Brett Kavanaugh Confirmed As 114th Justice Of The U.S. Supreme Court
After a long and contentious battle, Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed to become the 114th Supreme Court Justice.
As expected, Judge Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed to become the 114th Justice of the Supreme Court after one of the most contentious and divisive nomination fights in American history:
WASHINGTON — A deeply divided Senate voted on Saturday to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, delivering a victory to President Trump and ending a rancorous Washington battle that began as a debate over ideology and jurisprudence and concluded with questions of sexual misconduct.
Mr. Trump said Judge Kavanaugh would be quickly sworn in. “I applaud and congratulate the U.S. Senate for confirming our GREAT NOMINEE, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, to the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote on Twitter. “Later today, I will sign his Commission of Appointment, and he will be officially sworn in. Very exciting!”
The Senate vote was 50 to 48, almost entirely along party lines. It did not go smoothly — protesters repeatedly interrupted the proceedings, with the Capitol Police dragging screaming demonstrators out of the gallery as the senators sat somberly at their wooden desks in the chamber below. “This is a stain on American history!” one woman cried, as the vote wrapped up. “Do you understand?”
The final result was expected; all senators had announced their intentions by Friday. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — the lone Republican to break with her party — was recorded as “present” instead of “no” as a gesture to a colleague, Senator Steve Daines of Montana, who was attending his daughter’s wedding and would have voted “yes.” By voting present, she maintained the two-vote margin that had pushed the nomination past a crucial procedural hurdle on Friday. Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia was the lone Democrat to support Judge Kavanaugh.
But while the brawl over Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation may be over, people on both sides of the debate agree that it will have lasting ramifications on the Senate, the Supreme Court and the nation.
As the senators entered their final hours of debate on Saturday, hundreds of Kavanaugh opponents were massed on the steps of the Supreme Court. They later rushed the barricades around the Capitol and sat on its steps, chanting “No means no!” as Capitol Police officers began arresting them. Women and sexual assault survivors around the country were furious, feeling as though their voices had not been heard.
Inside the chamber, protests erupted as Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, delivered a speech deploring “mob rule” — a reference to the activists and sexual assault survivors who have roamed the Capitol in recent weeks, confronting Republican senators. “I stand with survivors!” one shouted. “This process is corrupt!”
Even some of Judge Kavanaugh’s future colleagues sounded unsettled. On Friday, on the eve of the vote, two of them — Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — expressed concern that the partisan rancor around his nomination would injure the court’s reputation.
“Part of the court’s strength and part of the court’s legitimacy depends on people not seeing the court in the way that people see the rest of the governing structures of this country now,” Justice Kagan said in an appearance at Princeton University. “In other words, people thinking of the court as not politically divided in the same way, as not an extension of politics, but instead somehow above the fray, even if not always in every case.”
Once confirmed, Judge Kavanaugh will shift the ideological balance of the court to the right, giving it a solid conservative majority. He will replace the retired Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a moderate conservative who was its longtime swing vote, and at 53 he is young enough to serve for decades, shaping American jurisprudence for a generation, if not more.
More from The Washington Post:
The Senate voted to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as the Supreme Court’s 114th justice on Saturday by one of the narrowest margins in the institution’s history, as police stood guard and protesters’ shouts of “shame, shame” echoed through the Senate chamber.
The 50-t0-48 vote capped a brutal confirmation fight that underscored how deeply polarized the nation has become under President Trump, who has now successfully placed two justices on the nation’s highest court, cementing a conservative majority.
With Vice President Pence presiding, senators sat in their chairs and rose to cast their votes, repeatedly interrupted by protesters in the visitors’ gallery who yelled out and were removed by Capitol Police. The Supreme Court announced Kavanaugh would be sworn in later Saturday.
Trump nominated Kavanaugh in July to succeed retired justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a move that triggered an intense partisan battle over the court’s future well before allegations of decades-old sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh surfaced, delaying a confirmation vote by a week to allow for a limited FBI investigation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in an interview with The Washington Post before the vote, expressed his confidence in Kavanaugh’s denials of allegations of sexual assaults and decried the “mob” of protesters who had descended on the Senate.
