US Politics: Judge Dread

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, maarsen said:

He's applying for a cash for life position. Now his past life as a drunk, torture advocate, and serial sexual assaulter is derailing his chances. There is some stress in his life.

More to the point he's applying for a cushy position that interprets the law and he's a liar, who lies under oath:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/college-friend-shares-tales-of-kavanaughs-drunken-behavior.html

Quote

 

. . . . In a statement published by the Times, Ludington recounted a specific incident of Kavanaugh going into a booze-induced rage:

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“When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail.”. . . .

“It is truth that is at stake, and I believe that the ability to speak the truth, even when it does not reflect well upon oneself, is a paramount quality we seek in our nation’s most powerful judges,”he said. He intends to take his information to the FBI on Monday morning, but it’s not clear those investigating the Supreme Court nominee will be interested in hearing it.

 

 

[SweetPea]

Another great news that Trump will not get any credit for: NASA just announced their plan to send humans to the Moon and Mars.

[Week]

9 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

Another great news that Trump will not get any credit for: NASA just announced their plan to send humans to the Moon and Mars.

To the moon by late 2020s and "an eventual series of crewed missions to Mars planned to start in the 2030's and culminating in a surface landing." I'm not exactly sure how to parse that last part -- there will be crewed missions to Mars that would only orbit and return?

Regardless, truly a masterful move to pat yourself on the back to celebrate an announcement about planning for 15-20 years in the future. This is news. What makes it "great"? 

[Jace, Extat]

1 minute ago, Week said:

To the moon by late 2020s and "an eventual series of crewed missions to Mars planned to start in the 2030's and culminating in a surface landing." I'm not exactly sure how to parse that last part -- there will be crewed missions to Mars that would only orbit and return?

Regardless, truly a masterful move to pat yourself on the back to celebrate an announcement about planning for 15-20 years in the future. This is news. What makes it "great"? 

Didn't they orbit the moon a few times before attempting a landing mission?

[Week]

1 minute ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Didn't they orbit the moon a few times before attempting a landing mission?

Correct -- that's their intention again in this announcement to plan for a moon landing. On the other hand, Mars would be a months-long mission to only boomerang right back -- seems very costly with low payoff. That said -- I'm certainly no spaceflight expert.

[Ice Queen]

21 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Kavanaugh's partisan involvement in the Clinton hearing should be enough to disqualify him - this was a guy who's job was stoking conspiracy theories and spinning a political shitstorm to take down a political opponent by any means necessary.  All judges are going to be political, but they shouldn't be someone who has been a blatant political operative in the past.  

Hilarious that two of the posters here are saying, "but if you assume he's innocent, then he's innocent."

I was waiting for him to scream "Vince Foster!" at the top of his lungs. 

[SweetPea]

6 minutes ago, Week said:

To the moon by late 2020s and "an eventual series of crewed missions to Mars planned to start in the 2030's and culminating in a surface landing." I'm not exactly sure how to parse that last part -- there will be crewed missions to Mars that would only orbit and return?

5 minutes ago, Week said:

Correct -- that's their intention again in this announcement to plan for a moon landing. On the other hand, Mars would be a months-long mission to only boomerang right back -- seems very costly with low payoff. That said -- I'm certainly no spaceflight expert.

They're planning on landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 2020s, and on Mars sometime in the 2030s. The payoff is innovation, tons of new research and technology, which always leads to advancements here on Earth. The government wastes money on a lot of things, but NASA isn't one of them.

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Regardless, truly a masterful move to pat yourself on the back to celebrate an announcement about planning for 15-20 years in the future. This is news. What makes it "great"? 

I guess it's not great news if you don't really care about space exploration. For those who do, this is exciting news. I can't wait to see the Moon landing live, since I wasn't alive when the last one happened.

[Zorral]

14 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

They're planning on landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 2020s, and on Mars sometime in the 2030s. The payoff is innovation, tons of new research and technology, which always leads to advancements here on Earth. The government wastes money on a lot of things, but NASA isn't one of them.

I guess it's not great news if you don't really care about space exploration. For those who do, this is exciting news. I can't wait to see the Moon landing live, since I wasn't alive when the last one happened.

Has eff all to do with the liar, BK.

Read this, OK?

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh-is-lying

And this:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/college-friend-shares-tales-of-kavanaughs-drunken-behavior.html

One must wonder why your ilks don't think lying repeatedly and for years under oath isn't disqualifying to sit on SCOTUS.

