The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Friday
Oct052018
The Commentariat -- October 6, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Nasty, Lying, Unhinged Violent Would-be Rapist Drunk to Join Supreme Court. Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "A deeply divided Senate voted on Saturday to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, delivering a victory to President Trump and ending a rancorous Washington battle that began as a debate over ideology and jurisprudence and concluded with questions of sexual misconduct. The vote, 50 to 48, was interrupted repeatedly by protesters, with the Capitol Police dragging screaming demonstrators out of the gallery as the senators sat somberly at their wooden desks in the chamber below.... The final tally fell almost entirely along party lines, with Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- the lone Republican to break with her party -- recorded as 'present' instead of 'no' as a gesture to a colleague, Senator Steve Daines of Montana, who was attending his daughter's wedding and would have voted 'yes.' Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia was the lone Democrat to support Judge Kavanaugh." ...
... ** Chief Justice Part of Kavanaugh Conspiracy. Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has received more than a dozen judicial misconduct complaints against Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh in recent weeks but has chosen for the time being not to refer them to a judicial panel for investigation. A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit -- the court on which Kavanaugh serves -- sent a string of complaints to Roberts starting three weeks ago, according to four people familiar with the matter. That judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, had dismissed other complaints against Kavanaugh as frivolous, but she concluded that some were substantive enough that they should not be handled by Kavanaugh's fellow judges in the D.C. Circuit. In a statement Saturday, Henderson acknowledged the complaints and said they centered on statements Kavanaugh made during his Senate confirmation hearings.... The situation is highly unusual.... Never before has a Supreme Court nominee been poised to join the court while a fellow judge recommends that a series of misconduct claims against that nominee warrant review. Roberts's decision not to immediately refer the cases to another appeals court has caused some concern in the legal community. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, legal experts say, the details of the misconduct complaints against him may not become public and instead will be dismissed. Supreme Court justices are not subject to the misconduct rules governing these claims." ...
... Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News: "Chief Judge Merrick Garland disqualified himself from handling ethics complaints against ... Brett Kavanaugh, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit announced Saturday morning. The statement did not explain why Garland ... had decided to step aside, or provide an update on the status of the complaints. Multiple ethics complaints have been filed against Kavanaugh in his current court, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, about his testimony in recent weeks in the US Senate and his response to allegations of sexual misconduct. The chief judge of the circuit normally handles ethics cases, but they have discretion to step aside if they conclude 'circumstances warrant disqualification,' under the federal judiciary's rules. If the chief judge is disqualified, the complaint falls to the next most senior judge of the court, in this case Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, who issued Saturday's statement.... 'The complaints do not pertain to any conduct in which Judge Kavanaugh engaged as a judge. The complaints seek investigations only of the public statements he has made as a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States[, Henderson said in her statement.]" ...
... Justin Wise of the Hill: "Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said Friday she fears the high court may lack a justice going forward who would serve as a swing vote on cases, speaking hours after ... Brett Kavanaugh secured enough votes to be confirmed. Kagan said at a conference for women at Princeton University that over the past three decades, starting with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and continuing with Justice Anthony Kennedy, that there was a figure on the bench 'who found the center or people couldn't predict in that sort of way.' 'It's not so clear, that I think going forward, that sort of middle position -- it's not so clear whether we’ll have it,' Kagan said." ...
... John Bresnahan of Politico: "After weeks of backroom deals, dramatic hearings and rage-filled protests that pitted the #MeToo movement against ... Donald Trump, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is on track to be confirmed by the Senate on Saturday by the narrowest of margins. The vote, scheduled for late Saturday afternoon, is expected to be anticlimactic after the Senate soap opera that has come before." ...
... John Wagner & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "The Senate was poised to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as the next Supreme Court justice Saturday afternoon by one of the narrowest margins in the institution's history, capping off a brutal confirmation fight that underscored how deeply polarized the nation has become under President Trump. After the remaining votes fell into place on Friday, Democrats, in a show of defiance, spent all night making impassioned floor speeches against the nomination and continued into Saturday morning. They voiced fears about how Kavanaugh would rule on an array of issues, including abortion rights and executive power, and highlighted the allegations of decades-old sexual assault that roiled his confirmation process for the past three weeks." ...
... Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Susan Rice on Friday appeared to toy with a possible Senate run against Susan Collins after the Maine Republican announced her support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Rice, who served as President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser responded to a tweet calling on someone to challenge Collins. Jen Psaki, who served as Obama's communications director and is now vice president of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, tweeted: 'who wants to run for Senate in Maine? there will be an army of supporters with you.' Eleven minutes later, Rice had a simple response. 'Me.' Rice later clarified her tweet saying she is 'not making any announcements' about a possible campaign run." ...
... That time a drunken Brett Kavanaugh smashed the cargo box of a pickup truck & refused to pay for it -- one of the many complaints lodged against Kavanaugh on the FBI's tip line. This is a WSJ story, but when I linked it, it was not firewalled.
*****
Grammar Lesson: When is a long, convoluted compound, complex sentence appropriate? Answer: Today. See Akhilleus's second comment.
Michael Tomasky, in a New York Times op-ed: "... we will soon have two Supreme Court justices who deserve to be called 'minority-majority': justices who are part of a five-vote majority on the bench but who were nominated and confirmed by a president and a Senate who represent the will of a minority of the American people. And consider this further point. Two more current members of the dominant conservative bloc, while nominated by presidents who did win the popular vote, were confirmed by senators who collectively won fewer popular votes than the senators who voted against them. They are Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed in 1991 by 52 senators who won just 48 percent of the popular vote, and Samuel Alito, confirmed in 2006 by 58 senators who garnered, again, 48 percent of the vote.... Now, in an age of 5-4 partisan decisions, we're on the verge of having a five-member majority who figure to radically rewrite our nation's laws. And four of them will have been narrowly approved by senators representing minority will." ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Kavanaugh ... will be the first justice nominated by someone who lost the popular vote to earn his seat on the bench with support from senators representing less than half of the country while having his nomination opposed by a majority of the country." Emphasis original. ...
One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. -- Justice John Paul Stevens, dissent, Bush v. Gore (2000)
We are there. Now. -- Charles Pierce, yesterday ...
Chuck Grassley says it isn't his fault that female senators are lazy:
Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "An exasperated President Trump picked up the phone to call the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, last Sunday. Tell the F.B.I. they can investigate anything, he told Mr. McGahn, because we need the critics to stop. Not so fast, Mr. McGahn said. Mr. McGahn, according to people familiar with the conversation, told the president that even though the White House was facing a storm of condemnation for limiting the F.B.I. background check into sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, a wide-ranging inquiry like some Democrats were demanding -- and Mr. Trump was suggesting -- would be potentially disastrous for Judge Kavanaugh's chances of confirmation to the Supreme Court. It would also go far beyond the F.B.I.'s usual 'supplemental background investigation,' which is, by definition, narrow in scope. The White House could not legally order the F.B.I. to rummage indiscriminately through someone's life, Mr. McGahn told the president." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't know anything about one of the three authors on the byline, but two of them have demonstrated a strong attachment to right-wing talking points & a willingness to be led by the nose down the GOP rabbithole. Bear that in mind when reading. ...
... Another Reason to Vote for the Democrat No Matter How Awful the Candidate Is. Nicholas Fandos & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "House Democrats will open an investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct and perjury against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh if they win control of the House in November, Representative Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat in line to be the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on Friday.... Mr. Nadler said that there was evidence that Senate Republicans and the F.B.I. had overseen a 'whitewash' investigation of the allegations and that the legitimacy of the Supreme Court was at stake. He sidestepped the issue of impeachment.... He said that if Democrats took power, he would expect the committee to immediately subpoena records from the White House and the F.B.I., which conducted an abbreviated supplemental background investigation into two of the misconduct claims." ...
... Sheryl Stolberg & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh appeared destined for final confirmation to the Supreme Court after two key undecided senators -- Susan Collins of Maine and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia -- announced Friday that they would support his elevation to the high court after the most divisive confirmation fight in decades." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
lol Collins says she hopes Kavanaugh will help bridge the partisan divide on the Supreme Court. -- Josh Marshall, in a tweet ...
