Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

No one could have predicted…

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

I really should read my own blog.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

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Confirmation

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I watched the much anticipated movie about the Clarence Thomas hearings last night in no small part because I would watch pretty much anything that stars Wendell Pierce and Kerry Washington. At any rate, it was very good, even though it left me yelling at the tv screen.

When the actual hearings happened, I was pretty much apolitical. I was on active duty in the military and just wasn’t very political. None of us were, really. I don’t remember any serious political discussions from the military other than a reference to Dana Carvey as George Bush on SNL, but that was about it. Times were different then in the army, I guess, plus it was in the pre cable news era and we didn’t have any American channels in Germany, anyway.

I do vaguely remember spending about 15 minutes watching the hearings, because I was home for leave post Kuwait/Iraq for a month. Actually flew into Houston with my buddy Geoff, spent a couple days there, drove to New Orleans for a week, then visited a couple of his buddies at Sewanee College, then came home. But that was about it for me- didn’t follow the hearings, didn’t care. I also sort of feel like the Supreme Court wasn’t quite as politicized as it is now.

So watching this last night, even though it was a movie adaptation of reality, was kind of shocking. It was a straight up smear campaign against Anita Hill. The thing that got me the most, though, was the way that Clarence Thomas wrapped himself up in his African-American identity, with the high-tech lynching language, and then, after his confirmation, has repeatedly voted against the interests that effect African Americans. It really explains why so many black people really, really, detest Thomas. That he was replacing Thurgood Marshall is the cherry on top.

At one point in the movie, there was a line to the effect of “no one on the hill can believe the Democrats have done such a bad job with this” and I thought to myself that some things never change.

Done rambling. Watch it if you can.

Reader Interactions

198Comments

  2. 2.

    lamh36

    Unfortunately, I don’t have HBO, so I couldn’t watch it if I wanted to, even On Demand. But I really wanted to, more so that watching The People vs OJ Simpson, which I could have watched but didn’t.

  3. 3.

    BR

    OT — can someone ask Al Giordano if he’s posted or can post video of his Wisconsin lecture on winning the general election?

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    I want to see it. I remember back then. I knew that Unca Clarence was a slave catching snake the moment that I heard about him going in front of a group White folks and disparaging his sister about going on welfare, when he knew the reason why she went on welfare. That story told me everything about his lack of character.

  5. 5.

    Jade

    Joe Biden was incompetent and should not have let the nomination come out of committee. I am glad the movie showed him accurately..

  6. 6.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    I remember it being very ugly, to the point I am surprised the wingnuts are not at HBO offices with pitchforks and torches if they reflect anything close to the truth. They can cry “BORK” all they want but there was no excuse for what they did.

  7. 7.

    Matt

    It made me hopeful, more so that country has come so far since then. Remember that recently (a few years ago) there was a hearing on reproductive rights and Republicans invited only men to talk about it, makes it clear that Republicans are still as big a ratfvking party as they used to be. Seriously, Alan Simpson seemed insane in his portrayal. The good news for women now, is that there are plenty of women democrats, and a few moderate Republican women, who would not put up with that bullshit anymore. Also, it was nice to see that it spurred women to start saying, goddammit enough is enough. Interesting to see all the bit players and who they were.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    Alito is now worse. If the GOP wins in November, whoever replaces Scalia will be even worse.

  9. 9.

    Miss Bianca

    Oh, man…I remember being *riveted* to this case when it came up: I was in grad school at the time, and feminist scholars at NU all across the board were watching and debating it.

    One chilling thing I remember is going down to the University of Chicago campus during the middle of the hearings to see a play at a theater there – I think it was one of the professional Chicago companies. It was Measure for Measure, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. At one point when Isabella is threatening to denounce Angelo – the high and mighty moral hypocrite who is bribing her to sleep with him – the guy playing Angelo leaned back on his desk and coolly replied, “Who will believe thee, Isabelle?” – and the whole house gasped aloud. A chill just ran right thru’ my body. That was when I knew the hair on your neck really could stand up.

  10. 10.

    Technocrat

    Call me shallow, but I thought Wendell Pierce came off as a little too distinguished in the role. I don’t feel he fully captured the sullen recalcitrant vibe that just oozed off of Thomas.

  11. 11.

    lollipopguild

    Everybody knows that Thomas is a political hack. He said once that he did not want any of his conservative friends to be angry with him for any of his SC votes.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    I’m not sure I would be able to rationally watch the film, because I’m still pissed off at how Anita Hill was treated even this many years later.

    In other news, Ruckus, Bill and I all survived our mini-meetup at the Huntington. At least we assume Bill survived — we kind of lost track of him towards the end and assumed he was off taking pictures in the Chinese Garden. We got to tour around the Japanese Garden and see a couple of demonstrations of a traditional tea ceremony, so it was pretty cool. Thanks again to the guys for coming with!

  14. 14.

    swiftfox

    I’ll quibble with ‘pre-cable’. CNN had been around for 10 years and wired cable was standard since 1982 or 1983, at least for urban areas. It may have been pre-Fox or pre-MSNBC, but it did exist.

