Supreme Court of the United States

[nots]

Anyone excusing his temperament during his confirmation is a blind partisan.

Anyone thinking Dr Ford’s story has been corroborated is a blind partisan.

[revo]

Yep and Flake said something like baring something big he is a Yes. So here we are Sen Manchin and Sen Collins. For the political theater I want Collins to be a No, but her actions and words during this make me think she will be a Yes. Manchin has tried to draw this out to find political cover, but imagine if Collins is a No and he is caught with his had in the proverbial cookie jar. From the stand point of his own political life the right vote is yes. In my mind the right vote for any Democrat against this candidate is No. I so want Collins to announce as a No and get almost 24 hours of non stop Joe Manchin watch.

Manchin has a pretty large lead in his race. 538 estimated he is an 88% fave. I agree with you that as a Dem, he has to vote no and not think of his own neck (which appears to be pretty safe, anyway).

[frae]

It was referred to in passing.

Ok I am a nerd so I pulled the transcript up, do you know the only 3 people to use the word rape during the entire hearing?

Rachel Mitchell asked him a question that led to this exchange...

MITCHELL: What about Julie Swetnick’s allegation that you repeatedly engaged in drugging and gang-raping, or allowing women to be gang-raped?

KAVANAUGH: Yes. Yes, I’ve been interviewed about it.

MITCHELL: Were your answers to my questions today consistent with the answers that you gave to the committee in these various interviews?

KAVANAUGH: Yes, ma’am.

MITCHELL: OK. I see I’m out of time.

The other people to use the word rape?

Lindsay Graham in his tirade defending him...

GRAHAM: This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward because of this crap. Your high school yearbook — you have interacted with professional women all your life, not one accusation.

You’re supposed to be Bill Cosby when you’re a junior and senior in high school. And all of a sudden, you got over it. It’s been my understanding that if you drug women and rape them for two years in high school, you probably don’t stop.

And good old John Cornyn...

CORNYN: Of course, the — the sexual assault that Dr. Ford claims that you’ve denied. Then the claims of Ms. Ramirez, that not even The New York Times would report because it couldn’t corroborate it.

And then Stormy Daniels’ lawyer released a bombshell, accusing you of gang rape. All of those are crimes, are they not?

KAVANAUGH: They are. And I’m — I’m never going to get my reputation back. It’s — it — my life is totally and permanently altered.


So yeah the Democrats didn't bring up gang rape or drug use. In fact again Mitchell and Graham are the only two peole to utter the word drug. So the Republicans brought it up at the hearing to defend him from the accusations that were in the media.

[nots]

Ok I am a nerd so I pulled the transcript up, do you know the only 3 people to use the word rape during the entire hearing?

Rachel Mitchell asked him a question that led to this exchange...

MITCHELL: What about Julie Swetnick’s allegation that you repeatedly engaged in drugging and gang-raping, or allowing women to be gang-raped?

KAVANAUGH: Yes. Yes, I’ve been interviewed about it.

MITCHELL: Were your answers to my questions today consistent with the answers that you gave to the committee in these various interviews?

KAVANAUGH: Yes, ma’am.

MITCHELL: OK. I see I’m out of time.

The other people to use the word rape?

Lindsay Graham in his tirade defending him...

GRAHAM: This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward because of this crap. Your high school yearbook — you have interacted with professional women all your life, not one accusation.

You’re supposed to be Bill Cosby when you’re a junior and senior in high school. And all of a sudden, you got over it. It’s been my understanding that if you drug women and rape them for two years in high school, you probably don’t stop.

And good old John Cornyn...

CORNYN: Of course, the — the sexual assault that Dr. Ford claims that you’ve denied. Then the claims of Ms. Ramirez, that not even The New York Times would report because it couldn’t corroborate it.

And then Stormy Daniels’ lawyer released a bombshell, accusing you of gang rape. All of those are crimes, are they not?

KAVANAUGH: They are. And I’m — I’m never going to get my reputation back. It’s — it — my life is totally and permanently altered.


So yeah the Democrats didn't bring up gang rape or drug use. In fact again Mitchell and Graham are the only two peole to utter the word drug. So the Republicans brought it up at the hearing to defend him from the accusations that were in the media.

I see you deleted your previous posts as I was researching this.
How about what Booker and Schumer said prior to the hearings about Ms Swetnick? Very careful not to put that allegation front and center, but alluded it to it in a lawyerly way. As did others.
Your team went after him on Roe vs Wade, then on his baseball tickets, then on sexual allegations, now on judicial temperament because he admittedly overreacted to a smear campaign. Smells a lot like ‘show me the man and I will show you the crime’ of a bygone era. All I. All, you might still get your way and he might not be confirmed. Just be ready to stand by your arguments when the show is on the other foot and the GOP is accusing one of yours with some wild shit.

[chancellor]

Thanks for fighting the good fight here. I like hearing Chance's perspectives, and he often brings the facts. But it is frustrating, Chance, that you are cherry picking the points you think bolster the claim that all criticism of Kavanaugh is partisan.

1. Are you really saying that 2500+ law professors, a number I assume represents a significant number of the total of law professors in this country, are all making this claim for partisan reasons, even though they haven't done this for previous conservative candidates for the SC?
2. In your worldview, is it impossible for a liberal to offer a fair negative opinion of a conservative or vice versa? I think many people are capable of that, despite that being an underlying assumption to many conservative posters here. There are people speaking out against Kavanaugh's temperament that had held their tongues about the sexual assault allegations, that have never spoken out about a nominee like this before. Is it possible that you are only dismissing the concerns about Kavanaugh's blatant partisanship and temperament, because he is a conservative judge? Would you also embrace what he said and how he said it if he were an unabashed liberal being put up by Obama? Or would you have seen his conduct differently in that case? Why deny that many respected professionals in his field believe Kavanaugh is unfit, independent of his sexual assault cases? Why does that not matter to you?

