Updated: police have arrested protesters who staged sit-in at Jeff Sessions' office, per video posted by @ALPolitics https://t.co/bxwH3xI95I
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) January 4, 2017
Who could blame them?
… “As a matter of conscience and conviction, we can neither be mute nor mumble our opposition to Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions becoming Attorney General of the United States. Senator Sessions has callously ignored the reality of voter suppression but zealously prosecuted innocent civil rights leaders on trumped-up charges of voter fraud,” Brooks said in the statement.
He appeared to be referencing an incident in which Sessions brought 29 charges related to voter fraud and conspiracy against each of three black activists when he was a U.S. attorney in the 1980s. A jury found the activists innocent in a matter of hours.
“As an opponent of the vote, he can’t be trusted to be the chief law enforcement officer for voting rights,” Brooks continued in the statement.
Sessions was rejected from a federal judgeship in 1986 after a former colleague testified during his confirmation hearings that Sessions had made racially insensitive remarks. During those hearings, a Justice Department employee said Sessions had called the ACLU and NAACP “Communist-inspired” and “un-American,” comments for which Sessions said he had “meant no harm.”
And they’re hardly alone, per the Washington Post:
A group of more than 1,100 law school professors from across the country is sending a letter to Congress on Tuesday urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general.
The letter, signed by professors from 170 law schools in 48 states, is also scheduled to run as a full-page newspaper ad aimed at members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be holding confirmation hearings for Sessions on Jan. 10-11…
The professors — from every state except North Dakota and Alaska, which has no law school — highlight the rejection of Sessions’s nomination to a federal judgeship more than 30 years ago. Robin Walker Sterling of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, one of the organizers of the letter, said that 1,000 professors signed on within 72 hours. “Clearly, there are many, many law professors who are very uneasy with the prospect of Attorney General Sessions, and they are willing to take a public stand in opposition to his nomination,” she said…
Mr. Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire:
It seems that some folks are finding the concept of Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions just a tad too 1957 for their liking. Were you a historically minded type, you might even say the idea is encountering massive resistance. Down in Alabama, at Sessions’ local office, the NAACP is taking rather direct action, as CNN informs us.
The protesters arrived earlier Tuesday and said they would stay until Sessions is no longer the nominee or they were arrested.”We are asking the senator to withdraw his name for consideration as attorney general or for the President-elect, Donald Trump, to withdraw the nomination,” Brooks said Tuesday afternoon from Sessions’ office. “In the midst of rampant voter suppression, this nominee has failed to acknowledge the reality of voter suppression while pretending to believe in the myth of voter fraud.” Earlier in the day, Alabama NAACP President Benard Simelton said he and 15-20 others were there “conducting business as usual” and would remain until “Sessions meets our demands or the arrest — whichever he chooses.”…
… As it happens, I think the president-elect picked this guy because Sessions was one of the very first Republicans of note to get enthusiastic about his candidacy. I also think that the transition team down at Camp Runamuck is throwing Sessions out there as a reward for all those law-enforcement groups who lined up behind the Trump campaign as a reaction to the protests regarding police violence. That race is inextricably marbled within that issue, too, is just a bonus for a lot of the people who helped put him in office.He’s more like Reagan than many Republicans would like to admit.
(NOT a compliment, Repubs!)
Civil disobedience is 1 way for citizens to honor the rule of law. We were arrested to support a @TheJusticeDept for everyone.#stopsessions pic.twitter.com/9rg01gLHU2
— Cornell Wm. Brooks (@CornellWBrooks) January 4, 2017
Hot take from Ken Blackwell: The Real Lynching is when white people are verbally criticized by black people pic.twitter.com/CivNWwdPRT
— Mazel Tov Cocktail (@AdamSerwer) January 4, 2017
Right Wing Watch on Ken Blackwell:
According to news reports, a key player on Donald Trump’s presidential transition team is former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, now a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, who will be handling domestic issues as the team discusses the administration’s priorities for its first hundred days.
Blackwell gained national notoriety as Ohio’s secretary of state in the lead-up to the 2004 election, when he implemented a number of creative voter suppression measures. He now works for the FRC, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled as an anti-gay hate group thanks to its promotion of “discredited research and junk science” meant to “denigrate LGBT people.”…
Trump motto: Drain the swamp, so I can invite all the swamp dwellers into my administration.
