Ketanji ‘I Don’t Understand’ Brown-Jackson

I’ve kind of watched Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson in…well…I suppose you could call it ‘action’ over the past couple of years and baffles the crap out of me. This latest peer performance review, the result of another 8-1 decision, has caused me to solidify my initial impression.

I thought there was a possibility the vagueness was an act. A crafty bit of prevarication to get around tough conservative questions during her hearings, sort of like Clinton’s ‘definition of IS.’

Yeah, no.

Ketanji Brown-Jackson wasn’t so ardently a woke and progressive warrior that she resisted Senator Marsha Blackburn’s efforts to ‘define a woman.’

   

The woke and progressive ideology provided cover to a mediocre intellect, shielding KBJ from having to articulate a coherent answer to a simple question.

The question is, obviously, how did someone so unsuitable, so ill-prepared to sit on the nation’s highest court, even considering the mushroom we had for a president at the time, get the nod to begin with?

What’s worse is that she’s been on the Democrats’ radar forever as a pick. Like, seeing her now, how?

You have to wonder how on earth the monstrous disconnect exists between what the resume says she should be and what comes out of this vacuous female’s mouth and off the point of her pen in her opinions.

It’s as if you’re talking about two entirely different people.

Data Republican did a dive into Brown-Jackson’s resume.

Fun fact: in researching Kentanji Brown Jackson, I found that her brother-in-law’s sister-in-law is married to Paul Ryan.

KBJ graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and served as supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review, before advancing through the judicial pipeline. If… pic.twitter.com/DzHVHZY9ao

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) June 27, 2025

…If she is unqualified, then that implies Harvard has prioritized ideology over legal scholarship since the 1990s at the least. 

Another interesting tidbit I found was that Obama had shortlisted her to replace Scalia all the way back in 2016! 

Here’s her timeline:  

1992: graduated from Harvard with a BA, magna cum laude 

1992-1993: Worked as staff reporter and researcher for Time Magazine 

1996: graduated from Harvard with a Juris Doctor, cum laude 

1996–1997: Law clerk for U.S. District Judge Patti Saris, District of Massachusetts 

1997-1998: Law clerk for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Bruce Seyla, First Circuit  

1999-2000: Law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Breyer 

2000-2002: Private legal practice at Goodwin Proctor  

2002-2003: Worked under Kenneth Feinberg 

2003-2005: Assistant special counsel to US Sentencing Commission 

2005-2007: Assistant federal public defender in DC 

2007-2010: Appellate specialist at Morrison & Foerster 

2010-2014: Succeeded Michael Horowitz as vice chair of US Sentencing Commission, nominated by Obama

2013-2021: US District Judge, District of Columbia, nominated by Obama

2021-2022: Elevated to Court of Appeals, replacing Merrick Garland (Note: Senators Collins, Murkowski, and Graham joined Democrats in confirming Jackson) 

2022: SCOTUS nomination – Romney, Collins, and Murkowski joined Democrats in confirming Jackson

Like, WOW, you’d think, right? Dream sheet here. And considered as a possible SCALIA replacement?

Holy CRAP.  Perish the unholy thought. What an abomination that would have been.

Now contrast that impressive record of legal accomplishment, constitutional scholarship, and upward mobility with…this.

IN MY OPINIONS, I LOVE TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT MY #FEELZ

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
“I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people, in my opinions, how I feel about the issues.”

It’s not about a judge’s feelings. It’s about what is constitutional under the laws. 🤦‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/LT973t68dF

— Joni Job (@jj_talking) July 8, 2025

One of these things is not like the other, and tragi-comically for us, the ‘other’ is now a sitting SCOTUS justice.

She’s also very chatty, speaking during arguments twice as much as the other female justices, and as much as all her male colleagues combined.

KBJ speaks more then all of the male Supreme Court justices combined pic.twitter.com/h2RT36AxuV

— The Rabbit Hole (@TheRabbitHole84) June 27, 2025

A good portion of her extended courtroom interrogatories, unsurprisingly, begin with ‘I don’t understand.‘ So much so that they’ve actually been able to compile what might be called a KBJ Don’t Get It Greatest Hits video.

It’s brutal, but it’s all her.

KBJ: “I don’t understand.”
pic.twitter.com/SUZGqswav2

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 8, 2025

When opinions are issued from the court, it’s usually an eagerly awaited and solemn occasion. There’s a massive scrum on the steps of the SCOTUS building, with the media waiting for them to be handed out. Scrambling reporters speed-reading to get the gist and then be the first to break what the decision was and the pro-con spread of the justices.

