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."

The Commentariat -- October 5, 2018

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." ...

... As I write, Susan Collins is standing on the Senate floor justifying a vote for Kavanaugh. She has not yet announced how she will vote, but if she announces "no," it will be because lightning struck her. Lightning did not strike. After Collins finished her lo-o-ong grandstand, Joe Manchin announced that he too would vote for Kavanagh's confirmation. So it will soon be Justice Wood B. Rapist. ...

... 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." ...

... MSNBC reports that Jeff Flake will vote to confirm Kavanaugh. ...

... Trump Tweets Conspiracy Theory. Jane Coaston of Vox: "On Friday..., Donald Trump tweeted that people protesting against Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court by confronting members of Congress are 'paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad,' adding that they were 'paid for by Soros and others.' This is the first time the president has referenced Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, whose links to progressive causes have made him a far-right boogeyman both in the United States and around the world."

... D.W. Pine of Time: "Using words and phrases from Ford's testimony, San Francisco-based artist John Mavroudis recreated her likeness by drawing each letter by hand." Haley Edwards' cover story is here. ...

I testified with five people foremost in my mind: my mom, my dad, my wife, and most of all my daughters. I hope to be a role model for them with my vitriolic partisanship and conspiracy mongering, my deceptive and incomplete answers, and my snide remarks. -- Paraphrase of Kavanaugh's WSJ op-ed by NYU historian Tom Sugrue, via Jeet Heer ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Judge Wood B. Rapist has written an op-ed boasting about what a good boy he is. Sadly, he decided to place in the EXCLUSIVE firewalled rich people's Wall Street Journal, so I won't be able to link it (if the WSJ took down the firewall for this particular op-ed [update: and it appears it has], I'm still not going to link it). You can read about Kavanaugh's non-apology in this New York Times report. ...

... OR Here. "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General." Abby Zimet of Common Dreams: "Whoa. Clean Up On Aisle Four: With the The Washington Post and distinguished former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens now joining lawyers, judges, sexual assault survivors and much of the furious country in urging our next Supreme Court judge not be a lying, belligerent, injudicious partisan hack, said hack has taken to the Wall Street Journal to write an unprecedented op-ed defending himself. With the meme-enticing headline, 'I Am An Independent, Impartial Judge,' Kavanaugh didn't apologize for last week's frenzied, paranoid testimony but conceded, 'I was very emotional..., and I said a few things I should not have said. I hope everyone can understand that I was there as a son, husband and dad.' He also whined about 'wrongful and sometimes vicious allegations,' 'deep distress,' 'unfairness,' etc.... The problem, as many pointed out, was that his craven-cum-arrogant non-apology used the language of every other abusive, alcoholic son, husband and dad who did or said heinous things in the dysfunctional heat of the moment, sobered up the next day and frantically sought to cover his repugnant tracks.... Like his Fox News performance, he also again went to the only media source - Murdoch-land - that would have him without asking pesky factual questions like those mean Democrats did for like almost a whole hour. Finally, despite his protestations about his upstanding judgement, it's tough to trust anyone who chooses a headline so ripe for savage mockery, which quickly came: ... 'I am an insane, intoxicated judge,' 'I am the rightful heir of the Romanovs,' 'I am the very model of a modern major general,' etc." ...

... Nicholas Fandos & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "The Senate, deeply divided over the results of an F.B.I. investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, moved uneasily toward a Friday morning vote that will most likely determine whether President Trump's nominee will reach the Supreme Court. Republican leaders were increasingly confident that despite a barrage of accusations, the Senate will narrowly vote to cut off debate on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination and move to a final confirmation as early as Saturday. Because Republicans changed Senate rules last year to end filibusters for Supreme Court nominees, Friday's vote will need the same 50 senators that the final confirmation tally will need. But with four senators still undecided -- the Democrat Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and the Republicans Jeff Flake of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation was still not assured." ...

... Elana Schor, et al., of Politico: "Key undecided Republican senators are signaling on Thursday the FBI report on sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh may give them the confidence they need to back the embattled Supreme Court nominee. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) told reporters that 'we've seen no additional corroborating information' about alleged sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh in high school and college, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the investigation 'appears to be a very thorough' one. But Collins made clear that she remains undecided on Kavanaugh and wants to read more of it herself." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... John Wagner & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "As the Senate began reviewing the new FBI report on Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on Thursday, both Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley and the White House stood by President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, saying the investigation found nothing sufficient to corroborate allegations of sexual misconduct while Kavanaugh was a teenager. 'There's nothing in it that we didn't already know,' Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement after being briefed on the report by his staff. 'It's time to vote.'" Mrs. McC: Thanks, Chuck, for repeating verbatim what we all predicted you would say. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Kevin Wallevand of ABC News Fargo: "U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp will vote NO on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. Heitkamp sat down exclusively with WDAY News to share what she will do when the U.S. Senate votes on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Heitkamp also shared her reasoning behind her decision [which she explains in the embedded video]." She believes the women. Good for Heitkamp. She is down in the polls; this took guts. I just sent her 50 bucks. ...

... Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "A GOP senator may miss a Senate confirmation vote for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh this weekend because his daughter is getting married on Saturday. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) will walk his daughter down the aisle for her wedding regardless of the timing of the vote, a Daines spokesperson confirmed to The Hill. Senate Republican leaders plan to hold a key procedural vote Friday morning, setting up a potential confirmation vote for Saturday afternoon. It is unclear if Daines' trip will impact the timing of the vote." Mrs. McC: Oh, it will, unless Mitch has a clear majority without Daines. ...

... Erin McGroarty of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: "More than 350 female attorneys from Alaska have sent a joint letter to Alaska Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan opposing the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.... 'We are Alaskan women attorneys who work in a variety of settings...,' the letter begins. 'Among us are Republicans, Democrats, Nonpartisan and Undeclared voters. We ask you, as your constituents and as fellow lawyers, to vote against confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh as justice of the United States Supreme Court.' The letter notes that the group's opposition to Kavanaugh is not based on policy disagreement or political affiliation but rather on a concern about allegations of sexual misconduct and even more with Kavanaugh's temperament, which the attorneys consider unbefitting for someone on the nation's highest court." ...

... ** Lulu Ramadan of the Palm Beach Post: "Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on Thursday said that high court nominee Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, who Stevens once lauded in one of his books, does not belong on the Supreme Court. Speaking to a crowd of retirees in Boca Raton, Stevens, 98, said Kavanaugh's performance during a recent Senate confirmation hearing suggested that he lacks the temperament for the job." Stevens is a life-long Republican.... Stevens, who retired in 2010 after 35 years on the bench, stands as one of the longest-serving justices in history. Nominated by President Gerald Ford, Stevens was unanimously confirmed by the Senate." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "The FBI investigation into Brett Kavanaugh has turned out to be a fig leaf. Multiple reports tell the same story: The White House has controlled the probe, ignoring the attempts by multiple witnesses to reach investigators and wrapping up its work well before its already-tight deadline. In the meantime, however, significant new evidence has appeared from the news media. It demonstrates beyond a doubt that Kavanaugh's emotional testimony was a farrago of evasions and outright lies." ...

... David Corn of Mother Jones: Why didn't the White House allow the FBI to interview Christine Blasey Ford & Brett Kavanaugh, which would of course be standard in any investigation of an allegation of sexual misconduct? "Democrats on Senate Judiciary Committee have a theory: Trump White House officials blocked an interview with Ford because they were worried about the FBI questioning Kavanaugh.... During the hearing last week on Ford's allegations, Kavanaugh frequently dodged questions from Democratic senators, who each were limited to five-minutes of time.... [And Republicans spent their time whining about Democrats.] Kavanaugh did not undergo a true and professional grilling. An FBI interview would have been a much different experience.... It does make one wonder just what Trump, McGahn, and other White House officials feared about a Kavanaugh sit-down with the FBI." Mrs. McC: Oh, it doesn't make me wonder. ...

... Charles Ludington, Lynne Brookes & Elizabeth Swisher in a Washington Post op-ed: "We were college classmates and drinking buddies with ... Brett M. Kavanaugh.... It was his public statements during a Fox News TV interview and his sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that prompted us to speak out. We each asserted that Brett lied to the Senate by stating, under oath, that he never drank to the point of forgetting what he was doing. We said, unequivocally, that each of us, on numerous occasions, had seen Brett stumbling drunk to the point that it would be impossible for him to state with any degree of certainty that he remembered everything that he did when drunk.... Brett lied under oath while seeking to become a Supreme Court justice.... All of us went to Yale, whose motto is 'Lux et Veritas' (Light and Truth). Brett also belonged to a Yale senior secret society called Truth and Courage. We believe that Brett neither tells the former nor embodies the latter. For this reason, we believe that Brett Kavanaugh should not sit on the nation's highest court." ...