OR, The stupidest thing you will hear all day and it didn't come from Trump. -- digby
... "Susan Collins ... Thinks You're Being Hysterical." Esther Wang of Jezebel: "In a nauseating, long-winded speech, Collins stressed that Kavanaugh -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- has the 'judicial temperament' to serve on the highest court of the land. As for the future of abortion rights, Collins argued that Kavanaugh promised her that he would respect Roe v. Wade as settled precedent. This, despite her noting that precedent has been overturned in the past and Kavanaugh's own writings on the issue. She then went on to call concerns over Kavanaugh's record on abortion and other issues alarmist. ('Suffice it to say, prominent advocacy groups have been wrong,' she said.)" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: In a front-page (online) article I won't link, Carl Hulse of the New York Times portrays Collins as a solitary hero who "stood alone" in what the headline writer called a "civic lesson" (I think s/he meant "civics"). This was a "civic" or "civics" lesson like every Republican speech is a civics lesson: concealing, eliding, obfuscating, cherrypicking, conjecturing & pontificating while disparaging opponents. ...
... I Don't Believe the (Mixed-up) Woman. Christina Cauterucci of Slate: "It took about half an hour for the senator from Maine to get to the sexual assault and harassment allegations against Kavanaugh. When she did, she went on an excruciatingly cynical and unnecessarily cruel rant about the unbelievability of Christine Blasey Ford's story, a diatribe that was utterly unconcerned with the psychology of traumatic memory recall and the specifics of Ford's allegations. In her soliloquy, Collins listed every reason she doubted Ford's sworn testimony that Kavanaugh had tackled her on a bed, covered her mouth, and attempted to rape her at a high school gathering in the early 1980s.... Collins' unabashed disregard for [commonplace truths about sexual assaults] was still less sickening than her decision to tell the entire country why she thinks Ford is either lying about her assault or, in what seems to be an increasingly popular GOP theory, confused about who the perpetrator was.... She made Ford out to be an unreliable narrator, a stand-in for all women who've been told their allegations against God-fearing, Ivy League-educated carpool dads are too far-fetched to be believed." ...
... The Alternative Perp Theory Was a Winner. David Graham of the Atlantic: "... this represents a strange triumph for Ed Whelan, the conservative legal scholar and friend of Kavanaugh's. Shortly after Ford's allegation became public, Whelan delivered a convoluted, elaborate theory in which he argued that another man -- whom he identified, despite no evidence -- had attempted to rape Ford, and that Kavanaugh was innocent. Whelan's theory was immediately and rightly pilloried as both a slander on the other man and as baseless speculation. Yet Whelan's theory took deep root, in slightly altered form. Laundered of the spurious accusation, the unidentified alternative culprit became a staple of Republican rhetoric. Unwilling to be seen as outright rejecting Ford's testimony, which was broadly deemed credible, or as unconcerned about sexual misconduct in general, Republican senators instead coalesced around a theory that had even less evidence to support it than Ford's account -- Ford, after all, had her own testimony, and Kavanaugh's calendar suggested he could have attended a gathering with the very men Ford placed on the scene. There is no evidence at all for the alternative culprit." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The success of the alternative perp theory is no surprise. Republicans are accustomed to inventing fake alternative facts to support their unpopular policies, so a fake alternative would-be rapist who magically gets their actual would-be rapist off the hook fits right in. Watch out, ladies! He's still out there somewhere and definitely not being fitted for a Supreme Court robe. ...
... Eric Lach of the New Yorker: "Last month, a reporter asked [Sen. Lisa] Murkowski if she had ever had a #MeToo moment. Murkowski answered yes, but did not elaborate." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Susan Collins is 65 years old. She has been a single working woman most of her adult life (she first married in 2012). Therefore, it is almost certain that she also has had at least one #MeToo moment. Nearly every woman of a certain age has been sexually assaulted, & the odds are higher for women who work, higher yet I'd guess for women who work with men in politics. So there's something really weird in her inability to accept as fact what Brett Kavanaugh did to Christine Blasey. ...
... It Is All about Sex. Scott Lemieux loves this WSJ headline: "Susan Collins Consents." "This metaphor brought to you by the print house organ of the Republican Establishment." ...
... Kevin Robillard & Amanda Terkel of the Huffington Post: "While the election is more than two years away, Democratic donors, activists and operatives are already signaling they'll be focused on ousting the woman whose pledge to support Brett Kavanaugh likely sealed his confirmation to the Supreme Court. Recruiting efforts have already begun, and donors large and small are promising financial support for Collins' opponent. Major donors have already pledged $1 million to an effort to register and educate voters in Maine ahead of the contest.... They said they hope they can eventually raise as much as $4 million.... This new effort comes on top of more than $2 million that activists raised for a future Democratic opponent to challenge Collins in 2020, in the event that she decided to vote for Kavanaugh. (The crowdfunded effort crossed the $2 million mark while Collins was delivering her speech explaining her vote for Kavanaugh.)... Defeating Collins is easier said than done. She won her last two Senate elections, in 2008 and 2014, with more than 60 percent of the vote. She has a strong reputation for bipartisanship in her home state...." ...
