The Independent State Legislature Doctrine

[Trinity]

He lied in previous hearings and we’ve got the receipts. He’s bragged about hiding bad behavior. She’s asking for the FBI and called his bro as a witness.

[CU77]

For those concerned about time lines, Supremes can be impeached

But removal requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Good luck with that! Right now, every single R Senator, including the six women, supports putting Bart O'K on SCOTUS.

[MDlaxfan76]

Another case of Trump’s vetting backfires
Just imagine....
Judge K, can you tell the committee what is boofing?
Interesting. And when did you stop inserting drugs in your...? Why did you and Mark Judge both refer to boofing in your yearbook? Were you boofing the night in question? What’s a Devil’s Triangle? Why is that in your yearbook? No, we don’t want to meet your basketball team. Answer the questions.
I expect Kamala to shred this poor boy.

we recently had a druggie in the White House, why not a Supreme?

"a druggie"?

yeah, really TAATS...

[frmanfan]

Most here have already judged him guilty. He is a white male after all. We all know white males lie every chance they get.

I don't know if he did what is alleged or not.

More importantly, I don't care.

Anybody here ever been a 17 year old boy? Anybody here raised boys past age 17? They are (as I was) stupid. Apparently you guys skipped the stupid boy stage and have all raised perfect boys yourselves. Good for you guys.

But if the past 36 years shows a pattern of, apparently, pretty good behavior, good husband, good father, good friend, good student, good boss, and a very high grade from his peers (unanimous highly-qualified), that is what he should be judged on.

Not something he said-she said and totally unprovable from 36 years ago.

You don't like his politics, his leanings as a judge, fine, say that, and don't vote for him (yay Claire! I give you props for this.).

[Trinity]

He says he didn’t do it, not that he was young and wasted. He’s not asking for understanding, he’s calling her a liar.

[ardilla secreta]

Another case of Trump’s vetting backfires
Just imagine....
Judge K, can you tell the committee what is boofing?
Interesting. And when did you stop inserting drugs in your...? Why did you and Mark Judge both refer to boofing in your yearbook? Were you boofing the night in question? What’s a Devil’s Triangle? Why is that in your yearbook? No, we don’t want to meet your basketball team. Answer the questions.
I expect Kamala to shred this poor boy.

we recently had a druggie in the White House, why not a Supreme?

Why not!

If he had partied harder he’d be known as a lacrosse player.

[jhu72]

He says he didn’t do it, not that he was young and wasted. He’s not asking for understanding, he’s calling her a liar.

Yup.... I am not judging him as an 18 year old. There is only two ways this can now go, he is lying or she is. If she handles the Senate circus ok, if she shows credibility and he shows credibility, ties go to her. He has shown the kind of man he is. He is a political animal, highly adept at steering his way through the circus. He did not come up as a traditional judge, he came up as republican political operator. He has a polished "resume", almost to good to be true. There are already a bunch of question of his truthfulness, this is just one more, although to my mind more important. His attitude demonstrated throughout the hearings and this incident over the last week, he has shown no ability to "care" about the human condition. He very much has an "I stand above" attitude -- "I and people like me are entitled". Not a good attitude for a judge, no matter how well he knows the law.

I haven't even begun to think about his positions -- don't have to, I don't like him as a man.

[ChairmanOfTheBoard]

so what do we all think. is this obstruction???

You and I both know that not one single Senator gives two figs about whether Kavanaugh lied or not.

It's like everything else in Congress: whatever gets them their goal....that's what they do. The rest is sound and fury.

Morality left the building years ago.

yes, yes, and yes. the realist approach.

[jhu72]

Kavanaugh is underwater according to latest poll.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Another case of Trump’s vetting backfires
Just imagine....
Judge K, can you tell the committee what is boofing?
Interesting. And when did you stop inserting drugs in your...? Why did you and Mark Judge both refer to boofing in your yearbook? Were you boofing the night in question? What’s a Devil’s Triangle? Why is that in your yearbook? No, we don’t want to meet your basketball team. Answer the questions.
I expect Kamala to shred this poor boy.

we recently had a druggie in the White House, why not a Supreme?

Why not!

If he had partied harder he’d be known as a lacrosse player.

