If you think that America still can act rationally about immigration, or even wants to act rationally, you are wrong. The NYT reports:
âA right-wing militia group operating in southern New Mexico has begun stopping groups of migrant families and detaining them at gunpoint before handing them over to Border Patrol agents, raising tension over the tactics of armed vigilantes along the border between the United States and Mexico.â
This group, one of many, calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots. They filmed several of their detentions including one of a group of 200 migrants who crossed the border near Sunland Park, NM, with the intention of seeking asylum.
Many different militias operate along the border. They say that their mission is to support the Border Patrol by attempting to curb the flow of undocumented migrants into the US.
The NYT and other media use the word “detain” to describe what these militias are doing. But they aren’t law enforcement. They don’t have any authorization to detain. Theyâre simply holding people hostage at gunpoint. Detained is NOT the right word to use here. It’s a euphemism that minimizes the unconstitutionality of their actions.
Americans should have no issue with legal immigration, which includes legally seeking asylum under current law. Immigrants may cross our border anywhere and ask for asylum. See 8 US Code 1158. Regardless of what the Trumpists think, this is US law. âIf you donât like the law, change itâ, is something Republicans always say. To paraphrase the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, you are free to express your own opinions, but you are not free to make up laws based on your opinions.
On to cartoons. Hereâs a new administration separation policy thatâs just coming into focus:
The dog who ate Americaâs homework:
What to do with the Mueller Report changes by Party:
Some answers arenât obvious:
Whatâs happened in France and America will take years to fix:
(Wrongo apologizes for the lack of articles, as other priorities have intervened. He has responsibilities on his townâs Municipal Road Committee. We are preparing to spend about $10 Million on improving our roads. There are very tight deadlines for finishing our analysis, getting approval of the town council, holding a referendum, and then going to the bond market for the funds. This is a huge time sink. So, for the next 10 days, posting may be intermittent.)
âThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has disbanded a group of intelligence analysts who focused on domestic terrorism, The Daily Beast has learned. Numerous current and former DHS officials say they find the development concerning, as the threat of homegrown terrorismâincluding white supremacist terrorismâis growing.â
The group in question was a branch of DHSâs Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). They focused on the threat from homegrown extremists and domestic terrorists. Their analysts shared information with state and local law enforcement to help them protect communities from these threats. According to the Daily Beast, the reorganization happened last year, and had not been previously reported.
DHS defended the reorganization. Pressed by The Daily Beast, a senior DHS official pushed back:
 âThe same people are working on the issues….We just restructured things to be more responsive to the…customers within DHS and in local communities while reducing overlap with what the FBI does. We actually believe we are far more effective now.â
Ok. But one local community âclientâ is Los Angeles, and Sgt. Mike Abdeen with the LA County Sheriffâs Department told The Daily Beast:
âItâs been very quiet lately….Itâs changed with the new administration. It doesnât seem to be as robust, as active, as important…itâs not a priority. It doesnât seem like engagement, outreach, and prevention are seen as a priority as we used to see in the past. There were roundtable meetings in the past…more training, more seminars. Now it seems like itâs gone away.â
Nobody would say that domestic terrorism has been declining, so you have to decide whether this is an unintended consequence of another Trump appointee trying to streamline a government process, or whether it is an intentional effort to bury bad news about elements within Trumpâs base of support.
Is Trumpâs ability to appoint people who will undermine the efforts of our civil service better, or worse than his use of the judgesâ roster provided by the Federalist Society to pack the courts?
Wrongo votes that itâs a tie.
Trump has said repeatedly that he doesn’t consider white nationalist groups to be an actual threat. So out goes the white nationalist task force.
Is this merely DHS accepting the viewpoint that when a disgruntled white male takes an assault rifle and kills people in a school or Synagogue, he isnât committing an act of terror, heâs merely a troubled person expressing concern about the fragility of the few remaining white people in America?
This is a GOP problem. Thereâs been a consistent drumbeat to sweep right-wing terrorism under the rug, and it predates Trump. Consider that in 2009, the Obama administrationâs DHS released a report warning about Rightwing Extremism. The report warned that ârightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues.â It also predicted that the possibility of new gun restrictions and the return of âmilitary veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communitiesâ might mean âemergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.â
That report called this convergence of factors the âmost dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United Statesâ. Republicans went ballistic:
âRep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) said the administration was âawfully willing to paint law-abiding Americans, including war veterans, as âextremists.ââ Then-Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) â the top Republican on the House Veteransâ Affairs committee at the time â called it âinconceivableâ that some veterans could pose a threat.â
âThe Secretary of Homeland Security owes the American people an explanation for why…her own Department is using [âterroristâ] to describe American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation…â
Then-DHS head Janet Napolitano was forced to apologize, and she soon buried the report.
