Tag Archives: Brett Kavanaugh

national security

Had it with all these Kavanaugh speeches

I hereby declare that I have had it up to here with all these speeches about Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Where is “here”? Name it: my eyeballs, my armpits, the top of my noggin. Or, you can say “here” is my chinny-chin-chin.

We know what U.S. Senate Republicans think of Kavanaugh. They think he’s the best thing to happen to jurisprudence since pockets on shirts. Democrats believe the accusation that he sexually assaulted at least one woman in the 1980s and don’t want him anywhere near the highest court in the land.

Yet many of the 100 men and women who comprise the Senate are orating their pleasure/displeasure about the confirmation vote.

Spare me, ladies and gentlemen. Indeed, spare the rest of the country. We’ve heard it already. Multiple times! You’ve repeated yourselves.

Actually, all I’m hearing now is the equivalent of white noise.

Blah, blah, blah … and some more blah, blah. 

Kavanaugh isn’t my idea of a good choice for the Supreme Court. Then again, I have no direct say in who Donald J. Trump appoints to these posts. The president won’t listen to me. For that matter, he doesn’t listen to damn near anyone, believing that since he is the president of the United States, he is entitled to make whatever decision he feels like making.

True enough.

In the meantime, the Senate’s 100 members need to stop talking now about things we’ve heard already.

legal news

Credible accusation … or not?

Brett Kavanaugh’s ascent to the U.S. Supreme Court is virtually assured.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has endorsed Kavanaugh’s nomination; then came immediately after her 50-minute Senate floor speech came the endorsement of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

It’s done!

But here’s an interesting — and borderline maddening — caveat to the senators’ “yes” votes. They both had plenty of praise for the testimony delivered by the woman who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in that gripping hearing a week ago.

They both said they believe Ford is a victim of sexual assault. They both called Ford’s testimony “credible.” OK, if it’s credible, why do they both assert that although they believe she was assaulted, they do not believe her “100 percent certain” allegation that Kavanaugh was the assailant in 1983? Ford told senators she is absolutely, unequivocally certain that Kavanaugh attacked her.

Is the accuser’s allegation credible? Or not?

How are these folks defining the term “credible”?

national news

Did the judge make an empty promise? Let’s hope not

Judge Brett Kavanaugh appears headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.

I don’t believe he belongs there, but that’s not my call. Texas’s two U.S. senators are going to vote for his confirmation, along with at least 48 of their colleagues. That puts he count at 50 “yes” votes; Vice President Mike Pence will be standing by to break the tie.

OK, that all said, Kavanaugh has made a promise to be an “impartial” justice once he joins the highest court in America. He wrote the op-ed column for the Wall Street Journal in an extraordinary last-minute pitch to the Senate to confirm him.

He had to write it, given his ghastly response to the criticism of his nomination in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations leveled against him. He blamed his troubles on a “left-wing” hit job from those who sought “revenge for the Clintons.”

Wow, man!

It is fair to wonder — so I will do so — whether Kavanaugh’s pledge of impartiality and fairness from the SCOTUS bench is an empty one. He is going to ascend to the highest judicial post in America and it’s a lifetime job at that! It’s his for as long as he wants it, or for as long as he draws breath.

I want to believe that he can be the kind of justice he pledges to be. The skeptic in me, based on his performance at that supplemental Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, makes me wonder whether he can keep that promise.

Judges who get these lifetime jobs are free to rule however they wish, within the constraints of the U.S. Constitution. They have no elections awaiting them. Sure, they can be impeached, but the bar for judicial impeachment is at least as high as it is for a presidential impeachment.

Those of us who oppose Kavanaugh’s appointment are left to hope for the best … even as we fear the worst.

legal news, national news

Kavanaugh headed to SCOTUS?

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The fix is in. The deal appears to be done. Barring some remarkable change of mind and heart among key U.S. senators, a deeply flawed nominee is heading for the ninth seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh stands accused — still! — of sexual assault by a woman who accused him of attacking her when they were teenagers.

Christine Blasey Ford testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh did as she has alleged. She said she is “100 percent certain” her attacker was young Brett.

