Updated with the correct spelling of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's name.
Normally to say it's been a wild week and a half would be a statement of exaggeration at points. However, with the recent news in the confirmation hearings and scandals of electoral vote winner Donny's SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh it might be understating things.
Yep, within 10 or so days Kavanaugh's hearings went from seeming clean and wrapped up to a mountain of drama as several women have accused Kavanaugh of attempting to sexually assault them back in the 80s. First, it was Christine Blasey (now Dr. Christine Blasey Ford) and her claim that in high school Kavanaugh and his friend (conservative writer Mark Judge) reportedly corralled her into a bedroom where they put on loud music as Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth while trying to take her clothes off and get on top of her. The reported assault was foiled only when Judge reportedly jumped in and toppled all three of them to the floor, giving her a chance to escape. First mentioned by Dr. Ford during a therapy session with her husband in 2012 she had reported it to her Senator (who happened to be CA Senator Dianne Feinstein, currently on the Senate Judiciary Committee) and her Congressperson when his nomination was announced but decided not to go public until the media somehow found out through leaks and tracked her down. Upon hiring a lawyer she had taken and passed a lie detector test.
Over the weekend an article in The New Yorker by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer reported that while in college at Yale Kavanaugh reportedly took off his pants and tried to shove his genatalia into the face of a female student named Deborah Ramirez, who was forced to touch it as she pushed him away. While Ramirez admits she doesn't remember all the details there are some people who remember it happening and others who knew her back them who claim she was always truthful, almost to an fault.,. In addition, the story came to Farrow and Mayer's attention because their mutual classmates at Yale were e-mailing about the incident in July.
ON top of that there was Michael Avenatti's claim that he's representing a third woman who may have a similar claim to Ford and Ramirez., as well as reports of possibly a fourth woman coming forward on a similar topic.
Meanwhile Repubs in the Senate are almost hell bent on pushing Kavanaugh through with the Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R, IA) calling for a committee nomination vote on Friday morning, less than a day after Ford's scheduled testimony. Democrats on the Committee would like the FBI to reopen an investigation but the Repubs are adamant that it's unnecessary.
The sad thing is that, while the Repubs and Kavanaugh talk lip service about getting to the truth their actions make them appear to have made up their minds in favor of Kavanaugh and not even having the appearance of caring about sexual assault as an issue. This is made even more clear by electoral vote winner Donny's doubling down in support of Brett while claiming he wants to get to the truth.
The latter is especially twisted given that Donny has the power to ask the FBI to reopen the background check. Him and the Senate could say to slow down the process and let the investigation occur. They did it for the accusations made by Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991 and it reportedly took three days. By not doing this, the Repubs are giving the appearance of caring more about getting a conservative majority on the Supreme Court in case the blue wave of the Democrats gets them out of power in one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections than any desire for the truth.
Why is Donny doubling down and not asking for an investigation, even if it could prove that Kavanaugh is telling the truth? A whole post can be written on that but I have a feeling it's a combination of his lust for unchecked power via a Justice who'll give that to him as well as his antipathy towards the FBI playing as much of a role as anything.
What's sad though is in their quest to push Kavanaugh into a lifetime appointment on the US Supreme Court it appears that things got overlooked (case in point; Kavanaugh's recent admission that he had a calendar form 1982. If that's the case why the fuck wasn't that in the vetting?), if not corners being cut. Given the gravity of this position a just and remotely sane world would do the smart thing and delay the hearings until they can (to steal a quote from electoral vote winner Donny) "find out what the hell is going on."
However, the Repubs don't wan to do that. They've hired a "female prosecutor" for the questions to ask Ford Thursday (even though she and her lawyer requested that there not be a special questioner here, which has some wondering if she'll show up or not) rather than own up to the stuff they want to ask as they thinly veil their plan to protect Kavanaugh at any cost (they even refuse to let Deborah Ramirez appear at a hearing). While we don't know the truth it appears that the GOP Senators don't care and would rather rally around their judge than do what's best for the people.
And by not investigating we may never really know the truth - and that's the saddest, asn most nauseating part of all this.
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Monday, September 3, 2018
The Brett Kavanaugh Debacle - or Why the Democrats Need Decisiveness Now INstead
Sorry for not getting to this sooner but I've been busy with the paying job et al but since time is of the essence here it needs to be done now.
