Tag: Court

You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids, so we’ll be here all to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.

Did everybody you encountered on Thursday seem a little more energized than usual? Did your boss whistle on her way to her desk? Did you spot your UPS delivery man dancing down the street with a package? Did even your dog seem to trot with a little more pride, perhaps forgoing her typical shame-eyes while she watched you pick up her poop?

That’s because all of them saw Senator Cory Booker (D—New Jersey) lean over his mic at the Kavanaugh hearings and utter two words in response to Senator John Cornyn’s (R—Texas) threat to have him expelled from the Senate for leaking committee-confidential emails.

“Bring it,” Sen. Booker said. “Bring it.”

It was a hell of a kickoff—and a fitting one. Day Three, given that we watched the same people open their mouths, over and over, should have had all the thrill of a slowly deflating balloon. And if we’re honest, it wasn’t some great success. Both Democrats and Republicans spent much of the session launching valiant attempts to get Kavanaugh to promise he isn’t beholden to the president and that he wouldn’t thwart investigations into him. Kavanaugh’s response to their 600 efforts? Guys, stop! I hate labels—“yes” and “no” are so limiting. Let’s talk about something else—have I mentioned my “four greatest moments in the history of the Supreme Court?” Oh, I have, and it’s really pissing you off that I’m saying it again? Shh—gonna do it anyway!

Yet somehow the day managed to have a perfectly bitchy tension, kind of like when you rent a house with friends and the trip goes on one day longer than it should have and you’re like, Wait, I think I hate my friends. That’s where we’re at. Senator Mazie Hirono (D—Hawaii) is glaring at Kavanaugh like he’s the guy who picked the house but hasn’t paid his share yet. Senator Orrin Hatch (R—Utah) is grumbling about protestors like they’re the loud new boyfriend no one knew was coming. And Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D—Rhode Island) jaw is vibrating with that brand of fury specific to no one else but him ever taking out the goddamn trash.

Here’s your rundown of the best moments from the worst vacation ever.

Best 11th-hour sensation: Senator Kamala Harris (D—Calif.)

Before we get to Day Three’s events, we need to talk about what happened at the end of Day Two—at least an hour after most of America had retreated from C-SPAN and rushed into the kinder arms of America’s Got Talent. As the eve wore on, Kavanaugh, too, looked like he was dreaming of getting home to his couch and his DVR pileup (Mentalist reruns in standard definition, I’d bet). Perhaps he was a little tired, and so he didn’t hear the bell ring when Sen. Harris took the mic. But soon enough, he realized: Night school was in session. She hammered him—watch the highlights here.

Fiercest ride-or-dies: Sen. Booker, Senator Dick Durbin (D—Illinois) and Sen. Hirono. After Sen. Booker’s “Bring it,” Sen. Hirono pointed out that she, too, leaked documents—come at her. And Sen. Durbin got all excited and said, “If there’s going to be some retribution against the gentleman from New Jersey, count me in.” Kinda love that Sen. Durbin’s rallying cry works equally well for Senate proceedings in 2018 and publick-house brawls in 1772.

Loudest dog whistle: In response to a question from Senator Ted Cruz (R—Texas), Kavanaugh used the term “abortion-inducing drugs” to refer to contraception. The language comes straight from the fiercest anti-choice advocates and is also inaccurate. Contraception is not abortion, signed millions of American women and all of our doctors.

Worst reverse age-shaming: Kavanaugh on Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of EducationSenator Amy Klobuchar (D—Minn.) voiced the question that’s been making heads across America hurt this week: How does Kavanaugh define the difference between precedent and settled law when it comes to Supreme Court cases? In his answer, Kavanaugh said that Brown v. Board of Education is settled law because it’s “historical”—64 years old. Sen. Klobuchar grinned. “Roe is now 45 years old,” she said. “Why isn’t that a thumbs-up settled law?” Kavanaugh didn’t have a good answer for her.

Hypocrisy slay of the day: Sen. Hirono. Sen. Hirono, once again running low on f—s, went in on Kavanaugh’s record concerning reproductive rights, making the man wish he never met the phrase “undue burden.” See, in one case Kavanaugh ruled on, he said that people who opposed birth control on religious grounds shouldn’t have to fill out a form approving their employees’ health coverage of it. That, in his estimation, was “undue burden.” The phrase came up again in Garza v. Hargan, in which Kavanaugh’s decision sought to deny an immigrant minor an abortion. Kavanaugh wanted the procedure delayed until the girl found foster parents who could talk it through with her—letting her pregnancy tick on towards the 20-week deadline for abortions under Texas law. That delay, he argued then, did not constitute “undue burden.” Sen. Hirono scoffed at the irony laid out by the two cases: “So filling out a two-page form was too much,” she said. “But it was not too much for [Jane Doe] to wait around for foster parents to be found.”

