U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

This is interesting: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lisa-murkowski-brett-kavanaugh-native-alaska_us_5b92bed6e4b0511db3e20921?yo

Fingers crossed

I think Collins is the harder get tbh

ronan farrow on kavanaugh: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-sexual-misconduct-allegation-against-the-supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaugh-stirs-tension-among-democrats-in-congress

so feinstein's been sitting on this since JULY

refusing to share it with other senate judiciary members who were asking for it, even

Could be strategic. An unreported attempted rape 30 years ago when he was a minor seems to me unlikely to stop his confirmation, but slow playing it could help delay.

there is a lot off about this, including the fact that kavanaugh went to an all-boys' school

.@ChuckGrassley releases a letter from 65 women who knew Kavanaugh in high school (showing Rs knew about this high-school rape allegation.) These women say Kavanaugh “behaved honorably and treated women with respect.”

— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) September 14, 2018

steubenville v. 2.0, basically

(to be more specific, "this" = chuck grassley pulling 65 people out of nowhere in less than an hour, not the allegation)

good catch on the all-boy's high school thing, that definitely makes it even weirder.

I don't think I knew 65 women in high school in total, and I went to a co-ed high school

Certainly not well enough for every single one of them to attest to my character, let alone how I behaved in a specific instance

xp -- it's not my catch, people on twitter were pointing it out

Kavanaugh seems like a genuine piece of shit to me btw, I felt it from the first moment I saw his face. Scalia was kind of a smug asshole but even he didn't give me the bad vibes the way Kavanaugh does.

WATCH: In light of AP story re Manafort - take a look at his response to a simple question re Russian oligarch ties https://t.co/getQDJUZZG pic.twitter.com/Ic85K4fAE0

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 22, 2017

i graduated high school eighteen years ago and i don't think there are sixty-five people period who know or remember me well enough to give any kind of compelling testimony about my character. sixty-five people from when i was in high school, who did not go to my high school? what a farce. not to mention the obvious "well if most people know him as a nice guy, obviously he could never have done something bad" logic which is classic denial tactics, especially w/r/t sexual misconduct by men.

After the Thomas hearings concluded, it emerged that Senator Joe Biden, who was the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time, had failed to call three additional women to the witness stand who had been willing to offer testimony confirming Hill’s complaints about Thomas’s inappropriate behavior toward women. Last December, Biden, who may run for President in 2020, publicly apologized for failing Hill, saying, “I wish I had been able to do more.”

fucking Biden - lol at this non-apology. You WERE ABLE TO DO MORE AND YOU DIDN'T you fucking schmuck, and now look at the Justice you stuck us with as a result

Nobody who has never sexually assaulted anyone procures a letter from 65 character witnesses. I don’t know how none of these people hit on the strategy of saying it didn’t happen and declining to comment further, which is what a non-megalomaniac who has never sexually assaulted anyone would probably do.

fucking Biden - lol at this non-apology.

yeah, i had a similar reaction. i hadn't seen his non-apology until then. if the biden 2020 train gets any momentum i imagine we'll be seeing that a lot more.

that manafort video is in the wrong thread and i therefore withdraw my nomination

Jane Mayer's book on the Thomas hearings is essential reading.

in non-Kavanaugh news:

Advocacy groups pouring money into independent campaigns to impact this fall’s midterm races must disclose many of their political donors beginning this week after the Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to intervene in a long-running case.

The high court did not grant an emergency request to stay a ruling by a federal judge in Washington who had thrown out a decades-old Federal Election Commission regulation allowing nonprofit groups to keep their donors secret unless they had earmarked their money for certain purposes.

With less than 50 days before this fall’s congressional elections, the ruling has far-reaching consequences that could curtail the ability of major political players to raise money and force the disclosure of some of the country’s wealthiest donors.

