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Yo, Did Brett Kavanaugh Roll Aces And Get Emotional About Losing His Stash? Sheldon Whitehouse Thinks So.

Translation for white people: Does Brett Kavanaugh Have Gambling Debts From Dice Games?

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Consider this your official legal explainer about Brett Kavanaugh and the game of Cee-Lo

We are at the written questions stage of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process. Each Senator submits a set of written queries. The nominees are supposed to respond, but if you think a guy like Brett Kavanaugh can be evasive about his views at the hearings, wait until he gets a pen in his hand.

Still, there are some explosive questions from Democratic Senators, and some of the best ones are being asked by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Remember how, before the hearings, it was revealed that Brett Kavanaugh had a mountain of debt, that was mysteriously and quickly paid off? He passed it off as incurred from buying “baseball tickets” and… somehow everybody just took him at his word because he’s such a good person or some tripe? Yeah, well, Whitehouse did not.

Whitehouse’s questions suggest, in striking fashion, that Kavanaugh might have some sort of gambling problem. He asks about ten questions to set up Kavanaugh’s mysterious, fluctuating debt, and it all hits a crescendo with Question 23:

23. Bill Burck produced to the committee a document from your tenure in the White House Counsel’s Office that references a “game of dice.” After a reunion with friends in September 2001, you emailed: “Apologies to all for missing Friday (good excuse), and growing aggressive after blowing still another game of dice (don’t recall). Reminders to everyone to be very, very vigilant w/r/t confidentiality on all issues and all fronts, including with spouses.”

a. Since 2000, have you participated in any form of gambling or game of chance or skill with monetary stakes, including but not limited to poker, dice, golf, sports betting, blackjack, and craps? If yes, please list the dates, participants, location/venue, and amounts won/lost.
b. Do you play in a regular or periodic poker game? If yes, please list the dates, participants, location/venue, and amounts won/lost.
c. Have you ever gambled or accrued gambling debt in the State of New Jersey?
d. Have you ever had debt discharged by a creditor for losses incurred in the State of New Jersey?
e. Have you ever sought treatment for a gambling addiction?
f. In the email quoted above, please explain what “issues” and “fronts” you wanted your friends to be “very, very vigilant” about “w/r/t/ confidentiality, including with spouses.”

This question is a show-stopper, or should be. People on both sides of the aisle should DEMAND an answer as to whether a potential Supreme Court justice has a gambling problem because gambling is easily the number one cause of corruption all-time over the history of the damn Earth. The fact that Susan Collins will fix her mouth to call funding a challenger against her a “bribe,” but somehow not demand to know if the nominee is a gambler, preemptively pisses me off. And I know that a phalanx of FedSoc flunkies are already gathering to throw their careers and reputations on the line to shield Kavanaugh from this, just like they have tried to shield him from all legitimate inquiries about his character and integrity.

But… let’s talk about dice. Because while most non-addled readers of his site will see the importance of this question, as one of the only African-American writers most of you read regularly, I feel it is my solemn responsibility to explain to you now the only “game of dice” I can think of that regularly causes participants to grow “aggressive” and often leads to the need for people to be “very, very vigilant w/r/t confidentiality.”

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The game I really hope Kavanaugh was playing is called “Cee-Lo.”

Cee-Lo is actually a popular Chinese dice game, that has been co-opted by “urban” American culture. As an African-American who is also part Chinese, I have rolled or “cracked” cee-lo with brothers from both sides. I can report that, regardless of culture, I always somehow lose and get emasculated at the same time.

The game has also been co-opted by movies and television. Whenever they need of shot of black youths doing something that seems “dangerous” to passers-by, but the director has become bored with ubiquitous shots of crack pipes and piece-flashing, they’ll throw in some cee-lo. You know the scenes I’m talking about: bunch of black guys, hunched over some cardboard, rolling dice, then someone shouts the n-word and a gun comes out, and the white character and their respectability-black guide mutter “tsk tsk” about these here streets.

