Democrats Plot To Demonize Justices

A Supreme Court ruling overturning race-based college admissions has reignited smoldering Democrat attacks on the nation's conservative justices.  The incendiary offensive, mobilized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, aims to delegitimize the court and undermine its decisions.    

Democrats are threatening impeachment against Justice Clarence Thomas while calling for ethics rules stricter than the ones that apply to Congress. A Schumer disciple, Sen. Ed Markey, is championing expanding the size of the Supreme Court to allow President Biden to pack the court with leftist judges.  

Although President Biden has been lukewarm to increasing the number of justices, nonetheless he blasted the court's decisions  as "not normal" and criticized the judges "values system as different."  The outrage is calculated to make the Supreme Court a voter issue in the upcoming presidential election.

The simmering hostility was sparked last year when a leak of a preliminary draft court decision on a case to overturn Roe v. Wade. Even before the court's official ruling, Schumer stood outside the Supreme Court building and railed against Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

"You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.  You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions," Schumer hectored.    

Abortion activists, clearly motivated by Schumer's bombast, released the home addresses online of conservative justices.  Protestors showed up at residences, shouting obscenities and brandishing menacing signs. 

The marshal of the Supreme Court pleaded with officials in Maryland and Virginia to enforce state and local laws that "prohibit picketing outside the homes" of justices and their families.  The two governors punted the decision to federal law enforcement, which never acted to end the unruly protests. 

It was shameful to allow such intimidation of justices.  It nearly boiled over when police arrested an armed man near the home of Justice Kavanaugh who had traveled to Maryland with the intent of harming the jurist.  Democrats never made any apologies for their role in fueling the threatening tactics. 

Imagine if the court was considering a challenge to gun ownership and protestors showed up at the private residences of the three liberal justices.  Does anyone believe that the FBI would have failed to disburse the crowd?  Agents would have removed the protestors post haste. 

It is even more preposterous that the marshal for the court was never able to identify who leaked Justice Samuel Alito's draft opinion.  This was a major breach of court decorum.  The leak had to be initiated by a sitting justice or a court clerk.  Yet no one could identify the leaker? That's not credible. 

Once the abortion decision was handed down overturning Roe v. Wade, Democrat surrogates initiated a smear campaign against against Justices Thomas and Alito. The hatchet job has been carried out by ProPublica, an obscure leftwing publication. 

The muckraking online news site is the brainchild of Herb and Marion Sandler, billion former mortgage bankers of Golden West Financial Corp., which collapsed during the subprime mortgage meltdown. The two Democrat donors pledged $10 million a year to fund ProPublica in initial funding.  

Billionaires George Soros and Paul Steiger are also financial backers of the slandering website, headquartered in New York City.  On its IRS disclosure form in 2021, the nonprofit listed $35 million in donations. Financials for 2022 show more than $9.9 million came from two undisclosed donors.    

With that background, it is hardly a surprise ProPublica placed a bullseye on Thomas and Alito, revealing the justices accepted private trips with wealthy patrons and had alleged financial entanglements. Their investigation claimed these same patrons had cases before the Supreme Court.

Neither justice recused themselves, the website reported. ProPublica's allegations were amplified across the mainstream media echo chambers. Democrat Senator Dick Durbin said the revelations were cause for possible impeachment of the justices.  

(Parenthetically, members of Congress indulge in the same sort of behavior that ProPublica accused the justices.  They regularly take trips on donors private planes, vote on legislation that donors advocate and own stock in companies with a vested interest in legislation.)

ProPublica's vilification strategy worked until The New York Post broke a story pointing out that Justice Sonia Sotomayor didn't recuse herself from multiple cases involving book publisher Random House and its subsidiaries, which paid her more than $3.6 million for her 2013 memoir. 

Justice Sotomayor's liberal colleague at the time, Justice Stephen Breyer, recused himself from the case.  He also had received money from Penguin Random House.  Whoops.  And just like that--BOOM--the mainstream media's interest in justices' ethics momentarily fizzled.

But the media campaign against the justices is picking up steam again as senate Democrats are plotting an impeachment strategy with an eye toward invigorating their base prior to the presidential election. Courts are certainly fair game for  legitimate criticism of their decisions.  

But the constant drumbeat of belligerent verbal aggression undermines the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and ignites an open hostility to individual justices, threatening their safety.  This behavior regularly happens under authoritarian governments.  It has no place in America's democracy.  

Kagan vs. Miers: A saga of two would-be Supremes

With a seat on the Supreme Court all but assured for Elena Kagan, it is instructive to compare her nomination with that of Harriet Miers five years ago. Under any unbiased reading, there are obviously two sets of standards for consideration of associate justice candidates. In addition, the hearings are little more than well reheased performances that offer nothing in the way of insight into a nominee's judicial philosophy. This travesty has rendered meaningless the ritual of Senate confirmation hearings.

