The Consequences Can Be Very Dire When A President Loses His Mind

Never Waste A Serious Crisis by Nancy Ohanian

Former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) couldn't stand Trump-- and retired from the Senate because of him-- but was always a die-hard, full-bore conservative and never any kind of moderate. He'll do something many conservative Republicans plan to do: voted for a conservative Democrat for the first time in their lives. On core issues, he has no real problems with Biden. Besides, he told the Washington Post's K.K. Otteson a few days ago, the best thing for the future of the Republican party would be "a sound defeat" for Señor Trumpanzee in November. "No doubt. Long term for the Republican Party, you bet. And for conservatism as well."

Nor is Flake the only strange source of negativity aimed in Trump's direction.Kevin Rudd was the prime minister of Australia twice-- once when George W. Bush was president and again when Obama was president. On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs published a piece he penned, The Coming Post-COVID Anarchy. "[D]espite the best efforts of ideological warriors in Beijing and Washington," he wrote, "the uncomfortable truth is that China and the United States are both likely to emerge from this crisis significantly diminished. Neither a new Pax Sinica nor a renewed Pax Americana will rise from the ruins. Rather, both powers will be weakened, at home and abroad. And the result will be a continued slow but steady drift toward international anarchy across everything from international security to trade to pandemic management. With nobody directing traffic, various forms of rampant nationalism are taking the place of order and cooperation. The chaotic nature of national and global responses to the pandemic thus stands as a warning of what could come on an even broader scale."

Heady stuff to grapple with for a man who George Conway noted this week is burdened with narcissism that "deadens any ability he might otherwise have had to carry out the duties of a president in the manner the Constitution requires. He’s so self-obsessed, he can only act for himself, not for the nation. It’s why he was impeached, and why he should have been removed from office... Trump’s lying, his self-regard, his self-soothing, his lack of empathy, his narcissistic rage, his contempt for norms, rules, laws, facts and simple truths-- have all come home to roost. Now he sees his poll numbers fall accordingly, and lashes out with ever-increasing anger. For deep in his psyche he knows the truth. Because he fears being revealed as a fake or deranged, he’ll call others fake or deranged. Because he fears losing, he’ll call them losers instead. And while Trump’s mind roils in rage, too many Americans are losing their lives. That’s the losing that matters, to everyone but him.

Rudd recognizes the problem and it was reflected in his essay. "[T]he United States’ power, the Trump administration’s chaotic management has left an indelible impression around the world of a country incapable of handling its own crises, let alone anybody else’s. More important, the United States seems set to emerge from this period as a more divided polity rather than a more united one, as would normally be the case following a national crisis of this magnitude; this continued fracturing of the American political establishment adds a further constraint on U.S. global leadership... The world has watched in horror as an American president acts not as the leader of the free world but as a quack apothecary recommending unproven 'treatments.' It has seen what 'America First' means in practice: don’t look to the United States for help in a genuine global crisis, because it can’t even look after itself. Once there was the United States of the Berlin airlift. Now there is the image of the USS Theodore Roosevelt crippled by the virus, reports of the administration trying to take exclusive control of a vaccine being developed in Germany, and federal intervention to stop the commercial sale of personal protective equipment to Canada. The world has been turned on its head."

"The President Is Unraveling," wrote conservative Republican Peter Wehner, who previously worked for the Reagan administration as well as for both Bush administrations, as well as for rightist icons Jack Kemp and Keane Kirkpatrick. His Atlantic essay this week warned that the country is witnessing the steady, uninterrupted intellectual and psychological decomposition of Donald Trump.

"In case there was any doubt," he wrote, "the past dozen days have proved we’re at the point in his presidency where Donald Trump has become his own caricature, a figure impossible to parody, a man whose words and actions are indistinguishable from an Alec Baldwin skit on Saturday Night Live." He noted that the Trumpanzee "pièce de résistance came during a late April coronavirus task-force briefing, when he floated using 'just very powerful light' inside the body as a potential treatment for COVID-19 and then, for good measure, contemplated injecting disinfectant as a way to combat the effects of the virus 'because you see it gets in the lungs and does a tremendous number on them, so it’d be interesting to check that.' But the burlesque show just keeps rolling on."

Trump savaged Bush for his participation in the non-partisan Call to Unite live stream benefiting COVID-19 relief. Bush expressed "gratitude to health-care workers, encouraged Americans to abide by social-distancing rules, and reminded his fellow Americans that we have faced trying times before." he never referred to Trump, but did say "In the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants; we are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise."

Wehner reckoned that was too much for Trump, who tweeted "[Bush] was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!"

So think about that for a minute. George W. Bush made a moving, eloquent plea for empathy and national unity, which enraged Donald Trump enough that he felt the need to go on the attack.

But there’s more. On the same weekend that he attacked Bush for making an appeal to national unity, Trump said this about Kim Jong Un, one of the most brutal leaders in the world: “I, for one, am glad to see he is back, and well!”

Then, Sunday night, sitting at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial for a town-hall interview with Fox News, Trump complained that he is “treated worse” than President Abraham Lincoln. “I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen,” Trump said.

By Monday morning, the president was peddling a cruel and bizarre conspiracy theory aimed at MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, a Trump critic, with Trump suggesting in his tweet that a “cold case” be opened to look into the death of an intern in 2001.

I could have picked a dozen other examples over the past 10 days, but these five will suffice. They illustrate some of the essential traits of Donald Trump: the shocking ignorance, ineptitude, and misinformation; his constant need to divide Americans and attack those who are trying to promote social solidarity; his narcissism, deep insecurity, utter lack of empathy, and desperate need to be loved; his feelings of victimization and grievance; his affinity for ruthless leaders; and his fondness for conspiracy theories.

...[T]hose traits are defining his presidency, producing a kind of creeping paralysis. We are witnessing the steady, uninterrupted intellectual and psychological decomposition of an American president. It’s something the Trump White House cannot hide-- indeed, it doesn’t even try to hide it anymore. There is not even the slightest hint of normalcy.

This will have ongoing ramifications for the remainder of Trump’s first term and for his reelection strategy. More than ever, Trump will try to convince Americans that “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” to quote his own words in 2018.

That won’t be easy in a pandemic, as the death toll mounts and the economy collapses and the failures of the president multiply. But that doesn’t mean Trump won’t try. It’s all he has left, so Americans have to prepare for it.

Trump and his apparatchiks will not only step up their propaganda; they will increase their efforts to exhaust our critical thinking and to annihilate truth, in the words of the Russian dissident Garry Kasparov. We will see even more “alternative facts.” We will see even more brazen attempts to rewrite history. We will hear even more crazy conspiracy theories. We will witness even more lashing out at reporters, more rage, and more lies.

