Does It Surprise You That Trump Is Dragging The Federal Judiciary Into His Kakistocracy?

Kakistocracy is a relatively new word for most of us. It was coined in the 1600s but didn't come into popular usage until the election last November. Kakistocracy is "a system of government which is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens." In case you were wondering, the word in Russian is kakistokratiya (какистократия).

At this point you may be thinking about about the start railing on Wilbur Ross, Scott Pruitt, Mike Pence, Steven Mnuchin, Jeff Sessions, Ryan Zine, Tom Price Alex Azar, Betsy DeVos (or her brother Erik Prince) or Rick Perry... or Trump's grifter family or Trump's now-disgraced generals. But no; ever heard of Brett Talley?

The Senate Judiciary Committee-- in a strictly party line 11-9 vote-- just recommended that the Senate confirm Talley for a lifetime position presiding over the federal judiciary in the state of Alabama. Most people who know anything about Talley (36) would describe him as a far right nut lawyer who has worked as a political hack, not as an attorney and has never tried a case in his life. Trump nominated him for one overriding reason. Talley nominated himself for the "best Trumpism yet," tweeting "Hillary Rotten Clinton."

The American Bar Association unanimously voted Talley "not qualified" for confirmation, sending the Judiciary Committee a letter, explaining that Talley doesn't have "the requisite trial experience or its equivalent." Blogging and tweeting isn't the equivalent of trial experience? And remember that the ABA has only unanimously voted 4 times in the last 28 years-- the number of years they've been posting their decisions online-- to deem a federal judicial nominee "not qualified," two being Trump nominees (the other being Leonard Steven Grasz of Omaha)-- not even Jeff Mateer, who attracted controversy over speeches in which he said transgender children are proof that "Satan’s plan is working," while describing same-sex marriage as a harbinger for "disgusting" practices such as polygamy and bestiality, and admitting discriminating based on sexual orientation.

Talley's involvement in overtly political work appeared to arouse concern from some on the Senate Judiciary Committee about his ability to rule fairly over cases.

Feinstein noted tweets in which Talley had referred to the 2016 Democratic nominee for president as "Hillary Rotten Clinton" and blog posts he authored that seemed to display a steadfast allegiance to gun rights advocates.

A month after a gunman killed 20 children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Talley described efforts by the Obama administration to advance gun control legislation as follows: "the President and his democratic allies in Congress are about to launch the greatest attack on our constitutional freedoms in our lifetime."

One month later, as the national debate over gun control raged on, Talley responded to a reader's comment that "[w]e will have to resort to arms when our other rights-- of speech, press, assembly, representative government-- fail to yield the desired results," by writing, "I agree with this completely."

When pressed by Feinstein about these statements and others, Talley reminded the committee that previous judicial nominees had managed to move beyond their polemical pasts to hear cases impartially and that he intended to "fully and faithfully comply with these obligations."

Vanita Gupta, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights noted that "Talley is entirely unqualified for a federal judgeship because he lacks the breadth and depth of experience necessary for the job, and he has demonstrated ideologically extreme views that call into question his temperament and judgment."



The Republicans who voted to confirm Talley are two distinct groups. The first are lock-step Trumpist enablers:

• Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
• Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
• John Cornyn (R-TX)
• Mike Lee (R-UT)
• Ted Cruz (R-TX)
• Mike Crapo (R-ID)
• Thom Tillis (R-NC)
• John Neely Kennedy (R-LA)

And the second group is a trio of senators who have publicly stated they know exactly what a danger Trump is to the country but always wind up backing his insanity anyway:

• Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
• Ben Sasse (R-NE)
• Jeff Flake (R-AZ)