And Kennedy decides to fuck us all

[Lord Jim]

he used to run a meth lab, and produce kiddie-porn in the basement.

Many people are saying that...

[wesw]

now that video was a trip in the way-back machine....

[Guinevere]

His earlier work shows him to be a very pro-impeachment kind of guy. And he argued in favour of some wide exceptions to attorney-client privilege. This pick could come back to bite Trump on the ass.

The first two points in his Law Review article from 2012 are all you need to know about why Kavanaugh was selected: http://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-co ... gh_MLR.pdf

I. PROVIDE SITTING PRESIDENTS WITH A TEMPORARY DEFERRAL OF CIVIL SUITS AND OF CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS AND INVESTIGATIONS

II. ENSURE PROMPT SENATE VOTES ON EXECUTIVE
AND JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

I’ll clip more later but do follow the link... as usual, it’s all about himself.

[Big RR]

Re Point I, if that is what he is suggesting Congress do, I guess he would agree that that immunity/deferral does not exist now and he would not invent it as a justice deferring to Congress and the original intent of the framers; it's far better than arguing the separation of powers requires it.

[Lord Jim]

Re Point I, if that is what he is suggesting Congress do, I guess he would agree that that immunity/deferral does not exist now

That was my take on that, but as desperate as Trump is I'm sure it had an effect on his decision...

[Scooter]

Point 2 doesn't exactly help his own case either; he argues for having a vote on judicial nominees within six months of nomination, which could put a vote on his own nomination off into the next Congress.

[Scooter]

[Lord Jim]

Apparently social conservatives and the religious right aren't exactly standing up and applauding this pick:

How Christian Conservatives Are Reacting to Trump’s Supreme Court Pick

President Trump has chosen Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court, a decision he announced on Monday night live from the White House.

The establishment wing of the Republican party quickly rallied to praise the choice. Kavanaugh once served as an aide to President George W. Bush, and is a Yale graduate twice over. Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson quickly called the nominee a “man of character, decency and intellectual depth.” Bush himself quickly issued a statement calling him a “brilliant jurist.”

But the praise was hardly unanimous on the right. The American Family Association, a conservative organization that owns hundreds of radio stations, immediately urged its supporters to contact their senators to oppose the nominee. The AFA takes issue with Kavanaugh’s opinion in an Obamacare-related case that affirmed the government has a “compelling” interest in providing women with access to contraception. The statement echoed a long argument by an anonymous writer at the Federalist several days ago, worrying over Kavanaugh’s “troubling record on religious liberty.”

Though Christian conservatives had been generally pleased by Trump’s short-list, Kavanaugh had not been their favorite leading up the announcement. Instead, many social conservatives championed another federal judge, Amy Coney Barrett, in part because of the optics of having a conservative woman and mother of seven presiding over abortion decisions on the court. (Barrett did have one skeptic on the Christian right, though: Pat Robertson, who mused on a recent CBN News segment, “That’s going to be tough to be a judge and take care of all those kids, won’t it?” It’s unclear if he knows Barrett is already a judge.)

Some pro-life voices called Barrett’s spurning a missed opportunity on Monday night. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, David French of the National Review lamented the choice of Kavanaugh without actually opposing it, calling him an “establishment” pick, a “safe choice,” and an “elitist’s elitist.” By contrast, he wrote, picking Barrett—who allegedly belongs to a conservative Catholic religious community—could have prompted an “important cultural moment”: “an opportunity for the best of young professional Christians to face the worst of progressive antireligion bias and prevail on the largest possible stage.”

More:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... eacts.html

Trump of course doesn't give a shit about overturning Roe or anything else on the Social Conservative agenda. It's become pretty obvious that he made this choice based on a misreading of what Kavanaugh wrote in a 2009 memo that has led him to believe that the judge would be helpful with something he does care about...

Saving his sorry ass from Russiagate...

[Jarlaxle]

He should have nominated Miguel Estrada.

[Lord Jim]

Yeah, Estrada got royally screwed by Senator Slime...



I'll learn more about him, but my initial take on Kavanaugh is that if I were in the Senate, I would be inclined to vote for him...

He appears to be well qualified, and a fairly mainstream Conservative jurist...

