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“Horror Has A Face”: Primordial Politics and the Aftermath of the Kavanaugh Confirmation

Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the aftermath of the Kavanaugh confirmation. It is not that there is no winner and loser as much as both Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh are both winners and losers.

It will take time to decide which party will benefit, but there is clearly Brett bump for Republicans going into the midterms.  Yet, the confirmation will also continue to resonate Democratic voters.

“Horror has a face … and you must make a friend of horror.”

When the character Colonel Walter Kurtz spoke those words in the film “Apocalypse Now,” he described the secret to his success, his epiphany that decency and humanity no longer have a place in war. His words could well describe the aftermath of the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. As Kurtz explained, the key is to transcend morality and allow people “to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgment, because it is judgment that defeats us.”

Once the “most deliberative body in the world,” the Senate has finally reached its apocalyptic moment of total political war without judgment. Kavanaugh and his chief accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, are both faces of the horror of a process designed to release people from any consideration of fairness or empathy, to leash the primordial instincts of voters. That, perhaps, will forever change our confirmation process.

For weeks, people enjoyed uninhibited rage on both sides. The original confirmation hearing itself was virtually devoid of substantive discussion of Kavanaugh’s jurisprudential views. Citing the Ginsburg rule, Kavanaugh repeated judicial platitudes about respecting precedent while declining, as did prior nominees, to give direct answers. I have long criticized the Ginsburg rule and the modern confirmation process. These hearings, however, began badly and ended as a nightmare.

Republicans hit a new low on the standard of disclosure by allowing the White House to withhold an unprecedented amount of material from Kavanaugh’s record. Democrats then joined the race to the bottom by withholding Ford’s allegation until the last minute. Both sides then tore into each other and the witnesses. Senators in both parties declared that they believed either Ford or Kavanaugh before any testimony was heard. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) maintained that it really no longer mattered if Kavanaugh was innocent or guilty, while Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said that she would weigh Kavanaugh’s views on the Constitution in deciding whether to believe his denials of being a sexual predator. On the other side, Republicans imposed a five minute rule that made the questioning by a female prosecutor into a national joke.

The biggest winners?

First, Judge Kavanaugh. For those who insisted he was fundamentally damaged, it is worth noting that he is now about to become Justice Kavanaugh and will cast one of nine votes on the highest court in the nation. Confirmation is a vindication of sorts but certainly is not an expungement. Yet, it is an opportunity to create a legacy in decades of decisions, and he is likely to move the court to the right and to reverse some of the legacy of Justice Anthony Kennedy. This controversy may be the start but it will not be the end of his Wikipedia page.

Next, Professor Ford. While she came forward reluctantly and did not appear to seek fame or its benefits, famous she is and benefits will come. While Democrats insisted that she has nothing to gain, she could gain considerably as a result of her taking a stand before the Senate. She is now a celebrity and likely will be buried in book and movie deals. She has more than half a million dollars waiting for her on GoFundMe. (I have raised prior concerns over this new element to litigation, as witnesses receive windfalls after promising to testify for or against national figures, as seen in the cases of Michael Cohen and Andrew McCabe.) Ford has gone from a professor at Palo Alto University to a social icon.

The biggest losers?

First, Judge Kavanaugh. He will remain an asterisk justice. He may bury it with a long line of opinions but he will never entirely erase it. Half of the country is likely to remain firm in its view that he assaulted Ford and committed perjury on the allegations. His was the type of bruising fight that leaves a deep lasting injury. After his own confirmation controversy, Judge Robert Bork retired from the courts. Justice Clarence Thomas is widely viewed as adopting silence during oral arguments in the aftermath of his hearing. Confirmations generally are seen as not just the culmination but the celebration of a career leading to the Supreme Court. This one, however, was a concession to raw and ugly politics, ending on a final vote on party lines, with only one defection on either side.

Next, Professor Ford. She has now entered the realm of personified politics, more of an object than a person for both sides in waging this war. She will remain either the hero or the villain in the eyes of millions, an instantly recognizable face with instantly strong emotions for people on each side of the controversy. The minute someone leaked her letter, against her express wishes, she entered that realm of personalities who are treated like public domain as universally owned objects.