Tomorrow is an important and scary day in terms of what will happen in the U.S. Senate. It is the day when electoral vote winner Donny's latest Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh faces the first day of hearings over whether he will be confirmed to be a SCOTUS justice - a lifetime appointment. Since Donny announced him in July, shortly after the sudden retirement of justice Anthony Kennedy (a retirement that may have been engineered behind the scenes according to some sources) we have learned about some of his ruling and have a glimpse of where he could lead SCOTUS for decades to come. From what the Senate and news reports have been able to decipher, Kavanaugh's appointment could sway the Court in a hard right direction in terms of business issues against labor and towards allowing employers to use religious beliefs as an excuse to deny goods and services to people due whether it be denying employees access to birth control or the possibility of using religious liberty as a tool to discriminate against LGBTQ people. However, it is what we don't know that's most troubling.
Thousands of pages regarding Kavanaugh's court rulings and positions were blocked from release by the Senate Judiciary Committee (and Sen. Chuck Grassley [R, IA] in particular). Because of thisthe Senate doesn't have access to a full range of where Kavanaugh stands in order to see if he could be a good fit on the US Supreme Court or whether his appointment (which, let us remember, is for life) would be good for the country. Lawsuits have been filed to try and gain access but insult to injury was added when the White House withheld access to over 100,000 pages of records from Kavanaugh's time as a White House lawyer under former President George W/ Bush, citing executive privilege. These records could reveal more of how he helped guide Dubya's administration as well as where he would stand on issues like torture and the like.
Now some people may be reading this and say, "Executive privilege is good. Some things should probably be secret from teh public, even from a past administration." However, during the Obama administration the Senate wanted as many records as possible regarding the appointment of SCOTUS justice Sonia Sottemayor and got around 90% of them in the process. Add to this the desire by the Repubs to push the nomination and get Kavanaugh in before the midterm elections and it's clear that what we don't know about the guy is potentially what makes him dangerous on the Federal bench.
Thus, if there's ever a time when the Democrats as a whole need to suddenly grow a fucking spine and actually act like the opposition party it's at a time like this.
However, some people reading this may see that last sentence and go, "Wait a minute. A President has a right to his Supreme Court nominees getting approved." Some may even go further and say that Neil Gorsuch didn't have this problem and that the Repubs didn't treat Obama nominees like this. With that in mind, let's overcome the selective memory here and prove this is a massive pile of horseshit with two words: Merrick Garland.
Yep, you remember Garland. A judge that reportedly was respected by both sides and was rumored to be an easy confirmation - all the way until Obama nominated him and them the Repubs in the Senate refused to even give him a hearing. Their excuse - Obama was a lame duck and SCOTUS appointment didn't normally happen in the last year of a President's term. \However, Presidents have done so in the past with some nominees withdrawn (LBJ's nominations of Abe Fortus and Homer Thornberry) and some approved (Hoover's success nomination of Benjamin Cardozo in 1932).
Also, the term lame duck applies to the last months in office after either losing re-election or after your two terms are up and the next election took place. It doesn't apply nearly a year before the fucking election happens (in Obama's case the nomination was made in March 2016, eight months before the election). In other words,the bastards lied and moved the goalposts. While it can be debated whether it was merely for partisan bullshit power play or racism, the result is Obama was denied his Supreme Court pick due to some power play bullshit.
Which leads us to now. As with Gorsuch, the Repubs want the nomination pushed through and confirmed - preferably with no protests whatsoever.. This is rooted in something further back than Donny but in Karl Rove's strategy in making sure the Repubs remain a supermajority in both houses of Congress in spite of what the people want. While electorally they may not have succeeded right away, their attitude is to rule as if the other side doesn't matter and is only there as a participation trophy.
This, as well as the attempt to push Kavanaugh through without access to all his records or the time to study where he could lead this nation to, is proof that Democrats should stand strong and deny Kavanaugh the Supreme Court confirmation. It won't be pretty and there will be an adverse reaction, especially in the corporate owned media which is still more into cocktail parties than the people they're supposed to be a watchdog for. However, Kavanugh's hard right stance would turn this country down a path that would be anti labor, anti woman, and make life more difficult and unfair for anyone who isn't a white conservative christian with a penis
In other words if there's a time for the Democrats in the Senate (as well as those alleged never Trump Repubs) to grow a spine and say this shit won't fly it's now.
