"Brett Kavanaugh got into bar fight in college because he thought some random guy was the lead singer of UB40" is an insane yet weirdly accurate sentence. pic.twitter.com/83nHjYajRT
— Steven Hyden (@Steven_Hyden) October 1, 2018
From the Bloomberg article:
… Kavanaugh first cursed at the man. After the man responded in kind, Kavanaugh threw a beer in his face, said Charles Ludington, a former Yale basketball player who’s now a history professor at North Carolina State University. The act precipitated a brawl that drew in their other friend — Yale basketball star and future NBA player Chris Dudley — and eventually prompted a call to police.
Kavanaugh was frequently “belligerent and aggressive” after drinking and had lied to senators about his experience with alcohol, Ludington said in a statement released to the news media Sunday. The barroom fisticuffs were the most searing example of Kavanaugh’s behavior he remembers, Ludington said in an interview with Bloomberg News, where he expanded on his statement for the first time…
The White House had no immediate comment when asked about Ludington’s account, instead referring a reporter to statements issued earlier by Dudley and another classmate attesting to Kavanaugh’s character…
President Donald Trump said Kavanaugh’s testimony last week showed that his second Supreme Court nominee had “a little bit of difficulty” with alcohol when he was younger.
“I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he likes beer and he’s had a little bit of difficulty, I mean, he talked about things that happened when he drank,” Trump during a Rose Garden press conference Monday….
Further detail at the link.
Kavanaugh denied that. But someone probably told Trump that in it was learned in vetting him. Think he just revealed more than he was supposed to. https://t.co/LAl6asB2ra
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 1, 2018
It’s truly amazing just how fully Trump threw Kavanaugh under the bus today while trying to help him.
Kavanaugh: I didn’t drink much back then…
Trump: Huge drunk! He’s good now though.
(Only slightly exaggerated)
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) October 1, 2018
I feel like Trump is torn between wanting Kavanaugh on the court to own the libs and a vague sense it will be bad to have his name associated with him for 35 years.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 1, 2018
White conservatives are livid when you describe Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing as a job interview. Its like they don't know what it feels like to be turned down for a job or something.
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) October 1, 2018
Major Major Major Major
apple.news/AiaVL2xfAQfWx5haGP8KMxA
lamh36
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Nice
lamh36
Oh REALLY Nicole…I guess she finally had to pay attention to how her friend “Brett”, who she worked with in the GWB years, lied his azz off during the last hearing…
Chyron HR
But on the other hand, Trump’s name is already going to be associated with Trump for the rest of American history, so his reputation can’t get any worse.
SuzieC
Wow, I really liked that song but have never seen the video. It looks EXACTLY like Kavanaugh and friends’ parties. UB40. Yes, that is who they were.
Mary G
The cream cheese sculpture also known as Hugh Hewitt is up in WaPo today with a “volcano is going to erupt and the left can’t even hear it,” story. To which more than 2,000 commenters have told him to fuck off, which he feels just proves his point. Hugh, the volcano is women and #MeToo and November is coming. Act Blue had its biggest day on Friday, taking in $11 million. Then on Sunday, somebody is reading all those MOST IMPORTANT DEADLINE OF THE WHOLE CAMPAIGN, DONATE OR THE WORLD IS GOING TO HELL emails, and they took in $16 million.
psycholinguist
are we taking bets on whether he makes it to the vote at this point?
Corner Stone
@lamh36:
No biggie. They were too old for me anyway. Just gives me more time to focus on coaching my daughters’ basketball team.
/Kavvy
TS (the original)
@Corner Stone:
I have to believe that won’t be happening any more – there have to be some mother’s who prefer that their daughters are removed from his circuit.
satby
If his wife is smart she’ll take the kids and am-scray. Bet he’s been on a raging bender since Friday.
Anne Laurie
@satby: No doubt he has been, but I kinda assumed Kav would have 24/7 ‘security provided’ at this time, no?
I’m assuming personal-protection professionals — especially those affiliated with the government — would be trained to ‘redirect’ their wards from assault situations, but maybe I’m just too much of an optimist…
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
Hugh Hewitt and the other Republican men still think women are planning to play nice, like we always do to keep the peace.
They’re in for the shock of their lives. ?
