BIDEN'S NEW JUSTICE OF COLOR

 

                                        BY BILL JUNEAU

                                      As the thunder, fighting and blood continued in far-away Ukraine, President Biden announced that he was keeping his pledge and was nominating a black woman to be an  Associate  Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Progressives were elated as the President introduced the bespectacled Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, as his pick to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.

                                      His selection as the nominee followed a narrow and unprecedented vetting process.  Only black women could be considered for the job.  Legal ability, intelligence, character, experience and temperament were to be assessed, but only after the applicant had marked the gender and skin color boxes.   

                                       The court has had a void of black women justices for 250 years, said the President,  and that negative quality must be remedied.  "This is who we are," said the slow moving and  frail- looking President in his customary horse whisper, as he introduced  his grinning nominee several days ago to a mostly televised audience. 

                                        Progressive Democrats were pleased and they applauded Biden's selection of Jackson for her experience in defending accused criminals and because she will be a voice for the downtrodden and homeless living in tents.  Too often, accused persons' rights are overlooked in the face of injuries to their distraught and complaining victims, and Judge Jackson will now be the voice to see that the criminal gets a fair shake.  

                                       Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University has raised the point that Biden apparently perceives a need  to meet a quota on the panel with nine Justices on the Supreme Court.  Doing so is kind of weird, some say, with Biden in the pocket of Democrats telling him what to do. If quotas are a requirement in his mind, where is his call for representation for other needy groups.   Would he, for example,  if an unanticipated  opportunity arose, consider appointment of a transgendered legal scholar to be a voice for the LGBTQ community.  Are there any disabled justices on the Supreme Court bench? What about Native Americans?

                                       Senate majority leader, Charles E. "Cry'n Chuck" Schumer  has lauded Biden for his nominee to fill the seat of Stephen Breyer who is continuing as a working Justice until the end of the current court term--in June or July.  The vetting process will be swift, promised Schumer. He says Judge Jackson  should be confirmed by April--a few months before Breyer is actually ready to clean out his desk.

                                       It seems a bit unusual for the Senate to confirm a nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy--when the vacancy is in the future and conceivably might not occur, since a justice has the right to change his mind if he desires to do so.   

                                      After being pushed behind the curtain by persistent democrats, Justice Breyer agreed to retire this summer. But the 83-year-old Breyer is in good health and reportedly had no intentions of stepping down until he felt a gigantic push to do so from Democrats who fear the next Senate could be controlled by Republicans, and a Biden selection based only on skin color and gender would hit a wall. Mid-term elections are scheduled for next November, and analysts are predicting that the Democrats may take a shelling at the polls, with Senate control returning to the GOP. 

                                        Ketanji Jackson is a graduate of Harvard university and its law school and her place on the Supreme Court is in keeping with justices coming from Harvard and Yale.  South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham frowns upon this usual path for Supreme Court Justices. Also, he has indicated that he will not support the liberal Jackson who is regarded by many as a "radical" who endorses far left policies and who will abandon the constitution and write her own version of the law---whenever necessary. 

                                         Along with legal work in a law firm and as a public defender, Jackson was for a time a law clerk for Justice Breyer whom  she will be replacing.  In 2014, President Obama appointed her as a district judge in Washington D.C. where some of her decisions brought progressive cheers for opposing the policies of President Trump.  In one decision, she savaged the former President for his sweeping claims of executive privilege.  "Presidents are not kings," she wrote.    

                                        Last April, following Joe Biden's election, Judge Jackson was elevated to the D.C. Court of Appeals, replacing Merrick Garland on the nation's most liberal federal court of appeals.  In her 10 months as an appellate Judge, Jackson has published only two opinions and one of them was reversed by a unanimous panel of her D.C. colleagues. 

                                        Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate, has called for a "rigorous, exhaustive review" of Jackson's nomination.  He noted also that Judge Jackson was the favored choice of far-left "dark money" groups that have spent years attacking the legitimacy and structure of the court itself.

                                      In a public statement, the Republican National Committee criticized Jackson as a "radical, left-wing activist who would rubber-stamp Biden's disastrous agenda" and vowed to "make sure that voters know just how radical Jackson is." 

                                      Sen.Schumer has said that he is optimistic that the Senate Judiciary committee will complete its vetting of Judge Jackson in April, and that she will be confirmed by the full Senate soon thereafter. With a quick confirmation by the Democratic Senate, the new justice will be waiting in the wings for Justice  Breyer to clear out his belongings so that  she can take over his office.  

