Sunday
Sep162018
The Commentariat -- September 17, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Senate Judiciary will hold a hearing with both Professor Ford and Kavanaugh on Monday. This Thursday's committee vote has been postponed, according to a Republican briefed on the plans. Story TK -- Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times, in a tweet Monday evening ...
... I'll See Your 65 & Raise You 200. Amanda Terkel & Arthur Delaney of the Huffington Post: "A group of women who went to Christine Blasey Ford's high school are circulating a letter to show support for the woman who has alleged that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh tried to sexually assault her while they were in high school. 'We believe Dr. Blasey Ford and are grateful that she came forward to tell her story,' says a draft letter from alumnae of Holton-Arms, a private girls school in Bethesda, Maryland.... The women also say that what Ford is alleging 'is all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton. Many of us are survivors ourselves.'... More than 200 women had signed the letter as of late Monday morning, said Sarah Burgess, a member of the class of 2005. Burgess said she and some of her schoolmates wrote the letter because hearing Ford's story felt 'personal.'... Susanna Jones, the Holton-Arms head of school, put out a statement Sunday night in support of Ford. 'In these cases, it is imperative that all voices are heard,' Jones said. 'As a school that empowers women to use their voices, we are proud of this alumna for using hers.'" ...
... Ariane de Vogue & Eli Watkins of CNN: "... Brett Kavanaugh said Monday that he would be willing to speak with lawmakers to refute an allegation of physical and sexual assault by a woman who has come forward publicly with the accusation.... Kavanaugh's statement came shortly after his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, said through her attorney that she would be willing to speak with Congress to tell her side of the story.... According to multiple sources, Kavanaugh has hired Beth Wilkinson, of the law firm Wilkinson Walsh and Eskovitz, to be his attorney.... Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, one of the chamber's most closely watched votes, said on Twitter that she wanted both Ford and Kavanaugh to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee." ...
... John Wagner & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement early Monday afternoon that Ford 'deserves to be heard' but stopped short of committing to a public airing that would likely force a delay of a planned committee vote on Thursday.... Democrats are insisting that the FBI handle the matter by reopening Kavanaugh’s background investigation rather having committee staff make calls.... Underscoring the uncertainty Kavanaugh faces, four senators considered swing votes on the nomination issued statements Monday calling for a thorough review of the allegations by Ford, a professor in California": Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) & Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). ...
... Were You Wondering What Donnie Jr. Thinks about All This? Tasneem Nashrulla of BuzzFeed News: "Donald Trump Jr. posted an image on his Instagram account that appeared to mock the woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by the president's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.... The image -- titled 'Judge Kavanaughs sexual assault letter found by Dems...' — was that of a note scrawled in childish handwriting which read, 'Hi Cindy will you be my girlfreind [sic]?" The note had two checkboxes marked 'yes' and 'no' and was signed 'Love Bret [sic].' In his Instagram caption, Trump Jr. wrote: 'Oh boy... the Dems and their usual nonsense games really have him on the ropes now. Finestein [sic] had the letter in July and saved it for the eve of his vote... honorable as always. I believe this is a copy for full transparency.'" Mrs. McC: Besides three misspellings in this short but grate wirk of litterchur, Donnie calls the recipient of the letter "Cindy," which is not a common nickname for "Christine." The nut doesn't fall far from the tree. ...
... Here's what "Kavanaugh character witness" Mark Judge wrote in the Washingtonian about his family's reaction to his 1997 memoir, and what his brother Michael Judge wrote in response.
Shane Goldmacher & Lisa W. Foderaro of the New York Times: "Representative Chris Collins, the New York Republican indicted on insider trading charges last month, reversed course on Monday and planned to announce he would seek another term, according to two Republicans familiar with his plans. Mr. Collins opted to stay on the ballot on the advice of lawyers who said his removal -- a Byzantine procedure governed by New York's complex election laws -- would most likely face a Democratic lawsuit, and would muddle the election for his replacement, ultimately leaving the Western New York seat vulnerable to Democrats, according to one of the Republicans."
*****
John Wagner of the Washinton Post: "A lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who said Judge Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her when the two were in high school, said Monday that Ford is willing to testify about the allegations before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 'She is. She's willing to do whatever it takes to get her story forth,' lawyer Debra Katz said on NBC's 'Today' show when asked if her client would speak publicly about President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court.... The White House indicated Monday that it is continuing to stand by Kavanaugh but expects Ford will offer testimony to the Judiciary Committee. 'This woman should not be insulted and should not be ignored,' White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said during an interview on Fox News's 'Fox & Friends.'" ...
... ** Emma Brown of the Washington Post interviews Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist affiliated with Stanford University, who says Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape her when they were in high school. She told no one the story in any detail until she discussed it with two therapists, beginning in 2012. Mrs. McC: Either Ford, whose professional name is Christine Blasey, is a loon or a drunken Brett Kavanaugh attacked her while laughing "maniacally" and would not release her. He's either lying about it now or he decided to "forget" the incident. You be the judge, because evidently the Judiciary Committee won't bother. New Rule? -- Attempted rape IOKIYAR? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Update. Evidently So. Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "However, Republicans on the committee planned on Sunday afternoon to move forward with a scheduled Thursday vote on the nomination, barring additional corroboration of Ms. Ford's account or the emergence of a new allegation." Mrs. McC: Excuse me? There's already plenty of corroboration: two therapists, the victim's husband & a lie-detector test. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... CNN has published "the text of the letter Christine Blasey Ford wrote to Sen. Dianne Feinstein detailing an event in which she accuses Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. CNN was not provided a copy of the letter sent to Feinstein, but a source who had the letter read the contents of a redacted version to CNN." The letter has been redacted. ...
... Some Cracks in the GOP Wall. Julia Lurie of Mother Jones: "On Sunday afternoon, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he would be open to hearing directly from Christine Blasey Ford, the alleged sexual assault victim of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, during the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings.... Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) reportedly told The Washington Post's Sean Sullivan that the Senate Judiciary Committee should not move ahead with the vote on Kavanaugh, scheduled for Thursday, until hearing from Ford." ...