Best circus advocate: Senator Lindsay Graham (R—South Carolina).

After Sen. Hatch mumbled that the proceedings had turned into “a circus,” Sen. Graham quipped, “I wanna defend circuses. Circuses are entertaining and you can take your children to them.” An excellent line, but I wasn’t surprised—the last 18 months have afforded Sen. Graham plenty of chances to defend a clown.

Guy we’re most done with: Senator John Kennedy (R—Louisiana). Of all the whining the Republicans have done this week about protestors exercising free speech, Sen. Kennedy’s has been the whiniest. After Kavanaugh himself said, in the wake of a protestor’s shouting, that the students behind him were getting a chance to learn about democracy, Sen. Kennedy—who’s a dead ringer for this choir-boy doll my grandmother used to put out at Christmas, though that’s neither here nor there—looked down at the girls and snooted of the interruption, “It’s happened over 200 times in the last three days. It’s not really how democracy’s supposed to work.” Actually, girls, it is. If democracy needs less of anything, it’s old white guys looking down from on high, telling you what to think.

The detective drama spinoff I’d most like to watch: Klobuchouse.

She—Sen. Klobuchar is the unflappable good cop, smiling with catlike calm when a suspect spits her questions back in her face. He—Sen. Whitehouse—is the keyed-up bad cop, a cross between Statler from The Muppets and that one snappish teacher from high school who, looking back, probably had some stuff going on at home. They’re good cops on their own—but together, they’re great.

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You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids—so we’ll be here all to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh spent nearly all of Day One of his Capitol Hill confirmation hearings in rapt attention. Listening, listening, listening. Sitting, bearing fidgety witness to the drama as it unfolded on the dais. But here we are on Day Two, though, like a ubiquitous Real Housewives “friend” turned full cast-member, he twirled into the spotlight. And if he had a Housewives tagline, it’d be this: “Nothing but respect for my precedent.”

Yes, “precedent” was the word of the hour, all the hours—Kavanaugh’s career, mantra, and brand all in one. (At one point, he even said “precedent on precedent”—which is, trust me, the closest Brett Kavanaugh has ever gotten to a rap). Every decision he’s ever rendered? Based on precedent, he told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Every decision he intends to make in the future? Same. “Do you agree with Justice [Sandra Day] O’Connor that a woman has a right to control her reproductive life?” asked Senator Dianne Feinstein (D—Calif.), the ranking Democratic member on the committee.

Kavanaugh paused. “Well, as a general proposition, I understand the importance of the precedent set forth by Roe v. Wade,” he answered.

“What would you say your position is today on a woman’s right to choose?” Sen. Feinstein followed up.

“As a judge, it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court,” Kavanaugh said, leaving little doubt that he is, in fact, a scholar of Housewives in addition to constitutional law. These answers are nothing if not designed to be easily denied later—at the end-of-season reunion, or whilst striking down Roe v. Wade.

Later in the afternoon, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D—Conn.) arrived. He turned Kavanaugh’s love of a precedent reference against him! (Very Vicki Gunvalson!) Sen. Blumenthal proceeded to pull out an opinion of Kavanaugh’s in which he referred to Roe as “existing precedent.” Sen. Blumenthal insisted that he’d never seen precedent qualified like that before: “It’s a little bit,” he said to Kavanaugh, “like someone introducing you to his wife as ‘my current wife.’” Blumenthal tried to extract a guarantee from Kavanaugh that he’d never overturn Roe. That, as the pros put is, was a non-starter.

Kavanaugh’s marathon evasiveness was enough to make a gal wish for a guest spot from Andy Cohen, whose blithly exasperated, yet effective interview techniques were desperately needed here. I just get the impression that Andy would be able to get decisive yes-no responses on all the important issues—whether Kavanaugh would gut abortion rights, whether he believes Trump can be prosecuted, whether Ramona did attempt to go to Tom’s New Year’s Eve bash. (And then I’d like Sen. Blumenthal to take a crack at dissecting the Bethenny-Carole breakdown.)

