Even if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, he will carry scars from the brutal process to get him there.... [A]s he limps over the finish line... the question could soon shift from whether he will be confirmed to what kind of justice he will be.The linked article doesn't come out and make this argument, but it caused me to see it: Kavanaugh should be rejected because the confirmation experienced has ruined his mind. He's damaged now and can no longer think in the properly judicial way that was once within his capacity. A moderated version of that argument is that people will worry that he's now damaged and skewed and that's reason enough to keep him off the Court, to preserve the belief in the legitimacy of the institution.
Will Kavanaugh... dig in on the far right, radicalized by the experience? Will he swing the other way towards the middle, determined to improve his reputation among women? Or will he be able to move past it entirely?...
“What [Kavanaugh said at the hearing] was so explicitly partisan, so permanently political, so grudge-bearing, that I don’t see how somebody puts on a new robe, goes to a new court and forgets about that,” says John Q. Barrett, professor at St. John’s University School of Law. “The public will never forget about that. This guy, if he’s going to be confirmed, will now be heckled and protested and a pariah for the rest of his life for a segment of the country.”...
“It will raise questions about whether he could ever view any issue that touched on questions of sexual misconduct fairly, given what has happened,” says Melissa Murray, professor at New York University School of Law.
I'm not making these arguments. I'm just seeing them and finding them horrendously perverse and cruel. Why not devise a confirmation process that is such an ordeal that it will drive out the very qualities we want in a judge? First, it would be torture, and second, you could never confirm a nominee. It's an inherently self-defeating process.
Posts
476 comments:
1 – 200 of 476 Newer› Newest»Time(D) speaks.
It's the Menendez brothers sobbing about being orphans.
“It’s an inherently self defeating process”
That’s the point of what the Dems did. Let’s move on to perjury indictments for all the folks who lied to the FBI or the senate investigators.
I keep saying, I will laugh when Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court, and a challenge to Sullivan comes up.
I had considered that situation a few days ago and came to this conclusion. Kavanaugh is not going to change who he is, but he will be extremely cautious on any case that involves any type of discrimination.
Get the television cameras out of there. This is a representative democracy; we elect people to make these decisions in a deliberative manner. Enough with the clown show and the drive-by shootings.
Your choice of 'news' sources leaves much to be desired.
"Why not devise a confirmation process that is such an ordeal that it will drive out the very qualities we want in a judge?" -- Althouse
Because the Democrats and the media will not allow it.
Why are the two people quoted law professors? We are talking about personality, not the law. They have no special expertise about how the confirmation process is affecting Kavanaugh's prejudices.
... or, the Democrats and the media will allow it when they have the Presidency and Congress.
”I'm just seeing them and finding them horrendously perverse and cruel. Why not devise a confirmation process that is such an ordeal that it will drive out the very qualities we want in a judge? First, it would be torture, and second, you could never confirm a nominee. It's an inherently self-defeating process.”
You’re missing half the picture. It will only be applied to the Republican half of the universe.
This is the argument that says that if someone has been falsely accused and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for years,then he should not be let go, because after such unjust treatment he must surely hate the U.S.
Now the left has repurposed it for Judge Kavanaugh.
The counter example is that Justce Thomas was wrongly accused and pilloried, and his tenure on the bench has worked out just fine.
What [Kavanaugh said at the hearing] was so explicitly partisan, so permanently political, so grudge-bearing, that I don’t see how somebody puts on a new robe, goes to a new court and forgets about that
So if you're being vicously attacked by one side, fighting back "partisan"?
That means the credibility of witnesses is diminishing rapidly, and the media is moving away from stopping/stalling the confirmation. Soon, they will be trying to influence the judge to be more left leaning, and this looks like a segue to that.
What about the counter argument that his experience would give him a deeper appreciation of the due process rights afforded by the Constitution?
What you and others seem to want is ultimate veto power with no Constitutional mechanism for countering that. You want to abort Kavanaugh because you think he’s an unfit Justice.
"I'm just seeing them and finding them horrendously perverse and cruel."
So what, no more "cruel neutrality" Ann?
But yeah, I'm on board. Perverse. "Cruely perverse" infact.
Personally I hope he goes scorched earth....if you know what I'm saying.
Heads, the antagonists win; tails, Kavanaugh loses.
No wonder the guy's angry.
First, it would be torture, and second, you could never confirm a nominee.
Oh I disagree Ann. The Republicans roll over for any Dem nominee. Only Republican nominees wouldn't get through.
This is one reason why non-credible charges should not be given a platform. But noooo, we must hear “the survivors”, giving no thought as to whether or not the person has likely “survived” anything at all. It amazes me that people can’t see that. Or maybe, it’s finally sinking in for some.
Will Kavanaugh... dig in on the far right, radicalized by the experience? Will he swing the other way towards the middle, determined to improve his reputation among women? Or will he be able to move past it entirely?...
Isn't that the strongest argument yet for the Judiciary Committee to pursue and punish vigorously any false testimony and to vindicate Kavanaugh?
Wasn't that what simple "justice required" anyway in all matter, great and small, only a short time ago?
What about the counter argument that his experience would give him a deeper appreciation of the due process rights afforded by the Constitution?
Great point -- I've always thought the best argument against Kavanaugh stems from his overly deferential jurisprudence regarding the 4th Amendment. After this experience, he might rethink his position about the importance of due process.
Note the game AA is playing. She is trotting out all anti-kavanaugh accusations and "punnishly" states " hey i am not saying it is right, but it is out there". C'mon AA your beginning to act childishly.
Shorter D-Time:
The left GET to trash you - and you must acquiesce to their trashing of you.
It's the Menendez brothers sobbing about being orphans.
Yes.
The funny (not ha-ha way) thing is that if you're a red-meat conservative, Kavanaugh was sort of a "meh" pick for Trump. Safe, not radical. And he would be just the sort of guy who conservatives worry would be ripe for plucking and charming by the Georgetown cocktail party set, like his hero Anthony Kennedy.
I'm thinking the prospects for that are greatly diminished now, and the left will have no one to blame but itself.
Much the same could be said for Trump; none of us had the remotest reason to think he would govern as a conservative, and many conservatives were worried that Chuck and Nancy et al. would co-opt him into a liberal tool. But they chose early on to vilify 24/7, perhaps because that's best for fundraising, and lo and behold, he's governing as (easily) the most conservative president since Reagan.
I'm not making these arguments. I'm just seeing them and finding them horrendously perverse and cruel.
Your commenters saw them coming as soon as CBF's letter was leaked.
They are shocked- shocked- to find the politics of personal destruction going on in here!
"The linked article doesn't come out and make this argument, but it caused me to see it: Kavanaugh should be rejected because the confirmation experienced has ruined his mind. He's damaged now and can no longer think in the properly judicial way that was once within his capacity."
I take exactly the opposite view, that Kavenaugh needs to be confirmed because the Democrats were so egregious here in their unfounded, libelous, scurrilous, underhanded attacks that they need to be slapped down, because if they get away with this, they will just step it up another notch for the next nominee that they don't want confirmed. Remember, Feinstein sat on the Ford letter and supporting information for better than six weeks, up through the close of the official hearings, then popped them in order to delay the actual confirmation vote, hopefully until after the election, when Trump state Dems up for reelection this time could safely vote against confirmation. In short, this whole Ford thing was a massive cheat by Feinstein and the Democrats. She has been in the Senate for most of 2 decades now, and knows the rules. She cheated with the late hit, and the Dems cheated by putting up obvious liers to keep an honorable, bright, talented man off the Supreme Court just because he is a male Republican Roman Catholic. We all know human nature, and esp dealing with kids (and, in our case, a very young cat), that you need to set limits, then enforce them. Every time they get away with this sh**, they will up the ante, just as every time we don't remove the kitten from the dinner table or counters increases the problems getting them to conform later.
Kavanaugh needed this experience to toughen him. He was a Toy-boy Constitutionalist, like many NeverTrumpers: autists with their ideological toy cars lined up just so and cursed be anyone who adjusts one of them.
That was the old Kavanaugh. The new Kavanaugh has learned a valuable lesson about reality. He’ll be a Gorsuch level justice.
Here's the real truth, Kavanaugh has been damaged for life whether he gets on the court or not.
