Normally when I write Freak Out Friday, I begin with a google search of Trump News to see what the idiot has been up to.
Wasn’t necessary this week. All of it played out on every TV station in this country. It was unavoidable. Indeed, being a total wuss, I wasn’t able to watch it for all that long as Dr. Ford struggled mightily–and for the most part successfully–to keep her act together. Meanwhile Judge Kavanaugh followed up with a shouting performance that utterly fell apart when the prospect of the FBI was raised.
I mean, I don’t know about you, but if a woman accused me of trying to rape her and I was offered the opportunity to have the FBI investigate it, I would not hesitate to take them up on it. “Take your time, get it right,” I’d say. Kavanaugh? Lapsed into silence, didn’t really answer, kicked it back to the committee. When someone remains unflustered and keeps themselves together, generally speaking they’re either a sociopath or have nothing to hide. Ford is no sociopath. When someone shouts and blusters and then backs down in the face of a thorough investigation, they’ve plenty to hide.
And of course Trump sticks with his pick since he is incapable of ever admitting when he’s wrong. Ever. He posted a bellicose tweet declaring that it was now obvious to America why he had chosen Kavanaugh. Yes, it is. Trump is an admitted, hëll, boastful, molester of women. So naturally he was drawn to someone of a similar nature.
Now understand, I am fully prepared to believe that Kavanaugh genuinely doesn’t remember what he did. I had never in my life been drunk, but I have my own experience with memory loss. I was in the hospital with my stroke for ten days and I remember maybe five minutes of it, in all. No one believes I’m lying about that. I’m actually told it’s rather common. And I am likewise willing to accept that Kavanaugh drank himself into a stupor in which he doesn’t remember–or would rather not remember–what he did. It’s likely he considers himself a decent man who NOW would never do such a thing, and may deeply believe that even if he did it back when he was 17, he shouldn’t be punished for it now.
Of course, the same man didn’t hesitate to forbid a 17 year old girl from having an abortion, believing that she had made a mistake and now had to spend the rest of her life paying for it, so: a hypocrite, at the very least. A hypocrite who doesn’t want the FBI involved nor his friend Judge (what an appropriate surname) testifying under oath. Yeah. That’s who you want setting law for the next generation.
Ford has literally risked her life to come forward into a no-win scenario, and the GOP naturally wants to speed the nomination forward rather than find out the truth. If anyone has ever doubted that the GOP is entirely about acquiring and keeping power, this should pretty much confirm it. All they have to do is wait for the FBI to conduct an investigation, but they won’t do it. They’re afraid of two things: the Mid-term elections and the truth. That is who is running the country right now.
Except the one thing they should really be afraid of is Trump. Their man, their ruler, their dictator is a sociopath, a compulsive liar without the slightest bit of human empathy. There is no doubt in my mind that if Fox and Friends told him to launch a nuclear missile, he would do it. A rational president with a sense of the country’s good on his mind would insist that, at the very least, the FBI be given the time to determine what happened. Trump would never do that: he hates the FBI, and would never admit that he could have made an error in selecting Kavanaugh. Yesterday he tweeted, “Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him.” Yes, he did. He shouted. He ranted. He accused the Democrats and political enemies of aligning to destroy him. In short, he did exactly what Trump does whenever he gets backed into a corner. He took a huge page out of the Trump playbook, crumpled it, shoved it up his ášš and regurgitated it. Trump selected him because he saw in him someone who was just like himself: a sexual molester who doesn’t want to be held responsible for his actions.
And I know, there are people shouting “Innocent until proven guilty.” Uhm…you know that’s not a real thing, right? It’s not in the constitution. The UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, yes, but not the American judicial system. If someone were really innocent until proven guilty, then no one could ever be held in jail while awaiting trial, because jail is where guilty people go. All the precept genuinely refers to is that it’s the prosecution’s burden to provide proof of the crime. Which was essentially what the prosecution was trying to do in this instance, except the entire trial was shut down. No other witnesses (including corroborating ones), no FBI investigation, no nothing. Just one woman. Every áššhølë who asks why she didn’t come forward when she was fifteen has received the answer: Because she wouldn’t have been believed. It took her thirty years to become the assured woman who convinced millions of Americans. If she’d been fifteen, she’d have been shredded in court and become a pariah in her hometown, no question. Ford is a smart woman and I suspect she was a smart girl, and the smart girl knew the odds against her were insurmountable. The grown woman was able to sit there and lecture senators about the hippocampus, which I’ve no doubt many would have guessed was an animal tended to by Dr. Dolittle. The young girl would likely have crumbled.
What it comes down to is this: Unless there are senators who are concerned that they’ll lose their seat by voting for Kavanaugh, this áššhølë is going to wind up on the Supreme Court. I’m sure he and Clarence Thomas will be best buds. Roe v. Wade will be teetering on the edge of oblivion. And Trump will go back to watching Fox and Friends to find out what to do next.
