Democrats tell us the real game again and again. The New York Times editorial board, featuring racist Sarah Jeong, wants to hit pause on the process, a blatant attempt to push for holding off till after the election. It mentions “evidence” in the subhead, then provides none in the screed. For them, preferably after the new Congress is seated with Democrats controlling the Senate. The Washington Post EB wants the FBI to investigate to run out the clock, despite knowing that the FBI doesn’t investigate local crimes. Also at the WP, E.J. Dionne
The Kavanaugh vote is bigger than politics
Who says politicians think only about the next election? In the battle over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the outcome each party respectively wants may hurt them in November’s elections.
But the stakes are so high that neither side can afford to focus on politics alone.
They got higher still on Wednesday when a new accuser, Julie Swetnick, said Kavanaugh was abusive to girls in high school and alleged he was present at a party where she was gang-raped. Kavanaugh vigorously denied the new charges, calling them “ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone.” But all ten Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee said President Trump should either withdraw Kavanaugh’s nomination or reopen his FBI background investigation.
More holes in that accusation than swiss cheese cheese cloth. Skipping to the end after all of the talk about turning this into politics for the mid-terms
Both parties have made electoral politics secondary because they know that history will weigh heavily in the coming days. In “Republican Ascendancy,” his classic book about the 1920s and early 1930s, the historian John D. Hicks noted that President Warren Harding got to make four Supreme Court appointments in his two and a half years in office. He named conservative former President William Howard Taft, as Chief Justice, while Harding’s other three appointments “fell also to men of ability, albeit in each case to an extreme conservative.”
Two of the four were still on the court when conservative justices created a judicial crisis in the 1930s by rejecting one New Deal program after another; the other two were replaced by conservatives named by President Herbert Hoover and were also broadly part of the anti-New Deal block. FDR’s court-packing fight ensued.
Conservatives now see a comparable opportunity to affect jurisprudence for decades, even as liberals are aghast at the damage an activist right-wing Court could do.
But with so many questions raised about Kavanaugh’s veracity, we can’t even get to ideology now. The best course would be to delay hearings and votes and take the time to reexamine Kavanaugh’s fitness for the court.
This is about denying Trump a pick for the Supreme Court, and doing it in the sleaziest of manners. This is what is meant by “bigger than Kavanaugh.” Daniel Hanninger calls this the Kavanaugh Standard
Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to replace Anthony Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court is a watershed event that will define America’s politics for years. If the Kavanaugh nomination fails because of the accusations made against him by Christine Blasey Ford and others, America’s system of politics, indeed its everyday social relations, will be conducted in the future on the Kavanaugh Standard. It will deepen the country’s divisions for a generation.
The Kavanaugh Standard will hold that any decision requiring a deliberative consideration of contested positions can and should be decided on just one thing: belief. Belief is sufficient. Nothing else matters. (snip)
Then something new happened. Half of the Senate Judiciary Committee created this standard: “I believe Christine.â€
It is an inescapable irony that the Kavanaugh Standard—“I believeâ€â€”is being established inside the context of a nomination to the highest U.S. court. This new standard for court nominees (and surely others in and outside politics) would be that judgment can be rendered in the absence of substantive argument or any legal standard relating to corroboration, cross-examination or presumption of innocence.
Democrats are setting political precedents that will come back to bite them where the sun don’t shine, much like it has with things like invoking the nuclear option when Harry Reid was in charge of the Democrat controlled Senate.
Here is Sen. Jeff Merkley's lawsuit filed today against Trump, Senate Republicans, and the National Archives: https://t.co/S8lddgI69J He's asking the court to block McConnell from holding a vote on Kavanaugh until the Senate gets all of Kavanaugh's records pic.twitter.com/F0A8JLyYgG
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) September 26, 2018
This will go nowhere, but, is it wise for Jeff to do this? Democrats should just remember their games when Democrats are accused with zero proof, zero evidence, and zero corroboration the “I Believe” meme and the other things they did.
If the Kavanaugh confirmation fails it’s because of the Republicans. They have the votes to push the confirmation through. So why wouldn’t they? Either conscience or fear of the American voters. It was the Republicans who failed to vet Kavanaugh and who have pushed the premature vote.
Ideally the GOP would love to see Kavanaugh NOT confirmed, blaming the Dems, and motivating their base to turn out in November. It’s a long shot for the Dems to win the Senate anyway, so tRump then would nominate the next available conservative on the Federalist Society list. They’d have a conservative, activist Court AND keep the Senate, and likely a few more House seats. It’s a risk for the GOP but one they calculate could be worth it.
And if Kavanaugh IS confirmed, it’s still worth it for the GOPhers, even if the lose the Senate for a few years. The conservative, activist Court can revamp laws, policies and rules and construct the never-ending conservative paradise of which they fantasize.
It’s a win-win, engineered by Mitch.
Some light reading:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/us/politics/christine-blasey-ford-prepared-statement.html
The accusers have either rescinded or been shown to be liars. 2 men have come forward to say they were the ones who confronted Dr I Can’t Remember, so all of little Jeffery’s lies fall apart.