  15. 15.

    Mnemosyne

    @Baud:

    I forgot to take pictures, but Bill took quite a few, so there should be some available. He was getting some cool stuff with his IR lens in the Chinese Garden.

    ETA: It was very impromptu and came together last night, so there was no time to front page it. Plus it costs $25 to get in unless you’re a member (which I am) so I would have felt kind of bad publicizing something that expensive.

  16. 16.

    Cacti

    The only good that came from the Thomas hearings was that it was the moment when “sexual harassment” became part of the national vocabulary.

    But the bad guys won that one, and we’ve all felt the consequences.

  19. 19.

    smintheus

    Thing was we already knew Thomas was lying in those hearings. He had claimed when questioned about Roe v. Wade that he had never formulated an opinion or had a discussion about the ruling with anyone ever. Disqualifying if true, but almost certainly false. Then his high-dudgeon act over Anita Hill’s testimony confirmed what we knew, that Thomas was a liar. That was the only reason anyone needed to vote against his confirmation.

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: Would have loved to have joined you folks (I’m in Pasadena at the moment), but sadly had a late-morning-to-early-afternoon meeting today, so not really practicable. Some other time perhaps.

  21. 21.

    ellie

    The hearings were on non-stop at my house. I have never seen my father so angry and what was happening to Anita Hill. There was a lot of yelling at the TV.

  22. 22.

    Mike in NC

    We cringed when they announced “People vs O.J. Simpson” but damned if it wasn’t one of the best shows of the year. Expect it to collect a bunch of Emmies. Never cared for John Travolta in anything he ever did but he was just outstanding in this miniseries.

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    @dmsilev:

    Basically, I ended up having an extra ticket to the Japanese Teahouse event because my niece’s mother canceled for her at the last minute, and then Ruckus was able to pay on the spot to get in, too, so it ended up being very impromptu. They’ve been doing a whole lot of free evening events now that they built a new auditorium in the new entrance plaza, so locals may want to keep an eye on that schedule as well.

  25. 25.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    No HBO here. The new Bob’s Burgers was a hoot and a half. Make sure you stay to the end of the credits.

  26. 26.

    James E Powell

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m with you on this one. It was Democrats playing patty-cake, Republicans playing to win. They got a reliable RWer for Thurgood Effing Marshall. RWers take the court very seriously – witness their flat refusal even to consider any Obama appointee.

    Some people think that things would be different if this were happening today; I’m not so sure. I remember the whole Sandra Fluke episode.

  27. 27.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Speaking of movie stars, on this date in history, Daffy Duck made his screen debut in the 1937 classic “Porky’s Duck Hunt” (video)

    Also on this date in history, the US invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. How far we’ve come. (photo)

  29. 29.

    Loviatar

    The thing that got me the most, though, was the way that Clarence Thomas wrapped himself up in his African-American identity, with the high-tech lynching language, and then, after his confirmation, has repeatedly voted against the interests that effect African Americans. It really explains why so many black people really, really, detest Thomas. That he was replacing Thurgood Marshall is the cherry on top.

    For once got nothing to add, Cole spoke the straight truth.

  30. 30.

    catclub

    @Matt:

    Seriously, Alan Simpson seemed insane in his portrayal.

    I heard on NPR that everything from the hearings is verbatim.

  31. 31.

    debbie

    I worked at the publishing house that published the book, “The Real Anita Hill.” I had to hold my nose to sell it to my accounts and the buyers, mostly women, held their noses when placing orders. It was a horrible time.

  32. 32.

    Betty Cracker

    I was a recent college graduate in my first real job when the Thomas hearings happened, and it was a revelation to me because it was the first time I realized just how clueless men — even nice, liberal men — were about the reality women deal with every day.

    Guys were all like, “Well, if he treated her so badly, why did she keep in touch after she left that job? Why did she ask him for a reference letter if he was creepy?”

    My fellow lady folk and I face-palmed repeatedly over shit like that.

  35. 35.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Baud: I think it’s complacency. Lyndon Johnson famously said, you work harder when you’re on the outside trying to get in, then when you’re on the inside looking out.

    If Roe was overturned it would created an incredible firestorm, just like Terri Schiavo intervention. But since Roe has been law for so long, people take it for granted.

  36. 36.

    Belafon

    That he was replacing Thurgood Marshall is the cherry on top.

    Remember this when Republicans attempt to argue that Scalia should be replaced with someone of a similar political ideology.

  37. 37.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    It was pretty good and lots of fun. I have determined that a membership to the Huntington is a necessary expense. I had not been in 35 yrs and there is so much more to see than there was then. Also it was good talking in person to people I see here every day and have met but not actually seen breathing for quite some time.

    We need an LA get together! Last one we had about 12-15 people, we should be able to get that many again.