Tomorrow is an important and scary day in terms of what will happen in the U.S. Senate. It is the day when electoral vote winner Donny's latest Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh faces the first day of hearings over whether he will be confirmed to be a SCOTUS justice - a lifetime appointment. Since Donny announced him in July, shortly after the sudden retirement of justice Anthony Kennedy (a retirement that may have been engineered behind the scenes according to some sources) we have learned about some of his ruling and have a glimpse of where he could lead SCOTUS for decades to come. From what the Senate and news reports have been able to decipher, Kavanaugh's appointment could sway the Court in a hard right direction in terms of business issues against labor and towards allowing employers to use religious beliefs as an excuse to deny goods and services to people due whether it be denying employees access to birth control or the possibility of using religious liberty as a tool to discriminate against LGBTQ people. However, it is what we don't know that's most troubling.
Thousands of pages regarding Kavanaugh's court rulings and positions were blocked from release by the Senate Judiciary Committee (and Sen. Chuck Grassley [R, IA] in particular). Because of thisthe Senate doesn't have access to a full range of where Kavanaugh stands in order to see if he could be a good fit on the US Supreme Court or whether his appointment (which, let us remember, is for life) would be good for the country. Lawsuits have been filed to try and gain access but insult to injury was added when the White House withheld access to over 100,000 pages of records from Kavanaugh's time as a White House lawyer under former President George W/ Bush, citing executive privilege. These records could reveal more of how he helped guide Dubya's administration as well as where he would stand on issues like torture and the like.
Now some people may be reading this and say, "Executive privilege is good. Some things should probably be secret from teh public, even from a past administration." However, during the Obama administration the Senate wanted as many records as possible regarding the appointment of SCOTUS justice Sonia Sottemayor and got around 90% of them in the process. Add to this the desire by the Repubs to push the nomination and get Kavanaugh in before the midterm elections and it's clear that what we don't know about the guy is potentially what makes him dangerous on the Federal bench.
Thus, if there's ever a time when the Democrats as a whole need to suddenly grow a fucking spine and actually act like the opposition party it's at a time like this.
However, some people reading this may see that last sentence and go, "Wait a minute. A President has a right to his Supreme Court nominees getting approved." Some may even go further and say that Neil Gorsuch didn't have this problem and that the Repubs didn't treat Obama nominees like this. With that in mind, let's overcome the selective memory here and prove this is a massive pile of horseshit with two words: Merrick Garland.
Yep, you remember Garland. A judge that reportedly was respected by both sides and was rumored to be an easy confirmation - all the way until Obama nominated him and them the Repubs in the Senate refused to even give him a hearing. Their excuse - Obama was a lame duck and SCOTUS appointment didn't normally happen in the last year of a President's term. \However, Presidents have done so in the past with some nominees withdrawn (LBJ's nominations of Abe Fortus and Homer Thornberry) and some approved (Hoover's success nomination of Benjamin Cardozo in 1932).
Also, the term lame duck applies to the last months in office after either losing re-election or after your two terms are up and the next election took place. It doesn't apply nearly a year before the fucking election happens (in Obama's case the nomination was made in March 2016, eight months before the election). In other words,the bastards lied and moved the goalposts. While it can be debated whether it was merely for partisan bullshit power play or racism, the result is Obama was denied his Supreme Court pick due to some power play bullshit.
Which leads us to now. As with Gorsuch, the Repubs want the nomination pushed through and confirmed - preferably with no protests whatsoever.. This is rooted in something further back than Donny but in Karl Rove's strategy in making sure the Repubs remain a supermajority in both houses of Congress in spite of what the people want. While electorally they may not have succeeded right away, their attitude is to rule as if the other side doesn't matter and is only there as a participation trophy.
This, as well as the attempt to push Kavanaugh through without access to all his records or the time to study where he could lead this nation to, is proof that Democrats should stand strong and deny Kavanaugh the Supreme Court confirmation. It won't be pretty and there will be an adverse reaction, especially in the corporate owned media which is still more into cocktail parties than the people they're supposed to be a watchdog for. However, Kavanugh's hard right stance would turn this country down a path that would be anti labor, anti woman, and make life more difficult and unfair for anyone who isn't a white conservative christian with a penis
In other words if there's a time for the Democrats in the Senate (as well as those alleged never Trump Repubs) to grow a spine and say this shit won't fly it's now.
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