E. Jean Carroll Got Her Vindication

 

The nine-person jury took less than three hours to deliberate. https://t.co/mcBxgevv7V

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) May 10, 2023

Trump can very well grumble to his little fan club about whether the verdict against him counts as some form of "witch hunt"--but his ridiculous claim that he was denied the right to speak on his own behalf was sheer imbecility--it's a matter of court record that he was given the opportunity to file to testify. He and his legal team did not. This decision today was not just a triumph for E. Jean Carroll, but for other women who know very well what Donald Trump was about. 

And there are dozens. 

Trump can claim women have made their assorted claims against him for mercenary reasons--but we can easily understand how the cost to them to mention his name was potentially high, right? There's a reason the judge in this case wanted the jury to remain anonymous and counseled against their coming forward for the sake of the story. 

I can't help but think of Christine Blasey Ford--who I hope by now has been able to settle and find peace, although she was targeted for abuse and made a threat-driven nomad for the sake of her telling her story regarding Brett Kavanaugh--and I still tend to believe her and am raw that he was not better vetted before being placed in such a position of responsibility. The thing I will always recall in high relief is that her own father seemed to have considered her a class traitor for telling her story. She was supported with faint damn, or maybe damned by faint support. I don't know. But my dad would have wanted to sock someone's nose the hell in for someone fucking with me, and O, the difference to me. 

When E. Jean Carroll talked about being part of the Silent Generation, or the idea of not screaming--it wasn't lost on me, a feminist of Generation X. I get why women don't report to this day, and why women don't scream--because rape is violence, and screaming makes it worse. Because the threat of violence suggests more violence can come your way--and that makes it worse. It doesn't matter what generation you are, you just need to know that sometimes, raising your voice in the moment doesn't help you--

But E. Jean Carroll raised her voice where it counted, and other women who had the experience of Trump's physical boundary breeching also found their voice. 

But as for Trump's political allies, they have decided to make very particular beds to lie in with respect to Trump. Marco Rubio and others simply scoff at the decision by a "New York jury" by which I will pretend I have no idea what they could so specifically mean. 

But I know full well what Republicans already think of women and rape, or women and their right to their bodies.  How can I be more aghast at the GOP than I've already ever been? 

SCOTUS Focus

 

I don't love that I'm revisiting this again so soon, but the entire Supreme Court has an ethics problem, as in they don't think they've got an ethics problem and they actually should be the first to see it. Their unanimous joint statement of clarity is pretty clear--who is supposed to check them?  

But what if every indicator suggests these mere mortals are not exactly reliably self-checking?

We are called to mind again of the genuine likelihood of conflicts of interest via spousal income--this time in the form of Chief Justice Roberts' wife's $10 million from making job placements with lawyers to assorted law firms. The kind of firms that are going to be heard in her husband's court? Well, yeah, Obviously. 

The sordid story regarding Justice Kavanaugh's 2018 confirmation hearing was also once again revisited today, with the report that his Senate investigation, just like his FBI investigation, was faulty. The GOP Senate never wanted to know the real story with regards to Kavanaugh because it never mattered to them, 

And of course Sam Alito was heard from, because he won't be ignored. He thinks he knows that the Dobbs leaker was definitely not a conservative. Also, he still claims the leak could have gotten him killed.

Who Checks and Balances the Court?

 After so much reporting of Justice Clarence Thomas' relationship with Harlan Crow, not to mention his wife's openly partisan political activity, we now have news of a troubling real estate transaction taking place between Neil Gorsuch and the CEO of Greenberg Traurig, a law firm that regularly brings cases before the Court. A property that was up for sale for two years suddenly was purchased nine days after Gorsuch was confirmed. 

Sure, Gorsuch can say he doesn't know the man or never met him, but the thing of it is--doesn't that make "how to deliver a bribe" seem so effortless? Use cut-outs. Hell, do favors for family. Be linked in all kinds of ways, some obvious, some not. 

Is the problem that people are making the insinuation, or is the problem the cozy relationships that make the insinuations extraordinarily probable? And isn't it even more of a problem when the Chief of one of our main branches of government offers absolute hogwash when asked to discuss court ethics with another branch of government?

If the members of the Supreme Court are in the least concerned about the reputation of that body, they should think of the historical example of the wife of Caesar. In low-level positions of government, ethics rules limit so much as the acceptance of a free lunch. And yet it appears that Supreme Court justices can accept anything their hearts desire--because who is going to check them? 

Despite the call on the left to restore the balance of the Court by expanding it, there has been no move to do so. At the bare minimum, Congress should feel empowered to at least act as a check on whether these parties are ethical stewards of their charge to uphold the law especially because they represent it.  And yes, that should even extend to impeachment if bribery/influence can be demonstrated. 

