Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Battles

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Battles

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Another place, another time, from the Washington Post:

Anthony Torres was on his way to see family. He was ready to forget about the last few weeks.

He was also about to become an instant Internet sensation, the subject of unsparing insults and pitiless social media posts. In the three days to come, his story would reveal the basest instincts of the online era — and then, later, the best.

But riding a train out of New York City bound for his brother Thomas’s house in Atco, N.J., Torres didn’t know any of that yet.

He just knew he needed a shave.

So the 56-year-old took out a razor and cream and shaved his face right there in his seat on the Northeast Corridor train Thursday evening.

Unbeknown to Torres, a fellow passenger took out his phone and filmed Torres grooming. He then posted it to Twitter that night. Likes, retweets and responses ensued — tens of thousands of them.

The online condemnation of Torres was swift and cruel. He was called “an animal,” “nasty” and “a gross person.” One New Jersey media outlet tweeted, “A guy was caught shaving on an @NJTransit train and we can’t look away.”…

In the weeks before that train ride, Torres had bounced between Atlantic City and Manhattan. He slept in homeless shelters and beneath bridges. In both cities, he said, he was mugged and robbed. The shelter in New York didn’t have enough room for him, so on Thursday, he decided to go someplace that felt like home…

He said he phoned another brother for help, and his sibling sent Torres money for a train ticket.

On the New Jersey Transit train out of Penn Station, Torres said he felt the weight of a couple of tough weeks, the latest in a hard life. He was hungry. He hadn’t had a chance to shower, and he hadn’t shaved in days.

He wanted to look good for his brother’s family, he said, he wanted to look “presentable.” That impulse, a few strokes of the razor and a flick of shaving cream onto the floor were enough to vault Torres into Internet infamy…

On Monday, after the Associated Press first reported on the man behind the meme, some who shared the video expressed regret for spreading the derision without understanding Torres’s experience…

Even the passenger who filmed Torres expressed regret for the post that started it all… On Tuesday, Bentivegna posted a message that said he had licensed the video and planned to donate all proceeds to Torres and his family.

But the biggest show of support came from Jordan Uhl and the GoFundMe page he set up after seeing the video and reading the Associated Press story. As of Tuesday evening, the fundraiser, titled “Anthony Torres Assistance Fund,” had raised more than $20,000 toward a $25,000 goal. Uhl, who works at the Washington-based advocacy firm MoveOn.org, said he’s in contact with the Torres family…

Thomas Torres said he and his four other siblings have tried to help their brother his whole life. He has health problems that stem from two strokes, and he has had trouble keeping a steady job. But, in a strange twist, Thomas Torres said, this moment — which could have been painfully embarrassing for his brother — may change Anthony’s life.

“He’s gone through hell his whole life,” Thomas Torres told The Washington Post. “I think this is an eye-opener for him, to see that so many people care about him.”…

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there / They have to take you in… “

May we always have the strength, and the luck, to be on the right side of the battles.

Reader Interactions

73Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh36

    ‪All in all, I had a good time and I did and saw as much as I wanted and could do within my physical limits…Happy to be going home though. And taking a rest from long distance vacations for at least another 2 months or even next year (unless of course something comes up i CANT miss ?)‬

    BTW if you follow me on twitter you have already seen my daily updates…if not I’ll eventually get around to putting up a blog post over at my lil spot of the world…eventually

    https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/1042340344166273024?s=21

  2. 2.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: Missing so info?? read this bit first!

    Good morning from London Heathrow! #LondonVayKay is officially over. I’ll be boarding my Delta flight back to the USA in about 10-15min … from London to Detroit and finally to NOLA! A few shirt thought…this the first one of my solo trips that I did not have a set itinerary…and at times it showed. I didn’t do as much advanced planning for what I wanted to do once in London and to be quite honest…I did suffer for it a bit (had the most trouble finding good places to eat & got nauseous from not eating well or often enough…

  5. 5.

    opiejeanne

    @lamh36: Safe flight home. Glad you had a good time, and we had a little trouble finding good places to eat in London that wouldn’t break the bank. A place called “Lettuce and Slug” was pretty good despite the name, and didn’t cost the earth.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    Fitting for a September 19th morn, a Flarrrida story, mateys.

