Kavanaugh is unfit for the bench because of the arguments he made today

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Today, Judge Kavanaugh made the argument in sworn testimony, and this argument was backed up by the Republicans in the room, that all the accusations against him are a Democratic conspiracy. He also made the assertion that this conspiracy has permanently and irreparably destroyed his life, his family, his relationship to his children, his career and his reputation. This places a huge dark cloud over the Democratic party in his mind.

The Supreme Court of the United States is often the place where US laws meet their final and ultimate challenge. The Supreme Court Justices have to listen carefully and in an unbiased fashion to arguments that a current law is constitutional, vs. not constitutional. The Supreme Court does other things, they look at other kinds of cases, but this is a very common and critically important mode of operation for SCOTUS.

The lawyers charged with arguing in favor of the standing US law are part of the executive branch. They are part of the President’s team.

If Kavanaugh becomes a justice of the Supreme Court, he will have to recuse himself in any case where a plaintiff argues against the constitutionality of a standing US federal law. He has demonstrated a powerful, permanent, and indelible bias.

He won’t make much of a judge if he can’t really do his job.

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73 thoughts on “Kavanaugh is unfit for the bench because of the arguments he made today

  1. Democrats: “Judge Kavanaugh is a rapist.”

    Kavanaugh: “I am very angry about these slanders against my name.”

    Democrats: “Kavanaugh doesn’t have the temperament to serve on the Supreme Court”

    1. Kavanaugh is a District Court judge, and would and should never countenance the shouty anger of people in his courts. Yet he is unable to hold his composure at the time where he most crucially should be maintaining his composure.

      Further, in his unrestrained angry sobriety at the hearing he has completely and utterly refuted any and all claims that he is not a belligerent and controlled drunk.

      Temperament aside, his clear and extreme partisanship should automatically exclude him from the Supreme Court, even in the eye of Republicans who have any notion of fairness and justice.

      Further, he has demonstrably lied in this process, which itself should be immediate grounds for rejection.

    2. It’s telling that you take the side of someone who is by his own actions a demonstrated liar, a belligerent, and an extreme partisan, as opposed to the victim in the hearing who was demonstrably affected by her attack. Her account, which started years ago, is strongly evidenced and corroborated and yet there is no Republican acknowledgement of her experience.

      It is also telling that Kavanaugh avoided all attempts to affirm that if he was innocent he would be well served by supporting an FBI investigation. It is nothing short of partisanship and misogyny to support Kavanaugh in the face of the strong evidence showing that he has a case to answer with respect to having participated in sexual assault.

    3. Yeah, thing about that is it’s almost certain Kavanaugh is lying when he says he isn’t a rapist given, y’know all those multiple credible claims.

      Also the clear Republican hesitancy about actually seriously investigating him.

      Do you really want to defend this disgusting accused rapist in the party of Trump and Roy Moore MikeN?

  2. Bernard J,

    Please! If Kavanaugh had reacted dispassionately you would be claiming he was a sociopath.

    Oh my, how can he be so emotionless in the face of these heinous allegations! There’s something wrong with him!

    Leave it to Laden and the rest of his ilk to talk about emotion rather than actual evidence.

    1. If Kavanaugh had reacted dispassionately you would be claiming he was a sociopath.

      You are putting words in my mouth.

      I did not say or suggest that Kavanaugh should have spoken dispassionately. I am saying that as a judge he should know to speak in a controlled or measure way as best as he is able, just as he would expect and direct witnesses in his own court. There’s a difference between “dispassionate” and measured, in case this point escapes you…

      Kavanaugh’s inability to control his temper doesn’t of necessity indicate that he’s telling the truth. It does indicate that he’s not able to control his emotions, and it also suggests that he may have received coaching by the White House in how to sway the conservative audience.

      The ex-husband of one of my close relatives responded just as Kavanaugh did when he was confronted with accusations of infidelity. He countered by claiming that my relative was a drug addict and was having affairs herself and was an unfit mother, all of which I knew to be false as we are very close.

