U.S. citizens: Tell U.S. Senate to reject new ‘anti-terrorism’ bill
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Senate voted to confirm a left-wing judge with an alarming record on child sex crimes to the federal bench on Monday, made possible in part by five Republican senators failing to show up for the vote.
Nominated by outgoing President Joe Biden to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Embry Kidd neglected to disclose in his confirmation questionnaire a case in which he approved pretrial release of a high school football coach accused of sexually assaulting a minor and possessing child pornography, and one in which he declined to fully restrict the internet usage of a previously-convicted sex offender accused of possessing child sex abuse material. Both decisions were later reversed by other judges.
Kidd also contributed to a 2007 article for Harvard Law’s Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, in which he claimed that “social forces surrounding [proposed child rape] legislation are inescapably too intense, too frenzied, too emotional, and too mired in racial and class-based prejudice to avoid arbitrariness and caprice.”
Nevertheless, on November 18, the Senate voted 49-45 to confirm Kidd. While the Senate still has a 51-seat Democrat majority (including 4 independents who caucus with Democrats) until the Republican switchover in January, the GOP had a chance of quashing this nomination due to the fact that Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin voted against him, and Democrat Sen. John Fetterman declined to vote.
Yet Kidd made it through thanks to five Republican senators not showing up to vote: Mike Braun, Steve Daines, Bill Hagerty, incoming Vice President-elect JD Vance, and Marco Rubio (returning President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State).
The outcome elicited angered reactions from many right-of-center voices. Among them was Grace Chong, CFO/COO of Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, who specifically called out Vance, Rubio, “and the rest of you Senate Republicans that didn’t bother to show up.”
Vance replied by calling Chong a “mouth-breathing imbecile,” saying he had been busy participating in interviews for incoming Trump administration personnel, and claiming that his absence was irrelevant because Fetterman would have shown up to help confirm Kidd had his vote been needed (enabling outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaking vote). Fetterman, who occasionally dissents from his party, did previously vote to end debate on Kidd’s nomination, but has not publicly commented on the final vote.
why were these deleted @JDVance and @gc22gc? pic.twitter.com/QqZumSD2ye
— Brian Jacobson (@BrianHJacobson) November 19, 2024
Both Chong and Vance deleted their posts later that day, potentially due to the potential for tension between Trump and Bannon personnel and Trump himself issuing a statement that “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who leads one of the states most affected by the Eleventh Circuit, lamented that “now, the leftist judge will have a lifetime appointment and the people of FL, AL and GA will suffer the consequences.”
This leftist judge would have been voted down and the seat on the important 11th circuit would have been filled by Donald Trump next year had Republicans showed up.
Now, the leftist judge will have a lifetime appointment and the people of FL, AL and GA will suffer the… https://t.co/7h8uyfvLUq
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) November 19, 2024
The Blaze senior editor Daniel Horowitz noted that while Republicans still enjoy a 7-6 majority on the court, meaning that Kidd is not likely to change the outcome of cases taken up by the full court, his confirmation does increase the likelihood of cases being decided by liberal three-judge panels.
U.S. citizens: Tell U.S. Senate to reject new ‘anti-terrorism’ bill