Wrongo is old-school enough to believe that Republicans used to care about all of America. That they had different (and usually wrong-headed) approaches to our priorities and the solutions to problems, but they wanted what’s good for the country in general.
Itâs gone. Trump-Republicans only want good things for people in their in-crowd. That excludes the majority of Americans.
Trump doesnât want to stop domestic terrorism by white nationalists. He wants to harness it.
Coyote in Litchfield County CT â February 2019 photo by Sharon Shea
For more than 30 years, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has been one of the cornerstones of the international security system. But, on February 1st, Trump announced that the US would suspend its obligations under the INF Treaty. Shortly thereafter, Russiaâs President Putin announced that Russia will also officially suspend its treaty obligations.
Trump swings another wrecking ball! Defense One reported that Trump said that the US:
âWill move forward with developing…its own military response options and will work with NATO members and other allies to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct.â
This means that Trump will start the development, production and deployment of formerly INF-banned weapons.
Until the treaty took effect in 1988, the US had hundreds of nuclear-tipped ground-launched cruise missiles, or GCLMs all over Europe. Today, all cruise missiles are either air or sea-launched. New GCLMs are likely to be returning soon. Contenders include converting the sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missile, and the air-launched Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM.
Walking away from the INF Treaty opens the door to both sides building land-based nuclear capable missiles with a range beyond 300 miles.
There are two things to think about: Cost, and Strategic necessity. Kingston Reif, a policy director at the Arms Control Association, said the cost of the new missile systems would be much higher than the $6 billion or so it cost in the 1980s.
On the subject of necessity, he says:
âThe United States can already…threaten the same Russian targets that new ground-launched missiles prohibited by INF Treaty would….In addition, no European nation has agreed to host such a missile, which could take years to develop. And even if one in Eastern Europe did, such a deployment would be a significant source of division within the allianceâone Russia would be eager to try and exploitâbe hugely provocative, and put missiles in a place where they would be especially vulnerable to Russian preemption…â
The downside to the US withdrawing from the treaty is that we currently have no strategy to prevent Russia from building and fielding even more and new intermediate-range missiles.
Some believe that the INF treaty is obsolete, because many nations are developing effective missiles and launching capabilities that will be outside the limitations of the INF. Since we all will continue to develop these technologies, maybe the best we can hope for is to negotiate new treaties that address this increasing lethality down the road.
OTOH, Trump and his neocons are doing everything they can to encircle Russia with missile bases while claiming the moral high ground. We should expect them to utilize Poland, the Baltic states, and possibly Ukraine (if they can get away with it), as forward missile bases.
They figure that since geography favors them, why negotiate if you can win? Russia already called our bluff. For this strategy to work, the US must threaten Russia from Europe while simultaneously putting Europe under our new missile thumb. It might work, but there are many moving parts.
Republicans of course supported Trump, cheering about the breakup of a treaty signed by Ronald Reagan. When Wrongo grew up, the threat of nuclear annihilation was real. We drilled for it in school. He then ran a nuclear missile unit in Europe at the height of the Cold War. These were formative experiences that implied very dangerous consequences.
And think about our domestic politics: If someone were to run in 2020 as anti-Cold War II, they would have to say we need to work with the Russians to find a peaceful way out of this mess. Trump will then run to their right, saying Russia must be stopped.
Scared yet? A presidency based on disruption will do that to you.
Time for your Saturday Soother. Try to unplug from all the data that are streaming into your life for a few minutes. Start by brewing up a strong cuppa Hula Daddy Kona Coffee ($45.95/half pound) from the Big Island of Hawaii. You can see their plantation here.
Now settle back and listen to Abbaâs âThe Winner Takes It Allâ performed as a guitar instrumental by Gabriella Quevedo:
For those who may have forgotten the lyric, it includes this:
The winner takes all
It’s the thrill of one more kill
The last one to fall
Will never sacrifice their will
Think there will be winners in the new Cold War?
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Winter, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite NP, CA â photo via wallpaper studio
 This week Right Wing Watch, who follow Americaâs least attractive thinkers so that we donât have to, had a column about how Evangelical Christians are circling around Ruth Bader Ginsburg like vultures. The article included this tweet from anti-abortion and anti-gay activist Matt Barber:
We know that RBG just had cancerous tumors removed from her lungs. Yet, what has been made public so far is that RBG was given a clean bill of health, and is expected to make a full recovery. That diagnosis seems to be a big disappointment to many on the Christian Right.