 

[Jace, Extat]

26 minutes ago, Week said:

Correct -- that's their intention again in this announcement to plan for a moon landing. On the other hand, Mars would be a months-long mission to only boomerang right back -- seems very costly with low payoff. That said -- I'm certainly no spaceflight expert.

Maybe they could drop/recover probes? Practical experience? You gotta test run being in deep space that long. The earth won't be there to soak up all of the random hazards.

[SweetPea]

17 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Has eff all to do with the liar, BK.

Read this, OK?

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh-is-lying

And this:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/college-friend-shares-tales-of-kavanaughs-drunken-behavior.html

One must wonder why your ilks don't think lying repeatedly and for years under oath isn't disqualifying to sit on SCOTUS.

What, are we allowed to only talk about Kavanaugh now?

Fine, I've read it. I think many of the "lies" are mostly semantics and technicalities, but yes, I do believe that he lied several times, and distorted evidence in his favor. I've said before that I wouldn't have nominated him for the seat. I just don't think he is guilty (of the sexual assault), nor that him getting emotional during the hearing should be criticized.

[Mexal]

11 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

What, are we allowed to only talk about Kavanaugh now?

Fine, I've read it. I think many of the "lies" are mostly semantics and technicalities, but yes, I do believe that he lied several times, and distorted evidence in his favor. I've said before that I wouldn't have nominated him for the seat. I just don't think he is guilty (of the sexual assault), nor that him getting emotional during the hearing should be criticized.

How about him proclaiming this is all "an orchestrated conspiracy by people hurt that about the 2016 election and payback for the Clintons?" Or how about him telling Democrats "what goes around comes around?" I get you're a Republican but I would think you would also believe, being a conservative, that the SCOTUS nominee should not be openly and unshakably partisan in a job interview for a supposedly impartial seat on the highest court in the land.

Point is, as I said before, they could nominate any run of the mill conservative with a squeaky clean background who has the temperament to say all the right things like Gorsuch and avoid de-legitimizing the SCOTUS.

[Ice Queen]

16 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

What, are we allowed to only talk about Kavanaugh now?

Fine, I've read it. I think many of the "lies" are mostly semantics and technicalities, but yes, I do believe that he lied several times, and distorted evidence in his favor. I've said before that I wouldn't have nominated him for the seat. I just don't think he is guilty (of the sexual assault), nor that him getting emotional during the hearing should be criticized.

Kamala Harris asked him if he watched Dr. Ford testify--a real softball of a question.

And he even lied about that! 

[Martell Spy]

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Kavanaugh’s behavior has irrevocably marked his possible tenure on the Court. With such a partisan route as his pathway, a Justice Kavanaugh would arrive at the Supreme Court as a patient zero, carrying a virus of illegitimacy to its decisions. Since Kavanaugh declared his hostility to the Democratic Party and the left so openly and with such ferocity, it has seemed inevitable that tens of millions of Americans will never see him as an impartial judge.

That would create a stark equation for Roberts, who must surely realize that much—perhaps most—of the nation would question the validity of every 5–4 party-line decision in which Kavanaugh would provide the deciding vote. In the past, fear of further eroding the Court’s legitimacy has provided a limited (though hardly uniform) check on Roberts’s willingness to force major decisions on party-line votes. But if the Senate confirms Kavanaugh, it will present Roberts with a justice whose every decision will be viewed through the lens of the partisan and tribal animosities he inflamed to defend his nomination.

Every time Roberts would lean on Kavanaugh to construct a majority, the chief justice could further erode the Court’s already eroding public confidence. Before the disputed Bush v. Gore decision, which ended the recount in the 2000 presidential election, about half of Americans routinely expressed a great deal of confidence in the Court, according to Gallup polling. That number has fallen to 40 percent or less since the mid-2000s; in the latest Gallup measurement, from June, just one-third of Democrats said they had faith in the Court, compared with about two-fifths of Republicans. In a separate Gallup measure of job approval, the share of Republicans who gave the Court positive marks (67 percent) was almost double the portion of Democrats (36 percent

 

Kavanaugh’s Partisanship Is a Threat to the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy
If he’s confirmed, it seems inevitable that tens of millions of Americans would never see him as an impartial judge.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/kavanaughs-partisanship-threatens-supreme-court/571702/

[Zorral]

20 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

What, are we allowed to only talk about Kavanaugh now?

Fine, I've read it. I think many of the "lies" are mostly semantics and technicalities, but yes, I do believe that he lied several times, and distorted evidence in his favor. I've said before that I wouldn't have nominated him for the seat. I just don't think he is guilty (of the sexual assault), nor that him getting emotional during the hearing should be criticized.

