US Politics Mega-thread - Page 679

On September 07 2018 06:23 On_Slaught wrote:
I agree the show they put on was over the top and ultimately not helpful. It distracts from more important issues, like the fact the man lied to Congress at least once, if not four times.

On September 07 2018 06:25 Gorsameth wrote:
So I assume the Republican focus is entirely on Brooks and not a word is mentioned of Kavanaugh perjuring himself?

And an aide to Grassley told NPR that "counsels for the senators who requested waivers last night/this morning for particular documents were notified that their requests had been honored beginning at around 3:50 this morning."

But a spokesperson for Hirono said the senator was not informed that the documents released by her office Thursday morning had been approved to be made public.

It is not clear whether Booker knew the documents he released had already been approved before his statements Thursday morning at the beginning of the hearing — when he said that his decision to release the documents was a form of civil disobedience and that he was aware he was risking expulsion from the Senate for making the documents public.

On September 07 2018 06:41 Womwomwom wrote:


I have to wonder what they expect Dems to do besides act “hysterical”? They can’t do anything if Republicans vote party line, they only thing besides act hysterical is to shut up and sit down.

The thing is that this process would be pretty smooth if it was another candidate who wasn’t completely shady. Red state Dems would vote for the candidate without question if there wasn’t any serious reason to question his integrity. You know like maybe not commit perjury multiple times.

On September 07 2018 06:55 On_Slaught wrote:


Draft articles of impeachment for Kavanaugh and refuse to show up for another meeting, hearing, or vote until they get resolution on his apparent lies.

On September 07 2018 06:55 On_Slaught wrote:


Draft articles of impeachment for Kavanaugh and refuse to show up for another meeting, hearing, or vote until they get resolution on his apparent lies.

On September 07 2018 08:52 Plansix wrote:
There isn’t a lot they can do right now. However, after November, if they own the House, they could investigate the dark money behind the nomination push, the effort to withhold documents and any discussion that were had with Kennedy. Fuck, investigate McConnels involvement and who pushed to hold up Obama’s nominees.

Make the price of that conservative majority on the court as high as possible.

On September 07 2018 09:04 Mohdoo wrote:


There are all sorts of obstructive things they can do. It isn't about preventing Kavanaugh, it is about putting on full display how unacceptable he is.

On September 07 2018 09:14 Plansix wrote:

They don’t have the votes. They can’t torpedo the spending bill over this, other democrats won’t got for it. They can make a lot of noise, but at the end of the day he will be confirmed if this comes to a full floor vote. Just like the tax bill, this one was lost in 2016.

On September 07 2018 09:40 Logo wrote:
At the very least if they make enough noise and expose enough corruption maybe it would be a good pretext to pack the court if dems ever get enough control.

On September 07 2018 06:23 Plansix wrote:

So in other words, the Republicans got played hard by Booker after he called their bluff on withholding documents they knew were relevant? The Republicans lied and dunked on today before of it?

Let’s not beat around the bush, Republicans ditched the standard bipartisan agreement on documents that will be released and decided cherry pick which documents they wanted withheld. The Democrats objected and finally decided they were going to dump documents and force the Republicans to try, and fail to remove Booker and others from the Senate. Republicans knew their bluff was called and caved early this morning. But Booker decided to make them look like real fools and publicly call them on their bullshit, upstaging them in the political theater game.

Man it really sucks that the Democrats have stopped playing by the rules the Republicans haven’t been playing by for years.

And forget the theatrics, the Republicans tried to withhold documents from the public showing our boy Brett might have lied under oath and flat our lied to Susan Collins. Lets forget the Booker and the Democrats were right to demand those documents be released.


Cornyn lied when he said the documents were relevant, maybe he is full of shit about this too. Maybe they released them to Booker and others, but didn’t want them released to the public. Also who clears docs at 4 am? And if they cleared them at 10 am, that was after the hearing started. This is them doing damage control once their bluff got called.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said his staff worked through the night to make "public every committee confidential document the minority has requested, including a request after midnight."

Booker himself acknowledged the discrepancy, telling reporters that he wanted to make a "technical clarification." According to Booker, he did, in fact, break Senate rules as he claimed — but not on Thursday.

