Yesterday, in his opening statement at his confirmation hearing, Brett Kavanaugh spoke at length about his love for his daughters. He is a proud father. At the end of his hearing, as he got up to leave, he was approached by Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter, Jamie, in the massacre at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last February. Mr. Guttenberg outstretched his hand to say hello to Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh listened for a few seconds, then turned on his heel and walked away.
Kavanaugh is an absolutist on the subject of gun rights. He doesn’t believe that the Congress or state legislatures should restrict gun ownership in any way, shape, or form. The Founders, after all, did not ban assault weapons. They did not ban 3-D printed guns or bazookas or civilian ownership of shoulder-fired missiles.
Just another reason to hope that this heartless man is not confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court for the rest of his life, where he can be counted on to oppose abortion rights, health care, gun control, environmental regulation, and every other progressive legislation of the past century.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am so sick of DUMP and his gangsters. IMPEACH.
The Koch’s Pence is in the wings. After reading the Koch/Paul Weyrich training manual at Theocracy Watch, you may not be so sure about ousting Trump.
I say oust them both. The election was a farce.
Amen.
Schumer made a deal with Mitch McConnell to fast track 15 lower court judges and he got little in return. Progressives (not the corporate-funded Center for American Progress) now demand that Schumer lead by ensuring all elected Democrats in D.C. oppose Kavanaugh. Under the leadership of men like Schumer and Podesto the Dems lost the House, Senate, Presidency, governorships and 1000 legislative seats. With friends like Schumer and Podesto, Dems don’t need enemies.
Schumer is not only NOT a Progressive, he is a shill for big money as the Republican Party. After all, he knows where palms are greased (financial ‘industry’) and isn’t about to disrupt the gravy train.
The traditional Democratic Party (the Party of Roosevelt) lost, big time. Under Clinton (Bill), and Obama, it just continued to slide until it is now so weak (in terms of ideas about helping the average citizen) that most folks are beginning to notice.
Both Parties have been co-opted by a tiny fraction of the very wealthy.
JFK (perhaps the last, best hope for American democracy) said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable..”
How come all the Supreme Court Justices who were appointed by the Democrats you call the “shills of big money” are there?
Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Supreme Court would have been a check on the right wing takeover and very likely have repealed Citizens United had Hillary Clinton won. And the evil Chuck Schumer would have been there voting FOR the nominees.
If you don’t like the judges and justices that are appointed by Republicans then vote for Democrats. If you complain because Democrats aren’t fighting “hard enough” when you have specifically voted to make sure that Democrats had no power at all, then that is on you and only you.
Those Democratically appointed judges never produced a majority that could dominate the discussion. Why are they there?
I’m sure those judges do what they can. RBG writes great ‘dissenting opinions’ that may, someday, be important. However, when the balance just might have shifted, Obama named a ‘centrist’, and the Democrats couldn’t even push through that.
Those judges are there because they give the appearance of legitimacy to the SC. They are there for the same reason as the Roman Senate during the times of Empire, to mollify public outrage.
Let me say, ‘NYC parent’ below, that it is you, not me, that put Trump in office. You supported people like Clinton and still support them as the continue to apply ‘window dressing’ to their war against progressive ideas that was the very backbone of the New Deal. People want a new ‘New Deal’ style change, not someone in the pockets of Big Money fat cats who changes the message at the whim of a poll. They want someone that vociferously stands for programs that the majority of the middle class want, and they want to see a record supporting that stance.
They DON’T want to see someone nuzzling up to Goldman Sachs and hobnobbing at thousand’s-of-dollars-a-plate dinners.
Until Democrats begin to stand up for democracy in demonstrable ways, they will continue to lose.
The Democrats could not push Merrick Garland through confirmation, or even to get a hearing, because they were in the minority.
That’s like asking, why can’t they stop Kavanaugh?
The tragedy is the elimination of the 60 vote rule for Supreme Court Justices. That forced presidents to pick nominees who could get the votes of at least 60 senators. Neither Gorsuch nor Kavanaugh would have been appointed or confirmed because they are extremists.
Thanks, Diane, for pointing out that difference. However, Democrats didn’t even try. And the REAL tragedy (in the Greek sense of Karma biting you in the butt) is that Democrats were the first to pull the ‘nuclear option’ trigger in 2013, thus destroying the 60 vote rule. How could they then reimpose it with a straight face? It was only a small step to move it to Supreme Court nominees as well, and they knew that.
Now, that’s tragedy and irony in a nutshell. Too bad it isn’t a simple theatrical production. From that distance, it’s almost a farce.
Turning his back showed a gross lack of social skills…especially from a public servant. Kavanaugh also gushed about his mom’s public school teaching and his wife’s public and state school education, but for some reason, Kavanaugh or his kids attending public school was not an option. I would love to ask his mother why public school kids were good enough for her paycheck, but not good enough for her son.
