Another mess

by | Jul 10, 2018 | Editor's Blog | 11 comments

So here’s my unpopular take today. I much prefer watching the rescue of the twelve Thai soccer players and their coach than the whole Supreme Court pick. I’m glad the team is safe and I’m a bit in awe of the divers and supporters who made it happen. I’m disgusted with what’s happening to our politics and our government.

Everything that’s wrong with politics and the media is on display this morning. The fact that a conservative organization, The Federalist Society, provides the list of acceptable replacements for a Supreme Court Justice just goes to show how an elite group of ideologues can shape our government. The fact that progressive organizations had canned press releases condemning a choice before they knew who it was shows a cynical and unthinking opposition.

A reporter this morning tweeted that retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy negotiated his replacement with the Trump administration and that Brett Kavanaugh was Kennedy’s choice. If that’s true, that’s incredibly disturbing. However, the reporter’s final tweet noted, “To be clear: This is from one source and don’t have any info on whether potus talked to kennedy about a possible replacement.” Why would she tweet something as fact that came from a single source? That’s bad journalism, but I guess tweeting is not journalism. It’s rumor mongering.

Now, Democrats seem prepared to launch a battle they can’t win. Even if they manage to block Kavanaugh, Trump will offer another choice that is no better. Eventually, Trump and the GOP will get their pick.

A protracted fight is a big risk for Democrats going into an election that looks favorable to them. The generic ballot favors them by about eight points right now. I fear that an ugly and long fight against Kavanaugh will lose political support from an electorate that doesn’t care that much about the court. Even if Democrats block him, they could lose support that strengthens the GOP’s hand after November, giving Trump the chance to nominate an even more conservative justice.

If that’s bothsidism, so be it. Our politics is broken by two dysfunctional parties. The press loses credibility by tweeting instead of reporting. The losers here are the American people.

11 Comments

  1. James

    “The fact that progressive organizations had canned press releases condemning a choice before they knew who it was shows a cynical and unthinking opposition.”

    Or maybe it’s that they knew who was on the list and that ALL of them were bad. All of the short listers were judges already, and have a written record of decisions , opinions and dissents. They’re not an unknown quantity – especially in the information age. Multiply that by the number of groups who track this information an d look for the trends in the data and your biggest challenge is that you have more data that you can analyze. And even that is becoming a mostly clerical exercise with current technology. I suspect that you’re seeing cynicism where what’s really happened is modernization. Opposition research isn’t cottage industry anymore, even as it becomes more accessible outside of government and Big Data.

  2. Troy

    Everyone is so sure that Trump at some point in time is going to leave office. At this particular point in time, I’m not so sure that is a foregone conclusion. But the question of our time is, how much damage can this manic wrecking ball do before he does leave office?

    Sure the Republic will survive. It will recover. Things will eventually reset, but at what price? How much damage can this Trumpian dandy Kavanaugh do in the next 3-6 decades at the behest of a petulant adolescent?

    In my mind, a person being considered for the seat on the Supreme Court should be partisan neutral. The tint of partisan bias should not shade their eyes nor their viewpoints. In that regard, I completely and wholeheartedly agree with Rick Gunter.

    If the Federalist Society and the other gang of idiots that vetted and pumped Kavanaugh to Trump are doing so, they’re doing it for a reason. They have a particular interest in lending their support otherwise, they wouldn’t. Be it a future decision to their liking or in the form of their money raising efforts for the rest of this election cycle; they stand to gain something for their organization and supporters. That doesn’t bode well for We The People.

  3. Lee Mortimer

    There doesn’t look to be any possibility of blocking Kavanaugh, but Democrats should make the effort. At a minimum, he should be pressed hard in confirmation hearings on his opinion that a sitting president cannot be subject to criminal prosecution. Then if Kavanaugh subsequently gives Trump a pass on being questioned by Robert Mueller, and he also skips out on the numerous civil cases against him, that could be used to make a political case for Trump’s utter corruption.

    “Packing the court” seems now to be the only viable option for avoiding a generation of judicial tyranny from a Republican-imposed Supreme Court. The problem really traces to lifetime tenure given to federal judges. That can only be changed through a constitutional amendment, which given it hasn’t happened since 18-year-olds gained the right to vote in 1971, makes it “Mission Impossible.”

    But if Democrats regain the White House and control of both houses of Congress, they could use the “nuclear option” to end the Senate’s filibuster rule (long needed on its own merit) and then enact an enlarged court. They might then use that strengthened position to negotiate with Republicans to support a constitutional amendment limiting the terms of federal judges, including on the Supreme Court.