Ah, it's all about how any individual can change the meanings opf 'beer', boofta, devil's triangle -- of you don't agree with what the meaning of is is? Pathetic lies again.  Lies just pathetic.  Lies that aren't even smart, not even necessary because the whole world (except your ilks) know these are lies. Pathetic and cowardly.  And just plain stupid, not up to the level of lying that a SCOTUS should be capable of.

[SweetPea]

3 minutes ago, Mexal said:

How about him proclaiming this is all "an orchestrated conspiracy by people hurt that about the 2016 election and payback for the Clintons?" Or how about him telling Democrats "what goes around comes around?" I get you're a Republican but I would think you would also believe, being a conservative, that the SCOTUS nominee should not be openly and unshakably partisan in a job interview for a supposedly impartial seat on the highest court in the land.

Point is, as I said before, they could nominate any run of the mill conservative with a squeaky clean background who has the temperament to say all the right things like Gorsuch and avoid de-legitimizing the SCOTUS.

First of all, I'm not a Republican, I don't like the Republican party at all. I agree with them on some things, and I would favor them currently over the Democrats, but that could change in the future.

I agree that Kavanaugh should be impartial, but he did get attacked exclusively by one party, of course he is going to point them out. I thought by "what goes around comes around" he referred to the democrats having no problem presuming guilt until proven innocent. In which case I agree with him. Still, he was a bad pick from Trump, and I hope he chooses a better candidate when Ginsburg dies. 

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, SweetPea said:

Anyone who criticizes his temperament and "immaturity" should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Have you no sympathy at all? People are throwing money at Dr. Ford for being a brave hero (she's received over $700k now in donations).  Everyone's talking about how her life was destroyed, how she's received death threats and so on. Do these people not care that the same thing has happened to Kavanaugh? Do they not care that for two weeks almost every news outlet was talking about him probably being a rapist? How he had to explain to his young daughter that he has not committed sexual assault?

He's applying to be one of the 15 most powerful people in the United States. She is not. She acted with significant more composure and character than he did. 

8 hours ago, SweetPea said:

I don't blame him one bit for losing his temper, nor do I think this disqualifies him from the SC. This was an unprecedented deeply personal attack and a smearing of his character. This is not a situation he would have to deal with while working as a SCJ.

That's entirely inaccurate; it happens all the time. SCOTUS justices routinely have death threats, are belittled, are criticized, are yelled at, and are part  of the news for good or ill. They are also not immune from things like perjury. What you're saying is that it is perfectly acceptable for the highest judge in the US to lie under oath because they were angry. 

That should never, ever be acceptable. 

[argonak]

1 hour ago, SweetPea said:

They're planning on landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 2020s, and on Mars sometime in the 2030s. The payoff is innovation, tons of new research and technology, which always leads to advancements here on Earth. The government wastes money on a lot of things, but NASA isn't one of them.

I guess it's not great news if you don't really care about space exploration. For those who do, this is exciting news. I can't wait to see the Moon landing live, since I wasn't alive when the last one happened.

Yeah, and Bush had a grandiose plan to go to mars as I recall.  What all came of that?  Grandstanding about NASA missions is just bullshit.   Republicans historically hate NASA and defund it every chance they can get.   Science for science sake is the antithesis of conservative ideology.

Only way we'll go to the moon under republican controlled congress is if its to put a miltary base there.

[Kalbear]

Also, in general - one should give credit for things that are completed, not credit for things that are planned. Especially when it comes to NASA, because there are a whole lot of planned missions that haven't ever been done nor will they ever get done. 

I'm surprised you're not jumping with joy about the new NAFTA agreement given how much Trump is, even though it's basically everything that was negotiated with Mexico and Canada for TPP and not a particularly big change otherwise. 

[SweetPea]

Further great news: North and South Korea begin clearing landmines from the demilitarized zone to recover POW remains. This comes after the announcement that they're planning on officially ending the Korean War by the end of this year. Remind me when the situation has ever been so peaceful and promising in the past? I'm pretty sure never.

[SweetPea]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

He's applying to be one of the 15 most powerful people in the United States. She is not. She acted with significant more composure and character than he did. 

Yeah but was he treated the same way she was? Far from it. Ford wasn't even questioned properly, the senators spent most of their time praising her and declaring her a brave hero. Of course she acted with more composure. She wasn't humiliated like Kavanaugh was.