Tag Archives: Robert Bork

The Charges Against Justice Clarence Thomas

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Justice Thomas has been a problem for the political left since he was nominated. The trumped-up charges against him did not work, and the Democrats were not able to deny him a seat on the Supreme Court as they had done to Robert Bork in 1987. Now, the Democrats want him investigated for vacationing with a friend and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants him impeached. So what exactly is going on?

On Friday, The Epoch Times reported:

After a news report highlighted luxurious vacations Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas allegedly accepted from a wealthy friend, Thomas said he was advised he didn’t have to report the trips. In a new statement, Thomas denied any wrongdoing and vowed to follow new reporting requirements imposed on the federal judiciary.

Thomas’s critics in Congress promptly seized on the report last week of the vacations, suggesting it raised the appearance of impropriety.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) demanded that the justice be impeached, saying his actions evidenced an “almost cartoonish” level of corruption. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s panel on federal courts, called for an independent investigation of the justice, who has long been a target of the left.

Whitehouse and other critics also say that justices whose spouses are involved in political activism, like Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, is active in conservative politics, should have to recuse themselves from involvement in cases related to that activism. Despite pressure, the justice declined to recuse himself from the various challenges to the disputed 2020 presidential election that made it to the Supreme Court.

Billionaire businessman and Republican Party donor Harlan Crow, who made the gifts to Thomas, has reportedly not had any business before the Supreme Court, so any allegation of a conflict of interest rests on weak grounds.

Nor is it clear if Thomas violated the judicial ethics code by not declaring the vacations. Legal experts say the code does not apply to the Supreme Court. The court has said in the past that the justices voluntarily adhere to the ethics guidelines.

Crow reportedly said the trips with Thomas and his wife were “no different from the hospitality that we have extended to many other dear friends.”

The article notes that he probably was not required to report the vacations:

“As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” the justice said.

“Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.

“I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines. These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance.

“And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future,” Thomas said.

Just another Democrat witch-hunt.

Does Anyone Remember Robert Bork?

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On September 29, 2020, The Federalist posted an article remembering some of the activities surrounding the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork.

The article reports:

Mary Ellen Bork, the widow to the late federal Judge Robert Bork, wrote a response to an article in the Wall Street Journal reminding readers of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s role in her husband’s failed confirmation to the Supreme Court.

“Most people don’t remember the hearings on Robert Bork for nomination to the Supreme Court, but I do,” she wrote. “The week of hearings in 1987 showed me Joe Biden’s partisanship and pragmatism.”

…The original article in the Wall Street Journal states, “This began the modern era of hyper-politicized judicial nominations, though for the Supreme Court it has largely been a one-way partisan street.”

According to the widow, the “Democrats flagrantly lied about Bob’s record of opinions,” just days after Biden dropped out of the presidential race due to plagiarism.

“In the course of one week Sen. Biden orchestrated a vicious lying assault and was caught passing off someone else’s words as his own,” she said. “Thirty-three years later he is still a man without a compass, guided now by prevailing progressive winds.”

Be prepared for a rerun of the Democrat’s activities surrounding that nomination.

Breitbart is reporting the following today:

Senator Chris Coons (D-DL) said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s positions were “disqualifying” for the post she was seeking.

Coons said, “Well, I’m going to be laying out the ways in which Judge Barrett’s views, her views on reaching back and reconsidering and overturning long-settled precedent are not just extreme, they are disqualifying.”

He continued, “She has taught at a well-regarded law school. She clerked for Justice Scalia, but she has views that make her not qualified to serve on the Supreme Court. President Trump has said he would only nominate someone who would overturn the Affordable Care Act, taking away health care protection for more than 100 million Americans in the middle of a pandemic. Both President Trump and members of the majority on this committee have said they would only vote for a nominee who would overturn Roe vs. Wade.”

I would like to refer back to an article at rightwinggranny posted on September 27.

I stated the following:

There are a few things that should be noted about the upcoming confirmation hearings. Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on May 8, 2017, and confirmed on October 31, 2017, by a 55 to 43 vote. Three Democrats voted with the Republicans–Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, and Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly. That was less than three years ago. She has been vetted.

This is going to be very ugly, and there will be a lot of lies told by those who oppose this nomination. The lady is extremely qualified and should be confirmed. However, the Democrats will do anything to prevent that from happening. That is a shame, but that is where we are.

The Basis Of The Argument

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The Democrats have become somewhat unglued at the prospect of President Trump nominating someone to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the November election. They have said that if they win the Senate, they will add justices to the Supreme Court to blunt the influence of President Trump’s appointees and that they will end the filibuster (which allows the minority in the Senate to have some degree of power). It is becoming obvious that they have no intention of ‘playing well with others.’ Considering how they have handled some nominations in the past (Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, to name a few), we can expect a true ‘scorched earth’ policy when someone is nominated. They are very upset at the prospect of the President naming a Justice during an election year. But they were also upset when the Senate refused to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell cited the ‘Biden Rule’ as the reason the nomination was not considered. So what is the Biden rule?

