The Shortsighted GOP Push for Kavanaugh

As I have often noted, for eight (8) years I was a precinct chair member of the City Committee for the Republican Party of Virginia Beach.  I even filed the articles incorporating the body with the State Corporation Commission.  Back in those days, part of the Party agenda was planning for the long term future of the Party.  Those days are long gone and now, perceived short term expediency trumps all else - no pun intended - and there seems to be no thought of what short term actions may trigger in the long term.   The trend began back shortly before I resigned from the GOP when Christofascists were voted onto local city and county committees with the short term view of rallying "conservative Christians" to support the Party.  Since then, white supremacists have been welcomed in and, in the figure of Brett Kavanaugh, anti-women misogynists have been welcomed to the GOP fold.  Meanwhile, the younger voters, Hispanics, college educated voters and minorities - the growing segments of the electorate - have been driven into the arms of the Democrats.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the long term repercussions Republicans may suffer if the ram through Kavanaugh's confirmation.  Here are excerpts:

By refusing to call other witnesses, or enlist the FBI in a fact-finding investigation, or summon relevant witnesses, Senate Republicans have systematically steered the hearing into a cul-de-sac of competing memories between Ford and Kavanaugh. The plan to vote on the nomination within days gives away the game: No one would schedule votes that quickly if they were committed to fully evaluating whatever testimony Ford provides on Thursday, much less the other charges confronting Kavanaugh.

The allegations from Avenatti’s client, Julie Swetnick, could scramble Republicans’ decision making. But even if the Senate pushes forward and confirms Kavanaugh, the battle over his selection is virtually guaranteed to continue. Indeed, it’s already possible to identify at least four distinct rounds of future electoral and legislative conflict over Kavanaugh if he’s confirmed.

The 2018 election: The Kavanaugh controversy erupted as polls were already showing a threat to GOP candidates this fall, in the form of an intense backlash against Donald Trump that’s fueling unprecedented deficits among college-educated white women and energized turnout among African American women. Democrats have positioned themselves to benefit from that energy by nominating a record number of women in House, Senate, and gubernatorial elections.

Republicans have feared that if they don’t confirm Kavanaugh, they will depress turnout among their base supporters. But elevating him to the Supreme Court amid these allegations risks compounding their problems with the female voters already most hostile to Trump (partly for his own history of alleged sexual abuse). Even before Ford testifies, nearly three-fifths of college-educated white women opposed Kavanaugh’s confirmation in a recent Fox News poll. . . . The fierce recoil from Trump among college-educated white women is the single greatest source of Republican vulnerability in House races this year; if the party’s defenses among blue-collar white women also crack, a difficult election night could turn disastrous.

A House investigation: Democrats frustrated that Republicans have refused to fully investigate the allegations against Kavanaugh—or examine evidence suggesting that he provided false or misleading testimony on multiple issues in previous confirmation hearings—would get another chance to revisit those questions if the party wins the House majority in November. Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, a Democratic group that advocates on judicial nominations, says he is “100 percent certain” a Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee “would seek to reopen investigations that Republicans during this process have refused to conduct.” . . . at the very least, Kavanaugh could face a more searching examination than Senate Republicans have conducted if he’s confirmed.

The 2020 election: Republicans expect Kavanaugh to tip the Court’s balance by providing a more reliably conservative vote than Anthony Kennedy, the justice he would replace. The paradox is that the more a Justice Kavanaugh would fulfill these expectations, the more he would renew the animosity over his confirmation. “It won’t just be something that will be easily forgotten, because you will have decisions coming out that he will be the fifth vote for,” Fallon notes. The clouds shadowing Kavanaugh would intensify the backlash on the left if he were to provide decisive votes on contentious issues. That would potentially raise the Court’s relevance in the 2020 presidential election, particularly if the legal right to abortion is rescinded or hollowed out by five male, Republican-appointed justices, two of whom (Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas) have been accused of sexual misconduct.