  39. 39.

    serge

    I can’t watch. I remember watching that absurdist theater at the time just incredulous and with a mounting personal sense of deep dread. It was so blitheringly obvious what was happening, yet the farce played out like a serious event, with very “serious” people like John Dankforth lending his anti-gravitas. It still makes me sick to think of that useless lump perched on his dais, unable to ask a question in arguments in decades on the bench. Then I think of losing Thurgood Marshall, and I want to scream.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ruckus:

    We just need to find a place that doesn’t have unexpected Irish music like Story Tavern did. If Pasadena isn’t too far for peeps, G and I go to Lucky Baldwin’s Trappiste on Colorado near PCC fairly often. They have a nice patio and indoors seems to be sports, not music, though we’d have to double-check their website.

    Story Tavern does have the dog patio now, though, which could be nice.

  41. 41.

    Pogonip

    You know you always wondered: a German cannibal who ate gis boyfriend (no, not like that) says boyfriend steak tastes like pork.

    What? Not like chicken?

    That’s the case that caused the country to pass a law against cannibalism; oddly enough there had never been one on the books, even though there were several instances of same in the hunger after WW I.

    So, what did YOU have tonight? We had flounder, asparagus, and sweet taters.

  45. 45.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @Pogonip:
    I had read human is sweet, but suppose it depends on the feed it was getting.

    We had grilled salmon, couscous and grilled cabbage with balsamic/walnut oil dressing. With this weather I hope to grill a lot this week. I am planning on shrimp and pineapple kabobs tomorrow but not sure what will go with it, probably rice and asparagus.

    edit: @Cacti: Yes it is

  46. 46.

    debbie

    @Pogonip:

    The publisher (Free Press) was as conservative as they came back then. I don’t remember any talks about lawsuits, but I’d bet she was more interested in refinding her anonymity.

  49. 49.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Welcome to the Donner Family Buffet. We have the table of five for your party of ten ready. If you five will just follow me I’ll get you all seated while the sous chef escorts the rest of your party back to the preparation and staging area.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @Pogonip:

    Since alligators and birds are both the last living direct descendants of dinosaurs, it makes sense that alligator tastes like chicken (or at least birdlike). I guess that means a T. Rex would have tasted like chicken, too. Maybe something more gamey, like pheasant.

  52. 52.

    John Revolta

    @debbie: This. Having been through the wringer once already, would you like to be grilled in public about your personal life by a team of top right-wing lawyers?

  56. 56.

    gene108

    @David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:

    If Roe was overturned it would created an incredible firestorm, just like Terri Schiavo intervention. But since Roe has been law for so long, people take it for granted.

    I disagree.

    If Roe is overturned, there will be no pushback or very little.

    The opposition to Roe (and Movement Conservatism, in general) has been able to reach a lot of people, because it chose to work through evangelical churches. Congregations view their pastors as authority figures and when the pastor says abortions are the work of Satan, you have a large group of people primed to accept it.

    There are no liberal centers, where liberals are primed to accept the word of certain authority figures.

    Organizing on the liberal side of things becomes harder, in comparison.

    Liberals are more diffuse in the things they follow.

  59. 59.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: I may have mentioned this once before, but my wife was working night shift in the ER of the closest hospital to the Station nightclub fire that night. While she will still eat pork, she has said numerous times that she will never forget the smell in the ER.

    The hospital ran out of morphine.

  62. 62.

    gene108

    @James E Powell:

    witness their flat refusal even to consider any Obama appointee.

    Like Reoublicans abuse of the filibuster, this is unprecedented and a radical departure from normal political decorum.

    Anyway, Republicans know losing control of the Supreme Court will kill their current “joy ride” very quickly.

    Reinstituting campaign finance laws, as well as, voting rights laws that will undo the 2010 gerrymandering, and voter ID laws will roll back their recent political gains.

  63. 63.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    I remember Arlen Specter interrogating Anita Hill like she was some crime boss who had put out some hits. I just never forgave Specter for that. Apparently Alan Simpson threatened to sue HBO and the producers over their portrayal of him. Fuck him. Also. Too.

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: No clue. I have an uncle who lived in Louisiana and sent some alligator meat to my grandmother. She tossed it before checking to see if I wanted it. I was just suggesting gamier birds (and one with a name more suited for dumb jokes).

  67. 67.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Adam L Silverman:

    More specifically “long pig”.

    I was told, so it’s probably not true, that the traditional greeting between a Fijian peasant and the King was, “Lord, please eat me”.

  79. 79.

    Keith P.

    I wasted a half hour of my life watching Last Man on Earth this week. Little did I expect that Jason Sudeikis joining the regular cast would kill the show with his overwhelming Sudeikisness. The guy’s acting range is shit.

  80. 80.

    srv

    Confirmation that socalism never works:

    BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lost a crucial impeachment vote in the lower house of Congress on Sunday and appeared almost certain to be forced from office in a move that would end 13 years of leftist Workers’ Party rule.

    As thousands of pro- and anti-impeachment protesters demonstrated outside Congress, the opposition comfortably surpassed the two-thirds majority needed to send Rousseff for trial in the Senate on charges of manipulating budget accounts.

