Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

In my day, never was longer.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

How stupid are these people?

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

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

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

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

You are here: Home / If Facts Mattered

If Facts Mattered

by | 131 Comments

This post is in: 

I remain wholly unconvinced that facts actually matter in the Ford/Kavanaugh thing, and that because Kavanaugh is going to overturn Roe, gut unions, gut environmental law, stick it to the gays and minorities and the non-Christians, and basically serve as a party apparatchik for 30 years, the Republicans are going to confirm him no matter what. However, if they did, Brett’s own calendar would sink his ass:

Much of Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony Tuesday focused on calendars he kept in the summer of 1982, where he detailed a few months that consisted mostly of hanging out with friends and sports camps and, Kavanaugh pointed out, few weekends spent in the Washington area as he traveled to the beach and other summer destinations. He insisted that his calendars proved he could not have been present at a gathering like the one described by accuser Christine Blasey Ford—a small group of friends drinking at a house when no parents were home.* Kavanaugh maintained that he recorded all his social engagements and that no entry on his calendar matches the vague outlines of the get-together Ford detailed. But one entry shows that he went “to Timmy’s for skis w/Judge, Tom, PJ, Bernie, Squi.”

Interesting.

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    To be honest, I’m having trouble thinking of a time in this country when the facts did matter. This is very depressing.

  3. 3.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    What our future is going to look like

    When Nikia Jackson needed to be screened for a sexually transmitted disease, she wanted a clinic that was reputable, quick and inexpensive.

    After searching online, Jackson, 23, ended up at the Obria Medical Clinics’ sparkling new facility in an office park in suburban Atlanta. She was unaware that the clinic does not offer condoms or other kinds of birth control beyond so-called natural family planning methods.

    Religious conservatives say these types of clinics are the future of women’s sexual health care in the United States.

    “A woman needs choice, but you can’t have a choice if the only clinic that a woman can go to is Planned Parenthood,” said Kathleen Bravo, chief executive of the Obria Group and a devout Catholic.

    Young women, she said, “don’t want to live every day having to take a carcinogen,” referring to hormonal contraception.

    For decades, contraception drew widespread bipartisan support, but since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, religious conservatives trained their ire on the law’s contraception mandates, and the politics of abortion and birth control converged.

    Bravo is positioning her company to become a nationwide alternative to Planned Parenthood and aims for it to qualify for millions of dollars in federal family planning funds next year. With 38 clinics and 22 more slated to open, Obria offers tests for pregnancy, STIs, HIV and cervical cancer and prenatal care.

    But patients seeking to prevent pregnancy can receive only fertility planning methods that require women to track their periods and refrain from sex when most fertile. When followed exactly, the method is 76 percent effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    That vision has found favor with the Trump administration, which has proposed sweeping changes to a $280 million federal program called Title X, the only source of federal funds for birth control for low-income women who lack health insurance.

    EMAIL SIGN-UP
    Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.
    SIGN UP
    For more than four decades, thousands of women’s health clinics, including Planned Parenthood affiliates, that received these federal funds have been required to offer a full range of medically effective contraception, including condoms, birth control pills, intrauterine devices and implants. (The clinics cannot use federal funds to pay for abortion, and many Title X clinics do not offer the procedure.)

    But with Title X now under the direction of Dr. Diane Foley, the former chief executive of Life Network, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion pregnancy centers, the Trump administration is widely expected to adopt rules in the coming months that promote and direct federal dollars to clinics like Obria that do not offer condoms, hormonal contraception, intrauterine devices or abortion.

    Called the “Protect Life Rule,” the new restrictions are aimed at narrowing women’s access to clinics that discuss or refer patients to abortion providers. The Trump administration has worked quickly to shape women’s reproductive health care, rolling back an Obama-era rule that required employers to cover contraception in their health insurance plans and nominating to the Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who referred to common forms of contraception as “abortion-inducing drugs” during his confirmation hearing.

    With Vice President Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian, as a powerful ally and anti-abortion and abstinence advocates, including Foley, appointed by the Trump administration overseeing key federal health programs, religious conservatives are seizing this moment to shape women’s sexual health care.

    In 2011, anti-abortion state lawmakers sought to shutter Planned Parenthood clinics and slashed state funding for family planning by 66 percent. As a result, more than 80 family planning clinics closed, and women across Texas suddenly found their birth control needs caught up amid the fight against abortion.

    The impact was swift and widespread: Researchers found the number of women on the most effective forms of birth control ― IUDs, implants and injections ― plunged by a third, and births by poor women on Medicaid increased 27 percent from 2011 to 2014.

    In the aftermath, family planning clinics in Texas became almost entirely dependent on Title X federal funds. Now many administrators here and around the country are bracing for the Trump administration’s new rules.

    Kathryn Hearn, community services director at Access Esperanza in McAllen, Texas, said clinics that offer the full range of FDA-approved birth control could be replaced by those like Obria.

    “Today a woman can come into a Title X clinic, any clinic in the United States, in Texas, and be offered a wide range of contraceptive methods,” she said. “With these proposed rules, she could only be offered abstinence. Well, she says, I’m married. Or I’m in a relationship. That does not work for me. I need real contraceptive care.”