After 2020: If Kavanaugh is confirmed, he will cement a Republican-appointed Court majority whose oldest member (Thomas) is only 70. That means, health permitting, the majority could function into the 2030s as a barricade against Democratic priorities, such as strengthening environmental regulation, protecting voting rights, or expanding civil-rights protections around race, gender, and sexual orientation.

If Democrats regain unified control of the White House and Congress in 2020 or thereafter, that prospect could inspire the first serious effort to enlarge the Court’s membership since Franklin D. Roosevelt tried and failed in his second term. Lingering resentment over the GOP’s refusal to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Court under former President Barack Obama has already spurred discussion about a future effort to add more justices, which Congress can do without a constitutional amendment. It won’t ever be easy to pass legislation changing the Court’s structure. But the hardening Democratic belief that Kavanaugh’s nomination was tainted could increase pressure to explore the option in the years ahead if he is confirmed.

As to Lindsey Graham's bizarre behavior in supporting Kavanaugh, my comment is as follows:  I wish Graham would come "out of the closet" so that Trump or whoever in the GOP could no longer blackmail him. 

The Toxic Politics of the GOP’s Disingenuous Plan to Save Brett Kavanaugh

The dishonest and disingenuous GOP Senator Chuck Grassley

A new  Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates that 36 percent of adults surveyed did not want Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court, up 6 points from a similar poll conducted a month earlier.  Only 31 percent of U.S. adults polled said they were in favor of Kavanaugh’s appointment.  Hence, the desperation of Senate Republicans to quickly confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court before more opposition and/or further damaging information comes out which could torpedoes his nomination completely.  The problem these ethically and morally challenged  Republicans face is that they need to be careful how they throw Kavanaugh's accuser of sexual misconduct under the bus.  They find themselves forced to disingenuously pretend they want to hear her testimony even though it is the last thing that they want to see happen.  Why the duplicity and disingenuous behavior?   They fear the wrath of women voters in the midterm elections if they openly throw Christine Blasey Ford under the bus and side with her molester.  Were the midterms not a mere 7 weeks away, these Republicans would simply ignore her and approve Kavanaugh.  A piece in Vanity Far looks at the GOP's near transparent attempt to dish Christine Blasey Ford even as they pretend that they are doing otherwise.  Here are excerpts: 

This is the ugliest situation imaginable,” a source close to Senate Republican leadership told Axios, referring to the disastrous derailment of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination by Christine Blasey Ford, a university professor who says Kavanaugh attempted to rape her at a party in high school. Behind the scenes, the G.O.P. is beginning to sweat Kavanaugh’s confirmation, caught between the fraught politics of the #MeToo era and a Republican electorate that backed Donald Trump, in part because he promised to win them control of the highest court in the land. And so, leadership has been careful not to discount Ford, making every effort to appear amenable to her version of events. “We’ve offered Dr. Ford the opportunity to share her story with the committee, as her attorney said yesterday she was willing to do,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said in a statement published Tuesday. On Wednesday, he raised the stakes, saying in a subsequent statement that he had not heard from Ford’s lawyers, and that Ford was required to submit a full biography and prepared testimony to the Committee by Friday morning, “if she intends to testify on Monday.”

At the same time, Republicans and the White House are seemingly doing everything in their power to undermine Ford, and create conditions that might persuade her that testifying isn’t worth the excruciating emotional toll. In a letter to the Judiciary Committee Tuesday night, Ford’s lawyers stated flatly that “a full investigation by law-enforcement officials will ensure that the crucial facts and witnesses in this matter are assessed in a nonpartisan manner, and that the committee is fully informed before conducting any hearing or making any decisions.”

“Asking her to come forward in four or five days and sit before the Judiciary Committee on national TV is not a fair process,” Lisa Banks, one of Ford’s lawyers, told the network. “If they care about doing the right thing here and treating this seriously as they have said, then they will . . . properly investigate this.” Though Grassley has offered a number of alternatives to a public hearing—most recently, reports emerged that he was open to sending representatives to Ford’s home state—he has repeatedly brushed off the notion of an F.B.I. investigation. “Nothing the F.B.I. or any other investigator does would have any bearing on what Dr. Ford tells the committee,” read his Tuesday statement, “so there is no reason for any further delay.”