“I never thought Judge Kavanaugh would withdraw,” McConnell said. “When your integrity is attacked like his was, a withdrawal was certainly no solution to that, so we were in the fight to the finish.”
Before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned that his colleagues were “about to elevate a nominee who doesn’t belong on the nation’s highest bench.”
Schumer suggested several reasons, including Kavanaugh’s temperament at a high-profile hearing last week at which faced off with his initial accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, and exchanged sharp words with several Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.
“To Americans, to so many millions who are outraged by what happened here, there’s one answer: Vote,” Schumer said.
The acrimonious battle over Kavanaugh’s confirmation is certain to influence next month’s midterms, pitting energized female voters angered by the treatment of Kavanaugh’s accusers against conservatives who see him as a man wrongly accused.
Not surprisingly, President Trump, who is on his way to Kansas for a political rally, celebrated the win:
I applaud and congratulate the U.S. Senate for confirming our GREAT NOMINEE, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, to the United States Supreme Court. Later today, I will sign his Commission of Appointment, and he will be officially sworn in. Very exciting!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2018
The crowd in front of the U.S. Supreme Court is tiny, looks like about 200 people (& most are onlookers) – that wouldn’t even fill the first couple of rows of our Kansas Rally, or any of our Rallies for that matter! The Fake News Media tries to make it look sooo big, & it’s not!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2018
The final vote on the nomination — 50 “Yes,” 48 “No,” and one vote “Present” — became inevitable yesterday afternoon when Senators Susan Collins and Joe Manchin announced their support for the nomination, joining Senator Jeff Flake who had also been a holdout until early yesterday. The lone vote against Kavanaugh was cast by Lisa Murkowski, who voted against the Motion to Proceed yesterday but announced late yesterday that she would vote “present” as a courtesy to Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican who is back home participating in his daughter’s wedding. Additionally, Murkowski voting present means that no one person can be said to have been the person who put Kavanaugh over the top, although I doubt that is going to matter to the people who are angry with Senators Collins and Manchin for their decision to support the nomination. In Manchin’s case, of course, there’s little that Democrats can do at this point and the national leadership is going to cut him slack because it is more important to them to hold onto his seat than exact revenge for this vote. Additionally. Manchin is far enough ahead of his Republican opponent in a mostly red state that this vote is likely to help him more than it hurts him. For Collins, things are more complicated since she is up for re-election and there’s already talk of a challenge against her based on this vote.
There really isn’t very much else that can be said about this nomination. It’s been a long process since President Trump first nominated him back on July 9th, at which point it appeared on paper that he was both qualified for the position and, when compared to some of the other names on the President’s short list, about the best that people opposed to the President could hope for under the circumstances. After the conclusion of the first round of his confirmation hearings, , which I covered here, here and here, it seemed fairly clear that other than Kavanaugh’s fairly standard conservative positions there really wasn’t a reason for rejecting his nomination and that he was likely to sail through to confirmation. Sure, Democrats complained about the fact that they didn’t have access to all of the documents that Kavanaugh had access to during his time at the Bush Administration, but given the fact that this amounted to hundreds of thousands of pages of documents it always struck me that this was an unreasonable request to begin with. As it was, the Judiciary Committee had been given access to more documents than it had seen for any previous nominee, and that seemed more than sufficient to evaluate Kavanaugh as a candidate for the nation’s highest court. At that point, it seemed as though Kavanaugh would be set to sail through confirmation.
All of that changed, though, when women began coming forward to make allegations of misconduct in his past that had previously not come to light. The first, of course, was Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged that a 17-year-old Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge had attempted to rape her at a party in the summer of 1982 when she was 15 years old. Blasey Ford’s allegations were quickly followed by similar allegations by Kavanaugh’s Yale classmate Debbie Ramirez and by Julie Swetnick, a woman who says she traveled in the same social circles as Brett Kavanaugh and witnessed drunkenness and sexually aggressive behavior on the part of Kavanaugh and other men. Of all three, though, it was Blasey Ford’s allegations that received the most attention and which are simultaneously the most serious and the most credible when it comes to judging the suitability of Brett Kavanaugh for elevation to a lifetime position on the highest court in the land.