The greatest loser, of course, is clearly our confirmation process, which was reduced to the level of decorum and deliberation one would see in an episode of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” Both sides decided to unleash our primordial instincts, and it will be hard to get people to accept prior standards of order or fairness in the process.

Confirmations have now become politics by other means and, as Kurtz said, “perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure” in their savagery. Of course, most partisans in this controversy saw it as a political opportunity. It is now up to the majority of Americans whether this is what we will accept in the future. We can either demand reform of the confirmation process, or we can live with the horrors of primordial politics.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

262 thoughts on ““Horror Has A Face”: Primordial Politics and the Aftermath of the Kavanaugh Confirmation”

  2. btw. wouldn’t you know it, but, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, once considered great literature, source of inspiration for Coppola’s epic film, is now ignored and considered RACIST AND UNWORTHY OF STUDY

    http://johnlknight.com/achebe/

    ‘An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.’….
    This essay was published in the Massachusetts Review 18 (1977) and was reprinted in Heart of Darkness, An Authoritative Text, Background and Sources, Criticism. 4th ed. Ed. Paul B. Armstrong, New York: W. W Norton and Co., 2006, pp. 336-349.

    Mr Achebe tells us so.

    2. Conrad and “Heart of Darkness” should be required reading. “Heart of Darkness” is anything but racist and is an indictment of European imperialism. I’d like to go all Kurtz on some of these Maoist censors but, alas, I’m civilized. The horror! The horror!

      1. I agree with your first two sentences, although his “Lord Jim” is considered to be a “great” novel of the 20th century.

  3. “the Senate has finally reached its apocalyptic moment of total political war without judgment.”

    This is what I heard on talk radio while the hearings were still playing out…that people were angry with the way Judge Kavanaugh or Dr. Ford was being treated and would vote accordingly. Now that Republicans hustled his nomination through and the circus is over people who are not news junkies and committed partisans may very well curse the whole lot and vote their conscience by not voting.

    1. perhaps, but the Democrats have sowed a thousand points of light with these shenanigans. we will see. I signed up a new voter yesterday btw. Another angry white and young male added to the rolls. I wonder how he will vote?

      1. Oh…I don’t know…maybe…for the GOP; it’s what an “angry white young male” would do after Democrats expressly politicized the hearings. The problem I have is with their quick promotion of Kavanaugh to a non-partisan post after he played the part of attack dog in a prepared statement. It feels like a wall has been breeched, but as you said…we will see.

  5. for those who are too young to have missed the mess that landed on outvoted whites in decolonized places like Kenya or Algeria or “Zimbabwe” formerly known as Rhodesia, you will get a second chance soon to see the “horror” as it emerges again in South Africa.

    Don’t worry, you won’t miss it even if the mass media continues to ignore it. Somebody will notice and bring it up somewhere on the internet that hasn’t been sanitized, yet

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/bury-them-alive-white-south-africans-fear-for-their-future-as-horrific-farm-attacks-escalate/news-story/3a63389a1b0066b6b0b77522c06d6476

                1. howtheworldreallyis – he is incapable of explaining himself to you or anyone else. 😉

              3. David Benson is the King of Making Stuff Up and owes me twelve citations (one from the OED) and the source of a quotation, after nineteen weeks, and needs to cite all his work from now on. – just be honest and explain that you cannot explain yourself. And tell him/her not to ask for a cite either.

  8. Here is a story of antifa anarchists blocking traffic in portland. which is a crime.
    did the portland police restore order?
    No they stood down and allowed assault and battery against white motorists

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/anarchy-breaks-out-in-portland-with-the-mayors-blessing-1533331454

    https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1049311168953630720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1049311168953630720&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Ftech%2F2018%2F10%2F08%2Fantifa-takes-over-portland-harasses-old-man-for-disobeying%2F

    Try that in some cities and the harassment will be punished summarily in righteous self defense. watch, it will come.

    This is where it’s heading folks. When things jump off, know who’s got your back and you will have one second to decide who is a foe. Your instincts will guide you– a million years of caveman evolution will emerge in a heartbeat

    and btw…. did you guys know that the antifa had free reign to commit crimes against “racists” in charlottesville? another police “stand-down order”

    huntonak.com/images/content/3/4/v4/34613/final-report-ada-compliant-ready.pdf

    if police won’t enforce law, vigilantism will make a big big comeback.
    is the Left really ready for that? they seem to want to test it out.