... John Wagner & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "The Senate advanced Brett M. Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination in a key procedural vote Friday morning, putting him one step closer to confirmation and ending a deeply partisan and rancorous fight in the Senate. The chamber voted 51 to 49 to advance the nomination after Republican leaders secured the votes of two GOP senators and one Democrat who had not publicly announced their intentions before arriving to vote.... Sens. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Susan Collins (Maine), two of the Republican holdouts, voted to advance President Trump's nominee, while Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) was the only GOP senator to break with her party. Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), a red-state Democrat up for reelection next month, was the only Democrat to support Kavanaugh. The vote Friday is a strong indication that Kavanaugh will win confirmation but some votes could change. Collins considered a key swing vote, said that she would vote to advance the nomination but wait until later Friday to say how will vote on confirmation." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Grassley Went Fishing for Alternative Penis Facts. Heidi Przybyla of NBC News: "As Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, closed out his executive summary of allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, his staff called a former roommate of Deborah Ramirez, the Yale classmate who has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her. Jen Klaus, the former roommate, told NBC News that committee staff members called her at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, put her on speakerphone and asked about Ramirez's drinking habits, whether there was a Yale student known for dropping his pants and the party culture at Yale. She says they suggested the allegation was a case of mistaken identity. 'It just gave me the impression they were suggesting perhaps it was (another classmate) who threw his penis in her face instead of Brett. Why would they be asking me this?' said Klaus.... In a statement to NBC News, the committee's press secretary, George Hartmann, said that 'no suggestion of mistaken identity was made.'... Two former Yale classmates say they have made several attempts to share text messages raising questions about whether Kavanaugh tried to squash the New Yorker story that made Ramirez's accusations public -- and say the FBI did not respond to their calls and written submissions to its web portal." ...
... New York Times Editors: "Depending on your politics, you might pick one starting point or another for the nastiness of the modern battles between the parties over individual court seats. But it was Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who openly established partisan control of the court itself as the stakes in the struggle. He refused to allow Barack Obama to fill a vacancy for almost a year, holding the seat open to draw evangelical voters to the polls and elect a Republican president. That was a clever gambit, though it had the downside of risking the credibility of the American legal system. The bet has now paid off, and the risk has been realized. The president whom Mr. McConnell helped elect turned out to be Donald J. Trump. And ... Mr. Trump chose ... Kavanaugh. The result was a confirmation process, and now almost certainly a justice, tainted by dishonesty, shamelessness, self-pity, indifference to women's fears and calculated divisiveness -- the hallmarks, in other words, of Mr. Trump's politics. Having first sickened the White House and then Congress, the virus of Trumpism is about to spread to the Supreme Court itself.... Most Americans are not where this Senate majority is. They do not support President Trump. They do not approve of relentless partisanship and disregard for the integrity of democratic institutions. And they have the power to call their government to account."
Melanie takes selfie of the image of colonial oppression.... Betsy Klein & Kate Bennett of CNN: In Kenya, Melania Trump goes full colonialist in a white pith helmet. "While pith helmets are still available for purchase online and in hat shops, they have come to symbolize white colonialist rule over the years, and, according to The Guardian, 'a symbol of status -- and oppression.'"
Beyond the Beltway
Olivia Exstrum of Mother Jones: "A jury in Cook County, Illinois, has found white Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot and killed black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014, guilty of second-degree murder. The jurors also convicted Van Dyke on 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm. He was found not guilty of a charge of misconduct in office. There is no mandatory sentence for second-degree murder in Illinois, but each count of aggravated battery with a firearm can bring a sentence of 6 to 30 years -- which means Van Dyke could potentially face 480 years behind bars. After the verdict was announced, the judge revoked the officer's bail, and Van Dyke was taken into custody.... [The] verdict is somewhat surprising, given that police officers are rarely charged, much less convicted, for participation in a fatal shooting." ...