That means that yes--the member of the Court should be subject to questions. Confirmation shouldn't be the last word between the members of the court and Congress. And if all is kosher, why not both ensure that there are clear guidelines and be willing to communicate that they are followed? 

Look, not all weird financial things to do with SCOTUS are necessarily signs of corruption. But there should be some aim for transparency, and leaving important details off of disclosure forms does open up questions--it's kind of natural. 

TWGB: They Aren't Joking

 

There's a funny thing about Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that if she and Steve Bannon were at the head of the 1/6 insurrection, they would have won, and they would have been armed: she says she was joking, now. But she certainly was not.  We know this because we know her record. She was explicit about what she stood for--talking about "the price of blood" pre-election.  We know in December 2020 she was at the White House meeting with other GOP electeds. We know some 1/6 insurrectionists actually were armed.  What she seems to be saying, and pretending to walk back, is that she would want more bloodshed of Capitol police and possibly her own colleagues in congress. 

Ha ha. The conservatives are getting better at humor, and the libs don't like it, indeed. (See latest iteration thereof.)  Actually, we know what "only joking" means to fascists. (Can't you take a joke? Why are you punching yourself? I'm not the problem, you have no sense of humor. etc.)

When the NY Young Republicans, who I used to think were just twenty-somethings who looked like forty somethings and had the values of the 1950s and wanted to undo the civil rights movement, has VDARE's Brimelow and Posobiec, I start to think we've got people in their thirties and forties who look like they are traitors and have the values of would-be herrenvolk and want to undo Reconstruction. 

So, color me pretty alarmed by that. Also alarmed by Justice Kavanaugh hanging out with the Schlapps, you know, the CPAC wanna-be domestic terrorist Orban enthusiasts. Just a Supreme Court justice hanging out in the most partisan and kinda-fash-leaning crowd, and we're supposed to shrug about that? (And shouldn't RW SCOTUS justices be more on guard about their propriety since we know they are cozy as hell with activists? I mean, Clarance Thomas' wife is a whole activist, which is as cozy as things get.)  

It isn't a joke. 

Speaking Ill of the Ill-Starred Dead

 

There are people who find themselves appointed to unpleasant tasks and are called upon to serve, even in difficult circumstances, with zealous attention and exacting rectitude, to achieve a necessary goal with persistence and above all, honor. Ken Starr was not that guy.  And while one shouldn't speak ill specifically of the dead, I am not sure why I should stop a necessary conversation started while he was yet living.

He was, charitably, a nasty piece of work. 

He's most famous for dogging President Clinton and family and associates up until he came across an affair and dragged both the president and the 25-year-old intern through the most salacious interpretations of human interaction imaginable for partisan reasons. But he also defended Prop 8 and Jeffrey Epstein and ignored rape allegations at Baylor when he was president of the University.  He unironically defended Trump against impeachment in a way about as hypocritical as former impeachment manager Lindsey Graham. 

It's hard to imagine a person who took up for more horrendous things and yet (obviously) retained the respect of the larval creeps who managed to do stuff like get on the SCOTUS bench with his tutelage.  You know, like Brett Kavanaugh. 

If any of that sounds disrespectful to the dead, you should have heard what I would have said about him, alive. Probably even to his face with the appropriate lubrication. He had the opportunity to do an awful lot, and what he did was, well, awful. And a lot. 

Who is Paying for Dinner?

 

I think it's a gosh darn shame that the beer-loving scamp of the current SCOTUS line-up was forced to flee Morton's Steak House before dessert was served because of the outrage of nearby protesters, but as we all know, the word "restaurant" appears nowhere in the Constitution and after all, it's not like anyone has a right to privacy, right? Freedom of speech, check. Freedom to peaceably assemble--check. Freedom to eat a steak and not be reminded that you decided a case in a way that has doctors playing chicken with the reaper before being able to determine whether to render care to a miscarrying pregnant person in crisis because of the legal liability you helped impose on them? No. 

No. I don't see how Brett Kavanaugh has that right.  He has the privilege to make that kind of decision, and his nomination to the bench was financially backed by people who strongly expected that was exactly the kind of decision he would render, even if he did not say as much during his Senate hearing. All the same, he does not get to escape the world in which his decision has consequences. Any more than a pregnant 10 year old does. 

Now, a person who carried a grudge like a piece of shrapnel in their guts might wonder a lot of things about Kavanaugh--but I will just ask this blogpost's titular question: Who is paying for dinner? 

Just the Tips?

 

The FBI said some of the 4,500 tips it received about Justice Brett Kavanaugh during its investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him were given to the Trump White House, leading some Democrats to call the process a sham. https://t.co/vp4eq75JLC

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 22, 2021

I didn't think that I'd be blogging about this again so soon, but apparently, the FBI hotline into Brett Kavanaugh's conduct led to 4,500 tips, and you'll never guess what happened next:

In a letter dated June 30 to two Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, an F.B.I. assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most “relevant” of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into Mr. Kavanaugh’s past were referred to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, whose handling of them remains unclear. 

