Some important LDF news that flew under the radar during “Kavanaugh week”: 1/ Disappointing news: SCOTUS denied cert (won’t review)in our case challenging qualified immunity for police ofcrs in Phenix City, AL who tased our client to death (13 times after he was on the ground). Devastating. You can read our petition here naacpldf.org/files/our-work… 2/

Today I’ll be posting those articles, books, blogs, tweets that I regard as MUST READ pieces for this moment. We must correctly diagnose this moment if we are to overcome it and win the fight for a democracy, grounded in justice, equality, dignity. Given what is on our minds this morning, I’ll begin with this lovely and searing essay from @Profepps theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

I’m grateful to the @ABAesq (although this sane and modest statement could have come much sooner) b/c when the dust settles our profession will be ripe for some close examination. Thousands of Black and Latino ppl face a justice system every day that is harsh & unforgiving. 1/ Inferences are regularly decided against them. Credibility is judged based on evidence. Sworn statements are the coin of the realm. Law enforcement investigations are prized for accuracy and impartiality - even when unwarranted. 2/

What's most disturbing abt the truly startling credibility questions raised by #Kavanaugh 's responses when he was confronted w/some of these documents yesterday, is imagining how attys on the Judiciary Committee & in the bar who support Kavanaugh would view the credibility of 1/ ..of an average witness who responded that way in any other hearing or court of law. Every day lawyers impeach the credibility of witnesses. We know what it looks like. We recognize when witnesses are dissembling, obfuscating and outright lying. 2/

Interesting to hear #Kavanaugh discuss Brown and the Harlan dissent in Plessy as being the guideboook and frame for Brown & our understanding of why there can be no “separation of the races.” #KavanaughHearings But this is so deeply elementary that it leaves a lot on the cutting room floor - much of it critical to understanding how this nominee sees the scope of equal protection and rights in modern America. So I know this is not the “Schoolhouse Rock” version but:

Agree. The Leahy-Coons-Booker exchanges demonstrate that the "Committee Confidential" document issue is real and substantive and must be resolved if Kavanaugh is to be truly evaluated. The Harris examination at the end was perhaps the most devastating of the day.

https://twitter.com/RonaldKlain/status/1037504154720239617

But something else was exposed today that was disturbing. The willingness of Kavanaugh to do more than filibuster. He deliberately conflated or confused, or misstated terms or facts of cases to avoid reconciling unpleasant aspects of his decisions or writings

This is astonishing. Judge Kavanaugh’s explanation of his conduct in Garza actually raises even more concerns than I had previously. Yes, she was a minor, subject to TX law like that of many other states which requires parental consent OR permission from a judge (judicial bypass) As @SenatorDurbin said, Ms. Garza obtained a judicial bypass. Kavanaugh now says he wanted to find a sponsor w/whom Ms. Garza could consult -after she obtained judicial permission - b/c she was an immigrant teen “all alone” - not as a matter of policy, but to adhere to precedent.

.@SenSasse let me clear this up. The “hysteria” over SCOTUS confirmation hearings did not begin w Bork but as the response of segregationists to Brown. If you want to look at ugliness & hysteria, look to the hearings for the confirmation hearing for Thurgood Marshall in 1967. It began in the first SCOTUS confirmation after Brown in 1955 (John Marshall Harlan II). Please do not conveniently suggest that this SCOTUS history starts with Bork.

So on the incorrect “protesting tge anthem” headline, I want to emphasize the very serious consequences of these shortcuts often, but not exclusively, by white media establishments and writers. 1/ This is not a harmless error that can be explained away by “word count.” You are framing racial issues in ways that are harmful and distorting, and that steer our work, our struggle, and your analysis of race in very specific directions. 3/

Glad to see this piece by @zengerle. I do want to push back against the characterization of this federal court takeover as the result of "discipline." It has been as much the product of the Republicans' willingness to flout Senate norms, abandon rigorous examination of....1/

https://twitter.com/MrDanZak/status/1032286744123715586

...the record of nominees, allow nominees to offer misleading testimony, or omit key info from their questionnaires, truncate hearings, blink as nominees refuse to articulate support for the canon embodied in cases like Brown v. Board, and in the case of Judge Kavanaugh...2/

