CUT HIM LOSE

The damage and legacy of what Kavanaugh’s confirmation will mean

Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court is damaged and beyond repair. There is no attempt to salvage this.

Kavanaugh’s nomination was already on shaky ground based on that the Trump White House and its allies on the Senate Judiciary have refused to release documents pertinent to his nomination. Justices Sotomayor and Kagan had greater than 99% of their pertinent documents released during their respective confirmation hearings respectfully in 2009 and 2010.

During Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, it was discovered that he held contradictory positions on presidential power. While working on the Ken Starr investigation in the 1990s, he believed that presidential powers – which was during Bill Clinton’s administration, a Democrat – should be limited, but then during the George W. Bush – a Republican – supported many controversial policies, specially on the administration’s views on so-called enhanced interrogations, and that the president’s power should be expanded in that regard.

Kavanaugh also believes that United States v. Nixon – a unanimous decision that forced Richard Nixon to release his recordings pertaining to the Watergate investigation to the House Judiciary committee in 1974 – was decided incorrectly. The role of presidential power could come up again in what the Mueller investigation uncovers in the specifics of how the Trump campaign and organization had in colluding with the Russian government during the 2016 election. Kavanaugh – as well as Gorsuch, another Trump appointee – could be seen as a deciding vote that could limit Mueller’s power or even overturn Nixon.

Kavanaugh is widely believed to hostile to abortion rights and under ideal circumstances for the pro-life activists be the deciding vote that not only further limits Roe v. Wade but also overturns it. However, Kavanaugh’s views are more extreme in that they threaten Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 court case that ruled that contraception fell under the scope of privacy rights and overturned a Connecticut law that forbade the use of “any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception.”

That clause of “any drug, medicinal article or instrument” includes the birth control pill, emergency contraception commonly referred to as “Plan B”, IUDs, and hormonal patches.

And gentlemen, don’t breathe a sigh of relief that you would are excluded from this.

That also includes condoms. Those too can be viewed as an instrument that prevents conception. Maybe y’all should’ve paid better attention in high school health class instead of laughing or sleeping in the back

Like yours truly…

In recent years, the pro-life movement has come to embrace personhood initiatives, the view that fertilized embryos have constitutional standing. This view is so extreme is that was rejected by Mississippi in 2011. It was on the ballot three times in Colorado – 2008, 2010, and 2014 – and each time it was soundly defeated by greater than 60% of voters.

Speaking of 2014, Bob Beauprez, the Republican nominee for Colorado governor said during a debate that the birth control pill was an abortifacient – a term based in discredited medical science, that such devices causes the body to abort pregnancies.

This is only the tip of the proverbial shitberg.

I haven’t discussed the impact Kavanaugh could have on the gains that the LGBTQ community has made in the last decade, the further destruction of whatever remains of our campaign finance laws, pushing Civil Rights back to the pre-Brown v. Board era, even more decimation of the Voting Rights Act, the death penalty, and whatever unforeseen cases that could emerge during his lifetime tenure on the high court

Good job to all those non-voters, third party voters, Bernie or Busters, Jill Not Hill, and those who said Clinton and Trump were the same in the critical swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. I hope you are proud of your legacy and the unspeakable damage you have done to this country.

Oh, and I haven’t forgotten the 53% of white women who voted for Trump which also includes some branches of my family tree that I decided to sever a few months ago.

And neither will my friends and family members

This was before the revelations of sexual assault became public.

So far three have come forward. There are reports of a fourth but at this time has remained anonymous likely for her own safety. Each victim has said that they are willing to be subjected to an FBI investigation in order to substantiate their claims.

Today one will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in what is drawing parallels to when Anita Hill testified before that same committee in 1991 addressing then-nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassing her while she was employed at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Republicans are doing their best to prop up this nominee, but recent polling says do not confirm him. A Fox News poll recently conducted shows that 50% of registered voters do not support confirmation. Among women, it is 55-34 against. Among independents, it is 52-26 against. Registered voters say delay the confirmation process over the claims of sexual assault, 56-32. Both men, 53-33, and women, 58-29, agree that the process should be delayed.

If the Republicans push this nomination through, they will further denigrate the Supreme Court’s image.

John Marshall, Louis Brandeis, Frank Murphy, Owen Roberts, Robert Jackson, Earl Warren, Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O’Connor, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor

Instead, this court will join the shameful legacies of Roger B. Taney of Dred Scott, Melville Fuller of Plessy, the Stone Court of Korematsu, and the Rehnquist court as the one that decided the 2000 presidential election

This court will not be known as the Roberts Court, but rather the Gorsuch-Kavanaugh court where every decision along the current ideological lines of 5-4 will have the stain of one seat was stolen – Gorsuch – through Republicans refusing a hearing for Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland in 2016 and another installed with a possible violent sexual predator- Kavanaugh.

There will be more accusers and witnesses of Kavanaugh’s behavior, but what Republicans are telling victims of sexual assault and abuse is that they do not matter. And what they are telling women – yes, even the 53% of white women who supported Trump – is that they do not matter either.

The phrase “Equal Justice Under Law”, as engraved on the Supreme Court building, will be rendered moot. It should read, “Equal Justice… for some…”

If Trump and Republicans are unwilling to sever themselves from Kavanaugh – and at this point it is beyond impossible for them to do so – then maybe it is time for this country to cut itself lose through the next two, or even three, federal election cycles of the Republican Party and their wonton destruction of our values.