    The floor of the lower house was a sea of Brazilian flags and pumping fists as dozens of lawmakers carried the deputy who cast the decisive 342nd vote in their arms. In Brazil’s largest cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, fireworks lit up the night sky and cars honked their horns in celebration after the vote.

  87. 87.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Pogonip: Treif (I’ve been transliterating it wrong) is the Hebrew word for not kosher. Literally impure. As an easter egg, if you listen closely in Gremlins, when the gremlin bites into the apple in the school, then chucks it away because he doesn’t like the taste, he says: “treif!”. I couldn’t find a youtube clip – just spent half an hour looking for it, but here’s a reference to it in a book:
    https://books.google.com/books?id=IHXECwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=do+gremlins+speak+hebrew+in+the+gremlins+movie&source=bl&ots=McJQPS-Jqp&sig=Y7Syhgn2-3cEiw23Z4NyxL0KREw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjRl6HLm5fMAhXH6x4KHUS0BjAQ6AEITTAI#v=onepage&q=do%20gremlins%20speak%20hebrew%20in%20the%20gremlins%20movie&f=false

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    Chicago still has very strict regulations about using fire onstage thanks to the Iroquois Theatre fire. I’m sure Chicago’s fire marshals are already setting the schedule for who gets to sit backstage at every performance of Hamilton when it opens there in September. Gotta make sure the actress burning letters onstage doesn’t set the whole place on fire, y’know.

  101. 101.

    Anya

    Adam, how’s your Allergy?

    About the movie, it was too emotional for me to watch. It was just cruel and horrible how Anita Hill was treated. The democrats were out gunned and out outmaneuvered by the republicans. Joe Biden seemed like he wanted to satisfy everyone and save the senate’s reputation at Anita Hill’s expense. They threw her under the bus at every turn.

    I agree with an earlier commentor about not liking Wendell Pierce’s portrayal of Thomas. It was too stoic and dignified. But they showed the horrible, reall Thomas at the end.

  102. 102.

    JimV

    I haven’t watched the HBO production – once was enough to go through it. I only got three or four channels on rabbet ears in those days, but there was extensive network coverage of the hearings.

    I keep hoping for a technological breakthrough in lie-detection (maybe MRI-based), but I am not sure it would have helped in that case, at least as far as Thomas’s confirmation is concerned. Knowing he couldn’t lie he probably would have admitted, yeah I made some joking advances and she took it the wrong way, sorry, let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone. As I recall his major opposition was Edward Kennedy, who had Chappaquiddick hanging over him.

    Arlen Specter had been a D.A., and was assigned to prosecute Ms. Hill by the Republican leadership. He got enough backlash from it in Pennsylvania to swing more liberal thereafter. For example, he didn’t vote for (or against) Clinton’s Impeachment trial in the Senate.

    My final memory on the subject was Kennedy making a passionate speech against Thomas prior to the Senate vote, calling the nomination a disgrace, and Specter responding, “I don’t like that word coming from you, Senator.”

  103. 103.

    RaflW

    @Matt:

    The good news for women now, is that there are plenty of women democrats, and a few moderate Republican women, who would not put up with that bullshit anymore.

    Maybe already asked, I’ll see as I read thru more comments, but do tell: who are the moderate GOP women? If you say Olympia Snowe, well she one woman, and she is tolerated like a crazy aunt in the attic in her party. I’m pretty sure she has zero power when GOP men (once again) want to put their boot on the uteri of women.

  105. 105.

    redshirt

    As per Cole’s intro post, I, too, used to never give a damn. I never followed politics and I voted only because I was reminded it was that time.

    I remember Republicans being taken seriously. Which
    is funny now.

  107. 107.

    randy khan

    Having lived through it, I couldn’t even conceive of watching the show. It was painful enough at the time. Thomas was such an obvious liar (as noted above, he said he’d never talked to anyone about Roe, even though he was in law school when it came out).

    A couple of years later, I happened to see a couple of academic presentations using analysis of verbal and non-verbal communications to try to determine who was lying and telling the truth during the hearings. They both came out finding that Thomas had lied and Hill was telling the truth. I recall that one of the professors commented that he was a Republican and that he’d actually expected it to come out the other way.

  108. 108.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anya: They are much improved, thanks for asking. This is a combination of the changes/additions my doctor made to my allergy medication regimen and recognizing that the allergies were providing cover for a sinus infection. So I’ve been on antibiotics since Wednesday and finally feel myself.

    I didn’t see the movie, but I remember when the hearings occurred and have read extensively about it. It was not a shining exemplar of the US Senate in action.

  110. 110.

    Anne Laurie

    @Cacti:

    The only good that came from the Thomas hearings was that it was the moment when “sexual harassment” became part of the national vocabulary.

    QFT (quoted for truth). I was politically aware at the time, and it was amazing how many Joe Sixpaks and Joe Bidens suddenly found out “Yes, your wife, your sister, your daughter, your mom: They never told you about the ‘handsy’ boss and the abusive male co-workers and the casual gropings from customers, because they needed that job… and besides, who would’ve believed them?”

