Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

“woke” is the new caravan.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Let’s finish the job.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

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

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Let there be snark.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Republicans in disarray!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

T R E 4 5 O N

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / And Then There Were….More

And Then There Were….More

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Because we knew this was inevitable. Again, I spent the day offline and once  I popped back up, twitter was all atwitter about this:

I’m going to go read the article now. Open thread.

Reader Interactions

276Comments

  3. 3.

    Shrillhouse

    I bet the WH knew all the details about this incident, and that’s what was making Kavanaugh blow his top in the mock questioning…

  4. 4.

    Hill Dweller

    Michael Avenatti is now saying he has a client with info about Kavanaugh and his buddy Mark Judge.

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    As noted in the previous thread, Grassley et al. knew about this last week and their response was to double down on Kavanaugh and do everything they possibly could to jam his nomination through before this (and quite possibly other) allegations surfaced. That should tell you everything that needs to be known about Grassley’s character.

  6. 6.

    TaMara (HFG)

    Oh and now this. And while he’s a grandstander, he does deliver the goods.

  7. 7.

    B.B.A.

    This isn’t saying anything we didn’t already know. If he had an iota of decency he wouldn’t be a Republican.

  8. 8.

    TS (the original)

    Never believe a republican senator when they tell you “no-one will ever know”. Seems the only person can get away with this sh!t lives in the white house – and his days are numbered – even moreso after this fiasco

  10. 10.

    lamh36

    @jdawsey1
    4m4 minutes ago
    More
    Things are fast-moving for sure, but just talked to a senior WH aide who said the president and the White House fully remains behind Brett Kavanaugh.

  11. 11.

    lamh36

    @AdamSerwer
    Following Following @AdamSerwer
    More
    When Senate Republicans learned of a second sexual abuse allegation against Kavanaugh, their reaction was to…demand the vote for his confirmation be moved up.

  14. 14.

    lamh36

    @JesseRodriguez
    3m3 minutes ago
    More
    FLASHBACK: Hirono asks Kavanaugh if he has ever committed sexual assault, harassment, he says no

    Of course he would say no…men like him probably never considered what they did “harassment”

  16. 16.

    DCrefugee

    The three people you never want to see in your front yard:

    — Jim Cantore
    — Chris Hansen
    — Ronan Farrow

  17. 17.

    Bex

    Turn out the lights…the party’s over. Sung in the voice of Dandy Don’s ghost to McConnell, MIss Pittypat, Hatch and all the rest of the creeps.

  20. 20.

    Fair Economist

    I do not understand why the Republican kept going with this guy, now that we know they knew of at least two of the allegations well in advance of anything going public. Even if they had somehow kept it all covered up, it was going to come out by 2020, with huge political fallout. I get that Trump needs a guy willing to support explicitly criminal activity, but most of the Republican Senators don’t. Why have they been putting up with this?

  21. 21.

    lamh36

    @JWGOP
    Follow Follow @JWGOP
    More
    They knew these were coming last week and tried to jam this through. Imagine the damage done to the SCOTUS. What the hell is wrong with these people?

    7:17 PM – 23 Sep 2018

  22. 22.

    Fair Economist

    @lamh36:

    Things are fast-moving for sure, but just talked to a senior WH aide who said the president and the White House fully remains behind Brett Kavanaugh.

    Based on the latest allegation, that may be just because they can’t see his junk from behind.

  23. 23.

    smintheus

    This is explosive stuff from the New Yorker:

    After seeing Judge’s denial, Elizabeth Rasor, who met Judge at Catholic University and was in a relationship with him for about three years, said that she felt morally obligated to challenge his account that “ ‘no horseplay’ took place at Georgetown Prep with women.” Rasor stressed that “under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t reveal information that was told in confidence,” but, she said, “I can’t stand by and watch him lie.” In an interview with The New Yorker, she said, “Mark told me a very different story.” Rasor recalled that Judge had told her ashamedly of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman. Rasor said that Judge seemed to regard it as fully consensual. She said that Judge did not name others involved in the incident, and she has no knowledge that Kavanaugh participated. But Rasor was disturbed by the story and noted that it undercut Judge’s protestations about the sexual innocence of Georgetown Prep. (Barbara Van Gelder, an attorney for Judge, said that he “categorically denies” the account related by Rasor. Van Gelder said that Judge had no further comment.)

    Another woman who attended high school in the nineteen-eighties in Montgomery County, Maryland, where Georgetown Prep is located, also refuted Judge’s account of the social scene at the time, sending a letter to Ford’s lawyers saying that she had witnessed boys at parties that included Georgetown Prep students engaging in sexual misconduct. In an interview, the woman, who asked to have her name withheld for fear of political retribution, recalled that male students “would get a female student blind drunk” on what they called “jungle juice”—grain alcohol mixed with Hawaiian Punch—then try to take advantage of her. “It was disgusting,” she said. “They treated women like meat.”

    Also a lot of really negative anecdotes about Kavanaugh’s drunkenness and nastiness while drunk from Yale classmates.

  24. 24.

    FelonyGovt

    I keep thinking how (comparatively) easily they got Gorsuch through, even though that was the actually stolen seat. Pretty stupid of them to put forward this guy with so much sleaze in his past and his personal life.

  27. 27.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: like someone said…Trump Co are a bunch of cowards…they want Kavanaugh to withraw on his own…they wont’ just withdraw the nomination themselves….

  28. 28.

    JPL

    In the New Yorker article a female shared a story Judge told her about gang sex with drunk females while at Georgetown Prep.
    He felt guilty but felt it was consensual. Another female said it was common to feed girls alcohol and then treat them like meat.
    Judge would have to take the fifth.
    You know that Susan Collins will say I believe Brett Kavanaugh.

  34. 34.

    M31

    1) Kavenaugh is happy to whip out his dick in front a bunch of people (something I’d say “not all men” were eager to do)
    2) Mark Judge is being described as a gang rapist.
    3) odds of Kavenaugh being one too?

  35. 35.

    smintheus

    Kavanaugh’s roommate basically calls him and his buddies the scum of the earth:

    Several other classmates said that they believed Ramirez to be credible and honest, and vouched for her integrity. James Roche was roommates with Kavanaugh at the time of the alleged incident and is now the C.E.O. of a software company in San Francisco. “Debbie and I became close friends shortly after we both arrived at Yale,” he said. “She stood out as being exceptionally honest and gentle. I cannot imagine her making this up.” He said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh engage in any sexual misconduct, but did recall him being “frequently, incoherently drunk.” He described Ramirez as a vulnerable outsider. “Is it believable that she was alone with a wolfy group of guys who thought it was funny to sexually torment a girl like Debbie? Yeah, definitely. Is it believable that Kavanaugh was one of them? Yes.” Another acquaintance from college, Jennifer Klaus, similarly said that she considered the allegation plausible, adding, “Debbie’s always been a very truthful, kind—almost to the point of being selfless—individual.” A third classmate, who Ramirez thought had attended the party, said that she was not present at the incident. The former student, who asked not to be named, said that she also found Ramirez credible.