The letter left uncertain whether the F.B.I. itself followed up on the most compelling leads. The agency was conducting a background check rather than a criminal investigation, meaning that “the authorities, policies, and procedures used to investigate criminal matters did not apply,” the letter said.

And my guess from that is then Don McGahn bundled them up, loaded them onto a raft, doused them in kerosene, and let the whole mess sail down the Potomac as he played "Dust in the Wind". 

Admittedly, I do have a particularly picturesque imagination. 

So yes, Alice, this did just get "curiouser and curiouser". Of course, tiplines do generate duplicate claims and sometimes sheer nonsense, but what a series of rabbit holes are suggested here!

This Comment is Going To Bug Me

 

According to Michael Wolff's new book, Landslide, about the end of Trump's presidency, there's a quote from Trump that is going to buuuuuuggggg me: 

“Where would he be without me? I saved his life,” Trump said in an interview with Woolf. “He wouldn't even be in a law firm. Who would have had him? Nobody. Totally disgraced. Only I saved him.” The ex-president raged on: “I can’t even believe what’s happening. I’m very disappointed in Kavanaugh... In retrospect, he just hasn’t had the courage you need to be a great justice. I’m basing this on more than just the election.”

Okay, then. Brett Kavanaugh was a DC district court judge, so even if he wasn't appointed to the Supreme Court, he would have had a job, right? He wasn't knocking on the doors of law firms looking for something a little more certain in case this whole lifetime appointment to a federal court bench thing didn't work out, unless I'm seriously, as the kids say, tripping. And, you know, Trump talks trash about people all the damn time whether it makes sense or not. Unless....

You see, although a lower court has to dismiss 83 ethics complaints against a sitting member of SCOTUS, mentally, I can't.  I can't quite drop the idea that there was something shady about his appointment. Especially about how Kavanaugh's debts got paid.  

Sure, it could be nothing, but my axiom regarding TrumpWorld is, "If it looks bad, it is bad."  I mean, Stephen Calk was just found guilty of bribing very criminal but very pardoned Trump former campaign manager Paul Manafort with risky bank loans to obtain a role in the Trump Administration. That's the kind of people that were around Trump and a certain way of doing business.

The difference here is, Republicans got very damn cutthroat about judicial appointments, didn't they? They clearly did not seem to give a single solitary shit about any kind of ethics or moral complaint about Kavanaugh's appointment. They were going to by God have this guy on the bench. 

A federal judge serves "on good behavior" It takes a shit-ton to get a federal judge impeached. But when Trump says something like "I saved his life" or "I'm basing this on more than just the election", it really makes me think. 

It just really does.

Oh, Does Amy Coney Barrett Have Kids?

 

Amy Coney Barrett is the least popular Supreme Court nominee in modern times#ACB https://t.co/BHPrb3zKgB

— Raw Story (@RawStory) October 13, 2020

It really feels like after today's hearings, it would be ammmmaaaaaazzzzzing if more people brought up that she has seven whole young humans that she's looking after not including the big lug who is the head of her household, making her exactly comfortable in a party of nine (See!) and wouldn't it be boss indeed like hot sauce if we talked some more about the part where the church plays as much a part as her children do in her worldview? (Has she any kitchen table commentary to add, or is this too much?) Gosh, I would love more of this rich discourse about her ID politics. 

 Oh wait. I would not. See, I already know like anyone else does where this person is on Roe, and I don't trust her re: Obergefell, Griswold, Lawrence v Texas, I think she'd be Shelby all day every day, and I don't even trust her with Brown v BOE. 

 It really for some reason (my lifelong feminism, probably) annoys me a lot that people are using her being a mom to say she would necessarily support people's rights, etc. All kinds of people have kids. It doesn't require a license or anything. Would we use having fathered many children to be a sign of a man's fitness for a job? (Unless the answer is "sperm donor"--I don't think so.) So why pretend that Barrett's seven children make her less likely to rule against the ACA than Justice Scalia's nine children did? 

 I'm still hung up on the likelihood of her potential inevitability though, so I agree with Sen. Whitehouse, it would do immeasurable damage to the legitimacy of the court if she did not recuse in the event that Trump takes the election results to court (as did a previous campaigner, George W. Bush--and for that matter, Kavanaugh better abstain as well--or really the whole court should just tell Trump's orange peel ass he's on his own.).

