Tweet Of The Day: Scary Times For Dudes

Brilliant:

It's a really scary time for dudes right now. So I wrote a song about it. Go #vote friends! #TheResistance #1Thing @ACLU @WC4SJ #letsmakesomenoise pic.twitter.com/hz7E3xMRqR

— Lynzy Lab (@mercedeslynz) October 8, 2018

Monday Reading (UPDATED)

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Nan Aron writes about how an important lesson from the KavaNut battle will be to make the courts at all levels an issue for women and progressives:

For 40 years, the right wing has sent its voters to the polls with the federal courts as a priority. It also built a machine for manufacturing and marketing the kind of nominee exemplified by Brett Kavanaugh: conventionally credentialed, politically connected, and partisan to the core. 

Progressives will never have an appetite for cookie-cutter nominees or the conformity-imposing systems that build them. But we have the power as voters to make the courts an issue and a matter of real accountability and electability for senators, this year, in 2020 and beyond. [snip] 

So yes, this is no time to pack up the tents. Kavanaugh has helped us to see all too clearly what the stakes are for women, for workers, for racial equity, LGBTQ Americans, and the environment when the right captures our courts—and those stakes are far too high. We have arrived at this clarity through a painful process, but we have arrived, and with a midterm election right around the corner. And that’s just the beginning. (our emphasis)

Avi Selk on the "junk science" vile weasels (he mentions Trump and Sens. Collins, Manchin and Graham for starters) used to try to annihilate Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's "100 percent" certain memory of KavaNut sexually assaulting her:

The politically convenient, scientifically baseless theory that sexual assault so traumatized Christine Blasey Ford she mixed up her attacker is now something like common wisdom for many Republicans. 

President Trump explicitly endorsed the theory Saturday, shortly after Brett M. Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed as a Supreme Court judge, telling reporters he was “100 percent” sure Ford accused Kavanaugh in error. [snip]

It’s easy to forget that less than three weeks ago, when the mistaken-identity theory was first formulated, it was so widely ridiculed that a pundit who advanced it on Twitter subsequently apologized and offered to resign from his job. But for many cognitive researchers who study how memories actually form during traumatic events, the theory never stopped sounding ridiculous.  (our emphasis)

Speaking of science, the human race is hard at work on self- extinction, with Trump's America at the forefront:

A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.” 

The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population. [snip]

Avoiding the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years, said the authors, who estimate that the damage would come at a cost of $54 trillion. But while they conclude that it is technically possible to achieve the rapid changes required to avoid 2.7 degrees of warming, they concede that it may be politically unlikely. 

For instance, the report says that heavy taxes or prices on carbon dioxide emissions — perhaps as high as $27,000 per ton by 2100 — would be required. But such a move would be almost politically impossible in the United States, the world’s largest economy and second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China. Lawmakers around the world, including in China, the European Union and California, have enacted carbon pricing programs.  (our emphasis)

Finally, please take some time to check out the link round- up at Infidel 753. Among other things, you might see sunrise on an asteroid.

UPDATE:  Tennesseean Taylor Swift posted her choices in the State and local congressional race on Instagram:

... I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love. Running for Senate in the state of Tennessee is a woman named Marsha Blackburn. As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values. I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives...

As of late afternoon, the post has over 1.5 million likes, much to the horror of her Aryan 4Chan fanboys.

Deborah Ramirez' Statement On Kavanaugh Confirmation Vote

A powerful response by Brett "KavaNut" Kavanaugh victim Deborah Ramirez to Republican Senators "deliberately ignoring his behavior:"

Thirty-five years ago, the other students in the room chose to laugh and look the other way as sexual violence was perpetrated on me by Brett Kavanaugh.  As I watch many of the Senators speak and vote on the floor of the Senate I feel like I’m right back at Yale where half the room is laughing and looking the other way. Only this time, instead of drunk college kids, it is US Senators who are deliberately ignoring his behavior.  This is how victims are isolated and silenced. 

