Kavanaugh Proved Himself Unfit for The Supreme Court or Any Court

Between traveling to Charlottesville for an alumni committee meeting yesterday morning and then a Hampton Arts fundraiser gala last evening, I never had an opportunity to post.  I did listen to non-stop political coverage while driving to Charlottesville Friday evening and then returning to Hampton. The conclusion I reached even before we find out what the farcical one week FBI "investigation" reveals is that Brett Kavanaugh is unfit for a position on the Supreme Court or, in my view, any court.   First, I truly suspect that he is guilty of the allegations against him.  Second, he's already lied repeatedly in testimony before the Senate - and not just about sexual assault allegations.  Perhaps most disturbing, during his hearing on Thursday afternoon, Kavanaugh confirmed that he utterly lacks the temperament and disposition and lack of bias so needed by judges on the bench.  Had a woman, gay or minority nominee acted as petulant and aggressive during what is basically a job interview - which, therefore, involves NO issue of due process - they would have been immediately deem unqualified.  Sadly, that same standard doesn't apply to spoiled, rich white males in the eyes of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  A column in the Washington Post looks at all of these failings of Kavanaugh.  Here are excerpts: 

The unprecedented Supreme Court confirmation process for Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh has surfaced three problems (at least).

The question of whether he sexually assaulted women in high school and college is the main event, and the FBI is now investigating, according to The Post, Deborah Ramirez’s claim that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a party at Yale University when he was allegedly drunk.
The second is genuine concern as to whether he was telling the truth and the whole truth under oath — with regard to his acquaintances, sexual innuendos in his yearbook and, most of all, his drinking. These are small matters, his defenders insist; but, whether big or small, his slippery responses have spawned a cottage industry in ferreting out them all. I have no doubt some enterprising attorney will document and then submit an account to the Bar, to the new Democratic majority (if they win a majority in at least one house and look ready to pursue impeachment) and even to the FBI.
However, here I want to focus on what may be the most significant issue — whether Kavanaugh’s “big reveal” that he is an angry partisan who thinks Democrats conspired to get him — now disqualifies him to sit on any court, let alone the Supreme Court.
The “politicization” of the court, as many call it, didn’t start with Kavanaugh. . . . . the GOP became a right-wing, radical party that eschewed long-held principles such as truth, humility, decorum and respect. Republicans radicalized, and with no filibuster to sift out the political operatives from the judges, we get Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but should not Kavanaugh recuse himself from every case involving a left-leaning group that is part of the conspiracy he decried?
As he yelled at Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was not hard to imagine that he would be less than evenhanded if they were a party in litigation. “With his unprecedented attacks on Democrats and liberals, Kavanaugh must now likely broadly recuse himself from matters including those groups,” says ethics guru Norman Eisen. “It may wipe out a substantial portion of his docket should he be confirmed. We have a rule of thumb in government ethics: When recusals are so broad that the nominee can’t do his job, then maybe he shouldn’t be confirmed to the position. It is time to consider that question here.”
“[T]here is a very strong argument that Kavanaugh’s intemperate screed attacking liberal groups and spinning conspiracy theories when he testified on Thursday afternoon now requires him to recuse in any case where such groups appear before the Court of Appeals on which he sits.” Tribe continues, “For him to remain on a three-judge panel that sits in judgment on any legal claim affecting such a group would obviously create at least the appearance of a conflict of interest and probably an actual conflict.”
In other words, we would be expecting a fierce partisan to recuse himself (for excessive partisanship), so the high court wouldn’t appear to be simply a political machine. That’s a poor bet, and even if Kavanaugh recused himself from some cases, each and every Supreme Court decision would come with an asterisk. The Supreme Court’s legitimacy, already fraying, would be decimated. The more than half of the country that didn’t vote for Donald Trump understandably would think the court’s 5-to-4 decisions stemmed from political bias.
In 2006, when Kavanaugh was up for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the American Bar Association became concerned that he was unduly rigid and impervious to persuasion. That prompted the ABA to reduce his rating from “well qualified” to “qualified.” . . . had Kavanaugh had a scene like the one we saw Thursday the ABA would have rated him “unqualified.” It should reexamine its rating based on new evidence.
Putting a judge on the Supreme Court who expressed hatred and resentment toward a wide swath of the Democratic Party would shred whatever is left of the court’s intellectual integrity.
It’s inconceivable someone so biased, someone who vowed revenge (“What goes around, comes around,” he shouted), could be elevated to the Supreme Court.

Biased and bigoted judges discredit and undermine the legitimacy of the courts.  Worse yet, they harm litigants when they ignore the facts and constitutional principles in favor of their own prejudices.  A host of litigants would have no chance of justice if Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Court.  If the man had honor and decency, he would withdraw his nomination. Of course, he will not since he has no honor or decency.

