Because we knew this was inevitable. Again, I spent the day offline and once I popped back up, twitter was all atwitter about this:
Ok, I speed-read this and my instant takeaways:
1) Meticulously researched and sourced by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer – as always
2) The new accusation of Kavanaugh exposing himself to a classmate is damaging but only so much
1/
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) September 24, 2018
I’m going to go read the article now. Open thread.
Mary G
Betting Kavanaugh withdraws on Tuesday first thing in the morning.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I knew something like this was going to ooze out sooner or later. This kind of shit isn’t a one-time thing for guys like Kavanaugh. It’s a way of life with them.
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…
Hill Dweller
Michael Avenatti is now saying he has a client with info about Kavanaugh and his buddy Mark Judge.
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.
TaMara (HFG)
Oh and now this. And while he’s a grandstander, he does deliver the goods.
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.
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
TaMara (HFG)
lamh36
lamh36
Dorothy A. Winsor
@lamh36: Because of course they do.
TaMara (HFG)
lamh36
Of course he would say no…men like him probably never considered what they did “harassment”
Mr Stagger Lee
Channeling the inner Don Meredith.
DCrefugee
The three people you never want to see in your front yard:
— Jim Cantore
— Chris Hansen
— Ronan Farrow
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.
Chyron HR
@lamh36:
An unnamed White House source said, “When you’re a supreme court guy, they just let you do it!”
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
And what are the odds that every Republican on the Judiciary Committee didn’t know anything about this? How fucking dumb do you have to be to plow right ahead with this knowing about this? Though it’s only marginally less brain dead to just take the fucker’s word and believe everything he says…
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?
lamh36
Fair Economist
@lamh36:
Based on the latest allegation, that may be just because they can’t see his junk from behind.
smintheus
This is explosive stuff from the New Yorker:
Also a lot of really negative anecdotes about Kavanaugh’s drunkenness and nastiness while drunk from Yale classmates.
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.
Bex
@Mr Stagger Lee: Curses! Ya beat me to it!
Cheryl Rofer
@FelonyGovt:
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….
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.
Mary G
@smintheus: Yeah, I lot more people recounting Kavanaugh’s misdeeds than just Ramirez.
Shalimar
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Someone needs to do some digging to find out if Collins and Murkowski were told. If they were, this should end their careers.
Mary G
@DCrefugee: You left out Jane Mayer. She is the other byline on the story.
JPL
@smintheus: That is the part of the article that I found the most explosive because it adds to Ford’s statement about the culture at the time.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: Why not Monday?
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?
smintheus
Kavanaugh’s roommate basically calls him and his buddies the scum of the earth:
Meanwhile classmates agree that Ramirez was sweet natured, kind, and honest.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: Yup, I hear the Choirs Invisible warming up.
lamh36
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): the article says they notified Senate Repubs last week in processing the story…THEY KNEW and ratched up their attacks on Dr. Ford and tired to force a vote for Monday….
Roger Moore
@FelonyGovt:
Trump really wants him because he believes Kavanaugh will protect him from Mueller.
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.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Bex: :-) good minds think alike! I bet right now Mitch McConnell is blasting through his Bourbon collection.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The most astounding part of this is that the Rs apparently knew and tried to force his nomination through anyway.
lamh36
And THIS is why the Senate Republicans didn’t want Judge to testify!
https://twitter.com/jameshohmann/status/1044019307854925825
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.
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.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@lamh36: I’ve said this before…the ONE THING Trump was supposed to be good at was firing people(he did it every week on the TV), and he sucks at that.
lamh36
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.
schrodingers_cat
@lamh36: How many rapist Senators does the R party have, since they seem to think it is normal male behavior.
Geoboy
@Fair Economist: “I get that Trump needs a guy willing to support explicitly criminal activity, but most of the Republican Senators don’t.” Facts not in evidence.
schrodingers_cat
Are Collins and Murkowski the only two female Rs in the senate?
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?
smintheus
Is Kavanaugh’s nomination in mortal danger yet?
Cheryl Rofer
Gelfling 545
@Mary G: Impossible. They have no shame.
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.
Ken
@lamh36:
He’s toast. That’s what Trump always says, two days before having someone else fire the guy.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer:
Do we know what that is in reference to?
Cheryl Rofer
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.
Gozer
@schrodingers_cat: No.
There’s Ernst – IA
Fischer – NE
and Capito – WV
Gozer
No edit
There’s also Smith – MS
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: MAGA mouthpiece does a better job than the official WH spokeswoman of being Her Master’s Voice.
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…
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.
Bex
@Mr Stagger Lee: All he’s gonna have left after this debacle is the rotgut.