In a speech given on June 25, 1992, Joe Biden, who was then Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee stated:

Given the unusual rancor that prevailed in the Thomas nomination, the need for some serious reevaluation of the nomination and confirmation process and the overall level of bitterness that sadly infects our political system and this Presidential campaign already, it is my view that the prospects for anything but conflagration with respect to a Supreme Court nomination this year are remote at best.

Of Presidents Reagan’s and Bush’s last seven selections of the Court, two were not confirmed and two more were approved with the most votes cast against them in the history of the United States of America.

We have seen how, Mr. President, in my view, politics has played far too large a role in the Reagan-Bush nominations to date. One can only imagine that role becoming overarching if a choice were made this year, assuming a Justice announced tomorrow that he or she was stepping down.

Should a Justice resign this summer and the President move to name a successor, actions that will occur just days before the Democratic Presidential Convention and weeks before the Republican Convention meets, a process that is already in doubt in the minds of many will become distrusted by all. Senate consideration of a nominee under these circumstances is not fair to the President, to the nominee, or to the Senate itself.

Mr. President, where the Nation should be treated to a consideration of constitutional philosophy, all it will get in such circumstances is partisan bickering and political posturing from both parties and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. As a result, it is my view that if a Supreme Court Justice resigns tomorrow, or within the next several weeks, or resigns at the end of the summer, President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not–and not–name a nominee until after the November election is completed.

In 2016, the Democrats said there was no ‘Biden rule.’ Now there is a ‘Biden rule.’ So which is it? Either you believe that the Merrick Garland nomination was handled properly and the rule should be followed or you don’t. This is a glaring example of why Americans do not trust politicians to do the right thing.

There was a valid argument in 2016. The President was a lame duck, and the Senate was controlled by the opposing party. If the President were a Republican and the Senate controlled by the Democrats, would the Democrats have acted any differently than the Republicans? I believe that is the real question here.

 

When The Politics Of Personal Destruction Became Acceptable

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Many Americans look around at the political scene and wonder how we got to the point where anyone who disagrees with those in the media (and any liberal) is a horrible person probably guilty of hate speech. The concept of personal destruction has been with us for a while, but there are a few moments in American history that we can point to as watershed moments. One is the confirmation hearing of Robert Bork in 1987.

Robert Bork was recognized as a qualified conservative judge. In 1962, he became a law professor at Yale. In 1982, Ronald Reagan appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. In 1987, he was nominated for the Supreme Court. His nomination hearing was one of the low points of American history. The unfounded attacks on him were a shadow of things to come.

Yesterday PJ Media posted an article about Joe Biden’s role in the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork.

The article notes:

During the fourth Democratic debate on Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden — the ostensible moderate in the race — bragged about his role in the acrimonious political attack that first made Supreme Court confirmation battles as vicious as they are today. While Democrats often blame House Speaker Newt Gingrich for coarsening America’s political rhetoric, the character assassination of Robert Bork first ignited the partisan political warfare that hit a fever pitch with Trump.

Biden is campaigning on a platform of “restoring the soul” of America, aiming to reverse the influence of Trump, whom he blames for the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va. Yet the former VP played a key role in the political declaration of war that turned Bork’s last name into a verb. On Tuesday, he bragged about that.

Asked about abortion, the former senator — and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman — bragged, “When I defeated Robert Bork, I made sure we guaranteed a woman’s right to choose for the better part of a generation.”

So the smearing of Robert Bork (also the smearing of Brett Kavanaugh) was actually about abortion. It worked the first time; it didn’t work the second time–Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed–Judge Bork was not.

The article continues:

Yet bragging about Bork is a bad strategy, especially for a candidate who aims to present himself as a return to political civility.

As Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) wrote in his excellent book Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal, the “Borking” of Robert Bork helped create the “angry constituency” that spurred on (Newt) Gingrich’s success.

…Biden played a large role in the character assassination.

Stage management was a key part of this made-for-tv political drama, and one of the central cast members was the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Delaware Senator Joe Biden. His former staffers later admitted that chairman Biden hatched a plan to work with outside advocacy groups to heighten the visibility of the Bork hearings. Biden thought a Supreme Court fight could be a key lever to boosting his name recognition in advance of the 1988 Democratic primary.

Because character assassination worked in that instance, the Democrat party has tried it on other occasions. It wasn’t until they tried it on President Trump that they met someone who was willing and able to fight back. That is one of many reasons that the Democrats are trying to remove him from office–their normal bag of tricks is not working on him.