.... UPDATE. One Ringy-Dingy. Two Ringy-Dingies. Chuck Grassley thinks he can fix all this by separately phoning Christine Blasey Ford & Brett Kavanaugh & letting some "aides to top members" listen in. His spokesman is characterizing the phone calls as routine "bipartisan staff calls" that often take place for the purpose of "updating a nominee's background file." Mrs. McC: Good luck, Chuck. How come Chuck hasn't suffocated by now what with his head being in the sand all this time? On the other hand, I suppose Congressional Republicans have become so accustomed to accepting sexual predation that they consider violence, false imprisonment & attempted rape to be "routine." ...
... MEANWHILE. Sean Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House on Sunday stood by Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh after a woman publicly accused him of committing sexual misconduct decades ago, while a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee joined Democrats in urging for a delay in the confirmation process.... 'I've made it clear that I'm not comfortable moving ahead with the vote on Thursday if we have not heard her side of the story or explored this further,' said [Sen. Jeff] Flake [R-Az.], who is one of the committee's 21 members. Republicans hold a 11-to-10 majority on the panel.... The spokesman for committee Republicans, Taylor Foy, issued a lengthy statement vouching for Kavanaugh's integrity and saying it was 'disturbing that these uncorroborated allegations from more than 35 years ago, during high school, would surface on the eve of a committee vote after Democrats sat on them since July.'... 'To railroad a vote now would be an insult to the women of America and the integrity of the Supreme Court,' Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement." ...
... Slime the Victim. Asawin Suebsaeng, et al., of the Daily Beast: "... the President's team and his allies on and off the Hill began to mount a vigorous defense against the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, questioning why she had identified herself only now, and framing Kavanaugh's alleged antics as almost commonplace in nature." Mrs. McC: Wait, wait. He didn't do it, but he did do it because boys will be boys? That answers my question: IOKIYAR. Just to be clear, extreme violence against a young woman is not an "antic," and it is not "commonplace in nature." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Best part of the report: "Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition told The Daily Beast, that the allegations were 'spurious' and 'false' and 'transparently a desperate, last-minute attempt by Senate Democrats to delay the confirmation of one of the most eminently qualified Supreme Court nominees in modern history.' He did not specify how he determined they were false...." Reed is an unctuous character who made millions off his ties to infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff & tried to hide his ill-gotten gains via pass-throughs.
... Burgess Everett of Politico: "And four people close to the White House said they expected Republicans to question the accuser's vague memories and why Feinstein, up for reelection in November with Democratic base hungry for anti-Trump fodder, sat on the accusation for months. Three of those people also said they expect the president to go after Kavanaugh's accuser rather than to turn on the judge. They noted that Trump has done so before, not just denouncing his own accusers but also attacking those of others, notably, failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. A lawyer close to the White House said the nomination will not be withdrawn. 'No way, not even a hint of it,' the lawyer said. 'If anything, it's the opposite. If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried. We can all be accused of something.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Nothing like having the self-described sexual-predatory POTUS* attacking a victim of an (alleged) attempted rape right before an election. GOTV. As Sean Sullivan pointed out in the story linked above, "In 1992, outrage over the Senate confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas despite allegations of sexual misconduct from his former colleague Anita Hill, led to the election of dozens of female candidates." ...
... Everett's story has been updated to reflect Sen. Jeff Flake's opposition to a Thursday vote. AND "Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who is not a member of the committee but whose vote is critical to Kavanaugh's confirmation, similarly said late Sunday that the committee should pause." Mrs. McC: These two senators, both of whom are retiring, would seem to have thwarted Chuck Grassley's plan to ram Kavanaugh through. ...
... Juan Cole: "If the GOP shoehorns Kavanaugh in (even though we are on the cusp of an election and they sidelined Merrick Garland on exactly these grounds) then all Americans will be raped by the elitist political philosophy of Kavanaugh, and half of Americans will lose autonomy over their own bodies to a Federal government in thrall to a religious minority (Evangelicals are now only about 17% of Americans, and anti-abortion Catholics are maybe 12%). Workers will lose the few rights they have left. The US will revert completely to the Robber Baron age of the late nineteenth century, and America will be about as favorable to women's rights as Mauritania, the Philippines and Honduras." --safari ...
... Mark Stern of Slate: "The Senate must pause the confirmation process and hold hearings -- fair hearings that heed the lessons of the Anita Hill disaster, during which senators downplayed Hill's alleged harassment and refused to hear from expert witnesses who could contextualize her experience.... The Senate Judiciary Committee's Republicans issued a statement on Sunday complaining about 'Democrats' tactics and motives,' implicitly questioning Ford's veracity. They appear predictably resistant to delaying the committee vote. It may thus fall on Collins and Murkowski to force their party to treat Ford with respect." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
So, to summarize, a confessed serial sexual predator nominated a man who is credibly accused of attempted rape to be the key vote to strip women of reproductive freedom. -- Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress, in a tweet