It was, of course, the charges by Dr. Blasey Ford that brought us to the hearing that took place last Thursday. During the course of that hearing, we heard from both Dr.Blasey Ford, who put forward a credible albeit largely uncorroborated story about having been sexually assaulted by an inebriated Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge in an upstairs bedroom of a home in Suburban Maryland. Blasey Ford’s story was a credible one notwithstanding the conscious efforts of Republicans, through their hired gun lawyer, to poke holes in the story. In that same hearing, Judge Kavanaugh began with a 45-minute opening statement in which, in a voice that was often just a few decibels below a yell, he decried the charges against him, forcefully denying the accusations and turning his ire on Democrats and “the left” for what he contended was a conspiracy to deny him a Supreme Court seat. At one point he claimed that the charges against him were part of a vendetta launched by supporters of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as “revenge” for the outcome of the election. At the time, many observers suggested that Kavanaugh was playing to an audience of one, Donald Trump, in response to reports that the President was not pleased with what he saw as a rather muted Kavanaugh during an interview with Fox News earlier last week. It was also the kind of partisan attack that seemed more appropriate for conservative talk radio or Fox News Channel than a man who has spent the last 12 years as a Judge on the most important Circuit Court of Appeals in the country and who is seeking elevation to the Supreme Court, where he could serve for the next thirty years.
Less than twenty-four hours after that hearing ended, the Judiciary Committee went forward to vote on the Kavanaugh nomination, but a last minute change of heart by Senator Jeff Flake led to a one-week delay in the process to allow the F.B.I. to reopen the Judge’s background investigation to include these newly revealed charges. That investigation was completed earlier this week, but there are serious concerns about just how complete it was that are likely to linger over the Senate and soon-to-be Justice Kavanaugh. Whatever comes of that, though, the process is now complete and Brett Kavanaugh will take his place on the bench early next week. Before that can happen, he will need to take two oaths, the first being a Judicial Oath administered to all Federal Judges and the second being the oath that all persons who work for the Federal Government take. There’s no word on when this will happen, but it could happen as early as Monday even though that is Columbus Day and officially a Federal holiday. In any case, at that point, Justice Kavanaugh will be available to join his fellow Justices, who are currently in the middle of their first set of hearings for the month of October, which includes hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. What all of this means for the future of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the nation is something only time will tell.
@Jake: So what about Americans who are Democrats? Last I heard they were not mutually exclusive.
@Jake:
At his Confirmation Hearing (job interview) Judge Kavanaugh displayed an unprofessional lack of composure and called into question his ‘judicial temperament.’ He brings an enemies list to the Court. His confirmation is a sad moment for a majority of Americans, not only Democrats.
Remember those words on November 6th, asshole…
@Jake: It’s funny how that works
@SenyorDave: He said Americans not people who hate America
@Bandit2018: You know, it is possible to have a difference of opinion without accusing persons who have a different position of hating America.
@al Ameda: Quit being a dildo. Judicial temperament is worlds away from defending yourself from personal attack.
For example, I could easily and impartially rule on a case involving you, but consider you personally, as an asshole.
This is a direct quote from Donald Trump. (source )
This is the absolute best and most serious Supreme Court Justice that the Trump administration could muster.
This is the Supreme Court Justice confirmed by the Trumpist Party of the best and most serious senators.
This is their best. Their ultimate representation of legal thought.
And his memorable quote that will go down the ages?
Sad.
I have a project for some enterprising young reporter. Yes it comes with death threats (trust me, 99.9% of death threats aren’t worth the ink they aren’t even printed with) and lots of slander on your personal character (and an infinitude of conspiracy theories), AND all possible laudations (way beyond anything Woodward and Bernstien have received), and the absolute certainty of being famous, Famous, FAMOUS, for all eternity.
