The Kavanaugh Hearing

Excellent suggestion. 

RealityForAll said:
 Yes, threatening to pack the court is a sign of:
A.  Desperation.
B.  Attempt at undermining long-held judicial norms.
C.  Demonstration of the end justifies the means.
D.  Provocation allowing opponents of court packing to engage in even more provocative behavior
E.  All of the above.
.
.
.
.
.
.
ANSWER:  E (All of the above).

Packing isn't just adding new seats to the court. It can also be by filling it with far right or left wing relatively young ideologues who may easily remain 30 to 40 years due to their lifetime tenures.

The Republicans are doing a great job of not only trying to pack to SC, bu actually packing the whole Federal judiciary.

RealityForAll said:

sprout said:

RealityForAll said:

However, I was unable to find an appropriate definition for "atmospheric"  when used to modify the word “point.” 

All the author appears to mean by "atmospheric" is something tangential or surrounding the primary issue (point). 

• The primary "point" was the sexual assault. 

• Kavanaugh's drinking was one of these "atmospheric" issues (points) --  and evidence indicated that Kavanaugh was being less than truthful.

 Please provide your source (or authority) for "atmospheric" being a synonym for "tangential."  New one on me.

My source is context. 

But since his use of this one word seems to be holding you up from understanding the point of his article, you can contact the author and ask him directly (there is an "email" link on the right side of Benjamin Wittes' page):

https://www.brookings.edu/experts/benjamin-wittes/

An alternative to court packing that I think would be less controversial and more legitimate would be for congress to use "jurisdiction stripping" to protect any legislation from the a conservative Supreme Court that Congress sees as vulnerable.  

There might be areas where Republicans (or a handful of them) would support jurisdiction stripping in order to protect conservative legislation from liberal justices.  

The US Supreme Court is the world's most powerful.  I would love for the effort to rein it in would be bipartisan.  To use jurisdiction stripping more often would strengthen federalism, which conservatives ought to support.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping

Runner_Guy said:
An alternative to court packing that I think would be less controversial and more legitimate would be for congress to use "jurisdiction stripping" to protect any legislation from the a conservative Supreme Court that Congress sees as vulnerable.  
There might be areas where Republicans (or a handful of them) would support jurisdiction stripping in order to protect conservative legislation from liberal justices.  
The US Supreme Court is the world's most powerful.  I would love for the effort to rein it in would be bipartisan.  To use jurisdiction stripping more often would strengthen federalism, which conservatives ought to support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping

Eh, I think "ought" to support is the key work here. Conservatives are for and against many things and they are very consistent and principled about it, until they are in power. Runaway deficits is a great example. Or taxes / tariffs. There is no way conservatives are going to support this until there is a liberal majority on the supreme court. That's just how they roll. They have situational principles.

RealityForAll said:

gerritn said:

DaveSchmidt said:
These two passages in the Wittes piece caught my eye:

I do not begrudge him the emotion, even the anger. He has been through a kind of hell that would leave any person gasping for air.

If Kavanaugh is, in fact, wholly innocent, after all, what has happened to him is so monstrous that perhaps we might forgive him the excess in view of the pressures he is under and the wrongs he would clearly have suffered—though the outburst was part of his prepared statement and thus should be seen as his considered decision about what he wanted to say.

Does what Kavanaugh faced, wholly innocent or not, pass for hell and monstrosity these days?

If he is 100% innocent of any sexual assault on Dr Ford or others, and if he is 100% innocent of lying while testifying to the senate, then he is still:
1) A partisan hack who thinks that if a Democrat is in the White House a special counsel should investigate as wide as possible, and interview the president in public about the goriest details because he needs to be kept to the highest standards and the american people deserve to know, while if a republican is in the white house he needs to be shielded from all that because it distracts him from his job.
2) Does not have the temper and impartiality to be a judge on the supreme court (just look at his last testimony for senate judiciary committee.
So, best case, if innocent of all this stuff, he is still double unqualified to be on the supreme court in my book. For once I agree with Michael Avenatti. The next Dem Prez should just seat two extra judges to the SC. And then the next Republican will seat 3 more, etc. So it either will implode, or at least be OK 50% of the time (in its current form it has been, and will be, just a republican tool 100% of the time).

 Yes, threatening to pack the court is a sign of:
A.  Desperation.
B.  Attempt at undermining long-held judicial norms.
C.  Demonstration of the end justifies the means.
D.  Provocation allowing opponents of court packing to engage in even more provocative behavior
E.  All of the above.
.
.
.
.
.
.
ANSWER:  E (All of the above).