      And yet this man had the audacity to claim to all of family that he was the one who was hard done by. Even when my relative’s sons found their father’s home-videos of his mistress engaing in pornographic acts of self-stimulation because the fool was too stupid to understand the consequences of having his computer synced to their iPads he continued to deny that anything had happened, and he continued to deny it when his car was found parked outside this woman’s house, when I saw her driving his car at the local supermarket, and when dozens of people came out of the woodwork to confirm that he had stolen from them and lied to them.

      This man also told my family that he never laid a finger on his wife even when I saw him do so when they were living with me. He denied it even when I pointed to the bruises on her arms from his fists, and he denied vandalising her vehicle when I kicked him out of the house and saw him through the window snapping off the aerial and the side-mirrors, and punching the panels.

      Displays of anger don’t prove innocence. Displays of emotion doesn’t disprove sociopathy (and by the way, you’re assuming that I would suggest this of a dispassionate Kavanaugh – fallacy 2…). Veracity is determined by a combination of both a consistency and appropriateness in the the manner of presentation of emotions, and in the consistency and verifiability of the presentation of evidence.

      Kavanaugh lied about drinking legally. He lied years ago about the manner in which he obtained documents. He has a documented past of heavy drinking and misogyny, and he has many accusers who tell a consistent story of misbehaviour. He avoids answering penetrating questions, and he avoids having the FBI brought in to clear his name. He demonstrates an extreme bias against the Democrat party that is egregiously inappropriate for a Supreme Court judge.

      On the other hand Christine Blasey Ford’s claims against Kavanaugh go back many years. She has witnesses that attest to her claims going back many years. She has risked the ongoing safety of herself and her family, the security of her mental health, the right to a private life, and even her ability to live a normal life by coming out. Her claims against Kavanaugh offer her no benefit, but do promise inevitable grief. She spoke with obvious distress, in a way that suggests her telling of truth in a far more convincing way than Kavanaugh’s bluster suggests that he might be telling truth.

      All these points are why this inquiry should have been conducted by the FBI rather than by a public hearing conducted by a group of old, white, privileged, misogynistic men. The FBI sort through the tangle of human emotion to get through to the facts, and they collate these facts for a judge and jury to consider in a systematic way, supported by evidence.

      In the case of the allegations against Kavanaugh there is a mountain of evidence and it grows by the day. This, together with the emotional responses of all involved, is why he should be summarily dismissed from nomination and probably disbarred as a judge altogether. If he ascends to the Supreme Court now the evidence won’t go away, and nor will the current witnesses and those still to come forward.

      A lot of the US already understands what Kavanaugh has done, and a lot of the remaining people know it in their hearts even if they don’t want to admit it. Kavanaugh’s taint will catch him sooner or later…

  3. As expected.the testimony didn’t really matter to the Republicans, and they don’t have any concern either about his lying under oath or the evidence presented today (neither do the two representatives of the “We don’t care if women are assaulted if we can’t weaponize it” crew who have posted here).

    As I noted earlier, this was just a show, and it is worthwhile simply to show the future that the current republican leadership has sunk to levels as vile and dishonest as folks like locus.

    1. Laden,

      “The woman he tried to rape said that.”

      Glad to see at least you are being objective and not just assuming the conclusion!

    2. I thought they did that long ago when the elected Trump – & when they supported Roy Moore?

      But yeah, if even more evidence that the Rapeublicans were pro-rape were needed, well, we have the yoooghest supply of it .. (Vomits.)

  4. Locus, prior to today’s testimony, I was open to evidence. Now, I’ve seen the evidence. Thanks to Chuck, all the evidence that we will ever have access to was presented this afternoon. Based on that, Ford is credible, and I believe her.

    I’m going to guess that this is a very widely held conclusion.

    So, your implication is incorrect.

    1. According to news reports, the prosecutor doing the questioning said based on what was presented, if she were a prosecutor, she would not prosecute, and would even be unable to get a search warrant.

