Kavanaugh sworn in

[swilow]

I dunno man, theres only so much anyone can do especially not being detectives and really only druggie messageboard druggies. None of the hurt and pain caused to the people involved in this incident achieved anything and thats politics for ya.

I hope no one honestly thinks they need to prove points in CEP beyond reasonable doubt- I think a lesser burden of proof works here. At the very least, if a person makes an absolute statement of opinion as fact they need to provide something to back themselves up. Otherwise it's just an opinion and we've all got them and none are right (or wrong for that matter).

I just call out Priest as disingenuous because it's a plain fact that he insists his views are right but rarely makes the slightest effort to explain why.

I'm glad to have diverse opinions here as we all should be. Doesn't mean I can't call out the opinions I think are pointless nonsense.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

While the issue of Kavanaugh on the SC may continue to raise questions from both sides, perhaps this is more of a concern to the left?

Pence casts tie-breaking vote for Trump appeals court judge

Vice President Pence broke a tied Senate vote on Tuesday to confirm Jonathan Kobes as a judge on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The vote was stuck at 50-50 after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) joined with all Democrats in opposing the nomination. Flake, who is retiring in January, is voting "no" on all judicial picks until he gets a vote on legislation protecting special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired without cause.

Pence, who was presiding over the chamber, broke the tie by casting the 51st vote to confirm Kobes.

Pence has previously broken ties to confirm Cabinet nominees and to get judicial picks around procedural hurdles, but it's the first time Republicans have needed him on a confirmation vote for a Trump judicial nominee, according to a breakdown of recent tie-breakers from the Office of the Secretary of the Senate.

Kobes's nomination is considered controversial because he was rated as "not qualified" by the American Bar Association's (ABA) standing committee on the federal judiciary.

"The Committee believes that Mr. Kobes has neither the requisite experience nor evidence of his ability to fulfill the scholarly writing required of a United States Circuit Court Judge," Paul Moxley, the chairman of the committee, wrote to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein (Calif.).

Feinstein, in a recent tweet, seized on the ABA's decision, arguing it underscored Democrats' argument that Kobes isn't suited for the influential appeals court seat.

"Circuit courts are where most Americans receive final justice. They deserve to have qualified, experienced judges presiding," Feinstein said in the tweet.

But Republicans have put a premium on being able to confirm Trump's judicial picks and have set a record for the number of appeals judges confirmed during a president's first two years. Kobes is their 30th appeals pick confirmed for Trump.

Grassley, ahead of the Judiciary Committee's vote on Kobes, argued that Republican nominees aren't able to get a "fair shake" from the ABA.

"Unfortunately, the American Bar Association is again politicizing a nomination to the 8th Circuit. For the second time in less than one year, the ABA has rated an 8th Circuit nominee 'not qualified,'" Grassley said at the time.

"I see no basis for concluding that the absence of written work product means Mr. Kobes is 'not qualified.' The most that the ABA could?ve said is that they didn?t have enough information to come to a conclusion about his writing abilities," he added.

Trump judicial picks flip two federal circuit courts from left to right (Sept 2018 )

The ideological balance of the U.S. Sixth and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeals has been shifted from liberal to conservative, thanks to judicial nominees selected by President Donald Trump, with more on the horizon.

Trump saw 24 of his nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals confirmed during the first congressional term of his presidency, IJR reports, exceeding the 15 his predecessor Barack Obama confirmed during the same period.

These two courts encompass stretches of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.

The Eighth and Eleventh Circuit Courts are also close to flipping sides, and the Trump administration reportedly has a special interest in reshaping the infamously left-wing Ninth Circuit. Moreover, these moves could be even more important than flipping the Supreme Court, as circuit courts are vital to ensuring that controversial, precedent-altering cases reach the Supreme Court in the first place.

...

In hopes of making up for lost time, before the end of the month the Senate reached a deal to fast-track an additional 27 executive branch appointees and seven nominees to lower courts, with another eight judges slated to be confirmed this week.

