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Post by celawson on Sept 4, 2018 10:17:09 GMT -5
"Mr Chairman, I think we ought to have this loudmouth removed!"
(Sen Orrin Hatch this morning during another rude interruption of the confirmation hearings. There have been multiple interruptions.)
I wish I could stay home from work and watch this. I love confirmation hearings.
EDITED TO ADD:
"Frankly Mr. Chairman, I don't think the committee should have to put up with this..." Hatch after more yelling interruptions.
He is actually forced to yell his comments over the screeches of the protestors.
Patrick Leahy, Dem: "Mr Chairman I don't intend to continue with such interruptions, I don't care whose side they're on!"
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2018 11:15:23 GMT -5
42,000 documents were dumped on the eve of the hearings. They've seen a tiny fraction of Kavanaugh's records, yet they are rushing this hearing through. It is unheard of, and it is a fucking disgrace.
As you may recall, I was among those who, despite the Garland debacle, was not screaming in opposition to confirming Gorsuch -- largely because the Garland debacle had everything to do with Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans, and not Gorsuch himself. Gorsuch himself seemed to me to be, yes, extremely conservative, but to be a scholar with some integrity. So I didn't join the screeching mob, though, that said, I absolutely did not quarrel with Democrats for opposing him after the disgraceful Garland debacle.
Here -- no. It is not so much that I oppose Kavanaugh (I'd actually want to see more of his record before I'd do that) -- it's that the way they are pushing this confirmation through freaking reeks and will taint his confirmation and the integrity of the court itself. Whether they are trying to hide something in his record or not, that's how it smells.
The very first question posed to Kavanaugh should be this: if a litigant dumped 42,000 documents on the opposing side the night before trial, would you go forward with the trial or grant an extension? If he said he'd go forward with it, he's a liar. No judge would.
This is too fucking important to rush though in this way. It isn't just about Kavanaugh -- it's about the integrity of the process, which has already been severely damaged. We are turning into a goddamn banana republic and I am sickened.
ETA:
I am pretty sure the reason they are pressing this forward without the consideration a lifetime appointment on our highest court deserves is because they fear they may not have control of the Senate after November, especially if the Trump issues keep snowballing -- as they will.
Some of you may not realize just how atrocious and unheard of this is. Well, I have friends who have been nominated and confirmed as federal judges, and let me tell you -- normally they scour your record back to high school. Seriously, high school. And that's for the lower federal courts.
Between the Garland debacle and the "nuclear option", the process has already suffered serious damage. It is a goddamn disgrace.
Kavanaugh himself should have a problem with this process going down this way. Oh, he's going to be confirmed -- Senate demographics guarantee that -- but IMO this taints the hell out of his confirmation. Release the documents, give time to review them. There's two months until November. Use it, and avoid a big ugly footnote that will attach itself to this confirmation.
As it stands now, I have to join those who question what the hell they are trying to hide.
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Post by markesq on Sept 4, 2018 12:29:41 GMT -5
It's an utter disgrace the way Republicans have debased the USSC selection process. First Garland, which was inexcusable, then the 50 vote thing, and now this. It's all about winning for them, nothing else matters.
Someone try and defend them, please.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2018 13:52:45 GMT -5
Times, they've changed, and not for the better.
This is not how things are supposed to work. This is not how you give someone a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.
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Post by prozyan on Sept 4, 2018 14:18:14 GMT -5
This is not how things are supposed to work. This is not how you give someone a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. Granted, this isn't how things are supposed to work. But it is, apparently, how this administration gives someone a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2018 14:56:26 GMT -5
I talked to a friend of mine as she went through this process about what an amazingly invasive process it is. But we agreed-- I think nominees to the federal bench generally do agree -- that given the importance and the lifetime tenure, it is only right that the vetting process is so thorough.
I'm clinging to a hope some GOP senator (Flake? Collins?) will step up and at least demand more time to review that document dump. It's the right thing to do, but my hope is vanishingly small that any of them have the will and the balls to do it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2018 6:56:39 GMT -5
derail/
By the way, my posts in this thread yesterday were typed from the dentist's office. I cracked a tooth Monday on a piece of popcorn. And somehow, that feels like a metaphor.
Please, Trump and executive and legislative branches -- please stop being so over-the-top insane. My teeth can't handle all this popcorn. Can't we just get back to a normal, functional level of stupid and awful?
