Time For A Change

There is much more to the Kavanaugh appointment than what we are focused on at this moment. The things we all know and are trying not to mention are basically that the all-powerful republicans are blackout-drunk with the idea that they can change the Supreme Court into a tool of their own with this appointment and the Democrats are not in favor of that. We can acknowledge this and look at the rest of the situation.

It did not start with Dr. Blasey-Ford. It began with the resignation of Justice Kennedy, whose son had once worked with Jared Kushner, well timed to kick off a rushed nomination so the seat could be filled before the next term. With this goal in mind, the republicans have thrown out all existing rules of order that do not advance their own needs. Of course, they had already changed the rules when President Obama had the nerve to nominate a replacement for Justice Scalia with 14 months left in his term and they threatened to leave the seat open for another four years if Hillary won the election. Fortunately for them, they had the assistance of Vladimire Putin in stealing the election, something they are all still terrified of being proven.

With a majority in the Senate and a vice grip on their party members, they were confident that Kavanaugh would be confirmed on their own terms and their own ramped up schedule. In order to speed up the confirmation hearings, they held back 90% of his papers from the committee, without even trying to hide what they were doing. Why should they? They have a majority and cannot be stopped. More than 40,000 pages were delivered to committee members the evening before the hearings were to begin. Rules of order were ignored when it benefitted the GOP, because they could.

As the president has been quite vocal and very definite about appointing a Justice that will end Roe versus Wade and one that is very lenient on Presidential Privilege and executive pardoning power, no one on the committee was allowed to question him about his personal views on those issues.

In spite of these limitations, Democrats were able to give Kavanaugh room to perjure himself when questioned about his knowledge of communications stolen from the Democrats, producing a communication from Kavanaugh himself who referenced his friend, the mole in the democrat’s offices. All-in-all Kavanaugh was evasive and memory impaired, as he answered to questions from the Democrats amid the shouts from the protestors who made their appearances daily.

Now Christine Blasey-Ford has come forward with the very credible accusation that Kavanaugh aggressively tried to rape her at a party when they were in high school and Senator Grassley is in the unfortunate position of having to recognize this challenge. They have, of course, denied it vigorously, bringing back memories of the Anita Hill hearings when Clarence Thomas was nominated and then became the least qualified Supreme Court Justice to ever be seated on the highest court in the land.

Dr. Ford’s accusation has set off a firestorm of protests from Democrats and from women all over the country. Even though a few of the republican men and many of the women originally expressed their feelings that it would be tragic to seat a person who had attempted rape, the party quickly got them back in line and their empathy and consciences were suppressed and replaced with outrage at the attack on Kavanaugh’s sterling reputation.

The party’s transparently anemic attempts to accommodate Dr. Ford’s testimony has shone a spotlight on the Good Old Boy tactics known so well to so many of the gray haired, old, white men who will be questioning Dr. Ford next week. Even though she has taken a lie detector test and is willing to share the results, Kavanaugh sees no need to do the same. The same Senator who applauded the request to reopen Clarence Thomas’s background check have refused to request that Kavanaugh’s be reopened. They will not subpoena Kavanaugh’s friend who Ford says was in the room when the event happened (he has written quite a bit about the blackout drinking he and Kavanaugh did back in those days, but doesn’t want to testify). They will not allow Ford to bring her own witnesses who will attest to her statements at the time of the alleged attack. They still intend to confirm Kavanaugh regardless of her testimony on Thursday of next week.

The twitter president managed to stay silent until last night and this morning when he expressed his doubts about her truthfulness, much like he has denied the 19 known accusations against himself. 

This is a travesty of the highest order and should be condemned by every woman in this country! It is time to put this king of misogyny away for good. Victims of sexual aggression, both male and female, report a small percentage of these crimes and the reason for that is just what we are watching today. These victims are revictimized again and again when they come forward, not only by having to publicly relive the assault, but because the process itself is tantamount to an assault.

This committee hearing setting raises the ante even more. There is not even a pretense of looking for the truth. All the republicans want to do is to demoralize her and confirm him, regardless of his lack of integrity. Alas, I find a deplorable lack of integrity in the republican leadership altogether. If they push this confirmation through without a proper hearing after a thorough investigation, they should all lose their seats, starting with those in jeopardy in November. Ladies vote them out!