Tag Archives: Ketanji Brown Jackson

State news

Cruz proves his idiocy

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Ted Cruz deserves a special mention on this blog, given his shameful and disgraceful and despicable performance while questioning Supreme Court Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I have made no secret of my loathing for the junior U.S. senator from Texas ever since he joined the Senate in 2013. He always has appeared to be grooming himself as a Republican presidential candidate. He took his best shot in 2016, losing the GOP nomination to the guy who eventually would win that year’s election.

I dubbed him the Cruz Missile because he seemed intent on blowing up every enemy he made along the way. The guy reportedly has few friends in the Senate.

He lectured Justice-designate Jackson on whether children are born racist and sought to paint her as soft on child pornographers and threw assorted red herrings at her during the time allotted for questioning. Granted, he wasn’t alone in behaving boorishly among Republican inquisitors. I just am feeling the urge to express my disgust at this clown who represents my interests in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

Cruz is a coward. Why do I say that? Because the guy who once told the truth about Donald Trump — calling him a sniveling coward and an “amoral” politician — became a suck-up acolyte to the POTUS.

He also doesn’t give a damn about the people he represents. I have to point to the jaunt he sought to make with his family to Cancun while most of the state was freezing in February 2021 in that winter freeze that ended up killing hundreds of Texans.

Moreover, how much more “sniveling” can one get than to blame his daughters for the decision to flee to Mexico while Texans were freezing to death? That’s what Cruz did when he was outed for fleeing the state.

Ted Cruz ain’t among the best and brightest Texas can offer to serve in U.S. Senate. As he showed during the SCOTUS confirmation hearing, all this clown intended to do was prance, posture and preen for the GOP base that will nominate the next president of the United States.

God help us if it’s Ted Cruz.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

So much for cheering this big moment

Roy Blunt is a chump lame-duck Republican U.S. senator from Missouri who this past weekend declared to the world that Ketanji Brown Jackson’s pending confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court would be a high point in American history, as she would become the first Black woman to take her rightful place on the nation’s highest court.

Blunt then voted “no” on her confirmation.

What, then, did this GOP nimrod do when Vice President Kamala Harris declared that the Senate’s vote had officially confirmed Judge Jackson to the court? Blunt joined the rest of his GOP colleagues in walking out while the Democratic senators stood and applauded the history-making confirmation.

The only Republican to join the Democrats was Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, one of three GOP senators to vote to confirm Jackson; the other two, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, also walked out of the chamber.

I am singling out Blunt, though, because of his idiotic comments praising Judge Jackson’s legal skill, her educational background, her standing as a jurist, her obvious qualifications.

I was left to wonder: If she is all the things that Sen. Blunt said of her — which she is! — why in the name of political reason did he vote against her?

Roy Blunt, who is retiring from the Senate at the end of the year, demonstrated his true self by refusing to cheer for the history that the Senate made in confirming this eminently qualified Supreme Court appointee.

Disgusting!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Call her ‘justice-designate’

Ketanji Brown Jackson now can be called a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice-designate, given that the Senate has confirmed her nomination to the nation’s highest court in a 53-47 bipartisan vote.

This is a stellar day in the history of this great country, with Justice-designate Jackson becoming the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Her confirmation was a foregone conclusion, with three Republican senators — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine — joining their Democratic colleagues in sending the newest justice to the court, where she will take her seat when its new term begins in October.

President Biden made a double-sided pledge during the 2020 presidential campaign: that he would nominate an African American woman to the court if he got the chance and that the nominee would be a supremely qualified jurist.

The president delivered the goods on both counts.

President Biden has earned applause for delivering on this key campaign promise. And the newest justice — who will succeed Justice Stephen Breyer — has earned the nation’s good wishes as she prepares for the job of a lifetime.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Tom Cotton: demagogue

Tom Cotton this week did the seemingly impossible. He spoke in terms that would embarrass even the most shameful demagogues.

The Arkansas Republican U.S. senator actually said out loud in a Senate floor speech that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson — a former public defender who is about to be confirmed to a seat on the Supreme Court — would rise to the defense of Nazi war criminals and would want them released rather than being held accountable for their crimes against humanity.

Wow! I am not sure how to respond to that bit of character assassination other than to say that Tom Cotton has provided a shameful example of the depths to which he and other demagogues will stoop to score cheap political points with the far-right-wing base of a once-great political party.

