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[Shazbot]

For what it is worth, he is not who Trump's base wanted. He is, oddly, an insider.

[Doomblade187]

@baffler, thank you for looking it up. I figured it wasn't super clear cut because this was back in '09.

EDIT: Reading up on his past, looks like he's pretty good for the most Trump wants, rather conservative.

[Trekkin]

@baffler, thank you for looking it up. I figured it wasn't super clear cut because this was back in '09.

EDIT: Reading up on his past, looks like he's pretty good for the most Trump wants, rather conservative.

And, for the Trumpiest of wants, a staunch supporter of corporate interests and also possessed of very convenient beliefs regarding the executive branch and investigations, as Baffler has noted.

[Doomblade187]

Ooh, found this delicious quote in a Splinter article:

"Along with having a record of siding with anti-abortion and anti-contraception groups, Kavanaugh, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, also recently argued that net neutrality rules were unconstitutional because they violated the free speech rights of ISPs"

"CORPORATIONS BE PEOPLE YEH"

[smjjames]

Ooh, found this delicious quote in a Splinter article:

"Along with having a record of siding with anti-abortion and anti-contraception groups, Kavanaugh, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, also recently argued that net neutrality rules were unconstitutional because they violated the free speech rights of ISPs"

"CORPORATIONS BE PEOPLE YEH"

If corporations were people, would they object to having people work inside them because privacy rights? Having corporations be people makes no sense to me. They should theoretically push the 'corporations are people' to 11 to see how wierd that gets.

[SalmonGod]

I'm extremely uncomfortable with anyone making death threats or anything interpret-able as such.  Remember back in 2012 when the Palin campaign marked target Democrat seats with crosshairs?  The actual intent was clearly innocent, but then Congresswoman Giffords got shot. 

We live in a time when it's horribly easy to accidentally incite violence.  And for what?  What's the benefit of being able to casually wish death on a person, even if everyone knows it's a "figure of speech"?  Even that seems sick to me.

But people hide behind insincerity so much, these days.  People "ironically" adopting Nazi memes as a joke, repeating them over and over until they lose all impact, then maybe stop looking like such a bad idea.  Language shapes behavior.

I'm less worried about Max specifically because he's demonstrated a lack of filter in other threads.  But I don't think it's "normal" to say such things.

This Black Mirror episode

[smjjames]

From the looks of it he's basically Justice Kennedy's clone. He even worked for Kennedy for a while.

And the nominee is Kavanaugh. This corruption schtick is getting gauche in its transparency.

Apparently he once ruled that a sitting president cannot be indicted or some such back in 2009.

Not ruled, he stated his opinion that that was the case in an article in a legal journal. And he is 100% correct about it too. Here:
http://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Kavanaugh_MLR.pdf

His argument is essentially that impeachment is sufficient and to put the responsibility for that on the judiciary instead would be a blatant violation of separation of powers, that the President has legal immunities for very good reasons, and that impeachment does not preclude subsequent prosecution.

Given https://www.vox.com/2018/7/9/17551584/brett-kavanaugh-president-criminal-investigation , if Kavanaugh does get confirmed and something related to the Russia probe comes to SCOTUS, does anybody think that Kavanaugh would reasonably be impartial to Trump in this matter? I'm absolutely not saying that he struck some sort of deal, just that the seed of doubt is already there as far as Kavanaugh being impartial and free of conflicts of interest.

[EnigmaticHat]

Whaaaaaat, an attorney who was involved with the Bill Clinton investigation is shifty?  You're pulling my leg.

[Baffler]

From the looks of it he's basically Justice Kennedy's clone. He even worked for Kennedy for a while.

And the nominee is Kavanaugh. This corruption schtick is getting gauche in its transparency.

Apparently he once ruled that a sitting president cannot be indicted or some such back in 2009.

Not ruled, he stated his opinion that that was the case in an article in a legal journal. And he is 100% correct about it too. Here:
http://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Kavanaugh_MLR.pdf

His argument is essentially that impeachment is sufficient and to put the responsibility for that on the judiciary instead would be a blatant violation of separation of powers, that the President has legal immunities for very good reasons, and that impeachment does not preclude subsequent prosecution.

Given https://www.vox.com/2018/7/9/17551584/brett-kavanaugh-president-criminal-investigation , if Kavanaugh does get confirmed and something related to the Russia probe comes to SCOTUS, does anybody think that Kavanaugh would reasonably be impartial to Trump in this matter? I'm absolutely not saying that he struck some sort of deal, just that the seed of doubt is already there as far as Kavanaugh being impartial and free of conflicts of interest.

If you're worried that his opinion there will lead him to avoiding prosecution of Trump (like I've seen lots of people imply or even say outright) for whatever it is people are accusing him of now that is baseless alarmism. What he says is that if the President does something criminal we should take it to Congress first because Congress has powers of impeachment, not the Judiciary. This comes straight from the Constitution. It doesn't prevent prosecution, it just means, or at least has been read to mean, that they need to be impeached by Congress before they can be slapped with penalties other than impeachment. The whole procedure is set up like that on purpose to ensure that if the president, or any officeholder really, gets removed from their position before they come up for election it's happening for an actually good reason rather than just politics.

[PTTG??]

And if politics is openly abetting his actions? Such as their shameless failure to impeach him for violations of the emoluments clause?

[Trekkin]

So, in order to prevent the removal of officeholders for political reasons, they can only be removed by politicians?

[misko27]

Frankly I'm not bothered by this, since I already accepted this with some sense of depressed resignation like six months ago. If things ever go... well, saying "really pear-shaped" feels bankrupt given the circumstances, but if "worst comes to worst" the Supreme Court would be too scared to intervene anyway.

[Frumple]

It's a blatant corruption pick -- let's choose the guy who thinks presidents with a R besides their name shouldn't be indicted, says the president with a R besides their name plagued by investigations involving shit a lot more serious than diddling the staff. Rest of it's mostly expected, bleh.

[smjjames]

I don't think Kavanaugh was thinking only of Republican Presidents. He was part of Ken Starrs team (Clinton investigation), so, that whole experience certainly influenced his opinion. Still, it's pretty obvious WHY Trump picked Kavanaugh despite having two major boxes checked against him, being part of the establishment and is close to the Bush family (whom Trump despises).

However, this appointment is likely a blessing in disguise for the Democrats since he has a HUGE paper trail. Even doing the normal stuff before confirmation is going to take a long time, Chuck Grassley (Chair of the Senate Judicial Committee) said he couldn't promise a hearing or something by September. And the Democrats can easily drag this out. Whether they can drag it out into January, no idea.

Also, some conservatives are leery about him because they have their own objections, and following the paper trail could lead to some nasty revelations.

[Trekkin]

However, this appointment is likely a blessing in disguise for the Democrats since he has a HUGE paper trail. Even doing the normal stuff before confirmation is going to take a long time, Chuck Grassley (Chair of the Senate Judicial Committee) said he couldn't promise a hearing or something by September. And the Democrats can easily drag this out. Whether they can drag it out into January, no idea.

That might be enough, actually. Once the Court is solidly conservative, a whole block of single-issue anti-abortion donors and voters don't really need a Republican majority in Congress with the same urgency any more. Kavanaugh's nomination is a core issue for them now; actually putting him on the Court would both infuriate their opponents and let a large part of their base give/vote on other priorities on which they may be less unified.  McConnell could well calculate that handing the issue to a Democratic Senate to vote down would reenergize the base for 2020, at which time he is personally up for reelection. It would be in line with his prior cynicism.