48% Of Evangelicals Back Kavanaugh Even If Guilty

After today's testimony by Christine Blasey Ford - who came across as a totally credible witness - and the belligerent response of Brett Kavanaugh, it is unclear whether the Senate Republicans will belatedly uphold decency and have a detailed FBI investigation and delay their vote or give Kavanaugh - who seems cut from the same cloth as some I knew in college who participated in "trains" on incapacitated or inebriated young women - a pass and place him on the Supreme Court.  Regardless of the outcome, Senate Republicans have made it totally clear that the GOP can no longer claim any shred of morality high ground.  Most disturbing is the reality that nearly half of evangelical Christians want Kavanaugh confirmed EVEN IF HE's GUILTY.  After two decades of monitoring evangelicals and "family values" organizations and witnessing the manner in which evangelicals Christians ushered in the embrace of lies and moral bankruptcy overtake the GOP, I candidly am not surprised.  As I have said a number of times, no group lies more or is more filled with hypocrisy than evangelicals who parade around with false piety and while making a mockery of the message of the New Testament.  A piece in Vox looks at the moral bankruptcy of evangelicals.  Here are excerpts: 

Forty-eight percent of white evangelicals say that embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed even if the allegations of sexual assault against him are true.

Marist asked 1,000 respondents from September 22 to 24 whether they would support Kavanaugh if the allegations by Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh assaulted her at a high school party decades ago, were found to be true.

Support for Kavanaugh’s confirmation falls along partisan lines with 12 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of Republicans saying yes.

Aside from the 48 percent who said they would support Kavanaugh’s appointment to the court, 36 percent of white evangelicals say they would not support it, and 16 percent did not have an answer. Mirroring the poll results, many prominent white evangelicals have spoken out in Kavanaugh’s defense, characterizing the allegations against him as part of a liberal plot to waylay his nomination. Jerry Falwell Jr., president of the evangelical Liberty University, sent 300 women Liberty students to Washington, DC, to support Kavanaugh during this week’s Senate confirmation hearings.

Likewise, prominent evangelical Franklin Graham has expressed support for Kavanaugh, minimizing the nature of the alleged assault and characterizing it as merely a clumsy come-on, telling the Christian Broadcasting Network, “She said no and he respected it and walked away.”

Yet the Marist poll results suggest that, for many white evangelicals, another factor is at play in their support for Kavanaugh: They don’t think what he did is bad enough to be disqualifying.

Or, as one unidentified woman Trump and Kavanaugh supporter from Montana said, according to MSNBC, “It’s no big deal.” While the woman did not reveal her own religious affiliation, her words are nevertheless indicative of many conservatives’, particularly white evangelicals’, stance on the allegations against Kavanaugh.

Such a perspective fits neatly within the context of evangelical sexual culture, which in recent months has been characterized by a wider suspicion of the #MeToo movement. Within evangelical culture, as I’ve written previously, the idea that women are “supposed” to be the gatekeepers of male sexuality, that male sexual urges are inherently uncontrollable, and the idea that forgiveness is automatically “owed” to any alleged abuser, converge to create a climate in which allegations of sexual harassment and abuse tend to be seen as minor or, at least, forgivable.

Certainly, the evangelical community is already redeeming its own people accused of sexual misconduct during the #MeToo movement. Earlier this month, former Southern Baptist Convention president Paige Patterson — who left his position as president of the Southwestern Baptist Seminary in disgrace after accusations of sexism — returned to public ministry with a pair of sermons that denigrated the #MeToo movement and focused on the problem of false rape allegations.

Today, as Christine Blasey Ford testifies in front of the Senate, GOP senators will be trying to argue that her assault never happened. But what might be even scarier is the idea that, if it did, plenty of Americans wouldn’t even care.

 I cannot undo the reality that I was baptized as a Christian, but I will certainly do all in my ability to distance myself from evangelical/conservative Christians and the toxic moral bankruptcy that they represent. 

Senate Republicans Put the Integrity of the Supreme Court at Risk

If Kavanaugh is innocent, why isn't he demanding an investigation to clear his name?

The circus that has become of the Senate hearings on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme continues to raise additional doubts as to the character and the veracity of Donald Trump's nominee.  Having worked as an attorney for 41 years and earned admission to the state bars of Virginia, Alabama and Texas, I take judicial appointments VERY seriously since the quality and character of presiding judges can greatly impact the dispensing of justice.  Indeed, a biased or unfit judge can deprive a litigant of a fair trial or appeal. Moreover, unfit or questionable judges put the legitimacy of the judicial system in question.  The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the land and the court of last resort for those seeking justice.  The allegations against Kavanaugh, if true, are serious and, in my view, disqualifying for a lifetime appointment. 

So why the Republican rush to confirm Kavanaugh in light of such serious allegations? I see two possible explanations.  The first is that the Senate - at least the Republican portion of it - remains a "good old boys club" that believes women are like children and should be seen and not heard.  They exist to serve as arm candy for their male companions.  The second is equally cynical: important cases are coming up the litigation pipeline and without Kavanaugh a four-four split on the Supreme Court will leave the anti-conservative position Circuit Court of Appeals ruling controlling.  That is the only urgency from the GOP perspective.  Never mind that the Supreme Court was left with only eight justices for 10 months after Justice Scalia died and Mitch McConnell stonewalled against holding hearings on Barack Obama's nominee.  A main editorial in the New York Times looks at the harm being done by Senate Republican intransigence and denigration of women.  Here are highlights:

Enough.  With a third woman [actually, a fourth at this time] stepping forward with accusations that the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh committed sexual assault as a young man, this destructive stampede of a confirmation, driven so far by partisan calculation, needs to yield at last to common sense: Let qualified investigators — the F.B.I. — do their job. Let them interview the many witnesses whose names are already in the public record, among them Judge Kavanaugh’s close high-school friend Mark Judge, then weigh the credibility of the various claims and write a report for the White House and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

To jam Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation through now, without seeking to dispel the darkening cloud over his head, would be to leave the public in doubt about his honesty and character — and to set an even lower standard for taking claims of sexual abuse seriously than the Senate did 27 years ago in considering the accusations against Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill.

