The FBI's "Investigation" Of Kavanaugh Was Just A Joke!

 I doubt this surprises most Democrats. We always thought the FBI didn't really put much effort into investigating Kavanaugh after he was nominated to the Supreme Court (and accusations of sexual abuse were leveled against him). Did the FBI make their own decision to do only a cursory investigation, or were they following orders from the Trump White House? I suspect the latter.

The following is what Steve Been of MSNBC.com had to say about it:

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings in the fall of 2018 were highly controversial for a variety of reasons, including the scope of the FBI background check that was supposed to be part of the process.

Two days before the Senate's confirmation vote, with the FBI review ostensibly complete, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said it appeared to be "a very thorough investigation." Nearly three years later, there's ample evidence to the contrary.

A group of Democratic senators is demanding more answers from the FBI after the agency revealed new details about the limited scope of its supplemental investigation into Brett Kavanaugh's background when he was a nominee for the Supreme Court. In a letter June 30 to Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Chris Coons, D-Del., made public Thursday, Jill Tyson of the FBI's congressional affairs office acknowledged that the department conducted only 10 additional interviews in its supplemental investigation, even though it had received over 4,500 tips.

According to the FBI's Tyson, said "relevant tips" from phone calls and messages were forwarded to the counsel's office in the Trump White House.

To be sure, it's impossible to say with confidence how many of the 4,500 tips had any legitimacy, but the fact that "relevant tips" were directed to the White House raises questions about the volume and seriousness of the possible leads and how they were treated.

Just as importantly, NBC News' report added, "It's unclear what became of the tips after that."

How reassuring.

The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, who called the FBI review "laughable," made a compelling case against an incomplete process:

What did then-White House Counsel Donald McGahn do with the "relevant tips?" That, we do know: not a damn thing. McGahn had no interest in discovering what his handpicked nominee had done, or not done. He had every interest in ensuring that Kavanaugh be confirmed, facts be damned. If there was any follow-up within the FBI itself, there's no indication of that. And that is the outrage here. The FBI's investigation into sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh wasn't designed to uncover the truth.

Donald Trump recently said, in reference to Kavanaugh, "I saved his life. He wouldn't even be in a law firm. Who would have had him? Nobody. Totally disgraced. Only I saved him.... I saved his life, and I saved his career."

It was a curious quote, which is now seen in a new light.

Kavanaugh Lied To Congress - That's Impeachable!

Brett Kavanaugh now sits on the Supreme Court. He is on it because the Republicans claimed they
had the FBI do a "full and fair" investigation., and that investigation found Kavanaugh was innocent of the sex abuse charges he had been accused on.

The charges was just the attempted rape accusation. There was also an accusation of him dropping his pants and waving his penis in a young women's face. Now we learn that wasn't the only time he did that at a drunken campus party.

During his confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh denied the accusation. He said it didn't happen, and if it had, it would have been the talk of campus.

Well guess what. It WAS the talk of campus. The young woman had at least 25 witnesses to testify to it. And the FBI was told of those witnesses, but did not interview them. Why? Because the FBI was instructed by the Trump Justice Department to interview only the witnesses approved by the Republican majority on the Senate committee.

It turns out, that as we expected, the investigation was neither full nor fair. If it had been, Kavanaugh would have been exposed. That means that Kavanaugh lied to the Senate (a crime).

Being a drunken pervert as a young man many years ago is not an impeachable offense. But lying to Congress is impeachable -- and now that more is known, Kavanaugh should be FULLY investigated and impeached.

It won't happen though. It won't happen because he is rich, privileged, white, male, and Republican -- and to McConnell and his GOP henchmen, no one with those attributes can do anything wrong.

Kavanaugh Nomination Fight Does NOT Help Republicans

The latest talking point by Trump and the Republicans is that the fight over the Kavanaugh nomination will help Republicans in next months election. But that is not what this poll shows. Republicans say it will make them more likely to vote for Republicans, but they were going to vote that way anyway.

