As discussed today, the Kavanaugh nomination unleashed a form of primordial politics that seemed to reach horrifying levels on both sides of personal destruction and no holds barred attacks. No sooner had that column run in the Hill when Ariel Dumas, a writer for CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” declared that “Whatever happens, I’m just glad we ruined Brett Kavanaugh’s life.” It summed up in a Tweet that vicious character of our politics and discourse.
I expect Dumas’ desire for the ruination of Brett Kavanaugh will ultimately prove unrealized. As I have discussed, while Kavanaugh’s Wikipedia page might start with this controversy, it will not end there. What will follow is decades of consequential cases. That is called a legacy. The Ford controversy was an allegation.
That legacy will start sooner than most expected. Last week, the court heard three cases dealing with areas like environmental law and the death penalty where Kavanaugh is likely to shift the Court to the right. I expect that some if not all of those cases will be a 4-4 split. Tradition allows for those cases to be reargued for Kavanaugh. This week, there are additional criminal cases. In other words, Kavanaugh’s confirmation will start to pay dividends for conservatives in the first week.
Just to remind people that there is an authoritative comment on the peopling of the Americas near the top of this thread.
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. – if by authoritative, you mean the one with no authorship or citation, then it should be ignored. I did not see an authority cited.
On this subject I am an authority.
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. because?
Colbert is a devout Catholic. It’s time for him to do something on his “show” to prove it.
This reminds me of Leo Frank a Jewish man convicted of murder. A gang of thugs tore him out of his prison cell and hung him quite certain he deserved it for the murder and possible rape of a young girl by the name of Mary Phagan. Even a cop gave sworn testimony as did the janitor. They both lied. The janitor was her killer.
Just to set down what is known about the peopling of the Americas:
There is no evidence of Neanderthals further north or east of Denisova cave in Siberia. It is not known why the Neanderthals became extinct but all of us non-Africans, that is, outside of Sub-Saharan Africa, have about 1–2% of Neanderthal DNA.
The Beringians lived in Beringia, both sides of what is now the Bering Straits but the sea stand was about 125 meters lower than now, for about 6000 years, based on linguistic and genetic evidence. To be explicit, the Americas were unpopulated at that time outside of American Beringia.
About 16—15 thousand years ago the first peoples came south from Beringia. These are the Amerindians which populated all of the Americas based on linguistic and genetic evidence.
The Clovis culture consisted of Amerindians living across the southern parts of what is now the USA. Clovis culture ended abruptly at the start of the Younger Dryas when the Amerindians adapted other cultural forms.
Much later the second wave came south. The best known of these Athabaskan tribes are the Navaho and the Apache.
The Aluts seem to have remained in what is now Alaska. The peoples of the Arctic eventually spread east as far as Greenland.
Given how long these peoples have lived in the Americas, calling them corporately indigenous peoples seems appropriate. They certainly are not Indians from India.
k
Kavanaugh’s life is anything but “ruined.” He has cemented a near Roman Catholic theocracy on the United States, answerable only to the Pope. In his swearing-in ceremony, notice that he thanked “the Catholic community.” That says it all.
Whatever.
Tabarrok,..
Don’t be so dismissive with the “Whatever” response.
This perceived Vatican takeover of SCOTUS is as serious as when JFK swapped all the gold in Fort Knox for holy water from the Pope.😦😉😄.
Jason: Since Tabarrock has been stricken uncharacteristically speechless by your comment, let me respond. There are now four practicing Catholics on the SCOTUS:
1. Roberts: lives in Chevy Chase, MD and is an active member of Little Flower Catholic Church. He and his wife are also active in the John Carrol Society, an org of practicing C lawyers and judges who can only be admitted on the recommendation of a priest and another member. His wife is an officer, as well as belonging to “Feminists for Life.”
2. Kavanaugh also lives in Chevy Chase, but regularly attends Blessed Sacrament CC in CC, where his children attend school and he coaches girls’ sports. He also performs volunteer work for Catholic Charities.
3. Clarence Thomas was once a seminarian, studying for the priesthood. He left the CC for many years, but returned and is often seen in D.C. walking to/from noon mass with Alito. He lives in VA and attends St. C’s where Scalia’s son is a priest.
4. Alito: Practicing Catholic. Regularly attends mass (I don’t know which church) but is known to attend mass with CT at St. Patrick’s during weekdays.
5. Gorsuch: Lapsed Catholic. He was raised as a C and attended Georgetown Prep, but during his years in Denver attended a “progressive” (i.e., liberal) Episcopalian church. It is not known whether he converted to Protestantism. During his confirmation hearings, he was vague about his religious views, stating that he “sees God in nature.”
6. Sotomayor: Lapsed Catholic: Raised C and attended C schools through high school, but once in college, stopped going to mass. She socialized with a group of Hispanic students who attended mass together, but she didn’t go. Her only known C involvement post high school was when she married in a chapel of St. Patrick’s in NY, although that may have been at the wishes of her Irish Catholic husband. They divorced after about nine years, so she can’t celebrate communion in a CC without an annulment. It doesn’t appear that she cares….
So all in all, there are four practicing Catholic justices, two indifferent Catholics, and three Jews.
Becoming an Episcopalian is not “converting to Protestantism”, necessarily. The Anglo-Catholic tradition is alive and well in the Episcopal Church of the United States. To call all Episcopalians “Protestants” shows a possible misunderstanding of their church and the term “Protestant”.
Yeah, it is. The Church has ruled that Anglican holy orders are invalid. The Orthodox and non-Chalcedonian churches have valid holy orders in the eyes of the Church.
Strange as it may seem to you and ‘Jason Janowitz’, Catholics are not debarred from public office in this country. The notion that this generates a ‘Roman Catholic theocracy’ in this country is just stupid and doesn’t require any verbiage from me to demonstrate the point.
By the way, Ruth Bader Ghastly, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, (and Merrick Garland) are all Jewish, a demographic segment that accounts for 40% of whom live around New York or Miami). What would having the four ot them on the court ‘cement’?
that accounts for 2% of the population (40% of whom live around New York of Miami).
RGB, Breyer, Kagan & Garland would not constitute a majority on scotus, and are not known to be religious, so there would be no theocracy. It wouldn’t be like having six Hasidim or Orthodox justices, or having six Muslims, Mormons or practicing Catholics.
and are not known to be religious, so there would be no theocracy
Why not learn the meaning of the term ‘theocracy’ and then get back to us?
Jason J.,
I think 5 or 6 of the recent Supreme Court justices have been Catholic.
A few years ago, before Scalia’s death, I think there were 6 Catholics, and 3 were ethnic Jews….don’t know if they practised Judaism.
But there were no Protestants.
I don’t know the current “religious tally” of SCOTUS members; but if you had a concern about “a theocratic court” because of the “Catholic composition” of the court, your concerns must have gone back for years.
Without checking, I’d bet that there are no higher number of Catholics on the SC bench today than there were several years ago.
You forgot to call him a “damned Papist”.
The Colbert writer is an idiot preaching to the choir and I’ll leave there…
Only chivalry prevented me from asking that writer (we’re both on Twitter) if she was the author of Colbert’s line (directed at the President) “You’re Putin’s cock holster”. It’s time Colbert and his writers had to answer for their slander masquerading as humor.
She appears to have been a contract employee who wrote for Colbert intermittently in 2015 and 2016, not someone on staff.