In his speech accepting the Democratic Partyâs nomination for president, Biden said heâll be an âally of the lightâ. He said, âMake no mistake, united, we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.â
Donald Trump called it the âdarkest and gloomiest convention in American historyâ.
He and the Republicans get their shot starting on Monday. Will the GOP convention be dark and gloomy? Of course! After all, this is the guy who gave us the âAmerican Carnageâ inauguration speech.
Heâs the guy who said âsend them backâ about four American Congresswomen who were dark-skinned US citizens. The guy who last week praised QAnon, the conspiracy theory movement that thinks the government is being secretly run by Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Heâs the guy who tear-gassed a peaceful crowd so he could walk to a church for a photo-op. This is the guy who sent secret police into cities.
Trump, the self-described law-and-order president, will deliver his acceptance speech from the White House, something that is illegal for everyone in any administration except the president and vice president. Melania will deliver her speech from the Rose Garden.
But, the darkest and gloomiest thing is that the most negative, hateful person to have ever entered American politics will be re-nominated by the GOP. His campaign will include a very large dose of us vs. them, lies, hate, and racism. On to cartoons.
Conventions compared:
GOP convention schedule:
How the electionâs effort to find common ground will go:
The Subway, Zion NP, UT – 2019 photo by DarthButane. This is a nine-mile round trip hike.
When it comes to the impeachment trial, nothing thatâs said really matters, if you are hoping for a fair review of guilty, vs. not guilty.
Letâs spend a moment reviewing Adam Schiffâs closing remarks on Thursday night. He was off the charts brilliant:
âThe American people deserve a president they can count on to put their interests first, to put their interest first. Colonel Vindman said, here, right matters. Here, right matters.
Well, let me tell you something. If right doesn’t matter, if right doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how good the constitution is. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the framers were. It doesn’t matter how good or bad our advocacy in this trial is. It doesn’t matter how well-written the oath of impartiality is. If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost. If truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost. The framers couldn’t protect us from ourselves, if right and truth don’t matter. And you know that what he did was not right. â
Schiff concluded with: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âBut here, right is supposed to matter. It’s what’s made us the greatest nation on earth. No constitution can protect us if right doesn’t matter anymore. And you know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump. He’ll do it now. He’s done it before. He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to.
This is why, if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed. Because right matters. Because right matters. And the truth matters. Otherwise we are lost.â
He didnât read this, he spoke from the heart. He wasnât histrionic, or angry. However, he did deliver a sharp condemnation of Trump. He all but said âIf Trump walks, and is re-elected, this country is finished.â
That fell flat with some Republicans:
Republicans have really thin skins when it comes to attacks on the guy who tweets insults for a living.
Schiff didn’t pretend that witnesses are a real possibility. He didn’t pretend Democrats are going to get documents. He didn’t pretend that GOP Senators will do the right thing.
He made it clear to the real jury, Americaâs voters, whatâs at stake, and exactly who is shirking their duties. Heâs shown us that Republicans no longer even pretend to give a flying f__k about democracy, honesty, or the Constitution.
Was it a tough week for you? Jim Lehrer died. The long-time anchor of the PBS NewsHour was possibly the last of his kind. Wrongo often watched Lehrer’s careful, considered journalism on PBS, along with his moderation of presidential debates. He was never one of those in the news media who thrive on gotcha questions and confrontations.
Time to let it all go for a few minutes. Iitâs time for our Saturday Soother. Here, the fields of Wrong still have snow on the ground, although it is now crisscrossed by the tracks of all sorts of animals. Weâre in for a rainy weekend, so letâs start by brewing up a mug of coffee that is recommended by Wrongoâs daughter, Merrill. Itâs Colombia Santa Rita coffee ($16/12 oz.) with its notes of caramel, toasted almond, and powdered cocoa, from Rainier Coffee.