PAD
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I think the worst aspect of the last ten days was that it became yet another opportunity for many in this country to show us who they really were.
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In just over the last year we’ve been told the following by Trump and his supporters.
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If you show up and have a rally where you carry torches, praise white supremacist concepts, and scream “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil” at the top of your lungs, you’re some very fine people.
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Collusion with a foreign adversary to manipulate an election in your favor isn’t a crime, but even if it is it shouldn’t matter.
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It’s totally okay to rip toddlers and infants from their mothers’ arms, throw them into slapdash cages, and subject them to mental and emotional abuse if you can tell yourself it’s the parents that are to blame for breaking the law by coming here.
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Now we have this last week. Now we have a SCOTUS nominee who may well be guilty of sexually assaulting multiple women. And what were the defenses put forward by the Trumpster Trash when not denying any possibility of the assaults having happened? They rationalized and excused them.
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It’s perfectly okay if teenage boys sexually assault girls by holding them down, covering their mouths, and trying to pull their clothing off, because that’s just what boys do. It’s just boys being boys. And men groping women against their will? That’s perfectly okay and something women should just live with because it’s no big thing. Boys will be boys.
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Oh, and death threats against Ford and her family? They rationalized those as well. I actually had several people I know who tried to make half assed defenses and rationalizations for death threats against Ford and her family. Why? Because, you know, she waited over 30 years and had no proof and this was all a political smear job and etc…
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Trump isn’t the disease, Trump was just the newest symptom. The disease was growing- quite openly and publicly, actually -for some time now. The disease is his supporters and enablers, and they’re going to be here long after he’s gone.
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And the disease makes something about the divide in America more and more clear every time these people have are given the ability to open their mouths.
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This isn’t about political differences, this is about differences in morality. And, frankly, some of these people are seriously mentally ill.
Want to know something really scary, Jerry? It’s not just America, it’s happening all over the world. We’re about to elect a Brazilian President that said he wants to kill 30,000 “socialists” and shouted at a female politician that he wouldn’t rape her because she was too ugly.
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Half of the time, I don’t know what the hëll is happening to the world, what is happening to people.
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I know there is a ton of theories and possible explanations. Of how free market capitalism is showing cracks and both the left and the right are abandoning the consensus around it in favor of quasi-fascism and quasi-socialism, respectively, and for this reason people are no longer opponents, but deadly enemies, but I never dreamed that all there was binding us minimally together was faith in the fûçkìņg free market …
Take away comfort and security and many people crack. One of the first steps in the process? Find someone to blame for what is happening. In America, it’s become immigrants (particularly brown ones) and anyone who doesn’t agree that it’s the fault of immigrants.
No better here in Ontario with Trump ‘lite’, that is Premier Doug Ford (yes, brother to drugged out late Toronto mayor Rob Ford), who wanted to do something and a Superior Court judge said “No, you aren’t allowed” so he replied “I’m elected, you’re not, so I’ll do it anyway.”
Kavanaugh is pretty scummy, and dropping to political accusations was just dumb. It makes him antithetical to what a Supreme Court justice does. They are not supposed to show political bias.
Obviously, that takes a back seat to what he is accused of, but anyone who needs that explained on a comments section on a web site, is a lost cause already.
The “it was back in High School” argument is bizarre. Yes, I also have things I did as a teenager I wasn’t proud of… ashamed of even… nothing quite so hefty.
It is a classic argument technique to have someone connect with there personal experience. “Oh I gave grief to a teacher who was going through a hard time at home, I regret that type thing.”
Problem of course is, It is only a proper parallel if it is in the same ballpark. And I think I am offended that they all apparently seem to think I am that bad of a person.
Of course, it does work on less savvy people.
As for your statement of “innocent until proven Guilty,” it is a fundamental basis for our legal system. The burden of proof is always on the state, not the individual. That has saved many innocent people.
Our Legal system is based on the idea that it is better for a guilty man to go free than imprison an innocent one.
It is how we based our court system, and fundamental to our legal institutions. Ask any lawyer or judge.
LET ME FINISH BEFORE YOU JUMP DOWN MY THROAT.
HOWEVER, while an important part of our system that should never be scoffed at, it is ONLY APPLICABLE IN A TRIAL.
This has not been a trial. It is essentially a job interview. People don’t get jobs for a whole host of reasons.
People claim this is only hearsay and rumors. I don’t believe that at all, but even if it were, people don’t get jobs for that reason all the time.
I just want to make this perfectly clear, I am with Ford. I believe that she is telling the truth, and deserves to be heard.
I simply believe that those elements should be mentioned, to show how weak the argument for Kavanaugh.
Please, please, don’t read any of this as me disbelieving Ford, being okay with Kavanaugh.
