US politics general thread

[Emjay]

Like say, another credible witness who can take a polygraph and testify of Kavanaugh's involvement in drunken gang rape? That would certainly be an obstacle to confirmation I'd guess.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate...-public-with-kavanaugh-accusations-in-next-48

This is going to be interesting to watch. I wonder if Avenatti's more of a hat man or a cattle man? His batting average is 1000 so far.

This guy is a sleazeball. Why wait until Wednesday? Shopping around for best exclusive rights? Waiting for an offer of money from Kavanaugh?

You say another credible witness and we don't even know this witness' details yet or heard her story from her?

Avenatti on Sunday tweeted a screenshot of an email he sent to Mike Davis, the chief counsel for nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the email, Avenatti said he is “aware of significant evidence of multiple house parties in the Washington, D.C. area during the early 1980s, during which Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge and others would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them.”

So, it's not hearsay. But hearsay of hearsay. How low can we go, folks?

This is entering very serious allegations, ones which should have legal consequences if they cannot be proven. If I were Kavanaugh, I would be all over this dirt bag with a very serious threat if there is not verifiable evidence. This is a trial via media.

 

[greg0205]

In bipartisan good news...

SCOTUS Denies Stay, New Disclosure Ruling Goes Into Effect

The Supreme Court today denied a stay, and lifted a temporary stay by Chief Justice Roberts, in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s (CREW) landmark dark money case against Crossroad GPS and the Federal Election Commission (FEC). This decision, following similar decisive decisions by the district court and court of appeals this week, means that effective immediately, anyone making more than $250 in express advocacy ads — ads that tell viewers who to vote for or against — must now disclose the identities of all contributors who gave more than $200 in a year. They must also identify who among those contributors earmarked their contributions for express ads. Because of this decision, the contributors for a major category of dark money spending this fall will have to be disclosed to the public.

“This is a great day for transparency and democracy,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. “Three courts, including the Supreme Court, have now rejected Crossroads’ arguments for a stay, meaning we’re about to know a lot more about who is funding our elections.”

PS. There's an hour and thirty nine minutes of Dark Money (2018) out there for folk interested. Good watch.

 

[cerebus]

This guy is a sleazeball. Why wait until Wednesday? Shopping around for best exclusive rights? Waiting for an offer of money from Kavanaugh?

You say another credible witness and we don't even know this witness' details yet or heard her story from her?

He's a showman, no doubt about it. A sleazeball though? Strong words when the person he's going up against is an accused rapist. Maybe he has something, maybe he doesn't. He's made some fairly specific claims that would backfire on him spectacularly if they turned out to be false.

If I were Kavanaugh, I would be all over this dirt bag with a very serious threat if there is not verifiable evidence. This is a trial via media.

Oh, Kavanaugh wants "A fair process, a process where I can defend my integrity and clear my name." "A fair process where I can defend my integrity and clear my name". "I want to have an opportunity to defend my integrity and clear my name and have a fair process". "I just want a fair process where I can be heard." "I just want a fair process where I can be heard, defend my integrity, defend the integrity of my family." "I just want an opportunity, a fair process where I can defend my integrity." "And we’re looking for a fair process where I can be heard and defend the — my integrity". Just to be clear, "I had never sexually assaulted anyone, not in high school, not ever. I’ve always treated women with dignity and respect." "I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone in high school or otherwise." "I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone in high school or at any time in my life." " I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone."

 

[Emjay]

snip

Is asking for fairness unfair? My personal opinion is that he should start defending himself legally. What is a fair process in your mind? How does Kavanaugh prove he is not guilty?

His reputation is tarnished if he is guilty or not. If he is confirmed, I will be very surprised.

We now also have a new precedence where high school and college behaviour can be subject to scrutiny now.

Bring on Amy Coney Barrett. She should have been nominated in the very first place, but is quite far right according to leftist standards.

 

[cerebus]

Is asking for fairness unfair? My personal opinion is that he should start defending himself legally. What is a fair process in your mind? How does Kavanaugh prove he is not guilty?

My point is, he spent the entire interview avoiding specifics and refusing to budge from scripted talking points.

How does he prove that he isn't guilty? By allowing himself and his accusers to be subjected to cross-examination about the specific things he's being accused of. By having the supporting witnesses of his accusers also come forward and be questioned by the FBI or whatever governing body needs to investigate this. A thorough, nonpartisan and untainted investigation over what are building up to very serious allegations would be fine with me.

We now also have a new precedence where high school and college behaviour can be subject to scrutiny now.

Why shouldn't it be?

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

My point is, he spent the entire interview avoiding specifics and refusing to budge from scripted talking points.

A lawyer would advise you not to speak at all before testifying, it can only hurt you down the line. As a judge he probably knows this ...

Why shouldn't it be?

For the same reasons a juvenile's criminal record can be sealed or expunged. Kids do stupid things, stupid things that the system acknowledges shouldn't be destroying their future. That's for the juvenile cases of course, which one very well might be when we're talking about high school.

