Tag Archives: GOP

media news

Liberals get pounded, too

A fellow named Dean Karanyanis has written an essay for the conservative newspaper Washington Times in which he says something so preposterous in his opening paragraph that I must respond and refute its assumption.

He writes: There used to be a rule in Washington that families are off-limits, but our media referees only throw flags on one team. So as Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, finds herself at the heart of a manufactured firestorm over leaked text messages, it’s worth asking why the party that demands civility feels free to savage her for having strong opinions.

I presume he suggests that only family members of conservative public figures are open to the kind of scrutiny being leveled at Ginni Thomas. What a pile of horse dookey!

Hmm. Let’s see. We have Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of FDR, the Democrat who led the nation during World War II; she was pilloried continuously during the time she served as first lady. Amy Carter, daughter of the President Jimmy Carter, who was a teenager when she lived in the White House; the right wing took great joy in pillorying her for whatever the hell she did while her dad led the Free World.

You want more? We have Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry; right-winger suggested she was somehow the corrupt wife of a politician who married only because she was an heiress to a condiment empire. Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of President Clinton; enough said there. Michelle Obama, wife of President Obama; let’s throw in the Obamas’ daughters, too, as they were targets of prying media inquiries.

I need to mention Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and take particular note of what the media did to sully the reputations of their wives. Jackie Kennedy was seen as aloof and aristocratic; Lady Bird Johnson was known — in addition to her national beautification efforts — for her business acumen that came from her ownership of Central Texas media outlets.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/mar/31/democrats-want-ginni-thomas-to-stay-home-and-bake-/

I believe we need to cease this notion that only the spouses and kids of conservatives become targets of those who work in the so-called “liberal, mainstream, Deep State media.”

The media don’t play nearly the favorites that their critics allege.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

GOP senators sought Fox air time

Leave it to the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to seemingly own up to the truth about his GOP colleagues’ questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing on her nomination to join the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ranking Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa all but admitted to a constituent that the GOP line of questioning was intended mainly to put the senators’ faces and voices on the Fox News Channel.

Do you think, Sen. Grassley?

A woman on TikTok told Grassley that was her opinion, that Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn were seeking face time on Fox. “I don’t dispute that,” Grassley responded.

Well … what’s done is done. The senators got their wish.

However, many millions of Americans — such as yours truly — came away from the hearing thinking far better of Judge Jackson for the poise and stamina she exhibited and far less of the senators who exposed their ignorance and boorishness.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

GOP concocts reasons to oppose SCOTUS pick

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Dang, I hate to say “I told you so” … but I told you Senate Republicans were going to make up reasons to oppose the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The latest made-up reason comes from GOP U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who said he opposes Judge Jackson because of her position on “court packing,” a move progressives favor to expand the Supreme Court from nine members to 13 or 15.

For the record, I don’t favor court-packing, either. So there. I have cleared the air on that matter.

Still, a Supreme Court justice has no say on the composition of the court. That matter is decided by Congress. Justices don’t vote on it. It’s a purely legislative matter. So, why does Sen. Burr oppose Judge Jackson ascending to the nation’s highest court? Beats the devil out of me, except that he’s a Republican senator and the man who nominated Jackson to the SCOTUS, President Biden, is a Democrat.

That’s it! Or so it seems!

Judge Jackson is “well qualified,” according to the American Bar Association, which also gave its highest rating to Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, all of whom received Burr’s endorsement. Oh, wait! A Republican president, a guy named Trump, nominated them.

The good news? Judge Jackson is a heavy favorite to be confirmed by the Senate.

The phony reasons for opposing her … be damned!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

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

legal news

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

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

legal news

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

legal news

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

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

legal news

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