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LT. COL. VINDMAN FILES A LAWSUIT

           

                                      BY BILL JUNEAU                                                   

                                      Like a worn out and tarnished penny, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman has reemerged on the Washington stage, and now is looking for money.  He and his lawyers have filed a federal lawsuit against former President Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Trump's oldest son, Donald,  and two other Trump loyalists for their bullying and disparaging treatment of him 

                                      The stone-faced Vindman, was the key figure who assisted Congressmen Adam Schiff and Jerrold "Fat Jerry" Nadler in bringing about the impeachment of President Trump in Dec. 2019.  Vindman's testimony about a Trump telephone conversation with the new Ukrainian President was simply untrue  and the President was acquitted of all wrongdoing by the U.S. Senate on the following Feb. 5.  

                                       After the former president's exoneration,  Vindman, the principle complaining witness against him, contends that he was reassigned from his position in the White House to a lonely army corner in the Pentagon, and treated like a naughty pupil given a dunce cap for behaving badly in the classroom.  With no future left in the army, he states that he  retired  and took his pension.  

                                      The lawsuit was filed Feb. 9  in the Washington D.C. district court seeking unspecified damages.  

                                       As the key witness against the President, and his Commander-in Chief, the malleable Vindman provided  his Trump-hating Democratic friends a full bucket of lies about a telephone conversation which President Trump  had with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, 2019,  which Vindman  monitored.  In it, asserted Vindman, the President squeezed Zelensky like a grapefruit and "demanded" that his Ukrainian counterpart  investigate the corrupt practices of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter--or else.

                                      In a deposition and under oath before Congress, the uniformed Vindman, 46, provided the "or else." He said Trump was ordering his Ukrainian counterpart  to investigate former U.S. Vice President Biden for his corrupt practices in his role as point man to Ukraine in the Obama administration, or else his country would be denied some $400 million in promised foreign aid. 

                                      Assigned inside the Trump White House, and with a top clearance,  Vindman was serving as Director for European Affairs for the National Security Council, and in that capacity monitored presidential calls with Ukraine and other European officials. His allegations and testimony were key to the voting of articles of impeachment against President Trump by a partisan House of Representatives.

                                   His allegations were  shown to be fabrication when President Trump, to everyone's surprise, released the actual transcript of the conversation, which showed no "demand" for an investigation.  Also,  President Zelensky stated publicly that his conversation with President Trump was pleasant and was without any intimidation....and that the subject of foreign aid was never discussed.  

                                              In the face of his outrageous conduct,  Vindman was reassigned and escorted out of the White House.  He stomped his feet in quest of a promotion to full colonel.  Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth lobbied in his behalf for the promotion and its hefty increase in salary, but it never happened.  In interviews, President Trump said that he considered Vindman  a "disgrace to the military."   

                                        In the lawsuit, Vindman charged that the defendants, primarily Rudy Giuliani, a popular, former New York mayor, and Donald Trump Jr.,  engaged in an "intentional concerted campaign of unlawful intimidation and retaliation against him for testifying before congress in 2019. 

                                         Giuliani,  Donald Trump Jr. and ex staffers Dan Scavino and Julia Hahn "coordinated targets and talking points aimed at pushing false narratives about Vindman, including baseless claims that he was a Ukrainian spy and that he lied under oath."

                                          It caused  severe and deeply personal ramifications for Lt. Col. Vindman, the suit alleged, with the soldier  sustaining “significant financial, emotional, and reputational harm” for doing his duty and testifying against Mr. Trump at the impeachment trial.

                                         Vindman was a native of the Ukraine and came to the United States with his parents when he was a child. He was a soldier for 21 years and had served a tour in Iraq where he was wounded in action and awarded a purple heart. He was putty in the hands of U.S.  Representatives Schiff and Nadler and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and with credentials as a soldier and a purple heart recipient, he was their tool and shining hope for the destruction and removal from office of Republican Trump. 

                                          In the face of the lawsuit, defendants reportedly will be preparing a motion to dismiss the litigation for its questionable basis and failure to state a legal cause of action.  A ruling dismissing the lawsuit might be swift.  

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BIDEN: THE SUPREME COURT MUST HAVE A BLACK WOMAN JUSTICE

 

                                    BY BILL JUNEAU

                                             President Joe Biden has promised that his pick for a new Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court will be a woman of color.  Never mind if the nominee is brilliant and was first in her law school class; or if she is dumb as a box of rocks. So long as her skin color is black and her gender is female, she will don those sainted  robes and weigh in on problems and issues facing all Americans. 

                              The President made a promise during his  campaign debate in 2020 that when elected he would put a black woman on the Supreme Court.  It also was a "thank you" to Representative James Clyburn, a veteran Black Democrat from South Carolina who delivered black support for Biden in his state, as his half of the deal.          