... David Atkins of the Washington Monthly: "... a Supreme Court nomination isn't a criminal trial, and an explosive allegation of this nature should instantly derail the confirmation process of a being chosen to preside over the highest court in the country, one that will have enormous power over women's bodies and their fundamental rights. It seems like outrageous hyperbole, but we must confront the dystopian reality. A president credibly accused multiple sexually assaults and who bragged forcibly grabbing women by the genitals without their consent, who was helped into office by a large number of men in powerful media positions who have also been forced out their jobs due to allegations of sexual harassment and assault as well as by the clandestine government services of a nation famous for its misogynistic exploitation of women, is nominating an accused rapist to the Supreme Court with the express intent of eliminating women's right to an abortion and other reproductive health services." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Conservatives continue to treat [Clarence] Thomas as the innocent victim of a smear campaign, despite the voluminous evidence of his guilt that emerged after his confirmation. The most likely outcome is that Republicans would confirm a second probable perpetrator of sexual assault to the high court. On the other hand, it's not hard to imagine other possibilities.... It's perfectly obvious why Donald Trump would be eager to defend the principle that men must not have their careers derailed by accusations of sexual assault. It's less clear that 50 Republican senators will be eager to join him.... Republicans may not want spend the run-up to an election litigating an allegation that further defines their Trump-era identity as the party of unbridled male sexual entitlement. But at the moment, a question that appeared closed is suddenly very much open." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... "A Moral Abomination." digby: "I would just remind people who are thinking that Kavanaugh shouldn't be denied a place on the Supreme Court because of things he did in high school, that his professional life hasn't been exactly staid and upright either[.]... He isn't a learned jurist, he's a slash and burn right-wing activist. Drunken, privileged, rich boys are exactly the types they recruited for their dirty work during [the Clinton] period. And he's exactly the type the wingnut cabal that's propping up Trump to get the courts packed would put forth to ensure that their agenda is protected by any means necessary. He's a partisan hitman, not a judge.... He is a professional character assassin who is deeply morally compromised. His cruel and indecent behavior toward Vince Foster's family alone, despite knowing that it was wrong, disqualified him. This latest revelation just reinforces what we already know. He is a moral abomination who has no place on the court." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Quint Forgey of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Saturday fired his first salvo against special counsel Robert Mueller since former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort entered a plea deal with the Russia probe's federal prosecutors. 'While my (our) poll numbers are good, with the Economy being the best ever, if it weren't for the Rigged Russian Witch Hunt, they would be 25 points higher!' Trump tweeted. 'Highly conflicted Bob Mueller & the 17 Angry Democrats are using this Phony issue to hurt us in the Midterms. No Collusion!' Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani also broke his silence on Manafort's intended guilty plea earlier Saturday, alleging in a tweet that 'sources close to' Manafort's defense team told the former New York mayor that the cooperation agreement 'does not involve the Trump campaign' and that there was 'no collusion with Russia' from within the Trump campaign. Giuliani added: 'Another road travelled by Mueller. Same conclusion: no evidence of collusion President did nothing wrong.'" Mrs. McC: Nothing new here. (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's a similar tweet Trump sent yesterday, but with a few twists: "The illegal Mueller Witch Hunt continues in search of a crime. There was never Collusion with Russia, except by the Clinton campaign, so the 17 Angry Democrats are looking at anything they can find. Very unfair and BAD for the country. ALSO, not allowed under the LAW!" Over & above the It's-All-Hillary's-Fault aside, Trump is declaring the Mueller probe "illegal." This sure seems like a prelude to disbanding it. ...
... Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel: The prosecution's exhibits in Paul Manafort's plea deal are "there to show what Paul Manafort does when he's running a campaign. Because they show that for the decade leading up to running Trump's campaign, Manafort was using the very same sleazy strategy to support Viktor Yanukovych that he used to get Trump elected. In other words, these exhibits are a preview of coming attractions.... The criminal information provided far more detail about something we had only seen snippets of in the Alex Van der Zwaan plea: Manafort's use of Skadden Arps to whitewash Yanukovych's prosecution of Yulia Tymoshenko. It describes how Manafort used cut-outs to place stories claiming his client's female opponent had murdered someone.... And it shows Manafort seeding lies that his client's female opponent had criminal intent when he knew there was no proof to back the claim.... This propaganda effort against Manafort's client's female opponent included placing stories in Breitbart." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Daily Beast: "The amount of cash that has flowed back to the U.S. after Donald Trump's massive tax law overhaul is just 3.5 percent of what the president predicted.... [A]n analysis by The Wall Street Journal shows just $143 billion has been repatriated -- 3.58 percent of Trump's $4 trillion prediction. " --safari
Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed on Sunday 'there was a point in time' when he and ... Donald Trump seriously discussed pulling U.S. military dependents out of South Korea -- a move that would have been widely seen as a precursor to military action on the peninsula. The South Carolina Republican said that at the time, 'it looked like nothing was going to happen, there was no dialogue going' with North Korea about its nuclear program, adding that 'once you start moving dependents out of South Korea, that is a signal to everybody that we're running out of time.' Graham cautioned on CBS' 'Face the Nation' that 'we're not out of the woods yet when it comes to North Korea,' but he said the Trump administration's renewed diplomatic talks have de-escalated the situation and bought time for denuclearization to be achieved peacefully." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: What could be more comforting than to know Senator War Hawk has the ear of President* Impulsive-Ignoramus?
Hillary Clinton writes a powerful essay, published in the Atlantic, against Trump & what he has wrought. It "was adapted from the afterword of the paperback edition of What Happened, which will be published on September 18."
Ben Kamisar of NBC News: "FEMA Administrator Brock Long Sunday questioned the relevance of independent studies tying thousands of deaths to the aftermath of last September's hurricane in Puerto Rico, echoing ... Donald Trump's criticism of those findings as Florence continues to batter the Carolinas. Appearing on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Long defended the president for his response to Hurricane Maria last year and argued that findings from multiple academic studies were 'all over the place.' 'I think the president is being taken out of context there,' Long said. 'I mean, I talked to the president every day this week, and the secretary of homeland security, and we discuss what we're trying to do as a result of last year.' 'I don't know why the studies were done,' Long said when asked about Trump's claims that the study was 'done by Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: You might want to view Long's interview as part of his attempt to keep his job. ...