    [Lake Worth city manager] Bornstein wrote […] back, saying, “I’m so sorry you find this fun, silly proclamation anything more than that,” he said. “I could easily become consumed with a sense of over correctness in almost everything involved in government. However, I refuse to become devoid of all the wonderful human emotions including, most importantly, humor.” Source

  8. 8.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @opiejeanne: Indian food was our food of choice in London, we made the mistake of trying a Korean restaurant, they charged for each and every side dish(that’s not Korean style, an assortment of side dishes are always included in the meal). That alone made Madame ill.

  9. 9.

    gene108

    @lamh36:

    Safe travels. Send pics to Alain.

    ****************

    I don’t think my face is tough enough to shave with just a disposable razor and no mirrror to see where I was shaving or water to rinse the shaved hairs off the razor.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Tom McCarthy at the Guardian just couldn’t resist:

    The relationship took a turn after Trump began winning presidential primaries in 2016. Daniels writes that she feared for her daughter’s safety and her own, given the size of her alleged secret about the Republican nominee.

  13. 13.

    MagdaInBlack

    This is kinda fun, from Mr. Pierce, in Esquire.

    Congressman Beto O’Rourke may not be the next U.S. senator from Texas. I wouldn’t bet on it either way at this point, which is in its own way a considerable achievement for O’Rourke, who stepped up strongly when other people didn’t have the sand for the campaign and now is without question a national political figure.

    For his efforts, however, O’Rourke also has built a lovely vacation home in the Wernicke Area between the ears of Tailgunner Ted Cruz. So far, the Cruz campaign has attempted to damage O’Rourke by reminding voters how cool O’Rourke always has been, by picking a fight with Willie Nelson, and by sending out a fundraising mailer disguised as a summons. To say the Cruz campaign is floundering is to insult flatfish the world over.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    @BillinGlendaleCA

    Just for grins, may as well sneak in a quote usually attributed to Carole Lombard, when asked about Clark Gable being dubbed the King of Hollywood.

    ““If his cock was one inch shorter, they’d call him the Queen of Hollywood. God knows I love Clark, but he’s the worst lay in the town.”

  15. 15.

    Chet

    Thanks for the reminder that we can’t know everything about a man from a 30 second video clip on Twitter. However, I want to point out that those NJTransit trains have rather spacious bathrooms.

  16. 16.

    MagdaInBlack

    Also too.

    Asked on “The View” about the angry comments, the county music legend had just three words for his critics.

    “I don’t care,” the 85-year-old native Texan said. “I don’t care. They’re entitled to their opinion, and I’m entitled to mine.”

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    One year on from Hurricane Harvey – and as the true scale of the mess left by Hurricane Florence emerges in the Carolinas – the cleanup work in Houston still continues. And workers still digging out from the mess are fearful that they may not get paid.
    …………………..
    At a meeting convened under the title “The People’s Tribunal on Hurricane Harvey,” Claudia, a middle-aged undocumented immigrant from Colombia struggling to pay her children’s college tuitions back home, told the crowd of working for a contractor on a hurricane cleanup project for a week, only to find that the contractor had disappeared when it came time to get paid.
    ‘We’ve been forgotten’: Hurricane Harvey and the long path to recovery
    Read more

    “It’s sad because we all count on our weekly pay to survive,” Claudia said as she struggled to hold back tears and described facing the threat of eviction because she couldn’t pay her rent. “I’ve seen it happen frequently. Many of my co-workers are fearful that another contractor will come and do the same thing to them.”

    According to a survey conducted last year by the University of Illinois at Chicago, approximately 75% of all day laborers have reported wage theft. Even worse, 61% of day laborers said that they received no respiratory devices to protect themselves against the many molds and bacterias that workers face on the job, and 85% of day laborers say they received no health and safety training.

    While the hurricane recovery has been marred by abuses of workers’ rights, activists hope that they can use the sense of solidarity created by the recovery to foster a dialogue about the treatment of workers in Houston.

    I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that such things could be happening in the great state of Texas.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    Even if I put aside the allegation against Kavanaugh it really, really bothers me that he’s a Right wing conspiracy theorist. He was influenced by far Right lunatics in the Clinton investigation. The people he was listening to and gathering “information” from! They tell him Hillary Clinton was having sex with Vince Foster and he chases that? THAT was his focus? These are the people he considers credible?

