Avenatti drops a fucking bomb on the Kavanaugh nomination:
Below is my correspondence to Mr. Davis of moments ago, together with a sworn declaration from my client. We demand an immediate FBI investigation into the allegations. Under no circumstances should Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed absent a full and complete investigation. pic.twitter.com/QHbHBbbfbE
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 26, 2018
Click through to read a sworn statement from Julie Swetnick, or, if you’re not on the Twitter, you can read the sworn statement over at TPM. It’s disturbing as hell. A brief summary is below the fold.
Swetnick alleges that Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge constantly sexually harassed girls at high school house parties and that they spiked drinks with grain alcohol and possibly Quaaludes, then gang-raped multiple victims. Swetnick says she was raped at one of the parties, told people about it contemporaneously and can produce witnesses.
Think this will derail the Republicans’ plans to fast-track the Kavanaugh nomination, or will the gravity of these charges force a proper investigation? The Republican Party is so depraved at this point that NOTHING would surprise me.
PS: What Dave said.
Major Major Major Major
I’m sorry but can we get the details under a ‘read more’ or with some sort of warning?
schrodingers_cat
Rapist party with minority of the votes has been holding us (the majority) down and doing what it wants since 2016.
geg6
Not at all surprising, I must say.
I have an appointment with my counselor for after work today. Looks like I’m going to need it.
Corner Stone
Why in the hell would MSNBC bring on a spokesperson from the Judicial Crisis Network right now?
JPL
I am physically ill. She needs to file charges with Montgomery County or whatever county the attacks in Maryland occurred. Excuse me while I go barf again.
Paul W.
I want to say there is no way Kavanaugh makes it through, but Susan Collins is now peddling random conspiracy theories that Ford was promiscuous as a child based on…. some random photo!? Anyways, she is clearly now going the route of Lindsey Graham into full Trump land. But, I still have a little faith in Lisa Murkowski and then even less but still some in Senators hoping to be President (Rubio, Flake, etc.).
It is absolutely insane that I can’t give the odds of defeating him better than a 50% chance given all that we know at this point. But I hope that the session tomorrow seals the deal, if it happens at all.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: {{{ }}} please take care of yourself.
dmsilev
I’m sure Grassley and McConnell are Very Concerned(tm) about these allegations.
How many more victims are there who haven’t come forward, either because it’s too painful for them to discuss in public or because they’re intimidated by the certainty of a flying-howler-monkey swarm?
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Done.
JPL
@geg6: Please take care of yourself, and we’ll hold down the fort here.
RinaX
@Paul W.:
I have no faith in any of them, full stop.
Michael “Where’s The Camera” Avanetti appears to have come through. I didn’t think he’d be the type to risk his camera time on a hoax.
dmsilev
@geg6: Take care of yourself. Today looks like it’s going to be ugly; maybe for your peace of mind, unplugging from the news stream might not be a bad idea.
Chyron HR
Sorry, but in this case the turtle’s “duck and cover” survival strategy will actually work.
MattF
I wouldn’t be surprised to see McConnell try to push the nomination through. We shall see.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: thanks.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@RinaX: Hey, when you got it, flaunt it. Amirite?
ruemara
I ain’t gonna lie. This has been an endless mental health assault. It is all the screams you get trapped in your head and the revulsion to your own skin, all of it, coming back. It is having to talk yourself down, reminding yourself that past is past and we are now. I honestly don’t know if men will ever take the stance that men cannot ask for tolerance for assault or rape. There’s not a limit of 2 or 3 rapes and 10 little drugging to grope incidents. And I’m so goddamned furious at Americans, left, right & center. You put a fucking pedo rapist into the Oval Office. You replaced a good, decent man with absolutely criminal scum and you’ve handed our courts over to racist troglodytes. Fuck all of you who could see reason or right. I wish you nothing more than the deepest pain. He was an obvious monster with a cabal of obvious monsters. It’s not russians or economic anxiety. It’s a fucking culture where power, whiteness & masculinity mean you play saint with satan’s horns & tail visible to anyone with eyes.
Elizabelle
We should keep an eye out on other GOP senators who are giving themselves fig leaves. Tim Scott of SC told a McClatchy reporter yesterday that he could change his mind after the hearing, although he has not been persuaded by anything he has heard yet.
Could just be politics, could be something else.
The story in The State, newspaper from Columbia, SC: Tim Scott could change his mind on backing Kavanaugh
chopper
50/50 chance yertle still tries to ‘plow through’ a floor vote, in his words.
schrodingers_cat
Now in a every thread we have someone question the messenger Avenatti, instead of focusing on the rape assault. The trolling has begun.
Corner Stone
I wish I had bought stock in a furniture company that made fainting couches. Because if any of the “Who will tell the children?!” crowd from the Clinton BJ era are still around they must be dropping like flies to see the news discussing gang rape and pulling a train.
Jeffro
And it’s only noon on Wednesday…
Barbara
Can we get a Cliff Notes version? I can’t be the only person who is getting emotionally exhausted by all this — most of all Kavanaugh’s determination to describe his life in terms that basically erase all the bits that are not just wrong or immoral but transgressive in any way. Okay, I admit — I drank before the age of 18. And I mean this seriously — once or twice, because I hated the taste of alcohol, had no money, and people in my demographic cohort never went on vacation long enough to leave their kids with a stash of alcohol and an empty house just begging for a bacchanalia. The people I knew who did these things were, like Kavanaugh, students at tony prep schools whose parents drank a lot more socially than mine ever did, and just had a much bigger budget for travel and good times of all sorts.
Elizabelle
@ruemara: Maybe this is the sunlight/spotlight that is needed, painful as it is to see.
evinfuilt
That is the most disturbing thing I’ve read. I wish it wasn’t true (not just for her, but for all the victims.) Wishing doesn’t make it not happen. He shouldn’t just not be in a Justice, he should be locked away. Someone like that doesn’t stop being someone like that, he just does it with more “cover.”
Betty Cracker
@ruemara: Amen.
rikyrah
@geg6:
Get the help. Take care of yourself.
Jeffro
Btw per the Post, Trumpov is throwing a Hail Mary: The Chinese are Interfering In The Midterms and Helping The Dems
Not unexpected, eh?
Very Putin-esque!!
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
That was plausible until he dropped this goods. Avenatti brought it.
He is SO not the issue.
THE RAPISTS ARE.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: Jeffro Mensch, you’ve got to be absolutely exhausted by now trying to out predict the complete nuthouse timeline we are living in.
PeakVT
I hope Mr. Elaine Chao forces a vote. I want the pervert party on record on this matter.
NotMax
Fingers, toes and anything else crossable crossed this does not slip into another Tawana Brawley situation.
RinaX
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Hey, we said we were tired of our side being too nice. He can have all the cable shows as long as he keeps bringing facts.
Ajabu
Incredible! Interesting times for real. And, yes, it’s emotionally exhausting. You can’t keep up with these people. There is NO BOTTOM.
The first accusation alone would have sunk a normal human being. Damn…
different-church-lady
Is it just me or does every single bit our federal government now seem like a real-life version of the Star Wars battle between the two sides of the force?
