I suppose he like all the judges before him he had to say that. But anyone paying attention knows that neither precedent or stare decisis has any weight when it comes to the decisions of the Supreme Court. I’ve often said this before but just in case you have forgotten, the law is what the judges say it is regardless of what was decided before. Any judge worth his salt can find something in the past to support whatever he or she wants to write about today. Like the queen Alice ran into said” “sentence first verdict afterwards.”
Thus we engage in fictions that prior decisions bind the Court. Common sense tell us with all the 5 to 4 decisions that is make-believe. Each side can reach back and find something to support their beliefs. What we have in Kavanaugh is a guy who avoided answering most questions and sought to get on the Supreme Court to write decisions based upon what he believed. And, as best we can tell it is obvious what he believes is what Donald Trump believes or he would not have received the nomination.
Kavanaugh is supposed to be the judge that gives the Court a 5 to 4 advantage conservatives. Had Hillary been elected president her nominees assuming the retirement of Justice Kennedy and the Senate giving the thumbs up to them would have made the court 6 to 3 liberal. That is where we are as a country. The really important law that will govern us is not really based on precedent, or precedent upon precedent, or stare decisis, but upon the political leanings of the judges.
Should we despair? I suppose if it were something new we might but for most of its history that has been the way the Court operated. I recently read the Dred Scott decision. That case involved a slave who was taken to a free state where he resided for four years with his master as a free man. When he went back to the state he left which was a slave state he objected to being considered a slave having been free.
The case was decided in March 1857. It was a tumultuous time in the United States. There was the ongoing dispute over the make up of the union; the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which forbid slavery above a certain latitude was under attack as territories sought admission as states. The South fought to keep the equal balance between slave and free states while the North tried to limit slavery’s expansion.
James Buchanon was elected president in November 1856 being heavily supported by what we now know as the Red States. He was for the right of the people in any new state to decide for themselves whether to have slavery or not which the Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed but which ran afoul of the Missouri Compromise. Giving people that right caused battles to be fought in Kansas between Free-Staters and people coming in from Missouri hoping to make Kansas into a slave state. John Brown’s raid at Pottawatomie Creek took place in May 1856. Also in that month in the United States Senate Representative Preston Brooks (D-SC) used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA), an abolitionist, in retaliation for a speech given by Sumner two days earlier. In November.
Buchanon after his election was of the mind that if the Supreme Court overruled the Missouri Compromise and kept Dred Scott’s status as a slave then the fury engulfing the country might be calmed. He made contact with some of the Supreme Court justices, it is said, to urge them to decide as they did. Some suggest that was not necessary because six of the justices were from the South and their sympathies were with it. The decision came down following the ideas of Buchanon and the wishes of the Southern slave holders. As we saw, it did little more than add fuel to the fire.
Obviously, or hopefully, the country is not in the same state as it was in the 1850s. I suppose if we survived that time we can survive what is now happening. Why then is the Kavanaugh nomination such a huge deal especially because no matter who Trump nominates his philosophy will mirror that of Trump’s.
That Kavanaugh is flawed is shown not only by his hearing answers but also because the Republicans hid so much of his paper background and Trump’s vast claim of executive privilege over much of his work at the White House. Why the secrecy? Shouldn’t all of his background have been exposed? Wouldn’t you want that of any candidate nominated by a Democratic president.
It is said some Republicans knowing of Kavanaugh’s baggage urged Trump to nominate someone else. Couldn’t he do it now? Obviously not because the elections coming up in November may tip the House of Representatives into the blue. If that happens impeachment hearings will start against Trump and there is no way under those circumstances he could nominate another person. So the Republicans have to live or die with Kavanaugh.
With each passing hour Kavanaugh’s chances decrease. At one point I though Red State Democratic senators would go for him but they no longer feel the need because of his unpopularity. Baring a big surprise it looks like he will need Pence to come in and give him the vote; but even that is not certain. For the first time I see him as a flying gas can.
We brought attorney John Clarke to speak at Bates
College about his client Patrick Knowlton.
Here is the letter Patrick Knowlton just delivered by
hand to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation
hearings.
http://www.fbicover-up.com/ewExternalFiles/Brett.JudiciaryCommittee.4.pdf
in other newes
Read more:
https://www.ammoland.com/2018/08/lawsuit-filed-against-fbi-for-denying-las-vegas-shooting-foia-request/#ixzz5RBXAfttM
Lawsuit Filed against FBI for Denying Las Vegas Shooting FOIA Request
Ammoland Inc. Posted on August 17, 2018 by David Codre
also see
http://www.thejournal.ie/molly-martens-jason-corbett-2-4236644-Sep2018/
Molly Martens and FBI agent father lodge appeal documents against murder conviction
Lawyers for Molly and Thomas Martens have made claims of jury misconduct in a bid to quash their murder convictions.
weekend update
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/12/AR2008031203783.html?noredirect=on
-FBI Official Gets Six Years
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 13, 2008
In a courtroom crowded with his friends from law enforcement, a former FBI official was sentenced yesterday to six years in prison for torturing his girlfriend at knifepoint and gunpoint during a six-hour ordeal in her Crystal City high-rise apartment.
also see
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2017/10/27/jfk-kennedy-assassination-trump-wecht-oswald-cia-plots-warren-commission/stories/201710270144
Wecht faults Trump for delay in releasing all JFK assassination documents
OCT 27, 2017 1:01 PM
Storied forensic pathologist Cyril H. Wecht, a longtime Warren Commission critic, reacted strongly Friday morning to President Donald Trump’s decision the preceding day to delay release of hundreds of secret government files related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
also …..
https://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_516819.html
FBI agent’s records unsealed in Wecht case
JASON CATO | Wednesday, July 11, 2007
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The FBI agent leading the public corruption case against Dr. Cyril H. Wecht has been investigated by the bureau for seven infractions that led to a demotion and two suspensions without pay, according to internal disciplinary records made public today.