The rest of you: watch out for those hard kernels occasionally hidden inside the soft white fluffiness. If you bite down on them wrong, they are deadly (and expensive). My dentist tells me that my popcorn accident is commonplace. Sure, now she tells me.
/end derail
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2018 14:34:11 GMT -5
So...I think Kavanaugh will be confirmed. But I don't think he should be. Not because he's conservative, but because he's slippery with the truth and far too partisan (as opposed to having a conservative philosophy for how the law should be interpreted), because too much of his record is being kept secret in an unprecedented way, because he is thoroughly unimpressive in the hearings, and because there's an aroma of his being in bed with the Trump administration in an inappropriate way for a Supreme Court Justice nominee--which is particularly problematic given that the Trump administration might implode, given how things are going.
For the record, I did not and do not feel the same way about Gorsuch.
I don't like the circus that the hearing has become. But given that the nomination was being rammed through as it was, I'm not sure Dems had much choice. Regardless of Kavanaugh's merits, it's wrong to ram a lifetime appointee through the way the GOP was trying to do, especially in our highest court.
The fact that I feel this way isn't going to change anything, alas.
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Post by robeiae on Sept 8, 2018 14:58:36 GMT -5
Given the conduct of GOP Senators across the last half-decade, I don't fault the Dem Senators at all for trying to hold up this nomination. Part of me kind of wants them to succeed, to push the vote past the midterms, just to see some GOP Senators squirm.
But I don't find Kavanaugh to be as bad as Alito and Sotomayor. Those two are the king and queen of partisanship, imo. and currently the weakest links on the Court.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2018 15:33:30 GMT -5
So. Unless you have been crouched under a rock this last few days, you no doubt know that a woman has accuses Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party when he was 17 and she was 15.
I waited to bring this up for two reasons: (1) I've been busy! and (2) initially, the accusation was anonymous and I wanted to see if the accuser stepped forward.
Well, she has. She's a professor, apparently a well-regarded one. She's passed a polygraph (which aren't reliable, I know--but it does give me a wee nudge in her favor that she was willing to take one). More importantly, while she didn't talk to people about the assault at the time (not uncommon, especially in 1983), she did talk about it to her therapist years ago, and the therapist has handed over the notes from the sessions. I've read her story, and, well, it's credible. And she's willing to testify under oath about it.
Although as stated in my previous post, I was already solidly in the "this nomination is moving way too fast and I am not feeling good about this nominee," I was reluctant to hold an entirely anonymous accusation against him. The fact that she came forward changes that. Also the fact that she is a woman who has something to lose career and profession-wise. It's understandable, IMO, why she would have been reluctant to put herself through what she's now going to go through -- death threats from alt-right loons, people digging up every bit of dirt they can scrounge on her, etc.
I believe her.
At a minimum, they should not for a nanosecond consider voting on him until both Kavanaugh and his accuser have testified. But honestly? I'm deeply uncomfortable with this guy now. I think his nomination should be withdrawn.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 11:17:11 GMT -5
Another thing that inclines me towards belief is her naming Kavanaugh's friend as being present for the attack. if you are fibbing, it's much simpler to keep it "he said/she said." Or she could have said she didn't know the other boy. If a fib, it's just a huge, unnecessary risk to name another party as a witness.
A few right-wing commentators are implying that she got "confused" about the identity of her attacker. If it had been a big party and she didn't know the boys, I might buy this. But it was a little party with only four boys. She knew them. You don't get "confused" and misidentify your attacker under those circumstances. Either she's lying or she's not, IMO -- and I think she's not.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 12:07:11 GMT -5
I also see some on the right questioning whether it's fair to consider things from high school, clutching pearls over whether doing so sets a terrifying new precedent, and pointing out that Kavanaugh had previously been vetted for his current court seat.
As I've said, I have a few friends who've been through the federal court vetting process, and indeed the FBI has interviewed me with regard to two of them, so I likely know a few things about this procedure most people may not:
(1) It is normal for them to go back to high school. They did so for my friends being vetted for federal district court. They turn your life inside out -- as, IMO, they should, since it's a terribly important lifetime job. So, this is not setting a new precedent, not by any means.