The New Jersey Democrat told reporters that he broke the rules by bringing up the committee confidential emails during his questioning on Wednesday night, when he grilled Kavanaugh on the contents of the emails before they had been approved for release.

"So when I violated the rules, I violated them yesterday," Booker said. "So I broke those rules yesterday."

In a statement, Booker's office said that his actions Wednesday night were able to "shame" the committee into releasing the documents.

"Cory said this morning that he was releasing committee confidential documents, and that's exactly what he's done," said spokeswoman Kristin Lynch.

I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.

On September 07 2018 10:23 Introvert wrote:


There is so much, let's just start small.

From my reading, the documents Hirono released today and the ones Booker did were different. So that should be noted.

This is the statement Booker released today:

+ Show Spoiler +

So his best defense that this point, I suppose, is to claim willful ignorance. He asked for the documents to be made public last night, and throughout the entire morning today, didn't bother to find out if his request had been granted before going up there claiming he was at risk of removal from the Senate. That part should be a dead giveaway, because we all know that the Democrats have a better chance of stopping Kavanaugh than Booker does of being expelled.

in fact the wording of the statement almost makes it seem like he did know, but it's more ambiguous. So far, I have seen no claims of ignorance, which would be a sad defense by itself but it's at least more plausible.

We can stop here or move into the "lie" to Susan Collins, but somone must point out how



and saying Roe is "settled law." Roe is precedent that can be overturned. And many scholars have criticized it for it's garbage reasoning, even if they like the outcome. Even the articles I skimmed looking for exact quotes note "legal scholars" vs his views distinction.

But also, he is doing the dance every nominee does. The next Democratic appointees will get questions about Citizens United, will call it "precedent" and then refuse to say how they would rule in the future. That's how this works.

On September 07 2018 10:36 Plansix wrote:

I still don’t understand why you post like this with me, like I’m some political novice who doesn’t understand how the nomination process works. I literally taught US history and government. I know how the mother fucking senate works.

I know he doing the dance. The man is a feckless political operative that is going to erode federal power in the name of textualism, or simply asserting his political viewpoint and saying the founding fathers agreed. The problem is the dance is now effective lying or simply refusing to answer any questions.

The thing is the rules are changing. And conservatives don’t like it because they liked the dance. They could game it. But people are tired of this dance. They see through the artifice and understand this man is full of it. He will, in his time on the court, take a scalpel to Roe until it doesn’t effectively no longer exists. He called birth control “abortion pills”.

So our boy Brett says all the right things and everyone is pretty much responding “You’re full of shit and we know it,” because it’s true.

On September 07 2018 10:42 Introvert wrote:


I post that way because it seems you are being dense on purpose. Those two statements were in no way "lies," but now we're just going to focus on the fact that no one answers questions? it's been that way for several decades, and att his point it couldn't work any other way. I am far more concerned about the Senators and their antics, we have hundreds of opinions from Kavanaugh (not getting 1/10th the attention, tellingly). Yes, we know more or less what he will do. We've known that since after David Souter. Probably the last "surprise" justice appointed.

On September 07 2018 10:53 Plansix wrote:

See, you just admitted it. They don’t have all the documents. They knew this guy drafted a billion emails when he worked for Bush and to vet all of those would take months. And they knew once that was done, he would never be confirmed because those emails were all the nails in the coffin.

That is why they are rushing. That is why there is no bipartisan agreement on what documents will be released, as there has been in every other nomination. That is why they are withholding the documents for no real reason and releasing them when the Democrats call their bluff. This man would not survive a true nomination with proper transparency to the public. To slam him through and get wet dream court the conservatives want.

The Republicans are the judicatory committee are full of shit and they know it. They are liars and they are getting caught lying. It doesn’t matter, the conservative court it coming. But not only do you folks want the court, but you don’t want to pay the price. You don’t want the blow back for “we won, deal with it style of politics”. It’s fine, the Democrats didn’t want it either in 2008. But this is your ACA, so be happy. It will likely surivive the blow back like the ACA did. We will find out if it worth it 8 years from now.