    Ofelia Alonso, a 22-year-old community organizer, said that because of deceptive tactics and lack of comprehensive sex education, young women in Texas already find it difficult to discern between medical clinics and crisis pregnancy centers, offices where women are counseled against abortion.

    “It’s like abstinence only, and then, crisis pregnancy centers, anti-abortion propaganda, defunding our family clinics. So what is left for us?” Alonso said. “We’re going to have these weird centers where you can’t get anything?”

    But women seeking contraception have to go somewhere, and one alternative, she said, is to cross the nearby border into Mexico to buy birth control over the counter.

    “It shouldn’t have to be that way,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to travel to another country to get what we need.”

    Some uninsured patients in Texas do find alternative ways to get birth control.

    Claire Hammons runs an historic hotel in Llano, a small city an hour and half west of Austin with no full-service women’s health clinic.

    The vast geography combined with widespread clinic closures means that some 10 million Texans live at least half an hour from a clinic, a common standard used to determine health care shortages. It’s a phenomenon some call “contraception deserts.”

    Hammons lives in one of these contraception deserts and when she could no longer afford health insurance, she turned to the internet for help. Now, she gets her birth control delivered every three months to her mailbox from a San Francisco-based company called Nurx. She pays about $15 a month and can message Dr. Jessica Rubino, a Nurx physician in Austin. Rubino can review her patients’ medical histories and renew their prescriptions without additional cost.

    Rubino said she sees what happens to women who live in contraception deserts.

    “I’m also an abortion provider, and I do that outside of Nurx at another facility,” she said. “I had one [patient] last week who drove five hours to see me. And the entire reason that she came to see me for the abortion is because she didn’t have any access to contraception.”

    That lack of access worries Kami Geoffray, CEO of the Women’s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, the nonprofit group that has coordinated the state’s application for Title X funds.

    If the Trump administration’s overhaul of Title X succeeds, Geoffray said, it will undermine the goal of the program that the federal government has operated since the 1970s.

    “We know that every dollar we spend on Title X saves $7 across other government programs, including Medicaid,” said Geoffray. “We avert Medicaid births very frequently by [getting contraception for] clients and preventing unplanned pregnancies.”

    But back in suburban Atlanta at the Obria Medical Clinic, Bravo has declared it’s time for companies like hers to put a bigger mark on reproductive health care. The company is launching a $240 million capital campaign to open more clinics.

    “Obria is a comprehensive primary care clinic for women that is an alternative model to Planned Parenthood,” said Bravo. “We put huge amounts of money into marketing our clinics, like all medical clinics do, to make sure that women know that we’re here in their city.”

  5. 5.

    oldgold

    This morning I checked a thread I was commenting on last night and found this.

    180
    Uncle Cosmo
    September 28, 2018 at 1:27 am
    @oldgold: BULLSHIT. Those aren’t “polls” – they’re dishonest attempts to drive the narrative. As anyone with an IQ over 80 knows.

    Once again you prove that you’re a COMPLETE FUCKING IDIOT. Let me courteously invite you to fuck off & die in a fire. We’ll win this one without you – in fact it’ll be easier withou cretins like you.underfoot.

    Seems a bit over the line,

    Is this sort of thing allowed

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    It seemed clear from the start that all the evidence in the world against Kavanaugh was never going to matter to Republicans, because he was meant to be another Justice in their pocket. They desperately want that. They have been unhappy that despite the conservative majority in SCOTUS, some high-profile rulings in recent years have still not gone their way. I think they also fear that if the Special Counsel succeeds in getting Trump indicted, a conviction is pretty much certain and so is the party’s downfall

  7. 7.

    Bobby Thomson

    Interestingly, they cut off the token woman when she started asking questions about July 1.

    He is so god damn dirty and it’s virtually impossible to impeach and remove someone who doesn’t want to be removed, especially with state media.

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    @oldgold:
    Of course it is. That’s actually mild language by Balloon Juice standards: only one profanity was used. Are you a newbie here or something?

  14. 14.

    SenyorDave

    I’d love to see the Democrats make this a prime campaign issue. Maybe even reprise the Access Hollywood tape, the 15 women who accused him and remind the American voters the president openly bragged about committing sexual assault. It probably would hurt them with white males, but they are a lost cause at this point (full disclosure, I am a white male).

    I am just afraid this will not be a net negative for Republicans.

  15. 15.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Bobby Thomson

    : Interestingly, they cut off the token woman when she started asking questions about July 1.

    I didn’t watch but they said that’s when Graham went into his rant to shut that questioning down.

  17. 17.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Unplugged last night. Still unplugged this morning. It makes me physically ill to think about him being confirmed or to hear any part of his performance yesterday.

    What is getting me through was this realization, based on a bet here among the BJ regulars to donate to Planned Parenthood if he wins, and if he loses. So the thought is this: whatever the outcome, we still have all the same fights to fight. We will see what world we live in this afternoon, and we will carry on the fights in that world.

    I tell you what though, I’m donating the hell out of congressional and local races around the country, as many as the front pagers or jackals can identify. Starting with (more to) Emily’s List.

