Senate considers woke nominee for judge

[Valletta]

In this video Senator Kennedy reads a letter from a woke judicial nominee during her consideration hearing.

Biden nominee stunned silent after Sen. Kennedy digs up old letter she signed

Sen. Kennedy is so good at this.

rumble.com

 

[Hank77]

In this video Senator Kennedy reads a letter from a woke judicial nominee during her consideration hearing.

Biden nominee stunned silent after Sen. Kennedy digs up old letter she signed

Sen. Kennedy is so good at this.

rumble.com

Which nominee is this, I don't recognize her. I like to read that letter for myself, wouldn't you?

 

[Valletta]

Which nominee is this, I don't recognize her. I like to read that letter for myself, wouldn't you?

School of Law professor nominated to U.S. District Court judgeship

www.qu.edu

 

[Valletta]

Yes, I would. It probably has or will be submitted into the Congressional Record.

 

[Hank77]

School of Law professor nominated to U.S. District Court judgeship

www.qu.edu

Thanks, here's the letter.
I've read most of it and it isn't quite as straightforward as Sen. Kennedy tried to portray.

Sarah French Russell

COVID-19 Open Letter.docx

docs.google.com

 

[Valletta]

Thanks, here's the letter.
I've read most of it and it isn't quite as straightforward as Sen. Kennedy tried to portray.

Sarah French Russell

COVID-19 Open Letter.docx

docs.google.com

He read quotations from the actual text, it looks very straightforward to me. People have to decide whether they want to be soft on crime or tough on crime.

 

[Hank77]

He read quotations from the actual text, it looks very straightforward to me. People have to decide whether they want to be soft on crime or tough on crime.

You're kidding right, that's what you take from this document?

 

[7thKeeper]

He read quotations from the actual text, it looks very straightforward to me. People have to decide whether they want to be soft on crime or tough on crime.

Quote mining is reading from actual text as well. I believe it was/is still against forum rules for a reason. How much does everyone want to bet that reading these quotes as is takes away from the context?

 

[Valletta]

He read quotations from the actual text, it looks very straightforward to me. People have to decide whether they want to be soft on crime or tough on crime.

In Connecticut Democrats control both houses of the state legislature, all constitutional state offices, and all members of Congress are Democrats. In Connecticut about 80% of criminals are re-arrested with five years and about half are returned to prison. Their approach to crime is not working, just like it is not working in San Francisco or Chicago. Given that situation I would want a nominee who will be focusing on protecting the public more than the criminals.

 

[Hank77]

In Connecticut Democrats control both houses of the state legislature, all constitutional state offices, and all members of Congress are Democrats. In Connecticut about 80% of criminals are re-arrested with five years and about half are returned to prison. Their approach to crime is not working, just like it is not working in San Francisco or Chicago. Given that situation I would want a nominee who will be focusing on protecting the public more than the criminals.

When was this letter written and why?

 

[Fantine]

Ooh, rumble.com

From FactCheck.com: The video content on Rumble has failed numerous fact checks. Overall, we rate Rumble Right Biased and Questionable based on the promotion of right-wing propaganda and conspiracy theories and false information, use of poor sources, and a lack of transparency.

I am troubled that Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana uses propaganda sites to falsely smear the reputation of a judicial candidate.

If that's the best he can do to attack her, she must be eminently qualified.

 

[PloverWing]

He read quotations from the actual text, it looks very straightforward to me. People have to decide whether they want to be soft on crime or tough on crime.

It looks straightforward to me, too. People have to decide whether, in a time of a public health emergency (such as the rapid spread of the early forms of COVID-19), all crimes should become capital crimes. If the answer to that is "no", then how best should we protect the health of people who are incarcerated?

I will note that it is possible to hold, consistently, the following two views at the same time: 1) Prison is an appropriate punishment for some crimes. 2) Prisoners should not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, including close exposure to infectious diseases and inadequate access to medical care.

When was this letter written and why?

The only date I see in the letter is 3/26, and that date doesn't include a year. Given that there is reference to the COVID-19 epidemic, but there is no reference to a vaccine, it's probably either 3/26/20 or 3/26/21.

