December 22, 2018

AOC's Approach to the 'Green New Deal' is Revolutionary in Scope and Immediacy

In an email to The Huffington Post, she explained her plans for a Green New Deal to help America switch to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035, which advocates say is our best shot of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

“The Green New Deal we are proposing will be similar in scale to the mobilization efforts seen in World War II or the Marshall Plan,” she said by email. “It will require the investment of trillions of dollars and the creation of millions of high-wage jobs. We must again invest in the development, manufacturing, deployment, and distribution of energy but this time green energy.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ocasio-cortez-climate-change_us_5b3307a5e4b0b5e692f25e18


from EcoWatch:

Ocasio-Cortez's climate plans dovetail with some of the other progressive points on her platform, such as a Federal Jobs Guarantee and Solidarity with Puerto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria.

Ocasio-Cortez told The Huffington Post that the island would be the ideal place to test-run a Green New Deal to help with recovery efforts. "Our fellow Americans on the island have suffered horrendous losses and need investment at a scale that only the American government can provide," she said.

On her platform, Ocasio-Cortez also links the fight against climate change with her commitments to economic justice and immigrant rights.

"Rather than continue a dependency on this system that posits climate change as inherent to economic life, the Green New Deal believes that radically addressing climate change is a potential path towards a more equitable economy with increased employment and widespread financial security for all," her platform reads.

Her platform also says fighting climate change is necessary "to avoid a world refugee crisis." Concern for immigrants is a large part of her platform. She supports abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which was created in 2003 in the post-9/11 escalation of national security operations and executive power and operates outside the Department of Justice, unlike previous immigration enforcement.

The link between the potential for global warming to increase the number of climate refugees and the need to improve the treatment of current immigrants, many of which are already fleeing deteriorating environmental conditions, is something picked up by the Democratic Socialists of America, the group to which Ocasio-Cortez belongs, on the platform for its climate and environmental justice working group, according to The Huffington Post.


https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1040327575019638786

December 16, 2018

Did John Adams' successful defense of British soldiers rely on racially defaming Crispus Attucks?

Sherrilyn Ifill V@Sifill_LDF 20m20 minutes ago
I’m halfway through reading this magnificent and spell-binding piece “Black Lives and the Boston Massacre,”’by @UVALaw Prof. Farrah Peterson, and my mind is blown. This will take more coffee... https://t.co/Ds9rDa08rG

Black Lives and the Boston Massacre
John Adams’s famous defense of the British may not be, as we’ve always understood it, the ultimate expression of principle and the rule of law

{snip}

___Adams started by rejecting the characterization of those who surrounded the sentry as just a group of rowdy local teenagers—“shavers” in 18th-century parlance. “We have been entertained with a great variety of phrases,” he said, “to avoid calling this sort of people a mob.” Adams had to rectify that. In “plain English,” this was “most probably a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars. — And why we should scruple to call such a set of people a mob, I can’t conceive, unless the name is too respectable for them.” And then Adams likely drew a laugh by observing, “The sun is not about to stand still or go out, nor the rivers to dry up because there was a mob in Boston on the 5th of March that attacked a party of soldiers.” Here is one under-celebrated aspect of Adams’s genius on display: he transformed the crowd into outside agitators, and then he tried to make the jurors laugh. He created the intimacy of the inside joke, the coziness of a dinner table conversation among the like-minded. In doing so, he gave the jury permission to despise the victims...

But aside from Attucks, there is little evidence that “negroes” made up much of the “motley rabble” taking part in the violence. We know that at least two other black men were present that night because they testified at the trial. But one of these men came as a spectator, not as a participant, and when the fighting started, he said he did his best to slip away. Witnesses also remembered that as the crowd of sailors and laborers passed under windows calling, “Town-born turn out! Town-born turn out!” a lot of town-born did turn out to join them. Some of these were white Bostonians who testified at the trial, proudly describing how they gave as good as they got that night...