      A lot of conservatives were upset with her performance in interrogating, expecting something like what Arlen Specter did to Anita Hill and her witnesses. However, she was very effective in revealing holes in Ford’s story, confusion about details not from 36 years ago, but just in the last two months. Does she fly, timing of lie detector vs grandmother’s funeral, when and why she talked to press, Dianne Feinstein’s role, and more.

    2. Greg,

      What evidence was presented at the hearing?

      We learned **nothing** new. All that changed is we saw a person speak the words rather than read them off of our screens.

      If anything, Ford admitted that there may have been other people at his alleged gathering.

      “Thanks to Chuck, all the evidence that we will ever have access to was presented this afternoon.”

      So the calls from Democrats for an FBI investigation are a sham?

    3. “Glad to see at least you are being objective and not just assuming the conclusion!”

      Weird, because that is exactly what you did. Another bit of consistency from the hypocritical scumbag known as locus.

    1. How many people were at the party?

      This is a logical fallacy. I’m going to let you work which one it is…

  5. Even Fox News is getting the picture:

    “Fox News on Thursday fired contributor Kevin Jackson after he called Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and other women “lying skanks” for accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

    Jackson, who has 67,000 followers on Twitter, posted a string of highly offensive tweets over a period of hours as the Senate Judiciary Committee interviewed Dr. Blasey Ford and then Brett Kavanaugh.”

    Politically, #MeToo also means #ThemToo

    1. “However, she was very effective in revealing holes in Ford’s story,”

      We have no reason to take this comment from MIkeN seriously, since he announced before the hearing he knew she was lying.

  6. Personal thoughts [not an objective political analysis]:

    I’ve been opposed to Brett Kavanagh’s nomination for Supreme Court Justice from the git-go. He is and has been, for multiple political and moral reasons, a total sleaze.

    That being said, I was (and still am) bothered by the notion that we can use someone’s behavior in high school – however obnoxious and even illegal it may have been – to condemn said person as an adult. And I’m very disappointed that more people, of all political stripes, did not endeavor to take a strong public stance to this effect.

    Why do I say this? Well, for starters, I have a cousin who happens to be a nationally renowned juvenile defender and Northwestern University law professor.. She has taught me a lot about our so-called justice system. There is a reason why we don’t (or at least are not supposed to) try juveniles as adults – even if the crime is murder, not to mention rape, hate crimes, and similarly odious violations of social norms.

    Look, I don’t intend to delve into the relevant brain development/diminished capacity/juvenile justice issues here. Legally speaking, a defendant (and Judge Kavanagh is not a criminal defendant, “merely” criminal) is either a minor or s(h)e isn’t. Even committing homicide does not miraculously violate the laws of biology and thereby morph a child into an adult: Trying and/or sentencing a minor as an adult – a far too common ploy when the crime is especially heinous – is an oxymoron. Period.

    By the same token, the emergence of evidence suggesting that Kavanagh MIGHT (as is assuredly the norm in such cases) have continued his drunken, sexually abusive behavior as a college student is an entirely different matter. To my way of thinking this changes the whole ballgame. In short, (metaphorically speaking, mind you) STRING HIM UP.

    Now, this being rather indelicately said, there are two other issues. First off, why has no one – no one to my knowlege, anyway – brought up the probability that both Kavanagh and his victim(s) are telling the truth as they sincerely perceive it? This is not meant to be a direct or oblique reference to our present post-truth era. One of the things that alcoholic intoxication notoriously does – not only, but especially when synergistically-acting neurotropic drugs are involved – is to destroy one’s ability to consolidate any form of long-term memory. Brett Kavanagh could very well have been –– probably was –– too far gone, too drop-dead drunk – to remember assaulting and attempting to rape Professor Ford. Does this likelihood absolve him of moral responsibility, does this un-unqualify him for any judicial appointment? Of course not.