    1. Mr Kurtz,

      You might not be aware but this website only permits two hyperlinks per comment. I edited your comment to allow it to post.

      If in the future you desire the readers to view more than two links, this may be accomplished by using additional comments.

      2. Mr. Smith,

        You appear to be the moderator of this forum. As such, it would be appreciated if you would tell some of the major “players” here that civility is required. The nasty name calling, and general ad hominem attacks create an atmosphere that is unconducive to a polite discourse that might further understanding on a particular topic.

        I truly wonder how many people have decided not to comment, or just not to read, Professor Turley’s blog because of the abusive replies to those who hold different view points. Perhaps you and Jonathan Turley see this as colorful. I see it as an unfortunate symptom of the great partisan divide in our nation. In order to heal this rift we are going to have to hear each other out, and disagree in a respectful and intellectually substantial manner.

        Thank you,
        L.J. Stark

        1. Ann Althouse has a tag for this sort of thing.

          #civilitybullsh!t

        2. L.J. Stark – although some of us would like nothing better than a day of no trolling, it will never happen. I have been on this blawg since Feb of 2014 and the heat of debates was going on then. Except for a few notable exceptions, the discussions are within the range of conversation that people have that are passionate about what they believe in. There are people on here with expertise in many areas, not including the law. And politics on here is a blood sport.

    2. More like 14 million years of evolution, however, our remote ancestors did not live in caves.

      1. you get the idea David. Maybe you can help me with this David, I am guessing you are a white liberal. If not just say so and feel free to reply anyways:

        Do liberals seem to think this is just a battle in an eventual race war?

        Seems like it to me……

        https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/opinion/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court.html

        The author of this oped in the NYT is a black fellow. He says “liberals, this is war”

        excerpts

        “But, when I think of originalism, I think this: Many of the founders owned slaves; in the Constitution they viewed black people as less than fully human; they didn’t want women or poor white men to vote. The founders, a bunch of rich, powerful white men, didn’t want true democracy in this country, and in fact were dreadfully afraid of it.

        This is not a war within a democratic system where liberals and conservatives are matched against each other. It’s a war between systems–a democracy in one corner and an oligarchy in the other. My fear is that the oligarchy has already achieved major victories through its attack on Obamacare; its insertion of trickle-down economics into our tax laws; its anti-unionism (Judge Gorsuch); and the appointment of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

        Now, a bunch of rich, powerful white men want to return us to this sensibility, wrapped in a populist “follow the Constitution” rallying cry and disguised as the ultimate form of patriotism.

        We have to learn to see everything around us, all that is happening on the political front, through that lens. This is what the extreme measures on illegal immigration and even the efforts to dramatically slash legal immigration are all about.

        This is also what the demonizing of the visa lottery program is all about. As the Pew Research Center pointed out in August: “In fiscal 2017, which ended Sept. 30, the largest number of visas went to citizens of African countries” while applicants from European countries and from Asia received fewer visas than before.

        The effort to demonize the lottery program is an effort to preserve America’s white majority, against the statistical eventuality, for as long as possible.
        ……..
        Folks, Kavanaugh is only one soldier, albeit an important one, in a larger battle. Stop thinking you’re in a skirmish, when you’re at war.”

        The author of the editorial is black. It seems like he is saying with total clarity that he believes a war against whites in America is inevitable. ”

        DAVID: WHAT IS THE PLACE OF WHITE LIBERALS IN THE FUTURE WAR AGAINST WHITE AMERICAN PRIVILEGE?

        Punishment brigage? Shock troops? Generals? Fluffers? or just inconpsicuous REMFs? What, tell me, I just want to understand your thinking. How will you fit into things when the gangs come for you or your stuff?

        1. This article has a list of media blabbers saying this is all about white men, and white privilege, etc.

          http://takimag.com/article/brett-kavanaugh-is-a-white-man/#axzz5TODcUhmN

          a lot of these anti-white commentaters are apparently, themselves, white.

          i wonder. what is the role of the self-hating, white person in the coming struggle? Which the oped writer in the NYT, says is inevitable, says is all about whites holding back blacks and “people of color” which he says is here now and is a “war–”

          What will the place of the self-abnegating, self hating white be in the LIberal Army against White America?

          in the army, will you be ekwalz, or will you be heroes, or will you be the first victims, undefended and isolated, unlike the rural white folks– what does mark m call them– rednecks etc– formed up in redneck self defense groups, hold out for their own survival?

