JUNE 2024 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Senator Tom Cotton. A new name has popped up in the chatter about Donald Trump’s potential pick for vice president: Sen. Tom Cotton. He’s reportedly high on the list because of his “experience and the ability to run a disciplined campaign.” As a running mate, the Arkansas senator “would carry relatively little risk of creating unwanted distractions for a presidential campaign already facing multiple legal threats,” according to The New York Times.

But it sure seems risky to put a no-holds barred racist, sexist creep on a debate stage with Vice President Kamala Harris. Cotton traded in his dog whistle for a racist bullhorn years ago, and has made headlines with his outrageous statements and behavior.

Here is a mere sampling of Cotton’s low lights:

Attacking Ketanji Brown Jackson:

During the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Cotton teamed up with other deplorables on the Senate Judiciary Committee to harangue the nominee about everything from QAnon theories to her history as a public defender, attempting to paint her as an adherent of “critical race theory,” as if that’s a bad thing.

Cotton really sunk to the bottom, however, when he all but called Jackson a Nazi sympathizer during a floor speech. “You know, the last Judge Jackson left the Supreme Court to go to Nuremberg and prosecute the case against the Nazis,” he said. “This Judge Jackson might’ve gone there to defend them.”

“Judge Jackson voluntarily represented three terrorists in three cases,” Cotton complained to CNN. “And she called American soldiers war criminals. I have no patience for it.” Jackson, of course, did not call U.S. troops war criminals.

Those were the accusations that prompted Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison to call Cotton the “lowest of the low” and a “little maggot-infested man.”

Attacking the first Muslim American appeals court nominee:

Cotton’s recent bigoted attacks on Adeel A. Mangi, the first-ever Muslim American federal appeals court nominee, also made headlines when he subjected the Pakistani-born attorney to a barrage of Islamophobic questions about the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, al-Qaida’s 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, policy issues regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and antisemitism in general.

Cotton bragged about his harassment of Mangi on X (formerly Twitter), crowing about his “gotcha” question trying to paint Mangi as antisemitic. Which is ironic, given Cotton’s previous antisemitic tweet history. .

Blocking nominees of color:

Cotton has a history of opposing Democratic presidents’ Black and brown nominees. From 2014 through 2016, Cotton blocked President Barack Obama’s friend and nominee Cassandra Butts—a Black woman—from an ambassador job. Why? When Butts met with him about his block, she told The New York Times’ Frank Bruni, Cotton admitted it was because “he knew that she was a close friend of Obama’s … and that blocking her was a way to inflict special pain on the president.” Butts died of cancer more than 800 days after her nomination.

Defending slavery:

Of course, Cotton’s racist theatrics haven’t been confined to Senate hearings. He authorized legislation in 2020 to ban public schools from using a curriculum based on The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which dissected slavery’s impact on our country’s founding. He justified his bill by calling The1619 Project “left-wing propaganda” and revisionist history at its worst.”

Cotton added that children should instead be taught that slavery “was the necessary evil upon which the union was built.”

That infamous New York Times op-ed:

And don’t forget Cotton’s gross New York times op-ed titled “Send In The Troops,” which called for Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and use “an overwhelming show of force” against protesters who took to the streets nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police. The column incited fierce backlash, which led to backpedaling from The New York Times and the opinion page editor’s resignation.

None of this will diminish Cotton’s prospects with Trump, who likes him because he’s a smart guy with an elite education. Also, he’s a reliable sycophant.

Cotton has refused to condemn Trump’s love of Vladimir Putin and has bragged about how he ignored the evidence and arguments in Trump’s first impeachment.

“My aides delivered a steady flow of papers and photocopied books, hidden underneath a fancy cover sheet labeled ‘Supplementary Impeachment Materials’, so nosy reporters sitting above us in the Senate gallery couldn’t see what I was reading,” Cotton wrote in his 2022 memoir.

Everything about Cotton appeals to Trump—and everything about him is revolting.

2. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Everything Alito has said about the reason an American flag was flown upside down over his home appears to have been a lie. He blamed the flag on a dispute with neighbors. Unfortunately for the prevaricating justice, his wife’s altercation with the neighbors became so extreme that those neighbors called the cops. The police report shows that the altercation came weeks after the upside-down flag was hoisted over Alito’s home.

On May 16, The New York Times broke the story that an American flag was flown upside down at the Alito home in January 2021. The upside-down flag, long used as a signal of distress, was appropriated by Donald Trump supporters following Jan. 6, 2021, to express their solidarity with the insurrectionists who had smashed their way into the Capitol building.

Alito denied any connection to the flag and claimed that his wife had put up this symbol in response to an altercation with a neighbor. He also claimed those neighbors had placed an offensive sign about Trump where it was near children waiting to board a school bus. But that excuse always had problems. Now everything about Alito’s story is falling apart.

The story that Alito told Fox News reporters was that his wife flew the flag because neighbor Emily Baden placed a “Fuck Trump” sign in her yard that was within 50 feet of where children were waiting for the school bus in January 2021. Alito said that his wife had tried to talk to the neighbors about having a vulgar sign so close to where children waited for the bus, but that the conversation ended in an argument.