But I do have corroborating witnesses speaking for me, although they were not allowed to speak to the FBI, and I feel extremely grateful for them and for the overwhelming amount of support that I have received and continue to receive during this difficult and painful time.  There may be people with power who are looking the other way, but there are millions more who are standing together, speaking up about personal experiences of sexual violence and taking action to support survivors. This is truly a collective moment of survivors and allies standing together.

Thank you for hearing me, seeing me and believing me. I am grateful for each and every one of you.  We will not be silenced. 

We stand in truth and light, 

Deborah Ramirez 

(pronouns she, her, hers)

We won't be silenced, and this is not over.

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's Written Testimony

Read Dr. Blasey Ford's written testimony to be delivered tomorrow to the Senate Judiciary Committee here (pdf).

She recounts the sexual assault and how it "drastically altered her life."  She's going to be a blockbuster witness.

Kavanaugh's Choir Boy Act Doesn't Wash

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Watching Brett Kavanaugh playing the ludicrously virginal choir boy (the alter ego of rapey drunk "Bart O'Kavanaugh") with his stricken wife at his side in the Monday night interview on friendly Fox News has compelled several more Kavanaugh college friends to call out his blatant lies:

Liz Swisher, who described herself as a friend of Kavanaugh in college, said she was shocked that — in an interview focused largely on his high school years and allegations of sexual misconduct — he strongly denied drinking to the point of blacking out. 

“Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He’d end up slurring his words, stumbling,” said Swisher, a Democrat and chief of the gynecologic oncology division at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “There’s no medical way I can say that he was blacked out. . . . But it’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess.” 

Lynne Brookes, who like Swisher was a college roommate of one of the two women now accusing Kavanaugh of misconduct, said the nominee’s comments on Fox did not match the classmate she remembered. 

“He’s trying to paint himself as some kind of choir boy,” said Brookes, a Republican and former pharmaceutical executive who recalled an encounter with a drunken Kavanaugh at a fraternity event. “You can’t lie your way onto the Supreme Court, and with that statement out, he’s gone too far. It’s about the integrity of that institution.”  (our emphasis)

He's a "smooth liar" -- but not smooth enough by half.  He's already been caught lying about his past actions as a Republican operative throughout his confirmation testimony. No wonder he doesn't want to "clear his name" by having the FBI question him under oath (unlike his accusers).

Seth Meyers also has a "Couple Things" to discuss regarding the Kavanaugh appearance on Fox News:



In the meantime, more corroborators of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's account of Kavanaugh's sexual assault have stepped forward (see post below).  There's an awful lot of smoke here, and it's not of the dry ice variety.

A lying, drunk, serial sexual assaulter to be installed on the Supreme Court for life.  Well, you have to say he largely fits the profile of rotted out, privileged white male Republicans who never had to answer for their misbehavior (see also, "Trump, Donald").

BONUS:  Booman has a good read on Kavanaugh's lying self.

Some Of Kavanaugh's Female Supporters Now Having Second Thoughts

Oh, Brett, they hardly knew ye.

At least two of the women who have publicly vouched for that virginal exemplar of Republican morals, Brett Kavanaugh, are having second thoughts about their man:

Louisa Garry, one of the former Kavanaugh classmates who asked the New Yorker to remove her name from a statement of support for Kavanaugh, seems to be the same Louisa Garry who appears in a Judicial Crisis Network ad supporting Kavanaugh. https://t.co/ZpAoaEuNIf pic.twitter.com/733MHHvlVX

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 24, 2018

(h/t Karoli Kuns)

Oh... oh man. https://t.co/WFaeDMuWm7 pic.twitter.com/5MIwDch240

— Matt Pearce 🦅 (@mattdpearce) September 25, 2018

Meanwhile, we have Kavanaugh's freshman year roommate at Yale, James Roche, vouching for Debbie Ramirez and painting a now- familiar portrait of the young man as a drunken abuser:

"It is from this experience that I concluded that although Brett was normally reserved, he was a notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time, and that he became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk. I did not observe the specific incident in question, but I do remember Brett frequently drinking excessively and becoming incoherently drunk." 