(This is a rhetorical question, of course…)
rikyrah
@ruemara:
TELL THAT TRUTH
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@RinaX: Agreed. I have no problem with Avenatti, as long as he doesn’t start slagging every Democrat.
Humdog
@ruemara: It is a daily mental health assault, not to mention a daily cry stifled because of the fear that once you start, you cannot stop. I cannot find a counselor available that I can afford.
In some ways, witnessing how Rs and evangelicals support this crap is the hardest. I knew there were bad guys in life, I accept that and that they will have victims. But that so many people just don’t give a fuck about blatant evil, who are willing to revictimize suffering people, is simply too much to take in.
I have family who want to visit this weekend. I live in the middle of nowhere, 7 hour drive from any large city. I told them not to come if they are still voting R. They counter with, let’s not talk politics. So, I get to have to find the courage to throw them off my property, be seen as the unreasonable bad girl who will refuse to visit with family who came all this way. After I told them not to. I fear I may start screaming at them. Confrontation does not feel good. But I must find my fury or I will turn all this emotion inward and may not survive that. I am so scared, guys.
JMG
This is not Tawana Brawley. This is a grown woman with a security clearance risking her career and probably liberty by making this statement under oath. That doesn’t mean it’s true, but her body must be 100 percent gall if it’s not.
schrodingers_cat
Rapist party has no problem with actual rape and sexual assault. Look at their flag bearer, the proud pussy grabber.
They are foisting a rapist frat boy liar who is probably a drunk even now on the Supreme Court.
He will take away our rights and let the Rapist party get away with whatever they want to do the rest of us with impunity.
Rapist party has no problem with stealing our assets and giving tax-cuts.
Rapist party has no problem with grabbing little children at the border.
Rapist party has no problem pillaging our natural resources and the earth.
Rapist party has no ideology except that of rape. Everything is theirs to rape and pillage.
They did not win a majority.
We are the majority and we say NO.
Susan K of the tech support
From Lexi Alexander, this tweet. How to get yourself out of fight-flight-freeze
West of the Rockies
@schrodingers_cat:
He has a sworn statement, a seemingly credible witness… Gotta say, he could have much less.
Go Michael!
different-church-lady
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: The left really sucks at picking heroes.
Quaker in a Basement
Which ‘winger will be first to float the excuse that her account doesn’t say Kavanaugh committed “actual rape?”
MattF
@Jeffro: And the evidence is that Trump is making the accusation. Who are we to judge?
RinaX
I made myself read her statement. That was rough. The fact that she stood by and watched it happen to others before it happened to her is depressingly believable. I’m scared for her, Dr. Ford, and Deborah Ramirez.
EveryDayIHaveTheBlues
This is deeply disturbing. Those poor, poor girls.
I’m gonna call Rob Portman with the following demands from a concerned constituent:
1) Vote against Judge Kavanaugh for the SC
2) Petition for an FBI investigation into these allegations: after all, Senator Portman demanded no less during the Clinton years
3) After the outcome of (2) above, impeach Judge Kavanaugh if even the slightest hint of improper behavior is found.
Oh, and all those folks claiming that Avenatti was blowing smoke can go jump in a well.
Baud
It’s always worse than you think.
@different-church-lady: True. Never put to much stock in one person.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: omg absolutely…so much unreality going on …
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Corner Stone:
I know. I had to turn it off. I’m trying to decompress with Perry Mason. That’s just this side of fingers in ears and “La-la-la, I can’t hear you!”
Plenty of sexual harassment on Perry, but usually the perps get stabbed with a pitchfork or brained with a thick glass ash tray. Very satisfying.
hueyplong
Betty’s “Boom” is McConnell’s “hurry up.”
I do not treat him as a human being.
Anonymous At Work
@schrodingers_cat: Not unreasonable to question a self-promoting attorney who suddenly has Presidential aspirations. Great advocate for his clients and himself, but that can dilute the message.
HeleninEire
@Humdog: Can you just not be home when they arrive? Go stay with a friend for a few days.
germy
Marcopolo
I realize many folks here are angry, and sickened, and just plain at sanity’s end on how to deal with this situation. Please, if you do nothing else, spend 5 minutes calling your senators now. Doesn’t matter whether their vote is gettable or not, they need to hear from you. Make your voice heard. Do not stay silent. And for folks whose senators are a confirmed no on K, call them too & thank them. Claire McCaskill, who came out no a few days ago, said she was surprised at how few folks (from either side) were calling her.
Thanks in advance.
Betty Cracker
@Humdog: I’m so sorry, hon. You’ve got the right idea — don’t swallow your anger. Trust that instinct to let it out.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: I think the end goal of the evil inside Trump is to not stop until everyone is just as insane as he is.
Marcopolo
Of course I forgot to post the number for the Senate switchboard–Damnit Jim, I need an edit function!
Senate switchboard number: (202) 224-3121
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Corner Stone:
I know. I had to turn it off. I’m trying to decompress with Perry Mason. That’s just this side of fingers in ears and “La-la-la, I can’t hear you!”
Plenty of sexual harassment on Perry, but usually the perps get stabbed with a pitchfork or brained with a thick glass ash tray. Very satisfying.
satby
@Humdog: if they insist oncoming, you take yourself away. You told them not to come, lock up your house and leave. Don’t waste your worry on them, take care of yourself.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you for bringing up one of the threads I keep forgetting to mention.
Kavanaugh appears to have been extremely alcohol-dependent in his youth. And to, to this day, have had some unusual financial issues. Do we know that he is no longer alcohol-dependent? Or when that stopped?
Remember: alcoholic behavior, as an adult, is what brought down John Tower’s nomination to be Defense Secretary many years ago.
I think Kavanaugh’s in a world of trouble, despite what the blustering McConnell and others do. And their press mouthpieces.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@JPL: I’m sitting at my cubicle just skimming this and I think I might vomit. Which means it’s time to take a break from reading the news and engage in some serious self-care. I hope Mueller can make the Orange Nightmare and the constant triggering go away. Please somebody in power make these horrible people go away.
Gravenstone
@Corner Stone: Because JCN has the bookers for every news org on speed dial so they can get a paid shill out there in front of every adverse story.
Elizabelle
Who thinks the hearing tomorrow will occur? Might the Kavanaugh nomination be pulled today or tonight?
Bruce K
With regard to Avenatti, two examples from the past in the military come to mind:
George S. Patton was a diva and a rotten person on a lot of fronts, but when there was fighting to be done, you wanted him on your side. (Heck, probably half the reason the D-Day assaults succeeded was that the Germans were convinced the main invasion was still going to hit Calais, and part of the reason for that was that Allied disinformation suggested Patton was going to be leading the Calais assault.)
Then, going back, there was the incident of the temperance movement representatives who demanded President Lincoln cashier General Grant because Grant was known to drink whiskey. (The legend has it that Lincoln asked if they knew what type of whiskey Grant drank, because he’d like to send some to his other generals…)
So, yeah, Avenatti’s character may be questionable, but facts tend to speak for themselves.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Look at his florid blotchy countenance, that is the complexion of drunkard.
boatboy_srq
@Paul W.: The boy didn’t do it and/or the girl was asking for it. Standard Reichwing boilerplate.
Ceci7
What would really sink Kavanaugh is a man who was also at these parties coming forward to corroborate. I’m not holding my breath. Not because I don’t believe such a person exists–there must be several–but because our society doesn’t expect men to do it.
