Hat tip to Trump for his unassailable SCOTUS pick

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the thing that anyone with a brain knows: Court of Appeals judges and SCOTUS justice make decisions that affect millions and can cost companies billions. You do not want a judge who could be bought. And being that far underwater, negative balance sheet and unsustainable debt levels makes it more likely someone can be bought. It’s why you can’t get a security clearance with that balance sheet.

He also had no means of paying all that debt off at once. And the WH does not say inheritance or other legal windfall. They say repaid for baseball tickets. Really?

And no— 200k in credit card debt with a HHI is not normal. Educational debt? Maybe. But not mid 50s and not credit cards.

Because no bank would give a UMC DMV person that much unsecured debt, with that HHI. His balance sheet shows he was on the verge of Chapter 11 (chapter 7 is for the Poors).

Tell me what law Karavanaugh broke by paying down his debt. He would lose his security clearance if he is unable to, or refuse to, pay down his just obligations. Never heard of someone losing security clearance by following the law.

Our standards for a Supreme Court justice are higher than "it's not illegal". They're supposed to be the best, wisest members of our country. They're not supposed to be just like us, one paycheck away from disaster.

I think what you mean is the Democrats' standard for a Republican SCOTUS nominee that's going to cement Trump's legacy for the next 30-40 years is that he or she must be a superman or superwoman. He can't be just like us, have a wife, two kids, a mortgage, cc debt... As someone already pointed out, the next issue that's gonna sink Karavanaugh's nomination is that he refused to rewind the borrowed VHS tape before returning. Fake issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the thing that anyone with a brain knows: Court of Appeals judges and SCOTUS justice make decisions that affect millions and can cost companies billions. You do not want a judge who could be bought. And being that far underwater, negative balance sheet and unsustainable debt levels makes it more likely someone can be bought. It’s why you can’t get a security clearance with that balance sheet.

He also had no means of paying all that debt off at once. And the WH does not say inheritance or other legal windfall. They say repaid for baseball tickets. Really?

And no— 200k in credit card debt with a HHI is not normal. Educational debt? Maybe. But not mid 50s and not credit cards.

Because no bank would give a UMC DMV person that much unsecured debt, with that HHI. His balance sheet shows he was on the verge of Chapter 11 (chapter 7 is for the Poors).

Tell me what law Karavanaugh broke by paying down his debt. He would lose his security clearance if he is unable to, or refuse to, pay down his just obligations. Never heard of someone losing security clearance by following the law.

Our standards for a Supreme Court justice are higher than "it's not illegal". They're supposed to be the best, wisest members of our country. They're not supposed to be just like us, one paycheck away from disaster.

I think what you mean is the Democrats' standard for a Republican SCOTUS nominee that's going to cement Trump's legacy for the next 30-40 years is that he or she must be a superman or superwoman. He can't be just like us, have a wife, two kids, a mortgage, cc debt... As someone already pointed out, the next issue that's gonna sink Karavanaugh's nomination is that he refused to rewind the borrowed VHS tape before returning. Fake issue.

Obviously this won't risk his nomination. But did Kennedy have 5-6 figure credit card debt through a large part of his judicial career? Of course he didn't.

If you found out this information about your BIL, would it affect your opinion of him in any way? Yes, it would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has no one on here ever charged theater tickets for other people--travel tickets, etc for a group and later received reimbursement?

Yep. Has anyone on here ever done it to the tune of 200k? I seriously doubt it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has no one on here ever charged theater tickets for other people--travel tickets, etc for a group and later received reimbursement?

Yep. Has anyone on here ever done it to the tune of 200k? I seriously doubt it.

Scalpers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the thing that anyone with a brain knows: Court of Appeals judges and SCOTUS justice make decisions that affect millions and can cost companies billions. You do not want a judge who could be bought. And being that far underwater, negative balance sheet and unsustainable debt levels makes it more likely someone can be bought. It’s why you can’t get a security clearance with that balance sheet.

He also had no means of paying all that debt off at once. And the WH does not say inheritance or other legal windfall. They say repaid for baseball tickets. Really?

And no— 200k in credit card debt with a HHI is not normal. Educational debt? Maybe. But not mid 50s and not credit cards.

Because no bank would give a UMC DMV person that much unsecured debt, with that HHI. His balance sheet shows he was on the verge of Chapter 11 (chapter 7 is for the Poors).