Jay Noble
How does a judge with the backlogs we have find time to be teaching in the first place???
trollhattan
@satby:
Guessing he’s hanging out in his hollowed-out-volcano lair right not. It’s how they roll.
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: Go home, Trump, you are drunk.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Let’s hope.
sdhays
No, Spankee doesn’t think that far ahead and doesn’t think about his legacy in standard terms. I think Spankee’s a little disgusted with what a drunk Kavanaugh seems to be because he doesn’t like drunks. I wonder if someone had told him how much ol’ Brett “likes to drink beer” if Spankee would have passed him over.
satby
@Anne Laurie: no doubt his bodyguards are sitting on him to keep him out of trouble. Frustrated drunks are the meanest drunks.
Barbara
@Jay Noble: He is an appellate judge. Not the same kind of backlog.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay Noble: Many judges teach. Kav is on an appellate court that hears cases on a set schedule. It is one of the few things that is not off about him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne: @trollhattan: I’m listening to the Slate podcast about the Impeachment of the Clenis, and one detail that I’d forgotten was not only did they lose seats in ’98, they were confident right up to the returns that they were going to expand their majority due to a show of support for their righteousness.
Also, Bill Bennet is now a trump supporter, which only surprises me cause I haven’t heard his name or seen his great, angry jowls on my TeeVee in quite some time. Maybe he lost his booking agent since Russert croaked.
NotMax
Somewhere in space-time, in a parallel universe, the Supreme Court convened this week. With eight robed justices seated and a keg of beer on the ninth chair.
B.B.A.
@psycholinguist: I’m betting on the Schiavo Special – he gets confirmed 3-0 in an unannounced emergency session of the Senate.
It’s the most potent weapon in Cocaine Mitch’s arsenal, and he appears to be running out of other options.
different-church-lady
@NotMax: Somewhere in space-time, in a parallel universe, the Supreme Court convened this week. With
eight robed justices seated and a keg of beerMerrick Garland on the ninth chair.Omnes Omnibus
@B.B.A.: Stop trolling. It isn’t a good look.
randy khan
Now one more lie: He knew about the Debbie Ramirez allegations before the New Yorker story and told the Judiciary Committee (under oath, lest we forget) that he didn’t know about them until the story was released.
Kay
@psycholinguist:
I already bet. No. I’m all in on No on Special K :)
It’s just the whole package. I’d just like to remind everyone he was lying his ass off in the first round, before the allegations even came out. There really isn’t any doubt- Brett Kavanaugh lied thru this entire job interview. His first words were lies and it just continued from there. Did he lie about the assault? I don’t know but if he didn’t it’s just about the only thing he missed lying about.
Normal people don’t have to believe him forever. He doesn’t get a clean slate for each new lie. They’re cumulative.
randy khan
@randy khan:
Oops. Oh, for an edit button.
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major:
Impressive. He managed to tell the truth about something, even if it was by accident.
Mnemosyne
@sdhays:
Yeah, that’s also how I interpret that — they didn’t tell Trump that Kavanaugh is a drunk and now he’s mad that they’re making him look bad by forcing him to publicly support a drunk.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
meanwhile…
Mike Pompeo, first in his class at West Point, Harvard Law, and mouth-breathing goon
RedDirtGirl
Just reading about the disaster in Indonesia. It amazes me how it is written about in such measured tones….
An astronomical humanitarian crisis of displacement, death and disease, is unfolding. And this sort of thing will only become more frequent in the decades to come. We humans are so fucked.
B.B.A.
@Omnes Omnibus: You really think he’d let Bill Frist go down in the history books with the most blatant abuse of legislative procedure of all time?
satby
In the picture that went around in Twitter and FB of the disgusted faces of the women behind him as he whined and sniveled his way through his appearance, I think the most vivid face was his mother’s. Fifty years of bailing out her brat coming home to roost so publicly.
Mnemosyne
@B.B.A.:
I wish a motherfucker would. Because there is NO WAY that Kavanaugh the active alcoholic reserved his rapey antics to high school and college.
There are more victims out there, and they are conservative and Republican women. It will not be a good look for the Republicans when we find out that it was an open secret that Kavanaugh has been sticking his tongue down the throats of his young “model gorgeous” law clerks for years.
Kay
I’m to the point where I think the people who said he was honest were also lying. Because he didn’t just start this now! This had to be going on before.