... Courtney Tanner of the Salt Lake Tribune: "Sen. Orrin Hatch faced swift backlash Tuesday -- including accusations of 'slut-shaming' -- after sharing on Twitter an uncorroborated account from a Utah man questioning the legitimacy and sexual preferences of one of the women accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of misconduct. The Republican senator tweeted excerpts from the signed statement of Dennis Ketterer, a former Democratic candidate for Congress and D.C. weatherman with ties to Centerville, Utah, saying the man reached out to his office this week to talk about Julie Swetnick and her allegations against Kavanaugh.... In a sleazy nutshell, the story is that Dennis Ketterer claims that Swetnick approached him at a Washington bar one night and struck up first a conversation and then a brief relationship in which sex was discussed but never performed." ...

     ... SLT Editors Say Hatch Is Not Qualified to Vote on Kavanaugh. Salt Lake Tribune Editors: "The despicable attack launched by Sen. Orrin Hatch and the Senate Judiciary Committee -- more precisely, the Republicans on that committee -- on one of the women who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault is a textbook example of why more victims do not come forward. Worse, it betrays a positively medieval attitude toward all women as sex objects who cannot be believed or taken seriously. The fact that no one involved in the Twitter attack on Julie Swetnick seems to see that is solid evidence that their opinion of who should and should not serve on the Supreme Court is to be ignored." ...

     ... Update. Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) raised the ire of protesters on Thursday after telling a group of mostly women who confronted him in one of the Senate buildings that he would talk to them when they 'grow up.'" Mrs. McC: Make that "Not Qualified to Wipe a Pig's Ass." ...

... Just Another Constitution-Loving American. Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "Last week, James Patrick posted a credible threat on Facebook, saying he planned to shoot members of Congress depending on the outcome of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The Florida man was arrested, yet, oddly enough, Facebook still hasn't removed the post.... [Among his posts:] 'Getting ready if Kav is not confirmed,' he wrote in a Sept. 22 Facebook post. 'Whoever I think is to blame may God have mercy on their soul .. just cleaned out the gun shop where I get guns ammo and target practice .. bought all their 50 cal hollow points. I expect to be confronted and I will be ready to kill and ready to die.'"

Trump Confirms He's a Lying, Tax-Cheating Crook. Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump on Wednesday criticized a New York Times investigation into his and his family's use of dubious tax schemes over the years and the origins of his own wealth.... 'The Failing New York Times did something I have never seen done before. They used the concept of "time value of money" in doing a very old, boring and often told hit piece on me. Added up, this means that 97% of their stories on me are bad. Never recovered from bad election call!' ... Mr. Trump did not offer an outright denial of the facts in the report, such as that the money he made during his decades in real estate came from tax schemes of dubious legality, the existence of records of deception in documenting the family's financial assets, and that the beginning of the president's so-called self-made fortune dates back to his toddler years when, by the time he was 3 years old, Mr. Trump earned $200,000 a year in today's dollars from his father. Nor did Sarah Huckabee Sanders the White House press secretary, during a subsequent briefing with reporters. Asked to identify what in the article was incorrect, she said, 'I won't go through every line of a very boring 14,000-word story.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... "Government of Tax Cheats, for Tax Cheats." Paul Krugman: "The blockbuster New York Times report on the Trump family's history of fraud is really about two distinct although linked kinds of fraudulence. On one side, the family engaged in tax fraud on a huge scale, using a variety of money-laundering techniques.... On the other, the story Donald Trump tells about his life -- his depiction of himself as a self-made businessman who made billions starting from humble roots -- has always been a lie: Not only did he inherit his wealth..., but Fred Trump bailed his son out after deals went bad.... The truly wealthy end up paying a much lower effective tax rate than the merely rich, not because of loopholes in tax law, but because they break the law.... America's wealthy [are] probably costing the government around as much as the food stamp program does. And they're also using tax evasion to entrench their privilege and pass it on to their heirs, which is the real Trump story.... Republicans in Congress have ... been systematically defunding the Internal Revenue Service, crippling its ability to investigate tax fraud."

... John Whitlow in a New York Times op-ed: "Donald Trump is a homegrown creature, a species well known and justifiably loathed by most New Yorkers — the unscrupulous landlord.... More than a stooge for Vladimir Putin or the embodiment of a disgruntled -- and mythical -- white working class, Mr. Trump is at his core a landlord, turning a handsome profit while the rest of us live in increasingly precarious conditions.... Much of the outrage generated by the reporting on the Trump family's finances has focused on tax evasion, which is immense and possibly criminal, and on the myth that Mr. Trump is a self-made man. But it is no small thing that the Trump empire is built on the same kinds of predatory practices that tenants and tenant advocates deal with every day: inflated costs for repairs, which are passed on to tenants in the form of rent increases; lax government oversight over building conditions and rent levels; and racial divisiveness." ...

... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times (Jan. 2016): "More than a half-century ago, the folk singer Woody Guthrie signed a lease in an apartment complex in Brooklyn. He soon had bitter words for his landlord: Donald J. Trump's father, Fred C. Trump.... Mr. Guthrie, in writings uncovered by a scholar working on a book, invoked 'Old Man Trump' while suggesting that blacks were unwelcome as tenants in the Trump apartment complex, near Coney Island. 'He thought that Fred Trump was one who stirs up racial hate, and implicitly profits from it,' the scholar, Will Kaufman, a professor of American literature and culture at the University of Central Lancashire in Britain, said in an interview."

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Hillary Clinton should have had a troupe perform this at every campaign event during the general election season./p>

Lindsey Graham Is Such a Whore. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has been one of the biggest proponents of President Trump's crackdown on China, welcoming tariffs on Chinese imports while conceding that they will raise costs for American businesses and consumers.... But behind the scenes, Mr. Graham has been working to help chemical and textile companies in his home state avoid the pain of Mr. Trump's trade war.... The senator has written seven letters to the United States trade representative on behalf of companies seeking tariff relief -- more than any other member of Congress has penned. Four of those seven received at least some of the relief they were seeking."

News Ledes

New York Times: The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to two campaigners against wartime sexual violence: Dr. Denis Mukwege, 63, a Congolese gynecological surgeon, and Nadia Murad, 25, who became the bold voice of the women forced into sexual slavery by the Islamic State group."

New York Times: "The unemployment rate fell to a nearly five-decade low in September, punctuating a remarkable rebound in the ten years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers set off a global financial crisis. The 134,000 jobs that employers added in September reflected the slowest pace of growth in a year, and the growth in wages cooled slightly from August.... The report on Friday extended the current run of monthly job growth to eight straight years, double the previous record."

The Commentariat -- October 4, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Elana Schor, et al., of Politico: "Key undecided Republican senators are signaling on Thursday the FBI report on sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh may give them the confidence they need to back the embattled Supreme Court nominee. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) told reporters that 'we've seen no additional corroborating information' about alleged sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh in high school and college, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the investigation 'appears to be a very thorough' one. But Collins made clear that she remains undecided on Kavanaugh and wants to read more of it herself."

Trump Confirms He's a Lying, Tax-Cheating Crook. Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump on Wednesday criticized a New York Times investigation into his and his family's use of dubious tax schemes over the years and the origins of his own wealth.... 'The Failing New York Times did something I have never seen done before They used the concept of 'time value of money' in doing a very old, boring and often told hit piece on me. Added up, this means that 97% of their stories on me are bad. Never recovered from bad election call!' ... Mr. Trump did not offer an outright denial of the facts in the report, such as that the money he made during his decades in real estate came from tax schemes of dubious legality, the existence of records of deception in documenting the family's financial assets, and that the beginning of the president's so-called self-made fortune dates back to his toddler years when, by the time he was 3 years old, Mr. Trump earned $200,000 a year in today's dollars from his father. Nor did Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... during subsequent briefing with reporters. Asked to identify what in the article was incorrect, she said, 'I won't go through every line of a very boring 14,000-word story.'"

John Wagner & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "As the Senate began reviewing the new FBI report on Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on Thursday, both Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley and the White House stood by President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, saying the investigation found nothing sufficient to corroborate allegations of sexual misconduct while Kavanaugh was a teenager. 'There's nothing in it that we didn't already know,' Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement after being briefed on the report by his staff. 'It's time to vote.'" Mrs. McC: Thanks, Chuck, for repeating verbatim what we all predicted you would say.

*****

** 1,000+ Law Professors (and Counting), in a New York Times op-ed: "The following letter will be presented to the United States Senate on Oct. 4. It will be updated as more signatures are received. Judicial temperament is one of the most important qualities of a judge. As the Congressional Research Service explains, a judge requires 'a personality that is even-handed, unbiased, impartial, courteous yet firm, and dedicated to a process, not a result.' The concern for judicial temperament dates back to our founding; in Federalist 78, titled 'Judges as Guardians of the Constitution,' Alexander Hamilton expressed the need for 'the integrity and moderation of the judiciary.'... At the Senate hearings on Sept. 27, Judge Brett Kavanaugh displayed a lack of judicial temperament that would be disqualifying for any court, and certainly for elevation to the highest court of this land.... Judge Kavanaugh exhibited a lack of commitment to judicious inquiry. Instead of being open to the necessary search for accuracy, Judge Kavanaugh was repeatedly aggressive with questioners.... We have differing views about the other qualifications of Judge Kavanaugh. But we are united, as professors of law and scholars of judicial institutions, in believing that he did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament requisite to sit on the highest court of our land." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: The law professors' letter is similar to a comment Akhilleus made a couple of days ago. It is an extraordinary letter. First, to get a thousand lawyers to agree is kind of amazing, isn't it? But seriously, many of these attorneys, as they write themselves, "appear in state and federal court." As long as Kavanaugh remains on the bench -- any bench -- some will appear before him. And you can bet Brett is taking names. He's very meticulous in that way (see boyhood calendars). A guy who spent three years harassing the family of Vince Foster, who did nothing to hurt him or anyone else, will be fine with arbitrarily ruling against claimants who happen to have hired these legal experts to plead their cases. ...