Alito then claimed that Baden put up a sign that personally insulted his wife, Martha, and blamed her for the Jan. 6 assault. Finally, he said that he and his wife were walking through the neighborhood, ran into a man who lived at the property, and he called Martha a number of disparaging terms, including the c-word.

So, she went home and raised a flag in support of insurrection. As one does.

However, even a cursory look at Alito’s claims shows that they’re simply not true. In January 2021, area schools were still dealing with Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic. Children would not return to the classroom until March. So, no children were waiting for the bus for Martha to be concerned about.

The latest information paints a very different picture of the interaction between Baden and the Alitos. Baden and her then-boyfriend, now husband, reported that Martha was repeatedly harassing them to the point where they called the police and asked them to intervene.

“Aside from putting up a sign, we did not begin or instigate any of these confrontations,” Baden told Times reporters.

Alito’s excuse about the kids and the school bus was a lie. His claim that the flag was flown following a dispute with the neighbors is inaccurate. And none of it explains why he flew another pro-insurrection flag over his vacation home.

The Supreme Court is currently considering Trump’s motion for absolute legal immunity for his actions to interfere with the 2020 election while in office. It’s also determining whether the insurrectionists involved in the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021, can appropriately be charged with obstruction.

Alito has not recused himself from either of these cases. And on Wednesday, he stated in a letter to congress that he will not recuse himself.

“I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request,” he claimed in the letter.

The idea that Alito should be involved in considering any case connected with Trump, Jan. 6, or the 2020 election completely violates any concept of judicial ethics. This isn’t just the appearance of a conflict. It’s a conflict.

The only real question is: Will anyone do anything about it?

The new information showing that Alito’s claims about the flag incident were simply untrue only reinforces the need for the Senate to move. An impeachment is fully warranted, but with Republicans holding a narrow margin in the House and anxious to show their allegiance to Trump over the nation, an impeachment seems next to impossible.

There’s no time like the present to dilute Alito’s toxic presence by adding more seats to the Supreme Court.

3. Right Wing Wacko Steve Bannon. The sleazebag Bannon is due to report to federal prison on July 1 to begin a four-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. But he clearly has plenty of contempt remaining to give, and he’s directing it at the entire legal system.

On his “War Room” podcast on Saturday, Bannon turned his anger toward former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, threatening both with imprisonment or worse. "Get your passport, get the hell out of the country because hey, we're coming,” Bannon said, warning that a second Trump term would mean that Comey and McCabe would be targeted for persecution.

Bannon’s statements may seem like a tantrum being thrown by someone about to spend several long weeks in a very small room, but his statements are concerning to law enforcement officials. They serve as a reminder that when Donald Trump and his associates talk about “revenge” and “retribution.” they don’t mean seeing that political opponents face the consequences of any illegal actions; They mean going after political opponents simply for being political opponents. 

“We will hunt you down," Bannon said.

4. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Now we know why Clarence Thomas didn't jump on John Oliver’s offer of $1 million dollars a year to step down from his position on the Supreme Court: It might mean he would have to take a pay cut.

A new tabulation from Fix the Court shows the 17 justices who served on the court between 2004 and 2023 knocked down a staggering $4,755,147 in gifts. That’s an average of nearly $28,000 worth of freebies per justice per year.

Except it’s not. Because a jaw-dropping $4,042,286 of that total went into just one pocket. That’s right, America’s biggest fan of Walmart parking lots went home with over five times more money than everyone else on the court combined. That’s not the appearance of corruption. It is corruption.

Among those still in the land of the living, Thomas' haul is over 20 times greater than that of runner-up Samuel Alito. Expect Alito to have a chat with Trump’s collection of billionaire donors about that sad imbalance. Maybe they can subsidize his flag supply.

Even so, Alito went home with $170,095. That’s not bad.

It’s hard to think of any other job where such a level of perks is acceptable. Ask any salesperson or product rep what their company says about accepting gifts from clients. Many public-school teachers are not allowed to accept gifts from students, no matter how small, to avoid any concern about preference. And every federal judge has to refuse any gift from someone with business before the court or from anyone who could be affected by the results of a court ruling.

Of course, that means every federal judge except those serving on the Supreme Court. That select group is guided only by unenforced ethical guidelines and a chief justice who refuses to meet with the little people in Congress.

But even in the supreme free-for-all, no one comes close to Thomas in soaking up that sweet graft. He seems to only finish behind his peers when it comes to reporting those hefty gifts. Just 8.5% of Thomas’ take appears on the what’s-the-point-anyway disclosure forms.

Fix the Court considers all of these numbers to be “on the low end.” Thanks to the lack of accurate disclosure, it could only guess how many times Thomas dropped in at mega-donor (and Nazi napkin owner) Harlan Crow’s Adirondack resort Topridge or danced around his idols at the all-male Bohemian Club. It also suspects that it missed some “free tickets to Dallas Cowboys and Florida Panthers games.”

It’s not that Republicans don’t recognize what these numbers show about Thomas’ level of corruption. It’s just that this is what they like about him.

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And the June IGGY winner is:

Senator Tom Cotton: well deserved and overdue.