The Old Boys' Club

Many of the NBC executives who obstructed Ronan Farrow's investigation into Harvey Weinstein have been accused of sexual misconduct themselves, Farrow reports in his new book. https://t.co/t2WPp6Yg2H

— NPR (@NPR) October 11, 2019

I recall when writing about Fox News' ongoing issues with Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes' multiple allegations of sexual misconduct as thinking of this culture as probably being unique to that institution of retrograde and cranky notions, even though I should know better. When you hear that someone like Matt Lauer* was able to survive as a top-paid media personality for years despite allegations of sexual misconduct, it has to be necessary to examine the culture that tolerated him. It's the same culture that tolerated Harvey Weinstein, even killing stories about him because for some reason, networks didn't want to pursue issues about rape and sexual harassment. Fox News and NBC aren't even in a class by themselves. CBS was a horror-show, and not just regarding news personalities.

It's depressing that men have covered for men in this way. It's disturbing to know that men you considered more or less decent and intelligent are drawn to sex pests (even pedophiles) as friends, despite knowing full well the counts against them as human beings. It's freakish to witness a credibly-accused attempted acquaintance-rapist sits on a SCOTUS bench, and has his alleged sins wiped away by a multiply-accused President* in front of a group of so-called "Values Voters"*.

Trump on sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh: "They're phony stories about him. They were made up. Just like they are made up about me and other people." pic.twitter.com/DY98aKEcjn

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 12, 2019

And you can see these people who believe they are the good people applaud, because obviously, the kinds of women who make accusations aren't the good kind of people, because they are fallen, and the kind of men accusations are made about are the right sort of people, because they have risen in the world. (I can honestly not think of anything that puts me off religion than exactly this kind of thinking.)

If that is not "rape culture"--an entire culture where abuse against people on account of sex is pardoned and excused and ignored, I do not know what else to call it. Ecrasez l'infame!

* Yikes--Matt Lauer.  We shall never wonder "Where in the world?" but only "What in the world?" from this point on.

* Forty-three new allegations are detailed in a book regarding President Trump's relationships with women. This is Bill Cosby-level accusations.  Donald Trump worked for NBC on a show called The Celebrity Apprentice and is also alleged to have horked shit-tons of Adderall up his face. And I think it really shows.

*The Family Research Council is an actual hate group against LGBT people. Appearing before these assholes should be considered an insult to every person in the queer mishpocha. Call it "virtue-signaling" on my part for saying so.

A Man of Impeachable Character

On the occasion of the great honor that is being bestowed by Attorney General William Barr upon the legal team that chauffeured Brett Kavanaugh through the gravelly road that led to the SCOTUS bench, it is only fitting that a bit of a bombshell report from NYT should emerge to remind us that allegations regarding Kavanaugh's behavior at Yale were not rigorously investigated, and that there was more than an inkling at the time that a further look would corroborate the accuser's story. 

Ms. Ramirez’s legal team gave the F.B.I. a list of at least 25 individuals who may have had corroborating evidence. But the bureau — in its supplemental background investigation — interviewed none of them, though we learned many of these potential witnesses tried in vain to reach the F.B.I. on their own.

Two F.B.I. agents interviewed Ms. Ramirez, telling her that they found her “credible.” But the Republican-controlled Senate had imposed strict limits on the investigation. “‘We have to wait to get authorization to do anything else,’” Bill Pittard, one of Ms. Ramirez’s lawyers, recalled the agents saying. “It was almost a little apologetic.”

There was also another story from Kavanaugh's time at Yale where a contemporaneous student observed Kavanaugh with his pants down at a party, with friends pushing Kavanaugh's penis into a female party-goer's hand.

It's deeply distasteful, but just as Kavanaugh allegedly had his penis thrust into someone's hand by besotted and thoughtless comrades, it seems parallel to the besotted (by politics) and thoughtless way the man was leveraged onto the highest bench by so many helpers in the Republican party. I was mad enough to break out of a kind of blogger retirement by the overt shenanigans and the reminder that this is who they are,  and I've maintained that hustling this man's nomination forward to confirmation in the face of his ethical and personal issues should come back to bite the people involved.

I'm just not sure, with the current level of denialism the GOP has with respects to the concept of "enough", this breaking story will seem like "Enough!" to them to see their way clear to finally giving him the investigation that was originally warranted. After all, 83 ethics complaints were, over the interval since his swearing-in, dispatched with, barring congressional oversight.  Likewise, I still think there might be some merit in following the money on this one.

For any number of reasons, it is deeply concerning for a jurist to have masses of dirt swept behind him--it leaves him subject to having it swept out in the open! It calls his opinions into question, as to whether his character is such that he can't be induced to do something inappropriate, rather like a drunken frat boy steered into sexual misconduct when surrounded by his brave and laughing companions. It calls into question his honesty.