What really matters is what the Independents think. Independent men say it will make them more likely to vote Republican by a 2 point margin. But Independent women say it will make them more likely to vote Democratic by a 25 point margin.

The same is true of the general public. All men voters say it makes them more likely to vote Republican by a 5 point margin, while all women say it makes them more likely to vote Democratic by a 16 point margin. The Kavanaugh nomination and confirmation just exacerbated the gender gap that was already going against the Republicans.

The chart is from a new Washington Post / ABC News Poll -- done between October 8th and 11th of a national sample of 991 registered voters, with a margin of error of 3.5 points.

CNN Poll Shows Democrats Widening Their Election Lead

These charts are from a new CNN / SSRS Poll -- done between October 4th and 7th of a national sample of 1,009 likely voters, with a 3.8 point margin of error. It shows the Democrats are extending their lead for the coming congressional election. This poll now has the Democrats with a 13 point gap over the Republicans.

And the gap has widened because women continue to abandon the Republican Party. While men prefer Republicans by a 5 point margin, women prefer Democrats by a whopping 30 point margin. Making matters even worse for Republicans is the fact that women traditionally vote in larger numbers than men do.

Both Trump and McConnell say the Kavanaugh nomination has energized their voters, and that will save them in November. But that is not what this poll is showing. It has 62% of Democrats saying they are extremely or very enthused about voting, while only 53% of Republicans say the same. About 23% of Democrats say they are somewhat enthused compared to 26% of Republicans.

The truth is that the Kavanaugh nomination has not helped the Republicans. Only 41% of the public wanted Kavanaugh confirmed, while 51% did not -- a 10 point gap against confirmation. And more people believed Kavanaugh's women accusers than believed him (52% to 38%) -- by 14 points.

WaPo Editorial On The Kavanaugh Confirmation Vote

(Photo Of Kavanaugh testifying before the Senate is by Matt McClain in The Washington Post.)

The vote to confirm or deny Brett Kavanaugh to become a Supreme Court justice is today. The following is the opinion of the editorial board of The Washington Post. They give some very good reasons for a NO vote.

AS SENATORS prepare to vote this week on Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh, they, and the rest of the country, must wonder: Which Brett M. Kavanaugh are they evaluating? Is it the steady, conservative jurist he was reputed to be before his confirmation saga? Or is it a partisan operative harboring suspicions and resentments about Democrats, with possible misdeeds in his past?

Unfortunately — and unnecessarily; it didn’t have to be this way — too many questions remain about his history for senators to responsibly vote “yes.” At the same time, enough has been learned about his partisan instincts that we believe senators must vote “no.”

We do not say so lightly. We have not opposed a Supreme Court nominee, liberal or conservative, since Robert H. Bork in 1987. We believe presidents are entitled to significant deference if they nominate well-qualified people within the broad mainstream of judicial thought. When President Trump named Mr. Kavanaugh, he seemed to be such a person: an accomplished judge whom any conservative president might have picked. But given Republicans’ refusal to properly vet Mr. Kavanaugh, and given what we have learned about him during the process, we now believe it would be a serious blow to the court and the nation if he were confirmed.

One element of the GOP vetting failure has been all but forgotten in the drama over alleged sexual assaults, but it remains for us a serious shortcoming. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to ask for all the potentially relevant documents from his time serving in the George W. Bush White House. The reason was not principled but political: Though they had kept a Supreme Court seat vacant for most of 2016, they wanted to ram through Mr. Kavanaugh before this year’s midterm elections. Those documents, which could have been processed without crippling delay, might end up supporting his case, or they might not; we have no idea. But any responsible senator should insist on seeing them before casting a vote.

It certainly would have been preferable if Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation had surfaced sooner, and then been investigated more promptly. But what matters now is not partisan fault but finding the truth about her claim — or at least making as fair and thorough an effort to find it as possible. Mr. Trump and the Republicans have prevented such an effort. This week’s belated investigation, reluctantly agreed to by the majority, was unduly narrow. Unsurprisingly, Senate Republicans quickly and unconvincingly claimed that it was exculpatory. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) came to his conclusion before even this cursory examination was complete.