They were extremely happy with Donald Trumpâs choice of Neil Gorsuch. They werenât so thrilled with Brett Kavanaugh, preferring Amy Coney Barrett, who they saw as totally committed to overturning Roe v. Wade. And they want more. In addition to overturning Roe v. Wade, they want prayers back in schools, and they want same-sex marriage abolished.
Things get interesting when you consider just how much Evangelicals truly, deeply hate RBG:
In October, pastor Rodney Howard-Brown, who has prayed over Trump in the Oval Office, guest-hosted The Alex Jones Show on Infowars, where he said that Ginsburg should be shot for treason.
Lou Engle, a dominionist organizer of stadium-sized prayer rallies, urged Americans to engage in three days of fasting and prayer over the Supreme Court. Earlier, he led prayers asking God to âsweep away the judgesâ who support the right to abortion.
Liberty Counsel President Mat Staver has argued that Congress should have impeached justices who supported Roe v. Wade and Obergefell vs. Hodges (the case that legalized same-sex marriage). (BTW, Liberty Counsel opposed the Senateâs bill that would outlaw lynching in the US because the bill extends the right not to be lynched to gays and transgender people.)
Earlier this month, former Trump campaign adviser Frank Amedia insisted that Chief Justice John Roberts has not proven to be sufficiently reliable to the Religious Right. That means God has to remove more justices so that Trump can fill Robertsâs seat with another justice whose âvalues and moralityâ reflect a âkingdom enlightenment as to what is required by God to change the law of this land now.â
Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow John Malcolm told the Daily Caller that Trump would be under pressure to replace Ginsburg with a woman, and named Amy Coney Barrett as a preferred successor.
You may not believe that God spends much time thinking about who sits on the Supreme Court, but these people are deadly serious. They think God is a âfamily valuesâ Republican. They believe that they know who God wants on the Supreme Court.
America needs to look very closely at any group that argues for followers of a specific religion as a test of who is worthy to sit on the Supreme Court, or who should head our government.
Praying for the death of RBG ought to repugnant to all Americans, but sadly, it isnât particularly surprising that some âChristiansâ exhibit such callous inhumanity. They, and their kind of thinking, should be repudiated by all Christians.
Thereâs some consolation in the fact that RBG has worked to make America a more fair and equitable place. She has made that her lifeâs calling.
Contrast that to these phony Christians who are working to make America a one-party political entity that follows Jesus Christ.
The agony will not end today, regardless of the outcome of the 2018 mid-term election. There are things about both the country and the Democratic Party that have to change. If the Party is to survive as a political force across America, it must be meaningfully different by 2020. We will talk much more about this in the next two years.
Today, whatever the results, the margins of victory will be very close in many places. With that in mind, if youâre even thinking about voting for a third party candidate, you need to think again. A vote for a third party candidate is objectively, a vote that supports Trump and the Trumpistas.
Wrongoâs small CT town is a highly politicized place. Today the Republicans control all of the levers of government, although just a year ago, it was the Democrats pushing the levers. Weâre in an off-year locally, but the governorâs race, and our seat in Congress are both in play. However, the biggest issue in the town relates to revising the town charter to add more oversight to the mayorâs and the town councilâs spending authority by our townâs elected finance board.
To Wrongo, this is an overly politicized issue, and as a finance guy, he plans to vote with the Republicans on this highly specific local issue. He has in the past voted for a few local Republicans, but not this time.
This time, a vote for a Republican politician at any level is tacit support of Trumpâs authoritarian tendencies, and for GOP voter suppression. Our local Republicans arenât authoritarians, and at least some of them probably arenât in favor of voter suppression.
But they knowingly and willingly associate themselves with a party that very definitely is all of these things, and we shouldnât give any of them even the slightest level of support.
This time, NOT being Republican is the first bar you have to cross to get our votes. Yes, this is guilt by association, and itâs deserved, since they have come by it honestly.
Voting for Democrats is voting against Trumpâs authoritarianism. You donât have to like your local Democrat, or any Democrats for that matter. You just have to hate them less than you hate authoritarianism and voter suppression.
Vote against authoritarianism and voter suppression by voting for Democrats.