I would like to hope the GOP would come help collect their man and undo what has been done via impeachment, but I feel like they are hopeless and incapable of dealing with their own grave moral failure to just do the due diligence, here. It should mean that Graham, Collins, and McConnell are quite over their Senate careers. That is something the people can decide.

Here We Go Again

I am entirely amazed at the resourcefulness of one Hillary Rodham Clinton, who based on all the medical experts who were paying close attention back in 2016, wasn't even still supposed to be alive right now, what with all the Parkinson's and brain damage and what not, that she is still out here fiendishly stealing elections for other people in 2018 (like she, um, did not do in 2016 for herownself). Or so Rudy Giuliani, one-time presidential hopeful, and current Trump lawyer, wants us to imagine. 

The unvarnished story appears to be that Rick Scott, current governor and possible future senator of the great state of Florida, would very much like to see a manager because somebody is still counting these votes and he might not stay ahead. He has a little problem with this Florida law that triggers an automatic recount if the margin is...

Ah, fuck me, I have been here before. If we're older than 18, we all the hell have. It's the long national nightmare again, isn't it? Where, for some reason, Florida's election law says all the votes should be recounted, but there's a special, invisible ink "dibs" where GOPers think maybe this shouldn't always be true if electing a Republican is at stake, right?

Because there will be a popular revolt, where "popular" means a rent-a riot of GOP stalwarts from out of town will swoop in to stop the counting of the actual Floridians' votes. In other words, a kind of mob. (I thought those were supposed to be the worst, though, right? Ask Ann Coulter, or Derek Hunter, or some orange peel-wrapped rancid bacon sculpture like Donald Trump.)

Or maybe, just saying, instead of being the kind of guys that Scott and Giuliani are actually being, Florida could just, I don't know, follow the actual election rules as they were written and see what shakes out in the game as it is supposed to be played? Especially when it's a likely recount for US Senate, Governor, and players to be named later? Instead of being the kind of drama that goes all the way to SCOTUS, which was always kind of stupid. But now, it would be even more stupid, because Justice Bro Keggernaugh. 

This isn't even addressing the extra-special crispy fried fuckery that is whatever is going on in Georgia (Jesus be a legitimate and fair run off with all the machines present and working) and probably Arizona, where Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is now up because of the mail-in ballots, and now the GOP in AZ doesn't want to count all of those. 

Which is not to say not all Arizona Republicans get it:

@AZGOP I am one of those mail in ballots. I was under the impression my vote was always counted.

— Cindy McCain (@cindymccain) November 8, 2018

(I respect this lady.)

We have dealt with voter suppression, from purging of the voter rolls to voter ID laws that can't really address an in-person voter fraud problem that doesn't actually exist, to try and rustle up the people to just know that they have a voice. I have so much respect for the way some of these challenged but still rising stars worked their asses off to try and increase the map of who we think of as "likely voters". But. This sort of thing, right here, the actual clear message the GOP as a freaking institution, puts out that they are not interested in actual "one person, one vote" where any of those people might be demographically likely Democratic voters, is an outright admission that they don't really love small "d" democracy or perceive that what they are doing is extremely divisive because it means they want, not to debate people who differ, but to erase their vote--their ballot-voice. 

How do you negotiate with a polite grin for your existence as a political power, when the other side will aim for your teeth?

Strap in. This arc of justice is not too rusty yet to get moved. 

I'm Not Mad: I'm Organized

One of the tropes engaged by the pro-Kavanaugh side, which won, and to them, all due congratulations and warm salutations! was the idea that the people who were present to provide direct protest to his nomination and confirmation were paid, possibly by George Soros, because no person in the history of ever would be morally opposed to a political operative credibly-accused of being a sex pest whose wholly partisan elevation was given the go-ahead with the clearance of an FBI (Fig leaf-Backed Inquiry) investigation. I'm of a differing mindset, of course. 

I hold that problems can bite you no matter how tightly you close your eyes to them. And I also posit that any singular thing that escaped investigation prior to Kavanaugh's Supreme Court installment will by no means go unheard in the post-installment era. On the contrary--there will be a sense of personal investment in whether future information is heard, as it might not have ever been had only a fully coherent and comprehensive vetting taken place (to pre-squash all relevant opposition instead of letting it become a festering and divisive thing).

Yes, this is the post of a dedicated cynic--what I'm really decrying here is that all of this Kavanaugh shit seems so lazy. He's an operative and a hack, a Bush appointment to the Federal bench for reasons and a child of privilege. I am certainly not claiming that the Trump administration would ever give us better! But in the handling of the whole deal I'm pissed at played by an amateur hand. The Trump admin could have made sure more docs from Kavanaugh's time as a federal employee were released so it looked less like info was being hidden, and since even McConnell knew full and well Kavanaugh was a part of the Pickering and Pryor judgeships' vetting, why not be more forthcoming? Are we really supposed to be dead shocked about any conservative POV's coming from a conservative jurist? So much of the handling here was bad stagecraft--as if wanting to get liberals pissed at the lack of transparency. Trust--this process could have gone smoother.

