Our Constitutional Republic faces a clear and present danger more deadly than that of the Civil War. The danger is the Republican Party, a "political party" that has sold out to white supremacy, autocracy, misogyny, and hatred of everything our Nation stands for. Republicans dismiss any sense of a common American narrative. The "Republican Party" is an outlier in our history – ideologically extreme; contemptuous of social and economic policies that have sustained us for a century; unwilling to compromise; dismissive of evidence, fact, and science; dismissive of the legitimacy of any viewpoint except their own. America needs to face the simple, frightening fact that the Republican Party is a clear and present danger to our Constitutional Republic.
Hate-filled, ignorant Republican Senators attack judicial nominee because of his religion
In case you missed it, a lawyer from Jersey City known as a defender of civil rights and religious freedom, who has support from both the Muslim and Jewish communities, was nominated to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
This should have been an historic moment – Adeel Mangi, picked by Joe Biden, would be the highest ranking Muslim judge in American history. His young kids were there for his recent confirmation hearing before the Senate, sporting ties.
But what we got instead was an ugly spectacle, and an insult to New Jersey. Instead of asking about his impressive qualifications or landmark cases, Senate Republicans shouted at and relentlessly interrupted Mangi with irrelevant, salacious questions about Israel, Hamas – even whether he celebrated 9-11.
Notably, another judicial nominee being vetted at the same hearing, who is Jewish, was not asked about Israel, or any of this. It’s just the new litmus test for Muslims, apparently – no matter if the man happens to be Pakistani American. They all look the same, right Tom Cotton?
“Itwas a heartbreaking scene for the first Muslim American federal circuit judicial nominee to face relentless questioning on Israel, terrorism including September 11th, and the Holocaust,” said Sheila Katz, who heads the National Council of Jewish Women, one of the leading Jewish organizations to condemn this behavior from Republicans.
“He answered with grace and respect, and with the temperament of a federal judge, despite the persistent bombardment of biased queries,” she told us. “But it was deeply upsetting, it was Islamophobic, and it was very important for us, as a Jewish organization, to actually say: Not in our name.”
These attacks from folks like Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley made it clear that Republicans have nothing of substance to use against Mangi, a graduate of Oxford and Harvard Law School endorsed by the major Bar Associations; so they had to reach far and repeat themselves over and over, she noted.
He was clear the first time: He has never heard of any of the commentators on the Middle East that Republicans asked about.
The straw they’re grasping at is Mangi’s former membership on an advisory board for a think tank at Rutgers Law School called the Center for Security, Race and Rights, whose goal was to combat anti-Muslim bigotry, and which recently hosted some controversial speakers. But this board met only once a year to provide ideas for academic research, Mangi said, and had no supervisory role over the Center’s day-to-day activities or choice of speakers.
“Senator, I don’t think anyone feels more strongly about what happened on 9/11 than someone who was there, who saw with their own eyes smoke billowing from the towers,” said Mangi, who’s worked in New York City for decades. He could not have put it more plainly: He has “no patience—none—for any attempts to justify or defend” Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel and will condemn “any terrorist or any act of terrorism,” and do so “without equivocation.”
This asshole — calling himself “Senator McConnell — not only defied the Constitution by stealing a Supreme Court Seat — attacked a respected judge by asking him if he “celebrated 9-11”.
So on what basis did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell then put out a statement claiming Mangi has “an extensive record of condoning terrorist propaganda”?
We asked McConnell’s office for evidence, but got no response. That’s wildly slanderous; in any other setting, grounds for a defamation lawsuit. Imagine if we said Mitch McConnell has “an extensive record of condoning Nazi propaganda” because his fellow Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz, once defended a man who flashed a Nazi salute at a school board meeting.
This attack on Mangi is even more tenuous. It’s a rare occasion that a New Jersey-based seat opens up on the Third Circuit, which also covers Delaware, Pennsylvania and the Virgin Islands, and someone from New Jersey is chosen to fill it. And Mangi is an outstanding choice – “exactly the kind of person that we should want serving on our highest court,” said Bennett Miller, an influential New Brunswick rabbi.
Mangi, a partner at a large New York law firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, has done admirable pro bono work, defending New Jerseyans wrongfully blocked from building a mosque, and winning the largest settlement in New York state history for the death of a mentally ill state prison inmate. He’s served on the board of the Legal Aid Society, as an ally board member for the National LGBT Bar Association, and cultivated a coalition of more than 100 interfaith groups to defend the program known as “DACA,” which protects undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children – winning the trust and respect of leading organizations like the American Jewish Committee.
That group, which is nonpartisan, spoke out strongly against his ill treatment. Mangi was “questioned aggressively on thin pretext,” it said, and “elected officials should take a leadership role in calming the fears of and against American religious minorities, such as Jews and Muslims, not stoke them.”
“It was taking really serious issues like Israel, terrorism and anti-Semitism, and turning them into tools of a partisan attack,” said Rabbi David Levy, AJC’s regional director in New Jersey.
Mangi does not profess to be an expert on the Middle East, an area of the world he is not from, and at his hearing, said he’d “never heard of” controversial speakers at a 9-11 anniversary event held by the Rutgers Center. So why did Republican Sen. John Kennedy imagine it ok to ask him, “Is this the way you celebrate 9/11?”
Now think about the impact this has on other Muslims considering going into public service. Why give up lucrative jobs in the private sector to subject yourself to this spectacle of bullying? That is no doubt exactly what the goal is for McConnell’s shameless crew: To exclude people from the levers of government, by making it intolerable for them to participate.
The next time some bible-thumping, psalm-singing evangelical christian starts telling me how he is being persecuted, I may just persecute him with a couple of punches in the face.