The Senate has also opted not to call additional witnesses, including Mark Judge, the other man named in Ford’s allegation, who has detailed drunken high-school escapades in his writings, including the mention of a classmate named “Bart O’Kavanaugh.” (Judge has told the committee he has “no memory of this alleged incident.) 

For the G.O.P. senators on record asking to delay the initial vote on Kavanaugh in order to hear Ford’s side of the story, however, the committee’s generosity is more than sufficient. “Republicans extended a hand in good faith. If we don’t hear from both sides on Monday, let’s vote,” tweeted Bob Corker. Jeff Flake told CNN that if Ford failed to appear at Monday’s hearing, “I think we’ll have to move to the markup.” (“I hope she does. I think she needs to be heard,” he added feebly.) And Lindsey Graham, who did not call for a delay, released a statement on Wednesday accusing Democrats and Ford’s team of dragging their feet . . . .

Good faith, it seems, goes only so far. Already, as The New York Times reported Tuesday, Republicans have landed on an argument to discredit Ford: that she was indeed assaulted at a party Kavanaugh attended, but was “mistaken,” as Senator Orrin Hatch put it, as to her assailant’s identity. It’s an evolved version of an earlier strategy, wherein they offered Ford an invitation to testify that they were sure she would decline: “This gambit basically bets that she will decline, and Republicans can then say that they tried to investigate further,” sources told Axios.

Because she called their bluff, the G.O.P. has been forced into an untenable position. Lawmakers can’t ignore her without looking like heartless rape apologists, a perilous image in the middle of a midterm election that will be largely determined by women. Nor can they bow to her demands without running into serious political landmines, and potentially jeopardizing their best shot at securing a Supreme Court seat. Limiting their investigation to a simple case of “he said, she said” will, they hope, narrow the window of their inquiry.

But while Ford’s lawyers await Grassley’s official response to their request for an F.B.I. probe, Republicans’ maneuvering is increasingly transparent. “[If] ‘Grassley’s staff offered Dr. Ford multiple dates’ what were the other dates,” tweeted Josh Barro. “And if she hadn’t responded yet, how did they settle on Monday?”

Why Republicans Wanted to Hide the Fusion GPS Transcript

Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley - self prostitutes for Trump?  

The previous post looked at Senator Diane Feinstein's release of the Fusion GPS trnascript to the dismay of Republicans who disingenuously claimed its release would harm the investigation as a way of trying to throw up a smoke screen to distract the public from what the transcript reveals, none of which is good for Der Trumpenführer and his sycophants.  Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin who has put nation - and basic morality - ahead of her party has a column that neatly lays out what Lindsey Graham and others prostituting themselves to Trump wanted to hide from the American public.  Here are highlights from her column:

You can understand why the Republicans were furiously trying to suppress the transcript, which contains no classified information.

• First, it makes clear that Steele was engaged because of his expertise and contacts. He was not told to find anything in particular, but just to research the totality of Trump’s involvement in Russia.
• Second, according to Simpson, Trump was doing business all over the former Soviet states of Georgia and Azerbaijan. Interestingly, Trump repeatedly denied having financial ties in Russia itself but never publicly denied operations in states in which Russians exercised substantial influence.
• Third, in investigating Trump’s finances they found his properties were not as highly valued as he suggested and, in the case of several golf courses, weren’t making money.
• Fourth, Steele took it upon himself to report his finding to the FBI because he believed there was a “crime in progress” and matter of national security. He later relayed to Simpson that the FBI already had information from a campaign source.
• Fifth, Trump lied about not knowing who Felix Sater is. Simpson testified, “This was something he didn’t want to talk about and testified under oath he wouldn’t know Felix if he ran into him in the street. That was not true. He knew him well and, in fact, continued to associate with him long after he learned of Felix’s organized crime ties. So, you know, that tells you something about somebody.” We do not know if Sater was in fact tied to organized crime.
• Sixth, Simpson called it a reasonable “interpretation” that the Trump Tower meeting was designed by Russian officials to reach out to and cooperate with the Trump team.
• Seventh, far from interfering in the election to benefit Hillary Clinton, the FBI did not publicly disclose during the campaign the wealth of information it was learning about Trump and Russia.