Last night we learned from Nunes that there is a sequencing plan to push through the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh and then seek to impeach Deputy AG Rosenstein in order to protect the Pres from investigation, possible indictment & impeachment. 1/

https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1028063933565943808

Today - despite being told days ago by the National Archives that even the ltd docs he requested on Kavanaugh cannot be produced until October -Sen. Grassley announced that Judge Kavanaugh’s hearings will begin on 9/4 - the day after Labor Day. 2/

100 days to a natl election, w/a President whose campaign chair is headed to trial, whose alliance w/a foreign adversary is increasingly suspect, in the midst of a humanitarian crisis of unfolding scope, while a fed. investigation of his campaign, family & finances continues../1 ...but we are pushed by the party in power to rush through the confirmation of that President's SCOTUS nominee, who, if confirmed, would sit on the Court before which questions related to the President's culpability would be determined & who has already expressed views ../2

MUST READ. nytimes.com/2018/07/23/opi… .@SenatorLeahy former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee on why we need Judge Kavanaugh’s full record:

David I would love to have a discussion about this. It’s important b/c the history of racism & the struggle for civil rights turns your thesis in its head and it must be reckoned with. We should not romanticize localism. It has often been brutish, oppressive & violent.

https://twitter.com/nytdavidbrooks/status/1020321199497232385

There is very little in this country to suppport the idea that “emotions” of localism once race is introduced are “affectionate” or “based in a shared history if reciprocity and trust.” They have been the opposite.

The 14th amendment to our Constitution was ratified 150 years ago today. Section 1 contains the transformational provisions of birthright citizenship, equal protection of the laws, protection of privileges & immunities & the right to due process. These provisions were essential to ensuring full citizenship for newly freed slaves and protection for Blacks from the effort by States to limit the rights of Blacks.

The “set piece” - a term created by American commentators in the last WC to try describe the area of purported American soccer strength. But what it means is that USMNT play best when the game stops & the players can gather in formation. That term means nothing anywhere else.

https://twitter.com/isailor56/status/1010541366282031104

Another transparent attempt to shape soccer commentary and analysis to a (not successful) US perspective, rather than pushing our program, commentary, coaching & development to learn & model themselves on the best of international (successful) soccer.

Justice Sotomayor does not "lash out" at the President. She set forth the evidence presented by Plaintiffs showing the President's motive for the ban. She is strongly critical of her colleagues on the Court, but the President? Where does she lash out against him in this dissent?

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1011682522785374209

She marshals the facts presented by plaintiffs and then concludes. "Taking all the evidence together, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was driven primarily by anti-Muslim animus, rather than by the Govt's asserted natl security justifications."

I implore you to direct some attention to Congress which has the power to make @SecAzar account for these children & provide the info needed to begin aggressive reunification efforts. Sen. Lamar Alexander has oversight authority over HHS. Demand an emergency oversight hearing. When we walk away and say “Congress won’t do anything,” we make it easy for them to offload responsibility for the state of our country entirely on the President. But the failures of Congress to curb Trump’s excesses is the bigger crisis.

SCOTUS did not rule that baker’s refusal to bake cake for same sex couple was constitutional. Court ruled the CO Human Rts Commn tribunal that ruled against the baker in MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP was not neutral but hostile to the claim. Baker was entitled to impartial decisionmaker. It’s a narrow ruling.

Cut to the chase. The Russian facebook ads during the election season focused overwhelmingly on race. As I have said, racism is a national security vulnerability. We should be treating it as such. usatoday.com/story/news/201…

Our inability to "call a thing a thing" is why #GinaHaspel can be considered as CIA Director. Because like the refusal to call a "lie" a "lie," and to call racism by its name, much of the media and govt officials for years during the Iraq War refused to use the word "torture." Phrases like "enhanced interrogation" were created to cover the reality of our moral descent. And then, of course the tactic of avoiding an obvious wrong by endlessly questioning, "is waterboarding torture?" These terrible evasions continue to haunt us.