We continue to believe that Ms. Ford is a credible witness with no motivation to lie. It is conceivable that she and Mr. Kavanaugh are both being truthful, in the sense that he has no memory of the event. It is also conceivable that Ms. Ford’s memory is at fault. We wish the FBI had been allowed to probe Mr. Kavanaugh’s credibility more fully. But our conclusion about Mr. Kavanaugh’s fitness does not rest on believing one side or the other.

If Mr. Kavanaugh truly is, or believes himself to be, a victim of mistaken identity, his anger is understandable. But he went further in last Thursday’s hearing than expressing anger. He gratuitously indulged in hyperpartisan rhetoric against “the left,” describing his stormy confirmation as “a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election” and “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.” He provided neither evidence nor even a plausible explanation for this red-meat partisanship, but he poisoned any sense that he could serve as an impartial judge. Democrats or liberal activists would have no reason to trust in his good faith in any cases involving politics. Even beyond such cases, his judgment and temperament would be in doubt.

Such doubts feed into concerns about Mr. Kavanaugh’s independence from Mr. Trump and his deference to executive power, at a moment when fateful questions for the presidency may be winding their way to the court. Mr. Kavanaugh began his confirmation process by bowing obsequiously to Mr. Trump, claiming, absurdly, that “no president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.” Mr. Kavanaugh then declined to offer much reassurance about how he would handle cases involving Mr. Trump. Given his writings arguing that a president should be free of criminal investigations while in office, it would be best for the court’s reputation for Mr. Kavanaugh to recuse himself from any such case, lest it appear that Mr. Trump chose him in order to foil the Justice Department’s Russia probe. If not a commitment to recuse, he should have offered more of a sense that he would treat the issue with due delicacy.

Finally, Mr. Kavanaugh raised questions about his candor that, while each on its own is not disqualifying, are worrying in the context of his demand that Ms. Ford and his other accusers be dismissed and disbelieved. These include his role in the nomination of controversial judge Charles Pickering while working for Mr. Bush, his knowledge of the origin of materials stolen from Democratic Senate staff between 2001 and 2003, and his lawyerly obfuscations about his high school and college years.

And what of Mr. Kavanaugh’s political philosophy? Here we freely admit that Mr. Kavanaugh would not have been our choice. A president concerned for the court’s standing would have nominated someone of more moderate views for the seat vacated by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court’s erstwhile swing vote — particularly given the Senate’s inexcusable refusal to consider Judge Merrick Garland when President Barack Obama nominated that eminently qualified jurist.

But we would not have opposed Mr. Kavanaugh on that basis, just as we did not think GOP senators should have voted against Sonia Sotomayor because they did not like her views. Rather, the reason not to vote for Mr. Kavanaugh is that senators have not been given sufficient information to consider him — and that he has given them ample evidence to believe he is unsuited for the job. The country deserves better.

That Was No Investigation - Just A Republican P.R. Stunt

 The Economist / YouGov Poll was done between September 30th and October 2nd of a national sample of 1,500 adults, with a 2.9 point margin of error.

The Reuters / Ipsos Poll was done between September 25th and October 1st of a national sample of 4,057 adults, with a 2 point margin of error.

Both show (as other polls have shown) that a plurality of Americans oppose the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to be a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court -- by a 14 point margin in the YouGov poll and by a 5 point margin in the Reuters poll.

The Republicans don't care what the public thinks though. They are now poised to confirm Kavanaugh as early as Saturday. The cable networks are abuzz over the possibility that Republican senators Collins, Murkowski, and Flake could vote NO. Don't hold your breath for that to happen. All three have reliably voted the party line in the past, and they will likely do so again.

Republican leaders are crowing about the "investigation" just completed by the FBI at the request of Trump. They claim it shows Kavanaugh is innocent of all charges and therefore should be confirmed.

