..in joining Barbados, and throwing off QE and colonialism.
“Jamaica is a very free and liberal country. And the people are very expressive. And I am certain that you would have seen the spectrum of expressions yesterday,” the prime minister added, alluding to protests in Kingston on Tuesday that called for the British royal family to acknowledge its role in colonization and slavery and pay reparations.
Ganja for everyone in celebration!! 🙂
I think she did one hell of a job responding during her confirmation hearing, and having to deal with the bozos.
Thank you for reading today's post. Have an InterStellar Day! ~PrP
U.S. is preparing for nukes:
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/U-S-Makes-Contingency-Plans-in-Case-Russia-Uses-17024565.php
I grabbed this from a law360 article:
Here are the key moments from the day.
Judge Jackson Would Recuse From Harvard Admissions Case
In an exchange with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Judge Jackson said that, if confirmed, she would not participate in a case next term challenging Harvard’s race-conscious admissions process, in which the Supreme Court could strike down affirmative action programs in higher education.
In addition to attending Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Judge Jackson has served for the last six years on the school’s board of overseers, which is “critical to the governance” of Harvard, according to the board’s website.
“Now, you’re on the board of overseers from Harvard. If you’re confirmed, do you intend to recuse from this lawsuit?” Cruz asked, referring to the challenge from the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions.
“That is my plan, senator,” she responded.
Unlike other appellate court judges, Supreme Court justices cannot be replaced after a recusal. The case would therefore have to be resolved by an eight-member court, raising the possibility of a 4-4 deadlock.
Such an outcome would leave Harvard’s First Circuit victory in place. However, that would require at least two of the court’s Republican appointees to rule in favor of the school, a prospect that experts see as unlikely.
The Harvard case has been consolidated with a challenge to affirmative action policies at the University of North Carolina. It is possible that the Supreme Court would deconsolidate the cases to allow Judge Jackson to participate in that case.
‘I Approach Cases From Experience’
Judge Jackson may not have a lengthy academic paper trail spelling out her views on different questions of constitutional law, but she balked at a suggestion made by the ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, that she lacks a judicial philosophy.
“Respectfully, senator, I do have a philosophy,” she replied. “The philosophy is my methodology. It is a philosophy that I have developed from practice. Unlike some judges who come to appellate work from academia and who have some overarching theory of the law, I approach cases from experience, from practice, and consistent with my constitutional obligation.”
As she did the day previously, Judge Jackson described how a limited judicial role is crucial to that philosophy.
“I look at cases impartially consistent with my independence as a judicial officer,” she said. “I understand my limited role in the constitutional scheme and therefore take very seriously all of the restraints on the exercise of my authority that exist in our system.”
Being ‘Wrong’ Is Not the Only Factor in Overruling Precedent
The subject of stare decisis, or adherence to precedent, is a constant area of debate on today’s Supreme Court, especially now that the conservative majority is reexamining a number of landmark decisions, most notably Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey .
Judge Jackson spelled out her understanding of the Supreme Court’s current approach to precedent in a revealing exchange with Grassley.
“Should the Supreme Court overrule precedent when it is clear to the justices that the precedent was wrongly decided?” Grassley asked.
Judge Jackson said that being wrong — even “egregiously wrong” — is not the only thing the court looks at when deciding whether a precedent should be overruled.
“One of those factors is the view that the precedent [the court is] reconsidering is wrong, but that’s not the only factor,” she said. “The court also determines — in addition to whether the prior precedent is egregiously wrong, the court has said — the court looks at whether there has been reliance on that precedent, whether the precedent is workable or has proven workable over time, whether the cases in the area of the precedent have shifted such that the precedent itself is no longer on firm foundation or whether there have been new facts or a new understanding of the facts that give rise to a need to revisit the precedent.”
“So it’s not just a look at whether or not it’s wrong,” she added. “It’s important that the court take into account all of those factors because stare decisis, letting the precedent stand, is a very important pillar of the rule of law.”
A ‘Lucky Inheritor of the Civil Rights Dream’
Raised in a mostly Jewish suburb of Miami in the 1970s where she attended the same high school as Jeff Bezos, Judge Jackson said that her life experience was “night and day” from that of her parents, who lived in Florida under Jim Crow and “were not allowed to go to school with white students.”
