Law Justice Brett Kavanaugh Megathread - Megathread for Brett Kavanaugh, US Supreme Court Justice

they're good justices, brentt

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/05/trump-picks-brett-kavanaugh-for-supreme-court.html

President Donald Trump has picked Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge with extensive legal credentials and a lengthy political record, to succeed Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court, NBC News reported.

Kavanaugh, 53, is an ideological conservative who is expected to push the court to the right on a number of issues including business regulation and national security. The favorite of White House Counsel Donald McGahn, Kavanaugh is also considered a safer pick than some of the more partisan choices who were on the president’s shortlist.

A graduate of Yale Law School who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh has the traditional trappings of a presidential nominee to the high court.


If confirmed, the appellate judge would become the second young, conservative jurist Trump has put on the top U.S. court during his first term. Kavanaugh's confirmation would give the president an even bigger role in shaping U.S. policy for decades to come. The potential to morph the federal judiciary led many conservatives to support Trump in 2016, and he has not disappointed so far with the confirmation of conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and numerous federal judges.

At times, he has diverged from the Republican party’s ideological line on important cases that have come before him, including on the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health care law which Kavanaugh has declined to strike down on a number of occasions in which it has come before him.

Anti-abortion groups quietly lobbied against Kavanaugh, pushing instead for another jurist on Trump’s shortlist, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett, ABC News reported in the run-up to Trump’s announcement.

Kavanaugh received his current appointment in 2006 after five years in the George W. Bush administration, where he served in a number of roles including staff secretary to the president. He has been criticized for his attachment to Bush, as well as his involvement in a number of high-profile legal cases.

For instance, Kavanaugh led the investigation into the death of Bill Clinton’s Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, and assisted in Kenneth Starr’s 1998 report outlining the case for Clinton’s impeachment.

Democrats criticized Kavanaugh’s political roles during his 2006 confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Your experience has been most notable, not so much for your blue chip credentials, but for the undeniably political nature of so many of your assignments,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at the time.

“From the notorious Starr report, to the Florida recount, to the President’s secrecy and privilege claims, to post-9/11 legislative battles including the Victims Compensation Fund, to ideological judicial nomination fights, if there has been a partisan political fight that needed a very bright legal foot soldier in the last decade, Brett Kavanaugh was probably there,” Schumer said.

Kavanaugh's work on the Starr report has been scrutinized by Republicans who have said it could pose trouble for the president as he negotiates with special counsel Robert Mueller over the terms of a possible interview related to Mueller's Russia probe. The 1998 document found that Clinton's multiple refusals to testify to a grand jury in connection with Starr's investigation were grounds for impeachment.

In later years, Kavanaugh said that Clinton should not have had to face down an investigation during his presidency. He has said the indictment of a president would not serve the public interest.

Like Trump's first nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, Kavanaugh clerked for Kennedy. If he is confirmed, it will mark the first time ever that a current or former Supreme Court justice has two former clerks become justices, according to an article by Adam Feldman, who writes a blog about the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh teaches courses on the separation of powers, the Supreme Court, and national security at Harvard Law School and Yale Law School, and does charitable work at St. Maria’s Meals program at Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C., according to his official biography.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ett-kavanaugh-nomination-by-a-28-point-margin

After a blistering confirmation battle, Justice Brett Kavanaugh will take his seat for oral arguments on the U.S. Supreme Court with a skeptical public, a majority of which opposed his nomination. However, Democrats may not be able to exploit this fact in the upcoming elections as much as they hope, because the independent voters overwhelmingly disapprove of their own handling of the nomination by a 28-point margin, a new CNN/SSRS poll finds.

Overall, just 41 percent of those polled said they wanted to see Kavanaugh confirmed, compared to 51 percent who said they opposed his confirmation. In previous CNN polls dating back to Robert Bork in 1987, no nominee has been more deeply underwater.

What's interesting, however, is even though Democrats on the surface would seem to have public opinion on their side, just 36 percent approved of how they handled the nomination, compared to 56 percent who disapproved. (Republicans were at 55 percent disapproval and 35 percent approval). A further breakdown finds that 58 percent of independents disapproved of the way the Democrats handled the nomination — compared to 30 percent who approved. (Independents also disapproved of Republicans handling of the matter, but by a narrower 53 percent to 32 percent margin).

