Judges: Why XXX Is Probably Screwed Even If Dems Win in 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C.—According to an article published yesterday in the ultra-conservative Washington Times, ultra-conservative Senate Majority leader Mitch "Moscow Mitch" McConnell told ultra-conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt, regarding whatever judgeships are currently left unfilled, "We’re not going to leave a single vacancy behind by the end of next year." He included Supreme Court vacancies in that promise, even though during the final year of President Barack Obama's term, he refused to allow the Senate to hold hearings on the candidate nominated to replace the deceased Antonin Scalia, Merrick Garland. And that's a promise that could easily spell the death of the adult industry, even if Democrats win back the presidency and super-majorities in both houses of Congress. The evidence of this is becoming clearer with each passing judicial opinion, not the least of which was the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeal's upholding the denial of a Certificate of Occupancy to Stephen Norman to open an Adam & Eve franchise store in Jonesboro, Arkansas, even though the store didn't violate any state or local ordinance. That ruling was issued by a three-judge panel consisting of two Trump appointees and one George W. Bush appointee. And that's not all the Eighth Circuit has been up to! In late August, a panel of three judges that included one Trump appointee and one George W. appointee ruled that the owners of Telescope Media Group could re-open their lawsuit against the state of Minnesota, which the Christian owners of the company believed would stop them from discriminating against same-sex couples if the owners decided, according to an article on Law360.com, to "expand their film and media company to provide wedding video services that promote the view that marriage should be between men and women. They said they would decline to film same-sex ceremonies since the messages conveyed by such ceremonies run counter to their religious beliefs." Such a business model would clearly be in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act—but this court allowed the suit to be reinstated anyway! This is exactly the sort of horseshit liberals and progressives can expect when so-called "traditional values" are challenged in any court overseen by a Trump appointee—and so far, Trump has appointed (and Moscow Mitch's Senate has confirmed) 127 (mostly white, mostly male) federal judges, 43 (mostly white, mostly male) federal appeals court judges—and two (white male) U.S. Supreme Court justices. A full list of all Trump-appointed judges can be found here. Now, it's clear that despite the closeness of the Trump administration—and even Trump himself—to the evangelical right, Trump has not made it a priority to target adult producers with obscenity prosecutions—at least during his current term in office. But that could easily change if Trump is reelected and his administration tires of (or finishes) fucking all the other societal groups it's currently targeting, such as transgendered people, immigrants, sex workers, the poor, a "neutral" internet and others—and the Religious Right pushes him more firmly in that direction. But even if Democrats succeed in winning the presidency and majorities in the House and Senate, society (and the adult industry) will still have to deal with the Trump judicial appointments—and barring successful impeachments, those judges are set for life in their positions of power until they voluntarily step down, or die. About those impeachments, though: There's good reason to believe (or at least hope) that we might see a lot of them once Democrats re-take the Department of Justice. According to an article posted last Saturday on Politico.com, a majority of the judges Trump has appointed may have violated Canon 5 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. Canon 5, titled "A Judge Should Refrain from Political Activity," reads, in pertinent part, "A judge should not: ... (A)(3) solicit funds for, pay an assessment to, or make a contribution to a political organization or candidate, or attend or purchase a ticket for a dinner or other event sponsored by a political organization or candidate," and (C) "A judge should not engage in any other political activity." That Canon further states, "The term 'political organization' refers to a political party, a group affiliated with a political party or candidate for public office, or an entity whose principal purpose is to advocate for or against political candidates or parties in connection with elections for public office." [Emphasis added] Which brings us to the Federalist Society, a political organization to which nearly every judicial candidate Trump has nominated has belonged or in some other way supported, either with contributions, attendance at society functions, or served on committees of. "[T]he Federalist Society and its high-profile members have long insisted the nonprofit organization does not endorse any political party 'or engage in other forms of political advocacy,' as its website says. The society does not deny an ideology—it calls itself a 'group of conservatives and libertarians'—but it maintains that it is simply 'about ideas,' not legislation, politicians or policy positions," Politico journalist Amanda Hollis-Brusky writes. "Federalist Society documents that one of us recently unearthed, however, make this position untenable going forward. The documents, made public here for the first time, show that the society not only has held explicit ideological goals since its infancy in the early 1980s, but sought to apply those ideological goals to legal policy and political issues through the group’s roundtables, symposia and conferences." Anyone who's followed the Federalist Society for a while (as this author has) can easily confirm the truth in Hollis-Brusky's assessment, and a 1984 grant proposal written by the society's executive director Eugene Meyer, seeking funds to establish a "Lawyers Division" within the society, makes that pretty clear. "The Federalist Society promised the prospective donor that the Lawyers Division would have a 'dual purpose'," Hollis-Brusky writes. "First, to 'an even greater extent than the activities of the student and faculty divisions,' the new division would 'educat[e] lawyers on legal developments with ideological connotations and how to deal with them.' The second purpose was 'the formation of groups of conservative lawyers in the major centers for the practice of law, who feel comfortable believing in, and advocating, conservative positions.' ... The proposal also mentioned the Lawyers Division potentially 'making its own recommendation for judicial appointments.'" And you can't get much more political than making recommendations for judicial appointments! But it gets better! "Federalist Society conferences, symposia and related activities have come to perform important functions for the Republican Party," the Politico article continues. "Through these events, the society provides a forum for federal judges to 'audition' for the Supreme Court with the goal of demonstrating they will not 'drift' to the left like GOP-nominated Justices Harry Blackmun, David Souter and, to a certain extent, Chief Justice John Roberts. The auditioning function has proved (largely) successful. As has been widely noted, all five the GOP-nominated justices on the Court were active in the society before their nominations. Because membership in the Federalist Society has long been seen as a demonstration of ideological bona fides and a subscription to a package of ideas, prospective federal judges can use the group’s events to signal their fealty to the movement’s legal policy goals. Indeed, there is evidence that judges who are Federalist Society members are significantly more conservative on the bench than unaffiliated GOP nominees." Or as AboveTheLaw.com columnist Elie Mystal wrote yesterday, "Conservatives have long since stopped pretending that they are restrained by ethics in pursuit of their supremacist ideology. They want to deny equal rights to blacks, gays, and women. They know that in order to accomplish that, they have to reinterpret the Constitution along its original lines which protected the rights of wealthy whites and no one else. They are close to total victory. That victory is being achieved by getting an army of conservatives jurists to be picked directly by the Federalist Society based on their level of indoctrination and willingness to abandon settled precedent in favor of the FedSoc’s agenda. They don’t give a damn about judicial ethics. If they did, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh wouldn’t have jobs from which they can never be fired." So since it's unlikely that Attorney General William Barr will be either seeking these judges' resignations or instituting impeachment proceedings, America's (and the adult industry's) only hope is that 2020 will bring new leadership to the DOJ that's willing to enforce the judicial Canons of Ethics—and thereby create a whole new block of judicial vacancies.