Impartial umpire hahahahahahaha those guys are such comedians.

I guess once he was sworn in all that crap about Kavanaugh being an impartial umpire can be tossed out the window. https://t.co/np07NkIvjb

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) October 6, 2018

I look forward to our better future.… Read the rest

So this is the sitch: Republicans say the [drastically constricted] FBI investigation exonerates Kavanaugh; Democrats say it does no such thing; we can’t consider the evidence because the Republicans are keeping the whole farking thing Secret.

What is utterly crazy here is that we have no way of evaluating any of this either way, because we are not allowed to see the FBI’s findings, even in summary form. Republicans and Democrats are telling vastly different stories about what those findings show: Republicans are claiming there was no corroboration of any of the charges against Kavanaugh and that there’s nothing new in them. Democrats are claiming not just that the investigation was a sham but also that it doesn’t exonerate

Kavanaugh wants us to know that last Thursday he “was there as a son, husband and dad.” Really? He wasn’t nominated to the Supreme Court “as a son, husband and dad.” We don’t give a fuck about his family life (except possibly as more or less reason to think he’s simply an asshole), that’s not what he’s there for.

He makes this weird claim in the Wall Street Journal (well hey at least it’s not Breitbart).

He starts by telling us how proud he was to be at the White House with his wife and daughters to accept the nomination.

My mom, Martha—one of the first women to serve as a Maryland prosecutor and trial judge, and my inspiration to

Why did I ever think it would matter?

Michelle Goldberg at the Times:

The restarted F.B.I. background check that seemed, a week ago, like a merciful concession to decency has instead been a cover-up. Agents didn’t even question Blasey or Kavanaugh. It’s not clear if they interviewed any of the more than 20 corroborating witnesses named by Deborah Ramirez, who claimed a drunken, aggressive Kavanaugh thrust his genitals into her face when they were students at Yale. The New Yorker reported that witnesses who tried to contact the F.B.I.were ignored; some ended up submitting unsolicited statements to the bureau.

Which were filed in the bottom drawer of a rusty filing cabinet in a sub-basement filled with piranhas.

Ultimately,

Of course; the fix is in. The FBI has handed over its “report” and the Republicans are saying it’s all good and that’s the end of that.

A leading Republican said Thursday that a new FBI report on Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh found “no hint of misconduct,” while Democrats called it incomplete and suggested that the White House limited the probe to protect President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

The headlines are full of stories on people who had relevant information who could not get the FBI to talk to them.

“There’s nothing in it that we didn’t already know,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement after being briefed on the FBI report by his staff.

Oof, this is powerful: an open letter by 650 (and rising) law professors saying Kavanaugh does not have the temperament. It’s going to the Senate tomorrow.

Judicial temperament is one of the most important qualities of a judge. As the Congressional Research Service explains, a judge requires “a personality that is even-handed, unbiased, impartial, courteous yet firm, and dedicated to a process, not a result.” The concern for judicial temperament dates back to our founding; in Federalist 78, titled “Judges as Guardians of the Constitution,” Alexander Hamilton expressed the need for “the integrity and moderation of the judiciary.”

We are law professors who teach, research and write about the judicial institutions of this country. Many of us appear in state

Laurence Tribe writes in the Globe that Kavanaugh, if confirmed, will vote to kill Roe v Wade, and was tricksy about it in the hearings.

Several senators have said they would not vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice if they believed he would vote to undo the basic protections for women upheld in Roe v. Wade and other cases. So if his testimony and his meetings with those senators had exposed that as his almost-certain path, they would vote no.

But the only reason his public testimony and private meetings didn’t reveal such a clear inclination is that Judge Kavanaugh dissembled about his views, calling the Supreme Court’s abortion rulings “precedent on precedent,”

Benjamin Wittes wrestles with the Kavanaugh issue.

I have a long relationship with Kavanaugh, and I have always liked him. I have admired his career on the D.C. Circuit. I have spoken warmly of him. I have published him. I have vouched publicly for his character—more than once—and taken a fair bit of heat for doing so.

He advised Kavanaugh (also at The Atlantic) to withdraw unless he could dispute Ford’s account without leaving a scorched earth behind.

Kavanaugh, needless to say, did not take my advice. He stayed in, and he delivered on Thursday, by way of defense, a howl of rage. He went on the attack not against Ford—for that we can be grateful—but against Democrats

Sheryl Gay Stolberg in the Times yesterday:

Democratic efforts to highlight sexual assault charges that are more than 30 years old have been dismissed by supporters of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as the dredgings of ancient history. But the judge’s response to those accusations has raised new issues that go to the core of who President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee is right now: his truthfulness, his partisanship and his temperament.

And, in my view, his ability to reason. Sure, we all get that he’s livid because the allegations are about him and not someone else. It’s human to take things personally; it’s human to go ballistic when it’s you and look on with calm detachment when it’s not you. … Read the rest

Laurence Tribe makes an interesting point.