I agree for the most part, but I don't agree with B. The republicans have turned SC from the non-partisan, independent entity that it was supposed to be into just another partisan hack group. And they didn't just do that now, they have been doing it for many many years (remember Bush vs Gore? Citizens United?). The SC has already undermined itself. I am just suggesting to blow it up. No SC (or a non-functioning SC)  is better than the current practice. 

If Brett is truly guilty this will haunt him for the rest of his life.

galileo said:
If Brett is truly guilty this will haunt him for the rest of his life.

If it didn’t haunt him enough to withdraw his name from consideration I don’t see why he’d lose any sleep today or ever. He got what he believed he was entitled to. 

RealityForAll said:
Please provide your source (or authority) for "atmospheric" being a synonym for "tangential."  New one on me.

 New one on you? You don’t say. The O.E.D. (Oxford English Dictionary)* traces this meaning of the word back to at least 1908:

Evoking or designed to evoke an atmosphere (sense 4).**

* Second edition.

** Atmosphere (4.) Surrounding mental or moral element, environment. Also, prevailing psychological climate; pervading tone or mood; characteristic mental or moral environment; fascinating or beguiling associations or effects.

galileo said:
If Brett is truly guilty this will haunt him for the rest of his life.

 Except, one has to wonder at the level of ‘guilt’ a person like this allows to seep into their awareness. I just get the feeling if any self-reflection emerges through this, he’s more likely to think ‘yeah, but I overcame, with Gd’s help’. 

Runner_Guy said:
An alternative to court packing that I think would be less controversial and more legitimate would be for congress to use "jurisdiction stripping" to protect any legislation from the a conservative Supreme Court that Congress sees as vulnerable. 

 A congressional majority that somehow tried to countermand or sidestep Marbury v. Madison so it could shield the Affordable Care Act, for instance, from Supreme Court review would be less controversial?

The Right has been criticizing SCOTUS since Brown v. Bd. of ED. The criticism intensified with the decisions against prayer in the Public Schools and the decisions expanding the rights of criminal defendants. They gained new allies after Roe v. Wade  which, by the way, was written by a Nixon appointee put on the Court to counter its "liberal bias". So they organized to change the Courts through the propagation of "conservative" legal theories and the promotion of Conservatives to judgeships.

Now the Left has to fight back by using the same tools. Justices serve for life but no one is immortal. As the newest Justice has reminded us

"What goes around comes around".

*Justice* Kavanaugh.  Game over.

galileo said:
If Brett is truly guilty this will haunt him for the rest of his life.

 Huh? Why would it haunt him now as he is a Supreme Court justice? I think we all know men like this. He’s a pompous, conceited, a&*hole. Thinks he’s better than the rest of the world. And now his treatment of women and the way he conducted himself cost him absolutely NOTHING, confirming what he knows about himself- that he is perfect in his own eyes. No consequences. Just a rise in ego and power. He’ll only get more smug with time. If this is how he treated women 30 years ago, he certainly doesn’t seem very haunted over it. Just seemed pissed off.

DaveSchmidt said:

RealityForAll said:
Please provide your source (or authority) for "atmospheric" being a synonym for "tangential."  New one on me.

 New one on you? You don’t say. The O.E.D. (Oxford English Dictionary)* traces this meaning of the word back to at least 1908:
Evoking or designed to evoke an atmosphere (sense 4).**
* Second edition.
** Atmosphere (4.) Surrounding mental or moral element, environment. Also, prevailing psychological climate; pervading tone or mood; characteristic mental or moral environment; fascinating or beguiling associations or effects.

Valiant effort... but "fair minded independent" RFA seems to be working extremely hard to stay stuck on this term to avoid understanding the article.

#greattaste

#lessfilling

Robert_Casotto said:
*Justice* Kavanaugh.  Game over.

 Au Contraire.............the Resistance grows and remembers

May the Farce Be With You.

I must add to my own comment.  If there were any Dems who had grown complacent....who saw the Great Orange One as a clown who was only filling in his time in the White House...........a great lesson was learned the other day.  The amount of damage that he can do to this proud land is almost limitless.

Time to put away our Bernie Tee shirts,  yep I have one and stop philosophizing as to why Hillary lost.  The future lies ahead.  The system of checks and balances is what makes this country great.

Inch by inch do the work to take back the House.....stalemate his madness than take back the country from the fear and hate mongers.

"Pray for the dead

 and fight like hell for the living"

Mother Jones.........and the I.W.W.

^^^^^^^^^

Never thought I would appreciate an Author comment...go figure. Well said !

In keeping with author's sentiment, I saved this post from FB.

galileo said:
If Brett is truly guilty this will haunt him for the rest of his life.

 Love to think you could be right but agree with others - this guy's not one to rue past deeds, even the ones he remembers from HS/YALE.