... Megan Crepeau, et al., of the Chicago Tribune: "With an entire city watching, convicted murderer Jason Van Dyke was taken into sheriff's custody Friday and escorted from the courtroom. And Chicago exhaled. Businesses closed early and commuters scurried out of downtown, but the feared riots never materialized. Protests, too, remained peaceful.... Since the court-ordered release of a police dashboard camera video showing Van Dyke shooting [Laquan] McDonald as he walked down a Southwest Side street holding a knife, the city has faced a political and social reckoning unlike any in recent decades. Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was fired. Voters ousted Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. Mayor Rahm Emanuel opted not to run for re-election. Three other Chicago police officers have been charged with conspiring to cover up what really happened on Pulaski Road on the night of Oct. 20, 2014, and are slated to go to trial late next month. In addition to that criminal case, the entire Police Department now faces federal oversight following a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the shooting."
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I'm bringing forward a comment Akhilleus made late yesterday:
You May Now View the Body
We’ve all been there. A loved one has not long to live. She’s been failing for a while but seems now and then to recover some strength, and there is always the hope against what seems an immutable reality that she will revive and bless our lives that much longer with her presence.
Alas, as much as you think you’re ready for the inevitable, when the news arrives of her demise, it’s still a shock. You thought you had it together, “Well, she’s been on her last legs for a while”, but news of her passing is more painful than you could have ever imagined.
Today, the United States we all grew up in passed away. She’s gone. But it wasn’t in the way of most passings. No. While we sat outside her hospital room waiting to hear from the doctors, cheap, vicious murderers slithered into her room. Grassley held her down on the bed and McConnell smothered her with a pillow handed him by Collins and Manchin and Flake. Outside the room, hearing her gasp her last breaths, we tried to save her but were blocked by Kavanaugh, who promised to drop the entire weight of the Supreme Court on the head of any who attempted to prevent her murder.
They all snickered as they walked out of the room, leaving the body where it lay.
“You can see her now” smirked McConnell. “There’s not much to see” giggled Grassley.
Kavanaugh shot a beer and let out a demented cackle. “Try to fuck with me?” he gurgled, as he threw up and passed out.
At the end of a darkened corridor, a fat man smirked. “I made her great again, didn’t I?” He grabbed for a passing nurse then disappeared into the elevator.
Akhilleus
Not only has the truly evil and despicable Mitch McConnell succeeded in grabbing the entirety of judicial nomination processes and bludgeoning them with a crow bar (denying a sitting president not just his SCOTUS nominee, but making sure dozens of lower court nominations were never heard, but the minute Trump comes along, a process that investigated and voted on one or two nominations at a time now heard—and passed—as many as a dozen in one day, then the stage managing of the horrific Kavanaugh process in which a lying criminal is being rammed onto the court) as raw a demonstration of political violence and domination as I’ve ever witnessed in my life, but now he wants to portray himself and his fellow traitors as valiant, victimized heroes, wrapping himself in the flag (as almost all treasonous scoundrels do) and proclaiming that they stood alone against the howling “Democrat” mob.
How is it that every few months I feel the need to call my pal Dante and order up brand new rings of hell?
This one needs to be especially painful.
(Sorry for that extra long sentence. When trying to encapsulate the evil of someone like McConnell, nothing will serve but interminable run-on sentences. Joyce himself, in one of his three page sentences would have a hard time incorporating all the viciousness, treason, and hypocrisy.)
The two graphics posted by Marie in today’s Commentariat are emblematic of the Trump Era.
First, Fuck Face Chuck. The red play button on his nose makes him look ever so much like the clown he is.
Next, Melanie, who decamped to Shithole Land to escape the daily grind of being so elite, has another unfortunate, completely tone deaf wardrobe moment. Did bring along her “I don’t care” jacket too?
She’s been watching entirely too many 30’s movies about daring and chic white colonial women venturing bravely among the savages on the “dark continent”. I’m wondering if her outfit is complete with jodhpurs, leather boots, and a riding crop, always handy for beating lazy native bearers.
And is she taking pictures of the local fauna or an admiring selfie? “I went to the Africa and took loads of pictures of myself!”
Clowns and idiots are in charge.
THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED:
The Supremes, not always a bastion of soulful justice, will now have a member of their band that will certainly be another voice that cannot reach those high notes.
I am sick at heart at what has gone down since Kavanaugh first stepped up to a mike and presented himself–-and then lied about Trump's vetting process. Collins disgusts me. Her "presumption of innocence" crap is laughable. Didn't seem to bother her when Al Franken ( who asked for an investigation but never got it) was accused–-Susie, right off the bat said he should resign. The only good outcome is that Susan Rice says she is thinking about running for Collin's seat in 2020. And hats off to Murkowski (and Hedi) who obviously listened to her constituents. As John Kennedy once said there was a reason "Profiles In Courage" was only one book.