... Avery Anapol of the Hill: "The nation's largest coalition of Christian churches on Wednesday called for the withdrawal of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination for the Supreme Court. The National Council of Churches, which has membership from more than 40 denominations including most major Protestant and Eastern Orthodox denominations in the U.S., wrote in a statement on their website that they believe Kavanaugh has 'disqualified himself from this lifetime appointment and must step aside immediately.' The statement cited a number of reasons for the demand, including Kavanaugh's behavior during his recent testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on sexual assault allegations against him. 'Judge Kavanaugh exhibited extreme partisan bias and disrespect towards certain members of the committee and thereby demonstrated that he possesses neither the temperament nor the character essential for a member of the highest court in our nation,' the statement read. The National Council of Churches alleged that Kavanaugh's testimony included 'several misstatements and some outright falsehoods,' including some related to Christine Blasey Ford's accusation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980s. The group also pointed to what they called Kavanaugh's 'troubling' judicial and political record on some civil rights issues." ...

... Trump Declares Operation Whitewash a Success. Matthew Choi of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Thursday declared that the allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are 'totally uncorroborated' and will possibly benefit Republicans in the upcoming midterms. 'The harsh and unfair treatment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh is having an incredible upward impact on voters. The PEOPLE get it far better than the politicians. Most importantly, this great life cannot be ruined by mean & despicable Democrats and totally uncorroborated allegations!' he tweeted." ...

... White House Whitewash Is a Fait Accompli. Peter Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "The White House sent interviews conducted by the F.B.I. to the Senate early Thursday morning and expressed confidence that none of the information collected by agents should stand in the way of the Senate voting to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The material was conveyed to Capitol Hill in the middle of the night, just hours after Senate Republicans set the stage for a pair of votes later in the week to move to final approval of Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. A statement issued by the White House around 2:30 a.m. said the F.B.I. had completed its work and that it represented an unprecedented look at a nominee." (This is an update to a story linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

We will not be intimidated by these people. There is no chance in the world that they're going to scare us out of doing our duty. -- Mitch McConnell, speaking of sex abuse victims ("these people"), in a Senate floor speech Wednesday

From the man who single-handedly delayed the filling of Justice Scalia's seat for 10 months to complain about a one-week delay to get the truth -- give me a break. It is classic diversionary, blame-the-other-person tactics when he himself is the master of delay. It is galling, appalling, to hear day after day the majority leader get on his high horse about delay, when he almost invented the word when it comes to judicial nominations. -- Chuck Schumer, Wednesday ...

... Carl Hulse & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Underscoring his commitment [to placing a lying, crazed, drunken (alleged) violent sex criminal on the Supreme Court], Mr. McConnell took the procedural steps later Wednesday to set up a key test vote on Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation for Friday." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I happened to see part of Mitch's late-night floor speech. I got the feeling he thought Kavanaugh would not be confirmed, but that he doesn't really mind because, as Hulse & Martin note, he warned the White House before the nomination that "Kavanaugh's long history and paper trail in Washington would present complications." That said, I usually misread reptiles. ...

... But It Is a Secret Whitewash! Eliza Collins & David Jackson of USA Today: "Republicans are planning a careful choreography for the results of the FBI's background probe into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, including sending only a single copy to Capitol Hill that will be housed in a safe. The FBI report, which officials said will include interviews about Kavanaugh's conduct in high school, will first go to the White House and then to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where lawmakers will read it in a secure location. Senate Republicans are planning the cautious approach amid a debate over how much of the FBI's investigation into Kavanaugh's past -- including allegations of sexual assault -- should be available for public view. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said only senators will be able to see the results of the FBI's work. A handful of Senate aides may view it as well." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Earlier FBI Background Checks Did Not Give Kavanaugh a Clean Bill. Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "In anticipation of the [FBI] report's arrival, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday night teed up a key vote to advance Kavanaugh's nomination for Friday. Until that vote, senators will be rushing in and out of a secure facility at the Capitol to review the sensitive FBI report that the bureau has compiled, looking into allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.... The developments came as Senate Democrats opened a new front in their objections to the investigations of Kavanaugh's conduct, suggesting in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) that past FBI background checks of Kavanaugh include evidence of inappropriate behavior, without disclosing specifics. The letter, signed by eight of the 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, challenged the accuracy of a tweet from the committee's Republican staff on Tuesday that said: 'Nowhere in any of these six FBI reports, which the committee has reviewed on a bipartisan basis, was there ever a whiff of ANY issue -- at all -- related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse.'... 'If the committee majority is going to violate that confidentiality and characterize this background investigation publicly, you must at least be honest about it.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As you may recall, in Kavanaugh's first confirmation hearings, questions by some Democratic Senators -- Mazie Hirono & Kamala Harris -- suggested the previous background checks held some dark secrets. ...