Birthright Citizenship, the common law concept of jus soli, has been the law since the ratification of the 14th Amendment. The Republican concern is that too many illegal immigrants have a child in the US who is automatically an American citizen, and therefore, has the right to vote. The 14th Amendment’s first sentence reads:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
The debate pertains to the clause, âsubject to the jurisdiction thereofâ. Conservatives contend that it means only citizens, while the preponderance of Constitutional scholars say it means located in the US.
Trump first made a case for ending Birthright Citizenship in 2015. Back then, he was following Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who said that Hispanics try to get a foothold in the country by coming here and having a child. King called them âanchor babiesâ.
Trump and the GOP are focusing on a largely imaginary abuse of birthright by foreigners.
Steve Kantrowitz, a US historian of the 19th century, wrote a series of tweets, condensed here: (emphasis by Wrongo)
On birthright citizenship, read the debate in the US Senate, Jan. 30, 1866. The framers of the Civil Rights Act â the immediate precursor to the 14th Amendment, and the first place national citizenship was codified â knew exactly what they were doing. They were clarifying the well-understood principle that children born in the US were citizens regardless of the immigration status of their parents. They even understood this to be true for children whose parents would then have been racially ineligible for citizenship, such as the Chinese. The only people excluded from citizenship on this basis were 1) Indians under tribal government and 2) children born to the families of foreign diplomats.
A new Executive Order on Birthright Citizenship would spark a legal battle, and pave the way for a showdown at the Supreme Court. To help get that party started, The Hill reported that Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) intends to “introduce legislation among the same lines as the proposed executive order.”
Consider the irony: The Republican Party accomplished something hugely enlightened and important with the 14th Amendment. Here is American Civil War historian Eric Foner:
The 14th amendment and birthright citizenship rank among the great and defining accomplishments of the Republican Party, back when it was the Party of Lincoln.
Yet Trump Republicans propose purging their historic accomplishment from the Constitution. The problem with eliminating Birthright Citizenship is that their idea is at its core, explicitly nativist, racist, and xenophobic.
The current Republican Party is showing that it is no longer related to the Republican Party of Lincoln. In fact, it is barely related to the Republican Party of Eisenhower. The only piece of common ground the current Republican Party has with the Party of Lincoln is its name.
It will take time to move Trumpâs Executive Order to a hearing at the Supreme Court. So, announcing this now is really another attempt to energize the Republican base next week.
Republicans are playing to an idea deep in the American psyche that thereâs always âa mob at the gatesâ. The mob wants in, so that they can take advantage of the good things we have, or they plan to lay waste to our culture and way of life. Therefore, we must be vigilant, because our innocence and openness makes us vulnerable to exploitation or infection from outside.
This is what makes the Caravan a huge issue to Republicans. They’re calling it “an invasion” or, “a national emergency”.
The Right Wingâs argument is that we shouldn’t “reward” people who come into the country illegally by “giving” their kids born here citizenship.
They answer the fact that we all came here from over there, by saying “they followed the rules“, even though for most of us, our ancestors faced few, or no rules on immigration.
This is the problem Wrongo has with the GOP. They begin the argument from their conclusion, and work backwards. Any fig leaf will do. So any argument in favor of the conclusion is all they require.
Voters. Please do not take this bait. Let’s keep our eye on the ball: Re-winning at least the House on Nov 6th. This other fight can wait until after the election.
There are two great things about the US: Strong free speech laws, and jus soli. The idea of blood citizenship—which pervades Europe, and the Middle East, is the root of much evil in the world.
Donât bring that evil here, VOTE on next Tuesday.
This guy was at the rallies with you. He was standing among you chanting âlock her up,â and âbuild the wall.â He believes all the conspiracy theories Trump sells. He thinks the media is âfake newsâ and the âenemy of the American people.â He believes Mueller is on a witch hunt. He believes Trump got something from North Korea and Putin. He believes weâre winning the tariff war. He believes there were millions of illegal voters in 2016. He believes thereâs an impending invasion from a caravan of refugee women and children thatâs a national âemergency.â
A toxic recipe:
Trumpâs iPhones arenât secure, but there’s no irony:
When you need it scarier, think Mexicans:
MAGA men think of themselves as “tough” when maybe they’re not:
Mitchâs plan to gut social security and Medicare depends on winning the midterms:
St. Basilâs, Red Square, Moscow, RU.It was built in 1561. â 2018 photo by Wrongo
Welcome to Saturday! Forget about Kanye hugging the Orange Overlord, we have bigger fish to fry.
