State of the union?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

I did just see that all the politicians in Virginia once wore blackface.
I laugh when I hear people claim that Bork and Kavanaugh were choirboys and they were just getting picked on. Both were swamp dwellers their entire careers. And it's tough to live in the swamp on either the left or right side.

Where did Bork first come into the public spotlight?
Attorney General Elliot Richardson refused to carry out Nixon's order and resigned in protest. Richardson's deputy, William Ruckelshaus, also refused and resigned as well. Finally, Solicitor General Robert Bork, the third-ranking official at Justice, fired the prosecutor.
I would think one would wonder about Bork's judgement, though perhaps Nixon's troubles were also a deep state plot.


What is Kavanaugh's political history?
Of course he has never played any political games, here is a little but it is not hard to find more.

Judge Starr’s predecessor as independent counsel, Robert Fiske, had looked into unfounded claims that White House Counsel Vincent Foster, who committed suicide in Fort Marcy Park in 1993, had in fact been murdered as part of an alleged White House cover-up related to Whitewater. After a thorough investigation, Mr. Fiske concluded in 1994 that there was nothing to the conspiracy theories and that Mr. Foster, who suffered from depression, had indeed killed himself. Official accounts by the United States Park Service in 1993 and by Republican Congressman William Clinger, the ranking member of the House Government Affairs Committee in 1994, came to an identical conclusion, as did a bipartisan report of the Senate Banking Committee early in 1995.

But shortly after the Senate report came out, Kavanaugh pushed Starr to reopen the probe yet again, citing “allegations” his death was “related to President and Mrs. Clinton’s involvement” in the scandal. And just who could’ve whispered those disproven allegations in Kavanaugh’s ear? Citing files at the National Archives, Wilentz reports that it was a who’s who of conservative wingnuts, some of whom are still active on the scene today:

One was Reed Irvine, a self-appointed debunker of the “fake news” of mainstream media. Another was Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, an English author of a book entitled “The Secret Life of Bill Clinton” that posited that the Oklahoma City bombing was an F.B.I. plot gone awry. A third was Christopher Ruddy, today the chief executive of Newsmax and confidante of President Trump, but at the time on the payroll of the right-wing tycoon Richard Mellon Scaife to promote conspiracies.

Although Kavanaugh wrote in notes that he personally believed Foster’s death was a suicide, he still pushed the investigation on for three years at a cost of some $2 million, a process that involved such far-fetched ideas as scrutinizing carpet in the White House and harassing Foster’s bereaved friends and family. The professor recounts in the Times:

As inventive as they were vindictive, these partisans concocted all sorts of wild theories to explain why Mr. Foster could not have killed himself. According to one of Mr. Kavanaugh’s sources, Mr. Foster had been working for the National Security Agency and was being blackmailed by the Israelis over a secret Swiss bank account. Carpet fibers had been found on Mr. Foster’s clothing, which was proof positive that he was murdered, his body wrapped in a carpet and then dumped. Another charged that “long blonde hairs” on Mr. Foster’s clothing pointed to a cover-up.

He investigated the Swiss bank account connection, down to examining Mr. Foster’s American Express bills for flights to Switzerland. He meticulously examined the White House carpets, old and new. (By now, Mr. Foster had been dead four years.) He sent investigators in search of follicle specimens from Foster’s bereft, blonde, teenage daughter. (“We have Foster’s hair,” one agent working for Mr. Kavanaugh reported in triumph.)

Mr. Kavanaugh apparently took a special interest in Hillary Clinton’s bruited affair with Mr. Foster, a popular rumor in the fever swamps of the right. As he reported, his investigators “asked numerous people about it,” before he decided to ask Mrs. Clinton herself.

"I laugh when I hear people claim that Bork and Kavanaugh were choirboys "

You're hearing voices again, no one ever said that. Maybe take off your tin foil hat once in awhile to air out the cobwebs between your ears.

I said Bork was qualified, and was the first nominee to be rejected for political reasons. You may not like that. That doesn't mean I'm wrong. Before Bork, it was understood that if the POTUS nominated someone who was qualified, both partied would support the nomination. It wasn't a purely political exercise like it is now.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

"I laugh when I hear people claim that Bork and Kavanaugh were choirboys "

You're hearing voices again, no one ever said that. Maybe take off your tin foil hat once in awhile to air out the cobwebs between your ears.

I said Bork was qualified, and was the first nominee to be rejected for political reasons. You may not like that. That doesn't mean I'm wrong. Before Bork, it was understood that if the POTUS nominated someone who was qualified, both partied would support the nomination. It wasn't a purely political exercise like it is now.