Yes, partisan games have no doubt been played on both sides. But the only reason for so much urgency about this confirmation is politics; the same cannot be said about calls for holding a fair and thorough investigation.

To recap: On Wednesday morning, the bomb-throwing lawyer Michael Avenatti made public an affidavit from Julie Swetnick, a woman who grew up in the Washington suburbs and claims to have traveled the same 1980s social circuit as Judge Kavanaugh. Ms. Swetnick says that he drank excessively at many parties she attended; that he was verbally abusive and physically aggressive toward young women, fondling and grabbing them; and that he was part of a group of young men who would spike the punch at parties with alcohol or illicit drugs with an eye toward incapacitating the female attendees, including Ms. Swetnick herself, and then abusing them. These are grotesque charges — and, like the previous ones, they leave oceans of room for speculation and doubt. This is precisely why the Senate needs to stop trying to ram through this nomination by some arbitrary deadline and arrange for a thorough and nonpartisan inquiry.

Unlike Christine Blasey Ford or Deborah Ramirez, Ms. Swetnick is not claiming to have been assaulted directly by Judge Kavanaugh. But her accusations directly speak to his repeated insistence that he never behaved in a demeaning or disrespectful manner toward women. In his recent interview on Fox News, the nominee, seated primly beside his wife, presented his teenage self as a virtual choir boy, chastely focused on academics and sports and weekly church attendance. The nominee even said that he remained a virgin throughout high school and “for many years thereafter.”

That was a risky defense, and Judge Kavanaugh seems to be reconsidering it. In an opening statement prepared for him to deliver at his appearance before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, the nominee now allows that he was “not perfect” in high school. He admits that he may have drank too much on occasion (though rarely on school nights) and that he may have said and done things that now make him “cringe.”

In saner times, the Senate would have paused in its mad rush to confirm Judge Kavanaugh when the first credible allegations of sexual assault surfaced. As things stand, Chuck Grassley, the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has shrugged off these latest accusations and asserted that the show will go on without further inconvenience or delay.

This is dereliction of the Senate’s duty — and it is now up to senators who know better, who prize the dignity and duty of their chamber, to demonstrate that they are indeed something more than partisan tools.

This is not, as Republicans have claimed, a matter of demanding the destruction of a man’s career based on vague or unsubstantiated claims. It is a matter of treating such allegations with the proper gravity. There is no other way to protect the integrity of the nominating process — and of the nation’s highest court.

The one question I keep coming back to is this:  If Kavanaugh is innocent, why is he not demanding a delay in the Senate process so that an investigation can be done that would clear his name.  I'm sorry, but his failure to make this demand suggests that he knows what the investigation would reveal, namely, that he IS guilty as alleged.  If I were him, I would want to clear my name. His failure to demand this speaks volumes to me. 

Kavanaugh’s College Classmates Out Him as "Sloppy Drunk"

Many of us know the type either from high school, college or the working world: the guy who drinks far too much and then with no inhibitions shows his true self and does unacceptable things. I even had one law partner years ago who was basically a functioning alcoholic who lost his facade of civility after a few too many drinks.  On out of town trips, as the lowly associate, I'd drive rather than have him drive drunk and on legal cases, I and others would keep him focused and often write scholarly articles he claimed as his own without so much as a footnote mentioning the true authors/assistants. As a piece in New York Magazine notes, many of Brett Kavanaugh's classmates recall him as a stumbling drunk.  Do we want someone like this on the U.S. Supreme Court regardless of whether the sexual assault allegations are true?  The image and the legitimacy of the Court should count more than Kavanaugh's sense of entitlement to a position on the court.  Here are article highlights:

The two accusations of sexual misconduct facing Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh have one big thing in common—alcohol. Christine Blasey Ford says a drunken Kavanaugh attempted to her rape her in high school and Deborah Ramirez says she was drunk when Kavanaugh thrust his bare penis in her face at a college party.

Kavanaugh denies both allegations. He also denies ever drinking to the point of blacking out. In an interview Monday with Fox News, Martha MacCallum asked if there was “ever a time that you drank so much that you couldn’t remember what happened the night before?”

“No, that never happened,” said Kavanaugh, who insisted his focus in school was on academics, athletics, church, and “service projects.”

But that squeaky clean image does not comport with the memories of some of Kavanaugh’s college classmates. Now they’re coming forward to dispute his attempt to make himself out of be a “choir boy.”

“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,” Liz Swisher, a college friend of Kavanaugh’s, told the Washington Post. “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.”

The New York Times spoke to “nearly a dozen people who knew him well or socialized with him” and they all said Kavanaugh was a heavy drinker at Yale.

These stories largely match with the image of Kavanaugh that his college roommate, James Roche, put forward in a statement Monday. Roche said Kavanaugh was a “notably heavy drinker” and he recalled his one-time roommate “frequently drinking excessively and becoming incoherently drunk.”

