SCOTAL Itch

[chunksmediocrites]

HuffPo: Sheldon Whitehouse Asks Brett Kavanaugh If He Has A Gambling Problem
Here's a link to the questions on Whitehouse's senate web-page, and here's some of my favorites.

16. In 2014, federal judges received a lump sum equal to the amount of their delayed cost of living adjustments. For you, this was estimated at $150,000. This amount does not appear to be reported anywhere in your financial disclosures. Please explain this discrepancy.
17. Your Bank of America accounts appear to have greatly increased in value between 2008 and 2009. Your Financial Disclosure Report dated May 15, 2009 reflected a value in the range of $15,001 - $50,000. Your Financial Disclosure Report dated May 14, 2010 reflected a value in the range of $100,001 - $250,000. You did not report any increase in Non-Investment Income, nor did you report any gifts during this period. Please explain the source of the funds that accounts for the difference reflected in these accounts between your 2008 and 2009 Financial Disclosure Reports.
18. In 2006, you purchased your primary residence in Chevy Chase, MD for $1,225,000, however, the value of assets reportedly maintained in your “Bank of America Accounts” in the years before, during, and after this purchase never decreased, indicating that funds used to pay the down payment and secure this home did not come from these accounts.
a. Did you receive financial assistance in order to purchase this home? And if so, was the assistance provided in the form of a gift or a personal loan?
b. If you received financial assistance, please provide details surrounding how this assistance was provided, including the amount(s) of the assistance, date(s) on which the assistance was provided, and the individual(s) who provided this assistance.
c. Was this financial assistance disclosed on your income tax returns, financial disclosure forms, or any other reporting document?

Kavanaugh may have rote or easy answers for some of this, but it will be interesting to see if this level of scrutiny starts to touch on things Kavanaugh really doesn't want opened up.

19. You have disclosed in your responses to the Senate Judiciary Questionnaire that you are currently a member of the Chevy Chase Club. It has been reported that the initiation fee to join this club is $92,000 and annual dues total more than $9,000.
a. How much was the initiation fee required for you to join the Chevy Chase Club? What are the annual dues to maintain membership and is this the amount that you pay?
b. Did you receive any financial assistance or beneficial reduction in the rate to pay the initiation or annual fees? If so, please describe the circumstances.
c. If you received financial assistance, please disclose the amount of the assistance, the terms, the dates the assistance was provided, and the individual(s) or entity that provided the assistance.
d. To the extent such assistance or rate reduction could be deemed a “gift,” was it reflected on your income tax returns, financial disclosure forms, or any other reporting document?
20. To date, you have not disclosed that you or your wife own any listed or unlisted securities, including but not limited to stocks, bonds, mutual funds or other investment products outside of those included in your retirement accounts. Is that accurate?
21. Have you ever received a Form W-2G reporting gambling earnings? If so, please list dates and amounts.
22. Have you ever reported a gambling loss to the IRS? If so, please list the dates and amounts.

It costs $92k to join a club? Ew.

23. Bill Burck produced to the committee a document from your tenure in the White HouseCounsel’s Office that references a “game of dice.” After a reunion with friends in September 2001, you emailed: “Apologies to all for missing Friday (good excuse), and
growing aggressive after blowing still another game of dice (don’t recall). Reminders to everyone to be very, very vigilant w/r/t confidentiality on all issues and all fronts, including with spouses.”
a. Since 2000, have you participated in any form of gambling or game of chance or skill with monetary stakes, including but not limited to poker, dice, golf, sports betting, blackjack, and craps? If yes, please list the dates, participants, location/venue, and amounts won/lost.
b. Do you play in a regular or periodic poker game? If yes, please list the dates, participants, location/venue, and amounts won/lost.
c. Have you ever gambled or accrued gambling debt in the State of New Jersey?
d. Have you ever had debt discharged by a creditor for losses incurred in the State of New Jersey?
e. Have you ever sought treatment for a gambling addiction?
f. In the email quoted above, please explain what “issues” and “fronts” you wanted your friends to be “very, very vigilant” about “w/r/t/ confidentiality, including with spouses.”

I like this question a lot:

24. Is lying under oath an impeachable offense for an Article III judge?

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Jeff Flake is so concerned about this, he's about to vote to put Trump's human pardon on the Supreme Court. https://t.co/Z7F9yI2fZX

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) September 13, 2018

[The Man]

Kavanaugh accused of sexual misconduct by woman affiliated with Stanford University - Lawyers, Guns & Money

I am shocked, shocked. And who would have expected gambling in such a fine establishment as Rick's Café?

This is still a developing story; a lot of details of this story remain unclear.

[The Man]

TBH, I was expecting some sort of Clarence Thomas-like misconduct in Kavanaugh’s past at least since that Maddow segment about Jane Doe. He came across as so smarmily, virulently anti-choice that it was clear he was a hardcore misogynist, and contempt for women of that level is frequently accompanied by a view of women as… well, things.