Her son’s actions yesterday only confirmed my fear that he believes some people are better than others and his daughters should be inoculated in a private school away from the riff raff. I wonder if he believes that father was reckless putting his kids in a public school in the first place.
Kavanaugh is a strong supporter of religious school vouchers.
I believe that your assessment is correct. see
https://thinkprogress.org/brett-kavanaugh-betsy-devos-education-school-choice-5d3e792e0c70/
It was more than a lack of ‘social skills’. It was a window into his soul, a window that revealed the sociopathy that makes him so attractive to Trump, but so dangerous to America. This little incident answered more questions that all of the rest of his testimony.
My biggest question is why he would bring his daughters to a brutal, eleven hour, confirmation hearing. They missed school for THAT???
I am not defending Kavanaugh, but it is possible, in all the noise and din of the hearing room, that he did not hear what Fred Guttenberg was even saying. Not to mention, Kavanaugh’s stress levels were probably through the roof. Or the more likely reason is that Brett K. is a rabid pro gun nut. Even if Kavanaugh had shaken hands with Mr. Guttenberg, he would still be a horrible choice for the SCOTUS.
Kavanaugh is the NRA/libertarian/far right wing choice, I hope he doesn’t make it to the SCOTUS but the GOP has all the power right now. Vote D in November and later in 2020.
If you watch Kavanaugh’s face, he listens to the other father say his name, then turns on his heel. I agree that he will be a horrible SC Justice, even if he did shake the father’s hand.
Joe. Please check out this on “not hearing.” He heard clearly.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/4/1793289/-After-being-snubbed-father-of-Parkland-victim-says-Kavanaugh-asked-security-to-remove-him?detail=emaildkre
I know this is soooo middle school, but is anyone else as creeped out by him as I am? His feigned interest and strategic note taking is getting on my nerves. His comment on the Nixon case caused a reverse spit take and almost killed me.
FOX did a slow motion review of the encounter because they figured that this would be an issue. Now, why did they think that?? He was going to shake hands and speak to the gentleman but was pushed aside by the secret service who is responsible for his safety. They cannot allow a stranger getting that close to him. I think this is a non issue.
No, April. No security agent stepped between them. The Parkland dad extended his hand and identified himself to Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh blinked and turned his back to him. No one came between them.
Not quite true the agent came between them after Kavanaugh turned and started walking away. That was unmistakable; the only way to say there was an agent between them is with a snapshot not a video.
But we are missing the reality that short of a video of Kavanaugh molesting one of the girls on his daughter’s team. He will be confirmed.
The only question is whether the normal Washington dog and pony show continues. Will the Democrats hold ranks or will the usual suspects provide cover for the one or two Republicans who break ranks.
Let us stop pretending that the courts are apolitical they have always been political. Will the Democrats have the guts to correct this by blowing through the filibuster and expanding the court.
The claim is always made that Democrats appoint activist judges who legislate through the courts. In the last 7 elections, Democrats won the popular vote in 6. Yet Republicans have held a majority on the court since 1970. The court has reversed voting rights, rewritten the Second Amendment, decimated labor rights, refused to reverse gerrymandering, all things that could never pass in the Congress. And now the court is decidedly more conservative than it has been in my lifetime and far more so than the population of the country on most issues.
Even MSNBC’s expert lawyers reviewing this early this afternoon (both of whom had been part of multiple SCOTUS hearings) declined to fault Kavanaugh for this. Both said that the combo of noise level & stress level at that juncture made it likely that the candidate could not hear &/or not compute the import of the transaction. But they noted that Kavanaugh had already passed up one opening [during Lindsay questioning I think?] — tho he’d likely be given more opportunities during further Rep Q’ing– to correct the negative impression w/ at minimum an acknowledgment of the man’s loss/ suffering.
I will be following this w/interest. If Kavanaugh declines to amend this apparent gaffe, it will sound to me like refusal to address the human import of his on-the-record Heller dissent. Which would give the lie to all the many times today & yesterday that he has claimed to be “aware” of the import on individual human lives of his judicial decisions.
Brett Kavanaugh: “No president has ever consulted more widely or talked with more people from more backgrounds to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.”
Kamala Harris: “Did someone write it for you?”
Kavanaugh: “No I absolutely wrote it myself and I believe every single word because in my JUDGEMENT President Trump got more input than any other President in history. That’s why I will make a good Supreme Court justice. I just know when a Republican President is the best ever and I don’t need no stinkin’ evidence to tell me what to decide.”
^Either Brett Kavanaugh committed perjury or he admits that his perception of the world is based not no any evidence but his own beliefs of what is true.
If Kavanaugh judges Trump superior as he claims he has, then why would anyone trust his judgement on the Supreme Court?