Roche says he became friends with Debbie Ramirez. "She stood out as being exceptionally honest, with a trusting manner. As we got to know one another, I discovered that Debbie was very worried about fitting in. She felt that everyone at Yale was very rich, very smart and very sophisticated and that as a Puerto Rican woman from a less privileged background she was an outsider. Her response was to try hard to make friends and get along."

Who, again, is more believable?

BONUS:  Kavanaugh has a gold - pated endorser who, like the smarmy Mitch McConnell (see post below), says Kavanaugh's accusers are liars --

The Democrats are working hard to destroy a wonderful man, and a man who has the potential to be one of our greatest Supreme Court Justices ever, with an array of False Accusations the likes of which have never been seen before!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 25, 2018

Wow, "the likes of which have never been seen before!"  Even worse than the accusations by multiple women who've accused YOU of sexual misconduct? Just, wow.

Tweets Of The Day -- Is Another Kavanaugh Victim Out There?

"Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to." -- Ronnie Reagan speechwriter Peggy "Nooney Tunes" Noonan, April 24, 2000.

FWIW, a DC lawyer told me this morning he'd been waiting for Kavanaugh's #MeToo moment ... but the story he knew wasn't from high school but a summer clerkship. https://t.co/PemgS0lOjA

— Andrea Wolfson (@andrea_wolfson) September 14, 2018

Turned my mentions off because YIKES, but let me add he's already shared what he heard with a reporter as did the person with firsthand knowledge.

— Andrea Wolfson (@andrea_wolfson) September 17, 2018

Wolfson's twitter has been protected, so this is all we get for now.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Yesterday, we noted the determination of simpleton Donald "Rump" Trump to escalate his trade war with China.  It seems the public mood in China is to fight back hard:

A dock worker from the eastern port city of Ningbo said he wants China to stand unflinchingly against President Trump’s demands.  

A salesman in Beijing hopes his country will keep punching back in the commercial ring — even if it hurts his wallet. 

And a coffee shop owner in the Chinese capital said Trump’s tariffs have inspired her to retaliate at the store: She’s swapping U.S. products for Chinese brands. 

As the trade war between the world’s two largest economies unfolds on the international stage, analysts say Trump’s brash approach to try to win concessions from Beijing has provoked a public fury that could ultimately thwart his efforts.  (our emphasis)

The damage the malignant fool causes in every sphere he touches will last long after he's gone.

Keep digging, you irredeemable, hypocritical bastards:

President Donald Trump’s team plans to attack the credibility of professor Christine Blasey Ford, who came forward with her account of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault on Sunday, by emphasizing that the accusation has surfaced at the end of the confirmation process and that Ford didn’t tell anyone about the alleged attack at the time, according to a Sunday Bloomberg report. [snip]

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley has already laid the foundation for the White House’s plan, saying through his spokeswoman in a statement that is is “disturbing that these uncorroborated allegations” have come to light just before the planned committee vote on Thursday. 

The allegation is corroborated, both with detailed notes from Ford’s therapy session years ago and with a passed polygraph test administered by the FBI.

It's the go- to Republican playbook: smear attacks on the victim to "win" at any cost.  Let's make sure the cost is the House and Senate this year.

Speaking of irredeemable bastards:

.@DonaldJTrumpJr is making fun of an alleged sexual assault victim. The next time a Republican friend asks me why their party is having trouble with women right now, I may direct them to this Instagram post. pic.twitter.com/9tXjUUajaD

— Nick LaFave (@NickLaFave) September 17, 2018

The greasy f*ckwad didn't fall far from the tree.

The WaPo has a visual story on the absolute devastation in the Carolinas from Hurricane Florence, with still pictures, video and text.  Please take a few minutes to click through, and remember, whether it's the Carolinas or Puerto Rico, we have to be all our brother's keepers.