... "A Smooth Running Machine." William Wan & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "As the Federal Emergency Management Agency heads into peak hurricane season, an internal investigation has imperiled its top official, sparking a growing backlash within the agency where career officials and even some political appointees are worried there is no proven disaster manager on hand to replace him. FEMA Administrator William 'Brock' Long is said to be resisting an effort by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to replace him over his alleged misuse of government vehicles. The feud among senior Trump administration officials surfaced publicly in recent days as FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security raced to prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Florence. The prospect of Long's dismissal has alarmed current and former staff at FEMA and DHS, and it has captured the attention of officials on Capitol Hill, who note that the agency's No. 2 position has been vacant for nearly two years and that Trump's current nominee, Peter Gaynor, still awaits Senate confirmation. Trump's original nominee for the post, Daniel Craig, withdrew from consideration a year ago after reports surfaced that the DHS inspector general found he had falsified work and travel records while working for the George W. Bush administration." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
AND in other news about how to persuade Trump:
... Erin Banco of The Daily Beast: "In a series of conversations in July, officials from the U.S., Britain, Italy, and other countries devised plans to overhaul the way they sold the public on staying in the 17-year-long war in Afghanistan.... Several of the meetings focused on what those involved in the discussions viewed as a major hurdle: convincing President Trump to change course in Afghanistan and allow U.S. troops to stay in the country for the foreseeable future. And there was only one real way to do that, sources said. They would need to bring in Fox News.... Officials at the Pentagon and Fox News said the media outlet's correspondents did not embed with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and it's unclear if the military made a formal request with its executives." --safari
Kate Williams of the Oregonian: "A deportation officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was arrested this week on multiple counts of sodomy, Oregon State Police said Saturday. Blake V. Northway, a 55-year-old Medford[, Oregon,] resident, was taken into custody Thursday, officials said, as the result of a joint investigation between the immigration agency and state police. He has been 'relieved of all authority,' state police said in a statement and will be put on leave until the investigation is complete. According to court documents, Northway is accused of sexually abusing an underage female relative between 2009 and 2013." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Alex Horton of the Washington Post on how a Texas sex worker escaped from serial killer Juan David Ortiz, a supervisory Border Patrol agent, and led police to him. Ortiz has confessed to murdering four women & said he probably would have killed more if the woman had not turned him in to law enforcement. ...
... "All the Best People," Ctd. Opheli Lawler of New York: "Alongside the suspected serial killer who worked for Border Patrol, agents at both government organizations [ICE & the Border Patrol] have been accused of beating and sexually assaulting detained migrants." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Carol Rosenberg of McClatchy D.C.: "The military judge who got headlines for convicting a Marine general of contempt and confining him to his Guantánamo quarters has apparently found a new bench -- as an immigration judge, prompting defense lawyers to demand that all his rulings since 2014 be thrown out. Air Force Col. Vance Spath, the former judge in Guantánamo's USS Cole case, had filed to retire on Nov. 1 from 26 years military service.... It's a two-fold issue: Department of Justice lawyers are part of the Cole case prosecution team. Moreover, defense lawyers argue that given the long lead time to get a so-called administrative judge's job, Spath no doubt applied for the position while still on the USS Cole trial. So they argued that all of Spath's rulings should be overturned as compromised by his after-Air Force job pursuit." --safari
Election 2018
Georgia. Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Georgia, the first state in the country to adopt the 'direct-recording electronic,' or DRE, touch-screen machine in 2002, is now one of only five states in which electronic voting is entirely paperless. But a federal judge ... is poised to rule by Monday whether the state must scrap its current system that utilizes 28,000 DREs and adopt paper ballots and paper audits instead. Her ruling could affect the other four states and send a rare signal from the bench about the urgency of reducing the risk of election interference from foreign adversaries.... Secretary of State Brian Kemp ... has declared the electronic system secure.... Kemp, a Republican endorsed by President Trump -- and an outspoken critic of federal election security assistance in 2016 -- is running for governor in a competitive, nationally watched race...." The system is so "secure" that in 2016 Logan Lamb, a "cybersecurity sleuth," pulled up "a file with a list of voters and the alarmed when a subsequent simple data pull retrieved the birth dates, drivers' license numbers and partial Social Security numbers of more than 6 million voters, as well as county election supervisors' passwords for use on Election Day." Although Lamb warned the company that maintains the server, six months later he could still access the files -- not by using his expert "sleuthing" skills but through a Google search. "He also discovered the server had a software flaw that an attacker could exploit to take control of the machine." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you are suspicious that Kemp, as secretary of state, might be planning to alter vote totals if it suited him, you have not gone off the deep end. As Carol Anderson wrote in a New York Times op-ed in August, Kemp "has a skill set that Mr. Trump desperately needed but was curiously silent about in his endorsement: He is a master of voter suppression. Hackable polling machines, voter roll purges, refusing to register voters until after an election, the use of investigations to intimidate groups registering minorities to vote -- Mr. Kemp knows it all.... A Kemp victory in November is, therefore, transactional but essential for Mr. Trump. It means that there will be a governor, in a state that demographically should be blue, who is practiced and steeped in the nuances of disfranchisement. Mr. Kemp can rubber-stamp the Legislature's voter-suppression bills that privilege the Republican Party, artificially increase the Republican representation in Congress and in the end protect a president facing mounting evidence of graft, corruption, conspiracy and the threat of impeachment."
Texas Senate Race. Nicole Goodkind of Newsweek: "Ted Cruz's Texas Senatorial campaign has sent hundreds of thousands of mailers seeking donations that are meant to look like official county summons, a high-ranking campaign official confirmed to Newsweek. The brown envelopes read 'SUMMONS ENCLOSED- OPEN IMMEDIATELY' in large black letters, and have a return address of 'official county summons.' While the letter inside the envelope is a donation form for the Cruz campaign, there is some fear that certain voters may be confused by the mailer and think that they are required by law to pay a fee. 'Received this for my 88-year-old grandma,' wrote Sean Owen of Austin on Twitter 'Says it's a summons from Travis County, but is actually asking for money for Ted Cruz. Did your campaign authorize this? Is this even legal? Shame on you.'"