Redshift
And who can blame them?
NotMax
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.
Jefferson after the president of the Confederacy, Beauregard after a Confederate general.
Mary G
The way Republicans play “You’re not the victim, I’m the victim” is going to go up to 11.
laura
Direct action (peaceful and non-violent) gets the goods.
Also, happy to see a goodly handful of my law school professors signed on to the letter.
Major Major Major Major
All these straight white guys always saying being a straight white guy is like being ‘the new n*****’, ‘the new lynching’, why do they always pick that particular struggle to appropriate? They can’t find their own Kampf?
Lizzy L
I loathe the Family Research Council with the white hot fire of a thousand suns. They are complete anti-LGBTQ bigots.
rikyrah
If you are a thinking Black person, you know what time it is with Sessions.
Ken Blackwell is a slave catcher, plain and simple.??????
PS- you missed the letter that Deval Patrick wrote about Sessions. Check the Globe – Patrick can’t stand Sessions. Goes back 30 years.
Adrift
Regardless of any public outcry this bastard will be approved. He’s a member of their “club” and as such will be free to wreak havoc on this nation.
I truly hate all of these disgusting fucks.
NotMax
As said here the day the nomination for AG was announced, that their holy of holies Saint Reagan was forced to withdraw Sessions’ name screams volumes.
Adrift
@Lizzy L:
If they actually researched families they would find that their families are incestuous, violent, abusive and hateful. Bastards. Yes I am angry tonight.
laura
@rikyrah: that’s one spicy letter Mr. Patrick!
Adrift
@NotMax: And of course they will overlook that as their hate has been burning and hurting for a further 30 years. They need release.
Adrift
Stuck in moderation again. FYWP.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Mary G: The Tutu Power party gaslighted their way into 800,000 dead, and the int’l media believed them the entire time. We are so fucked.
Adrift
@Dog Dawg Damn:
These are the first words out of my mouth every morning.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Dog Dawg Damn: Should have been Hutu vs. Tutsi.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Adrift: The only hope I see at the present is that the Intelligence report will have the goods on Flynn, Manafort, Carter Page, or heaven-help-us Donald Trump himself.
Absent that, I see a bad path, very fast. He’s not going to rest until no one questions his legitimacy. That”s going to be a disaster.
Anne Laurie
@Adrift: FYWP doesn’t like the word ‘incestuous’, even when used in a nonsexual context.
Adrift
There must be a way to expel the south from the Union. Maybe find a flaw in the legislation that brought them back? Send them on their way and let them be as ethically and morally bankrupt as they like, and they can pass hateful laws and mistreat their population at will? Some will suffer but we can offer asylum to offset that.
Aleta
I wonder if there’s a word that means ‘to be so filled with foreboding about a coming event that painful unanticipated groans are drawn from the throat.” Or would that be a psychological state.
Adrift
@Dog Dawg Damn: That is my prediction, you are spot on. We are in for a world of hurt. As long as Obama is in office I feel safe. Come January 20 I will feel vulnerable and waiting for disaster.
The near future is bleak indeed.
NotMax
@Aleta
Aghast.
Aleta
@Adrift: We might as well offer asylum to each other now.
Adrift
@Anne Laurie:
Good thing I didn’t use the harsher words I feel about them. I would be in moderation forever.
Adrift
@Aleta: I will gladly offer asylum to anyone wanting to escape from the hell of the ‘New South’. Unfortunately we are all the New South now.
Aleta
@Dog Dawg Damn:
And that will (has already begun to) drive his paranoia one way to hell, and it won’t be a joke as he loses his mind to it while his entourage tries to cover.
Adrift
@NotMax: Horror-struck comes to mind.
Adrift
@Aleta: It keeps Kelly Anne paid up on her KKK membership dues though.
Aleta
@Adrift: Edgarapoed
Aleta
@Adrift: Sadly the K do not respect her though.
Adrift
@Aleta:
I would love to say I get it but I’m not 100%..
Aleta
@Adrift: Edgar Allen
Adrift
@Aleta:
TBH no one actually respects her she is a useful idiot.
Adrift
@Aleta:
I was *right there* but couldn’t commit… the life of a Libra I’m afraid.