“The real opposition is the media,” Steve Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist, once told the journalist Michael Lewis. “And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

We will see more extreme appeals to the fringe base of Trump’s party, including right-wing militias. For example, after hundreds of protesters, many of them carrying guns, descended on the capitol in Lansing, Michigan, to protest Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, Trump, summoning the ghosts of Charlottesville, described the protesters as “very good people.” Some of these “very good people” carried signs saying tyrants get the rope and tyrant bitch and comparing the governor to Hitler.

We will see a more prominent role played by One America News, a pro-Trump network that the president has praised dozens of times. And we will see the right-wing media complex go to even more bizarre places—not just people such as InfoWar’s Alex Jones, who literally threatened to eat his own neighbors if the lockdown continued, but more mainstream figures such as Salem Radio Network’s Dennis Prager, who declared the other day that the lockdown was “the greatest mistake in the history of humanity.”

Watching formerly serious individuals on the right, including the Christian right, become Trump courtiers has been a painful and dispiriting thing for many of us to witness. In the process, they have reconfigured their own character, intellect, and moral sensibilities to align with the disordered mind and deformed ethical world of Donald Trump.

And we will see, as we have for the entire Trump presidency, the national Republican Party fall in line. Many are speaking out in defense of Trump while other timid souls who know better have gone sotto voce out of fear and cowardice that they have justified to themselves, and tried less successfully to justify to others.

What this means is that Americans are facing not just a conventional presidential election in 2020 but also, and most important, a referendum on reality and epistemology. Donald Trump is asking us to enter even further into his house of mirrors. He is asking us to live within a lie, to live within his lie, for four more years. The duty of citizenship in America today is to refuse to live within that lie.

“The simple step of a simple courageous man is not to partake in falsehood, not to support false actions,” Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said in his mesmerizing 1970 Nobel lecture. “Let that enter the world, let it even reign in the world-- but not with my help.”

Solzhenitsyn went on to say that writers and artists can achieve more; they can conquer falsehoods. “Falsehood can hold out against much in this world, but not against art,” he said.

But art, as powerful as it is, is not the only instrument with which to fight falsehoods. There are also the daily acts of integrity of common men and women who will not believe the lies or spread the lies, who will not allow the foundation of truth-- factual truth, moral truth-- to be destroyed, and who, in standing for truth, will help heal this broken land.

Midnight Mitch

This morning, on CBS This Morning, former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said of Señor Trumpanzee: "He'll either be gone by this time next year or four years from now. Then what happens to the Republican Party? My fear is people out there know that, even if this is not an impeachable offense, that the president did something wrong, and for Republicans to maintain that he didn't is just wrong, and this has long-term ramifications for the party if we act as if we are just devoted to the president no matter what, and this cult of personality that we've seen, we certainly saw it in the House... We have separation of powers, and Congress needs to stand up for its principles. Individual members do as well. It doesn't mean that they won't agree with the president. Often if you're Republican, you typically agree with a Republican president more often [than with a Democratic president]. But not all the time. Not to the extent particularly that the House Republicans did to say that the president did nothing wrong here."

Also this morning, conservative Democrat Claire McCaskill, who was kicked out of office by Missouri voters in 2018, predicted that Susan Collins would be the only senator to break with Moscow Mitch over allowing witnesses in the impeachment trial. Meanwhile, the 7 impeachment managers, led by Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, sent a letter to corrupt Trump attorney Pat Cipollone informing him that as a material fact witness in the trial he risks disqualification if he "assumes the role of both advocate and witness" blurring the line between argument and evidence. They inform him that the only way around this is for him to disclose all the evidence before the start of the trial." John Roberts will have to decide that.

Into this mix, stepped Nancy Pelosi, in many ways the ringmaster. She laid out the case this morning, against... MoscowMitch. "Leader McConnell’s plan for a dark of night impeachment trial," she wrote, "confirms what the American people have seen since Day One: the Senate GOP Leader has chosen a cover-up for the President, rather than honor his oath to the Constitution.  Below are key examples of how McConnell’s resolution deviates from the Clinton precedent in an effort to prevent the full truth about President Trump’s efforts to corrupt the 2020 election from coming to light. 

Unfairly Delays and Limits Possible Witnesses and Documentary Evidence

• Under the Clinton Rules, the Managers had received all of the documents and testimony through the Starr Report and accompanying evidence, all they did was additional depositions.  Here, President Trump has denied the House access to a dozen witnesses and has not provided a single document, so delaying the decision unfairly hampers the trial.
• The Clinton resolution guaranteed the parties 6 hours to actually make motions for subpoenas for new documentary evidence and present arguments on those motions.  In contrast, the McConnell resolution only permits the Senate to hear argument for 4 hours and vote on a very narrow question-- namely, the question of whether to consider and debate witness subpoenas.  If the Senate votes no at that point, no party or Senator will be permitted to move to subpoena any witness or documents.  If the Senate votes yes, both sides will be free to make motions to subpoena witnesses, and the Senate can debate and vote on them.  Even then the Senate will need to approve an additional resolution to provide for the actual delivery of the subpoena by the Sergeant at Arms, among other things.

Places Unreasonable Time Limits on the House Managers in an Unprecedented Rush to Cover-Up Trump’s Corruption

• The McConnell resolution places unreasonable time restrictions on critical phases of the trial.
• Pre-Trial Motions: For example, under the McConnell resolution, deadlines are dramatically compressed.  The Clinton rules gave the parties more than 72 hours to prepare motions and more than 40 hours to respond to the motions that were filed.  In contrast, under the McConnell resolution, the parties have less than 24 hours to prepare motions and just 2 hours to respond to any motions filed.
• Opening Arguments: The McConnell resolution also places an unreasonable limit of 2 session days for each side to present their case.  In contrast, the Clinton rules did not place any artificial limits on the number of session days the parties could present their opening arguments. The resolution simply placed a generalized 24 hour limit and, in practice, the parties each presented their opening arguments over the course of 3 session days. The McConnell resolution forces each side to squeeze 24 hours of presentations into 2 session days.
• Evidentiary Motions: In Clinton, the parties were given 6 hours under S.Res.16 to present arguments on 3 motions to subpoena witnesses. Under the McConnell resolution, the parties have 4 hours to present arguments on the question of “whether it shall be in order to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses and documents.” And the impeachment rules would only allow a total of 2 hours for debate on any subpoena that the parties are ultimately permitted to make a motion for (under the impeachment rules).  