    Former students described an atmosphere at Yale at the time in which alcohol-fuelled parties often led to behavior similar to that described by Ramirez. “I believe it could have happened,” another classmate who knew both Kavanaugh and Ramirez said. Though she was not aware of Kavanaugh being involved in any specific misconduct, she recalled that heavy drinking was routine and that Ramirez was sometimes victimized and taunted by male students in his social circle. “They were always, like, ‘Debbie’s here!,’ and then they’d get into their ‘Lord of the Flies’ thing,” she said. While at Yale, Kavanaugh became a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, or “Deke,” which several students said was known for its wild and, in the view of some critics, misogynistic parties. Kavanaugh was also a member of an all-male secret society, Truth and Courage, which was popularly known by the nickname “Tit and Clit.”

    Meanwhile classmates agree that Ramirez was sweet natured, kind, and honest.

  39. 39.

    SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal

    Can you even imagine how bone-chillingly, marrow-freezingly an experience it must be to learn that you are the subject of a New Yorker profile bylined by JANE FUCKING MAYER and RONAN FUCKING FARROW???

    I can’t even.

  40. 40.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Bex: :-) good minds think alike! I bet right now Mitch McConnell is blasting through his Bourbon collection.

  42. 42.

    lamh36

    And THIS is why the Senate Republicans didn’t want Judge to testify!

    @jameshohmann
    Follow Follow @jameshohmann
    More
    Buried low in the new allegations against Brett Kavanaugh from his time at Yale is an on the record quote from Mark Judge’s college girlfriend of three years accusing him of lying about what the culture at Georgetown Prep was like.

    @jameshohmann
    21m21 minutes ago
    More
    “….Judge told her ashamedly of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman.”

    https://twitter.com/jameshohmann/status/1044019307854925825

  43. 43.

    Jay

    @Fair Economist:

    Special K is The Insane Clown POSus’s pick.

    If ReThug’s piss off Treason Twitler, they get primaried by a Deplorable.

    So that started the train wreck.

    Midterms change the math, so they were hoping to manage to ride the wreck far enough to get Special K through.

    Now they are toast.

  44. 44.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Mary G: You’re much more optimistic than I.

    I had to work today so I’m just now catching up. My heart hurts for all my fellow jackals who’ve endured so much, and hidden the stories. Thank you for trusting us enough to tell them here.

    I was lucky enough to have only one event complete with penetration, after which I think some believed me but many did not. I never told my parents for fear my father would do the damage I could not. When the same sadistic teen later hit me so hard my ears rang and cracked 2 ribs before tossing me in a pile of gravel that tore all the skin off the left side of my face, my old man went looking for him, and I’m glad he didn’t find the kid. Whose grandmother asked me “why are you always making things up about my grandson?” as I stood there bleeding. Thankfully my father didn’t hear that or it would have been ugly.

    I left marks on the next 2 men who assaulted me; I was an older teen and adult when those occurred. Some furniture got broken as well. The downside to being angry and fit enough to do damage to the assailants was that I couldn’t tell or I’d have been questioned about why I “let” it happen to begin with. None of these assholes was a stranger. All were secrets I could tell only a few people. But I owe to myself and the women here to tell them now.

    I’m holding each of you in the light, and hoping geg6’s mother is burning in the hell she help make for her daughter.

  46. 46.

    lamh36

    @jonfavs
    Following Following @jonfavs
    More
    Mitch McConnell knew this story was coming when he publicly vowed to “plow through” and confirm Kavanaugh.

    7:44 PM – 23 Sep 2018

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    This is why they kept trying to back Christine Blasey Ford into a corner where (they hoped) she would decline to testify before the committee so they could push the vote through on Monday.

    The Republicans are all despicable disgusting people. Including the “moderate” women.

  51. 51.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    But if they pushed the vote through, did they think the accusations would just go away? Farrow and Meyer? Avenatti? I guess I don’t know what would have happened then. Would K just go ahead and take his seat next month?

  53. 53.

    Cheryl Rofer

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Sadly, i think the answer to your final question is YES. The Turtle would have given a big middle finger to justice and democracy and this lying, raping man would have been on the supreme court. I just don’t see how he can be confirmed now.

  56. 56.

    Ken

    @lamh36:

    the president and the White House fully remains behind Brett Kavanaugh

    He’s toast. That’s what Trump always says, two days before having someone else fire the guy.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    But there is drama between Kavanaugh team and some White House aides, who Kavanaugh team blame for WaPo leak out of their moot session last week.

    Do we know what that is in reference to?

  59. 59.

    Shalimar

    @Roger Moore: It isn’t that. Kavanaugh is one vote out of five. If they get Roberts to protect Trump from any court actions while president, they will also get Kavanaugh’s replacement.

    Feom listening to MSNBC, the real reason they are still protecting Kavanaugh is because they are outraged the allegations came up after they thought his confirmation was certain. They have convinced themselves that if they don’t fight back now, Democrats will use this tactic again.

    They only see this in terms of winning and losing. There is no right and wrong, no morals, no such thing as real sexual misconduct.

  63. 63.

    lamh36

    Kavanaugh is sooo eager to testify…and yet hasn’t said the words FBI investigation…so then why hasn’t Kavanaugh asked for the FBI to open an investigation to “clear his name”…cause guess what…his “word” means squat…and he knows it…yet still NO calls for an FBI investiagion…

  64. 64.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @WaterGirl: I think they are talking about the report, I think in WaPo, that Kavanaugh did badly in his rehearsal for questions and thought that questions about his drinking and sex life were too intrusive.

    Poor baby.

  66. 66.

    Aleta

    Felt overwhelming sadness reading this.
    In 1983 women had been accepted at Yale for how long? Less than 15 years I think. It was still a newly idealistic achievement for a woman, esp one who’s not upper class, to arrive there, and also for her family.

    About his friends and roommates saying that she never mentioned anything, even though some were also good friends with her: That’s not unusual at all.

    About her political affiliation and type of work: If that is mentioned, the affiliations and work of the people who speak in his defense should be mentioned too.

  69. 69.

    The Thin Black Duke

    If Kavanaugh was a decent human being, he would step down for the sake of his wife and children, but he’s a piece of shit so he won’t.

  70. 70.

    smintheus

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Republicans under McConnell have done so many outrageous things for so long, with so little effective pushback from Democrats, that they probably act as if they can’t possibly put a foot wrong. They’re like Lee blundering into Gettysburg because Union commanders had seemed to be such blunderers.

  71. 71.

    SFAW

    @smintheus:

    Is Kavanaugh’s nomination in mortal danger yet?

    Unless he has made a public statement that he thought Shelby or Citizens United or Bush v Gore were improperly decided, or that he supports Griswold, Loving, and Brown, probably not.

    But it will be interesting to see what Collins says this week. Not that I believe a thing she says, of course.

  73. 73.

    banditqueen

    Just last week they were outraged that Feinstein was ‘sitting on proof’ and not alerting them to Dr Ford’s letter. They knew of these allegations–and that there are probably more, so they promised something along the lines of ‘no one will know about these nothingburgers, you’re the next SC justice–we’ll be done in a week”. Yet they continue to bully and deny and push to move everything up. They always lie, even to each other. No wonder they’ve lost the plot.