Re: final paragraph
Clarence Thomas, not Clarence Hill.
I think you owe Anita Hill an apology. Not as serious as the one the U.S. Senate owes her, but…
Hate to pick a small nit but I think you meant Clarence Thomas near the end.
Considering how many names I get wrong in a given week, I fully sympathize.
Don’t forget the one bit of levity this week: the UN assembly speech with world leaders laughing at you-know-who!
Yeah, that would have been my top article if the whole Senate thing hadn’t overshadowed it.
While the Kavanaugh hearing was obviously more important, is there any chance that you will comment on Trump’s speech at the United Nations in a future posting? Or was Trump’s “They weren’t laughing at me, they were laughing with me” response just too pathetic for you to feel comfortable discussing?
Jerry: Trump isn’t the disease, Trump was just the newest symptom.
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Luigi: People are fond of saying that, and I get what they’re saying, but I don’t think it’s entirely accurate. In part, they’re saying that his presidency was made possible as an outgrowth of prior conditions, but at the same time, it reinforced and exacerbated them too. So it’s not an either/or choice between a strictly causal and strictly effectual entity. Rather, I think someone should appropriate the more apt metaphor that Trump is not the root cause, but a branch off the tree. He is the product of the phenomenon, but is also spreading it.
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God, what a fûçkìņg nightmare this is.
True, very true. I feel like it’s a feedback loop, with Trump being both invigorated by this fascist/sexist/ultra-rightist wave and invigorating it in return.
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But sometimes I also think that no one can acurately say whether right-wingers get more radicalized when they’re in power or out of power. The Clinton and Obama presidencies were both times when the American right got more combative and aggressive non-stop. Perhaps just as much as when Bush was in power.
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Who knows? Maybe with Clinton we’d have an Republican Congress even more hardcore and ten times more neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville angry that a woman was in the White House and making them feel emasculated.
“Not the root cause, but a branch off the tree.”
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Fantastic metaphor, Luigi. I’m going to start using that myself, if that’s okay with you.
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Trump didn’t create the resentment, jealousy, revanchism, and general sense of anger and fear that’s in a lot of his strongest supporters. But he fanned those flames very well, and now has turned it from hot coals to a fûçkìņg dumpster fire.
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I really fear for the next dozen years or so for this country. Probably more.
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As for Kavanaugh, my sense is that he’s this over-entitled, privileged “frat bro” who thinks being denied anything he wants is obviously an evil plot and horrible discrimination. Regardless of whether he did what Dr. Ford claims (which I think is very, very likely), his demeanor on Thursday should absolutely bar him from the Court.
Watching Kavanaugh rant about how the Democrats were conspiring against him and the belligerent and rambling way he “answered ” their questions convinced me of two things:
1) This man does not have the temperament, conscience, empathy, and possibly rationality to serve on ANY bench, and certainly not the SCOTUS. In a setting where he was essentially interviewing for a job, he took an inappropriately aggressive and offensive attitude that is guaranteed not to make the interviewer like you. He apparently forgot that he wasn’t in the private fiefdom of his courtroom.
2) After seeing him melt down when things aren’t going his way and he’s SOBER, I can very easily see him being an aggressive drunk, particularly with women or anyone else he thinks is inferior to him. Yeah, he did it.
See, here’s where I stand. At this point, I no longer care who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. Personally I suspect that Ford’s being truthful AF and Kavanaugh is lying scum I wouldn’t trust to walk my dog, but that’s really neither here nor there.
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Kavanaugh, in how he’s reacted, has shown he doesn’t have the qualities needed in a Supreme Court Justice. He just *doesn’t*. Even in the very unlikely event that Ford is lying her butt off and this whole thing really is just a political smear job… I wouldn’t want somebody who has shown such utter lack of composure, who has acted like he has, who has screamed and ranted like I’ve seen, to be sitting on the highest bench of the land. I wouldn’t want him there for long enough to have a photo op, let alone for life. He doesn’t have the temperament *now*, regardless of anything he did at 17.
I agree. Sadly, I’ve seen plenty of people on the wrong (I will no longer call them the right is any context) saying how his tantrum and partisan ranting showed he was just the man for the job.
Hi PAD! i’ve always loved your writing since i was in my teens and especially your Supergirl issue that featured Steel (really opened my eyes to free speech at 15). i will keep buying all the Aquaman (so happy to finally read Atlantis Chronicles!).
i am generally curious though that all the Clinton accusers were swept away so quickly by you. i am sure you have a good reason. for a good dialogue in this state of the country, i would love to hear your thoughts on the difference of the Kavanaugh situation versus the Broaddrick, Flowers and Jones and other accusers. thanks!
I don’t mean to speak for PAD, I’m just adding my two cents.
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I am an old liberal and I confess that I’m not 100% comfortable with Me Too and the new identity politics in the left. There is a part of me that still sees all this moral indignation as too similar to right-wing hysterics and moral panics from the past.
