Tag Archives: Brett Kavanaugh

legal news

Yes, elections have consequences

Brett Kavanaugh is likely to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become a justice on the Supreme Court.

Is he the kind of judge I want on the court? No. But here’s the deal, and I take no pleasure in acknowledging this: Donald Trump is the president of the United States; he was elected in 2016 by winning enough electoral votes to take the nation’s highest office; he gets to nominate individuals to the high court.

Elections have consequences. Of that there can be no doubt.

Kavanaugh is qualified to serve. I heard much of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. I listened to Democrats try to trap him into saying something he shouldn’t say. Kavanaugh didn’t take the bait.

I am deeply troubled that the president would declare his intention to nominate someone who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that legalized abortion. Tradition usually dictates that presidents not set pre-determined parameters for who gets nominated. This one, though, busted that tradition to pieces.

So, the court will have an even stronger conservative majority if Kavanaugh gets confirmed. I wish it weren’t so. But it appears set to occur.

We’re about to reap the consequence of the 2016 presidential election in a big way. That’s how the system works. I accept the process that has brought us to this point. That doesn’t mean I like it. Far from it.

political news

Trump wants to ban dissent? Really?

I have a three-letter response to what I understand Donald J. Trump said in the White House today.

Wow!

Trump told the Daily Caller — and I hope you’re sitting down when you read this — according to The Washington Post: “I don’t know why they don’t take care of a situation like that,” Trump said. “I think it’s embarrassing for the country to allow protesters. You don’t even know what side the protesters are on.”

He added: “In the old days, we used to throw them out. Today, I guess they just keep screaming.”

Embarrassing for the country to allow protesters? Yep. He said it.

He clearly needs to read the U.S. Constitution, the document he took an oath to protect and defend. It lays out in the Bill of Rights that citizens are entitled to protest.

In fact, and this is no small point, the nation was founded by a band of protesters who came to this new land to protest things such as political and religious oppression.

Political protest is as American as it gets, Mr. President.

Really. It is!

If the president is discussing the unruliness of those who are yelling at U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee members and U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, I agree that they shouldn’t be allowed to disrupt a hearing. They are being “thrown out” of the hearing room by congressional security officers.

But to ban political protest? I say again: Wow!

national news, State news

Why did Judge Kavanaugh snub this child’s father?

A video segment from today’s opening of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has gotten a whole lot of attention.

For good reason.

As Kavanaugh was leaving the hearing room, Fred Guttenberg — whose daughter was among those slain by the gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. — extended his hand, apparently to shake Judge Kavanaugh’s hand.

The judge turned away. He didn’t take Guttenberg’s hand.

I do not know what Guttenberg might have said to Kavanaugh to prompt such a chilly non-response to what looked like a gesture of common courtesy. Maybe the grieving father said Kavanaugh’s wife wore combat boots, or some such childish statement.

I doubt it.

Surely the dad didn’t accuse Kavanaugh of complicity in the mass shooting. Surely he didn’t tell him he is responsible for the tragedy that erupted on Valentine’s Day.

So, why did the judge turn his back? Doesn’t a father in mourning deserve a handshake and an expression of good wishes?

These kinds of images have a way of imprinting themselves into observers’ collective memory. Just as Midland, Texas, oil mogul Claytie Williams who snubbed a handshake from Gov. Ann Richards during the candidates’ campaign for Texas governor in 1990. Williams paid for that rudeness by losing the election.

legal news

Meet with the judge, Senate Democrats

It’s no surprise to anyone who reads this blog regularly that Brett Kavanaugh is not the kind of jurist I would nominate to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

However, it might surprise regular readers of High Plains Blogger to know that I believe U.S. Senate Democrats are wrong to refuse to meet with Kavanaugh prior to voting “no” against his nomination to the nation’s highest court.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, whose statement is attached to this post, calls the nomination a sham and said he won’t participate in private with Kavanaugh. He is troubled by the conviction of former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of tax fraud and the guilty plea of former Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen to similar accusations.