          What will the mass media staffers stuck in the big cities do? What will the ones who arent Silicon Valley Billionaires with New Zealand redoubts or Hampton “panic rooms” to hide in do? The midlevel university admins, the civil service types, all these fine liberals, cursed with white skin, what will they do when law and order collapses?

          Think about that. Let me know what your prospects are in this struggle that has long been promised. Will modern day Nat Turners give you a medal or a turn at collective punishment?

          Or maybe things will go easier than that. Maybe in 30 years a majority unwhite America will just fix the national debt, with a “reparations” plan that falls on the heads of the elderly white retirees? The democratic process, after all, is based on one man one vote, and as the NYT oped has promised us, it is inevitable that whitey is going to get outvoted.

          1. or, maybe once the US cracks up, China will just invade. Why wouldn’t they? That’s the only country with nukes and a big enough standing army to occupy America. They allied themselves under Mao with anticolonialism, and the same logic may apply if in 30 years or less order collapses, and they see their opportunity.

            Or maybe they will pick sides. A different side than one might expect. Maybe the Russians and them have these contingencies seriously mapped out. Maybe they have a system in play to burn the candle at both ends, and exacerbate the widening social chasms: the Russians will play the Republicans off, and the PRC Chinese will back the Dems, to ignite the civil war. Do you think that’s impossible? Or maybe it’s obvious?

            Have the Chinese been buying up mass media or starting powerful new internet ventures in the past year? If they have been then its worth considering .

            what then? Will the self hating white liberal be better off if the Chicoms are in charge?

            Check out how things are going in Xinjiang and let me know how the proletarian in all his diversity is faring there.

            1. PS i have no bone to pick with Russians or Chinese. I happen to like them both. Who knows, maybe Mexico would invade. I mean, invade more. LOL.

  9. I believe political friction can result in unexpected new consensus and cohesion.

    Here is a fictional case that lands in SCOTUS, and gives Justice K a shot at closure:

    State X has a new Sexual Accuser Privacy Law, whose intent is to afford a new level of privacy to survivors and witnesses of sexual crimes, so that public humiliation (damage to public reputation) is NOT a cost of coming forward to press charges against a predator. The law is designed to still afford the accused a Constitutional right to confront the accuser, without divulging the accuser’s identity to the public. This is done through a set of NDA’s that bind the attorneys and Court personnel to protecting the accuser’s right to privacy. Using pixelation and voice processing, the defendant and his lawyers confront the accuser in realtime without being able to publicly identity her/him. The Court uses a Jane Doe pseudonym throughout the proceedings, and the fewest necessary neutral Court Officers are privacy to the true identity of the accuser (Judge, and Court Clerk). There are severe penalties for divulging of publicizing the identity of a witness protected under SAPL, including penalties for journalists and social media posters.

    A defense lawyer has knowingly violated SAPL, divulging a victim’s prtected identity through WikiLeaks, in order that the SAPL law be hauled in front of the federal courts, in hopes of it being ruled unconstitutional, a claimed violation of right to confront one’s accuser. The case works its way up to SCOTUS. The arguments boil down to whether there is a public “right to know” a sexual victim’s identity, and what compelling interest it serves, if any, given that being a sexual victim brings unwanted publicity to the victim, injurious to one’s public image. Sate X argues that the SAPL Law has put a serious dent in unreported sexual attacks, has upped the probability of conviction and punishment for sexual predators, and has been successful at deterrence of such attacks.

    1. ‘Defendant’? So you’re proposing an amendment to criminal procedure which permits accusers be excused from antique provisions in law which require that a defendant be permitted to confront his accuser? And you’re proposing that women be allowed to say whatever they damn please about someone without incurring civil liability for defamation; do I have that right? And you’re proposing Judge Kavanaugh disregard clear constitutional language and put his imprimateur on this sort of thing in order to please people like you?

      While we’re at it, please learn the difference between a ‘victim’ and an ‘accuser’, if the distinction between the two is something you’re capable of processing.