Adrift
@efgoldman:
Yes! I think it flows into ‘religious expense” on Schedule A.
danielx
Quite right, too. On the other hand I wouldn’t trust any of the shitgibbon’s other Cabinet nominees* on a bet either. Sessions is only the most egregiously swinish of the lot; he imbibed racism with his mother’s milk. Anybody who seriously thinks he’s changed his opinions since since 1985 (or 1975 or 1965) is self deceptive at best.
*Note: I was on the fence about Mattis for a while, thinking that he might exert some calming influence over Trump’s impulses about military actions. I have revised my opinion since – if he doesn’t go along with whatever Trump wants to do, Trump will get rid of him and find someone who will. I do not believe that any honorable man or woman can serve in a Trump Cabinet with a clear conscience, nor should they.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: You’ll have to check with burnsey on that one.
Adrift
@danielx:
Any other human being would have gagged on it.
Major Major Major Major
@danielx:
I have a feeling this can be said about basically everybody in the administration, to boot. And that Trump will push hard to try and make it true for everybody in the whole government.
Adrift
Isn’t the electoral vote count today? Any chance there’s a congressman and a senator who will object?
Villago Delenda Est
I wouldn’t trust Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (aka “Jayuff Sayshuns”) with a glass of water.
He’s a racist fuck. He’s unfit for any public office anywhere, which is an indictment of Alabama voters.
Calouste
@danielx: Mattis is on the board of directors of Theranos, a company that says that it has some kind of revolutionary blood test that has just been banned for two years from running labs and allegedly is under criminal investigation. Although Mattis became a board member after he retired, he was involved with contacts Theranos had with the military while he was still serving.
Villago Delenda Est
@danielx: “Honor” is like Kryptonite to Drumpf. He’s an honorless cheeto-faced cur.
Calouste
@Villago Delenda Est: Alabama voters voted Roy Moore as State Supreme Court Chief Justice twice. The second time was after he was removed from the bench during his first term for failing to uphold the Constitution. That happened during his second term as well.
To get elected in Alabama you basically have to be a Republican and say “Jesus” three times, and the rest won’t matter. Of course, you might have to compete in the primary with Republican who say “Jesus” more often.
danielx
@Dog Dawg Damn:
There’s been talk for months that Putin has Trump by the gonads due to the KGB* having caught Trump in a honey trap during one of his numerous visits to Moscow, a scenario which I find all too credible. It would have to be something involving sex with males, underaged females or possibly goats to have any real force, but the trumpenführer is not exactly noteworthy for self-restraint or resisting either temptation or his appetites.
Sad!
The truly sad part is that even if such activity was played out on network television in glorious technicolor it probably wouldn’t matter to his fans nor yet to Republicans in Congress. They have known he was a pigfucker (figuratively speaking) from the start and went right on supporting him, as witness the pathetic excuses made by various evangelical leaders for supporting him. I can hear it now: But…but….Clinton! Blowjobs! The Clenis! It was all before he was elected!
*Call it the SVR if you like, it’s still the KGB, particularly since I seem to recall that ol’ Vlad just re-merged the SVR and FSB. And contrary to Carly Simon’s ode to James Bond, nobody does it better than the KGB.
Dog Dawg Damn
@danielx: I take a different view. Yes, hardcore supporters ~40% of Republicans, would never abandon him. He won lots and lots of reluctant anti-HRC Republicans who would love nothing more than to get past this drama and have their Pence presidency.
This “I’M SO POPULAR” line from him actually belied by facts. Look at RNC — devoid of establishment, Cruz openly challenging him. Look at his dismal primary performance.
He barely squeaked out an electoral college majority. He’s easier to take down than you think. They’ll abandon him if he gets out of control.
NotMax
@danielx
Underage goats. Maybe.
I Love My Wife, But Oh You Kid
danielx
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Possibles, although I can’t see a Republican Congress impeaching a Republican president for anything short of outright murder. Even if that’s not the case…I am something less than thrilled with the prospect of President Mike Pence, having just put up with the dumb sonofabitch as governor for four years. An evangelical wingnut and
completeOlympic-class bumblefuck all wrapped up in one – the complete package.Fixed.
Dog Dawg Damn
Wishing Obama would dump the goods–tax returns, intel, everything — then resign. Joe Biden can pardon him.
