Alan: Abortion WILL take place regardless The Law.
In fact, the abortion rate is currently lower than it was prior to Roe v. Wade.
In fact, the abortion rate is currently lower than it was prior to Roe v. Wade.
Updated Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On Abortion
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspo
What Drives Abortion?
Income?
Or The Law?
What Drives Abortion?
Income?
Or The Law?
The History Of Sex, Sin, Abortion And American Law. (An Eye-Poppingly Informative "1A" Show)
Pro-Life Advocates Cause Abortion Rates To Soar. Pro-Abortion Advocates Cause It To Decline
Confident Republicans have the votes to confirm him to the Supreme Court, the 53-year-old judge was polished yet evasive during 12 ½ hours of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. As he sat in the hot seat from 9:30 a.m. until just after 10 p.m., Kavanaugh repeatedly invoked the so-called Ginsburg Rule. During her 1993 confirmation hearing, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she would not “preview in this legislative chamber how I would cast my vote on questions the Supreme Court may be called upon to decide.” “The reason is judicial independence,” said Kavanaugh. “The litigants who come before us have to know we have an open mind … If I say something and the case comes before me five years from now, I'm going to feel morally bound by what I said here.” He repeatedly but selectively used this tradition to avoid answering sometimes fundamental questions about executive power and President Trump, the man who nominated him. Kavanaugh also avoided being pinned down on hot-button issues on which his long paper trail suggests he’s further to the right than Anthony Kennedy, the justice he’s poised to replace, including abortion and affirmative action. Here are a dozen noteworthy questions Kavanaugh dodged:
Kavanaugh demurred. “I don’t think we want judges commenting on the latest political controversy because that would ultimately leave people to doubt whether we are independent,” he said.
While Kavanaugh said he’s “sure” that he’s “talked to fellow judges” about Mueller, he said he couldn’t answer Harris’s question without knowing who works at the firm. He asked if there was someone specific that she had in mind, but she didn’t say. “How can you not remember whether you’ve had a conversation about Robert Mueller or his investigation with anyone at that law firm?” Harris asked. “Be sure about your answer, sir.” 3. Can a sitting president be required to respond to a subpoena? “I can’t give you an answer on that hypothetical question,” said Kavanaugh. 4. Is Trump correct in asserting that he has an “absolute right” to pardon himself? “The question of self-pardon is something I have never analyzed,” said Kavanaugh. “It’s a hypothetical question that I can’t begin to answer as a sitting judge.” Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) replied, “I hope for the sake of the country that remains a hypothetical question.” 5. Does Kavanaugh still believe his 1998 comment that “a president can fire at will a prosecutor criminally investigating him”? “That's a question [that] could come before me,” Kavanaugh said. “I think all I can say, senator, is that was my view in 1998.” 
Brett Kavanaugh held a pocket Constitution and carried copious notes during his testimony. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
6. Can a sitting president be indicted? “I’ve never taken a position on the constitutionality of indicting or investigating a sitting president,” Kavanaugh told Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) on Wednesday.Back in 2009, Kavanaugh wrote in a Minnesota Law Review article that “a serious constitutional question exists regarding whether a president can be criminally indicted and tried while in office.” He argued that the indictment of a president “would cripple the federal government, rendering it unable to function with credibility in either the international or domestic arenas.” “Such an outcome would ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national security crisis,” he wrote then. Kavanaugh downplayed the article. “They were ideas for Congress to consider,” he said. “They were not my constitutional views.” The would-be justice noted that several big things would need to happen before he would be forced to stake out a public stance on whether Trump could be indicted. “The Justice Department for 45 years has taken the position in written opinions that a sitting president may not be indicted while in office,” Kavanaugh said. “I'm not saying I agree with that or disagree with that. I'm saying that's been the consistent Justice Department view for 45 years. So before a case like this would come before the courts, first, the Justice Department presumably would have to change its position. … “Two, a prosecutor at some point in the future would have to decide to seek an indictment of a sitting president … And, three, it would have to be challenged in court. … Then it would come up on appeal to me,” he continued. “So there's a lot of things that would have to happen before this hypothetical that you're presenting even comes to pass. And if it does come to pass, you can be assured that I have not taken a position on the constitutional issue that you're raising on that specific question, at least as I understand the question.” -- Kavanaugh tended to be more forthcoming while responding to hypotheticals from other Republicans on the committee. For example, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) laid out a scenario in which a future president rejects a motorcade, gets drunk and commits vehicular homicide while driving home to the White House. “That's both a criminal and a civil matter,” Sasse said. “Is the president immune from either being sued or being charged with a crime because they're president?” “No,” Kavanaugh replied. “No one has ever said, I don't think, that the president is immune from civil or criminal process. … The only question that's ever been debated is whether the actual process should occur while still in office. That's the [Paula] Jones v. [Bill] Clinton case, where strong arguments were presented by both sides, and the Supreme Court ultimately decided that the civil process could go forward against President Clinton. President Clinton was arguing that the civil process should be deferred until after he left office. The Supreme Court rejected that.” Kavanaugh said the open question is about the timing of when the drunk-driver president would face criminal prosecution: Should he faces charges before he leaves office? “Now that doesn't prevent investigations, gathering of evidence, questioning of witnesses I wouldn't think necessarily,” said Kavanaugh. “I don't want to opine too much, but that's certainly how it's proceeded under the special counsel system that we've had traditionally that has coexisted with the Justice Department position on the ultimate timing question.”
