Kavanaugh Hearing

I disagree. They killed multiple Muslim Bans. Eventually, he had to settle for something watered down.

I oppose the person credibly accused of sexual assault and the people defending him. If this were the 90s, I'd be on the side opposing Bill Clinton. However, since the Republicans have circled the wagons around Kavanaugh, we are where we are. I believe victims.

 

A lot of the objections were to things he wrote or said and didn't line up with his judicial record. It's like the current argument that because Kavanaugh wrote 30 years ago that congress should pass a law giving the president immunity from prosecution while he is in office, that he would 100% rule that prosecution of the president is unconstitutional. Even if there was any basis for that belief, you still have 3 justices on the court who voted the other way when the issue came up for Clinton.

You just said there were only 4 that were axed, so no they aren't weeding them out. If they were then we wouldn't have seen justices Marshall, Douglas, Rehnquist or Thomas on the court. Are you going to try to argue that Bork or Kavanaugh are most definitely more "extreme" than those guys? Yet Rehnquist drifted toward the center after becoming chief justice and Thomas has never been a leading voice on the court. I found the chart again, so here ya go:

 

Yeah, I mean part of the reason executive orders are a big thing now is that congress doesn't want to vote on things to protect themselves and also that they might not be able to pass these things. Also, how do checks and balances operate when congress is basically willing to defer to executive authority and administrative interpretations of law? Its a central problem of a presidential system.

 

But if democracy works, isn't congress sitting on its hands reflecting the will of the people?

 

While this is true, Kavanaugh isn't on trial. He's up for nomination for Supreme Court. The burden of proof isn't as high, and I hope you can understand why people wouldn't want a SCOTUS Justice with a questionable past that includes at least two sexual assault charges.

And it's not at all for an assault victim to wait years before reporting, if reporting at all. Look up the current #whyididn'treport movement. It's similar to the #metoo movement with now thousands of women discussing why they didn't report the assault much sooner. Or think about the priest abuse case, Bill Cosby, or Harvey Weinstein. How many people didn't come forward until years after and only after there was one person, brave enough, to come forward first? It it really that far out of the realm of possibility that Ford waited over three decades before reporting? No. Actually, and unfortunately, it's all too common.

None of the above talks to Kavanaugh's innocence or guilt, but that's why a thorough investigation is war warranted. There may be no physical evidence left, but again, we're not trying to convict Kavanaugh of a crime. We're trying to determine if he is the kind of person who should be a sitting Supreme Court Justice. And if the sexual assault accusations have any merit to them, which they seem to do based on things like Kavanaugh's college roomate's statements, Kavanaugh's best friend Judge's alcoholism, Kavanaugh's yearbook quote, and other statements, then ask yourself, should Kavanaugh really be on the SCOTUS?

 

Not necessarily. Its hard to discern democratic will in a system that people constantly remind me isn't a democracy. In a system where congress couldn't "pass the buck" so to speak, they may not be able to insulate themselves as much by refusing tough votes. Indeed in parliamentary systems, failure to act can result in a leadership crisis, the dissolution of a government and new elections. At least in such a system, the elections directly impact the ability of a government to enact its will, and indeed to form a government in the first place.

 

So when does this vote happen? Does the whole populace just go to the polls every week to tell the government what to do/not do for that week? Do we have some kind of app on our phone where everyone weighs in as soon as something comes up?

I mean, this sort of system didn't even work on the city level with Athens. Hard to see how it could effectively govern a country of hundreds of millions.

 

Well 5 if you include Bork (although 4 if you only look at purely ideological issues). But the willingness to clear somebody out for ideological reasons also has an impact on who is nominated if the person doing the nominating is in any fashion strategic. In terms of the discussion about the criticism being focused on what he wrote, what people write is also important because it suggests the possibility of shifts. Lower courts are, to some degree, constrained by precedent. Supreme Court Justices aren't really.

According to your chart, Douglas really shifted after more than a decade on the court. But, in a more general sense, it is highly likely that he wouldn't be alone sitting in the -5 to -8 range and that there would be people in the 5 to 8 range without the Senate axing people. And, yes, I do think that Bork could have been one of those people.