Many people have strong opinions on the way the Kavanaugh nomination will play out in November and who it will benefit. The conventional wisdom is that it will help Democrats in the House, where there are a number of vulnerable Republicans in suburban districts where losses among educated women could be devastating, and that it will help Republicans in the Senate, where the tossup races are in red states where Trump and Kavanaugh are more popular.

That said, it's clear that the nomination energized both sides, and that the tactics pursued by the parties turned off independent voters in a way that makes it much harder to predict how this will end up affecting election outcomes.
 
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I hate these "we invented" arguments, Von Braun, Goddard and Korolev were all kinda in a three-way tie as far as rocketry was concerned, and none could get anyone to treat their work as anything other than an odd hobby.

It wasn't until WW2 when Von Braun was able to get the backing of the Nazis that he got the furthest ahead. When US intelligence came to him after the war to seek his input as the preeminent world rocket expert, he reportedly was confused and asked, essentially "Did Goddard die or something? Why didn't you ask him these questions years ago? We knew this stuff back in the Depression Era...."

Any "invention" is ultimately credited to who, amongst the pool of people who were all relatively close, gets to the patent office first.

EDIT : Example, Alexander Bell beat Elisha Gray to the patent for the telephone by only an hour, hence the phone book in my house growing up said "Bell Atlantic" on it instead of "Grey Atlantic".
 
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)Italian (Marconi)

Because of German scientists (Operation Paperclip)
Radio that does anything particularly useful started with Fessenden. Anything that resembles radio now? Edwin Armstrong.

All those Paperclip scientists? Their work was based on Goddard's.

There's no good delineation for any of these, really, but Europe taking credit for everything ever trying to claw back some dignity from when they were relevant is silly.

Edit: beaten like Florida Man's wife.
 
They were gonna bitch no matter who he nominated. And honestly, they should consider themselves lucky. This guy is pretty open-minded compared to some other candidates.

Also, the fact that they're STILL terrified that someone is going to take their baby-murder away from them cracks me up for some reason. No one aside from religious fundies really cares, but they're still paranoid that everyone and their mother-in-law is after Roe v Wade...
 
You'd think, it's almost like they had all these speeches and statement ready to counter the Religious Right wholeheartedly endorsing the Trump pick, and they release them without checking to see if the RR had in fact, said anything....

The left hasn't yet noticed the the RR is as dead as Fred Phelps.

The empty SJW platitudes of "This will hurt transwomen minorities" in every press release is as infuriating as the "This will hurt our moral foundation" that every Republican whined nonstop from 1990 to 2004 when it's not actually addressing the opposition, just bleating into the wind....
 
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Also, the fact that they're STILL terrified that someone is going to take their baby-murder away from them cracks me up for some reason. No one aside from religious fundies really cares, but they're still paranoid that everyone and their mother-in-law is after Roe v Wade...

Many of them are flat out lying for attention and social power. Exaggerating victimhood is the far left's trade now. Like a bratty, whimpering kid or a soccer player feigning a serious injury, it's all about manipulation.

I really do think a lot of these whiners believe they'll get their way, politically, if they just keep throwing the tantrum long enough. If that's true, it says a lot of unflattering things about their mindset.
 
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Democrats sought to take control of Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearing Tuesday, mounting a failed bid to delay President Donald Trump's nominee and interrupting Republicans dozens of times as multiple activists on the left disrupted the proceedings.

The volley of Democratic interjections began after Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) attempted to open the high-stakes four-day hearing. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) helped coordinate that strategy despite not serving on the Judiciary panel, convening a call with the committee's minority members over the weekend, according to a source familiar with the planning.

Grassley, attempting to speak over Democrats as they sought a vote on a motion to adjourn the hearing, acknowledged that "maybe it’s not going exactly the way that the minority would like to have it go." One after another, Democrats repeatedly interrupted Grassley in the opening minutes, breaking into their protests to allow Kavanaugh to speak before resuming their push to stop the process until they can examine more records.

But the display of disruption, galvanizing as it was to Kavanaugh’s liberal critics, ultimately did little but delay a day of partisan jockeying that closed, more than seven hours later, with the nominee telling senators that “I do not decide cases based on personal or policy preferences.”

Grassley said at the end of the hearing that he’s preparing to schedule a committee vote on Kavanaugh for Sept. 13, paving the way for a final floor vote on confirmation before the new Supreme Court term opens next month. Democrats are expected to exercise their procedural right to delay that by a week, at a minimum.