The sort of person that just about any Republican President would have nominated. (Trump could certainly have done worse; I would have had some serious issues with Judge Barrett)

I'm sure that some of the Senate Dems, (particularly those eying a 2020 Presidential run) and some in the party's activist base will try to portray him as the devil incarnate, but after watching him and his family on the tube last night, this is going to be a very tough guy to demonize...

He sure doesn't come across as a Bob Bork...

[Big RR]

That's my initial reaction as well, Jim; while he wouldn't make an list I'd have as an ideal nomination, I think he's about a good as we could expect from Trump, and a good deal better than many of the alternatives. The main thing I want to see in any SC justice is an academic/intellectual bent toward the law, because I think they will use it in making their decisions rather than being a reactionary ideologue. However, I am cautious and do want to read more of what he has written.

[Lord Jim]

This is getting interesting:

Jeff Flake says Kavanaugh accuser "must be heard" before committee vote

Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake is calling for a delay in the vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to be a Supreme Court justice. Flake told the Washington Post that he thought the committee should hear from the woman who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when the two were in high school.

"I've made it clear that I'm not comfortable moving ahead with the vote on Thursday if we have not heard her side of the story or explored this further," Flake told the Post in an interview Sunday. Flake sits on the Judiciary Committee and is part of the committee's one-vote majority over Democrats.

Following committee action on Kavanaugh, it is then up to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to schedule floor debate and a vote. McConnell could potentially start the floor process on the Kavanaugh nomination as early as Thursday afternoon and the debate and final confirmation vote would happen during the week of Sept. 24.

The woman who made the accusation, Christine Blasey Ford, came forward in an article published Sunday by the Washington Post.

Flake told the Post that Ford "must be heard" and said, "for me, we can't vote until we hear more." He did not tell the Post what form that communication should take — whether she should be interviewed by senators or committee staff or testify.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, and Dianne Feinstein, the highest ranking Democrat on the committee, have been working to set up follow-up calls with Kavanaugh and Ford, Committee spokesman Taylor Foy said in a statement.

Foy said that the two routinely hold bipartisan staff calls with nominees when updates are made to their background files. He also wrote, "It's disturbing that these uncorroborated allegations from more than 35 years ago, during high school, would surface on the eve of a committee vote after Democrats sat on them since July."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that while he agrees with the committee's stated concern "about the substance and process regarding the allegations in this latest claim," he "would gladly listen to what she has to say and compare that against all other information we have received about Judge Kavanaugh." Graham said if the committee is to hear from Ford, it should be "done immediately so the process can continue as scheduled."

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.

A lawyer familiar with the Kavanaugh nomination process said the White House knows the situation is tougher, but that the White House remains fully committed to Kavanaugh. The lawyer thinks there's no reason at this time to assume that Thursday's committee confirmation vote will be delayed. President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani told CBS News that Kavanaugh's nomination "will not" be withdrawn "as far as I know."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeff-flake ... ttee-vote/

To be honest I didn't really think much of this, ( a single anonymous 35 year old allegation, that the Democrats sat on for two months) until today when the lady identified herself and two additional facts emerged:

1.That she discussed the incident with both her husband and her therapist six years ago, well after Kavanaugh had been appointed to the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals, and when she had no reason to think Kavanaugh would ever be appointed to the Supreme Court. (Not as strong as if she had said something to someone about it contemporaneous with the time it is supposed to have happened, but still a fact which helps to bolster her credibility.)

2. She passed a polygraph test conducted by a well respected expert in the field.

I believe that Kavanaugh will still probably be confirmed, but a lot of Senators will be assessing the political impact of this over the next few days, and his prospects have moved in the space of just one day from dead cert to hanging on by a thread...

Given how narrow a margin he started out with, if one more shoe drops his nomination is toast...

[Bicycle Bill]

From The Wall Street Journal:

A woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were teenagers went public with her name for the first time on Sunday, injecting immediate uncertainty into Republicans’ push to quickly confirm the next high-court justice.

