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On the Supreme Court, Democrats finally get their just deserts 31 years later
Washington Examiner - Opinion ^ | 9-11-2018 | Noemie Emery

Posted on 09/11/2018 9:05:30 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot

Are you happy now, Teddy Kennedy? Are you happy, Joe Biden? Are you happy now, Harry Reid? It’s due to the things that you did and said that Donald J. Trump is now naming his second Supreme Court justice in under two years in office. It is your fault that the once courtly process of Supreme Court appointments turned into the blood-and-thunder-eye-gouging drama that we hate and we live through today.

It was 31 years ago, in 1987, that Edward M. Kennedy burst on the floor of the Senate to tell us all that with Robert Bork on the Supreme Court, “women would be forced Into back-alley abortions,” blacks would eat at segregated lunch counters, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the government, and the freedom of millions would hang by a thread.

Before it was over, liberals would raise and spend over $10 million in negative ads (quite a sum at the time) and in lobbying efforts. They would threaten black witnesses with career-ending reprisals and seize and search records of video rentals for signs of blue movies that were never found.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bork; borked; borking; deserts; robertbork; senate
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To: lastchance

Well, Democrats are moral and mental deserts.


21 posted on 09/11/2018 9:26:33 AM PDT by TBP (Progressives lack compassion and tolerance. Their self-aggrandizement is all that matters.)
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To: I want the USA back
Wait until they are at this point in replacing RBG.
22 posted on 09/11/2018 9:31:36 AM PDT by skimbell
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To: chajin

“Just desserts” would be the description of a restaurant that only sold cakes and pies, I think.

—.

Be a pretty good name for a bake shop, actually.


23 posted on 09/11/2018 9:32:03 AM PDT by Flick Lives
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To: reg45

I du just fin without a spel cheker.


24 posted on 09/11/2018 9:32:37 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: Alberta's Child

I feel differently on it but not because I don’t agree with your characterization of the thought process of various non-Leftist politicians at that time, but based on the speech by Ted Kennedy, because it shows with 100% clarity the tactical approach of the left to lie, deceive, and engage in the process of personal destruction:

*******************************

SENATE SPEECH BY TED KENNEDY:

Mr. President, I oppose the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and I urge the Senate to reject it.

In the Watergate scandal of 1973, two distinguished Republicans;Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus;put integrity and the Constitution ahead of loyalty to a corrupt President. They refused to do Richard Nixon’s dirty work, and they refused to obey his order to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. The deed devolved on Solicitor General Robert Bork, who executed the unconscionable assignment that has become one of the darkest chapters for the rule of law in American history.

That act—later ruled illegal by a Federal court is sufficient, by itself, to disqualify Mr. Bork from this new position to which he has been nominated. The man who fired Archibald Cox does not deserve to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Bork should also be rejected by the Senate because he stands for an extremist view of the Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court that would have placed him outside the mainstream of American constitutional jurisprudence in the 1960s, let alone the 1980s. He opposed the Public Accommodations Civil Rights Act of 1964. He opposed the one-man one-vote decision of the Supreme Court the same year. He has said that the First Amendment applies only to political speech, not literature or works of art or scientific expression.

Under the twin pressures of academic rejection and the prospect of Senate rejection, Mr. Bork subsequently retracted the most neanderthal of these views on civil rights and the first amendment. But his mind-set is no less ominous today.

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court, his rigid ideology will tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be.

The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our President. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

*******************************

“...Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy...”

Even after all these years, Ted Kennedy’s rotting carcass cannot be buried far enough underground to prevent his historical stench from permeating our noses.

This paragraph shows exactly the demagoguery and hysteria that has been commonplace on the Left for decades. I think it is a perfect example.


25 posted on 09/11/2018 9:38:20 AM PDT by rlmorel (Leftists: They believe in the "Invisible Hand" only when it is guided by government.)
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To: ZOOKER
I hope Trump nominates Britt Grant for RBG's seat.

The democrats would go absolutely ape-chit if she gets nominated.

26 posted on 09/11/2018 9:39:40 AM PDT by skimbell
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To: Mollypitcher1
"...couldn’t as a general rule, pass a third grade history or civic test..."

I admit, I would find it hard to believe there is even such a thing now as a third grade history or civics test...

27 posted on 09/11/2018 9:39:56 AM PDT by rlmorel (Leftists: They believe in the "Invisible Hand" only when it is guided by government.)
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To: Sir Napsalot

Edward M. Kennedy the eternal flame of a grease fire in hell.