Explain that. He volunteered this. No one even asked him. I mean, there’s a theory for why he denied the excessive drinking- he had to deny the possibility that he blacked out and attacked Ford. What’s the theory with this one?
Omnes Omnibus
@B.B.A.: No, I still think you are a troll. And 3-0 is stupid. Try not to be stupid. Oops, if you can.
lamh36
So Avenatti’s client gave an tv interview? Anyone see it? Was she credible?
Ocotillo
Big if, but if BK flames out, the Dems retake the Senate in the mid-terms and the Turtle doesn’t get an alternate RWNJ confirmed in the lame duck, could the new Senate confirm Merrick Garland since he has been nominated by a sitting president?
Chetan Murthy
@Mnemosyne:
There’s that allegation sent to Sen. Gardner by a constituent, whose daughter witnessed Rapey-K shove a woman up against a wall and groper her after a night of drinking. In 1998. When he was on the Starr star chamber. Still not investigated.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, I guess we won’t be making a trade deal with Luxembourg anytime soon.
(Their prime minister is gay and is married to another man.)
lamh36
twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1046950257991536641
Redshift
It’s like Lindsey Graham’s hissy fit, “this isn’t a job interview, this is HELL!”
Oh, shut up, Lindsey. You haven’t had a job interview in 25 years, and anyone who came into a job interview with allegations of sexual assault that they angrily denied would, at best, be told “thank you for coming in” and immediately escorted out of the building.
pat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is literally the most disgusting thing I have heard all day, which is really saying something.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: one of the lesser commented moments in Willard’s infamous “47%” tape was when he snarled “I inherited nothing!” Technically true, probably, since J Willard was already a very wealthy man when old George snuffed it (though as I type, it occurs to me that this could help explain the Mittlets’ massive and neatly laundered trust fund), but the rage at the idea that he was given some boost by being born on third base, the son of a governor, the Cranbrook school, to say nothing of the $250K (in inflation-adjusted dollars) starter nest-egg that Ann let slip…
Matt Yglesias had a great thread comparing BK’s wounded entitlement with the racist attacks Sonia Sotomayor had to endure for actually having worked her way to and through the Ivy League.
Jay Noble
I figured Kav had a schedule but . . . there’s still work to be done. And my Professor friend tell me 20 hours a week for a class is par.
I guess that’s why he has all those good-looking clerks.
Spanky
@Kay:
I’m-a stop you right there, Kay. There’s no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he blacked out before the attempted rape. Let’s just assume he was more or less in control of his faculties when he and Judge executed a pre-planned sexual assault that only failed because of an unexpected bathing suit.
Aleta
Trump to Brett, 3 weeks ago: “Never show weakness. You’ve always got to be strong. Don’t be bullied. There is no choice.”
1 week ago: “You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women.” “If you admit to anything and any culpability, then you’re dead. You’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to be aggressive. You’ve got to push back hard. You’ve got to deny anything that’s said about you. Never admit.”
(quotes from Woodward, Fear.
Trump this week: “I don’t think he lied.” “He’s had a little bit of difficulty.” A good man. I mean, no one’s perfect, right. We know that.
Trump next week: Why would I think ‘oh, he must be lying’? Does he owe me money or something? I don’t think he owes me money. Of course he might. You know I have a lot of very successful businesses. I don’t keep track. Too busy making deals for America, right. Keeping my promises.
randy khan
@lamh36:
Graham is hallucinating if he thinks that would happen.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Also too, no idea how many (and it’s none of my business) but am certain that am on solid ground in positing that the percentage of gay folks in the U.S. diplomatic service is not zero.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne: It’s uglier than that. Married same-sex couples can’t be denied visas, but ‘domestic partners’ from countries that don’t permit same-sex marriage can.
Pompeo’s gleefully adding insult to injury — or, really, further injury to the original injury. For ‘Godliness’, of course. That’s nothing to do with actual faith, just that Pompeo’s social-group tribe gets their jollies pulling stunts like this to impress each other.
Ocotillo
Would it be possible if the Dems win the Senate and nobody is confirmed by the Senate, that they (the Dems) could take up Merrick Garland since he was nominated and no vote was held?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne: I don’t know if the Taoiseach of Ireland and his partner are married, but I bet he’s not thrilled. And the French Ambassador to the US may have an issue with this.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
He’s a drunk. He blathers on about self-aggrandizing things, like how he totally got into Yale on his own and not because he went to a tony prep achool.