    Heck, far too many women denied the experience of their sisters — even themselves! — because if your manager grabbed your butt or told you filthy ‘jokes’, well, you must’ve given him the wrong signals.

  111. 111.

    Anya

    @Adam L Silverman: Good to hear.

    The movie depicts the US Senate in the worst way. And by the way, Greg Kinnear is so good as Joe Biden.

    I love HBO. I am never dissapointed with any of their shows. I wish it was free or affordable for everyone.

  112. 112.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anya: I largely have had it for Boxing and shows like Deadwood and Rome. And then, of course, movies. And I like their documentaries. There other dramatic shows I’ve found to be hit or miss, but that’s me. For instance, I really liked the Spartacus shows on Starz. But the subsequent offerings just don’t do anything for me. I do enjoy Penny Dreadful on Showtime, as well as boxing too.

  116. 116.

    Tom Q

    @JimV: Specter barely won re-election in 1992 — 51-49% — over a woman, Lynn Yeakel, whose entire campaign was pretty much “Didn’t you hate Arlen Specter over that weekend?”

    CNN definitely existed, and carried the hearings non-stop. The combination of that and the early-in-the-year wall-to-wall coverage of the Gulf War moved Time Magazine to name Ted Turner Man of the Year; cable news, for better and (mostly) worse, became essential that year.

    The Thomas/Hill hearings were grimly depressing for Democrats (and other human beings), and I have no desire to relive those few days (it helps that I don’t have HBO). But a silver lining of sorts: the fact that that all-male panel faced off and essentially Salem-witch-trialed Anita Hill made it clear we needed women in the Senate (there were only two at the time, Mikulski, and Kassebaum in Kansas). The next year, four new women were elected (Boxer, Feinstein, Murray and Moseley-Braun — the latter of whom defeated useless Al Dixon in a rare incumbent Senator primary challenge), and the fact that we’re now up in the range of 20 can be largely attributed to the consciousness-raising that took place as a result of that grisly experience.

  120. 120.

    Anne Laurie

    @Anya:

    I wish it was free or affordable for everyone.

    Well, the good news is that Netflix will almost certainly have streaming / distribution rights CONFIRMATION in a few months. We’ve never had cable, partially because of the cost and partially because the Spousal Unit is afraid he’d waste too much time watching, but we signed up with Netflix when it was still a novelty so I could watch SIX FEET UNDER the season after it aired. We’ve watched a ton of great shows (& films) we wouldn’t have seen otherwise… and spent the money to buy our own copies on some of them, too.

  121. 121.

    Anya

    @Adam L Silverman: Do you mean current shows or any of their shows? I don’t like Girls and True Detective! Vinyl doesn’t appeal to me in any way but I can’t live without HBO. I liked both Spartacus & Penny Dreadful. Speaking of Showtime shows, did you by any chance watch The Affair?

  122. 122.

    Miss Bianca

    @JimV:

    I keep hoping for a technological breakthrough in lie-detection (maybe MRI-based), but I am not sure it would have helped in that case, at least as far as Thomas’s confirmation is concerned. Knowing he couldn’t lie he probably would have admitted, yeah I made some joking advances and she took it the wrong way, sorry, let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone.

    I remember standing in a seminar room with a bunch of other students, speculating over the “he said/she said” aspect of it all, when the instructor put forth the “what if they’re both right” theory – that is to say, Thomas was able to say with complete conviction that he didn’t remember saying any of those things – or that he didn’t remember them the same way. Still not sure I buy that theory, but if it were true it might have screwed with a lie detector test.

  124. 124.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Martial arts, gore, and Katrina Law, Jaime Murray, Ellen Holman, Cynthia Addai Robinson, Leslie Anne Brandt, and Lucy Lawless naked almost all the time. What’s not to love?

  126. 126.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anya: I didn’t watch the affair. I’ve not watched an HBO original series drama since Rome and Deadwood. None of them have appealed to me. Same on Starz since Spartacus. I tried Davinci’s Demons and Black Sails, but couldn’t get into them. Outlander I was already familiar with and neither the books nor the show appeals to me.

  129. 129.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne: Thanks for the invite, you are correct about me wandering off to the Chinese Garden to snap a few more pics. I’m seriously thinking of getting a membership for a year.

  132. 132.

    Anya

    @Anne Laurie: Netflix is great. I grew up in a household without a tv (sort off since we watched videos but not live shows). My parents wanted us to do outdoor stuff and read instead of watching television. I always felt I was weird for not knowing about t.v. stuff. And when I grew up and became independent, for a long time, I didn’t like watching t.v. but these days, I marathon watch shows on Netflix & HBO on demand and I think that all started with Six Feet Under. I think I watch way too much t.v. these days.

  133. 133.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: there are no other reasons than those I’ve listed!

    More seriously, I thought it was well written and well paced throughout. The acting was well done, and despite some seeming liberties with the martial arts, the fight sequences were well done.

  137. 137.