Aron Heller of TPM: "An Israeli opposition lawmaker on Sunday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dismiss his ambassador to the United States for failing to report sexual assault allegations against a top Netanyahu aide, ballooning an already embarrassing scandal for the Israeli leader. Karin Elharrar of the centrist Yesh Atid party said Ron Dermer should be recalled from Washington for not reporting the warnings he received about David Keyes, Netanyahu's spokesman to foreign media.... Dermer, who was perhaps Netanyahu's closest associate before taking office in Washington, confirmed he was warned in late 2016 by New York Times columnist Bret Stephens ... about Keyes' aggressive behavior toward women.... Stephens ... warned Dermer that 'Keyes posed a risk to women in Israeli government offices.'" --safari
Casey Michel of ThinkProgress: "The World Congress of Families (WCF) conference represents the most prominent collaboration between sanctioned Russian officials and the U.S. Religious Right.... [S]anctioned Russian oligarch Vladimir Yakunin is allegedly one of WCF's primary financiers. Opening rhetoric was peppered with allegations of the 'aggressive invasion of radical liberalism' and claims that modern society is akin to 'totalitarianism.'... The harsh rhetoric was only tempered by moments as ludicrous as they were entertaining.... One speaker rambled about Nietzsche and metaphors about trees.... One speaker, Australian lobbyist Lyle Shelton, compared modern liberalism to Soviet-era totalitarianism, saying, 'Thank God [liberals] are not shipping us off to Kazakhstan.'" --safari
Stephen Cunningham of Bloomberg: "North Dakota's oil production surged to a new record in July, putting the mid-western state on par with OPEC member Venezuela. Home to the Bakken shale play, North Dakota pumped 1.27 million barrels a day in July, according to state figures released Friday. That's roughly the same output as Venezuela during the month.... Soaring output from shale formations, including the Bakken, helped the U.S. overtake Russia and Saudi Arabia to likely become the world's biggest oil producer earlier this year, according to preliminary estimates from the Energy Information Administration." [Open in private window] --safari
Brian Stelter & Laurie Segall of CNN: Billionaire "... Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne Benioff ... are buying Time Magazine for $190 million from Meredith Corp."
Julia Kollewe of the Guardian: "Amazon is investigating claims that employees have taken bribes for leaking confidential sales information, particularly in China, as it battles to stamp out fake reviews and other seller scams. Employees are offering internal data, via intermediaries, to independent merchants selling their products on the site to help them increase their sales in return for payments, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sellers, brokers and people familiar with internal investigations. The practice violates company policy and is common in China, where the number of sellers is soaring and Amazon employees are paid relatively small salaries." --safari
Beyond the Beltway
Sarah Burris of RawStory: "Former Oklahoma state Sen. Ralph Shortey will be sentence Monday for a case in which he pleaded guilty to child sex trafficking and the records in the case have now been unsealed. According to News9, the documents reveal Shortey placed Craiglist sex ads, took obscene motel photos and used fake names to traffick underage boys.... Shortey was an avid Trump supporter during the 2016 campaign and served as the campaign's state chairman in the Oklahoma GOP primaries, which Trump won."
Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast: "Bart Alsbrook resigned as interim police chief of an Oklahoma town late last August, after he was revealed as the former leader of a neo-Nazi group. One year later, he has a job at a different police department 15 miles away [in Colbert, OK].... Alsbrook was named Colbert's interim police chief on August 22, 2017.... Just 10 days earlier, white supremacists had held a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, prompting the hate-tracking group the Southern Poverty Law Center to release a map of known hate groups in America. Colbert's local TV KXII found one local hate group: a neo-Nazi record label registered to the area. Calling itself the voice of the skinhead hate group Blood & Honor USA, the site sells openly neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan music, as well as Nazi and Confederate paraphernalia. The company was registered to Alsbrook, KXII found." --safari
Way Beyond
AP: "A Palestinian assailant on Sunday fatally stabbed an Israeli settler outside a busy mall in the West Bank. The victim was identified as Ari Fuld, a U.S.-born activist who was well-known in the local settler community and an outspoken Israel advocate on social media platforms." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Kate Lyons of the Guardian: "Shocking footage showing a South Korean pastor beating her followers and ordering them to beat one another has emerged as Korean police investigate claims that she ran a cult in Fiji, forcing people to work without pay and endure violent rituals. The footage appears to show violent assaults on members of the South Korean Grace Road Church. Pastor Shin Ok-ju was arrested last month along with three other church leaders when they landed at Incheon airport just outside of Seoul." --safari
News Ledes
Weather Channel: "Hurricane Florence, now downgraded to a tropical depression, began its second week of impacts Monday with much of the same -- flooding that cut off entire towns and water rescues in parts of the Carolinas that have been inundated. The storm's death toll climbed to 18 when authorities said a 3-month-old child was killed when a tree fell on a mobile home in North Carolina."
The New York Times is providing free access to its Hurricane Florence coverage. The Times front page is here. "The [Washington] Post has removed article limits on coverage of Hurricane Florence to make these stories available without a subscription." The Post has links to several Florence-related stories on its front page. the (South Carolina) State home page is here. The State is granting free access to its site during the storm. The Raleigh News & Observer home page is here.
New York Times: "Emergency workers in the Philippines recovered more than 40 bodies from the muddied wreckage of a gold miners' bunkhouse after Typhoon Mangkhut set off a landslide, burying the remote northern town of Itogon in a river of debris, officials said on Monday. Mangkhut, a super typhoon that slammed into the northern Philippine province of Luzon on Saturday, continued a path of destruction across southern China on Sunday and into Monday."
Washington Post: "Freddie Oversteegen, the last remaining member of the Netherlands' most famous female resistance cell, died Sept. 5, one day before her 93rd birthday.... Oversteegen and her sister Truus, two years her senior, were ... a pair of teenage women who took up arms against Nazi occupiers and Dutch 'traitors' on the outskirts of Amsterdam. With Hannie Schaft, a onetime law student with fiery red hair, they sabotaged bridges and rail lines with dynamite, shot Nazis while riding their bikes, and donned disguises to smuggle Jewish children across the country and sometimes out of concentration camps."
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My sense is that the one or two Confederate senators pretending to be concerned about Kavanaugh’s dirty past are doing so to save face. These people have had their chance to put their money where their mouths were before as regards the various machinations of the little dictator and failed, miserably, to do so. The two people who should be truly outraged are staying mum. To paraphrase a previous boast, Kavanaugh could rape a woman in broad daylight in Times Square and R’s would still vote him onto the court.
This is worse than not standing up for their country, this is a total failure to stand for decency and humanity.
Anyone who tries to claim that what we’re seeing is nothing like what happened in Germany in the 30’s is either dim or not paying close enough attention.
If you, like I, have wondered what exactly makes Lindsey Graham operate the way he does, here's a most interesting piece that pin points him quite well as well as give us some skinny on the political fun and games in that body called Congress. This young bartender (his parents owned a bar) learned early the art of schmooze and a drink on the house was just the thing to bring back customers. Lindsey has been operating on this method for most of his life, I reckon.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/what-happened-to-lindsey-graham.html
So I read today that he is in favor of letting Ms Ford have her say in person. But hold on––tomorrow he may just change his mind.