Yesterday, we talked about how state legislatures with help from the courts, have been disenfranchising minorities. This is likely to reduce turnout in the 2018 mid-terms, as studies have shown in the past, and despite encouraging polls, if someone canât vote, nobody can be sure who will win in the mid-terms.
So today, we take a closer look at how some states have systematically worked to close polling places after the Supreme Courtâs Shelby County vs. Holder decision that stopped federal oversight of election practices in states with a history of Jim Crow practices.
Prior to the Shelby decision, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) provided a process to ensure that jurisdictions known to engage in voter discrimination werenât using budget cuts or voter modernization as arguments to disenfranchise people of color. Under Section 5, jurisdictions had to demonstrate that saving money by making changes to polling places did not disenfranchise voters of color. Now Section 5 is no longer useful for the protection for minority voters.
One reason is that Shelby triggered a fundamental shift in who was responsible for protecting minority voters, from the federal authorities, to the individuals who believed they were wronged. The cost and burden of proof that local election laws are discriminatory, is now borne by those least able to afford it.
This map makes it clear that the states formerly covered by the VRA are engaging in precisely the kind voter suppression that would have been impossible before the Supreme Courtâs Shelby decision:
Fewer polling places leads to longer lines, which will dissuade some people from voting, the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, DC think tank found. This means election officials can affect the outcome of an election by manipulating the number and location of polling places.
According to Pew Research, other efforts are underway in counties in Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Ohio and Wisconsin to move thousands of voters to new locations: (emphasis by Wrongo)
Some voters in Barton County, Kansas, now will have to drive 18 miles to vote in Novemberâs election because of polling place consolidation. In the past three decades, the county has gone from 40 polling places to 11. The main reason, said County Clerk Donna Zimmerman, is cost.
Local election officials responsible for closing polling places often say that the closed locations were too expensive, underused, or inaccessible to people with disabilities. Often, local election officials fly under the radar, sometimes not even notifying voters in their jurisdictions of changes in polling locations.
This year, Georgia put the voter registrations of about 50,000 voters on hold, due to a policy implemented by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is also the Republican candidate for governor in next monthâs election. Of the 53,000 applications in limbo, 70% are from African-Americans, according to the Associated Press, even though Georgia is approximately 32% black.
So the guy running for governor is ALSO overseeing the election. He tried to close 3/4 of polling places in predominantly black Randolph County this summer. Kemp is in a close race with Stacy Abrams, an African-American. You be the judge of whatâs really going on.
Americans say we live in a democracy. But, with gerrymandering and vote suppression, we have to remain vigilant if we are to keep both our civil rights, and our Constitution, intact.
Enough for today! Take a step back, unplug, and chill a bit, because itâs Saturday, the Wrongologistâs day for a little Soothing.
Letâs start by brewing up a yuuge cuppa Ethiopia Hambela Natural from Chicagoâs Big Shoulders Coffee. It is said to be deeply sweet, with flavors of raspberry, dark chocolate, and cedar, along with a syrupy mouthfeel.
Now, go and sit by a large window, and take in the changing fall colors and the nip of cool air. Put on your best headphones and listen to âAutumn Leavesâ by Eva Cassidy, recorded live at Blues Alley in Washington, DC in 1996. Cassidy died far too young at 33, in 2006.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Avoto Metro Station, St. Petersburg, RU – 2014 photo via themindcircle
(Wrongo and Ms. Right are leaving today for Russia. We will be in St. Petersburg tomorrow, and eventually wend our way to Moscow. You should expect that blogging will be light. Regular posting will resume on October 9th. One more thing: We wonât be looking for the real hackers.)
The Trump administration doesnât lack for enemies, but it is considering adding a few more. Bloomberg reports that:
The White House is considering a draft executive order for President Donald Trump that would instruct federal antitrust and law enforcement agencies to open probes into the practices of Alphabet Inc.âs Google, Facebook Inc., and other social media companies.
Bloomberg says that the language of the order instructs US antitrust authorities to: (emphasis by Wrongo)
Thoroughly investigate whether any online platform has acted in violation of the antitrust laws. It instructs other government agencies to recommend within a month after itâs signed, actions that could potentially âprotect competition among online platforms and address online platform bias.â
Assuming that the order is signed in something like its current form, it is an escalation of Trumpâs aversion to Google, Facebook, Twitter, all of whom heâs publicly accused of silencing online conservative voices and news sources. The draft order says:
Because of their critical role in American society, it is essential that American citizens are protected from anticompetitive acts by dominant online platforms….It adds that consumer harm — a key measure in antitrust investigations — could come âthrough the exercise of bias.â
And there you have it. Because these companies allow criticism of the Very Stable Genius, we will get one step closer to government control of what you can say on the internet.
