Brett Kavanaugh's Nomination Advanced

[Black Orchid]

The United States Senate has voted to advance Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, despite allegations of sexual misconduct that further inflamed a bitter partisan fight about the judge — but a handful of senators could still derail his confirmation.

Senators backed President Donald Trump's nominee Mr Kavanaugh by 51 to 49 in a procedural vote that moved the Republican-controlled Senate toward a definitive decision that is set for Saturday (US time).

Confirming Mr Kavanaugh to the lifetime post would hand Mr Trump a clear victory and tip the balance on the court to a 5-4 majority in favour of conservatives in possible legal battles over contentious issues such as abortion rights, immigration, and Mr Trump's attempt to ban transgender people from the US military.

The weeks-long drama over Mr Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, has gripped the country and could still take more twists.

It depends on the thinking of a few wavering senators in a chamber where Mr Trump's fellow Republicans hold a razor-thin majority.

In the pivotal moment on Friday, Susan Collins, perhaps the chamber's most moderate Republican, proclaimed her support for Mr Kavanaugh at the end of a Senate floor speech that lasted nearly 45 minutes.

While she was among a handful of Republicans who helped sink Mr Trump's quest to obliterate former president Barack Obama's healthcare law last year, this time she proved instrumental in delivering a triumph to Mr Trump.

Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a fellow moderate and friend of Senator Collins, became the only Republican to say she opposed Mr Kavanaugh. She said on the Senate floor that Mr Kavanaugh was "a good man" but his "appearance of impropriety has become unavoidable."

She added that with Supreme Court appointments lasting a lifetime, "Those who seek these seats must meet the highest standards in all respects, at all times. And that is hard."

In a twist, Ms Murkowski said she would state her opposition but vote "present" as a courtesy to Kavanaugh supporter Republican Senator Steve Daines, who was attending his daughter's wedding in Montana.

"I believe he's a good man. It just may be that in my view, he's not the right man for the court at this time."

Senator Jeff Flake, one of the few Republicans who had expressed doubts about Mr Kavanaugh, said he would back the judge unless something big changed, MSNBC reported.

A lone Democrat, Joe Manchin, voted in favour of advancing the process on Friday morning, but had not yet stated his position on the final vote.

The Kavanaugh fight has riveted Americans just weeks before November 6 midterm elections in which Democrats are trying to take control of Congress from the Republicans.

What was already a sharply partisan battle became an intense political drama when university Professor Christine Blasey Ford accused Mr Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were in high school in Maryland in 1982.

Two other women also made accusations of sexual misconduct by Mr Kavanaugh in the 1980s.

He denied the allegations.

Mr Trump, who has made appointing conservative judges a major plank of his presidency, tweeted his approval for the Senate vote, saying he was "very proud".

Further complicating matters for the Republican leadership, Senator Steve Daines was set to be at his daughter's wedding on Saturday and has said he will not miss the ceremony.

That could require holding the vote open to give Mr Daines time to return to Washington from Montana.

Republicans hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, meaning that if all Senate Democrats oppose Mr Kavanaugh, Mr Trump cannot afford to lose more than one Republican vote for his nominee, with Vice-President Mike Pence casting a tiebreaking vote.

Mr Trump mocked Dr Ford on Tuesday during a political rally in Mississippi, further angering Democrats and women campaigning for an end to sexual violence.

Democrats denounced an the FBI report sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee as a whitewash and said the White House placed constraints on the FBI, which did not speak to many potential witnesses.

While the documents have not been made public, Republicans said they did not back up sexual assault allegations by Dr Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-06/b ... t/10345232

Well done to the Senate. Hopefully sense will prevail.

[sprintcyclist]

Thanks Black Orchid

[IQS.RLOW]

Lefties proving once again they are not only pathetic sore losers, they are filthy liars and will invent smear and innuendo to try and obtain power.
They have adopted a 'feelings' based narrative to push their cultural marxism because they are devoid of facts and logic and screech like an autistic child when it is rightly questioned.

The left are a suppurating cancerous pustule on society.

It's time to bring back McCarthyism and make sure the job is carried through to the final solution to excise this festering boil.

[IQS.RLOW]

Now confirmed.

Lefties, take care not to lose your voices screeching into your echo chambers for the next 30 years of SC judgements.

Oh who am I kidding. No one really listens to you anyway...
...and the 50% of those few times someone does hear you over the braying screeches of your comrades, is only to point out your ignorance at whatever illogical thought pretzel you've managed to twist from the innocuous or laugh at the mad conspiracy theory you've farted forward at the time.

The other 50% is to correct your outright lies in the vain hope you might begin to understand that, unlike yourselves, a majority of people recognise bullshit when they hear or see it. They dont just blindly goose step along because they received their "social media talking points for the day" email from whatever central retard groupthink organisation you are subscribed to, thinking that parrotting it ad nauseum on twatter, along with your ideological window licking brethren in the bus seats in front of yours, somehow makes it a truth.

I'd play to your fears and suggest you all get those abortions in now while you still can, but you know conservatives would never really want to halt your self removal of retarded DNA from the gene pool.

[sprintcyclist]

................. Mr Trump now has the numbers he has wanted in the Supreme Court.

Mr Kavanaugh will be the fifth conservative on the nine-judge bench.

And, as it's a job for life, a relatively young Mr Kavanaugh could be ruling on fundamental issues like abortion, immigration and presidential powers for 40-plus years.

During his angry testimony last week, Mr Kavanaugh accused some Democrats of plotting against him. .....................

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-07/u ... e/10347656

[brian ross]

I don't doubt we'll hear the right-wingers praise Kavanaugh. I will however damn his decisions if they overturn previously accepted court decisions such as the right to abortion and so on.

[IQS.RLOW]

I don't doubt we'll hear the right-wingers praise Kavanaugh. I will however damn his decisions if they overturn previously accepted court decisions such as the right to abortion and so on.

When you damn everything about the very society you live in and anything that is remotely conservative, your self diluted damning has as much worth as your communist idealology.

[Black Orchid]

Even as he raised his right hand to be sworn in behind the closed doors of the Supreme Court, protesters thumped on doors of that same court chanting: “We believe survivors.”.

Yet the protests could not drown out the fact that the confirmation of the 53-year-old judge was a seminal political triumph for Donald Trump.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/w ... 1538958089

What a bunch of whiny psychotic little babies these liberals are when they don't get their own way.

[sprintcyclist]

Now confirmed.

Lefties, take care not to lose your voices screeching into your echo chambers for the next 30 years of SC judgements.

Oh who am I kidding. No one really listens to you anyway...
...and the 50% of those few times someone does hear you over the braying screeches of your comrades, is only to point out your ignorance at whatever illogical thought pretzel you've managed to twist from the innocuous or laugh at the mad conspiracy theory you've farted forward at the time.

The other 50% is to correct your outright lies in the vain hope you might begin to understand that, unlike yourselves, a majority of people recognise bullshit when they hear or see it. They dont just blindly goose step along because they received their "social media talking points for the day" email from whatever central retard groupthink organisation you are subscribed to, thinking that parrotting it ad nauseum on twatter, along with your ideological window licking brethren in the bus seats in front of yours, somehow makes it a truth.

I'd play to your fears and suggest you all get those abortions in now while you still can, but you know conservatives would never really want to halt your self removal of retarded DNA from the gene pool.

Are the left becoming less relevant ?

As they have wed themselves to more minority views and make more impractical decisions, are they distancing themselves from the majority and reality ?

[Black Orchid]

Typically indoctrinating kids and using them as their political mouth pieces. This should be termed child abuse.