(two paragraphs omitted - BB)

Mrs. Ford, in the (Washington) Post article, said that when she and Judge Kavanaugh **were teenagers at a party** in the Washington, D.C., area, he and a friend pulled her into a bedroom.  Judge Kavanaugh pinned her down on the bed, groped her and attempted to remove her clothing before she escaped, Mrs. Ford said in the article.
(.......emphasis mine)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/brett-kava ... 1537129767

Thirty-five years ago would put us back in 1983, and we'd be talking about young people, eighteen years of age or thereabouts, hormones a-blazing, at a party where I'm sure alcohol, marijuana, and other recreational products were present and being consumed.  I'm not saying 'boys will be boys' any more than I would say Mrs. Ford was 'asking for it', but at what point does normal teen-aged groping and fumbling — no doubt with inhibitions suppressed due to the afore-mentioned mood-altering substances — cease to be innocuous and clumsy and instead become premeditated sexual assault?

And for that matter, how many people, regardless of their station or position in life, even among the posters here, have led such exemplary lives that some minor-at-the-time peccadillo from their high school or college years could not now be trotted out and construed as criminal activity ... especially given the hysteria that has swept over society in the past decade?

-"BB"-

[RayThom]

And then there's this from the far right. Everything short of "she was asking for it."

Christine Ford Is Their (Democrats) 2018 Anita Hill
https://rabidrepublicanblog.com/christi ... nita-hill/

[Scooter]

at what point does normal teen-aged groping and fumbling — no doubt with inhibitions suppressed due to the afore-mentioned mood-altering substances — cease to be innocuous and clumsy and instead become premeditated sexual assault?

If something did happen between the two of them, then Kavanaugh's vociferous denial of same would suggest a guilty conscience. If it were all so innocent in his mind, then why not frame it as such, rather than insist it never happened?

[Lord Jim]

at what point does normal teen-aged groping and fumbling — no doubt with inhibitions suppressed due to the afore-mentioned mood-altering substances — cease to be innocuous and clumsy and instead become premeditated sexual assault?

How about when you pull someone into a bedroom, shut the door, turn up the music so their yelling for you to stop can't be heard, and put your hand over their mouth to further muffle their cries while you try to remove their clothes?

Works for me; looks like a pretty good text book example of "premeditated sexual assault"...

And for that matter, how many people, regardless of their station or position in life, even among the posters here, have led such exemplary lives that some minor-at-the-time peccadillo from their high school or college years could not now be trotted out and construed as criminal activity ... especially given the hysteria that has swept over society in the past decade?

Well, when I was 18 I had a girlfriend who was 16, and we were having sex so I suppose today I could get labeled a child molester and have to register as a sex offender...

And in high school and college I had sex with girls where both of us were undoubtedly over the legal limit for intoxication and in the era of "if she says yes but she's drunk it still means no" that might be problematic too...

But if the allegations Dr. Ford is making are true, what happened was nothing like that...

I can absolutely assure you that neither I nor (at least as far as I know) any friend of mine ever engaged in behavior remotely like what Ford is accusing Kavanaugh of...

And here's the other part of this that is enormously troubling...Kavanaugh's unequivocal denial (made presumably before he found out that Dr. Ford had passed a lie detector test) that happened this past week, not in 1983:

When the allegations first surfaced last week, Kavanaugh issued a statement, saying, "I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time."

Again, if the allegations are true, that complete denial goes to the issue of Kavanaugh's character today, not as a teenager in 1983...

I have had one significant reservation about Kavanaugh; the fact that I am convinced that Trump nominated him because he believes that Kavanaugh will be in his corner on issues of Presidential power and Presidential immunity...

But in looking at all the evidence about that (like all of the times Kavanaugh voted against the Bush Administration position on the 9th Circuit, despite having been appointed by Bush and holding a high ranking position in the Bush White House) I came to the conclusion that Trump was probably off-base in his belief, and I have been supportive of Kavanaugh's nomination. (I wrote a very detailed defense of Kavanaugh just yesterday in response to a post by Econo.)

And it's also certainly true that the timing of this stinks to high heaven; it look entirely like "We'll see if we can derail the nomination without this, but pull it out at the last minute if we can't"...(when it will also be too late to possibly consider any other nominee before the election...)

But this ain't beanbag, and no matter how cynically calibrated the timing may be, it doesn't change the gravity of the charges or the fact that the lady passed a reputably administered lie detector test about them...

So now you can put me in the same camp with Flake. When you consider all the factors; the seriousness of the allegations, the credible nature of the accuser (Prof. Ford looks like a pretty solid pillar of the community; not any indication that she's some kind of kook) the fact that she talked about the incident long before she would have any reason to think Kavanaugh would get a SC nomination, the polygraph test results, and Kavanaugh's categorical denial...

