I learned a new phrase on Tuesday: “The Roberts Five,” which I won’t forget. I also learned more about how “The Roberts Five” overwhelmingly favors the Rich, the Right, and the Aggressively “Christian” (Male) White. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, we’ll probably ALL know this phrase, too well.
As a journalist, I mostly have the “Quaker beat” to myself: Friends are a tiny sect, known mostly for being “quaint,” the inventors of oatmeal, riders in buggies, and extinct. (Never mind that the last three are not true; they’re still what we’re “known” for, by many in what the elders used to call “the world,” when such folk bother to think about us at all.) So when I report on Quaker stuff, it’s rare that I have to compete with “normal” reporters.
But sometimes I get scooped; and that happened again today, and in no less an outlet than the New York Times. (But hey, if you’re gonna get scooped, it might as well be by the best.)
And why would the Times bother with us? If you don’t already know, think for a minute: The Times’ base constituency is the affluent (and up) of the nation’s largest city. And what artifact of Quakerism are such moneyed folk most likely to bump into? (Hint: nothing to do with oatmeal.)
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: Tomorrow, we will hear a lot of “confirmation etiquette.” It’s a sham.
Kavanaugh knows the game. In the Bush White House, he coached judicial nominees to just tell Senators that they will adhere to statutory text, that they have no ideological agenda. Fairy tales.
At his hearing, Justice Roberts infamously said he’d just call “balls and strikes,” but the pattern – the 73-case pattern – of the Roberts Five qualifies him to have NASCAR-style corporate badges on his robes.
Alito said in his hearing what a “strong principle” stare decisis was, an important limitation on the Court. Then he told the Federalist Society stare decisis “means to leave things decided when it suits our purposes.”
Gorsuch delivered the key fifth vote in the precedent-busting, but also union-busting, Janus decision. He too had pledged in his hearing to “follow the law of judicial precedent,” assured us he was not a “philosopher king,” and promised to give equal concern to “every person, poor or rich, mighty or meek.”
How did that turn out? Great for the rich and mighty: Gorsuch is the single most corporate-friendly justice on a Court already full of them, ruling for big business interests in over 70 percent of cases, and in every single case where his vote was determinative.
The president early on assured evangelicals his Supreme Court picks would attack Roe v. Wade. Despite “confirmation etiquette” assurances about precedent, [Kavanaugh’s] own words make clear [he doesn’t] really believe Roe v. Wade is settled law.
We have seen this movie before. We know how it ends.
In the process Haspel had a major stroke of luck: she was spared a showdown with the Senate’s most visible and respected torture opponent. One can only imagine what a confrontation that might have been: Haspel, impassive, well-shielded by kevlar secrecy and talking points, versus a legendary torture survivor.
Still, the confrontation was not wholly imaginary; it did happen, but was epistolary: McCain, losing one last medical battle, took time to write a lengthy and trenchant letter to Haspel, which was filled with tough observations and demanding questions. Here are a few:
“These techniques included the practice of waterboarding, forced nudity and humiliation, facial and abdominal slapping, dietary manipulation, stress positions, cramped confinement, striking, and more than 48 hours of sleep deprivation. We now know that these techniques not only failed to deliver actionable intelligence, but actually produced false and misleading information. Most importantly, the use of torture compromised our values, stained our national honor, and threatened our historical reputation. . . .
As you know, many detainees under the custody of the CIA in the wake of the September 11th attacks were subjected to waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques.” In just one case, a Libyan detainee and his pregnant wife were rendered to a foreign country, where the woman was bound, gagged, and photographed naked as several American intelligence officers watched.
Do you believe actions like these were justified, and do you believe they produced actionable intelligence?
What is your assessment today of the effectiveness of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and their impact on the United States’ moral standing in the world?
It is not known if McCain ever got replies to these and other questions in the letter. Haspel was confirmed by the Senate as CIA Director on April 17, 2018. McCain was in Arizona, undergoing treatment, and did not vote. The epic confrontation was muffled and squirreled away in an online footnote.
In the version of this report published in the Charlotte NC News, additional details were included:
Sheriff Story [sic] and his six assistants started with Jeffress to the courthouse one block away. Arriving at the spot where Ray was killed, a mob formed around the Officers and their prisoner. There was a sudden surge forward and in the twinkling of an eye, according to the sheriff, the prisoner had been taken from the officers and was placed in an automobile and rushed away. There was not a shot fired: not even a gun drawn during the minute scuffle between the mob and officers.
Sheriff Storey said tonight that resistance would have been folly as the mob was made up of between 25 and 50 determined men. There were at least 150 additional men nearby whose sympathies were with the- mob, he stated tonight. Answering a. direct question, Sheriff Story declared that he did not know anyone in the mob. The man who led the mob and took the prisoner away, the sheriff said, must have just moved into the county and was not known to him.