Kavanaugh denies it.

He disqualified himself, though, in my mind with his highly partisan attack on those who have opposed his nomination by Donald J. Trump. He blamed those who seek “revenge” on behalf of Bill and Hillary Clinton and then said their effort was being financed by “left-wing” political interest groups.

Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell are delivering the mother of all bum’s rushes in pushing this nomination forward. The FBI conducted a perfunctory examination of Kavanaugh and the allegation against him. It didn’t bother to talk to Ford, which I would have thought would have been a no-brainer.

The report now is in the hands of senators, Democrats and Republicans. It needs to be made public, given that Kavanaugh appears headed to a lifetime post on the nation’s highest court — which is paid for with money that comes out of my pocket … and yours!

The very best I could have hoped for would have been for Kavanaugh to set aside politics as he pondered how to rule on cases that come before the court. His performance at the supplemental hearing dashed that hope for me.

Newspapers are editorializing against Kavanaugh’s nomination. A retired Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens — confirmed in 1975 after being nominated by President Ford — said he has changed his mind and now opposes him. Demonstrators are marching in streets. Politicians are making speeches opposing Kavanaugh.

Will any of this matter? Will anyone’s minds be changed? Probably not. I’m left, therefore, to say a prayer for us as we recover from the circus we’ve just witnessed.

national news

‘Falsus in omnibus’ argument haunts this senator

I cannot remain silent on a minor back story involving the confirmation hearing of Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s nominee to join the U.S. Supreme Court.

It involves the questioning by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who had the gall to lecture Kavanaugh about the hazards of lying about “one thing.”

Blumenthal sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. His path to the Senate came amid some controversy of its own, involving Blumenthal’s own lying.

You see, the senator who’s been in public life for a long time, had been lying about his so-called service in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. As the saying goes … oops! He set never foot in-country during the Vietnam War.

As the New York Times columnist Bret Stephens noted, he is “grateful” for Donald Trump for calling Blumenthal out on his sheer hypocrisy. Stephens wrote this: ” … Richard Blumenthal lecturing Kavanaugh on the legal concept of falsus in omnibus — false in one false in one thing, false in everything — when the senator … lied shamelessly for years about his military service. And then feeling grateful to Trump for having the simple nerve to point out the naked hypocrisy.”

You see, those of us who did set foot in-country during the Vietnam War take this kind of lie quite seriously. It’s the kind of lie I cannot look past when I hear a politician pontificate about truth-telling to another public figure.

Sen. Blumenthal’s hypocrisy doesn’t change my mind about Kavanaugh’s nomination to join the nation’s highest court. It just galls me in the extreme to hear a politician say something he ought to know would come back to bite him in the backside.

national news

Here is why the FBI report on Kavanaugh should go public

The FBI investigation into whether Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh lied to the Senate during his testimony before the Judiciary Committee is heading to the Senate for its review.

It’s supposed to be for senators’ eyes only.

Hah! Don’t bet on it staying that way.

Republicans will leak the parts of the report that buttress Kavanaugh’s bid to join the nation’s highest court; Democrats will leak those parts that do damage to Kavanaugh.

My strong preference, quite obviously, is for the entire FBI finding to be made public. Send them to the rest of us, the bosses, the folks for whom the president works, for whom Congress works, for whom the Supreme Court works.

The FBI investigation was supposed to be “comprehensive,” according to Donald John Trump’s own words. It wasn’t. The FBI didn’t talk to Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers in 1982. It didn’t talk, yet again, with Kavanaugh. It didn’t talk to two other women who have leveled accusations against Kavanaugh.

The report isn’t comprehensive. It is a perfunctory effort.

And now only the Senate will see it in detail, such as it is.

Do you believe senators will keep its contents secret? Neither do I.

We’re likely to hear what both sides want us to hear. It’s only going to inflame passions even more … as if we need more division in this country.

national news, political news

Trump shows how low he can go

When he relies on his own instincts, rather than reading text off a Teleprompter, Donald J. Trump is fully capable of demonstrating how rank, vile and moronic he can sound.

Take his Mississippi campaign rally Tuesday night when he decided to mock Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both teenagers.