To pretend that it would somehow be better for him to not be confirmed is civility bullshit.
His only path back to coaching his daughter's basketball team is the destruction of Ford's testimony and the people behind the scenes who enabled it. Both sides will end this long before that can happen.
"For the good of the country."
Who will write the book:
The Great Democratic Christine Blasey Ford Scam of 2018
It's an inherently self-defeating process.
Not if it's only used by the Left to destroy nominees from the Right...then it's the same old effective tactic used since Bork.
This Time hack attack is pure speculation. A rational person would look at the sort of judge BK has been for the past ten years (fair and gentlemanly) and say that is his baseline. A more interesting question is how this will affect his friends on the Court—Roberts, Kagan, Gorsuch—as well as on the DC Circuit, such as Merrick Garland.
Some big mistakes were made here by BK ‘s opponents.
Perhaps trial by ordeal has proven him fit to serve.
Process as punishment. How dare you be an accomplished White male with a "too perfect" reputation?
Althouse's Marxist feminism is and always has been a bullshit lie.
Yeah, I'm guessing the judge is seeing that.
Blogger M Jordan said...
Kavanaugh needed this experience to toughen him. He was a Toy-boy Constitutionalist, like many NeverTrumpers: autists with their ideological toy cars lined up just so and cursed be anyone who adjusts one of them.
How do you know this experience has changed him? Maybe he was tough enough to start with and this just proved it.
Another win for Trump, no matter how this all settles out.
Look carefully, men.
Kavanaugh is a careerist drone who, quite obviously, sought to immunize himself by checking off all the boxes that made it appear that he was a paragon of feminist virtue.
Didn't mean shit in crunch time, did it?
Tell women no. It's time.
Would they make the same argument about a victim of sexual assault?
We can't have a supreme court justice wasting his time coaching girls' basketball.
This guy, if he’s going to be confirmed, will now be heckled and protested and a pariah for the rest of his life for a segment of the country.”...It will raise questions about whether he could ever view any issue that touched on questions of sexual misconduct fairly, given what has happened,” says Melissa Murray, professor at New York University School of Law.
This quote was created long ago. They kept it in the same box as the protest signs with the blank space for the name. It read, "______, if he's going to be confirmed..." Somebody clever spotted it and inserted 'This guy'. Evergreen.
Personally, I think the cruelest accusation was accusing Kavanagh of rape.
Sometimes having your attitudes, sensibilities and analytical framework altered by by real life experiences is seen as a good thing.
How could he not be affected by how he sees the state wielding its enormous powers and in matters of how much power the state should have over an individual? Much of what he'll be working on bear directly on such questions.
Dr. Frankenstien wasn't pleased by what he'd created either.
Hubris kinda works like that.
It's not a bug, it's a feature! Basically this entire process has been designed from the get go as a Kafkaesque trap:
1) Hey, there are some terrible accusations and if you don't withdraw, they are going to come out and it's going to be embarrassing for you and your family. You should withdraw.
2) Okay, you deny the accusations and aren't withdrawing? Well we're going to draw this out so that all the crazies can come out of the woodwork and accuse you of being a closet horrific criminal. Don't make us have a hearing - you don't want that.
3) Okay, you're going to cause us to have a hearing? We're going to make sure the salaciousness of every accusation is stretched out in loving detail on TV.
4) Oh, this makes you angry? Well that's clearly a sign that you lack the temperament to be on the court.
5) You point out how partisan this has been? Clearly you're not going to be a fair umpire on the court. We, who were never going to vote for your confirmation anyway, are shocked that any potential justice would consider these obviously partisan attacks as partisan.
6) Does this process make you angry bro? Well, by the way you're acting, it's possible to see that this has damaged your mind and you're probably no longer fit to be on the court.
7) Oh, you got confirmed anyway? Nearly half the country is going to think of you as a rapist for the rest of your life. It'll be mentioned in every biography ever written about you and will be one of the only thing that anyone remembers about you in the future.
I cannot wait to see who wants to go through this process in the future. And boy, howdy, I cannot wait for the next time a Democratic president tries to get someone confirmed. It's gonna be lit!
TV is making everything as crazy as women.
It's curious that Kafka wrote his humor before TV existed.
@Unknown: Maybe he was tough enough to start with and this just proved it.
True. But he was a frat boy, did the Federalist thing, is a sports junkie, hired too many women to prove he wasn’t sexist. There’s some fragility there,
You make the confirmation process sound like bootcamp. we lost about 20% of our platoon during training. cruel and heartless but everyone respects the outcome. just because this guy is an elite entitled ivy-league college professor, he needs to survive the crucible.
Dems did the impossible: they brought the Bush crowd into the corner of the Trump tent.
Before all this I was sort of ambivalent about Kavanaugh. I mean, I was prefectly happy to have him nominated but I would've been perfectly happy with a lot of other potential nominees. I also believed that even if he didn't get in, it seemed highly likely thatwe'd still have plenty of opportunities to get someone else in... so no big deal one way or the other.
After this circus though, I now believe it's vital that Kavanaugh gets in. The reason? Bad behavoir should never be rewared, otherwise you get more of it. The Democrats have behaved badly. If they're rewared for it, they'll keep it up. If you didn't like this whole episode, if you found it appalling and you want to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again, you must not encourage it.
"I'm just seeing them and finding them horrendously perverse and cruel."
Good for you.
But the cruelty has been aided and abetted by people like you.
When you speciously speculate about the dark side of a good man with an excellent professional record, and grant credibility to a baseless accusation because it is made by a woman who displayed an emotional state to her husband, and refuse to oppose the Dems' abuse of the process as a matter of principle, and argue in bad faith about the relative strengths of the accusation and the rebuttal, you are part of the problem.
So, does this perversity and cruelty of the anti-Kavanaugh forces, which was obviously obvious to anyone watching from the outset, lead you to say that the left has crossed a line that makes you resist them as the detestable scum they are?
One could adopt a "no 'survivors'" policy based on the same, er, logic.
And judging by how some 'survivors' are acting, it would make more sense.
Ann, why have you not yet addressed the myriad of lies and "mis-truths" that Ford has been caught in and apply your cruel-neutrality to determine that she is a lying whack-job and this entire thing was a coordinated, political hit-job from the start? Are you able to acknowledge when you're wrong and say you're sorry for taking part in destroying this innocent man's name? What is it going to take for you to admit your error and maybe spend some time in self-reflection about these ideological blind spots of your's?
Blogger Shouting Thomas said...
Althouse's Marxist feminism is and always has been a bullshit lie.
Yeah, I'm guessing the judge is seeing that.
Thomas had his chance to fight Marxist commie bastards in 1968, but he banged coeds instead. That is why he doth protests too much.
A wholly specious argument given the long documented professional behavior of the man.
-sw
Kafka was more bureaucratic humor than soap opera thinking.
There's some of that now in every claim to seriousness. Kafka is less broad about the comedy though.
As above, by many people, this sort of argument is not generally applicable, as the tactics behind it are only available to one side. I don't think the conservatives will be in a position to retaliate in kind, because the conflict will have evolved beyond these things by the time turnabout is possible. At that point we may find the Kavanaugh business a quaint episode of gentler days.
Taking a broader view, this whole business is just an episode in an ongoing power struggle that is increasing in intensity and revealing the rot in every formal and informal institution as it goes on. In this conflict there are casualties, like Kavanaugh, and there will be many more.
Nonapod + + + +
This experience also ensures that we will never (not in my lifetime anyway) see the nomination of a gay or trans person to the supreme court. The redefinition of what questions are legitimate in the confirmation process ensures that no President would nominate such a person, and no potential nominee would agree to answer in a public forum the kinds of questions that are now part of the new normal.
What [Kavanaugh said at the hearing] was so explicitly partisan, so permanently political...
This is a decent argument for why RGB must recuse herself from all cases related to the Trump administration.
If you do not wish to go there, then kindly fuck off about Kavanaugh.
Bruce Hayden, I agree with you 100%. I also think there are a lot of voters like me who reluctantly voted for Trump in the hope that he would keep his promises regarding his Supreme Court appointments. He has. I am thoroughly disgusted by the behavior of the Democrats.
"I'm just seeing them and finding them horrendously perverse and cruel."