Not every ex-classmate tracked down to talk about Kavanaugh remembered him as a complete sponge. Former NBA center Chris Dudley, a close friend of Kavanaugh’s at Yale, told the Post: “I went out with him all the time. He never blacked out. Never even close to blacked out.” Turns out, the former Knick might not be the most reliable source about his college years though. In 2010, while running for governor of Oregon as a Republican, he told a local paper that, despite records showing he registered as a Democrat after his freshman year of college, he had no recollection of ever belonging to the party.

APA: Why Women May Not Report Sexual Assault

One of the favored attacks on the victims of sexual assault is that often they remain silent or take years to finally come forward.  The phenomenon is not just limited to women as the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal has revealed hundreds - actually thousands - of victims who remained silent at the time of their assault and molestation.  It is, in fact, a common phenomenon well known in the mental health practitioner field, yet Republicans from Donald Trump - a self-proclaimed sexual predator - down through the ranks of the GOP Senate leadership is ignoring as they strive to protect Brett Kavanaugh from a perhaps long over due accounting.  The American Psychological Association ("APA") has issued a statement on the phenomenon that ought to bear weight with decent, moral people not consumed with partisanship or extreme ideology.  Here are highlights from the statement:

Following is a statement by Jessica Henderson Daniel, PhD, president of the American Psychological Association, regarding what the scientific research says about the reporting of sexual assault in light of the allegation by Christine Blasey Ford, PhD, with respect to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh: 

“Sexual assault is likely the most under-reported crime in the United States. About two-thirds of female sexual assault victims do not report to the police, and many victims do not tell anyone. Sexual assault is a terrifying and humiliating experience. Women choose not to report for a variety of reasons — fear for their safety, being in shock, fear of not being believed, feeling embarrassed or ashamed, or expecting to be blamed.  

“A lack of reporting does not mean an assault or attempted assault did not happen or is exaggerated. Research demonstrates that false claims of sexual assault are very low — between 2 and 7 percent. This tells us that far more women are assaulted and don’t report than women who make false claims.”

Daniel noted that Ford’s alleged assault is reported to have occurred when she was 15 — the developmental stage of exploring and determining one’s identity, a time when many teenagers do not feel comfortable discussing any sexual issues with their parents, let alone an assault.

[R]esearch has shown that memory of traumatic events is stored differently in the brain,” according to Daniel. “Some memories are so emotionally charged that they become frozen in time, and some particulars can be recalled in excruciating detail, as if the event just occurred, while others may be forgotten. The American Psychological Association is concerned that public statements questioning the integrity of Dr. Ford and the veracity of her allegation due to her prior lack of reporting will make it even more likely that other sexual assault victims do not report their experiences.”

Yes, you read that right - sexual assault is widespread and the percentage of false reports is very low.  As to why women remain silent, one need only look at the trashing that Christine Blasey Ford are experiencing at the hands of privileged white men.  For Fox News viewers, this is what the APA is and what it does:

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes nearly 115,700 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society.

A Second Kavanaugh Accuser Comes Forward

In response to my question of whether Brett Kavanaugh is unbelievably arrogant or stupid if he knew allegations of sexual misconduct might arise yet nonetheless accepted Trump's nomination, one reader may have hit the nail on the head when replying: He thought his elite prep school connections would shield him from scrutiny.  Whatever the case, The New Yorker first broke the story last evening that a second women has come forward to allege sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh, this time while he was in college and seemingly continuing the pattern of drunken misbehavior and contempt for women who it would appear he sees as sex objects to be used by men.  True to form, Kavanaugh says the event never happened and apparently wants the nation to believe that these women are motivated by purely political  agendas, something that to me sounds unbelievable.  The Trump White House, headed by a serial molester who views women as existing for his gratification, is joining the refrain that it's all a smear campaign.  Here re highlights from the piece in New Yorker: 

As Senate Republicans press for a swift vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats are investigating a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. The claim dates to the 1983-84 academic school year, when Kavanaugh was a freshman at Yale University.

Senior Republican staffers also learned of the allegation last week and, in conversations with The New Yorker, expressed concern about its potential impact on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Soon after, Senate Republicans issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote. The Democratic Senate offices reviewing the allegations believe that they merit further investigation. “This is another serious, credible, and disturbing allegation against Brett Kavanaugh. It should be fully investigated,” Senator Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii, said. An aide in one of the other Senate offices added, “These allegations seem credible, and we’re taking them very seriously. If established, they’re clearly disqualifying.”

The woman at the center of the story, Deborah Ramirez, who is fifty-three, attended Yale with Kavanaugh, where she studied sociology and psychology. Later, she spent years working for an organization that supports victims of domestic violence.

For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices. She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident.

Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.

The White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec said the Administration stood by Kavanaugh. “This 35-year-old, uncorroborated claim is the latest in a coordinated smear campaign by the Democrats designed to tear down a good man.

Ramirez, who was raised a devout Catholic, in Connecticut, said that she was shaken. “I wasn’t going to touch a penis until I was married,” she said. “I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.” She remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She recalled another male student shouting about the incident. “Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’ ” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.”