    This is really, really bad in a judge. He falls for dumb things. He’s a follower. It isn’t difficult to find out that contraceptives aren’t abortion. He just accepted that and repeated it? He doesn’t do his own thinking. I don’t know how someone like this can be described as “smart” no matter what his academic credentials are on paper.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    And the specific ZEAL with which he pursued the sex angle in the Clinton investigation! WTF?

    I feel as if he’s a far Right warrior who is being rewarded for service to The Cause with this seat. This isn’t about his intellect or merit on rigorous legal analysis. It’s about the fact that he went after Democrats- exceeded their expectations as a partisan warrior. He’s a good team player- they told him what to do and he did it. He’s just a disaster. Low quality.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    And we saw it again with the gushing over Trump, when he was announced. It was unnecessary. Donald Trump isn’t his boss. Most judges go out of their way NOT to leave an impression that they take orders from the political branches. Not Kavanaugh! He wants to make it clear to Dear Leader that he’ll be on Team Trump. He’s a follower. That’s his career and it’s probably been the secret to his success. The sucking up alone is concerning. Another one who doesn’t know what his role is. Another one who puts his personal career goals above the actual description of the JOB he’s taking.

    They’re all just so fucking bankrupt and shallow. It’s depressing. We can’t do better than this? These hacks are the best we can do?

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    And as it is both Yom Kippur and Talk Like a Pirate Day –

    As European nations pushed westward in a mad dash for colonies from the 16th to 18th centuries, the Caribbean became a pirate’s paradise. Legendary sailors like Edward “Blackbeard” Teach and William “Captain” Kidd famously stalked the waters in search of vulnerable trading vessels. What’s less well known is that among these rogue sailors’ ranks were displaced European Jews. Pirating was one of the era’s more egalitarian professions—there’s little time for discrimination if you need to work together while running from royal fleets. This sense of relative equality could be one of the reasons that attracted a number of Jews to adventurous lives on the high seas.

    Until recently, history books rarely noted the exploits of Jewish pirates, despite their surprising prevalence and success, but historical graveyards unearthed in the Caribbean within the last decade revealed tombstones with Stars of David, Hebrew, and skull and crossbones insignia. Source

  29. 29.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    You know, a portion of the inquiry into Donald Trump involves sex. He paid off Stormy Daniels. The speculation is they’re following that to see if it ties into the inquiry (campaign finance, fraud, whether Trump was compromised by the things he was hiding in terms of people using them to threaten them). All of those angles were investigated in Clinton.

    Do you think Mueller is compiling lists of questions on whether and where Trump ejaculated? Because that’s what Kavanaugh did with Clinton. We have a comparison now. We know what “professional approach” looks like. Kavanaugh suffers in that comparison. It’s bad WORK.

  30. 30.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Kay: Thanks for pointing this out. We need to hear more about what Kavenaugh was doing in the 1990s. Also about his debts that mysteriously come and go.

    Although I’d be quite happy if he just would step down and we heard no more about him until his impeachment trial from his current position.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I read a fair portion of the transcript of the hearing- more than half- and it’s depressing. Like watching a well-trained legal thoroughbred breeze along a practice track. He’s been training for this for decades and he knows how to do it, but there’s no thought in it.

    He’s polished. But that’s all he is. In the age of Trump I am more and more liking the theory that if you’re EMPTY you’re then easy to fill. So he is vulnerable to dumb ideas and conspiracy theories because he doesn’t do his own thinking and there’s a kind of void there – it sort of vaguely LOOKS like he believes in something or other but it’s just a compilation of what he’s heard that he likes. My high schooler is trying on political positions. He’s like that right now. He was flirting with alt Right, then went hard Left…who knows where he’ll end up. Depends on who he encounters next. But he’s 15.

  33. 33.

    hueyplong

    Willie Nelson dispensed with all his fucks decades ago.

    These dime store desperados will not give him pause.

  34. 34.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    Trump wants Kavanaugh because he is a GOP operative who has a track record of manipulating the legal process to achieve political gains. Given the weird debts and payments of the debts combined with something they must have known about his treatment of women, Trump figures this guy will do his bidding.