@Chetan Murthy:
That report is what made the realization dawn on me. Kavanaugh never stopped his rapey behavior. He just switched it to an insular community where he knew the victims would never dare report him because he could ruin their lives and careers. He really is a good Catholic boy. ??
Omnes Omnibus
@Ocotillo: No. His nomination has expired.
Aleta
Fox News will want him. Could be drawing up a contract now. Happy ending, more money, speaking tour in 2020.
jonas
The fact that it’s becoming clear that Kavanaugh may have/had a serious drinking problem is an interesting one in the context of Trump’s support. If there’s any area of his life where Trump has been uncharacteristically disciplined and principled, it’s on drinking. His brother died of alcoholism and Trump is a devout teetotaler because of it. I wonder if the Kavanaugh saga isn’t evoking some deep-seated revulsion/sympathy response in him. He hates Kavanaugh for what he has become, but can’t cut him off because he knows what a horrible affliction it is.
Omnes Omnibus
@jonas: You project deep feelings onto someone who is incapable of them.
Barbara
@Jay Noble: DC Circuit clerks work incredibly hard, but everything you need is in the appellate record, so now, I bet they can work remotely, which was not an option back in the day. Also, every circuit has a professional staff of attorneys to screen the prisoner petitions and filter out the cases that are deemed not to need full briefing and are suitable for summary dosposition.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
From what Jim is sayig just below your post, it looks like we’re going to piss off both France and Ireland with this little stunt. That seems like … kind of a bad idea. ?
PJ
@Kay: You don’t understand, Kay. He deserves this. He earned it. He fought for it. All of his life he has worked to be better, morally and intellectually. Sure his Mom was a judge, and his dad was a rich lobbyist, and his grandfather was a legacy, and he went to an elite, expensive Catholic school, but he got into Yale solely on his own merit. When he was in high school, when he wasn’t on the football field or basketball court or lifting weights at Tobin’s, he was studying, that was all he did. Sure, he might have had a few brewskis to let off some steam, but who hasn’t? Haven’t you, Kay? Haven’t you enjoyed a beer? When he was at Yale, when he wasn’t playing sports, all he did was study – how else do you think he got into Yale Law School? Then he came back to DC and devoted his life as a public servant, working for the good of this country under Ken Starr, and then in W’s White House. He could have made a fortune in private practice, but he chose to help America before he helped himself. Why else do you think he was nominated to the DC Circuit? Pure hard work, that’s all it was. He serves meals to the less fortunate, he coaches a girl’s basketball team. He has always worked to help women – why even most of his law clerks were women. How many female law clerks with model looks did you send up to Justice Roberts, Kay? He cares too much, really. He is a good, God-fearing man who has worked for everything in his life, and, by God, if the Clintons and the conspiring Democrats think they are going to snatch his Supreme Court seat, the seat that he deserves more than anyone else, they had better watch out, because payback is a bitch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Barbara: When I clerked, the Circuit guys had an incredibly easy life. They waited for their judge to get a case and then leisurely took their time to do some research. Plus the fuckers got to be business casual. Sixth Circuit.
eemom
Red red wine you make me feel so fine….. Good ear worm.
Anybody else ancient enough to know who wrote that song?
Ladyraxterinok
@Kay: It’s the Romney line–I did it on my oen. I did it on my own through extremely hard work. So if you (POC, woman, poor person) didn’t make it to Yale, you are just lazy.
Mnemosyne
@jonas:
Other way around — he didn’t know that Kavanaugh is a drunk, and now he’s going to start distancing himself from him, because he can’t stand to be around weak-willed, undisciplined, lazy drunks like his brother. This is why his staff didn’t tell him that Kavanaugh is a drunk.
His brother’s alcoholism brought shame on the Trump family and on Trump himself, and the WORST thing you can do to a narcissist is shame them. Trump is going to want to run far, far away from Kavanaugh to make sure the stigma doesn’t rub off on him.
Aleta
@Kay: By the time he said that, he thought he was hours away from getting the committee vote, and today the floor vote. No one would rebut him.