In an interview, FEC Chairwoman Caroline Hunter said that the names of certain contributors who give money to nonprofit groups to use in political campaigns beginning Wednesday will have to be publicly reported.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/political-nonprofits-must-now-name-many-of-their-donors-under-federal-court-ruling-after-supreme-court-declines-to-intervene/2018/09/18/851ea210-bb72-11e8-9812-a389be6690af_story.html

is that good? that sounds good

We may be past the point where Kavanaugh can serve on the court without rendering 5-4 rulings on gender equality or reproductive rights illegitimate in the eyes of half the country. That's a nightmare for Roberts, who husbands legitimacy like a survivalist hoards gold.

— Will Wilkinson 🌐 (@willwilkinson) September 22, 2018

Chief Justice Roberts…welcome to the resistance

I think that’s not a bad characterization of at least the spin re: roberts. i had not thought about that particular impact on the chief justice. I mean he’s rolled right along through garland and gorsuch with no apparent effect to his sense of propriety.

but aside from gender equality issues, kav has a very different occupational rep from gorsuch even. and not to the good. at all. for observable historical reasons, of which we are all being deprived. and which are being further tattooed onto the record by grassley’s, ahem, “process.”

"may be"

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/kavanaugh-may-be-getting-more-unpopular/

Problem is, once a justice is seated, their popularity can fall to the single digits and it won't matter.

Well, historically speaking. One never knows these days.

do polls matter for SCOTUS justices? Ninety percent of Americans can't name one person on the Court.

is Judge Judy still on there?

I guess in an attenuated way, it could be one of various factors getting Murkowski or Flake to "no," but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I really just meant in regards to the Will Wilkinson tweet that caek posted. It is not even a question whether Kavanaugh's appointment "may be" damaging to the SCOTUS' legitimacy in the eyes of at least half the country.

Genuine disgust with a SC justice could boomerang on those who voted for them, so that the more Kavanaugh is identified with the Republican Party as being Their Guy, then any widespread disgust with him will reflect badly on that party. But I wouldn't hold my breath. He's more likely to help reconcile evangelicals with all the rest of the mess Trump is making each day, just because he'll kill Roe v Wade for them.

if the GOP confirms him by a vote or two, it will be so much more than a blue wave

It will dictate significant parts of the platform(s*) in the 2020 presidential election and could wind up significantly weakening the judiciary for a generation

(I mean, the incumbent party platform is “rape is okay, maybe sometimes even better than okay if a baby comes out, but only if the man wants it” so really his potential confirmation is just clarifying)

& “evangelicals” are already 100% okay with everything Trump is doing unless they don’t get Kavanaugh at which point their big threat is they might not show up in November. Truly the most venal, stupid voting bloc in the country.

Scare quotes because people can be evangelical and not pro-rape-babies, it’s a fact

funny how you’re so quick to paint evangelicals with such a broad brush but as soon as someone has a bad word to say about VETERANS, watchout

there is no coherent “platform” for any of these life forms tbh

One side effect of Reid & McConnell eliminating the filibuster over all federal court nominees and scrapping several other senatorial courtesies designed to smooth over partisanship in the confirmation process, will be raising the stakes on every senatorial election even higher, and probably setting off an even bigger campaign contribution arms race under Citizens United. The battle against the 1% is the defining political issue of our time.

Fuck you kevin, learn to read

aimless otm

I’m day-drunk and can read just fine, thanks

The first part was already clear, you may want to actually do the reading though

evangelicals are a voting bloc and among progressive Christians whose doctrinal stance is technically "evangelical" e.g Zahnd or Held Evans, the term evangelical is imo/e very much a term used to mean "those assholes"

I understand that! and I also understand that if I don't asterisk "evangelicals" then some other cats around here will holler at me for including other doctrinally evangelical sects that aren't in favor of rape babies and the rich getting richer

I also get drinky during the day sometimes and I fully accept that internet people might foreshorten their nap recommendations to "go fuck yourself" - it's a manner of speaking

yay! you go, USA :)

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/mcconnell-have-votes-confirm-kavanaugh

I believe McConnell believes it.

i uh, think that if he doesn't the so, he will keep saying he does think so until he does think so, or until mcconnelldoes not think so and kav is withdrawn, which he won't be, imo. i agree with others' earlier comments that a kav vote will not fail.

*think*