Now settle back near a fire, and listen to a piece of cello music from Henry Eccles, a violinist from Great Britain who was born in 1670. We will listen to the Largo section of his âSonata for Violoncello in G minorâ, played by Maxim Kozlov, who calls himself âCellopediaâ:
Wrongo and Ms. Right heard this played on New Yearâs Day by Sam Magill, cellist with the NY Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He hasnât recorded it professionally, but you will love this sad, emotional performance by Kozlov.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Joshua Tree NP CA, in snow â December 2019 photo by chase_embrace
Have you been watching the impeachment extravaganza? Itâs a mind-numbing exercise thatâs difficult to take in large doses. That was probably Mitch McConnellâs plan. There are a few revelations though. One is the work of Adam Schiff, (D-CA) who is the lead House manager for the impeachment trial.
Josh Marshall at TPM says that Schiffâs job is to put the Senate on trial, and put Republican senators in a box that they can’t climb out of in November:
âAdam Schiff… [is] making a really convincing, damning set of arguments about all the accusations the Presidentâs lawyers are denying while they simultaneously refuse to release records which would quickly confirm and refute those accusations.
These are cases in which we know there are contemporaneous notes or other records. The answers are there. But they refuse to release them. It is a damning indictment not only of the President but even more his Senate accomplices.â
The Senate Republicans swore an oath to be jurors, but they want to keep all of the proof secret. So, Schiff and the other House managers are making it clear that it is the Senate Republicans that are really on trial. The weakness for Republicans is that this is the first Senate trial held in defiance of the principle of shared facts and evidence.
Republican Senators are not paying close attention to Schiff and the others. All Senators are supposed to be in attendance and listening, but a few, mainly on the Republican side, are openly flaunting the rule. Dana Milbankâs column in the WaPo:
âJust minutes into the session, as lead House impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) presented his opening argument for removing the president, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) displayed on his desk a hand-lettered message with big block letters pleading: âS.O.S.â In case that was too subtle, he followed this later with another handwritten message pretending he was an abducted child:Â âTHESE R NOT MY PARENTS!â
See, itâs all just a joke, presided over by the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. Hell, Trump said out loud at Davos that heâs withholding evidence: (brackets by Wrongo)
âI got to watch enough [of the Senate trial] â I thought our team did a very good job. But honestly, we have all the material. They donât have the material.”
The second article of impeachment is obstruction of Congress by withholding witnesses and documents. Trump confessed to it on live TV to reporters, and Senate Republicans donât care.
Wrongoâs been waiting for Republicans to pay a significant price for their lying, hypocrisy, constant defiance of the rule of law, and disrespect for our institutions, norms, and Constitution, ever since the days of St. Ronnie.
âIn a way, itâs something the Democrats are getting used to. From the hanging chads in Florida in 2000 to the Electoral College loss in 2016, the Republicans make a living winning despite losing. Theyâve become dependent on cheating and rigging the rules of the game, and theyâre experts at it at this point.â
The impeachment trial Kabuki play is no different. The GOP is gleefully waiting out the ceremonial âtrialâ in order to deliver their pre-ordained verdict.
Is it just Wrongo, or does it seem like America is screwed beyond redemption? If, by some cosmic quirk, Democrats one day hold the Presidency and both Houses of Congress, anything they attempt to do that does not align with Republican orthodoxy will end up being decided by one of McConnellâs right-wing courts.
You can expect that they will find a way to tie up, or simply negate anything the savior Congress tries to do. Will some great leader show up? Does the current crop of Democratic candidates have anyone able to make the case for wholesale change?
Do any of them have coattails sufficient to win the Senate?
Wrongo proposes that we think about Adam Schiff as the Democratic Presidential nominee. Sure, you think it’s too late, but is it really?
Hereâs what the WaPoâs conservative writer Jennifer Rubin said about Schiff’s opening statement: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âAnd that is what the trial is about. Itâs about making clear to the entire country that Trump did exactly what he is accused of, but that his own party, suffering from political cowardice and intellectual corruption, do not have the nerve to stop him. If that is the goal â prove Trumpâs guilt and Republicansâ complicity â Schiff hit a grand slam. And we have days more of evidence to hear.â
Heâs someone who can make a tightly reasoned argument. Heâs well-spoken, and knows Constitutional history. Heâs a liberal from a liberal state, and at 60, heâs not a geezer.