But you can always tell if the director has even a loose clue about what he’s talking about by the number of dice. Cee-lo is played with three dice. Craps, the casino game, which is also sometimes played on the streets but much more rarely, is played with two dice. I hate shots of “street craps” because the implicit suggestion is that black people are playing “dumb craps,” which is not at all what’s going on.

Cee-lo can be pretty complicated, and it’s played with a number of variants. But the over-arching rules are simple enough to explain:

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  • Roll three dice.
  • Getting sequence of 4,5,6 means you win.
  • Getting a sequence of 1,2,3 means you lose.
  • Getting trips of anything, besides “1”, means you’ll probably win.
  • If you roll a pair, the third number, the one that is not matched, is your number, and the highest number wins. So: 2,2,5 BEATS 5,5,2. IMPORTANT: Some suckas play the exact opposite way. Them fools are WRONG, but I abhor violence so I always ask, IN ADVANCE.
  • If your number is a “1,” it’s called “aces”… and you’re probably gonna lose.
  • IMPORTANT: 1,1,1 could be either a good hand (because trips) OR a bad hand (because ones). Again, ask IN ADVANCE.
  • All that money on the ground is now yours, if you rolled the best hand. Pick it up quickly.

In a classic game, the first roller drops money on the ground, and roll the dice against a corner (like a stoop) or on top of a piece of cardboard. (IMPORTANT: If present, the cardboard is there for a reason, do NOT roll the dice off the cardboard.) The next rollers will place their money on the ground, and try to roll a better hand. Ties or non-hands can result in additional rounds, and additional money building the pot. Not rollers can still place bets on the outcome among participants. The Cee-Lo Wikipedia (I checked to see what you’ve been taught before) mentions some version of the game with a “bank” but I’ve never played that way and it sounds European to me, so I’m going to ignore it.

As you can see, there’s nothing in the rules of Cee-lo that makes it inherently more dangerous than… any other type of illegal gambling. And I’d go so far as to say that it’s an inherently less aggressive game than something like poker, which almost requires lying and intimidation to make any money.

But, as a lawyer, I’ve always preferred poker, Hold ‘Em particularly, because the rule-set is incredibly stable. There is no question that my flush beats your straight. We don’t have to argue about it, you can Google it if you want, after you pay me my money. With Cee-lo, man I was in some game where they were trying to tell me not only that rolling all “evens” or “odds” was a hand, but that evens beat odds, or odds beat evens, or whatever. Cee-lo can be one of those games where the strongest person (physically) just takes your money off the floor and dares you to take it back. (You owe me 50 bucks, Benny. I WILL NEVER FORGET!)

Which brings me back to Kavanaugh. Yes, when illegally gambling, “growing aggressive” is a thing that can happen. People get emotional about their funds. But the thought of a lawyer — a judge, AN ORIGINALIST JUDGE — becoming insanely aggressive over a rules quirk that causes him to lose more money than he can afford to lose, just makes me dangerously happy. Can you imagine if somebody tried to pull the ones thing on Kavanaugh?

Kavanaugh: Tripps, bitches!
Wayne Brady: Naw, that’s all ones. Aces-out, my brother.
Kavanaugh: What? What the hell are you talking about?
Wayne Brady: [cooly collecting Benjamins] Is… Wayne Brady going to have to choke a bitch?
Kavanaugh: Nah, Nah Wayn… Mr. Brady. We cool. It’s just. Damn. We have to be very, very vigilant with regards to confidentiality about this. I’m going to have to tell my wife that I blew it all on Nats tickets, and she’s starting to ask questions.
Wayne Brady: It’ll be aight, I’ll sing her a song for her birthday.

Anyway, umm, WE NEED TO KNOW THE TRUTH OF THIS BEFORE WE GIVE BRETT KAVANAUGH A LIFETIME APPOINTMENT.

Sheldon Whitehouse Questions For Brett Kavanaugh

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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