[A]fter several days of considering the matter carefully, she said, “I’m confident about the pants coming up, and I’m confident about Brett being there.” Ramirez said that what has stayed with her most forcefully is the memory of laughter at her expense from Kavanaugh and the other students. “It was kind of a joke,” she recalled. “And now it’s clear to me it wasn’t a joke.”

A classmate of Ramirez’s, who declined to be identified because of the partisan battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination, said that another student told him about the incident either on the night of the party or in the next day or two. The classmate said that he is “one-hundred-per-cent sure” that he was told at the time that Kavanaugh was the student who exposed himself to Ramirez. He independently recalled many of the same details offered by Ramirez, including that a male student had encouraged Kavanaugh as he exposed himself.

The story stayed with him, he said, because it was disturbing and seemed outside the bounds of typically acceptable behavior, even during heavy drinking at parties on campus. The classmate said that he had been shocked, but not necessarily surprised, because the social group to which Kavanaugh belonged often drank to excess. He recalled Kavanaugh as “relatively shy” until he drank, at which point he said that Kavanaugh could become “aggressive and even belligerent.”

Another classmate, Richard Oh, an emergency-room doctor in California, recalled overhearing, soon after the party, a female student tearfully recounting to another student an incident at a party involving a gag with a fake penis, followed by a male student exposing himself.

Mark Krasberg, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico who was also a member of Kavanaugh and Ramirez’s class at Yale, said Kavanaugh’s college behavior had become a topic of discussion among former Yale students soon after Kavanaugh’s nomination. In one e-mail that Krasberg received in September, the classmate who recalled hearing about the incident with Ramirez alluded to the allegation and wrote that it “would qualify as a sexual assault,” he speculated, “if it’s true.”

Several other classmates said that they believed Ramirez to be credible and honest, and vouched for her integrity. James Roche was roommates with Kavanaugh at the time of the alleged incident and is now the C.E.O. of a software company in San Francisco. “Debbie and I became close friends shortly after we both arrived at Yale,” he said. “She stood out as being exceptionally honest and gentle. I cannot imagine her making this up.” He said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh engage in any sexual misconduct, but did recall him being “frequently, incoherently drunk.”

We may never know the full truth, but too things are clear: (i) given the allegations, Kavanaugh does not belong on the U.S. Supreme Court ) or the DC Circuit), and (ii)  it is beyond disturbing that Senate Republicans don't care about the allegations - or women in general.

The Boys’ Club That Protects Brett Kavanaugh

At élite institutions like Georgetown Prep, where Brett Kavanaugh was a student, high
school doesn’t end when you’re eighteen; it’s a lifelong circle of mutual support.

Perhaps I am beating a dead horse, but I continue to believe that Brett Kavanaugh NOT be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court regardless of whether or not he assaulted Christine Blasey Ford as alleged.  Why?  Because he epitomizes the mindset that has fostered bigotry and discrimination for decades, if not far longer.  It is noteworthy that 1000 alumni of Blasey Ford's high school have signed a letter stating that the facts of her allegations against Kavanaugh is completely consistent with the atmosphere that they witnessed and experienced. A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at the system that formed Kavanaugh and it makes it clear that Kavanaugh is incapable of identifying with those not from his privileged white world.  Here are excerpts:

Ten days later, Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University, publicly accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a high-school house party in Bethesda, Maryland. Ford described Kavanaugh as “stumbling drunk” at the time of the assault. He has flatly denied the accusation. His defenders point out that she dates the assault to thirty-six years ago, when Kavanaugh was only a teen-ager. But Kavanaugh has made his high-school years a very prominent part of his personal narrative. In a speech three years ago at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, Kavanaugh said, “What happens at Georgetown Prep stays at Georgetown Prep,” adding, of himself and his friends, “That’s been a good thing for all of us, I think.” When he answered Kennedy in the Senate hearings, Kavanaugh mentioned that Jim Fegan, his high-school football coach, had texted him just three nights before, and that since being nominated he’s been running on the Georgetown Prep track on the weekends. Some people put high school behind them. Kavanaugh has not. 

Kavanaugh managed to avoid testifying on whether he snuck a few beers past Jesus. But, as has been widely reported, the inside jokes on his high-school yearbook page list him as the treasurer of the “Keg City Club” and a member of the “Beach Week Ralph Club,” and make reference to “100 Kegs or Bust.” Close readers of his yearbook page have debated whether “Have You Boofed Yet?” refers to the practice of anally ingesting alcohol or drugs. According to many graduates of Washington prep schools, the party culture described in yearbooks often created occasions for sexual harassment and assault. More than a thousand women who attended Holton-Arms, the girls’ school from which Ford graduated, have signed a letter that describes the alleged assault as “all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton. Many of us are survivors ourselves.” Now the rest of us are learning about the hierarchy of Washington private schools—about what it meant, in the eighties, to go to Georgetown Prep as opposed to Landon or Gonzaga, and about the girls’ schools Stone Ridge, Visitation, and Holton-Arms. By all appearances, the kids from these prep schools almost exclusively socialize with one another, and that social network informs their identities for the rest of their lives. As reporters have investigated Kavanaugh’s high-school years, many alumni have expressed fear about going on the record and alienating themselves from a close-knit community. “I guess you could call it a fraternity between a bunch of rich kids,” an anonymous alumnus of Georgetown Prep, who overlapped with Kavanaugh there, told the Huff Post. “All this shit happens, and then nobody really wants to talk about it, because if one person crumbles, the whole system crumbles, and everybody tells on everybody.” I spoke with another Georgetown Prep alumnus, who hated high school but still didn’t want to go on the record about what it was like there. Even for those who take less pride in the institution, what happens at Georgetown Prep stays at Georgetown Prep. What Kavanaugh appears to have been taught, as a young person, is that goodness is working at a soup kitchen or volunteering on a mission to a poorer country; it’s granted to other people as an act of charity. Meanwhile, less good behavior would be tolerated, as long as it happened under the veil of drunkenness, or as a joke. The Jesuit fathers would turn a blind eye to the yearbook, and U.S. senators would chuckle at frat-boy antics. In this world, high school doesn’t end when you’re eighteen; it’s a lifelong circle of mutual support, an in-crowd that protects itself.