Road in Yosemite after rain â December 2019 photo by worldpins
Did we just avoid a war, or was a future war thrust upon us? You have to go way back to find a time when the thought of an overseas conflict united Americans behind the plan.
Today, all we have are questions about which war we consider to be a war worth fighting. Certainly it wouldnât be a war on climate change, or vote suppression, or spiraling health care costs. Those arenât considered just wars in todayâs politics.
One Party is always willing to fight the other when the topic is intervention in the Middle East. Doug Collins, the mouthy Republican Congress Critter from Georgia, whoâs willing to self-promote on any TV channel, went on Fox (Lou Dobbs) to criticize Democrats:
“They’re in love with terrorists. We see that they mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our Gold Star families, who are the ones who suffered under Soleimani. That’s a problem.”
âNo American is “in love” with terrorists or “mourns” the death of that Iranian general on an airstrip in Baghdad. Many of us do, however, mourn the death of decency, honesty and reason here at home.
I realize that you are a politician and that hyperbolic, hyperpartisan claptrap is the unfortunate fashion of the day. But even allowing for the new normal of nastiness in political rhetoric, your casual slur of countless good Americans hits a new bottom. Americans can, in good faith, differ about the legality or efficacy of killing Soleimani. That doesn’t make them unpatriotic or lovers of terrorists. It is hostility to differences of opinion that is un-American.â
More:
âYou are a pastor, an attorney and a sitting member of Congress. Therefore, the evidence would suggest you should know better. To utter such garbage, which you know to be false and defamatory, goes against all the training and teaching you must have received. But you got your cheap shot across, and perhaps that’s all that matters to you.â
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response. I left parts of my body in Iraq fighting terrorists. I don’t need to justify myself to anyone.”
Collins then recanted:
âLet me be clear: I do not believe Democrats are in love with terrorists, and I apologize for what I said earlier this week.â
But, even though Collins appeared on Fox on Friday morning, he didnât apologize. Instead, he later apologized on his Twitter feed, which has less than 300k followers.
Letâs give Preet the last word: (emphasis by Wrongo)
â…I am not making some old and familiar naive call for a return to “civility” in our politics. I don’t have much hope for that….I just want people like you to knock off the worst scurrilous nonsense…..If we are going to come together, protect the homeland and heal the hearts of people who have suffered the scars of terrorism, we need our leaders to do better than lazy trash talk.â
Collins was deployed as a Navy Chaplain to Iraq in 2008, so he knows better. Heâs certainly seen Democrats die fighting terrorists. Yesterday, Wrongo said Democrats canât let Republicans slide, they need to be called out when they are wrong, like Bharara and Duckworth just did to Collins.
Sometimes, Wrongo wonders if all this is happening because he didnât forward at least a thousand Facebook messages to ten people. If so, Wrongo apologizes, America!
Time for all of us to de-stress from the first week of the new decade. Letâs hope most weeks are calmer than what we just lived through. To help calm things down, itâs time for our Saturday Soother!
Start by brewing up a mug of Panama Esmeralda Geisha Natural ($19.95/4oz.). Wrongo knows thatâs expensive, but the stock market had a great week, even if Gen. Soleimani didnât, so you can afford it. Itâs from Paradise Roasters in Minneapolis.
Now, grab a seat by the window and listen to something soothing. Today, we hear Beethovenâs âFĂŒr Eliseâ played on glass harp by Robert Tiso. The score was not published until 1867, 40 years after the composer’s death. And it may not have really been dedicated to Elise:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Lockhart Mountain, Lake George, NY – November 2019 photo by goldengoddess69
After seven public hearings with 12 witnesses over five days, the impeachment inquiry moves to a new stage: a public report and a handoff to the House Judiciary Committee. Whatâs not clear is whether witnesses close to Trump, like Bolton, will ever testify.
The House Intelligence will deliver a report to Judiciary that lays out their case for impeachment. The Republicans will submit a minority report of their own, once Dems publish theirs.