Tell me what law Karavanaugh broke by paying down his debt. He would lose his security clearance if he is unable to, or refuse to, pay down his just obligations. Never heard of someone losing security clearance by following the law.

Federal Judges don’t have a security clearance to lose. They are deemed cleared by the process of the Presidential appointment and the Congressional thumbs up. They can only be removed by impeachment.

How do you not know this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the thing that anyone with a brain knows: Court of Appeals judges and SCOTUS justice make decisions that affect millions and can cost companies billions. You do not want a judge who could be bought. And being that far underwater, negative balance sheet and unsustainable debt levels makes it more likely someone can be bought. It’s why you can’t get a security clearance with that balance sheet.

He also had no means of paying all that debt off at once. And the WH does not say inheritance or other legal windfall. They say repaid for baseball tickets. Really?

And no— 200k in credit card debt with a HHI is not normal. Educational debt? Maybe. But not mid 50s and not credit cards.

Because no bank would give a UMC DMV person that much unsecured debt, with that HHI. His balance sheet shows he was on the verge of Chapter 11 (chapter 7 is for the Poors).

Tell me what law Karavanaugh broke by paying down his debt. He would lose his security clearance if he is unable to, or refuse to, pay down his just obligations. Never heard of someone losing security clearance by following the law.

Our standards for a Supreme Court justice are higher than "it's not illegal". They're supposed to be the best, wisest members of our country. They're not supposed to be just like us, one paycheck away from disaster.

I think what you mean is the Democrats' standard for a Republican SCOTUS nominee that's going to cement Trump's legacy for the next 30-40 years is that he or she must be a superman or superwoman. He can't be just like us, have a wife, two kids, a mortgage, cc debt... As someone already pointed out, the next issue that's gonna sink Karavanaugh's nomination is that he refused to rewind the borrowed VHS tape before returning. Fake issue.

Obviously this won't risk his nomination. But did Kennedy have 5-6 figure credit card debt through a large part of his judicial career? Of course he didn't.

If you found out this information about your BIL, would it affect your opinion of him in any way? Yes, it would.

As someone who has had 5-6 figure cc debt up to this point at his age, you'd think Washington Post would have uncovered some damaging dirt, like he's been on the take for the most of the last 10-20 years. Instead, the so-called "investigation" revealed he paid down his debt. Still not sure what law he broke by taking care of his just legal and financial obligations. Washington Post seems to be saying if confirmed, he would become the least wealthy of the 9 justices. This is not a crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the thing that anyone with a brain knows: Court of Appeals judges and SCOTUS justice make decisions that affect millions and can cost companies billions. You do not want a judge who could be bought. And being that far underwater, negative balance sheet and unsustainable debt levels makes it more likely someone can be bought. It’s why you can’t get a security clearance with that balance sheet.

He also had no means of paying all that debt off at once. And the WH does not say inheritance or other legal windfall. They say repaid for baseball tickets. Really?

And no— 200k in credit card debt with a HHI is not normal. Educational debt? Maybe. But not mid 50s and not credit cards.

Because no bank would give a UMC DMV person that much unsecured debt, with that HHI. His balance sheet shows he was on the verge of Chapter 11 (chapter 7 is for the Poors).

Tell me what law Karavanaugh broke by paying down his debt. He would lose his security clearance if he is unable to, or refuse to, pay down his just obligations. Never heard of someone losing security clearance by following the law.

Federal Judges don’t have a security clearance to lose. They are deemed cleared by the process of the Presidential appointment and the Congressional thumbs up. They can only be removed by impeachment.

How do you not know this?

Before that stage, they go though BI in which investigators scour for any and all negative info by talking to any and all, including Karavanaugh's neighborhood dogs and cats who may have witnessed anything untoward. How do you not know this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fake news. There's no law that says a federal employe can't have credit card debts. The only issue I am aware is whether the employee took care of his or her just obligations. There's nothing in this thread that suggests that Kavanaugh didn't.

Mystery money. Where did the mystery money come from to pay off his debts? That’s not “fake news.” That’s a big dang deal.

Generally, the problem is if Kavanaugh didn't disclose his debt and someone, somehow discovered he lied on the disclosure form. No one's suggesting he lied. And if you can't imagine how someone could pay off a $200,000 cc debt legitimately, it's probably due to your lack of imagination, wishful thinking - or more likely your politics getting in the way of critical thinking. I can imagine many ways in which someone could pay down his or he rdebt, so this is a non-issue until someone on the left can be more specific about what Kavanaugh did that is so illegal.