Here is what I would do if I were a member of the Senate — and y’all can thank God in heaven, as I have, that I am not a U.S. senator. I would sit down with Kavanaugh and then read him the riot act.

I likely would tell him up front that he won’t have my vote, that his lengthy paper trail of judicial opinions and essays is anathema to my own philosophy and that I cannot in good conscience betray my own values.

Then I would shake his hand in front of the cameras, smile and send him on his way.

The idea that these senators — particularly those who will question Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing — will refuse to meet privately with him is anathema to the kind of decorum and dignity they insist from the president of the United States.

It’s important to remember that presidents have the right under the Constitution to nominate judges to lifetime posts on the federal bench — and that the Senate has the role to “advise and consent” to these nominations.

What is the actual harm in sitting down with this individual and questioning him intently about issues you deem critical — and then voting your conscience?

legal news

Sen. Collins: Kavanaugh says Roe v. Wade is ‘settled law’

It might be that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has won over a key Senate Republican vote as he seeks to be confirmed for a spot on the nation’s highest court.

If Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is right, and Kavanaugh believes a landmark court ruling on abortion is “settled law,” he has gone a long way toward winning the support of many skeptics across the country.

Collins and Kavanugh met and the senator — a noted GOP moderate lawmaker — said the following to reporters: “We talked about whether he considered Roe (v. Wade) to be settled law. And he said that he agreed with what Justice [John] Roberts said at his nomination hearing, at which he said that it was settled law.”

Those of us who believe in a woman’s right to choose to end a pregnancy consider this an important hurdle that Kavanaugh has to clear if he is to be confirmed to a seat vacated by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.

I do not believe Sen. Collins is prone to shoot of her mouth without thinking, which gives me hope that her two-hour closed-door meeting with Judge Kavanaugh produced the kind of dialogue she has mentioned. Collins has declared Roe v. Wade to be the benchmark on which she would decide whether to confirm his nomination to the court.

There are many other hurdles, though, to clear. Such as the one about whether the president of the United States can be charged with crimes, or whether he can be compelled to testify before a judicial body. He once thought it was OK to compel a president to testify; then he seemed to have changed his mind.

That will be explored in detail, I presume, when the Senate Judiciary Committee considers Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

However, if Sen. Collins is correct and Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t want the high court to mess with Roe v. Wade, then he well might have won an important skirmish in the battle royale that is shaping up in his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

legal news

A political ad for a SCOTUS nominee?

I thought I might have been the only American who found this strange. I was wrong.

A friend of mine posted a pithy question on Facebook that asks: Who the hell runs an ad backing a Supreme Court nominee?
What is he, soap? Fast food?

Maybe you’ve seen the political ad. A young law clerk who describes herself as a Democrat sings the praises of Brett Kavanaugh, who’s been nominated for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court; if he’s approved — and he will be — Kavanaugh will fill the spot held since 1988 by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

But my friend is correct. The ad touting Kavanaugh as if he’s a partisan politician seems to cheapen the entire endeavor of senatorial confirmation.

Very strange. In my humble view.

national news

Let’s end pro-choice demagoguery

Abortion is coming back onto center stage soon as the Senate gets ready to debate the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I know this won’t happen, but I’ll ask for it anyway. How about calling a halt to the demagoguery that equates “pro-choice” with being “pro-abortion.”

The anti-choice side no doubt will make that unfair assessment as it argues on behalf of Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination by Donald J. Trump. The president has vowed to appoint federal judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that in 1973 legalized abortion.

The ruling has enraged anti-choice advocates for 45 years.

What has been troubling to me has been the conflating of “pro-choice” advocacy with favoring abortion.

I consider myself to be a pro-choice American. I also am vehemently opposed to abortion. Could I ever advise a woman to end a pregnancy? No. Thankfully, I’ve never faced that question from a woman.

To be candid, I’ve never met a single person in my entire life who’s admitted to favoring abortion. And, yes, I have made the acquaintance of many people over the years who have been pro-choice on the issue.

