Trump's latest SCOTUS shortlist additions have a dangerous lack of judicial experience. Some of them are well known in legal circles (Clement, Landau, Francisco), but there are only two on the list with any real judicial experience, Bade and Lagoa (mostly low level state judge).
Half have no experience. The average is less than 2 years EACH. If you leave off the two experienced outliers, there's only 16.5 years of experience spread across 18 possible nominees: an average of 11 MONTHS of experience each. For a lifetime appointment on the highest court.
This is back of the envelope math AND I may have missed some judicial exp. AND some have other experience, just as I have other objections to, for instance, their openly hostile views towards secular Americans and blatant Christian Nationalism. But this is telling and damning.
Again, this was quick. So if you see an error, please let me know. Either in the original numbers or in my math.
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Some facts about the Ten Commandments that Louisiana really should have looked up before forcing public schools to display them in classrooms. A thread.🧵
The text of the Louisiana law actually specifies a state-sanctioned version of God's holy writ. It begins “I AM the LORD thy God. Thou shall have no other gods before me.”
The point of this bill is to give the false impression that America is a Christian nation. That's Christian Nationalism.
Historical flags are often adopted by modern political movements. Sometimes this is obvious, like neo-Nazis adopting the Confederate flag. Or less so, like when the Tea Party adopted the Gadsden (Don't Tread on Me) flag.
The Appeal to Heaven flag is even more under the radar.
This flag—which was widely flown during the insurrection—has become like a secret handshake for Christian Nationalist public officials to signal their fealty to the cause, while maintaining plausible deniability about their allegiance. That's literally the point behind the flag.
I explained this to @BradleyOnishi on the latest episode of @StraightWhiteJC.
So this is a huge deal. The Appeal to Heaven flag was all over the insurrection and comes out of explicitly Christian Nationalist spaces. Sam Alito is professing his Christian Nationalism.
🚨We need to talk about this alarming pressure campaign that's happening right now. An attempt to muzzle discussion, criticism, and reporting on the authoritarian Christian Nationalism that is working against American democracy and a free press.
In Dec., journalist @HeidiReports wrote a piece exposing how the dark money network that financed the conservative takeover of the courts is also backing the Christian Nationalist push to dismantle public education, with Oklahoma as a test case. politico.com/news/2023/12/2…
Just days ago, Przybyla wrote a piece about Christian Nationalism in a second Trump administration which broke the internet. The reporting is accurate and terrifying. It shows that American democracy is unlikely to survive a second Trump term.
Despite Wheerler's unearned arrogance, @HeidiReports is absolutely correct. Rights given by a god can be taken away by men claiming to speak for that god. That's exactly the fight we're in now. That's what the Alabama Supreme Court just did with IVF. That's Christian Nationalism.
Again, I tackle this all in The Founding Myth, including the inevitable rejoinder of misquoting the Declaration of Independence, usually as "endowed by Our Creator," including a look the natural law philosophy the Declaration relies on.
Here's a bit.
📖 bit.ly/TFMpaperback
Hawley works at the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian Nationalist legal outfit behind so many of the cases that are dragging this country back to a time when conservative, white Christian men ruled everything.
ADF, with Hawley actually arguing the case, is behind the mifepristone case being litigated before Judge Kacsmaryk in Texas (Kacsmaryk worked for one of ADF's brother orgs in the Christian Nationalist space.)
But there's still more...
Hawley's husband, Josh (he of fist pump and fleet feet), taught ADF's fellows, cashing $$ in nicely.
But Josh wasn't the only teacher.
Amy Coney Barrett taught ADF fellows up until 2016 (and her recusal didn't even come up).