Yes it will take several years to complete, but the payback is all but infinite.
@Jake: Too bad it sucks to be you.
@Bandit2018: So in other words, you’re f*cked.
A decent man who could be a great Justice. Hooray for America!
@John430:
What’s wrong with you? Never mind, it’s right there for others to see.
‘Judicial temperament,’ despite your dismissive attitude, matters. Judge Kavanaugh now apparently has an enemies list. His performance on Thursday called into question that very quality.
Judge Kavanaugh at the Hearing on Thursday:
Yeah … ‘the Clintons’ … this coming from a person who, while serving Ken Staarr on the 5 year investigation into Bill Clinton’s activities, expressed a specific desire to humiliate Bill with detailed questions concerning Bill’s sex acts with Monica.
So sure, I’m being a dildo for pointing out that Kavanaugh definitely has issues concerning his lack of composure and judicial temperament?
Even retired Justice John Paul Stevens said that Kavanaugh’s performance before the Committee was the deciding factor in his (Stevens’) decision to change his mind as to whether Kavanaugh should be confirmed to Court – he does not.
I certainly hope that he will be a great justice instead of a political tool (acknowledging that for Leonard political tool = great justice) but suspect that he’ll be another Clarence Thomas–sitting there growing more obese with every day and mostly saying and doing nothing of note.
So from that standpoint, it’s possible that this may be as good as things get; Trump might have picked someone who has more possibility of being a catalyst.
I’ve always heard that for Chief Justice Roberts, the legitimacy of the Court is a paramount concern. I wonder how he feels about this fiasco and what he will do to protect the Court.
Fitting that Republicans have elevated both Clarence Thomas and his white shadow onto the court. White Clarence’s elevation was always a sure thing…. practically however, he joins the court as a joke. A forever damaged reputation. Couldnt have happened to a more deserving guy.
May he garner as many head shakes and face palms when White americans see his face as Black Clarence does when POC look upon him.
Today is crap. Ignore it. Deal with the fallout tomorrow or never. Life is great.
I offer an amusement: I trying to convince Andrew W.K. (Party Hard) to cover Lady GaGa’s Bad Romance because that would be awesome.
It’s bullshit, and it likely won’t work, but if you ignore the headline this may make you happy and hate the world less. #AWKdoesBadRomance
Here’s Andrew W.K. Party Hard:
https://youtu.be/WccfbPQNMbg
Here’s Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance:
https://youtu.be/qrO4YZeyl0I
My twitter campaign is to convince Andrew W.K. to cover Bad Romance a la Andrew W.K. The hashtag is #AWKdoesBadRomance, pimp it if you want to. There will be literally single digits folks echoing you, but you will be singing the songs of he angels.
Today was disheartening and total shit and I’m not coping so I want to invent a mash-up flight of fancy that would be spectacular if it actually happened – imagine that Andrew W.K. did a cover of Bad Romance That would be epic.
It won’t erase today. But it makes part of today acceptable. Seriously, it would be fuggin’ awesome.
The one thing I have to offer that Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed is that it would be super cool if AWK AWK’d the fuck out Bad Romance – I would pay to see that.
If 30 Seconds to Mars can do a silly, overwrought, hyperdramatic cover, Andrew W.K. can also, but not thusly – not silly, not overwrought, not overdramatic. Andrew W.K.’s version will party fuckin’ hard.
30 Seconds To Mars
https://youtu.be/MeX2nLza4AY
OMG, this is so shittily horrible! And I kinda like Jared Leto! But this is total crap! If you like pensive faux drama, you will love this clip!
I have no ideas this is actually true and it unprovable, but I suspect that Stefani Germanotta is offering direct critique of Madonna and how she handled this time and moment of her career.
Madonna never did nothing like A Star Is Born. Not even close. Madonna was bigger culturally ever than Lady Gaga , but basically uninteresting. In the spotlight, what Madonna had to say was “look at me”.