Untrue other nominees were rejected or never reviewed
It has always been a political exercise, not a rubber stamp
And it was not designed as such
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Untrue other nominees were rejected or never reviewed
It has always been a political exercise, not a rubber stamp
And it was not designed as such
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Fascinating. You know more about the confirmation process than Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who complained last year at how political it has become, she noted that Scalia got confirmed unanimously, and her vote was 96-3.

She should have consulted you. You could have told her that it's always been political, even though only 3 voted against her.

You just make it up as you go along.



https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/10/...gress_justice/

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Fascinating. You know more about the confirmation process than Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who complained last year at how political it has become, she noted that Scalia got confirmed unanimously, and her vote was 96-3.

She should have consulted you. You could have told her that it's always been political, even though only 3 voted against her.

You just make it up as you go along.



https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/10/...gress_justice/

You just believe whatever rightwing gibberish you happen to read.

The Supreme Court from the moment of it's inception has been political.

In September 1789, on the same day that the Judiciary Act passed Congress, President Washington nominated the six justices to serve on the first Supreme Court. For Chief Justice, he chose John Jay, one of the leaders of Washington’s Federalist Party and one of the chief advocates of the Constitution and a strong federal government throughout the founding period. Washington’s other five nominees, including John Rutledge who would succeed Jay as the second Chief Justice six years later, were likewise staunch Federalists and allies of the president.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

You just believe whatever rightwing gibberish you happen to read.

The Supreme Court from the moment of it's inception has been political.

In September 1789, on the same day that the Judiciary Act passed Congress, President Washington nominated the six justices to serve on the first Supreme Court. For Chief Justice, he chose John Jay, one of the leaders of Washington’s Federalist Party and one of the chief advocates of the Constitution and a strong federal government throughout the founding period. Washington’s other five nominees, including John Rutledge who would succeed Jay as the second Chief Justice six years later, were likewise staunch Federalists and allies of the president.

"You just believe whatever rightwing gibberish you happen to read"

Ruth Bader Ginsburg spews right-wing talking points? That's what you are saying?

Oh, I needed that laugh like you can't believe...

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

"You just believe whatever rightwing gibberish you happen to read"

Ruth Bader Ginsburg spews right-wing talking points? That's what you are saying?

Oh, I needed that laugh like you can't believe...

You might be better off studying history than thinking just because an 85 year old person said something it's true.
To think the Supreme Court is apolitical is silly, though you can wish it.
When the Democrats win and increase the number of Supreme court justices to 15 and appoint them then you'll be whining.

Although that early Court did not hear nearly as many cases as would subsequent ones, those first decisions reflect its political make-up and perspective. In Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), for example, the court ruled 5-1 that federal courts had the power to supersede states’ “sovereign immunity” and hear disputes between citizens and the states.

The case and decision were so controversial that they led directly to the first post-Bill of Rights Constitutional Amendment, the 11th, which when ratified in early 1795 reasserted the states’ sovereign immunity to federal court decisions.

The Court’s first reorganization, less than a decade after Chisholm, was even more overtly tied to partisan and electoral politics. In the aftermath of the hotly contested presidential election of 1800, President John Adams and a lame duck Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the number of Supreme Court Justices from 6 to 5 and instituted a number of other sweeping changes to the federal judiciary that would benefit the current President’s party, and disadvantage the incoming one. Although the act passed only 19 days before Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration, Adams and Congress filled as many open judgeships as possible, leading to the act’s popular nickname, the Midnight Judges Act.

[Sea Dangles]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

You might be better off studying history than thinking just because an 85 year old person said something it's true.
To think the Supreme Court is apolitical is silly, though you can wish it.
When the Democrats win and increase the number of Supreme court justices to 15 and appoint them then you'll be whining.

Although that early Court did not hear nearly as many cases as would subsequent ones, those first decisions reflect its political make-up and perspective. In Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), for example, the court ruled 5-1 that federal courts had the power to supersede states’ “sovereign immunity” and hear disputes between citizens and the states.

The case and decision were so controversial that they led directly to the first post-Bill of Rights Constitutional Amendment, the 11th, which when ratified in early 1795 reasserted the states’ sovereign immunity to federal court decisions.

The Court’s first reorganization, less than a decade after Chisholm, was even more overtly tied to partisan and electoral politics. In the aftermath of the hotly contested presidential election of 1800, President John Adams and a lame duck Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the number of Supreme Court Justices from 6 to 5 and instituted a number of other sweeping changes to the federal judiciary that would benefit the current President’s party, and disadvantage the incoming one. Although the act passed only 19 days before Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration, Adams and Congress filled as many open judgeships as possible, leading to the act’s popular nickname, the Midnight Judges Act.

Nonsensical meltdown
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