    Case in point, admittedly more extreme, and yet still very much to the point: Jeffrey Dahmer was never tried for the murder of his second victim, a young man named Steven Tuomi, in part because he (Dahmer) was too drunk to recall killing Tuomi at the time. Dahmer confessed to that murder (and to 16 others) and cooperated in full with investigating police; he gained nothing by claiming not to have remembered this particular homicide. On the contrary, since Tuomi’s remains were never located, had Dahmer not confessed to discovering the guy beat up and dead in his bed the morning after, most certainly by his own hand, Tuomi would still only be listed as a missing person. Anyone who’s dealt with severe alcoholism (as I have, as a former ambulance paramedic) knows that Dahmer’s selective amnesia in this one case is not only plausible, but probable.

    I’m sure many readers will be offended by my mention of Brett Kavanagh and Jeffrey Dahmer in the same post. Sorry about that – if you are offended, then you are missing my point. I can only emphatically state that I am assuredly not accusing Judge Kavanagh of being a serial killer and occasional cannibal. He’s a douchebag, that’s all.

    My second issue is simply a reiteration of my first comment: This man is not qualified to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C., let alone the Supreme Court of the United States. Since Greg Laden and other thoughtful commentators have exhaustively elaborated the reasons for my claim, I won’t be redundant on this point. However, it is a tragedy that half of our federal legislators fail to comprehend any of this. Besides which, rest (un)assured that DJT (courtesy of his Mini-Me, Stephen Miller) has a long back-up list of right-wing ideologues waiting in the wings to replace Kavanagh should his confirmation somehow fall through later today.

    1. That being said, I was (and still am) bothered by the notion that we can use someone’s behavior in high school – however obnoxious and even illegal it may have been – to condemn said person as an adult.

      Joseph, I too am a believer in redemption and second chances. The problem with Kavanaugh is that he has not admitted to his actions, nor sought to repair them. Without trying to be Catholic (which I most defintely am NOT) admission and atonement are necessary for redeeming. Ongoing denial and persectution of one’s victim’s negates any possibility of forgiveness and redemption.

    2. >First off, why has no one – no one to my knowlege, anyway – brought up the probability that both Kavanagh and his victim(s) are telling the truth as they sincerely perceive it?

      Lots of people have said this, but not everyone in the way you are. Instead, they are suggesting false memory by Ford. It would be sad if Ford really suffered from abuse, and Feinstein just looked at her file, her social activism, and assumed(as I did) it was a bogus charge to be used as needed to sink Kavanaugh.

    3. Lots of people have said this, but not everyone in the way you are. Instead, they are suggesting false memory by Ford.

      Anyone suggestiong false memory is at play don’t understand the nature of such. Ford’s ætiology strongly argues against false memory. Not only that, but parsimony too refutes the fanciful notion of false memory – there are many other witnesses to numerous examples of Kavanaugh’s drinking, misogyny, and separate instances of sexual assault.

      I have no problem with discounting vexatious claims. However this does not mean that claims should be dismissed out of hand, and that Kavanaugh’s potential guilt should not be fully and thoroughly investigated.

      Putin’s puppet has destroyed the fabric of US society to a point already that he could never have achieved with military might. If Kavanaugh is raised to the Supreme Court he will provide Trump with the ammunition that he needs to avoid prosecution and simply pardon his administration to the point of irreparably unravelling the nation and its international standing:

      https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10114039588254411&id=2053580

      Welcome to Gilead.

  7. “According to news reports, the prosecutor doing the questioning said based on what was presented, if she were a prosecutor, she would not prosecute, ”

    Gee, a prosecutor selected by Republicans to do their dirty work says the witness isn’t believable. What a shock

    1. To add to what Dean said, there were hundreds of testimonies from professionals submitted to the hearing that affirmed that her account was consistent with that of a sexual assault victim. Further, this account should not have been used directly as the evidence to “prosecute”, but as the basis of an FBI investigation that would delve deeper and collate all the resulting the material to arrive at a point where prosecution was possible.

      Mitchell was a GOP selection who failed dismally to do the job for which she was hired. Any suggestion immediately after the hearing by her about the nature of the material heard carries little weight with respect to whether or not there was a case for prosecution – she could easily have been trying to save face.