I'm seeing them as BS, as well as perverse and cruel. It's coming from lawprofs, so you know it's the view from lefty looney land (present company being a conspicuous and rare exception).
Looks like the FBI stall isn't working out for the Dems/Ford, so now the Dem/media establishment changes tactics. Do they really think we out here in normal America don't see the bait & switch?
I bet internal polling is not looking good on the Kavanaugh debacle and the Dems will pivot to confirming him this week to mount another midterm tactic. It would be too delicious if the Kavanaugh dog & pony show energized conservatives and cost them dearly in the midterms.
One could ask if the current election for Senator in California with Feinstein getting attacked from the far left with a credible challenger is so explicitly partisan, so permanently political, so grudge-bearing, that Feinstein, already driven to nakedly partisan and unfair actions just to stay in the game, would be permanently mentally damaged while in office, should she win.
The matter of Kavanaugh is just a skirmish between two great powers that are in the process of coalescing into unified and disciplined "nations". Their identity, and their self-definition as opposites, is still being formed. Kavanaugh helped that pricess along. As the edges harden, there will be many more Kavanaughs, but with less confusion each time.
Some of Howard's friends exposed.
Perhaps because the women expressed such raw emotion, few media outlets dug into their political activism. Archila is an executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy; she had spent the previous week in Washington engaged in protests against Kavanaugh. Gallagher is a 23-year-old activist with the group. The Center is a left-wing group that is heavily funded by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Indeed, as of 2014, the Open Society was one of the three largest donors to the group.
Those were the two women who cornered Jeff Flake in a Senators only elevator and breathed the wimp in front of CNN cameras.
Why is rewarded, you get more of.
I'm kind of agreeing with ST.
BK can get back at what was done to him via the certiorari process. Four votes are needed to grant cert; with BK on board, the Court will arguably have 5 sorta conservative votes (Roberts doesn't especially impress me). So BK, with Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, can shape the Court's agenda. That'll piss the left off, and please me.
When Kavanaugh is confirmed, he (along with the four other right-leaning Justices), should quietly let Yale (and possibly Harvard) know that there are now 20 clerkship positions that are no longer available for their graduates.
This sounds like a good idea, but then those schools will lose their few remaining non-prog students.
Having experience first hand how unfettered power can be wielded by those in power, I think this process will reinforce for Kavanaugh the wisdom of the Constitution in limiting the power of government to manage and ultimately destroy lives.
Blogger Bruce Hayden said...”I take exactly the opposite view, that Kavenaugh needs to be confirmed because the Democrats were so egregious here in their unfounded, libelous, scurrilous, underhanded attacks that they need to be slapped down, because if they get away with this, they will just step it up another notch for the next nominee that they don't want confirmed.”
This, a thousand times over.
It’s like the “no need for due process” in this matter argument. If unfounded allegations are allowed to derail a nomination the process is over. It just floors me that Althouse does not see this.
'“It will raise questions about whether he could ever view any issue that touched on questions of sexual misconduct fairly, given what has happened,” says Melissa Murray, professor at New York University School of Law.'
I don't really see how a person with that viewpoint could possibly hope to be a good professor of Law. She should be fired immediately.
Buwaya, good point.
These Anti-Kavanaugh Law Professors are just pawns, anyway. Doing the bidding of their Dem masters.
If Kavanaugh gets confirmed or if he doesn’t, the standard of Smacking Back at Senators is now in place.
It was great when Klobuchar’s mask slipped. After shutting on her Daddy for being a drunk, Kavanaugh pushes her buttons. “I don’t have a drinking problem,” she said. Bullshit. Klobuchar is a souse.
Trump fundamentally transformed presidential politics. Kavanaugh is a roadmap to take down the bullshit fake seriousness of the Senate. Actually, Trump is doing a good job of it. But when the next nominee addresses Blumenthal as Da Nag Dick or Warren as Fauxcohantas then the transformation will be complete.
Mark Judge is not going to say anything about the attempted rape or assault because that would implicate himself in the crime. Clarence Thomas was and is a beast of a man with limited intellect; let's remind ourselves of that obvious and sad fact. He had the advantage of being a po' black boy. The brilliant Richard Wright wrote about his own sad personal experiences growing up in the Jim Crow racist South in Black Boy. Kavanaugh is a rich white boy out of touch with the lives of ordinary, hardworking, struggling folks. He wants lots of beer and sex. Clarence just wanted nasty bump and grind. The world doesn't owe him a spot on the Supreme Court. KEEP RICH WHITE MEN OFF THE SUPREME COURT, especially perverted Yalies. One rich perverted male, i.e., Schlump, mustn't be allowed to stack the Supreme Court with his fellow pampered perverts. Amen.
He's a professional. No problem.
It will raise questions about whether he could ever view any issue that touched on questions of sexual misconduct fairly, given what has happened
Because he would have learned first hand that women do lie? Hmmmm ... can't have that.
I looked at the law profs that signed that letter. None from Creighton or Nebraska. Therefore, meaningless. Radicals are just expressing their radical opinions.
I predicted this argument over two weeks ago:
Laslo Spatula said...
I also am thinking of what Dr. K has said -- that this experience may certainly color Kavanaugh's outlook going forward.
Which means: we will soon hear the argument that he should not be confirmed because this experience has made him unable to judge future cases clearly.
I am Laslo. 9/23/18, 10:38 AM
The Notorious RBG popped off about Trump before the election.
So the henpecked men and shrews of the Legal Academy can spare us The Law Professor Concerns.
And Larry Tribe is a fucking loon. The Elder Statesman of the Legal Academy is the worst of a rotten bunch.
"Clarence Thomas was and is a beast of a man with limited intellect;"
Thomas was Alpha Sigma Nu at Holy Cross and he graduated from Yale. He was a DC Circuit judge before SCOTUS. Yeah, limited intellect.
I bet internal polling is not looking good on the Kavanaugh debacle and the Dems will pivot to confirming him this week to mount another midterm tactic.
No presumption of innocence for charges of rape was a bridge too far for most Americans.
The Dems, once again, couldn't help themselves.
I bet internal polling is not looking good on the Kavanaugh debacle and the Dems will pivot to confirming him this week to mount another midterm tactic.
I think the evidence for that is the shift to alcohol stories. The Dims are too deeply committed to the crazies to vote for him, though.
As the edges harden, there will be many more Kavanaughs, but with less confusion each time.
I expect the next USSC nomination will not involve public hearings using this circus as a reason.
The ricin episode will be repeated.
Even Jonah Goldberg is starting to get a clue.
He includes the ritual TDS phrases but he is getting the message,.
Democratic senators who announced they would never vote for Kavanaugh under any circumstance keep getting asked if the FBI investigation they demanded will be “enough for them.” Enough for what? To still vote no? I’m not criticizing the Democrats themselves — though I obviously could — I’m criticizing the people who interview these senators. Time and again, these journalists interview the Democrats as if they were open-minded about this investigation when in every breath they insist that the investigation will be illegitimate if it doesn’t prove what they want it to prove.
He is still reluctant to agree with Trump about the media but it is obvious that he sees it.
“It will raise questions about whether he could ever view any issue that touched on questions of sexual misconduct fairly, given what has happened,” says Melissa Murray, professor at New York University School of Law.
Chutzpah: killing your parents and then throwing yourself upon the mercy of the court because you're an orphan. If this is what happened, they would deserve it. In fact, I would go so far as to call it... Justice!
"Cruel perversity" sounds like just the motto you've been looking for.
I am stuck on training cats right now because we are experiencing it right now. My partner keeps saying that parenting cats and kids is very similar. You have to set limits and enforce them. Decades ago, she visited an older maybe sister who was college kid nag her signature dish (lasagna?). After seeing her sister's longhair cat walking unimpeded across the counters, my partner demurred from eating the dish at the time, ostensibly took some home instead, only to throw it away at her first opportunity. The problem is that no matter how cute, that cat routinely walked in his litter box, which means that he was tracking those germs onto the counter her sister was preparing food on. Our mini cat can get up on the dinner table now, despite his tiny size, but not yet onto the counter. He loves the table because that is where our food is. So every night, for awhile, we had him jumping from our laps, or our shoulders, onto the table. Nope. Not acceptable. So, it is now every couple days between tries. No doubt, this is going to continue, but we are determined to extinguish this behavior. And, with him trained to stay off the table keeping him off the counters hopefully is going to be easier. I see not pushing back and penalizing the Democrats here for their egregious, personally destructive, behavior as similar to where we would be with keeping our cat off the kitchen counter, if we had not kept him off the table.