    PurpleGirl

    @Mnemosyne: In the movie World Without End they used Polish for the language spoken by the mutants. I was told this by a guy with a Polish background I once dated. The producers didn’t have a budget to create a language for the mutants and they wanted something that sounded non-English and they decided Polish fit the bill.

  138. 138.

    Plantsmantx

    It really explains why so many black people really, really, detest Thomas

    Unfortunately, many, many of those black people who now really, really detest Thomas took his side against Anita Hill at the time.

  139. 139.

    Amaranthine RBG

    I also sort of feel like the Supreme Court wasn’t quite as politicized as it is now.

    Robert Bork might disagree.

  145. 145.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @BillinGlendaleCA: @Mnemosyne, @Ruckus: I mentioned as we were going though the courtyard towards the entrance to the American Art building that I remembered a lion statue to the side there; I looked at the pictures(from April 10, 1999), it was a statue of a dog.

  150. 150.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @redshirt: Boy, are you clueless. Robert Bork was imminently more qualified than Clarence Thomas to sit on the Supreme Court.

    The only reason he wasn’t confirmed is politics.

    For what its worth, (and, I hope your chair is in a fully upright and locked position before I say this to you) I would have voted against both because, you know, politics.

  153. 153.

    PurpleGirl

    @Amaranthine RBG: Also G. Harold Carswell of whom Roman Hruska said that most of the country is mediocre and they deserve a mediocre judge on the Supreme Court (paraphrase).

  156. 156.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ella inNew Mexico:

    David Brock turned to the left long before John Cole did. So is Cole a scumbag, too?

    Ironically, what turned Brock was that he was hired to write a hit piece book on Hillary similar to the one on Anita Hill and ended up admiring her after doing all of his research. AFAIK, he still hates Bill — especially given Bill’s predilection for cheating — but he changed his mind about Hillary and, eventually, turned his back on the entire right wing. I have his Hillary book on my shelf but haven’t actually read it. It’s called The Seduction of Hillary Rodham and he wrote it back in 1996.

  160. 160.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @redshirt: What’s confusing you here – that a person can simultaneously think 1) that Bork was eminently qualified and 2) that he should have been rejected for his political views? Or that someone who is a democrat could think that?

  162. 162.

    redshirt

    @Amaranthine RBG:

    @redshirt: What’s confusing you here – that a person can simultaneously think 1) that Bork was eminently qualified and 2) that he should have been rejected for his political views? Or that someone who is a democrat could think that?

    Both, I guess. Why would you think Bork is an example?

  163. 163.

    Mnemosyne

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    It’s a pretty big place — we really only saw two of the gardens, and one of the art galleries. You can get two people in at a time on a single membership, so if the missus and/or the kid would be interested in going occasionally, a membership would basically pay off after three visits.

    G and I have a joint membership (we each have a card in our name) so if we don’t go together, we can bring 1 person in. They’re also pretty generous with guest passes when you sign up — I think we got at least 2 or 3 our first year.

  165. 165.

    RaflW

    @Adam L Silverman: So are two yankee northeast GOPers who mostly enable yurtle the sum total of Matt’s “few moderates” who won’t put up with blatantly sexist bullshit from Republicans in 2016? Color me totally unimpressed.

    Serious question: How many GOP women objected when those Repubs had a reproductive health hearing and only invited men to testify? How many Republican women holding any elected office or party role said bupkus?

  166. 166.

    nutella

    @Miss Bianca:

    the “what if they’re both right” theory – that is to say, Thomas was able to say with complete conviction that he didn’t remember saying any of those things – or that he didn’t remember them the same way. Still not sure I buy that theory, but if it were true it might have screwed with a lie detector test.

    Unlikely that he didn’t remember. If his memory had been that bad he’d never have finished law school.

    It’s quite possible, though, that he was so completely sure he was completely right about everything because the purpose of women working in the same agency was to provide him with harassment victims would have interfered with a lie detector test.

    Not that lie detector tests are reliable for anyone so they don’t prove anything.

  167. 167.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @redshirt: Bork was clearly more qualified than Thomas. Bork had been a professor at YLS, a solicitor general, appeals court judge for the DC circuit and acting AG. He was a brilliant scholar and his antitrust theories still dominate to this day.

    That said, I would have voted to reject him even for his role in the Saturday Night Massacre without even having to get into his “Originalism” views. But those are political judgments and the supreme court confirmation process is political.

    I don’t see why this puzzles you. You can understand that someone can understand that Hitler was a fantastic speaker and Rommel was a a brilliant general while, at the same time, thinking that they has some, to say the least, unattractive qualities, too, right?

  168. 168.

    RaflW

    @Librarian:

    I don’t think anyone here has ever said that HRC is a perfect, flawless person.

    G-d knows I haven’t. I think she is flawed, I think she does still lean too heavily on lessons she learned decades ago that aren’t really that relevant electorally or politically for the term I fervently hope she wins. Because at this late hour, she’s what we’ve got.

    I could jump in some wayback machine (in my mind, that is) and wish for a different outcome to the lead-in to the whole primary process, that some other more perfect candidate had emerged. It wasn’t, for me, Bernie in that “more perfect” role.