  75. 75.

    Mary G

    @WaterGirl: Only a theory. Someone on Twitter said that part of the reason the GOP is in such a bind is that Kavanaugh knows a lot of the secrets from the Bush administration about torture, Iraq, etc. and is afraid he’ll blow his top and tell if they dump him. We know that instead of talking to senators to lock down votes he’s been spending his time harassing the WH and Grassley to stand firm. He wants this. Bad. It’s his life’s ambition. So I think it’s going to take another 24 hours and his wife telling him to give it up and stop dragging their girls through all this stuff.

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @Shalimar:

    They have convinced themselves that if they don’t fight back now, Democrats will use this tactic again.

    This “tactic” only works if they nominate a rapist. Surely they can find a candidate who isn’t – though it might narrow the field much more than I would have thought just two weeks ago.

  81. 81.

    Immanentize

    The only rational reason I’ve seen about why they went with Kavanaugh was that it was an explicit quid pro quo for Kennedy to step down. That is the only story that rings true given all the bad stuff in his past.

  82. 82.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: He should, but he won’t. He’s going to be lucky to come out of this with his marriage intact. As I wrote on Friday night and last night in comments, there is a lot of time for more shoes to drop between now and Thursday and even more time between now and whenever McConnell would schedule a floor vote. And Avenatti hasn’t even started his death by a thousand cuts efforts against Kavanaugh yet.

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Would K just go ahead and take his seat next month?

    Yes. One he’s confirmed, he’s confirmed. The only way of getting him out at that point is impeachment and conviction, which requires 50% of the House and 2/3 of the Senate. The goal was always to get him confirmed and then protect him by blocking any attempt to remove him no matter how terrible the allegations against him.

  85. 85.

    Immanentize

    @Mary G:
    John Roberts should call Kennedy to call Kavanaugh to retire from the field. If the goal was to further discuss the rule of law, job well done.

  87. 87.

    SFAW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I’m sure she’s “concerned,” maybe even “very concerned.”

    I am sure you are correct, Parachute Girl, but has her brow become more deeply furrowed? That might be an even better sign of her deep concern.

  88. 88.

    Mary G

    @Ken: Yep, Mike Flynn, Comey, Tillerson, McMaster, all doing a great job and there to stay until…two days later, they’re fired.

  90. 90.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Something to keep in mind in all of this is that there is no statute of limitations for rape in Maryland. So Kavanaugh cannot apologize for anything like what Blasey has accused him of. He must maintain that he never did anything wrong. That puts him in a particular kind of box. Is there a statute of limitations for sexual assault in Connecticut?

  91. 91.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    That Kavenaugh got whiny and snippy during a practice session for his testimony, which was being done at the White Hpuse. The questions that got him that way were those about his personal and sex life.

  92. 92.

    GregB

    Somewhere in a conservative think-tank boiler room, several apparatchiks are hatching a Brett Kavenaugh’s doppleganger penis cover story

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    @Cheryl Rofer: That makes total sense. Thanks. But if there is infighting over that, they have missed the bigger picture and they are arguing about silly details. Unless, of course, the most important thing is perceived LOYALTY, not the outcome.

  94. 94.

    bemused senior

    @WaterGirl: The WaPo story about WH peope questioning BK as if they were senators and BK wouldn’t answer questions that were “too personal.”

  95. 95.

    Aleta

    @Aleta: “even though some were also good friends with her: That’s not unusual at all.”
    By which I mean, a woman (in this case) is often less likely to mention abuse to her friends if they are also the abuser’s friends. Or may try with one friend and find out they don’t want to hear it, and not try again.
    So either an uninformed or a purposely biased thing to say on their part.

  96. 96.

    Mary G

    @DCrefugee: Not directed at you, but lots of people fuss over Farrow and ignore Mayer, whose “Dark Money” is a work of art, and was bylined on Farrow’s earlier stories too:

    It really bothers me how much Jane Mayer’s name is erased when people talk about her work. When it’s co-bylined with Ronan Farrow, it means it’s just as much hers as it is his. Stop erasing the female reporter from her work on sexual violence & giving exclusive credit to a man.— Britni de la Cretaz ⚾️ (@britnidlc) September 24, 2018

  97. 97.

    WaterGirl

    @Mary G: Interesting theory! By now, hIs wife must be wondering about who her husband is — unless she has always known who his is and accepted that in order to live in his elevated privileged bubble.

  98. 98.

    JPL

    @geg6: He new that more allegations were coming forth. Smintheus @ 23 included what I found the most jarring, but proves the culture at Georgetown Prep was awful.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dmsilev: It isn’t Grassley, Grassley isn’t running anything. This is all McConnell. McConnell gives his committee chairs very, very little autonomy. They’re, by and large, committee chairs in name only. And those he does give more autonomy, like Burr on Intel and Grassley on Judiciary, are subject to having that autonomy yanked back whenever McConnell feels he needs to call the shots. McConnell is not liked by any member of his caucus. He is tolerated because he is 1) a tremendous fundraiser and 2) his strategy against President Obama was successful.

  103. 103.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Immanentize: I agree, though I think that’s in addition to all the GOP skeletons he has keys to. I think they fear he’d blow his stack and tell all – the W horror stories and the quid pro quo. I kinda hope he does, but I’m a bad person.

  105. 105.

    SFAW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    And, because I am a moran of very little brain, and apparently demented as well, I fucked up on the parachute thing. I have never confused you and Siubhan — until now. [Boy, do I wish I had the “edit” function right about now.]

    If I had a bunch of booze under my belt, I could blame that. But I’m sober. Shit.

  106. 106.

    Immanentize

    @dmsilev:
    I am not sure what form his retirement took. Did he retire, date certain? Or, like many justices, did he retire upon confirmation of his replacement?

  107. 107.

    smintheus

    @Aleta: There was a similar rapey tone to the preppy frat boys at Brown around the same time. Women were warned never to go to frat parties alone; they were also known for drugging and raping anyone they could separate from friends at their parties.

    I had my own encounter with those thugs. I used to referee the intramural hockey games on campus because it paid well, but one of the leagues was set aside for the frats (because they didn’t so much play hockey as wander around trying to bash each other). These frat boys got increasingly agitated that I would sometimes use my whistle for the most blatant infractions, or even penalize players. So eventually a couple of frats cooked up a plan to stage a fake fight in the belief that I would try to separate the two goons, and then both squads would empty the bench and beat me up. Seriously, that was their plan…as reported to me in advance by my brother.

    I told my brother to tell the frat boys that if any of them so much as looked at me funny that evening I shut down their game and go to the Dean the following day to ask that they all be expelled. They came up to me at game time meekly and pleaded with me not to tell on them. They weren’t really planning to put me in the hospital, it was just meant as kinda a joke.

    I couldn’t help laughing in their faces. Not one of them could skate worth a damn, but they imagined that they’d be able to surround me. It was almost as if they had experience surrounding and beating up people off ice that they presumed they could transfer their usual brutality onto ice.

  108. 108.

    dmsilev

    @Adam L Silverman: McConnell’s in a box. He’s probably getting bombarded by pleas from Heller et al. begging not to have to take a vote on Kavanaugh before the election[*]. It’s a box of his own making, so no sympathy at all.