Excludes the Entire House Record and Paves the Way for Ceaseless Evidentiary Objections

• Under the McConnell resolution, there is no guarantee the House record will be entered into evidence at all.  And the first opportunity that it could be admitted into evidence would be after all of the following key trial events have taken place, including: 4 session days/48 hours of opening statements; 16 hours of Senator questions; and 4 hours of argument by the parties on the question of whether it is in order to consider any debate on a motion to subpoena witnesses or documents.  Under the Clinton rules, the record was immediately admitted into evidence and made available to all Senators.
• The upshot is that under the McConnell resolution, arguments that rely upon any piece of evidence in the House record may be subject to an objection by any Senator.

In a separate press release, she added that "McConnell's process is deliberately designed to hide the truth from the Senate and from the American people, because he knows that the President’s wrongdoing is indefensible and demands removal. No jury would be asked to operate on McConnell’s absurdly compressed schedule, and it is obvious that no Senator who votes for it is intending to truly weigh the damning evidence of the President’s attacks on our Constitution. The public now knows why Leader McConnell has been hiding his resolution: the Clinton comparison was a lie. Clearly and sadly, Leader McConnell has misled the American people. For weeks, he has insisted that he will adhere to the rules used during the Clinton impeachment trial and that 'fair is fair'-- but his proposal rejects the need for witnesses and documents during the trial itself. In contrast, for the Clinton trial, witnesses were deposed and the President provided more than 90,000 documents. President Trump undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections and violated the Constitution all for his own personal, political gain. He has repeatedly said that he would do so again. Duty, honor and country are at stake. Every Senator who supports this sham process must be held accountable to the American people."

UPDATE: Adam Schiff Gets The Ball Rolling

Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, and counsel for the President, the House Managers on behalf of the House of Representatives rise in opposition to Leader McConnell’s resolution.

Before I begin, Mr. Chief Justice, the House Managers will be reserving the balance of our time to respond to the argument of the counsel for the President.

Let me summarize why we oppose Leader McConnell’s resolution:

Last week, we came before you to present the Articles of Impeachment against a president of the United States for only the third time in our history. Those articles charge President Donald John Trump with Abuse of Power and with Obstruction of Congress. The misconduct set out in those articles is the most serious ever charged against a president.

The first article, Abuse of Power, charges the President with soliciting a foreign power to help him cheat in the next U.S. presidential election. Moreover, it alleges and we will prove that he sought to coerce Ukraine into helping him cheat by withholding two official acts-- a meeting the new President of Ukraine desperately sought with President Trump at the White House to show the world, and the Russians in particular, that the Ukrainian president had a good relationship with his most important patron, the President of the United States.

And even more perniciously, President Trump illegally withheld almost $400 million in taxpayer funded military assistance to Ukraine, a nation at war with our Russian adversary, to compel Ukraine to help him cheat in the election. Astonishingly, the President’s trial brief, filed yesterday, contends that even if this conduct is proved, that there is nothing the House or this Senate may do about it.It is the President’s apparent belief that under Article II he can do whatever he wants, no matter how corrupt, outfitted in gaudy legal clothing.

And yet, when the Founders wrote the impeachment clause, they had precisely this type of conduct in mind, conduct that abuses the power of office for a personal benefit, that undermines our national security, and that invites foreign interference in the democratic process of an election. It is the trifecta of constitutional misconduct justifying impeachment.

In Article II, the President is charged with other misconduct that would likewise have alarmed the Founders: the full, complete, and absolute obstruction of a co-equal branch of government-- the Congress-- during the course of its impeachment investigation into the President’s own misconduct. This is every bit as destructive of our constitutional order as the misconduct charged in the first article.

If a President can obstruct his own investigation, if he can effectively nullify a power the Constitution gives solely to the Congress — indeed the ultimate power the Constitution gives-- to prevent Presidential misconduct, then the President places himself beyond accountability and above the law. Cannot be indicted, cannot be impeached. It makes him a monarch, the very evil against which our Constitution and the balance of powers it carefully laid out, was designed to guard against.

Shortly, the trial on these charges will begin, and when it has concluded, you will be asked to make several determinations:

Did the House prove that the President abused his power by seeking to coerce a foreign nation to help him cheat in the next election?

And did he obstruct the Congress in its investigation into his own misconduct by ordering his agencies and officers to refuse to cooperate in any away, to refuse to testify, to refuse to answer subpoenas for documents, and through every other means?

And if the House has proved its case, and we believe the evidence will not be seriously contested, you will have to answer at least one other critical question: Does the commission of these high crimes and misdemeanors require the conviction and removal of the President?

We believe that it does, and that the constitution requires that it be so, or the power of impeachment must be deemed a relic, or a casualty to partisan times, and the American people left unprotected against a president who would abuse his power for the very purpose of corrupting the only other method of accountability: our elections themselves.

And so, you will vote, to find the President guilty or not guilty, to find his conduct impeachable or not impeachable.

But I would submit to you that these are not the most important decisions you will make. How can that be? How can any decision you will make, be more important than guilt or innocence, than removing the President or not removing him?

I believe the most important decision is the one you will make today. The most important question is the question you must answer today: Will the President and the American people get a fair trial? Will there be a fair trial?

I submit that this is an even more important question than how you vote on guilt or innocence because whether we have a fair trial will determine whether you have a basis to render a fair and impartial verdict. It is foundational, the structure upon which every other decision you make will rest.

If you only get to see part of the evidence, if you only allow one side or the other a chance to present their full case, your verdict will be predetermined by the bias in the proceeding. If the defendant is not allowed to introduce evidence of his innocence, it’s not a fair trial. So too for the prosecution. If the House cannot call witnesses or introduce documents and evidence, it’s not a fair trial. It’s not really a trial at all.

Americans all over the country are watching us right now. Imagine they’re on jury duty. And imagine the judge tells the jury that she’s been talking to the defendant and at the defendant’s request, the judge has agreed not to let the prosecution call any witnesses. Or introduce any documents. The judge and the defendant have agreed that the prosecutor may only read to the jury the dry transcripts of testimony before the grand jury. That’s it. Has anyone ever heard a judge describe such a proceeding and call it a fair trial-- of course not. Of course not. That is not a trial, that is a mockery of a trial.

Under the Constitution, this proceeding, the one we are in right now, is the trial. This is not the appeal from a trial. You are not appellate court judges; ok, one of you is.

And unless this trial is going to be different from every other impeachment trial-- or any other kind of trial for that matter-- you must allow the prosecution and defense, the House Managers and the President’s lawyers, to call relevant witnesses. You must subpoena documents the President has blocked, but which bear on his guilt or innocence. You must impartially do justice as your oath requires.