These right-wing orgs had a roster of "suitable" cons for the job, most of whom would sail through. Yet they stick with this guy who will forever be second-guessed on matters before the Court? To me, this is  - on some level - revenge for MeToo Movement's success. Here's a major privileged frat boy who admittedly believes in Clinton conspiracies and all that paranoid crap.

And most appalling - these fcukers who say, "I believe she believes... ." and "I think she was assaulted, but not by... ."

Talk about yer "elections have consequences" theme. We've reached the nadir of nadirs, a virtual Mariana Trench of political life. Lower than whale siht. 

Robert Post, the former dean of Yale Law School, minced no words in excoriating Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court in an op-ed published in Politico on Saturday.

Kavanaugh, who graduated from the law school in 1990, had “stoked the fires of partisan rage and male entitlement,” Post wrote of the judge’s behavior following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. Kavanaugh will “undermine the [Supreme Court’s] claim to legitimacy,” Post said, calling the judge’s confirmation “an American tragedy.”

Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate on Saturday afternoon and quickly sworn in as a justice on the nation’s highest court.

“He had apparently concluded that the only way he could rally Republican support was by painting himself as the victim of a political hit job,” Post said of Kavanaugh and the way the judge had attempted to defend himself from the accusations of sexual assault and harassment. “He therefore offered a witches’ brew of vicious unfounded charges, alleging that Democratic members of the Senate Judicial Committee were pursuing a vendetta on behalf of the Clintons. If we expect judges to reach conclusions based solely on reliable evidence, Kavanaugh’s savage and bitter attack demonstrated exactly the opposite sensibility.” 

Huffpost

Morganna said:
In keeping with author's sentiment, I saved this post from FB.

I disagree with that by the way. We can't just be against Trump, we have to be for something. All this talk about we have to be united not matter what the cost. So what good is it to have a Manchin or Bredesen in the Democratic party if they are enablers for killing innocent citizens (vote against gun control), reducing women's rights, reducing healthcare, reducing regulations, increasing global warming, enabling kleptocracy (all Kavanaugh, and that list is not even complete). I want a Democratic party that is for taxing the rich and helping the poor, reducing global warming, universal healthcare, protecting those who need help, and getting rid of the 2nd amendment. Manchin is not a Democrat, he is just a Republican that would never survive a primary in the Republican party, that's why he is staying. Away with him and folks like him.

The Democratic Party has a larger tent than the Republicans.  Trump defeated something like 15 other challengers for the nomination.   And yet they quickly coalesced and went forward as a united party.   Now this is pretty simple when despite the blather of your official Platform......what it really means is "We have ours so screw you"

The Dems in the other hand surprised me by not adopting a platform advocating switching to the Euro.  I think the Democratic Platform should be worked on immediately  after the mid term elections.  Would it be difficult?  Yes adopting a document a step ahead  would be a wise thing and a first step towards ousting the usurper.

author said:
The Democratic Party has a larger tent than the Republicans.  Trump defeated something like 15 other challengers for the nomination.   And yet they quickly coalesced and went forward as a united party.   Now this is pretty simple when despite the blather of your official Platform......what it really means is "We have ours so screw you"
The Dems in the other hand surprised me by not adopting a platform advocating switching to the Euro.  I think the Democratic Platform should be worked on immediately  after the mid term elections.  Would it be difficult?  Yes adopting a document a step ahead  would be a wise thing and a first step towards ousting the usurper.

Now I am very confused. The GOP has been completely "purified" over the last 10 years (RINO anyone?). They have driven every moderate out of the party. And they have been very successful (WH, Senate, House, States, SC). They have been the opposite of a big tent party.

I am in no way suggesting to become as extreme as the GOP, but I think there are things we can learn from them. I think there should be room for compromise. But I am against just watering everything down and becoming a tasteless compromise party. There are some basic principles, and if you cannot agree you don't belong here. We are for fairness, protection of the weakest, and giving everybody a fair shake. You don't like that? Join GOP, or start your own movement.

When push comes to shove, the GOP votes in general elections.  They get behind their nominee regardless. Dems have failed to do so which is why we lose.  

Control the Senate/House, control the agenda.

Steve said:
When push comes to shove, the GOP votes in general elections.  They get behind their nominee regardless. Dems have failed to do so which is why we lose.  


Control the Senate/House, control the agenda.

And Primaries. They show up to Primaries, I don’t know why Dems are sometimes apathetic towards these things. 

My "Like" button is not working so let me say that I especially appreciate Morganna's last post.

The discussion between author and gerritn is a good one. I come down on author's side. Different candidates are suited to different States and Districts. The first thing is to win the Majority in the Senate and/or the House so as to control Committee Chairs and the agenda.

If the Dems held the Majority Kavanaugh wouldn't have gotten out of Committee. Manchin's vote might have been different or might not even have mattered.