      An FBI investigation is the best way to test the witnesses in the Kavanaugh case.

    2. Since there is no federal crime, it’s not clear that the FBI can do all that. They can add to their background check, which would mean interviewing people and compiling some 302s. Not sure if they are allowed to do voluntary polygraphs. Doubt they have authority to pull the e-mails that were mentioned, either with the 2nd accuser, or some e-mails mentioned by Dr Ford with one of her collaborating witnesses.

    1. Yeah, his lie about that being just a name for a drinking game was astounding — and it is sad that it is being defended as an accurate statement.

  8. “Kavanaugh is unfit for the bench because of the arguments he made today.. “

    True – and also and more so because given Christine Blasey Ford credible testimony and the pattern of other claims that have emerged here Kavanaugh is almost certainly a rapist and came close to also being guilty of murder too.

    A rapist should indeed be in court – but only as a defendant and not as the judge.

    Is that not axiomatic?

    Whatever did happen to the party of “family values” and “decency” anyhow that it sinks to this? Have the Rapeublicans no shame, no honour, no integrity? Clearly not or Kavanaugh would already have been withdrawn having withdrawn himself or been withdrawn by others.

    1. No, they wanted to talk to her and get her testimony. They were not interested in discussions about logistics.

    2. No mikeN, he lied. He claimed they had repeatedly tried to contact her, but the email trail shows he repeatedly blocked and avoided her attempts to contact him.

      Yes, Grassley lied, and it isn’t a surprise.

  9. No one in Australia gives a rat’s arse about those who make up the High Court.
    100 out of a 100 couldn’t name one of em I bet.
    The High Court people go to work everyday and do their job.
    Fuck knows why yanks carry on about it so much. It’s weird.

    1. Li, you know how Australia sticks all its refugees on an island, and won’t let them in?
      Our ‘High Court’ might disallow that and force the government to let everyone in.

    2. This time I’ll say nobody here cares that nobody in Australia “gives a rat’s arse” about our Supreme Court. It is an issue here because the court is (in theory) a check on the excess of the president and our lawmakers. Kavanaugh, in addition to not being up to Supreme Court standards in legal ability, lied his way through his hearings and, as we now know, has a history of sexual assault. His history indicates he believes the president is above the law.

      Despite the lack of concern — indeed, endorsement of those things by the three right-wing loons who post here, those are serious issues and decent citizens are worried about them.

      The party in power now has as its core beliefs: women don’t matter, minorities don’t matter, equal rights don’t matter, science doesn’t matter — only rich white men matter. They’ve passed policies that threaten our environment and air quality. Their claims that they were going to help the working class have turned out to be lies. The president is on record as defending US nazis and saying the people who oppose them are the cause of the problem. Those reasons and more are why intelligent people are upset and concerned.

      So I don’t care, and it’s quite possible that most people here, on either side, don’t care, that you don’t get this issue. My opinion (I’m not speaking for Greg or anyone else here) is that if you don’t like reading Greg’s posts about issues like this, don’t bother reading them.

    3. It depends what your laws say about refugees and how bound Americans feel to treaties they have agreed too.
      Yanks are WMD manufacturing fuckwits so they not really up with ethical or humanitarian standards.
      Australians are pretty much terrible, and there’s myriad examples of it.
      Neither is as bad as the poms though.
      I can’t wait for UK to disintegrate
      Horrible bunch of WMD owning violent pricks the Poms are. Who somehow can’t read. Bit fuckin odd the random illiteracy.
      Yanks have this random illiteracy thing too.
      Luckily there’s a High Court for review of the things people can’t read, or forgot they read, or often stuff they just imagined out of thin air.
      Terra Nullius being a case in point.

    4. It’s got me thinking. How come immigrants are accepted but refugees or asylum seekers not???
      Really, all should be accepted. With perhaps more heavy vetting on immigrants. Asylum seekers and refugees need help urgently. Immigrants have time to fuck about.