Baud
@Humdog: You owe them nothing.
Doug R
@different-church-lady:
Actual heroes are real people with all their faults and flaws.
Ella in New Mexico
@Paul W.:
There is stuff floating around Teh Twitter that the guy she married in 2012, Thomas Daffron, has a lobbying firm representing foreign businesses with shady ties to Cayman Island and other not so savory Republican-loved organizations. Also that some of his “firms” donated lots of mula to her Senate campaign…I think she’s essentially compromised by whatever secrets she’s sitting on that he got her involved in.
Just like Graham and others who none of us can imagine just WTF has happened to them, when all this shit hits the fan we’ll find out they’re totally hiding a lot of collusion with unsavory groups.
In any case, the old Susan Collins died in 2012, if not a long time before that. No on should count on her for jack shit.
cmorenc
So as not to be misunderstood, I am 100% on board with the rest of you that Kavenaugh is a monster, both wrt his personal background and his far-right ideology who should never be up for consideration, let alone confirmed to a lifetime seat on SCOTUS.
THAT SAID, suppose his nomination does get derailed. What then? Unless the democrats pull off the inside straight to narrowly re-take the Senate majority in the mid-terms, Trump/ McConnell’s next move will be to nominate a woman whose ideological impact on the court will be every bit as toxically monstrous as Kavenaugh, but who is free from anything in her personal life that could provide obvious ground for derailing her nomination, so long as the Rs have a majority. And even if the Ds do narrowly win back the Senate in the November midterms, they will not regain effective control until the new Congressional session in January – so don’t celebrate too early – it’s likely Trump and McConnell will try to ram through another nominee in the rump session in November/early December before formal adjournment.
I firmly hope Kavenaugh goes down. But even if so, it’s going to be a formidable task to prevent the Rs from installing a new justice giving them 5-4 control for at least several years to come.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: * of a
Mnemosyne
@Humdog:
Go to this website and call or live chat with them. They are waiting to help you, and it is FREE:
http://www.rainn.org
Please click on it now. They may have access to resources you haven’t been able to find on your own.
jacy
@Elizabelle:
Addictive behavior can be like one of those comedy filing cabinets — you push one drawer in and another pops out. Sex addiction is supplanted with alcohol addiction is supplanted with gambling addiction. Seems like Kavanaugh may have one big fucking set of filing cabinets. He’s just hinky all around. And the thing with people who hide their addiction proclivities: they are very easy to control and blackmail. He’s a nightmare on so many levels.
Gravenstone
@Jeffro: Everyone paying attention knew there would be some sort of ‘external villain’ used to discredit any Democratic electoral gains. Mildly surprised he picked China, but I guess Vlad might take umbrage at being fingered (again).
boatboy_srq
@schrodingers_cat: This generation of rapist thieving things was.carwfully trained. I went to university with a number of them. From fraternity guidance through Chicago School free-markets-solve-everything degrees to counseling on how to succeed in business with a pretty wife/secretary, they got the whole package. Expect more of this, not less.
randy khan
@Marcopolo:
Key Senators and their numbers:
Capito – 202-224-6472
Collins – 202-224-2523
Corker – 202-224-3344
Cruz – 202-224-5922*
Flake – 202-224-4521
Heller – 202-224-6244
Murkowski – 202-224-6665 (To leave a message for her, you need to press 2 for messages from people who want responses; she doesn’t give you an option for someone who doesn’t want a response.)
Rubio – 202-224-3041
Sasse – 202-224-4224
Call whether or not you’re a constituent. Several of them go straight to voice mail anyway, so there isn’t any way they can tell if you’re from their states.
*Seems unlikely, but a friend who’s more tied in than me suggests calling him, so he’s on the list.
germy
Makes him cringe, makes me want to vomit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kavanaugh-nomination-trump-calls-nominee-an-absolute-gem-as-tensions-swirl-over-planned-hearing/2018/09/26/df224aea-c190-11e8-97a5-ab1e46bb3bc7_story.html?utm_term=.009f8bc88e25
rikyrah
Trump to Take Over Defense of Kavanaugh
September 26, 2018 at 12:13 pm EDT
President Trump “has grown increasingly dissatisfied with the way Brett Kavanaugh has defended himself in wake of sexual assault allegations that have threatened to derail his Supreme Court nomination,” CNN reports.
It has led the President to believe that he must personally take charge of defending his embattled nominee ahead of Thursday’s critical appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trump made the decision to hold a news conference on the eve of the hearing, making it the fourth he has held as president.
The news conference is scheduled at 5 p.m. ET.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/26/politics/donald-trump-concerned-by-kavanaugh-defense/index.html
Bobby Thomson
*This is not a defense of Kavanaugh.* Be careful. She says they participated in the spiking and that she saw them in lines but does not say they actually participated in her rape or that she witnessed them having sex.
Corner Stone
OhpleaseOhpleaseOhpleaseOhplease
Dorothy A. Winsor
The Rs have shown us they don’t care. I’m beginning to think our only course is to take K to court and put him in jail. Even then, the Rs may insist he be allowed to stay on the Supreme Court. They do not care.
Raven
@cmorenc: Fuck it and drive on.
different-church-lady
@Doug R: Perhaps it would be more on the nose to say that the on-line left really sucks in their dependency on heroes. They lean far to heavily on “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, throw all their weight and trust behind that person, and then get left holding the bag when it turns out that person is just lobbing bombs at the biggest targets. (Greenwald and Assange being the most obvious examples.)
jacy
@cmorenc:
You fight one battle then move on to the next. If you tried to game everything out so you would never lose, you’d be frozen in place. And things have a habit of happening. Who thought two weeks ago that Kavanaugh would be a gang rape poster boy? Forward is the only direction.
Gravenstone
@JMG: All of the victims and their supporters who are coming forward are risking a great deal, just look at what Dr. Blasey-Ford has reported to have happened with the death threats and other forms of harassment and intimidation. Every Kavanaugh apologist need to explain why these individuals would risk so much just to ‘smear’ him on the cusp of achieving his life long pursuit of unbridled power.
Corner Stone
@Bobby Thomson: Splitting that apple is not going to be of any help to Kavanaugh.
rachel
@cmorenc: It may be impossible to stop them from installing another Gorsuch, but at least we could be happier not to have a rapey lush on the Supreme Court.
West of the Rockies
@Baud:
Maybe this is my conflict-avoidance coming out, but Humdog could always claim sudden-onset flu and be unable to visit.
different-church-lady
@cmorenc:
Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
My question for you is: so what? Why are we supposed to roll over and make it easy for them?
They’ll nominate someone new, and we’ll fight that one, too. And the next one. And the next one. Never give up, never surrender.
Bobby Thomson
@Ella in New Mexico: the old Susan Collins wasn’t the old Susan Collins, just a myth.
jacy
@rikyrah:
Please proceed, Mr. President.
Everything Trump touches turns to shit.
Corner Stone
I think it’s pretty clear by now that Judge Kavanaugh is being represented by the law firm of Wolfram & Hart.
