a judge's judicial philosophy on the amount of money he has given as political contributions? Bizarre, really. And still says he's on par with Thomas and Gorsuch....

He's the Federalist Society's golden boy for a reason. He checks all the ideologue boxes. No one remotely serious claims otherwise.

As for his history of activism, I am speaking from what I have seen following his cases and actually sitting in courtrooms where he was a panelist. One comes to mind (I do financial services work so I followed this one closely): PHH Mortgage vs. CFPB. Kavanaugh was on the panel, with another conservative. The issues briefed to them on appeal were straightforward, about a statute called RESPA and whether a type of captive reinsurance arrangement was a kickback. Kavanaugh, however, decided to make the case about something different -- the constitutionality of the Dodd-Frank Act provision that created the agency and its single-director structure. He requested briefing on that issue despite it not even being argued so he could do what he wanted to do -- declare a statutory provision unconstitutional (along with the other Republican on the panel). It was outrageous -- something I had never seen before, tbh, and he did it. A bizarre opinion about separation of powers, despite a judge just up and declaring a statute passed by the Congress was unconsitituitional on a ground so flimsy it was easily later reversed en banc by a full DC Circuit panel. He also was one who dissented in trying to declare the ACA unconsititutional, among others.

That's who Kavanaugh is as a judge, and who he will be on the SCOTUS. One who will pay lip service to judges being "umpires" unless he has the opportunity to legislate from the bench to further his own agenda.