Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III sure knows how to make sure one of our fifty states gets the clear message that the Justice Department holds them in low regard:
I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power.” –Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General of the United States
I am going to make a general observation here that Hawai’i is not only an series of islands in the Pacific, but it is the least white and most ethnically and racially diverse state in the country. That probably has at least a little to do with why a white conservative man from Alabama named after the former president on the Confederacy and the man who fired on Ft. Sumter doesn’t think it’s a legitimate part of America.
And, just so we’re clear, the Attorney General made this remark on the “The Mark Levin Show” Tuesday night while discussing the fact that President Trump’s efforts to ban Muslims from entering the country wasn’t passing judicial muster. Sessions is confident that the placement of Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court will solve that problem.
“The judges don’t get to psychoanalyze the President to see if the order he issues is lawful. It’s either lawful or it’s not. I think that it will be real important for America to have judges in the model of Judge (Neil) Gorsuch and (the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin) Scalia, people who serve under the law, under the Constitution, not above it, and they are faithful to the law. They honor it and don’t try to remake it as they’d like it to be.”
I guess we’ll find out if people like Neal Katyal who recommended Gorsuch to us will be vindicated or if Sessions turns out to be right. Where do you want to place your money?
Justice Kagan called Gorsuch out last week for being a shithead (only she used nice, pretty Supreme Court words).
I vote that he’s a shithead, still.
The real question is what will the Other four do?
I missed that. What happened?
Oh it was worse than that.
Alito about flipped his lid as well at Gorsuch because Gorsuch was displaying less intelligence than a kindergartner who generally are able to comprehend the principle of conflicting statements.
Exactly. If I recall correctly the exchange was something like:
Gorsuch: Just go by the letter of the law, let justice be your guide.
Alito: There are conflicting statutes here dumbass, do you think we deal with simple bullshit on this court?
Sounds about right. Only your Alito is still an understatement to what actually happened.
I think the exact statement was something along the lines of “This is unbelievably complicated, you fucking moron!” Though it may have been some other adjective before complicated, and the “You fucking moron..”, may have been implicit instead of explicit, but it was very much there.
You have to remember thought, Gorsuch is a guy who has on multiple occasions written judicial opinions too far to the right for Clarence ‘I don’t believe in any government power’ Thomas.
I’m wishing Scalia had croaked 2 years earlier or a min of 2 years later.
Can the SC refuse to seat him? It seems like they should have some say…
“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific…”
I’m SURE this has NOTHING to do with the fact that Barack Obama hails from Hawaii, either. Nope, nothing to see here…
Besides, I thought he was born in Kenya?
I just noticed “low regard” rhymes with “Beauregard.”
Interesting, yes?!
How does somebody from Alabama get up the nerve to say thing like that?
Habit doesn’t take “getting up the nerve”. It’s reflexive.
Over/under on the percentage of Sessions’s constituents who believe we need a wall between the U. S. and New Mexico?
We need a wall between the US and Alabama…
mobile one between racist Sessions and . . . well . . . everything and everyone and everywhere else.
P.S. Anyone else old enough to be reminded by Sessions of Henry Gibson (except with bigger Yoda ears) on Laugh-In?
Except Henry Gibson was a sweet little guy of impish charm.
Probably should have said “a demon-possessed Henry Gibson” or some such.
Very interesting!
Will you please check the size of images before you post them, and reduce them if they’re going to come out this massive? It screws up the entire thread. Arthur Gilroy regularly does this, and doesn’t give a damn whom it inconveniences, but you’re (thankfully) no AG.
Thank you.
Yes, please.
.
Yup. First time I’ve tried this. Lesson learned…
Thank you!
Very appropriate for a Sessions look-alike.
(Ditto on the image-size request, though. Actually have to scroll right to even see Henry Gibson [not to be confused with Henrik Ibsen! Which now makes me wonder if “Henry Gibson” was a stage name chosen for that resemblance. And sure enuf, whaddayaknow!])
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – some island in the Pacific was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
Right, that’s one thing, but that was in 1941, when Hawaii was a federal territory with an Article IV (territorial) court. Since August 21, 1959 Hawaii has been a state of the United States, just as much of a state as fucking Alabama, and arguably more so, since Hawaii never seceded from the Union. So how come Sessions is “amazed”? Does the Attorney General not know the powers of a federal judge?