BTW, I am in no way claiming this is a perfect process. Harlan was rejected initially because of his extreme liberalness and he ended up being the most conservative court member for most of the 1960s according to that chart.

 

Not particularly.

You must not have known too many people in college then. However even assuming that you are fair and knew primarily angels, make it relevant to this situation - the question isn't whether Kavanaugh would have nice things to say about people who lived in his dorm, it's whether they would say nice things about him. So expand it to everyone who knew you in college. You comfortable that none of them are big enough to political hacks to say "yeah, I don't know about that gator_lawyer..."?

General experience having a random freshman roommate tells me I probably shouldn't consider them to automatically be a good source. I wouldn't have much negative to say about people who were my close friends, but I wouldn't have a real glowing review of my freshman roommate (or a number of other people who lived on my floor in the freshman dorm). And from what I know of my freshman roommate's politics (slightly to the left of Che), even though I did my best to avoid him completely for that year I suspect he probably wouldn't be falling all over himself to give me a ringing endorsement either.

 

How so? She is pretty much a random professor. Decent to good publication record. A couple of very small political donations and she went to a rally once and was quoted by a paper. Everything points to her pretty much staying in her lane as a professor for all of those years. And yes, she is represented by a lawyer who gave money to Clinton, as did many lawyers, especially those specializing in violence against women cases.

 

Burden of proof isn't as high? I would be okay if there was even one person corroborating her story. I don't even need criminal charges. Just one other person who says they were there at a party where Ford and Kavanaugh were both present. Just one. If we don't have that, then there is nothing to investigate, because there is no forensic evidence. Surely Feinstein can produce ONE witness that says he/she was there at a party with Ford and Kavanaugh present. Not that they witnessed an assault, just saying they were at a party. That's all. Shouldn't be too difficult.

 

How is congress insulated? You stated that they were closest to the people and therefore should most closely reflect their will. They could be cranking out bills that reflect the wishes of the voters, but they don't. Yet they still get voted back in. Parliamentary systems have similar issues. There was obvious discord between the government of the UK and the people that lead the people to vote to exit the EU. They didn't throw the government out, the government quit after they lost the battle.

 

1. I can tell you with total certainty that nobody from college would say that I was capable of sexually tormenting a woman or that I had a drinking problem.

2. I had a number of roommates during college and law school. I'm sure some of my roommates would have complaints (stays up too late, sleeps too late, shouts at football games on TV, likes the A/C too cold, etc.). None of them would say about me anything like what Kavanaugh's roommate said about him.

Simply put, you have a habit of disbelieving anyone who says anything bad about Kavanaugh.

 

Her lawyer didn't just "give money to Clinton".. she helped RAISE money on behalf of Clinton. She's so random she can't get anybody to remember even being at a party with her and BK.

 

Okay. So did a lot of people in that line of work. Your point?

When he said that she was a random professor, he is discussing the fact that she was somebody who was just living her life, focusing on her work and family, and wasn't somebody that seemed to be seeking out attention, riches, or being some kind of a political leader or figure.

You called him intellectually dishonest, but you seem to be making a purely political, and intellectually dishonest, argument against his.

 

And you are also being incredibly intellectually dishonest by omitting that one of her main motives could easily be the derailment of an ultra conservative justice landing a lifetime appointment on the SCOTUS, just as easily and even more believably as it could be attention or riches.

 

Actually, considering everything she's losing, it really doesn't make any sense at all that her main motive would just be to keep a conservative off of SCOTUS. If that was her motive, Neil Gorsuch also went to Kavanaugh's school and was her age. Why not nail him? Of course, you'll also have to explain why there's corroboration going back to 2012 of her being sexually assaulted that implicates Kavanaugh.

 

"or being some kind of a political leader or figure." (it was added after I posted, but before you posted your reply).

So you figure that somebody that found politics so important that she once went to a march and gave tens of dollars to candidates is willing to uproot her entire life all of a sudden about a SC justice? This despite the fact that she really was just a random professor, living a very quiet and not terribly politically active lifestyle? Again, intellectually dishonest to try to turn the argument into anything else (which is what you did).

 

But he will be representing the vast majority of states in our country. Trump won 30 states with 306 elector votes or 57% of the 538, while clinton did win the popular vote but only by 2.1 %