Questionable At Best

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The October Surprise is a political tactic that has been used in the past to convince the public that a candidate is unfit for office. It is done close enough to the election so that there is not adequate time to research the the accusation before the election. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. Somehow the accusation and the accusers disappear after the election. Rarely does the accused get a chance to redeem his reputation. In the past the tactic has been used in presidential campaigns and Congressional campaigns. A form of it has also been used to attempt to block Supreme Court nominees. It worked on Robert Bork; it failed on Clarence Thomas. I have no idea what is going to happen with Judge Kavanaugh.

There are a few things to consider in the attack on Judge Kavanaugh. Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article today that revealed the following:

It looks like Brett Kavanaugh’s mother, Judge Martha Kavanaugh, ruled against the parents of Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accuses Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Court documents show the losing party in a foreclosure case Martha Kavanaugh heard to be Ralph and Paula Blasey of Potomac, Maryland. They appear to be Christine Blasey Ford’s parents.

The fact that Kavanaugh’s mother ruled against Ford’s parents doesn’t prove Ford is lying about the conduct of the son. Her allegation, coming so many years after the fact and without a description of when or where the event supposedly occurred, is probably not susceptible to being ruled out conclusively. But there now seems to be a motive, beyond partisan politics, for Ford to make up or significantly embellish her story so long after the “fact.”

In any event, the fact that Ford’s story, having been presented so late and with little detail as to time and place, is probably not susceptible to being ruled out means that, if not “ruled in” conclusively, the story should not preclude Kavanaugh’s confirmation. We have statutes of limitations for a reason.

Finally, unless we accept the view that Kavanaugh truly attempted to rape this girl, I don’t believe his conduct provides a basis for rejecting his nomination. Kavanaugh was still a teenager. More than five dozen women who knew him at the time vouch for his behavior. His female law clerks consider him a gentleman and a mentor.

The American Thinker posted an article today detailing some of Ms. Ford’s student reviews. It is very obvious that Ms. Ford easily fits into the category of a radical liberal. The question is whether or not she has any foundational principles that would prevent her from making false accusations.

The article at The American Thinker concludes:

So has Kavanaugh gotten on Ford’s bad side by expressing conservative ideas?  Probably.  And even if her allegations are true, I very much doubt she’d have come forward had Kavanaugh stayed on her good side by being a leftist reprobate in the mold of Slick Willie or Chappaquiddick Ted Kennedy.  For a good example of such situational sexual mores, note that liberal reporter Nina Burleigh actually said in 1998 about B. Clinton, “I’d be happy to give him [oral sex] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal.”

As for Kavanaugh, unless it’s shown that he’s like Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy and has exhibited a pattern of sexual wrongdoing, there’s nothing to see here.  Ford claims that the 36-year-old alleged incident of sexual misconduct took place in a room with only her and the two boys present.  So while 65 women who knew Kavanaugh in high school have come forward to vouch for his character as a gentleman, Ford’s lone word is the only claim against him.  Heck, there are more testimonials as to Ford’s alleged insanity than there are regarding Kavanaugh’s alleged impropriety.

This is foul play on the part of the anti-Trump crowd. The fact that Jeff Flake is using these accusations as an excuse not to vote Judge Kavanaugh out of committee and let the Senate vote is an indication of where things are. The fact that the Democrats are using this tactic to attempt to stall the nomination also illustrates their pettiness in trying to prevent the President from exercising his Constitutional right to select judges. The actions of Diane Feinstein and the other Democrats involved in this smear campaign are a disgrace to their party and to their country. These are the people who supported Bill Clinton as President when there was current evidence against him. Now they have discovered morality and can’t support a man with a questionable accusation from thirty years ago. That really does not pass the smell test.

An Attempt To Bork Kavanaugh

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Robert Bork would have made a fantastic Supreme Court judge. He was brilliant and understood the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately he was blocked from being a Supreme Court Justice because of the antics of that bastion of virtue Ted Kennedy. A similar tactic was tried on Justice Thomas, but it didn’t work. Justice Thomas, thankfully, sits on the Supreme Court. Now the attempt is being make to prevent Judge Kavanaugh from being confirmed. It is an ugly attempt, and hopefully it will fail.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday detailing the problems with the Democrats’ case against Judge Kavanaugh. Diane Feinstein has come up with a letter charging Judge Kavanaugh with inappropriate behavior when he was in high school. In the article, Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal listed the problems with the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh:

Strassel began by pointing out reports from the New York Times that suggested Feinstein had at least been aware of the letter’s existence since summer — and argued that if the accusation was truly damning enough to warrant an FBI investigation, it would have been reason enough for Feinstein to present it to authorities immediately.

…Strassel went on to question whether a letter concerning enough to warrant a federal investigation should have been shared with Senate Republicans, who, just like their Democratic counterparts, were charged to “advise and consent” with regard to Kavanaugh’s nomination. Additionally, she suggested that if the accuser had explicitly stated a request to not take things further, Feinstein could be betraying that trust by going to the FBI.