That's pretty much exactly what the anti-Kavanaugh types are saying. He fought back hard and with some emotion after falsely being accused of sex crimes, therefore he's not fit to be on the Supreme Court. As you say, this rewards and incentivizes the horrible tactics and lies used by Democrats, the media and sewer dwellers like Avenatti ... but I repeat myself thrice.
If Kavanaugh kept his cool like they say he should have, he would have been called robotic or psychopathic ... or "unempathetic" to use a wise Latina's words.
Kavanaugh must be confirmed and it would be wonderful if the Democrats paid dearly in November. This nonsense should be punished. Unfortunately, the Democrats will still do well enough in the mid-terms that no good lessons will be learned. This entire process will be repeated, but only by Democrats of course.
If crazy trumpit doesn't like Thomas that is a big plus for the Justice.
People have friends. I’ll say it again: Roberts, Kagan, Gorsuch, and members of the DC Circuit who know Kavanaugh well have to be deeply affected by this circus.
Democrats care about the Kavanaugh polling the same way they cared about the Obamacare polling.
Sacrificing yourself to further a political agenda. There's a word for that-
Justice Thomas has done rather well. Kavanaugh should do well too.
With the press and the internet we've had too much in the "what if" vein. People should get on with their lives.
So basically, the argument is, This guy is damaged goods. You need to withdraw the nomination and put up someone else (to whom we will do exactly the same thing).
Joshua Barker,
Are you able to acknowledge when you're wrong
No. Never. Die first.
First, it would be torture, and second, you could never confirm a nominee. It's an inherently self-defeating process.
Mr. Barret (John Q!) makes a possibly valid argument incredibly poorly.
The better argument is what you might call the Flannery O'Connor test of the grotesque:
In ... grotesque works, we find that the writer has made alive some experience which we are not accustomed to observe every day, or which the ordinary man may never experience in his ordinary life.... [T]here are strange skips and gaps which anyone trying to describe manners and customs would certainly not have left. Yet the characters have an inner coherence, if not always a coherence to their social framework. Their fictional qualities lean away from typical social patterns, toward mystery and the unexpected....
[For my kind of writer], the meaning of a story does not begin except at a depth where adequate motivation and adequate psychology and the various determinations have been exhausted. Such a writer will be interested in what we don't understand rather than in what we do. He will be interested in possibility rather than in probability. He will be interested in characters who are forced out to meet evil and grace and who act on a trust beyond themselves–whether they know very clearly what it is they act upon or not. (my emphasis)
In this framework, what the character reveals in extremity reveals something closer to the core of character than carefully scripted answers in formal appearance.
I will add that it is a fundamentally unfair test. O'Conner is a writer, not a judge.
I am always having it pointed out to me that life in Georgia is not at all the way I picture it, that escaped criminals do not roam the roads exterminating families, nor Bible salesmen prowl about looking for girls with wooden legs... [I]n the public mind the deeper kinds of realism are less and less understandable.
cruel and heartless but everyone respects the outcome.
Not really. You made it, didn't you?
She drowned. Guess she wasn't a witch after all. NEXT!
One side is far better organized and equipped for propaganda wars.
That incident with the two women confronting Flake to generate agitprop is just one of a constant stream of these things. They were available, they knew what to do (they had a prepared script), they were precisely timed, they had the press in attendance
They are available, and indoctrinated/trained, to execute their roles in agitprop.
They come from an intellectual/social milieu where many such are available.
They have social/institutional protection for their activities.
They are under the umbrella of larger coordinating bodies.
The MSM is likewise coordinated to expand the reach of their agitprop.
Our Senate does incline toward the grotesque:
O'Connor is so sedulous an observer of Chekhov's gun rule that if a family discusses a newspaper story about a killer on the loose, there is no doubt that he'll massacre them; if a bull is roaming the fields, its horn will soon be buried in someone's gut ("Greenleaf"); if a grandfather has bred his own obstinacy into a beloved granddaughter, he will beat her to death when she is obstinate towards him ("A View of the Woods"). The inexorability of O'Connor's plots can, as in these cases, invest her stories with the awful power of Greek tragedy, and indeed before giving readings of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" she'd say that, "like the Greeks you should know what is going to happen in this story so that any element of suspense in it will be transferred from its surface to its interior". If someone's first experience of O'Connor was "The Displaced Person" (1954), at the denouement of which three people passively watch a tractor roll down a slope and crush a fourth, the event would be unexpected and shocking. But the story is arguably more powerful when a familiarity with O'Connor's work makes this ending an awaited inevitability. The tangible menace that her stories exude isn't about "what", but "when".
If an accusation is made anonymously, there is not doubt that it will be flung upon the public before the hearings conclude.
So the partisanship possibly resulting from the ugly confirmation process is supposed to be bad - while the partisanship by the "notorious RBG" is okay because it was arrived at via a different route.
The rule for confirmation hearings going forward has to be: we will reopen a completed hearing only if serious, material (ie, would change the outcome if true), and highly credible evidence that was not known at the time of the hearing -- and could not reasonably have been known before then -- arises after the hearing. And even the, we will investigate in confidence and not turn the proceeding into a circus.
The process was designed to 'ruin' Kavanaugh. If he didn't back away from the massive onslaught of scurrilous accusations, it would 'corrupt his mind' and make him impartial.
I'm at the point where I'm willing to have him seated today. The Ds on the committee weren't intending the process to be fair and bipartisan, they intended to make it as cruel and destructive as possible to discourage the next round of applicants, when RGB retires or kicks the bucket.
And watching the antics of the media and the Dems - it's amazing that anyone would think that they want what's best for the country. They want power - and they'll destroy anyone or anything that gets in their way if we let them. I don't foresee ever voting for another Democratic candidate - their actions are far too poisonous for a society that depends on the rule of law being applied impartially, and they've clearly shown they consider themselves above the law itself.
... make him PARTIAL, I meant to say above...
It takes a lot of chutzpah, since the people making these arguments about how Kavanaugh might be scarred, damaged, or driven to displays of improper emotion are the same people who organized the harassment campaign, against him and others, that led to these outbursts.
But hopefully time heals most wounds. Kavanaugh's presence on the bench is likely be at least as decorous and sober as Thomas's, whom no reasonable person has accused of bad temper or undignified behavior for many years now, in spite of an extremely vehement speech during the confirmation hearings.
"Why not devise a confirmation process that is such an ordeal that it will drive out the very qualities we want in a judge?" -- Althouse
I have refuse to follow others by going after our honorable hostess, It's her playground, she leaves the gate open for us, so I try not to liter and tear things up.
But
The process is in place. Senator Diane Feinstein blew it up, took a shit in the middle of it, and pissed in the mouth of every member on the committee.
A report came to her. "the process" was for the ranking member to walk it over to the chairman and ask that the investigative teams of both the ranking member and the Chairman, investigate the contents of the letter. Anonymously. Without alerting the media. Investigate. Follow up, clarify. Gather documents, like the psychologists notes, Building permits concerning the 2 front doors, the Polygraph results and protocols along with interviewing the person that administered the test. Chasing down all close friends, like old boyfriends etc. All of this done in the quiet, anonymously.
Ann you have to see the plain fact that the Democrats had no intention of wanting an investigation and fact finding mission. The only goal was to delay, and if done right, get Kavanaugh to withdraw.
They gambled, went all in, and lost.
You are intelligent, so you understand the process is 100% fine. If the committee uses the process in good faith.
There is nothing to protect us from actors, acting in bad faith.
Yeah, regrettably Ann is correct. This black cloud will hover over BK for a while -- every NYT article will mention the "charges," just as they conveniently always mention that Clarence Thomas never asks any questions at oral argument - to imply that he's dumb.
My thought is that BK should continue to press on towards confirmation. Once confirmed, he can then figure out some kind of anti-propaganda campaign. Maybe, he can challenge Ford to make the charges on tv, where there's no litigation privilege, and he could sue her for defamation. Something like that.