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.
schrodingers_cat
@Gozer: Thanks, I had forgotten about Breadbags Ernst.
JPL
@Shalimar: True, but morally he should not be on the court.
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.
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.
SFAW
@smintheus:
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.
Chetan Murthy
@Fair Economist:
Fear of a Red Hat ™
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.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SFAW: I’m sure she’s “concerned,” maybe even “very concerned.”
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.
Ken
@Shalimar:
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.
patrick II
@Mr Stagger Lee:
McConnell should try grain alcohol and Hawaiian Punch. I hear it loosens you up.
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
Maybe his refusal to answer, and petulance regarding certain “personal” questions?
Mai Naem mobile
Stick a fork in him. He’s done. Buh-bye Brett.
Patricia Kayden
Drip drip drip.
Kavanaugh should withdraw to save what’s left of his reputation.
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.
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.
Roger Moore
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
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.
DCrefugee
@Mary G: You’re absolutely right…
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.
Adam L Silverman
@Hill Dweller: As I wrote last night, Avenatti will annoy Kavanaugh to death. Specifically by a thousand cuts.
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
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.
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.
Immanentize
@Immanentize: not “discuss,” “discredit”
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?
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.
GregB
Somewhere in a conservative think-tank boiler room, several apparatchiks are hatching a Brett Kavenaugh’s doppleganger penis cover story
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.
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.”
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
dmsilev
@Immanentize: Yeah, except that now that Kennedy has announced his retirement that ship has sailed. Can you un-announce a retirement from SCOTUS?
WaterGirl
They REALLY thought their secrets would never come out.
Adam L Silverman
@TaMara (HFG): Death by a thousand cuts.
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.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: Of course they did.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Calouste
@dmsilev: Kennedy’s retirement went into effect on 7/31. He’s already gone.
Immanentize
@dmsilev: I just looked it up — he retired date certain (end of July)
Adam L Silverman
@FelonyGovt: Gorsuch is smug and arrogant, but he’s apparently clean, so to speak.
West of the Rockies
@TaMara (HFG):
A second dickman theory then?
Immanentize
@Aleta: From some way prior thread — Yes, EJ houses.
Aleta
@Cheryl Rofer:
From CTPost, spring 2018
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SFAW: You can mix me up with Siubhan any time. It’s an honor.
Adam L Silverman
Ooopsie!
Mary G
You have to look at the picture:
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.
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.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer:
J R in WV
@The Thin Black Duke:
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..!!!
lamh36
SFAW
@West of the Rockies:
Only if the party moved to a grassy knoll?
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?
bemused senior
If you say it five times it’s true. Sorry for the repitition.
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.
Ken
@bemused senior:
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.”
lamh36
another reason why Kavanaugh is gonna stand and fight?
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.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Georgetown Prep sounds like such a fine school.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: All of them Katie!
Immanentize
I still think that Kennedy could convince him to withdraw. They are reportedly very close.
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.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Are we counting the closet cases in the GOP Senate caucus or not?
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.
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:
Roger Moore
@Ken:
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”.
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.
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.
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.
MagdaInBlack
There really is no bottom for these people, is there?
Kathleen
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: I am so sorry, Ms. Fax! Holding you in love and light.
Immanentize
@Billcoop4:
I don’t think Roberts needs anyone to tell him what a disaster it would be to have Kavanaugh on the court now.
lamh36
@lamh36:
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).
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
I think it’s “Miers.” [Which is — to me, at least — an unusual spelling.]
lamh36
lamh36
in case you didn’t read the Avenatti tweet I linked
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. ////
Cheryl Rofer
MOAR
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.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@SFAW:
I am confused enough for all of us, TYVM.
lamh36
@Cheryl Rofer: Yes…was just reading it…
scav
@Adam L Silverman: OH.
This is getting altogether addictive. Busses are running over busses in a sort of converyor belt in a bus factory sort of way.
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.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: HangMag’s/NYT’s tweets and coverage will have more twists and turns than Cirque du Soleil.
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.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
?????
smintheus
@lamh36: When you’re famous they let you do it. /s
WaterGirl
@lamh36: Thanks, it was really hard on my eyes to try to read that tiny print.
lamh36
@Cheryl Rofer: was just reading this…WOW…I gots nothing…just WOW
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.”
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
If I could write like you….
chris
@Mary G: That’s a great badge. Reminds me that Cruz rhymes with lose.
lamh36
@lamh36: true…
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.
Cheryl Rofer
JPL
@lamh36: Imagine the surprise when Avenatti sent the list of questions.
This slimebag needs to be in jail.
Ken
@Kathleen:
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.)
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.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal: If I were brave enough to jump out of an airplane…
WaterGirl
@JPL: I would like to think that most men when presented with those questions could simply answer no to all of them.