Adams also described Attucks charging at the soldiers. He argued that the soldiers were justifiably frightened when Attucks “had hardiness enough to fall in upon them, and with one hand took hold of a bayonet, and with the other knocked the man down.” I would pause here again, because Adams has fastened on the least plausible version of the facts, drawn from a single witness’s description of the actions of a man he “thought” was Attucks. Many witnesses testified that they saw Attucks there, stood near him, or watched him fall, but only one described him taking part in the active fighting. Two witnesses directly contradicted Adams’s narrative. Both testified that Attucks remained 12 to 15 feet from the soldiers when the shooting began, too far away to “take hold of a bayonet” or to knock a man down. And one of them remembered that Attucks stood resting his chest on the end of a long stick, and that this was how he was shot—in a posture of repose.

But having decided on a useful story, Adams ran with it: “This was the behavior of Attucks;—to whose mad behavior, in all probability, the dreadful carnage of that night, is chiefly to be ascribed.” Again, Adams drove the wedge between Attucks and the Boston jury. The true victims here were Boston itself and white Bostonians, the jurymen included. “It is in this manner,” Adams explained, that “this town has been often treated; a Carr from Ireland, and an Attucks from Framingham, happening to be here, shall sally out upon their thoughtless enterprizes, at the head of such a rabble of Negroes, &c. as they can collect together,” and afterward many would “ascribe all their doings to the good people of the town.”

read more: https://theamericanscholar.org/black-lives-and-the-boston-massacre/#.XBaBjmlOlyS

...I have to confess, I knew nothing about this, even the fact that the British soldiers were tried, much less that Adams got them off. Fascinating history!

Maybe give this article a bit more than a DU brush-off. I'm going to archive this in my journal if anyone wants to look at it.

December 10, 2018

Santas on the run

Reuters Top News @Reuters 8m8 minutes ago
Thousands of Santas dash around Madrid http://reut.rs/2RKIsaL via @ReutersTV


watch:

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1072088537082806272

November 21, 2018

Gonna Take a Sentimental Journey

_____________________________

I'M staying home this Thanksgiving and our two adult boys have only to travel the stairway upstairs to eat a decent meal and grace my wife and I with their interminable charm and wit. It's nice to not have to gussy-up and head out to the in-laws' house. Anyway, we're the elders now, all of our parents long passed on.

I'm going to have football on (my favorite sleep aid), and a rare Thanksgiving night off from work... Who can ask for anything more?

____I haven't always shunned traveling to see relatives on the holidays. Nowadays there's just us 'kids' to gather together, since all of the old ones are gone. There's also a sibling from each side of our family missing from the table, as well, so getting together for holidays these days is less ordered and optional. Still, there was a time when traveling to see the in-laws for the holidays was a pretty big deal.

Bad blood between my parents and their brothers and sisters always prevented my sister and I from traveling with more than one of them when they journeyed back to their hometowns. Mom would usually take Maria and I by train, to Charleston, W.Va., to see our grandfather. Dad would drive us to Reading, Pa. to visit his family.

Union Station in D.C. was mom's territory. We'd usually arrive on the run, with the baggage porter following fast behind with our luggage. We'd hit the darkened train platform with the steam blasting across our path and the most polite men I've ever encountered would give us a hand up onto the train with improbably spotless white gloves (sometimes just as the train was starting to pull out of the station). We'd pull the sliding door between the train open and settle back into the mohair-covered seats with the paper-covered headrests and watch out the window as the city shrank out of sight.

The long journey compelled me to memorize every contour of the yellowing plastic controls on the handle of the seats, and to balance the weight of the molded metal footrests that I raised and lowered incessantly (to my mother's practiced consternation), and let drop with a thunk that repeatedly rattled the seat's occupant.

As I type this, I'm looking at one of the little hand games that she'd pull out of her purse to keep us distracted that she saved over the years. It's one of those little plastic board puzzles with sliding letters that you had to unscramble with the benefit of only one open space. I've also got one with the Addams Family on it, and there were ones with ball-bearings and holes like a miniature pinball machine.

In-between fiddling and snacking on the saltines and mints she'd pocketed from the many restaurants we'd frequented, I'd steal a little freedom from my schoolteacher mom and make a couple of adventurous trips through the doors separating the trains to the restroom. It was a rather chaotic arrangement where the trains were coupled in those days, often with little more than a chain or bar keeping you from falling out the sides between the cars. Later, there would be a more elaborate barrier, but the effect was still the same rush of danger as you could see the tracks whizzing by underneath the shifting metal plates on the floor. I can remember sticking my little head outside of one of the windows to recklessly gauge the violent wind as the train sped along.