Jerry said...”I'm at the point where I'm willing to have him seated today. The Ds on the committee weren't intending the process to be fair and bipartisan, they intended to make it as cruel and destructive as possible to discourage the next round of applicants, when RGB retires or kicks the bucket.”
Kavanaugh needs to be confirmed and the public hearing process needs to be abandoned for the RGC replacement.
Well, a ticked off, defiant Kavanaugh as Justice is exactly what we deserve as a people for how we've treated him.
We don't get to wrongfully call someone a serial gang rapist in a senate confirmation hearing and then also be offended when that person gets really mad.
Imagine if Hillary Clinton was accused of being a bitch? No one would stand for that, even if people have made accusations. She would be, rightfully, angry. #himtoo
That's convenient. "We were such dicks, you may never be able to treat us fairly, so we shouldn't confirm you as a judge."
Kavanaugh's demeanor on the court of appeals has been as good, and probably better, than most of the 100+ state and federal appellate court judges I have appeared before as an appellate advocate. How do I know? I appeared before Kavanaugh himself. He is truly a humble and decent judge on the bench. Not all of them are. I guarantee you that.
Self-defeating, if unsuccessful. But the Left has bullied its way to enough victories in the Culture War that it cannot step back. Even the losses are justified, as "heightening the contradictions."
Brett Kavanaugh, like Clarence Thomas before him, has seen the true face of the Left. They know we are in a fight with a foe that means to destroy the very culture of American democracy, that sees law and tradition, moderation and compromise as mere tools of an oppressive system.. That makes them dangerous.
Honestly, if Kavanaugh is kept off the court because of credible claims, fine. But, for ones that are not credible? That just encourages people to bring them against other nominees later. But... if you can disqualify someone *because the other side was too mean to them,* all we're going to have is clown shows like this all the time.
Screw that. Give him an up or down vote and let's #MoveOn
If Kavanaugh is confirmed I’m hoping this ordeal short-circuits the tendency of conservative Justices to be co-opted by the liberal milieu.
Agree that the process will change if the majority party controls the senate (by enough votes) and the president is of the same party.
If the GOP got to 54 Senators after the midterms and the Notorious RBG drops dread, then just submit Barret’s name for a floor vote. She was recently confirmed to an appellate court. There’s nothing new to learn by “the process.” She’ll be in her seat before RBG gets buried.
That’s how this should be done.
I wouldn't believe anything in TIME.
Also, the GOP needs to take a few political scalps in retaliation for Kavanaugh.
mccullough said...
Buwaya, good point.
These Anti-Kavanaugh Law Professors are just pawns, anyway. Doing the bidding of their Dem masters.
Too narrow. The media, Democrats, and these protesters are ALL pawns.
The same people buying Flake right now fund all of this and control all of this.
Schumer and Pelosi take orders. They are nothing in the real game but tools.
You know, there's no requirement to be a lawyer on the Supreme Court.
Therefore, I think we should support Laslo Spatula to be the next nominee, if Kavanaugh goes down (no pun intended).
Laslo could be the Long Dong Silver of constitutional jurisprudence.
On the other hand, Crazy Blasey, is a pawn for some really awful, leftwing assholes. Alas, that's what we gotta deal with these days.
Blogger buwaya said...
One side is far better organized and equipped for propaganda wars.
Agreed but I think they overplayed their hand. If even Jonah Goldberg, whoever reluctantly, acknowledges the press is an arm of the DNC, public opinion will shift away.
I think of the "Samizdat" in the USSR. We are getting close.
The 2004 Bush AWOL story was the beginning fo the end for the media. The left can make a movie they call "Truth" but we know it's a lie
They can even give it awards like:
Cinema for Peace Awards 2016
Nominee
Cinema for Peace Award Most Valuable Movie of the Year
James Vanderbilt
But we know it's a lie. Pretty soon everybody does. The soap opera women will be last, of course.
Yes, I think that is what will happen.
IF, of course,
iowan2 said...
"I have refuse to follow others by going after our honorable hostess, It's her playground, she leaves the gate open for us, so I try not to liter and tear things up. "
I met in the middle: I have pointedly spoken my view in regards to her writings on this matter, but I have been more gentle in my remarks than I would've been if her posts had been written by an adult male.
I am Laslo.
If Kavanaugh kept his cool like they say he should have, he would have been called robotic or psychopathic ... or "unempathetic" to use a wise Latina's words.
I would argue that Kavanaugh DID keep his cool, under great pressure, and the toughest questioning that any SCOTUS nominee ever underwent, and he did it for two long days. 30+ hours of that. And then, those hearings were concluded and no one had laid a glove on him.
Only when he was getting attacked from coast to coast, and national broadcast networks were running stories about "gang rapes" that were no doubt seen by Kavanaugh's daughters and girls' basketball team members, did Kavanaugh react. And his "reaction"? Calling out the transparent political animus against him. Returning the fire of hostile cross-examination by -- GASP! -- asking questions of his Democratic questioners, all of whom had decided to vote against him before he ever opened his mouth. By not agreeing with loaded, leading questions. Some kinda outrage, alright.
So, we can understand that K is legally and likely factually a good man, and that Time et al have yelled bloody abortion one too many times to remain credible. As a wise white man, with the experience of a warlock trial, he should be confirmed to the Court, so that we can know The Constitution by the dawn’s early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.
Kavanaugh should be rejected because the confirmation experienced has ruined his mind. He's damaged now.
I said this before and I will say it again: suffering doesn't tell us anything about the person who is suffering. All we know is they are suffering. It is entirely possible the suffering will make them stronger people, better people, amazing people. See for instance, Ann Althouse.
On the other hand, suffering can make you bitter, angry, vengeful. See, for instance, Christine Fair.
My take on it is that Brett Kavanaugh is way more like the former than the latter. He's a class act. For instance, his unwillingness to hate on somebody who was falsely accusing him of sexual assault. And the story he told about his daughter wanting to pray for Ford.
As for his anger, it was mostly directed at the lack of due process and the evil directed at both him and Ford. How in essence they are both being used for political ends, and scapegoated.
I acknowledge the possibility that Brett Kavanaugh might be damaged. He said so himself! But damn if I would reward the people who damaged him.
Nor do I think such speculation is appropriate at all. That would be like firing a rape victim because she might be angry at her students down the road.
"I shouldn't marry that girl. She was raped. She's ruined."
I dunno, Vaclav Havel was a good sport after taking political office. So was Nelson Mandela (his heirs, not so much).
Bad Lieutenant said...
Are you able to acknowledge when you're wrong
No. Never. Die first.
-------
The mark of being and adult is the ability to acknowledge your mistakes, apologize for them, hopefully change your behavior, and then fucking move on... Something that Democrats, leftists and bat-shit crazy liberal female professors seem incapable of... exampled by the crying, stomping, child-like temper-tantrums and scream-at-the-sky hissy-fits they've been throwing since 2016
Returning the fire of hostile cross-examination by -- GASP! -- asking questions of his Democratic questioners, all of whom had decided to vote against him before he ever opened his mouth. By not agreeing with loaded, leading questions. Some kinda outrage, alright. - Chuck
He almost understands now why we wanted Trump when they tried to ram Hillary down our throats.
In short, K was psychologically raped, and the damaged goods should be discarded. Said another way, after a woman is rape-raped, she is no longer a viable Person, and should be forgotten. Time is presenting an apology for Pro-Choice.
With regard to "fitness" or "fairness", I'm trying to imagine a Federal courtroom where the parties begin their opening statements by accusing the bench of being sexual predators. See, there the writers might have a point.
Anyone help!
I'm looking for a video Ann posted a few weeks ago (months ago?) with Hillary Clinton repeating a word loop with Diane Sawyer. (I think?) I cannot remember the word but it had to do with mocking Bill's accusers.
"One could ask if the current election for Senator in California with Feinstein getting attacked from the far left with a credible challenger is so explicitly partisan, so permanently political, so grudge-bearing, that Feinstein, already driven to nakedly partisan and unfair actions just to stay in the game, would be permanently mentally damaged while in office, should she win."
I have wondered if this whole farce wasn't about Feinstein getting in front of any challenge from her left. Democrats were clearly going batshit about Kavanaugh well before anyone had heard about CBF. CBF's letter may well have looked like a golden opportunity for Feinstein personally.