All told, 60 judges have been confirmed since Trump took office, including 33 district court judges, 26 appeals court judges, and Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Trump?s transformation of the federal courts has been one of the most significant consequences of Trump?s election in the eyes of both jubilant conservatives and outraged liberals.

?We can win back the House this November, we can defeat Trump in 2020 and we?ll still be dealing with the lingering effects of Trumpism for the next 30 or 40 years because of the young Trump-appointed judges,? Democrat operative Brian Fallon told the Times.

I recall similar groans from conservatives that Obama flooded the courts and it would take decades to undo 'the damage' done by such biased appointments. My statement isn't a whatabout Obama, nor a smug 'payback' or 'elections have consequences' comment but primarily an observation as I've not heard much about these appointments beyond Kavanaugh, and the article is several months old.

 

[alasdairm]

"not qualified"

he hires only the best people

alasdair

 

[TheLoveBandit]

I'm not going to dig thru the thread to quote back at folks, but I know there was a lot of angst and concern over Kavanaugh joining Gorsuch to make a conservative block on the US SC. The track record thus far doesn't support those fears:

Supreme Court throws out murder conviction of black inmate as Kavanaugh, Gorsuch split again

The Supreme Court on Friday tossed out the murder conviction of a black death row inmate who underwent six criminal trials before being convicted, in a 7-2 opinion that saw Trump-appointed Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch split once again.

The court voted to throw out the conviction due to a prosecutor’s efforts to keep African-Americans off the jury in the cases against Curtis Flowers, who was tried for the 1996 execution-style murders of four people in a furniture store in Mississippi. He has been in jail for more than 22 years.

Flowers' lawyers claimed a white prosecutor had a history of improperly excluding African-Americans from the jury. The court found that the removal of black prospective jurors violated Flowers’ rights.

Kavanaugh, who authored the opinion, wrote that “the State’s relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the State wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury.”

"The numbers speak loudly," Kavanaugh said in a summary of his opinion that he read in the courtroom, noting that Evans had removed 41 of the 42 prospective black jurors over the six trials. "We cannot ignore that history."

Gorsuch and Justice Clarence Thomas -- the only African-American on the bench -- were the two justices dissenting from the majority opinion. In a fierce dissenting opinion, Thomas called Kavanaugh's opinion "manifestly incorrect" and wrote that Flowers presented no evidence whatsoever of purposeful race discrimination.

"If the Court’s opinion today has a redeeming quality, it is this: The State is perfectly free to convict Curtis Flowers again," he wrote. "Otherwise, the opinion distorts our legal standards, ignores the record, and reflects utter disrespect for the careful analysis of the Mississippi courts."

"Any competent prosecutor would have exercised the same strikes as the State did in this trial. And although the Court’s opinion might boost its self-esteem, it also needlessly prolongs the suffering of four victims’ families," he said. "I respectfully dissent."

Kavanaugh and Gorsuch have found themselves on opposite sides of several rulings this year, despite Democratic predictions that the pair would harden a conservative bloc on the nation's highest court.

Gorsuch sided in May with the court's liberal wing, giving a narrow majority in support of a Native American man convicted for hunting in a national forest. Kavanaugh opposed the ruling. A week earlier, Kavanaugh sided with liberals in a 5-4 decision that he wrote, ruling that Apple could be sued by iPhone owners over high prices in their App Store. Gorsuch opposed the ruling.

In March, the two found themselves in disagreement multiple times. Kavanaugh joined liberal justices in a ruling that delayed the execution of a cop killer amid claims that religious freedom would be violated if the death-row inmate's Buddhist spiritual adviser wasn’t present during his final moments.

Gorsuch then joined liberals in ruling that the Yakama Nation doesn’t have to pay a Washington state fuel tax, while Kavanaugh dissented.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

I have to agree with TLB; thus far, the two seem to be voting with their 'guts', or rather, the voting isn't based upon Trump base beliefs; however, we have yet to see any of the 'concerning' cases come before them.