At some point (and it should have been long ago), even the Republicans should have been able to admit that the institution of the Supreme Court is more important than the âlifeâ of one of its nominees. Nominees have been rejected or withdrawn for far less egregious charges than those leveled at Judge Kavanaugh. I understand Trump needs this guy to write him a blank check to evade the law. But this is a stain that will never leave the Republican party.
She is another very brave person who is willing to put herself in danger to keep another sociopath from getting appointed to the SC. I hope she is well-protected and doesnât have any long term impact on her life for telling the truth.
She was very effective in that short clip. She showed poise and confidence. She demonstrated why a FBI investigation is needed and why there should be skepticism of Kavanaugh.
I think not having taken the time to do a FBI investigation is going to be a big factor in the GOP not getting the votes to confirm.
Rump has found a kindred spirit in his new pal BK: a fellow Godâs Gift who in reality couldnât attract a girlfriend without superhuman amounts of money, alcohol and/or drugs.
I thought the master plan was to not take the time on purpose, denying the second, third and however many more women the week they need after the first woman comes forward, to summon courage, rally friends and family, fortify home security and hire counsel.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have long understood that Kavanaugh is â hmmm, how to put this? â frequently less than honest. This whole painful bundle of charges (painful for everyone but most of all for the victims reliving their original trauma) is that it demonstrates Kavanaughâs willingness to lie about his past.
Look: Even if he never actually, physically assaulted anyone (my God, what a low bar!), his behavior in high school and college was clearly deficient. But thatâs true for a lot of folks who go on to lead worthy and honorable lives.The problem for Kavanaugh is that he categorically denied it, lied about it and kept on lying about it until he was at last forced to change his story.
It seems pretty clear that heâs also lied â perhaps under oath â about a number of policy matters and actions he took in his career as an aggressively partisan GOP attorney. But those lies have not been as controversial â so the lies about his drunken misbehavior in high school and college have become the main bone of contention.
Itâs a proxy battle about his fitness for high office that Iâm sure the Democrats would have preferred not to fight â and put off as long they could. But this is the ground on which they must now fight his nomination.
However this turns out, it can be said that Mitch McConnell has managed this poorly. Like the ACA, he has pushed his caucus to take unpopular positions that damage the party with the electorate. He has behaved as if there are no consequences or âdamn the consequences!â. Itâs clear that his seemingly year long push to kill the ACA in 2017 set the stage for the Dems being able to compete even against a bad map in 2018. Now, this Kavanaugh thing will not only finish off the GOP in 2018 but into 2020.
Some pollsters donât see a lot of movement directly tied to Kavanaugh. I think thatâs myopic analysis. What it has done is given a boost to female candidates and Dem energy. It has kept the GOP off message and now women (especially POC women and college educated white women) are looking at this election (and 2020) as existential.
If this were a parliamentary system (and the Senate Majority leader is selected in a similar manner) Mitch would be out and deservedly so. I know folks say âbut the Judges! but the tax cut!â First off, Obama and Clinton balanced the court pretty well in their 8 years after years of GOP rule. Any of those gains are temporary. Yeah the SCOTUS matters, but I think it will matter less in years to come even, and especially if, Kavanaugh is confirmed. The PA Supreme Court decision on districting is one example. The only way to preserve the legitimacy of the court is for him not to be confirmed. On the tax cut, it wouldâve been very easy for the GOP to come up with a tax cut that some Dems couldâve supported. They didnât and it has hurt them in this election campaign. Again, bad leadership.
I think their strategy is to crap in the pool when they have power, and bitch about the chlorine when they donât. By now the pool is so brown it just needs to be drained and start over.
For once I have to disagree with you Khyber; McConnell is doing all he can to get this candidate through, I just think he didnât realize this guy had a sketchy past or that this particular kind of sketchy past would matter enough. This man has been groomed since the Reagan years for a slot on the Supreme Court; theyâre not going to waste their chance.
Weâll see. As of now, 50 votes arenât there so that tells me that not everyone shares his single minded commitment to changing the court. In the case of Collins, Murkowski, Gardner or anyone with political ambition post-Trump (e.g. Flake) the politics point towards a ânoâ vote as being the best move. If itâs about party above all, then perhaps Mitchâs view prevails.
I think if youâre from a purple state or a blue state, if you take a step back you realize that no matter what these nutters do, it doesnât change whatâs happening on the ground. Youâre not gonna keep POC from voting except at the margins. Youâre not putting gays back in the closet. Youâre not condemning women to 2nd class status. The culture and the demos have changed no matter how conservative this court gets or how nutty conservative whites get.
This is true, but also true that he holds his position through support of other Republican Senators. And those Republican Senators have their own vote to cast.
Mitch McConnell has belittled the spirit and business of the Senate, but all the other Republican Senators have done so as well.
They just donât seem to give a shit about their record and especially about the US. If I didnât know better I say they were members of s secret society that has some strange agenda to destroy the US to make way for something else.
Good points!
Iâd like to add about the tax cut - not only didnât they work with Dems on an acceptable package, the GOP deliberately designed the new tax law to hurt people living in Democratic states.
So, here we are in 2018- a mid-term election with the Democrats having to defend more seats than the GOP, but instead of being a wonderful selling point to vote Republican the GOP tax cut is actually helping to contribute towards a blue wave.
Yes, for fuckâs sake, there was Ginsburg (Not RBG) who withdrew because he smoked marijuanaâŚ
For godâs sake Mark Judgeâs girlfriend reports that he admitted acting exactly the way Dr Fordâs story describes him and Kavanaugh acting. In any sane world thatâs game over right there.
Republicans are of course muddying the waters as much as possible by making this seem more complicated than it is. Thereâs no reasonable way at this point to rationalize away all this evidence.
The only game now is how much any given Senator wants to play along or feels brave, and all the other political calculations around this.
Theyâre in for a rude awakening by the way even if he gets confirmed. Now that there are three or four there will be five, six, and nineteen, thatâs how it goes with these things, and heâll just look worse by the day, confirmed or not. Impeachment is a very real possibility.
Not to mention prosecution in Maryland, which has no statute of limitations for rape or attempted rape.
I still canât understand why Kav is not loudly demanding the FBI investigate all these fake accusations against his sterling reputation. How can he just sit there and let his friends and family think that these accusations might be true? Such a stoic.
I always think that, and Iâm always wrong. Remember that everyone, right and left, pretty much knows that the WMD thing was a lie by the bush administration, as a result, thousands of men and womenâs lives were lost - and yet, the miracle bleach of time and distraction has bleached this out of their sheets.