    [*] If Heller votes ‘yes’, he gets slammed for supporting a serial sexual molester and loses a chunk of the swing vote. If he votes ‘no’, his conservative base gets pissed off and might stay home. Not having to vote is the best solution for him.

  114. 114.

    Aleta

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Connecticut’s statute of limitations for felony sex crimes is one of the shortest in the nation. Exceptions to this five year limit are class A felonies, like sex crimes against minors, or crimes with DNA evidence.
    Meanwhile, seven states have eliminated their statutes of limitations for felony sex crimes, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
    In a public hearing at the Capitol Friday, many advocates said Connecticut should also take this step so victims have time to report these traumatic, personal crimes.

    From CTPost, spring 2018

  116. 116.

    Adam L Silverman

    Ooopsie!

  118. 118.

    WaterGirl

    @dmsilev: I read that typically the SC justice would make their retirement contingent on someone else being in place. Kennedy did not do that – he gave a specific date, so I read that it’s too late for Kennedy. That ship has already sailed.

  119. 119.

    dmsilev

    @Immanentize: My understanding was that it was retirement effective immediately. (checks) Close, it was “retirement, effective July 31st”. So, he’s over and done.

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    If Kavanaugh was a decent human being, he would step down for the sake of his wife and children, but he’s a piece of shit so he won’t.

    Do you suppose his kids are allowed to watch MSNBC or other non-Faux channels? How old are they, anyway? I’m betting he’s trying to keep them from knowing what’s going on in the Senate right now. Or just telling them it’s all just lying Hillary…

    What a piece of despicable work..!!!

  124. 124.

    Amir Khalid

    @Roger Moore:
    I remember that Harriet Myers (if I have the name right) had her nomination pulled merely because she was unqualified. The accusations against Kavanaugh are about his unfit character, and are far more serious. I suppose it’s naive to think this POTUS gives a toss about the serious harm to the Supreme Court’s credibility that appointing Kavanaugh to it would cause; but are Republicans still so in awe of Trump that they dare not oppose a nominee so mired in scandal, and so potentially damaging to their chances of reelection?

  126. 126.

    Immanentize

    @WaterGirl: He just wanted to get his annual July boondoggle to Vienna to teach a summer law program (McGeorge) to happen before all his perques were taken away.

  127. 127.

    Ken

    @bemused senior:

    WH people questioning BK as if they were senators and BK wouldn’t answer questions that were “too personal.”

    Another story that reads differently, now that we know some Republican Senators knew about these new stories. It’s not unreasonable they told the WH people, since they’ve all been working closely on this, so the WH knew what kinds of questions to ask.

    But did they tell Kavanaugh? “Oh, by the way, the reason we’re asking these questions about whether you frequently get drunk and assault women is because we know you do, and the stories are about to break. You might want to work on your answers a bit.”

  128. 128.

    lamh36

    @brianefallon
    12h12 hours ago
    More
    Chris Christie on ABC, suggesting Kavanaugh’s current position on the DC Circuit is up in the air: “The idea that he could go back to the Court of Appeals and continue to serve, if he’s not confirmed, is really unlikely”

    another reason why Kavanaugh is gonna stand and fight?

  129. 129.

    Aleta

    @smintheus: drunkenness and nastiness while drunk
    The father of a relative was a well loved and greatly respected teacher when sober. On school vacations he would only drink, and became a type of monster in the house. Him family, who loved his good side, was dreading his retirement and relieved when he died soon after.

  133. 133.

    SFAW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Thank you for tolerating my moronitude.

    How’s your heart doing, by the way? Am I remembering correctly that you were going to sign up for (or get involved in) cardiac rehab? If so: it’s a good thing. I went through it a few years back, and the program was pretty good, and multifaceted. At least, at the community hospital here in MA it was. I would hope that things are similar in Chicago.

  135. 135.

    Billcoop4

    I have a vision of Justices Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Kagan going to Roberts’ office and telling him to keep Kavanaugh away from SCOTUS. I exepct he has the connections to make it happen.

    Intimidation is a valid strategy.

  136. 136.

    Mary G

    @J R in WV: Everyone at whatever exclusive private school they go to will be telling them all the juicy details. It’s “Lord of the Flies” with mean girls in those places. Plus I’m sure they have phones and internet. They know.

    His Yale roommate from the Mayer/Farrow article today:

    James Roche was roommates with Kavanaugh at the time of the alleged incident and is now the C.E.O. of a software company in San Francisco. “Debbie and I became close friends shortly after we both arrived at Yale,” he said. “She stood out as being exceptionally honest and gentle. I cannot imagine her making this up.” He said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh engage in any sexual misconduct, but did recall him being “frequently, incoherently drunk.” He described Ramirez as a vulnerable outsider. “Is it believable that she was alone with a wolfy group of guys who thought it was funny to sexually torment a girl like Debbie? Yeah, definitely. Is it believable that Kavanaugh was one of them? Yes.”

  137. 137.

    Roger Moore

    @Ken:

    This “tactic” only works if they nominate a rapist. Surely they can find a candidate who isn’t – though it might narrow the field much more than I would have thought just two weeks ago.

    Fundamentally, though, they don’t want this to become the standard they have to work by. From their standpoint, Kavanaugh did some of the kinds of things that young men are apt to do, but he was never formally charged with anything and it would be tough to prove his guilt in court. That’s the standard they want to be allowed to follow. They’re terrified that the standard is going to shift from “never did anything that landed him in court” to “never did anything that might possibly have landed him in court if people had found out about it”.

  138. 138.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: I wish Avenatti had phrased his questions in the same style as the ones he constructed for the ultimate humiliation of Bill Clinton. I know, it’s less partisan that he didn’t, but it would bed just, even if stupid.

  139. 139.

    Adam L Silverman

    @WaterGirl: The leak about him getting flustered and refusing to answer questions about his drinking and sexual activities in the murder board.

  140. 140.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @SFAW: I started rehab last week. I go three times a week for 12 weeks. It’s a lot of exercise on machines while wearing monitors, plus some short classes on things like diet and stress management. I like working out. I’ve been doing it for years, so I don’t mind at all, and it’s kind of reassuring to do it with all the sticky things attached so I know I’m all right.

  144. 144.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:

    @ResistMonsters
    8m8 minutes ago
    More
    Replying to @MichaelAvenatti
    Horrifying allegations that Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge gave alcohol and drugs to women who were then gang raped by men…

    This is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. Who wouldn’t pursue legal justice against them to the ends of the earth?

  145. 145.

    Mike in NC

    Kavanaugh outed as a sexual predator? No wonder Trump liked the cut of his jib (as people on Nantucket have been known to observe).

  147. 147.

    lamh36

    @sahilkapur
    2m2 minutes ago
    More
    NEWS: Feinstein writes to Grassley asking for “an immediate postponement of any further proceedings related to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh” and calls on him to support an FBI investigation jnto the sexual misconduct allegations by Deborah Ramirez and Christine Blasey Ford.

