New SCOTUS Judge II: The Wrath of Kavanaugh

[Minoosh]

CBS News notes something that the Times missed out on highlighting in its article: that people were pressuring a woman to change her story:

This doesn't even sound new to me. IIRC that same point came out during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Again, IIRC supporters of Blasey Ford were asking the friend if it was more accurate to say she was not aware of the incident happening, vs. she was aware of the incident not happening. Which may have been improper, I really have no opinion, but such small changes of meaning seem to slip easily into public discourse. "I remember that not happening" is different than "I don't remember that happening."

I could be off base; I really don't have the patience to nail this down right now.

IMO Kavanaugh is a partisan hack who at least in his distant youth drank to excess and exhibited predatory sexual behavior, but it was his behavior during the confirmation hearings - the quick temper, the taking his case to national TV - that really turned me off. I've known men with deserved reputations for making (quite crass) unwelcome advances who I otherwise considered to be decent people.

 

[Craig4]

These new allegations exploded on launch. You’ve got to be deep, deep in denial to think that something this pathetic is going to move the needle against Kavanaugh.

They don't have to be true to be damaging. Damaging is all that matters.

 

[Craig4]

oy vey

We aren't going to take our country back from Putin/Trump without destroying some lives. Most of those lives will be of a Trump supporters and that's fine because they don't have value as human beings. Unfortunately, some of them won't be. However, Judge Rapist knew what his family was in for when he agreed to be nominated. The pain has family will go through was his decision. Any pain experienced by his family is his fault. He could have stayed in anonymity on the DC Circuit and been left alone.

 

[Ziggurat]

You see, unlike the trend exhibited by too many Rightists, whereby dirty tricks in the service of their cause is fair game, progressives are more likely to apply equality of principle to their team as well as to the opposition.

Point.

They don't have to be true to be damaging. Damaging is all that matters.

Counterpoint.

 

[luchog]

Any pain experienced by his family is his fault. He could have stayed in anonymity on the DC Circuit and been left alone.

Judging by his ego during the hearings, there's no way he could have done that once nominated.

 

[Lurch]

When the accusations are sufficiently vague, no, they cannot.



Often times, yes.



Not anymore.



Guess which party nominates judges who vote most in lockstep with each other on issues? Go on, I'll give you two tries.

Could it be that even Republican-nominated judges sometimes find too much to object to in laws promulgated by the GOP? Hence the GOP's more fervent efforts at grooming and vetting through the Federalist society, in order to find more reactionary or pliant candidates.

Remember, it's the GOP who has had their eye more firmly locked on the prize of federal judgeships, because they need arbiters of the law more in step with their unpopular policies in order to get their minority-supported laws passed.

Being in the minority and adhering to unpopular policy, they know they cannot win through fair means like persuasion. Hence their resort to dirty tricks.

 

[Lurch]

Point.


Counterpoint.

We jabbering few here make up a rather small sample upon which to draw statistical conclusions.

 

[Ziggurat]

Could it be that even Republican-nominated judges sometimes find too much to object to in laws promulgated by the GOP?

No. You’re grasping for straws here.

 

[Ziggurat]

You know, I made another point during earlier in this entire exchange: The point that you would never ever see Trump era Republicans acting this way. As I said, for them it's Party before country, ethics, and truth. I find it awfully telling that neither you nor Zig are eager to confront that fact.

You are incoherent. It makes zero sense to claim that Democrats were wrong to kick Franken out AND that Republicans are bad because they wouldn't kick an equivalent to Franken out. If kicking Franken out was the wrong thing to do, as you have stated, then it is no flaw for Republicans to not do so to one of their own under the same circumstances.

Party before coherence, I guess.

 

[Lurch]

No. You’re grasping for straws here.

A recent event comes to mind. Didn't Justice Roberts essentially tear the Administration a new one after they tried to get that infamous new question onto the census?

 

[Cabbage]

I never said otherwise! Hell, he can identify as infinite, if he wants. But only aleph-zero. Claiming to be aleph-one is a bridge too far, I draw the line there.

I disagree. A human being is best modeled as a subset of R^3, which is a metric space. A human being is closed and bounded subset of R^3, hence compact. A compact metric space is a continuous image of the Cantor set, which has c=2^(aleph-0) points in it, which is at least aleph-one, possibly much larger. Therefore, a human body can have as many as c points in it (more than aleph-naught, ie, at least aleph-one), so it's quite all right to go at least as far as aleph-one, perhaps even farther, depending on the truth value of the Continuum Hypothesis in whatever model you wish to use.

LMFAO!!

 

[Ziggurat]

I disagree. A human being is best modeled as a subset of R^3

Not if space is quantized.

 

[Cabbage]

Not if space is quantized.

That's precisely why I used the word "modeled".


LOL!!!

 

[Ziggurat]

A recent event comes to mind. Didn't Justice Roberts essentially tear the Administration a new one after they tried to get that infamous new question onto the census?

Not really. But if you want to talk about smackdowns of administrations, we could talk about all the 9-0 smackdowns the Obama administration got.

But that's really a distraction from the central claim: whether judges act in a partisan manner or not. And indications are that the conservative justices do so less than the liberal justices. Moreover, the historical trend has long been that conservative justices become more moderate over time, whereas liberal justices trend more liberal over time. So if you're actually worried about a partisan court (rather than just worried about a court where the other side has the majority), your top concern shouldn't be the conservative justices, but the liberal ones.

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

.. Moreover, the historical trend has long been that conservative justices become more moderate over time, whereas liberal justices trend more liberal over time. So if you're actually worried about a partisan court (rather than just worried about a court where the other side has the majority), your top concern shouldn't be the conservative justices, but the liberal ones.

Do you have more detail on this, as it seems strangely counterintuitive?

 

[Ziggurat]

Do you have more detail on this, as it seems strangely counterintuitive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideol...Scores_of_Supreme_Court_Justices_1937-Now.png

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideol...Scores_of_Supreme_Court_Justices_1937-Now.png

Interesting, fortunate that the US government is aware of this and appoints more conservative judges than liberal ones to compensate. It also only appears to be true since the 50s, back in the 30s to early 50s everyone was going right as fast as they could, except Douglas who must have been on drugs or something (What did he actually do to go that far liberal?)

 

[theprestige]

Do you have more detail on this, as it seems strangely counterintuitive?

What made it seem strange and counterintuitive to you?

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

What made it seem strange and counterintuitive to you?

Judges get older the more time they spend in office, and general observation and a Benjamin Einstein or somebody quote suggests that old people get more conservative as they age.

 

[Ziggurat]

Interesting, fortunate that the US government is aware of this and appoints more conservative judges than liberal ones to compensate.

Voters play a rather significant role is this, I'm not sure why you're being so dismissive of them.

And it's fine to want a more liberal court. That's a perfectly reasonable position, and one I expect most liberals will hold, just like it's fine and expected for conservatives to want a more conservative court. But that's very different from being worried about pure partisanship on the court, that justices will vote party line without regard to merits.