Senators got more than 42,000 pages of documents late Monday night on a "committee confidential" basis, a designation that prevents their public release and likely stops Democrats from citing them during the hearing. Even before that latest release, however, Democrats already had begun discussing the protest they would mount Tuesday.

The move appeared to get under the skin of some in the GOP. After repeated interruptions from anti-Kavanaugh demonstrators who were escorted from the hearing room by police, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) suggested that Democrats would be held in "contempt of court" — drawing quick pushback from Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) — and likened the moment to “mob rule.”

Grassley flatly ruled out Democrats’ repeated calls for an adjournment vote, but the fireworks at the start of the hearing already had set the tone for a raucous week to come. The White House sent a tally of the number of times each Democrat had interrupted Grassley during the first hour of the hearing, for a total of 44 interjections.

Kavanaugh is expected to ultimately be confirmed, with the Senate headed toward a return to 51-49 GOP control following the selection Tuesday of former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) — who guided Trump’s nominee through the confirmation gantlet —to replace the late Sen. John McCain. But Democratic senators are still readying an intense volley of questions for the 53-year-old appeals court judge, focusing on his stance toward an ongoing challenge to Obamacare, the future of Roe v. Wade and his already-expressed skepticism about criminal investigations of sitting presidents.

Democrats have offered few indications that they're prepared to attempt a formal boycott of the Judiciary hearing to channel their ire over the withholding of hundreds of thousands of pages of Kavanaugh-related documents from public release.

"We will attend the meetings. We will question assiduously. But we want to express our concerns,” the panel’s top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, told reporters alongside her fellow minority-party members at a gathering on the Supreme Court steps early Tuesday.

Republicans have touted the release of more than 290,000 pages of records from Kavanaugh's time in George W. Bush's White House counsel's office, noting that the volume of public disclosure has dwarfed that for previous Supreme Court picks. But Democrats have been infuriated by the GOP’s omission of any document requests governing Kavanaugh’s time as staff secretary to then-President Bush, tension that was stoked last week when the Trump administration cited executive privilege to shield more than 100,000 pages of records, angering the minority.

After Democrats’ interruptions cooled, Kavanaugh focused his opening statement on his family and friends as well as the support he’s provided to others as a constitutional law professor and volunteer. The judge, who also played a prominent role in drafting the Starr Report on former President Bill Clinton, described himself as “especially grateful to the dean who first hired me” at Harvard Law School — Democratic-tapped Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

Trump’s nominee described himself as a player on the high court's “Team of Nine” and a “neutral and impartial arbiter,” if he wins confirmation in the coming weeks.

Liberal activists mounted their own show of force against Kavanaugh throughout Tuesday, the first of four days that are expected to stretch to marathon length. Women dressed in the red-and-white garb made famous by the dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" gathered outside the hearing room, demonstrating against Kavanaugh's potential to rule against abortion rights.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was among several committee members in both parties acknowledging the difficulty of speaking over the demonstrators, saying that “we ought to have this loudmouth removed” after a woman cried out about protecting pre-existing conditions.

Capitol Police charged 61 protesters with disorderly conduct, a spokeswoman said. An additional nine were charged with obstruction or "crowding."

Kavanaugh notably name-checked Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court who was stonewalled by Republican senators ahead of the 2016 election. Garland is currently a colleague of Kavanaugh's on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

"I have served with 17 other judges, each of them a colleague and a friend, on a court now led by our superb chief judge, Merrick Garland," Kavanaugh said. That gesture was bound to fall on deaf ears with Democrats who view the entire confirmation process as unnecessarily hurried to get Trump a second seat on the high court in two years.

“When Justice [Antonin] Scalia died, Republicans refused to even meet — even a meeting in their office — with President Obama’s nominee and held the seat open for one year,” Feinstein said in her opening statement. “Now, with a Republican in the White House, they’ve changed their position.”

While Democrats recognize their limited power to stop Kavanaugh's nomination, they're still using the confirmation process to score political points, especially given the stakes. Kavanaugh would likely bend the court significantly to the right, given that he's replacing retired justice Anthony Kennedy, who long served as a swing vote.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/04/kavanaugh-remarks-neutral-umpire-806306

Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday vowed to be “a neutral and impartial arbiter” if confirmed to the Supreme Court, after a chaotic first day of hearings on Capitol Hill amid political theatrics and protests from Democrats.

