question, the senator then sought to suggest that the jurist was intimidated by the inquiry.

Oh, brother. What I witnessed was a know-nothing politician seeking to embarrass a top-tier jurist. All the pol did was heap ridicule on herself.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Graham just pisses me off

OK, I gotta get this off my chest: There is just something about Sen. Lindsey Graham that pisses me off. The South Carolina Republican demonstrated his petulance once again while questioning a highly qualified nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Graham cannot get past the notion that President Biden — the man he once hailed as one of his best friends in public life — selected Judge Jackson over the woman Graham preferred, fellow South Carolinian Judge Michelle Childs.

His pique was on full display yet again today as he interrupted Judge Jackson as she sought to answer his questions. He refused to let her complete answering a question about sentencing practices and insisted on directing the line of questioning to sex offenders; Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin interceded to allow Jackson to finish her answer.

Graham insists he hasn’t decided how he will vote on Judge Jackson’s nomination. That, of course, is nonsense. He is going to vote against Jackson’s nomination, joining most — if not all — of the Republican Senate caucus in opposing her selection to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer. I can make that determination, as can anyone with half a brain in their noggin.

I just am flabbergasted at the rudeness he has exhibited while questioning a superb choice to join the nation’s highest court.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Why the ‘faith’ question?

Ketanji Brown Jackson felt compelled Tuesday to remind Lindsey Graham that Article VI of the US Constitution prohibits any “religious test” for anyone seeking public office, to which Graham responded that he agreed and that he wouldn’t apply any test.

Why, then, did the South Carolina Republican ask Judge Jackson about her “faith,” and why did he ask her how often she attends church? Jackson, nominated by President Biden to the Supreme Court, chose to avoid answering the question about her worship frequency.

I am puzzled and concerned, though, by the direction and the tone of the question that Graham asked of the SCOTUS nominee. If he intends to apply no religious test, then what in the name of holy Scripture is the reason for the questioning about the Judge Jackson’s faith?

It was a concerning line of inquiry and one that I hope no one follows down some judicial blind alley.

That kind of question had no place during the Senate committee confirmation hearing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘No religious test’

Lindsey Graham today asked what in another era would have been considered a question worthy of scorn and instant rebuke. The Republican U.S. senator asked a nominee for the Supreme Court, “What is your faith?”

Ketanji Brown Jackson answered “Protestant.”

OK, why should Sen. Graham have been slapped down? Because of Article VI in the U.S. Constitution, which reads, in part: ” … no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

I watched Graham ask the question today in real time. I was troubled at the moment I heard it. Then it dawned on me. The Constitution disallows any sort of religious test for “any Office or public Trust.”

That includes the United States Supreme Court!

We witnessed today a remarkably ignorant performance by a member of the U.S. Senate who, had he understood the Constitution he took an oath to “protect and defend,” never would have asked a Supreme Court nominee a question that clearly violates the rules set down by the nation’s governing document.

Despicable.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Hearing previews 2024 campaign

Ladies and gentlemen, I am prepared to declare that we are witnessing with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on whether Ketanji Brown Jackson should join the Supreme Court a preview of the 2024 Republican Party presidential primary.

It’s an unattractive spectacle and I detest the notion that a respected jurist is being used as a political football by senators who might seek their party’s presidential nomination in 2024.

I’m talking about Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

They are trying to push hot-button issues dealing with race and abortion and trying to appease the nut-job “base” of the GOP voting bloc while they grill Judge Jackson.

To the nominee’s great credit, she is holding up well under the onslaught.

President Biden promised to present a highly qualified nominee to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer. He delivered when he nominated Judge Jackson.

I continue to salute Jackson’s former role as a public defender. The Supreme Court hasn’t yet welcomed a jurist with that kind of background. Jackson has talked about understanding a defendant’s mindset and the value that understanding has brought to her experience for the past decade as a judge. That aspect of her background alone would bring remarkable and laudatory diversity to the nation’s highest court.

That, of course, won’t stop the GOP presidential hopefuls from parsing her past comments and seeking to damage her reputation by suggesting things about Judge Jackson that do not exist.

From my vantage point, they are embarrassing themselves and have been unable to lay a hand on the nominee’s stellar standing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com