Water is Wet

Kavanaugh Conundrum: For a short time it looked like Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh was toast but now it looks like the pendulum has swung back in his direction, not because of any new indication that he didn’t do what his accuser Christine Blasey Ford says he did but because Senate Republicans are now doing their best to stack the cards in his favor.  To that end they’ve invited both parties to appear in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, an offer that sounds way better than it really is.  Judge Kavanaugh, has spent hours preparing his testimony and practicing his response to questions with the White House Communications and legal teams, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Communications Director Bill Shine, the guy who is up for the task because he was forced out of Fox for aiding and abetting network wide sexual harassment.  While Kavanaugh’s been practicing and phone schmoozing with Republican senators, Dr. Blasey has been otherwise occupied.  She’s been busy moving to a secret location to protect herself and her family from threats coming in from Kavanaugh’s supporters.  She’s also had her email hacked and had to give up use of her phone to avoid an onslaught of nasty calls.  Yesterday, her lawyers informed Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley that she doesn’t plan to participate in any public or private hearings until the FBI conducts an investigation of her claims.  She also wants to see more witnesses called in to testify under oath so that any hearing that ultimately takes place doesn’t turn into a “he said, she said” spectacle along the lines of the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings.  Trump insists that the FBI can’t get involved, a blatant lie but one that fits his narrative and plays well to his base.  The truth is that the FBI can and should get involved, not to undertake a criminal investigation but to do more vetting.  However, for that to happen Trump would have to give his authorization and he won’t because, though he says that both sides deserve the right to be heard, mostly he feels sorry for Kavanaugh, who he says is being unfairly accused. He’s not all that concerned about Dr. Blasey and her family.  For the record, as bad as things went for Anita Hill, before she testified the White House did authorize the FBI to do some additional investigating.  Senators Grassley and Hatch, who both participated in the Anita Hill hearings, haven’t evolved or learned much from the episode but they do know that the FBI has a role to play, they just don’t want to go there possibly because they fear that an investigation might actually turn up some incriminating information but also because they are in a  rush to get Kavanaugh confirmed before the midterm elections and certainly before any more accusers show up.  In an effort to appear conciliatory, Grassley offered to let Dr. Blasey testify in private but then made it clear that she better show up on Monday or else, hammering that point home by unreasonably insisting that her written testimony be provided to his staff by Friday.  Senators Collins, Flake and Corker who for a brief moment appeared to be Republican outliers have moved back into the fold, they all insist that Dr. Blasey show up on Monday to speak her piece or else and, by or else, they mean that if she doesn’t show up they will all vote for Kavanaugh’s confirmation, something they will probably do with or without her testimony.  As to some of those potential additional witnesses,  Kavanaugh’s cronies insist that they were at the “party” where the events took place while one of Dr. Blasey’s schoolmates posted a statement on Facebook saying that many of her classmates knew about the Kavanaugh incident back when it happened. Of course, right now none of them are speaking under oath.  Bottom line, the increasingly unpopular Trump, who has been accused of sexual harassment by 18 or so women, who once had a wife beater as a member of his senior staff, and now has a communications director who was drummed out of his prior job for fostering a hostile climate is doing his best to get a Justice, one who is himself historically unpopular and who may well be a member of the Trump Abuser Club, onto the Supreme Court where he will be able to impact the rights of women for years to come.  And Trump appears to be succeeding, at least for now.          

Trumpspeak:  Before heading out to the Carolinas to see the effects of Hurricane Florence first hand and to  practice pretending to be empathetic, something that’s easy to fake in states full of Republican voters with electoral college votes to spare, Trump announced that Hurricane Florence was “a tough hurricane, one of the wettest we’ve ever seen, from the standpoint of water."  That profundity aside, he pretty much stuck to the script the rest of his trip, didn’t throw any paper towels at anyone and graded on the Trump curve, came off relatively okay even if he did seem most concerned about conditions in the town where one of his Trump properties is located.  However, the statements he made during his Tuesday night interview with The  Hill were quite remarkable.  During that interview, he torched Attorney General Sesssions, saying that he doesn’t have an attorney general, adding that Sessions, the guy he hates because he recused himself from the Russia investigation, has also done an awful job at everything else including immigration, which even he has to know is absurd because though Sessions’ immigration activities have been unconscionable, they more than fulfill Trump’s wildest expectations.  When asked about that comment later he sighed and acknowledged that he really did have an attorney general.  His wistful response left the distinct impression that he hopes to rid himself of Sessions sooner rather than later.  Trump clearly is trying to insult and embarassment Sessions into resigning, because a resignation, unlike an outright dismissal, would make it easier for him to appoint someone more compliant, and by compliant think complicit, someone who he wouldn’t have to get through a Senate confirmation for seven months, enough time for him to fire Mueller, Rosenstein and anyone else standing in the way of his plan to rid himself of the Russia investigation, or at least that’s what he would like to do.  So far, Sessions appears to be impervious to Trump’s verbal attacks.  Trump also slammed the FBI, saying that the reason that he’s ordered the declassification of a number of key documents connected with the investigation of the “alleged” Russian collusion with members of his campaign team was to show that the probe was "corrupt" and a "hoax" -- and that exposing it could go down as a highlight of his presidency. "What we’ve done is a great service to the country, really, in its own way, this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt."  He admits that he hasn’t read those documents but has been told by his advisors on Fox that he should have them released.  He also seems to have forgotten that he appointed, Christopher Wray, the current Director of the FBI.  As to Wray and Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, another one of his appointees, they are doing their best to push back at Trump’s devious declassification command, setting the stage for what could be a battle or a Nixon like massacre.  To that end, Wednesday morning former CIA Director Michael Hayden told CNN that "it's getting close to the time” for Trump's “intelligence agency leaders to stand up to their boss about his declassification order and quit if he doesn't back down. “  Adding "sooner or later, we will come to a point for what the president demands is so egregious ... that the right thing for them to do, to signal the alarm, to send up the flare is to say if you want this done, Mr. President, it will have to be done by somebody else."  The clock is ticking.