So what does a fair trial look like in the context of impeachment? The short answer is, it looks like every other trial.

First, the resolution should allow the House Managers to obtain the documents that have been withheld. First, not last. Because the documents will inform the decision about which witnesses are most important to call. And when witnesses are called, the documentary evidence will be and must be available to question them with. Any other order makes no sense.

Next, the resolution should allow the House Managers to call their witnesses, then the President should be allowed to do the same and any rebuttal witnesses, and when the evidentiary portion of the trial ends, the parties argue the case. You deliberate and render a verdict. If there is a dispute as to whether a particular witness is relevant or material to the charges brought, under the Senate rules, the Chief Justice would rule on the issue of materiality.

Why should this trial be different from every other trial? The short answer is, it shouldn’t. But Leader McConnell’s resolution would turn the trial process on its head. His resolution requires the House to prove its case without witnesses, without documents, and only after its done, will such questions be entertained with no guarantee that any witnesses or any documents will be allowed even then. That process makes no sense.

So what is the harm of waiting until the end of the trial, of kicking the can down the road, on the question of documents and witnesses, besides the fact it is completely backwards, trial first, then evidence, and besides the fact that the documents will help inform the decision on witnesses, and help in their questioning?

The harm is this: you will not have any of the evidence the President continues to conceal throughout most-- or all-- of the trial and although the evidence against the President is already overwhelming you may never know the full scope of the President’s misconduct or that of those around him. And neither will the American people.

The charges here involve the sacrifice of our national security at home and abroad, and a threat to the integrity of our next election. If there are additional remedial steps that need to be taken after the President’s conviction, the American people need to know about it.

But if, as a public already jaded by experience has come to suspect, this resolution is merely the first step of an effort orchestrated by the White House to rush the trial, hide the evidence, and render a fast verdict or worse, a fast dismissal, to make the President’s problems go away as quickly as possible, to cover up his misdeeds, then the American people will be deprived of a fair trial and may never learn just how deep the corruption of the Administration goes or what other risks to our security and elections remain hidden.

The harm will also endure for this body. If the Senate allows the President to get away with such extensive obstruction, it will affect the Senate’s power of subpoena and oversight just as much as the House. The Senate’s ability to conduct oversight will be beholden to the desires of this President and future presidents—whether he or she decides they want to cooperate with a Senate investigation, or even another impeachment inquiry and trial. Our system of checks and balances will be broken. Presidents will become accountable to no one.

Now, it has been reported that Leader McConnell has already got the votes to pass this resolution, the text of which we did not see until last night. And they say Leader McConnell is a very good vote counter. Nonetheless, I hope that he is wrong. And not just because I think the process this resolution contemplates is backwards and designed with a result in mind, and that result is not a fair trial. I hope that he is wrong, because whatever Senators may have said, or pledged or committed, has been superseded by an event of constitutional dimension.

You have all now sworn an oath, not to each other, not to your legislative leadership, not to the Managers or even to the Chief Justice. You have sworn an oath to impartially administer justice. That oath binds you. That oath supersedes all else.

Many of you in the Senate and many of us in the House have made statements about the President’s conduct, or this trial, or this motion, or our expectations; none of that matters now. That is all in the past. Nothing matters now but the oath. Nothing matters now, but the impartial administration of justice. And that oath requires a fair trial, fair to the President and fair to the American people.

But is that really possible? Or, as the Founders feared, has factionalism, or an excess of partisanship made that impossible? One way to find out what a fair trial should look like devoid of partisan consideration, if to ask yourself how you would structure the trial if you did not know what party you were affiliated with, or whether the President was from your party or the other? Would it make sense to you to have the trial first and only then decide on witnesses and evidence? Would that be fair to both sides? I have to think that your answer would be no.

Let me be blunt, very blunt. Right now, a great many, perhaps even most Americans do not believe there will be a fair trial. They don’t believe the Senate will be impartial. They believe the result is pre-cooked.

The President will be acquitted, not because he is innocent, he is not, but because the Senators will vote by party and he has the votes. The votes to prevent the evidence from coming out, and the votes to make sure the public never sees it.

The American people want a fair trial, they want to believe their system of government is still capable of rising to the occasion.

They want to believe we can rise above party and do what’s best for the country, but a great many Americans don’t believe that will happen. Let’s prove them wrong. Let’s prove them wrong.

How? By convicting the President? No, not by conviction alone. By convicting him if the House proves its case, and only if the House proves its case. But by letting the House prove its case. By letting the House call witnesses. By letting the House obtain documents. By letting the House decide how to present its own case, and not deciding it for us.

In sum, by agreeing to a fair trial.

Of Treason, Of Bullshit, Of Civil War

Congressional Terrorist by Nancy Ohanian

Over the weekend Trump TV reported that "Fox News has learned that the Pentagon, State Department and National Security Council were 'unanimous' in supporting the aid to Ukraine, and that Trump acted alone in withholding the aid over the summer." That was the aid Trump stopped and then used to try to force Ukraine to do his political dirty work against Biden, to-- as Ted Lieu was willing to say before anyone else-- manufacture dirt on Joe Biden. This morning, in an e-mail he sent me, Ted added, "That Trump's recent Tweets threatening civil war are despicable, dangerous and a complete betrayal of his oath of office goes without saying. It is sadly just the latest example of this President shattering our democratic norms. Now is the time for patriotic Americans of every political persuasion to put country above party, and stand up and speak out against this disgraceful rhetoric."  

Personally, I've hated Biden since the '70s and I get some degree of perverse satisfaction seeing him smeared by the raging asshole in the Oval Office-- but, very clearly, what Trump is doing is treasonous, pure and simple. And late last night and this morning, he turned his treason up to 11. Note well-- the first call for civil war is at the bottom of this desperate, crazy tweet storm:

Jamie Raskin (D-MD), is one of Congress' most brilliant members. We should all be very, very happy he's also a member of the Judiciary Committee. This morning, in an e-mail after Trump's treasonous tweet, he noted that "With charity towards none and malice for all, Trump now recirculates the threat of ‘a Civil War like fracture’ if he is impeached.  So now we can see the contributions of our first GOP president and our undoubtedly last GOP president. Lincoln created the Republican Party and gave his life in order to save the Union. Trump ruined the Republican Party and now threatens to destroy the Union in order to save his job."