He sure does. In 1986, Sessions himself was denied a federal judgeship because of the controversy over some racist remarks he had made earlier in his career — only the second time in almost half century that the Senate Judicial Committee had vetoed a nominee for a federal district court.
“Hawaii’s Democratic senators blasted the comment, with Sen. Mazie Hirono underscoring the racism of Sessions’ “dog whistle politics”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/session-hawaii-pacific-island_us_58f9459de4b00fa7de12cc44
In the past quarter century, I’ve found that betting “party over country” with Republican judges at any level tends to be the wisest choice.
Now, now, our judicial conservatives always just “follow the law”, TarHeel. Balls and strikes, nothing more.
What’s remarkable is that the law always turns out to be exactly what a “conservative” activist hopes it is!
Just like SALLY League umpires, eh.
Obviously we are in for battles between the executive and the judiciary on a variety of issues in the 4-8 of TrumpAmerica, the first up likely being over Der Trumper’s Muslim ban. At least one case will emerge out of the 9th Circuit (the appellate circuit in which Jefferson’s hated Hawaii is located), which was the first appellate court to stand up to Trumper and his Littlest Confederate on Muslim Ban 1.0
In the last high stakes battle executive/courts battle, that involving the extended conflict between Bush and Supreme Court over Guantanamo detainees and the right of the courts to have any say in the process, the Court split 5-4 against the executive, with Kennedy casting the decisive vote against Bushco and the Repub party.
One would therefore suppose that Kennedy might continue this pattern on the upcoming Muslim ban case, but perhaps not. It would be close to inconceivable that the latest conservative activist masquerading as a Justice (Gorsuch) would betray the “conservative” bloc so prominently and in such stark contrast to his idol St Scalia. So the best that can possibly happen on these sort of Trump vs. the Judiciary cases is a 5-4 victory for individual rights, if Kennedy holds with the Dem-appointed bloc.
I see dimwit Grassley is predicting a new vacancy on the Court this summer. If so, that would mean a rock solid 5 vote “conservative” extremist majority on every single issue…and Gorsuch will vote for the “conservative”-approved result likely 95% of the time. It would also almost certainly mean the end of Roe.
FUCK NEAL KATYAL.
His toady, insulting statement in support of Gorsuch’s nomination won’t get him to heaven, and I don’t believe it will get him a SCOTUS nomination either. Since that was clearly the reason he did what he did, I’m glad to come to that last conclusion.
anyway, who is this fuckhead who I’d never heard of before?
Katyal was acting Solicitor General for more than a year during the Obama Administration. He represented the government before the Supreme County in many case hearings. Before that, he was the attorney who made the major arguments before the Court in the first case which won Geneva Conventions and Uniform Code of Miltary Justice protections for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Katyal is associated with legal defenses of liberal principles. His flacking for Gorsuch was nauseating. I think Neal sees a SCOTUS nomination process which has become so broken that he felt he would need to provide an enormous service to conservatives in order to get votes from Senators in the Republican Caucus which he may need for a future nomination he wants.
Additionally, Katyal is now with a law firm which is often hired to make arguments before the Court. He wants Gorsuch to rule in his favor, and appears to want to win the affection of Chief Justice Roberts and other conservatives on the Court.
Look, he concluded his flacking for Gorsuch in the New York Times with this:
“Right about now, the public could use some reassurance that no matter how chaotic our politics become, the members of the Supreme Court will uphold the oath they must take: to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich.” I am confident Neil Gorsuch will live up to that promise.”
I am confident Neal Gorsuch will be one of the very worst SCOTUS judges for the poor and otherwise socially marginalized, non-white, non-Christian, non-conservative Americans. Katyal’s statement is going to look really, really bad 20 years from now. He will be seen to have been a fool. Or, worse, someone who wished to fool others at a crucial moment in our Nation’s history.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III sure knows …
Thanks!! That’s how he should be written about for the rest of the time he’s AG.
. . . time.”
More reactions:
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/hawaii-lawmakers-fire-back-sessions-island-pacific-com
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