Bobby Thomson
@Corner Stone: correct. But when the subject matter is this explosive I think it’s important to be precise. Credibility is key.
rlchina 大芒果
Where is “I think of quitting the GOP everyday” Ben Sasse on all this? Why is he not on the fence? Why has he not spoken?
Mel
@Major Major Major Major: Thank you for that request. And thank you to Betty, as well.
I think seeing this unprepared would have been the proverbial straw that breaks the back for me and for so many others today,
Barbara
@rikyrah: The master decides to show the novice how it’s done.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I usually give the shitgibbon’s speaking appearances a miss because I’m already incandescent with rage and can’t afford the blood pressure spike, but I may make an exception for the 5 pm news conference. Holy fuck, is that gonna be lit.
jacy
@Bobby Thomson:
They need to get Mark Judge under oath. If he was a good witness, the Republicans would have delivered him on a silver platter, but instead he is in hiding at a friend’s beach house. Why do you think his name is so prominently featured in every report?
randy khan
@cmorenc:
So, first, it’s a huge win to keep a monster like him off the court.
Second, the only way to get the bigger wins is stop him now. As is evident from this nomination, the Administration has a special talent for shooting itself in the foot, and there’s precedent already from the process that led to Kennedy being nominated. (He was the third choice to be announced.)
Third, keeping Kavanaugh off the court increases the odds of getting the inside straight (or, more accurately, changes it from an inside straight to some other, easier hand to make). It will depress Republican turnout and energize the Dem base. (This is why I think there will be no vote if McConnell can’t get to 50 – it will give the Republicans some kind of plausible deniability and the chance to tell the base that the perfidious Dems lied so badly that Kavanaugh withdrew to protect his family.)
different-church-lady
@rachel: I’m taking a cumulative damage view. Anyone Trump manages to get on the court is going to be horrible, but so will the political price they’re going to pay. Far better to go through this horror than wind up with the same vote count without the collateral losses.
Yellowdog
@chopper: 100 percent.
Gravenstone
@germy: Well someone seems to understand the gravity of the situation. Of course, they’ve been playing Wile E Coyote in terms of defying gravity ever since the first accusation surfaced, so we’ll see. After all, even the Wile E one succumbs to gravity’s siren song in the end.
gvg
@Humdog: I think you should go vacation somewhere else. Maybe put some democratic campaign signs in you yard, tell neighbors if you trust any and either go have fun or go work on a volunteer event for a Dem you like. What do you LIKE to do that makes you feel better?
jacy
@different-church-lady:
I think it’s more accurate to say that Trump will never nominate a woman.
Mel
@Mnemosyne: This. Each and every day.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: I think Trump will nominate that fanatic Amy Coney Barrett so fast it’ll make our heads spin.
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
Avenatti is an ally. He is effective. That is what matters. There’s no need to make him a hero, and no sense in worrying whether he is one or not.
Mnemosyne
@Bobby Thomson:
I’m pretty sure that conspiring to help other men gang-rape a woman is an actual crime in itself even if you don’t do the raping, but IANAL.
Ocotillo
@cmorenc: This is why you fight. Even if the Rs retain the Senate, you can’t leave anything to chance. What is the alternative? Capitulation is the only thing I can think of.
satby
@jacy: there’s no statute of limitations, so someone involved should file a criminal complaint and include Judge. Bet he would roll for a plea deal.
germy
CliosFanboy
a very deep one, with pointy sticks at the bottom.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Agreed.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: Exactly. Allies and heroes are different things, but a whole lot of the online left can’t tell the difference.
Doug R
@different-church-lady:
Both examples of “heroes” that showed their a$$ previously in other ways: Greenwald didn’t care about what Bush did, it only mattered when the shade of the president changed and Assange backed right wing nut jobs in Australia and probably raped a few people.
Chyron HR
@Doug R:
The recurring propensity for the left’s idols to go, “Now that I have your attention, DEATH TO THE DEMOCRAT PARTY!” is slightly worse than leaving the toilet seat up sometimes.
Frankensteinbeck
Republicans care about rape. They actively support it. Even Republican women see it as the basic model of male/female sexual activity, somewhere between proof of a man’s virility and entirely a woman’s fault for not avoiding anything that could possibly, imaginably have to do with sex.
HOWEVER, that is a generality. It only takes two senators who aren’t willing to go to the wall to publicly support rape to sink this.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: as I said, not a defense of Kavanaugh. But if any detail in what you say is wrong it gives people an excuse to stop listening.
Doug R
@Chyron HR:
e.g. Moore, Michael
different-church-lady
@Bobby Thomson: People who want an excuse to stop listening will find an excuse to stop listening, no matter what anyone says.
West of the Rockies
One report says WH aides murmuring this could be the end of the line for Kavanaugh. Another report says Clump will personally play Samwise, hoist Kavanaugh onto his back, and carry him over the finish line.
Maybe both are true.
Mel
@jacy: Absolutely. He is the key to this. I’m guessing that if they thought he could lie willingly, convincingly, and consistently, they would already be parading him around the news show circuit, talking up the Virgin Brett routine.
He is likely either unwilling to lie in public or under oath, or they believe that he cannot consistently hold to the storyline and will crack under pressure.
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
As I recall, wasn’t RBG a conservative when she was placed on the court, but got increasingly liberal as she lost her patience with the ever-increasing Republican war on women?
different-church-lady
@West of the Rockies: When have Trump and his aides ever been on the same page?
JPL
@Elizabelle: I wonder if he has been bribed by various people who know about his past. hmm
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: And we will have to hold her off until after the new Senate is seated.
Will of the people, motherfuckers.
They used it on Merrick Garland. It works even more now. Or nominate Merrick Garland. I’m good with that. Otherwise, stick with 8 justices.
I would love to know what John Roberts and the other justices think of this shitshow. Kavanaugh gets rammed through, they have got a toxic waste site of a reputation. They were already losing their sterling reputation; folks wising up on how political they are.
And what does Judge Garland know? He is Kavanaugh’s boss.
Here’s wiki on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Find it interesting we have not heard anything from these folks.
m0nty
What I would like to see is after Ford is finished with Kavanaugh in that small room she asked for, she leaves and Ramirez comes in for her turn, then after that Swetnick, then whichever nearby woman wants to have a go. They can all giggle and make choo choo noises to each other if they like.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck: I don’t recall her ever being seriously considered a conservative judge.
Mnemosyne
@Bobby Thomson:
I’m pretty sure that He only facilitated other rapists! is not a winning argument here.
Corner Stone
@Mel: Judge would crack, that’s obvious. He’s a man under a deep emotional conflict that’s been riding him his whole life. To me he screams, “The truth will out!”
West of the Rockies
@germy:
I was never part of the Greek culture. How is it that when a fraternity establishes this sort of reputation, young women still attend parties at such a house? Is it thirst for “cool parties”? Low self esteem? The Greeks always seemed like jerks to me taken as a group.
hueyplong
@different-church-lady: Agree. Those a-holes would consider a female nominee tantamount to surrender to libtards.
They will go looking for their second worst option.
But that’s no reason not to keep up the fight against the wannabe rapist who appears to be here mainly to prevent justice on the Russian front when he isn’t acting as a boon to the coat hanger industry.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: Nope. RBG was on the board of the ACLU in the 70s. Lifelong liberal.
randy khan
@Frankensteinbeck:
No, no, no. RBG was a pioneering women’s rights lawyer, the Thurgood Marshall of women’s rights (and this might even be slighting her, great as Marshall was). She has never been a conservative.
