06 October 2018

It's All Over

As of this writing, all 51 Republican senators have announced their voting plans for Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, and only one will vote "no." Given the Vice President can break all vote ties, this means Kavanaugh will be confirmed with the lowest vote count since the fiftieth state was admitted to the union.

The final vote will come sometime late today or tomorrow. He could be sworn in and seated in the Supreme Court as early as this coming week.

This is a dark day for American democracy. Kavanaugh is morally and temperamentally unfit to serve as any judge, let alone on the highest court in the nation.

The always brilliant Benjamin Wittes wrote earlier this week here in The Atlantic about how seating Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court will undermine the public's faith in both that institution and the justice system as a whole. He said:

"Can anyone seriously entertain the notion that a reasonable pro-choice woman would feel like her position could get a fair shake before a Justice Kavanaugh? Can anyone seriously entertain the notion that a reasonable Democrat, or a reasonable liberal of any kind, would, after that performance, consider him a fair arbiter in, say, a case about partisan gerrymandering, voter identification, or anything else with a strong partisan valence?"

Wittes is referring to Kavanaugh's screaming tantrum about "Democrats and liberals" who he dismissed with sneering, spitting contempt. That tirade alone should have disqualified from any public service.

The battle is not over, however. It's increasingly likely Republicans will lose their majority hold on the House of Representatives in this year's midterm election, which is only a month away.

If that happens, impeachment of Kavanaugh for perjury is a distinct possibility, as an article (link here) in yesterday's Washington Post discussed. Unrelated to the sexual misconduct charges and temperament, Kavanaugh almost certainly perjured himself repeatedly in multiple hearings.

Time will tell if that indeed comes to pass. But Republicans certainly can't complain or they'll look like hypocrites, because they're the ones who impeached Bill Clinton for perjury.

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