    Of course the faux Christians and GOP base will look the other way because they want to overturn Roe v. Wade. They will agree to any means, no matter how corrupt, if they accomplish the end of abortion rights.

  36. 36.

    donnah

    On top of Kavanaugh being an empty suit, in spite of McConnell and Crew shoving his confirmation through, remember that Republican leaders see this as the crown jewel of a Trump/Republican monarchy. A Supreme, a rightwing Supreme with an eye for Roe v Wade, is within reach, and they will not be denied.

    At the least level, they would see his denial as a huge loss for Trump’s to-do list of accomplishments.

  37. 37.

    JPL

    @MomSense: They will not do away with abortions. They will only do away with safe abortion for those without means. They have no idea what the meaning of pro life is.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    I went to a Dem meeting last night in the congressional district that adjoins mine- to the east. “East” means more Democratic in this context. I mostly went because I wanted to see how they handle organizational issues- the “herding cats” skills- and it was interesting. Listening to them they seem to have incorporated the Leftier activists in a way everyone can live with- one of the Lefty activists spoke on what she’s doing and they all seemed to know she wasn’t “working for the congressional candidate”- I assume because he isn’t Left enough. But she is registering voters and doing early vote door to door – which of course means she’ll end up “working for the congressional candidate” because they are literally handing out a ballot card with the candidates on it. Democrats in Ohio bank on early vote so this aligns well with the ODP (the Ohio Democratic Party). I thought they had done a good job getting along. They’re sort of recognizing objections and then letting people do what they’re comfortable with.

  40. 40.

    MomSense

    @JPL:

    Exactly. They will also never give a crap about the baby or the mother. Is used to think the end of their caring started at birth but the infant and maternal mortality rates have persuaded me otherwise.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    Ugh. When Trump said “one of the finest people I have met”. Compared to what? Just the idea of Trump as character witness is laughable. He can sure pick ’em! They have yet another criminal investigation in that administration. If Trump admires him he must suck.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    But it isn’t Trump. It’s that Trump is weak and a fake President so GOP operatives call all the shots which is why this hack is being rewarded with a patronage job. That’s why we get such crap. Because it’s either “Trump” (bad) or the worse elements in the GOP that Trump is too stupid or weak to sideline (also garbage). The whole hiring process is broken. It’s failing all over the place.

  43. 43.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    No good person is going to work for trump or praise trump. Trump is the classic shady real estate developer. Of course he is going to say he’s one of the finest, but it doesn’t mean anything. How many times have communities been promised by a real estate developer that a project would be great for the people, create jobs, be good for the environment etc only to have it go terribly wrong and ruin that community?
    It happens all the time. Farms and other beautiful places are turned into a fucking strip mall that never gets finished, is without any tenants two years later, and other failures.
    We’ve all watched this show and seen the reruns.

  44. 44.

    tobie

    @Kay: Kavanaugh has made his career cozying up to men in power. I’d never seen such ass-kissing so prominently on display as during his hearing. The insipid little smile he flashed whenever Cornyn or Kennedy asked a question was nauseating. Every woman who has ever seen a boy wonder rise to power in an organization by ingratiating himself to the boss must have noticed this. I sure did. He’s a good ol’ boy and follower indeed.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    Because that’s what the Never Trumpers object to. They could handle a weak President- a dope. As long as the weak president was surrounded by people they think are high quality or admire. They might even prefer a weak one in that case. That’s why we saw all that whistling in the dark in the beginning- “it’s FINE- there are grownups!” Now they know the extent of it- that it’s a weak president surrounded by the worst elements.

    It keeps getting worse and that will continue until there’s some kind of check.

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    I think that worked for him in the particular environment he came up in and he is also suited to it. He wouldn’t be good at it if he didn’t have that predilection to being with. I agree, though. It just isn’t how I define “smart”.

    It;s ungenerous but when I read his mother is or was a judge I thought “because of course she is”. It’s a TRACK. It’s a particular pet peeve of mine. I want a broader definition of “smart”.

  47. 47.

    Leto

    @Kay:

    Because it’s either “Trump” (bad) or the worse elements in the GOP that Trump is too stupid or weak to sideline (also garbage)

    I think it’s a combination, but with a bigger percentage of the latter. He was able to keep his spawn with him in exchange for letting the insane clown posse pick most of his administration (as well as Vlad getting a few picks). The hiring process is broken because it’s another corruption point, as well as being a self-fulfilling prophecy for Repubs: “Government is lazy, ineffective, inefficient, corrupt, and can’t do as well as the private sector. I know that we keep sending/electing lazy, ineffective, inefficient, and corrupt people, but it’s government that’s the problem!”

