Brett Kavanaugh’s (impending) arrival on the Supreme Court is like Donald Trump’s attainment of the presidency, in this important way:
By the rules of politics that prevailed until 2016, neither of them would have come close to consideration for their respective offices. For Trump, the reasons are obvious; for Kavanaugh, they’re brilliantly summarized by one of Kavanaugh’s long-term friends here, and discussed below.
“Thus, the ascent of a man like Kavanaugh necessarily changes the public sense of what is within bounds, and not, for the most powerful jurists in the nation—just as the ascent of Trump has changed assessments of what is within bounds for a president, and how much protection long-standing norms can supply.” [From an article by James Fallows, 10/6/18]
Donald Trump gets low marks for a variety of personal traits but on one important characteristic he does extremely well – 68% say he “stands up for what he believes” and on a couple of others he does okay.
On the balance of the list he is in negative territory with a majority of
people saying that a particular phrase does not describe him.
| Describes | Does not describe | |
| Stands up for what he believes | 68% | |
| Able to get things done | 50% | |
| Keeps his promises | 49% | |
| Strong leader | 54% | |
| Well – informed | 57% | |
| Cares about people like me | 61% | |
| Trustworthy | 61% | |
| Even-tempered | 70% |
Even Democrats give him a 52% rating for standing up for what he believes. The next highest positive rating by Democrats is 22% for keeping his promises. [Pew 10/1/18]
Following in his father-in-law’s footsteps, Jared Kushner has apparently paid little or no federal income taxes for a number of years. There is no indication that he has violated any rules or laws. Apparently, it is the result of a tax benefit that lets real estate investors deduct a portion of the cost of their buildings from their taxable income every year.
Interestingly, when the administration pushed through a substantial revision of the tax laws, the changes expanded many of the benefits enjoyed by real estate investors, resulting in even larger potential deductions. [New York Times, 10/13]
President Trump’s “preferred network”, Fox News, which has regularly covered his rallies from beginning to end, has begun cutting back on coverage of his rallies around the country. During a recent week in which Trump had three rallies, Fox News showed clips and highlights. The issue seems to be that the TV/cable audiences for his rallies have sometimes dipped below the network’s regular programing. Regular viewership of the rallies in 2017 averaged 4 million viewers. An August rally had just over 2.5 million viewers.
CNN and MSNBC have never covered his rallies from beginning to end. Fox does continue to live stream the events. [Politico, 10/12/18]
“I have covered a lot of Trump rallies, but never seen press pen as locked down as it is here in Council Bluffs. Have now been escorted to the bathrooms and yelled at by advance team for attempting to talk with Trump supporters in the crowd.” [Eli Stokols, LA Times]
Trump has now appointed as many Supreme Court Justices as any of the last seven Presidents other than Ronald Reagan who appointed three.
Brett Kavanaugh is the 114th justice in American history. 111 of the Justices have been white, 110 have been men and the past 112 justices including all those currently on the bench attended Ivy League law schools. [NYT, 10/19/18]
There are 9 Supreme Court Justices, 167 Appeals Court Justices and 667 District Court Judges.
The following are the current members of the Supreme Court, the dates on which they were confirmed and the number of votes on their confirmations.
| Clarence Thomas | 1991 | 52-48 |
| Ruth Ginsburg | 1993 | 96-3 |
| Stephen Breyer | 1994 | 87-9 |
| Chief John Roberts | 2005 | 78-22 |
| Samuel Alito Jr. | 2006 | 58-42 |
| Sonia Sotomayor | 2009 | 68-31 |
| Elena Kagan | 2010 | 63-37 |
| Neil Gorsuch | 2017 | 54-45 |
| Brett Kavanaugh | 2018 | 50-48 |
| Total | Supreme Ct | Appeals Ct | District Ct | |
| Trump – thru 10/11/18 | 84 | 2 | 29 | 53 |
| Obama – 8 years | 329 | 2 | 55 | 268 |
| GW Bush – 8 years | 327 | 2 | 62 | 261 |
| Clinton – 8 years | 378 | 2 | 66 | 305 |
| GHW Bush – 4 years | 193 | 2 | 42 | 148 |
| Reagan | 383 | 3 | 83 | 290 |
| Carter | 262 | 0 | 56 | 203 |
| [uscourts.gov] | ||||
There are currently 11 vacancies on the U.S. Courts of appeals, 108 vacancies on the U.S. District Courts and 2 vacancies on the U.S. Court of International Trade. Nominations pending are 7 for the Courts of Appeals, 48 for the District Courts, 2 for the Courts of International Trade.
Late last month, as the Kavanaugh conflagration ignited, Justice Elena Kagan noted that “the court’s strength as an institution of American governance depends on people believing it has a certain kind of legitimacy — on people believing it’s not simply just an extension of politics, that its decision-making has a kind of integrity to it. If people don’t believe that, they have no reason to accept what the court does.”