I laugh every time I watch it. So true...... I may have been in the room but I wasn't much of a pot smoker, though teammates were.

[holmes435]

If he had partied harder he’d be known as a lacrosse player.

When given the chance, Americans prefer voting for Ivy League cheerleaders vs. Ivy League lacrosse players.

[jhu72]

Good WaPo sidebar regarding the culture at the time in these schools, others similar all over the country, certainly in Baltimore area, and in my opinion likely every school private or public in the country. I suspect the data would show this was and is a smaller problem in coed schools where the girls are seen and allowed to compete in the class room with the boys. But given the lack of data, the unreported nature of these incidents, no data is available and no study can be done, certainly in that time frame. These single sex schools are a useless anachronism in my opinion. All three of my children attended such schools.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/‘t ... spartandhp

It is of interest that there is now talk that the State of Maryland might open an investigation. There is no statute of limitations on this type of assault in the state of Maryland. The Maryland State Police have not received a complaint, which is all that it would take to begin an investigation.

[Trinity]

The “look alike” defense seems to have collapsed. Nice job, Ed Whalen. Was the WH or Kavanaugh in on the diversion? Meanwhile President Toadstool wants to know why she didn’t call the cops 36 yrs ago.

[seacoaster]

I think he actually asked why she didn't call "the FBI 36 years ago." And he told the Spanish Foreign Minister to build a wall..."across the Sahara."

I'm very curious to see what Grassley does with Katz's and Banks's offer for Dr. Ford to testify later in the week.

[runrussellrun]

Another case of Trump’s vetting backfires
Just imagine....
Judge K, can you tell the committee what is boofing?
Interesting. And when did you stop inserting drugs in your...? Why did you and Mark Judge both refer to boofing in your yearbook? Were you boofing the night in question? What’s a Devil’s Triangle? Why is that in your yearbook? No, we don’t want to meet your basketball team. Answer the questions.
I expect Kamala to shred this poor boy.

we recently had a druggie in the White House, why not a Supreme?

"a druggie"?

yeah, really TAATS...

we're talking HIGH school years, correct?

What part of his book didn't you get when he wrote " a little bit of coke, lots of weed" ? Can't it just be it is what it is and leave it at that.

[runrussellrun]

Good WaPo sidebar regarding the culture at the time in these schools, others similar all over the country, certainly in Baltimore area, and in my opinion likely every school private or public in the country. I suspect the data would show this was and is a smaller problem in coed schools where the girls are seen and allowed to compete in the class room with the boys. But given the lack of data, the unreported nature of these incidents, no data is available and no study can be done, certainly in that time frame. These single sex schools are a useless anachronism in my opinion. All three of my children attended such schools.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/‘t ... spartandhp

It is of interest that there is now talk that the State of Maryland might open an investigation. There is no statute of limitations on this type of assault in the state of Maryland. The Maryland State Police have not received a complaint, which is all that it would take to begin an investigation.

Yup, Where this should have landed in 2012 all along, with the Monkey County police. Why would the state police be involved? No matter, investigate away.

Would it make a difference if it was a one time thing for Brett? Not to me. I never did anything close to that gropping. Of course, I was way better looking than Brett. Weren't we all G-town Prep was for weenies. No lacrosse team until the late 1980's.

[tech37]

he’s calling her a liar.

You're making a grand leap from his statements defending himself to "he's calling her a liar." That's completely disingenuous and no surprise.

[dislaxxic]

The “look alike” defense seems to have collapsed. Nice job, Ed Whalen. Was the WH or Kavanaugh in on the diversion? Meanwhile President Toadstool wants to know why she didn’t call the cops 36 yrs ago.

More on this issue...and a potential MAJOR issue for KavBro

This is all behind the TPM Prime firewall

"Ed Whelan, a key player in DC’s conservative judicial establishment, posted a lengthy twitter thread in which he made a highly conjectural argument that the accusation against Brett Kavanaugh is actually a case of mistaken identification and that Prof. Blasey Ford’s alleged attacker was actually a classmate of Kavanaugh’s named Chris Garrett.

Garrett is now a middle school teacher in Georgia and had actually signed a letter which a number of Kavanaugh’s classmates sent to the Senate in July attesting to Kavanaugh’s character. Blasey Ford put out a statement tonight stating categorically that she knew both Kavanaugh and Garrett at the time and that there is no way she could have mistaken one for the other.