Special Agent Bradley W. Orsini, 44, was described by former colleagues in the Newark, N.J., office as “abrasive and self-centered,” with a former supervisor characterizing him as a “bully.”
“Most people have turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
This may interest some here. Off topic but worth the read.
https://fee.org/media/14953/notyourstogive.pdf
Looks like more wishful thinking.
Precedent binds honest judges to know and abide by precedents, and appellate judges to know and abide by them, and sometimes to carve out exceptions or overturn them. The law is not what judges say it is. The law is written in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights and our Statutes by Congress and State Legislatures and in our regulations by administrative officials who carefully hone regulations to the statutes.
Only corrupt judges think the law is what they say it is . . . .yet, In the St. Pat’s Parade Case, I witnessed jurist after jurist citing the correct precedents, then diverging from them, falsely corrupt the First Amendment, until a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court straightened them out.
The Law is not nuclear physics or rocket science, known only a few gurus. It is there in plain sight in our Constitution, Statutes, Regulations, Case Precedents and in the decisions of honest judges who know how to follow the law, not invent new law, like the psychobabble of “emanations and halos and penumbras”.
Would that it were so, Bill C. Law school stoonts study Benjamin Cardozo, who is characterized as first reaching a result or decision, and then crafting an opinion to support the result. And there was lots of worshipping, and oohing and ahhing, when a penumbra was first crafted on and added to the Constitution – brilliant, genius, remarkable. And, of course, there are other worshipers who characterize judges as “great dissenters,” or some other nonsense.
We had a President Jackson who said – the court has made its decision, now let them enforce it.
We had a President Obama who said – he has a pen and paper – and proceeded to implement unconstitutional executive orders.
And when President Trump canceled those executive orders, or implemented new ones, we had off-the-wall little barons in federal court declare that President Trump had overstepped his bounds.
That’s not really where we want to be.
If federal judges and courts keep overstepping their bounds – why should anyone abide by their decisions?
Lays out the evidence for the murder of Vince Foster
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3cDgq6tJsM
also see
https://heavy.com/news/2018/07/brett-kavanaugh-vince-foster-vincent-death/
Brett Kavanaugh & Vince Foster: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
By Jessica McBride
Updated Jul 10, 2018 at 12:57am
also see
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/12/16/the-g-man-and-the-hit-man
The G-man and the Hit Man
By Fredric Dannen
In 1991, the Colombo crime family in Brooklyn went to war with itself: a rebel faction tried to seize control of the family from its boss, Carmine Persico, who was serving life in jail. Gregory Scarpa, Sr., a sixty-three-year-old mobster, immediately took command of the armed faction loyal to Persico. Scarpa was seriously ill: as the result of a blood transfusion, he was H.I.V.-positive. His body had shrivelled from a muscular two hundred and twenty-five pounds to a gaunt
She was always throwing shade !!!
well, Matt, in your 2 posts about Kavanaugh I detect a lot of wishing and hoping that Kavanaugh does not get confirmed.
And apparently not opining on issues that might become, which was in fact the position of Ginsburg and a whole bunch of other nominees, is to be disregarded in Kavanaugh’s case.
Anyway, in first year law school, students learn that “they’re not the Supremes because they’re right – they’re right because they’re the Supremes”
Roe v Wade was decided on the basis of the “penumbra” of the Constitution – a dark shadow.
Liberals want the Supremes, and the courts, to legislate, which is why there was so much screaming about Kavanaugh. That became evident from the circus of a hearing, where Dems got up on their soapboxes, and speechified and bloviated endlessly – with tons of repetition.
And liberals want to ignore the specific items written into the Constitution – free speech, gun rights, for example – and have the court create rights which are not in the Constitution – based on a “penumbra” or some other artifice.
The court started expanding the power of the federal government through the interstate commerce clause, and it’s been unsettling ever since.
So Kavanaugh got a ton of questions, same question repeated over and over, about “independent” federal agencies, and “deference” to federal agencies.
Kavanaugh is very, very sharp. Just like Gorsuch, he was very, very patient in putting up with the circus that was that committee hearing, which the Demorats – yep, Demorats – salted with some orchestrated “protesters” with serial screaming episodes.
The Dems and their adherents should just go into a padded room somewhere and do the “screaming me-me’s” – that means just scream “me, me, me, me, me, me” – till they all their insanity out of their systems.
This last gasp “I’ve got a secret” ploy is a real hoot – a woman writes a letter to a Democrap in the House, about a supposed “sexual incident” from 35 years ago, requesting – anonymity. How precious – write a letter to a Democrap politician, and expect anonymity.
Dems have proved repeatedly over the past 2 years they they will stoop to anything. What a bunch of sickies – but hey, since they’re “for the chillinz,” it’s OK.
PS I used to date a girl named Penumbra.
“PS I used to date a girl named Penumbra.”
I use to date a girl that wore a Penumbra.