And regarding this issue: if Brett wasn't about to use a condom when he intended to enter (rape) Christine, then the prospect of her becoming pregnant evidently wasn't an issue with him. Did he not foresee this possibility? Was abortion something he even thought about? The cries of some who say, "come-on, ya'all, these were kids in High School, no biggie here,'' is absolute nonsense. I dated dozens of boys during H.S. and participated in a lot of necking and petting–- as they used to call it–– and never once did any one of those boys force themselves on me and the only one who did was from another country whom I met during working summers at a resort.
By the time you get to High School (it's name indicates some gains in degree) you have established a goodly amount of sense and sensibility and much of who you will become is already being tested. I'm referring here to an inner core, not to changes in interests or later occupations.
Amazing how our past can sneak up on us, especially if you have to be vetted for the highest seat in the land––and that seat can get mighty hot––BUT–-looks like there are so many that have their buckets of cold water ready. And Clarence sits quietly remembering.
This is easy Kavanaugh, just go to the FBI, take a lie-detector test. Problem solved.
@PD Pepe: Excellent point about the condom. I wish a senator would ask both Blasey & Kavanaugh about that.
I'm also wondering if any more women will come forward now. As Emma Brown wrote in the main story linked here, "In his senior-class yearbook entry at Georgetown Prep, Kavanaugh made several references to drinking, claiming membership to the 'Beach Week Ralph Club' and 'Keg City Club.' He and Judge are pictured together at the beach in a photo in the yearbook." In addition, Molly Hensley-Clancy of BuzzFeed News reported in July that the "secret society" Kavanaugh belonged to at Yale was no Skull & Bones. It was called Truth & Courage, & one alum said it was known -- if at all -- mostly for heavy drinking. And -- unlike other Yale societies -- T&C remained all-male, at least until 2012.
Given his drinking history, it seems kind of likely that Kavanaugh's attack on Blasey was not a one-off. We've all run across "entitled" boys & men, & Kavanaugh seems as if he might have behaved like the worst of them -- getting along great with the guys in the "right" crowd & demeaning young women as a matter of course.
Can anyone explain (or speculate) why Feinstein sat on this information until probably too late?
This morning on the ride in I listened to Little Richard. Then thought about Brett Kavanaugh and the holier-than-thou Confederates supporting this creepy party boy partisan apparatchik.
It's impossible, today, to recapture what must have been a tectonic shock to white Americans on first hearing Richard Penniman shout "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, a lop-bam-boo" then tear into that propulsive piano style that was all his own. Rock and Roll was here to stay. But what frightened so many white Americans, especially conservative, religious Americans was the blatant sexuality of Little Richard's music. Those songs fairly dripped sex (and that was even after he toned down the lyrics). But for most religious conservatives, Rock and Roll could have been spelled D E V I L. The air of permissiveness was too much to bear. Especially outrageous was the idea that white girls might think that sex was....FUN! And that they could engage in sex without the permission of mom, dad, the preacher, the DAR, and the KKK (Little Richard being black and all).
Republicans in the fifties were no doubt incensed by this air of permissiveness (that sense of imminent moral dissolution via the trio of sex and drugs and rock and roll was still around in some form or another when I started playing this devil's music in the sixth grade) but today, the permissiveness has switched sides.
The sex is still there, but on the right, it's nasty and dirty and something to hide, and something for which women still need to be punished. You fool around without permission and get pregnant? Too bad for you, missy. Forget that career, you're a mom now, the Supreme Court, very shortly, will say so.
The dangerous sex that conservatives in the fifties were afraid of is now permitted, but only to elite, Republican white boys and men (Democrats who indulge, like Clinton, are chased out of town). The entire Kavanaugh fiasco stinks of indulgent forbearance for "youthful hi-jinks", the same as it did for Romney and as it does for Trump. Boys will be boys, and women, those sluts, need to be kept in their place with their mouths shut. And don't worry, Blow Job-Rape-Boy Kavanaugh will make them pay for bringing up his past bad acts and delaying his sure-thing elevation to the high court once he gets the robes on.
(Is there an inside pocket for his flask?)
Even such milquetoast wingers as David Brooks have long nursed contempt for the changes wrought partially by Rock and Roll and the emergence of black culture from the shadows and a more enlightened view of sexuality. The seriously retrograde ones, like Kavanaugh and those supporting him, are, at long last hoping to enjoy every measure of revenge for having been forced out of the 19th century and into a world where blacks don't know their place, where uppity broads speak up without permission, a world with immigrants and health insurance for poor moochers, and liberals yapping about global warming and economic inequality. They're doing everything they can to drag us all back to an America controlled by and operated for self-righteous, white, Christian men.
So forget Little Richard.
Cue Pat Boone.
And Brett Kavanaugh.
Joynone,
What I've heard is that she was reticent to bring it up because at the time Ford wanted to remain anonymous. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but that's what I've read.
So Kavanaugh was in a club at Yale called "Truth and Courage"??
If that don't beat all.
If there are two qualities sorely lacking in the entire Confederate phalanx, and particularly in Trump's current future Nuremberg Trials defendant, it's truth and courage.
Truth is whatever they say it is, it is entirely contingent on the desired outcome. And courage? Well, look who's in the White House and see all the efforts being made by Republicans to force him to remember that little thing called the Constitution (today, by the way, is the anniversary of the signing of that document), never mind holding him to truth.
But hey, I suppose "Truth and Courage" looks better on Kavanaugh's CV than "Lies and Cowardice".
So what's gonna happen?
Basically? Nothing.
We'll have a little hippity-hop show time, the vaguest pretense of "fairness", a couple of phone calls (great idea, Chuck, you have a career as a private investigator waiting once you leave the Senate), some face-saving claims of blah, blah, blah, then the requisite attacks on Ford's character by Trump and his courtiers and reprehensible little weasels like Ralph Reed. I guess god must have told him that Ford's charges were "spurious" and "false".
Another woman will be put through the ringer for outing a powerful Republican, and after a week or so, Kavanaugh will be run up the steps of the Supreme Court building, enrobed, enriched, and ready to start dismantling settled law, you know, that thing he said he wouldn't do.