But… Jesus Christ. This is so much worse than I expected. TW for sexual violence, because duh.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.

While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.

“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”

Ford said she was able to escape when Kavanaugh’s friend and classmate at Georgetown Preparatory School, Mark Judge, jumped on top of them, sending all three tumbling. She said she ran from the room, briefly locked herself in a bathroom and then fled the house.

Ford said she told no one of the incident in any detail until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. The therapist’s notes, portions of which were provided by Ford and reviewed by The Washington Post, do not mention Kavanaugh’s name but say she reported that she was attacked by students “from an elitist boys’ school” who went on to become “highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington.” The notes say four boys were involved, a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist’s part. Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two in the room.

Notes from an individual therapy session the following year, when she was being treated for what she says have been long-term effects of the incident, show Ford described a “rape attempt” in her late teens.

In an interview, her husband, Russell Ford, said that in the 2012 sessions, she recounted being trapped in a room with two drunken boys, one of whom pinned her to a bed, molested her and prevented her from screaming. He said he recalled that his wife used Kavanaugh’s last name and voiced concern that Kavanaugh — then a federal judge — might one day be nominated to the Supreme Court.

[Stephen Maturin]

This is gonna get savagely ugly.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

This is gonna get savagely ugly.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused him of sexual assault

She has a name, WSJ, and the first one is "Doctor".


7935109465.png

"Nope, nothing to see here. Why don't they come forward?"

gg WSJ

[The Man]

You know, I’m starting to think the Republican Party may have a tiny bit of a misogyny problem.

In the letter to the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday evening, Dr. Blasey’s lawyers said that she has been the target of “vicious harassment and even death threats” since her name was made public on Sunday in an interview published in The Washington Post. Her email has been hacked, she has been impersonated online and she and her family have been forced to relocate out of their home, according to the lawyers, Ms. Banks and her partner, Debra S. Katz.

I wish I could say I found any of this at all surprising.

ETA: also, there’s this (TW again, sexual violence/misogyny):

And in addition there's this via @DemocracyJourno A woman comments on website in response to the Kavanaugh letter & rape attempt. Her comments are stunning. She knew their circle growing up. Read her short essay. pic.twitter.com/HsidP9Jo4m

— Nancy Bowman (@BowmanNancy) September 18, 2018

and:

Jim Gensheimer, who has been friends w/ Christine Blasey Ford for 8 years, just gave me this statement -- he says she has previously told him about "her need to have more than one exit door in her bedroom to prevent her from being trapped." pic.twitter.com/bom5y43CXJ

— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) 19 September 2018

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

She's doing this for us and it's costing her everything. https://t.co/vvIsMBeP5t

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) September 19, 2018

"Why don't they report it?"

[Stephen Maturin]

In which the bros outnumber the women in the Women for Kavanaugh publicity photo:

[Ari]

I wonder how many of those women are their secretaries or unpaid interns...

[Stephen Maturin]

The whole thing has sort of a 2000 Brooks Brothers Riot feel to it.

[ChuckF]

Plenty of room on the bus. Nervous for the women though.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Related for the giggles:

ah, youth pic.twitter.com/tIYIzgzNyB

— KT NELSON (@KrangTNelson) July 12, 2017

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Next week Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath. But we should not have gotten to this point. That this process has played out with so little order and so little sensitivity lies solely at the feet of Senate Democrats.

— Leader McConnell (@SenateMajLdr) September 18, 2018

[The Man]

I think that, at this point, saying “Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow” is probably an adequate description of a breaking news story. Trigger warning as usual for stories like this.

At this point, I can’t snark about how completely unsurprised I am that this story came out, nor about the evidence that the Republicans knew about it and were sitting on the evidence, nor any of the bad-faith arguments being proffered in response to the emergence of these stories, or anything, really. I can only hope this is the last straw needed to derail this nomination.

(Via LGM.)

ETA: also looks like Avenatti has just dropped his own bombshell. I’m too tired to parse the meaning of this; Matlock, Chuck, or one of you others proficient in legalise, can you do the honours?

[Sock Puppet]

I absolutely don’t want to minimize the seriousness of sexual assault, either the crime itself or allegations thereof. But I still don’t understand why the Democrats are hammering only on the allegations against Kavanaugh and not the clear and present Constitutional issue. The Grand Old Perpetrators blocked Garland purely via brute force of numbers that the Dems don’t have, I get that. But given the precedent/pretense that a vote can be blocked just because a (2-term) President is in his last year, why is nobody pushing the obvious conflict of interest of a President* nominating someone who WILL be ruling on an active investigation against him? That Kavanaugh is a horrible human being is certainly relevant, but it seems to me that the conflict question should come first— not necessarily in importance, but definitely in procedural order. As more mealymouthed hedging, I’ll also grant that the media emphasis on the sex issue is a no-brainer, so maybe the reporting is just missing. But for fucksake, is ANYBODY pursuing this? How the fuck is this not even peripherally mentioned anymore?