 

[cerebus]

A lawyer would advise you not to speak at all before testifying, it can only hurt you down the line. As a judge he probably knows this ...

Then why bother subjecting himself to a TV interview, if he has nothing specific to say?

For the same reasons a juvenile's criminal record can be sealed or expunged. Kids do stupid things, stupid things that the system acknowledges shouldn't be destroying their future. That's for the juvenile cases of course, which one very well might be when we're talking about high school.

I grant there is a grey area with juvenile matters, and he was 17 when the Ford incident is supposed to have happened. But firstly we're talking about attempted rape, not smoking some pot, and Ford claims to have been severely impacted by what happened - and it was her who reported the event.

And secondly, I think there is even a possibility for moving past it if he had come forward, owned that he had done this terrible thing as a young man, and asked Ford and the public to forgive him. The fact that he wouldn't do this indicates that either he is innocent, or he's completely unwilling to face the consequences of what he did as a child - and afraid of more witnesses crawling out of the woodwork with worse allegations if he admitted to one wrongdoing.

 

[rietrot]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-25/peter-schiff-warns-trump-tariff-put-stock-market-worthless

Peter Schiff Warns "Trump Tariff Put" On The Stock Market Is Worthless"

The Dow Jones pushed into record-high territory again late last week. As Peter Schiff pointed out in his latest podcast, Pres. Trump was out there pointing out the record run on Wall Street and claiming responsibility for this bull market. Just turn on Fox News and hardly a segment will go by that somebody isn’t reminding you about how great the economy is. Peter said it reminds him how people were talking up George W. Bush before the Great Recession.

Just because you’re a Republican, you don’t have to claim that anything that’s done by another Republican is great in order to make the Democrats look bad. Because ultimately that comes back and bites you because you lose all credibility when the economy turns down and you’ve been gushing over how great it is and how successful the Republican president is. And when it turns out it was just a bubble, it was just an illusion and when the bubble bursts and the illusion is replaced with a harsh reality, well you’ve got nothing and it makes it easier for the other side to scapegoat capitalism for the problems and hold out more government as the solution.”

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Like I said. No one wins. We are now using someone's actions as a minor against them.

It would be different he owned up and sought forgiveness. Coming out of the gate lying about obvious things, and then further lying to the Senate leaves him with no credibility, including on this.

If there was really an attempted rape, there should be a case opened with the Maryland authorities, and it should be investigated properly by the correct authorities, and both should testify in front of Congress without either person trying to dictate how the process should be dealt with. Senator Feinstein should also testify as to why the timelines played out in that manner that it did.

A proper investigation and hearing is what the victim and Dems are asking for - Republicans are blocking it. Think about that for a bit. And they're doing it for no actual reason - there is no actual deadline. They just want to ram it through with no proper oversight. His huge debt getting suddenly repaid right before his nomination is also something worth looking at, but again, Repubs don't want to. They've only released 4% of relevant documentation, and even that has shown him to lie multiple times.

Is asking for fairness unfair?

He's not interested in fairness and neither is the GOP. They want to conduct a sham hearing as is evidenced by them rushing it, refusing to call extremely relevant witnesses and refusing to give proper oversight.

His reputation is tarnished if he is guilty or not.

No, it isn't. If he doesn't get it he'll go back to being a very privileged, rich judge that moves around in elite conservative circles as before.

Yeah, that is why they left it to the last possible moment instead of bringing it up in June...

How was she supposed to do that since she only got the letter end of July?

Actually no. The cause of the problem is far older:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Constitution#Background
The reason why this has become politicised is because of the way the US judges are interpreting the constitution. If you start taking liberties of how it should be read and interpreted, you politicise the process of the interpretation. This is the problem of having people use the "living document interpretation to force an issue on a 50% majority rather than using a 2/3 majority.

This is nonsense. Originalism is a con that no one holds to, including the most vaunted 'originalist' judges.

https://www.theatlantic.com/nationa...-originalist-everyone-else-is-idiotic/239291/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennett-l-gershman/justice-scalias-faux-orig_b_9265726.html
https://www.salon.com/2016/02/18/sc...e_please_stop_calling_him_a_brilliant_jurist/

But also, the GOP ended the blue slip bipartisan tradition, not Dems. They held the SCOTUS seat open for almost a year for literally no reason other than politics, not Dems.

Before McConnell's tenure as Majority Leader, both Dem and Rep controlled Senates confirmed way more judges nominated by the other party's president.

The evidence is clear:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixg...uctionism-handed-judicial-vacancies-to-trump/

They don't even try to deny it:

Donald Trump inherited 88 district and 17 court of appeals vacancies. Fourteen months later he proclaimed “when I got in we had over 100 federal judges that weren’t appointed. I don’t know why Obama left that … Maybe he got complacent.”

The reasons for the vacancies—old news to most—was the flimsy confirmation record in the 2015-16 Senate (the 114th), with its new Republican majority. Just as it refused to consider Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination, it shut down the lower court confirmation process. That’s water under the bridge. But documenting how the 114th Senate ratcheted up the contentiousness and polarization of an already broken confirmation process suggests how much harder it will be to ratchet it back into something with more comity and bipartisanship. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell now insists that there’s nothing “we can do …that’s more important … than confirming judges as rapidly as we get them.”