Won’t happen, though.
danielx
@NotMax:
Now there’s an image I could have done without.
Duane
opiejeanne
@Duane: You were saying?
qwerty42
@danielx: Even if that’s not the case…I am something less than thrilled with the prospect of President Mike Pence
Under any other conditions I would agree, but I believe DT brings a level of incompetence and instability to the government that will have long-term consequences. Pence, at least, seems to have some qualifications for the job. Either is bad, but DT is exceptionally so.
artem1s
@qwerty42:
Pence is pretty universally loathed by the rest of the GOP as well. If (big IF) the GOP overreaches and tries to take the Orange Idjit out of office, I’m pretty sure we will see the infighting go to meltdown just because it will be a free for all on the power grab. I don’t see anyone in the GOP who has the discipline of Cheney and will be willing to be the man behind the Orange curtain or the kowtow to Pence. I honestly think our best hope is that all these morans think they are gods own chosen and will eventually see the chaos created by the Idjit as a prime opportunity to take power. It all depends on who moves first and whether they are cutthroat enough to wade through the initial wave of media outrage at the prospect of losing their click bait president. McConnell, McCain and Graham don’t have the clout or stamina to do it. Cruz can’t form enough of a coalition because they hate him more than Pence. Ryan won’t because he has more power and influence under a chaotic WH. Gohmert or some member of the Freedum Caucus might if there isn’t an outright repeal of Ocare and gutting of SS and medicaid. Question is are there any GOP lawmakers left who actually know how to pull off a political coup? An LBJ sized deal maker? or scoundrel like Newt? who knows how to set and spring a political maneuver big enough to take out the president, put the VP in power and then get their chosen man (or themselves) installed as VP? It has to be someone who has enough clout and influence with DC insiders, lobbyists and the press so that Congresscritters are willing to jump the Tangerine Titanic when it finally starts to go down.
unfortunately the time to take control of the GOP was during the primaries and the Krazy Klown posse couldn’t even work together long enough to knock the Idjit out of that race. I don’t think there are any real power brokers left in the GOP. Just sycophants and yes men and tag along grifters who lap up the crumbs of reality TV stars and Faux News ‘pundits’
Shalimar
@NotMax:
That seems logical, and is what I always heard growing up. The family at some point in the late 19th century lived in Biloxi, Mississippi a few blocks from Jefferson Davis’s estate. The timing doesn’t add up though. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions Sr. was born in April of 1860 in Alabama, before there was a Confederacy and before anyone had any idea who P.G.T. Beauregard was.
I will ask one of the family genealogists about it and see what she says. Beauregard may have been a family name.
NotMax
@Shalimar
That Sessions’ grandfather was born 86 years before he was is conceivable, but leans much more to the unlikely.
Shalimar
@NotMax: His great-grandfather was killed at Antietam in September of 1862, so the date of birth listed on genealogy sites couldn’t be wrong by more than a few years. His grandmother was listed as born in 1877, so that would make her 36 when Jefferson Beauregard Sessions Jr. was born. Father and mother were the same age, so she was 33 when Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was born.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@danielx:
There are eye witnesses to Trump being at sex parties in NYC filled with 14 year old girls in the ’80s.
Shalimar
@Shalimar: All this information is from the internet. Given my personal opinion of Jeff Sessions’ politics and negative influence on the country, you can understand why he is not a subject I talk about with other family members. Even the more liberal members of my family don’t believe in ever saying anything negative in public about family members.
I will ask about Jefferson Beauregard Sessions Sr. That should at least be a safe subject.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@danielx:
Except Trump is as RINO as they get. Trump tanking in the approval polls and being a dick to Congress would be enough.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Shalimar: Both Beauregard and Davis were Mexican War heroes, and were known as such in the southern US.
Shalimar
@1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet): Results were inconclusive. She says there was a pre-Revolution French immigrant Beauregard in the family, but isn’t sure about the connection. I suspect that might be from the mother’s side (which is where all our common ancestry is), and thus not a direct ancestor of J.B. Sessions Sr.
P.G.T. Beauregard also did engineering work in Mobile Bay in the late 1840s. The Sessions family was from Wilcox county, roughly 100 miles to the north, but they might have come into contact with future General Beauregard then.