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Casualty Lists From the Kavanaugh Battle
Townhall.com ^ | October 9, 2018 | Pat Puchanan

Posted on 10/09/2018 4:18:52 PM PDT by Kaslin

After a 50-year siege, the great strategic fortress of liberalism has fallen. With the elevation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court seems secure for constitutionalism -- perhaps for decades.

The shrieks from the gallery of the Senate chamber as the vote came in on Saturday, and the sight of that bawling mob clawing at the doors of the Supreme Court as the new justice took his oath, confirm it.

The Democratic Party has sustained a historic defeat.

And the triumph is President Trump's.

To unite the party whose nomination he had won, Donald Trump pledged to select his high court nominees from lists prepared by such judicial conservatives as the Federalist Society. He kept his word and, in the battle for Kavanaugh, he led from the front, even mocking the credibility of the primary accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

Trump has achieved what every GOP president has hoped to do since the summer of '68, when a small group of GOP senators, led by Bob Griffin of Michigan, frustrated and then foiled a LBJ-Earl Warren plot to elevate LBJ crony Abe Fortas to chief justice in order to keep a future President Nixon from naming Warren's successor.

Sharing the honors with Trump is Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Throughout 2016, McConnell took heat for refusing to hold a hearing on Barack Obama's nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, to fill the chair of Justice Antonin Scalia, who had died earlier that year.

In 2017, McConnell used Harry Reid's "nuclear option" to end filibusters for Supreme Court nominations, and then got Judge Neil Gorsuch confirmed 54-45.

Last week, in one of the closest and most brutal court battles in Senate history, McConnell kept his troops united, losing only Sen. Lisa Murkowski, to put Kavanaugh on the court by 50-48. McConnell will enter the history books as the Senate architect of the recapture of the Supreme Court for constitutionalism.

This was a huge victory for conservatism and for the Republican Party. And the presence on the court of octogenarian liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both appointed by Bill Clinton, suggests that McConnell may have an opportunity to ensure the endurance of his great achievement.

The ferocity and ugliness of the attacks on Kavanaugh united Republicans to stand as one against what a savage Senate minority was trying to do to kill the nomination. And at battle's end, the GOP is more energized than it has been all year for this fall's election.

How united is the GOP? Conservatives are hailing the contributions of Sens. Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins, who delivered a masterful summation of the Kavanaugh case Saturday afternoon.

For the Democratic Party, the Kavanaugh battle was the Little Bighorn, as seen from General Custer's point of view.

Unable to derail the judge during the regular confirmation process, they lay in the weeds until it was over, and then sandbagged the judge by leaking to The Washington Post a confidential letter Dr. Ford did not want released.

They thus forced a public hearing of charges of attempted rape against a nominee, demanded the FBI investigate all charges of sexual misconduct when Kavanaugh was a teenager, and ended up losing anyway.

Then the Dems watched protesters dishonor the Senate in which they serve by screaming from the gallery. It was among the lowest moments in the modern history of the Senate, and it was the Democratic minority that took it down to that depth.

Understandably, they are a bitter lot today.

And the #MeToo movement has been set back. For many of its champions were, in Kavanaugh's case, demanding a suspension of the principle of "innocent until proven guilty," and calling for the judge's rejection in disgrace, based solely on their belief in a wholly uncorroborated 36-year-old story.

So where are we going now?

While Republicans are united and celebrating a great victory, the left and its media auxiliary are seething with rage and doubly determined to deliver payback in the elections four weeks away, where Democrats could pick up the two dozen seats needed to recapture the House.

Should they do so, however, they will face two years of frustration and failure. For the enactment of any major element of their liberal agenda -- a $15 minimum wage, "Medicare-for-all" -- would die in a Republican Senate, or in the Oval Office where it would face an inevitable veto by Trump.

So, what does 2019 look like, if Democrats capture the House?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A House Judiciary Committee headed by New York's Jerrold Nadler who is already howling for impeachment hearings on both Kavanaugh and Trump.

And, by spring, a host of presidential candidates, none of whom looks terribly formidable, led by Cory ("I am Spartacus") Booker, trooping through Iowa and New Hampshire, trashing President Trump (and each other), and offering themselves as the answer to America's problems.

Bring it on!


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: kavanaugh; scotus; senate; supremecourt
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1 posted on 10/09/2018 4:18:52 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Thank God for Justice Kavanaugh! Maybe soon, all the unborn babies will have a chance to see the light of day!


2 posted on 10/09/2018 4:23:37 PM PDT by miserare ( Indict Hillary!)
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Comment #3 Removed by Moderator

To: Kaslin

MAGA!