"Free societies do not die overnight. The growth of a climate of intellectual fear is one sign of their weakening. So are the development of a personality cult, the stripping of meaning from language and the spread of disorientation." Roger Cohen
And something to remember: In 1971 Chief Justice Warren Burger, on hearing that Nixon was considering nominating a woman to the S.C., drafted a letter of resignation. It has been a long slog and it looks like we just got hit with more.
@PD Pepe: Thanks. I did not know about Nixon's attempt to appoint a female Justice. Shame on me. Here's a Daily Beast article from March 2017 about the near-appointment (or feint, if the cynics are right).
"... the unidentified alternative culprit became a staple of Republican rhetoric ... "
Probably the same guy who killed OJ's wife.
@Akhilleus: Jodhpurs, check. Leather boots, check. From the CNN story linked: she was wearing "khaki jodhpur pants tucked into tall, brown leather riding boots." Apparently she had an assistant to beat the locals.
A Modest Video Artwork About White-Male Rage Filmed at Yale’s DKE Chapter
Sorry: I tried to copy this link from today's online New Yorker, but came up with only the title.
If others can make the link, I would be very interested in their reactions to it. Although I am not surprised by the video, I am nonetheless stunned.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture-desk/a-modest-video-artwork-
about-white-male-rage-filmed-at-yales-dke-chapter
thanks, forrest
I am in total agreement with Achilleus: Mc Connell is a monster, all the more so because he knows exactly what he is doing, and plots it exceedingly well. He'd be a shoe-in for RICHARD III or IAGO. The disgust one feels at seeing this political hack and sexual assaulter Kavanaugh put onto the Supremes by sheer force, well, it is a tragic day for America. I have absolutely no faith in the validity of that court now. We are fast becoming Venezuela.
https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/editorial-cartoons/editorial-cartoon-sept-29-2018-245696/
An illustration for the reposted Akhilleus post.
That’s it. As soon as I can I’m moving to Portugal
WOPO: Senate confirms Kavanaugh to Supreme Court
The land of the free and the home of the scum.
Rockygirl: I've bin to Portugal 4 times. Good choice.
Yes, McConnell deserves the new extreme ring of hell, but I think Chief " Justice" John Roberts deserves every bit as much damnation. It's his job to protect the integrity of the Supreme Court, but he has been silent from the moment Merrick Garland was nominated. I see above that he remains silent in the face of judicial misconduct complaints.
The Republicans have nothing but hatred for rational thought, and by extension, you and me. I try almost every day to see the good in every other person, but today I just want to flush every damned republican down the toilet.
It is a dark day indeed. Hard time reading the news. As someone else said, "Brett Kavanaugh will be Susan Collin's legacy." Her wishy-washy ways have been her modus operandi from the beginning. I've come to believe she is really a publicity hound as she dangles her on-again-off-again views. She loves the limelight, the attention. Pathetic.
I was especially irritated by the report that she was allegedly so involved in reading the FBI report that she had no time to meet with the many women from Maine who made the trip to DC to speak with her. She couldn't be available for her constituents who waited and waited in her office. Coward.
and for more in frivolous news...
"“I wish people would focus on what I do, not what I wear,” she said. Mrs. Trump made her “Be Best” initiative a focus of the trip..."
Then why does every outfit appear to be a calculated"fashion shoot?"
When Drunkard Kavanaugh gives some wack'o abortion bill out of Iowa the final green light, Susan Collins will eagerly point out the fact that abortion will only be illegal in half the states now, and women could easily drive across state lines to get one. As long as one abortion clinic remains open across the country, she'll hold firm to her commitment that Roe vs. Wade was safe thanks to her. And she won't be lying! Just telling the truth in that very special way Repuglicans have absolutely mastered these days. Orwell would be proud.
I have written flaming letters to everyone involved in this charade. Susan Collins is an idiot, but I agree that the mainstream media morons have made her a moderate so they can give breathless reports about her "moderation." So she is an idiot and they gave her the title. I hate them all and they don't care about my letters or opinion, so this is all a great relationship, isn't it?
Why don't at least several of those old white goats have strokes? I guess their profession is one of the safest to be in. Just seeing Grassley's nasty lined face is enough to give the rest of us strokes...