Anybody want to make predictions about what will transpire as the Judiciary Committee questions Ford and Kavanaugh?
Anybody want to comment on the proceedings in real time? Feel free to do it here.
If it's another really nice fall day, I'm not sure if I'll be in front of the tube or sitting in my lawn chair watching the squirrels. Or maybe I'll find it streaming online and watch it on my tablet in my lawn chair with the squirrels doing commentary.
So far, Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) had the pithiest comment on this whole debacle:
Up or down, yes or no, however this vote goes, I am confident in saying that it will forever be steeped in doubt. This doubt is the only thing of which I am confident in this process.His speech in the Senate is worth reading.
If Trump were smart he would ask Kavanaugh to withdraw; he's damaged. Whether he's actually a rapist or not, what has come out about his character isn't very favorable. Trump could nominate Amy Coney Barrett and she would probably be confirmed without too much problem. But he's not that smart. He'll continue to double down on backing Kavanaugh. Mitch McC. will force the vote on Friday, and K. will be confirmed by the skin of his teeth. All of which will make for a bunch of pissed off motivated Democrats, especially Democratic women. Ironically confirming Kavanaugh will help the Dems in the midterms. Of course I may be wrong.
ReplyDeleteMy brother in Oklahoma says all the Trumpistas down there want Ford and "all the other women" to be prosecuted if found to be lying. No word on what they want to have happen if Kavanaugh is found to be lying.
ReplyDeleteIn East Lansing this morning, the evangelical students at the high school were handing out Tim Bits under the flag pole and asking kids to pray for Kavanaugh's confirmation. Praying for Kavenaugh's confirmation now seems to thing.
About praying, I don't get the people who are so sure that they know the mind of God that they pray for a specific outcome in a situation like this. I am praying for the good of the country, and for justice. And since God gave us free will, he has to work through the consciences of people, he's not going to stuff a ballot box (not that there is one in this case).
DeleteAnd speaking of free will, a common factor in all these cases is alcohol abuse. If the thought of killing off some of one's brain cells isn't enough incentive not to drink to excess, the thought that people might do something while under the influence that will haunt them later ought to give them pause.
Last night at choir practice, someone offered up a prayer for today's hearing. I added a silent prayer for justice, truth and the common good.
DeleteTrump talked to the media this afternoon for over an hour. It happened while I was on a bike ride, so I listened to it on my earbuds. It was interesting: verbally he delivered a truckful of the usual cow dung, but what caught my attention were the non-verbals, or maybe I should say meta-verbals. He sounded upbeat, positive, relaxed, like he was enjoying himself. He tried to joke with his questioners from the various networks and papers, although most of them were having none of it. But this was all on the eve of the Senate testimony. He didn't sound like a guy who considered the media his mortal enemies, and didn't sound like a guy whose collar is too tight and whose body is covered in flop-sweat. He sounded like a guy who was in control of the situation. Not sure what to make of that. Maybe the doctors have upped his meds.
ReplyDeleteJim, what a way to ruin a nice bike ride!
DeleteI have to work. Whatever happens, will happen whether I tune in or not.
ReplyDeleteFor the first hour and a half I will play chauffeur to some lady swimmers and sit in the car reading a book on water policy until they finish and I can take all of them home. After that, I have a load of dark wash and a book I have to return to the library some time today or tomorrow. We are going out to dinner, but I suspect I will know what happened by this time tomorrow and will not be pleased. Jim heard the master of me-me-me on earbuds and found him positive; I watched him on TV and found him deranged. His stream-of-conciousness amazes me; I couldn't keep it up that long. The fact checkers will be writing far into the week about seven brand new steel plants and tariffs on Fords made in Canada.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that Michael Gerson is one of the PBS. commentators.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to work and listen to the testimony on headphones. I tuned in at about noon ET, so I've missed quite a bit of Ford's testimony. She sounds well-prepared. Seems the Republican senators have imported a female prosecutor who has been proceeding pretty gingerly - although as I write this, she's going after her a bit about the polygraph. Lots of grandstanding (some of it pretty effective) by Democratic senators.
ReplyDeleteThey just called a recess. Seems they'll keep going with her after lunch. I wonder if this is going to spill into Friday. That would be to Democrats' advantage (any/all delay helps Democrats).
I caught a glimpse but I don't want to watch continuously. Rather interestingly, Ford supported her testimony with neuroscience, talking about how traumatic experiences are burned into the memory. She seems highly intelligent. She's no dipsy-doodle. I tend to value scientists more than lawyers by miles and her career may be more accomplished than his. Still need more assault victims to come forth, though.
ReplyDeleteWatch it on TV if you can, Jim. Been watching it from the start.
ReplyDeleteFord does not seem coached in any way to me, if that's what you mean. In a few places she seems willing to answer questions where her lawyers intervened.