One quote on Kavanaugh’s yearbook page is an apparent reference to his friend Mark Judge, who Ford says was in the room when Kavanaugh assaulted her. Judge, who says he has “no memory” of the incident and that he does not want to testify, is the author of a 1997 memoir called “Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk.” The quote is from Benjamin Franklin ; the emphasis is Kavanaugh’s: “He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows, nor JUDGE all he sees.” The next few days will show whether Kavanaugh was right to place his faith in this system.

Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, and High School Debauchery

Some on the right are trying to describe the encounter described by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as mere  "hijinks for boys."  Most of these defenders of Brett Kavanaugh, of course,  make Attila the Hun look like a liberal and are not known for the championing of women's rights.  Please understand, I am no prude nor am I unfamiliar with a privileged youth - I had one of my own and remember the hijinks of my summers at the family "camp" on Brantingham Lake in the Adirondacks with a circle of similarly privileged friends where lots of drinking occurred. That was followed by years of fraternity parties in college, so I do know about partying and drinking perhaps to excess.  But at no time do I recall any attempted sexual assault having occurred.  I also reflect that sometimes too much alcohol reveals who we really are at the core and some display their true feelings about others, especially women.  With Brett Kavanaugh, we are talking about someone who is seeking a life time appointment and a position where he can do untold good or harm.  My concern about the story from long ago is that it shows an underlying lack of concern for others and their rights.  Do we really want someone like that on the Court.  My position is no.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Mark Judge, one of Kavanaugh's bets buds, through his own writings which suggest that Kavanaugh should not be on the Court.  Here are excerpts:

As Christine Blasey Ford tells it, only one person can offer eyewitness confirmation of her account of a sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh: Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s friend and classmate at Georgetown Prep. . . . Ford’s legal team has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to compel Judge to testify.

A review of books, articles and blog posts by Judge — a freelance writer who has shifted among jobs at a record store, substitute teaching, housesitting and most recently at a liquor store — describes an ’80s private-school party scene in which heavy drinking and sexual encounters were standard fare.

Judge wrote about the pledge he and his friends at the all-male school on Rockville Pike in North Bethesda, Md., made to drink 100 kegs of beer before graduation. On their way to that goal, there was a “disastrous” party “at my house where the place was trashed,” Judge wrote in his book “God and Man at Georgetown Prep.” Kavanaugh listed himself in the class yearbook as treasurer of the “100 Kegs or Bust” club.

“I’ll be the first one to defend guys being guys,” Judge wrote in a 2015 article on the website Acculturated. He described a party culture of “drinking and smoking and hooking up.” During senior year, Judge said he and his pals hired a stripper and bought a keg for a bachelor party they threw to honor their school’s music teacher.  “I drank too much and did stupid things,” he said in his memoir.

While many of his classmates moved on to careers in law, politics, business and education, Judge seemed to some friends to stay fixed in the experiences of his adolescence. Over time, his politics shifted from left to right, and his writing often focused on his view of masculinity (“the wonderful beauty of uncontrollable male passion”) and his concern that gay culture was corroding traditional values.

In one column for Acculturated, Judge wrote that it is “important that for some brief moments in his life — preferably when he is young — a man should be, at times, arrogant, a little reckless, and looking for kicks.”

Judge — who did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment and who has deleted his Twitter account and taken down videos from YouTube and Vimeo — is a recovering alcoholic who has traveled a rocky road since high school. He took seven years to earn his bachelor’s degree at Catholic University — a delay he attributed to “my fondness for bars and rock and roll.”

Maryland state Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D-Montgomery), one of Judge’s classmates at Georgetown Preparatory School, recalled him as “an unhappy person who was happy to make other people unhappy. ‘Bully’ may be an overused term, but he regularly belittled people he perceived as being lower on the high school hierarchy.”

McKee said Judge blew up at him after the rejections. McKee, who is gay, said Judge sent a vituperative email wishing him the same fate as Matthew Shepard, the gay college student who was beaten and left to die in Wyoming in 1998.

“He shows signs of true hatred,” said McKee, now the editor of Landscape Architecture magazine. “It was one of those few kind of showstopping moments at the paper.”  McKee said he forwarded the email to his editor, David Carr, who banned Judge from writing for the paper again.

In 2003, a student named Eric Ruyak reported to school authorities that a Jesuit priest who was a teacher at Georgetown Prep had touched him inappropriately. Some Prep alumni, including Judge, rallied around the teacher, the Rev. Garrett Orr, according to several Prep graduates.