    2. It’s more than the public’s right to know. It’s the issue of the Confrontayion Clause and Public Trials. How could a defendant cross examine a witness he can’t see? Reaction to questions are just as powerful as the answers. Squirming matters — to counsel and the jury.

  10. The process needs a reformation. After seeing the effects of disastrous fights since the Robert Bork campaign, I thought I had seen it all.

    But what happened last week came from outer space. It was the strangest Senate confirmation process I had ever witnessed. I would add one more loser to the list: Dianne Feinstein.

  11. “For weeks, people enjoyed uninhibited rage on both sides.”

    I was’t so much enraged a terrified.

    I saw the presumption of innocence discarded and uncorroborated allegations accepted as true.

    I saw a story from an accuser change multiple times, and heard what might be considered legal malpractice by her lawyers (failing to tell her that she could be interviewed at a location of her choice).

    I saw one side — the democrats and the media — present the incredible and uncorroborated allegations of Deborah Ramirez and the obvious fantasies of one Julie Swetnick repeatedly labeled as “credible.”

    I saw a democratic senator withhold a letter alleging his sexual misconduct for 6 weeks(!) before releasing it to the world at large while calling for an investigation when she could have called for a confidential investigation 6 weeks sooner, and I wondered why her behavior wasn’t some kind of illegal obstruction of congress.

    I saw the senate minority leader announce 23 minutes after Kavanaugh’s name was revealed publicly that he’d do everything in his power to prevent the judge’s confirmation.

    I saw a democratic operative doxxing members of the senate and threatening the individual who caught him doing so.

    I saw a man with an impeccable and meritorious record and his family destroyed through pure character assassination for no other reason than to protect political power.

    I now know what the Democrats are capable of, and I’m still terrified.

    1. the rage was very modest. uninhibited would look like well, something very different than people marching around with signs

  13. Unlike the sensationalistic media and the Democrats, who are consumed with (unproductive) conflict theatrics, I tend to focus on (unreported) movements toward cohesion and unity during the Ford-Kavanaugh saga. Let me cite two:

    In the poll just after the Ford-Kav hearing, 40% were open-minded and not possessing the factual evidence it would take to decide what happened, or didn’t happen, 36 years ago. The remainder split 30-30 over having reach their “personal verdict”. To me, the 40% are the ones you would want to serve on a jury — keeping any confirmation bias in check, and not conflating the accusations brought by Ford with some other case. The group that could shoulder the ambiguity of “I don’t know” outnumbered BOTH tribal camps — this is a very uplifting poll result, and shows that the center can hold.

    The other trend: The ugly phenomenon of party-binge-drinking as a strategy used by immature young men to get laid was hauled out into plain view, and was knocked down several notches. While Judge K did not cop to the sexual predation angle, he was forced to admit to alcohol overconsumption on a number of occasions. I think most Americans were moved to a less tolerant view of drink-till-u-puke partying as a result of this confirmation battle.
    That is, there were no public defenders of this hedonism, and it emerged sullied as shameful conduct.

    It was a teaching moment for young people. Extreme inebriation can result in misconduct that is life-altering in its consequences. And, if you drink to the point of not remembering what happened, you give up an important legal right — to serve as a reliable witness. The country bore witness to the impediments to finding the truth and seeking justice that arise out of binge-drinking. That is a valuable teaching moment, and it appears teens were plugged in.

    1. Yeah, we really needed to drag Brett Kavanaugh in front of a camera and in front of a congressional committee to make a confession of instances of excess drinking 35 years ago. The Republic is just so much better off.

  14. Earl Warren SCOTUS tore the fabric of our national ethos and Roe v Wade made America soul-less. Decades of religious, respected, wise leaders across the globe have observed what the Left refuses to utter: when a mother can kill a baby, the sancity of life has been lost, e.g. our present national situation

    Overturn Roe v Wade now that Justice Kavanaugh is on board and assert the Christian foundation of this country as established by our Founding Fathers

    1. the young image of Ford in this column (and elsewhere on the internet) needs to be replaced on all references across the web with an updated photo of how she appears today, one not nearly as attractive nor endearing.

