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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 08:57 AM Jul 2018

There's So Much You Don't Know About Brett Kavanaugh - by the NYT Editorial Board

And you probably won’t until it’s too late.

By The Editorial Board
The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

July 9, 2018

So what can the American people hope to know in the days ahead about Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s latest candidate for the Supreme Court, who will very shortly hold one of the most powerful unelected jobs in government and wield profound influence over their daily lives? An awful lot, and yet, at the same time, so alarmingly little.

First, the awful lot: Judge Kavanaugh would shift the balance of constitutional jurisprudence to the right, creating a solid right-wing majority on the court possibly until the second half of the 21st century. While the somewhat unpredictable Justice Anthony Kennedy once served as the fulcrum for the court, that role will now go to Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., a far more ideological conservative.

Judge Kavanaugh, who sits on the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia, has been a fixture in conservative politics and is widely respected by the Republican elite. Before becoming a judge, he clerked for Justice Kennedy and worked for Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton, and later in the George W. Bush White House. He successfully portrayed himself in his remarks at the White House as a nice guy who coaches girls in basketball, feeds the homeless and believes in the Constitution.

What Americans can’t know about Judge Kavanaugh: pretty much anything else. That’s thanks to the perversion of the Supreme Court confirmation process, which once provided the Senate and the public with useful information about a potential justice’s views on the Constitution, but which has, ever since the bitter battle over President Ronald Reagan’s failed nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, devolved into a second-rate Samuel Beckett play starring an earnest legal scholar who sits for days at a microphone and labors to sound thoughtful while saying almost nothing.

Neil Gorsuch perfected the role last year, with his aw-shucks demeanor and his disingenuous regrets that, gosh, it just wouldn’t be right to express his views about almost any legal case or issue that had come before the court in the past, or might one day in the future.

more
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/opinion/editorials/trump-kavanaugh-supreme-court-senate.html

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There's So Much You Don't Know About Brett Kavanaugh - by the NYT Editorial Board (Original Post) DonViejo Jul 2018 OP
I know everything I need to know about him. SamKnause Jul 2018 #1
Kavanaugh is a hardcore corporatist, fascist ideologue and a rigid partisan. dalton99a Jul 2018 #2
My thoughts exactly... this country has no use for corporatists, either as President or SC Justice. InAbLuEsTaTe Jul 2018 #4
Coaches girls basketball? Maybe there's something useful there. Crunchy Frog Jul 2018 #3
EVERYTHING is fair game... time to look under every rock! InAbLuEsTaTe Jul 2018 #5
Shared notes with Jim Jordan ? OnDoutside Jul 2018 #6
Yep, get some PI's on it. Corgigal Jul 2018 #7
Doubt it. He has daughters. n/t Zing Zing Zingbah Jul 2018 #9
This is all so depressing. femmocrat Jul 2018 #8

SamKnause

(13,091 posts)
1. I know everything I need to know about him.
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 09:01 AM
Jul 2018

He is a Republican, therefore he is my enemy !!!

He doesn't believe in America.

He wants a religious theocracy controlled by corporations.

Republicans are the greatest threat this country has ever faced.

They are hell bent on destroying this country.

dalton99a

(81,450 posts)
2. Kavanaugh is a hardcore corporatist, fascist ideologue and a rigid partisan.
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 09:03 AM
Jul 2018

That's why Kennedy and Trump love him so much.

InAbLuEsTaTe

(24,122 posts)
4. My thoughts exactly... this country has no use for corporatists, either as President or SC Justice.
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 09:17 AM
Jul 2018

There needs to be a full investigation into Kennedy's role in all this.

femmocrat

(28,394 posts)
8. This is all so depressing.
Tue Jul 10, 2018, 10:40 AM
Jul 2018

Kennedy made a deal to get a trump loyalist and it will go through the process, but it's a "done deal." He isn't horrible enough to block him, so he will be confirmed.
We have no say in the matter, and not saying we shouldn't try, but in the end he will be "normalized." Just like Gorsuch. No one is going to come along and save us. No one will remove Gorsuch and Kavanaugh from the SC because trump is illegitimate. No one will give a flying f*ck about the "McConnell Rule."

It's enough to make me want to jump off a bridge already. Yeah, yeah, I know someone will say that's what they want. They want us to surrender.

God bless our democratic congress members who have to get up every day and summon the fortitude to fight on. I couldn't do it.

Thanks for letting me rant.

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