Welcome to your Tuesday open thread. It’s another hot day today so keep in the shade if you can. Remember, the end of the quarter is coming up so federal candidates are looking for last minute donations. If you’re feeling generous right now John Carney, Chris Coons and Joe Sestak need your help!
The hearings for the confirmation of Elena Kagan for Supreme Court started yesterday. Remember how I linked to an article about how the Republicans didn’t have a plan? I was wrong – Republicans did have a plan, it was to go after Thurgood Marshall.
Looks like Senate Judiciary Republicans have at least one unified talking point today: Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to ever serve on the Supreme Court, was an “activist judge.” As Elena Kagan kept on her listening face, multiple senators slammed both Marshall’s judicial philosophy and her service as his clerk in the late 1980s.
Ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) criticized Kagan for having “associated herself with well-known activist judges who have used their power to redefine the meaning of our constitution and have the result of advancing that judge’s preferred social policies,” citing Marshall as his son, Thurgood Marshall Jr., sat in the audience of the Judiciary Committee hearings.
I’m sure this is all a part of their minority outreach plan. After all, Republican David explained to us yesterday that Strom Thurmond was only a racist until he became a Republican and it all magically disappeared after that. Why, he even hired a black person! At least the trashing of Thurgood Marshall will introduce him to a whole new generation of people. Personally I think it’s a great idea for the Republicans to trash the guy who won the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka case.
SLED [South Carolina Law Enforcement Division] and the 5th Circuit solicitor’s office are investigating the finances of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene to see whether any laws have been broken in the way he has been representing his financial situation to the state court system.
SLED will use a new state law that allows the agency to issue an administrative subpoena to financial institutions, agency director Reggie Lloyd confirmed Sunday.
Gov. Mark Sanford signed the new law last Thursday. The law requires banks to turn over to SLED basic information about account holders in cases of suspected financial wrongdoing.
…
Lloyd said his agency’s inquiry was triggered by inconsistencies between Greene’s assertion to the court that he had no money and needed a taxpayer-supported lawyer, and his unexplained acquisition of $10,400 to pay the filing fee.
“We want to see how he came up with the money,” Lloyd said.
Greene has told reporters that the $10,400 was money he had saved. But he declined to produce records to show where the money came from.
People in South Carolina must be cringing right now about the state of their politics.