His Republican people honestly don’t care about lying (this is the great divide we’ve reached in the US); and no one else would care once the vote was over.
Also, he takes risks by nature, thinks he’s brilliant because he gets away with it, and has been lying so long that the story feels familiar and safe.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Neil Diamond. Also, Psychokiller isn’t an 80s song. It is from “Talking Heads 77.” The 77 might be a hint.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Fucking edit feature.
lamh36
I think somone mentioned this, but ICYMI:
And…with this…I am going to bad…cause if this comes to pass, it is too much karma for one night!
Bill Arnold
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
(Full article; Trump Administration to Deny Visas to Same-Sex Partners of Diplomats, U.N. Officials)
Ugh. Who the fuck pushed this into policy?
Out of curiosity, what would happen if they countries involved make the unmarried partners diplomats?
clay
@lamh36:
Be nice. If she was a quick learner, she never would have been a Republican in the first place.
B.B.A.
Did UB40 write any songs of their own or were they just a cover band? All I remember of theirs is “Red Red Wine” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “I Got You Babe”, all covers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bill Arnold: It’s Pompeo’s call right? No doubt backed up by Motherboy Pence, and Haley at the very least didn’t stop it. Isn’t she a hardcore bible-thumper?
Mnemosyne
@Redshift:
I’m trying to keep my Russophobia in check, but why the fuck is it so very important for this specific rapey drunk conservative to be on the Supreme Court? Who gave Kavanaugh $200K tomclear his debts? Why is Graham going balls to the wall to get THIS SPECIFIC DUDE on the Supreme Court?
Punohu
I call the female Kavanaugh misogynistic lovers of these chromosome damaged weenies, the “Trumpeter Swans”. Ugly ducklings, that remained ugly, grew long necks and pearls with sleeveless dresses and became FOX news reporters.
Get ready ladies, a Handmaids Tale is a comin!
Lets dust off those robes and caps and get ready for a …………………..salvaging? Er…ceremony? Um..wait. We better get off this blog. Are we supposed to be reading?
We all better watch out, before the commanders catch us!
Omnes Omnibus
@B.B.A.: Then you are a musical d-bag.
cintibud
@Omnes Omnibus: “No. His nomination has expired.”
But that’s in the pre McConnell era. This is now the “Fuck You” Senate era. Really, WWMMD
(what would Mitch McConnell do)
Only half joking
Jerzy Russian
@eemom: Neil Diamond? I swear I did not google this.
Omnes Omnibus
@cintibud: The rules are there for a reason.
B.B.A.
@Omnes Omnibus: I love you too.
eemom
@Jerzy Russian:
Splendid!
Neil Diamond actually wrote a lot of great stuff in his youth.
dmsilev
@Mnemosyne: Those questions could be answered without resorting to Russian influences.
1) This specific rapey drunk conservative flattered Trump and promised Trump that he’d protect Trump from any inconvenient investigations coming out of a Democratic House or Mueller’s team etc. Other Federalist Society hacks either didn’t get the chance to make the offer or didn’t go quite far enough out on a limb to satisfy Trump’s ego.
2) The First Bank of Mom and Dad provided the funding. What the money was actually spent on (gambling debts? A mistress?) could be the more embarrassing question. The odds of it actually being for baseball tickets are roughly equal to the odds of the Orioles winning the AL East this year.
3) Graham is going balls to the wall for Kavanaugh because at least for the moment Trump wants Kavanaugh and Trump visibly has Graham’s balls in a vise. Which, by the transitive property of balls, means that Trump is going vise to the wall on Kavanaugh…
Omnes Omnibus
@B.B.A.: Aside from being an admitted troll, you come out as an “I know only music that cracked the Top 100,” I can’t even.
My snobbery luckily forbids me from ever interacting with you again.
Bill Arnold
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, though there could be a staffer involved. I’m in a smitey mood, sigh. What I don’t understand is the motive/intended consequences.
e.g. is it intended to make Putin smile? (I literally do not understand the theological cherry picking. See here for the Christianist mental stunt-contortionisms, for anyone is interested.)
Anne Laurie
@B.B.A.: Madam Medusa? (Margaret Thatcher)
(Although, to be honest, being enormously successful as an all-covers white reggae band would be very 1980s. And I say this as someone who actually paid to go to a UB40 show, an hour away from my then home, in the early 1980s… )
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: On the other hand, is there any reason the Democrats can’t re-nominate Merrick Garland, once they’ve taken control of the Senate again?