The draft order doesnât name any companies, but it doesn’t have to in order to intimidate Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon’s parentâs other business, The Washington Post, to suddenly insure that their coverage of Trump is a whole lot nicer.
OTOH, there is a basis for what the DOJ is thinking of doing. There have been arguments from the right and the left that Silicon Valley companies including Google and Facebook, engage in anti-competitive behavior. The companies argue they face robust competition, and that many of their products are free.
Before this, bias has not been a factor in antitrust examinations. But, according to Bloomberg:
A Pew survey earlier this year found that 72% of Americans, and 85% of Republicans, think itâs likely that social media companies intentionally censor political viewpoints that those companies find objectionable.
But there is no objective evidence that either Facebook or Google systematically discriminates, left or right.
Even among some on the right, there are misgivings about a Trump administration crackdown on the free speech rights of these firms. The libertarian groups FreedomWorks and ALEC sent a letter to AG Jeff Sessions expressing concern that his:
…inquiry will be to accomplish through intimidation what the First Amendment bars: interference with editorial judgment.
While the political bias aspect of the order is controversial, it probably wonât scare either Google or Facebook. The First Amendment bans the government from restricting or imposing speech.
Federal authorities cannot require any company to publish views it favors, but it can take crippling anti-trust actions until the companies bend their algorithms to favor Trump messaging.
The danger of such thinking is obvious, however, as the Pew survey information above shows, the vast majority of Republicans agree with Trump.
You should agree that the government ought to be paying attention to the outsized market share of these companies.
You should be very afraid of the government going after them for political revenge.
The Storseisundet Bridge, Norway. It is one of eight bridges on the Atlantic Highway â via themindcircle
Wrongo has tried to resist the developing story about Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who is accusing him of attempted rape during high school, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.
And there are plenty of reasons not to write about it. Itâs the subject of an all-out media blitz. Hundreds of new facts will be presented between the time this is posted, and it is read by all of you Wrong patrons. But, itâs an inescapable narrative, so here goes.
Since Dr. Ford is willing to testify, she should be asked to testify. Brett Kavanaugh has said that he would also like to testify in the matter. Marcy Wheeler offers an idea:
But she shouldnât testify alone. Mark Judge should testify along with her. After all, according to her letter and the WaPo account, he was a witness to the event.
Mark Judge was one of Kavanaughâs best friends in prep school. He apparently was in the room when the attempted rape took place. Ford describes Judge as watching Kavanaughâs alleged assault, occasionally egging him on, and eventually jumping on top of her and Kavanaugh â a move that allowed her to escape.
Judge is now a conservative writer who has written for publications such as the Daily Caller and the American Spectator. From Vox:
Heâs floated some controversial ideas in his writings â including asking in 2006 whether gay people are perverts….Heâs also the author of several books, including one recounting his teenage years of alcoholism and addiction.
At the risk of assassinating Mark Judgeâs character, he seems to, um, have a special interest in young women. He had a variety of posts to YouTube that have been taken down in the past day. You be the judge.
And why is it always that one guy whoâs in the room when an alleged rape happens, and can testify for the defense that the alleged rape totally did not happen, turns out to be a just a bit creepy?
In any event, Mark Judge should also testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Most Republicans are defending Kavanaugh with the usual tropes and memes about how it was all so long ago, and why does it matter? As Orin Hatch told the NYT:
It would be hard for senators to not consider who the judge is today, because that is the issue….Is this judge a really good man? And he is, and by any measure he is, and everybody who knows him says he is.
By all means, letâs ignore prep school indiscretions: She was a girl, and besides, she wanted it, and itâs much more important that we comfort the comfortable.
On the other hand, a whole lot of us, even when inebriated and underage, never thought we had permission to pull a woman into a room, force her onto a bed, and clamp a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming.
It really canât be all that hard to find Supreme Court justices who have never attempted rape. Whether Kavanaugh committed an act of attempted rape yesterday, or 40 years ago, isnât germane. Attempted rape is just a rape that was stopped.
If thatâs in his makeup, then it’s always going to be a facet of his character.
There are plenty of judges who are willing to overturn Roe. There are almost as many willing to shield Trump from Mueller. But, if Kavanaugh can be brought down by one “youthful indiscretion“, no Republican is safe. So the GOP will defend him to the death.
Nothing short of multiple additional accusations will stop him. Maybe not even that.