“If confirmed to the Supreme Court, I will keep an open mind in every case,” Kavanaugh said. “I will do equal right to the poor and to the rich. I will always strive to preserve the Constitution of the United States and the American rule of law.”

Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings started Tuesday and are set to continue through the week.

Video
Sen. Ben Sasse unloads on Congress at Kavanaugh hearing
Before he spoke, Kavanaugh was introduced by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman and attorney Lisa Blatt – a liberal Democrat who said she voted for Hillary Clinton for president but supports Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Democrats, in their opening remarks Tuesday, sounded the alarm about Kavanaugh’s past work in Republican politics, including as a lawyer in George W. Bush’s White House.

But Kavanaugh said Tuesday, “I don’t decide cases based on personal or policy preferences.”

Earlier Tuesday, protests from Democratic lawmakers and demonstrators delayed the formal start of proceedings by more than an hour. Within moments of Tuesday's confirmation hearing kickoff, top Democrats tried to sideline the session with a rapid-fire string of objections concerning access to the nominee's records.

Video
Protesters interrupt Sen. Orrin Hatch's opening statement
The spectacle underscored the political nature of the confirmation hearings, coming two months before the midterms and as some senators gear up for a possible 2020 presidential run against President Trump. Several of those senators led the charge Tuesday in objecting to Kavanaugh.

When Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley first tried to deliver opening remarks, Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris raised objections to the committee just receiving a batch of 42,000 documents relating to the nominee's work with past administrations.

“We cannot possibly move forward," Harris, a potential 2020 Democratic presidential contender, said.

Grassley told her she was "out of order," but other Democrats chimed in to back up Harris, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who moved to adjourn.


This prompted applause from some in the audience, and touched off protests and shouting. Then, after New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker added his voice complaining of a "rush," Grassley countered: “I think you are taking advantage of my decency and my integrity.”

The chaos led Republican Sen. John Cornyn to remark, "This is the first confirmation hearing subject to mob rule." The Texas senator suggested Democrats would be “held in contempt of court” if they behaved that way in a court of law.

More than an hour and 15 minutes after the hearing began, Grassley moved past Democratic attempts to delay and finally delivered his opening statement, over the sustained shouts of protesters who were being escorted out of the room.

"Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most qualified nominees – if not the most qualified nominee – I have seen," Grassley said.

The disruptions continued as lawmakers attempted to make opening statements. There were 63 interruptions before the break for lunch.

Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch struggled to deliver his prepared remarks, as protesters audibly shouted over him.

Video
Democrats interrupt start of Kavanaugh confirmation hearing
“I think we ought to have this loudmouth removed," a frustrated Hatch said. "We shouldn't have to put up with this kind of stuff."

Grassley acknowledged it was one of the most unruly openings of any Supreme Court hearing, saying "this is something I've never gone through before in 15 Supreme Court nominations."

The Capitol Police said they arrested 70 people on Tuesday.

Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin defended the outbursts.

“What we've heard is the noise of democracy,” Durbin said. “This is what happens in a free country when people can stand up and speak and not be jailed, imprisoned, tortured or killed because of it.”

Kavanaugh has left one of the longest paper trails of any recent Supreme Court nominee, having served for more than a decade on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and, before that, for five years as a lawyer in the White House Counsel's office in the George W. Bush administration.

Kavanaugh also worked for independent counsel Ken Starr for three years during the probe that led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

Booker, another possible 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, acknowledged he already decided to vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. But he pleaded to delay the vote until more documents are released.

“We should not vote now,” Booker said. “We should wait. And if we're not waiting, we should object to your nomination.”

Democrats have seen thousands of those documents, but say they want time to review and seek more.

“If you will trust the American people, they will trust you," Durbin told Kavanaugh. "But if your effort today continues to conceal and hide documents, it raises a suspicion.”

Democrats have specifically raised objections over how the Senate received 42,000 pages of Kavanaugh documents the night before the confirmation hearing began.


“This is the most incomplete, most partisan, least transparent vetting for any Supreme Court nominee I have ever seen,” Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy said.

KAVANAUGH HEARINGS LAUNCH AMID PARTISAN FIREWORKS

Grassley, in a written statement submitted for the record, on Tuesday accused Democrats of trying to “bury this committee in millions of pages of irrelevant paperwork.” He called out California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s ranking member, for wanting to search the emails of every Bush White House aide for Kavanaugh documents.