  18. 18.

    lamh36

    @SenyorDave: 53% of white women did not care about the Acess Hollywood tape then the question is do they care more now? To be quite honest, I don’t trust that they do

  19. 19.

    Chyron HR

    @oldgold:

    Either change your name on a regular basis, pick a more generic pseudonym, or stop being such a mendacious little shit. If you don’t want to do any of those things don’t expect people to magically forget who you are just because you’ve been gone for a few days.

  20. 20.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: they all knew he did it and where the pressure points were.

    And then they laughed about it when they were done. If they steal this next election they’ll be lucky just to get yelled at in restaurants.

  21. 21.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    While unplugged, we saw a great movie last night, “The Wife” with Glenn Close as the wife of a pompous ass awarded the Nobrl Prize in Literature. Lots of fuel for thought and conversation, which we’ve been alternating /intermingling with Kavanaugh conversation.

    The shot of the Nobel winners on stage looks a lot like the Republican Judiciary Committee, if you know what I mean.

  22. 22.

    Chyron HR

    @lamh36:

    Half the country didn’t care in 2016, the question is do they care more now. I think they do, at least until Democrats are back in power and have started fixing things, in which case they’ll stop caring and let the GOP wreck everything again. But we’re good until 2022, probably.

  23. 23.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @SenyorDave: Give you an idea of the mental gymnastics of the conservative mind – in the on line game I run one conservative woman felt she need to chickspalin the whole situation to me out of the blue about how she was rapped, that made her expert and it was all so awful and bothsides, so awful. I asked didn’t she think a drunk rage addict was in itself to enough to sink this dork, she didn’t have a talking point programed in for that question. Facts don’t matter to conservatives because they don’t think.

  24. 24.

    lamh36

    “Facts don’t matter when it comes to keeping privileged white men in power” — African American proverb

    “what they said above…” — 47% of white women (don’t confuse us with THAT 53%)

  26. 26.

    lamh36

    @Chyron HR: well def find out in November, but little trust I had left (which was admittedly not much) in 1/2 of the country doing the right thing completely evaporated in 2016 and nothing so far has convinced me to trust em since

  27. 27.

    PenAndKey

    @Amir Khalid: Bullshit Amir. Yeah this place can get heated at time, especially the last couple days, but there havebrdn a couple of lurkers, unknowns (probsbly trolls), and regulars crossing the line into malicious. There was no bloody reason for people to lash out at oldgold like they did. I’ve had to pie filter people I never imagined I’d have to just to keep my blood pressure down.

  28. 28.

    PenAndKey

    “Have been”

    I swear, trying to comment from my phone makes me consider selling my first borne for an edit button.

  29. 29.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    You all move too fast for me. I’m upping this from the previous thread.

    After yesterday’s consequential awfulness, I feel almost silly doing this, but THE WIND READER is officially released today. Or maybe you want to read about a boy who believes in honor and regrets it when he fails to live up to it, about two boys and a girl who look out for one another. Nobody brags about being an alumnus of a girl.
    It’s on Amazon
    B&N
    And other places online.
    Below I said I would probably repeat some version of this later today. I just didn’t know it would be so soon. My apologies. My publisher has been good to me and I don’t want to let them down.

  30. 30.

    Woodrow/Asim

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: If Kavanaugh gets on the bench, it’s not just Abortion — drug-store Contraception is GONE. He’s already tipped his hand, with that “Abortion-Inducing Drugs” comment. And neither will be a flat-out ban, not at first — just piece-by-piece, boil-the-frog horrorshow for women who can’t afford to fly overseas for what they need.

    One of the most terrifying and frustrating things has been how deeply the Anti-abortion forces have hidden their absolute rage against any kind of contraception. It wasn’t until I worked in college for pro-choice groups, and read a LOT of backstory, that I came to understand the importance of Griswold, and how many forces were arrayed against it at the time.

    And kept being so, until the (roughly) mid-80s (at least from the comments I found, and review) . At that point the vocab they spewed was so much about Abortion that they were able to just hide away their disdain to take what was then the moral high ground. And now it’s coming back, wrapped in “religious freedom” BS that actually too many think is real.

    I shudder to think what will happen if someone so beholden to these assholes gets on the bench, esp. now that we’ve seen his true stripes.

  31. 31.

    magurakurin

    @satby:

    Nothing matters but turning this country into an oligarchy like Russia

    And they may succeed to a point…but if the Right keeps pushing and pushing and completely blowing off the peaceful political process…the end result will be an actual civil war. And not like the war of rebellion that we call the civil war…but a real, honest to goodness armed conflict for control of a single country. And no one will win. It will be one of the most horrible wars of all time and we will probably nuke ourselves in the process. The GOP is going down a very dark road but they haven’t thought it all the way through. I’m glad I’m old and childless.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    Oh, Kavanaugh didn’t want “the facts”. If he did he would have called some of his witnesses. Instead he read their affidavits aloud and completely misrepresented what they said. They have him dead to rights on lying – over and over and over- and they’re installing him anyway. They admire low quality people. They promote them.

    Trump freed up the entire GOP to just lie all the time. Each person will be lower quality than the one before because now it’s systemic. It broke thru and it’s system-wide, just like it would in a workplace or other large organization.

