This video raises the question: Why are the songs protesting the very stable genius being sung by 76 year olds. Maybe there are others out there, but I haven’t heard about them. I hope that’s the case. I do know that the Vietnam War, as bad as it was, was nowhere near the existential threat to democracy than is the current administration.
Anyway, to the music. A video by Barbra Streisand.
Let me direct your attention to this thought provoking post at Naked Capitalism. The thrust of the argument made is that, should the Democrats not blow it, and they take one or more of the Houses of Congress this year, they should avoid investigations into Trump’s crimes and corruption, instead concentrating on promoting a legislative agenda, with the following suggested as composing part of that agenda:
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The argument is that while none of these things could be passed, they are all popular, and would set the agenda going into 2020.
I’ve made a similar argument. I believe I’ve made it here (too lazy to look), and I know I’ve made it ranting at Drinking Liberally. It’s simply not enough to be the not Republicans, we need to be the party of something. In part, by the way, that means forgetting this “pay-go” crap that Pelosi has used to hamstring the Democrats. If they can run deficits to give money to rich people, we can run deficits to help real people. The argument is simple actually. It is not reckless to borrow money to buy a house (i.e., make an investment); it is reckless to borrow money to give a party. Republicans do the latter, we can do the former.
I do differ with the author of the piece at Naked Capitalism. I think we can do both. That is, we can investigate Trump and promote progressive legislation at the same time. The problem is that it would require some strategizing and some party discipline, both of which the Democratic Party lacks. The investigations can be done in a sort of low key manner, with the Democrats talking very little about them, but just doing them. When they open their mouths, it should be to talk about health care, free college, etc. Sure, the media will cover the investigations, but with proper planning the Democrats could develop talking points to shift attention to policy.
The impediment to my approach, or that of the fellow at Naked Capitalismis the Democratic Party itself. It lacks the vision to do what he suggests. The people running the show will, no doubt, refuse to embrace a progressive agenda. They will want to prove to the DC punditry that they are responsible, which means occupying a middle ground that exists only in the Twilight Zone. They will pursue the investigations. They have no choice about that. Buy they will occupy themselves, on the policy side, with marginalizing the progressive wing of the party. After all, why make it easy to win in 2020 when you can make it a real challenge?
Marty Balin died last week, which made it easy to pick a band this week. This performance of Somebody to Love is clearly not lip synced. It’s from the Dick Cavett show, and David Crosby is apparently pitching in. I realize that Balin plays a sort of secondary part in this song, but I like the song, so that’s that.
The Kavanaugh thing has unwound pretty much as I predicted, a fact from which I take no satifaction. I think it is entirely likely that future historians (if they are allowed to write honest histories) will date the final downfall of our form of government to this date. It is most probable that this Supreme Court will overturn any progressive legislation passed from this day forward, and may well go back and strike down some of the legislation we’ve taken for granted.
We are an oligarchy now, or may very well be. It’s possible that we can avoid that fate if we take both the House and Senate, but that requires good turnout, so we can’t let our probable fate discourage us. Vote now, or we may never get a meaningful vote again.
The focus so far as the Kavanaugh vote goes has been on Flake, Collins and Murkowski, the so-called moderate Republicans. (That phrase is now officially an oxymoron.) Not much attention has been paid to the DINO Democrats, Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp, who have expressed varying degrees of openness to voting for Kavanaugh.
They fear, apparently, that voting against Kavanaugh will discourage the people who would never vote for them in a million years from voting for them, while, as all good Democrats do, they show no concern about the numbers of potential votes they throw away by convincing potential Democratic voters that there’s really no point in voting at all.
Presumably, they would like to vote against the guy, but they’re afraid. A lot of that fear stems, as it always does, from pathetic Democratic messaging. The ideological opposition to him has focused almost solely on abortion and women’s rights; the political opposition almost solely on his treatment of women.