“What my being here, I think, is about at some level is about the progress that we’ve made in this country in a very short period of time, I would say,” Judge Jackson told Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. “Seems like a long time, but [in] one generation, we’ve gone from the reality of my parents’ upbringing to the reality of mine. I do consider myself, having been born in 1970, to be the first generation to benefit from the first civil rights movement, from the legacy of all of the work of so many people that went into changing the laws of this country so that people like me could have an opportunity of sitting before you today.”
She continued: “What I would hope to bring to the Supreme Court is very similar to what 115 other justices have brought — which is their life experiences, their perspectives. And mine include being a trial judge, being an appellate judge, being a public defender, being a member of the Sentencing Commission, in addition to my being a Black woman and lucky inheritor of the civil rights dream.”
Jackson Defends Record in Child Porn Cases
Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday’s hearings, Republicans questioned Judge Jackson’s sentencing record in approximately 10 cases involving possession of child pornography, repeatedly accusing her of being too lenient.
Judge Jackson, the White House and her Democratic Senate allies have all sought to rebut those claims by arguing that her sentences are well within the median range of those handed down by other federal judges and noting that the sentencing guidelines are widely considered to be outdated.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., demanded to know why Judge Jackson did not impose sentencing enhancements, which are called for by the sentencing guidelines, on those in possession of larger quantities of child pornography.
After originally stating that she had already answered such questions, Judge Jackson explained her policy disagreement with those guidelines.
“My question to you is, wouldn’t we want to deter that?” Hawley said of people caught in possession of hundreds or thousands of digital files of child porn. “Isn’t that a reason to impose tougher sentences?”
“Senator, what’s happening now is that you have a guideline that has gradations in it for the number of images that ends up being, when you look at the scale, something like the difference of 10 years. I don’t know exactly what it is, but each two-level enhancement is like several years. And the gradations are like, zero to 50 pictures, 50 to 100 pictures, 100 to 150 pictures, set up at a time in which the mail was the primary mode of possession and distribution,” Judge Jackson said.
“And so if somebody had 50 pictures, they, according to Congress and the commission at the time, deserved an extra 10 years in prison. Now, with that scale, everybody’s at the top immediately just because of the nature of the internet,” she continued. “So you’re not differentiating using that scale anymore, given the way this crime is committed. And so judges are having to decide how are we going to deal with the penalties and do our jobs to impose sentences that are sufficient, but not greater than necessary under the circumstances.”
“Thank you, judge,” Hawley said. “I appreciate that answer, and I understand that as a policy matter. I just think we disagree. The more images are there, the more punishment there should be.”
At Harvard, A Stranger’s Encouragement
As the hearing stretched into the evening, Judge Jackson wiped away tears as some of the Democratic members of the panel sought to buoy her through her final hours in the witness chair.
One such member was Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., who spoke about his conversations with students in South San Francisco, using Judge Jackson as an example of what people from different backgrounds can accomplish.
Padilla asked Judge Jackson what she would tell people who doubt that they can achieve such heights in their own lives. She responded with a story of a stranger who encouraged her during her freshman year at Harvard when she was feeling out of place and homesick as a Black woman and public high school graduate.
“It was rough,” she said. “It was different from anything I had known. There were lots of students there who were prep-school kids like my husband and knew all about Harvard, and that was not me. And I think the first semester I was really homesick. I was really questioning, ‘Do I belong here? Can I make it in this environment?’ And I was walking through the yard in the evening, and a Black woman I did not know was passing me on the sidewalk, and she looked at me and I guess she knew how I was feeling, and she leaned over as we crossed and she said, ‘Persevere.’ I would tell them to persevere.”
–Editing by Alanna Weissman.
Alvin Bragg’s position that there is not enough evidence to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump and his organization for financial crimes is in direct opposition a civil court that has ordered Trump to sit for depositions on the basis that there is indeed enough evidence of financial wrongdoing — this is fishy enough to investigate Mr. Bragg for his motivation to squash the Trump criminal case.
Virginia Thomas is on tape telling Clarence Thomas’s head doctor and several wealthy GOP donors “…keep that nigger alive at all cost, I don’t want to go to jail.”
What does she mean by that?