That's a joke at best, and an outrageous lie at worst. There was no real investigation -- no effort to get to the truth! That's because the Republicans (and Trump) are afraid of what a real investigation might uncover. Trump severely restricted who the FBI could talk to in their "investigation". They talked to only 9 people. They did NOT talk to another groups of at least 40 people who had contacted the FBI wanting to testify. There was also no effort (thanks to Trump) to investigate the lies told by Kavanaugh to the Senate committee.

Why did they even bother with this sham investigation? Because Senate Republicans felt they needed some cover to avoid being punished in November. They thought a faux investigation could provide that cover if they could convince the public it was a real investigation. It wasn't, and I suspect no one was fooled.

Now the Republicans are proudly ready to put a liar, a likely sex abuser, and a man with the temperament of a mean drunk on the highest court in the land. It's shameful, and it will affect the court's reputation for decades to come.

The GOP deserves to be severely punished by the voters in November!

Thousands Of Law Professors Say NO To Kavanaugh

(Image of Brett Kavanaugh testifying before Senate committee is from ABC News.)

It looks like Senate Republicans are prepared to ram through the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to sit on the United States Supreme Court, in spite of growing opposition from the American public. And it's not just the general public that opposes Kavanaugh's confirmation. Over 1,700 law professors from around the nation have signed a letter which asks that Kavanaugh NOT be confirmed.

Here is their letter (and you can go here to see those who signed it along with the school they are affiliated with):

Judicial temperament is one of the most important qualities of a judge. As the Congressional Research Service explains, a judge requires “a personality that is even-handed, unbiased, impartial, courteous yet firm, and dedicated to a process, not a result.” The concern for judicial temperament dates back to our founding; in Federalist 78, titled “Judges as Guardians of the Constitution,” Alexander Hamilton expressed the need for “the integrity and moderation of the judiciary.”

We are law professors who teach, research and write about the judicial institutions of this country. Many of us appear in state and federal court, and our work means that we will continue to do so, including before the United States Supreme Court. We regret that we feel compelled to write to you, our Senators, to provide our views that at the Senate hearings on Sept. 27, Judge Brett Kavanaugh displayed a lack of judicial temperament that would be disqualifying for any court, and certainly for elevation to the highest court of this land.

The question at issue was of course painful for anyone. But Judge Kavanaugh exhibited a lack of commitment to judicious inquiry. Instead of being open to the necessary search for accuracy, Judge Kavanaugh was repeatedly aggressive with questioners. Even in his prepared remarks, Judge Kavanaugh described the hearing as partisan, referring to it as “a calculated and orchestrated political hit,” rather than acknowledging the need for the Senate, faced with new information, to try to understand what had transpired. Instead of trying to sort out with reason and care the allegations that were raised, Judge Kavanaugh responded in an intemperate, inflammatory and partial manner, as he interrupted and, at times, was discourteous to senators.

As you know, under two statutes governing bias and recusal, judges must step aside if they are at risk of being perceived as or of being unfair. As Congress has previously put it, a judge or justice “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” These statutes are part of a myriad of legal commitments to the impartiality of the judiciary, which is the cornerstone of the courts.

We have differing views about the other qualifications of Judge Kavanaugh. But we are united, as professors of law and scholars of judicial institutions, in believing that he did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament requisite to sit on the highest court of our land.

The Tide Has Turned Against Kavanaugh's Confirmation

These charts reflect the results of the new NPR / PBS NewsHour / Marist Poll -- done on October 1st of a national sample of 1,183 adults, with a 3.8 point margin of error.

It shows that by an 7 point gap the public now opposes the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to sit on the Supreme Court (41% to 48%). The opposition is mainly due to women. While men support confirmation by 7 points, women oppose it by 19 points.

The public also believes Dr. Ford over Kavanaugh by 12 points, gives Dr. Ford a favorable rating by 9 points, and rates Kavanaugh unfavorably by 11 points.

By being determined to push through the Kavanaugh confirmation, the Senate Republicans are playing with fire.

Nearly Half Of Voters Say NO To Kavanaugh Confirmation

These charts are from the new Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between September 27th and 30th of a national sample of 1,111 voters, with a margin of error of 3.7 points.