Like Raskin, Mike Siegel is another brilliant attorney-- except he isn't on the Judiciary Committee yet, or even in Congress; he's running for a central Texas seat held by drunken Trump-Enabler, Michael McCaul. Today he told me that he was "born in 1977, three years after Nixon resigned. I’ve never experienced this level of political instability, inside the United States. Trump’s pandering to white supremacists, to ICE and border patrol, is essentially a call to arms, to gather brownshirts in favor of some sort of fascist dictatorship. He doesn’t respect courts or Congress, journalists, social norms, or the rule of law. We can’t fool ourselves that impeachment is inevitable. We have a major struggle ahead, for the soul of our country and the preservation of democracy-- perhaps the most important struggle of our lives."

Ro Khanna is optimist. From a note he sent me, I'm gathering he doesn't feel Joe Biden is likely to be elected president. "After Trump," he wrote, "I believe we will have a leader who will usher in a new progressive era and a moment of national reconciliation. This nation had Lincoln after Buchanan and Roosevelt after Hoover. I am confident we will have a leader who summons the best of America post Trump."

One of the first reactions from the right, came from Illinois conservative Republican Adam Kinzinger, who served honorably in the Air Force and often seems repulsed by Trump's denigration of our country and the principles and values it was built on. He slammed Trump's outrageous impeachment bullshit.

You know what criticism does to Trump though-- something he learned from his fascist little shit idol, Roy Cohn-- he digs in. In this case, he started carrying on about how Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff should be arrested for exactly what Trump is defending himself from-- treason. Last year Adam won reelection with 78.4% of the vote. There's not much room for growth but Trump's vile attacks will likely mean Schiff will be elected with over 80% of the vote. And, he'll raise all the money he needs for an expected Senate run. He has no serious opposition for reelection and he's already raised $3,125,472 this cycle and has $6,143,791 in his campaign account. All my neighbors want to do fundraisers for him-- thanks in part to Trump's idiotic attacks on him.

Yep, that was a cornered rat screeching to his moron followers that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff could face "arrest for treason."

Rory Cooper is a right-wing Republican, a campaign strategist who used to work at Eric Cantor's communications director. This morning he wrote at the Daily Beast that his party will get what they deserve if they don't distance themselves from Trump now. "As a Republican who has watched partisan politics play out in Washington for over two decades," he wrote, "I’m sympathetic to the argument that Democrats wanted to impeach President Trump since the day he was inaugurated. However, it was just as certain to me that he would eventually do something to justify impeachment. And early appearances suggest he has. At best, President Trump used his office to seek personal and political gain and engage in 2016 conspiracy peddling with a strategic ally engaged in a war with Russia. At worse, Trump held back military aid to Ukraine in order to extract this personal and political gain. It’s a difference without a distinction when it comes to his fitness to serve. The military assistance, authorized by the Congress, was unilaterally held back by Trump, with no coordination with the National Security Council or the Office of Management and Budget, according to the IG’s report. Based on these revelations and what President Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have publicly admitted, an impeachment investigation is warranted."

Jeff Flake was a member of the House when Cooper was working with Cantor to elect more right-wingers to Congress. Flake was one of those right-wingers and the reason he was the one who got the nomination for a U.S. Senate seat was because he was the most right wing of all the members of the Arizona congressional delegation. His New York Times op-ed today just drips with loathing for Trump, as he warns Republicans there's still time for them to save their souls. He's wrong there. It's too late for them. "In my case," he wrote, "I had not supported the president’s election. One year into his presidency, I knew that I could not support his reelection. While I had hoped that I could still run for reelection to the Senate in 2018 as someone who would help to provide a check on the president’s worst impulses, it soon became apparent that this was not what Republican primary voters in my state were looking for. Whatever reservations they might have had when they voted for Donald Trump, one year into his presidency they wanted a senator who was all in… Our country will have more presidents. But principles, well, we get just one crack at those. For those who want to put America first, it is critically important at this moment in the life of our country that we all, here and now, do just that. Trust me when I say that you can go elsewhere for a job. But you cannot go elsewhere for a soul."

NY Times columnist Peter Wehner was inspired by all this to ask a simple question: What's The Matter With Republicans? Why, he wondered do they still defend an obvious criminal and low-life? "Month after month, with one outrageous, norm-shattering comment or action giving way to another, Republicans who in the past could never have envisioned being Trump acolytes, have been ground down. Accommodation has kicked in, which is a psychological relief to many of them. For those who view Mr. Trump as a model politician who voices their grievances and fights with a viciousness they have long hoped for from Republicans, the accommodation is not just a relief but a source of delight. As the psychologist I spoke to, put it to me, many Republicans 'are nearly unrecognizable versions of themselves pre-Trump. At this stage it’s less about defending Trump; they are defending their own defense of Trump. At this point,' this person went on, 'condemnation of Trump is condemnation of themselves. They’ve let too much go by to try and assert moral high ground now. Calling out another is one thing; calling out yourself is quite another.'" Now conjure up sick little South Carolina closet queen Lindsey Graham, a personal cesspool of psychosis.

Whistleblower by Nancy Ohanian

I spoke to three deep thinkers among 2020 congressional candidates, Jennifer Christie, an indiana scientist and a mother of 4 young children and North Carolina pastor Jason Butler, both of whom we've endorsed and spoken about extensively already; and Chicago community activist Robert Emmons, who we are still vetting but who has impressed us tremendously. Butler first:

From the beginning it was clear that President Trump was a threat to democracy because he may be the first president in the history of our nation that has put himself above the office. It is precisely this self-exhaltatuion that makes him an existential threat to our nation. Because of his ego, he puts himself above our nation so of course it is now obvious that he will stoke the flames of civil war that would result in the suffering of multiplied millions and would almost invariably plunge the world into a global economic depression. But he doesn’t care. All he cares about is himself. This has been clear all along. He’s lived in a penthouse with golden toilets. He doesn’t know what real life is like for us and he has no clue that his actions and words have consequences for so many. To me, the fact that any he, as President, would ever even insulate, and thus condone, the possibility of civil war to protect his position is insurrectionist treason and the greatest threat to any nation. He has already divided us against one another and against our allies in the world - what is next? But it also must be noted that it was an evangelical pastor who he retweeted here, Robert Jeffress, who has been one of his strongest supporters. To my fellow church goers I want to say-- It is time that we collectively walked out of churches that stoke the flames of war of any sort-- but especially civil war. Jesus said, "Blessed are the Peacemakers" not blessed are the war mongers. This marriage of Trump and the evangelical church is leading us nothing but suffering.