Bill Arnold
@dmsilev:
Among the funniest things I read today. :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: Presidents nominate. The Senate advises and consents.
VOR
@SuzieC: Guy in the dorm room next to mine owned exactly two songs, one of which was “Red Red Wine”. Dude would seriously play it like 20 times in a row.To this day I cannot hear that song without an involuntary cringe.
Geoboy
@Anne Laurie: No reason they can’t, but I’d much rather have a jurist that’s 25-30 years younger (Garland is 68, if my memory is correct).
dmsilev
@Anne Laurie: The President makes nominations, and then the Senate gives its consent (or not). If someone managed to Jedi Mind Trick Trump into nominating Garland (“Obama failed to get Garland on the Court; I’ll bet you could do it!”), I’m sure a Democratic Senate would be happy to take up the question.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geoboy: Technically, how would the Senate to that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: A Solemn Writ from the Grand Marshall of the Supreme Court, and a platinum coin. It’s all spelled out in the DaVinci Amendments.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sometimes, I get agitated.
Jerzy Russian
@eemom: I have one of his greatest hits albums, and he sings that song after noting in the introduction at UB40 took it to number 1.
SFAW
@Anne Laurie:
I guess I need to brush up on my Consitutional whatever, since I thought the nomination is made by the Preznit, not the Legislative branch.
Or maybe you were making a joke, and I didn’t get it?
SFAW
@dmsilev:
You know what? That suggestion has the highest likelihood of success of those mentioned so far. I just wish that “highest” equated to “high.”
smike
@Anne Laurie:
Methinks a younger pick will get the nod next time.
Bill Arnold
@psycholinguist:
If one bets then being involved in the fight is cheating, yes?
opiejeanne
@eemom: Things go better with Coca Cola, things go better with Coke.
Went to a Neil Diamond concert in 1970 and he talked a little about stuff he wrote that everyone knows but don’t know that he wrote them. It was a fun concert. Linda Ronstadt opened for him, solo, and she was great but nervous as a cat at a dog kennel.
Calouste
@Anne Laurie: UB40 isn’t white. I can’t remember exactly, but about half of their 7-8 members are non-white.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: Think.
SFAW
Re: the UB40 vid: WTF is with the gum-chewing?
And they better get offa my lawn.
Omnes Omnibus
@Calouste: Read her actual words.
Calouste
@Geoboy: Talking about Supreme Court Justices and age, earlier in the week I looked at Gorsuch’s Wikipedia page, and I noticed that both his parents died in their early 60s. That might be a bit of a predictor.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW: How many onions ya got on that belt?
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Why? You need to borrow some?
And anyway, I’m borrowing them from efgoldman during his convalescence/recuperation.
pk
Lol, Judge’s book Wasted now on sale for $1999 at amazon. Comments are mostly recent. Wonder how many copies were available 3 weeks ago. Maybe they disappeared in tandem with his vids on youtube: assume Virginia or whoever wasn’t paying over 5/copy at the time.
opiejeanne
@SFAW: has efg been seen round these parts recently?
?BillinGlendaleCA
Neil Diamond also wrote ‘I’m a Believer’ recorded by The Monkees, their Daydream Believer was written by John Stewart(he had a hit with ‘Gold’ in the late 70’s).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: He’s in the hospital had foot work done.
trollhattan
@Anne Laurie:
Went to an English Beat show last spring and we all sang along to “Stand Down Margaret” unironically, because the past is today.
NotMax
@smike
Barron, come on down!
:)
Original Lee
@PJ: It occurred to me just now, isn’t it a little weird that he kept saying he was first in his class at Georgetown Prep? Most people would say valedictorian. Unless his classmates didn’t want to hear him speak and voted for someone else to give the valedictory speech, or perhaps he wasn’t really number one, or maybe there was a tie and he was co-number one?
Chetan Murthy
@pk: Uh, not that I condone this sort of thing [not by any means] but it seems to be available on various (ahem) book-sharing sites. Nobody should download from those places, esp. not a book by Mark Gavreau Judge, nosirree.
Amir Khalid
@pk:
Damn, that’s expensive.