Weâll have new editions of the same two narratives that have been with us since the start of the Mueller investigation. This leads to the weekly question: How can Republicans not see the facts? Republican lawmakers, aides and strategists surveyed by CNBCâs John Harwood have uniformly treated Trumpâs misdeeds with Ukraine as an inconvenience, an annoyance which will blow over. Hereâs a quote from Harwood:
âLawmaker #3 âNo. I think the attitude is, so what? âSondland did his best to protect the President. Over half the Dems were for Impeachment before the whistleblower. People see what they want. This is still too complicated for the average person to understand. But follow the polls.â
And we need to think about what will happen in the Senate after they receive the referral for impeachment. The GOP will use the Senate trial to put both the Bidens and whatever they think the Dems did in 2016 on trial.
It will be a circus. Trump says he wants a trial, and wants to be the first witness. They will out the whistleblower. Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) said: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âAnd now we’re going on to the main event and that’s in the U.S. Senate…So we’ll finally be able to get to the truth. So I’m talking to my colleagues in the Senate, these are some of the witnesses that you need to call and these are some of the questions that you need to ask. First, you have to hear from the whistleblower.â
It wonât take much for the Republicans in the Senate to convince themselves that they were right all along, that Trump was justified in pressuring Ukraine president Zelensky. Theyâll say that nothing happened, there was no harm, no foul and hypocrisy be damned.
Are the Dems smart enough to hold simultaneous hearings in the House to surface more about Trumpâs obstruction? BTW, donât you think Hunter Bidenâs Burisma board seat is unseemly at best? Why donât the Dems just do a proper investigation? But for his last name, Hunterâs credentials for a paid board position seem quite weak.
If you havenât become cynical about Republicans in the years since Obama was elected, just wait two months.
America will have national elections in 2020. The circus in the Senate will hopefully lead to historic turnout for local, state and federal candidates. Wrongo feels optimistic that something new and better is coming. The path to that new political reality is steep and difficult, and we all must walk it.
Enough! Letâs slide into a Saturday Soother, that time of the week when we try to escape the horror show around us for a few minutes, and contemplate both our inner world, and the world around us.
The first snow covered the fields of Wrong on Tuesday. The short days and the drab colors remind us that spring is a long ways off. This weekend is about preparing for Thanksgiving, the arrival of friends, and a quiet celebration of all that we enjoy, from family, to friends, to our great country.
Letâs kick things off by brewing up a mug of Warm November Rain coffee ($20/12oz.) from Chicagoâs Dark Matter Coffee. The roaster says it has notes of black tea, tangerine, and bakerâs chocolate.
Royal Albert Hall, London, noon sound check for tonightâs DJ Spoonyâs Garage Classical show. The show is sold out â October 2019 iPhone photo by Wrongo
The yelling of Republicans in the House can seem muted when youâre 3,000 miles away in England. This, from the Guardian:
âHouse Republicans who tried to storm the secure area in the Capitol where Laura Cooper, the top Pentagon official on Ukraine was testifying, have effectively shut down the interview, according to a senior Democratic lawmaker…More than two dozen House Republicans, led by representative Matt Gaetz, tried to force their way into Cooperâs deposition, even though they are not members of the three committees leading the inquiry…â
The âsecure areaâ is whatâs called a SCIF, or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. These are sealed conference rooms that are protected from electronic intrusion. They exist so that members of Congress can receive highly classified information about how the nation collects information on its adversaries, and on very sensitive intelligence operations. They exist all over the government, in the military, and in the defense contracting industry. Meeting attendees have to leave their electronic devices outside of the room, under the supervision of a security-cleared attendant.
Some, but not all of Gaetzâs Congressional storm troopers surrendered their devices at the door of the SCIF. Those that didn’t caused a serious security breach. Despite their mob efforts, the deposition itself took place, but after a five-hour delay.
This single party effort to disrupt testimony is significant, and possibly symbolic of where the GOP is today. Cooperâs testimony is on the DODâs response to Trumpâs refusal to provide funds to Ukraine, funds that had been duly appropriated by Congress.
This is the effort by a mob to suppress evidence. From Marcie Wheeler: (brackets by Wrongo)
âIn short, a bunch of Republican Congressmen (and a handful of [Congress] women) are staging a faux riot in order to prevent the DOD from telling Congress how the White House prevented them from following the law that prohibits the White House from withholding funds without a good reason….â
Hat tip to Rep. Pascrell for the term Banana Republicanism.
