Maybe the other justices shouldn’t have been so circumspect about his nomination post-hearing. He clearly doesn’t care about the norms of civility
Don’t worry - when Justice Hannity and Justice Carlson join the Court, Kavanaugh will seem like one of the more moderate justices in contrast.
I have a good friend here, an Ecuadorian man, who owns a restaurant and gives free Spanish lessons to extranjeros twice a week. We’ve been going to him for two years, and one of the things we always do is stay after the class ends and eat dinner there. The food is great, and it’s one of several things we do to pay him back for his time. Over time a small group has developed that stays together for dinner and we talk about politics, current events, etc.
So last night another couple from the class stayed to join us for dinner. Before long, they were ranting about the injustice to Kavanaugh. She said things like ‘it’s not like it is impossible for women to lie’, and ‘the whole thing was totally engineered by Diane Feinstein’. He said things like ‘her own best friend said that it never happened’, and ‘all the other people she named as witnesses said under oath that it never happened’
I tried using reason, for example asking him to name the people who testified under oath that Ford’s story never happened - as opposed to saying they didn’t recall any such incident - but if course he couldn’t do that. I tried pointing out Kavanaugh’s own deceptions, e.g. claiming that he had never been to a party with those people when his own calendar shows he went to a party with many of the people named by Ford. But he didn’t know anything about that, and said he thought Kavanaugh’s calendar proved it couldn’t have happened.
The whole thing was futile. Eventually one of the women present said ‘I was raped. I know exactly where it happened and who did it, but I couldn’t tell you for sure exactly what date it occurred or even how I got home afterward. And there were no witnesses. So, am I lying?’
That basically shut them up. The amazing thing is that both of them are Canadians, and presumably don’t have any stake in the issue at all. Of course, later one of them was talking about how brilliant Jordan Peterson is, so there’s that.
Welcome to our daily world in the States, man.
In my experience this holds true for every interaction I’ve had with Trump supporters, including the few on this forum. I stopped trying to have a dialog with any of them - it was too sisyphean unfortunately.
In other words, “Shut up, Lesley: the traditional White Male Plutocracy is assured.”
SCOTUS has blocked the Wilbur Ross deposition. I’m not sure that bodes well for any chances if Mueller were to try to subpoena Trump, though arguably that was unlikely at this point.
The actual order is here:
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/18A375-In-Re-Department-of-Commerce.pdf
It’s interesting because the ruling is basically silent. It blocks the Ross deposition but not the other discovery activities in the lawsuit about the census question. Most of the ruling is a dissent from Gorsuch, joined by Thomas, arguing that the Court should have blocked all discovery on the grounds that it is settled law that you can’t compel discovery for executive actions for which there is a clear public record justifying the reasons for the action.
Crowdfunding to pressure Collins on Kavanaugh vote likely to face legal challenge.
Money = speech, except when it doesn’t or so the GOP would have it.
Interesting.
While of course I don’t think for a minute the majority of GOP congresscritters would make a fuss had this been turned around the other way, I have to admit I kind of wonder about this, myself. IANAL, so my awesome repertoire of legal skillz comes through being around people much more intelligent than I.
So my underwhelming mind likewise wonders how such a view would extend to PACs who provide material support for politicians who champion their views. While I assume it’s not illegal (because they’ve been around forever), is there an ethical difference?
I think the problem in this case was the explicit quid pro quo.
We can not have a situation where the public is not able to tell their congresspeople what they want and include a threat to support a different candidate if they don’t get it. Any ruling against this fundraising would be a ruling against the First Amendment.
The idea that it’s a bribe is a farce. There’s no difference between them doing it with millions and me doing it on my own with a $20 donation. If I say to Susan Collins ‘if you vote for X I’ll contribute to your opponent’, that is not a bribe.
Or if it is, so are the millions she’s getting from various groups. She wants the bribes in her favor, but not against her.
It’s illegal to offer a quid pro quo exchange to an elected official. That means offering a specific thing of value for a specific future official act.
You can say “Our lobby supports the proposed gun control bill”, and you can say “Based on his past record, we are not supporting candidate X this year”. You cannot say “We will donate $X to your reelection campaign if and only if you vote for Y next week”.
So, how about “We will donate $X to your opponent if and only if you vote for Y next week”. That’s going to be an interesting question. But there is precedent for courts to find that denying resources to a competitor is indeed valuable. We’ll see.
Finally, “What’s the big deal, everyone does it!” is basically the Blagojevich defense. It didn’t work.
A vote is a specific thing of value, and I reject the idea that saying to Susan Collins if you do X, I’ll vote for you, but if not, I won’t is a bribe. The absence of a primary challenger is a specific thing of value, and I reject the idea that saying if you do X, I’ll primary you is a bribe. Contributions to your opponents are not bribes. Endorsements of your opponents are not bribes.
A lot of conservative think tanks like Club for Growth or Heritage grade members on key votes. If those Republicans vote against their agenda, they get downgraded and lose PAC money. After the BK confirmation, Collins received money from Judicial Crisis Network.
OK, but when was the last time these think tanks made a statement before a vote to the effect of “Vote this way or else we will downgrade you”. I can’t think of any examples, it is always post facto.
The fact is that how you try to influence people matters. If you call the police in your neighbor’s loud party, and later remark “I wouldn’t have called the police if he had invited me!”, then you aren’t breaking the law. But if you say to your neighbor, “Invite me to your next loud party or I will call the police on you” then that is a clear case of extortion.
And when it comes to influencing public officials, the level of scrutiny is much higher. If you could legally spend $4 million to openly influence an upcoming vote merely by promising it to an opponent, then I’m surprised nobody tried it until now.