28 posted on 09/11/2018 9:46:17 AM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (Wisdom and education are different things. Don't confuse them.)
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To: Tell It Right

What was done to Thomas was actionable... I mean, criminal libel

He could probably sue each and every one of them for what they did to him


29 posted on 09/11/2018 9:53:24 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Nearly all men can stand adversity...to test a man's character, give him power." A. Lincoln)
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To: Sir Napsalot
One thing I have to say though, 31 years ago the quality of the elected officials seems to be much better than what we have nowadays

Agree totally.

The whole voting thing really isn't working out.

30 posted on 09/11/2018 9:54:48 AM PDT by Jim Noble
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To: nwrep

Biden led the attack on Thomas. It was Biden vs. Hatch and Spector.

The difference between Bork and Thomas is they defended Thomas and won.


31 posted on 09/11/2018 10:05:32 AM PDT by Williams (Stop tolerating the intolerant.)
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To: Sir Napsalot; All

Thank you for referencing that article Sir Napsalot. Please note that the following critique is directed at the article and not at you.

Forget the finger-pointing to career senators.

Ordinary voters are reminded that they own the corrupt Senate through the ill-conceived 17th Amendment (17A).

We really need to get rid of 17A.

The 16th Amendment can disappear too.


32 posted on 09/11/2018 10:08:05 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: takebackaustin
From grammarist.com:

The expression meaning that which is deserved was originally just deserts. The phrase is the last refuge of an obsolete meaning of desert—namely, something that is deserved or merited. But because most modern English speakers are unfamiliar with that old sense of desert, the phrase is often understandably written just desserts.

Using just desserts is not a serious error, and it is much more common than just deserts in 21st-century texts. Some people still consider it wrong, however. Whether to pay this any heed is for each of us to decide for ourselves.

33 posted on 09/11/2018 10:08:51 AM PDT by FoxInSocks ("Hope is not a course of action." -- M. O'Neal, USMC)
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To: Tell It Right
I was alive then but didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. Would yall say Bork got worse treatment than Thomas?

From my recollection of both, Thomas got worse, but he didn't fold.

Ever since, Thomas was a foe of the Left.

34 posted on 09/11/2018 10:11:05 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It rubs the rainbow on it's skin or it gets the diversity again!")
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To: Cyclops08
You think the Kavanaugh hearings were bad. Just wait until Ruthie kicks the bucket.

I think Thomas will want to retire if we keep the Senate. Hopefully his replacement's hearing will be a little less hysterical because we'd be replacing a conservative with a conservative.

35 posted on 09/11/2018 10:13:03 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It rubs the rainbow on it's skin or it gets the diversity again!")
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To: Cyclops08
You think the Kavanaugh hearings were bad. Just wait until Ruthie kicks the bucket.

I expect to see self immolations on the steps of the Supreme Court. Republican senators will need round the clock protection by armed security. Libs will literally declare war on the right, and try to shut down the country.

It's gonna be insane.

36 posted on 09/11/2018 10:19:37 AM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: Sir Napsalot
Teddy Kennedy was a drunk who murdered a woman at Chappaquiddick... democrat thugs of yesteryear had a press that functioned as gatekeepers and friends - they lied successfully for democrats.

Democrats were NOT better back then - they were more protected by press thugs.

The press was were just as bad if not worse than they are today too... because Fox News, Drudge, and FreeRepublic didn't exist.

The MSM were biased thugs then - they're biased thugs today.

37 posted on 09/11/2018 10:25:23 AM PDT by GOPJ (Deep State power peaked during the McCain funeral - it's down from here on out.)
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To: Tell It Right
Very tough to say. It was two different animals. I think the histrionics was worse with Bork, the character assassination was worse with Thomas.

In the end, Justice Thomas was confirmed and I think the process helped hm understand just how loony the Left is.

38 posted on 09/11/2018 10:28:24 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (ObaMao: Fake America, Fake Messiah, Fake Black man. How many fakes can you fit into one Zer0?)
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To: Williams

Arlen Specter and Chicken Hatch’s finest hour was defending Justice Thomas. Hatch also had some great moments early in his career when he was a constituational stalwart before DC captured him.


39 posted on 09/11/2018 10:36:51 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (ObaMao: Fake America, Fake Messiah, Fake Black man. How many fakes can you fit into one Zer0?)
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To: Sir Napsalot

Robert Bork died in 2012. If the Democrats had not blocked his nomination, then Obama would have gotten to fill the seat. Instead, Kennedy was nominated and Trump is getting to fill the seat.

Karma.


40 posted on 09/11/2018 10:55:00 AM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation has ended!)
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