It shows that nearly half of voters (48%) think Brett Kavanaugh should NOT be confirmed to sit on the Supreme Court, while only 40% are in favor of confirmation -- a negative gap of 8 points. Men support confirmation by 9 points, but women oppose it by 18 points.

The poll also asked if Dr. Ford and Kavanaugh were honest. Dr. Ford was viewed as honest by 59% of voters, while Kavanaugh was viewed as honest by only 46%.

Voters don't like how either party is handing the accusations against Kavanaugh. Democrats have a 14 point deficit (38% to 52%), while Republicans have a 23 point deficit (33% to 56%).

Kavanaugh's Confirmation Will Hurt Credibility Of The Court

The chart above reflects the results of a new Change Research Poll. It was done on the evening of September 27th and the morning of September 28th of a national sample of 741 registered voters (no moe was given).

It shows that fully half of registered voters say putting Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court will damage the reputation (credibility) of that court. I agree.

Hearing Exposed Kavanaugh's Character (And It's Ugly)

The following is by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. He hits the nail right on its head.

Make no mistake: The drama that took place in hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018 was about power: On one side, the power of men who harass or abuse women and get away with it, the power of privileged white men to entrench their power even more on the Supreme Court, the power of men to take away a woman’s right to choose what she does with her body.

On the other side, the power of women with the courage to tell what has happened to them, to demand an end to white male privilege, and to preserve and enlarge their constitutional rights. 

Dr. Ford was poised, articulate, clear and convincing. No one who witnessed her testimony and her responses could conclude that she failed to tell the truth. More than that: She radiated self-assured power.

Brett Kavanaugh showed himself to be a vicious partisan – a Trump-like figure who feels entitled to do and say whatever he wants, who suspects leftwing plots against him, who refuses to take responsibility for his actions, who uses emotional bullying and intimidation to get his way.

Kavanaugh may still get on the Supreme Court, but there can no longer be any doubt about his temperament or character, or his politics. A large share of the American public will never trust him to be impartial. Many will never believe his denials of sexual harassment. Most will continue to see him as the privileged, arrogant, self-righteous person he has revealed himself to be.

I hope today’s performance convinces a critical mass of American women to do what must be done November 6 to give themselves a firm and clear voice in the Senate and in the rest of American government – to empower themselves at a time when the President, the majority of Congress, and a potential majority in the Supreme Court intend to disempower them.

Kavanaugh Lied Under Oath About His H.S. Drinking

(Cartoon image is by Darrin Bell at darrinbell.com.)

Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. He cried, he raged, and he did his best to pose as the victim. He also, in an attempt to paint a picture of himself as always abiding by the law, claimed several times that it was legal for him to drink beer while a senior in high school. He stated that several times in his sworn testimony before the committee.

There's only one problem with that. It is NOT TRUE. He lied.

He had said it was legal for 18 year-olds to drink in Maryland (where he went to high school). But Maryland had raised the drinking age to 21 on July 1, 1982 -- nearly 7 months before Kavanaugh turned 18 on February 12, 1983. It was never legal for Kavanaugh to drink beer (or any other alcoholic drink) before he turned 21.

Kavanaugh knew that. He just thought he could slip that lie by Congress while posing as a good person who never broke the law. But it brings up a question -- since he lied about drinking legally, what else is he lying about? Everything? It's a valid question.

I'm sure some will claim it's a small mistake, and he just didn't remember. I'm not buying it. Think about your own youth. Many of us drank before the legal age at times while a teenager. And we knew it was not legal. We also remember it as being illegal now that we are adults. So does Kavanaugh. He just stupidly didn't think anyone would check on it.

His confirmation vote has been put off for a week while the FBI investigates. I hope they find proof of more of his lies. He should never sit on the United States Supreme Court. If for no other reason, because he lied under oath to a Senate committee -- and it was witnessed by people on nationwide TV.

Senate Republicans Put On A Shameful Bit Of Theater

The Senate Judiciary Hearing was held on Thursday, and both Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh testified. Dr. Ford was credible and believable. Kavanaugh was not. But none of it makes a bit of difference anyway.