Marcie also reported that nine of the 43 rogue Congress critters actually sit on the committees that are conducting the inquiry inside the SCIF. Those nine are in the room all the time. They can ask questions of the witnesses. They can file minority reports if they disagree with the majority findings. So they canât expect anyone to believe that theyâre shut out of hearing the classified testimony.
In fact, it is most telling that they apparently arenât leaking anything to the press, or to their colleagues!
Here in the UK, Boris Johnson, the British âTrump-lightâ head of government, reluctantly follows the dictates of the law despite his desire to force feed Brexit to his country. In the US, Trump and his Banana Republican cohort no longer bother to pretend.
Some of these rioters sit on the Judiciary Committee. Others apparently sit on the Armed Services, and Homeland Security Committees. Their actions should lead to getting booted from those committees and instead, being relegated to the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, or to the Joint Committee on Printing.
The press should be asking GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy if heâs going to remove these people from the committees that handle sensitive information for violating security protocols.
A question for Mac Thornberry, (R-TX), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee:
âShould Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, Bradley Byrne lose their seats on Armed Services for the manner in which they violated security protocols?â
A question for Mike Rogers, (R-AL), ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee:
âShould Mark Walker, Debbie Lesko, and you, lose your seats on the Homeland Security Committee for violating security protocols?â
This kind of breakdown in the orderly function of the House represents an existential threat to this country. If an opposition party can freely intimidate witnesses and shut down depositions without consequences, then the Constitutionâs power of impeachment is useless.
Cape of Good Hope, 6:00pm, South Africa â September 2006 photo by Wrongo
Last week, the NYTâs Thomas Edsall discussed an award-winning academic study focused on the nihilism of the Trump GOPâs hardcore supporters. The paper illustrates that among this slice of the American electorate, the temptation to cause or support chaos may be overwhelming. Edsall says the study argues that a segment of the American electorate that was once peripheral is drawn to âchaos incitementâ and that this segment has gained decisive influence through the rise of social media:
âThe rise of social media provides the public with unprecedented power to craft and share new information with each other….this technological transformation allows the transmission of a type of information that portrays….political candidates or groups negatively…and has a low evidential basis.â
The study says that the chaos-inducing information transmitted on social media includes conspiracy theories, fake news, discussions of political scandals and negative campaigns.
The studyâs authors, Michael Bang Petersen and Mathias Osmundsen, both from Aarhus University in Denmark, and Kevin Arceneaux, a political scientist at Temple, conducted six surveys, four in the US, interviewing 5,157 participants, and two in Denmark, interviewing 1,336. They identified those who are âdrawn to chaosâ through their affirmative responses to the following statements:
I fantasize about a natural disaster wiping out most of humanity such that a small group of people can start all over.
I think society should be burned to the ground.
When I think about our political and social institutions, I cannot help thinking âjust let them all burn.â
We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down and start over.
Sometimes I just feel like destroying beautiful things.
The responses of individuals to three of the statements are horrifying:
24% agreed that society should be burned to the ground;
40% concurred with the thought that âWhen it comes to our political and social institutions, I cannot help thinking âjust let them all burnâ;
40% also agreed that âwe cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down and start over.â
Despite interviewing 5,000+ Americans the study doesnât conclude if the results represent the actual percentage of Americans who share this view. They did use a YouGov nationally representative survey of Americans. They say the data are weighted to achieve national representations on gender, age, education and geography.
As bad as this sounds, what if we reframed the “need for chaos” as “a need for things to change in ways that work for everyday people“? Instead of casting them as evil or as deplorables who wish to destroy nice things, we could see them as people who have been left out, or cheated by the system.
In that light, it might be reasonable for the marginalized on the left and right to wish for major changes in our system. So, letâs treat this study as an example of one dead canary in a coal mine. At this point, itâs a potentially terrifying glimpse of what may be Americaâs (and the entire developed worldâs) future.
Nihilism is a symptom of needs not being met. Our current neoliberal capitalism is a prime cause behind this nihilism. Our system must change to be more inclusive, to create more âwinnersâ. Â We wonât blunt nihilism with more trickle down policies.