    You cannot have low quality at the top and quality below. That isn’t how it works. It’ll hold up for a while but there will be turnover and the new people will be worse than the ones who leave. We saw this in action- they went from Trump to almost putting a child molester in the US Senate. It’s an organizational, systemic rot. The most radical never Trumpers are right- they gotta start over.

  34. 34.

    Juice Box

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: California had one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the country. It decided to give up abstinence only funding from the feds and instead provide real sex education and free contraceptives to teens. Now California has one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates.

    I’m convinced that teaching children the truth about sex, desire, and reproduction is better than misteaching them that God says only “sluts” “do it” while they have free access to abusive, on-line pornography. I’m one of those unprincipled, godless liberals, though.

  35. 35.

    low-tech cyclist

    The GOP keeps telling us who they really are, and rubbing it in our faces so that we can’t miss the point.

    Yesterday, Judge Whiny McTantrum went unhinged, yelling and crying at the same time, embraced blatantly partisan conspiracy theories, and demonstrated the sort of naked cruelty in his response to Sen. Klobuchar that made his accusers’ accounts that much more plausible.

    And the Republican Party thought he was great.

    That’s who they are.

  36. 36.

    mainsailset

    Here’s a good reason why Trump & Rep want Kavanaugh on the court in October. This is on the docket.

  38. 38.

    Another Scott

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yup. It’s all lizard brain with them, and that’s how they like it.

    Drum had a post yesterday where he said something like “Republicans are genuinely outraged”. No, they’re not and he knows they’re not. Graham just cranked it up to 11 yesterday because he knows that Kavanaugh lost on the merits, that he’s an obvious drunk and political hack and a liar and a horrible person. He had to change the conversation from what everyone could see with their own lying eyes to extreme butt-hurt that OMG the women were being mean.

    It’s their usual performance art.

    It’s what they do. Not because they are genuinely upset about something, but because they know it’s the only way they can win.

    Drum knows this.

    (sigh)

    Here’s hoping it doesn’t work this time. And if it does, it’s the last time because they’ll all be voted out of office at the next available opportunity.

    39 days to go!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  39. 39.

    debit

    @oldgold: We routinely invite people to go fuck themselves with rusty chainsaws, so…

    I don’t know what his deal is with you. I hate it when regulars fight. If there’s someone I can’t abide, I put them in the filter so I don’t engage. Except for trentrunner. That little ratfucker gets the rusty chainsaw every time I see him.

  40. 40.

    lamh36

    If Kavanaugh is confirmed, the truth will come out when House Democrats subpoena Mark Judge in February. So the whole thing now boils down to whether Susan Collins will let a man—Mitch McConnell—bully her into slitting her own throat.

    https://twitter.com/jonathanalter/status/1045649889110056961?s=21

    Unless they lose Collins but gains Manchin…then Kavanaugh is confirmed thanks to one lone Dem going against the party…Yay!

    is there another Dem along w/ Manchin than can negate Murkowski?

  42. 42.

    Mike R

    @Woodrow/Asim: Religious freedom only means that the anti abortion forces are free to force their religion down our throats. They, have the truth and we are basically heathen scum.

  43. 43.

    Bobby Thomson

    @PenAndKey:

    Yeah this place can get heated at time, especially the last couple days, but there havebrdn a couple of lurkers, unknowns (probsbly trolls), and regulars crossing the line into malicious. There was no bloody reason for people to lash out at oldgold like they did.

    Comic book version?

    unknowns

    This also seems a little rain on your wedding day.

  44. 44.

    PenAndKey

    @Chyron HR: save your damn dogpiling for Twitter or step aside and punch a pillow. Your vitriolic attacks against other people here are a fucking distraction.

  45. 45.

    lamh36

    Ugh…it’s high time someone dropped kicked some oppo on Lindsey Graham POS azz!

    Lindsey Graham: “Ms. Ford has a problem and destroying Judge Kavanaugh’s life won’t fix her problem.” talkingpointsmemo.com/news/graham-ch… via @TPM

  47. 47.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Another Scott:

    Drum knows this.

    I’m not convinced. He always has seemed willfully naive and stupid in his views of Republicans. The alternative is that he acts in horrible bad faith.

  48. 48.

    debit

    @debit: I’m going to add that I don’t pick sides. I’m not here enough to know who said or started what. I can only judge people by how they treat me and by behavior I personally witness. as it happens.

  49. 49.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Phoned the DC offices of Flake, Manchin, Collins, and Murkowski this morning. Was able to leave a v/m for Flake. Manchin’s and Murkowski’s lines were busy and I’ll call them again in a little while. Suzie Q’s mailbox was full, which I take as a good sign.

  50. 50.

    Gravenstone

    @oldgold: Um, just so you are aware, the site store has sold items including the available tagline “DIAF” – as in Die In A Fire. It’s not an uncommon pejorative around these parts.

  52. 52.

    jacy

    @oldgold:

    Are you not aware of all internet traditions? I have tea every evening in my Tunch Die in a Fire mug. Why, ’round here, that’s practically a term of endearment.