Protests involving national anthems isn't just an American phenomenon.  In this case, it's someone you might not expect in a place you might not expect (found via Infidel 753):

Now new headlines are made by someone who refuses to stand when an anthem is played, but this time it’s a nine-year-old girl in Australia who protests against the content of the anthem itself. The schoolgirl was given detention last week for “blatant disrespect” over her failure to participate with classmates during assembly when the song was rendered at Kenmore South State School in Brisbane. 

Harper Nielsen has stirred controversy after refusing to stand for Australia’s national anthem in protest to “institutional racism”; she claimed the song “Advance Australia Fair” ignored the nation’s indigenous people, taking issue with the opening lyrics to the anthem, which read: “Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free. “When it says ‘we are young’ it completely disregards the Indigenous Australians who were here before us for over 50,000 years,” she said. “When it was originally written, Advance Australia Fair meant advance the white people of Australia,” she added.

The Aussie national anthem was written by Peter Dodds McCormick in 1878, so you can believe young Nielsen's interpretation as being on the money.  Her stance has, of course, agitated the local loons on the Aussie right.  ("F*ck your feelings.")

Speaking of Infidel 753, we would again refer you to his comprehensive link round-up, where you can find "various interesting stuff" he came across over the past week, like the item above.  Always a good destination.

Why Women Don't Come Forward: Brett Kavanaugh Edition

Dahlia Lithwick has a must- read article today about the broken system that "Republican Forrest Gump" Judge Brett Kavanaugh springs from and that may well advance him to the Supreme Court in spite of a sexual assault allegation:

The real tragedy is that we do not need this woman’s story to understand who the current Supreme Court nominee is. Because here is what we do know about Judge Kavanaugh: We know that he clerked for and had a yearslong close relationship with a serial abuser of women and claims he knew nothing about it. He claims he doesn’t recall being on a hypersexualized and misogynistic email list and claims he didn’t bother to search to determine whether he was. He claims that when the serial abuser of women for whom he clerked was revealed to be a serial abuser of women, he believed the victims and yet called the abuser, because he was worried about the abuser’s mental health. Worrying more about the accused judge than the accusers one claims to believe is the system protecting the system. This is why women don’t come forward. 

Here is what we do know about Judge Kavanaugh. We know that he was part of a group of young men who saw fit to write a creepy racist and misogynistic email chain—and to pledge to keep it secret. We also know that the “neutral” George W. Bush lawyer who vetted Kavanaugh’s papers (and also represents the disgraced judge for whom Kavanaugh once clerked) deemed one of those emails classified, even though it contained no national security or political secrets. Withholding that email was the system protecting the system. That is why women don’t come forward. 

Here is what we do know about Judge Kavanaugh. He had an opportunity to use all these questions around all these periods in his life to say anything at all about men and power and the female victims of that power, and about the systems that protect and reify and rehabilitate men in power, and he said nothing. Worse, he said he believed the victims of that system while still doing nothing to support or credit them. This is why women don’t come forward.

Litwick's article is a blistering indictment of an entrenched patriarchal system whose demise is long overdue. (Lithwick reminds us of what happened to Anita Hill in the confirmation process for Justice Thomas and of the many #MeToo victims who've often been further crippled by the experience of coming forward.)  We're happy to provide at least a partial response on the political side:  elect many more women into positions of power at all levels of government, starting with the 15 Democratic women running for the U.S. Senate and 187 Democratic women running for the House this year, and the 12 Democratic women running for Governor.

BONUS:  Paul Waldman on (white male) Senate Republicans' long- held knowledge of the accusation against Kavanaugh and how they chose to respond:

If you went to an all-boys high school how would there be 65 girls who knew you well enough to testify to your good character? And how long would it take to track them all down 35 years later and convince them to sign this letter? They were obviously preparing this for some time. https://t.co/gy5xVOrMgE

— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) September 14, 2018

BONUS II:  On the same note --

Maybe your pick for SCOTUS isn't so ideal when you knew you had to get statements of 65 women who *weren't* raped by Brett Kavanaugh before anyone even mentioned that he might be a sexual predator . . . https://t.co/xsApOILGw5

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) September 14, 2018

The stench is sickening.