“This would have taken months and months to complete,” Grassley said. “As I have repeatedly stated, I am not going to put the American taxpayers on the hook for the Democratic leaders’ fishing expedition.”

As the hearing kicked off, Democrats zeroed in on the controversy over the production of documents from Kavanaugh’s past work. But as the hearing went on, the Democrats began emphasizing their concern over how Kavanaugh would rule on cases involving abortion and guns.

“You are being nominated for a pivotal seat," Feinstein said. "It would likely be the deciding vote on fundamental issues.”

Video
Cornyn to Dems: If this was court you'd be held in contempt
Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told Kavanaugh the NRA “has poured millions into your confirmation,” saying they “clearly have big expectations on how you will vote on guns.” He also expressed fear that Kavanaugh would rule to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling regarding abortion.

“Despite confirmation etiquette, your own words make clear you don't really believe Roe vs. Wade is settled law, since the court, as you said, can always overrule its precedent,” Whitehouse said.

Republicans, though, argued Kavanaugh is highly qualified, saying Democrats aren’t making a case that he doesn’t have the experience to sit on the high court.

“If it's not about his judicial record, what is this fight about?” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said. “I believe this fight is nothing more and nothing less than an attempt by our Democratic colleagues to relitigate the 2016 presidential election.”

Harris, the California Democratic senator, took issue with Kavanaugh’s past work, saying has a history of carrying out “deeply conservative partisan agendas.”

“If we look at his record on the D.C. Circuit, and in his recent writings and statements, it is clear that the nominee has brought his political bias to the bench,” Harris said.

But Republicans argued some records sought by Democrats, from Kavanaugh’s time in the White House, are irrelevant to how he'd serve as a justice.

“The question before us today is not what does Brett Kavanaugh think 11 years ago on a policy matter,” Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse said. “The question is whether or not he has the temperament and character to take his policy views and political preferences and put them in a box marked irrelevant and set it aside every morning when he puts on the black robe.”

Kavanaugh's elevation from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy would mark a generational rightward shift on the Supreme Court, raising the stakes beyond those of last year's nomination of Neil Gorsuch.

“My judicial philosophy is straightforward,” Kavanaugh said Tuesday. “A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law. A judge must interpret statutes as written. A judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.”

The judge's nomination, though, will ultimately succeed or fail depending on a handful of swing-vote senators, including vulnerable red-state Democrats and moderate pro-choice Republicans who have all said that they would withhold judgment on the nominee.

Republicans command a narrow 50-49 Senate majority, which would return to 51-49 once a Republican successor to the late Sen. John McCain is seated. While the hearing was ongoing, former Sen. Jon Kyl was named to that seat.

Republicans have little margin for error, though Vice President Pence can break a tie.

Republicans have said they hope to have Kavanaugh confirmed by a floor vote by early October, when the next Supreme Court term begins.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...errupted-by-democratic-senators-protests.html

SCOTUS: “Democrats Wasted Day One”…“Democrats Create Chaos at Kavanaugh Hearing”

WASHINGTON – The confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavnaugh began today with desperate delay tactics from Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, who repeatedly interrupted other senators’ remarks and attempted to stop proceedings.

Politico: Democrats create chaos at Kavanaugh hearing: Chuck Schumer helped coordinate the Democrats' strategy…
“The volley of Democratic interjections began after Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) attempted to open the high-stakes four-day hearing. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) helped coordinate that strategy despite not serving on the Judiciary panel, convening a call with the committee's minority members over the weekend, according to a source familiar with the planning.”

“One after another, Democrats repeatedly interrupted Grassley in the opening minutes, breaking into their protests to allow Kavanaugh to speak before resuming their push to stop the process until they can examine more records.”

“But the display of disruption, galvanizing as it was to Kavanaugh’s liberal critics, ultimately did little but delay a day of partisan jockeying that closed, more than seven hours later, with the nominee telling senators that “I do not decide cases based on personal or policy preferences.”

FOX News Op-ed: Kavanaugh confirmation hearing turns into outrageous Senate circus

“The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus went out of business last year, but it found a successor Tuesday on Capitol Hill as Democrats and demonstrators performed at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.”

“The political theatrics kicked into high gear right out of the gate. Grassley wasn’t more than three lines into his opening statement when, one by one, Democrats attempted to hijack the hearing with calls for more of Kavanaugh’s documents, and even a motion to adjourn the hearing altogether.”