  148. 148.

    lamh36

    @RVAwonk
    2m2 minutes ago
    More Caroline O. Retweeted Michael Avenatti
    “We are aware of significant evidence of multiple house parties in the DC area during the early 1980s during which Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, & others participate[d] in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs in order to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them.”

    @RVAwonk
    48s48 seconds ago
    More Caroline O. Retweeted Caroline O.
    “There are multiple witnesses that will corroborate these facts and each of them must be called to testify publicly.”

    Holy. Shit.

    in case you didn’t read the Avenatti tweet I linked

  149. 149.

    Kathleen

    @Cheryl Rofer: Thank God. It’s such a relief to know that The HandMag’s Tale has a handle on Trump’s emotional state, which is certainly the most important focal point of this story. ////

  151. 151.

    J R in WV

    @Mary G:

    OMG, Texas Deserves Better than Cruz on her badge!!

    Thanks for that. I’ve contributed a lot to Beto — I hope it works out OK for all of us!

    A few election cycles ago I contributed to Tammy Duckworth, and she won. Other women too. This time I’m mostly contributing to women, all over the country, and hoping it works again that well.

  152. 152.

    SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal

    @SFAW:

    I have never confused you and Siubhan — until now.

    I am confused enough for all of us, TYVM.

  155. 155.

    tobie

    @Immanentize: I find it hard to believe that Kennedy would encourage Kavanaugh to step down after choosing him as his successor. Something happened to Kennedy in the Obama years. He moved sharply to the right, and his opposition to Obamacare and the use of the commerce clause to justify the mandate always struck me as odd. I hope we’ll find out one days what discussions he had with Trump regarding his successor and how close his son was to Trump at Deutsche Bank.

  157. 157.

    Mary G

    And Avenatti turns it up to 11 in a email to the committee telling them to ask Kavanaugh about “trains” and “gang rapes.” I am still skeptical of this woman existing. Avenatti seems high on his own supply these days. I guess time will tell.

    My e-mail of moments ago with Mike Davis, Chief Counsel for Nominations for U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. We demand that this process be thorough, open and fair, which is what the American public deserves. It must not be rushed and evidence/witnesses must not be hidden. pic.twitter.com/11XLZJBTtY— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 24, 2018

  162. 162.

    Ken

    @Roger Moore: Well, if that’s what they’re afraid of, maybe we can ease the transition by adopting an intermediate standard – something like “didn’t repeatedly and habitually engage in activities which (by virtue of being felonies) would have landed them in court if they’d been found out.”

    No, scratch that – I must be insane. That standard, in fact any standard with the “found out” clause, might as well be replaced with “don’t leave any witnesses alive.”

  166. 166.

    Immanentize

    @tobie: don’t be too hard on Kennedy. We would not have a right to same sex marriage, or to have juveniles free from mandatory life without parole sentences to name a couple important cases. He was always a right wing Catholic, but he gave us some wins along the way.

  169. 169.

    Ken

    @Kathleen:

    Trump’s emotional state, which is certainly the most important focal point of this story.

    I’m sure if you asked Trump, he’d agree. Everything is about him, or it doesn’t exist.

    It occurs to me, since Trump can’t plan more than a few seconds ahead (witness his speech patterns), at some point “Kavanaugh is making me look bad right now is going to outweigh “Kavanaugh will protect me sometime in the future”, and that’s when Kavanaugh’s out the door. (As I said above, we may have hit that point already.)

  170. 170.

    Shalimar

    @Adam L Silverman: Kavanaugh was supposedly clean on the attempted rapist front 10 days ago. They went to the same high school at the same time that Mark Judge has so generously documented. I wouldn’t assume at this point that Gorsuch stays clean.

  172. 172.

    WaterGirl

    @JPL: I would like to think that most men when presented with those questions could simply answer no to all of them.

  173. 173.

    lamh36

    @Mary G: he is a showboater for sure…but if Kavanaugh is/was a habitual blackout drinker or even just habitual drining partier….I can see him doing exaclty that and having no “vivid memory” of it…ya know being in a drunken haze and all….

    But also too…it does kinda correlate to the bits in the Mayer/Farrow article that discusses the GF of Judge saying Judge co got girl drunk and had sex with those girls when they were plastered

  174. 174.

    SFAW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Mine was similar, except the monitoring was less intense. Actually, my own monitoring was more intense than theirs — I’d wear a heart rate monitor chest strap, they’d just check my pulse during exercise, then after, using the finger clamp thingy.

    I still “strap up” whenever I work out. I have nitro pills, but I (fortunately) have never had to use them. Right now, my biggest annoyance re: working out is that I have carpal tunnel, so erg-ing for an extended period of time is not as enjoyable.

    Anyway, glad to hear it’s going well.

  175. 175.

    Immanentize

    @JPL: Avenatti may be a big mouth poseur, but he is no charlatan. He wouldn’t, I think, just make this up without a witness. How good is his witness? Unknown

  176. 176.

    chris

    @lamh36:

    Be cautious with Avenatti’s claims

    True indeed, but the words “Kavanaugh” and “gang rape” are going to be all over TV tomorrow. That should finish him.

  178. 178.

    tobie

    @Immanentize: Yes, when it came to gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose, and juvenile detention he came down on the right side. But from Obamacare to the Voting Rights Act, and unions to class actions, he was very much on the wrong side. Mixed bag, I guess.

  182. 182.

    Kathleen

    @Ken: You’re absolutely right. At which point this will take an even more hilarious (a dark kind of hilarity) turn when Trump & Rethugs fight it out between themselves. .

  185. 185.

    jacy

    @lamh36: that story is seemingly touched on in the Farrow/Meyer story. Ex-girlfriend of Judge says Judge and possibly others drugged women and raPed them. I’m assuming this relates to the Avenetti thing.

  187. 187.

    Mary G

    They’ve lost the dean of bothsiders:

    Since this second story of alleged conduct by Brett Kavanaugh is so serious, we must proceed with caution and care. The country – and the Senate – desperately need as many facts as possible and, therefore, there must be at least one independent investigation into his conduct.— David Gergen (@David_Gergen) September 24, 2018

  188. 188.

    Aleta

    @lamh36: He made a big mistake not withdrawing earlier. Could have saved face in the usual way–‘for the sake of my family and my considerate love for my country” and saved face for Repubs too –‘not a defeat for us, an abominable miscarriage because of them.’ This way, worse defeat all around I hope.

    I have to wonder, are the Kochs still telling him to stick? Forcing McConnell to carry on? If McConnell begins to honestly believe the choice might become between keeping the Senate under his power vs keeping the nominee … ?

  191. 191.

    lamh36

    @samstein
    18m18 minutes ago
    More
    NEW: Dr. Ford has sent a SECOND letter to Grassley’s office and has consented for them to publicly release it, a source familiar tells me and @woodruffbets

  193. 193.

    lamh36

    @Mary G: I mean…the one thing Kavanaugh HASN’T done is call for an investigation by the FBI to be opened. I mean isn’t it the Repubs who claim if folks have nothing to hide…why not let the feds/police/whoever investigate.

  194. 194.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dmsilev: Yep. The ads from the opponents of the Republican incumbent senators up for reelection this year are being written and story boarded right now. They’ll be filmed and put into rotation by the time Ford testifies on Thursday.