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
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.
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
chris
@lamh36:
True indeed, but the words “Kavanaugh” and “gang rape” are going to be all over TV tomorrow. That should finish him.
Raven
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal: We just watched “Get Shorty”, the best line in the movie, “what to you write that makes the most money”? “Ransom Notes’! Ca-ching!
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.
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I believe the proper phrase is “a perfectly good airplane.”
debit
@SFAW:
A Grassley knoll.
lamh36
@Mary G: oh and the fact that he emailed the committee rep seems to me to add some legitmacy to it….
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. .
Immanentize
@tobie: mixed bag indeed. Mostly negative fer sure
Which these days is as good as it gets.
MisterForkbeard
@lamh36: Holy Shit is right, if true. That’s crazy.
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.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: And based on her accusations, he could also be charged with kidnapping.
Mary G
They’ve lost the dean of bothsiders:
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 … ?
HinTN
@patrick II: There’s no loosening left in that sack of shit.
Dorothy A. Winsor
lamh36
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal:
Not in my eyes.
And you’re a shitload braver than I am.
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.
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.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@SFAW:
You are sweet. Thank you.
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.
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.
lamh36
SFAW
@debit:
Outstanding.
Adam L Silverman
Avenatti just dropped a bomb on Grassley’s chief counsel for nominations!
geg6
Jesus, I thought it was Friday night. Shit is getting real.
Ladyraxterinok
@Adam L Silverman: This stuff CAN’T be true! It’s beyond anything the wildest mind could dream up. A GOP mind on the other hand….7
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: lol Ed has been busy working with Brett on his school calendar that he keeps. I do wonder how you purchase a 1982 daily calendar though.
SFAW
@geg6:
Infrastructure Week scoffs at your quaint idea of news dumps only happening on Fridays.
Martin
@lamh36:
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.
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.
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.
lamh36
@Adam L Silverman: Welp…
sukabi
@TaMara (HFG): if it looks like a short mushroom with yeti pubes we know who’s coordinating the doppleganger refutation.
lamh36
@lamh36: If Avenatti is showboating here…IANAL but seems to me this could be really bad for him?
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Yep. Disgusting.
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.
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.
Central Planning
@SFAW:
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)
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: _____________________.
Anne Laurie
@JPL:
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?
Chetan Murthy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’d give Lindsey a break. I’d guess he has no idea what’s involved in sexually assaulting a woman.
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.
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.
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.
randy khan
@dmsilev:
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.)
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.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
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?
TaMara (HFG)
Finally got to the article. Jeezuz, she’s from Boulder county.
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.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
We’re definitely going to have to check the kerning on that calendar.
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):
The chief judge of the DC Circuit is a little-known fellow named “Garland”.
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.
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?
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.
Anne Laurie
@Martin:
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.)
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.
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.
MoxieM
(Want to edit)–Dr. Blasey Ford & Ms. Ramirez, I mean.
Roger Moore
@randy khan:
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.
zhena gogolia
@Chetan Murthy:
Yeah, I keep thinking about her.
randy khan
@JPL:
E-bay, of course: I bet he had one of these on his wall.
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.)
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.
Anne Laurie
@Barbara:
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…
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.
zhena gogolia
@James E Powell:
That’s about it. They specialize in entertainment figures WHO HAVE NO POWER OVER THE AVERAGE AMERICAN CITIZEN
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.)
Immanentize
@randy khan: Alcee Hastings, for example.
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.
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: It’s the non-Jewish spelling.
TS (the original)
@Aleta:
Advice from my mother when I was old enough to be thinking of marriage
My Dad was a “happy drunk”. Entertained us all.
Anne Laurie
@scott (the other one):
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.
Aleta
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.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
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.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ll take your word for it.
Roger Moore
@Anne Laurie:
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.
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 …
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Wow, talk about diverse!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: can sitting judges accept speaking and/or “consulting” fees?
Steve in the ATL
@Chetan Murthy: zing!
Aleta
@Chetan Murthy: Amusing, but a misconception.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Citizen Alan
@Anne Laurie:
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.
Redshift
@Adam L Silverman:
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.
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.
Ninedragonspot
@Gozer: Fischer is up for re-election, I’ve thrown some money at her challenger Jane Raybould.
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.
catclub
@scott (the other one):
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.
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.
Jane
@schrodingers_cat: Don’t forget Joanie Ernst from Iowa and Deb Fischer from Nebraska.
PJ
@catclub: The recipient does not pay any gift tax ever, unless they choose to:
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/frequently-asked-questions-on-gift-taxes . It is not treated as income to be taxed.
George Spiggott
@GregB:
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.