So Kavanaugh gets confirmed, but, like Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, has reason to not give them a fair shake for the rest of his life.
And, yes, this was like all of Gloria Allred’s scams. Blacken the man’s name so he’d drop out without a fight, but it just didn’t work out that way.
So the Democrat Party is blackened for at least a generation (I have no problem with that) and The Donald gets a free hand in restoring the country to its greatness.
Enjoy the wiklderness, Jeffery. You’re going to be there a long time.
No.
Did they identify themselves as attempted rapists? Maybe they’re the same ones who say the scammed Avenatti.
Why would Gorsuch have a beef with anyone? He sailed through. Thomas should thank the Dems who confirmed him – the Repubs didn’t have the votes.
The conservative elites have one goal and that’s to prefer and enhance the plutocracy. They’ll try to keep their enslaved minions (working class whites) happy by bashing Blacks, immigrants, women, Muslims, libs, pro-choicers etc. But they’ll keep picking your pockets.
Yes.
Apparently so. Their accounts dovetail with Dr I Can’t Remember’s.
Why would Gorsuch have a beef with anyone? He sailed through. Thomas should thank the Dems who confirmed him
Gorsuch’s mother was Anne Gorsuch, who was given the Ray Donovan treatment. As for Justice Thomas, he called it a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks. I know you know all this, you’re just playing dumb, rather than acting stupid.
The conservative elites have one goal and that’s to prefer and enhance the plutocracy. They’ll try to keep their enslaved minions (working class whites) happy by bashing Blacks, immigrants, women, Muslims, libs, pro-choicers etc. But they’ll keep picking your pockets.
Another one right out of The Daily Worker. Doesn’t matter unemployment, especially for minorities, is at an all-time low, wages are high, people are getting back into the middle class, but that’s not what you want, is it?
You want people on welfare, dependent on government, so you can be a commissar some day (fat chance). It’s the Lefties who pick people’s pockets with their taxes, you know that.
As for libs, pro-choicers etc., they deserve what they get.
No.
No.
Just lies. The economic elites have been systematically harming the working classes for at least 4 decades. Wages flat, people falling out of the middle class.
The elites work to keep wages low (helps the owners), keep corporation and owner taxes low. Someone has to pay – guess who – the working classes. Look at how regressive state and local taxes must make up the gap from falling fed taxes and outlays.
Labor, trade, fiscal, monetary, tax, benefits, pensions, entitlements, all reward the rich at the expense of the not rich.
Here’s a recent example: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/msn/irs-weighs-easing-tax-free-spinoff-rules-in-boon-to-tech-pharma/ar-AAADWsl
Jeff,
If the Kavanaugh confirmation fails, the Dems have fallen into Trump’s checkmate move. He can then put up the absolutely worse conservative judge and have him sail in. You see, stupidity has consequences.
dave,
That’s what I said. There are few worse conservatives available.
Jeff,
Actually Kav looks like a Kennedy to me. But that shows how stupid liberals are. For the record, this woman appears to be lying to me and that it is clear the standard for advanced degrees has been markedly lowered, much like you remedial pharmacist degree.
dave,
You still suck. I don’t have a pharmacist degree, but I’ve taught medical, pharmacy and nursing students, and medical students are the least curious.
And medical ‘doctors’ are the least scientific of all professionals. It’s clear you understand little of science. We work with a DDS who’s a better scientist than any MD we talk to. Veterinary pathologists are better scientists.
The confirmation is in the hands of the GOP, no one else. The only fear they have is from American voters, millions of whom watched Dr. Ford and the hapless ‘female assistant’ prosecutor hired by the GOP Senators to try to trip her up.
Not worse, better.
Kavanaugh’s gonna make it if Dr I Can’t Remember’s antics are any indication.
And there probably no better judges or Conservatives than Brother Bret, that’s why the Demos are afraid of him. But next will be Amy Barrett, then Thomas Hardiman, Don Willett, Raymond Kethledge, and Amul Thapar.
And doubtless, they will remember this.
As will a couple of possibilities from the Senate, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz.
If I were Kav, I would be looking for payback.
EJ Dionne is an old Commie, but, for once, he tells the truth.
After watching the first hours of this shit show,
I believe Dr. Ford.
I believe she doesn’t remember anything and she’s been caught fudging.
Following Kavanaugh’s eye-opening meltdown yesterday:
and
It’s now clear, regardless of the sexual assault allegations, that Kavanaugh is a smart political hack, but one lacking the temperament to be on our highest Court. If it confirms Kavanaugh, the Senate risks its own plummeting reputation and the faith that American’s have in our Supreme Court.
The ABA should know better. The FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction, and if they did an investigation could have began months ago. Dems delaying tactic there for the world to see. And I love the new “temperment†argument. Excuse #341….. It was a man defending himself against a false accusation, not that different than what Thomas did.
So you know more law than the American Bar Association? The FBI absolutely has jurisdiction to investigate a Supreme Court candidate.
The temperament argument is new because of Kavanaugh’s hissy fit yesterday.