7/9/2019

28 Responses to “Coincidental Timing: Mitch McConnell’s Ancestors Slave Owners; McConnell Challenger Announces”

1. I wish the media weren’t so embarrassingly obvious.

   Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 8:29 am

   
   

2. I think McGrath has the makings of a great politician: She lost a major race, and is coming back to run against someone in an even more powerful position and thinks she can win. Swamp mentality, indeed.

   Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 8:35 am

   
   

3. The media can’t help themselves. They don’t care to.

   Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/9/2019 @ 8:40 am

   
   

4. Wow, you mean the MSM and the Democrats are going to call a Republican a racist! Shocking. Will Mittens weigh in?

   rcocean (1a839e) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:09 am

   
   

5. Felicia Sonmez
   @feliciasonmez
   Sen. Mitch McConnell’s great-great-grandfathers owned 14 slaves, bringing reparations issue close to home
   __ _

   T. Becket Adams
   @BecketAdams
   whoa

   there are Democrats in McConnell’s family line??
   __

   harkin (58d012) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:19 am

   
   

6. I suspect NBC News started digging when Mitch made his reparations statement, figuring it was an easy way to target him, and that Ms McGrath’s announcement had nothing to do with it.
   [Face it: anyone who had an ancestor who lived in the antebellum South has a good chance of having a slaveholding ancestor.]

   Kishnevi (4777d8) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:33 am

   
   

7. I guess genetic ancestry matters after all.

   Munroe (8e3726) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:41 am

   
   

8. I just think all these reparation talks is straight up unconstitutional.

   In Article 3, Section 3, and it deals with treason. It says that “no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attained.” Does this only means the crimes of treason? Or does this means in effect that whatever the “sins of the fathers,” they not be imputed to future generations?

   whembly (fd57f6) — 7/9/2019 @ 9:48 am

   
   

9. Right, the attack on Thomas Jefferson, having nothing to do with defending bill clinton

   Narciso (23765c) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:07 am

   
   

10. In Article 3, Section 3, and it deals with treason. It says that “no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attained.” Does this only means the crimes of treason? Or does this means in effect that whatever the “sins of the fathers,” they not be imputed to future generations?

    Not.

    First of all, that clause deals with punishment for criminal acts, specifically treason. Even if it applies to other crimes, that does not exclude compensatory payments. It is common to sue the Estate of someone deceased for compensation of some kind. (Suppose John Doe caused a car accident and caused thousand of dollars in damages. Then he dies. Shouldn’t his estate have to pay?)

    And secondly, the reparations are not directed at any one person or persons. It is the taxpayers as a whole that are going to pay an reparations.

    Which is why the whole McConnell’s-anscestors-were-slave-owners meme is a total non-sequitur. McConnell is not going to pay anything. The U.S. treasury, funded by all the taxpayers, would pay. And that includes taxpayers, probably the vast majority, whose ancestors never owned slaves, and may not even have been in the U.S. before the Civil War.

    Bored Lawyer (998177) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:08 am

    
    

11. Where a reparations scheme would have Constitutional problems is that it would likely be based on race. What would qualify someone to get reparations? Black skin? African American ancestry?

    How would it deal with mixed-race people — like Barack Obama, whose mother was white and father black? Or black people who came him after the Civil Ware (ditto on Obama — his father was from Kenya and came here in 1960 and married Obama’s mother in 1961.)

    Bored Lawyer (998177) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:20 am

    
    

12. @ whembly (#8): I think this synopsis of Article III, Section 3, is correct, but materially incomplete in its final paragraph:

    Treason is the only crime specifically defined in the Constitution. According to Article III, Section 3, a person is guilty of treason if he or she goes to war against the United States or gives “aid or comfort” to an enemy. He or she does not have to physically pick up a weapon and fight in combat against U.S. troops. Actively helping the enemy by passing along classified information or supplying weapons, for example, can lead to charges of treason.

    Vocal opposition to a U.S. war effort through protest and demonstration, however, is protected by the free speech clause in the First Amendment. A conviction of treason must be based either on an admission of guilt in open court or on the testimony of two witnesses.

    Congress may set the punishment, but it must be directed only at the guilty person and not at his or her friends or family if they were not involved in the crime.

    What’s missing is a discussion of the term “attainder” (aka “bill of attainder”) for which the introduction to the Wikipedia entry concisely gives the necessary historical context:

    A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of pains and penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person’s civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs), the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself. Bills of attainder passed in Parliament by Henry VIII on 29 January 1542 resulted in the executions of a number of notable historical figures.

    The use of these bills by Parliament eventually fell into disfavour due to the obvious potential for abuse and the violation of several legal principles, most importantly the right to due process, the precept that a law should address a particular form of behaviour rather than a specific individual or group, and the separation of powers.

    To answer your specific question, the limitation in Article III, Section 3, clearly applies only to treason, as defined exclusively therein, and not to other crimes that could result in fines or criminal forfeitures.

