New SCOTUS Judge

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TragicMonkey said:
I have no idea. Owing large debts for real estate is itself an insane practice, but for some reason a great many people do it. I have long since given up trying to understand the financial madness of the herd, which is one of the reasons I'm against judging people for their personal finances.
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Thanks, that makes sense. But I'm still curious about the passage I quoted. When you wrote that, were you intending to describe Kavanaugh specifically, or were you making a more general observation?
 
theprestige said:
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We're not hiring Kavanaugh to manage our personal finances or control our gambling habit. Who cares how he lives, as long as he rules competently from the bench?
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If he is financially irresponsible -- and in fairness, we don't really know whether he is -- that would make him vulnerable to outside influence on his decisions. "Influence" doesn't have to mean "Here's a bucket of money. Vote my way."
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Professionally, Kavanaugh is a right-wing Evangelical toady who never dissented from a straight Republican agenda. He is a quintessential yes-men.
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He's a conservative judge. That's enough for some, not enough for others. Spurious accusations and their rebuttals don't really change the balance of those scales. If his conservative interpretation of the law is your real objection, then say so and have done with it.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
So we have many excuses for Kavanaugh, but little to recommend him (besides him coaching a girl's team).
Is this really one of the top nine judges the US has to offer? Do we really have to settle for him?
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Rather than settling, think of it more as forced upon us by a party drunk with power, desperately trying to get it in before the cops show up.
 
theprestige said:
Heh. Seems like just yesterday the complaint was that Kavanaugh was too elite. Now it seems he may not be elite enough.
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The guy came from an elite background and has been a lawyer for over 20 years. He has held good paying public sector jobs or worked for one of the largest law firms in the country. It's not like he has been handling indigent cases in the Rio Grande Valley for the last decade.

Even public sector attorneys make good money. Not great money, but decent. Add in his time at a major law firm, where he was paid very well, and I have a hard time figuring out how he ended up so poor.

I don't think I personally know any attorneys with more than 10 years experience who have a net worth of less than $500k. Sure most of that will be home equity, but he doesn't even have much of that. And I know far more attorneys who don't have big firm pedigrees than do. None of my close friends went to Harvard or Yale.

That really does speak to someone desperate to look wealthy instead of accepting the fact that they are not actually that wealthy. That is actually a bit frightening to me.
 
theprestige said:
He's a conservative judge. That's enough for some, not enough for others. Spurious accusations and their rebuttals don't really change the balance of those scales. If his conservative interpretation of the law is your real objection, then say so and have done with it.
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No one ever said that Kavanaugh wasn't right-wing enough.
Plenty have said that he misinterpreted the law to fit his agenda.
 
theprestige said:
Thanks, that makes sense. But I'm still curious about the passage I quoted. When you wrote that, were you intending to describe Kavanaugh specifically, or were you making a more general observation?
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I dimly recalled reading Kavanaugh had a second mortgage on his McMansion to handle his consumer debt, but I shied away in instinctive horror at the words and may be recalling wrongly. The concept of acquiring debt for such purposes...ugh.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I have no idea. Owing large debts for real estate is itself an insane practice, but for some reason a great many people do it. I have long since given up trying to understand the financial madness of the herd, which is one of the reasons I'm against judging people for their personal finances.
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Not to digress too far, but many responsible financial advisors contend that taking out a large mortgage with a low interest rate is a smart move; you can invest your money in something that pays a higher return. Mortgage interest rates are around 4%, and you get tax breaks; the long-term return on the S&P is around 10%. A large mortgage is not a black mark for anybody. Where people get into trouble is by borrowing more than they should to buy a bigger property than they need.
 
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Bob001 said:
If he is financially irresponsible -- and in fairness, we don't really know whether he is -- that would make him vulnerable to outside influence on his decisions. "Influence" doesn't have to mean "Here's a bucket of money. Vote my way."
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Sure. But "influence" does have to mean something. And there should be evidence of it in his professional record. A history of bad rulings. A paper trail of decisions that improperly benefit one of the parties in his court. Testimony of clerks, paralegals, and other co-workers who would have been in a position to witness or participate in such shenanigans. Something. But the worst we've heard about his record on the bench so far is that it's conservative. This is a partisan complaint, not a professional one.

Maybe we should look more closely at why all the other Justices are so much wealthier than Kavanaugh. It's possible the FBI overlooked something, after all. How much of Justice Ginsburg's millions might be carefully-laundered payments for legal services rendered? The whole bench stinks.
 
Cain said:
No.

The comment I was thinking of is the part right before that. Now this is where you go and watch the video, then come back here and say my original remarks were totally fair. Thanks in advance.
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I have watched the video again. This is your statement:

The New Yorker piece said she's supposed to be credible because she spent six days probing her memory.
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Farrow said that was one reason why she is credible. He also included the fact that K's roommate at the time said he was "frequently drunk", "that he took part in activity that made him unsurprised at this claim and that he found this woman credible". Farrow also said that the roommate "was one of several people who back Ms. Ramirez" and that they "wouldn't have run the piece if they didn't have several people who had heard of the incident and found her credible. " Farrow saw the addition of the fact that she took six days to carefully consider everything "spoke well of her level of caution". So the article did not say "she's supposed to be credible because she spent six days probing her memory". It was just one part.
 
Dr. Keith said:
The guy came from an elite background and has been a lawyer for over 20 years. He has held good paying public sector jobs or worked for one of the largest law firms in the country. It's not like he has been handling indigent cases in the Rio Grande Valley for the last decade.

Even public sector attorneys make good money. Not great money, but decent. Add in his time at a major law firm, where he was paid very well, and I have a hard time figuring out how he ended up so poor.

I don't think I personally know any attorneys with more than 10 years experience who have a net worth of less than $500k. Sure most of that will be home equity, but he doesn't even have much of that. And I know far more attorneys who don't have big firm pedigrees than do. None of my close friends went to Harvard or Yale.

That really does speak to someone desperate to look wealthy instead of accepting the fact that they are not actually that wealthy. That is actually a bit frightening to me.
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And it might turn out he spent a lot of money on one of his kids' medical problems, or took care of his old nanny in her declining years. If we can invent speculation to his discredit we can surely do the opposite. But since his finances are not (barring crime) part of his suitability for the job it's not something to waste time on.

I think the rapeyness is quite enough to compel a hard evaluation without drawing in innocuous junk.
 
TragicMonkey said:
And it might turn out he spent a lot of money on one of his kids' medical problems, or took care of his old nanny in her declining years. If we can invent speculation to his discredit we can surely do the opposite. But since his finances are not (barring crime) part of his suitability for the job it's not something to waste time on.

I think the rapeyness is quite enough to compel a hard evaluation without drawing in innocuous junk.
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Fair enough.
 
theprestige said:
Seems like the GOP was able to block Garland's confirmation without smearing him. Go figure.
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That's not a point in their favor, as they refused to consider anybody. You can't get credit for not doing your duty badly if you refused to do your duty at all.
 
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