    5. There’s a lot you don’t seem to understand Li. That’s ok though. You don’t live here so you don’t have to know anything about it. I doubt if most people here know anything at all about Australia either (except what they learned from Paul Hogan’s Crocodile Dundee movies).

  10. Our ‘High Court’ might disallow that and force the government to let everyone in.

    Since letting people into the United States, while one of the strongest points of our history, is hated by the Trump and the bigots who support him, the Supreme Court is unlikely to do that for anyone.

    1. Dosnt yankland have separation of powers?
      The judiciary should be independant of the executive political mob.
      It’s really very fucking important.

    2. “Not an allegation anymore for you?”

      No. Unlike some people who made their mind before hearing from her, I listened.

    3. There is also the issue of his lies during his testimony and his unhinged rants about conspiracies. He doesn’t seem to be too tightly connected to reality.

    4. Dean,

      ““When I see Mexican flags waved at pro-immigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment. When I’m forced to use a translator to communicate with the guy fixing my car, I feel a certain frustration.”

      — Barack Obama

      ““Illegal immigration wreaks havoc economically, socially, and culturally; makes a mockery of the rule of law; and is disgraceful just on basic fairness grounds alone.”

      — Glenn Greenwald

      “immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants”

      “the fiscal burden of low-wage immigrants is also pretty clear.”

      “We’ll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants.”

      — Paul Krugman

      Those bigots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-democrats-immigration-mistake/528678/

  11. “He doesn’t seem to be too tightly connected to reality.”
    Well that would reflect ‘ Chinese hoax ‘ Trump and the broader American electorate pretty well then.

    1. Locus, you ignorant, bigoted, lying, stupid, piece of shit.

      Re: your Obama quote. You fail to mention that it was used to lead into the plea (demand, whatever) that people not give in to acting on those feelings:

      After getting our attention with that blunt description of his feelings, Obama goes on to argue against following those feelings as some people do, to justify denial of “rights and opportunities” to immigrants who want to become Americans.

      Your Greenwald quote is also taken selectively: he goes on to write:

      I’ve written many times since then about how immigrants are exploited by the Right for fear-mongering purposes. I’m 100% in favor of amnesty, think defeat of the DREAM Act was an act of evil, etc. That said, I do think illegal immigration is a serious problem: having millions of people live without legal rights

      More selective lying by omission simply to forward your bigotry and racism. Don’t ever again f***king try to deny how fundamentally racist and dishonest you are, or that you are trying to make an honest argument.

  12. “He doesn’t seem to be too tightly connected to reality.”

    Kavanaugh comes across as another man child, over privileged and overindulged by doting parents who now cannot believe that anybody could, or should hold him to account for bad behaviour. Such petulance whilst testifying does not bode well for his ability to sit in judgement on any case and pronounce without prejudice.

    Any alleged sexual misdemeanour’s aside, he has proven himself unworthy of such a high position.

  13. And Kavanaugh is in.

    Interesting political calculus: risk the backlash at the midterms – and maybe beyond – to get a fix in to the SC for decades.

    Funny watching the Republicans get used by their sponsors in a way which, now the job done, might harm the Republican party.

  14. “The New York Times fact-checked his testimony, comparing his statements against the recollections of former classmates and acquaintances from his youth, as well as records from his time working in the administration of George W. Bush.

    “The combative nominee was compelled to answer questions he clearly found embarrassing or offensive. What emerges is the image of a skilled lawyer who, when pressed on difficult subjects, sometimes crafted responses that were misleading, disputed or off point.”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-fact-check.html

  15. MikeN: Lots of people have said this, but not everyone in the way you are. Instead, they are suggesting false memory by Ford. It would be sad if Ford really suffered from abuse, and Feinstein just looked at her file, her social activism, and assumed(as I did) it was a bogus charge to be used as needed to sink Kavanaugh.

    Democrats: “Hey, let’s make up a totally bogus charge against the candidate of the majority party! That always works!”