He should counter sue the students and the school and state that they're creating a hostile working environment for him with their sexist, racist, and gender-oriented accusations. They have hurt feelings. He actually has compensible damages.
"I met in the middle: I have pointedly spoken my view in regards to her writings on this matter, but I have been more gentle in my remarks than I would've been if her posts had been written by an adult male."
Yikes! That was a needle the length and width of a butcher's knife.
It is entirely possible the suffering will make them stronger people, better people, amazing people.
What doesn't kill you may leave you broken. What doesn't break you may leave you stronger. It's the wisdom of the crucible.
Instead of bitter and resentful, the experience will confirm his principles and conviction to uphold The Constitution to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
iowan2 said...
"Why not devise a confirmation process that is such an ordeal that it will drive out the very qualities we want in a judge?" -- Althouse
I have refuse to follow others by going after our honorable hostess, It's her playground, she leaves the gate open for us, so I try not to liter and tear things up.
But
The process is in place. Senator Diane Feinstein blew it up, took a shit in the middle of it, and pissed in the mouth of every member on the committee.
It is one thing to agree/disagree with someone about an issue.
It is another to support insect politics.
We will not retaliate with insect politics. We will wipe out the insects.
People who choose to act a certain way should know what is coming for them.
I don't think that Kavanaugh suing Ford for defamation is a good move. She would get to take discovery into his personal life from the time he was born. The results would be leaked to the press which would distort them. Best just to put it behind him.
furious_a said...
With regard to "fitness" or "fairness", I'm trying to imagine a Federal courtroom where the parties begin their opening statements by accusing the bench of being sexual predators. See, there the writers might have a point.
Hey, I can imagine that! I appear in federal courts. Not as much as some litigators since my work is mostly tort law in state courts. But I've been there. With a wide variety of U.S. District Judges and in one U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal (the Sixth, in Cincinnati).
And I can tell you how that would work; when you start asking a federal judge about his drinking in high school and suggesting that he was a gang rapist. First, there is the contempt citation. Then, there are the U.S Marshals. Then, the handcuffs and a ride in a freshly washed late model black Ford Econoline.
It will be very stressful. He will enjoy it.
Perhaps trial by ordeal has proven him fit to serve.
And BK surprised by countering with trial by combat.
Melissa Murray, professor at New York University School of Law.
Good lord, a woman teaching law? Men all know that you can't trust a woman to be fair when looking at whether or not a man may be innocent of a charge of sexual impropriety! Everyone knows that now, except women. A teacher of law who is a woman will only infect her students with the same prejudices her sex brings to the profession. Good golly, Miss Molly!
Good heavens, Althouse! Get real!
Personally, I think the cruelest accusation was accusing Kavanagh of rape.
Personally, I think it was the USA Today opinion piece saying he shouldn't coach his daughter's basketball team anymore. That's one stain that never washes out.
The tide may be begging to turn on these fake sexual assault accusation.s
A year and a half later, Cornell and Doe have reached a settlement where the Ivy League university will pay him $125,000 to drop the litigation. This is before attorney’s fees, which have yet to be assessed and which Cornell will pay to Doe’s lawyers once the judge approves them.
Brooklyn College Prof. KC Johnson, who closely tracks Title IX litigation, says the settlement occurred before the presiding judge had handed down any order.
Cornell’s options for responding to the suit were limited from the start because of its federal appeals court, Johnson told The College Fix in an email. It could have filed a motion to dismiss, “but it would have had no chance of prevailing” under the 2nd Circuit’s precedent against Columbia University, which involved similar factual allegations.
I doubt Kavanaugh would sue Blasey Ford unless he is voted down on false charges.
Still the tide, and the worm, may be turning.
The only way to know if Kavanaugh has been damaged is to wait and see. So what we have here is yet another "who cares if he's guilty?" attack on good man.
buster said...
I don't think that Kavanaugh suing Ford for defamation is a good move. She would get to take discovery into his personal life from the time he was born. The results would be leaked to the press which would distort them. Best just to put it behind him.
Agree. Defamation is the wrong vehicle.
Ford however committed at least 3 counts of perjury in her senate testimony.
Not like remembered things differently perjury.
Blatant, Obvious, Calculated and undeniable Perjury.
#walkaway is exploding by the way.
Facebook banned them, but they can't stop them. #walkaway will be around long after Facebook.
As a Christian, Kavanaugh is commanded to "do good to those that spitefully use you". The Lords prayer asks God to "forgive our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors".
The old adage, "forgive and forget" is probably rarely possible, given our minds ability to lock onto offenses, but forgiveness can mean that we give up the right to use those offenses against that person.
It means consciously deciding not to use 'remember when you did this' against a person.
So no, Judge Kavanaugh isn't damaged goods-- and will have the opportunity to be an example of Christ's forgiveness.
The Democrats will rue this. Once Kavanaugh is on the court he rule as he please no matter what the communists scream. I suspect they made him into a far more conservative than he was prior to this with trial. Next nomination that Trump gets and with two eighty somethings on the court he probably will get at least one if not two more Trump will nominate openly activist judges from the right. And the Senate that will still be Republican controlled will just confirm them without giving the Democrats much room for theatrics and character assassination. If it appears to be that Mitch McConnell has finally got a spine, after the elections he will change the Senate rules and simply hammer through all of Trump's nominees for the courts and to replace all of the Obama holdovers in one fell swoop.
"This guy, if he’s going to be confirmed, will now be heckled and protested and a pariah for the rest of his life for a segment of the country."
By "segment of the country," you mean law professors who run left-leaning clinics and their most outspoken students. I'm sure he's going to be devastated.
I will wait forever for WaPoo to headline: “Christine Blasey Ford asserts without evidence that Judge Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her in 1982.”
Yet, those are the facts.
It will be fun to watch democrats in the senate not even be able to filibuster.
Also, for what it's worth, I think years and years of being called a "baby-killer" damaged Harry Blackmun's mind. He was very, very emotional about his opinion in Roe v. Wade. See, for instance, his opinion in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services.
"I fear for the future."
If Kavanaugh is to be denied a seat because of his fear for the future, why was it okay for the fearful Blackmun to have a seat? And it's not just that Blackmun was emotional about abortion. Millions of pro-lifers and pro-choice people are emotional about abortion. In fact I believe this clusterfuck of a confirmation hearing is inspired by anger and fear about Roe v. Wade.
What was so awful was when Blackmun started saying things like how his opinion could never be overturned, or it would "cast into darkness the hopes and visions of every woman in this country." Justice O'Connor, who was overruling part of his opinion, was sitting at the same table! And yet Blackmun had the delusional belief that only he could speak for the hopes and visions of every woman in this country. That's a ridiculous thing to assert.
In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Blackmun wrote…
I am 83 years old. I cannot remain on this Court forever.
Did he imagine that anybody (other than himself) would want Harry Blackmun to sit on the Supreme Court "forever"? He talks about it like it's a great tragedy that one day he will have to leave. Presumably most people on the Supreme Court feel that way, which is why so many of them cling to power for as long as they can. But that doesn't mean you should say it out loud!
Notice too that Brett Kavanaugh has a huge amount of self-awareness and honesty. He's talking about the process and how it's damaged him. He's worried about it. Blackmun had very little self-awareness. All the letters from ordinary citizens calling him a baby-killer affected his jurisprudence. He's comparing his opinion to a "light" and overruling it will cast the world into "darkness." That's a rather stupid metaphor from somebody who relied on secrecy and privacy for abortions to happen, and relies upon censorship in the media for the violence to remain unseen.
You mean to say that after a guy has been pummeled, reviled, rebuked, and sucker punched, he might hold a grudge? I'm shocked that such might occur. Shocked I say.
Things that have surprised me in recent months:
1. Rampant puritanism. Behaviour that nice women disapprove of should probably be banned--or at least, participation in it should disqualify a man from holding a position of responsibility. Not only crimes such as assault, but the kind of social milieu in which rudeness, crimes, and things that are somewhere in between seem to be encouraged or more likely. If you don't agree, you are basically saying women will have to carry smelling salts at all times.