She seems anxious and emotional, but very cogent, and no one's tool. She seems to be making every effort to be as candid and honest as possible. She does not come off to me as combative, angry, partisan, or having any kind of feminist agenda.
She explained that she tried to offer her info when the short list of candidates came out in hopes that Trump would pick someone besides Kavanaugh. Her story is an interesting anecdote about how difficult it is for ordinary citizens to be heard by congressional reps through the layers of staff, which makes all the Dem blather seem pretty insincere.
Ford, as far as I can see, has nothing to gain from this scrutiny, and I have to wonder how much therapy she'll need when she walks out of that hearing.
Ford, of course, is a well-educated white woman who is a professor at a prestigious university. Had Kavanaugh mauled a poor woman of color behind an alley, I doubt anyone would be paying much attention.
Jean, yes, I agree with pretty much everything you've observed. Naturally, I'm not able to see the body language, which is huge. I do think she seems to have prepared - her attorney would be insane not to. That doesn't mean that I disbelieve what she's saying; but I just sense that most of the lines of questioning I've heard are lines that her lawyer anticipated and reviewed with her. She did stumble on, "Why did you take a polygraph?" (I think she said something along the lines of, "I saw no reason not to.")
DeleteShe comes across as articulate, humble, reasonable. She's being careful and thoughtful about what she says but she doesn't come across to me as evasive or untruthful. She's pretty upfront about her anxiety issues. I'll be curious to know if she looks tightly wound.
FWIW, I think the Democrats are "winning" this event, and it's not even close so far. The pressure is really going to be on Kavanaugh.
I should add that I'm on a conference call for work now (they're not calling on me so I'm multi-tasking here :-)), so I'm not able to tune in at the moment. I'll try to check back in later this afternoon.
DeleteTell you one thing. I may not trust women over men or men over women but I sure trust scientists over lawyers. I'm not sure lawyers believe in truth. They promote confusion and doubt. Scientists at least believe in one form of truth and pursue it. And most politicians are lawyers.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree. Thinkers in the Middle Ages objected to adversarial debate because they recognized that a good talker could persuade and distort. On the other hand, the chemin de fer was not a great truth-revealer, either.
DeleteMoreover, I am unpersuaded that scientists are always dispassionate truth lovers. In trying to navigate chemo choices, I discovered an elderly proponent of one chemo at a hot-shot national clinic who seems to be pretty egotistically invested in his therapy and who makes negative claims about other drugs that are not borne out by statistical studies.
His therapy works well for many young, healthy patients, but can have very serious and debilitating side effects for those over 50, as most of us are. Glad his therapy exists, but efforts to make it the gold standard for everyone strikes me as more pride than good science.
Well, yes. Scientists are human and not perfect. But the truth standards are higher than lawyers'. I've seen scientists and engineers in action. And, indirectly, I've seen lawyers in action. The goals are different. Except for Ralph Nader, inventory your silverware. Ultimately, there are statistical methods to determine whether your chemo expert us right or not. And the Ford lady knows how to design those experiments.
DeleteWell, the field of science is not free of sexual harassment. I know some stories. Damned unprofessional.
Statistical methods are there, but for rare cancers, they are very hard to come by. Also, as new driver mutations are.discovered, the same tests have to be repeated. In my world, the.science is scanty and incomplete. There are too few of us to make anybody rich off a cute or even a big study.
Delete*cure, doh!
DeleteMissed all of her. Wife has Kavanaugh on now in the other room. He is shouting. Trump shouted yesterday. I used to hear that people who shout are lying. As I didn't say, I didn't hear Dr. Ford. Maybe she shouted, too. I am not going to listen to Kavanaugh either.
ReplyDeleteThat room isn't large. Nobody has to shout.
I was just in the part of my book where Chicago turned the Chicago river around and had it run south instead of into Lake Michigan. Very interesting. We are coming to the burning of Lake Erie.
I've been sort of tuning in and out as I get opportunities. Ran a quick errand to the grocery store while he was making his opening statement, and turned on the radio. He was striving, I think, to sound angry, and was looking to let Senate Democrats have it with both barrels, and blaming this whole debacle on politics. Not sure how it came off on television. It was okay on radio. Maybe not a bad play.
ReplyDeleteJust put the earphones back on; he seems to be going through a calendar, so he must have a datebook or journal of some sort. He sounds emotional. I think he needs to show that he can keep his emotions under control.
He's being pretty plain-spoken to senators. I'm sure that plays poorly with part of the country, and plays great with Trump's base. I guess his calculus in all this is that this is all about politics and the end game is to get confirmed by Republicans. He's decided that pleasing the Republican base is his best bet. That's my takeaway.
ReplyDeleteI read that the president had been urging him to be more forceful. So maybe that is what he is trying to do. I don't know that it is a particularly good strategy.
DeleteI don't think Trump had to tell him to be forceful. The guy is yelling and crying. Had Ford done that it would have been curtains.