The Democrats don’t seem to notice, or don’t want to notice, that the anti-abortion judges that the Republicans appoint are not being appointed for their anti-abortion views. In their heart of hearts (if they have hearts), they don’t care about abortion. Those views are featured to appeal to their own base, because, after all, even the nutjobs might have a problem if the Republicans were upfront about the fact that the real reason these guys are being advanced is because they are reliable pro-corporate, anti-people votes. A subset of people is “working people” and it would be no exaggeration for Joe Manchin to justify a negative vote by saying, in effect, that the lies Kavanaugh told the Judiciary committee were troubling in and of themselves, but what really pushed him toward a no vote was that Kavanaugh never met a corporation he didn’t like, or a worker that he did. His judicial record amply supports such a statement. The people of West Virginia would get that, but they have to hear it from someone. Democrats being Democrats, they probably never will.
In light of the Times puff pieceyesterday, and the Times was not alone (my wife says Twitter is full of folks praising his principled actions), I think it’s time to, as Randy Newman’s devil sang,“inject a note of reality on this festive occasion”, for, as Randy went on to sing, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard such bullshit”. I’m not the first to point all this out, but I do want to add my voice to the somewhat drowned out chorus of naysayers.
Flake is a fraud, as are all the other so called moderates in the Republican caucus. He has cultivated an image of “moderation”, while, along with Corker, Murkowski, Collins, et. al., he has enabled Trump at every turn.
Here’s what I think we can expect.
It is practically a given that the FBI will be unable to confirm Dr. Ford’s story. We all know it’s true, but other than her word, there is no hard evidence, unless Mark Judge decides to confess, but he’ll say he doesn’t recall. This is no surprise; she’s been upfront from day one about the lack of any contemporary witnesses.
So, even if the FBI truly does go beyond Trump’s original limitson the investigation, and looks into Kavanaugh’s perjury and other crimes, Flake, Murkowski, and Collins will limit their personal inquiries to whether the FBI establishes Kavanaugh’s guilt of attempted rape of Dr. Ford. They will disregard all other disqualifying factors, whether the FBI exposes them or not. His lies have been called out and cataloguedfor what they are, or, in the case of the New York Times, catalogued while tippy toeingaround the word “lie”. He lies even when he doesn’t have to. His testimony at the hearing demonstrated beyond doubt that he lacks the temperament and personal qualities that should be required of a Supreme Court justice.
None of this will matter to Flake. Should the FBI fail to find Kavanaugh guilty beyond reasonable doubt of attempting to rape Dr. Ford, which it surely must, Flake will vote to confirm, as will Collins and Murkowski. He will nonetheless reap the benefits of his courageous stand for principle. It’s amazing how low the bar is for a Republican to qualify as a principled moderate.
The Very Stable Genius has to be considered the very acme of liars, lying even when he has no need to, so he certainly puts Brett Kavanaugh in the shade. But, Brett is still up there, since, yesterday, almost every word he uttered was a lie or a statement meant to misdirect. The atrocities are documented elsewhere. I would just submit that in my humble opinion there’s enough to warrant a perjury charge when next we take the White House. That saves the time and trouble of an impeachment, and avoids the impossibility of getting the majority needed in the Senate to convict.
Anyway, I originally intended to try to find *Liar, Liar*, by the Castaways. I ultimately rejected that, because the available videos of that are fairly crappy, and, anyway, in the song, it’s the girl that’s the liar. But I stumbled on *Liar*, by Queen, and it seems perfect. Queen came along just as I was tuning out the most current stuff, so I had never heard this before, but it’s not bad, and I think we can all imagine that good Catholic boy Brett will be running to the confessional tomorrow (the confessionals were open Saturday afternoon at Our Lady of Sorrows, and I think it’s like that everywhere) to get his slate wiped clean. Now, the priest should actually require him to divest himself of his ill gotten gains. Brett should be saying, to paraphrase Hamlet’s uncle:
Then I’ll look up
My fault is past.
But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul lies’?
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I told the lies,
My robes, mine own ambition and my entitlement.
May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?
But, he’ll get off with a few Hail Mary’s and an Our Father or two, so “all may be well”.