Hoodie
@rachel: That, and a shameless liar. MSNBC had a poll this morning in which 29% would still support Special-K on the Supreme Court even if Ford’s allegations were proven to be true.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Even odds he starts doing the “air humping” motion where he acts like he’s grabbing someone and undulating his hips back and forth.
Mel
@Amir Khalid: Yes. And thank you for that, and for you and lots of other people here being allies. Just knowing that there is a safe place and that there are people who stand with you makes a big difference when all this shit rips down the doors that so many of us have carefully boarded up our personal horrors behind.
CliosFanboy
@West of the Rockies: I was Greek in college, and one frat developed that rep. Most of the girls I was friends with avoided it. There were other houses that did NOT have that rep, so they attended parties there instead… But then I went to a big state school and damnnnnnnn. They ALL had that rep. I think it’s as much the school culture as that of the Greek subculture…..
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
On top of all Democrats and Independents, which is not even now a sure bet.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Even though, the moral thing to do is vote no on Kavanaugh.
Not sure if it’s true, but I read that Barrett would not pledge loyalty to the president.
different-church-lady
@Hoodie: Was the margin of error 2%?
JPL
@JPL: even so
psycholinguist
@West of the Rockies: Social influence is the most powerful behavioral determinant in the universe. See Nazi Germany, as the paradigmatic example. Milgrim showed that 85% of people would literally shock someone into unconsciousness/death because an authority instructed them to do so. See Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment for an idea of how powerful social roles are on our behavior. All of us have had the experience of behaving in ways we don’t understand or desire because of the power of social influence.
Marcopolo
@Frankensteinbeck: Where RBG has fallen in terms of the other Justices has shifted a little bit as the composition of the court has changed & I think this was noted in the documentary about her, but she has always been considered on the liberal side. Notably, as the court has become more conservative, she has asserted her liberalness more forcefully in her pretty fucking amazing dissents.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Barbara:
and for getting bailed out or getting a lawyer to talk the judge into letting you off with a warning when, occasionally, you did something so egregious that the police had to make an arrest.
In my neighborhood, it was “having a Dad who could whisk you off to Israel and get you asylum after the arrest warrant came out for a particularly gruesome murder.”
catclub
@Ceci7:
Or male senators to stand up for women.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@rikyrah:
Please proceed, Mr. President.
LAO
@Steeplejack (tablet): He has:
Kay
It’s interesting how they’re glossing over the one issue that is really proven beyond a doubt at this point- Kavanaugh is a liar.
He went on Fox news and lied blatantly and repeatedly to millions of people. We’re now up to, what, 20 witnesses who have said that? Whatever else you think about him if they confirm him they are confirming someone who is dishonest and had no problem lying to save his own skin. There was no reason for him to go out and claim choir boy. He volunteered. That’s the kind of judgment we’re talking about here.
randy khan
I’ve said some of this in the thread below, but what the heck:
1. This declaration corroborates key facts from Dr. Blasey Ford’s account, including the drinking and trying to pull the clothes off girls at the parties.
2. A really consistent picture of Kavanaugh as basically out of control much of the time is beginning to emerge – Dr. Blasey Ford, Ms. Ramirez, his classmates at Yale, his yearbook, and now this declaration all seem to be awfully similar on that point.
3. This is a really serious declaration from Ms. Swetnick. The recitation about her security clearances is partly to demonstrate she’s trustworthy, but also means she’s putting her career on the line because lying under oath is a pretty good way to lose a clearance. She’s also very clear about having people who can corroborate her, and I think we can assume those people already have been identified.
Also, the next Democratic President needs to give Avenatti the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He’s definitely a guy who gets on your nerves, even when you agree with him, but that’s largely a consequence of being the kind of lawyer who needs to hustle and be in the spotlight to get the clients who make him rich. But read this declaration and you realize he’s good at the lawyering stuff – there’s a lot of careful shading in there to make sure that Swetnick doesn’t get over her skies, for instance, and the stuff about her security clearances is a great way to bolster her credibility.
Ruviana
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m not sure what you mean by conservative in that context but I knew about her from articles in Ms. Magazine in the 70s so when she was nominated I was like one of three people who knew who she was. Most people were going, “Who?” and I was thinking, “We’re doing it, we’re taking over!”
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Hoodie: Lately I’ve been wondering about the gender breakdown on the 27% crazification factor. I suspect it’s much lower among women. But that means unfortunately that it’s much higher (40%?) among men.
Say, wouldn’t it be cool if the site could remember our name and email information? And if we could edit comments?
Sorry, that was churlish of me. I know our IT guys are working their asses off and I don’t want to think about what this site must look like under the hood. Probably a lot like a database system on my previous job that was so thoroughly misdesigned that our best programmers declared it unfixable.
different-church-lady
@psycholinguist: Here’s what I don’t get: if someone said to me, “This experiment involves giving people electric shocks to people who don’t answer questions correctly,” I’d be like, “What, are you fucking nuts?” and walk out before I even sat down at the buttons, and maybe even call the police.
I suspect my understanding of human ethics is vastly different from most of humanity.
catclub
@Mnemosyne:
how about: “I was juuuuust about to report those rapes, but I had to make my diary entries and go to church.”
Bobby Thomson
@NotMax: Democrats must win with women to have any shot. Voting to confirm Kavenaugh is just conceding the election.
dmsilev
@rikyrah:
TPM had a story this morning with a headline along the lines of “Republicans relieved that McConnell rather than Trump is leading Kavanaugh’s defense”. Enjoy the heartburn, GOP.
PJ
@different-church-lady the desire for public heroes is a weakness of mind, along the same lines as the conservative need for a Daddy to tell them what to do. Ain’t no Moses gonna lead us to the Promised Land. What we need are more engaged, informed, and active citizens. We need decent people to run for office and we need people to vote.
Sloane Ranger
Is this new allegation getting any play in the MSM in the US?
I keep on flicking over to CNN. We have the international version here on cable but if there’s a big development they often go over to US programming, they’re still running with their advertised programmes here which makes me think it’s not getting a lot of airplay.
NotMax
@psycholinguist
If propaganda didn’t produce wanted outcome more effectively than random chance dictates it wouldn’t be kept in the toolbox, oiled and at the ready.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: if you’re going to continue to misrepresent what I’m saying we’re done here.
toocanAnj
I’m a lurker, with personal experience of sexual assault and childhood incest. I, like many others who are posting, are experiencing some physical and emotional regulations. I wanted to share a three R technigue I learned in a three year trauma course with Lakeside Global Institute. These three R’s are part of my personal safety plan. They might also work for you.
If you are experiencing emotional dysregulation take the time to work through the brain states impacted, step by step:
1) Regulate – rock back and forth, do diaphragmatic breathing, ground yourself through the senses, stamp your feet
2) Relate – find someone to connect with, look in their eyes, see them as a person with them seeing you as a person. If they are ok with it, touch them, if you are ok with it, ask for a touch. Here, connecting human to human is what matters.