  54. 54.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Thanks for the reminder. And congratulations. I just purchased your book and look forward to reading it AFTER I finish “Wizard of the Pigeons” by Megan Lindholm (AKA Robin Hobb).

    I’m intrigued by your premise as I used to fiddle around with Tarot cards — I stopped over 15 years ago when I predicted a friend had a troubled man in her life (and she did – she had started divorce proceedings but had told no one). We both were creeped out. Started up again this past summer as my godson asked for a reading, which fortunately wasn’t so dramatic. Now I’m watching the Hulu original show “Shut Eye,” where a bonk on the head leads a psychic to have true visions and readings.

  61. 61.

    MomSense

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Her mailbox is always full and it pisses me off. We used to be able to call and talk to humans but that is rarely an option now. Calls almost always go to a menu where voicemail is the only option.

  63. 63.

    Raven Onthill

    The Supreme Court of the Republic of Gilead? Where rape is routine, and then women are required to bear the children of their rapists. Where reliable information about sexuality and reproductive biology is buried under hypocritical “Christian” blither. Where contraceptives are the new controlled substances.

    Fk Republicans.

    On the other hand, it seems entirely possible that Brett Kavanaugh will be indicted and convicted. If Julie Swetnick’s allegations are true – and they are plausible –, Kavanaugh and Judge committed crimes worse than simple rape – drugging women and turning them out as gang rape victims. That may have been been what Kavanaugh and Judge planned for Dr. Ford.

    And I wonder if they made money at it. That would make a lot of sense of Kavanaugh’s odd finances.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    I know this is revolution talk, but in my opinion it’s true. This is isn’t on Trump. This is a failure of elites. Some of the most prestigious and powerful people in this country vouched for this guy and he is a liar.

    He never should have gotten this far. We need to examine what exactly we value and why in God’s name we keep taking advice from “our betters” when they are consistently lousy judges of character.

    I’ll tell you something else. I’d bet my mortgage that he cheated in school. Find someone ethical at one of those schools and look into it. Low performing kids don’t cheat. Kids like Kavanaugh cheat- kids who think they are entitled to a good grade.

    The lying he has done for the last two weeks isn’t a one-off. It bled into other areas, and judging by his nutty bragging about his grades from 100 years ago, that’s where it bled. THAT’S what he values- the letter by his name.

    Let’s clean house and examine just exactly how we ended up with a completely dishonest person in some of the most powerful positions in the country. He didn’t get there alone. He had help.

  65. 65.

    Chyron HR

    @PenAndKey:

    save your damn dogpiling for Twitter

    I don’t know what’s funnier, that someone followed me here from Twitter with a grudge, or that I somehow gained an archnemesis from tweeting “I like anime tiddy.”

  66. 66.

    mad citizen

    I was tied up all yesterday in a meeting and last night too, so missed the hearing. Anyway, just watched the Lindsey rant and it’s funny because he goes to the American Bar Association (“the gold standard”) comments on what a good person Rapey is. Yet this morning, the ABA is calling for the FBI investigation.

  70. 70.

    jonas

    I presume “skis” is short for “brewskis,” i.e. beer. Why would a teenager note that he’s going over to drink at a friend’s house on his calendar? That’s weird. Also, Ford suggested in her testimony that the party she attended was less a planned event and more of what she called a “spur of the moment” thing one afternoon after the kids were swimming at the country club.

  72. 72.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Another Scott:

    Yup. It’s all lizard brain with them, and that’s how they like it.

    Not even sure they like it or they like the rage. It’s more like an addiction to them. A doctor told me that adrenaline turns to poison in the blood if not used so that’s why people feel sick after a fight. I think that why these winger types are in that constatn stage of rage because calming down is to painful.

  76. 76.

    mad citizen

    Tried calling Donnelly (and I never call any of my people on anything) on two numbers, both are busy. I can’t imagine WTF he’s thinking about voting for Rapey.

  77. 77.

    PenAndKey

    @Bobby Thomson: I’ve been here since just before Shaivo made the news and pretty much stopped commenting when the broken, comment-less mobile theme was installed. It’s hardly a coincidence I finally stopped lurking and started commenting again as soon as the mobile theme was scrapped. And, hell, I’d love to use my old nym but at this point I don’t even remember it. Sue me.

  79. 79.

    PenAndKey

    @Luciamia: Nope, not at all. I honestly think the only chance we have of stopping this train wreck is for “moderates” growing a spine.

    I’m putting my chips on a wave in November, but if that doesn’t work I’ve got friends in Canada I’ll have to get in touch with.

  80. 80.

    Juju

    @Woodrow/Asim: The thing I find interesting about Kavanaugh and the birth control pill abortion inducing comment is that he is from a devout catholic family and he’s an only child, born around the time the birth control pill became available. I am from a catholic family and I am one of five children. The last child My parents had was my brother, born in 1964, just before Griswald. No more children after that. Kavanaugh and his wife only have two children, both daughters. Given the catholic background, why aren’t there more? just an observation.

  82. 82.

    BC in Illinois

    It’s intriguing to see that Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, is a Kamala Harris fan:

    Not just on this, but generally, Senator @KamalaHarris is impressive.