2. The U.S. Senate getting close to saying "No Irish need apply." Or at least, no old-fashioned Irish Catholics unless they can prove they have gone through a full treatment or rehab. Wasn't the view, even recently, that the Kennedys were charming and lovable?
To his immense credit, BK fought back.
It woulda been much worse, if he withdrew. It woulda been much worse, if he had stayed in boy-scout, choir-boy, robot mode.
Mitt Romney has already established this. He let Candy Crowley of CNN quash all his political momentum, in one televised debate.
If someone falsely accuses you of rape, you have to fight back, even if you don't want to, or were not prepared to. You can't just shrug it off. It's too toxic. You have a wife and two daughters. You can't let the lie stand.
Note the physical similarities between Kavanaugh and Flake. They look alike, they sound alike, they probably vote alike. Flake is a pussy, though. He would join the Vichy, when the Nazi tanks roll in, out of fear, out of self-preservation.
Kavanaugh fought back, called the Clintons out, handled every Democrat on the Committee with ease. It's a tougher time, though, handling all the slings and arrows from the NYT, CNN, MSNBC, SNL, Harvard Law, George Soros, etc, etc.
He will soon learn who is allies are and who is allies were.
You ever read "The Visit" by Friedrich Dürrenmatt? Once all the money and the power and the vendetta is arrayed against you, you're in a tough spot.
So, whatever happens with the vote (I still think he wins 50-50 with Pence tiebreaker), I think BK has stood tall. A little awkward at times, Yes, but he did his duty.
I think he will survive this.
The Orcs started out as Elves before they were cruelly tortured, so I guess that makes the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee something along the lines of Melkor, the first Dark Lord, and the primordial source of evil in Eä.
Althouse trying to win back disaffected commenters by mischaracterizing these articles, reading something into them they don't say. After so many commenters mischaracterized her earlier Kavanaugh statements. Huh.
They are 100% right. It's not smart to try to destroy a man with Kavanaugh's sharp mind and legal writing talent and miss. And the new Justice K has already spit in their evil eye and told them he has no doubt that the weapons used against him and his loved ones came from Hillary's revenge as a hit just like the ones done to Seth Rich and Vince Foster.
It's not Trump the Dems should fear now. It's Kavanaugh's pen.
Althouse trying to win back disaffected commenters by mischaracterizing these articles, reading something into them they don’t say.
What’s stopping you from straightening it out for us, do us all a service?
"While Murray is only teaching one class during her visit to NYU Law, The Commentator still wanted to give students the chance to get to know more about one of Berkeley Law’s most beloved professors. Over the summer, Professor Murray answered our questions about her relationship with New York City, her family’s Hamilton obsession, and what she’ll miss most about Berkeley (spoiler alert: she doesn’t like socks very much).
The Commentator: We are excited to have you join us at NYU Law for the semester. In what ways are you hoping to engage with communities here in New York City? Are there things you’re looking forward to working on while you’re here? Some non-law related activities you’re looking forward to doing while you’re here?
MM: I love New York City—I was born in Brooklyn and lived in the city after law school. I’m looking forward to learning from the terrific faculty at NYU, as well as faculty at the area law schools. I’m also excited about having more opportunities to collaborate with organizations like the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Women’s Law Center—it’s so much easier when you’re on the same coast!"
https://nyulawcommentator.org/2017/09/13/professor-profile-a-conversation-with-visiting-professor-melissa-murray/
Judge Kavanaugh has ruled repeatedly against women seeking to make their own reproductive health decisions.
His record shows a cramped reading of the right to liberty and personal decision
making that distorts or ignores existing precedent. If Judge Kavanaugh were to join the Supreme Court, his record suggests that he would overturn or eviscerate
these critical rights.
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Murray%20Testimony.pdf
Like I said, they came on so strong they burned Kavanaugh’s bridges and left him no retreat. If this stuff is true, he has to be impeached from his current job and utterly disgraced. He has to fight it out. The Democrats made a strategic error, and at a minimum, he is going to force some people who absolutely do not want to vote on this to vote on it.
If a vote fails, that’s one thing, if there is no vote, then Schumer is basically the leader of the Senate.
I see not pushing back and penalizing the Democrats here for their egregious, personally destructive, behavior as similar to where we would be with keeping our cat off the kitchen counter, if we had not kept him off the table.
Well, that and Democrats do track fecal matter wherever they go.
"Democratic jackals on the Senate Judiciary Committee, aided and abetted by their loyal public relations firms — the mainstream media — and hectoring unpleasant people funded by George Soros heap mud on Brett Kavanaugh for weeks and then step back and say: “He’s got mud all over him! Let’s move on to a more pristine victim." "
--Roger Kimball
If anybody asks Kavanaugh if he is going to withdraw, my suggestion to him would be to say “Nuts!”
Trumpit,
"Clarence Thomas was and is a beast of a man with limited intellect; let's remind ourselves of that obvious and sad fact. He had the advantage of being a po' black boy."
Thank you for reminding me how blatantly racist some leftists permit themselves to be toward a black man who forfeits their protection by the sin of seeing the world differently than they do. Sometimes I forget, and I shouldn't.
In general, your ilk are freer with the homophobic slurs toward gays who step out of line, and with the misogyny toward women who fail to get with the program, but I still think blacks get the worst of it. The threat to your power, if they ever stop voting for the Democrats by Enver-Hoxha-sized majorities, is just too great to tolerate.
The collective left are all mostly liars. The idea that they will be rewarded for their lies is repulsive.
@Chuck, A credible woman accused him of partaking in a gangbang. So you find it incredible. Quack, quack. He had a penchant for female alumnii. Sure he was a virgin as he lied to the Judicial Committee. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, and furiously flaps its wings like a duck, it would make a good roast DUCK. Kavanebriated can't duck the questions or his obvious involvement in youthful, disqualifying excesses. He's a bad liar like Schlump. He's no sitting duck; He's more like you, Chuck, a quacking duck who's had bad luck with the ladies.
The U.S. Senate getting close to saying "No Irish need apply." Or at least, no old-fashioned Irish Catholics unless they can prove they have gone through a full treatment or rehab. Wasn't the view, even recently, that the Kennedys were charming and lovable?
This will be the attack on Amy Barrett. I wonder if there are enough Catholics to stand up with her ?
I'm sure we will hear a lot about priest pedophiles, even thought that is a result of the left taking over seminaries in the 60s.
Leave it to the ever-faithful leftist law professors to devise a last ditch chickenshit argument against Kavanaugh. If these political pimps had any integrity, they would be pointing out the holes in Ford’s “case” and the perversion of the process by Democrat Senators and Party operatives.
I Kavanaugh is confirmed, let’s hope that his education is complete and he can view his judicial responsibilities through a lens that clearly shows the danger to the Republic presented by Democrats, their consorts and their immoral agenda.
Trumpito - If you think Julie Swetnick is credible - that tells us everything we need to know about you.
The guy was sanctioned for dishonesty and poor temperament well before the hearings. He is not fit.
Trumpit - loyal leftwing douche and RACIST.
It seems obvious to me there will be a heavy personal cost to Judge Kavanaugh and his family if he is confirmed.
It appears he has evaluated this and wants to proceed.
The left has already said his confirmation won't be the end of this-- and I don't think the left will honor the geneva convention of American politics that children are off limits.
I suspect they made him into a far more conservative than he was prior to this with trial.
I'm not sure about that but he definitively knows he has no friends on the left. His first appearance, he impressed as a squish like Kennedy, eager to make new friends. That, I think is over forever,
Process as punishment. How dare you be an accomplished White male with a "too perfect" reputation?
Not to go all Jordan Peterson, except that I will. One of his greatest insights is that the postmodern left is in a war against what can best be defined as competence. The need for hierarchy (that thing that we feel and share with the lobster) is defined by them as an exercise in power, when in reality it is an exercise in competence. The first to go are the most competent, hence after the revolution the kulaks go into the trains to the gulag, if they survive at all. Going into this, find me a more respected or competent jurist than Kavanaugh, irrespective of judicial philosophy.
This is exactly the point. Their great message is that your competence and reputation cannot save you. They have control of the organs of personal destruction, and they will use them to the maximum extent they can conceive. They are very cruel and clever in this exercise, and the argument seen the OP is a prime example.
Blogger Dickin'Bimbos@Home said...