  196. 196.

    JPL

    @Immanentize: The New Yorker article mentions a female who dated Judge for three who mentioned the parties. She could actually be the person that Avenatti is representing.

  197. 197.

    Mainmata

    @dmsilev: Grassley has always been a deeply disgusting creature. He was the one who popularized the “death panels” and now the whole slime is coming out. I’d rather have a reliable conservative woman on the court than this guy given the alternatives.

  198. 198.

    lamh36

    @frankthorp
    33s33 seconds ago
    More
    Two sources tell me that Dr Ford sent a letter to Judiciary Cmte Chairman @ChuckGrassley yesterday, with a source familiar with the letter saying it was a personal message.

    I’m told Grassley intends to respond directly to Dr Ford.

  200. 200.

    Adam L Silverman

    Avenatti just dropped a bomb on Grassley’s chief counsel for nominations!

  204. 204.

    SFAW

    @geg6:

    Jesus, I thought it was Friday night.

    Infrastructure Week scoffs at your quaint idea of news dumps only happening on Fridays.

  205. 205.

    Martin

    @lamh36:

    Horrifying allegations that Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge gave alcohol and drugs to women who were then gang raped by men…

    That’s quite an escalation and sounds like the kind of thing lots of people would be aware of. Not saying it’s not true, but my skeptic gene is preventing me from believing this without hearing more.

    Dude is already enough of a shitbag, mind you.

  206. 206.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I can’t get over it. They knew this and knew other people knew it and were going to put him on the Supreme Court anyway. For that matter, they may still put him on the Supreme Court. I can’t take it in.

  207. 207.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ladyraxterinok: How many women accused Shitlord of rape and other sexual assaults? And let’s remember that woman who was raped at age 13 (now 30-ish) who was scared into silence. This is S.O.P. for these fuckers.

  208. 208.

    lamh36

    @Adam L Silverman: Welp…

    @frankthorp
    2m2 minutes ago
    More Frank Thorp V Retweeted Michael Avenatti
    A Grassley aide confirms the Judiciary Cmte reached out to Avenatti after he announced he had info about Kavanaugh, and confirmed that the email in this tweet it authentic –>

  212. 212.

    Emma

    @geg6: Funny. I have been away on-and-off from the news and just did a drive-by to see what was going on. After reading the story I wailed “but it’s Sunday!” Scared the dog and he’s giving the stink-eye.

  213. 213.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Martin: My theory on the attack on Christine Ford was they both got loaded and Judge– who clearly has serious issues as a sober middle-aged man, never mind as a confused adolescent with a drinking problem– egged Kavanaugh on, folie à deux. I’m sure there’s some real nastiness in his background and it’s not much of a stretch to think Kavanaugh at least knew of more of it than one night

    and when will we find out which Senators knew about this New Yorker article when they went on TV this morning? Lindsey, I’m looking at you.

  214. 214.

    Central Planning

    @SFAW:

    biggest annoyance re: working out is that I have carpal tunnel

    Get the surgery. It was the best thing I ever did. I was rowing on the Erie Canal once…. over the course of 15 minutes or so my hands tingled, went numb, and then felt like they were on fire. Haven’t had a problem since the surgeries. And if you’re a glutton for punishment, they can do it outpatient without knocking you out (big benefit is you can drive home)

  215. 215.

    James E Powell

    I just want to check with you guys, who follow things much more closely than I do.

    The contribution the NYT has made to this whole Kavanaugh thing is: _____________________.

  216. 216.

    Anne Laurie

    @JPL:

    I do wonder how you purchase a 1982 daily calendar though.

    Check eBay, or Etsy (all kinds of ‘vintage’ second-hand-store crap being peddled for ‘crafters’ there).

    Can other peoples’ eBay/Etsy purchase records be subpoenaed?

  218. 218.

    zhena gogolia

    @Mary G:

    Didn’t she also do investigative work on the Anita Hill case? I thought she was the one who found other women who’d had the same experience with Thomas.

  219. 219.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:
    I’m having a wee bit of trouble digesting this myself, and I’m a pretty cynical old broad.
    But consider: they know what Trump is, and don’t care. This isn’t any different.

  220. 220.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: As I said in a previous comment, he’s going to be lucky to come out of this with his marriage intact.

    The real problem going forward to be is that the GOP will turn him into a martyr like they did with Bork.

  221. 221.

    randy khan

    @dmsilev:

    If Heller votes ‘yes’, he gets slammed for supporting a serial sexual molester and loses a chunk of the swing vote. If he votes ‘no’, his conservative base gets pissed off and might stay home. Not having to vote is the best solution for him.

    Not just Heller, either – Collins and Murkowski probably also don’t want to vote. I said at some point last week that the perfect solution for Collins was for Kavanaugh to withdraw so there never is a vote. (And I think the person to tell Kavanaugh to withdraw probably would have to be McConnell.)

  222. 222.

    Jay

    @Martin:

    Over the years, dozens of Greek houses have been shuttered and banned for exactly this behaviour.

    And it’s completely consistent with gang rapist behaviour.

  223. 223.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jon Favreau @ jonfavs
    The Senate Republican’s behavior here is as bad if not worse than anything Trump has done since becoming president – rushing to confirm a Supreme Court Justice before an allegation of sexual assault emerges that they all knew about.

    Matthew Miller @ matthewamiller
    There’s a parallel to Mark Foley right before the 2006 midterms. A scandal that could have been confined to one individual ends up exposing the corruption of the entire GOP leadership who tried to cover it up.

    There was some faux-sad bonehead on MSNBC an hour or so ago still trying to blame this on Feinstein. Do they really think that works with anyone outside their twitter feeds?

  224. 224.

    TaMara (HFG)

    Finally got to the article. Jeezuz, she’s from Boulder county.

    Ramirez, who is from Colorado, is being represented by Stan Garnett, the former district attorney in Boulder County, the New Yorker reported.

    “I didn’t want any of this,” she told the New Yorker. “But now I have to speak.”

  225. 225.

    Immanentize

    @lamh36: he is no doubt showboating, but I suspect he has a/some real good card/s in his hand. He is loud, but also careful. His work and claims on Stormy D’s case was fairly clean.

  227. 227.

    dm

    @lamh36: Re: Christie’s remark that Kavanaugh may not be able to continue to serve as any sort of federal judge was brought up on Daily Kos last week, quoting Politico (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/17/what-should-the-senate-do-with-brett-kavanaugh-219985):

    Under the rules of the Judicial Conference governing the behavior of federal judges, misconduct includes “conduct occurring outside the performance of official duties if the conduct might have a prejudicial effect on the administration of the business of the courts, including a substantial and widespread lowering of public confidence in the courts among reasonable people.” If substantiated, this allegation meets that test. Little could have worse impact on the “public confidence in the courts”—assuming women to be part of the “public”—than allowing someone who has been credibly accused of an incident Ford’s therapist’s notes describe as a “rape attempt” to decide cases.

    Professor Ford need not file a complaint to initiate this investigation. Under the Judicial Conference procedures, the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit can “identify” a complaint based on media reports.