Time to wake up America! Our society has to change, or die.
Bryce Canyon NP, looking down at the Wall Street trail â this photo was taken on New Year’s Eve by natsmith69. The photographer says he didnât hike down because of the government shutdown.
Two topics for today: First, the December jobs report, which was encouraging in the face of a roller-coaster stock market. Employment rose a very strong 312,000 jobs in December, bringing the full count of jobs added for 2018 up to 2.6 million, the strongest year for job gains since 2015.
Unemployment ticked up to 3.9%, largely because more people were drawn into the labor market as measured by the civilian labor force participation rate. It moved up two-tenths to 63.1%, its highest level since 2014. Thatâs a reminder that the job market still has capacity to expand.
Wage growth accelerated slightly, and tied cyclical highs. Weekly hours worked edged up, job gains for the prior two months were revised upwards, and a very high 70% of private industries added jobs.
It seems that low unemployment has finally started to lead to pressure to raise pay.
Despite all of this positive labor market news, there are economic headwinds in the volatile stock market, Trumpâs trade war, and slower economic growth abroad.
Some economists are forecasting a grim outlook for near-term US economic growth. OTOH, low unemployment, job gains, and higher wages should boost consumer spending, which accounts for almost 70% of the US economy.
Try to keep calm about the stock market. There isnât much definitive economic news that should make you decide to bail out of stocks just now.
Item two: The shut-down. On Friday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) after another meeting about the shut-down, said that Trump threatened to keep the government closed for “months or even years” until he gets his desired wall funding.
Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) described the meeting as a “lengthy and sometimes contentious conversation with the president.” She said both sides agreed to continue talks. She then said: (brackets by Wrongo)
 We cannot resolve this until we open up [the] government…
So far, most Republicans are keeping a stiff upper lip, saying just what Trump says. But there are a few cracks, notably Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) and possibly, Susan Collins (R-ME), who are asking to re-open the federal government without a deal on funding the border wall.
Clearly there is a deal to be had. It probably looks like funding Trumpâs wall, which is a rounding error in the federal budget, in return for passing a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) relief bill as part of immigration reform. Lawmakers in both parties are sympathetic to immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.
The Hill reports that Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of GOP leadership, said that while he hasnât been involved in overall immigration discussions, expanding the scope of negotiations could be one way to break the logjam:
You know, sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to make it bigger, and thatâs always one of the options here…
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is urging Trump to strike a deal on comprehensive immigration reform:
Why would he not agree to such a thing…We could go small, we could go a little bigger⊠but Iâd like to see the president say, âOK, weâve got a new Congress. Weâve got divided government. Iâm the president who can actually make this happen.â
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is pitching his proposal that would establish a $25 billion border trust fund and codify protections for DACA recipients. Remember that Trump rejected a similar offer from Senate Democrats last year, so it isnât clear where the goalposts for such a deal are today. Weâll have to watch the drama unfold.
Time to let go of the news and settle into a Saturday soother, maybe while taking down ornaments. Start the process of soothing by brewing up a yuuge cup of Panama Ninety Plus Perci Lot 50 coffee ($60/8 oz.) from Birdrock Coffee of San Diego, CA. Coffee Review rates it at 97, with tastes of fruit while being giddily brandy-toned. Maybe thatâs a rave.
Now settle back in a comfy chair and listen to the âAdagio for Oboe, Cello, Organ and Stringsâ by Domenico Zipoli. Zipoli was an Italian Jesuit priest who lived much of his life in what is now Argentina. He studied with Scarlatti, became a Jesuit, worked as a missionary and died in 1726 in Argentina at age 38:
If fate had granted Zipoli another 20 to 25 years, he would be regarded today as a major composer.
Stormbrewing near Vilano Bridge, St. Augustine FL – June 2018
At Vox, Dylan Matthews has a detailed review of Supreme Court Justice Nominee Brett Kavanaughâs history of being in the middle of Republican wars since the 1990âs. He represented the 6-year-old EliĂĄn GonzĂĄlez pro bono in an attempt to keep him from being deported to back to his father in Cuba in 2000.