    I respect the groundwork Sanders did to help pull the Democratic party (or parts of it) leftward this cycle. I’d like to see more of that. But I don’t really respect who he has become on the campaign trail.

    That’s an I statement, btw. I am not persuaded. Others are. And that’s great. That’s why we have a candidating process – to sort out who resonates with what.

    If for whatever reason Sanders does end up the nominee, I will vote for him. I cannot in any way condone a GOP presidency in these times. I can’t vote third party out of some urge for something different. That is tantamount to me saying “the SCOTUS can go hellishly wrong, so what?” I cannot do that.

    I hope if the shoe is on the other foot, Bernie supporters can accord Hillary their strategic if not heartfelt vote. I suspect I’ll be doing a bit of that in voting HRC if she’s at the top.

  171. 171.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @efgoldman: FTR the nationwide shock after Coconut Grove is the prime reason why every exit door in US restaurants & other public accommodations opens outward.

    One of the more unsettling things I’ve found in Europe is the not-so-occasional door that opens inward. It seems unnatural even after > 3 dozen trips over the Pawned.

  175. 175.

    Darkrose

    @Ella inNew Mexico: I’m wondering who’s said that she is. And for the record, Brock repudiated the Anita Hill book and apologized to her. Ironically, it was when he was researching what was supposed to be a hit piece on Hillary Clinton that he realized he’d been on the wrong side.

  178. 178.

    gogol's wife

    @Mai.naem.mobile:

    Yes, I have no desire to watch a teevee show about this. I remember it too well.

    ETA: But it’s good for educating the yoots. My students had never heard of her. I was shocked.

  179. 179.

    evodevo

    @Anne Laurie: Yes. This. It was everywhere. And no one thought anything about it, except of course, for the victims. We have come a long way, but the attitude is still there. I see it every day.

  180. 180.

    Denali

    While I hesitate to enter this conversation, I would like to note that one of the reasons I am here is that sometimes, it allows for actual reasonable discourse of differing views before the inevitable descent into namecalling – trolls, idiots, etc. When that happens, people leave, quite understandably. Then we become a chorus with a hive mentality. Which is really quite boring.

  181. 181.

    bluefoot

    @Betty Cracker: I know this thread is probably dead at this point, but: I *just* had this conversation with a male friend. I am looking for a new job and I was telling him I HATE that I have to call up a former boss (who was CEO) who was a sexually-harassing *sshole and be nice and ask for a recommendation. It was a start-up, and there was no one else above me, so I don’t have options. Nice male friend spoke from both sides of his mouth with “why do you have to be nice if he is really like that” and “even if he was really like that, what’s the big deal”? Empathy, what’s that?

  182. 182.

    gogiggs

    You can’t join a military and then claim to be non-political.
    Becoming the militarized arm of your country’s policy is pretty fucking inherently political.
    You might not have given a lot of political thought, being young and all, but…

  183. 183.

    Paul in KY

    @Pogonip: Many South Sea Island cannibals told people who asked that humans taste like pork. Has been known for a long time.

  186. 186.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Betty Cracker: @Mnemosyne:

    Can I just say that he’s hurting her cause? Not unlike Dick Morris looked like a friend then ended up biting the hand that fed him, way back when.

    And for the record, let me just say that given I’ve followed and read and admired almost everything he’s said, I think I can say that I “know” John Cole. Why, if we were living in the same small college town, I think John Cole would be a friend of mine. And David Brock is no John Cole. ;-)

    @Omnes Omnibus: Has anyone said that? Uh, YEAH. There are folks here who would argue up one wall and down another to make sure everything she does is the perfect choice, every position she has is the best, and anyone else who disagrees needs psychiatric help.

    But maybe you don’t read ALL the comments….;-)

  187. 187.

    randy khan

    @bluefoot:

    It’s really remarkable sometimes that people don’t get this sort of thing. If you just said you hated your boss and that working for him was awful, but you needed to be nice to because you needed the job and you still need his goodwill because he was important in your field, almost everyone would get it. But add the point about sexual harassment and it’s like the light gets turned off for a lot of people.

  188. 188.

    maurinsky

    Re: Confirmation, don’t have HBO and I remember it too painfully to want to revisit it.

    Re: Wendell Pierce, some comedian on Twitter said “I wonder if, when offered the part, Wendell PIerce asked if it was a speaking role?”

  189. 189.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    Has anyone said that? Uh, YEAH. There are folks here who would argue up one wall and down another to make sure everything she does is the perfect choice, every position she has is the best, and anyone else who disagrees needs psychiatric help.

    You know, unless you can point to a specific quote that actually asserts any such thing, I’m gonna go ahead and call bullshit on this one. No one here has said anything like that. It’s exaggeration like that that has really made me wonder about Bernie Sanders supporters…now, go ahead and cite that statement as one that supports your assertion, if you dare. ; )

  190. 190.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Miss Bianca: Please review all posts by Conster, la Citoyenne as Exhibit A.