... White House Whitewash, Ctd. Leigh Ann Caldwell & Heidi Przybyla of NBC News: "More than 40 people with potential information into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have not been contacted by the FBI, according to multiple sources that include friends of both the nominee and his accusers. The bureau is expected to wrap up its expanded background investigation as early as Wednesday into two allegations against Kavanaugh -- one from Christine Blasey Ford and the other from Deborah Ramirez.... One current and two former FBI officials confirmed to NBC News that dozens of witnesses have come forward to FBI field offices who say they have information on Brett Kavanaugh, but agents have not been permitted to talk to many of them. To the extent that any interviews have been done, the officials say, it's not clear the information will be considered as part of the FBI's limited scope inquiry." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Chris Strohm & Shannon Pettypiece of Bloomberg: "The FBI hasn't interviewed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford because it doesn't have clear authority from the White House to do so, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Instead, the White House has indicated to the FBI that testimony from Kavanaugh and Ford ... before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is sufficient, said the people, who asked to not be identified discussing the sensitive matter. The new evidence of constraints on the FBI probe came as Republican Senator Bob Corker told reporters the FBI is likely to give senators a stack of interview reports, probably later on Wednesday. He said senators were told in a GOP meeting that a vote on cutting off debate is likely on Friday to move toward a confirmation vote on Kavanaugh." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Washington Post has been able to confirm interviews with only six witnesses, five of whom have a connection to the professor or her allegation. The investigation was always unlikely to answer definitively whether Kavanaugh was guilty of sexual misconduct decades ago. But the probe's limited scope -- which was dictated by the White House, along with a Friday deadline -- is likely to exacerbate the partisan tensions surrounding Kavanaugh's nomination.... President Trump has insisted publicly he was not curtailing the FBI probe. But privately, the White House restricted the FBI from delving deeply into Kavanaugh's youthful drinking and exploring whether he had lied to Congress about his alcohol use, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. Some of those involved in the case complained that the bureau did not follow leads that were offered to it." ...

... Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Investigation designed not to find anything apparently finds nothing[.]... My guess is that Jeff Flake's Very Concerned reaction will be 'good enough.'" ...

... ** Debbie Ramirez Is Not Making up Stuff. Jane Mayer & Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker: "Frustrated potential witnesses who have been unable to speak with the F.B.I agents conducting the investigation into sexual-assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, have been resorting to sending statements, unsolicited, to the Bureau and to senators, in hopes that they would be seen before the inquiry concluded.... Kenneth G. Appold was a suitemate of Kavanaugh's at the time of the alleged incident [in which Kavanaugh exposed himself to Deborah Ramirez]. He had previously spoken to The New Yorker about Ramirez on condition of anonymity, but he said that he is now willing to be identified.... Appold, who is the James Hastings Nichols Professor of Reformation History at Princeton Theological Seminary, said that he first heard about the alleged incident involving Kavanaugh and Ramirez either the night it occurred or a day or two later. Appold said that he was 'one-hundred-per-cent certain' that he was told that Kavanaugh was the male student who exposed himself to Ramirez.... He recalled details -- which, he said, an eyewitness described to him at the time -- that match Ramirez's memory of what happened.... 'I believe her, because it matches the same story I heard thirty-five years ago, although the two of us have never talked.' Appold, who won two Fulbright Fellowships, and earned his Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale in 1994, also recalled telling his graduate-school roommate about the incident in 1989 or 1990. That roommate, Michael Wetstone, who is now an architect, confirmed Appold's account and said, 'it stood out in our minds because it was a shocking story of transgression.'" Read on. If you weren't sure Kavanaugh was a degenerate ass, you will be now.

