Acerbic Politics: Headlines, clips and links

Friday, September 28, 2018

Headlines, clips and links

Kavanaugh perjured himself. Here are his top lies.

Every time Ford and Kavanaugh dodged a question, in one chart

There was a striking difference in style — and substance.

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/28/17914308/kavanaugh-ford-question-dodge-hearing-chart

The Senate has agreed to an FBI investigation of Kavanaugh. Here’s what that means.

Judge Says Emoluments Lawsuit May Proceed

“A federal judge on Friday gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit filed by 200 congressional Democrats against President Trump alleging he has violated the Constitution by doing business with foreign governments while in office,” the Washington Post reports.

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https://politicalwire.com/2018/09/28/judge-rules-emoluments-lawsuit-against-trump-mat-proceed/

Flake Explains Why He Sought A Delay In The Kavanaugh Confirmation Vote

Reddit 'quarantines' white supremacist, incel, holocaust denier, and other gross subreddits

Zinke is officially rolling back offshore oil and gas production safety rules

A far-right conspiracy theory made it to Christine Blasey Ford’s hearing

Republican senators indirectly parroted a far-right conspiracy claiming liberal megadonor George Soros paid for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s polygraph test Thursday, even after Ford’s lawyers said during the hearing they themselves had paid for the test.

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https://thinkprogress.org/gop-soros-ford-conspiracy-10253ff455db/

SEC lawsuit: Elon Musk committed securities fraud

Impeaching a Supreme Court justice, explained

US Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase, the only justice ever impeached. He was impeached by the House in 1804 and acquitted by the Senate in 1805.

It works just like impeaching a president.

Whether or not the Senate approves Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, a big question looms: Should he be impeached?

Kavanaugh, who is a judge on the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, now faces three named accusations of sexual assault and misconduct, all of which he has denied. But even before the allegations, former deputy assistant attorney general Lisa Graves called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment about an entirely different thing — she accused him of lying about stolen memos the Bush White House and congressional allies used in early 2000s judicial confirmation fights under oath.

It’s unlikely a Republican-controlled House would act on such an impeachment, but if Democrats took control, they could pursue charges related to both sexual wrongdoing and lying about the memos, whatever happens to Kavanaugh.

Read more

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/27/17910524/supreme-court-impeach-impeachment-brett-kavanaugh

Brett Kavanaugh just debunked one of the biggest lies Republicans tell about the judiciary

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh began his testimony at a hearing examining allegations that he sexually assaulted a young women in high school with an angry, 45-minute long rant.

The judge was emotional, shrill, hysterical, and he would have looked so much more attractive if he’d smiled.

He also revealed himself as a staunch partisan. Kavanaugh, who denied in a previous day of testimony that he is a “Republican judge,” twice looked over at the section of the room where Democratic senators sit and singled them out as his enemies. “I love teaching law,” Kavanaugh raged, “Thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee unleashed, I may never be able to teach again.” He added that “thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to coach again.”

The Supreme Court nominee also claimed that “the behavior of several of the Democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment.”

Kavanaugh is accused of attempted rape by psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford, who testified under oath that he sexually assaulted her. Though many Senate Democrats indicated that they believe Dr. Ford, they are not the source of the allegation.

The judge’s rant was a frightening moment for anyone who cares about a fair and impartial judiciary. If confirmed, Kavanaugh will sit on highly political cases. He may even be called upon to decide the outcome of an election. He will do the former even if he is not confirmed and remains a lower court judge.

Yet it was also an important and revealing moment, where one of the nation’s most prominent judges took off his mask.

President Trump’s Supreme Court Justice Pick Brett Kavanaugh’s Nomination In Jeopardy Over Past Accusations

Brett Kavanaugh is an existential threat to the Supreme Court
If Republicans push forward with this confirmation, we will all reap the whirlwind.

During his own Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Judge Neil Gorsuch claimed that “there’s no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge.” It wasn’t a believable statement then and it’s not a believable statement now. And it is easily disproven by data.

In 2014, the Washington Times examined how judges appointed by Democratic or Republican presidents decided cases involving the Affordable Care Act. It found that “Democratic appointees ruled in favor of Obamacare more than 90 percent of the time, while Republican appointees ruled against it nearly 80 percent of the time.”

Read more
https://thinkprogress.org/brett-kavanaugh-debunked-the-biggest-lie-republicans-tell-about-the-judiciary-266592d5d5bb/

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