3) Reason – Now you are in a brain state, where you, or someone safe, can reason with you. Statements like – I am an adult. I am in a safe place. Whatever other statements of truth and current reality you need to hear or know to be present both with the you experiencing the trauma and the adult you now.
Ruviana
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I saw that one on Law & Order!
CarolDuhart2
@Marcopolo: I just left a message to Rob Portman to not vote for Judge Kavanaugh. Left name and address and phone number. No problem getting through.
boatboy_srq
@West of the Rockies: There are social penalties for not being part of the right crowd, and there’s a tendency to disbelieve or excuse bad behavior by “good boys”.
Plus a lot of parents will advocate for finding mates, and an abuser who’s a prospective attorney or investment banker is more acceptable and more likely to be Elect® than a respectful potential journalist or college professor. Parents rarely see what happens on campus unless it makes national news, and a good number are just like their kids (abusers or enablers). There are lots of different pressures.
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
Appreciate the Angel reference
Mnemosyne
@Hoodie:
Keep in mind that we’re up against the forced birth crowd with this nomination, and they LITERALLY believe that abortion outweighs every other sin and crime. They don’t care that Kavanaugh is (allegedly) a rapist as long as he votes to end legal abortion, because NOTHING else matters.
On his Twitter feed the other day, Erick Erickson started ranting about Moloch and child sacrifice, and that is exactly what he meant: abortion is so evil that nothing else is evil, including gang rape.
NotMax
@Bobby Thomson
You and I know that. Unsure if some of them on the the hill know that. Or that if they do, acknowledge it.
psycholinguist
@different-church-lady: perhaps you are one of the lonely 9% of Milgrim’s participants that did exactly that. Most of us vastly overrate our independence until the day we observe ourselves acting without it. One real life case, with disastrous consequences, was the Wolwortths fire in London, where customers at the lunch room died because they socially influenced each other to wait until they paid the bill before they would leave, and perished in the fire because of it.
Ruviana
@different-church-lady: Something like that or the Zimbardo experiment would never make it past an IRB now.
Marcopolo
@CarolDuhart2: Thank you! Wouldn’t it be nice if all the cable shows talking about the Kavanaugh shitshow ran a chyron at the bottom of the screen with the Senate switchboard # telling viewers to call their Senators to let them hear their thoughts. Wonder if that would work?
Mel
@West of the Rockies: Sometimes it is a desire to fit in on campus, esp. for freshmen. Every girl on your dorm floor is going to the huge Halloween party at the frat – peer pressure is high to go, you desperately want to fit in and make friends, so you go, thinking that there is safety in numbers.
Or, a girl gets targeted by a particular guy, either for his solitary purposes or b/c she looks like a good, low-risk “target” to a practiced group of rapists who select one guy to soften the target and lure her in (is shy, does not have much of a social network, is perceived as “naive” or “unattractive” and thus easier to lure and deceive by the rapists, has a “reputation” on campus as being sexually active, etc. etc. ).
The targeter will often act in a very chivalrous fashion, and get the target to let her guard down.
Then again, women grow up knowing that we are always at some risk of sexual assault when we jog, walk to class, stop to get gasoline at night, walk to our cars from work, go on a date with a new person or even a person we’ve known and trusted for some time, when we have a closed door meeting with a profesdor, advisor, doctor, colleague, or employer, hell when we just live and draw breath.
Girls and women have to live our lives. I do understand your question, and I truly believe that you asked it sincerely, but I would counter with this question: Does it matter more why a rape victim went to a party, or does it matter more that she should be able to do something as simple as go to a college party without a high possibility of sexual assault.
Until we reframe how we think about it, how we look at it, and what questions we ask, the burden will continue to be put on the victim instead of those who commit the crimes.
Elizabelle
From the Fuck the Fucking New York Times: breaking news:
BK gets the “no shit Sherlock award.”
James E Powell
@PJ:
Disagree. While some Democrats & some people on the left may rush to make some person a hero or a leader, there are still plenty of us cynics who stopped falling in love with politicians after the first time one our favorites turned out to be wholly or partly a dickweed.
Also too, the desire for such heroes doesn’t come so much from weakness as it does from losing badly over time and wanting somebody somewhere to do something more than express concern or write a stern letter.
Corner Stone
@Kay: It’s reported that Kavvy has submitted written testimony to Grassley ahead of tomorrow’s hearing – that directly contradicts what he said in the Fox interview.
PDF Senate Jud Comt
NeenerNeener
@Doug R: @Kay: @Kay: On the contrary, Greenwald made his bones bashing Dubya, and I still have a copy of “What Would A Patriot Do” to prove it. Which is why so many were so surprised when he start trashing Obama.
West of the Rockies
@different-church-lady:
And we have a BINGO!
Corner Stone
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’m not sure…on balance is this a plus or a minus for living in your neighborhood?
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
IIRC, some people did do that. But also IIRC, there was some implication from the researchers that if you didn’t do it, you would be punished yourself, so that factor was in the mix. People didn’t just sit down and happily start pushing the buttons — there was at least a small measure of coercion, especially by modern human research standards.
Same with the Stanford Prison Experiment — the “guards” were actually encouraged by the researchers to abuse the prisoners. Despite claims at the time, they didn’t just decide to do it on their own.
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady:
I’ve seen you be against medical science because it lets people live when previously they would have died, so, yes.
Eljai
@Mel: Very well said. Thank you.
jacy
Jeff Flake to make statement on Senate floor re: Kavanaugh. Merkley filing an injunction to block Kavanaugh.
Betty Cracker
@Sloane Ranger: It’s the lead story on the channels I’ve seen.
chopper
a what now?
Barbara
@West of the Rockies: When you are a first year you barely understand that they even have a bad reputation. And why does it matter? Shouldn’t you be able to go to a party at a house that is effectively open to the public without being worried about being criminally assaulted?
Corner Stone
@jacy: Flake is straight up “Both Sides” are guilty-ing it up on the Senate floor.
Elizabelle
@Corner Stone: I remember that one. The Samuel Sheinbein case. Per wiki:
psycholinguist
Anybody watching Flake? Please give us the summary
Kay
@Corner Stone:
They know he’s a liar. He lied about Pryor, then about the emails from the harasser-judge, then on Fox. In the brief period this person has been speaking publicly he has told at least 3 rather large lies. This is a problem.
Not to mention he’s supposed to be a “brilliant” lawyer and the lie he told on Fox can be rebutted by approximately one thousand people- it just depends on how many they have time and energy to find. This is fucked up. He’s a crazy liar. They have to take him off the bench.
Citizen Alan
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’m pretty sure that at the time RBG got nominated she was a lawyer for NOW.
sukabi
@LAO: Avenatti has responded…cat fight commencing
Rand Careaga
@randy khan:
My wife is an experienced attorney, and said much the same thing when she read the declaration this morning.
Luciamia
@rikyrah: 5pm? Welll, at least it’ll be the cocktail hour.
sgrAstar
@geg6: dear geg6, please take care of yourself. We need you! Hands across the water.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: Who is more useless and spineless, Flake or Collins? Discuss.