Here are some more takeaways from a long, long-winded day:

Fastest turnaround: Zina Bash. We now know the name of the aide sitting over Kavanaugh’s shoulder like a Club Monaco-clad guardian angel. She’s Zina Bash, and she was much more subdued than we saw her on Tuesday. Having to debunk Twitter theories that you were throwing white-power hand signals will do that to a person. Today, Bash barely had hands. Mostly, they manifested as quick blurs whenever she had to scratch an itch or answer an urgent email. If someone handed her a beverage, I feel sure she would have accepted it with her teeth.

Biggest distraction: Silicon Valley celebs.

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, and Jack Dorsey’s community-Shakespeare-theatre beard were all on Capitol Hill this afternoon, too, talking about their platforms’ roles in 2016 election meddling. Somehow, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) even got into a fight in the hallway with a radio person. Can you imagine what it would have been like to attempt to concentrate on Kavanaugh while all that’s happening next door? It would be like that time you were in the class stuck making up a pop quiz while the rest of the school is at a pep rally—a pep rally where Marco Rubio, who was awarded “Crispest Khaki Creases” at graduation, is about to throw a punch!

Best successor to “moist,” the worst word on the planet: “Undergirds.” I’m not sure how many times Kavanaugh said the word “undergirds” today, but I know it was all the times too many.

Dad move of the day: Kavanaugh on Leahy’s emails. When Senator Patrick Leahy (D—Conn.), in an attempt to catch Kavanaugh in an alleged lie, showed him a printed-out email chain, Kavanaugh went into full-on naïve mode, blinking into the middle distance and repeating the name of a one-time Republican Senate staffer—“Mir-an-da?”—in the befuddled tone of a medium-developed toddler. Clearly, he’d practiced this response—but not in debate prep. Rather, it’s a move ripped from the official two-point fatherhood playbook.

When one of your daughters gets invited to a sleepover at the home of a friend you’ve deemed “fast,” here’s what you’ve got to do: Step one: “Lose” the invitation. Step two: When confronted, feign innocence: “An invitation from… who? Mir… an… da? The one who has her own vape pen and the boyfriend who drag races? Nope, I didn’t see it, sweetie! Let’s go hoop it up instead!”

Burn of the day: Senator Amy Klobuchar (D—Minn.).

Sen. Klobuchar is on a two-day winning streak for the best daily zing. Today, she grilled Kavanaugh on his established reluctance to investigate or prosecute sitting presidents. The exception to his opinion, Kavanaugh once said, would be if the president did something “dastardly.” But as Sen. Klobuchar pointed out coolly, “How do we know something is dastardly or not if we can’t even investigate it?” Klobes! Rip that teeny little mic right out of the podium, then go ahead and drop it.

Most hilarious tactic: The Tremendous, Stupendous Brett Kavanaugh Loves Women Parade! Senator Orrin Hatch (R—Utah) may have been shaken by women on Tuesday. But a new dawn broke, and on Wednesday, he was like, “You know what? Women are good!”

Sen. Hatch’s allotted time was spent hyping Kavanaugh’s deep commitment to gender equality. “They say that you are one of the strongest advocates… for women lawyers,” Sen. Hatch said, adding, “The majority of your clerks in your office have been—women!” You should know he said “women” there with such a pure sense of awe, it seemed like he might have been less shocked if the clerks had turned out to be goats.

Giver of fewest f—s: Senator Mazie Hirono (D—Hawaii).

Whether she was expressing frank skepticism at Kavanaugh’s inability to remember a raunchy office email chain at one of his former jobs (eyebrows at 30,000 feet), slicing through his verbosity (“I think that’s a complete answer, thank you”), or eviscerating his support of a parental consent requirement for a minor’s abortion in a specific case (“Her parents were beating her up! How could you expect parental consent?”), Sen. Hirono was not having the bullshit this eve. Her turn didn’t come until dinnertime, and while everyone else in the room looked beat, and Kavanaugh was probably desperate for his linguine alla Heinz at that point, Hirono must have had a well-timed protein snack, because she looked like she could have gone until the midterms.

Kavanaugh will see her and her brooch in his nightmares. You’re welcome, Brett. Good night.

Megan Angelo writes about TV and is the author of the novel Followers, which will be published in 2019. You catch her Kavanaugh recaps on Glamour.com all week.

MORE: This Is Must-See TV: All the Drama You Missed on Day One of Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation Hearings

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