If you could breathe life into 4chan, the dark corner of the Internet where shitposters, edgelords, Groypers, and trolls of all kinds thrive, and then appoint this new lifeform to the federal bench, you would have created Judge James Ho.
Ho, appointed by former president Donald Trump in 2018 to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, recently argued that anti-abortion doctors may seek a court order banning a commonly prescribed abortion medication, because “doctors delight in working with their unborn patients — and experience an aesthetic injury when they are aborted.”
He’s written that a federal law prohibiting gun possession by people that a court has determined to be a “credible threat to the physical safety of [their] intimate partner” is unconstitutional. Among other things, Ho claimed that this law “should give us pause” because women getting a divorce sometimes seek such court orders as “a tactical leverage device” in their divorce proceedings.
Ho’s very first opinion as a judge, a dissenting opinion in a case he did not even hear, claimed that all laws limiting the amount that wealthy donors may give to political campaigns are unconstitutional. Under Ho’s understanding of the Constitution, nothing prevents Harlan Crow, the billionaire Republican donor famous for lavishing gifts on Justice Clarence Thomas, from funding an entire presidential campaign.
Also, speaking of Harlan Crow, Ho held his official ceremony swearing him in as a federal judge in Crow’s personal library.
Honored to attend Jim Ho’s swearing in to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals today, alongside Justice Clarence Thomas & Judge Jerry Smith. I am confident my good friend Jim will be an extraordinary appellate judge and a principled jurist faithful to the law. pic.twitter.com/s1tWYu2j2c
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 5, 2018
Ho’s work, in other words, is often indistinguishable from that of a professional troll. He revels…
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