“So get the popcorn ready and expect to see more political theater throughout this week. Democrats will move on to Act II with their political posturing and outrage on full display.”

“Who needs the Ringling Bros. circus when we have the Senate circus?”

MSNBC’s Garrett Haake:

All of this fight about process and voting on a motion to adjourn is indicative of how weak a hand that Democrats have to play here. Not much else they can do to fight.
SLATE: Democrats Wasted Day One
“Heading into Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing Tuesday morning, my unofficial over/under on how many words Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley could get through before a protester interrupted him was 14.5. Sure enough, it was just before the 14th word when that interruption happened.”

“Grassley, who tried to stay patient as Democrats executed their very foreseeable, scripted protest, denied the request as out-of-order several times.”
Chicago Tribune: Chaos marks start of Brett Kavanaugh Senate hearing as Dems call for delay after document dump

“Democrats, including several senators poised for 2020 presidential bids, tried to block the proceedings over Kavanaugh records withheld by the White House”

“One by one, Democrats, including Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, all potential presidential contenders, demanded that Republicans delay the hearing.”

“Many Democratic senators already have announced their intention to vote against Kavanaugh and many Republicans have likewise signaled their support.”

MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt:

Democrats plotted coordinated protest strategy over the holiday weekend and all agreed to disrupt and protest the hearing, sources tell me and @frankthorp

Dem leader @chuckschumer led a phone call and committee members are executing now

FOX News: Brett Kavanaugh hearing repeatedly interrupted by Dem objections, protests

“Earlier Tuesday, protests from Democratic lawmakers and demonstrators delayed the formal start of proceedings by more than an hour.”

“Within moments of Tuesday's confirmation hearing kickoff, top Democrats tried to sideline the session with a rapid-fire string of objections concerning access to the nominee's records.”

“The spectacle underscored the political nature of the confirmation hearings, coming two months before the midterms and as some senators gear up for a possible 2020 presidential run against President Trump. Several of those senators led the charge Tuesday in objecting to Kavanaugh.”

“The disruptions continued as lawmakers attempted to make opening statements. There were 63 interruptions before the break for lunch.”

FOX News’s Dana Perino:

The hearing is not going to be postponed. Complaining about process is to get good headlines inside the beltway. But it doesn’t last. No dem seems mad that their former leader of the senate opened the door to 50 vote threshold for nominees.
Washington Examiner: ‘Morning Joe’ called for Dem obstruction on Kavanaugh, 'why even show up?'

“Tuesday’s fight by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats to block the Supreme Court nomination hearing of Brett Kavanaugh was urged by MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, who even suggested that liberals walk out if a delay doesn’t happen.”
Source Article | I'd link the rest here but they're linked in the quote.

Jesus Christ where do you even begin with that train wreck? The confirmation hearing for Kavanaugh was such a monumental clusterfuck that it took me the better half of the night just to rummage through the stack and try to find some of the best parts, on top of the mountain of archiving that those assholes made me do just to preserve as much of that as I could find. For starters: More than 70 arrests were made, including the actress Piper Perabo (Whoever that is) and Linda Sarsour.

A bunch of handmaidens showed up at one point and just loomed around on the second floor, Chuck Schumer himself admitted to helping coordinate all of this jack-fuckery, and some lady seated behind Kavanaugh was accused of flashing the "white power" symbol at the camera (And fun fact here: The O.K. symbol is actually sign language for "asshole!").

One of the Parkland shooting victims' parents was at the hearing, and he stormed up to Kavanaugh to shake his hand, acting completely surprised that after several hours of having lunatics shriek in his ear and watching arrest after arrest, Kavanaugh would be somewhat hesitant to shake a random strangers hand. A lot of outlets (And politicians) are already putting the spin all over this aspect of the hearing, but they're leaving out one particularly important facet: Guttenberg was going there specifically to start shit. What was Guttenberg doing there in the first place? Feinstein invited him.

That's not even everything that happened, either. That's just some of the highlights. I have never in my life seen any sort of hearing like this outside of third-world countries, and this was only day one of the hearings! What are they doing today? Are they going to have Schumer literally start pitching his own shit at Kavanaugh?
 
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Isn't this actually that one "circle game" meme hand gesture? Is that too an evil nazi alt-right thing now?

h96EC7B68

Or did this woman just meme everyone on live TV? Because that's hilarious.

Yes and yes, though I'm thinking the white supremacist thing is more /pol/ trying to make the left look like idiots.
 
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