                              It goes without saying that the new justice will be on the far left wing of the field, and most likely will possess only a half-hearted belief that the United States is a good and exceptional country.  Police misconduct, bail provisions, cancel culture, woke nonsense, critical race theory, abortions, open borders and government mandates will be priorities for the nominee, and will be wholly consistent with socialist and marxist goals of the  Democratic party.  

                               So Biden's advisors will now begin rounding up only black women as candidates.  White women and men with strong academic credentials and judicial experience, as decreed by  President Biden, need not apply.  

                               The  vacancy on the nine-member court will be created with the exit of Stephen Breyer, 83, an associate justice since 1994, appointed by President Clinton.  Judge Breyer has confirmed reports that he will step down after the court completes its work for the current session, probably in June or July. 

                               As to Biden's promise that his nominee will be a black woman because there needs to be a black woman justice on the nation's highest court, the Wall Street Journal reacted and termed his thinking as "unfortunate," because it “elevates skin color over qualifications.”  George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley said  the implication is created that the next justice was “qualified by virtue of filling a quota."

                             Other think tanks have said that Biden is disqualifying dozens of liberal and progressive jurists for no reason other than their race and gender. One person reportedly tweeted that Biden's nominee will always have an asterisk attached to her name.

                                     Democratic power brokers and progressives who appear to be telling the cognitive-impaired 79-year-old Biden what to do and when to do it, want the liberal Breyer out, the sooner the better, so that he can be replaced by another malleable, liberal judge. Biden has said that his "black woman nominee" will have extraordinary qualifications and unassailable credentials and experience.  She will be taking her chair on the nation's highest court alongside the two other liberal woman justices---Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.  "I will select a nominee worthy of Justice Breyer's legacy of excellence and decency," said Biden. 

                              Though an octogenarian, Breyer is in good health, and apparently had not yet decided to retire, but then he felt the wind at his back and made the decision to go. It is most important to liberal democrats that the current Senate, with its controlling majority,  be the one to vote on the Biden nominee before next November's midterm elections. Pursuant to the Constitution, the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress, must consent to the appointment of justices to the Supreme Court. 

                               Politicians on both sides of the aisle, and political analysts and media pundits foresee a Republican surge in the coming November elections which may well alter the political make up in both Houses of Congress. With a Republican majority in the Senate, approval of a Biden nominee based solely on skin color and gender is no longer assured. 

                               Efforts by Democrats to coax Breyer into stepping down got underway last spring as Biden fumbled and stumbled in his job--and the burgeoning threat from Republicans became apparent. Judge Breyer was gently, but firmly, pushed toward the exit door as Democrats deemed his stepping down to be urgent.  They worked frantically, with assistance from the always liberal and cooperative media, to light a fire under the good-natured Breyer to accept that it is time for him to haul it in, and allow Biden's distaff justice of color to take her coveted lifetime seat.  

                                Last Spring,  Justice Breyer gave a speech in which he told Harvard law students that  he viewed the judiciary as divorced from politics.  Once judges raise their hands and take an oath, he said, they "become loyal to the rule of law, not to the political party that helped them secure their appointment."

                               Hearing his comments, Democratic operatives dug in.   Op-eds appeared in newspapers and there was clamor from all corners of the party of the mule that it was imperative that he retire and allow a Democrat of the same stripe and loyalty to take his place.  Reportedly,  a truck even circled the Supreme Court building with a billboard that read:  "Breyer, retire." In any case, it worked and a few weeks ago, Breyer made it official.  

                                       Under former President Trump, three conservative justices were appointed and despite best efforts by Democrats to destroy the candidates with an assortment of lying personal attacks, the Senate confirmed them.  Democrats, led by "Cry'n Chuck" Schumer, majority leader in the Senate, were particularly motivated by the memory of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal icon who died in office in 2020 and was replaced by President Donald Trump’s nominee Amy Coney Barrett, a strong conservative,  just days  before President Trump was defeated in his reelection bid. 

                                 Following a remarkable campaign to show him the door, Breyer got the message and said he would step down from the court after all opinions are completed for 2021 term.  Justice Breyer's brother, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, said in an interview that Stephen  "was aware of this campaign pushing him to step down....and it was never his desire to die on the bench." 

                                       " I think what impressed him was not the campaign, but the logic of the campaign," said his  brother Charles.  "He thought he should take into account the fact that this was an opportunity for a Democratic president — and he was appointed by a Democratic president — to fill his position with someone who is like-minded.”

                                        The Constitution does not set forth the requirements for a judge on the Supreme Court.  It is expected that the nominee will have a law degree, but being a lawyer is not a requisite.  Some lawyers are wondering if meeting a quota and making the selection based upon skin color and gender is really appropriate. But then, most anything is possible with Slow Joe Biden and his advisors behind the curtain. 

                                         President Biden said he expects to announce the name of his nominee by the end of this February. 

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