      Kavanaugh’s image is that of an adult. Use the same standard with Ford, otherwise manipulation is at play…no surprise there 🖕🏾

    2. You maybe weren’t around in 1973, or have conveniently forgotten. In the states where abortion was illegal, thousands of women were dying every year from unsafe abortions. The main rationale for the Roe decision was to save adult lives. If you check the US Constitution, adult citizens have rights, and fetuses aren’t recognized with those same rights until birth. Therefore, in the context of the times, Roe was decided based on sound legal principle.

      After Roe, there were no more botched abortions. The deaths preceding Roe were judged to be preventable, and indeed, were prevented by Roe. In this new, post-Roe context, the rationale for the decision went away. But that doesn’t weaken the logic behind the decision at the time it was made. Roe was decided to save adult lives. There is simply no argument that these adult lives were not worth saving.

      1. You maybe weren’t around in 1973, or have conveniently forgotten. In the states where abortion was illegal, thousands of women were dying every year from unsafe abortions

        No, that was not happening. See Bernard Nathanson’s subsequent admission that advocates of legal abortion made up a number out of whole cloth in 1965 and fed it to a media which did not question it.

        Actual deaths from illegal abortion during the postwar period varied between 40 per year and 400 per year.

        1. I may have overstated my case. Let’s look at numbers that have been verified by poilitiFact and US Vital Statistics. In 1965, US live births totalled 3.7 million. The number of adult deaths related to abortion was 63 / million live births. That would estimate about 230 deaths / year due to complications from abortions.

          After Roe, the number of abortion-related deaths plunged to < 10 / million live births, or less than about 40 total per year.

          So, your number of 400/year for pre-Roe is close to reality.

          However, a six-fold decrease in these deaths resulted after Roe made abortion legal everywhere in the US. That saved hundreds of lives per year,
          or thousands per decade.

          1. Give or take the seven-digit population slaughtered every year, including thousands of 3d trimester abortions.

          2. Pbinca:

            its a legit point you make that it has reduced the complications for the mothers terminating the lives of their unborn children. They have been able to do so more safely with the full apparatus of hospitals and so forth in the game.

            Consider however that if the problem was so grave a problem for the nation, then CONGRESS could have passed a national law legalizing abortion under its commerce power. but they didn’t have the votes. no way did they have the votes. so it was schlepped off to the judicial tyrants to pass their own law and Democrats have been apologizing for this piece of judicial legislation ever since.

            conservative SCOTUS will not pass its own judicial legislation to undo this, because now the pendulum has swung, it seems that most Americans want some level of access to legal abortion. now legal for 40 years plus, they’re not going to pull a fast one and suddenly make up their own law to change that overnight. Only Democrats really have the nerve to pull that kind of stunt. So just quit worrying and think of something else to whine about.

      2. there still are plenty of botched abortions. lawyers see those cases in malpractice venues, but they don’t make the news.

      3. Roe was judicial legislation contrary to the majority rule of the majority of states. It was tyrranical. but decades of social engineering has given abortion rights a thin majority. It seems pointless to overturn. i have zero expectation Kav and the rest would overturn it. they may roll it back a little so the states can regulate it more but overall it’s not going back to how it was. that is just scare tactics

        1. Roe v. Wade won’t be overturned because it would create social and economic upheaval. The costs of employers paying maternity leave over and over again for half of the workforce is staggering to contemplate.

          1. Currently, about 2% of the workforce takes maternity leave in a given year, for a period of up to 12 weeks. Were the total fertility rate to increase to the value it had in 1957, that metric might increase to 4% per year. Supposedly, the frictional cost of replacing an employee is about 1/3 of their annual salary on average. Mean annual compensation for female employees is about $57,000 a year as we speak. So, the frictional cost will be around $19,000 and you have an additional increment of 2% of your workforce taking the leave, or about $380 per worker per year. Mean employee compensation is currently around $67,000 per employee per years on average, so you’re talking about an increase in labor costs on the order of 0.6%. I think we’ll all survive that.

            1. In a country that can’t even get the ACA to cover basic health care costs without sky rocketing insurance rates? I hardly think so….

              1. You’re confused. Your ‘skyrocketing’ rates are a consequence of a dynamic where the actuarial pool in the individual market is made up increasingly of sick people. And, of course, employer-provided medical insurance accounts for about 7% of employee compensation, not < 1%.

  15. “Republicans hit a new low on the standard of disclosure by allowing the White House to withhold an unprecedented amount of material from Kavanaugh’s record.”

