Action Plan

Momentary Depression:  After watching Senator Susan Collins state her justification for voting yes for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, I turned from news to HGTV for two days. There’s something cathartic about watching Love it or List it and Beachfront Bargain Hunt, I even turned to TLC for a few episodes of Say Yes to the Dress, brainless but inexplicably soothing, but now I’m back, so here goes.  Collins’ Kavanaugh statement was outrageous on so many levels.  First and foremost it started out as a lecture on confirmation etiquette, slamming Democrats for making their minds up about Kavanaugh even before he was formally nominated.  The thought that any Republican could possibly have the nerve to lecture on etiquette after the Merrick Garland fiasco is preposterous.  Also preposterous was her claim that she had made her decision just hours before her announcement. It’s clear that Collins’ moderate credentials are significantly overstated,  she’d been firmly in Kavanaugh’s camp from the get go and despite his deceptive testimony and her faux concern over the allegations that he’d assaulted Dr. Blasey Ford, she never really wavered.  For weeks she’d been saying that she was completely confident that Kavanaugh will never overturn Roe v Wade because he promised her that he’d respect precedent even though she knows he was chosen precisely because he will do his best to eradicate reproductive choice.  Whether he does that by voting to overturn Roe outright or by chipping away at it by ruling in favor of a series of impediments that render the decision worthless, he will most certainly do his best to curtail abortion access.  As to the speech itself, though she claimed she’d written it after an anguished and difficult decision process, it sounded as though it had been crafted for her well in advance, probably by White House Counsel Don McGahn, Kavanaugh’s number one champion.  Notably, it included all of the White House talking points on Kavanaugh and his first accuser Dr. Blasey Ford, and echoed the theory initially advanced by a right wing pundit that while Blasey Ford might well have been speaking her truth about the attack, she was totally wrong about the time, place and Kavanaugh.  Collins’ speech pretty much ignored second accuser Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez, failed to mention that none of the people who wanted to speak about her experience or Kavanaugh’s aggressive behavior under the influence of alcohol were ever afforded the opportunity to meet with the FBI and failed to note that any investigation that didn’t circle back to speak with both Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh was essentially a charade. As to the third accuser, Julie Swetnick, the woman represented by Michael Avenatti, Collins expressed outrage at the thought that anyone would even suggest that any elite prep boys would ever engage in the type of heinous behavior she alleged took place, instead turning that accusation around into a reason to vote for the “unfairly” targeted Kavanaugh. Also galling was the staging, though none of the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee are women, a problem that compelled Chairman Grassley to contract out Judiciary responsibilities to an outside prosecutor, somehow Republican leadership managed to find two to sit behind Collins, and that one of those was West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a fellow grad of the Holton-Arms School was hard to miss. The other was Mississippi’s Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Senator who was appointed to replace Thad Cochran, one of those really old white guys who stopped functioning months before his mid-term retirement. Apparently, though both women fit the bill for optics purposes neither is up to the task of sitting on the Judiciary committee because, if Committee Chairman Grassley is to believed, not one of his party’s Republican female senators is interested in assuming the committee’s heavy work load.  That must be a problem unique to those very delicate Republican women, because Democratic Senators Klobuchar, Harris and Hirono seem to be doing just fine, workload and all.  Now, a few comments on Senators Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin, the other three who waited until the last minute to reveal their vote.  Flake flaked, for all his righteous pontificating he does that all the time so it wasn’t much of a surprise. Murkowski voted against Kavanaugh, proving that at the end of the day she’s willing to deviate from the party line to do what’s right for her Alaska constituency.  She less indebted to the Republican party since they bailed on her during her last election, an election she won as a write-in candidate after she lost her Republican primary. Her native Alaskan population vocally opposed Kavanaugh’s confirmation and violence against women is a major problem in Alaska. Her speech, which was not advertised and was heard by far fewer people actually came off as somewhat genuine.  Manchin’s vote while disappointing wasn’t all that surprising.  Had Collins voted no, he would have too but once Collin’s yes vote sealed Kavanaugh’s confirmation, he calculated that the risk to his reelection of voting yes wasn’t worth it, disappointing but hardly shocking, and most certainly not all that surprising to Democratic Leader Schumer who probably told him that if Kavanaugh had the votes without him, he was free to vote however he wanted.   Manchin winning reelection is more valuable to Democrats than getting him to vote no on principal. That said it’s not clear that voting for Kavanaugh helps Manchin’s reelection prospects all that much, only time will tell but one thing is certain, it certainly won’t stop either Donald Trump Jr or Senator McConnell from dissing him.  This weekend little Donny attacked him for hiding behind the skirts of a woman and McConnell said that though he appreciated the vote, he still plans to campaign against him.  That McConnell is a real charmer.  In addition to running a few victory laps and attacking Democrats for their “violent” protests and “radical” positions, he also said that his “rule” about not confirming Supreme Court nominees during the run up to a presidential election, the one he ginned up to screw Merrick Garland out of a seat on the Court,  wouldn’t necessarily apply if he gets another chance to put a conservative on the court in the run up to the 2020 election because, of course, that “rule” only applies to nominees proposed by Democratic presidents.  As to Trump senior, he’s off and campaigning on his victory.  He’s admitted to attacking Christine Blasey Ford because it suited his objectives and is now following up by going after Senator Diane Feinstein, claiming that she is the sponsor of open border legislation that doesn’t exist and his favorite target Congresswoman Maxine Waters.  It’s hard to miss that the president of the US is attacking women, Blacks and Jews to rile up his base.

What Now?  Okay, we can wallow in depression, stick our collective heads in the sand, or take action. I pick action. First and foremost vote and if you live in a swing state or district, encourage others to vote too and get them to the polls if they need help.  And contribute, even small amounts count.  Focus on at risk red state Democratic incumbents like Bill Nelson in Florida, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Jon Tester in Montana, and Claire McCaskill in Missouri.  All of them voted against Kavanaugh and could certainly use a helping hand particularly since their opponents are benefiting from Koch Brothers largesse and in the case of Nelson, is a self-funding multi-millionaire.  If you are a New Jersey resident, support Senator Bob Menendez, he might be ethically challenged but he’s on the right team, and at this point that’s very important.  ALSO – don’t forget the possible swing state candidates including Nevada’s Jacky Rosen who stands a good chance of unseating Dean Heller, Arizona’s Kyrsten Simena who is running strong against Trump mini me Martha McSally for the seat being vacated by Flakey Flake, Mississippi’s Mike Espy who is fighting a surprisingly close battle against Cindy Hyde-Smith one of those Republican women too weak to bear the burden of a Judiciary Committee seat but good enough to sit and look pretty behind Senator Collins.  Also consider supporting Tennessee’s Phil Bredesen who is running against another Trump mini me Marsha Blackburn for the seat being vacated by Bob Corker and Texas’ Beto O’Rourke, the populist trying to unseat the very awful Ted Cruz.  As to Bredesen, his strategy is to distance himself from Democratic leadership so much so that he said he would have voted for Kavanaugh’s confirmation but in all likelihood he is saying whatever it takes to win and, in any case, he’s significantly more acceptable than Blackburn.  Even Taylor Swift knows that, the usually apolitical star endorsed Bredesen last night citing Blackburn’s “appalling and terrifying record” in Congress especially on women’s issues, in particular she noted Blackburn’s vote against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act because in Trump America there is no violence against women, right? Or is it that violence against women is okay?