The Smearing Of A Nominee
An Attempt To Malign Black Supreme Court Nominee
Does the name Professor Christine Margaret Blasey Ford ring a bell?
She hasn’t been mentioned by name but her memory has been dragged through the rhetorical mud during the ongoing circus posing as Republican inquiries into President Biden’s nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. The toxic, hypocritical Republicans questioning Jackson have brought up their version of Ford as having been part of the Democrats’ scurrilous debasing of Republican Brett Kavanaugh, during his 2018 confirmation hearings just because Ford was among a parade of credible women who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh.
The Republicans insist they will take the high road during Jackson’s confirmation hearings and not stoop to such theatrics and unfair criticisms like those that poor Kavanaugh had to endure just for being an alleged sexual predator.
“No Republican senator is going to unleash an attack on your character when the hearing is almost over,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Graham soon asked Jackson to identify her religion and accused her of supporting terrorism and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also walked tall when he asked the nominee if she believed that “babies are racist.”
The GOP personal attacks, that they promised to avoid, began with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a major conspiracist whose curriculum vitae includes being a leading voice in the lie that voter fraud brought Joe Biden to the White House and that trump really won. Hawley said Jackson has been a career protector of sexual perverts and child pornographers. Of course the smear is a dishonest attempt to cherry pick facts from federal sentencing policy regarding sex offenders. Hawley claimed that in seven cases involving child pornography offenders, Jackson sentenced offenders to less prison time than federal sentencing guidelines recommended. Hawley did not mention that this is the ordinary practice within the federal judiciary and that most judges and sentencing policymakers believe the federal sentencing guidelines recommend sentences that are too harsh for “nonproduction” child pornography crimes where the offender views or distributes child sexual abuse material but does not produce it.
The hearings have turned into red meat for a collection of paradigms of pusillanimity like Zak Paine (AKA Redpill78), Terpsichore Maras-Lindeman, J.R. Majewski and Ron Watkins who are part of the GOP dog whistle brigade under that popular QAnon trope that Democrats, including Jackson are either sexual predators of children or sanction such debasement.
During her Republican crucifixion, Ford showed impressive credentials; she is a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She specializes in designing statistical models for research projects. Likewise, Jackson’s bio shines; she is graduate of Harvard University and law school where she was editor of the Harvard Review.Since 2021, Jackson has been a judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
As for the right wing wackos, Paine has claimed that drinking bleach can cure cancer. Maras-Lindeman was charged with claiming to be medical doctor as part of a bogus fundraising scam. Weaver has speculated that coronavirus vaccines could be used to surveil people and Majewski, running for congress from Ohio, gained attention when he painted a new massive Donald Trump banner across his entire front yard. Majewski’s campaign ad shows him with a rifle as he says he’ll “do whatever it takes” to stop Democrats and “return this country back to its former glory.” Credible people all.
Meanwhile, they are among the many right wing crazies who have spread their poison on Twitch, a livestreaming video site owned by Amazon that has become a cesspool for at least 20 channels associated with far-right movements, including one hosted by Paine who has provided a platform for Majewski, and his conspiracy theories about vaccines and cancer. Twitch has grown into a multibillion-dollar business, largely by broadcasting video games like Fortnite and Call of Duty. It has morphed into a platform for video livestreaming where viewers can donate “tips” to the hosts and are forwarded to outside sites to buy merchandise or donate money, to people like Paine and Maras-Lindeman, who are Twitch partners.
Reportedly, Twitch dominates the live content space, with 17 billion hours watched last year compared to YouTube Gaming Live’s 10 billion.
Twitch temporarily suspended Trump’s account for “hateful conduct” last summer but it still provides a channel for racists like Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, a white nationalist organization, and others like him.
DLive is another streaming service that has become popular among white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazis, and other extremists. During the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, at least nine DLive streams were online streaming their involvement in the day’s events.
Paine has more than 14,000 Twitch followers, making claims like one he told last year that people should drink the bleach, something the Food and Drug Administration has said is dangerous. Paine said in a March 17 video that Democrats are “elevating pedophiles and people who can change the laws surrounding punishment” for pedophiles.
Maras-Linderman, 42, spews her QAnon anti- vaccine and trump backing podcast venom to 4,000 regular fans and in addition to the tips she got from Twitch, her fans donated more than $84,000 for her birthday through a GoFundMe campaign. The donations went toward a new car, medical treatments and a lawyer.
In a recent civil fraud case, attorneys for the state of North Dakota said that Maras-Lindeman falsely claimed to be a pediatric oncologist and to have both a PhD and an MBA while she used multiple aliases and social security numbers to create a bogus charity, “A Magic City Christmas,” that she claimed would aid homeless shelters and wreaths for veterans’ graves. Attorneys for the state said she used money on purchases for herself at McDonald’s, QVC and elsewhere.
In her LinkedIn profile, Maras-Lindeman claimed to have eight academic degrees in the United States and the United Kingdom, along with additional professional qualifications. The attorneys in the North Dakota fraud case said in court filings that they could find records of her earning only one degree, a bachelor’s in biology from the University of Kentucky in 2011.
Maras-Lindeman also was identified in an affidavit as as the so-called expert that attorney Sidney Powell claimed in her federal lawsuit to overturn Biden’s election would show that foreign companies had worked to change votes for Biden. Federal judges have rejected all of Powell’s complaints and Maras-Lindeman’s affidavit.
Watkin is running for the Republican nomination for an Arizona congressional seat. He is believed to have played a major role in writing the anonymous Q posts about Jackson and wrote on social media on Wednesday that “Judge Jackson is a pedophile-enabler. Any senator who votes to confirm her nomination is also a pedophile-enabler.” This week Watkins collected enough signatures to be on the ballot for the Republican nomination for Arizona’s second congressional district.