I also wonder who exactly was the aide who leaked Dr. Ford's info. I am not wholly certain it was only Diane Feinstein's people who were aware it existed, anymore than I credit this gap in knowledge with the presence of the girl's teams Kavanaugh coached at his hearing and the initial letter of 65 female students of schools about his era, and the asseverations of his good-guy status from assorted clerks that he boosted. They look, in retrospect, like an inoculation from being called a creep in the advent of future revelations. 

There was no good faith in his selection about whether he would be an impartial voice. There was no impartiality regarding whether Dr. Ford or any other person willing to give testimony against his character would be heard--these people were always going to be marked as being mistaken or partisan for trying it. The voices of the disbelieved and believed too late, the voices of real women and men who, like Dr. Ford, wanted to just be heard out, who protested for and about her, were secondary to the process of getting this one guy on his SCOTUS seat. The Republicans gave lipservice to "believing something happened to her" but disbelieved her actual statement as 100% to whom it pertained. They fell in with the Whelenist "mistaken identity" doctrine, as flawed as it was.  And yet, that theory revealed a bit too much--it could not have existed had someone not been tipped off about details of the event that everyone (Republican) wants to pretend did and did not happen. Just as they want to pretend the Yale Ramirez claims have no merit, even if Kavanaugh appeared to be doing work to get in front of them.

I'm just a poor old non-Soros-funded blogger who even took a long-ass break this year to not blog for my mental clarity. It sure does look to me like every GOP step, even Flake's request for investigation and Susan Collin's false ambivalence and later, utterly shameful, political obituary speech, was calculated to incense liberals. The advancement of Kavanaugh was always a foregone conclusion, and any stall was by the leave of GOP senators who could then pretend they were being very big, after all. Big as fuck. For not just saying, "This is our man" and moving altogether on, with all the not-filibuster-needing majority they got. 

It was GOP base rallying theater. It was furthering the line that it was the dangerous leftists who are elevator-cornering political theater dramatists, snowflakes and screamers, who bullied and doxed and otherwise were pests and made the "conservatives" too uncomfortable to hear them out, and actually forced them to approve of Kavanaugh. 

To all the protestors--you did great and are great. Your stories matter, and their justifications for why you were ignored and your concerns went unheard stay about them, not you. You are loved and admired by me, forever, and you stay blameless and whole because no motherfucker can take away what is best about you. You are you, and nothing takes away that simple, beautiful thing, you only have experiences that are shit, and shit comes to shit people who make that their way. You did not make Kavanaugh happen by existing, protesting or telling your stories. But the GOP mindset, at present, made your stories their reason to let a political hack be their best chance. And made you the enemy. Made me, too, for opposing him. 

They will say the shrieking leftists and their presence and protest made the Kavanaugh swearing in their goal, and feel good--I say it means politics will need other means, and the ballot box became the leftist grail as it never was before, because the most direct action is voting. It was why iron-jawed sisters marched and sat in jail cells. It was why voter registration is forever linked to lynching in this country.

Before they can take it away--vote: don't get mad, organize, don't boo, vote. Had only more people voted for Hillary Clinton in PA, WI, etc, we could have had a liberal SCOTUS. And no person in the US would be wondering if reproductive freedom or custody rights, would ever be left in the hands of a rapist. We would not wonder about the future of government subsidized health care, or our rights to vote or marry or be our open gender representation. Because she (the president we could have had) would have had our back. 

I am not mad, and no RW operative has "pwned". But days like today are the greatest call to organization we could ever need.  Vote Democratic everywhere, even if only to preserve the Dem Caucus. The alternative is not unthinkable, it has only become too real.

Your Optics Aren't True From Every Angle

Because I try to understand things that seem wrong to me as if they were puzzles to which I'm missing pieces, I wanted to understand a phenomena that mystified me: folks who sympathized with Brett Kavanaugh. One of my cousins (a fundamentalist, I guess) posted to Facebook something that disturbed me about how clearly, Democrats were accepting money from somebody to destroy this great guy personally because....evil. Clearly, to my fundie cousin, liberals are just evil enough to destroy a guy because internet video of a half minute of one Democrat passing another something that they allege is an envelope of cash. Or maybe it looks like a note. And if it was an envelope of cash, why would it be flush in the middle of some C-Span televised shit?

Right.

I don't do politics on Facebook. I'm on the verge of deleting my profile for all the bullshit. But I do have this blog--and for what it is worth, I know the exact white women who might even have a #MeToo story to tell, and are not even privileged, and never will be, and still and all sympathize, not with Dr. Ford, but with the poor, put-upon, beleaguered, President of these United States and the Majority Leader in the Senate and of course, this pro-life dude, with a family and going to church and all that.

