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Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The vote was 50-48 in favor of Kavanaugh.
Senators Collins, Flake, and Manchin had already announced their intentions to confirm Kavanaugh before the vote was held. Senator Lisa Murkowski, who was previously ready to vote "no", agreed to vote "present" instead so that Senator Steve Daines could attend his daughter's wedding instead of being present in the Senate to support Kavanaugh.
SCOTUSBlog: Kavanaugh confirmed as 114th justice
Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court
Previously: SCOTUS's Justice Anthony Kennedy to Retire
President Trump Nominates Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court
Trump's Supreme Court Pick: ISPs Have 1st Amendment Right to Block Websites
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @10:00PM (14 children)
In the last year of the Obama administration, many on the right claimed that Obama would suspend the Presidential election and take over as dictator. They were both wrong and loony. Making the claim that Trump will do it, shows that you are also wrong and loony.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 06 2018, @10:11PM (1 child)
You may be shocked to know that GP is trolling.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 07 2018, @02:27PM
Actually, it's kinda funny. GP modded "troll" makes him invisible to people who browse at 0 or +1 or higher. Someone modded him back up, which makes him visible to people who browse at 0. So, a lot of readers can't see his comment. BUT - there are several posts below that make no sense without the GP's post. Ehhhh - it's amusing in a warped kind of way.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @10:57PM (3 children)
Don't forget Bush Jr. before that, and Clinton before that.
Bush Sr. was before I started paying attention to politics, so I don't know whether Dems of the time claimed he would declare martial law or not.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday October 07 2018, @04:50AM (2 children)
First time I heard it, the prospective despot was Reagan.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday October 07 2018, @03:39PM (1 child)
You must be too young for Nixon, why do ya think the FBI took him out? They didn't dare insult Ike like that because they were too afraid he was a Communist who just might take em up on the offer but if he wasn't he would have em shot or something for insulting him. Ike was before my time but I gather he was like Trump in that he had sufficient popularity he could have capped a mofo on 5th Ave and got away with it.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday October 07 2018, @03:47PM
Nixon came along while I was at university, so I bow to your superior age and experience :) But yeah, it seems to be a standard tactic that repeats with every election cycle. I recall reading something (which even you didn't see firsthand, unless you've found a fountain the rest of us should know about) to the effect that the great fear of 1860 was that if elected, Lincoln would declare martial law... well, for once the doomsayers were close.
Come to mention fargone history, such doomsaying happened with the ancient Romans, too.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @11:14PM (7 children)
The difference is that that was based on racism, at no point did Obama do anything that could reasonably suggest he'd break that norm.
If anything, he was far too generous offering to cut social security for a grand bargain on the budget that was only averted when the GOP got greedy and demanded a compromise that was more than 90% in their favor.
Personally, I blame the voters for continually supporting candidates that are all too happy to let democracy fail as long as they get some of the spoils. Up until the last minute t his could have gone the other way had the Democrats not allowed Manchin to continually get away with his ridiculous pro-GOP votes at critical times. Or if Collins and Flake not flaked on the matter.
People out there that are oh so ignorant about what just happened seem to think this is a good thing. But it appears we may now have an actual sexual predator on the Supreme Court and we definitely know that he has even less integrity than justice Thomas which is astonishing. But, Kavanaugh perjured himself time after time after time on the stand with impunity and will likely be the most partisan court justice we've ever had.
The GOP and the various people supporting this farce ought to be ashamed of themselves. On no level is this an individual who should be allowed on a court, let alone our highest court. At absolute bare minimum we should be able to expect that a judge will be able to avoid perjuring himself. If a Supreme Court justice can perjure himself, then why can't anybody else?
The court itself has no enforcement mechanism of it's own, it depends upon the rest of us going along with whatever they rule. The GOP seems to have no issue endangering that respect as long as they can use the court as a tool to take away people's constitutional rights and empower their donors.
Disgusting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @11:30PM (1 child)
Really? [wikipedia.org] Nothing? [thehill.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @12:31AM
Yes, nothing. Neither of those two links support the idea that he was planning on setting himself up as President for life. Bush enjoyed much better press coverage than he did, even when he was doing things that were known to be illegal. And that bit about the IRS is rather ridiculous. That's part of the job of the IRS to investigate nonprofits that appear to be engaged in political speech.
This is why we got Trump a bunch of racists that keep making up lies to justify the fact that they dislike a black man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @12:52AM (4 children)
Clinton didn't do anything that could reasonably suggest he'd break that norm, and loonies on the right said he'd declare a state of emergency and postpone elections indefinitely, or (after the elections) that he'd declare martial law and refuse to allow Dubya's inauguration. (Was this motivated by racism, or just partisanship and looniness?)
Dubya didn't do anything that could reasonably suggest he'd break that norm, and loonies on the left said he'd declare a state of emergency and postpone elections indefinitely, or (after the elections) that he'd declare martial law and refuse to allow Obama's inauguration. (Was this motivated by racism, or just partisanship and looniness?)
Obama didn't do anything that could reasonably suggest he'd break that norm, and loonies on the right said he'd declare a state of emergency and postpone elections indefinitely, or (after the elections) that he'd declare martial law and refuse to allow Obama's inauguration. RACIST! RACIST! RACIST!
Please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @12:54AM (1 child)
Well, fuck.
Looks like I got a little carried away with the copy-paste. But I trust you understand my meaning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @02:02AM
Well, with some politicians it would be credible that he was talking about his re-election.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @03:37PM
You mean other than when Dubya took the office of President despite winning neither the popular vote nor the electoral college in either of his two campaigns?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @03:52AM
I do see one problem with your argument
X
Being outrageous and breaking the norm does seem to be Trump's thing. It would seem to be a stronger argument that Trump is more at risk of trying to stay in office permanently. (Although, I agree with your point and while I think it's possible Trump would try do something like that, I think the chance of that is unlikely and the possibility is blown far out of proportion for the standard emotional/political reasons)