At the start of the day, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked if he’d be able to rule against the president who appointed him. “No one is above on the law in our constitutional system,” Kavanaugh replied. “Part of being an independent judge is ruling for the party no matter who they are so long as the party is right.” 8. On abortion, was Roe v. Wade correctly decided? Kavanaugh named multiple cases where he said the Supreme Court made the right call, including U.S. v. Nixon – which he once said “maybe … was wrongly decided” – and Brown v. Board of Education, which he described yesterday as “the single greatest moment in Supreme Court history.” (Other Trump judicial nominees have refused to say if Brown was the right decision.) Kavanaugh also said Plessy v. Ferguson, which codified the doctrine of separate yet equal that was overturned by Brown, was wrongly decided. On Roe, though, Kavanaugh dodged. He would only say that it is “settled law.” “One of the important things to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade isthat it has been reaffirmed many times over the last 45 years, as you know, and most prominently, most importantly reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992,” Kavanaugh said, describing this as “precedent on precedent.” 9. Will he commit to not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade? “Each of the eight justices on the Supreme Court now declined to answer that question,” Kavanaugh told Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “I listen to both sides in every case.”
11. On affirmative action, do universities have a compelling interest in admitting a diverse student body? “The Supreme Court has said so,” said Kavanaugh, declining to share his own views. (I wrote about his past opposition to affirmative action last week.) Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) complained that the public cannot see one of Kavanaugh’s emails with the subject line “Racial profiling.” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said the document is marked “committee confidential,” which means that it should not be discussed in open session. Booker complained that the public cannot see these records and called the GOP-led confirmation process “rigged.” 12. Showing his general reticence, Kavanaugh even declined to say what he told his two young daughters after they sat through the chaotic first day of his confirmation hearing, during which about 70 protesters were arrested for interrupting. “I just wish we could have a hearing where the nominee’s kids could show up,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told him Wednesday. “What kind of country have we become?” Graham wanted to know how the nominee discussed the events of the day when they got home. “Instead, Kavanaugh declined to say what he told his daughters, merely testifying that they ‘gave me a big hug and said, ‘Good job, Daddy,’’ Dana Milbank writes. “From the back of the room, a heckler shouted: ‘The nominee’s kids are being able to observe democracy because–’. She didn’t finish the sentence before she was evicted.”
“Kavanaugh has consistently denied that he knew anything about Miranda’s access to the files. Asked Wednesday by [Graham] whether he ever knew he was dealing with stolen property, Kavanaugh responded, ‘No.’ “Leahy, however, on Wednesday cited emails that have been made public only in recent days that he said suggested that Kavanaugh may have known more than he previously acknowledged about Miranda’s information. Miranda, in a telephone interview, said that he worked ‘closely’ with Kavanaugh on nominations. He said that he is not sure whether he ever shared any information that he gleaned from the Democrats’ documents. But if he did, he said, he never told Kavanaugh how he had gained access to them.” -- New political science analysis: “It’s hard to find a federal judge more conservative than Brett Kavanaugh,” by the University of Virginia’s Kevin Cope and Joshua Fischman: “Probing nearly 200 of Kavanaugh’s votes and over 3000 votes by his judicial colleagues, our analysis shows that his judicial record is significantly more conservative than that of almost every other judge on the D.C. Circuit. That doesn’t mean that he’d be the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court, but it strongly suggests that he is no judicial moderate.” |
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