Thread: Kavanaugh Drama Leaves Taint

Brett Kavanaugh Is Cursed Either Way

If he makes it to the Supreme Court without being cleared, his ordeal won't be over.
By Francis Wilkinson (Bloomberg)

One way or another, Brett Kavanaugh will have to pay.

He will not necessarily pay explicitly for whatever it was he did or didn’t do on that contested night long ago. Although if Christine Blasey Ford appears to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and if she acquits herself credibly, then Kavanaugh is unlikely ever to sit on the Supreme Court – no matter what Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says.

Kavanaugh can wait to see if Ford’s allegations fall apart under questioning. It’s possible she’ll prove a jumble of contradictions. But from what we know so far, it’s hard to imagine she would. Ford doesn’t have to be sure of the color of paint on the wall 35 years ago. She only needs to be sure of the details of the attack as she has already described it.

Conservatives viewing her actions as a product of Democratic skulduggery fool themselves. Her allegations were problematic for Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who first received them in confidence.

If Democrats had plotted to weaponize the allegations for best effect, this late-inning muddle would not have resulted.

If McConnell is correct and Republicans manage to push Kavanaugh through to the high court, no matter what, Kavanaugh won’t be out of the woods.
This is not 1991, when Anita Hill accused soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. And Kavanaugh, the beneficiary of virtually every privilege that status and education can afford, is not Thomas.

Democrats in 1991 were already the party of feminists. But many of the Democratic men in Congress – Barbara Mikulski was the lone Democratic woman in the Senate – were just as doltish toward a female accuser as Republican senators are today.

That’s no longer the case. Democrats have four women on the Judiciary Committee, and the men are so different from the cast of 1991 that Senator Chris Coons of Delaware has publicly mused that maybe he should cede his committee time to his two female colleagues who are former prosecutors and superior interviewers.
More important, the Republican Party of 1991 is not the party of 2018. The party leader then was George H.W. Bush, a war hero with pronounced social graces. The current leader is a habitual liar and crude demagogue who has been accused of sexual predation by more than a dozen women while continuing to behave as cad-in-chief.

The GOP of 2018 views the Supreme Court differently as well. Republicans were not facing electoral attrition in those days, desperately trying to sabotage the future. Republicans had held the presidency for three terms and were on the verge of a historic victory in the House over a corrupt and complacent Democratic majority.
Now, Republicans are investing in a partisan court to deliver partisan outcomes to advance partisan goals that are insulated from democratic accountability, such as elections and popular opinion, which Republicans increasingly fear.

That’s why they killed the legitimate nomination of Merrick Garland to the court. And it’s why bad faith saturates their every act concerning the court; they view it as an antidemocratic firewall to protect their culturally narrow and politically unpopular agenda.

The Clarence Thomas battle ended when Thomas took his seat on the court. The Kavanaugh war could escalate if he reaches the same height. Trump’s multifaceted attacks on rule of law and his sprawling corruption, ignored, excused or fully embraced by the Republican Congress, have clarified the stakes for Democrats. It’s no longer just about who gets to run things until the other guys take over. David Frum’s ominous insight, that conservatives forced to choose between democracy and conservatism would choose the latter, is now operationalized in every branch of government.

It will be in Democrats’ political interest to delegitimize a partisan Republican court waging war against a Congress and state governments under Democratic control. When Democrats regain sufficient strength in Washington, Kavanaugh will appear to them as a wounded, vulnerable prey.

Democrats can revisit evidence of his misleading testimony. They can pursue documentary corroboration, among the vast trove to which Republicans denied the Democrats and the public access, to buttress potential claims of perjury. And if Ford is bullied out of her moment now, they can give the alleged victim a belated but still-powerful platform, designed to her specifications.

A public re-vetting of Kavanaugh would take place in a very different context – almost certainly after special counsel Robert Mueller has given an accounting of his investigation into Donald Trump. By the time Kavanaugh’s case would be reopened and relitigated by a Democratic majority, perhaps not until 2021, everything Trump previously touched will likely appear tainted, and suspect.

The Kavanaugh saga is still fluid and its outcome uncertain. Kavanaugh might yet make it to the Supreme Court. But barring the unlikely collapse of Ford’s allegations, questions of Kavanaugh’s legitimacy will not end. Sooner or later the chalice will reveal itself to be poisoned.

what his friends from Yale are saying......

Liz Swisher, who described herself as a friend of Kavanaugh in college, said she was shocked that — in an interview focused largely on his high school years and allegations of sexual misconduct — he strongly denied drinking to the point of blacking out.

“Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He’d end up slurring his words, stumbling,” said Swisher, a Democrat and chief of the gynecologic oncology division at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “There’s no medical way I can say that he was blacked out. . . . But it’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess.”

Lynne Brookes, who like Swisher was a college roommate of one of the two women now accusing Kavanaugh of misconduct, said the nominee’s comments on Fox did not match the classmate she remembered.

“He’s trying to paint himself as some kind of choir boy,” said Brookes, a Republican and former pharmaceutical executive who recalled an encounter with a drunken Kavanaugh at a fraternity event. “You can’t lie your way onto the Supreme Court, and with that statement out, he’s gone too far. It’s about the integrity of that institution.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...=.525207d686e6

Yep trial by media, no oath no perjury

Glad he didn't confine himself to trout fishing

The first 3 contenders


Swetnick on the left seems to like the kilt and may have tossed the odd caber

Originally Posted by Jack meoff

Originally Posted by david44
As to the OP have you tossed a caber?
Yes, in the King Kong bar Soi 6.
Was disqualified for using banned substances.

...Watched Dr. Ford's opening statement: she's credible and convincing...Kavanaugh assaulted her. Judiciary Chairman Old White Man Grassley sounds like the lifetime Republican politician that he is: crusty, smug with authority, yet with a gentlemanly approach to the witness...certainly aware that women voters from his state are watching...

Well, the Kavanaugh testimony got us back on the US rails of white guy power. L Graham showed his colors after obviously not listening to the Dr. Ford testimony at all. Pretty sure the Party Boy Brett will be confirmed after what happened late today. Women's opinions juz don't matter. Now git on wid it boyh.

Originally Posted by thailazer

Pretty sure the Party Boy Brett will be confirmed after what happened late today

Never a doubt. I watched a good bit of the circus the Republicans claim is an unbiased investigation. Brett came out swinging in his final session in front of the committee. Just what the doctor and Trump ordered. Pushing to bring the vote tomorrow the Republicans refused to allow any further investigation into the process.

Trump after watching the circus is fully behind his nominee so expect Reps are assessing political fallout in midterm elections if they push to confirm.

Without further investigation the truth will never come out. The Republicans will claim the allegations have been fully investigated and nothing has been found to substantiate Ford's allegations.

Originally Posted by tomcat

Kavanaugh Drama Leaves Taint

Taint an understatement. Whole process a stench all played out in full view of the entire world.

Originally Posted by Dragonfly

he looks quite nasty,

good lapdog for the current GOP