Saturday, September 1, 2018

Last Call For Supreme Misgivings

The White House isn't even pretending about Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh, he's there to be rubber-stamped by 50 GOP senators, plus John McCain's replacement in order to give the Republicans the final vote they need to dismantle 80 years of classic liberalism permanently, and they're not even feigning that his odious record as a jurist matters in the least anymore.

The Trump administration is withholding more than 100,000 pages of Brett Kavanaugh’s records from the Bush White House on the basis of presidential privilege ahead of the Supreme Court nominee’s confirmation hearing.

The Senate Judiciary Committee was notified of the action Friday. George W. Bush’s attorney Bill Burck told the panel it had essentially completed its work compiling documents, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press. Bush directed them to err “on the side of transparency and disclosure, and we believe we have done so.”

But the current administration is also able to review the records, and the Trump White House “has directed that we not provide these documents,” the letter says.

In all, 267,000 pages of Kavanaugh documents from his Bush years are being made public.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called it “a Friday night document massacre.”

Schumer said the decision to withhold the documents “has all the makings of a cover-up. ... What are they trying so desperately to hide?”

What does it matter, Chuck?  You already made your deal with the GOP devils, and you'll fold on Kavanaugh too.

A sudden deal made by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on a set of judicial nominees has made Democratic activists livid.

With Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing looming next week, Schumer reached an agreement late Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to fast-track the confirmations of 15 Trump-nominated judicial picks. Seven federal district court judges were confirmed that day, and eight were put on the docket for confirmation next week.

A Senate Democratic aide says that the majority of the nominees greenlit as part of this deal were uncontroversial anyway — and emphasizes that Schumer’s efforts enable Democrats to hit the campaign trail, giving red-state Democrats a few extra days in their home states before coming back for Sen. John McCain’s memorial services this week.

But Democratic activists aren’t buying it — and many were concerned that this move showed weakness, especially going into the high-stakes Kavanaugh hearing.

“Mitch McConnell is in the middle of stealing the federal courts for conservatives, and Democrats continue to bring a butter knife to a gunfight,” said Brian Fallon, the head of activist group Demand Justice, which is leading opposition efforts against Kavanaugh, in a statement. “Democrats should be resisting Trump’s judge picks at every turn, not agreeing to fast-track them, as happened this week. It is hard to think of a more pathetic surrender heading into the Kavanaugh hearings.”

In the end I expect Kavanaugh to be confirmed with more than 55 votes, if not 60.   And when he's the fifth vote that gives Trump the power he needs to shut down the Mueller probe and start with full autocracy, maybe we'll remember.

The inevitability of Kavanaugh isn't thanks to 51 Republicans, but 49 cowards.

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