Republicans Tried to Humiliate Ketanji Brown Jackson... It Backfired Horribly

     The picture of Mitch McConnell in front of a Confederate flag speaks volumes as he announces his opposition to President Biden's Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, who will be the first black female to serve on the Supreme Court when confirmed. I say "will" and not "if" because she will be confirmed before Easter, whether or not a single Republican votes for her.

     History should remember the days between March 21st and 24th, 2022, the latter of which saw the revelation that Ginni Thomas, the wife of recently hospitalized Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginni Thomas, texted Mark Meadows dozens of times urging him to overturn the results of the 2020 election; Thomas was the sole justice out of nine, including four other conservatives, to vote to withhold Mark Meadows' text messages from the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. But sure, KBJ might do a bad job on the Supreme Court.

     This was just one example. Perhaps Don Young's passing came just in the nick of time for the sake of his sanity: during the same time period, Senator Mike Braun of Indiana stated that states should be allowed to ban interracial marriage if they want to. He tried to walk balk his statements, but he made that point clear several times even when asked to clarify; also, on the latter date, GOP Representative Jeff Fortenberry was convicted of three felony counts punishable by a combined total of 15 years in prison for accepting $30,000 in illegal campaign donations from a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire and then lying to FBI agents twice.

     Actions during the confirmation hearings were no less despicable. Let's start with the biggest clown in the show: Senator Ted Cruz. He tried as hard as he could to be punctual, screaming at airport employees (in Montana, for some reason) that he had to be on the flight he was late for and asking if they knew who he was (as if they would treat him any better after finding out that he was Ted Cruz). While at the hearings, he asked Ketanji Brown Jackson if she thought babies were racist and showed books like "The End of Policing" and "Antiracist Baby," both of which became best-sellers thanks to his unhinged tirade. The best part: his daughters go to a private school that describes itself as anti-racist. After he was done bitching, a videographer caught him checking his Twitter mentions from the same account that liked hardcore porn, much like when he tweeted about breast milk during President Biden's 2021 Joint Message to Congress. Then there's fellow Texan John Cornyn, who had to have the definition of a constitutional right explained to him when he went on an anti-gay marriage rant.

     Lindsey Graham is certainly the most pathetic of the lot. He led the charge claiming that the GOP would work with President Biden when fellow South Carolinian J. Michelle Childs was still among the top contenders for the spot. During the hearings, he stormed off when he wasn't getting the answers he wanted. He also claimed that KBJ was allowing sex offenders to "thrive" with lenient sentencing. By Graham's logic, so was he: in June 2021, Graham was one of only a few GOP senators to vote with Democrats in favor of confirming Jackson to the DC Appeals Court, the highest court in the nation next to the Supreme Court and one that deals with criminal cases far more often than the Supreme Court does. Josh Hawley of Missouri also tried to make a big show of that by highlighting seven cases in which Judge Jackson gave child porn offenders a sentence lower than prosecutors recommended. The fact is that nearly 70 percent of sentences given out by all federal judges for all child porn cases are lower than what is asked for, and every sentence Judge Jackson handed out in her career on the bench was in line with sentencing guidelines.

     Of course, since it involves the GOP, there's been a lot of hypocrisy in these hearings. Photographs have emerged of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul with convicted child pornographer and known incestuous child molester Josh Duggar as well as photos of Mitch McConnell with convicted child sex trafficker Matt Nolan. Of course, the party of Dennis Hastert and Matt Foley continues to protect Matt Gaetz, who is under investigation for child sex trafficking.

     I could go on and on... Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who previously tried to hold up the confirmation of black judge Andre Mathis because of what she referred to as a "rap sheet" of six traffic tickets from 20 years ago, tried to say that the Constitution did not protect abortion but did protect "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." That, of course, was the Declaration of Independence. Even Senator Ben Sasse, who said that Jackson had a strong moral character and an impeccable legal record, said that he could not vote to put a black woman on the Supreme Court. 

     In a recent video, white supremacist Nick Fuentes claimed that he was happy to see the GOP embrace white nationalism like conservatives used to. Well, as much as I hate to say it, he's right. The number of hate groups in America has gone down for one reason: the bigotry they stand for, the violent hatred, is beginning to comprise the entirety of the Republican platform.