Oct. 7 Open Thread: Mopping Up the Puke
America today is like Brett Kavanaugh’s Yale dorm bathroom: Vomit-stained as a result of a depraved display of privilege, power and irresponsibility. And though Democrats made it close for quite a while, some argue they dropped the ball by failing to react to Kavanaugh’s angry outbursts with any kind of real-time passion.
Josh Marshall points out that Trump has little to do with the remade judiciary — it’s the result of a 40-year court-stacking program, and the final steps owe a lot to Mitch McConnell.
In little more than two years, the theft of the Garland seat and the tainted 2016 election have together forced a massive redirection of the jurisprudential course of the country. Mitch McConnell shows up again and again in the process, first as the key driver of the theft of the Garland seat and second as a significant player blocking a bipartisan response to Russian intervention in the election. His fingerprints cover both events.
Though the week ended badly for women and the independence of the judiciary, it went well for those looking for justice for victims of police shootings. The guilty verdict for Chicago officer Jason Van Dyke in the Laquan McDonald killing is a milestone for Black Lives Matter, but it never would have happened without activism and demands for accountability, something the system will not provide without constant prodding.
Robert Kagan, mindful of the maxim that trade wars often lead to shooting wars, warns that the U.S is sleepwalking into a war with China because it’s ignoring the dangers of pressuring the still-emerging power on trade without considering the possible military-power response.
Quote of the Day:
Billionaire Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster, when asked what advice he would give a young entrepreneur: “Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror.”
Hating Trump is too obvious. Trump is the lighting rod for the Democratic scorn that should be focused on Mitch McConnell. Republicans everywhere are winning by running against Nancy Pelosi. When are we going to do the same for McConnell?
Great point. McConnell is vile.
Coons in today’s News Journal:
“…we have to confront the very real possibility the Supreme Court will be a sharply more conservative force in American political life.”
A regular Nostradamus, that Coons.
“very real possibility”
I guess he can’t even bring himself to say “probability” because it might offend his cross-aisle “friends.”
McConnell is more snake than anything else, he’s been unpopular in Kentucky for a very long time, usually with approval in the mid thirties. Yet somehow he evades defeat.
http://www2.philly.com/philly/news/politics/hope-hicks-fox-news-sports-trump-white-house-20181008.html
“Fox also announced that it was hiring former GE executive Danny O’Brien to be the new head of government relations. Prior to joining GE, O’Brien served as the chief of staff to several Democratic senators, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey.”
“We do not anticipate the world with our dogmas but instead attempt to discover the new world through the critique of the old.
I am therefore not in favor of our hoisting a dogmatic banner. Quite the reverse. We must try to help the dogmatists to clarify their ideas.”
—Karl Marx
We shall overcome !