Perfect match: Sen. Jeff Sessions sees eye-to-eye with Donald Trump and his most appalling positions [View all]

[DonViejo]

Jeff Sessions has a long record of racism and bigotry — he'd be Donald Trump's ideal vice president

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

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Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is really a throwback to the time Donald Trump thinks America was great — the 1950s — and is, therefore, perfect for the 2016 GOP ticket.

You may recall that Sessions first came to national prominence back in 1986 when Ronald Reagan nominated him for a federal judgeship. He was only 39 years old and considered quite the up and comer. ,. As Sarah Wildman wrote in this article for The New Republic, his record was ugly indeed:

Senate Democrats tracked down a career justice department employee named J Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labelled the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) “un-American” and “communist-inspired”. Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups “forced civil rights down the throats of people.”

In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as “un-American” when “they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions” in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to “pop off” on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race” for litigating voting rights cases.

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The people of Alabama had his back however, and he went on to become the state’s Attorney General where he was accused of vote suppression in the black community with zealous pursuit of bogus voter fraud cases. In 1996, they sent him to the Senate where he has consistently received a “0” rating from every civil rights and civil liberties organization in the country. Nonetheless, he found himself on the Senate Judiciary Committee and as ranking member in 2009 led the charge against the nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, largely on the basis of her alleged inability to be fair due to her Puerto Rican heritage. (And you wonder why Trump likes this guy so much?)

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http://www.salon.com/2016/06/20/perfect_match_sen_jeff_sessions_sees_eye_to_eye_with_donald_trump_and_his_most_appalling_positions/