I’ve lived with and hung out with interesting and prickly women since I’ve been an adult. Madonna is to Lady Gaga as Sid Viscous is to John Lydon.
Sid said said “look how interesting I am!” Lydon said “I’m going to tell you an interesting thing whether you like it or not.” Gaga aint Sid.
@Kari Q:
I was told the Supreme Court is illegitimate due to the GOP stealing Obama’s Supreme court seat of Merrick Garland.
“You know, it is possible to have a difference of opinion without accusing persons who have a different position of hating America.”
Not if you are a conservative it appears. (For most conservatives. There remains a small minority to whom that does not apply.)
Steve
Steve
Constantly referring to Dr. Ford’s accusations as “credible” doesn’t make them so. She literally can’t provide a single piece of evidence that she and Kavanaugh were ever even in the same room before the Judiciary Committee hearing.
And it kind of sums up your spectacular record of being wrong about everything to mention people who voted for Kavanaugh getting in trouble for it while completely ignoring the impact “no” votes on Kavanaugh will possibly have on Democrats in red states.
It seems as though that’s becoming the defining pathology of the terminally butt hurt over Trump. It’s not that you willfully ignore the other side. It’s like you honestly can’t conceive of people existing if they think differently than you. I mean, why were Kavanaugh’s critics all so thoroughly unprepared for his performance at the hearing. Go back and watch it. Go back and read and watch the commentary in its immediate aftermath. Democrats, liberals, and anti-Trumpers were rhetorically, intellectually, and emotionally unprepared for Kavanaugh’s outburst. Even now, all they’ve come up with is this “temperament” dodge that’s so transparent a blind mole can see through it.
Why didn’t they anticipate it? Why didn’t they expect SOME kind of counterattack from Kavanaugh? What DID they think he was going to do? The plain answer seems to be they didn’t think about Kavanaugh at all. They didn’t spend a single second considering what Kavanaugh might say in his defense because that would require them to imagine themselves in his place, and you can’t do that if all Kavanaugh is to you is some inanimate thing, some disposable bit of scenery in the story of YOUR heroism.
And is calling someone a “dildo” NOT a personal attack? I’ll have to remember that for the future.
Mike
@Steven L. Taylor: You know, it is possible to have a difference of opinion without accusing persons who have a different position of hating America.
But calling people who defend Brett Kavanaugh “rape apologists” is fine and dandy?
Mike
Andrew W.K. is actually a fairly enlightened and savvy person. He presents as a neanderthal – he is not. Well, actually he is, but he is not just that. He’s not aggro – unless you count someone wanting you to have a good time aggro.
Drew wasn’t really my friend. Drew wasn’t even really a friend of my friend who introduced us. But Drew was the party dude who knew when to go hard and when to back down. Drew was a actually pretty spiritual person, and he really was kinda a dude, but in a good way.
He always had ganj and he always shared and he always looked happy. He was basically the manic pixie dream girl only he was a boy and he had weed. No one really knew him or hung out with him like, within his sphere, but everyone really liked him. He never said a bad word ’bout anyone. Everyone came to him, and everyone really liked him and then he hung himself until he died.
@One American:
Justice was fucked today.
At least the woman in the background wasn’t doing the fake / not-fake White Power symbol this time.
David Byrne always has a salient song:
The City Of Dreams
https://youtu.be/HTZarY-2NQU?list=PLT0fEbeVjLPNit5xxnRiVeT98mPGnmUXi
Big, deep time in a pop song.
I cope with sadness by embracing sadness.
Sorrow drips into your heart through a pin hole
Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound
But while you debate half empty and half full
It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown
death cab for cutie
Marching Bands of Manhattan
https://youtu.be/KjntY-m5dFk
When I’m bummed and / or pissed I have a fixation with entirely instrumental music or songs in languages I don’t understand.
Sigus Ros
Hoppipola
https://youtu.be/KbPWi1gshzI
Dude could be singing about pink lemonade or that tough skin that grows on the back of your heels, but dude totally sells it. This song peaks hard.