Jennifer Christie noted that "Suggesting a civil war over the Constitutional impeachment process smacks of authoritarianism, incites violence, and is irresponsible. What Donald Trump forgets (or doesn’t know) is that Congress is an equal branch of government representing the People. But Trump does not respect the Constitution as we have seen from his attempts to obstruct justice, profit from the presidency, and attacks on free speech and free press. The best thing we could do is to rid ourselves of this era of divisiveness and Trumpian politics. I’m glad to see members of Congress from all parties standing up to his latest tweet."

Robert Emmons is 26 year old and already demonstrating the kind of wisdom that makes me imagine he could be one of the best members of Congress going forward. He told me that Trump "has hurt the ADOS community, the Latinx community, the Muslim community and every single patriotic American, with his hateful rhetoric and treason. He’s sided with White Nationalism and foreign countries, and spat in the face of movements of equality that have taken decades to build. This president and his ideology needs to be impeached swiftly with the full force of the US Federal government. If we continue down a path of racism, bigotry, fascism, profit-over-people, then our country will remain divided. It will be divided between the majority of us that want healthcare, education, a clean world, and justice for all, and those that support division that benefits people like Trump. I know that the people of the first district want unity right now. Impeaching the president will be one step in the right direction to prevent wars in all forms. We will not fall victim to the desperation of a system that is on its last leg; clinging onto an evil orientation that feeds on people as commodities. Instead we will rise to the occasion and build a world that is just and equitable. There will be no Civil War; only a fight to tilt the moral scale to the side of peace. The day of fear mongering is coming to a close because in this moment, and through the inquiry, we choose courage."

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

With all the commenting on Brett Kavanaugh and his lowlife character issues, let's not forget another major line in this sordid episode of American history. Let's not lose sight of what the Kavanaugh nomination to the Supreme Court has rawly exposed, and that is that, to the Republican mind, sexual assault is not wrong in any way, shape or form. They don't get why anyone would be upset about it. They are mystified that the actions Kavanaugh has been accused of could elicit such condemnation. They literally applauded Kavanaugh after his hearing. This is who they are, not just who Kavanaugh is. And, it's not just them, it is also the voters who looked them over and voted for them.

Over the last few days, I have seen a lot of misplaced praise for Sen. Jeff Flake, the fake tan model from Arizona. A lot of people have mistakenly said that his decision to call for a delay in one of the most disgusting circuses in Washington's history means that he has empathy for women. They point to the infamous elevator scene of him being confronted by two survivors as evidence of this. I don't see it. Instead, upon further review of the film, I see a sociopathic asshole frantically pushing the elevator buttons in an effort to close the door in the faces of the women confronting him and telling exactly what he is doing with his vote to confirm Kavanaugh. While were at it, what the hell is wrong with his two flaks who are attempting to ride away along with him. The are women, but, as we can see in the film, they are Republicans first. I don't know their names or I would name them but you can see that the blonde one, especially, just wants to get away from the two survivors and what they represent. Would it surprise you if she and her cohort wear "I Really Don't Care, Do You?" jackets to work every day? What Flake did was only a cynical ploy to make it appear that some sort of fairness and justice would be accomplished. One can only hope that it backfires in his face and the faces of his party of psychotics. I'm not holding my breath.

It is Senator Lindsey Graham of the old Confederacy that really takes the prize though, more than any of the Republican miscreants on the Senate Judiciary Committee; more than Orrin Hatch who oozes the most vile sexism from every pore; more than Judiciary Chaircretin Chuck Grasshole, more than any of them. He has played this whole thing like it's an audition to replace Jeff Sessions as AG, and it no doubt is. He's even gone all Trump with his threats to his Democratic colleagues on the committee and in the Senate as a whole. He has ignored the mysteries of Kavanaugh's finances depicted in tonight's meme. But, my favorite Graham moment is neither of those. It is the moment where he says that the treatment of the Justice Of His Dreams is unprecedented and unethical. Really? Fuck you, you pathetic mentally diseased little weasel. At least your guy got a hearing. You wanna talk unethical? You wanna talk lack of respect? Did you give Merrick Garland a hearing at all? Fuck you! Lindsey Graham, you are the embodiment of the lowest and most hypocritical that Washington offers the American public. You are a perfect example of why Americans have such an incredibly low opinion of congress. South Carolinians should walk in shame for the rest of their lives.

All Eyes On Flake-- Will He, As Is His Wont-- Disappoint Us Again?

When The Arizona Republican Party first selected Flake as its candidate for the open U.S. Senate seat in 2012, he had already served 6 terms (12 years) in Congress. Before that he had been executive director the the Barry Goldwater Institute. His credentials as an extreme right-wing kook-- with a libertarian bent-- could not be challenged. His first primary was against 4 conservatives, although Flake was by far the most conservative. In the House he was a bit of a pest to establishment Republicans as he fought to end earmarks and special interest corruption. He was never interested in bipartisan compromise and was considered the most hardcore conservative in the Arizona delegation. He was narrowly elected to the Senate-- 49-46% and started trending slightly more bipartisan than he had been. Now-- having announced he isn't running for a second term after feuding with Trump-- he's the guy who can scuttle Kavanaugh's confirmation.

Sunday, on 60 Minutes, he and Chris Coons (D-DE) were asked "if Judge Kavanaugh is shown to have lied to the Committee... nomination's over?" Flake immediately responded "Oh yes" and Coons followed with "I would think so." Watch:



There's only one way that could happen. All the Democrats vote against confirmation and they are joined by at least one-- but more likely, two-- Republican senators. Will Flake be that senator? Will Susan Collins? Lisa Murkowski? Apparently there is literally not one other Republican senator who cares whether Kavanaugh lied or not. Tuesday morning, writing for the Washington Post Sean Sullivan shined a spotlight on Flake's year-long jihad against "tribalism". [I'm no fan of Steve Kornacki's MSNBC appearances but his book on tribalism is very good.] Flake was (subtly campaigning for president in New Hampshire Monday) and Sullivan wrote that he warned that the FBI must thoroughly investigate allegations against Kavanaugh, "as he made a long-shot plea to use the moment to bridge the divides that have deepened" since Trump occupied the White House and exacerbated centrifugal forces already tearing the country apart that benefits no one but America's most determined enemy, Russia.

“We’re wanting to make sure that is a fulsome investigation-- that it’s not limited as some worry that it might be,” Flake told reporters here.

Decrying tribalism, partisanship and “the politics of vengeance” in a speech that served as an unmistakable shot at Trump, the Arizonan signaled he intends to use the polarizing court fight to amplify his long-standing calls for more civility and cooperation in Washington and across America.

“Tribalism is ruining us. It is tearing our country apart. It is no way for sane adults to act,” said Flake, a possible 2020 presidential candidate.

