Jane Mayer: The Slime Machine Targeting Dozens of Biden Nominees

[Nevilledog]

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David Weil
@profsheena
Important article by @JaneMayerNYer highlighting the ugly and pernicious role of dark money against Presidential nominees. I should know. https://newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-slime-machine-targeting-dozens-of-biden-nominees?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned… via @NewYorker

newyorker.com
The Slime Machine Targeting Dozens of Biden Nominees
In an escalation of partisan warfare, a little-known dark-money group is trying to thwart the President’s entire slate.
8:53 AM · Apr 16, 2022

https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-slime-machine-targeting-dozens-of-biden-nominees

No paywall
https://archive.ph/twIQw

During the autos-da-fé that now pass for Supreme Court confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate, it’s common for supporters of a nominee to dismiss attacks from the opposing party as mere partisanship. But, during the recent hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, Andrew C. McCarthy—a Republican former federal prosecutor and a prominent legal commentator at National Review—took the unusual step of denouncing an attack from his own side. When Republican senators, including Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, began accusing Jackson of having been a dangerously lenient judge toward sex offenders, McCarthy wrote a column calling the charge “meritless to the point of demagoguery.” He didn’t like Jackson’s judicial philosophy, but “the implication that she has a soft spot for ‘sex offenders’ who ‘prey on children’ . . . is a smear.”

In the end, the attacks failed to diminish public support for Jackson, and her poised responses to questioning helped secure her nomination, by a vote of 53–47. But the fierce campaign against her was concerning, in part because it was spearheaded by a new conservative dark-money group that was created in 2020: the American Accountability Foundation. An explicit purpose of the A.A.F.—a politically active, tax-exempt nonprofit charity that doesn’t disclose its backers—is to prevent the approval of all Biden Administration nominees.

While the hearings were taking place, the A.A.F. publicly took credit for uncovering a note in the Harvard Law Review in which, they claimed, Jackson had “argued that America’s judicial system is too hard on sexual offenders.” The group also tweeted that she had a “soft-on-sex-offender” record during her eight years as a judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. As the Washington Post and other outlets stated, Jackson’s sentencing history on such cases was well within the judicial mainstream, and in line with a half-dozen judges appointed by the Trump Administration. When Jackson defended herself on this point during the hearings, the A.A.F. said, on Twitter, that she was “lying.” The group’s allegation—reminiscent of the QAnon conspiracy, which claims that liberal élites are abusing and trafficking children—rippled through conservative circles. Tucker Carlson repeated the accusation on his Fox News program while a chyron declared “jackson lenient in child sex cases.” Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extremist representative from Georgia, called Jackson “pro-pedophile.”

Mudslinging is hardly new to American politics. In 1800, a campaign surrogate for Thomas Jefferson called Jefferson’s opponent, John Adams, “hermaphroditical”; Adams’s supporters predicted that if Jefferson were elected President he would unleash a reign of “murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest.” Neither the Democratic nor Republican Party is above reproach when it comes to engaging in calumny, and since at least 1987, when President Ronald Reagan unsuccessfully nominated Robert Bork to be a Justice, the fights over Supreme Court nominees have been especially nasty. Yet the A.A.F.’s approach represents a new escalation in partisan warfare, and underscores the growing role that secret spending has played in deepening the polarization in Washington.

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[Nevilledog]

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[Celerity]

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Just as the Democrats on the Banking Committee were preparing to confront the A.A.F.’s claims about Bloom Raskin, West Virginia’s Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, announced that he, too, would not vote for her, effectively capsizing her nomination. In a phone call, Manchin—who has grown rich from the coal industry, and who during the current election cycle has taken more donations from fossil-fuel interests than any other senator—admitted to Bloom Raskin that her position on climate change had turned him against her. She recalls Manchin telling her, “Don’t take it personally—it’s the industry.” (A spokesperson for Manchin declined to comment on the senator’s “private discussions.”) President Biden called Bloom Raskin, too, and described the attacks on her as unfair.

[UTUSN]

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[Solly Mack]

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6. How Putin's Pedophile Smears Made Their Way Into U.S. Mainstream

Rachel was amazing last night

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https://crooksandliars.com/2022/04/maddow-how-putin-used-pedophile-smear

Rachel Maddow looks at how false accusations of pedophilia have become a common tactic by Vladimir Putin to eliminate politically problematic opponents, with such eliminationist rhetoric being a hallmark of fascists.

And now, under the Qanon banner, it's become a significant strand of U.S. politics in the Trump era.