…Finally, Strassel argued that the timing of the letter’s introduction into public discourse “cannot be ignored” — it was made public only after Senate Democrats made numerous attempts to stall or delay Kavanaugh’s hearings, all of which were shut down.

Approval of nominees is supposed to be based on the qualifications of the nominee. Unfortunately in recent years, it has become extremely political. I firmly believe that barring unusual circumstances, a President is entitled to appoint the people he chooses. That courtesy was extended to President Obama, who appointed Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. The appointment of Merrick Garland was blocked according to the ‘Biden Rule’ put in place under George W. Bush. The Democrats invented the ‘Biden Rule’ to block an appointment by President Bush. It is only fair that they got hoisted on their own petard.

I believe that the Democrats need to confirm Judge Kavanaugh. Their stall tactics are only creating bad feelings that will come back to bite them in the future.

 

Some Thoughts On Brett Kavanaugh

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Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial today about some of the reactions to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Justice. Some of the attacks on this man by the political left are so ridiculous they are funny.

The editorial cites one example of the attacks:

The Washington Post red-flagged the fact that Kavanaugh racked up nearly $200,000 in credit card debt to buy season tickets to the Washington Nationals baseball team and also for “home improvements.”

A big chunk of change, to be sure. But…what? It’s a bit hard to argue Kavanaugh wasn’t gainfully employed. The Post further makes a big deal that Kavanaugh’s most recent financial form shows less than $70,000 in assets. Sound poor? Does that disqualify him from service on the Supreme Court? Do we now have an asset test for all Court nominees?

What’s absurd about the “assets” is they don’t include his six-figure income and generous pension from being a federal judge. Nor does it include the value of his home. We don’t know what those are, but we’re pretty sure the net value of both is well north of $1 million.

It gets worse:

The Post also “reported,” if that’s the word, that Kavanaugh proclaimed himself Treasurer of the “Keg City Club — 100 Kegs or Bust” in his high school yearbook, and referred to the “Beach Week Ralph Club” and “Rehoboth Police Fan Club.”

So, teenage hijinks are now a solid disqualification for service on the federal bench?

Of course, this is all recycled pap from Kavanaugh’s approval process to be a federal judge. It’s mostly all known. Why repeat it? Anything to sully a man’s reputation. After all, recall how both Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas were smeared by the left during their confirmation battles. Together, they were two of the most disgusting and unfair spectacles in American political history.

I that is all the dirt they can find on this man, he totally deserves to be confirmed in the next two months!

Confirmation Of The Obvious

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Newsbusters posted an article today about some recent comments by Joe Biden. The comments provide insight into the poisonous atmosphere that permeates Washington, D.C.

The article reports Joe Biden’s comments in an interview with Jon Favreau on “Pod Save America,” a liberal podcast.

This is part of the conversation:

FAVREAU: Well, sir, I wanted to start with the economy but, real quick, if Democrats take back the Senate and a seat opens up on the Supreme Court in the next two years, should Democrats hold that seat open like Republicans did to Obama?

BIDEN: I don’t think so.

FAVREAU: Even if it means they get another Gorsuch?

BIDEN: No, no, that’s a big difference. Remember, I’m the guy that kept there from being a guy who was maybe the most brilliant conservative who was nominated for the Supreme Court (Favreau snickers) and I kept him off the court. And I was able to … in the Judiciary Committee (to) defeat (Clarence) Thomas (nominated by the elder Bush four years later). Bork got flat defeated. Thomas got defeated in committee. But the Constitution says the Senate shall advise and consent, not a committee shall advise and consent. And so, you know, you can, I don’t think we should step away for a moment.

The article concludes:

…Biden lets the cat out of the bag. The biggest problem for liberals when it came to Bork was not his originalist views of the Constitution, or that he pulled the trigger for Nixon in the so-called Saturday Night Massacre, but the fact that he was brilliant and could be expected to push the court to the right for generations to come — hence he had to be destroyed. How seemingly gracious of Biden to acknowledge Bork as legal exemplar, albeit long after it mattered and seeing how it is now beyond dispute.

Worth noting is that Bork’s months-long nomination battle in 1987 roughly aligned with Biden’s first doomed run for the presidency which ended amid growing evidence of propensity for plagiarizing remarks from other politicians. Also leading the charge against Bork that year was Senator Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. This week, a movie comes out portraying how Kennedy left a woman to drown in his car while he waited 10 hours to report the accident and focused instead on saving his political hide. It’s taken Hollywood nearly 50 years to depict one of worst — and most dramatic — political scandals of the last century. But again, better late than never.

It is truly sad that we have reached the point in our government where the political leanings of a Supreme Court nominee are more important than his qualifications. Unfortunately, I am not optimistic that this is ever going to change.