The US Senate has confirmed Brett Kavanaugh as an Associate Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States. The vote was 50 to 48 (Sen. Steve Daines was not there and Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted “present”).
Before Kavanaugh was nominated Sen. Richard Blumenthal promised to vote against the nomination. That’s right, before the name was announced. As soon as the name was announced Sen. Cory Booker tweeted, “I’m going to do everything I can to stop Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination.” Sen. Schumer said the same thing on the Senate floor. Keep in mind that Schumer is the leader of Senate Democrats and Blumenthal and Booker are on the Judiciary Committee, so how was Kavanaugh supposed to receive a fair hearing after those public statements?
The first outrage was over executive power. Democrats claimed Kavanaugh was only selected because President Trump wanted him to vote against any investigations into the Russian collusion myth. While this was happening conservative Republicans had reservations on Kavanaugh’s position on the 4th Amendment, which seemed to some as giving too much power to the government.
Then there were cries about a paid debt for baseball tickets and the relevation that sometimes Kavanaugh would eat spaghetti with just ketchup, not tomato sauce, but just ketchup.
Then, for no apparent reason other than to be the most competitive in the white hot rhetoric contest, Sen. Booker said those who support the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court are “complicit in the evil.” That word again was “evil.”
Then conservative Republicans were put at ease when Sen. Rand Paul, a strong 4th Amendment watchdog, said, after meeting with Kavanaugh, that he would vote to confirm. Democrats were still caught up about executive privilege, but weren’t getting anywhere.
Next came a new outrage for Democrats to try whip up support against a well-qualified nominee. They began to complain about not being able to see irrelevant documents. They even created a stat for it, claiming that only 10% of Kavanaugh’s documents were available for review. Oddly enough, they refused to admit that their stat was made-up, a guess at best, a smear at worse. The truth is more documents on Kavanaugh were available than any other Supreme Court nominee ever. That’s right, most ever.
As this nonsense was going on the American Bar Association released their ratings for federal judges. They listed Kavanaugh as “Well Qualified,” their highest rating. Apparently they had enough information on Kavanaugh to not only rate him, but to conclude that he deserves distinction.
But this didn’t stop Democrats. When the circus opened, I meant when the confirmation hearings began, Sen. Kamala Harris right away, and I mean she interrupted Judiciary Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley in less than a minute, started the orchestrated obstruction by complaining that there had not been enough time to review a stack of documents that had been released. She and Sen. Booker competed heavily for biggest sob story for an hour. That’s right, an hour of repeating the same points over and over before the hearing actually got started. It was a circus.
With so many Democrats already on record to oppose Kavanaugh, their complaints were obviously just attempts to delay the hearings until after the midterms in the hopes that Senate Democrats could pick up a few seats and vote down the nomination of Kavanaugh. Cries of remember the Alamo, I meant remember Merrick Garland, were forcefully launched throughout the whole process.
And little did we know that during all of this disingenuous outrage that had already shifting from executive privilege to documents now to what Democrats considered insufficient testimony, there was Sen. Diane Feinstein waiting with what she must have considered to be her ace in the hole. More on that in one minute.
During the confirmation hearings Sen. Booker gave us the most laughable moment. He threaten to release documents that had already been released, but he didn’t share the already-have-been-released part. Instead he said, “This is about the closest I’ll probably ever have in my life to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment.” Pure gold. Thank you for that, Senator I am Spartacus. He’ll likely run for president so we’ll get to keep calling him that for awhile.
Back to Sen. Feinstein. After the confirmation hearing concluded and the Democrats were together on the latest claim that Kavanaugh should be voted down over insufficient testimony, Sen. Feinstein threw her cards on the table. She let it be known that she had just given a letter to the FBI that accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault from when he was 17 years old. The letter was dated July 31 of this year, but Sen. Feintein held on to it, telling no one. So during Senate interviews on Capitol Hill and during the confirmation hearing nothing regarding the allegation came up. It wasn’t until after the confirmation hearings ended and Democrats saw Republican Senators ready to vote to confirm Kavanaugh that Sen. Feinstein put forward what was supposed to be a credible allegation. If it were credible and the big deal that Democrats wanted it to be, then it would have been investigated as soon as it came into Sen. Feinstein’s possession. But an uncorroborated allegation from decades ago is pretty weak, so keeping it until the last minute would be the only way to delay the process while the media and Democrats lambasted Kavanaugh for being, as Sen. Booker had put it before the allegation surfaced, “evil.”
The interesting thing about the sexual assault allegation that the media failed to report on, and of course Democrats avoided saying, is if Kavanaugh did the deviant criminal act he has been accused of at age 17, then there would be, in some form, a pattern of such behavior in his adult life. But when Democrats say #BelieveWomen they mean don’t believe EVERY woman who has ever worked with/for Kavanaugh. They ALL call him a decent man and some even call him a close mentor. NONE of those women call him deviant.
Next came an unsubstantiated claim that even The New York Times wouldn’t print, but The New Yorker did. Then enter the Creepy Porn Lawyer who claimed to find another allegation, but that one is so far beyond ridiculous that no news agency can find anything to support it. And the Creepy Porn Lawyer wants to run for president. He and Sen. I am Spartacus on stage together will be enjoyable to watch.
So the confirmation hearing was re-opened to hear from the first accuser. The other two are obviously mistaken so they weren’t invited. But that didn’t stop Sen. Feinstein from repeatedly saying that “three women” had come forward with allegations. That was just a pure smear, nothing else. At the end of the hearing Sen. Jeff Flake (could his name be more fitting?) said he’d vote for Kavanaugh if there is a FBI investigation into the alleged incident. Never mind that Kavanaugh had already been through six FBI background investigations.
So Democrats claimed a small victory in first delaying the vote by releasing the letter at the last minute and then delaying the vote again by having a seventh background check, leaving only eight Justices at the start of new Supreme Court term.
After the second round of hearings a new reason for opposing Kavanaugh was floated. For the first time in his judicial career Kavanaugh was accused of not having the temperament to be on the Supreme Court. The temperament claim was based on Kavanaugh’s response to all the harmful allegations. Kavanaugh strongly denied the allegation and let the Judiciary Committee know that he was not guilty. He did so in a way that anyone would have done, at times showing anger and emotion. After his good name and reputation was smeared in the national news it was only appropriate that he fire back. His temperament on the bench has never been questioned.
It wasn’t long after that for Democrats to try a new complaint. This time they said the one week timetable for the FBI’s seventh background check was too short. Thankfully, Sen. Mitch McConnelll didn’t balk. He said enough with the delays. And finally called for the final vote to be today.
What started with Sen. Schumer and Sen. Booker promising to do everything in their power to stop Kavanaugh finally ended with Brett Kavanaugh as our new Supreme Court Justice…..
…. Wait. You think it’s over? Oh no. Rep. Jerry Nalder has promised for an investigation if Democrats take control of the House of Representatives. You see, the Senate gets to confirm judicial nominees, but the House can impeach them. So Rep. Nadler, who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee has promised to start an investigation and possible impeachment hearings of Kavanaugh if he becomes the committee chairman should the Democrats win the House. The creators of The Never Ending Story may want to think about suing for copyright violation.
So for now, congratulations to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And please vote this November for your Republican nominee to congress.
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