It’s worth stepping back and contemplating just how wild and reckless an action this was. There’s really no way for me to capture the zaniness of Whelan’s argument. You can read it here [since taken down from Twitter!]. Suffice it to say it’s far-fetched an makes the most serious of accusations based on the flimsiest of conjectures."

[snip]

"...Whelan is not some random on Twitter or an eccentric but little known activist. He is close friends with Kavanaugh and Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society, the group that chooses and then organizes the confirmation strategies for these nominees. Whelan is also close to Don McGahn, the White House Counsel who is formally in charge of shepherding Kavanaugh’s nomination through the Senate. Whelan is part of the very top handful of activists who play in this space."

"Over the last few days I had been noticing Whelan’s cryptic comments that he had big news coming that would definitively exonerate Kavanaugh. He made clear this new evidence would definitively exonerate Kavanaugh. He predicted that Sen. Feinstein would literally apologize to Kavanaugh’s family for the false accusation. A number of Republican staffers and conservative legal academics had chimed in on these tweets, telling people to watch out for what Whelan had coming and certainly implying that they knew some of the details. A lot of people who are deep into this judicial confirmation process – politicos, legal academics, conservative activists – were watching this closely.

But then tonight, in response to Whelan’s tweet thread, The Washington Post published a story [WaPo firewall] that without quite saying it explicitly strongly suggested that Whelan had developed his libelous theory in conjunction with the advisors spearheading Kavanaugh’s nomination."

There is literally NO DOUBT that the Federalist Society and other rightwing activists have groomed this particular individual to send him, almost like a mole, up to the SCOTUS to foist their un-American agenda on an un-informed and hopelessly servile voting "base" and the rest of us in the bargain. NOW, they have colluded, using libel, to stave off this grave threat to their plan...

They've been caught in a lie, once again.

"The Post doesn’t say it in so many words. But there are several key pieces of information which tell a story. Whelan is close friends with Kavanaugh and Leo. Whelan is part of the team advising and assisting Kavanaugh through the confirmation process. We also learn that “Kavanaugh and his allies” have been working on a defense that sounds very much like the one Whelan rolled out on Twitter tonight: an explanation that both exonerates Kavanaugh but does so without attacking Blasey Ford’s good faith. ‘She was a victim. She deserves our sympathy. But it wasn’t Brett Kavanaugh. That part was a misunderstanding.’

Put these facts together and it is very, very hard to believe that Kavanaugh and his top advisors did not at least know the outlines of Whelan’s theory. If that’s true, it’s big, big trouble and shows a level of recklessness and irresponsibility that shouldn’t have Kavanaugh sitting as a judge on any court let alone the Supreme Court. Whether Kavanaugh and Leo knew just what Whelan was going to do tonight is much less clear. But again, put those facts above together and it’s a real stretch to think Whelan hadn’t at least discussed his theory with Kavanaugh’s team."

..

[dislaxxic]

Relative to my post above...

Wow! That didn't take long...

"Whelan is a respected figure in Washington but presented his pure guesswork as a substantiated theory with floor plans and online evidence, recklessly naming another Georgetown Prep student as the alleged perpetrator because he bears a resemblance to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Blasey Ford shot down the theory in a statement. “I knew them both and socialized with [the man Whelan accused],” she said. “There is zero chance that I would confuse them.”

Not the random party encounter SOME would like to believe it was...

..

[jhu72]

Something that has bothered me from the beginning of this whole Kavanaugh nomination, is why was he not on the original candidates list for SCOTUS nominee's generated by the republican's for Trump's use?? If he is such a superstar, so clean, why was he not on this list to begin with? I suspect his nomination was seen as problematic from the very outset by these republicans. More was likely known about this incident than is let on. Similarly, the letter from 65 women supporting him being organized and generated in less that 24 hours, before the accuser's name was known is also highly suspicious. It is very easy to imagine this having been prepared in advance. Not saying it is impossible, just these woman who signed the letter must have a whole lot of free time on their hands. This could not have happened in the blue collar world I grew up in (turning around such a letter, with so many signatures, from such a group in less than 24 hours).