DeleteI understand Kavanaugh's frustrations, but the way forward here is to let the FBI talk to Mark Judge and others, not to mock senators, especially those trying to be reasonable like Klobuchar.
Kavanaugh's angry claim that this is a payback conspiracy by the Clintons for his role in the Star committee is beyond the pale.
ReplyDeleteHe seems aggressive, insulting,thin-skinned, prone to hyperbole, overly emotional, and more inclined to play to pathos than other forms of evidence. This is not the cool head I want in a Supreme Court judge. But it does strike as consistent with the hot-head frat boy type who thinks it would be funny to grab some young girl who wasn't pure like his Catholic girl friends.
He's making it easy for any Democrats to vote against him.
Yeah, the thing about the Clintons came out of left field. Agree that his performance didn't leave the impression of someone with the ability to stay dispassionate and impartial. And partisanship was obvious. Lightning's going to strike me for saying this, but the qualities he demonstrated yesterday seem more of a disqualifier than something that happened 36 years ago. This was a job interview. If he was interviewing for a high profile senior executive job with a corporation, would he still be under consideration?
DeleteTrump seems to feel he did a helluva job.
DeleteBut.I agree wholeheartedly. His behavior in committee was apalling.
I would love it if they just brought a couple people off the street to ask questions. I would ask "have you ever changed your own tire?" "Have you ever been without health insurance coverage?" "When was the last time you bought a used car for yourself?" This wouldn't be for qualification but it would demonstrate the world in which these people are immersed.
DeleteStanley, yeah. Especially the one about health insurance, since SCOTUS has and will rule on healthcare coverage.
DeleteAnd as for the world in which they are immersed, it sounds like this crowd went to more parties in high school and college than I've been to in my whole life. Not complaining, that's by choice.
yes, Katherine and he was drinking at 17 when the legal age rose to 21. He was a lawbreaker. And a big one, from the sound if it.
DeleteI drank when I was 17, too. And when I was 15. When I look at my own kids now, how young and vulnerable they seemed at those ages, how much more development they still had in front of them, I offer prayers of thanks that I didn't turn out even more messed up.
DeleteMaybe I was saved from the peer pressure by being an outsider nerd. I had a couple friends but none of us drank in HS. I didn't drink in college either. Those physics majors who did ended up in business school and probably have more money than I do. After I graduated, I drank heavily on social occasions, probably more than Kavanaugh. But I never had the thought of jumping on a woman or putting anything in their face. When I was drunk, I liked everybody. Wouldn't harm a fly.
DeleteSaw the end of his opening statement, from where he said his family was destroyed. Ashley, sitting behind him, looked OK. IMO the Ds should have expressed sympathy to both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh and then shut up. They weren't going to vote for him anyway, and absent anything more than a she-said/he-said confrontation, because McConnell can't wait, today's circus couldn't be anything more than a, um, circus
ReplyDeleteOff to a great Italian dinner. Talk to you tomorrow.
DeleteEnjoy your dinner!
DeleteI have to clarify. The reason they turned the Chicago River around so it flowed south, toward St. Louis, instead of into Lake Michigan was that they got their drinking water from Lake Michigan and also used it for their sewer runoff. Dr. Oz would have a heart attack if he heard that. Back in those days, St. Louis was far enough away for Chicago's sludge (a/k/a poop) to be drinkable by the time it got there.
ReplyDeleteChicago could not have done it, though, if the river had not originally flowed into the Mississippi River. The river itself was reversed by the natural engineering of a bump in the land across Illinois. The city, in effect, removed nature's improvement.
Lots and lots more interesting than hearing a federal judge channeling Breitbart.
What are you reading?
DeleteI am so glad you asked. The book is The Source (How Rivers Made America and America Remade its Rivers), by Martin Doyle, who is professor of river science at Duke. This is one of my occasional "I wonder if this is any good" reads that turned out to be a hit.
DeleteNot only does he explain Chicago turning the river around, and not only does he explain why western (California-Arizona) water wars are so persistent -- water use was assigned on the basis of the 30 wettest years of the previous 450 -- but he also shows how gummint spending on "internal improvements" -- which we call "infrastructure," and which for a long time was canals and rivers -- moved from the states (which went broke) to the cities (which couldn't raise enough money for water treatment) to the feds. Really neat stuff. Stanley should eat this up.
As former Gov. Richard Lamm of Colorado said, "The most disturbing day I spent in 12 years as governor was having tree rings explained to me." But Doyle does a fascinating job of explaining.
Thanks Tom...Off to the bookstore. I love books that include Chicago. The things I didn't know when growing up there! I did know about the Chicago river being used to send our sh** down the Mississippi but I never understood how they did it!
DeleteDefinitely sounds intriguing, Tom. I knew about Chicago's rerouting of river flow. What will we do with fresh water now that climate change is changing everything.
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