Kavanaugh Hearing

I have no idea if they would have confirmed him. But there was a reason McConnell never allowed anything to happen. Why did he do that? Because if Garland got a fair hearing and a vote, Republican Senators in blue or purple states would have had to put a vote on the record. That would have put political pressure on them.

 

And if they were concerned with preserving the balance of the SCOTUS, why do they think Garland should have replaced a conservative icon like Scalia instead of Gorsuch?

 

Ok, but how is that any better than a legislative body at protecting rights? Judicial review is a useless check on democratic governance. Maybe they need to rectify the mistake of Madison v. Marbury.

 

Yes, it would have and we'd have a Democratic controlled Senate right now if they had confirmed Garland, because the GOP senators up for re-election in 2016 would have been crucified at the polling booths over it.

 

We have three branches of government. In isolation, none is perfect at protecting our rights. All three operate as a check on the others. It's an imperfect system, but it's produced good enough results thus far. And things seem to be improving over time. How is the Court better than a legislature? It's LESS subject to political whims. It's not impervious, but it's LESS subject to it due to life tenure. That can be good, and it can be bad.

 

Agreed, but if some dude on Twitter can remember Kavanaugh boasting about not being a virgin in college 30 years ago, why can't anyone remember a rape or an exposing of oneself?

 

And if they voted him down, we might still have a Dem-controlled Senate. It would have put the Republicans in a tough spot.

 

Rapes almost never have witnesses to remember anything. And Judge just doesn't recall and won't testify.

If he exposed himself in front of other people, the people there would remember it. If friends, they might protect him. If not, I'd think it would come out.

 

Sounds like a good time to repost this:
Ronan Farrow: Yale classmate 'extraordinarily careful' in accusing Kavanaugh
So, this is corroborated by more than just one person, Judy.

There's a number of people, including people on the record, who learned about this at the time. There's the individual you mentioned. She was told right after, and independently of Ramirez, not someone who was in touch with her, recounted exactly the same fact pattern, down to small details. That's a very credible person.

There's an individual who saw a young woman crying, recounting the same fact pattern, again, soon after. That's an incident that Ms. Ramirez remembers, that she was crying recounting this. And we have a number of individuals in the Yale community saying that this was known and discussed before Dr. Ford's allegation came to light.

As to the people who were present, I want to point out something important that I think is often lost in the conversation. The individuals present who denied that this happened are individuals who Deborah Ramirez said were involved in the alleged misconduct, who egged on Kavanaugh, who taunted her.

And those individuals did sign onto a statement, which we included in full, saying that they didn't recall this event and they thought Judge Kavanaugh to be an individual of good character.

 

To my knowledge, Judge was only one of 4 people Dr. Ford named that would have been at that house and remembered. None of them do. As for Ramirez, SHE didn't even remember until she took 6 days of conferring with her highly credible porn attorney to remember. Yet, somebody can remember when, where and how Brett Kavanaugh once told him he wasn't a virgin 30+ years ago. That's amazing.

 

You're absolutely right...

The state of politics is just so toxic right now.... and it doesn't look to be getting better anytime soon... smh...

It scares me to think that it will take another tragedy that brings the US to its knees to get us to work together and truly love each other again...

To be honest, I think Democrats shouldn't have rushed through Obamacare, Republicans shouldn't have obstructed the Garland nomination, Democrats shouldn't lump all Trump voters in a "basket of deplorables," Republicans shouldn't call all Democrats un-American socialists, Democrats shouldn't constantly resort to the argument, "do you care about poor people (as well as Blacks, Hispanics, Women, Trans people, Gay people, etc.)," Republicans shouldn't resort to the argument that big government is always bad.

Forgive me, I just think that exploiting these sexual assault allegations as Feinstein did... is simply a new low... We were already toxic... Now things are only going to get worse.

 

I understand the theory of our government. And whats wrong with political whims? They are actually stemming from popular democratic sentiments. Its basically like saying a King is "less subject to political whims" than a Senator because they aren't accountable to voters and they get to rule for life. I mean that's true, but that's not a good thing.

 

Democrats have every right to be outraged over that...

That is blatant hypocrisy, for the record... not whataboutism...

it's the using of sexual assault... as a club to beat Republicans with, when this is really just a delay tactic... this has little to nothing to do with sexual assault... if it did... they would have brought this up 2 months ago... when they had the information and sat on it...

 

Well Kennedy's speech was seen as a bit of an exaggeration to say the least. I guess you can draw some parallels with this confirmation since the left had people believing that Kavanaugh was going to single handedly reverse decades of liberal leaning decisions including Roe, gay marriage, etc with little basis for that. In any case the fact that Bork became a verb and what it means seems to indicate that there was something very different in the way that hearing was handled compared to others. There was a political and ideological motive behind how the Democrats attacked the nominee that had not been seen with prior nominees that turned out to be somewhat extreme themselves (or appeared so at the time of the nomination). If the status quo will be for the senate to throw a fit every time someone they disagree with is put forward, then we will never have another Scalia, Thomas, Breyer, Ginsburg, etc. They will all be Garlands or people without much of a record by which to assess their leanings. I posted a graph from a study a while back that I think is in the reference thread that shows that the court has never been significantly out of what ideologically despite having a bunch of more extreme people sitting on the bench. The court tends to adjust toward the middle. So the whole idea that there is any one justice that is too extreme for the bench isn't born out by history.

 

That's just the baggage that comes with being a lame duck...

I don't agree with it, but in a case like that... it's not unprecedented... Politics has been working like that or in similar fashion since at least 2007...

 

Political whims aren't always a good thing. Having a check on our legislature and executive to make sure that people's rights are protected is important and valuable. You can certainly point to the Court's failures during the history of this country in doing that, but there were plenty of other times where the Court succeeded. It's a mixed bag.

 

For some random professor? I don’t know man. I am a professor with a family and kids, and I barely have motivation to do anything that is outside of that scope, let alone becoming a national demon for trying to derail the confirmation of only one of nine SC justices who -even if I am successful- would likely just be replaced by a similar person weeks later.

And also, think about her husband. Is she lying to him, tourmenting by thought of his wife being sexually assaulted just for this possible delay in confirmation? Or is he a part of it? Telling someone that this is your plan seems equally insane, as my wife would likely consider divorce if I told her a ridiculous and dangerous plan like that.

It doesn’t add up for me. I think she believes this happened. She might be mistaken -how could I know that- but the alternative explanation where she is lying isn’t easy to justify.

 

That's your opinion. That's fine. Just don't tell me that we need to let elections decide SCOTUS with regard to Garland and then try to justify ramming Kavanaugh through right before an election to prevent it from deciding whether or not he's confirmed.

 

I don't really think Feinstein's manipulation is a new low, but its another low.

And agree there's been a bunch of divisive lows from both sides... far more than we could probably list, and the list just keeps getting longer.

 

We don't really have a democracy, though. The people don't vote on issues, the representatives that we do vote for are not apportioned democratically, and the president (to say nothing of the myriad of other federal officers) is not selected by popular vote. We share an element with a democracy (voting), but our system of government is pretty far from an actual democracy.