    I don’t understand Professor Turley’s opinion. It is poorly directed and doesn’t deal with precedent or the law. He states “Republicans hit a new low…” Former President Bush through executive priviledge refused to release those papers and that is his right by precedent and perhaps by law. Why lay blame on the Republicans? That was not their decision. If all the Republicans had suddenly turned Democrat and did nothing would Professor Turley suddenly say the Democrats hit a new low? No, because the members of the Senate were only incidental to the non release.

    Does Turley wish to pass a law or amendment stating that all Presidential papers are open for public viewing? I don’t think so. He seems to be demonstrating partisanship in the way he worded his statement.

    1. The whole column is a contrived exercise with gross exercises of false equivalence sown throughout.

      1. it is indeed the Republicans who don’t have their thinking hats on, who don’t appreciate the depth of enmity in the Democrats. Nor how far this will go. But fast, they need to wake up. DJT points the way.

        Turley chose an apt allusion and one that I’m quite fond of, personally.

        With ten divisions of men like Trump, our problems in this country would be over.

  16. I’m a lifelong Democrat who is appalled by my party’s disgraceful comments and abysmal behavior. Susan Collins was a clear voice of reason that I wished came from the leadership of my party.

      1. The enmity is shared, but not contempt. I am not contemptuous of Democrat leadership, I admire their ruthlessness. They appreciate that there is a spectrum of conflict with many choices on how to proceed, and willfulness to go boldly into the grey areas.

        I encourage Republicans to grow a pair, cancel vacation plans, envigorate, and fight back hard.

    1. Yes, I know what Roe v. Wade is. And, with it’s companion decision, it insists everyone has a constitutional right to hire a perverted gynecologists to soak an unborn child in caustic brine or suck its brains out. Not that they could cite the constitutional provision which enumerates such a right.

      1. you don’t seem to care about ther eal world contortions that are required to fit into your self righteous and judgemental beliefs. I’m guessing you are very young. Perhaps you are an old phart man. The constitutional right to an abortion as decided upon by a woman is not an ‘Everyone’ thing. It is most often a thing decided on by a woman who knows that it may be better than a lifetime of abject and usary servitude is not as Christian as those with wealth believe. The reason our Courts and Democracy are not working right now has more to do with Priveledge=Power than abortion. But maybe if those men in positions of Power and Priveledge were held accountable for thier actions, then maybe there would not be a need for so many abortions….or early child deaths….or the abuse of very young children by perverts (many of whom hold positions of power btw)….
        But I agree with you on one thing. Abortion is ugly. It’s just that it’s not the problem….it is the disease. You cannot innoculate via the courts. The germs must be identified and they are causative…babies aren’t made by women alone.

        2. Becka, what happens in your mind if the woman wants to keep the child and the man doesn’t because he doesn’t want a ” lifetime of abject and usary servitude” to that child.

  18. I will now mention another literary source I have repeatedly referenced on this blog, besides Apocalypse now and its inspirational source Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad; and maybe the good perfesser will mention that in an article too.

    Carl Schmitt:

    Theory of the Partisan

    http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/spaceshotsairheads/carlschmitttheoryofthepartisan.pdf

    an extension of his “theory of the political”… here is a little more about the increasing interest in Carl Scmitt

    http://pari.u-tokyo.ac.jp/publications/WP17_26.pdf

    he was disparaged because yes he was a National Socialist. I mean the brown kind of socialist not the red. that doesnt mean he was wrong about that which he said that was right.

  19. Turley is covering himself in shame with this false equivalency of “both sides”. If that’s what he believes, then list the equivalent actions of the Republicans. There were none.

    2. FFS – the Republicans treated Chrissy with kid gloves. They did not show blow-ups of her high school year book. They did not ask about her drinking parties or playing quarters or passing out.

      1. Grassley would have arranged for soft, soothing music to be played during her testimony if her lawyers had requested it.

  20. Oh, come on JT, this whole thing was all about Roe vs. Wade. The liberals just can’t handle the fact that they have lost since the rock stars first mid term election. The republicans didn’t do anything wrong here but you want to sprinkle this whole thing with relative morallism. It’s their sand box now and the dems need to stop being unhinged about it. “Elections have consequences.. you lost” remember?

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