    Here was her comment on the proceedings yesterday:

    Just caught a few minutes of the US Senate session with #ChristineBlasleyFord and it is sickening. A woman forced to relive trauma live on TV in a partisan political forum. It is medieval. I salute her courage but despair that she is having to endure such an ordeal.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    I’m just venting and it doesn’t matter, but this was big for me. I’m always slow off the mark but it hit me when Ford testified and they broke and the Great Man came in and started bellowing at us and… she disappeared. It was like she had never been there, never said anything. She is a very strong person. What chance do the rest of us have against that kind of entrenched power? His presence obliterated her. All he had to do was show up. They erased her.

  84. 84.

    lamh36

    Doug Jones is a no in Kavanaugh…red state Senator…I’m sure he’ll eventually have a fight when he comes back up for re-election, but he is standing by conviction instead of whoever it is Manchin might be standing on.

    And yes, I know his election is up next, but still Jones is a red state Senator who state voted overwhelmingly for Chump and yet he’s still voting no

  85. 85.

    The Moar You Know

    ALL irrelevant. He committed perjury over a hundred times yesterday alone. The GOP does not care. He was drunk at his own hearing. They don’t care. He is manifestly unfit for employment in any capacity whatsoever. They don’t care. He is a clear danger to his wife and kids. They do not care. Stop playing gotcha with inconsistencies in his testimony, his entire performance yesterday should have ended with him being hauled out by the Capitol Police in a straitjacket. The GOP doesn’t not care. This is down to two GOP senators doing the right thing. We shall see. But picking apart his testimony is an utter waste of time and energy. It was all lies.

  86. 86.

    jacy

    Wow, watching MSNBC, and one of the usual Republican partisan women just broke down in tears. I think if they push this nomination through to confirmation, they’re going to have more of a problem than they think.

  87. 87.

    Gravenstone

    Had an unfortunate revelation this morning, which in retrospect should have been obvious. A Facebook ‘friend’ from HS shared a meme mocking the fact that Dr. Blasey Ford’s assault took place in the 80’s. The belated revelation was that this was just fine with the creator of the meme and those sharing it. They were perfectly happy to validate the way things were back then, and are clearly uncomfortable with the slow growth in society in the interim. I didn’t see this particular ‘friend’ much after sophomore year since she was on the vocational track and attending a different school her last two years, but knowing the environment we came from I am fairly sure she received regular harassment, if not worse. Yet she seems comfortable today reinforcing that behavior. I find that deeply depressing.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @lamh36:

    My husband is pissed at Manchin. It is cowardly. At the end of the day he’s a coward. We live in a very Red area so he’s familiar with being in a political minority but at some point you stand up, or why bother?

    You wonder why they want these seats when they have to give everything up to keep them. Isn’t it kind of a contradiction? To seek all this power and then fold on everything that matters?

  89. 89.

    Raven Onthill

    I do think many women are not going to stand for this. I suspect there are a lot of white suburban soccer moms who are remembering their high school experiences and going fk the Republican fkers.

    And what do we tell young men? I mean, “Don’t rape,” sure. That’s obvious, but it has been obvious for centuries. Do we say “Women are going to look at you and see the face of their oppressors. You are going to have to fight for the rest of your lives to overcome that?”

  91. 91.

    Kay

    Well, we’ll find out soon enough why they wanted this particular low quality hire so desperately. He’s got his marching orders.

    Another institution crumbles and is completely discredited Oh, well. So much for that.

  92. 92.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Weirdly, over the past two years, we’ve seen no Anonymous or Wikileaks intrusions on the political operations or personal email accounts of our domestic right wing movements.

    Just wanted to throw that out there about our valiant People’s Transparency Heroes…

  93. 93.

    CliosFanboy

    @Juju: they have really good rhythm*??

    * which should be the brand name of a birth control pill. free idea for any investors out there!!! “Why yes Father O’Touchy, I use the rhythm method!”

  94. 94.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:

    oh and he’s getting trashed in the responses from Alamaba conservatives.

    The Kavanaugh nomination process has been flawed from the beginning and incomplete at the end. Dr. Ford was credible and courageous and I am concerned about the message our vote will be sending to our sons and daughters, as well as victims of sexual assault. I will be voting no.

  95. 95.

    Mike R

    @The Moar You Know: They don’t care is right, at least about intergrity and honesty. Power is all they care about, forcing the agenda and cementing themselves as the rulers of a thousand year regime. What is the German word, Reich that is what they want a thousand year Reich.

  97. 97.

    CliosFanboy

    @Raven Onthill: we did not have kids, but if I had a son I’d tell them “never have sex with someone who does not want it as much as you do, and who makes that clear. You can play the coy “convince me” game when you’re in a committed relationship and trust each other. Until then, anything not an enthused YES is a NO.”

  99. 99.

    CliosFanboy

    @Mike R:

    “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.”

    1984.

  100. 100.

    CliosFanboy

    Damn, I wish we had an edit button again. Left off a quote.

    “Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power”

  102. 102.

    The Moar You Know

    Seems a bit over the line,

    Is this sort of thing allowed

    @oldgold: yes, it is, and I fully agree with the sentiment and the reasoning. You have been trolling here for months and I for one am very tired of your retreat into feigned stupidity when called out on it.