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However, I think there is a crucial difference between Me Too and older Conservartive-led cruzades, regardless of Bill Clinton’s guilt or innocence.
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Me Too really goes after everybody. Hëll, most of the men targetted had been Liberal darlings. I may be wary sometimes of Me Too’s potential effects on privacy and causing internet lynch mobs to become legit, but Me Too really seems driven by ideals, and not by cynical power-grabbing calculation like similar Conservative movements like McCarthism or Christians trumpeting family values or whatever.
Devil’s advocate back: Gennifer Flowers isn’t really an “accuser”, as she just sais she had a 12 year, consensusal relationship with Clinton. She never claimed abuse, rape, or pressed charges on Clinton himself, she only ever tried to sue his advisors, claiming they were trying to defame her.
Flowers had her day in court. First run, it was dismissed without legal merit, not enough evidence. She appealed after the Lewinsky affair, claiming it backed up her story, but was going nowhere. They settled out of court, which Flowers claimed was evidence of guilt and felt vindicated.
Broaddrick is the only really complicated one, as she at first denied it, then the rumors started after Clinton’s nominaton. She refused to come forward when named, and even Ken Starr could find no evidence to corroborate her story or anything to support the theory that the Clnton’s bought her silence. There’s been no charges because she herself filed an affadavit in 1998 that there was no assault and vehemently denied it. Yes, she’s tried to recant that affadavit, but at this point there’s almost no way to corroborate anything, and most of the things she later described were similar to what Paula Jones had described in her testimony, so nobody could tell if she was just using Jones’ account as her own. No charges were ever brought, and she seems more interested in just telling her story than anything else.
Main difference: all three of these were either investigated or had their day in court with varying results: Jones – settled out of court. Flowers – never claimed abuse, no charges. (And since folks are okay with a proven multiple adulterer in office, a consensual relationship is a non-starter) Broaddrick – inconclusive, no charges, originally dismissed by Starr and his commission as unreliable.
Blindpew –
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One of the many hypocrisies of modern right-wingers is precisely this. I never got the sense that they were worried about the women Clinton may have abused. They just wanted Clinton removed and kept claiming that a multiple adulterer had no point being President, because he LOWERED the standards of the Presidency, and because a politician should be simon pure in his personal life as reflection of his public life in office, etc.
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Fastforward to Donald Trump becoming President and almost all GOP fans doing a total reversal on these positions! It was almost as astonishing as GOP fans claiming that collusion with Russian spies was now okay, after decades of rants about evil Soviets.
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To be honest, a lot of Liberals have more than a whiff of hypocrisy about them too, but at least they had first to renounce their former infatuation with Bill Clinton, to jump on the SJW wagon. Because, as far as I know, most modern feminists think Bill Clinton is, at best, a huge creep that used the disproportionate power he had to get laid, even when they don’t believe he is a rapist.
Totally agree with you on the somewhat baseless claims. i questioned them in the 90’s too. i guess that’s why the current issue with Kavanaugh rings somewhat hollow with the left. the Dr. Ford has no proof and a story that keeps changing. if she had said the same thing about Clinton in the 90’s, i wouldn’t be surprised to see the same situation being played out, but the parties switched. i get why politicians do it, but the voters usually see through it (as they did in the 90’s, and it seems to be now)
PS Thanks Rene and Blindpew for the response!
Ryan,
I would have bet huge sums of money that PAD would not reply to your comment.
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Nice try though.
I frankly don’t care if he did it or not, or just what he did if he did something. I don’t care if he remembers or pushed it out of his brain or blacked out.
I care that he did not look like he belonged on the Supreme Court. There is a certain amount of restraint, of gravitas, of “above the fray” that even the justices who are politically out of step with me display in public. Kavanaugh did not display that temperament.
So, you guys remember all that talk about Rey being a Mary Sue?
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/02/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rian-johnson-abuse-politically-motivated-russian-trolls
We truly are living in an over-long BLACK MIRROR episode.
The late writer Robert Heinlein pegged it as far back as ’39 when he foresaw various factors coming together to make of the late 20th and into the 21st century the most insane period in human history. He didn’t call it “DARK MIRROR”, he called it THE CRAZY YEARS. One time I’m sure he would not have been happy to have been right.
What keeps bugging me is people bringing this up like it’s a trial with a jury and there’s a basis for rule of law and procedure and establishing innocence or guilt, when what this whole process has been is a job interview. Which by any standard, Kavanaugh failed. Who would hire this guy and in what capacity after what we’ve seen, much less being part of the Supreme Court. There must be 1,000s of other judges without a parade of accusers who could be put forward as candidates if it wasn’t for the pride and stubbornness of the Republicans.
Kav’s the only one they can be 100% sure will shield Trump from prosecution after Mueller gets done.