Trumpit - loyal leftwing douche and RACIST.
No, trumpit is just crazy. Not worth reading its tripe.
How dare a judge remember the smear campaign against him by one political party, and keep it in mind when reviewing supposedly factual arguments by that same political party for or against the constitutionality of laws in the future? Why, one might look at that party's claims a bit more closely, to determine if they have any factual basis to them or are made up of imaginary pleadings.
Wasn't it Sid Blumenthal who dragged out the hoary "False in one thing, false in everything" doctrine to impugn Kavanaugh over high school yearbook idioms? Kavanaugh knows the truth of the claims against him. Why should Kavanaugh NOT suspect these same people to present false arguments in mere court cases, when they have lied to his face about his own life?
It is just and proper to look askance at the people who smeared you, when they come to you with a plea for anything else.
readering said...
Althouse trying to win back disaffected commenters by mischaracterizing these articles, reading something into them they don't say. After so many commenters mischaracterized her earlier Kavanaugh statements. Huh.
The left will pay for their insect politics.
One way or another.
Smart people will separate themselves.
His record shows a cramped reading of the right to liberty and personal decision making that distorts or ignores existing precedent. If Judge Kavanaugh were to join the Supreme Court, his record suggests that he would overturn or eviscerate these critical rights.
Is this supposed to be some kind of justification for the evisceration of other more fundamental rights that have been steamrollered? If Roe is overturned, Abortion will remain legal nearly everywhere, and will be subject to democratic processes, if the fundamental agreed on rules of our democracy are destroyed, that’s a far bigger issue.
The U.S. Senate getting close to saying "No Irish need apply."
NTTAWWI, but isn't SCOTUS now 7-2 Catholic/Jewish and all Ivy? A little, um, concentrated, couldn't one say?
I'm so old I remember when the word "credible" applied to evidence, not people. People were called "trustworthy", something that in Ford's case would be pretty darn hard to establish. But by applying "credible" to the person in a way that isn't much different from "possibly plausible", they convey the fraudulent impression that the evidence is actually credible, rather than utterly non existent except when it is in BK's favor.
Dickin'Bimbos@Home said...
Trumpit - loyal leftwing douche and RACIST.
Trumpit is a moby.
Performance art.
Stop.
Mikee,
"Wasn't it Sid Blumenthal who dragged out the hoary "False in one thing, false in everything" doctrine to impugn Kavanaugh over high school yearbook idioms?"
No, it was Dick Blumenthal.
The Dems haven't reached quite the level of chutzpah needed to have Sid say that, but just wait awhile.
continued Murray testimony
"In 2017, Kavanaugh voted in Garza v. Hargan to allow the Trump Administration to continue blocking Jane Doe, a seventeen year-old immigrant woman who came to the United States without her parents, from obtaining an abortion.
In September 2017, Jane Doe came to the U.S. and was placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). While in custody, she learned she was pregnant and decided to have an abortion. Jane Doe met all of the requirements of Texas
law before obtaining an abortion, including, because she was under 18 at
the time, going before a judge to “bypass” the state’s parental consent law to obtain an order granting her the right to consent to the abortion on her own.
Throughout all of this, Jane Doe had a guardian ad litem and an attorney ad litem who were available to advise and support her; the cost of the abortion procedure would have been paid for by private funds; and the government did not need to arrange her transportation to the clinic.
It's "cruel"? Well, duh...that's simply business as usual then, yes? 'Crude' would strike me as a better word in this case - in other/more words, typical and expected but badly executed. ....as if on a new comment: I am mostly struck with how 'frightened' it sounds. Has this wheel actually turned so far the canaries in the tunnel - like TIME mag - are starting to send alarm signals?! Good.
We are all just straight men to Trumpit.
"lawyapalooza said...
The guy was sanctioned for dishonesty and poor temperament well before the hearings. He is not fit."
Could you elaborate, please?
FRANZ KAFKA YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD!
K has two paths available, victory or revenge, both require that a vote happen, it’s overdetermined, the vote will happen.
This argument is utter bullshit. It basically means no other partisan person could ever sit on the court - no senator, no former president, no cabinet official, no governor - they've all made partisan remarks in their careers, particularly while campaigning - that they'd be disqualified under this standard.
Moreover, such a standard only incentivizes the next slander campaign against the next nominee. And why stop at SCOTUS? Appellate judges don't typically get this type of scrutiny, but why not? Democrats opposed Miguel Estrada because he was Hispanic and made a big deal of stopping Patricia Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. Lindsey Graham is right - allowing the smear campaign against Kavanaugh to succeed only means we will see more, not less, of this type of personal destruction and no decent person will be willing to go through it. That's not good for our country.
No, it was Dick Blumenthal. The Dems haven't reached quite the level of chutzpah needed to have Sid say that, but just wait awhile.
I think we have reached peak chutzpah.
Judge Kavanaugh's judicial temperament is well known because he has been a judge for more than a decade. Had he been found wanting, we would have heard about it in his confirmation hearing.
Also, judicial temperament matters most at the trial court level, where an asshole judge can make life miserable for attorneys appearing before her (or him), and there is no one in the room to moderate such tendencies. At the appellate level, there are far fewer opportunities for abuse, and there are always at least two other judges in the room to rein in the bad actors.
I haven't posted since AA highlighted my last post since I wanted to see where the discussions would proceed. In the meantime we have learned that AA sadly (and I mean that sincerely) suffered from sexual abuse in her teens and that BK was not such a paragon of virtue as he appeared and enjoyed more than his fair share of beer (albeit allegedly with ice!) while in college. In my experience, everyone is damaged goods in one way or another. Certainly I am in ways that I can acknowledge and probably in other more significant ways that I really dont want to face up to.
In my last post I told the story of a fellow juror who insisted on voting for a conviction in a rape case in large part because she had been raped when she was young. The rest of us on the jury did not try to change her vote in large part because we had a small sense of how painful this matter was to her. The fact was, it didn't change the outcome of the case. But it did remind me that events can be so painful that they will affect people's perception and bias in matters of great importance. The fact is that we are rarely very rational at the best of times in large part because we are an emotional animal. We have seen that with AA and her "cruel neutrality" stance that appears to have become unwound in this situation. I think it is time to stop harping on this and give her a break. She has been cruelly neutral through many situations where I could not have been and in the process I have learnt something helpful. That's why I come back to this blog. Let's give her a break recognising that the sexual abuse she faced was probably sufficiently painful and confusing that "cruel neutrality" is out of the question.
Idiot take on Irish-Catholics and Catholics as nominees. Gorsuch I-C on mother's side. Roberts ancestry includes I-C. Thomas, Alito and Sotomayor not Irish, but....
As Irish-Catholic glad to see bigotry of pre-Vatican 2 America largely vanished (although for sure Vatican not doing us any favors by handling of abuse scandals in clergy).
Qwinn,
Yeah, I see that, too. It is almost like Ford, to be "uncredible" had to have blurted out, "I'm lying," or have been caught on camera answering questions with one hand behind her back with fingers crossed. As I have pointed out a couple of times, people are confusing "creditable" with "credible". To be credible your accusation has to have some evidence other than your testimony. Ford's story has literally none of that, and every piece of evidence, cuts against her accusation.
Blogger Trumpit said...
“Mark Judge is not going to say anything about the attempted rape or assault because that would implicate himself in the crime. Clarence Thomas was and is a beast of a man with limited intellect; ....”
Mark Judge is protected by the statute of limitations. Clarence Thomas has never been accused of beastly behavior and many believe his intellect to be superior to several of his current and former colleagues.
Try to do some critical thinking. It will make you a more entertaining troll.
How 'bout we say that no one who has ever been the victim of a violent crime can ever be a judge, because the experience is so traumatizing that they cannot fairly and impartially sit in judgment of anyone accused of such a crime. THen we can ban those who have ever been wrongly accused, too.
That ought to cull the herd nicely.
And Tom, at 10/3/18, 10:57 AM:
Hillary Clinton has been accused of many things, often with so much evidence that it takes a misbehaving FBI team and their bosses to prevent her going to jail for it. T reason she is called a bitch is much more substantiated than any smears against Kavanaugh. In short, she was a bitch before she was called one. Ask any of the bimbos whose eruptions she helped squash.
Post a Comment