“Numerous alumni told me that Judge was going around saying I was emotionally unstable and a sexual deviant,” Ruyak said Thursday. “He told people that the only reason I wasn’t being expelled was my dad was a powerful lawyer and president of Prep’s board.”

An investigation by Jesuit authorities later confirmed Ruyak’s account. Orr was placed on a leave of absence from his order. When another Prep student later alleged that Orr had sexually abused him, the priest was arrested. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2011 to five years of probation.

“For years, I couldn’t shake Judge,” Ruyak said. “He would write about the case to advance his agenda about the school being a nest of liberalism and homosexuality. This guy did unbelievable damage to me when I was a kid.”

Judge was and is, in my opinion, a total train wreck.  That he was one of Kavanaugh's best friends says - at least to me - a lot about Kavanaugh, none of it good.  Do we wan someone of the Court who counted a bully and misogynist among his closet friends during his formative years?  I for one do not.  Kavanaugh could do unbelievable damage to many Americans.

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?”

Meet Brett Kavanaugh’s Alleged Accomplice, Mark Judge

Georgetown Prep - Kavanaugh and Judge's "rich boy" school

At this point, it is unclear when and how the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh will move forward.  Kavanaugh's seemingly credible accuser of past sexual assault wants an FBI investigation of the incident/Kavanaugh before she will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Meanwhile, Senate Republicans want the matter to simply go away, yet are fearful that ramming through Kavanaugh's approval could alienate millions of women voters.  What makes this different than the usual "she said, he said" situation is that Kavanaugh allegedly had an accomplice in the assault on Ford.  His good buddy, Mark Judge, who is anything but the kind of character witness one would want and who is refusing to testify under oath before the Committee.  Likely, with good reason since he has documented his bad boy behavior in writings and may not relish having to lie under oath if he is to protect his buddy.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at Judge,  Here are highlights (read the entire piece):

The most obvious threat to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford is that he may have committed a very serious crime when he allegedly assaulted her with an apparent rape in mind. That and the fact that he may be lying about it are both disqualifiers for the job he wants, and quite possibly for the job he has.

But more subtly, Ford’s story of prepsters gone violently wild in 1983 suggests that for all of Kavanaugh’s maturity, urbanity, education, and carefully cultivated respectability, he remains a man whose respect for women is lacking. That in turn could perhaps lead him to deny them, to choose an example, control over their reproductive systems.

Ford’s account of the fateful night introduces a new element into what might have been a nearly insoluble he-said she-said deadlock: the presence of a third party, Mark Judge. It is not a particularly good sign for Kavanaugh that Judge (after denying any recollection of the party where Ford said she was assaulted) is at this point refusing to testify before the Judiciary Committee. But even if he was offering a more robust defense of his old friend, there’s another problem. Yes, Judge has matured since his days at Georgetown Prep: from an admitted alcoholic to a sort-of-conservative Catholic man-boy who still has some sexual and gender issues he is working out. Unfortunately for himself and for Kavanaugh, he’s working them out in public as a writer. And he is thus not the most convincing witness to Kavanaugh’s moral purity then or now. He actually comes across more as the wingman from hell who, all these many years later, is still struggling to keep it in his pants.

Even as Republican senators flounder around in an effort to avoid dragging Judge into the world’s biggest spotlight as an eyewitness to the alleged assault or as a character witness for his high-school buddy, Judge’s relentlessly self-revelatory jottings about both drunken and sober encounters with women are spreading quickly to a fascinated and appalled new readership. Here’s a tight but comprehensive description of the Judge oeuvre from the Washington Post:

In two memoirs, Judge depicted his high school as a nest of debauchery where students attended “masturbation class,” “lusted after girls” from nearby Catholic schools and drank themselves into stupors at parties. He has since renounced that lifestyle and refashioned himself as a conservative moralist — albeit one who has written about “the wonderful beauty of uncontrollable male passion….”

Now that Kavanaugh is on the brink of stiffening the conservative Catholic rigor of the Supreme Court, it’s inconvenient that the only person available to support his it-didn’t-happen version of the story Ford is telling is a man like Mark Judge. If that drunken party boy got sober and grew up into this very conventional defender of the patriarchy, maybe he’s not the best, er, judge of what happened in 1983 or of his old friend’s fitness for the highest court in the land, either. No wonder Republican senators are reluctant to put Judge before a camera and a microphone with the future of constitutional law at stake.

If the allegations are true, they confirm that Kavanaugh holds women in contempt and should not be on the U.S. Supreme Court - or any court.  They also show a frightening attitude that the lives of others do not matter, a pillar of today's GOP.

Kavanaugh’s Accuser is Credible. Will it Matter?