While Kagan's nomination sails through the Senate with tacit GOP support, Miers was forced to withdraw after those within Bush's own party bowed to Beltway media pressure. While Democrats will defend their own to the bitter end, Republicans have a sorry history of cutting bait at the first sign of negative press. It is why the GOP has remained a minority party for most of its history.

Harken back to the hearings for Miers in 2005. Critics on both sides of the aisle pointed out that she had never served as a judge, had close ties to the President and lacked a clear record on issues likely to be considered by the high court. Those exact same things are also true of Elena Kagan. But the Democrats stood their ground.

The media and Democrats have championed Kagan as a thoughtful, open-minded, imminently qualified nominee, with a sterling legal resume. An objective examination of her record belies that characterization. Here are just a few examples of her documented views:

1. In a 1996 White House document penned by Kagan, she compared the National Rifle Association to the Ku Klux Klan. She said both were "bad guy" organizations.

2. In an article in the University of Chicago Law Review, Kagan argued that government has the right to restrict free speech. She claimed that free speech could be "harmful" and as a result could be restricted.

3. In 2003, Kagan sent an email calling the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy a "moral injustice of the first order." What makes this even more instructive is that Kagan served as President Clinton's Associate White House Counsel when the administration promulgated the very policy she said she "abhorred."

Of course, during her hearings Kagan tiptoed all around these and other issues. The same person who called previous nomination hearings "a vapid and hollow charade" displayed by her answers that she can obfuscate with the best. Apparently, being vapid and hollow is perfectly acceptable if you're the one being cross-examined by Senators.

Her carefully scripted answers to Senators' questions brought back memories of Justice Sonia Sotomayor's performance in the same venue. In a repartee with senators, she declared that the Second Amendment right to bear arms was "settled law," yet in the first court test of her tenure the associate justice voted with the minority in opposing that very precedent. It's further evidence the hearings are meaningless.

A side-by-side comparison of the careers of Kagan and Miers shows more similarities than differences. Both clerked with judges after law school. Kagan managed the law school at Harvard. Miers managed a large law firm in Dallas. Yet Miers was criticized for having managerial and not judicial experience. The same was not said of Kagan.

Kagan has close personal ties to Obama, including serving as his Solicitor General. She and the President have mutual ties to Harvard. Miers served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff and White House Counsel under President Bush. They both had ties to Texas. No question both judicial nominees would have to plead guilty to being close to their bosses. Apparently, the distinction of being "too" close depends on who is President. Miers' sin was once praising Bush's personal qualities.

Both smashed legal glass ceilings. Kagan was the first female to be named Dean of the Law School at Harvard. Miers was the first female president of the Dallas Bar Association. Both were active in the law schools at their respective universities.

In another coincidence, both suffered failed judicial nominations. Kagan was nominated by President Clinton to the federal appeals court. Her nomination lapsed after the Senate failed to schedule hearings because of tepid support. Of course, Miers withdrew her Supreme Court candidacy to save Bush from suffering a defeat on her nomination.

Democrats like to point out that Kagan actually argued cases before the Supreme Court, something Miers never did. However, that experience came during the past 12 months when she argued six cases before the Supremes. That hardly qualifies as a decisive edge when comparing the two nominees.

However, Miers can one-up Kagan on one count that President Obama has deemed important for Supreme Court nominees. Obama has declared on more than one occasion that "life experiences" are a valued judicial criteria. Miers served a two-year term on the Dallas City Council and chaired the Texas Lottery Commission. Kagan's life experiences have been limited to the sheltered existence within tight academic and legal circles.

But all this appears to be of little consequence to Democrats. They have raised their voices in unison to praise Kagan's nomination. The media has joined the chorus in glorifying Kagan's brilliance, failing to point out her obvious shortcomings. Compare that to what happened to Miers. She was savaged in the media, even called intellectually lacking, a curious charge given her long list of achievements. Interestingly, no women's group protested an accomplished women being deemed too stupid to serve on the court.

Even more disappointing is the reaction of Republicans. After expressing some initial misgivings after the nomination was announced, GOP Senators have acquiesced. They have signaled their support, despite Kagan's thin resume. Their brethren on the other side of the aisle showed no such willingness to compromise when Bush nominated Miers. They mounted a successful campaign to destroy Miers.

It is sad to watch. But that is what happens when the media and Republicans fail to do their jobs, allowing Democrats to run roughshod over the judicial nomination process. As a result, Elena Kagan will surely become the first Supreme Court associate justice in four decades without prior judicial experience. The last was William Rehnquist in 1972.

There are no winners in this tale of two nominees. The losers are the American people who deserve a fair and balanced examination of any high court nominee, regardless of who occupies the White House. Changes should be made to end this sham foisted on an unwary public. Surely, there can be no opposition when a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court is at stake.