    Who I have come to believe is Bob in Portland’s chimeric twin. ;-)

  192. 192.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Miss Bianca: by the way, in case you don’t have the time or the obsessive nature to go back and review every thread and it’s responses, I posted this one or two below, specifically to you:

    290
    Ella in New Mexico says:
    April 18, 2016 at 12:31 pm
    @Miss Bianca: @Miss Bianca:
    “Adam, what do you think will happen to this movement that appears to have spring up in the wake of Bernie Sanders? He seems like a hell of a loose cannon to try to contain.”

    First of all, thank you for the work you did yesterday, particularly given your April Show Shower dump. I think I would have curled up under the covers and Netflixed all weekend if I lived in CO and had to go anywhere!

    Second, you–and too many others here at BJ–really need to put something into perspective: the vast majority of people out there rooting for Bernie Sanders are completely sane, decent people who care too much about America to not vote in the fall for Clinton if she’s the nominee. And most of us truly believe she will be.

    What you saw at your convention was a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the general “population called Sanders supporters”. They were the most invested, most active and most motivated Sanders supporters in your state, or they wouldn’t have been attending. That, by definition, makes them extreme and out of the mainstream.

    They are not me. They are not my kids or friends or family members. They are not the people I know who want to see Bernie stay in till the end, even if they know he is not likely to win. Most of us out here, even the more informed or interested parties, don’t have the time or even the personality to get involved in Party politics. But it doesn’t mean we don’t care: we just want our votes and our voices to help influence things rather than having to get involved in the “inside club” that is local politics.

    We want changes, improvements in the structure of our electoral system and the corruption we all see in campaign finance. We want to protect our environment, and yes, it might be at the short-term expense of some multi-national giant corporation’s profits. We want to see us move towards cost savings and better coverage in healthcare and less expensive higher education and student loan debt reform. We want the US to keep being the sane, sensible foreign policy and military influence around the world that it is, always fighting for ultimately peace and human rights. We want a government that gets pulled back to the middle from this current “Golden Age II” of big corporations, banks and the wealthy taking the wealth and monopolizing business and holding too much control of government over the rest of us.

    Those changes cannot come unless we tell our candidates that they are incredibly important, and we get people to run for office who are willing to make them the center of their campaigns. They have to talk about them more and more, pull the people to the Democratic party who think it’s just the “pro-gay” version of the Republican party in it’s values.

    I have to say that Hilary Clinton is a different, better, more inclusive candidate today than she would be had Bernie Sanders not come this far. I for one like what I hear her say when she responds to these issues. Even more, I like that the Party itself will hear that we need to push for MORE progressivism, not less in order to win elections.

    The irony is, even some Republicans I know like what Sanders says because it’s actually just pragmatic, money saving and good for them. They hate Trump. One I know calls Cruz “the Anti-Christ” regularly on Facebook. They’re sick of a Party that wants to take their birth control and hates their gay children and has burdened them with $40K in student loan debt. I am betting good money they’ll at the very least not vote for President in the fall, but if we can keep them on board, who’s to say they might not take a chance on our ticket?

    So I guess what I’m saying is I really wish a lot of the pro-Clinton brigade would just CTFD about Sanders and how he dares to keep running. He’s running! Let him act like a candidate! So far his stuff against her has been weak, meek and insider’s baseball. He’s not going to hurt her in the General if she’s the candidate. Stop turning him into the terrible monstrous version of Trump or Cruz, and start worrying about THEM. THEY”RE the enemy. Not Sanders, or his supporters.

    And again, thanks for your work. We can’t all be everywhere, and some of us simply are better cut out to rally the troops at home than at the front. :-)

    And sorry the Sanders folks scared the begeezus out of you with the wackadoodle-ism.

  193. 193.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ella in New Mexico: Well, thank you for that repost/riposte – I am a *little* obsessive, but evidently not obsessive enough, for I missed it the first time!

    ETA: I guess I’d say I ended up more mad than scared – I don’t think the claque in the galleries really represents the majority of Sanders supporters. But even tho’ there was a lot of nasty rowdyism there were neither fisticuffs nor beatings with canes anywhere that I could see, so we’re already ahead of 19th-century standards of political oppositional expressions…

  194. 194.

    redshirt

    @Ella in New Mexico: I think you’re misinterpreting anger at Bernie with praise for Hillary. I don’t recall ANYONE here saying Hillary’s perfect or the best candidate ever. Heck, most people are saying they already miss Obama – why do you think that is? It’s certainly not because Hillary is perfect.

    But the Bernie hate is real, I’ll grant you, and given the relentless and endless nature of the debates, things can get heated and personal, which is unfortunate.

  197. 197.

    les

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    There are folks here who would argue up one wall and down another to make sure everything she does is the perfect choice, every position she has is the best, and anyone else who disagrees needs psychiatric help.

    Citation needed. As usual.

  198. 198.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @les: Please. Clearly you’re either out of the loop here or you just want to provoke and frankly, I’m not in the mood.

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