Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) spoke Thursday against the appointment of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court based on her leniency toward convicted pedophiles and her refusal to denounce court packing.
Here's the full speech (which is actually rather good if you can stay awake for it 😂) with some choice quotes to follow:
Now for some quotes:
I enjoyed meeting the nominee. I went into the Senate process with an open mind.
I find it interesting that politicians always say this. If you've been in politics as long as McConnell (he was elected to the Senate in 1984 before many of us were born), you know how the game of politics is played and you certainly have a team dedicated to opposition research.
I'd rather that McConnell point out that his worst assumptions about Brown Jackson were realized. It would make him seem wise instead of feigning this idea that he, under any circumstances, has "an open mind" about any Democratic nominee. McConnell isn't clueless, just like Jackson isn't clueless about what a woman is – they're just playing dumb for the sake of the cameras. It's annoying as heck.
But I digress:
But after studying the nominee's record and watching her performance this week, I cannot and will not support Judge Jackson for a lifetime appointment to our highest Court. First, Judge Jackson refuses to reject the fringe position that Democrats should try to pack the Supreme Court. Justices Ginsburg and Breyer had no problem denouncing this unpopular view and defending their institution. I assumed this would be an easy softball for Judge Jackson. But it wasn't.
I'm glad Cocaine Mitch led with this.
Conservatives have been razor focused on the issues with Brown Jackson's rulings on pedophiles, as well as her alliances with LGBT ideologies, and that's sure to excite their base.
I mean, all Americans should be against pedophiles and the erasure of women, but Democratic voters will likely see these things as smear attacks that aren't worthy of attention.
This issue of packing the Supreme Court – now that's one that has widespread disdain across the land. People equivocally do not want the judiciary destroyed by turning it into a legislative vehicle for whomever is in power at the moment.
The nominee suggested there are two legitimate sides to the issue. She testified that she has a view on the matter but would not share it. She inaccurately compared her non-answer to a different, narrower question that a prior nominee was asked. But Judge Jackson seemingly tipped her hand. She said she would be, ‘thrilled to be one of however many.' The opposite of the Ginsburg and Breyer sentiment. The most radical pro-court-packing fringe groups badly wanted this nominee for this vacancy. Judge Jackson was the court-packers' pick. And she testified like it.
Yup. Got her.
Then we come to her rulings. McConnell zeroed in on her lack of experience ruling on constitutional law and her leniency toward criminals "in the midst of a national violence crime wave and exploding illegal immigration."
The Judge regularly gave certain terrible kinds of criminals light sentences that were beneath the sentencing guidelines and beneath the prosecutors' requests. The Judge herself, this week, used the phrase ‘policy disagreement' to describe this subject. The issue isn't just the sentences. It's also the Judge's rhetoric in trial transcript and the creative ways she bent the law. In one instance, Judge Jackson used COVID as a pretext to essentially rewrite a criminal justice reform law from the bench and make it retroactive, which Congress had declined to do.
Despite the lack of intonation in his voice, I've got to give the Senate turtle his due. He's right on the money here.
I'll conclude with this: Late on Tuesday, after hours of questioning, I believe we may have witnessed a telling moment. Under questioning about judicial activism, Judge Jackson bluntly said this... 'well, any time the Supreme Court has five votes, then they have a majority for whatever opinion they determine.' That isn't just a factual observation, it is a clear echo of a famous quotation from perhaps the most famous judicial activist of all time, the archliberal William Brennan. The late Justice Brennan told people the most important rule in constitutional law was the rule of five. With five votes, the majority can do whatever it wants. That's a perfect summary of judicial activism. It's a recipe for courts to wander into policymaking and prevent democratic compromise. This is the misunderstanding of the separation of powers that I've spent my entire career fighting against. Yet President Biden made that misunderstanding his litmus test. And nothing we saw this week convinced me that either President Biden or Judge Jackson's deeply invested far-left fan club have misjudged her.
I mean, is he wrong???
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