The Brett Kavanaugh Debacle - or Why the Democrats Need Decisiveness Now INstead

Sorry for not getting to this sooner but I've been busy with the paying job et al but since time is of the essence here it needs to be done now.

Tomorrow is an important and scary day in terms of what will happen in the U.S. Senate.  It is the day when electoral vote winner Donny's latest Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh faces the first day of hearings over whether he will be confirmed to be a SCOTUS justice - a lifetime appointment.  Since Donny announced him in July, shortly after the sudden retirement of justice Anthony Kennedy (a retirement that may have been engineered behind the scenes according to some sources) we have learned about some of his ruling and have a glimpse of where he could lead SCOTUS for decades to come.  From what the Senate and news reports have been able to decipher, Kavanaugh's appointment could sway the Court in a hard right direction in terms of business issues against labor and towards allowing employers to use religious beliefs as an excuse to deny goods and services to people due whether it be denying employees access to birth control or the possibility of using religious liberty as a tool to discriminate against LGBTQ people.  However, it is what we don't know that's most troubling.

Thousands of pages regarding Kavanaugh's court rulings and positions were blocked from release by the Senate Judiciary Committee (and Sen. Chuck Grassley [R, IA] in particular).  Because of thisthe Senate doesn't have access to a full range of where Kavanaugh stands in order to see if he could be a good fit on the US Supreme Court or whether his appointment (which, let us remember, is for life) would be good for the country.  Lawsuits have been filed to try and gain access but insult to injury was added when the White House withheld access to over 100,000 pages of records from Kavanaugh's time as a White House lawyer under former President George W/ Bush, citing executive privilege.  These records could reveal more of how he helped guide Dubya's administration as well as where he would stand on issues like torture and the like.

Now some people may be reading this and say, "Executive privilege is good.  Some things should probably be secret from teh public, even from a past administration."  However, during the Obama administration the Senate wanted as many records as possible regarding the appointment of SCOTUS justice Sonia Sottemayor and got around 90% of them in the process.  Add to this the desire by the Repubs to push the nomination and get Kavanaugh in before the midterm elections and it's clear that what we don't know about the guy is potentially what makes him dangerous on the Federal bench.

Thus, if there's ever a time when the Democrats as a whole need to suddenly grow a fucking spine and actually act like the opposition party it's at a time like this.

However, some people reading this may see that last sentence and go, "Wait a minute.  A President has a right to his Supreme Court nominees getting approved."  Some may even go further and say that Neil Gorsuch didn't have this problem and that the Repubs didn't treat Obama nominees like this.  With that in mind, let's overcome the selective memory here and prove this is a massive pile of horseshit with two words: Merrick Garland.

Yep, you remember Garland.  A judge that reportedly was respected by both sides and was rumored to be an easy confirmation - all the way until Obama nominated him and them the Repubs in the Senate refused to even give him a hearing.  Their excuse - Obama was a lame duck and SCOTUS appointment didn't normally happen in the last year of a President's term.  \However, Presidents have done so in the past with some nominees withdrawn (LBJ's nominations of Abe Fortus and Homer Thornberry) and some approved (Hoover's success nomination of Benjamin Cardozo in 1932). 

Also, the term lame duck applies to the last months in office after either losing re-election or after your two terms are up and the next election took place.  It doesn't apply nearly a year before the fucking election happens (in Obama's case the nomination was made in March 2016, eight months before the election).  In other words,the bastards lied and moved the goalposts.  While it can be debated whether it was merely for partisan bullshit power play or racism, the result is Obama was denied his Supreme Court pick due to some power play bullshit. 

Which leads us to now.  As with Gorsuch, the Repubs want the nomination pushed through and confirmed - preferably with no protests whatsoever..   This is rooted in something further back than Donny but in Karl Rove's strategy in making sure the Repubs remain a supermajority in both houses of Congress in spite of what the people want.  While electorally they may not have succeeded right away, their attitude is to rule as if the other side doesn't matter and is only there as a participation trophy. 

This, as well as the attempt to push Kavanaugh through without access to all his records or the time to study where he could lead this nation to, is proof that Democrats should stand strong and deny Kavanaugh the Supreme Court confirmation.  It won't be pretty and there will be an adverse reaction, especially in the corporate owned media which is still more into cocktail parties than the people they're supposed to be a watchdog for.  However, Kavanugh's hard right stance would turn this country down a path that would be anti labor, anti woman, and make life more difficult and unfair for anyone who isn't a white conservative christian with a penis

In other words if there's a time for the Democrats in the Senate (as well as those alleged never Trump Repubs) to grow a spine and say this shit won't fly it's now.