All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[InformationGeek]

Delusional man says what?

Trump on AF1 was asked about women angry about Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

“I don’t think they are,” he said. Women are “extremely happy," he said, “because they’re thinking of their sons, they’re thinking of their husbands and their brothers, their uncles, and others.”

Also, John Cornyn being an ass.

Not quite #Beers4Brett but #Bubbly4Brett instead.

[JackDaw]

Stepping back from “detail” of Kavanaugh appointment, it feels surprising to me that at some point main emphasis of Democrats attack didn’t switch to his denials on oath about his drinking habits.

It would have been far easier to prove, than possible sexual assault decades ago. Indeed I suspect even the FBI would have stumbled across some relevant evidence there...and perjury in the present day is surely enough to disqualify any candidate from serving on Supreme Court.

Indeed I would say it should be enough to prevent some one serving as a judge at any level. Bear in mind it’s regarded as heinous in legal circles, and judges routinely jail people who do it.

[PaulBullion]

What makes you think the Republicans wouldn't have just kept Ginsberg's seat open like they did with Scalia's?

She would have had to retired during that short window of the GOP allowing Al Franken to be seated and the special election in Massachusetts. Republicans would have called that a political move and whoever was nominated would not have gotten the 60 votes still necessary then.

[PaulBullion]

Can he do that? (Get judges to retire?)

I suspect that having seen Trump in action a lot of the present Supreme Court judges will regard it as a duty not to retire while the Donald still holds office.

With powerful donors and the Russian intelligence community on his side, Trump can do many things not covered by the constitution.

[PaulBullion]

or She could also have retired with a Democratic majority in the Senate like the One Hundred Thirteenth United States Congress

113th United States Congress was the last time the Dems were the Senate Majority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/113th_...tates_Congress

True, I wasn't thinking right, the House does not matter in this case.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

With powerful donors and the Russian intelligence community on his side, Trump can do many things not covered by the constitution.

And this is why Trump is in no hurry to leave the White House and will run again. He has power beyond his imagination and isn't about to give it up, not without a fight, hell, that much has plainly been evident as he's pretty much been in permanent campaign mode since inaguration day.

====================

The Coming Kavanaugh Court Doctrine: Democrats Are Unconstitutional

Brett Kavanaugh promised, “What goes around comes around.” What does that mean for cases that help Republicans and hurt Democrats at the ballot box?

Brett Kavanaugh’s partisan outburst in response to allegations that he sexually assaulted Dr. Christine Blasey Ford when they were both teenagers creates a huge and glaring problem for the legitimacy of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority in crucial cases that determine who our country elects and how we elect them.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation will create an ideologically cohesive five-vote majority of conservative justices appointed by Republican presidents and a four-vote minority of liberal justices appointed by Democratic presidents for the first time in the Supreme Court’s history. During his confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh tried to dispel fears that he would rule on a partisan basis, arguing that “a good judge must be an umpire – a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy.”

But Kavanaugh’s blatant display of partisanship during his testimony last week, when he dismissed Ford’s accusations as part of “a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election” and “revenge on behalf of the Clintons,” made his earlier claims he would “call balls and strikes and not … pitch or bat,” ring hollow.

“Essentially what he did is he took his mask off and he revealed himself as a politician who wears a robe,” said Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson.

Short and sweet, this shit is fucking DANGEROUS! Kavanaugh looks to be just like Trump, a man who nurses grudges to a ridiculous degree, and anyone who thinks he won't take those grudges to SCOTUS is kidding themselves.

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Brett Kavanaugh Is Proof Republicans Will Never Hold The Elite Accountable

A party of prep school alums, for prep school alums. Why should they? The GOP parties with those assholes.

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Sexual Assault Survivor Who Confronted Jeff Flake: ‘Women Will Not Be Silenced’

“November is coming,” Ana Maria Archila said after Brett Kavanaugh was voted onto the nation’s highest court. And the GOP doesn't give a shit that November is coming. As I've already said, Republicans have sacrificed the midterms for the greater goal of getting Kavanaugh on SCOTUS where he'll give the bench a conservative edge for decades.

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Stay Angry And Confront The Bastards

If you’re feeling despair over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation, tend to what’s living just underneath it: fury. And Republicans will ignore that too.

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Northern Virginia Jewish Community Center Spray-Painted With Swastikas

“An insidious rise in hateful actions and anti-Semitism is happening in Virginia and across the country,” Sen. Tim Kaine said. Yeah, a rise spurred by a racist president who praises and comforts white supremacists.

[PaulBullion]

Dianne Feinstein is the only Democratic Senator who's over 80.

The Republicans have: Richard Shelby (term ends 2022), Orrin Hatch (retiring), Chuck Grassley (term ends 2022), Jim Inhofe (term ends 2020), Pat Roberts (term ends 2020). Even if they serve out their terms, it will probably mean fewer incumbents in future Senate races for the GOP. Not that that will do us much good in Oklahoma and Utah, of course...