    On top of their media apparatus, they have their decades old “think tanks” that continue to promote dishonest/lazy thinking, and that also serve as incubators for future “thought leaders” for various party positions. It’s just systemic, decades long corruption. And as long as they’re in power, they don’t care.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    Sotomayor has been a bit of a surprise for me- I thought she would be more pro law n order so a surprise in a good direction- but I like that! Good for her! She does her own thinking.

    That’s what conservatives miss. It isn’t ONLY diversity on race or ethnicity. It’s diversity of experience. I want a richer pool of applicants. Bigger. Deeper.

  51. 51.

    Corner Stone

    Trump wants Kavanaugh because he recognizes someone who is corrupt at their “core”. Trump knows Kavvy can be molded to whatever outcome he wants, mainly because BK has displayed his whole career that that’s who he is.

  52. 52.

    Leto

    @Kay:

    It’s diversity of experience. I want a richer pool of applicants.

    This is where my comment about think tanks comes into play. They’ve streamlined their process for identifying young conservative “talent” in college and then guiding them through the grifter network. Go clerk for one of the Republican SC clerks, or a Republican think tank. How about a Republican state party member? They have their silos set up to funnel these people directly into positions of power without ever getting a fuller/broader picture/depth of experience. Omnes stated, about two weeks ago, that judges/attorneys should have the necessary experience by their mid-50s to be able serve on the SC court and rule about a whole host of subjects, because by that time they should have seen all of those things. I don’t think that’s true, at least not on the Republican side as long as they have these direct silos.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    Great comments, Kay.

    And takes away the illusion that Kavanaugh could ever grow into his job, and surprise us with some good rulings (a la David Souter).

    He is a Republican party operative who happens to be a judge. Period. He has got to go down, and Trump gets no more Supreme Court picks until the Mueller case against him has played out and is through the courts. We are better off with eight justices than adding a corrupt ninth.

  55. 55.

    tobie

    @Kay: I didn’t know his mother was/is a judge but you’re right: this is hardly surprising. Kavanaugh was born into privilege and will work to preserve privilege. How the hell Republicans manage to market themselves as populists and the anti-elite party is beyond me.

  57. 57.

    Corner Stone

    @Kay:

    It isn’t ONLY diversity on race or ethnicity. It’s diversity of experience. I want a richer pool of applicants. Bigger. Deeper.

    No president has ever consulted more widely or talked with more people from more backgrounds to seek input about a supreme court nomination

  58. 58.

    Elizabelle

    @tobie: So happy to meet you and Mr. tobie and all our meetup buds. Y’all are keepers.

    Waving back, and look forward to being in touch and another meetup!

  59. 59.

    Princess

    There’s a part of me that thinks Kavanaugh’s drinking is going to be what makes Trump at least decide he’s expendable. There is evidence he still had a blackout/rage/drinking problem as late as 2001. Trump doesn’t like drinkers because it is what killed his brother. I guess we’ll see.

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    Alexandra Petri today, WaPost. Horseplay, you say?

    To Whom It May Concern,

    I am a horse. I know horseplay. This, my friend, is not horseplay.

    Ask yourself: Was someone frolicking in a beautiful, verdant field? Was a mane billowing in the breeze? …. All of these would have been horseplay, or at least horse play. This other thing is not. This sounds violent and awful.

    I come from a long, proud line of horses who have been outstanding in our field (a field) for many years. We are stallions of the Cimarron and Central Park horses, workhorses and show ponies. My ancestor served under Paul Revere, literally.

    I beg of you, as Roy Moore’s horse said when he tried to ride to the polls: Don’t put this on me.

    This is another situation where human beings want to do something violent and bad and they are trying to hide themselves under the cover of a horse. This is a real Greek Soldiers in a Wooden Replica situation, or like when Tolstoy killed off that poor horse in “Anna Karenina” just so he could have a metaphor for a failed relationship. This is just like all the horses who are stuck in those Confederate statues. This isn’t our doing. Stop sneaking up from behind and pointing this at us. It startles us.