Did the president give this serious and grave issue the serious and grave treatment it deserves. Heavens no! He decided to mock the accuser.

According to The Washington Post:

In his most direct attack on Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault while both were teenagers in Maryland, Trump sought Tuesday night to highlight holes in the account Ford gave in sworn testimony to the Judiciary Committee last week.

“ ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ ‘Upstairs? Downstairs? Where was it?’ ‘I don’t know. But I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember,’ ” Trump said of Ford, as he impersonated her on stage.

“ ‘I don’t remember,’ ” he said repeatedly, apparently mocking her testimony.

Trump makes light of serious charge

Isn’t that guy just uproariously funny? Umm. No. He isn’t. He’s disgusting. Then again, that’s must my view.

On the other side of the great divide, we have Americans who just think Trump is the best thing to happen to politics since pockets on shirts. His campaign rally crowd Tuesday night laughed right along with the jokes and the mocking behavior he exhibited toward Christine Ford.

I have to agree with the view of conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, who said that as much as Trump’s idiotic behavior motivates Democrats to vote against Republicans in the midterm election, it also motivates Republicans to stand by their candidates.

The question now rests on which side is more motivated and which side will produce the most voters on Election Day.

Is it entirely possible that the moronic rhetoric we hear from Donald Trump is a winning formula for the political party he leads? Before you dismiss it out of hand, just remember: This clown got elected president of the United States.

national news

She’s ‘credible’? Then she’s not? Which is it, Mr. POTUS?

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Donald John Trump keeps demonstrating his astonishing ability to contradict himself. What’s more, his “base” of followers keeps demonstrating its own remarkable talent for looking past this man’s hypocrisy.

The president as recently as a week ago said Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault is a “credible” accuser, someone who deserved a fair hearing of her grievance.

Then in a campaign rally in Mississippi just yesterday, the president decided to mock Ford and, yes, challenge her credibility.

He even sought to mimic the accuser’s voice, which came from someone who admitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she was “terrified” to be testifying before the panel on national television.

Trump mocks Ford

I only can ask rhetorically, because the president has no clue as to how he might answer it were he to see the question: Which statement — credible or the mocking tone — reflects your actual point of view, Mr. President?

This individual, Donald Trump, is utterly, completely and categorically lacking in anything resembling a principled basis for the statements that pour out of his mouth.

However … he “tells it like it is.”

Disgraceful.

national news

How will this donnybrook finish?

Federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh insists he won’t withdraw his name from consideration to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Then again, that’s what they all say … until they do what they say they won’t do.

Donald Trump’s nominee to the high court is facing serious accusations that he sexually assaulted a woman in 1982; two other women have leveled similar charges. The FBI is looking once again at Kavanaugh’s background.

Three U.S. senators — all Republicans — stand at the center of this political tumult. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine are officially “undecided” on how they will vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation. If two of them turn against Kavanaugh, it’s over, assuming that the Democratic Senate minority stands together in opposing Kavanaugh’s nomination.

If the FBI determines that Kavanaugh lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about what he did back in the old days, well, that also is a deal breaker.

I cannot begin to predict it’ll happen, but I’ll just say I won’t be surprised if in the next 24 hours or so that Kavanaugh does what he says he will never do — and withdraws his name from consideration.

Hey, stranger things have happened.

Example? Donald Trump got elected president of the United States of America.

legal news

This is how you define ‘comprehensive’?

Let’s see how this plays out.

Donald J. Trump said he wants the FBI to conduct a “comprehensive” investigation into Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford and the allegation of sexual assault that Ford has leveled against Kavanaugh.

That’s good … so far.

Then we hear that the FBI isn’t going to talk to either of them. Kavanaugh, the president’s nominee to join the U.S. Supreme Court won’t be interviewed by the FBI. Ford gets a pass, too.

My question, then, is this: How “comprehensive” can an FBI investigation be when the agency doesn’t interview the two main principals in this on-going political drama?

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might cast a full vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the high court as early as Friday.

It appears that those of us who want a thorough and “comprehensive” probe are getting the bum’s rush.