It is difficult for me to actually see what they see when they look at Brett Kavanaugh. I see a dude who came off during his response to Dr. Ford's testimony like a guy who had a bad reaction to being named second runner-up in a Bill O'Reilly look-alike contest. He was partisan, and aggressively so. He doubled down on the persona that brought his privileged ass to the very hearing he was at--the anti-left wing culture warrior who tried it with the Clintons. He called the Clintons out by name in his opening statement as if and because it was effective partisan rhetoric, but it in fact had not one thing to do with who he was before Clinton was elected. And his response suggested to me the state of mind he had when he was a jackass teenage son: it was still who he was today--only now bigger and meaner.

Christine Ford nee Blasey isn't a culture warrior--she doesn't come across as political (like I sure as hell do) and she is educated, intentionally, to understand her own mind and its trauma. It deeply affected me that she served as her own expert witness, mentioning how she knows and retains the things that imprinted on her own brain. Kavanaugh unquestionably is a culture warrior. He has been described as a Republican Forest Gump.  He has George W. Bush hanging up the brush he uses to paint the war dead to stump for his Senate votes. Blasey-Ford's family is extremely reticent to speak out. I sympathized with her because I paid attention to the record of Kavanuagh's many petty mistruths: his lie about the drinking age when he was carousing, because it was illegal for those under 21 when Brett was still 17 (a thing he should have known), the commonly-known definitions of terms used in his yearbook (devil's triangle and boofing) which are unsatisfactorily responded to, and the ridiculous "Renata Alumnius" lie, about a girl multiple schoolfriends of his and himself were alleging they basically "scored" with.

To me, a public school kid who seldom drank before HS graduation, who never would have dreamed of Ivy League regardless of whatever scholarship I could have gotten for all the reasons, and who has seriously seen more penises than I ever asked to before I graduated college, yeah I believe Christine. I believe Deborah Ramirez. I believe Julie Swetnick, because this culture has been documented.

But I guess I can also maybe understand why some women don't want this to be true and won't believe it. I know they are wrong (and I have no trouble saying it, but it means nothing in the broader sense of how it politically impacts anything) and they also have no use for those bitches who slandered Trump, also, too. They think these bitches are snitches, and snitches get stitches.  They are exactly out of all fucks for anyone who interferes with the utopia of RW Valhalla.

 Not all misbelievers are heaven-hoping Endtimers, tho'. I think some are just hacks. Or probably relatives of Brett Kavanaugh because here is a picture:

that sets aside the partisan filter for a minute.

There is a picture shared amongst the Left of gape-mouthed Caucasian sisters surrounding an angry Brett. But the picture shows his sympathizers, not detractors. They are allies to him, and their consternation is because he is upset, not because they disagree with the reasons he is upset.

It is probably not true that this debacle has mobilized all the women to vote--it isn't recognized universally as a debacle of a SCOTUS choice and not all women will feel like they need to vote for people who will curtail Trump's crappy SCOTUS and other Federal bench choices.

I wish it were so. But I am resigned it is not. Which is why I encourage all liberals to by all means vote for Dems who will try to block RW bench extremists. But keep in mind, there is another side. There are people who think nothing like you do. They like this kind of partisan signifying. And they are why you always need to vote strategically.

When Did This Thing Go So Wrong?

Hey, all, long time, no post here, but I just wanted to check in to say I'm pretty good, even if the Republic seems a little weird. If you know my handle, you can follow me on Twitter, where I don't comment often, but retweet with a sure hand and a speed-reading eye. Or something like that. Don't bother emailing me. Email is like using the telegraph or a fax machine. 

Anyhoo, obviously I've got some thoughts to jot if I'm taking to ye olde longforms again, and this is about the whole Kavanaugh nomination. I have no idea if he's getting up or down-voted (even if I feel like, barring a bombshell in three minutes, McConnell is definitely on track to speed to a vote regardless of the optics because his programming on SCOTUs appointments is a legacy issue timed to elections and partisanship, and I also know that pretend-moderates like Collins can't be stupid enough to think we are all that stupid), but I do know that one of the delights of not blogging with the flow of the news cycle is getting some rudimentary sense of history back. I also think my regular readers know me regarding me esteem for the timeliness and need for the Me Too movement. Kavanaugh strikes me as a member of Team Bro--he (apparently) has ascribed since early manhood to a version of masculinity that talks shit and does dumb things. Does that mean he has for real and certain done things that disqualify him for the seat?