To believe in a woman’s right to make the gut-wrenching choice about ending a pregnancy is not an endorsement of abortion.

Can we please end the hateful demagoguery? Emotions run white-hot enough as it is whenever the topic concerns abortion.

national news

Sen. Collins: Your vote will matter more

I just heard a Republican U.S. senator from Maine make a preposterous declaration.

Susan Collins is going to be at Ground Zero in the debate over whether to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. The battle lines are being drawn.

It’s along abortion and whether Kavanaugh would uphold the Roe v. Wade decision that in 1973 made abortion legal in the United States.

Collins already has said that she cannot support a SCOTUS nominee who doesn’t believe Roe v. Wade is “settled law.”

Then today she said that her vote “doesn’t count any more than my 99 colleagues” in the Senate.

Wrong, senator! Given the stakes and the apparent lineup that’s taking shape in the Senate, your vote counts more.

It counts a lot more!

legal news, national news, political news

Yes, presidents can be investigated and indicted

Having offered admittedly muted praise for Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, I now want to challenge an assertion he has made about whether presidents can be indicted.

He has changed his mind on that one. Kavanaugh once worked for Kenneth Starr while Starr was investigating President Clinton, who eventually got impeached for lying to a grand jury and for — that’s right — obstruction of justice.

Kavanaugh was up to his armpits in assisting the counsel’s task of finding criminality in a president’s behavior.

Then he switched gears. Kavanaugh has since written that presidents have too much to do, too much on their plate to be distracted by potentially criminal investigations. Let me think. Is he providing cover for, oh, the guy who nominated him to the Supreme Court?

Here’s my point.

Of course presidents can be investigated. They aren’t above the law. They must be held to the same standard as their constituents, which is the entire country.

President Clinton was able to perform his presidential duties while he was under investigation and, indeed, while he was being impeached by the House of Representatives and tried by the Senate.

The same is true for President Nixon, who was under investigation for myriad offenses relating to Watergate. The House Judiciary Committee passed articles of impeachment and then the president resigned. Was he able to do his job while all of this was occurring? Of course he was!

My strong hunch is that the Senate Judiciary Committee that will consider Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination will ask him directly and pointedly about what he thought while working for Kenneth Starr and what he thinks these days now that Donald Trump wants him to serve on the highest court in the land.

I hope someone on the panel asks him: What made you change your mind, Judge?

legal news, national news, political news

Time to praise SCOTUS selection

I am feeling so good over the rescue of the Thai boys and their soccer coach from that flooded cave in northern Thailand that I want to offer a good word for Donald John Trump’s selection to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I’ll stipulate up front that you’ll deem this to be faint praise, but it’s praise nonetheless.

Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has angered the crackpot Trump “base.” They’re none too happy with Kavanaugh, fearing that he doesn’t appear to be as firmly opposed to Roe v. Wade as the base continues to be. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania chided the president for surrendering to what he called the “Washington elite” by selecting Kavanaugh.

To be sure, the justice nominee is a conservative. He appears to be what one could call a “mainstream conservative,” not a goofball/wack-job conservative.

He has pledged to be independent and to study the law as it is written, not as one wishes it were written.

Is this the kind of judge I would have selected? Of course not! However, Trump is the president of the United States.

By anyone’s measure, Kavanaugh is supremely qualified to serve on the high court. He’s a Yale Law School grad, meaning that the entire Supreme Court would comprise Ivy League legal eagles if Kavanaugh is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The Senate will nitpick the daylights out of Kavanaugh’s lengthy written record. Senators will need to examine Kavanaugh’s views on health care, as well as on whether sitting presidents can be indicted for criminal offenses. His record suggests he might tilt the “wrong way” on both of those issues.

I continue to believe that while Kavanaugh’s conservative credentials might solidify the court’s right-leaning bias, it doesn’t guarantee it necessarily on every single key ruling that would come before the Supreme Court.

That seeming uncertainty, I submit, is what might be driving the Trump bloc of “base” voters nuts.