@opiejeanne:
Subaru Diane has been in touch with him. She reports he’s in hospital recovering from surgery, and won’t be commenting for a while.
Chetan Murthy
@Original Lee: Oh, huh. I just -assumed- he was valedictorian, but perhaps he was lyin’ about that TOO.
dmsilev
@Original Lee:
Has he boasted about his SAT scores yet?
eemom
@Original Lee:
At Hunter College High School in NYC, the prestigious PUBLIC institution that I am so proud to be an alum of together with true Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and a bunch of other folks justly celebrated for their merit and not their money, they didn’t do the valedictorian thing, nor did they publicly disclose class rank. I know that because I was first in my class and didn’t get to be valedictorian. Which is FINE. I mean, I’m totally OVER it. ?
eemom
Anyway, maybe that was also the deal at Georgetown Jesuit Choirboy school. Who knows.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
I believe you.
Vhh
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Also, the gay Trumper US ambassador to Germany ?
petorado
@Anne Laurie:
UB40 catches a lot of grief for their string of reggae cover albums (which they did as an homage initially,) but they began as a politically active band that sang of the injustices they saw in Maggie Thatcher’s England. UB40 got it’s name from the form they had to fill out to get on the dole, which they used to buy instruments and start the band. The name of their first album, “Signing Off”, meant they were renouncing their unemployment benefits and finally had jobs in music.
They always had a knack for songs dealing with social issues about Martin Luther King Jr. (“King, where are your people now?), militaristic British foreign policy in “Burden of Shame”, public indifference to the suffering of others in “Silent Witness”, or to the despair of a prostitute choosing suicide in “The Pillow.” After their lucrative cover albums, they went back to social issues with the album “Guns in the Ghetto”, eventually drifting back into pop.
With their brief interplay with the Kavanaugh narrative, the refrain from their song “Tyler” is rather haunting … “Tyler is guilty the white judge has said so
What right do we have to say it’s not so
Testify under pressure, a racist jury
Government lawyers its all for show
With rows of white faces
False accusations
He’s framed up for murder
They won’t let him go “
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne:
My thought on that is that they know they can blackmail him. I would not be surprised to learn that they have far worse shit on him than what we know already. This is just conjecture, but it is the only thing that makes sense to me. His jurisprudence wouldn’t effectively be any different than some of the others. And it seems like a high political price to pay for just a distraction from the Mueller investigation.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I am feeling kind of shabby toward Ben Wittes, not so much for his original support of Kavanaugh but for his (seeming) cowardice in not taking a stand at this point — either reiterating his support or coming out against.
He apparently posted a couple of cryptic things on twitter — reference to big and small lies and how that affects the credibility of a witness. That just seems cowardly to me.
Wondering what your perspective might be on that. If you’d care to share.
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy:
He seems like the type to be valedictorian: good at studying and brown-nosing and bad at actually thinking. The valedictorian at my high school the year I graduated was the portrait of that. Every valedictorian I’ve ever met fits that profile.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: @?BillinGlendaleCA: Thank you both for the egg info.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
Given his record as a Republican hatchet man, I can’t imagine anything Trump would want Kavanaugh to do that he wouldn’t do eagerly. So is the blackmail material just extra insurance?
opiejeanne
@eemom: My HS had two or three tied for the top grade. They held auditions for the best speech, and a kid well down in the B average range gave our speech at graduation, and he rocked. Although we didn’t say that 50 years ago. Can’t remember what we did say back then.
In your case I can see how that would rankle.
Aleta
Andy Borowitz
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: I have no idea. I have just been asking myself the same question—what does THIS GUY offer that the others did not, considering that he comes with so many liabilities? Then it made me realize: the liabilities are in fact benefits for some reason. And why would you want someone with skeletons in their closet? Because they’re controllable.
Groucho48
@jonas:
One of the traits of narcissists is that they tend to stay away from drugs and alcohol. Don’t want to despoil the perfection that is them.
So, don’t give Trump too much credity.
Fair Economist
Suzanne’s idea sounds as good as any to me. Still, Kavanaugh’s supporting anything particularly vile only counts if the other 4 justices agree with it. Under those circumstances basically anybody from the wingnut bench would go along.