    The chief judge of the DC Circuit is a little-known fellow named “Garland”.

  228. 228.

    Barbara

    I wouldn’t get too far ahead of this, but I think the point is that even if it turns out nothing as horrible as a gang rape could be confirmed, it is utterly reckless not to investigate allegations. The kind of behavior described by Ramirez is almost like a gang initiation or hazing, where you prove you belong by demonstrating antisocial or criminal conduct.

  229. 229.

    Immanentize

    @Jay:
    It all is reminding me of the horrific gang rape scene of a drugged teen in Brett Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero.. That scene always freaked me out for sheer depravity. Now it is here in the Supreme Court?

  230. 230.

    MoxieM

    It feels nauseating, yet hopeful. How bad is that, that it’s an improvement over the past 3-4 days?

    These women are heroes.

  231. 231.

    Anne Laurie

    @Martin:

    Dude is already enough of a shitbag, mind you.

    Seconded. Having lived through too many recent-history sex-abuse ‘overreaches’ that ended up punishing the victims rather than the perpetrators, I’d rather stick with what we know.

    Right now, it has been credibly attested that Kavanaugh had a youthful history of getting drunk and sexually intimidating women in front of other men. This is bad enough, without speculating he’s a serial gang-rapist. If he *is*, we’ll hear about it soon enough. But pulling out his penis in front of multiple witnesses (& while apparently too incapacitated to carry through with his sexual threats) is quite enough to refuse him a spot on the Supreme Court, thank you… especially since he’s never apologized to the women he abused. (Double especially if he’s still pulling these stunts, which from the sound of those ‘friendly’ between-bros emails released earlier this week may be the case.)

  232. 232.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JPL: I went to a Jesuit high school and while I know a lot of folks partied, what is being described with the DC prep school scene is just whacked. Some of this might have something to do with the fact that there’s no decent public transport in the Tampa area and people commuted into the school from up to 2 hours away. So trying to just get people together took a bit of effort.

  233. 233.

    zhena gogolia

    @SFAW:

    Yeah, it’s different if you’re David Niven in A Matter of Life and Death and your kite is on fire and your parachute is shredded by shrapnel. That ain’t a “perfectly good” airplane.

  235. 235.

    Roger Moore

    @randy khan:

    And I think the person to tell Kavanaugh to withdraw probably would have to be McConnell.

    I suspect any three or four Republican Senators telling him the votes weren’t going to be there should be enough. Whether they actually would be enough is another question.

  238. 238.

    M31

    @Jay:

    Yup (about Greek houses and organized gang rape).

    I was told of a frat at Duke that ‘specialized’ in staking out parties looking for drunk girls and then leading them away. So disgusting.

    (My knowledge is from the late 80s, though recently I was told that Duke has changed a lot over the intervening years, for the better.)

  239. 239.

    scott (the other one)

    @Fair Economist: You can usually point to almost anything absurd or astonishing the GOP does and explain it away with either greed or lust for power or both. But this is so extreme and combined with his mysteriously vanishing debt makes me think someone or many someones is compromised. I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe his base will give that much of a shit if Kavanaugh had been withdrawn two weeks ago and replaced by another far right wing judge who would have been approved and on the bench by October. This is more than red meat to the base, and he’s such a bad idea politically that there simply has to be more. It can’t just be stupidity and greed and power. That one just doesn’t fly for me in this case.

  240. 240.

    Anne Laurie

    @Barbara:

    The kind of behavior described by Ramirez is almost like a gang initiation or hazing, where you prove you belong by demonstrating antisocial or criminal conduct.

    Yes! It’s exactly like that — and for much the same reasons, not a need for sex but a demonstration of virility/power. But the rich privileged (almost always) white guys who rise to the boardrooms and the Supreme Court don’t expect to be called out for their ‘adolescent horseplay’… unlike those raggedy no-count no-hopers at the other end of the financial scale. There’s a prep-school-to-power pipeline that’s every bit as strong, and even more dangerous to the rest of us, than the preschool-to-prison pipeline social activists deplore…

  241. 241.

    MoCo

    I lived in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase metroplex and graduated from high school the same year as Kavanaugh, and actually worked with him briefly not long after high school. The person up thread who mentioned “preppy frat boys” of the early 80s has it exactly right. None of the stories coming out about Montgomery County house parties in that area–even for high-schoolers–sounds the least bit concocted. And it was definitely not how “all boys were” at the time. They were a definite breed.

  243. 243.

    randy khan

    @dm:

    He can be disciplined, but he can’t be removed from the D.C. Circuit except by impeachment and conviction. Federal judges literally have been convicted of felonies and still served on the bench until the impeachment process was completed. (Usually they resign before it gets that far, but not always.)

  245. 245.

    Aleta

    @smintheus: a special hockey league for frat boys .? . I guess that’s what they mean by entitlement. Like getting a job you can’t get fired from, only bonuses. Anyway that story sounds major league tough of you.

  247. 247.

    TS (the original)

    @Aleta:

    drunkenness and nastiness while drunk

    Advice from my mother when I was old enough to be thinking of marriage

    Never marry a man who is mean when he is drunk – being drunk shows who he is, it doesn’t change who he is.

    My Dad was a “happy drunk”. Entertained us all.

  248. 248.

    Anne Laurie

    @scott (the other one):

    But this is so extreme and combined with his mysteriously vanishing debt makes me think someone or many someones is compromised. I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe his base will give that much of a shit if Kavanaugh had been withdrawn two weeks ago and replaced by another far right wing judge who would have been approved and on the bench by October. This is more than red meat to the base, and he’s such a bad idea politically that there simply has to be more.

    I think it may just be an extension of the Everything Trump Touches Dies effect… it’s not actually Trump that’s the root issue, but that the GOP has so compromised itself that someone as clownishly compromised as Trump can rise to the top of the GOP manure heap right now.

    Right now, it could be that Kavanaugh’s debts were paid off by his multi-millionaire parents…


    … and he was just too embarrassed to admit, on his tax forms, that he couldn’t keep up with his uber-wealthy neighbors on a ‘mere’ $200k judicial salary. And he may have given up ‘adolescent horseplay’ (if you don’t count whatever I-don’t-remember-much-but-don’t-tell-my-wife stuff he mentioned in those leaked emails. Pissing on pole dancers? Waving his willy at strippers? Irresponsible not to speculate!… )

    Either way, McConnell and his fellow Repubs-Fa-Lyfe were going to double down and refuse to let ‘the Dems’ (the sane people) “get away” with REFUSING to submit their authoritay!!! Kavanaugh could’ve withdrawn last week, and gone on to a long profitable judicial-salary-supplementing career on the Wingnut Welfare circuit, but now? He can’t give up without tanking his own career, and the Repubs are maybe not incorrect in thinking that he’ll tank the GOP as well.

  249. 249.

    Aleta

    @MoCo: it was definitely not how “all boys were” at the time. They were a definite breed.

    Today I began to think of them as a type of violent extremists. In the minority, but they try to pass their actions off as a normal response to society.