... ** James Roche in Slate: "In 1983, I was one of Brett Kavanaugh's freshman roommates at Yale University. About two weeks ago I came forward to lend my support to my friend Deborah Ramirez, who says Brett sexually assaulted her at a party in a dorm suite. I did this because I believe Debbie. Now the FBI is investigating this incident. I am willing to speak with them about my experiences at Yale with both Debbie and Brett. I would tell them this: Brett Kavanaugh stood up under oath and lied about his drinking and about the meaning of words in his yearbook. He did so baldly, without hesitation or reservation. In his words and his behavior, Judge Kavanaugh has shown contempt for the truth, for the process, for the rule of law, and for accountability. His willingness to lie to avoid embarrassment throws doubt on his denials about the larger questions of sexual assault. In contrast, I cannot remember ever having a reason to distrust anything, large or small, that I have heard from Debbie." Read on. ...

... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans are stepping up efforts to challenge Christine Blasey Ford's credibility by confronting her with a sworn statement from a former boyfriend who took issue with a number of assertions she made during testimony before the Judiciary Committee last week. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and the committee chairman, cited the former boyfriend's statement in a letter sent Tuesday night to Dr. Blasey's lawyers demanding that they turn over material that could be used to assess her veracity.... The former boyfriend told the Judiciary Committee that he witnessed Dr. Blasey helping a friend prepare for a possible polygraph examination.... Dr. Blasey ... was asked during the hearing whether she had 'ever given tips or advice to somebody who was looking to take a polygraph test.' She answered, 'Never.'... [Blasey's friend Monica McLean], a former F.B.I. agent, denied the assertion on Wednesday.... Dr. Blasey's camp also rejected the account." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Amanda Arnold of New York: "At a rally in Mississippi Tuesday night, a crowd of Trump supporters roared with laughter as the President mocked Christine Blasey Ford.... The following day, politicians from both sides of the aisle condemned Trump's offensive comments, calling them 'wholly inappropriate' and 'just plain wrong.'... When asked by [Fox 'News'] host Bill Hemmer whether she thought Trump's comments were 'wrong,' [Kellyanne] Conway shot back that the White House has been 'incredibly accommodating' -- in her opinion, too accommodating. 'She's been treated like a Fabergé egg by all of us, beginning with me and Trump,' she said, before questioning Ford's veracity. 'She provided her testimony, she still has no corroboration for her testimony ... By Ford's own testimony, there are gaps in her memory, there are facts that she cannot remember.'... During a press briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was simply 'stating the facts' during his tirade, and insisted that the president is still 'very confident in his nominee, as he has said time and time again.' Neither Conway nor Sanders -- nor Trump -- questioned the truthfulness of Kavanaugh's story, which, as many of his former classmates have claimed, appears to be replete with lies." ...

... Eric Levitz: "... the people who have the power to make or break Brett Kavanaugh's nomination like his approach to Constitutional law. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Jeff Flake are perfectly fine with Kavanaugh's jurisprudence. But they have evinced some concerns about his character. For this reason, in recent days, Democrats have focused their case against Kavanaugh on two related 'character' issues: Multiple women have accused him of sexual assault.... When Kavanaugh appeared before the Senate to respond to those allegations, he delivered an angry partisan tirade, treated several Democratic senators with abject contempt, and was evasive in response to direct questioning. He also (ostensibly) told many, many lies while under a sworn oath.... Kavanaugh's behavior last Thursday was disqualifying by long-honored -- and well-founded -- norms of judicial conduct ... [even if he] has never sexually assaulted anyone in his life -- and that he did not (definitely, clearly, unambiguously) lie under oath in any of his testimony before the Senate." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Lawrence Hurley & Chris Kahn of Reuters: "Opposition among Americans to Brett Kavanaugh ... has increased in the wake of his testimony last week before a U.S. Senate committee in which he defiantly denied sexual misconduct allegations, Reuters/Ipsos polling data showed on Wednesday. In the latest seven-day average in a survey of U.S. adults, 41 percent of respondents opposed Kavanaugh, 33 percent supported the conservative federal appeals court judge and 26 percent said they did not know." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Burgess Everett of Politico: "The U.S. Capitol Police on Wednesday arrested a 27-year-old man for posting addresses and private information of senators, according to the police department. The department reported that it arrested Jackson A. Cosko for allegedly posting 'private, identifying information (doxing) about one or more United States senators to the Internet.' Cosko has been working as an intern in the office of Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and has been fired, according to her chief of staff, Glenn Rushing.... Cosko ... previously worked for Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and California's Barbara Boxer, who has since retired."