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1047152614587154432

I hadn’t really thought about it in that light. He created a visible conflict of interest for himself with all that raging at “the left” and Democrats.… Read the rest

Another indication that Kavanaugh may have tried to stifle claims about his behavior:

In the days leading up to a public allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to a college classmate, the judge and his team were communicating behind the scenes with friends to refute the claim, according to text messages obtained by NBC News.

Kerry Berchem, who was at Yale with both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Deborah Ramirez, has tried to get those messages to the FBI for its newly reopened investigation into the matter but says she has yet to be contacted by the bureau.

The texts between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage, both friends of Kavanaugh, suggest that the nominee was personally talking with former

One of Kavanaugh’s lies that I find peculiarly exasperating, especially from a lawyer:

BRETT KAVANAUGH: Dr. Ford’s allegation is not merely uncorroborated. It is refuted by the very people she says were there, including by a longtime friend of hers – refuted.

But that’s bullshit and any lawyer would know that.

Most simply and obviously it’s bullshit because the people he’s talking about didn’t even say that, they said only what is reasonable: that they don’t remember it. How would they remember it? They weren’t there, remember? They were in the house but they were not in the room. They were downstairs in the living room, while the assault Ford describes happened upstairs in a bedroom with the door closed. … Read the rest

The Times has breaking news:

The White House has authorized the F.B.I. to expand its abbreviated investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh by interviewing anyone it deems necessary as long the review is finished by the end of the week, two people briefed on the matter said on Monday.

The new directive came in the past 24 hours after a backlash from Democrats, who criticized the White House for limiting the scope of the bureau’s investigation into President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. The F.B.I. has already completed interviews with the four witnesses its agents were originally asked to talk to, the people said.

I don’t know if this is more of the same … Read the rest

Ok fine you can have your god damn investigation if you’re going to get in such a fit about it. You just can’t interview anyone. Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow in the New Yorker:

As the F.B.I. began its investigation this weekend into allegations of sexual misconduct by Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, several people who hope to contribute information about him to the F.B.I. said that they were unable to make contact with agents.

That’s interesting, because we the public have been being told don’t wait to be called, if you have any relevant information get in touch with the FBI yourselves.

With a one-week deadline looming over the investigation, some who say they have

A widely shared post by Emily Denny from September 27:

I believe Brett Kavanaugh. I believe that he truly doesn’t remember sexually assaulting someone. I believe that he’s forgotten all the hurt he has caused women. I believe that he didn’t understand the gravity of his actions as a 17-year-old. I believe that the night he forever altered Dr. Ford’s life is just another blip in the foggy haze of his teenage years.

I believe his upbringing and his privilege poisoned his ability to understand right and wrong. I believe he didn’t write “sexually assault someone” in his calendar. I believe he doesn’t think he did it.

I believe he’s frightened and upset. I believe his tears and whimpers. I

Chad Ludington gave a statement about Kavanaugh to the press:

I have been contacted by numerous reporters about Brett Kavanaugh and have not wanted to say anything because I had nothing to contribute about what kind of justice he would be. I knew Brett at Yale because I was a classmate and a varsity basketball player and Brett enjoyed socializing with athletes. Indeed, athletes formed the core of Brett’s social circle.

In recent days I have become deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale. When I watched Brett and his wife being interviewed on Fox News on Monday, and when I watched Brett deliver his testimony under oath to the

Another Yale buddy turns up to say no actually Kavanaugh drank like a fish and could barely stay upright when he did.

A Yale classmate of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s accused him on Sunday of a “blatant mischaracterization” of his drinking while in college, saying that he often saw Judge Kavanaugh “staggering from alcohol consumption.”

The classmate, Chad Ludington, who said he frequently socialized with Judge Kavanaugh as a student, said in a statement that the judge had been untruthful in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he had denied any possibility that he had ever blacked out from drinking.

Mr. Ludington said that Judge Kavanaugh had played down “the degree and frequency” of his drinking, and that the

Roger Cohen nailed the Kavanaugh operetta well:

What America saw before the Senate Judiciary Committee was an injudicious man, an angry brat veering from fury to sniveling sobs, a judge so bereft of composure and proportion that it was difficult not to squirm. Brett Kavanaugh actually got teary over keeping a calendar because that’s what his dad did. His performance was right out of Norman Rockwell with a touch of “Mad Men.”

This is what you get from the unexamined life, a product of white male privilege so unadulterated that, until a couple of weeks ago, Kavanaugh never had to ask himself what might have lurked, and may still linger, behind the football, the basketball, the lifting weights, the workouts

Jennifer Rubin argues that Kavanaugh’s enraged performance makes him a terrible fit for the Supreme Court.

…here I want to focus on what may be the most significant issue — whether Kavanaugh’s “big reveal” that he is an angry partisan who thinks Democrats conspired to get him — now disqualifies him to sit on any court, let alone the Supreme Court.

That’s one of those questions that demand a single answer. No, an angry partisan who thinks Democrats conspired to get him should not be on the Supreme Court, because the court is emphatically not supposed to be a party-based institution.

The judiciary’s role in vital, hot-button issues has increased, making the Supreme Court seats precious, but the Senate acted

Matt Damon does Kavanaugh:

… Read the rest