    /sarc

  16. Joseph M.: I’ve been opposed to Brett Kavanagh’s nomination for Supreme Court Justice from the git-go. He is and has been, for multiple political and moral reasons, a total sleaze.

    So have I. It is clear that there were abundant reasons to reject him, even before the allegations by Dr. Ford and other women surfaced. Recall that this is the man who, during Whitewater, went to great lengths trying to prove the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered — even relying on right-wing conspiracy sources to make the attempt.

    And there’s much more…

    http://chris-winter.com/Digressions/Election_2016/Kavanaugh.html

  17. Trump’s 180 degree turn in his evaluation of Dr. Ford may be related to the fact that Kavanaugh snivelled. Trump does not like cry babies. Watching middle aged men throw tantrums is just not good optics for anybody. It make one look like a loser. Trump does not like losers. He likes winners. And he doesn’t like to get his own little hands dirty. So his calling for an FBI investigation based on the dredibility of Dr. Ford’s testimony allows Trump to under-bus the nominee without having to lose face or risk his manicure.

  18. Trump’s 180 degree turn in his evaluation of Dr. Ford may be related to the fact that Kavanaugh snivelled. Trump does not like cry babies. Watching middle aged men throw tantrums is just not good optics for anybody.

    I can’t tell if you’re being snarky or serious, but: When I see Kavanaugh’s little baby whine about having made it to “the best law school” and “I worked hard”, etc., I immediately thought “Holy shit, he sounds exactly the way Trump does when he talks about himself.”

    1. I have a lot of respect for Rubin, as I do for Stephen Schmidt, and other such moderate conservatives.

      I’m not sure though that they’ve been pushed leftward so much as it appears that they have been so pushed, as a consequence of the profound lurching to the extreme right of the Republican Party in general. Frame-of-reference and all that…

      Unfortunately I can’t access that link, but I can imagine her thoughts on the matter.

  19. Bernard J.

    Rubin pre-Trump:
    Jennifer ‘Kiss of Death’ Rubin Gives Marco Rubio The Thumbs-Up…The Poor Bastard
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/9/27/1425300/-Jennifer-Kiss-of-Death-Rubin-Gives-Marco-Rubio-The-Thumbs-Up-The-Poor-Bastard

    I find that Rubin has become homeless after the Republicans capitulated to Trump and that, in distancing herself, she has become considerably more humane and decent.

    If you can’t use the link, try googling the headline:
    If we want to protect the Supreme Court’s legitimacy, Kavanaugh should not be on it

    You can also search Jennifer Rubin and you’ll find the article under Jennifer Rubin Washington Post.

    If none of those work:

    She names “three problems (at least),” sexual assault, honesty, and partisanship. She focuses on the third, and what she writes is very interesting. Some excerpts:

    “However, here I want to focus on what may be the most significant issue — whether Kavanaugh’s “big reveal” that he is an angry partisan who thinks Democrats conspired to get him — now disqualifies him to sit on any court, let alone the Supreme Court…

    “Not to put too fine a point on it, but should not Kavanaugh recuse himself from every case involving a left-leaning group that is part of the conspiracy he decried?

    “As he yelled at Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was not hard to imagine that he would be less than evenhanded if they were a party in litigation. “With his unprecedented attacks on Democrats and liberals, Kavanaugh must now likely broadly recuse himself from matters including those groups,” says ethics guru Norman Eisen. “It may wipe out a substantial portion of his docket should he be confirmed. We have a rule of thumb in government ethics: When recusals are so broad that the nominee can’t do his job, then maybe he shouldn’t be confirmed to the position. It is time to consider that question here.”

    “… Tribe argues “there is a very strong argument that Kavanaugh’s intemperate screed attacking liberal groups and spinning conspiracy theories when he testified on Thursday afternoon now requires him to recuse in any case where such groups appear before the Court of Appeals on which he sits.” Tribe continues, “For him to remain on a three-judge panel that sits in judgment on any legal claim affecting such a group would obviously create at least the appearance of a conflict of interest and probably an actual conflict.””