Aaron Elstein of Crain's New York Business: "... Donald Trump and his siblings could owe New York state more than $400 million in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties based on the New York Times report that their parents handed down more than $1 billion worth of real estate and cash. Based on the figures provided in the Times article, the Trumps could be on the hook for $210 million in unpaid gift or estate taxes and a similar amount in unpaid interest and penalties, according to Fred Slater, a CPA who has advised real estate professionals for more than 40 years.... Slater added that President Trump could be liable for a larger share than his sisters and brother because as trustee he signed the tax returns for the estates. The state Department of Taxation and Finance says it is 'vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues of investigation.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The Times would not have devoted 18 months & significant resources to Trump's finances were he not president. So if the state (and city) follow up & impose multi-million-dollar tax levies on Trump, that would put a significant crimp on whatever unconstitutional emoluments Trump is accruing as a result of his current job.

Brett Molina of USA Today: "On Wednesday at 2:18 p.m. ET, smartphones in the U.S. were buzzing with a test of a 'presidential alert,' managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to warn residents about national emergencies. The system was put in place due to a law passed during the tenure of former President Barack Obama but didn't get its first test until Wednesday, under the Trump administration. 'The test will assess the operational readiness of the infrastructure for distribution of a national message and determine whether improvements are needed,' read a statement from FEMA ahead of the alert test." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Wow! It's Thrilling to Be Nuts. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "For most people, the [FEMA] test, which resembled a text message, passed with nothing more than a quick glance at their phones and a mocking tweet about it. But believers in the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, the moment had titanic implications. Believers in QAnon -- a conspiracy theory based on a series of internet clues posted by an anonymous character named 'Q' that posits a world in which Trump and the military are engaged in ceaseless, secret war with globalist Democratic pedophiles -- think the text could mark the start of 'The Storm,' a fantastical MAGA dream in which Trump's political enemies will be arrested and tried at military tribunals. 'That is how we will receive orders if all else fails,' wrote one QAnon believer on the 8Chan internet forum. 'We are the next generation Minutemen! Standing by Sir!'"

Andrew Kaczynski & Nathan McDermott of CNN: "Audio of radio interviews between longtime Trump ally Roger Stone and the radio host he claimed was his back channel to WikiLeaks recently came into possession of special counsel Robert Mueller's office, two sources with knowledge of the matter tell CNN. The interviews between Stone and comedian Randy Credico took place between August 2016 and April 2017 on Credico's radio show, which aired on local New York station WBAI. Stone has claimed that Credico served as his intermediary to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential election. Credico has denied the claim.... CNN's KFile has obtained audio of the interviews, in which Stone and Credico repeatedly discuss WikiLeaks. In the interviews, you hear Credico ask Stone about the back channel and also cast doubt that the back channel exists. While the interviews do not rule out the possibility Credico served as the back channel, the former radio host told CNN he believes the content of the interviews back up his denials."

** Meagan Flynn of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration's plans to terminate the legal status of about 300,000 immigrants who fled violence and disaster in Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua and El Salvador. In a decision late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen in San Francisco found substantial evidence that the administration lacked 'any explanation or justification' to end the 'temporary protected status' designations for immigrants from those countries. At the same time, he said there were 'serious questions as to whether a discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor' in the administration's decision, which would violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law. He cited statements by President Trump denigrating Mexicans, Muslims, Haitians and Africans, including his January remark about 'people from shithole countries' and his June 2017 comments stating that 15,000 recent immigrants from Haiti 'all have AIDS.'"

Stephen Montemayor of the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune: "The DFL Party&'s attempt to find a law enforcement agency willing to investigate a domestic abuse claim against U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison was mired in uncertainty Wednesday, after the Minneapolis Police Department said it would seek to refer the case to another jurisdiction. Earlier Wednesday, the DFL asked Minneapolis police to investigate after both a city attorney and a county prosecutor declined to review a report the party commissioned that did not substantiate the allegation. Ellison's former girlfriend, Karen Monahan, alleges that the Democratic candidate for attorney general tried to drag her off a bed during a fight in August 2016. He denies it. 'Due to a conflict of interest, or the appearance of a conflict of interest, the Minneapolis Police Department will not be handling the matter involving Congressman Keith Ellison,' read a police statement. It said the department is in communication with other law enforcement agencies to which it may refer the case. Ellison's son, Jeremiah Ellison, is on the Minneapolis city council."

News Lede

AP: "Seven law enforcement officers were shot, one fatally, in a confrontation Wednesday with a suspect who held children hostage in a South Carolina home, authorities said. The suspect was taken into custody after a two-hour standoff. The gunfire erupted in an upscale neighborhood of Florence, a city of about 37,000 people still reeling from heavy flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence's strike on the Carolinas last month."