Thursday, September 27, 2018

Some reflections on Kavanaugh


    During Dr.  Christine Blasey Ford's testimony:
Watching the hearing this morning a warning keeps flashing in my mind. (Incidentally it's something I recall from about 15 years before this assault took place.) As the news pundits analyze and propose logical commentary to the testimony, the warning is this. In a college political science class I wrote a paper analyzing a particular political campaign. I carefully constructed an analysis that came to a logical reasoning for the result. The teaching assistant (I assume) who graded my paper wrote: "There is no logic in politics C+" And to my mind, the illogical conclusion to what I am watching today is the fear that this sexual predator will end up on the Supreme Court despite what is said in this hearing.
This prosecutor, fronting for a bunch of chickenshit Republican senators, keeps probing for minute details as if she were preparing what would be called a" preponderance of evidence" that would lead to a final argument for a verdict based on "reasonable doubt" over a witness's testimony.
Best reason given for employing the woman prosecutor was the leadership did not want the American people watch 11 white men in their 80s questioning one credible woman.
Reasons I almost never watch Fox news: I just heard Chris Wallace, whose daughters recently told him about having experiences similar to Dr. Ford's, call Kavanaugh a man of towering intellect.

 When Kavanaugh began testifying after about 15 minutes I had to turn it off. I couldn't stand his spittle-lipped anger or his quivering chin as he supposedly fought tears during the rant proclaiming his innocence. One thing he showed all too clearly is how vicious his anger can be and one can only imagine what it is like when fueled by alcohol. I finally turned it off long before he was done.

 The more I read and saw from Brett Kavanaugh, the more it seemed he is a self-entitled, spoiled, privileged kid/adult who has never suffered a hardship or even been told "no" in his life. When finally faced with it, he threw a tantrum and complained his life is ruined. The father of a Parkland student who was killed in that attack sets him straight with this tweet. 

Jaime Guttenberg's obituary

Whether Kavenaugh sits on the Supreme Court or not his life will go on with privilege few of us have enjoyed.

In time I began to wonder if that sort of demeanor was acceptable for a Supreme Court justice. And that led to seeing a great failure of this particular hearing day. While the world focused on the sexual assault charge, left in the dust were all the other reasons why he is a bad choice for the court: including (as many as I can recall): his stated opposition to several women's health issues, not the least of which is Roe v. Wade; his standing that a president cannot be charged with a crime; the fact that he may sit in judgment of a president charged with a crime and who appointed him to the bench; all the background information and documentation that was never revealed; along with others. Any one of those should be enough to disqualify this guy, but they have disappeared in the dust of the assault charge.

 Not that any of it matters. Republicans have said all along his confirmation is a foregone conclusion. I hope I'm wrong but at this point I think he will be confirmed, one more issue to be confronted if the Democrats can take over Congress in the upcoming election. He can be impeached.

 Obviously: There is no logic in politics C+.
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Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

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Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

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A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

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If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

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It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

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Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

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