When we would go through a tunnel, Mom would have us holler
'OhiOOOOOOO' until we came out the other end -- trying as hard as we were able to do it on one breath. She soon regretted teaching us that, tho...

When we'd arrive at the station in Charleston, Granddad would be waiting with his huge Oldsmobile that smelled like the cigars, pipes, and Pall Malls he smoked constantly.

The rest of the trip was a memorable string of visits to relatives, capped off by an extraordinary meal at my cousin Gussy's who would cook greens in ham fat until they literally melted in your mouth. She had two trees in her front yard that were painted white halfway up the trunk and tiny red bugs crawled up and down. There was an active railroad track a few feet from her back door where we'd put pennies on the rail for the passing trains to flatten.

Life on Thanksgiving was ancient and slow in Charleston; as slow as the snails we poured salt on in front of Gussy's house; as deliberate as my Uncle Moore who would be watching the football game on television with unbreakable concentration... unmovable, except for that one day I fell onto the hard ground from one of the trees out front with a branch in my hand and he ran outside thinking I might be dead.

There was a lady living in town we'd visit who had been stuck in bed for years (I never saw her get up) who was always in her nightgown and robe. Mom said she tried to get up one morning and found she couldn't walk. She was a kind woman with several pictures of Jesus on the wall, and there was a kind, dedicated soul who took care of her who had a huge goiter on her neck. The bedridden lady always gave my sister and I some change before we set off again for countless more visits.

We'd repeat the tradition (and glut) of Thanksgiving dinner on a couple more visits, well into the evening, with several other folks in Charleston who had grown up with mom. Then we'd take another long train journey home.

I remember the dining car and the linens... very formal, but I remember Mom getting something off-menu for us kids from the man behind the bar. We rarely had a compartment, but it was definitely better for sleeping than the seats. Thankfully, they would turn the lights down low past a certain point in the night, and the steward would offer us a railroad wool blanket and a little pillow so we could sleep as best we could in those rough seats...


Travel on the holidays with Dad was a decidedly less formal affair. There weren't any of the social rules or the prim and proper trappings that Mom insisted on maintaining while in her company. The three of us would pile into one of his Impalas (later, Caprices) and hit the turnpike. There would be rest stops and a 'Stuckey's' along the way with string licorice, frosted funnel cakes, and giant lollipops to make our little exodus more enjoyable.

We'd sing every song we knew on the AM dial out loud, the three of us. Roger Miller would come on dozen or more times and we'd belt out every line of 'King of the Road'. I think it was Doris Day who would come on with 'You Are My Sunshine', and Sinatra would sing 'Sentimental Journey' (or was it the other way around?) as we all sang along. We were the best of friends in that car, away from the strict eye and tongue of my well-meaning mother.

Even my Dad would abandon his suits for the trip and opt for his Army fatigues and sweatshirt (he'd change out of his work suit and tie everyday and put on another to go shopping). He was the only one of nine kids to make it out of that town, so, the buttoned-down bureaucrat look just wouldn't cut it in the town he said was famous for 'pretzels, prostitutes, and beer...' We'd eat at Grandma's house and Granddad would even be welcomed back for dinner.

Grandma was a striking Indian woman with long tan-white hair. She had a voice like angels purring, but she was a powerful woman who raised her nine children on 'relief' after Granddad fled with them to Reading from Black Mountain, N.C., after some trouble with the sheriff down there. He kept the kids out of school until the state agreed to provide clothes for them, and about half of the nine kids ended up integrating the Quaker school nearby. Later in life, Granddad could be found every day outside of the factory gates at noon and at quitting time watching the women go by.

All of their kids but two would show up for Thanksgiving (one died young from a stabbing, the other died young due to another misfortune of their rough life). One uncle would have to sneak in after dark, as the sheriff would always lay in wait to try and arrest him on holidays and other occasions (especially at the funerals) for neglecting the several children he had fathered here and there around town.