Clarence Thomas’ wife ‘urged Trump’s chief of staff to overturn 2020’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10649881/Clarence-Thomas-wife-urged-Trumps-chief-staff-Mark-Meadows-overturn-election-texts.html
The election will never be overturned. However, Thomas had a CLEAR conflict of on interest that he was supposed to make known and excuse himself from cases involving Jan 6th which he didn’t and even ruled according to his WIFE’S interests
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/us/politics/ginni-thomas-trump-mark-meadows.html
He has a major problem # 1 his wife… # 2 how is he going to figure out how to lie to get out of this one.
Good now he can answer to his corruption. Why was he the only vote to keep 1/6 committee away from Meadows and White Houses emails.
Now we know his wife sent 29 emails that are about the 1/6 insurrection.
Why didn’t Thomas recuse himself?
What did he know, and when did he know it. A justice has to recuse themselves even if there is hint of conflict of interest, this was not a hint it was bloody scream of conflict of interest.
100% correct. Thomas knew what was going on. Now the Jan 6th committee needs to request Thomas’ emails and text messages. If his communications show that he was aware and even supported the Jan 6th revolt, then he needs to resign and face consequences.
I love this post. And that look that Leila gave her mother is priceless. Made me smile. And lately I’ll take as many as I can get. 🙂 Congrats to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. She did an amazing job.
ikr!
Soldiers in Belarus are actually sabotaging train tracks and bridges in order to avoid leaving their country to fight in Ukraine. It’s a perfect time for a revolution in Minsk.
The longer this goes on, the worse putin looks. For a narcissist like Putin, he’s likely to do something dumb and dangerous because there’s no way for him to back out and still come off looking good.
We may be headed for nuclear war. I have family and friends that I pray for every day.
The tragedy of this crisis is Putin has dragged the Russian people into it without their even knowing it or the danger to their society and way of life going forward.
Russians still believe the propaganda like Trump’s cult followers after years of indoctrination. Putin likely today can still win reelection if one was held today because he owns the message being sold around the country and is still at it stronger than ever.
By the time Russians figure it out, the damage is done of their own doing like the frog on a stove with Putin slowly raising the temperature. They didn’t question what was being done to their consent, manipulated and controlled by a kleptocracy.
Here’s a sample you could easily look up yourself if you were actually interested in the subject more than just asking rhetorical questions to slow down the discussion. Vladimir Putin on Friday again painted his enemies in Ukraine as “neo-Nazis,” even though the country has a Jewish president who lost relatives in the Holocaust and who heads a Western-backed, democratically elected government and was elected in a landslide victory.
The Holocaust, the Second World War and Nazism have been important tools for Putin in his bid to legitimize Russia’s war in Ukraine, but historians see their use as disinformation and a cynical ploy to further the Russian leader’s expansionist aims. Some of Ukraine’s politicians since 2014 have sought to glorify nationalist fighters from the WWII era, focusing on their opposition to Soviet rule rather than their collaboration and documented crimes against Jews, as well as Poles living in Ukraine. But making the leap from that to claiming Ukraine’s current government is a Nazi state does not reflect the reality of its politics today, including the landslide election of a Jewish president and the aim of many Ukrainians to strengthen the country’s democracy, reduce corruption and move closer to the West.
“In terms of all of the sort of constituent parts of Nazism, none of that is in play in Ukraine. Territorial ambitions. State-sponsored terrorism. Rampant antisemitism. Bigotry. A dictatorship. None of those are in play now. This is total fiction.
What propaganda? What lies? What has been specifically said by Putin or Russian officials that you claim to be untrue? Not a trick question, I just need to know what you’re talking about. No one likes being lied to or deceived, it is in this spirit as ask this legitimate question, what propaganda do you speak of?
The view from the Kremlin. Get out of your basement and open a window, follow news reports and what your Putin propagandists are saying about the non-war.
Dmitry Peskov Putin’s chief spokesperson and close confidante for more than 20 yea…See more
link entity
Amanpour and Company | March 22, 2022 | Season 2022
pbs.org
So Clarence Thomas has been released from the hospital. I am sure Thomas was really coordinating getting his cellphone destroyed and replaced, computer erased, and emails deleted and “lawyering up”.