This was not an effort to get the truth. If it had been, they would have asked the FBI to investigate the new charges against Kavanaugh. They would have had other accusers testifying. And they would have had witnesses testifying that could corroborate their stories (or disprove them). But they didn't have any of that.

They didn't have it because this was nothing more than a bit of political theater. It was just an attempt by the Senate Republicans to try to provide some cover for what they have intended to do all along -- ignore all evidence and confirm Kavanaugh. Graham (pictured) made that very clear when he spent his time trying to turn Kavanaugh into the victim (he's not) and vilifying Democrats for trying to get the truth (even though all their efforts were blocked by the Republicans).

Kavanaugh's nomination will go to the Senate floor, and he will be confirmed. It's just false hope to think that Collins, Murkowski, Corker, or Flake will block the nomination. They are Republicans, and they will toe the party line. None of them have the courage to vote their convictions. That type of Republican hasn't existed since the death of John McCain.

I hope I'm wrong, But I wouldn't put any money on that remote possibility. I just hope decent Americans were watching -- and will punish the Republicans in November for putting a sex abuser on the Supreme Court.

NBC News Reports A Fourth Accusation About Kavanaugh

It's like the dam has broken, and the accusations against the character of Brett Kavanaugh are gushing forth. NBC News has learned of a fourth woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexually aggressive behavior. This latest incident happened in 1998, when Kavanaugh was an adult.

Here is what NBC reporters Kasie Hunt, Leigh Ann Caldwell, and Heidi Przybyla are reporting:

The Senate Judiciary Committee is inquiring about at least one additional allegation of misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, according to a letter obtained by NBC News and multiple people familiar with the process.

Republican Senate investigators asked Kavanaugh about the new complaint, NBC News has learned, during a phone call on Tuesday between Kavanaugh and committee staff. Sources told NBC News that Kavanaugh denied the allegation in the letter during the call and a spokesman for the committee declined to comment.

A Republican aide on the committee said the conversation took place shortly after noon. While Republican staff posed questions to Kavanaugh, their Democratic counterparts were also on the call but did not ask any questions.

According to an anonymous complaint sent to Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, Kavanaugh physically assaulted a woman he socialized with in the Washington, D.C., area in 1998 while he was inebriated.

The sender of the complaint described an evening involving her own daughter, Kavanaugh and several friends in 1998.

“When they left the bar (under the influence of alcohol) they were all shocked when Brett Kavanaugh, shoved her friend up against the wall very aggressively and sexually.”

“There were at least four witnesses including my daughter.” The writer of the letter provided no names but said the alleged victim was still traumatized and had decided to remain anonymous herself.

Support For Kavanaugh Is Very Weak Among The Public

Senate Republicans seem determined to push through the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to sit on the United States Supreme Court. Creating an ideological court leaning far to the right is more important to them than putting a decent person on the court (whether left or right).

That probably plays well with their deplorable base voters (who eagerly supported a man without morals or ethics in the 2016 election). But it's not registering well with the public in general (or with women in particular). Both groups show more disapproval of Kavanaugh than approval.

The charts above are from the newest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between September 23rd and 25th of a national sample of 1,500 adults, with a margin of error of 2.9 points.

Read The Sworn Affidavit Of Newest Kavanaugh Accuser

Here is the sworn affidavit of Julie Swetnick. Read it and ask yourself if you want this man (Brett Kavanaugh) to sit on the United States Supreme Court.

Best Option For GOP Is To Replace Kavanaugh

The accusations against Trump's Supreme Court nominee (Brett Kavanaugh) continue to multiply -- and they are serious accusations. If the Republicans were smart, they would dump Kavanaugh right now -- while there is still time to replace him with another nominee. But when was the last time they were smart?

Here is part of an excellent article by Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com:

The longer the GOP takes to replace Kavanaugh, the worse the timing problems become for them. If, say, the confirmation process on Kavanaugh drags out for another two weeks before he’s voted down or withdrawn, and then Trump takes another two weeks to choose a replacement because the overall process has become such a mess, then confirmation before the midterms would be extremely challenging. There also might not be enough time to seriously vet the new nominee before the lame-duck session, giving Republicans less margin for error then, too.