Mike in DC
Thomas Hardiman is the safest pick between him and Amy Coney Barrett. The longer they drag this out, the less time they might have in the lame duck session.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
He sounds nice. //
Cheryl from Maryland
@Corner Stone: Buffy @West of the Rockies: I was in undergraduate school in the 1970’s, and all the frat houses were on campus so the College could control them (somewhat). I remember as a freshman that our R.A. suggested that as liberated women, we throw a party for the “cool” frat. We did (I made a lovely poster that they took), but few showed up because we weren’t going to pledge to a sorority and were thus dogs. Later we found out that the “cool” frat had a reputation that wasn’t the best (not as bad as the Dekes, but …). We were all nerdy girls — after that incident, we stopped respecting the RA. So I’m willing to bet that so many of these women went there because it was “the thing” to do, and they were too young and inexperienced to reject it and not in a group of females that stuck together. Now why they kept going, I don’t know. It sounds like Greek life became very toxic in the 1980’s — I did go to parties in the 1970’s held by the “nerd” frats (their parties focused on dinner!), met some lovely men, and married one.
jacy
@chopper:
I dunno — they were reporting on it then cut to Flake, who is doing his usual pathetic mealy-mouthing right now. Hey, isn’t he on the Judicial Committee? Couldn’t he balk and insist that they open an FBI investigation or he won’t vote? Nah. Spineless motherfucker.
Citizen Alan
@West of the Rockies:
In my experience of living for the last 30 years in a college town, the majority of young women who go to frat parties are themselves members of Greek sororities that seem to exist mainly as brain-washing centers designed to turn out Stepford sex-toys for their brother organizations. YMMV.
West of the Rockies
@Mel:
Wow, that behavior is insidious and grotesque. Humans can be vile.
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: Eh?
By that, I mean… EH?
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: It’s not often we are so openly presented with a real life monster hiding behind the thin veneer of polite society. Kavanaugh is exactly the kind of corrupted and twisted being, hungering only for power over others, who would be the ideal client for W&H.
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady: Part of one of your anti-social media rants a few months back. For whatever reason it was memorable. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
jacy
It’s a good goddamned thing that I don’t have the Scanners ability to make people’s head explode remotely.
Elizabelle
@toocanAnj: All the best to you, and I like your 3Rs. I am sorry for what you experienced. Had friends who did, too.
I would bet hugging on a pet is a big help too. If that does not sound too banal, and I do not mean to make light of your situation. It’s the touch of a loving, nonjudgemental creature.
West of the Rockies
@James E Powell:
If I vote to elect Spock, and I get Bart Simpson, my support evaporates. I would not defend the indefensible. I agree that Democrats (as a group) do not hero worship like Republicans.
Kay
And there it is. He can’t be that bad because he’s one of us.
jacy
And Flake says NOTHING. What a fucking waste of skin.
Betty Cracker
@jacy: He’s meeping about both sides as usual. Useless as teets on a boar.
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: Really? I’m against medical science because I think social media leverages people’s negative psychology uselessly (or at least with more damage than benefit)?
Elizabelle
@Kay: Yeah. I think BK will soon be retiring to spend more time with his family. His wife, his traumatized young teen daughter (thanks, Dad!) and the even littler one, and his Fox and wingnut welfare family.
trollhattan
Tomorrow, can Sen. Harris read into the record Li’l Brett’s list of Clenis questions prepared for Ken Starr into the record, and then ask him point blank whether he imagined the scenarios his ownself or perhaps experienced them?
I’m buy all the popcorn for everybody.
West of the Rockies
@Barbara:
Yes, absolutely you should be able to go to a party. But parents need to talk to their college-bound kids about this shit. Will those kids listen? I don’t know.
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady: I’m not going to dig it up, but you said you were against medical science because it let people live when previously they would have died. It stuck out and was randomly memorable. Possibly it was difficult-to-detect sarcasm.
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: That dumpster fire is just smoldering, sad! Here, let me pour some gasoline on that baby.
Kay
@Corner Stone:
Well, that’s the thing. It sort of is “often”, lately. We may want to look at that. Reconsider that.
Waterg
Unfortunate choice of words? Or Freudian slip? (bolding is mine)
White House shocked by Avenatti claims. Privately aides involved in nomination saying “this could be the end of the line” for Kavanugh
Might that be the line at the door to rape drunken women?
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: Collins, for sure. Flake is at least leaving, which gives us a legit chance at a pick-up. Collins sticking around using the media’s “moderate” shield they provide her but ultimately being a weasel is much more useless.
psycholinguist
Can Turtle hold a floor vote even if this doesn’t come out of the committee? e.g. if Flake was to say no, or not until FBI investigation, can Mertle say fuck off and bring it to the floor anyway?
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: Well, you’d have to dig it up, because that doesn’t represent my position at all.
At the remotely closest I would say (a) medical advancements have unforeseen consequences that nobody wants to fully think out and (b) continuing my life at all costs is not a choice I would make for myself.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
The truth is if they’re consistent and logical they have to take him off the bench. If he’s unfit for this court he’s also unfit for that one. I think the lies are enough, myself. Forget oath, not under oath, perjury, etc. He lies a lot and the reason he lies is to save his own skin and promote his career.
Elizabelle
Two new threads up. TaMara’s got a winsome kitteh.
And looks like Adam has a fresh thread up too, on our drunken frat boy pin up. Go to it!
catclub
@schrodingers_cat:
as usual with these questions: Porque no los dos?
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady: It was probably just random misanthropy that I didn’t realize was sarcasm, then. Not important.
jacy
Say what you want about Avenatti — baiting Trump on Twitter in the lead-up to his press conference is a pretty good strategy. Trump can’t not hit back.
@psycholinguist: Flake’s not going to say no. He’s going to vote yes and then shake is head in sorrow that things are so gooky and unpleasant.
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: Well, that does sound more like me. ;-)
Probably had something to do with my ongoing war against “digital utopists” and all the bullshit they pedal. Which is about as far from “science” as you can get.
JPL
@toocanAnj: That sounds like good advice for anyone have a panic attack. I’m sorry that you had to discover the technique because of your abuse, and take care.
NotMax
@psycholinguist
Yes.
Although without ironclad, signed in blood assurances of aye votes enough to get to 50, it would be beyond idiotic to do so.
ruemara
@Susan K of the tech support: I learned to do that. But it takes a toll.
@Humdog: I was raised fundie. You have to be the bad girl, usually to take the blame off the bad men and then be the real bad girl to protect yourself from shit families. Protecting yourself from further abusive contact is your right. You’re grown now. Set the terms of being in a relationship with you and say that’s that.
catclub
@NotMax:
this is not clear to me.
Bork was voted down in an open vote, and they still think that was an injustice.
They will treat Kavanaugh being voted down the same way and whine about it 30 years later.
NotMax
@catclub
The question was whether a floor vote could be called before the nominatio9n has passed out of committee. Different circumstance, Bork demanded a floor vote after the committee had voted against him.
HeleninEire
@Frankensteinbeck: No that was Souter. He was appointed by George the first and he surprised everyone.
sukabi
@Elizabelle: I’ll bet this will provide the Mrs. the impetus to make her own separate life choices, which will be done quietly while she spends time abroad.