This whole thing deserves a closer look before there's a vote...

ETA:

If something did happen between the two of them, then Kavanaugh's vociferous denial of same would suggest a guilty conscience. If it were all so innocent in his mind, then why not frame it as such, rather than insist it never happened?

Excellent point...

Why didn't Kavanaugh say something like, "I'm sure that now in her own mind that may be her recollection, but respectfully she's misremembering what happened..."

I think at this point, just as a political strategy, the smartest thing Kavanaugh and his team could do (aside from praying that another shoe doesn't drop) is try to claim it's a case of mistaken identity...

Say they have no doubt that what she claims happened did happen, but that after all these years she's got Kavanaugh confused with somebody else...

It's not a great strategy, but it has the advantage of providing a defense that jibes with Kavanaugh's denial while at the same time avoiding the public spectacle of calling a woman who says she was sexually assaulted a liar...

Which given the gender gap that already exists going into the midterms, is not something that most GOP Senators are going to want to line up to do less than 2 months before the election...

[BoSoxGal]

Thank you, LJ, for giving me reason to NOT be sickened by this place over this newest development in the Kavanaugh nomination.

I simply cannot fathom the character of a person who thinks what Dr. Ford described falls into the realm of ‘awkward high school hookups’.

If anybody wonders why a woman would hesitate to bring allegations publicly, look no further than BB’s post above or set the rerun of the Anita Hill testimony, when even Joe Biden acted monstrously toward her. This society is full of disgusting men, and plenty of women brainwashed to be apologists for them. I laud Dr. Ford for having the courage to come forward publicly, while certainly knowing that she will now be exposed to the depths of depraved behavior from Internet trolls from Plan B and beyond.

[Big RR]

I agree Jim and BSG; these are serious allegations, not just some high school drunken sex romp, but sexual assault. As bad as I may have been in high school or college, even when drunk, I know I never did anything remotely approaching this, nor do I know anyone who did. There is a very serious line here that was crossed, if the allegations are true,

As far as the confirmation hearings go, this allegation is far worse than Ginsburg's pot smoking of Baird's employment of an undocumented alien as a nanny, and neither of them are on the Supreme Court. And Cavanaugh's denial does speak of his current character. It clearly deserves to be thoroughly investigated at the very least. And if that means that the full senate vote must be held off for a few weeks or months, too damn bad.

[Lord Jim]

The unhappiest guy in Washington today must be Mitch McConnell....

He thought he had this planned out so well...

Get another solid conservative judge on the court, and time it in such a way that he could also put red state Democratic Senators up for re-election between a rock and and hard place, having to choose between pissing off Demo base voters and conservative cross-over voters, both of whom they need to win...

And also help to energize GOP turnout with another Supreme Court Justice win right before the election...("See? You may not be crazy about Trump, but we're gettin' it done with the Supreme Court.")

And now it's turned into an exploding cigar, with no good options...

Don't have Ford testify and run the very real risk of losing the votes you need to get confirmation...(In addition to Flake, that course of action makes losing at least Collins and/or Murkowski much more likely and also makes a no vote much easier for any Red State Democrats he had hoped to corral...)

Have Ford testify, and treat the country to the spectacle of having the 11 male GOP senators on the Judiciary Committee trying to discredit a woman claiming she was sexually assaulted (I expect that this hearing would be carried by not just the cable news channels, but the broadcast networks as well) less than two months before the midterm elections...

That's a great look for a party already suffering from a 20 point plus gender gap for this election cycle...

And then of course there's option 3#; have the nomination withdrawn...

Which sends the message to already reluctant GOP voters, "Remember what we said about being able to at least count on us to get conservative Supreme Court Justices confirmed? Well, we can't even do that now."

It's got to be enough to have ol' Mitch reaching early for his Kentucky sippin' whiskey...

[Big RR]

I wouldn't be surprised if option 3 occurs, combined with allegations of character assassination of this "great American" concocted by the evil democrats who just want to try and discredit Trump with baseless allegations. Maybe we'll even be treated to Cavanaugh going into the hospital because of the toll these BS allegations took on him. And it might work with the base--after all, you can fool some of the people all of the time.