Anyway, here’s Queen
Yesterday the delegates to the United Nations laughed at the person who currently holds the position of President of the United States. In the three papers I get each morning, it is barely mentioned, and in one the laughs are referred to as “chuckles”. Of course, Fox didn’t even let its viewers know about it. The fact that the world laughed at the president will be forgotten by tomorrow. Once again ask yourself, what if this had happened to Obama, or any Democrat.
The end of the Kavanaugh saga approaches. A few observations.
First, lets stipulate that all the evidence suggests that Dr. Ford’s account of Kavanaugh’s actions is substantially true. We can also put aside any question of whether Kavanaugh’s actions when he was fifteen are sufficient grounds to deny him the right to strip women, minorities, gay people, Democratic voters, and workers of their rights for the next forty years. His persistent lies about his past actions, and his present involvement in attempts to smear his accuser are sufficient grounds, and those actions are taking place right now.
I read today that the loathsome Neil Gorsuch is also an alum of Georgetown Prep, which leads one to wonder what, precisely, the Jesuits are doing over there. Was there no adult supervision of these up and coming masters of the universe? Let’s take another look at that yearbook page.
I went to a public high school. All of our organized activities had faculty advisers. I can say without doubt that this sort of stuff would never have gotten into one of our yearbooks, even if someone had been coarse enough to want to put it in. One can only speculate about what the priests were doing when they should have been supervising the entitled offspring of the Washington rich.
Another observation. I went to a college where there were lots of preppies, most of whom attended single sex prep schools. It seemed to me, even then, that they came in two flavors. There were the predator types who thought of females as sex objects and only sex objects and there were the decent types who, not having been exposed to females in their formative high school years (and possibly not even before that) were painfully shy around girls and couldn’t quite conceive that they could be acquaintances as well as objects of desire. The single exception was a guy in one of my classes who kept talking about his girlfriend in Northern Ireland, who turned out to be imaginary. Anyway, it is thoroughly believable that Kavanaugh had the attitude toward women that is reflected in the allegations of his accusers, and in his casual claim to be a “Renate Alumnius”.
As to the current situation: Kavanaugh knows that Ford is telling the truth. The Republicans know she is telling the truth. He will lie about it. His lie will probably be to the effect that something probably did happen to her at a party, but the little woman’s memory is mixed up as to identity. Every Republican on the committee will know that any woman to whom such a thing happened would never forget the identity of her attacker. Nonetheless, they will pretend to believe it. Kavanaugh will also lie about his involvement in the aborted attempt to blame a named middle school teacher for the assault, which everyone will also know is a lie, just as everyone knew he was lying when he denied any knowledge of Judge Kozinski’s antics. Actually, it’s extremely easy to know when he’s lying: it’s when his mouth is open.
It remains to be seen whether Profile in Courage Susan Collins and her sister in courage, Lisa Murkowski, will decline to vote as ordered by their male bosses. There’s a lot of talk on the internet that the nomination is really in trouble, but my guess is that he’ll be a Supreme Court judge by the end of the month.
This is a good idea! And from a Democrat!
Former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm has a rather brilliant idea for the Democrats to move around the Republican majority’s attempt to protect Brett Kavanaugh.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s attorneys have negotiated an appearance to speak before the Senate Judiciary Committee for Thursday, but the GOP majority has determined that only Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh will be able to speak, that there will be no other witnesses or investigation brought forward.
So Granholm, on the panel of CNN’s State of the Union, suggests that the Democrats arrange to have other witnesses and testimony be given a platform on a show–like State of the Union, to make sure the American people have all the information that the Republicans are keeping from them.
Unfortunately, the Democrats don’t have their own television network, like the Republicans, but I think they’d be able to pull something like this off with decent coverage (even if only streaming) if they did it. It is crystal clear at this point that Kavanaugh is lying, and that the Republicans are conspiring with him to cover for him.
There is a wealth on information on line that leads one to the inescapable conclusion that the Republicans knew this claim was coming, and that they prepared for it by coming up with risible defenses and by preparing, of course, to slime Ford. Restricting the hearing to a he said-she said debate is part of that strategy. We can only hope that the Democrats (there are at least three skilled litigators on the committee) are aware of all these issues and are prepared to explore them with Kavanaugh and, if possible, to present the case just as Granholm suggests.