Doug R
@NeenerNeener: https://thedailybanter.com/2013/04/glenn-greenwalds-hilarious-denial-about-his-support-for-iraq-war/
J R in WV
@Kay:
Yes, but what that shows is that “Judge” Kavanaugh is not a highly accomplished person, not at all~!!!~ He’s a right wing apparatchik spouting the RWNJ line — both in public and in his “judicial” writings, such as those are.
EthylEster
@Citizen Alan: Thanks for expressing my opinion. At UF in 1969, it was obvious to anyone paying attention that the Greek scene was about sex and alcohol and other drugs. It was for the rich and connected kids…at a fucking state school! I can’t imagine what it would be like at a “prestigious” Ivy.
Wapiti
@Betty Cracker: I look forward to whatever right-wing judge, male or female, that Trump nominates being asked questions about sexual harassment. One of which is: where were you the last two weeks? Did you speak up or just silently supported the status quo in hopes of future rewards?
Kent
@catclub:
I’m guessing that Kav is getting so toxic that there are a few Republican senators who don’t want to have to vote for him unless they are certain his is going to win. If the 50 +1 votes aren’t there they would more likely pull the nomination (or have him do it himself) rather than go on record voting to put a rapist on the court and be on the losing side. My guess is that if they can’t get this out of committee then it is absolutely dead.
Jamey
Just remember, folks: The GOP Senate Judiciary Committee knew ALL of this long beforehand. They knew about Christine Blasely Ford’s accusations. They knew the whole Yale story. And they likely had some idea about the latest revelation. None of this mattered. There is nothing that they’re not eager to sweep under the rug.
Gravenstone
@psycholinguist: That was the plan all along, regardless of the committee findings.
FlyingToaster
@Humdog: If you need the fight, this is the time to have it. I wish we could all be there to stand beside you.
If you don’t need the fight, then you need to BE NOT THERE when they show. I personally wouldn’t bother leaving a note; just bolt the place up tight and scoot. You’ll still be the bad girl, but you can keep your blood pressure down.
Like Cole said at the supermarket the other day, “Not today, Satan.”
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
its not just you. I just pray this isn’t turning into the farce that was the Last Jedi and instead is the original trilogy where the good guys win because they’re not morons.
Karen
@Anonymous At Work:
YES.
schrodingers_cat
In all this hoopla, a completely important story is not getting enough coverage is how the current regime is trying to rewrite the rules for legal immigration by broadly expanding what it means to be a public charge.
From Vox
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/24/17892350/public-charge-immigration-food-stamps-medicaid-trump
TenguPhule
@cmorenc:
I suspect any nominee they approve of has an army of undead in their closet.
Msb
Geg6, humdog and others hurt by all this, please put yourselves and self-care first. We value you so much. One day at a time, almost always worked for me.
tokyokie
@Marcopolo:
I just called both my useless senators. John Cornyn’s D.C. office’s mailbox was full, so I left a confrontational message on his Dallas office voicemail. Ted Cruz, man o’ the people that he is, doesn’t have his phone numbers in the contact information on his website. So I wrote him a longer message than Cornyn received, making most of the same points, but with a less angry tone. I also pointed out that should Cruz vote against Kavanaugh, he’d win re-election, and that if he votes for Kavanaugh, Beto O’Rourke will kick his ass on Election Day and that his real long-term interest is to oppose the bastard.
I checked the box saying I wanted a reply, but I doubt he follows my sage counsel. Which is fine with me. Lose With Cruz, y ¡Vamos Beto!
PaulWartenberg
this is why the Republicans are hell-bent on pushing Kavanaugh through:
Kavanaugh’s private habits of assaulting and humiliating women are part of the Republicans’ public attempts to punish and control women. Admitting to his failings will admit to their own.
There are several ways this ends:
1) the easiest for the Republicans is to admit to this, kick Kavanaugh to the curb, ignore the media firestorm as best they can, and line up an anti-Roe judge for swift approval to keep the party base happy. This will not happen.
2) the Republicans push Kavanaugh through, risking the likelihood women voters will punish them this midterms across the board. The party would have to rely on intense voter suppression to keep women voters at bay. They will put onto the bench the most politically vulnerable Justice in recent memory, one fully exposed to any kind of impeachment or removal down the line, and that’s not including the likelihood of criminal charges (the state of Maryland ended statutes of limitations on certain sex-related crimes) or disbarment by the various Bars.
3) the Republican Senate fractures, with the likes of Flake and other disgruntled Senators refusing to vote for Kavanaugh. There may be either an uprising against McConnell’s rule or else a split of members going Independent and caucusing with Dems for the remainder of the session. However, this requires a moral spine that nearly every Republican Senator had surgically removed decades ago.
Barbara
@West of the Rockies: This isn’t even like walking down a deserted street in an unsafe part of town at midnight. Fraternity events that are presented as a mainstream part of college life and even used for recruiting purposes. Where I went to college the university affirmatively encouraged people to join fraternities and had a staff of people whose entire job revolved around facilitating and trouble shooting for “Greek Life.” You pay tuition, you show up and you are every bit as much a part of that university as anyone else. Oh sure, I am all for giving people some understanding of how to protect themselves from predators but I don’t think anyone who ends up as a victim in this setting has anything to feel guilty about or to apologize for. “Rah rah fraternities are great” can’t become “well you should have known what would happened to a girl who sets foot in a fraternity” when someone is raped. You either acknowledge they are unsafe and tell people that the university does not endorse or encourage participation or you do what you can to make it safe including disciplining and prosecuting the malefactors.
Elizabelle
@PaulWartenberg: I like the idea of Republican senators breaking away and caucusing with the Democrats. Stranger things have happened.
I suspect some of the GOP are privately as sick of the Tea Partying MFs in their base as we are. At some point, leaving looks more appealing.
sukabi
@PaulWartenberg: the problem with #3 is that Flake and a couple others are “retiring” and have made vague nonsupportive statements about trump / policies but have continued to vote strictly party interests. They will follow the party on this one as well and promptly walk away unscathed.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Elizabelle: Yep. JFK high school was a block from my house. This was a “nice” family in a “nice” neighborhood. As you can imagine, it was kind of a shocker. I remember reading about the discovery of the body by a realtor showing an empty house. And then as the facts came out… it was pretty awful.
I didn’t know Sheinbein had died in prison. It’s not what I’d call a happy ending but it’s a just one.
Same neighborhood was the site of the DC sniper killings a few years later, but I’d moved away a couple of months before that all happened.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Corner Stone: I liked the neighborhood, but that incident mostly caused me to think of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quote that “the rich are different from you and me”. I don’t think I would have done that if I had the power to and god forbid my child had committed a terrible crime.
Toocan-Anj
@Elizabelle: Thanks. Yes, hugging a furry being sounds like it would be lovely. I’m traveling this week, miles away from mine, but maybe I will go find one!
Toocan-Anj
@JPL: Thank you.
artem1s
@Cheryl from Maryland:
two words. Animal House. Every HS kid going to college expected the experience to be like the movie.
karen marie
@Corner Stone: If you even have to ask that question, I don’t know what to tell you. Watching MSNBC is like watching a manic depressive ping-pong back and forth between highs and lows. I canceled my cable TV service in 2004. I recommend it. If anything important is reported, you’ll find it shortly after as a video clip or written story elsewhere. Who needs that kind of noise and aggravation downloaded directly into ones brain?