KBJ has certainly now added her own stamp to the titillation of the moment, that little frisson of anticipation before the news breaks. Besides the obvious import of the decision itself, now there’s avid curiosity about where the newest justice stood, did she write another daffy dissent, and, most importantly, did she receive yet another scathing setdown from one of her colleagues in theirs.

Oh, my gosh – everyone on the outside is on pins and needles.

It’s starting to sound as if everyone on the inside is about up to their eyeballs with KBJ’s #feelz.

The first true broadside came a few short weeks ago with the release of the decision in the CASA birthright citizenship case. In a shocking development for the traditionally staid staid Supreme Court, it concluded with an absolutely ripping opinion by Amy Coney Barrett that took a helluva whack at Miz Justice #Feelz.

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett stunned veteran bench watchers Friday with a blunt takedown of liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s “extreme” dissent in the landmark birthright citizenship case in which the Supreme Court curtailed lower court use of universal injunctions.

“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,” wrote Barrett, the court’s second-newest justice, in a jaw-dropping rebuke of her colleague, the newest justice.

“We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

Girlfriend gonna need some ointment for that burn.

Prof JonathanTurley broke down what finally broke Barrett down – a combination of KBJ’s over-the-top hyperbole and legal laziness. 

…This hyperbole seemed to border on hysteria in the Jackson dissent. The most junior justice effectively accused her colleagues of being toadies for tyranny.

It proved too much for the majority, which pushed back on the overwrought rhetoric.

…Liberals who claim “democracy is dying” seem to view democracy as getting what you want when you want it.

It was, therefore, distressing to see Jackson picking up on the “No Kings” theme, warning about drifting toward “a rule-of-kings governing system”

She said that limiting the power of individual judges to freeze the entire federal government was “enabling our collective demise. At the very least, I lament that the majority is so caught up in minutiae of the Government’s self-serving, finger-pointing arguments that it misses the plot.”

The “minutiae” dismissed by Jackson happen to be the statutory and constitutional authority of federal courts. It is the minutiae that distinguish the rule of law from mere judicial impulse.

…The last term has laid bare some of the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Jackson, including a certain exasperation with having to closely follow the text of laws.  (In an earlier dissent this term, Jackson lashed out against the limits of textualism and argued for courts to free themselves from the confines — or shall we say the “minutiae” — of statutory language). In this opinion, Barrett slams Jackson for pursuing other diversions “because analyzing the governing statute involves boring ‘legalese.’” Again, what Jackson refers to as “legalese” is the heart of the judicial function in constraining courts under Article III.

Untethered by statutory or constitutional text, it allows the courts to float free from the limits of the Constitution.

For many, that is not an escape into minutiae but madness without clear lines for judicial power.

Why be burdened with ‘boring legalese’ when you can explain your #feelz and write about Martians in your SCOTUS dissents?

A Martian arriving here to read the paragraph would conclude that the author had no argument or legal expertise, and would be startled to learn our most exalted must resort to speculating about little green men.

— Razor (@hale_razor) June 29, 2025

Another opinion was released yesterday, and the unthinkable happened. The gobsmacking happened.

It was an 8-1 decision allowing President Trump to continue shrinking the federal workforce. KBJ was the lone dissent, which is no surprise as she’s been the Lone Ranger before.

It was the one justice who took a whack at her in the decision this time that had jaws literally on the deck.

Hold on.

KBJ wrote a dissent so stupid that SOTOMAYOR had to tell her to shut up?

— RBe (@RBPundit) July 8, 2025

Yes…yes.

THE WISE LATINA FINALLY HAD ENOUGH

BOOMITY

KBJ is a mess. It’s only through the grace of God that she’s not in the majority, and thank God the two liberal justices have some semblance of constitutional integrity.

This is part of Jackson’s dissent from the NY Post. Scary actually. Jackson believes the Executive branch has to go to Congress first to dictate the administration of Federal Agencies. Wow. pic.twitter.com/K9r1ajMAuQ

— Marcus Notrealius (@TheLieKeeper) July 9, 2025

There are all sorts of fantasy scenarios for ridding the court of this troublesome dolt, from impeachment to writing a big check, but the reality is we’re stuck with what the POTATUS auto-pen presidency hath wrought and can only be grateful it wasn’t worse.

It’s awfully hard to reconcile how someone reportedly has those accomplishments on paper – I mean, there they are, undisputed –  and yet is such a confirmed lightweight, such a vacuous non-entity in real life. 

How does that happen?

Ketanji Brown Jackson has been the lone dissent in three cases, including today’s.

Three times Sonia Sotomayor—who is on record as having full-blown emotional breakdowns in her chambers—has concluded Ketanji is even too stupid for her.

Let that sink in.

— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) July 8, 2025

However it does, we’ve sure seen a lot of it lately.