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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
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday October 07 2018, @12:00AM (15 children)
> question of whether a thirty six year old high school clumsy grope matters.
If he was 18 or older at the time, it matters, so say the laws of the United States, which a Supreme Court nominee should know better than most. Also, a crime is universal in that it doesn't matter what age the perp is, a crime is a crime regardless. We are more lenient with minors, but we don't let them off scot-free.
> If we are going to revisit every person's high school and even college antics for behavior short of outright criminal our civilization is toast.
Attempted rape is outright criminal. So is battery. What kind of high school and college did you attend, to think attempted rape is just high jinks and no big deal? And to suggest it's more civilized to keep looking the other way?? You sure have that one upside down. Is it that you're not with the times? Rape is taken just a teensy bit more seriously these days. Indeed, civilization may well depend upon empowering women, who will then use that power to say "no", thus preventing overpopulation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @01:33AM (10 children)
You missed anther critical point: the judge is misleading the public and gaslighting a victim. If instead he said "yeah, I'm really very sorry, and I'm so glad to have learned how wrong some of our actions were. It's past the statue of limitations, and I'm not the dumb teenager I was. I hope we can educate our youth to behave better than that. It was wrong, and I spend my life in service of justice now." then cool, cool.
But, lying to the public, and furthering damage to a victim? That's not in the public good, that's in the client's good. That's lawyer work, not judge work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @01:44AM (8 children)
Ironically, if he did do it, admitting so would have tanked his nomination.
He said that no job was worth what he and his family were put through. But is doing the right thing worth losing the job and being tarnished forever?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @02:14AM (5 children)
As it stands, his reputation is in tatters and he's likely to be impeached and removed from office the first chance the Dems get at it. He's a bit lucky in that the Dems will have to pick up like 20 seats in the Senate as well as win the house in order to make it happen, but any decisions that he makes are going to be suspect and the cost to the court's credibility is staggering.
The only way in which this makes any sense is either as an f you to Democrats or as a way of delegitimizing the Supreme Court as it continually slaps Trumps plans down for violating various constitutional rights.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 07 2018, @02:40AM (4 children)
Thankfully, SCOTUS doesn't have to give a flying fuck about credibility. They are damned near utterly unaccountable and damned near the final word on any given subject; congress would have to amend the constitution to overturn one of their decisions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @04:58AM (1 child)
really? seems luke there was a SC decision. a certain Justice Scalia gave the losers advice for how to argue it. ans said if Congress passed a law...
Well those things happened. the losers got another similar case back to the SC, and, lo and behold, Congress had passed a law, and... Citizens United vs US.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 07 2018, @02:44PM
That wasn't exactly overturning then, was it? There's a significant difference between "you can't do this" and "you can't do this that way".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @03:49PM (1 child)
The SCOTUS does not have it's own enforcement army. Literally, the only power they have comes from our agreement to follow whatever their rulings are.
If enough of us decided to say, just fuck it, we don't have to listen to those partisan hacks any more, there's nothing they could do to stop it.
This is an extremely dangerous game that the GOP has been playing the last few decades where they nominate jurists that aren't competent to be on any courts to life time appointments while cock blocking the much more qualified picks that the Democrats have been nominating.
This puts us in dangerous water as the court increasingly wades into things like settling Presidential elections and voting rights.
If our vote doesn't count, then on what basis should anybody expect change without a bloody insurrection?
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday October 08 2018, @01:27AM
Over the last few decades.... for at least a half century, SCOTUS has increasingly become involved in areas that are as much (or more) policy as law. Left, Right, or Other, this has been a dangerous game.
The problem with the approach of 'winning' your issue through the courts is that your counter-parties have no investment in the solution. Generally, when the same things are done legislatively, the 'losing' party wrings some concession or whatever so that, even in defeat, all of the stakeholders win a bit. Winning in the court leaves the losers plotting to do the same back to the winner.
The GOP aren't alone in selecting activist judges to the court(s). It has taken at least two to manage this particular tango.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 08 2018, @01:08AM (1 child)
You may find this incredible but there are some for whom retaining a modicum of integrity is far more important than getting a hold of the levers of power. Yeah, I know such people are few and far between, but they do exist. Just sayin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 08 2018, @01:26AM
Too bad somebody like that could never get appointed to SCOTUS in this political climate.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 07 2018, @03:15AM
Unless, of course, that didn't happen.
"Cool" because that would mean he wouldn't get the nomination? One should consider whether a nomination process that tends to reward your alleged gaslighting is a good idea.
(Score: 3, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday October 07 2018, @03:06AM (3 children)
Where to start with your errors. The media harassed local law enforcement about why they weren't investigating this shocking crime. Their response? Based on what she claimed it was at worst a misdemeanor with a one year Statute pf Limitations. Worst case. Assuming it happened and assuming she identified the right target. Both of those assumptions are highly improbable.
Listen to her claim again. At some point in the 1980s, she isn't even sure of the year, she was at a party. She isn't sure how she got there, she isn't sure how she left, she isn't sure where it was at. She said she was there with varying numbers of people in different versions but all of them are either certain the party didn't happen at all, uncertain of the events and / or certain they never met Kavanaugh before. She does admit to screwing sixty plus people in high school and college, her yearbooks say she was a party girl. But because of one half remembered grope she is scarred for life? But despite the trauma, "she was almost killed!" ya know, she never told anyone, never filed a police report, nothing.
Now lets consider that she paid to have per online trail professionally scrubbed before her name dropped in the media and /pol/ could save any of it. But from her appearing in other people's photos we can be pretty sure she was in the "Women's March" and thus a political activist. And the friend who just happens to be ex-FBI and connected to the deep state as I already mentioned. Her father is CIA, many think she is as well, grampa got an award for his own CIA service. A brother has connections to Perkins-Coie. She has a paper published on the subject of creating false memories.
And you believe that she is the victim here. Or you expect me to believe you do. Premise rejected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @08:49AM
From what I read she did tell numerous people, even decades ago.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @03:58PM (1 child)
Liar. There's a special place in hell for partisan hacks like yourself.
Based on the situation, the police in Maryland concluded that it was potentially attempted rape which has no statute of limitations. But, they can't make a final determination without her filing a report and digging into it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 08 2018, @12:06AM
ah yes, the alt-right brigade is up in arms here. down with everything that disagrees with them! what sad politically cucked little bitches.