So why not just “plow right through” and vote to confirm Kavanaugh anyway, allegations and everything else aside? Although there’s a good chance McConnell is bluffing, that seems to be the current plan, with McConnell having promised a vote in the “near future” on Kavanaugh and no accusers other than Ford set to testify.

The problem is that this is an extremely live news story; with several new accusations having come out against Kavanaugh over the weekend and debates about the credibility of Ford’s allegations still ongoing. It’s hard to know what would happen to Kavanaugh if more accusations came out after he’d already been confirmed to the Supreme Court, but the possibilities include impeachment and serious long-term damage to the Court’s reputation — along with whatever additional price the GOP had to pay at the midterms. Even if the GOP were able to confirm Kavanaugh before the midterms this year, a landslide election could put the GOP in a considerably worse position to hold the Senate when other Supreme Court nominations come up in 2019 through 2024.

Put another way, there are huge risks to the GOP in both rushing to confirm Kavanaugh and in letting the process play out for several more weeks — which means that encouraging Kavanaugh to withdraw now, however painful it might be, is probably their least-worst option.

There is one other possibility, which is that McConnell — who reportedly didn’t want Kavanaugh to be chosen in the first place — could be rushing through the process in the hopes that Kavanaugh will be voted down (or forced to withdraw once it becomes clear that McConnell doesn’t have the votes). Back when Ford was Kavanaugh’s only accuser, this had seemed like a fairly likely exit strategy: The hearings would be engineered to allow Kavanaugh to save face, and perhaps to allow Republicans to stoke some grievances with their base. But wavering GOP senators such as Susan Collins and Jeff Flake would find some excuse to oppose his nomination and his nomination would be pulled. This scenario still seems like a distinct possibility — but the fact that the Kavanaugh story is developing so rapidly, with the stakes continuously increasing with every news cycle, could mean that McConnell is now pot-committed to the bluff even if he’d been hoping to keep his options open before.

Kavanaugh's Problems Multiplying (Do Republicans Care?)

(Cartoon image is by John Darkow in The Missourian.)

Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to be a Supreme Court Justice seemed to be a foregone conclusion. The Democrats weren't happy with his nomination (rightfully so), but they didn't have the votes to stop it. But then his past caught up with him.

It started when a college professor (Dr. Christine Blasey Ford) went public with an accusation about Kavanaugh sexually attacking her when she was 15 years old (and Kavanaugh was in high school). The Senate Republicans tried to ignore her and question why it took her so long to come forward. But her credibility was tough to question.

She had nothing to gain from the accusation. In fact, she knew she would be pilloried by the right -- and that quickly became true. She was threatened and had to move from her home for safety. We also know that she took, and passed, a lie detector test, and told this same story to a marriage counselor back in 2012 (long before Kavanaugh was nominated).

In the end, she was so credible that even the Republicans couldn't ignore her. They finally had to give in and invite her to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee -- but still refused to call any verification witnesses or allow the FBI to investigate the accusation. Evidently, they were afraid she was telling the truth, but still hoped to ram Kavanaugh's nomination through the Senate (after demonizing Ford in the hearing).

That would have been bad enough for Kavanaugh and the Republicans, but over the weekend his nomination got into more trouble -- as the dam broke on accusations anymore women came forth. It started with Deborah Ramirez, who attended Yale University with Kavanaugh. In an article in The New Yorker, she claims:

And that wasn't all. Then came some tweets from attorney Michael Avenatti like the following:

Avenatti says his client is not Dr. Ford or Ms. Ramirez, and he claims to have evidence that Kavanaugh and his buddies got girls drunk and gang-raped them.

Then we have this from the Montgomery Sentinel (in Maryland), which seems to be about a fourth woman coming forward with accusations regarding Kavanaugh.