[numberthirty]

Ted Koppel, I appreciate you buddy.

[Tami]

Dianne Feinstein is the only Democratic Senator who's over 80.

The Republicans have: Richard Shelby (term ends 2022), Orrin Hatch (retiring), Chuck Grassley (term ends 2022), Jim Inhofe (term ends 2020), Pat Roberts (term ends 2020). Even if they serve out their terms, it will probably mean fewer incumbents in future Senate races for the GOP. Not that that will do us much good in Oklahoma and Utah, of course...

Driven by South’s Past, Black Women Seek Votes and a New Future

Nearly two years after Donald J. Trump’s election, with racial divisions increasingly in public view and voting rights under regular attack, Ms. Sabbs is one of a small army of African-American women across the South using networks originally forged in segregation to muster turnout for Democratic candidates in the November elections. They are mobilizing in conservative states and districts, hoping to pull off upsets like Doug Jones’s stunning Senate victory last year in Alabama, where 98 percent of black women voted for him and proved a critical base of support.

Twitter Thread

[Tami]

[PaulBullion]

She seems nice:

[WestPhillyPunisher]

She seems nice:

Notice one item in her profile: Former Bernie Sanders Surrogate. Another whiner still pissing in her corn flakes because Bernie was denied the Democratic nomination, so, out of spite, she’s planning to cast her lot with the GOP which will screw her and everyone who isn’t white, male, rich, straight and Christian. It annoys me no end that ignorant little shits like her just don’t get it, Republicans don’t care about idiots like her, but will use her to consolidate power and make life a living hell for everybody save for the one percenters.

[Tami]

The Supreme Court Is Now a Partisan Institution

When Donald Trump was elected, scholars of American politics ferociously debated the future of the Republican Party. Optimists argued that Trump had little support in the GOP, and would slowly be reined in by movement conservatives like Paul Ryan and Lindsey Graham.
Pessimists like me argued that Trump had a lot of support among the Republican base and would be able to reshape the party in his own image after a protracted civil war. He and his allies would start running primary candidates to challenge more traditional conservatives and eventually replace the current crop of officeholders.

It turned out that both camps of the debate were thoroughly naïve. Once Trump became the figurehead of the Republican Party, the full partisan tribalism of this ugly political moment came to drive conservatives into his arms. He didn’t need many actual primary challengers, much less a protracted civil war, to reshape the GOP in his image. Some conservatives, like Ryan, simply decided to vacate the field. Others, like Graham, reinvented themselves as Trumpian populists. Two years into the president’s reign, the Republican Party has become a blind tool of his whim.

[Tendrin]

Notice one item in her profile: Former Bernie Sanders Surrogate. Another whiner still pissing in her corn flakes because Bernie was denied the Democratic nomination, so, out of spite, she’s planning to cast her lot with the GOP which will screw her and everyone who isn’t white, male, rich, straight and Christian. It annoys me no end that ignorant little shits like her just don’t get it, Republicans don’t care about idiots like her, but will use her to consolidate power and make life a living hell for everybody save for the one percenters.

I think the more important part here is 'Russia Today DC Correspondent'. The Greenwaldian Left, ladies and gentlemen.

[Tami]

Susan Collins Is the Worst Kind of Maverick

Belgrade Lakes, Me. — My wife and I gathered around the television on Friday to listen to our senior senator, Susan Collins, announce her final decision on the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Four sentences in, she began denouncing “special interest groups” who’d opposed him for the court, as if the only entities to weigh in on the nomination had been forces on the left. Six sentences in, she was decrying the groups who’d “whipped their followers into a frenzy by spreading misrepresentations and outright falsehoods.” We were in the first minute of a speech that would go on for 44 more.

“Uh-oh,” said my wife. “She’s going to cave.”

I nodded, although what I thought in my heart was — had there ever been any doubt? Ms. Collins, our senator since 1996, has a reputation for being an independent; a moderate; even — what was the term? — oh yes, a maverick.

But if Ms. Collins is a maverick, then I’m an appaloosa.

Yes, she’s shown herself willing to buck her party now and again. FiveThirtyEight reports that she votes in line with Donald Trump 79 percent of the time; only Rand Paul of Kentucky, at 74 percent, has a lower score among Senate Republicans. She’s opposed the president on immigration and abortion restrictions, net neutrality and his policies toward Russia, Iran and North Korea.

But on many key votes, her record is about as moderate as Ted Cruz’s. In January, she provided the Republicans with the crucial 51st vote for the tax bill. She set three conditions: the additional passage of two separate bills to shore up insurance markets for individuals who weren’t covered through their work, along with a promise for Congress to undo the cuts to Medicare automatically triggered by the deficit increase from the tax cut.

After that bill was passed, Ms. Collins said the promises to her were ironclad, and that if her conditions were not met, “there would be consequences.” But the additional bills never got a vote, and a follow-up attempt to add her provisions to the omnibus spending bill in March was defeated, by other Republicans.

Of course they were.