Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Kavanaugh Confirmed to Supreme Court

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Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed by a 50-48 majority in the United States Senate, and will replace retired Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy on the United States Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was President Donald Trump’s (R) second Supreme Court nominee, following the nomination of now-Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch to replace Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.

Justice Kennedy announced his retirement in June, and Kavanaugh was nominated by Trump in early July. Kennedy was a moderate justice, often serving as a tiebreaker between the “conservative” and “liberal” wings of the court. Kavanaugh is generally viewed as a nonpartisan and pragmatic conservative jurist. He is a proponent of textualism, which is the judicial philosophy that the Constitution should be applied as written and not continually reinterpreted as a “living” document. Kavanaugh’s confirmation shifts the ideological balance of the court from essentially tied to a narrow conservative majority.

The U.S. Constitution charges the Senate with providing “advice and consent” on judicial nominations. Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation process turned unusually contentious after Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) publicized an accusation that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford at a party in the early 1980s. Feinstein released this information to the public six weeks after receiving it, apparently timing that release for maximum political effect. Ford later testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the alleged assault. Kavanaugh strongly denied the accusations, which remain uncorroborated by any of Ford’s named witnesses.

Following efforts in 2017 by Democratic senators to filibuster Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch, the Senate invoked the “nuclear option” and prohibited the filibuster of Supreme Court nominations, expanding a rule that already prohibited the filibuster of lower judicial nominees. Accordingly, Kavanaugh’s nomination moved quickly to a straight up-or-down vote after being brought before the full Senate.

Kavanaugh is likely to be sworn-in and begin performing his duties on the Supreme Court some time next week.

About the Kavanaugh Accusation and Vote

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Brett Kavanaugh, a federal judge who has been nominated by President Donald Trump (R) to become an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, has been accused of a sexual assault that occurred when he was a teenager. The accuser, Doctor Christine Blasey Ford, testified about this accusation yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Kavanaugh himself testified later in the day and vehemently denied Ford’s claim.

A Committee vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination is expected today, and the full Senate will likely take it up next week. Already, Democratic senators are walking out of the Committee meeting and demanding delays.

I have a few brief notes about all of this:

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NASA
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Many areas of North Carolina and South Carolina have been devastated by Hurricane Florence, which dropped record-setting precipitation and caused widespread flooding throughout both states.

If you would like to help support victims of this disaster, please consider making a donation to a reputable disaster relief charity like Catholic Charities USA or the American Red Cross. Your donations will be used to help provide for the safety and well-being of the victims of this disaster.

Senator McCain Dead at 81

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Senator McCain

Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a former prisoner of war, presidential candidate, and long-serving member of the U.S. Senate, has died at the age of 81. McCain announced in July of 2017 that he was suffering from a glioblastoma, a particularly deadly type of brain cancer, and has been in declining health.

McCain was the son of a U.S. Navy admiral, born in the Panama Canal Zone when it was a U.S. territory. McCain served as a U.S. Navy pilot during the Vietnam War, where he was injured in the USS Forrestal fire but quickly returned to service. He was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and seriously wounded, and was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years. He refused offers of early release ahead of prisoners who had been captured before him, despite having been subjected to torture and abuse at the hands of his captors.

After retiring from the navy in 1981, McCain launched a successful campaign to represent Arizona’s first district in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served two terms. In 1986, he was elected to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate, and served in that role until his death. McCain unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, losing to then-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX). After Bush served two terms as president, McCain won the 2008 Republican nomination. He lost the general election to then-Senator Barack Obama (D-IL).

During his career in politics, McCain earned a reputation as a “maverick” who sometimes bucked the Republican party line.

Under Arizona law, senate vacancies are filled by gubernatorial nomination until the next regularly scheduled statewide general election, at which time the seat is filled by special election. Governor Doug Ducey (R-AZ) is required to select a member of the same political party as the holder of the vacated seat until a special election is held. Because it is likely too late to change the November 2018 ballot, the special election to fill McCain’s seat is expected to occur in 2020.

Battle of Chickamauga (Kurz & Allison)
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Near the end of June, a poll by Rasmussen Reports said that thirty-two percent of Americans agreed that “it’s likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years,” and a whopping fifty-nine percent were concerned that “those opposed to President Trump’s policies will resort to violence.”

This might leave you with the impression that things are looking pretty bad for the future of America . . . and perhaps they are. We seem to be simmering right at the edge of an eruption into political violence. The rhetoric between America’s “left” and “right” wings has adopted a kind of hateful irrationality, where it has become acceptable to turn the slightest political disagreement into screaming accusations of bigotry, misogyny, conspiracy, and treason. It stands to reason that, with so many people having so many overheated emotions, it would not take much to turn this powder-keg into a bomb. But it will not result in a civil war. Not yet, anyway.

The good news is that we are in the midst of an important political correction . . . though it is a small one and it is still reversible.

In recent decades we have seen an unprecedented string of assaults on human rights, with razor-thin victories in the U.S. Supreme Court for free speech, the freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, and more. Of course there have also been razor-thin losses for private property rights and federalism. And, headed into the 2016 presidential election, there was a vacancy on the court. Justice Antonin Scalia, who was usually on the right side of these and other issues, died in February 2016, and President Barack Obama’s (D) nomination of Judge Merrick Garland stalled thanks to the hypocritical actions of the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.

Read more . . .

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.