Well, I know he's a partisan hack and perjured himself during the hearing so far and not for the first time, and probably is a vote against Roe vs Wade, so, frankly, even if I didn't natively have enough to nail him as a sexual assault perpetrator as a larval popped-collar preppy young Republican, I can feel pretty sure that he's a big old nope-in-waiting in a world where just the facts pertained--he's a guy who wouldn't be at the top of your SCOTUS list unless you were a chief executive who really was hoping that some executive privilege shine would prevent you from getting indicted on a charge of potential light treason. (Can I briefly mention what a wondrous penumbra executive privilege would have to cast on such an occasion where written opinion would presume that other assumptions of rights bestowed by the white spaces in the law as opposed to the black were eclipsed? But I digress.)

And yet it's been quite clearly alleged that the hesitant claims of drunken sleaziness (by other people, not those admitted in his own yearbook or memorialized in an albeit fictionalized version of himself from a close high school companion) are a part of a "Vast Left Wing Conspiracy".  Great shades of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" commented upon by the 2016 presidential election popular vote-winner, back when Kavanaugh was a part of that brigade, who uselessly spent taxpayer money investigating the suicide of her good friend Vince Foster, despite the pain of that man's family, and who spared no feelings in encouraging the most salacious and hurtful lines of questioning re: Monica Lewinsky.

If Kellyanne Conway or Mitch McConnell think they can get my fucking sympathy for poor old disrespected Brett, they've got this whole thing badly wrong. But they don't want my sympathy, they want the pissed off RW base who needs to see whores give birth to their babies they didn't want to be overjoyed that Roe Vs Wade has finally fallen. (See: Everything Erick Erickson has been Tweeting, lately because, wow! Us bitches have just been killing our children, for a value of children for us feminazis that is mostly teaspoon-sized with tails and no possible threat of pain, and his version being angelic teacup-toddlers who have a hotline to babby Jesus.) Also payback for Robert Bork, I guess, because Merrick Garland never existed. And the base doesn't realize Bork was a fucking mess. Or maybe they do--their kind of fucking mess. 

See, the other thing I have gotten perspective about from my blogular absence was the sheer difference between the sides. I abstained from chiming in about the death of Senator John McCain because I wanted to abstain from his hallowing--the spectre of St. McCain threatened to dampen the urge to Resist, and this doesn't work in any way, shape or form. For us libs, McCain's actual progressive usefulness to our side was always more of a promise than a threat to the Republican establishment. And the touchy-feely niceness of bipartisan remembrance, like GWB sharing hard candies with former FLOTUS Michelle Obama, really doesn't change a thing. Kavanaugh worked for Bush, and those withheld docs from his time working for that administration mean something. Did he support torture? (Amnesty International never weighs in on court noms--but here, they have.) Bush is still supportive of this freaking guy.  He didn't suddenly morph into some resistance dude over Werther's Originals with our "going high" spokesperson. 

And I'm not for going high, myself anymore. I am entirely down with hitting these fuckers right in the nuts.  Mitch McConnell, Russia's dubiously-useful idiot Donald Trump, and yep, even pore ole alleged incel until he was shockingly past high school Brett Kavanaugh, who somehow thinks talking about the activity of his junk post secondary school absolves him of any weirdness (as if penetration was the only kind of abuse!) all probably need some down-low smacking where it will hurt and count. 

And that down-low smack goes to anybody who wants to know where this thing went so wrong and why people are talking about their personal business (protesters of Kavanaugh are telling Congressional aides the stories of their assaults, the time they also realized they were Me Too) while they protest this latest outrageous degradation of norms and propriety. 

Trump and McConnell and any number of RW spokesfolks can claim Kavanaugh is a "fine man". I don't know what their definition of fine man is, though. Copacetic? Role-knowing? See, I remember the 2004 election, when John Kerry was what many of us libs would call a fine man, and he was Swift-boated by the same folks who called Obama a Kenyan and a Muslim. And he mentioned Dick Cheney's daughter in what all of us would have considered an off-hand way as being lesbian--which isn't a smear for Dems. It isn't. And yet--this mention was a big deal for Republicans.  It was completely true--she was lesbian, and mentioning it was beyond the pale. Even if things said contemporaneously about Kerry were fucking lies. And Dick Cheney was and is a proponent of torture. 

The right wing and the left in this country seem to have totally different ideas of what is even good. There isn't a great overlap of ideals anymore from what I can tell, and if that is the case, I'm just for fucking the Pro-Trumpists side right the hell up.

I don't know or care where this thing went wrong. I just know I stay resolutely on the side that isn't pro-torture and pro-infinite executive stay out of jail cards, and I'm pro-women aren't the sum total of their reproductive parts and pro-rubbing Mitch McConnell's Stepford Senator jowls into not delivering this particular Bro Keggernaugh to the SCOTUS.

Here I stand, I can do no other.