This song is entirely in indecipherable Canadian, so they’re probably talking about beavers or moose..mooses,,,meece…nekos
The New Pornographers – Letter From an Occupant
https://youtu.be/XBAUQaj6EJo
Sad songs help me out when sad stuff happens. I cope oddly.
I am sorely pissed right now about Kavanaugh and I am not coping well. Music is not helping, I am well and truly pissed the fuck off right now. We have ~30-40 years of his bullshit coming at us. We are truly fucked.
You guys are a hoot. You want some reality?
The “Coons Gambit” didn’t work. Schumer and Feinstein were sure McConnell and Trump would reject it, giving the Dems a narrative, (and Flake and Collins gas) or the Dems could manufacture something during the delay. But McConnell called their bluff. And then it was over. Flake and Collins had their opening. To turn a phrase, Feinstein came out with nothing other than Schumer’s dxxxx in her hands. Did you see their faces? The Dems played hardball. The Repubs played hardball. The Dems lost. Grow up.
Over on the PR side, and PR matters, the Dems made one of the dumbest choices in political history. They threw in with that sleazebag Avenatti and the psycho woman he surfaced. She wasn’t credible. The story was only believable to the crazed. She started backpedaling. And enough people said, “this is ludicrous on its face, and the Dems can’t even disavow this sham? I can’t believe anything they say.” Game over.
If you can’t deal with this I pity you. But I will offer to get you back to your playpen. Don’t forget your Blankie. And you know what? For guys who are supposed to be so stupid, Trump and McConnell sure are running circles around Democrats.
As we have seen with Souter, for example, justices understand the balance of power and can soften their views over time.
With a radical like Kavanaugh seated, I predict we may well see Roberts move into Kennedy’s swing-vote role.
@de stijl:
Now, now. Buck up. Heres an uplifting little ditty.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qyivczZI5pw
@TM01:
Who said this?
@Paul L.: No, you misunderstood, that showed the legitimacy of Congress, the Court didn’t deny anyone a hearing.
ETA: “There remains a small minority to whom that does not apply.”
I just talked to all three of them, and they’re cool with what you said, no offense taken. Carry on!
@de stijl: Remember, for @One American justice = his group’s political power.
ETA: or to put it another way, you could finish his statement with “lighty sauteed with a delicate bechamel sauce on toast points.”
@Kari Q: “I’ve always heard that for Chief Justice Roberts, the legitimacy of the Court is a paramount concern. ”
I’ve heard that; I’ve never heard or seen actual evidence.
@de stijl: Love the New Pornographers.
My ex and I are trying to get our kids out of this country. It’s a medium-term plan – they’re both in grad school – but we’re going to do everything we can to make sure they’re able to emigrate to a country that will give them the opportunities and stability that our parents had.
@de stijl: @Blue Galangal: You don’t have to be so dramatic about this. If it wasn’t Kavanaugh, it would have bbeen the next guy on th list.
@Leonard: I look at it the same way that you do. On the other hand, I’m old, white, male and have an above average income and capitalization (thanks to inheritance) for my cohort. They may not have the same American Genetics Lotto ticket that I have. Even with all that, I’m not sure how long I’ll stay any more.
You’re certainly free to start your own blog, not that anyone would visit it apart from mouth breathers like you…it’s funny how wingnuts bitch and moan about what the writers here do, and yet, these whiners continue to come back, over and over again…
Uh huh…and here is a nice counter to that…
@Guarneri:
It (the Coons deal) was over as soon as it was accepted.
As you know, the White House had to authorize the the abbreviated investigation, and it controlled the parameters of the investigation, and so the FBI was directed to severely limit the investigation (no interview of Kavanaugh, of Ford, of any of the people who offered to be interviewed). And, THAT was that. Game, set match.
And you’re right. All of it gave Collins cover for her 45 minute long (‘how can I SAY I believe Ford, but actually I don’t’) address. Plus, really, aside from the Easter Bunny, did anyone ever believe that Manchin, Flake or Collins were going to be ‘no’ votes? Please, that was always Fantasy Island bulls***.