When Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion for the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked to the news media, it came as a shock. How could such a thing happen? Are the norms that keep our government together unraveling? For those who have followed the Supreme Court over the last several years, there is unfortunately more continuity to outrageous behavior than is often recognized.
Immediately after the leak, we learned that the sort of left-wing dark money groups that brought the Supreme Court confirmation process to new lows with their antics with Justice Kavanaugh’s hearings are at it again. An outfit calling itself “Ruth Sent Us” has posted a map with the home addresses of what it calls “the six extremist justices” and organized protests next week at their personal homes. The radical left is now doxxing Supreme Court justices.
The Left’s Radical Tactics
Do you remember the circus of obstruction and vilification that the left inflicted on the nation in opposition to Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 nomination? We documented it in our book, “Justice on Trial.” Protesters funded by dark-money groups, including Planned Parenthood, shouting down the Senate Judiciary Committee and having to be dragged out by police, with over 200 arrests? Protesters dressed like handmaids converging on Capitol Hill to communicate that Kavanaugh’s confirmation would hurl America into a dark dystopia?
And how about the Democratic senators who went along, waging scurrilous arguments to try to delegitimize the nominee from the outset and interrupting their own hearings on the Senate Judiciary Committee 63 times before the first lunch break? Through a week of hearings, they tried one stunt after another, sometimes operating in jaw-dropping lockstep with the protestors. The Senate’s final vote on the nomination was taken amid repeated interruptions from yet another brigade of protesters — who had to be taken out of the Senate gallery by U.S. Capitol Police. Other protesters crossed police lines at the Capitol Building or stormed up the steps of the Supreme Court to pound on its doors. 164 arrests resulted.
Once Kavanaugh officially joined the Court, he did not make the traditional walk down the marble steps of the Court out of concern for his safety.
The left failed to defeat Kavanaugh in 2018, but they did not shed their radicalism — they only got more strident. Less than a year went by before Democratic senators threatened the Court in an amicus brief with restructuring if it did not rule the way they preferred. In 2020, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threatened Justices Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch by name in front of the Supreme Court after oral arguments in an abortion case, warning that they would “pay the price” for a disagreeable decision.
Now that the Court appears poised to finally overturn Roe v. Wade and correct one of the greatest acts of judicial arrogance in American history, the radical Left appears intent on following through with Senator Schumer’s threat.
When asked whether President Biden supports the doxxing of Supreme Court justices, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to criticize the tactic, glibly remarking that “I think the president’s view is that there is a lot of passion.” What an appalling abdication of responsibility.
Who Funds ‘Ruth Sent Us’?
There are a number of unanswered questions about the Ruth Sent Us group. Its website notes, “Stipends [are] available” for protestors. Who exactly is paying for these stipends? Recall that during the Kavanaugh hearings, left-wing groups also provided financial incentives for protestors, including offering lodging to traveling protesters and “jail and bail support” if necessary.
The website links to a different organization, Strike for Choice, which shows connections to groups including Black Lives Matter, Code Pink, Women’s March SF, Kavanaugh Off Our Court, and Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights. How exactly are these groups connected?
Similar to Biden’s White House, the Ruth Sent Us website purports to advocate for “peaceful protests.” Is that like the “mostly peaceful” protests burning down cities across the country two years ago at the BLM-organized demonstrations? Already this week pro-abortion protestors and police clashed in Los Angeles when a group of protestors “began to throw rocks and bottles” in a demonstration in front of the federal courthouse. At least one officer was injured.
Will groups like Demand Justice condemn these protests at justices’ homes? So far, they have been silent. What about Demand Justice board member Elie Mystal, who called the Constitution “kind of trash?” Demand Justice’s executive director Brian Fallon has instead criticized the increased security measures being taken at the Supreme Court itself, stating that the Court “needs more accountability, not less.” Sounds a lot like Psaki yesterday.
Psaki’s stunning comments yesterday should come as no surprise given that she herself worked for Demand Justice before joining the White House — this is after all the White House that left-wing dark money built. Demand Justice was launched by the Arabella Advisors network, which spent over one billion dollars in the 2020 election cycle to help elect Joe Biden president and win a Democratic Senate.
Since its launch, Demand Justice has led the charge to pack the Court and bullied Justice Stephen Breyer off the bench so that a younger activist could take his place. We don’t know if Ruth Sent Us is also funded by groups in the expansive Arabella network because they have yet to disclose their donors but it certainly resembles the kind of pop-up groups that Arabella is known for.
The parallels between this planned protest and the disgusting antics we saw from left-wing dark-money groups during the Kavanaugh confirmation are striking. Even the handmaids are going to be making a return. In these days before whatever they have planned for the justices’ homes, they are already disrupting Catholic churches.
It is as if there is no institution left in American society that leftists are not willing to destroy if they think that is what they need to do to achieve their policy goals.
Get ready for the next iteration of the Kavanaugh circus. Indeed, protecting Roe is what that circus was about in the first place. Now, with Roe itself facing its imminent demise, the left has made itself more dangerous than ever before.