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Brett Kavanaugh, only 53 and a rumored leading contender for the Kennedy seat, is yet another Ivy Leaguer dipshit, Federalist Society-type who probably isn't qualified for the job.
Kavanaugh so frequently inserted himself into high-profile political battles that during his confirmation hearing for his DC Circuit seat, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called him the “Forrest Gump of Republican politics.”
In 1999, Kavanaugh represented two members of Congress who filed a brief in a Supreme Court case supporting a New Mexico school district’s effort to maintain student-led prayers at football games. (The court found the prayers unconstitutional.) The following year, he got involved in the case of Elián González, the young Cuban boy who came to the United States after his mother drowned trying to bring him to the country, prompting an epic custody fight between his father in Cuba and his relatives in Miami. Kavanaugh worked pro bono for González’s Miami relatives in their vain appeals to keep the boy in the United States.
That same year, Kavanaugh represented Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in his fight to overcome constitutional hurdles to his controversial school voucher program that would direct public money to private religious schools. And when the 2000 election came down to some hanging chads in Florida and a contentious recount, Kavanaugh was there, too, working on George W. Bush’s legal team.
He is a hack.
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It is a serious issue when candidates are drawn from such a narrow, narrow pool as Harvard or Yale law school grads.
That being said, I don’t think it necessarily follows that this means that the Ivy League must be the exclusive source for Supreme Court Justices, or a majority of the Circuit Court of Appeals Judges for that matter. Why is it that Yale and Harvard Law Schools, located within about a two hour drive of each other at most, are the source of all of our Supreme Court Justices? What about Stanford, Columbia, the University of Michigan, or any of the other schools ranked the top ten, or even the top 25 among American Law Schools? Is it really the case that none of these other 23 schools are capable of producing the kind of elite graduates that would make good Justices and Judges at the highest levels of our legal system? The idea that this could possibly be true is, indeed, quite absurd._____
And I might as well link the Lithwick article mentioned in the above link.
In the coming months and years, this group of Ivy-trained Washington insiders will have to decide whether Texas voters who don’t have driver’s licenses and are required to take three buses across town to pay $30 for a voter ID have effectively been disenfranchised. They will determine whether women who need to travel 300 miles to procure an abortion (women who may lack cars, or paid time off, or money to spend on hotels) face an “undue burden.” But some of the same justices who will bar empathy from those considerations forget that they do evince empathy when they side with those beleaguered “sidewalk counselors,” or multimillionaire campaign donors, or the owner of a mega-chain of craft stores who believes his religious freedoms have been impinged. All of us import our values and experiences into our decision-making. The double-whammy at the current Court is that the justices are no longer allowed to acknowledge it, and that the pool of those with whom they unavoidably identify is so dangerously small and privileged.
When the next court vacancy occurs, there will be lists of brilliant, Yale- and Harvard-trained jurists to choose from. But there will also be many accomplished lawyers toiling in elected office and legal-aid clinics and state-school faculties. Progressives need to identify those prospects and to push them forward. The alternative is ceding the court to ever-more dazzling minds, while seeing less of our own realities in its jurisprudence.
I couldn't agree more.
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Not USSC related, but yes, marriage should be a thing of the past and not likely to be done away with anytime soon.
One key fact about marriage remains, whatever the reforms and modernisations. Marriage is far better for men than it is for women. It reinforces the notion of women as property. It is no wonder men are happier, have better mental and physical health, and are better off financially within marriage than women. As feminist writer Bea Campbell argues in her book, The End of Equality, married women still do the bulk of the housework, and men do almost as little childcare as they did 30 years ago.
The institution has formed the backdrop to women’s oppression for centuries, and it continues to do so. Forced marriage, child brides and polygamy all show how human rights violations of women and girls all too often come hand in hand with marriage. It was not until 1991 that rape in marriage was made a criminal offence in England and Wales. Today, it is still perfectly legal for a man to rape his wife in more than 40 countries worldwide.
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