When the tape of Donald Trump with Billy Bush hit the airwaves, Trump dismissed it all as "locker room talk" and waved off the reality that he is a serial molester of more than a dozen and a half women who have called him out.  Now, we have Brett Kavanaugh - did Trump select him not only for his views that make a occupant of the White House a near king or also because of his anti-women views? - who, if his accuser is to be believed, views sexual assault as an instance of "boys will be boys."  More frighteningly, so do almost a dozen male Republican members of the U.S. Senate.  Sadly, it is all part and parcel of the hyper "macho" mentality of far too many straight males who feel that abusive behavior towards women - and gays - somehow proves their masculinity.  Columns in both the New York Times and the Washington Post (naturally, authored by women) look at this pathetic state of affairs and the toxicity of Trump/Kavanaugh masculinity and Republican enabling of the reprehensible.  First, excerpts from the Times piece: 

Obviously, I believe Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who says that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school while his friend Mark Judge watched and, at moments, egged him on. I believe her when she says that Kavanaugh, who she says was drunk, held her down, covered her mouth when she tried to scream, and ground against her while attempting to pull her clothes off. I believe her when she says this incident haunted her all her life.

There’s rarely hard evidence in a case like this, but Blasey — the surname she prefers to use publicly — has done everything possible to substantiate her claim. Speaking to The Washington Post, she produced notes from a therapist she saw in 2012, whom she’d told about being attacked by students “from an elitist boys’ school” who grew up to become “high-ranking members of society in Washington.” According to her husband, that year she identified Kavanaugh to him by name. When Kavanaugh appeared on a shortlist of potential Supreme Court picks — but before his nomination had been announced — Blasey contacted both The Post and her member of Congress, Anna G. Eshoo of California. By all indications, she wanted to head his nomination off without being forced into the spotlight.

Blasey passed a polygraph administered by a former F.B.I. agent. The utility of polygraphs is dubious, but her willingness to take one is evidence of her sincerity. According to Axios, some Republicans wanted to call on Blasey to testify publicly, assuming she’d decline. But on Monday morning, Blasey’s lawyer, Debra Katz, said that her client is willing to appear before Congress.

Kavanaugh denies the allegation unequivocally; on Monday he said he’s willing to rebut it before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Judge, who wrote a memoir of his teenage alcoholism, has veered between denying the incident and saying he doesn’t recall it.) But it’s a sign of how credible Blasey seems that, since this story broke, much of the public debate has been less about whether her accusations are true than whether they are relevant.

Some conservatives — though not just conservatives — insist that it is unfair to judge a middle-aged man for things he did as a kid. . . . Such arguments would be more convincing if people on the right weren’t so selective in their indulgence. Donald Trump called for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, who were 14 to 16 years old when they were arrested. (They’ve since been proven innocent.) Children are regularly put on sex offender registries, sometimes for their entire lives, for conduct less serious than what Kavanaugh is accused of.

[T]his is no longer just about what Kavanaugh might have done 36 years ago. We need to determine, as best we can, if he’s lying now. . . . . Senators should also demand that Kavanaugh’s old friend Judge, who grew up to become a right-wing writer, testify, though Kavanaugh would surely prefer other character witnesses.

Anyone Trump nominates is going to threaten Roe v. Wade. Kavanaugh would at least make plain the power dynamics behind forced pregnancy. We would lose Roe because a president who boasted of sexual assault, elected against the wishes of the majority of female voters, was able to give a lifetime Supreme Court appointment to an ex-frat boy credibly accused of attempted rape. Kavanaugh, helped by an all-male Republican caucus on the Judiciary Committee, would join Clarence Thomas, whose confirmation hearing helped make the phrase “sexual harassment” a household term. They and three other men would likely vote against the court’s three women. The brute imposition of patriarchy would be undeniable.

If the Kavanaugh nomination goes forward, it’s because Trump and his allies believe that a certain class of men accused of sexual assault deserve impunity. The question now is whether any Republican senators believe otherwise.

All, very much on point in my opinion.  The column in the Post while satirical, is also very much on point.  Here are highlights:

“If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried.” — A lawyer close to the White House, speaking to Politico.

If, apparently, a single alleged assault at a single party decades ago is to be frowned upon, then no man is safe, right?   . . . How are we going to fill our offices if this is the new rule? I bet you will say I cannot shout at women as they pass on the street before dragging them to a concrete bunker and then still expect to become governor! What next? I’m supposed to make sure everyone I have sex with is willing? If suddenly, as a country, we decide that violently attempting to assault someone is, like, bad, then that knocks out 98, maybe 99 percent of men, just going off the locker-room talk I’ve heard. . . . You’re telling me I am supposed to encounter dozens, hundreds, thousands of women in my life, some drunk and some sober and some with really good legs and just … not assault any of them?

I mean, it’s not as though they’re people, are they? At the moment of conception, yes, but then they come out Daughters, not people! They grow into objects; some become Wives or Mothers, others Hags or Crones. Then they die! If they were people, we would not expect dominion over their bodies, surely; if they were people, we would not feel entitled to their smiles. If they were people, I could read a novel with a female protagonist and not be instantly confused and alarmed.

No. They are an unintelligible something else. . . . . It would just be too terrible if they were people. Then you could not harm them with impunity. Then if you made a mistake (Boys will be boys), you would have harmed a person. Then something else would be at stake in addition to your career, and that cannot be.

If boys cannot be boys, then how can boys be men who rise to the highest offices in the land? If this stops being something you can get away with, then will anyone still be above the law?  Every man should be worried.

Sadly, the column highlights the mindset certainly of Trump and, now it seems far to many Senate Republicans.  It is a mindset that ought to disgust moral, decent people.  I hope women are paying attention and that they correctly direct their wrath at Republicans come the November midterm elections.