Where there's smoke there's fire, and there's enough smoke surrounding Kavanaugh to mask a raging forest fire. Do the Republicans care? They don't seem to. Majority Leader McConnell says it's just a smear orchestrated by Democrats. If that was true, then an FBI investigation would expose it. But the Republicans still refuse to allow an investigation -- on any of the allegations.

I understand why Trump stands by Kavanaugh. Trump is incapable of admitting he made a mistake -- and in Trump's world, sexual crimes are nothing to worry about as long as the person committing them is rich, white, male, and Republican.

But with an election coming up, you'd think the Republicans in Congress would be a little smarter. Ignoring these women (or running roughshod over them) is not going to go over well with the public. It will energize voters, and hurt them in the election coming up fast.

They should make Trump withdraw the Kavanaugh nomination, or vote him down. I understand they want a right-wing judge on the Supreme Court, but there are plenty of right-wing judges that don't have Kavanaugh's kind of baggage -- and there's still time to get one confirmed.

But that would require them to exhibit some intelligence and ethics, and when was the last time congressional Republicans showed they have either?

Senate GOP Has Created Huge Problems For Themselves

In their desire to ram through the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, the Senate Republicans have created problems for themselves. Here is how Jennifer Rubin (pictured) describes that in The Washington Post:

They (Senate Republicans) will have no one to blame but themselves for setting up a number of lose-lose propositions:

• One cannot simultaneously claim there is not enough known and refuse to authorize an FBI follow-up to its original background check.
• When more allegations arise, one cannot perpetuate the notion that there is nothing to investigate.
• If the 11 male Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have to hide behind the skirts of an outside, female attorney who will ask questions of Ford, they will look cowardly and inept; if they do it themselves, they will no doubt look like bullies. (Sen. Ted Cruz, who faces a tough Senate reelection campaign in Texas, could easily blow his race by a true-to-form obnoxious performance.)
• The committee is not calling other witnesses, but the Farrow and Mayer account set forth a batch of people who might have critical information.
• The Republicans won’t put Judge under oath as a witness, strongly suggesting that he has something damaging to say. Since he won’t be there, Democrats will accept as true that the Georgetown Prep teens regularly got intoxicated, making it impossible for them to recall accurate events when they were stone-cold drunk.
• Through a Wile E. Coyote-like disastrous attempt to prove mistaken identity, Republicans in effect conceded that Ford was attacked. They also made it nearly impossible to convince the public that someone else was the attacker.
• Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who wanted to calm down President Trump, publicly conceded that nothing Ford said was going to change their minds. They thereby set a new low standard: Even if there is credible evidence of a sex crime, the nominee gets a pass. One wonders how many women will have to come forward before they take this seriously.
• Since Trump inadvertently launched the #WhyIDidn’tReport movement, it would be awfully hard for Republicans to grill Ford (or Ramirez) on the failure to report. Ironically, Ford got some inoculation, if you will, on her decision not to step forward as a 15-year-old. She should thank the president for jump-starting the #WhyIDidn’tReport movement.

One cannot help but sense that the (ultimately losing) hardball tactics that Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) used in negotiating Ford’s appearance were designed to dissuade her from appearing for testimony. Really, that was the best chance Republicans had to get past this. Now, with their own position damaged in ways described above, they have to bet that Ford isn’t a good witness for herself and that Ramirez doesn’t offer to appear, too. In any case, one senses that Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination is in deep trouble and even his current status on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit might be imperiled.

Opposition To Kavanaugh's Confirmation Is Climbing

These charts are from the latest NBC News / Wall Street Journal Poll -- done between September 16th and 19th of a national sample of 900 registered voters, with a 3.27 point margin of error.

It shows that while support for confirming Brett Kavanaugh has risen by 2 points since July (from 32% to 34%), opposition has risen by 12 points (26% to 38%). That means net approval has gone from a positive 6 points to a negative 4 points.

Net support has risen among Republicans by 7 points, but has dropped among Independents by 12 points and among Democrats by 16 points.

These are not the kind of numbers that will help Republicans in November if they try to force through Kavanaugh's confirmation.

Note in the chart below that Kavanaugh is the most unpopular Supreme Court nominee since Robert Bork.