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The Wall Street Journal mocks this idea that Kavanaugh isn’t legitimate but in their rush to be dismissive they actually make a good point: if Trump isn’t legitimate-and at this point his legitimacy is at the very least, very much open to question-then how can any Supreme Court nominee of his who will potentially be in the position to be on the Court for the next 30 or more years be legitimate-and with his judicial decisions having a ripple effect in American society for many more years than his potentially very long tenure?

If Trump is in office because of Russia-and Comey-what would that make Kavanaugh? Maybe the WSJ can explain how an illegitimate ‘President’ can nominee a legitimate Supreme Court Justice.  At this point when you add the fact that there is a federal investigation into the question of if Trump colluded with a hostile foreign power to win the election that is as serious as a heart attack to the fact that his campaign manager during 5 of the most important months of the campaign was just convicted and his long time mob lawyer just copped to committing federal crimes at Trump’s direction, any nominee of Trump’s for the SJC is illegitimate, full stop.

But even so, Kavanaugh is a particularly alarming and unacceptable choice. Again, just like during the election, Trump’s choice of Kavanaugh was rigged.

https://lastmenandovermen.com/2018/07/11/on-kennedy-retirement-kavanaugh-pick-the-fix-was-in-just-like-in-the-election/

One night during Trump’s push for Neil Gorsuch back in April 2017, he was seen talking to Anthony Kennedy. He was caught on a hot mic telling Kennedy what a swell young man his son; of course, Trump thinks Kennedy Jr is great: the kid got him over $1 billion dollars in loans although his credit wasn’t adequate.

Now Trump ignores the list of the Federalist Society to choose Bret Kavanaugh, who was Kennedy’s law clerk. The Federalist Society had a long list of acceptably severe conservatives but while Kavanuagh’s views on things like abortion and gay marriage it’s clear what put him head and shoulders above the rest: he believes that Republican Presidents-even fake ones like Trump-are above the law. If you think that Kavanaugh’s nomination is incidental to that fact then you ought to become acquainted with Malcom Nance’s Nance’s Law: conspiracies take a lot of planning.

So sure, Trump chose Kavanaugh for his ‘judicial philosophy’ but this philosophy is that Republican Presidents-even ‘Presidents’ like Trump or above the law. With Bill Clinton, Kavanaugh was downright puritanical in his desire to punish Clinton for his extramarital affair. Kavanaugh himself wrote a bunch of sexually explicit ‘questions’ that were really unworthy of an Independent Counsel. But there was a method to his prudish madness-he wanted to push Clinton to either admit to perjury or resign.

https://lastmenandovermen.com/2018/08/21/brett-kavanaugh-clearly-didnt-think-bill-clinton-was-above-the-law/

The question that begs is how did someone who was so self righteous and indignant in demanding impeachment over a simple extra marital affair suddenly come to believe that Presidents should be shielded from not just Independent Counsels like the one he and Ken Starr used to hound Bill Clinton but also civil suits, and most investigations? 

His advocates try  to tel us that his came as an evolution as he begun to change his mind. But this doesn’t add up. In 1998 he called for Clinton’s impeachment over what today’s Trump apologists would certainly dismiss as a ‘perjury trap’ then in 1999 he was already singing a very different tune as Amanda Marcotte documents:

Kavanaugh later tried to distance himself from this abusive attitude towards Lewinsky, saying, “I regret that the House of Representatives did not handle the report in a way that would have kept sensitive details in the report from public disclosure.” But in the heat of the moment, Kavanaugh was a big advocate of using sexually explicit details as a tool of public humiliation for partisan gain and didn’t care how much it might damage the woman involved.

“What’s equally telling is how full-throated Kavanaugh was in his belief that the president deserved no special protections from legal inquiry or consequences, even though Kavanaugh’s anger, as captured in this memo, is largely about a legal sexual relationship and not about the president committing perjury in an attempt to conceal it. Kavanaugh denounces Clinton for “frivolous privilege claims” and says he is “strongly opposed to giving the President any ‘break’ in the questioning.”

“Kavanaugh’s strong objections to the idea of executive privilege dried up the second the topic was something other than exposing the frequency of Oval Office ejaculations. As soon as 1999, Kavanaugh had switched to arguing that a court decision to release the Watergate tapes was “an erroneous decision” because it “took away the power of the president to control information in the executive branch.”

This doesn’t suggest an evolution but rather a Road to Damascus style conversion over night. But it’s pretty clear there was no such conversion: what chanced was the party. Nixon was a Republican, and Kavanaugh wanted to protect the Republican un-indicted co-conspirator beyond the grave.

Then  during the W. Bush years Kavanaugh turned against the Independent Counsel when it was used not for  the Clinton’s 1970s real estate deal or Bill’s extramarital affair but for investigating how the Bush WH outed a CIA agent blowing her cover and endangering her life to punish her husband for criticizing their push for war in Iraq.

It’s clear then his real jurisprudence is Republican Presidents-even fake ones like Trump or criminals like Nixon-are above the law; Democrats on the other hand can be impeached over any trumped up nonsense.

In the latest Kavanaugh news, Susan Collins again shows allegedly ‘moderate Republicans’ are basically little use at all: as Paul Waldman says Collins’ is either terribly naive or thinks we are terribly naive:

“Elise Viebeck and Gabriel Pogrund report that Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is either incredibly naive or she thinks all of us are:

Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh told Sen. Susan Collins on Tuesday that Roe v. Wade was “settled law,” the Maine Republican told reporters after their meeting.

Collins, a supporter of abortion rights, said she raised the issue with Kavanaugh, who is meeting with senators ahead of his confirmation hearings next month.