And no one is saying he did anything illegal - yet. It’s just eyebrow raising, and not the judgment you want to see in a current federal judge and Supreme Court nominee, for him to have only mid-five figures in assets outside of his retirement and personal residence, and with all the past debt, and with all the debt suddenly paid off. Bad things happen when judges are broke.

Really? It's eyebrow raising for a judge to have the same sorts of finances most of the rest of us who are reasonably well off have? Most middle class wealth is in our homes and retirement accounts. Most of us do not have buckets of money sitting around in other areas. And if we ran up expenses for something, we could pay it off. We're not really "broke" and stopping starbucks or eating out or finally cutting cable and getting our friends to pay us back and our parents doing some inheritance tax planning all of that can put some money in our pockets pretty quickly.

Broke would be payday loan and selling the furniture territory. Not "got exuberant with season tickets and vacation two years ago, and unexpectedly had some house expenses, have to go back to the basics with budgeting and not be so free flowing" territory.

Get outside of your bubble and you'll find that a lot of people live like this.

You know what’s a bubble- thinking someone that someone who makes $300k annually and has a $1.2M house is how a lot of people live. Broke is broke. It doesn’t matter if you have extensive debt with s fancy house or if you borrow money to make rent. Relying on your parents inheritance tax planning to pay off charges you ran up overspending on baseball tickets is also broke. His debt didn’t get resolved by cutting out Starbucks or cutting cable. Paying off that amount of debt takes years of discipline. Speak for yourself about the same sorts of finances. Some of us have good judgement.

That is exactly how a lot of people live in this area. UMC folks who have enough money not to need to worry too much, but not so much we can do anything we want to do.

Government employees do well, and count on the retirement so aren't as likely to cut immediate expenses for extra buckets of money.

Perhaps you should meet some actually broke people. Can't pay for a car repair, have already sold their belongings that are worth anything, plan on which utility is getting cut off this month, broke.

So? None of those people are being nominated for SCOTUS.

Why do you want to add a requirement that only rich people can be considered for SCOTUS? Is it that "the good schools" are now admitting some regular people and thus are no longer the filter they used to be, so we have to be more blatant in our classism?

[Anonymous]

It's pathetic that he could earn so little as a judge. Most good judges are millionaires, with big investments and stock portfolios and they write books and do seminars and consulting and other legal stuff. Most judges are like seriously rich. This guy is just a lazy slob who cared more about going to baseball games than making something of himself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's pathetic that he could earn so little as a judge. Most good judges are millionaires, with big investments and stock portfolios and they write books and do seminars and consulting and other legal stuff. Most judges are like seriously rich. This guy is just a lazy slob who cared more about going to baseball games than making something of himself.

You are so clueless that it's laughable. Federal judges' ethics rules prohibit lots of activities that would yield outside income. Being a rich federal judge has nothing to do with being 'good.' Rich federal judges either -- inherited wealth, earned wealth in private practice before the bench, or are married to a wealthy spouse.

[Anonymous]

I am looking forward to learning more about Kavanaugh’s role in the torture related decisions by the Bush administration. He was belatedly caught misrepresenting it ( i.e. lying) after his last hearing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's pathetic that he could earn so little as a judge. Most good judges are millionaires, with big investments and stock portfolios and they write books and do seminars and consulting and other legal stuff. Most judges are like seriously rich. This guy is just a lazy slob who cared more about going to baseball games than making something of himself.

It's pathetic the Dems have nothing to pick on other than that this guy is as American as baseball and apple pie. If this is all Dems got, he's safe, he's a shoo in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am looking forward to learning more about Kavanaugh’s role in the torture related decisions by the Bush administration. He was belatedly caught misrepresenting it ( i.e. lying) after his last hearing.

He's already been belatedly caught misrepresenting returned tapes to blockbuster without rewinding (i.e., lying) - a federal offense.

[Anonymous]

The debt thing is so weird. My DH and I are both public servants and have way more money than that and no debt exxcpet mortgage. If you don’t have the money why would you put 60k on a credit card for baseball tix? That’s just so dumb. Their HH income is $260k and they have less than 65k saved?? Something doesn’t add up.

[Anonymous]

The mishandling of his finances is a really big deal actually. Check out bar exam character and fitness requirements - and this is just to be admitted to the bar - we’re talking about the Supreme Court here.