What stands out most from an initial perusal of the transcript is the professionalism and seriousness of Fusion GPS and Steele. By attempting to suppress a candid look into the dossier (really a series of memos, Simpson explains), Republicans once again are caught acting like Trump henchmen, trying to play down the investigation into Russia, not unearth and air what they learn.

I'd love to know what "kompromat" Trump and/or the Russians have on Graham. 

The GOP's Suicide Pact with Trump Isn't Playing Well in Iowa?

All around the country Congressional Republicans are facing outright hostile crowds of their constituents who are none too happy with Der Trumpenführer,'s regime and/or the GOP agenda (locally, GOP Congressman Scott Taylor got an earful).  Yes, the GOP has a slim control of Congress, but the party's toxic and, in my view, mentally unbalanced, leader received votes from less than 30% of all registered voters and lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.  That does NOT equate to a mandate no matter how badly self-serving Republicans may try to pretend otherwise.  From Obamacare repeal to the packing of the Cabinet with religious extremists and racists the majority of Americans are appalled and fearful for the nation's future.  Throw in possible collusion with Russian intelligence to swing the election to Trump and it makes for an explosive mix.  A piece in Daily Kos by Facebook friend Kerry Eleveld looks at the growing dissatisfaction and fury.  Here are excerpts:

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who helped stoke a wave of paranoia over so-called "death panels" back in 2010, got a sense at his town hall Monday of just how well Donald Trump's month-old administration is playing in the Midwest.

"It's like taking a shower in bad news every day," one woman told New York Times video reporter Thomas Kaplan, "it's exhausting."

The woman—who had never before felt compelled to attend a town hall—not only expressed terrible disappointment in how inaccessible Grassley had been, she was also frustrated with Republican lawmakers' total disregard for providing checks on Trump's power. Asked if she thought Sen. Grassley had "stood up" to the administration, she responded:

I don't think he's stood up to the administration at all. It feels to me like he used to be a moderate Republican, but that seems to be over now. He's definitely toeing the party line, which is disturbing.

In fact, the main reason she made the 100-mile trek to the Iowa Falls town hall was to hold Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to account on investigating Trump's ties to Russia—an action the GOP has been stonewalling.

But she also sounded a cautionary note about how Trump's policies are playing in the state’s agricultural and manufacturing communities.

A lot of people who originally thought that they were going to help get better jobs and all that are starting to realize that it's not working out that way at all. That actually, it's driving business away, and they're very concerned about what's going to go on in Mexico if there's a trade war. We have pork, we have corn—it's a big deal around here.

Iowa exports through the Trans-Pacific Partnership—the deal Trump swiftly pulled out of via executive order—totaled $7.8 billion in 2015.

But beyond the TPP, a trade war could disrupt the state's entire export market, which is one of the foundations of Iowa's economy. The interview suggests that it’s not just Iowa’s industry representatives who are fretting about job losses.

So far, Republican congressional leaders like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are sticking to Trump like glue. The more they ignore their constituents (as McConnell did Monday and GOP members sitting in Clinton districts have been doing all along), the higher the price Republicans will pay in 2018.

 A trade war with Mexico could be devastating for Midwest agricultural states. Mexico has already made it clear that it may look to shift purchases of grain and beef from America to Brazil and Argentina.  If that happens, states like Iowa will be hit hard.  Grassley and others in the GOP may want to claim that the large hostile crowds are "paid protesters" but the reality is that they are not - at least not once one leaves the Fox News/Breitbart bubble..