To 1., I don't know because I haven't bothered to sample the list. Would I be surprised to find this was a hyper-partisan list? Not in the least. But I haven't bothered to refute gcstomp's point there since I haven't done the work yet. I may yet do that while munching popcorn during the political kabuki theater that will follow in the next 24-48 hours.

To 2. Hardly. I'd call that individual "B-Fly". However, gcstomp used two specific references - the ABA president and the Yale Law school. That the ABA president acted in a partisan manner is sine non qua to the ABA board's actions. That the Yale Law school is leftist is beyond question, and yes, I believe they're acting in a partisan manner than in some holy, divine respect for the law. I believe that is supported by the fact that the Yale Law School declined to include a letter from a large number of their graduates supporting Judge Kavanaugh, which ended up being submitted separately.

As for his temperment, I certainly have a differing view. I'm glad he showed the guts to fight back against what was clearly at best a politically motivated attack by a US Senator, and what was at worst an orchestrated smear job. I can't say relative to a SCOTUS justice, but I was glad Obama directly and pretty bluntly adressed the citizenship smear job, and am well-documented in here for calling that out for what it was.

[frae]

I see you deleted your previous posts as I was researching this.
How about what Booker and Schumer said prior to the hearings about Ms Swetnick? Very careful not to put that allegation front and center, but alluded it to it in a lawyerly way. As did others.
Your team went after him on Roe vs Wade, then on his baseball tickets, then on sexual allegations, now on judicial temperament because he admittedly overreacted to a smear campaign. Smells a lot like ‘show me the man and I will show you the crime’ of a bygone era. All I. All, you might still get your way and he might not be confirmed. Just be ready to stand by your arguments when the show is on the other foot and the GOP is accusing one of yours with some wild shit.

Yeah I deleted it because I wanted to make sure and no one at the hearing accused him of anything with Swetnick. He came into the hearing and acted in an unprofessional way and while if we get a democratic nominee up there acting in that manner I will be happy to replace him or her. My point in the last post remains the democrats didn't bring it up drug use and gang rape. 2 Repbulicans and their choosen prosectutor did.

[nots]

Yeah I deleted it because I wanted to make sure and no one at the hearing accused him of anything with Swetnick. He came into the hearing and acted in an unprofessional way and while if we get a democratic nominee up there acting in that manner I will be happy to replace him or her. My point in the last post remains the democrats didn't bring it up drug use and gang rape. 2 Repbulicans their choosen prosectutor did.

Ok, fine. They brought it prior to the hearings, which weighed on his attitude towards them in the hearing. Distinction without a difference

[frae]

Ok, fine. They brought it prior to the hearings, which weighed on his attitude towards them in the hearing. Distinction without a difference

I do see a difference especially since he had a week to craft an opening statement that would have defended him without sounding like he was running for office. Secondly his attitude displayed toward Senators asking him questions that were not about that issue was uncalled for. He basically asked Klobuchar if she had a drinking problem and refused to answer Durbins line of questions about an FBI investigation.

[nots]

I do see a difference especially since he had a week to craft an opening statement that would have defended him without sounding like he was running for office. Secondly his attitude displayed toward Senators asking him questions that were not about that issue was uncalled for. He basically asked Klobuchar if she had a drinking problem and refused to answer Durbins line of questions about an FBI investigation.

And he apologized after the first break for that stupid question to Klobuchar, correct? Immediately after the first break.
RBG said something dumb about Trump, correct? I think most adults accepted her immediate apology as well. Did you?

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/us/politics/ruth-bader-ginsburg-donald-trump.html

[frae]

He did apologize but I was watching it live and his tone during the back and forth was of someone unable to control his emotions and again going for the Supreme Court. RBG said this in an interview about trump when he was the presumed nominee

He is a faker," she said of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, going point by point, as if presenting a legal brief. "He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. ... How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that."

I think she was right . I’ll forgive Kavanaugh for all the back and forth if his opening speech was not so blatantly partisan

[chancellor]

Fox is reporting that Sen Daines of MT will not be at the vote on Saturday costing the GOP one vote. I am not sure this is a done deal yet.

Looks like they've found a way to fly him back if needed. If I were McConnell, I'd have those engines hot on Saturday evening.

[frae]

She’s voting yes. We can worry about the 2020 challenge to her seat later right now it’s tkme to turn the anger into votes. Get the house and out at least one check in place against the president

[Sour Masher]

Because he cares about winning, and that is all.

If that really is all there is to it, that is disappointing.

It has been illuminating, and depressing, to me to see how many folks here care about their side winniing above all else. I guess it is not surprising given this is a sports site, and that is a very fan like attitude--all fans generally care about is their team winning, and they love players on their team even if they would hate the player on another team. Idk, for me, any such "win" is tainted if my side cheats, or acts poorly. If Kavanaugh were a Democrat, I'd still would not be supporting him. It surprises me how many conservatives here are supporting him when I get the sense they would be more critical of the exact same behavior if he had left leaning politics. They assume everyone on the other side is like that so it is justifiable to be like that as well. To me, we should all agree to hold all of our politicians to a!certain basic standard. Only after they meet that standard, should we rush to our ideological corners for our pom poms or pitch forks.

[nots]

Manchin is a yes.

[B-Fly]

Look, as disappointed as I am, Senator Collins at least displayed in her speech the kind of weighing of issues and thoughtfulness and gravity and some degree of balance and decency that we could use more of in Washington. I'm disappointed, but not as angry and bent on fundraising for her next opponent as many of the folks in my Facebook feed. She's a decent person who weighed the issues differently than I would have and came to a decision contrary to the one I wish she'd have made.