  4. Scott

    You wax poetic Tom. I return to car batteries and the US Post office. Politics is Systems Engineering.
    Democrats could take power and the could put more seats on the Court, as said Bob.
    Well somewhere in human history there are precedents.
    Democracy & free speech, and a free press, proven as a superior form of government by famines. When we are fighting for Democracy and a Free Press we are fighting against famine.
    Lead Acid Batteries are something that is precedent in our world of manufacturing & poison elements. It has long been the status quo, that you give up your old dead battery when you buy another. 99 percent of car batteries are recycled.
    There you go. We can make a system and make people believe in it, and it is a good thing. There it is. Who and for why would anyone want to change it?
    Who and for why do we want to destroy our national alliances? Trump marrying Putin is like how your wife will get rid of your friends when you get married.
    The mean is a multipolar power balance after all. The Unitary Power Balance of the Obama era is gone. Trump destroyed it.
    For every failure on the part of the Obama administration laid upon the working classes of the US, and even those who had 401Ks at work for universities and corporations, the Obama Administration Defended our National interest in an international contest.
    The atom bomb changed everything. The START 2 or What you call it SALT, that Treaty was excellent.
    The system of inspections of each other’s nuclear weapons is something civilized, and awesome.
    Most of our great presidents have wanted to get rid of nuclear weapons. Trump doesn’t want to do that.
    I guess some bombs are aimed at Fort Bragg. We are just as threatened as anywhere else.
    Russian strong men, Stalin, the Bolsheviks, the OGPU enslaved their so called counter revolutionaries and “wreckers” and starved them and worked them to death as they sold their lumber for US dollars.
    MacNamara set down for us the US System of Food. Look at the signs on the big truck going along the highway faster downhill.
    Trump will give Putin every secret we need.
    Our world is made medieval. Get ye into the walls of the Ivory tower. Or move to Uruguay which is far from Tanks, since Tanks and their crews are who you kill with nuclear bombs.

  5. Robert

    After one has watched the confirmation hearings for his previous judgeship it is somewhat hard to find fault with Judge Kavanaugh. He is a Republican but then so was Abraham Lincoln. The major jerk in the hearing was Senator Schumer. I frankly think Trump made a big mistake this time. Unfortunately the hysterical Left will undoubtedly negate all the blowback from Trump’s idiocy and inhumanity in other areas.

  6. smartysmom

    The species with the best records of success at the species survival game are communal species. I have even read somewhere that self awareness may not be good for species survival. I know that we like to think of ourselves as the apex species, the winner of the evolution game, but actually we are just another in a very long list of competitors with no guarantee we’re going to be the winner. Humans are just one more entrant amongst many.

    I giggle over the school of thought that believes that GOD created earth the way it is because it is the environment we humans need. A supreme entity that is responsible for the cosmos as we know it now (understanding that our knowledge is no more complete now than Columbus’s when he sailed to find the edge of the world) has plenty of fish to fry and that our version is with certainty the ultimate version is probably not the whole story.

    And yet that is the authority the people making the choices these days are relying on. Well, good luck to us all!

  7. bob

    Thomas, you are spot on. Trump and the GOP will get someone through that reflects what they want. There is nothing anyone can do. What’s more, I would not be surprised if Ginsberg passes away or her health does not allow her to continue serving. SCOTUS is lost to progressives for a generation. Elections have consequences. The only thing that can change the court for the next two decades is if Dems get a huge majority in the Senate and create more seats on the court. That is not likely, but it is an option. Anything goes now that Mitch McConnell threw out the rules and played dirty.

    Fighting Kavanaugh is a waste of time. Instead, Dems should focus on how he is likely to rule in cases and then lay out a legislative agenda that runs counter to those rulings. What is bothering me is how surprised everyone seems to be . Kennedy has been hinting for a year that he was going to retire. And Trump was clearly to turn the court hard right with his nominations. SCOTUS was lost to Dems in November 2016.

  8. JuliaDoggieMom

    I agree with Rick Gunter. Plus, Thomas would probably like it if Merrick Garland was nominated. Trump would get a busload of Dems to support him. Well, I can dream.

  9. feedupvoter

    So Thomas who would you like that Trump would put on the court?
    Probably nobody.

  10. Rick Gunter

    i like your post on the court, media, et al. I loathe any private group, in effect, selecting justices. I would have the same view if the group were liberal. Such groups were elected to nothing, are backed by big money, and don’t give a damn about the public interest. I don’t know how to stop this practice, but it has to begin with a president who selects the justice rather than having a private group do the vetting for him.

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