“We talked about whether he considered Roe to be settled law,” Collins said, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Collins said Kavanaugh told her that he agreed with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who said during his 2005 confirmation hearing that Roe was “settled as a precedent of the court.” Collins and Kavanaugh, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, met for more than two hours Tuesday morning.

“Everyone knows what this really means: Kavanaugh thinks Roe is “settled” — until he and the other conservatives on the court decide to overturn it, that is. But by saying what he did, he allows Collins to claim that she can vote to confirm him and still defend Roe. It’s a sham.”

Exactly. It’s amazing how much mileage the Federalist Society and friends have garnered by conservative nominees to use language like ‘precedent’ and ‘settled law.’ I’m sure John Roberts would say the same thing about the Voting Rights Act but that didn’t prevent him from gutting it back in 2013. There are all kinds of things you can do to restrict and rollback a woman’s right to choose other than fully overturning it. Like the Roberts’ Court gutted the VRA without fully overturning it-just the very important Clause 4.

UPDATE: Collins attitude in ramming through Kavanaugh-she gave an extremely self righteous speech attacking Kavanaugh critics  the day  she finally publicly announced her intention to vote for him-it had been fairly evident for a while-while ignoring the legitimate concerns about him beginning with the fact he had has been credibly accused of sexual assault multiple times-is a big reason why her numbers have since  nosedived-she is now a big target of liberals in 2020.

End of UPDATE

 

I appreciate the Dem Senators who are now saying they won’t meet with him at all.

On the other hand we need to see Kavanaugh’s full trove of documents-at this point he’s been withholding them and has released less than 1%. When his Clinton memo was recently publicly released his office dismissed it saying they’re sure that’s low on the list of the vital issues he’ll be asked about next month. Sure it’s so unimportant-why then did he refuse to release it? Why did it require an FOIA request by the Washington Post?

And now if you still need more evidence that Kavanaugh’s judicial philosophy is Republican Presidents-even illegitimate ones-are above the law-a judge just ordered the release of the Ken Starr leak report from 1999:

“A federal judge Wednesday ordered the release of a 1999 report that could show if Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was involved in leaks of grand jury secrets when he worked with special counsel Ken Starr investigating President Bill Clinton.”

I’ll go with the over on that one-ie, I’m willing to bet yes. It’s night and day in comparing the leaky operation that Starr ran in the 1990s with how disciplined Mueller has been in the Russia probe.

“Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats and American Oversight, a government disclosure advocacy group, say the still-secret report by a court-appointed special master could shed light on Kavanaugh’s activities during the Starr investigation.”

“The special master, John Kern, wrote the report in 1999 on how prosecutors on Starr’s team allegedly leaked information to the press in the Whitewater investigation of Clinton.”

Kavanaugh, currently a federal appellate judge on the DC Circuit, has told the Judiciary Committee that his past contact with news reporters — both as a quoted and as an anonymous source — was “appropriate or as directed.”

Mark 3 P.M. on your cell phone as we are about to find out.

“Judge Royce Lamberth said the records must be released by Friday at 3 p.m. ET.”

“The Justice Department did not oppose unsealing the records and it gave Lamberth, a senior judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, a copy of the report to review privately.”

“A memo the Justice Department’s federal programs division filed with the court on Tuesday said the special master in 1999 ultimately found no violations of grand jury secrecy.”

Again, we’re about to find out but if this is so, why did Kavanaugh oppose its release? Why not get credit for being transparent?

“Kavanaugh’s nomination hearing is scheduled for Sept. 4. Democrats have called for a delay, saying a complete record of the nominee’s work for Starr and later at the George W. Bush White House has not been made available.”

“The inquiry for Kern’s report followed the unsealing of several court records related to the Starr investigation’s 1998 grand jury proceedings earlier this year after CNN sued.”

Again, if there’s nothing to hide why did it require a media outlet suing to uncover the information?

“The special master’s report wasn’t among the court filings made public following CNN’s request. After American Oversight saw what CNN pursued, the group began looking for the special master’s report.”

“The Judiciary Committee Democrats jumped into the pursuit of the special master’s report on Tuesday.”

“It has been reported that Judge Kavanaugh was in regular contact with the media during the Starr investigation, which has led some to suggest that his conduct may have violated” federal law governing grand juries, the senators wrote in a letter to the court Tuesday. “To the extent special master Kern’s report may shed light on this conduct, its immediate disclosure is not only in the public interest, but necessary for us to carry out our constitutional advice and consent responsibilities as members of the Judiciary Committee.”

We’re about to find out but at a minimum, Kavanaugh seems to be very opposed to public transparency.

UPDATE: In retrospect, however, the Senate only saw 5% of Kavanaugh’s materials. We also know that Chuck Schumer was trying to slow walk the fight against Kavanaugh under the premise it would only embolden Republicans-Chapter A. To the extent that the Dems fought against Kavanaugh at all it was only because the credible allegations of Dr. Christine Ford sort of forced their hand. Ironically the GOP attacked Diane Feinstein vociferously-and the MSM piked the attacks up-under the false premise that somehow she had waited six weeks before revealing Dr. Ford’s letter making the allegations as a kind of ruthless political ploy-when to the contrary she was actually prepared to bury them before Kavanaugh was confirmed and that this actually was contrary to Ford’s wishes

FN: Again see Chapter A.

Meanwhile the House Dems are still being pushed by the base on Kavanaugh hearings. Hear hear-but there is so much other ground they also need to cover-they have covered so little the first 7 months alas.

 

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