"PRO-LIFE" REPUBLICANS WOULD BE FINE IF INNOCENT SUPREME COURT CLERKS DIED

Here's a headline at the Washington Free Beacon:

House Dems Insert Poison Pill Into Bipartisan Bill To Protect Supreme Court Justices

Oooh, a poison pill! What did House Democrats do -- add a provision requiring mandatory gay sharia abortions for all Americans?

No. Here's the unspeakable thing Democrats might add to the bill:

Leadership members said on Wednesday ... they are now considering a new bill with an added provision that extends the security to the Court's 40-odd clerks—a provision sure to turn off Republicans.

Republicans insist that the justices are in mortal danger. So why is it unthinkable to protect the clerks as well?

Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), who coauthored the legislation with a Democrat colleague, said Wednesday that taxpayer-funded police protection should not be extended to clerks, given that one of them likely caused the protests putting the safety of justices at risk.

"This partisan bill in the House ignores the good faith work that was being done here in the Senate to build consensus, and expands this legislation to include divisive provisions like potentially extending police protection to the very person who leaked the draft opinion," Cornyn said.

A Senate aide told the Free Beacon that the bill has "no chance of passing in the Senate" with the new provision.

So Republicans have concluded that none of the clerks deserve protection because they're certain one of the clerks leaked the draft -- a conclusion they've reached based on no evidence whatsoever.

And it isn't just any clerk:

Rep. Greg Stanton (D., Ariz.), who authored the modified House bill, cited viral social media posts identifying clerks who may have leaked the opinion as rationale for including additional security concerns in his bill.

There's one clerk in particular -- a clerk for the retiring Stephen Breyer -- who's the subject of the most speculation. A Twitter thread identifying the clerk by name, with a photo attached, was posted last week by a GOP-connected lawyer with nearly a quarter million followers. The thread has been retweeted more than 11,000 times. (I won't link to the thread.)

The other senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, has appointed himself judge and jury on this question:

“I do not believe any justice did that. I think it would be unimaginable for a justice to do this,” Cruz said of the leak on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” ...

“Let’s start off with who has access to this opinion,” the senator said Sunday. “It is a very small pool of suspects. The court itself is a small institution. It’s a big building but small institution.” ...

“It is almost certainly one of those 36 law clerks,” he added. “And I think it is almost certainly one of the 12 law clerks that are clerking for the three liberal justices. That is a small suspect pool.”

Case closed! It has to be a clerk and it has to be one eho's liberal, because liberals are all evil. And if one of them did it, all of them deserve to be at risk. So paint that target on the backs of all twelve of the clerks who work for justices appointed by Democrats! (All of their names are a matter of public record.)

Though you'd think Republicans would be arguing that "the radical left" is surely targeting clerks who work for Republican appointees, since we're all evil and depraved. But maybe they wouldn't care if someone on the left attacked a right-leaning clerk -- those people are expendable (unlike right-wing Supreme Court justices during a Democratic presidency), and it would be useful to have a bloody shirt to wave. In any case, if Democrats add this provision to the bill and send it back to the Senate, it appears that Republicans will filibuster it -- because while they care deeply about the well-being of Supreme Court justices, they care more about demonizing the libs.