(2) They inquire into things WAY smaller than attempted rape. I know someone whose clash with a long-ago colleague became an issue -- and it was a perfectly commonplace clash of the kind most of us have experienced somewhere along the line.
(3) It is normal procedure to re-vet someone when they go up the court food chain. Indeed, if you have the bad luck to have the president who nominated you leave office before you're confirmed, you may end up having them do another round of vetting. (Happened to a friend of mine.)
As for those fretting about holding high school behavior against middle-aged men:
(1) We are not talking about putting him in prison. We are talking about whether he gets a lifetime seat on our nation's highest court. The standard is considerably different. IMO, if there is genuine doubt over whether he did this thing, he should not be confirmed for a SCOTUS seat. That's not the same thing as saying we should toss him in prison.
(2) Again, it's normal for them to inquire into things going back to high school -- this is not a new standard being applied to Kavanaugh. And why would they ask about high school behavior if they didn't feel it mattered?
(3) A few military officers on Twitter stated that if military recruits were to do such a thing, it would absolutely be a disqualifier for them to later attain high rank in the military. Life doesn't always give you a mulligan for stuff you did at 17. It depends on what you did, and it depends on what we're talking about (e.g., prison time vs. high office).
(4) This allegation, if true, isn't some kind of garden variety misbehavior. He's not being persecuted for being a party boy at 17. It's not a claim that they had sex and she later regretted it, or that there were "mixed signals." The allegation is that he and his friend dragged her into a bedroom, locked the door, that Kavanaugh got on top of her, put his hand over her mouth, groped her and tried to undress her. That is NOT boys will be boys, and it is NOT an innocent misunderstanding. I don't think any guy on this board would have done such a thing at 17. It shows, at a minimum, a profound lack of empathy for a terrified girl, and a profound failure to recognize her humanity and free will. It is not minor -- it is disqualifying.
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Post by Amadan on Sept 18, 2018 13:16:12 GMT -5
I agree that if he did what he's accused of doing, that isn't "normal teenage hijinks," it's a profoundly disordered attitude towards women and sexual entitlement. Doesn't mean he's the same person he was at 17 or that he hasn't since then grown, matured, and now looks back on his actions then with shame and regret. But it certainly justifies asking him some hard questions about that.
If he had said something weaselly like we normally hear in these situations, e.g., "I don't exactly remember what happened but I'm very sorry if I somehow made her feel uncomfortable blah blah blah" I'd say punt him, he's done.
As I understand it, though, he's flatly denying it ever happened.
So either she is a bald-faced liar, or he is, or she really is profoundly confused about what really happened - and I wouldn't rule this out. People's memories are actually pretty bad, and it would be very easy for her to have filled in details around a traumatic event that after many years she has become absolutely convinced are true, even though they aren't. Knowing what we know about how bad eyewitness testimony is, I can't say it's impossible that she really, truly remembers Kavanaugh doing this to her when he didn't.
Not sure how you unravel that after 35 years, but he absolutely cannot be confirmed until it's resolved.
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Post by nighttimer on Sept 18, 2018 14:59:23 GMT -5
Given the conduct of GOP Senators across the last half-decade, I don't fault the Dem Senators at all for trying to hold up this nomination. Part of me kind of wants them to succeed, to push the vote past the midterms, just to see some GOP Senators squirm. But I don't find Kavanaugh to be as bad as Alito and Sotomayor. Those two are the king and queen of partisanship, imo. and currently the weakest links on the Court. The weakest links on the Court? It is to laugh. That isn't even remotely true when a trifling waste of air like Clarence Thomas squats on the highest court of the land like a malignant, mute toad, as Jeffrey Toobin observed four years ago. The confirmation of Clarence Thomas by the Senate Judiciary Committee went a long way in justifying the contempt the public holds its elected officials and with the naked partisanship on display by both sides in the confirmation hearings of Brent Kavanaugh, we're heading down that same muddy road. The woman who nearly derailed Thomas has some ideas on how to do better than the Democratic-led committee did nearly 30 years ago. They won't.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 15:44:35 GMT -5
Clarence Thomas is also my vote for least worthy justice, in more ways than one. Taking aside politics, and taking aside the Anita Hill allegations (for the record, I believe Anita), he rarely asks a question or writes an important decision. If it weren't for the Anita Hill debacle and the fact that he's the only current black justice, he'd be pretty unmemorable.
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