And let's not get sidetracked by this charge of rape. As serious as it is, it is not, as Digby clearly demonstrates, the only reason to keep this asshole off the court. Kavanaugh is morally compromised on so many other levels. But he is as pure an index as you can find of the moral depravity of the current Republican Party. Even during the Reagan years of winger triumphalism, I doubt a creep as obviously unfit as Kavanaugh would have been nominated.
But now, as long as no one can actually prove that you've got a stash of kiddie porn in the man cave and torture small animals in the backyard with a blow torch, anything goes as long as you can be trusted to support party over country, and at all costs, party over justice. Because to the right, there is no justice for any other than Republicans, there is only power, and holding on to power is all that matters. Even if you have to put an attempted rapist on the Supreme Court.
@Joynone: Feinstein's excuse is a good one, but IMO, not quite good enough. Blasey wrote to her in July but requested anonymity. At some point -- and I'm of the impression it was just last week but Feinstein has been vague about this -- Feinstein sent Blasey's letter, with her name redacted, I think, to the FBI, & the FBI put it in Kavanaugh's background file & sent it on to the White House. The FBI did not open a criminal investigation -- and how could they if they didn't even have Blasey's name? Besides, the FBI is not an agency that investigates allegations of sexual assault. That would be up to local law enforcement.
In the meantime, Blasey contacted Emma Brown at the Washington Post & told Brown her story, again requesting anonymity. So Brown did some reporting on it, but she didn't publish anything, to respect Blasey's privacy.
I don't know what useful purpose Blasey thought her information could elicit by not allowing either Sen. Feinstein or the WashPo to tell her story. It seems to me Feinstein should have contacted Blasey directly & explained to her how the confirmation process worked & that Kavanaugh would not be called on it if his accuser would not come forward. There's some suggestion that Feinstein's staff did so. Perhaps if Feinstein had "cultivated" Blasey & urged her along, Blasey would have come forward.
I have no clue as to who leaked the first story to Ryan Grim at the Intercept, but that leaker, whoever s/he may be, did a public service, because Grim's story got a lot of reporters chasing the story. And the ballooning stories is what got Blasey to give the go-ahead to Emma Brown of the Post.
If anyone else has a credible story that sheds light on Dating Brett Kavanaugh, come out, come out, whoever you are. There are millions of women who support you. Now and in the future, there are millions of girls & women of child-bearing age who will benefit from Losing Brett Kavanaugh.
BTW, Maryland -- where the alleged attack took place -- has no statute of limitations on sexual assault. Judge Kavanaugh could find himself on the other side of the bench.
Did I mention that all the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are men?
It appears that Donald's Oval Office minders have put together a DVD of his Greatest Hits to keep Donny Diapers away from the Twitter machine and all the talk of sexual abuse. Nothing whips ol' DD into a temper tantrum like women calling out white men for alleged sexual abuse.
If this chaos pushes the nomination vote to next week, they're going to run out of Greatest Hits DVDs to keep DD busy, and he's going to launch his presidential* whine into the national conversation because Kavanaugh's hogging all of the teevee time, probably with offensive remarks that'll hinder Kavanaugh's nomination, cuz DD is a fucking moron.
The best strategy we have is too drag this painful process out, and leak more damaging docs as the information comes available. There's a reason McConnell rigged the timer on this nomination.
The clock is ticking...
Once again we see the differences between the Democrats versus
Republicans. One supports the Me Too movement and one supports the Protect the Perpetrators. How many times did we hear some conservative mention "locker room talk" with regards to Trump's sexual assault allegations? How many people defended Porter, Roy Moore or others against their original accusations? Grassley and his GOP friends repeat the usual argument that it happened long ago and the timing is suspicious. He released a letter the other day of 65 women saying Kavanaugh was nice to them. But they have ZERO relevant information about the accused assault. All their letter is saying is that they were not there, but Mrs. Ford is a liar nonetheless. It's the Ivanka Trump defense. When she was asked about an accusation of groping during the campaign she said she didn't believe it because she hadn't seen it. Not sexually assaulting 99.9% of the people you meet is not an accomplishment. It's pass or fail. And it sounds like Kavanaugh failed this test early on.
Also have any of those members of congress asked Kavanaugh about his drinking and partying during his high school days? I want to know if he will admit to that part of the story. We already know he is willing to lie to congress. But now we have his friend's writings about Bart O'Kavanaugh to push back if he lies again.
Here's the best possible series of events that could transpire.
Kavanaugh does not get confirmed, either because a few Republicans show some gumption or he withdraws his name from nomination before they have to.
In November, Democrats win a majority in the Senate.
Trump/McConnell/Grassley can't get any other nominee confirmed before the end of this Congress. (It's only September; if Kavanaugh fades fast enough, Trump could still send down the name of another nominee this month or early in October.)
Democrats take control of the Senate in January and re-install the 60-vote cloture rule that McConnell cancelled for Gorsuch. They could re-install it for all judges -- not just the Supremes -- thus sharply curtailing Trump's run on the judiciary.
In 2019, Trump has to nominate a Supreme Court candidate who can get 60 votes; i.e., one who isn't a right-wing nut. It will take him all spring to do it, thus leaving a 4-4 situation in the Supreme Court for a full session.
And, yeah, I know the likelihood of this chain of events occurring.
@RAS: The drinking & partying is a great line of questioning. There is ample evidence of this; Kavanaugh himself boasted about it in his high-school yearbook. And apparently, it went on into college. One of those former prosecutors on the Judiciary Committee just needs to pull a Jack McCoy: "Then, Judge Kavanaugh, since by your own admission you were drinking heavily in those days -- to the point of blackout according to your drinking buddy -- you can't possibly say with any certainty whether or not you tried to rape Mizz Blasey, can you?"
And even if Grassley, et al are able to skirt the drinking, partying, and attempted rape (it would seem unlikely, but in the Age of Trump the most astoundingly awful things have become commonplace) what about the lying to congress part of this? Leave us not forget that BlowJob-Rape Boy Kavanaugh is a compulsive liar where his future is at stake.