But the near impossibility of his task came sharply into focus in this early primary state as he faced dueling pressure from both sides of the Kavanaugh divide after forcing the Senate to delay a vote so the FBI could reopen its background check of the federal appeals court judge.

Flake remains a pivotal swing vote with the potential to sink Kavanaugh’s nomination, making him the target of liberal demands to keep him off the court, as evidenced by the anti-Kavanaugh protesters he faced here and in Boston on Monday. He is also the focus of conservative insistence that Kavanaugh be swiftly confirmed.

As he awaits the outcome of the FBI probe, which will determine his decision, he is poised to be a hero to one side and a villain to the other. “I sometimes feel like a man temporarily without a party,” Flake said.

But he is not without an audience. Flake is trying to turn the Kavanaugh standoff into a teachable moment that he hopes will help usher in a new political era, one that will produce greater compromise and expand the appeal of a Republican Party he says has put its long-term survival at risk by appealing to a narrow swath of Americans.

That pitch has become increasingly consequential as Flake, one of Trump’s most vocal GOP critics, prepares to retire from the Senate. His presence in this first-in-the-nation primary state has stoked speculation that he will run against Trump in 2020, a possibility he did not rule out.

It has become a career-defining moment for the mild-mannered lawmaker, who is at the epicenter of the collision between the #MeToo movement and the Trump presidency as he pursues pragmatism in a Senate riven by strident partisanship.

In his speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, Flake emphasized the themes that he has returned to repeatedly during Trump’s presidency, preaching civility and comity over rancor and recriminations.

“We Republicans have given in to the terrible tribal impulse that first mistakes our opponents for our enemies,” Flake said. “And then we become seized with the conviction that we must destroy that enemy.”

...Democrats have voiced concerns that the scope of the FBI probe will be limited. Flake urged the FBI to conduct a “real investigation” and said he was in touch with the White House counsel’s office and his colleagues to ensure that happens.

“It does no good to have an investigation that just gives us more cover,” Flake said. “We actually need to find out what we can find out. And we have to realize that we may not be able to find out everything that happened.”

Flake said he is “waiting for the additional information that will come from the supplemental FBI investigation” to inform his decision on how to vote on Kavanaugh. He said the thrust of the probe is to see whether there is corroboration for the account Christine Blasey Ford delivered under oath at a Senate hearing last week... If Kavanaugh lied, Flake said, that should disqualify him.

I've seen lists that show Kavanaugh lied 49 times during his testimony. Monday Elle lied to the Committee, under oath, about his drinking habits, definitions of words he had written in his year book (like "Devil's Triangle," "boof," "ralph," and "Renate Alumnius"), his bullshit about witnesses contradicting Ford, his Yale pedigree, and, of course, the allegations themselves.

At the hearing, Kavanaugh was asked when he first heard about the sexual harassment allegations from Deborah Ramirez, who alleges Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party while the two were at Yale. He responded by saying,"In the last-- in the period since then, the New Yorker story," referencing the New Yorker piece that first publicized the allegations.

However, according to a new report from NBC News, Kavanaugh and his team were trying to get former classmates to discredit Ramirez's claims before the piece was ever published, leading many to believe that Kavanaugh did know about the allegations beforehand.

Elaina Plott, writing for The Atlantic also shined a bright spotlight on Flake yesterday, reporting that he called the Kavanaugh’s interactions with lawmakers "sharp and partisan" and that "We can’t have that on the Court." She paints him-- as would anyone who's watched-- as someone who comes off as mixed up, shook up and confused. I bet you don't remember Mink Deville. This is one of their best songs performed in Montreux in 1994, over a decade after their "heyday":



"Flake," she wrote, "seemed to be wavering in recent days over his willingness to confirm Kavanaugh. On Friday afternoon, mere hours after stating he would vote to send the judge’s nomination to the Senate floor, he struck the agreement with Coons, and urged his colleagues to support the week-long probe before moving forward." Later he said he would vote to confirm after the FBI investigation. Then he said Kavanaugh was done for if he lied, which he clearly did. His past record indicatesnhe will vote to confirm regardless of what the FBI finds. He just doesn't have it in him to do more than whine. Collins has bigger cajones than he does, I don't expect her to vote NO either... unless she can get Murkowski to do it with her.

Which Mousketeer will save the Republic?

The Scripted Confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh

Consider the possibility that this is all a pre-planned script whereby Jeff Flake is depicted as the Honest Principled Man who ultimately gives everyone else cover to vote for Kavanaugh https://t.co/IqL3b020mh

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) September 30, 2018

by Gaius Publius

After you come down from praising of Jeff Flake's heroism (or his cowardice in the face of sexual assault victims) consider the following, from an interview with Flake in the Atlantic:

Coppins: So, you were motivated mainly by preserving institutional credibility?

Flake: Two institutions, really. One, the Supreme Court is the lone institution where most Americans still have some faith. And then the U.S. Senate as an institution—we’re coming apart at the seams. There’s no currency, no market for reaching across the aisle. It just makes it so difficult.

Flake's stated goal in insisting on an additional FBI check is to add credibility to the process so that the credibility of the government (which will put and contain Kavanaugh on the high court bench) can be maintained. An additional FBI check also takes away the strongest Democratic Party argument as presented in the hearings: "Why won't you submit to an FBI investigation?" and it gives the Joe Manchins of the world something to say in mitigation after they vote to confirm. 

Flake is worried, and rightly so, that if Kavanaugh is confirmed by raw power alone, without the blessing of the FBI, the Supreme Court will be seen as illegitimate. As I wrote earlier in "Anthony Kennedy and Our Delayed Constitutional Crisis," the Court is teetering on that perception already:

With swing-vote status comes great responsibility, and in the most consequential — and wrongly decided — cases of this generation, O'Connor and Kennedy were the Court's key enablers. They 

• Cast the deciding vote that made each decision possible
• Kept alive the illusion of the Court's non-partisan legitimacy

[...]

The second point above, about the illusion of the Court's legitimacy, is just as important as the first. If the Court were ever widely seen as acting outside the bounds of its mandate, or worse, seen as a partisan, captured organ of a powerful and dangerous political minority (which it certainly is), all of its decisions would be rejected by the people at large, and more importantly, the nation would plunged into a constitutional crisis of monumental proportions.

We are in that constitutional crisis now, but just at the start of it. We should have been done with it long ago. Both O'Connor and Kennedy are responsible for that delay.

I'm not alone in think along these lines. Juan Cole at Informed Comment agrees, offering two ways that Kavanaugh's confirmation, added to Trump's potential firing of Rod Rosenstein, could lead to a "Great American Apocalypse."