The "why" appears to be that, at a time when the general population was being told to isolate as much as possible, to slow or eliminate the spread of COVID, prisoners were being held in a crowded situation.

 

[Pommer]

Ooh, rumble.com



I am troubled that Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana uses propaganda sites to falsely smear the reputation of a judicial candidate.

If that's the best he can do to attack her, she must be eminently qualified.

I believe the rumble dot com used the C-SPAN feed for this content, as such it’s probably trustworthy.
It used to be that a President would nominate this (or that) person to the federal bench, a cursory overview of their records would be done and the person confirmed within a week (or two), now they hold a hearing on every single judge, looking for ways to stop confirmation, all in the service (we’re told) of “checks and balances”.

Our Federal system wasn’t set up as an adversarial system where the party out of the White House sought to stymie, (at nearly every turn), the will of the incumbent President, but that’s what it has morphed into and we’re stuck with it for the time being.

 

[JSRG]

In Connecticut Democrats control both houses of the state legislature, all constitutional state offices, and all members of Congress are Democrats. In Connecticut about 80% of criminals are re-arrested with five years and about half are returned to prison. Their approach to crime is not working, just like it is not working in San Francisco or Chicago. Given that situation I would want a nominee who will be focusing on protecting the public more than the criminals.

If you're going to make a claim with statistics like that, you should perhaps offer a source.

To be fair, it does seem correct; I just think it's better if you offer a source. Now, I did look at Recidivism Rates by State 2023, and it does give a similar percentage (in regards to being sent to prison, at least, which you identify as about half). However, your reference to Democrats seems like you are trying to put the blame on them. The problem is, when we look at the recidivism rates for other states, it doesn't see to be based on party... Here are the states with the highest recidivism rates according to my link:

Alaska: 61.6% (Republican stronghold)
Delaware: 60.2% (Democratic stronghold)
New Mexico: 49.1% (Democratic stronghold)
Connecticut: 49% (Democratic stronghold)
Arkansas: 47.5% (Republican stronghold)
Tennessee: 47.2% (Republican stronghold)
Pennsylvania: 47.1% (leans Republican)
Kentucky: 46.4% (Republican stronghold)
Utah: 46% (Republican stronghold)
Colorado: 44.9% (not quite a Democrat stronghold, but strongly leans that way)

That's a mixture of Democrat-controlled and Republican-controlled states. Now let's look at the bottom ten:

Michigan: 26.6% (leans Democrat)
Maine: 26.3% (while a mixture in statewide races like governor, the legislature seems Democrat dominated)
Florida: 25.4% (leans Republican)
Minnesota: 25% (leans Democrat)
Nevada: 24.6% (leans Democrat)
Oklahoma: 22.6% (Republican stronghold)
Virginia: 22.3% (leans Democrat)
South Carolina: 21% (Republican stronghold)
Texas: 20.3% (Republican stronghold)
Oregon: 13.1% (Democratic stronghold)

Again, we see a mixture of Democratic and Republican states. So whether a state is controlled by Democrats or Republicans doesn't really seem to have a real effect on recidivism rates.

 

[rambot]

There are just so many incisive, devastating, and sourced responses to the op.

 

[Fantine]

Maybe the states with low recidivism rates have longer sentences, so fewer people have the chance to get out and commit another crime.

 

[Gene2memE]

Maybe the states with low recidivism rates have longer sentences, so fewer people have the chance to get out and commit another crime.

It doesn't look like it. At least from the data available. I can find 32 US states which have recent (2018 or later) data for rates of recidivism, sentence length and time actually served.

It's been multiple decades since economic statistics classes for me (so my calculations could be totally wrong), but I can find almost zero correlation between sentence length and recidivism rate. R2 of just 0.034. That's not enough to be even remotely statistically significant. (R2 would need to be at least 0.7 or higher for that). There's a very slightly higher (0.082) correlation between time served and recidivism rates, but again this is well below anything like statistically significant.

Just eyeballing the data, this makes sense. It's really messy.

Some of the states with the longest sentences and time served (New York, Michigan, Mississippi) are about average for recidivism rates.

Some of the states with the shortest sentences and time served (Nevada, Louisiana) have some of the lowest recidivism rates, while other states with long sentences/time served have really high recidivism rates (New York, Pennsylvania).