Justice Jackson!  🌻🌻🌻

Making History: Yesterday Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to serve on the Supreme Court was officially confirmed.  She’ll join the court in June after Justice Stephen Breyer officially retires. There were no surprises during the final vote, the expected 53 Senators, all the Democrats plus Republican Senators Collins, Murkowski and Romney, voted for her with the remaining 47, all Republicans, voting no.  One of those Republicans, Rand Paul, slow walked his vote, showing up thirty minutes late in what his understandably aggrieved Kentucky neighbor would likely describe as a characteristically typical and intentional act to aggravate. He like the increasingly churlish Lindsey Graham conveniently “forgot” their ties which meant that they couldn’t vote on the Senate floor and instead had to cast their votes from the Senate cloakroom, another sign of their disdain for the first African American woman to join the Court.  Keeping with that theme, all of the Republicans except Romney quickly existed the Senate floor after the vote was finalized while the Senators and staff who remained stood to deliver a standing ovation to mark the momentous day.  Susan Collins at least had a good excuse for leaving quickly, the sniffly Maine Senator scooted out to take a COVID test, it turns out that she like a significant number of other Washington DC politicians including the so far asymptomatic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, AG Merrick Garland, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo,  DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, Congressmen Adam Schiff and Joachim Castro, VP Harris’ communication director Jamal Simmons and President Biden’s sister/advisor Valerie Biden Owens are all COVID positive. COVID is not gone, in fact it appears that the highly contagious BA 2 variant is doing its thing, spreading like wild fire. Most if not all of the infected Washington politicos should be fine as they are vaccinated and boosted but for those who aren’t?   

Culture Wars:  Unfortunately soon to be Justice Jackson’s ascension to the Supreme Court won’t change the court’s balance.  Given the conservative tilt of the Court, the right’s ongoing assault on reproductive rights is likely to culminate in the overturning of Roe v Wade in a few months when the Court will likely overturn the Roe precedent by letting stand a Mississippi abortion law that restricts abortions after 15 weeks.  That expectation has emboldened other states to go further, we’ve already seen the impact of the Texas bounty law that incentivizes abortion opponents to turn in anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.  A number of women impacted by the Texas law, which the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has refused to stay, have been traveling to neighboring Oklahoma for abortions but that option is about to go away as the Oklahoma legislature just passed legislation that would make performing ANY abortion except to save the life of a woman in a medical emergency a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $100,000.  Oklahoma’s Governor says he will sign that legislation which is due to go into effect in August.  And it’s not just abortion, the right is also going after LGBTQ rights with a vengeance, convincing its base that the left is trying to “groom” their kids into “turning” gay or changing sexes. That’s the message that the scarily popular white supremacist rally attending Margie Q was advancing when she called Senators Murkowski, Collins and Romney pro-pedophile for voting for Ketanji Jackson.  A hypocritical message from a party that continues to back Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz and that is now pushing to get rid of laws that prevent tween girls from getting married. It’s no coincidence that Republicans in Margie Q’s home state’s legislature are now advancing one of those “don’t say gay” bills. It’s hard to ignore that the right is on a tear, it’s not a stretch to believe that it’s only a matter of time before they go after the rest of us for our “sins,” real or imagined.  And sadly their culture war appears to resonate with voters who miss the bigger picture, while instead believing that “woke’ teachers really are spending their days trying to “turn” their girls into boys and visa versa. I am not sure what Furries are but the same culture warriors are afraid of them taking over too. Something to do with their litter boxes, maybe?

Ukraine:  Yesterday the United Nations suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, the body that generally spends most of its time condemning Israel. Ironically, most of the countries who voted against Russia’s suspension almost always vote to condemn Israel for almost anything, real or imagined.  Pardon me if I am venting, but two more Israelis were murdered in a terrorist shooting yesterday in Tel Aviv while fifteen were injured, that’s two on top of the 11 killed in terrorist attacks there since late March. I must have missed the UN condemnations.  Getting back to Russia, Vlad’s kingdom was suspended for its horrific behavior in Ukraine, not that the suspension has had much of an effect on the vile one or his willing military accomplices. This morning, Russia bombed a train station in eastern Ukraine, killing dozens of Ukrainian civilians who were attempting to flee the area in anticipation of further Russian attacks, rapes and bullets to their heads.  Russia may be retreating and Ukraine may be “winning” but if this is victory it still sucks.

And: In a recent interview with the Washington Post, the Former Guy continued to spread election lies, blamed Speaker Pelosi for the January 6th violence at the Capitol and said that if he had it to do all over again he would have marched with the insurgents, likely a lie too because when was the last time he walked more than ten yards?  In an Axios interview Mitch McConnell tried to explain to Jonathan Swan how he could call the Former Guy out for abetting the January 6^th insurrection while also saying that he would support him if he was the nominee of his party in 2024.  As if we don’t know why.  It’s also reported that the Justice Department is now investigating how those 15 boxes of government files, some of which contained highly confidential, top secret government papers, made there way to Mar a Lago.  On the NY front state Attorney General Tish James has asked a judge to hold the Former Guy in contempt and to start fining him $10,000 per day for failing to turn over documents that she subpoenaed and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who has come under fire for not going forward with his investigation into the FG insists that he still is.  All of that is nice but so far all of it amounts to a hill of beans. One more thing, a strange story about some maybe Pakistani men pretending to be DHS agents while providing US Secret Service agents, including one protecting FLOTUS Jill Biden, with free apartments and rifles bounced off the very full news cycle yesterday.  Rachel Maddow is back next week, we may have to wait for her to reappear to get the details.