    The R propaganda machine keeps putting out the story is that it’s about teen sex and mistakes, avoiding the words violence and premeditated. (In the words of some women on CNN defending Kav: ‘What teenage boy with hormones hasn’t done this?’ ‘Who doesn’t make mistakes as a teen?’ ) Just like saying the tape of Trump was typical locker room talk. (Not true, said many guys.)

    Their violence is not the norm. Pack sociopathy maybe.

  250. 250.

    SFAW

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I went to a Jesuit high school

    OK, now I’m confused.

    Of course, what would have confused me even more would have been “I went to a Jesuit shul.” Brain be a-splodin’ level of confusion.

  252. 252.

    Roger Moore

    @Anne Laurie:

    Right now, it could be that Kavanaugh’s debts were paid off by his multi-millionaire parents… … and he was just too embarrassed to admit, on his tax forms

    It’s not just a matter of embarrassment, though. There’s a limit on how large a gift you can receive every year- IIRC, it’s about $15K per giver per year- before you start having to pay taxes on it. So each of his parents could have given that much to him and to his wife, but they couldn’t make the whole $200K debt go away without him owing a bunch more in income tax.

  253. 253.

    West of the Cascades

    @dm: It was the referral of complaints against Alex Kozinski (one of Kavanaugh’s mentors) to the Judicial Conference of the Second Circuit that made Kozinski decide to spend more time with his family (the Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit, on which Kozinski sat, referred the complaints to a different circuit to try to maintain impartiality).

    Chief Judge Garland, Chief Judge Thomas of the Ninth is at your disposal …

  254. 254.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SFAW: Jewish day school, Jesuit high school appropriately named Jesuit High School (until my senior year when my Dad took sabbatical, we moved to his hometown of Denver, and I went to and graduated from a public high school for my senior year), and a Methodist university where, among other things, I studied Islam. So if you’re curious as to why I’m this way, now you know.

  255. 255.

    Jay

    @Anne Laurie:

    Yeah no.

    Every woman I have known in my life has at least one experience of sexual assault or rape.

    I have listened to them, hundreds of testimonies, often with me being the first person they ever told, or the first male. Often, listening was all I could do.

    #IBeliveThem

    Special K is a serial gang rapist who has been protected all his live by power, privlege and the crowd he runs with,

    Who are also running much of America.

    Brutal truths need be told.

  256. 256.

    SFAW

    @Central Planning:

    Re: CT surgery: Yeah, it’s on my list of things to get done sooner-rather-than-later. Had my right hand done last year, made a ton of difference. (Had some other stuff done on the wrist, but nothing that affected my rowing. Well, except feathering is a little more difficult.)
    And I’m envious re: the Erie Canal. I used to drive to Syracuse every-so-often, and passing by/over the Erie and the Mohawk made me want to cartop my boat. If it were closer, I’d probably spend more time on the Merrimack. Well, actually, probably not, because I’m lazy.

  257. 257.

    Aleta

    @TS (the original): Interesting. Very good advice isn’t it; it sounds obvious but one could make the opposite assumption–mistake– if not warned. This relative who survived the father has radar for a mean drunk, male or female, including recovered ones.

  258. 258.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Roger Moore: I guarantee that the money came from Leonard Leo’s dark money funding network that he uses to fund the Federalist Society, the Judicial Crisis Network, his other various opaque schemes, and his personal life.

  263. 263.

    PJ

    @Roger Moore: That’s not the way it works. Kavanaugh, as the donee, would not pay any tax on a gift. The donor pays any tax on gifts over the annual limit ($15K per person per year for 2018 – $30K if both his parents contributed separately), but, as of 2017, there is a total lifetime gift exemption of $11.2 million, so the odds are that Kavanaugh’s parents would not have to pay any tax if they gave $200,000 in a lump sum. In any event, if they have a decent accountant, they would have declared it.

  264. 264.

    smintheus

    @Aleta: I was told that the frat league was kept separate because they were such violent goons that nobody else wanted to play them. And they couldn’t play anyway, they really stank in every aspect of hockey. Most of them could barely stand up on skates.

    Tough or not, I knew something the frat goonies apparently didn’t know – my mom managed the Dean’s office and I’d known the current Dean since I was a little kid. I was really tempted to keep quiet and let them try to rush me, so that I could see them all tossed out of Brown.

  265. 265.

    Citizen Alan

    @dmsilev:

    IIRC, when Rehnquist died just a few weeks after Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement, there were calls from Arlen Spector and others for her to rescind her retirement so that W could appoint her as the first female chief justice. Nothing came of it, but I suppose it’s possible.

  266. 266.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think that a disclosed honorarium – as in travel and expenses are paid if being brought in to give a lecture or speech is generally acceptable. But I don’t know how the rules are written for those appointments.

  267. 267.

    Citizen Alan

    @Anne Laurie:

    he was just too embarrassed to admit, on his tax forms, that he couldn’t keep up with his uber-wealthy neighbors on a ‘mere’ $200k judicial salary.

    Being “too embarrassed” to admit receiving gifts far in excess of what is exempt under the gift tax is a good way to end up in the federal pen. Well, for us peasants, anyway. Don’t know if it applies to the Georgetown aristocracy.

  268. 268.

    Redshift

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The real problem going forward to be is that the GOP will turn him into a martyr like they did with Bork.

    I may be too optimistic, but I doubt they’ll manage it. Their storyline with Bork was that he was unfairly rejected just for his politics. Trying to make Kavanaugh a martyr is going to remind everyone of who the GOP is in the #metoo era, since none of this has been about his politics. That may shore up their hard core base, but at the expense of continuing to lose them women.

  269. 269.

    sukabi

    @Citizen Alan: I would bet that whatever made Kennedy announce his retirement isn’t going to magically disappear, unless Drumpf strokes out in the next couple of days.

  271. 271.

    catclub

    @PJ: That does not make sense to me.
    How do you decide what tax rate to apply to the gift amount over $10k? Suppose you give $25k to someone who has a higher marginal tax rate than your own. Or someone who has no other income, at all.

  272. 272.

    catclub

    @scott (the other one):

    I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe his base will give that much of a shit if Kavanaugh had been withdrawn two weeks ago and replaced by another far right wing judge

    I think stopping kavanaugh looks like a good thing. ,but I also think it will motivate some GOP voters. There have been many statements here that the GOP assumes it always wins, but the self pity in losing Bork or losing Roe v Wade is another motivator.

  273. 273.

    Citizen Alan

    @catclub:

    As I understand it, the amount over the cap is just treated like regular income. In his last years before passing away, my dad always made a point of giving my sister and me checks at Christmas equal to about $100 less than the cap for gifts, and he always double checked with his accountant to get the exact amount right.

  276. 276.

    George Spiggott

    @GregB:

    Somewhere in a conservative think-tank boiler room, several apparatchiks are hatching a Brett Kavenaugh’s doppleganger penis cover story

    TBogg – more or less
    ‏

    @tbogg
    6h6 hours ago
    More
    Ed Whelan’s 37 tweet thread on the doppelgänger Kavanaugh penis— with close-ups, 3-D modeling and aerial shots— is gonna be awesome.

    https://twitter.com/tbogg/status/1044021612763217920

    TBogg’s been on fire tonight.

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