Even if that’s the goal, It is still a puzzlement why they’d go to the mat for *this* guy. It’s already clear there’s going to be a political price to pay, above and beyond the price of 5 wingnuts tossing around crazy rulings.
Maybe someday Mueller’s investigations will uncover the real reason for Kavanaugh’s nomination.
opiejeanne
@opiejeanne: efg, not egg. Duh. Stupid autocorrect
The Dangerman
I’ll take a crack at why Trump is going to the wall for BK.
In his feeble little brain, any man he nominates will be “smeared” by some “dishonest woman”…
…and he sure in the fuck doesn’t want to nominate a woman to the USSC.
The two are related. His misogyny is as deep as his narcissism.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Schumer could send Trump a list of nominees that he would allow to come up for a vote, and only list Garland.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
If I want to engage in a little late-night paranoia, I would say that, based on Kavanaugh’s previous record, he’s going there to be Trump’s hatchet man with the conservative justices. Trump wants X decision, and here’s the kompromat to ensure your vote. There may also be kompromat on the liberal justices.
The kompromat on Kavanaugh himself is just insurance in case he tries to double-cross them once he takes his seat.
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
And now Trump is finding out that Kavanaugh isn’t the manly man ladykiller Trump thought he was. It turns out that he’s actually what Trump despises most: a drunk.
I think it may become interesting over the next few days to see what Trump’s tweets about Kavanaugh are. He may be looking for a way out unless his aides can convince him that a drunk will be more likely to take orders.
JGabriel
Ragnarok Lobster via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Of course they are. Conservatives know that “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the standard they’re using to defend Kavanaugh, doesn’t apply to job interviews; they know that, in fact, “reasonable doubt” is more than enough to deny someone a job, more than enough reason to keep looking for a better candidate.
Sloane Ranger
Sorry but Brit here and ignorant of US procedure. Someone up thread said that Merrick Garlands nomination had expired. Is it actually written down somewhere in the Constitution, law or Senate rules that a nomination expires after a period of time or with the inauguration of a new President, or is it just a norm that has existed since the beginning of the Republic?
Genuinely would like to know.
pk
@Sloane Ranger: Not sure how it works officially either. Would like to hear the answer to this from an expert. But possibly the “expire” refers to the fact that a nominee is put forward by a president. So once the president’s term is over, the choice of that nominee “expires.” But it is a norm for Congress to hold a hearing for any nominee put forward by a president. McConnell just threw out the rules on that one. I’m assuming that because it is a norm, he got away with it. His speciality is brute power and zero scruples. This article has a discussion if you are interested (below). I’m NOT an expert so hoping someone else will weigh in. But the thread seems dead so you might post a question in later one.
theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/senate-obama-merrick-garland-supreme-court-nominee/482733/
pk
@Sloane Ranger: There is also McConnell’s snide invocation of Biden Rule, classic McConnell to use a Democratic quote to bolster his own destruction of a rule/norm.
politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/mar/17/context-biden-rule-supreme-court-nominations/
pk
@Sloane Ranger: I should point out that the first article is written by a GOP lawyer and presents mostly their point of view. The timing of the Garland nomination (election was a long ways away) was not exactly the situation Biden was discussing.
Sloane Ranger
@pk: Thanks for the info and the tip. Have re-posted as you advised.
NotMax
@Sloane Ranger
A ‘term’ of Congress lasts two years – each federal election changes membership in some way.. The Garland nomination was presented as business for the 114th Congress. That Congress’ term was noon of January 3, 2015 through noon of January 3, 2017, so it exists no more. Unfinished business of that Congress, including nominations or pending legislation, does not carry over to the next Congress. Any such unfinished business would have to be resubmitted or begun again from scratch.
Hypothetical example: Had Obama been eligible for and won a third term, he would have had to either resubmit Garland’s name to the 115th Congress or submit the name of a different nominee.
Anonymous At Work
@jonas: Trump might detest Kavanaugh over the drinking but is so insecure and afraid of Mueller’s investigation into his own finances that Trump can’t quit Kavanaugh. But, yeah, I’ve been thinking hard about why Trump would stick with someone with the single greatest weakness he can detest in a male.
Shana
@eemom: As was Chris Hayes and Lin-Manuel Miranda! Good company.
John M. Burt
Dang. Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday was thirty years ago.
I must be old.
[Looks down at belt.]
Anybody got an onion?
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