They Couldn't Spoil It--Almost

 

I think I could take a moment to acknowledge something really good and historic happened yesterday and really leave it at that...

But I would be a whole other person if I did not take note of the churlish, contemptuous behavior of the GOP jackaloons that still wanted to be sullen and snitty about the smears that they actually made up. The reason I can't leave it alone is that it was unnecessary for them to try and damage someone's reputation with that kind of calumny, but also the nature of it ("She's a friend tto sex fiends!") is a conspiracy theory classic from the same text as blood libel--a kissing cousin, so to speak, of QAnon.

You can't get a whole bunch of people to believe a cabal of baby-eaters is running the world--but depicting a group as deviant is not as hard a lift and can be just as dangerous. They did this to make her unpalatable by pre-smearing the people who would vote for her confirmation with a kind of guilt by association, vide MTG's despicable Tweet:

She says "Any Senator voting to confirm #KJB (sic) is pro-pedophile just like she is." Right out there for the kids who are slow on the uptake and need it spelled all the way out for them. And of course, Marginal Traitor Greed is a vicious lying extremist, but...no. I guess that really is all I have to say about that. But she has definitely articulated, baldly, what Senator Hawley tried to set in motion/ 

In any case, I'd like to think that only the far-right, already Q-enmired types would think this plausible, but I can't help but notice how neatly it folds into the new claim that people opposing the dangerous and dumb "Don't Say Gay" bills are "groomers". This tactic isn't pure politics--it's eliminationist. It uses fear to silence people and wage terror on those who don't stay silent. 

So while I want to embrace this history-making moment, I am disgusted by the antics of those who decided now was a great time to play a dangerous and stupid game with the process. 

You Won't Steal Our Joy

The Senate confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson got super emotional when Sen. Cory Booker brought Jackson to tears with his touching testimony on racial progression. https://t.co/imXiGk6ZeS

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 23, 2022

Where Republicans mugging for the camera and showing every willingness to swim in the sewer to drag an exceptionally qualified Black woman through the mud for the dopamine hit of a Fox News spot exist, I am refreshed to focus on the only US Senator who brought Judge Jackson to tears, Senator Cory Booker, because he supported and respected and showed his joy for this glass-ceiling shattering woman. 

If the calumny and slander of the mugging mental mites, the political parasites, the social media self-checkers like Cruz and the drama-queens like Lindsey Graham, the unapologetic militant police state loving fuckfaces like Tom Cotton and the weasel-headed insurrectionist sumbitches like Josh Hawley made anyone ever want to take a long Silkwood-style shower, he gave us this refreshing moment, this shower of love, to study how Judge Jackson has borne up during an onslaught intended to rattle her and shake her faith. 

And she has persevered throughout questioning that has more to do with right-wing axe-grinding and the next election cycle than her own nomination. She is being accused because less qualified candidates than her were rightly challenged, but a party that no longer has a grip on right and wrong can only see tit for tat. 

I've raged, because I can, watching this, and she cannot, because she is living this and has to be professional. When Sen. Cotton accuses her of loving terrorists because of her service as a public defender, I want to intimately introduce him to the concept of due process that actually is a cornerstone of the Constitution he himself swore an oath to and is pretending now not to know about by shoving said document down his narrow throat. Also, I think GWB and company actually are guilty of war crimes and I've been saying so for years. 

When Josh Hawley accuses her, a woman and mother of daughters, of being soft on sex criminals, I want to throw out the discussion of whether he was slow as MO AG to investigate Gov. Eric Greitens' crimes until it was politically convenient to do so. His silence on Roy Moore. And the general disapprobation he is rightly receiving for this slander. 

As a woman, I cringe at the contempt and condescension thrown her way, the interruptions by men who think they are great because the Fox News camera is going to love them. I can only imagine what it would be to be a Black woman seeing this appalling display of white men in power, trying to disempower a woman every bit their equal in education and dignity, and their superior in mastery of herself. 

I have no doubt she will be seated on the highest bench, but I am appalled at this display by such obvious political maneuvers by pure partisan shitheads. Have they no shame? Of course not. Can their shame-glands be kickstarted by anything at all? I don't even know, but I have feet and time. 

If You Ever Wondered

 

The party of Lincoln, folks, the party of Lincoln. pic.twitter.com/Rd4FiXZmIG

— Seth Cotlar (@SethCotlar) March 22, 2022

Yesterday, GOP senators threw skepticism about birth control, the right to choose, gay marriage, interracial marriage, etc. around because there was nothing objectionable at all about the SCOTUS nominee in front of them. Their phobias about humans who are not straight and white and their contempt for child-bearers' rights is what they wanted to talk about yesterday. They used an academic topic they've been demonizing to try to smear an actual well-qualified Black judicial candidate. The image above is not a tasteless accident--it's what they are actually campaigning on. They thought this was a great look for them.

This Is The GOP

 

This is the Affirmative Action pick for Vice President. If you think this is bad, just wait til their Affirmative Action pick for the Supreme Court is handed a lifetime appointment. pic.twitter.com/XArHeTKwct

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 21, 2022

You might know Charlie Kirk from being a big-headed manchild without a college degree who talks to conservative youth about white supremacist nonsense, or, if you're lucky, you don't know this SOB at all.

What I do know is that the elected Vice-President of the United States has been the DA for San Francisco, the AG for the state of California, and a US Senator. That's not affirmative action, those are qualifications. That's actual work at actual jobs of importance. In the way that being a well-paid dupe peddling lies to dopes is not work. She works to make things suck less. Charlie Kirk exists to make things suck more.

Judge Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson is a highly educated legal professional who clerked with Justice Breyer and went on to an established judicial career. She has significant experience both as a defense lawyer and a judge, and has been rated by her peers (not Charlie Kirk, who is certainly not one of those) as well-qualified. 

There shouldn't need to be an answer to the mindless burblings of a racist fool, but I'm of the mind that you should call these assholes out loudly and often. And the reason is, he's only foghorning the racism to the folks too dim to hear the subtle dog-whistles blown by the more legitimate GOP spokes-cretins. (Brit Hume also made a slightly snide allusion to whether VP Harris "ticked boxes" today. Did he mean a racial box? Is he putting down her qualifications, as if no presidential ticket in history ever did not have certain voter demographic considerations in mind?)

It's a little defensive and maybe even shrill when Sen. Lindsey Graham has to tell us that the GOP are "used to" being called racists. But why have they never taken the hint and looked at why that keeps happening, especially when they elected a whole birther as president and are now using QAnon tropes against a Black woman? 

When they are supported by people who want to carry Confederate flags and think "Black Lives Matter" is a radical statement, and they cater to that ethos, maybe there's a pretty good reason they are being called that. When GOP allegations regarding "voter fraud" all seem to point to concern about turnout in places where people of color vote, they aren't really hiding anything. 

When Sen, Marsha Blackburn wonders if Judge Jackson is carrying a hidden CRT agenda through a handful of what I will generously call "misunderstandings" about what any of her prior statements mean, it's hard not to believe she is just participating in culture war axe-grinding, rather than a good-faith discussion of what Jackson's record actually shows. 

And somehow, Cruz, Sasse, and Cotton were all in their own various ways, even worse. 

This confirmation hearing is supposed to be about the nominee, and yet it is ostensibly about the Republican party and how, at a 6-3 conservative advantage on the court, they nonetheless need to grandstand about the courts. It's about the GOP. And yes, ok. We see them.

We really do.