But there again, I demonstrate how old fashioned I am. The idea, that actually telling the truth is in any way important when the fate of right-wing wet dreams is at stake. Pshaw, pshaw. Truth is what they say it is.
Which, however, doesn't mean that Democrats have to go along with that line of crap. I would make sure to put Bretty boy under the hot lights and nail his ass to the wall.
And it's not just the drinking and partying and the sexual assault and lying...what about all that money he owed? Hundreds of thousands of dollars, that were paid off in a matter of months. Then a $92,000 fee to join a country club. Where did all that money come from? And what about the gambling, the dice, the blackjack, those baseball tickets? This guy sound more like a character in crime fiction than a Supreme Court nominee.
If any other women come forward, in any moral universe, he'd be done. But as a Trump nominee with a Trump congress, it'll just be another big yawn. But Democrats should go all out on this turd.
How to put the Kavanaugh case into context? Teenage drinking, decades ago. Prep school kids in affluent suburbia. Pool parties while the parents are away. Among the clues, almost tangentially, are references to country clubs.
Country clubs. For me, this was the nugget of context needed to bring the picture into focus. An op-ed that appeared last January explains why. Sexual assault is not mentioned, but it fits right in.
"From the Country Club To the White House" by Michael Goldfarb.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/opinion/clubbable-but-in-the-worst-way.html
The piece ends: "…America is being governed by a country-club boor, backed up by other members of the club — a class that doesn’t worry that it will suffer if he makes a mistake."
Susan Collins wants both parties in the Kavanaugh sexual assault case to testify under oath. I don't have any evidence to be able to say Ms. Ford's idea of "under oath" is contingent and malleable but we have ample evidence that testifying under oath doesn't mean jack to Trump's soon to be Killer of Women's Rights on the court.
He has already lied multiple times, under oath, to congress. What's another round of mendacity?
Collins surely knows this. This appears to be another smoke screen that will allow her to vote Trump's guy in and not appear to have completely abandoned any commitment to women in America. "Well", she can say, "He testified under oath that Ms. Ford is a lying bitch, what else could I do?"
And I don't guess that letter of support from 200 classmates of Ms. Ford will matter a whit, after all, they're just chicks. Nothing for the all-male judiciary committee Confederates to worry about, or any R males in the Senate. They've spent a career ignoring women--with prejudice. Why change now?
@AK
Worse still, I've been hearing "analysts" on teevee claiming that rushing through Creepy Kavanaugh would be 'suicidal' to the GOP's electoral prospects...Since when have Republicans been blown away electorally for being unabashedly anti-women across the board, to the point of trying to gut Roe v Wade? Last time I checked the old white folks that show up to the elections are willing to overlook this glaringly obvious political position because of their disdain of Others, or lower taxes, or something. Republicans own nearly the entire fucking government right now, legitimately or not. I'd say their campaign against women hasn't been consequential to their electoral prospects.
Sure, we're in a new era they say. The year of the woman! Hell, I'm afraid that this whole #MeToo movement, which I'm entirely supportive of, is going to throw middle-aged men into the fatherly embrace of the GOP even faster than they would have if their political views just naturally hardened with old age and spite, as seems to be the current case with the fabled Boomers. Women had better come out in droves this November, because a whole 'nother drove of conservative and "independent" men are getting mighty antsy with their baked-in, unacknowledged societal advantages being outed left and right.
Safari,
I certainly cannot speak for other boomer males, but I can speak for myself. The Women's Liberation Movement, which became vital around the time my cohort came of age, was, I think, mostly embraced, or at least acknowledged by my male friends, even if some of them maintained actions and thoughts that were prevalent in the 30's, 40's, and 50's. At the very least, most of us realized that women were no longer to be considered chattel who could be bought, banged, and battered.
Of course there are plenty of examples to the contrary, Trump himself being a fundamental exemplar. I don't doubt that any guy who came of age between the early 60's and the late 70's could not name at least a few acquaintances (or more) whose "enlightenment" was on a par with cavemen like Trump (or worse).
So, some aspects of the War of the Sexes are based on structural elements of the constitution of male-female relationships that had been passed down for a million years. But here's something that probably had not been upgraded over that time period. Girls seeing boys as harmless, caring, synergistic companions--all of a sudden.
PD mentioned that girls of her generation knew what was what and how to fend off the creeps. I'm absolutely sure that such knowledge had been in play for centuries, if not longer (read medieval narratives). I can see Australopithecus females getting together over the coals and expounding on the sexual creepiness of certain ape men and how to avoid their prickish blandishments and forcible actions.
Which is why I cannot, for the life of me, believe that 65 women now recall Rape Boy Kavanugh as a "good guy".
I attended a small, co-ed Catholic high school and I bet there aren't more than 20 or 30 girls from my class who could say, categorically, that I was a good guy, based on their personal observations and interactions with me. High school is just like that. Sixty-five? I couldn't even produce sixty-five guys who could absolutely testify as to the upstanding nature of my character.
High school is, by its very nature, Balkanized.
Here's an example. Years after high school graduation, I ran into a classmate in a pizza joint. She was a nice kid in high school, but she just wasn't in my group so we never had much to do with each other.
I said hello and told her I was happy to see someone from the old school. She was very put out. "You weren't so happy to see me in high school when you were one of the big shots!" she said. I was taken aback, but after a bit, I realized what she was saying.
I tried to explain that we were in different circles and that wasn't really my fault.
She wasn't mollified. To her, I was one of those kids who was in the upper echelons of academics and sports, etc, who looked down on other kids. I didn't, of course, but I didn't realize at that time in high school, that that might be a concern for those other kids.
Nonetheless, my point here is that I was not the scumbag pussy grabber that Kavanaugh was (my high school girlfriend has made a career in women's liberation, and we're still friends) and even so, I could not find sixty-five women I went to school with to swear on a stack of Bibles, what a good guy I was (although, now that I think of it, I could probably come close-- but I sure as shit couldn't do it in two weeks).
This is some serious bullshit. Especially considering that Kavanaugh was a privileged, hard drinking douchebag who likely saw girls as objects for him and his drunken buddies to go after at will.
And the worst thing?
He probably still thinks that.