Living in a complete clusterfuck of delusion, denial and a daily diet of horseshit served up as ice cream, this still bugs me. We legalized pot, but now I’m wondering if harder drugs need to be available over the counter. Maybe this is how Soma becomes part of everyday life.

[erimir]

Kavanaugh's numbers were already quite bad before these allegations came out, significantly worse than Gorsuch's. This is despite there being no particular reason to think that Kavanaugh is appreciably more extreme than Gorsuch, who is a right-wing extremist through and through. It is probably not because Gorsuch is inherently more likable, as he has a reputation for being an arrogant asshat (and came off that way).

Trump's approval ratings were better when Gorsuch was first nominated, but by the week of his hearings through his vote, they were in the -9 to -14 range (and looked to be getting worse).

What's different from when Gorsuch was up is probably the advance of the Mueller investigation, which may account for why Kavanaugh's numbers were never as high as Gorsuch's - because people don't like the idea of Trump appointing his own judge to rule on his innocence and in particular this one given what Kavanaugh's said about executive power (and his refusal to express any opinions about use of the pardon power, for example).

I dunno if Democrats could be making more hay out of these executive power issues, but Kavanaugh was already less popular than any SCOTUS nominee that was confirmed since Reagan. It might be that the movement you could get there has already occurred - it does make a difference, but the people who would be convinced by it have already been convinced.

It is depressing to think that Trump's corruption isn't enough to sink Kavanaugh, but it might simply be that that's the case. Particularly given that SCOTUS nominations are not as salient as they ought to be in the voting public's mind (and historically it has been right-wingers who are more motivated by it). Working on changing that is worthwhile, however.

I would note, though, that Kavanaugh's misogyny does connect to actual judicial issues. The prospect of a* misogynist overturning Roe v. Wade makes the motivations a bit clearer.

*Ok, so Kavanaugh would be far from the only misogynist involved. But Roberts, Alito and Gorsuch's misogyny is less blatant.

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

... is ANYBODY pursuing this?

It's not news (unlike the recent acusations of sexual misconduct) so the media aren't doing much with it.

It is an ethical talking-point, so philosophers and lawyers will be debating it everywhere, I expect.

I don't see it being brought before a court, though. And apart from that, I don't know what "pursuing it" might possibly mean. By what avenue and to what end did you imagine it being pursued?

[Sock Puppet]

I'm questioning whether there is any procedural basis within Congress to raise the constitutional crisis issue directly, independent of the confirmation hearings focused on his qualifications/character. Matlock, can minority party members do anything other than bleat about it?

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

Matlock, can minority party members do anything other than bleat about it?

Not really, no. A senator might try suing the Senate/majority leader/committee chair over something like this, but the case would surely get dismissed right out of the gate pursuant to the political question doctrine, under which the judiciary refuses to get involved in matters that the Constitution commits exclusively to another branch of the federal government (like confirmation of presidential appointees is committed to the Senate).

And then there's the argument that conflicts arise only in the context of specific cases. If such a case came before Kavanaugh, he'd be expected to recuse himself at that time, but the mere possibility that Kavanaugh might be called upon to pull Trump's ample titty out of the wringer someday isn't enough to withhold confirmation. Or so the argument goes.

Might there be some workable procedural machination squirreled away in the Byzantine rules of the Senate? Maybe, but I doubt it. I'm no parliamentarian, but there are plenty of those among Dem senators and their staffs.

Here's Kavauangh's version of Thomas' high-tech lynching speech. There'll surely be more but that's all the committee has released thus far.

[Kyuss Apollo]

Next time the Dems have the reigns of power they should pack the court with a bunch of 30 year old social democrats.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Brock Turners grow up to be Brett Kavanaughs who make the rules for Brock Turners.

— feminist next door (@emrazz) September 27, 2018

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Was handed this article, rereading it but sharing now:

Brett Kavanaugh allegations and male bonding.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Since this is kind of related to what's going on right now I'll put it here.

Child protection services needed here - how do you even process this without thinking about the impact of these statements on the safety of kids. Always shocking to see how twisted personal ethics become when ideological primacy is at stake. This is the radicalization process. https://t.co/XDUPtHnRII

— Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) September 27, 2018

[viscousmemories]

What is the remedy after they confirm him? If the Dems take back the House and/or Senate will they have the power to increase the number of justices and add more?

On another note, is this the first time in history that one party has controlled the entire government? It doesn't seem like a very good "checks and balances" system when one party is completely impotent.