  20. The advance of civilization into a more enlightened age is not on the Republican or the Conservative agendas. Oh no. Sharing power with women and minorities is not what the good ol’ boys are working towards. They are gloating in their belief that , by using a partisan female prosecutor, and by having Lindsey throw a hissy fit, and then by having a highly truncated FBI investigation, that they will con the world into thinking that their boy is an angel, and get their wish to have another highly partisan hack on the Supreme court.

    Somebody needs to save the Republicans from themselves.
    Our two party system requires two reasonable sides, and now, we have a weak Democratic party that recognizes science, humanist values and enlightenment principles, and a Republican party that is guided by hubris, ego, greed, mythology and Russian mis-guidance. You better get your shit together soon Republicans. This is not currently working out at all, and it threatens the future of our country.

  21. BBD,

    “Locus, you ignorant, bigoted, lying, stupid, piece of shit.”

    1. I was quoting from “The Atlantic”, a left of center magazine.

    2. The point was that liberals have CHANGED their rhetoric dramatically.

    Obama, or any other Democrat, would never talk about resentment or frustration with immigration. They’d be called raaaaaaaaaaaaacist!

    The Greenwald quote you provided was from six years later, demonstrating the point that liberals have CHANGED how they talk about immigration.

    Krugman is the worst. Back in 2005, he was claiming that Republicans wanted to increase immigration to drive down wages and make more profits for rich industrialists.

    3. As the article points out, the dramatic shift in the liberal stance is entirely cynical. They looked at the exit polls from 2008 and 2012 and decided to embrace large scale immigration in order to create an unchallenged one party state.

    Liberals are fascists. Their only motivation is their own wealth and power.

    1. Liberals are fascists?

      I’d say you shouldn’t use words you don’t understand, but then you’d never be able to say anything.

      Oh – don’t use words you don’t understand.

    2. “Liberals are fascists. Their only motivation is their own wealth and power.”

      As per usual irony is not a Trumpist’s strong suit.

    3. BBD,

      “Locus, you ignorant, bigoted, lying, stupid, piece of shit.”

      You’ve got your commenters muddled, but it’s a fair assessment of your character, even though I didn’t write it.

  22. The mastodons circled to protect their wounded baby nominee. Even if he survived, he would be so weak that it is doubtful he could survive the judgement of nature. The mastodons bellowed so loud the ground shook. But the relentless, vengeful predators continued their attack, throwing spears over the defending adults and fatally piercing the young animal.

    The mastodons days were numbered. As winter approached, their herd would be weakened by an early November storm and by the constant harassment from the far more intelligent humans.

  23. The petulant man child continues with his mendacious and devious actions.

    “A state has jurisdiction over all of its territory, including Indian country,” Brett Kavanaugh wrote, resting his argument on a false 10th amendment claim, which doesn’t authorize states to intervene in tribal affairs.

    His words could have come from the most ardent anti-Indian racist of a bygone era. Asserting state criminal jurisdiction over Native lands has been a primary tactic of legally eliminating Native people. Chief Justice John Roberts’ court draws from a long tradition of violent conquest, going back to Cherokee removal in the 19th century and to the termination policies of the 20th.

    The rightwing supreme court has another target: Native American rights

    The future well being and even existence of many native American peoples is threatened by such bigoted perversion of legislation. Where Kavanaugh is concerned this is no surprise.

    I bring to mind that first track by Johnny Cash on his ‘Ride This Train Album’ which suggests that the native tribes will be remembered long after Kavanaugh has turned into a rotten corpse, one stage of that transformation having already begun.

    1. “His words could have come from the most ardent anti-Indian racist of a bygone era”

      Well be does represent a party made up of ardent racists, bigots, and criminals.

  24. In other news. Matt Gaetz got some pals to join him in voting against a bill that could reduce Gaetz’s dating pool.

    Matt Gaetz and 19 Other Republicans Vote Against Reauthorizing Sex Trafficking Law

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