4 posted on 10/09/2018 4:28:51 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason.)
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To: Kaslin

I think it’s safe to say that the confirmation process (if we can call it that) of Judge Kavanaugh was a true black swan event.

I’m truly sorry for what Judge Kavanaugh and his family had to endure.

But the country will be better off for it, as it gave our side a needed kick in the pants to wake up and DO SOMETHING before it’s too late.

How about our own Senator Lindsey Graham - another black swan event! Love it.


5 posted on 10/09/2018 4:33:52 PM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: miserare

Indeed!


6 posted on 10/09/2018 4:34:30 PM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: Kaslin

You ever noticed what Liberals do when the lose? They always assume the rules are wrong so they try to change them:

Hillary: The Electoral College needs to be replaced with popular vote. (Wonder why?)

Several Leftists: We need to have term limits on SCJ. Odd...never heard that argument when Ginsburg or Kagan were elected. (Wonder why?)

Quit being so PO’ed. You lost, get over it. Indeed, I think your dirty tricks and smear tactics are going to bite you in the butt in Nov.


7 posted on 10/09/2018 4:37:15 PM PDT by econjack
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To: miserare
Maybe soon, all the unborn preborn babies will have a chance to see the light of day!

A better term.

8 posted on 10/09/2018 4:40:25 PM PDT by libertylover (Despite government propaganda, I know the difference between a boy and a girl.)
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To: Kaslin

Bump
To Read Later


9 posted on 10/09/2018 4:43:29 PM PDT by Fiddlstix (Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: Kaslin; Admin Moderator
The author is Pat Buchanan not Pat Puchanan
10 posted on 10/09/2018 4:46:13 PM PDT by Ronaldus Magnus
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To: Kaslin

bookmark


11 posted on 10/09/2018 4:51:33 PM PDT by GOP Poet
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To: econjack

“You ever noticed what Liberals do when the lose? They always assume the rules are wrong so they try to change them...”

Another trick is to “break” the system (i.e., law) and then whine about the system being “broken”.


12 posted on 10/09/2018 4:51:41 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.”)
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To: SkyPilot

Thank you.


13 posted on 10/09/2018 4:56:38 PM PDT by Hugh the Scot (Moron Lube)
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To: SkyPilot

I’m glad that Kavanaugh was confirmed. The Court will be better with him than it was with Kennedy. But it’s not time to declare victory and assume a conservative majority for years to come.

Part of that conservative majority includes Roberts, and we know how he voted on Obamacare.

Part of that conservative majority includes Thomas, and too many of that good man’s years are behind him.

Conservatives are loath to overturn precedents in one swoop, even horrible precedents like Roe, like Delo, and like Kennedy’s gay marriage rulings. It will take years of big conservative majorities to chip away those precedents a little at a time.

We have only won a brief respite from horrible new legislation from the bench. If we really hope to recover the freedoms that black-robed tyrants have stolen from us over the last 50 years, we need to be in a position replace the liberals one by one as they step down: Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. That means winning the Presidency every election cycle and holding the Senate every election cycle, for years to come.


14 posted on 10/09/2018 4:58:53 PM PDT by CaptainMorgantown
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To: Kaslin

And, now that the pubbies have tasted success, a direct result of fighting back against the libtards, it should be easier the next time for them to get on-board early in the process.
The silly procrastination early in the Kavanaugh confirmation only added to the ugliness of the whole sordid affair.

Now, they know what winning tastes like. Hold the line!


15 posted on 10/09/2018 5:32:43 PM PDT by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. Mr Trump, we've got your six.)
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To: MichaelCorleone

Rather than a black swan event, it may be par for the course.


16 posted on 10/09/2018 5:34:10 PM PDT by scrabblehack
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To: CaptainMorgantown

Agree. Two octagenarians, one morbidly obese type 1 diabetic, by the time Trump is done Kagan will, literally, be the last man standing on the left. Then we pop the champaign corks.


17 posted on 10/09/2018 5:35:14 PM PDT by mindburglar (I like spelling it Lazers. It looks cooler.)
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To: MichaelCorleone

“I’m truly sorry for what Judge Kavanaugh and his family had to endure.”

###################

Certainly they did not deserve it, but I hope ‘the crucible’ changed Kavanaugh from an establishment Republican to a red pilled conservative. Because those are two very different things.


18 posted on 10/09/2018 5:53:21 PM PDT by Psalm 144 (The 2016 foreign meddling came from UKistan, and is a weasel borne plague.)
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To: Psalm 144

Yes, very different things indeed.

I hope so too.


19 posted on 10/09/2018 6:00:01 PM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: Kaslin

Payback, as they say, is a bitch.

L


20 posted on 10/09/2018 6:25:20 PM PDT by Lurker (President Trump isn't our last chance. President Trump is THEIR last chance.)
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