If you look at how the constitutional court functions in this country, they always use the evil and racist originalist way of interpreting the constitution.

Yeah, shocking that a constitution written in 1994 is more suited to modern day jurisprudence than one written in 1787.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Trump bragged about his presidency and world leaders laughed

World leaders laughed Tuesday after President Donald Trump said in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly that his administration had accomplished more than any other in American history.

"In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country," Trump said near the start of a speech before the assembled world leaders, prompting audible laughter.

"It's so true," Trump continued, before acknowledging the laughter.

"I didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay," he said, smirking and raising his eyebrows.

It's unusual for a U.S. president to draw unintentional laughs at a gathering of world leaders, and Trump has long complained that foreign governments are laughing at the U.S. for what he views as weak policies on trade and other issues.

Always a tweet:

"We need a President who isn't a laughing stock to the entire World," he tweeted in 2014, well before he launched his presidential campaign.

*edit*

Fox News released edited clips that remove the laughter...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1044649079098216448

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Lefty political correctness out of control again.

Texas Just Said In Court That A Black Girl Had To Stand For The Pledge Of Allegiance

India Landry sued after she was expelled from school. Texas law says that students have to have a parent’s permission to sit during the pledge.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Such a shock.

Newly Uncovered Memo Suggests Kirstjen Nielsen Lied to Congress About Family Separation

On Monday, good government groups released a heavily redacted and previously confidential Trump administration memo from April outlining and authorizing what would ultimately become the White House’s disastrous family separation border policy.

The memo, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by Open the Government and the Project On Government Oversight, mentions a series of options that were presented to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen on April 23 for how to approach the Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” policy on prosecuting undocumented border crossers.

Contrary to Nielsen’s public statements, the memo made clear that this was a family separation policy. Nielsen seems to have misled Congress and the American people when she repeatedly claimed that there was no policy of separating families at the border.

 

[Aquila ka Hecate]

Trump bragged about his presidency and world leaders laughed



Always a tweet:



*edit*

Fox News released edited clips that remove the laughter...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1044649079098216448

The UN General Assembly laughed at Trump.

About bloody time - derision is all he deserves.

The Germans practically pointing and laughing later on was good, too.

 

[Tman*]

The UN General Assembly laughed at Trump.

About bloody time - derision is all he deserves.

The Germans practically pointing and laughing later on was good, too.

I read through the text of the speech, I cant help to think if it was read by Obama people would have loved it.

 

[Aquila ka Hecate]

I read through the text of the speech, I cant help to think if it was read by Obama people would have loved it.

I doubt Obama would ever have read a tone-deaf piece written by Stephen Miller.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

The Germans practically pointing and laughing later on was good, too.

The same Germans who handed their homeland over to rapefugees on a silver platter? Yeah, I'm sure the likes of Trump is so very embarrassed to be laughed at by that level of idiocy.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

Lefty political correctness out of control again

It is indeed, nothing in that entire saga has anything to do with her skin colour, but hey, let's make that the headline anyway amirite!

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

Source: Senate Judiciary Committee schedules vote on Kavanaugh nomination the day after hearing on sexual assault allegation

• The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for Friday, according to a notice from the committee's Republican chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
• That puts the contentious vote on President Donald Trump's nominee just one day after a much-anticipated hearing in which a woman who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault is expected to testify to lawmakers.
• Though Grassley said in a post on Twitter Tuesday evening that the Judiciary Committee vote would only take place "if we're ready to vote. If we aren't ready, we won't."

 

[cerebus]

Source: Senate Judiciary Committee schedules vote on Kavanaugh nomination the day after hearing on sexual assault allegation

Good, good, all proceeding as planned.

Democrats have signaled for months they'd put on whatever performance the far left special interests demanded and throw all the mud, all the mud they could manufacture. It's not like they didn't warn us. But even by the far left's standards, this shameful, shameful smear campaign has hit a new low.

Well, it's amazing to me that these allegations come out of nowhere at the last minute and that they weren't brought up earlier in this process

The American people may well elect a president who decides to nominate Judge Garland for Senate consideration. The next president may also nominate someone very different. Either way, our view is this: Give the people a voice in the filling of this vacancy .

There will be plenty of time for debate on that issue ... There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices. I would note, just recently, that Justice [Stephen] Breyer observed that the vacancy is not impacting the ability of the court to do its job. That’s a debate that we are going to have

One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.'

 

[konfab]

Yeah, shocking that a constitution written in 1994 is more suited to modern day jurisprudence than one written in 1787.

If only there were a way that the constitution of a country could be amended to keep it up to date with the modern jurisprudence.

Speaking of an amendment, I would say one of the things that would completely depoliticise the process would be to put term limits on supreme court judges.
https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2018/6/27/17511030/supreme-court-term-limits-retirement