Kavanaugh also worked on GW Bushâs legal team during the 2000 Florida recount, which resulted in Bush winning a party-line Supreme Court vote to install him as president. Then:
Kavanaugh worked in the solicitor generalâs office under George H.W. Bush….The SG under George W. Bush was Kenneth Starr, who took a shine to Kavanaugh and hired him to join the independent counselâs office in 1994.
Kavanaugh became a Republican glamor boy with the investigation into Bill Clintonâs affair with Monica Lewinsky: (link, italics and emphasis by Wrongo)
Eventually, Kavanaugh, and the rest of Starrâs team, moved on from the substance of the Whitewater real estate deal to the matter of Clintonâs affair with Monica Lewinsky. In his history of the investigation, âThe Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starrâ, Duquesne Universityâs Ken Gormley notes that Kavanaugh, âconsidered one of Starrâs intellectual heavy-lifters, pushed hardest to confront Clinton with some of the dirtiest facts linked to his sexual indiscretions with Lewinsky.â
In a memo to âJudge Starrâ (with a copy to âAll Attorneysâ), Kavanaugh wrote:
After reflecting this evening, I am strongly opposed to giving the President any âbreakâ ⊠unless before his questioning on Monday, he either i) resigns or ii) confesses perjury and issues a public apology to you. I have tried hard to bend over backwards and to be fair to him. ⊠In the end, I am convinced that there really are [no reasonable defenses]. The idea of going easy on him at the questioning is thus abhorrent to meâŠ.
The President has disgraced his Office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles â callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle. He has committed perjury (at least) in the [Paula] Jones case. ⊠He has tried to disgrace [Ken Starr] and this Office with a sustained propaganda campaign that would make Nixon blush
It should be unimaginable for a nice young Catholic lawyer, but Kavanaugh then listed a series of ten questions that he wanted Starr to ask Bill Clinton. All of them were explicit and unsavory. Wrongo will offer one, and it is the least unsavory:
If Monica Lewinsky says that you masturbated into a trashcan in your secretaryâs office, would she [be] lying?
Starr didnât ask any of Kavanaughâs questions, but did ask others that were similar. Weâll never get past what Bill Clinton did to the Democrats. Hillary too.
This is the real Kavanaugh: Heâs not just the guy we are told is a good father, CYO basketball coach, and feeder of the poor. He clearly had a prurient interest in Clintonâs affair with Lewinsky.
We know that he will most likely be on the Court if it is tasked with judging the constitutional validity of whatever Special Counsel Robert Mueller produces regarding the man who appointed Kavanaugh. This has nothing to do with impeachment, it is largely about Trump being compelled to testify to a grand jury, as Bill Clinton did in 1998, compelled by Ken Starr and Brett Kavanaugh.
Having seen first-hand how complex and difficult that job is, I believe it vital that the President be able to focus on his never-ending tasks with as few distractions as possible. The country wants the President to be âone of usâ who bears the same responsibilities of citizenship that all share. But I believe that the President should be excused from some of the burdens of ordinary citizenship while serving in office….
This is not something I necessarily thought in the 1980s or 1990s. Like many Americans at that time, I believed that the President should be required to shoulder the same obligations that we all carry. But in retrospect, that seems a mistake.
Now heâs for insulating the president. The Senate shouldnât allow him to use what he wrote in 2009 as an alibi for what he would do if a Mueller-related case came before him.
Unless Kavanaugh agrees to recuse himself from any such case, no Senator should vote for him.
Given Kavanaugh’s desire to ask difficult questions of Bill Clinton, Democrats shouldnât let these hearings pass without some very pointed grilling. Otherwise they will have failed.
We wake up each day and think: âThereâs no way this could get any worse.â And every day, weâre proven wrong. Our reality is now anger and inhumanity. It is in most instances, instigated and promoted by the Trump administration.
What does all that anger and inhumanity say about America today? It says we must change for the better. It also means 63 million Americans are as morally deficient and as complicit as the president they voted for. Nice work.
Melania needs better jackets in her wardrobe:
ICE has cornered the market on huddled masses:
Science has determined how he does it:
Captain Bone Spurâs trade War is not off to a perfect start:
