Sept. 28 Open Thread: Kavanaugh’s Guilt, Not the Election, Is the Reason for the Rush
This morning’s committee vote to push Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination through to the full Senate served as a fitting anti-climax to yesterday’s blockbuster hearings. The Common Wisdom on the Republican rush job on Kavanaugh is that they want to boost enthusiasm among the base, but I think that’s a cover story. The most enlightening part of yesterday’s drama was Kavanaugh’s repeated refusal to call for an investigation to clear his name. The rest was details. He’s guilty, he knows it and so does the GOP. They picked him because, not despite, his past performance as a partisan hatchet man who would loyally follow orders. That’s clearly what he did in his performance piece yesterday afternoon, reading a script probably dictated to him by Trump (especially that “revenge for the Clintons” part). Brett Kavanaugh is exactly what the GOP elite running the country want — a guy with all the right paper credentials who’ll do exactly what they tell him to, and will even go beyond his charge in his eagerness to please. He is, almost literally, a dog — a smart one, but a dog.
Another item pointing to Kavanaugh’s guilt is spelled out here by Josh Marshall: Kavanaugh’s old calendar seems to include evidence that might corroborate Christine Blasey Ford’s story, and is at the very least a starting point for investigators, if any would be named.
Of course, the view from the right was that Kavanaugh’s show of vitriol cleared his name, because apparently only a Perry Mason-style confession on the witness stand would convince them otherwise. This version, by Daily Beast house conservative Matt Lewis, is typical in thrust and was the least obnoxious RWNJ take I could find.
The reaction was less positive from groups like the American Bar Association, which called for an FBI investigation (as did Trump-backing Alan Dershowitz) and the Catholic magazine that retracted its endorsement.
Whatever other longterm effects the hearings have, let’s hope they put to bed the biggest lie nominees for SCOTUS seats tell in their confirmation hearings: That judges are non-partisan. Many have noted that such a highly partisan attack on Democrats should disqualify a candidate from the court, but all he actually did was say out loud what everybody knows is true — judges are as partisan as any other players in the political arena.
Yesterday was extremely heavy on many levels.
I humbly hit the street as a proxy for my wife who couldn’t attend. While we almost always do demonstration & civil disobedience together she had work related obligations. As many of you are aware, her vocation is much more socially important than mine.
I’m still reeling a bit mentally from yesterday so I decided to do a bit more. I just donated $300 to Guillermina Gonzalez. Not bragging. It’s public information.
We need to support the Democratic women running in Delaware. 100%.
If you’re worried about chances of winning or the demographics of RD 22 or affluent whites ignoring her you are part of the problem.
Get in the fucking game. Jump on GG’s team. If you don’t have the dough I totally get it. Go knock a few doors.
Tomorrow, Laura Sturgeon.
Flake votes YES in committee. Asked for FBI investigation and delay in floor vote.
He’s hinting at voting NO on the floor if there is no FBI report on these specific allegations.
No way he says this without Murkowski and Collins on board.
Ain’t over yet. Massive CD actions planned for Monday.
Sign up for one.
Also, I should be explicit. I do not trust Jeff the Flake.
Chris Coons is trying to shut my stupid mouth on the uselessness of cross-aisle friendships. I’d love to be proven wrong on that topic but doubt I will be.
This might be the first time Coons has talked anybody into anything.
Word is Coons had a hand in the Flake move.
One of you numbnuts shouuld go to the Town Hall in Delaware City this evening.
Ask Coons. Push him harder. Pull your weight!
I just shampooed my hair.
Ha!
Murkowski joins Flake. Delay floor vote for FBI investigation.
It seems to be working. McConnell doesn’t have the floor votes.
If there is an FBI investigation and that pushes the Senate vote back a week, I’d say there is a better than 20% chance Brett drops out.
I predict this happens. Kavanaugh has doubled down on so many lies, he’s almost certain to get caught red-handed in at least one if the FBI investigates and that’s got to worry him, separately and apart from anything to do with Blasey-Ford.
Ironically, the outcome could be just like the Starr investigation: initiated to investigate one thing, ending in a perjury indictment on something totally unrelated. As Kavanaugh himself said, what goes around comes around.
Unfortunately for Kavanaugh, what’s coming around is the result of Merrick Garland.
Brett is now damaged goods in many ways. He tried but couldn’t pull a Clarence Thomas. No dice. TOO heated and crazy. Thomas threaded the needle, and being African-American the “lynching” was a haymaker that landed.
Watching that fucking pampered baby try to play the victim was nauseating. Kavanaugh seemed more unhinged than emmtionally forceful.
“Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody’s slavery.
They do not want equality because the thrill of their happiness comes from having things that others have not.”
– W.E.B. DuBois
I think about this everytime some suburban shitstick tells me that their political priority is property values and that Wilmington is Murdertown.
Murdertown is so 2017. Here are the latest stats (see YTD column).
https://www.wilmingtonde.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=6820
Shootings are down about 60% this year from last year. Most underreported story out there.
How long before Trump threatens that heads will roll at Justice/FBI if the Kavanaugh investigation derails the nomination?
The battle is lost. He’s in.
We actually won the battle today numpty.
It’s getting worser with each passing week.
Maybe you haven’t been following it.
It’s simple: the debate has become so partisan that no Supreme Court nominee, ever, will be approved if the Senate is controlled by the opposition party to the President.
As non-controversial a nominee as John Roberts still drew 22 negative votes from Democrats, including Senators Schumer, Feinstein, Biden, Clinton and Obama, and he received fewer negative votes than any subsequent nominee. Senators Schumer and Feinstein have never voted to confirm a single Supreme Court nomination made by a Republican president.
While the GOP made no real objections to either Stephen Breyer (confirmed 87-9) or Ruth Bader Ginsburg (confirmed 96-3), there were more objections to Sonia Sotomayor (68-31) and Elena Kagan (63-37). Few in the GOP objected to Mitch McConnell denying Merrick Garland a vote.
When the project is to move the court in a pre-selected direction on particular issues — when one makes partisan appointments, in other words — one could hardly expect the opposition to lie back and take it.
If there’s one lesson we’ve failed to learn from the Civil War, it’s that overheated rhetoric makes compromise impossible.
Fucking Gorsuch sailed through after Garland was hosed.
Dana, this is a bad take.
I know. What a fuckig idiot that Dana is. I’ll probably ban him for stupidity tomorrow.
But he’s the only troll we have with an ability to put together a logical train of thought.
Sailed through? The Democrats filibustered his nomination, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was forced to extend Harry Reid’s ‘nuclear option’ to SCOTUS nominations to get Justice Gorsuch confirmed.
Committee hearing. Placid.
It’s a shit take. Just fucking move on. Don’t be a dummy.
I watched and listened trying to keep an open mind. Her story may have a detail or two misremembered, but I believe that in the main it is close to what actually occurred. I think his “I have no recollection” is a lie. He may remember it very differently and more innocently, but it’s pretty plain that something did happen and it’s just not plausible that he would have no recollection at all of the event. It’s clear in retrospect that honesty would have been the best course, but you get the feeling that denials have worked before.
And so, he has given us all a binary choice with no middle option, believe him or believe her.