    … This is not horseplay. Force himself on someone? Put a hand over someone’s mouth? Do I look as though I have hands?

    … I am calling a halt. Whoa.

    I know what horseplay looks like. This wasn’t it.

  62. 62.

    gvg

    @Leto: They went after Grover’s wife. He wasn’t prepared for the xenophobia to be directed at his family.
    I wonder if some of them resented his prior bullying and took the opportunity to stick it to him?

  63. 63.

    Ksmiami

    Still not sure this country is worth saving tbh. I mean I really really hate Republicans and their supporters at this point and their overall stupidity and craven power hunger is killing us and the planet. So what to do? Move overseas or only to blue states? Foment huge structural changes to our existing system or wait it out? Hmm I mean why such fealty to the words of guys in tights? The system is only working for a minority of citizens so why not just chuck it or at least innovate?

  64. 64.

    Luthe

    @Leto: One of their other ways of recruiting and keeping talent is to pay their interns. The number of liberal think tanks and Dem campaigns that only offer unpaid internships is ridiculous and an insult to all the workers who have supported Dems over the years. While I’m sure the purest of progressives can live off of nothing but air and their own virtuous smugness, the student debt laden kids out there who are the future of liberalism need to eat. And so we lose brilliant talent to more lucrative jobs because we’re too cheap to pay the next generation.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @gene108:
    You’d be amazed at what you can do if you have to, if the choice is not really yours.
    And who said it was a great shave, did he look closer to what he wanted than he did when he started?

  67. 67.

    Gelfling 545

    @debbie: I have become quite a scold on this type of thing. First it takes a lot of nerve and is very intrusive to film a private individual going about their business doing you no harm. Secondly, in most or the “look at this weird person” photos/videos it is clear there is mental illness or some other backstory which should cause decent people to leave them in peace. As a FB friend of mine posted yesterday, snuffing out someone’s candle will not make yours burn brighter
    I hate this kind of thing.

  68. 68.

    PJ

    @Kay: It’s precisely because he’s so good at sucking up to Republican donors and the institutions they finance that he has had a very successful career. His personal ability is irrelevant if he is willing to give them enthusiastic indications that he supports them and will do what they want.

    This is a reliable way to succeed in America, and not just in Republican circles.

  69. 69.

    PJ

    @Luthe: And when you say lucrative, you mean minimum wage, or close to it. The insistence on non-paying internships in political, non-profit, and arts fields means that, by and large, these positions are staffed with young people whose parents can afford to and are willing to support them as adults, ie., the wealthy. Everybody else has to get a job where they make enough to support themselves.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @PJ:

    Burgess Everett
    Sen. Kennedy says he spoke to Kavanaugh yesterday about Ford allegation: “He was resolute, he said ‘absolutely not, this did not happen. Did not happen.’ He could not have been more unequivocal. He’s not angry, he didn’t have anything bad to say about anybody”

    Really? He’s not angry that his lifetime career track hit a bump right before he grabbed the reward? And the bump is a false accusation? I would be angry. But then I haven’t trained since 1st grade for my predetermined Leadership Position.

    Very polished. Very practiced. When they say we’re all going to be out of work because they will replace us with AI they really could with these people. No one would even notice.

  71. 71.

    J R in WV

    @Elizabelle:

    He is a Republican party operative who happens to be a judge.

    “…happens to be a judge lawyer.

    Fixed that for you.

    “Judge” Kavanaugh is no more judicial than my favorite cat, the outdoor predator.

    Hence the quotation marks around “Judge” when I type his “title” and name. Not smart, not independent (expected in real judges) not inclined nor able to balance competing interests, just not qualified for the bench at any level above municipal parking and traffic fines at night court.

  72. 72.

    PJ

    @Kay: I am sure he is seething inside – without doing anything notable in the legal profession, he had an inside track to the Supreme Court, and, as you point out, he has been groomed to this since he was a child. In his mind, I’m sure he’s outraged at the unfairness of it all, all that brown-nosing and shoe-shining he gave them with a smile, even praising that imbecile Trump, and now this bitch thinks she’s going to keep him from the prize he was promised? Kavanaugh is the embodiment of wealthy, right-wing entitlement.

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