Monday, September 24, 2018

Standing By His Man

President Trump standing by Brett Kavanugh Photo: Mother Jones

There have been some flawed nominations for the United States Supreme Court in the past, but the current one, Brett Kavanaugh, is one for the books.  

In what is projected to be pure theatre should the scheduled sham hearing take place on Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the lead-up will have your heart pounding and head spinning.

Now, not only one allegation of sexual misconduct—attempted rape to be precise—in which Judge Kavanaugh has been accused while in prep school, another just surfaced last night whereby he allegedly pushed his genitals into a face of another woman while at Yale.  The accuser in the latter case, Deborah Ramirez, admitted memory lapses from a drunken stupor but believes the incident did occur.

While Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and Chairman Charles Grassley intend to “plow through” this “hiccup” in the confirmation process regardless of the testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, this second allegation adds a new wrinkle. Such accusations would ordinarily be troublesome, and in normal times with a normal Republican president, the nomination would be pulled with a new right wing, anti-minority, anti-choice candidate would be brought up.

Not this time, at least not yet. President Donald Trump is steadfastly standing by his man. There are three primary reasons for this stubborn, if not politically fatal, position:

1.   Trump knows the hearing will be a sham and regardless of what Dr. Ford has to say, the Republican majority on the committee will vote yes in pure rubber-stamp fashion and refer the confirmation to the full Senate.

2.     By pulling the nominee from consideration, Trump would be forced into admitting—whether or not he actually says so, and he won’t—that he made a mistake.  More likely, he will blame the Democrats, the “deep state,” the media, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, the NFL and all his myriad enemies for this smear campaign against this “fantastic man."

3.     Most importantly, Trump wants Kavanaugh on the bench because of the judge’s previous declarations  about strong executive power and that sitting presidents be shielded from criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits while in office. In other words, Kavanaugh would protect him where his Attorney General Jeff Sessions would not.

The hearing should it occur will be a disgrace  as well as a sham in that an FBI investigation will not have taken place prior to the proceedings and other witnesses will not have been subpoenaed. It is clear the president as well as the servile Republicans on the committee don’t want to get to the bottom of the allegations and learn the truth for the three reasons cited above.

The losers in all this besides the Republican brand heading into the midterms just six weeks away are all the victims of sexual assault and misconduct who again will be doubted and disparaged, and it explains why these people are reluctant to report such incidents in a timely manner. Trump loses, too, because it reminds folks that he has been subject to some 17 accusations of sexual misconduct.

 Thank you Randy Rainbow:





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