We'd eat a magnificent meal cooked in the tiny kitchen hanging off the back of the house, prepared in iron skillets and served on ancient porcelain dinnerware on the pastel blue-washed, oak table with highback, wooden chairs. Granddad, dressed in his purple suit, yellow shirt, and green shoes, would say grace...

I own all of these holiday memories from my childhood now, as all of the members of the immediate family I grew up with have passed on. I can only remember the good and the bad times with equal nostalgia. I am the only one left who can recall the sights, smells, and flavor of that past. It's all become part of a wonderful stew of memories to measure my own family's holiday experiences against. Holiday travel; always a sentimental journey.


Gonna take a sentimental journey
Gonna set my heart at ease
Gonna make a sentimental journey
To renew old memories

Got my bag, I got my reservation
Spent each dime I could afford
Like a child in wild anticipation
Long to hear that: "All aboard!"

Seven, that's the time we leave at - seven
I'll be waiting up for heaven
Counting every mile of railroad track - that takes me back

Never thought my heart could be so yearning
Why did I decide to roam?
Gotta take this sentimental journey
Sentimental journey home

November 14, 2018

Winter Garden

"Doctor Allenby: This won't hurt a bit.
[Sticks Chance with a needle]
Chance the Gardener: It did hurt."


OUR winter garden is emerging. The dogwoods have already lost their amber leaves to a couple of frosts, but the Japanese maples are still showing scarlet in the setting sun.

It was a successful summer. There were devastating renovations which included my first forays into no-dig gardening with the debut of two compost mounds placed defiantly on the flattened slope of my front yard and planted with new additions of tickseed, painted fern, hechura, and false sunflowers.

We shepherded the few Asian lilies - which had escaped the night-foraging of our neighborhood deer - to successful blooms (resolved to finally order them in bulk this fall so we don't need top protect the handful we have like they're gold).

It all was a spectacular success, though, making the end a bit more tolerable. It doesn't hurt to have the 'skyracer' oak-leaf hydrangea in the front yard with the sun-facing side gleaming apple-red, and the other side turning a deep burgundy now that most of the canopy has fallen and is littering the ground from the yard to the street.

All of the action is moving underground after the long campaign, gathering sustenance and generating energy. Most of the winter activity is occurring in the grassroots, growing and expanding their base, auguring an early Spring.

Of course, I'm being facetious and a little coy here. Politics is like a garden, right? It's been done, well done - some of the more poignant analogies made in a flick about a gardener, turned dying president's private confidant named 'Chauncey' (Peter Sellers), who was mistaken for a wise counsel because of his government-analogous remarks about tending his garden.

"President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President "Bobby": In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President "Bobby": Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President "Bobby": Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.

Ah yes, winter... (pushing ahead, ignoring the sudden urge to go find Shirley MacClain's 'Being There' and sneak in another movie night).

The deer have arrived. They're welcome back, mostly. I chased a couple doe and kids away early in the season after I saw them eating my oak-leaf hydrangea transplants in the backyard to the ground. I armed myself with deer-repellent spray and all is now forgiven again.

It looks like last year's bunch, but I know these young deer are new to the yard - maybe visited here in their relative youth. I'm chill. There's really not much harm they're likely to do to the garden in winter (with huge, notable exceptions), and they're a familiar presence this time of year, twice visiting through Thanksgiving like errant relatives come to visit.

I try and interact and live compatibly with nature and its creatures; great and small. I want to help preserve and create, if possible, as much species habitat as I'm able. Heaven knows how much road and housing development has eliminated and reduced that habitat over the decades. The least we can do it to try and maintain as much as we can; helping to preserve the woodland's denizens as we work to preserve their macro and micro environments.

Once you've created your plant filled environment, however, you are bound to their success or demise. There's no questioning the beneficial effect of careful tending and nurturing of a yard full of plants. The wildlife which adopts the environment you've created becomes dependent on your beneficence -- as do the succeeding generations of fauna which are conceived and delivered into your garden home. Bees and other insects find spots nearby to winter over. Hummingbirds and other fowl will make your garden a regular stop on their essential feeding tours. And, yes, for some hapless gardeners, deer and rabbits make their garden paradises their own personal feeding stations and devastatingly devour the bounty to the ground.

There are consequences to the decision to establish a garden. Once adopted by our living counterparts, the future condition of that garden becomes almost essential. More water and food means more growth, so, you're then obliged to continue to nurture that growth at the risk of withdrawing that support and abandoning your sprouts to the ravages of the elements.

That's a bit like the way I view our community at Democratic Underground. We gather here, either deliberately compelled or bidden, and become reliant on the nourishment from the wellspring of activism, action, and advocacy that's been established here. That's what we establish gardens for; to sustain and enhance life on this planet, and that's what I suppose this place is for.

New voters provide new opportunities, new legislators, for our party to grow and succeed. I daresay we can find space and resource to accommodate most of them all; even as we cringe at the prospect of our prize 'buds and offshoots' serving as nourishment for other life before we can realize their bloom; none are more important than the other in this ecosystem; none are less vital than the other in our own survival.


So, winter has come to my suburban, wooded garden, bringing with it an abundance of sunlight and nourishing rain to sustain the burgeoning abundance of life which both sustains us and challenges for us to grow and prosper from the resources available.

Are we actually caretakers in this menagerie, or, are we merely antagonists bent on shuffling and scrambling nature about for our own edification? In mostly all of the natural world, we find most species adapted to an almost routine pattern of survival which advantages itself of every other instinct and expression of the environment - taking a bit of nature for themselves, here and there; giving another bit back, in return.

Does that nature manifest itself in the fox who found refuge for the majority of the day last winter (and warmth) on top of the pile of composting leaves at the back of my yard?

Or is that nature the providence of the family of rabbits who live (and, presumably, are killed) in the burrows under the bank of day lilies facing our driveway - the rabbit family that was the subject of the fox's intense hunt that I witnessed one night from an upstairs window; the garden predator weaving back and forth through the dense growth of foliage to find his innocent quarry?

Are the deer who also time-shared the same cramped but accommodating space of refuge during the winter days - who now migrate through the yard in the summer and forage on every bit of nutritious foliage and flower they can find - friends or ultimate enemies of this arranged habitat?

Is the hawk less welcome atop the heights of the dead pine in back than the chipmunks who perform their death-defying feats of seeming mischief and frivolity with little visible worry or fear of the threat from above?

Poet, John Ashbery ('Some Trees'), describes the accommodating mix of menagerie and flora as an arrangement of chance and opportunity:

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though
Speech were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I (and others)
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness,
we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles . . .
Place in a puzzling light,
and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents
seem their own defense __

It is hard, but, not impossible, to imagine that all of this magnificence around us would occur without some hand in singling out new sprouts and nurturing, protecting, refereeing among their neighbors, and helping them take full advantage of the light, water, and nourishment that nature obligingly provides.

Caretaking and nurturing them is as intimate as we humans can be with these miracles of nature, unable as we are to just root ourselves in the dirt and prosper like they do; plant our own feet that firmly in the ground and we would surely rot away with time.

November 7, 2018

I don't remember a victory being this important

...it's a blast and a relief to win the House majority, of course, but it's impossible to take all of this in without reflecting on just how devastating a loss would have been.

It makes me much more grateful for this victory than I've ever felt before. Our situation with Trump still in office is as precarious as ever, but it would have been nearly impossible to see through the noise to some future win for Democrats, if we lost. Not impossible (I lived through the 'Gingrich revolution'), but dangerously close to a fascist state, if we lost to this crop of rabid republicans.

You could see the prospect of the Democratic party becoming even more toothless in the fight against Trump, without power to do much more than speak out and write strongly worded letters of opposition.

Now the Democratic party can issue subpoenas, call witnesses before committees, and initiate oversight and investigations, which our party will direct and control, of Trump administration malfeasance, graft, and criminality.

I know this is trite and an oversimplification, but America was awakened again last night. With the nation rocking a cool shade of blue this morning, our Democratic party has a consequential voice again. The Democratic-led House has a constitutional impetus and full reign to initiate financial legislation, hold oversight investigations, and, when appropriate, initiate impeachment proceedings.

Trump's rubber stamp is shelved. House Democrats will be an effective block of republican initiatives from the Senate, and a formidable force in budget negotiations. No more tax giveaways to the rich, no more blank checks to the military, no more swipes at our health care benefits under the Affordable Care Act.

More importantly, we owe the republican party nothing but scorn for their attempts to dismantle our democratic institutions and our social safety nets. Republicans behaved as if they would never be forced to account for their thievery, and their evisceration of standards and norms which once served to make even a divided Congress operate with as much comity and cooperation as politically possible, demands redress.

I daresay, this new Democratic-controlled Congress should be loath to allow any republican legislator to gain leverage at the negotiating table, especially without some reckoning from them for the way Democrats were locked out of any ability to influence Trump-enabling legislation in the last term. It's been such a power-grab by republicans and the WH, that a return to regular order will look like a revolution.

Democrats should think long and hard about making any gestures or concessions in the name of behaving better toward republicans than they acted toward us. The criminals in that party are unrepentant, and determined to resume inflicting harm the minute they get their foot back in the door.

Comity should be about more than just offering the other cheek. There should be some demonstrable benefit to our agenda from any deals with the republican opposition. Congress isn't a social club. The steamrolling Democrats have received from the republican party in recent years demands that they execute their politics, in power, with the same ruthlessness their opposition employed.

The stakes for Americans, for our Democratic party to prevail, couldn't be higher or more critical.

October 24, 2018

If Trump wasn't president, he'd be detained, questioned

...threatened with arrest if he continued to incite violence against individuals.

Trump is actively fomenting violence against his political opponents, critics. and their supporters. He's scheduled for another one of his 'rallies' tonight where he stirs up his already violent rabble against Democrats with incendiary lies and 'meddlesome priest' appeals that are pushing people to violent acts.

https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1055117672558538754

What's happened to America that we're allowing this spoiled, bad-seed, man-child to bully the nation from our own offices of government with impunity? Is there no fucking authority in the nation with the power to muzzle this terrorist-enabling thug?

October 5, 2018

Collins spent an hour elevating an unrepentant sexual assailant over his victim

...this is the grotesque face of the republican party.

https://twitter.com/AhmedBaba_/status/1048297475797397504

Watching (not actually listening) to Susan Collins' hour-long lecture to sexual assault survivors and those of us who actually give a damn about the rights of women and other survivors, I remembered this de Tocqueville quote about power and assumed authority:

Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent. - Alexis de Tocqueville

Here are republicans visibly and functionally out of step with the rest of America, yet they moralize down to us from their elevated positions of power. There's no humility, no consideration for the majority of Americans who disagree with them. Just raw, naked power manipulated for their benefit alone.

Consider this vote scheduled for tomorrow. It's a simple majority vote where it used to require a supermajority (60 votes) for advancement of a SC nominee. That's a consequence of the absolute power afforded to the republican party. Once they got the majority, they discarded Senate comity and simply changed the rules to suit their own interests. Garland was just a teaser, this republican party is on a tear.

It's a rampage through our democratic system of government complete with an opposites game that looks to be modeled after Orwell's '1984' - blatant lies presented as truth; one of the nation's most prominent religious leaders trotted out to proclaim that 'not completing the act' isn't rape, no matter that the person he's defending denied even attending such a party.

Kavanaugh went even further, proclaiming several times that, although he really "liked beer," he never drank to excess. That assertion completely at odds with a letter revealed, in his own handwriting, signed 'Bart,' saying beach house neighbors should be warned that they're "loud, obnoxious drunks with prolific pukers among us."

We're dealing with weak and vulnerable bullies and liars. There is nothing redeemable about the republican party because there's nothing that they appear to care about outside of their sweet selves. But not to despair...some Tennyson to soothe the sour palate:

“Let darkness keep her raven gloss:
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss”

We're Democrats, and we're on the right side, if not the winning one. We don't shift to suit the political winds, and we act on principle and conviction, not political expediency. We have an affirming election coming in a few weeks where we can get on with removing these relics of absolute power, these horridly tragic mistakes of popular assent. Lets get on with it.

September 28, 2018

So yelling and beating up on the victim rallied republicans?

...that's the narrative coming from various media sources.

Prof. Ford's testimony was passionate, intelligent, and utterly convincing.

The republican counter is that Kavanaugh aggressively fought back, in an overtly political manner. The judge berated his accuser as some kind of Democratic conspiracy, blaming the Clintons.

Yet, Prof. Ford demonstrated a natural independence and clearly showed that there was no political bias in identifying her attacker. She repeatedly affirmed her support for an FBI investigation by saying she believed they could help her help the committee reach a just conclusion.

Kavanaugh belligerently and petulantly dodged the question of whether he would support such an investigation, while at the same time, wailing and moaning about the lack of a complete evidence trail. He showed open contempt for allowing witnesses to back up either his account or Dr. Ford's.

This sitting judge's contempt for the democratic process, and for the process of law, is a damning indictment of his intention to lead this committee to the truth. He's determined to substitute this stacked committee's partisan judgment for a process of investigative law, something that I would think is an anathema for a judge. It's certainly something that would disqualify any nominee for any position in government for any Democratic nominee facing these committee republicans.

Moreover, his temperament demonstrated in this rebuttal is not one that should be expected from someone tasked to adjudicate myriad cases fraught with contradictions, omissions, and complex defenses and prosecutions. The image of this judge yelling and crying from the federal bench (and if advanced to the Supreme Court) is a terrifying image of U.S. jurisprudence. This is a sitting judge, openly scorning the process that would advance him to a higher Court, actively obstructing the search for the truth he claims to seek.

The only conclusion to be had is that this person believes he's entitled to the Court seat; that he thinks he's entitled to sidestep scrutiny or challenge to his record or reputation; that he believes he's immune from accountability for his past by virtue of membership in a privileged class of politicians currently holding the majority of votes, presumably, in his favor.

For Trump-era republicans, their ability to outvote Democrats is all of the justice or justification they need to act, consistently in the most partisan manner they can accomplish. Their morality is mired in their ability to dominate this confirmation process, in the end, and manipulate the process with selective umbrage and obstruction of even the law enforcement professionals who could clarify their decision-making with actual witness statements and evidence.

It's privilege they're asserting here, plain and simple. Something women have been struggling for decades to advantage their own needs and rights. That's what republicans are trying to accomplish here, the advancement of their male-dominated privilege, and the suppression of this women and her right to hold this man accountable for his actions against her.

September 27, 2018

Grassley's pathetic disinformation effort before Kavanaugh hearing is misogynists' last gasp

ThinkProgress:

As BuzzFeed reports, “The committee didn’t identify the men, offer details about what they said, state whether committee staff found their accounts credible, or indicate whether there would be any further follow-up.” Committee staff interviewed each of the men between Monday and Wednesday.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s attempt to sow doubt on the eve of Thursday’s hearing seems intended to cast doubt upon Ford’s unequivocal claim that Kavanaugh assaulted her. During a Fox & Friends interview on Thursday morning, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway seized upon the revelation as evidence that Kavanaugh might have been falsely accused.

Releasing thin information about two anonymous men who claim to be the real assailants wasn’t the only misdirection pushed by Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) committee on Wednesday.

As CNN reports, the committee also released a transcript of a conference call with Kavanaugh in which they asked him about two new uncorroborated, anonymous allegations against him...

The republicans on the committee hearing from Dr. Ford today includes 6 men who voted against the extension of the Violence Against Women Act. This is the old guard of the women-haters club trying to preserve a place in society where they are allowed to treat women as sexual conquests. They are very clear that they want fellow men to be able to act out their sexual desires against women, without their consent, with impunity.

That's the principle republicans are defending today, at the same time that they're seeking even less accountability for the tainted men they seek to advance to the highest offices of our government. Success in circumventing Dr. Ford's testimony, and moving thereafter to an immediate vote, will be one more step toward insulating men from the consequences of their misbehavior and violence toward women.

It's the cherry on top of this shit salad they're tossing today. Well in line with the ascension of an admitted sexual predator to the WH, this is another momentous moment in our nation's history where republicans will attempt to normalize their misogyny.

The deck couldn't be stacked any more in their favor. The only saving grace is the courage and persistence of Dr. Ford in standing up to this rigged committee, and forcing them to publicly face up to the cravenness of their vain pursuit of absolution for this unrepentant, sexual abuser a step away from determining the fate of women's rights and protections from a lifetime seat on the highest court in the land.