    BUT: The restrictions of Article III, Section 3, are mostly duplicative of Article I, Section 9, which in expressly limiting the powers of Congress, declares:

    No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

    That’s the belt. The suspenders, of course, is the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.

    As for “sins of the father”: In general, and at least as to criminal punishments (imprisonment, fines), you’re right that those can’t be imputed to future generations. But it extends beyond kin to, in general, anyone not himself or herself individually convicted after due process.

    HOWEVER (which you knew was coming, right?): Congress and state legislatures can and do pass “civil forfeiture” laws, which courts have upheld even though they can result in property forfeitures vastly exceeding criminal fines, and with little to no due process. The excuse for that is that the legislature is not convicting the property owner of a crime (i.e., attainting him or her through legislation) without due process (as through a bill of attainder), but is instead focusing on — and essentially, weirdly, punishing not the person but the property — based on, for example, its use in the commission of another crime. That’s why those civil forfeiture cases are generally styled, for example, “United States of American versus $4,325,000 in $100 bills with nonconsecutive serial numbers as contained in a steamer trunk seized by the DEA on September 19, 2018.” It harks back to an ancient common-law distinction between a court’s “in personem” jurisdiction, which is over persons, and a court’s “in rem” jurisdiction, which is over things (including ships, real property, and cash and other personal property).

    Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:24 am

    
    

13. *personam. Mea culpa.

    Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:26 am

    
    

14. I agree with Bored Lawyer that any reparations scheme would, of constitutional necessity, have to be funded by Congress, and not through criminal or even civil forfeitures of private property. McConnell’s at no more risk than, say, Colin Kaepernick or any other taxpayer.

    Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:28 am

    
    

15. @Bored Lawyer and @Beldar…

    Thank you. The things I learn and your participation on this site is one of many reason why I come here every day.

    whembly (fd57f6) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:33 am

    
    

16. Oh, you’re welcome. You ask very interesting questions, whembly. And there are indeed some very sharp legal minds who comment (or blog!) here; I learn from them, too!

    Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:47 am

    
    

17. I suspect the Old Snapping Turtle danced a private jig upon Amy McGrath’s announcement of her campaign, and he’s thrilled to give her more publicity. He didn’t even have to beg her not to throw him into this briar-patch!

    Beldar (fa637a) — 7/9/2019 @ 10:54 am

    
    

18. Kishnevi @ 6,

    You give the media the benefit of the doubt with your statement. I don’t see any reason to do that, given the coincidental timing of both news items.

    Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 11:41 am

    
    

19. It’s akin to the media not reporting on Biden’s segregation views over the years after Obama named him running mate.

    Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:04 pm

    
    

20. I’ve been lurking I’ll second Whembly’s comment. This type of summary is educational and I apprecaite the work.

    Time123 (89dfb2) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:05 pm

    
    

21. Heh:

    Mitch McConnell responds to this report: “I find myself once again in the same position as President Obama. We both opposed reparations and we both are the descendants of slave-owners.”

    Dana (bb0678) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:10 pm

    
    

22. Typical liberal whining as calling cocain mitch a corporate stooge has no effect on older voters. Yelling racists only gets through as older black people don’t hate trump they way older white clintonista democratic lib?dykes do.

    lany (f3f423) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:28 pm

    
    

23. She lost a winnable race (KY-6) in what was supposed to be a Democrat year, in a district targeted by the DCCC as one they could flip. Now she thinks she can take out Cocaine Mitch?

    Sorry, kids, I just don’t see it. He beat a far stronger opponent in 2014 by 15.5 points.

    Jeff Lebowski (5afc39) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:29 pm

    
    

24. The only thing better would have been if Mitch had added ‘Democratic’ to slave owners.

    
    IleanaE.
    @FilleGitane
    You come at the King you best not miss.

    _

    harkin (b7bcc1) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:31 pm

    
    

25. the turtle does occasionally snap:

    https://www.marshallnewsmessenger.com/opinion/columns/ann-coulter-was-thomas-jefferson-on-the-duke-lacrosse-team/article_20eed382-a05a-11e9-bcb0-436538f714c4.html

    if it looks like a coincidence it isn’t,

    narciso (d1f714) — 7/9/2019 @ 12:35 pm

    
    

26. So Amy McGrath is trying the MJ Hegar strategy?
    “Hey I’m a female Democrat, veteran with a great military record, who only lost by 3% in a Democratic year. I can TOTALLY take on John Cornyn for Senate.” Let us know how that works out MJ

    Stacy0311 (3d63e6) — 7/9/2019 @ 1:26 pm

    
    

27. Logan Dobson
    @LoganDobson
    [paraphrase]

    Tapper: You compared Trump’s election to 9/11. Can you explain that?

    McGrath: Um, well, I only meant that, uh, they were both… very surprising
    _

    harkin (58d012) — 7/9/2019 @ 5:22 pm

    
    

28. Cocaine Mitch knows his way around the Twitter.

    Paul Montagu (fc91e5) — 7/9/2019 @ 5:35 pm