  103. 103.

    sherparick

    @satby: To the Republican donor class we are only useful as consumers and workers, and if we can be replaced by something cheaper, not as workers (which also means the end of us as consumers – so please go some place and die quickly appears to be the ultimate message.) That this terrible man, along with the just as terrible Gorsuch, Alioto, Thomas, and Roberts will be on the Supreme Court for the next 30 years, the rest of my life, is profoundly depressing. Also, at least 4 of these folks would allow Trump to do about anything he wanted as President so we are very close to tyranny.

  104. 104.

    mad citizen

    I know others sometimes mention Penzey’s spices–kind of amazing a business is so political, but when you own the business I guess you can have at it. Anyway, Bill Penzey just sent this interesting comparison:

    “The thing about flat-out denying reality is that there’s no stepping back from it. There’s no negotiation afterwards that arrives at some mutually agreeable spot. Once you choose the Lance Armstrong approach, once you choose to attack those just doing their job by exposing your crimes, you’ve started a timer that, when it goes ding, means you are done. To go the full Lance is to understand that all there is ahead for you is lifetime suspension.

    Republicans are now on an end of days run. All there is left for them is to do as much damage as they can, to the benefit of their benefactors, before time runs out. November 6th is coming soon. Remember.”

  105. 105.

    Raven Onthill

    @bemused: Quite likely. Condoms could be made prescription-only, and restricted to married couples. This would enormously increase the rates of transmission of STDs, but these people just don’t care; in the end they are pro-death, not pro-life.

  107. 107.

    jonas

    @Luciamia: @Bostonian: No, because the ABA has now been declared a bastion of left-wing radicalism. Senate Republicans scotched soliciting ABA recommendations for judges after being embarrassed by having to vote on several “unqualified” candidates.

  108. 108.

    cintibud

    @Kay: Kay, a little off topic but I am finding that our blue neighborhood in Cincinnati did NOT receive requests for absentee ballots. The folks I’ve talked to that have received the requests are in heavily red districts.

    I went online and printed out some of the request forms, filled them in and mailed them. I gave copies of the form to our neighbors. Is there someplace I can bring this up? Sounds like typical Husted rat fucking.

  109. 109.

    ruemara

    @lamh36: Did you see that clip of the Trump supporting mom who said helping by men is no big deal. Well her dumb as fuck 18-23 year old daughters were right beside her, nodding. The 53%are always going to be the 53%. Unless & until something bad happens to them.

    @debit: it’s more than likely underage.

  110. 110.

    bemused

    @Another Scott:

    R’s are outraged that they have to put up with this empathy/fairness nonsense and can’t just do whatever the hellish thing they want without liberals getting in their way.

  113. 113.

    rikyrah

    @low-tech cyclist:

    The GOP keeps telling us who they really are, and rubbing it in our faces so that we can’t miss the point.

    That’s right..
    and, they should never be forgiven.
    Don’t give an inch to these muthaphuckas.

  116. 116.

    cintibud

    @Mary G: Thanks for the suggestions. I just went to Let America vote website and couldn’t see anyplace to report a problem. I’m at work now and don’t have a lot of time to research.

    I’m thinking that contacting someplace local might have better results. I think I’ll call the Hamilton County (Cincinnati) board of elections.Maybe try Aftab Purval’s campaign office

  118. 118.

    Victor Matheson

    @Another Scott: When Drum says Republicans really are angry, I think he is referring to rank-and-file 27% Republicans not Lindsey Graham. Yeah, it is probably true that a bunch of the outrage displayed by the Republican members of the committee yesterday is Kabuki theater, but don’t try to tell me that a most of the anger of regular Republicans, stoked by non-stop Fox/Breitbart/Hannity/etc., isn’t real.

  119. 119.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Kay:

    I know this is revolution talk, but in my opinion it’s true. This is isn’t on Trump. This is a failure of elites. Some of the most prestigious and powerful people in this country vouched for this guy and he is a liar.

    If this is revolution talk, then count me in on your revolution. Because it is God’s truth.

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

    @oldgold:

    This morning I checked a thread I was commenting on last night and found this.

    180
    Uncle Cosmo
    September 28, 2018 at 1:27 am
    @oldgold: BULLSHIT. Those aren’t “polls” – they’re dishonest attempts to drive the narrative. As anyone with an IQ over 80 knows.

    Once again you prove that you’re a COMPLETE FUCKING IDIOT. Let me courteously invite you to fuck off & die in a fire. We’ll win this one without you – in fact it’ll be easier withou cretins like you.underfoot.

    Seems a bit over the line,

    Is this sort of thing allowed

    Couple of things. First, you don’t include what Uncle Cosmo was responding to, but I find that Uncle Cosmo is usually accurate about the facts, so I expect you were trying to use some fraudulent polls to make a dishonest point of your own, which would be typical.

    Secondly, not for nothing are those who read and comment here at Balloon-Juice called The Jackals, so, No it doesn’t seem a bit over the line, it seems quite standard procedure. Especially since you make the usual Russian trolls seem reasonable and honest, not to mention brighter than you, as they are being paid the big bucks to attempt to froth us up.