The Supreme Court is already a captured agent of the Republican Party. But thanks to "swing vote" justices like Anthony Kennedy, it's merely seen as "divided." That will change.

If Brett Kavanaugh is added to a captured Court via a process that itself is seen as captured, then joins 5-4 decision after 5-4 decision to a) further increase the power of the minority Republican Party via highly restricted voting rights; b) implement radical Koch anti-government ideology by removing, for example, regulatory power from the Executive Branch; and c) enable the freakish dreams of the most rightwing fundamentalists in the country (imagine if contraception were only available on a state-by-state basis) — I think that will tear the country clean apart.

I also think Jeff Flake agrees, and I think he thinks that if he gets the FBI to sign off on Kavanaugh first, he can head that outcome off. He's wrong, of course, but he'll be a lobbyist by the time anyone finds out. His future will be secured, even as ours will be very much more in doubt.

What Happens Next?

What happens next in the Kavanaugh confirmation process is anyone's guess, since the public and its anger are in play. But if I were to place bets on what just the political actors will do, here's the scenario:

• The FBI will issue a blatantly and politically manipulated report that neither confirms nor contradicts the charges against Brett Kavanaugh.
   
• Republicans will declare Kavanaugh vindicated and move the nomination to a vote at the earliest opportunity.
   
• Joe Manchin and Jeff Flake will both vote to confirm, providing 51 Yes votes and leaving one slot open for a single Republican No.
   
• Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski will decide between themselves who gets to vote No and save what's left of her reputation and career. The woman at most risk will take that slot.

• Since Susan Collins is under the most fire from hometown voters right now, I expect her to take a "principled stand" and find it in her conscience to vote not to confirm Brett Kavanaugh "for the sake of the women of this country" — all in a losing cause.

Which means:

• Kavanaugh will be seated on the Supreme Court for life, giving it the equivalent of five Antonin Scalias for the next two decades at least.
   
• When a critical mass of voters has had it with the decisions of a fully captured, radical-Republican Court, the country will come apart, just as it did 165 years ago, but not in the same way. 

Read Lincoln's Cooper Union speech. Addressing the people of the South, Lincoln said: "Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events."

In his era, a radical, intransigent, uncompromising "rule or ruin" minority drove the nation into civil war. That same "rule or ruin" minority is back — abetted this time by the very very wealthy — and they're doing it again. Kavanaugh is the next step in their putsch, their capture of the organs of the state, and unless the public derails his confirmation, it will succeed.

Nice work, Mr. Flake. You too, Mr. Manchin. I wish I had a gift for you equivalent to the one you're giving us. If I did have such a gift, it would arrive at your door tomorrow.

GP
 

Forget The Damn Women Who Were Molested-- We Know Who The Real Victim Was

Did Judge Kavanaugh take out his dick and wiggle it in Lindsey Graham's face? Or is Lindsey auditioning for the Attorney General job when Trump fires Jeff Sessions after the midterms? Raise your hand if you can't envision Lindsey derailing the Mueller investigation. Considering that his colleague, Joe Donnelly is up for reelection in an extremely red state-- PVI is R+9, same as Mississippi-- Donnelly, a long-time Blue Dog, was pretty brave yesterday issuing this statement and announcing he will be voting against confirming Kavanaugh.

I have deep reservations about Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to this lifetime position and, as I stated, we have been unable to get all the information necessary regarding this nomination, despite my best efforts. Only 113 people have ever served on the Supreme Court, and I believe that we must do our level best to protect its sanctity.

While I would gladly welcome the opportunity to work with President Trump on a new nominee for this critically important position, if Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination comes before the full Senate for a vote under these circumstances, I will oppose it.

Stephany Rose Spaulding is a progressive Democrat and a pastor running for Congress in Colorado Springs, one of the capital cities of American evangelicalism. "I am overwhelmed by the bravery Dr. Christine Blasey Ford displayed in reliving the horrific details of the sexual assault that occurred when she was just 15-years old," Rev. Spaulding said on Thursday. "She said that her most vivid recollection was of the laughter of her attacker and his friend, and that the trauma lives on today in the form of PTSD, anxiety and claustrophobia. Tragically, her story is a common one in America, with 1 in 2 women and 1 in 5 men experiencing sexual violence. Her testimony also reminds us how difficult it is for survivors to share their stories, even with loved ones. Hopefully Dr. Ford’s bravery will inspire millions of survivors-- whether the assault occurred today or 40 years ago-- to begin the healing process by reaching out to loved ones and healthcare professionals. The Administration sends the wrong message to generations of sexual assault survivors by not asking the FBI to investigate the claims of Dr. Ford and the other accusers. I'm calling on Congress and the President to take action today."

Dayna Steele is the Democratic candidates a tough district east of Houston. She wasn't buying into the Kavanaugh-as-victim narrative either. She was struck by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy's question to Dr. Ford on Thursday: "What is the strongest memory you have from that event?" Dayna:

Ask any woman you know-- mom, sister, grandmother, daughter, aunt, or friend that same question. The majority will have a memory and will have an answer. I am 59. My memory was 47 years ago. I still remember that moment as clear as anything.

I was 12. He was in his mid 20’s and worked for my dad who trusted him.  He was supposed to be taking me to lunch and said he needed to stop by his apartment to pick up something.  My memory? It is opening his front door and walking out of his cold, dark apartment into the warm daylight just as he came up behind me and tried to put his arms around me. The feeling I will never forget is that I escaped something dangerous, something bad that day.

We need women and men in positions of leadership who know this reality and will work to stop it by first acknowledging it happens and people need to be held accountable. It is why we need a government that reflects our society, our people, our decency, our integrity, and our majority belief that sexual assault is not “horse play,” sexual harassment is not “locker room talk,” and young men laughing at a frightened girl is not “boys being boys.”

I want to be one of these leaders. 

Leahy had his own thoughts worth pondering on the matter: "This Judiciary Committee is no longer an independent branch of government. And we’re supposed to be. The Senate is supposed to be an independent, equal branch of government. We’re no longer that. We are an arm-- and a very weak arm-- of the Trump White House. Every semblance of independence has just disappeared. It’s gone." Lindsey? How about Jeff Flake? Monday he'll be in New Hampshire pretending he's not campaigning for president, giving a speech entitled "After the Deluge: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle." Wait, wait; don't tell me-- Flake and Murkowski announced they won't vote to confirm Kavanaugh until after the FBI investigates the charges against him. Looks good for a rejection of his nomination for the first time! I bet this video from early Friday had something to do with Flake's decision.