I thought Cotton’s behavior during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing of Judge Jackson’s nomination was loathsome enough. Silly me. He outdid himself by offering that despicable example of demagoguery.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

GOP exhibits astounding hypocrisy

As the nation prepares to hail the U.S. Senate confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court, I want to call attention briefly to something that became so evident during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Republicans who oppose Judge Jackson’s nomination to the court have dredged up bits and snippets of decisions she has delivered and then accused her of not telling the whole truth about why she made those decisions.

Here is where the hypocrisy shows itself in all its ugliness. These same GOP senators voted twice for a man who during his single term as president told an estimated 36,000 lies, according to a survey done by the Washington Post. They voted twice for a serial liar in 2016 and again in 2020. The good news for the nation is that in 2020, most American voters cast ballots for Joe Biden, sending the former Liar in Chief out the door.

What will stick in my craw likely until the day they throw me into my grave will be the hypocrisy exhibited by the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Marsha Blackburn, Thom Tillis, Lindsey Graham and others as they concocted reasons to oppose an eminently qualified candidate for the nation’s highest court.

They should be ashamed. Except that they have no shame.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

KBJ to make history

Forgive me for using the initials to describe the next associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. KBJ, of course, is the distinguished judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who today stands poised to join the nation’s highest court as the first Black woman ever nominated for the post.

Judge Jackson will make history when the full Senate casts its vote to confirm her. Indeed, she received a needed boost toward a bipartisan confirmation when Republican Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine in announcing their support for Judge Jackson’s nomination.

With all 50 Senate Democrats set to hold firm, KBJ will be confirmed later this week.

This is a big deal, folks. Even some Republican senators noted the historical significance of President Biden’s nomination of Judge Jackson in announcing their intention to oppose her joining the SCOTUS.

Many Republican senators have noted Jackson’s stellar qualifications, her background, her temperament, her courage, her legal brilliance. They cannot support her, they said, because of her “judicial philosophy.”

Yeah … whatever.

Leave it to bomb-throwers like Ted Cruz of Texas, though, to say that Judge Jackson will become the most “far left” judge in Supreme Court history. I don’t take seriously anything that comes out of Cancun Ted’s pie hole these days. I mean, anyone who would abandon his constituents who are freezing to death by jetting off to Cancun — as Cruz did a year ago — only has earned Texans’ scorn.

Back to Judge Jackson’s pending confirmation …

This is a gigantic event. I applaud President Biden for keeping his 2020 campaign pledge by appointing a supremely qualified African American woman to the nation’s highest court. I applaud those senators who have supported her nomination. And I salute Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for the service to the country she is about to deliver.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Blunt said this about KBJ?

Roy Blunt, the lame-duck Republican U.S. senator from Missouri, said some strange things about Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson today while being interviewed on ABC News.

Blunt said Jackson’s expected confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court will be a “high point” in U.S. history; he said she is well qualified; that she has a good educational background; that it is past time for the SCOTUS to have an African American woman among its ranks; that she has a good legal mind.

Then he said he will vote “no” on her confirmation. Why? Because of her judicial philosophy.

Good grief!

It was a bizarre recitation that exhibited Blunt’s political cowardice as he prepares to retire from the Senate at the end of the year.

I cannot recall ever hearing someone say so many positive things about a political appointee before declaring he wouldn’t support that person to the seat to which she has been nominated.

Weird. Simply weird.

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

local news

Define a woman … doc

The dumbass who masquerades as a congressman from the Texas Panhandle believes that defining a woman is a prerequisite for serving on the U.S. Supreme Court.

So it was that Ronny Jackson, the Republican who lives in Amarillo, put a Twitter message out there that says “anyone cannot define a woman does not belong” on the nation’s highest court. He refers, naturally, to President Biden’s selection of Ketanji Brown Jackson to join the SCOTUS as soon as she is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The reality is that Tennessee GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn asked the question of Judge Jackson during her Senate confirmation hearing and for my money engraved the question as the dumbest query ever posed to a nominee to any office.

My question for Rep. Jackson — the former Navy admiral and physician — is this: How would he define a woman? I am all ears as to how he would have answered that question given the context of its asking and the idiotic turn of the questioning from the GOP senators who are going to vote “no” on recommending her confirmation.

This clown just needs to shut his trap.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com