    Also, few things are not allowed here by the merciful creator of the blog, and calling a rusty chainsaw a rusty chainsaw is not disallowed. So I would suggest you locate a rusty but functional chainsaw and use it as a masturbatory tool on yourself. Or alternatively, Fuck Off and Die in A Fire! as you have incurred my ire~!!~

  122. 122.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Kay: This is so accurate Kay. he didn’t want facts, he wanted his birthright – to be confirmed without the inconvenience of real questions. It was a job interview and he was offended that he had to be interviewed.

    In addition to the serial lies, his temperament on display shows he is entirely unfit for any bench, including those in public parks. Perhaps a sidewalk bench by a bus stop. I was nearly aghast, and totally appalled, that he started with that angry shouty statement and was so belligerent in his answers.

    Trump has totally broken the system, along with his enablers.

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @PenAndKey:

    OK, Mr or Ms PenAndKey – here goes. You have posted something just over 18 comments here ever. That does not give you any authority about the decorum and sensitivity of comments on this blog. If you read many comment threads here you will learn that decorum regarding those who post nasty Republican propaganda is linked to rusty chainsaws inserted in orifices, and has been for over a decade.

    Go Skull Fuck a Kitten, ass. Don’t assert ownership of something you are just driving by on the innertube highway!

  124. 124.

    J R in WV

    @Chyron HR:

    I don’t know what’s funnier, that someone followed me here from Twitter with a grudge, or that I somehow gained an archnemesis from tweeting “I like anime tiddy.”

    So PenAndKey is all your fault, then. Nym sounds like he/she wants to be in a sekret club with passwords. Silly guy! He doesn’t even realize that DIAF actually is one of the sekret passwords here. Slow witted fool… wonder if his native language is Russian. Doesn’t seem that fluent in English as spoken ’round here.

  126. 126.

    J R in WV

    @Juju:

    Kavanaugh and his wife only have two children, both daughters. Given the catholic background, why aren’t there more?

    I think it is because after the second time they had sex, Mrs Kavanaugh told him that was all, dear, never again, “you GET SO ANGRY about something!” And being unable to have the natural Catholic release for his vital fluids, he turned to rage instead. “Judge” Kavanaugh is a pathetic angry wurm.

  127. 127.

    Miss Bianca

    @CliosFanboy: Or the shorter, pithier version, which I apply to a lot of major life decisions:

    “If it isn’t ‘Hell, yes’, it’s got to be ‘no’.”

  128. 128.

    Aleta

    In the video of him being questioned about the entry, when the prosecutor says “look at the July 1st entry,” watch his wife. (Beginning of the video.)

    Another intentional lie: in his statement iirc he made a point of ‘establishing’ that any such gathering must have been on a weekend. But none of the the weekends on his calendar showed such a a party! (Made no sense.) Maybe did that because July 1st was a Thursday.

    He takes pains to say the calendar also shows a football workout, which he says would have ended at 8, so it was dark. Trying to rule out the time period after the pool closed? dea that it could have happened after the pool closed? on before video

    The quality of Kav’s work in this hearing is so flimsy.

    (When my partner watched this, he immediately said: teens have code words for some things, like using “football workout” to mean “go drinking.”)

  129. 129.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Amir Khalid: @debit:@The Moar You Know: @J R in WV: Thanks to all those who chimed in. One of the main reasons I abandoned the Great Orange Santa for jus de ballon is the ability to call out fulminating stupidity without being banhammered out to the umpteenth moon of Uranus. (Along with the general high level of knowledge & discourse. Come for the politics, stay for the snark…)

    FTR I too tire of “feigned stupidity” but even more of consistent whining, which is all we see from “oldmold”. First the are-we-there-yet infantile complaint “When is Mueller going to indict everyone?” (Answer: When it’s time, you impatient moron!) Now it whimpers for an instantaneous “credible poll” on the Bart O’Kavanaugh hearing, which as I have pointed out is ludicrous – no instant poll will be credible.

    As I pointed out in the thread in question:

    The only thing more annoying than a WATB is a stupid WATB.

    Feigned or not. IMO “oldmold” contributes nothing here but defeatism & irritation & cordially inviting it to take a long walk off a short pier (for anyone desiring a less bloodthirsty version of FOADIAF) into a vat of red fuming nitric acid (so much for genteel intentions, I guess ;^D) is most certainly in order.

  130. 130.

    Bill Arnold

    @The Moar You Know:

    ALL irrelevant. He committed perjury over a hundred times yesterday alone. The GOP does not care.

    You’re thinking that people generally recognize lying; they do not. That’s why the ability to lie without remorse confers an advantage in many societies.
    This is what fascinated me about Sheldon Whitehouse’s line of questioning about the yearbook; he created an instructional video for teaching people how to recognize Bret Kavinaugh’s lies. The tells are quite obvious in that question/answer session.

  131. 131.

    Bill Arnold

    @Juju:

    or some evidence that shows a too young male.

    Who has the dirt? (Could be more than one entity.)
    It’s not clear to me, but the political shift towards obsequiousness towards DJTrump is stark and clear.

Comments are closed.