Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), then a US Attorney down in Alabama, made his name as a race and voting rights troglodyte by prosecuting three African-American voting rights activists on trumped up charges of vote fraud. That was back in early 1980s. (He's was at it before it was cool, you might say.)

Brian Beutler just spoke to one of the two surviving defendants (who were speedily acquitted when the case actually went to trial) about what he thinks of Sessions' elevation to top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.