#ReleaseTheList

The ultra-progressive group Demand Justice released a list of 32 potential nominees for the Supreme Court. They want Democrat presidential candidates to adopt this list or to release one of their own. This is what then-candidate Donald J. Trump did in 2016 to good effect.

I agree. Release the list! If the list(s) adopted by any of the Democrat candidates is anything like the Demand Justice list, it will be full of radicals, with little judicial experience, chosen to appease constituent groups.

Professor Josh Blackman provides a convenient grouping on The Volokh Conspiracy.

Academics: Michelle Alexander (Union Theological Seminary),  James Forman, Jr. (Yale), Pamela Karlan (Stanford), M. Elizabeth Magill (Virginia), Melissa Murray (NYU), Bryan Stevenson (NYU), Zephyr Teachout (Fordham), Timothy Wu (Columbia),


Progressive Litigators: Brigitte Amiri (ACLU), Nicole Berner (GC SEIU), Deepak Gupta (Gupta Wessler), Dale Ho (ACLU), Sherrilyn Ifill (NAACP LDF), Shannon Minter (National Center for Lesbian Rights), Nina Perales (MALDEF), Thomas A. Saenz (MALDEF), Cecillia Wang (ACLU),


Current/Former Government Officers: Xavier Becerra (California AG), Sharon Block (one of the three NLRB appointments at issue in Noel Canning), Vanita Gupta (Former Obama DOJ), Lawrence Krasner (Philadelphia DA), Catharine Lhamon (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights), Katie Porter (House of Representatives), Jenny Yang (Former EEOC Chair)


Federal Judges: Richard F. Boulware (D. Nev.), Jane Kelly (8th Circuit), Cornelia Pillard (D.C. Circuit), Carlton Reeves (S.D. Miss.)


State Judges: Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar (California Supreme Court), Anita Earls (North Carolina Supreme Court), Leondra Kruger (California Supreme Court), Goodwin Liu (California Supreme Court)

Let’s look at the sitting judges first. All of the Federal judges were appointed by President Barack Obama. They have between five and nine years of experience and only one of them is on a Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Redneck Rebellion Advocates The End Of Capitalism

The Independent, a UK-based online newspaper owned by Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev, published an interesting story today about a hard-Left group calling themselves Redneck Rebellion. Their mission is the downfall of capitalism through opposition to racism. They seek to mobilize poor whites to stand up for black, Hispanics, and other minorities. They also believe in armed defense.

According to Redneck Revolt’s mission statement, organising people also requires organising a defence of their communities. Hence, the gun range.

The Suffolk County branch group meets up for weekly sessions at the range, the name of which they asked to be kept secret. They often bring along other leftists groups, like the PSL, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), or the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Mike says those are some of his favourite days on the range.

“I think it’s very cool that we can bring groups together that normally wouldn’t have anything else in common,” he told me. “And seeing a whole bunch of leftists with guns is cool.”

Not everyone thinks the guns are cool, of course. Redneck Revolt has gotten pushback from liberal groups who think the weapons sully their image. But the members maintain that the firearms are necessary to protect themselves, and the communities of colour they want to help serve.

“We are willing to take on personal risk to defend those in our community who live under the risk of reactionary violence because of their skin colour, gender identity, sexuality, religion, or birth country,” the group’s mission statement reads. “For us, that means that we meet our neighbours face-to-face, and stand alongside them to face threats whenever possible.”

They don’t see themselves as an armed wing of Antifa. According to the story, they seek to do everything within the law and are not anarchists. Rather they see themselves as more of a white Deacons for Defense or Young Patriots Organization which was a 60s and 70s group of whites aligned with the Black Panthers.

There was one quote in the story that I found rather amusing. It was attributed to “Mike” who said that Russian-made firearms were the “most accurate and reliable”. I suppose in his lexicon this means “minute of capitalist”. The video and pictures that accompanied the story showed the group shooting Mosins, SKSs, and New York-compliant AKs. I just hope they remembered that the New York SAFE Act restricts them to only seven rounds in the magazine.

Frankly, I’m not sure what to make of these wannabe Bolsheviks. While I don’t disagree with them that racism is bad, isn’t it a bit bourgeois of them to think they have to be the ones providing armed protection for minorities? To me, this reeks of noblesse oblige and paternalism. Far better that minorities learn to protect themselves. Moreover, the absence of racism is NOT going to bring down capitalism. It may work well in their reading of Marxist theory but in reality it is naive. In my opinion, free and open markets do more to raise the standards of living across the board than anything that groups like this can do.

I just hope that groups like Redneck Rebellion are not, as Matt Bracken says, a “countdown to CW2.”

Losing The Trotskyite Wing On Fast And Furious

Van Jones represented the extreme left-wing in the Obama Administration as the Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation aka Green Jobs Czar. I might go so far as to say he represented the Trotskyite wing of the administration before he resigned. Thus when someone that far to the left rips Attorney General Eric Holder over Operation Fast and Furious it is news.

The lead story at The Daily Caller today is about a radio interview that Jones had with a conservative radio program. In that interview, Jones made the comment:

“I believe that if this was happening across our other border in Canada, we’d probably take it a little more seriously,” Jones said, implying much of the carelessness over Operation Fast and Furious came because many of the victims are Hispanics from Mexico.

“I worry sometimes that we just don’t value all life the same,” Jones added.

I don’t tend to agree with Van Jones on much of anything and I explicitly reject his vision of America. That said, I think he is right. While at the risk of being called paranoid, delusional, and an insurrectionist, I think somewhere along the line the calculation was made that in the greater scheme of things a few dead Mexicans were an OK tradeoff if it allowed the Administration to implement stronger gun control laws. I mean it’s not like they were campaign donors or anything.