Judiciary
On Thursday morning, as CNN geared up for its evening town hall special on gay rights with the Democratic presidential candidates, the network's New Day show ran a couple of segments on the issue of LGBT rights. One segment highlighted a reported increase in hate crimes against transgenders in which the story managed to invoke the unrelated upcoming Supreme Court case on LGBT discrimination by employers. And, speaking with the new president of the pro-gay Human Rights Campaign, co-host John Berman cued up his guest to complain that President Donald Trump has not been far enough to the left on gay rights.
On the face of it, Michael Gerhardt is qualified to serve as a CNN legal analyst on constitutional questions. He is, after all, a Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the UNC School of Law in Chapel Hill, and a Scholar in Residence at the National Constitution Center. But there was one part of Gerhardt's resume that CNN hid when New Day's John Berman brought him in to comment on President Trump's decision not to cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry. Gerhardt is also a long-time Democrat activist.
The same week as the Supreme Court prepared to hear arguments about whether Title VII should include protections for LGBTQ individuals, NBC’s legal drama Bluff City Law presented arguments of its own. They just hid the agenda, initially, in absurdity. In the Oct. 7, episode, “25 Years to Life,” attorneys Sydney Strait and Anthony Little go to court on behalf of their former law professor whose petition to legally change his age from 62 to 42 has been rejected by the city.
The keyword is “conservative.” CBS and CNN on Monday repeatedly fretted over the coming Supreme Court term, due to future cases on abortion, gun control and gay rights. Both networks repeatedly took time to warn viewers of a looming right turn.
It was just this time about a year ago that liberals in the media started to realize that Brett Kavanaugh would be confirmed to the Supreme Court. In fact, on October 5, 2018, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes realized, on-air, that such a thing would happen. MSNBC’s Ali Velshi broke into coverage to explain that Democrat Joe Manchin would vote yes: “We have breaking news now. Senator Joe Manchin, who did not want to be the deciding vote on this, has announced he will support.” Hayes sputtered, “He’s a yes?” The host then bowed his head in amazement.
ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder tends to push a left-wing agenda. The final season’s second episode on October 3, “Vivien’s Here,” went over-the-top in lecturing audiences about immigration enforcement.
New York Times Supreme Court beat reporter Adam Liptak used his “Sidebar” analysis to lapse into liberal judicial activist mode, praising Obama-appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s unjudicial public opposition to the death penalty, “In Death Penalty Cases, Sotomayor Is Alone in ‘Bearing Witness.’” She was praised for maintaining "a sort of vigil in the capital cases other justices treat as routine." Liptak shows passionate devotion to the liberal side of the judicial decisions he covers, especially when that side loses.
All Rise just aired its pilot episode on CBS Monday night and the new legal drama is chock full of wokeness.
The Education of Brett Kavanuagh's disparate treatment of the dueling testimonies of Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh was striking. Ford's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee was a “master class in authenticity and simplicity." The book downplayed the lack of specificity of Blasey’s account, laughably suggesting Blasey had her assault accusation narrowed down to “a conceivable location and time period." They event went after Ford's friend Leland Keyser for daring to doubt Ford's account: “But Keyser’s skepticism was structured on some erroneous or irrelevant tent poles...Keyser’s memory might be affected by her struggles with alcohol and other substances.”
One of the revelations from the character assassination attempt of Justice Brett Kavanaugh by The New York Times was that Leland Keyser, an alleged witness to the allegations of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, was viciously pressured by Blasey Ford’s allies to back up the claims unless she wanted to be discredited with her past history of drug abuse. Well, one of the reporters behind the hit piece did the work for Team Blasey Ford in an appearance on CNN’s so-called “Reliable Sources” and slimed Keyser’s rebuttal.
In Thursday’s installment of The Hill’s “Rising,” chief Washington correspondent Saagar Enjeti lit up New York Times reporters Kate Kelly and Robin Pogrebin for their smear campaign against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and grilled them on their obfuscation of exculpatory facts.
Self-described "conservative" Joe Scarborough frets that if President Trump and Mitch McConnell are successful, they will "shape the judiciary for the next 50 years." Scarborough expressed his concern in the context of criticizing Joe Kennedy for launching a Democrat primary campaign against incumbent Sen. Ed Markey in Massachusetts. Scarborough worries that money spent on that campaign will divert funds that could be used to defeat President Trump.