US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

Clarence Thomas: Perjured himself to the Senate regarding his interactions with Anita Hill. Incredibly enough, Thomas is now the Republican appointee with the least problematic claim to his seat on the Court.

John Roberts: On the Court only because the 2000 presidential election was hijacked in favor of the Republican candidate, who lost both the popular and electoral vote, by five justices put on the Court by Republican presidents. Personally helped steal that election.

Samuel Alito: Ditto, minus the personal participation in Bush v. Gore.

Neil Gorsuch: Sits in SCOTUS seat stolen by Mitch McConnell. Appointed by a president who lost the popular vote by three million ballots, despite conspiring with a foreign power to steal the election.

Brett Kavanaugh: Flagrant perjurer (his testimony made Clarence Thomas’s lies seem modest by comparison). Appointed originally to the federal bench via the same stolen election that put Roberts and Alito on the Court. Like John Roberts, participated directly in the theft of that election.

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/10/kavanaugh-confirmed-every-single-gop-justice-scotus-will-appointed-illegitimately

every single one of them. i don’t care. if you’re aligning with them now you hate anyone who isn’t a straight white male with money. it’s that simple

So the NYT published a list from hundreds of law professors asking the Senate to deny Kav the confirmation, but what's the point? The GOP loves pissing off elites.

their point is a good one though, he isn't impartial and doesn't have the temperament necessary to be a supreme court justice

So the NYT published a list from hundreds of law professors asking the Senate to deny Kav the confirmation, but what's the point? The GOP /loves/ pissing off elites.

I know, but I had a flashback to a similar point in 2016 when the foreign policy and GOP elite said they could not endorse Trump. It made no difference.

If the letter moves Flake-Murk-Mindy into voting no, then I'll eat this coffee mug in front of me.

lol

really wish there had been a violent resistance to the 2000 election theft at this point (well, then too)

One copy of the FBI report. No more than an hour to review it. No ability for any follow up. Then a rushed vote.

For 2 years, McConnell has been carefully and purposefully breaking the Senate. This is the final blow. No comity or tradition left. It’s just about power politics.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 3, 2018

complete bullshit, especially since the fbi didn't bother / wasn't allowed to adequately investigate

don't understand, was this arranged so there wouldn't be leaks?

I'm living abroad but home district in VA has a good chance of going red to blue this year, so I'm voting super early and tripling checking my vote goes through (and then probably bugging some friends)

The FBI report is set to arrive in the Senate the same day Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to tee up a key procedural vote advancing Kavanaugh’s nomination for Friday. Until that vote, senators will be rushing in and out of a secure facility at the Capitol to review the sensitive FBI report that the bureau has compiled, looking into allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.

Two Senate officials say the report will be available at a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, in the Capitol Visitor Center, a secure room designed for senators to review sensitive or classified material. Just one physical copy of the report will be available and only to senators and a small group of cleared committee staffers.

Politics
White House prepares to send new FBI report on Kavanaugh to Senate as tensions grow
'Wrong, vile, appalling': Trump mocking Ford spurs outrage
President Trump's comments mocking Christine Blasey Ford's testimony on her allegation against Brett M. Kavanaugh caused widespread backlash. (Jenny Starrs /The Washington Post)

By Seung Min Kim ,
John Wagner and
Josh Dawsey
October 3 at 8:11 PM
The White House prepared late Wednesday to send the FBI’s completed report on Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Senate, as partisan rancor continued to grow over the scope of the investigation into sexual assault allegations that have endangered his confirmation.

The latest FBI probe updating Kavanaugh’s background check was set to arrive Wednesday night on Capitol Hill, according to two people familiar with its release. White House officials have been briefed on the FBI’s findings, the people said.

The developments came as Senate Democrats opened a new front in their objections to the investigations of Kavanaugh’s conduct, suggesting in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) that past FBI background checks of Kavanaugh include evidence of inappropriate behavior, without disclosing specifics.

The letter, signed by eight of the 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, challenged the accuracy of a tweet from the committee’s Republican staff on Tuesday that said: “Nowhere in any of these six FBI reports, which the committee has reviewed on a bipartisan basis, was there ever a whiff of ANY issue — at all — related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse.”

The Democrats said the information in the tweet is “not accurate,” urging the GOP to correct it.

“It is troubling that the committee majority has characterized information from Judge Kavanaugh’s confidential background investigation on Twitter, as that information is confidential and not subject to public release,” the Democrats, led by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), wrote to Grassley. “If the committee majority is going to violate that confidentiality and characterize this background investigation publicly, you must at least be honest about it.”

Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. (Tom Williams/AP)
The two committee Democrats who did not sign the letter were Sens. Christopher A. Coons (Del.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.).

Grassley’s staff responded on Twitter that “nothing in the tweet is inaccurate or misleading.”

“The committee stands by its statement, which is completely truthful,” the committee Republicans said. “More baseless innuendo and more false smears from Senate Democrats.”

The FBI report is set to arrive in the Senate the same day Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to tee up a key procedural vote advancing Kavanaugh’s nomination for Friday. Until that vote, senators will be rushing in and out of a secure facility at the Capitol to review the sensitive FBI report that the bureau has compiled, looking into allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.

[Trump mocks Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford]

Trump's impression of Kavanaugh accuser is one of many demeaning impersonations
Behind President Trump's impression of Supreme Court nominee’s accuser is a pattern of demeaning impersonations. (Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post)

Two Senate officials say the report will be available at a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, in the Capitol Visitor Center, a secure room designed for senators to review sensitive or classified material. Just one physical copy of the report will be available and only to senators and a small group of cleared committee staffers.

The two parties will take turns having access to the FBI report in shifts, according to a senior Senate official. For example, Republicans will spend an hour with the report from 8 a.m. until 9 a.m. Thursday, then Democrats will have an hour with the report. It will rotate throughout the rest of the day Thursday and potentially into Friday, with senators being briefed by staff members simultaneously.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/flake-says-trumps-mocking-of-ford-at-political-rally-was-kind-of-appalling/2018/10/03/286c3dba-c6f4-11e8-b1ed-1d2d65b86d0c_story.html

ugh, sorry. the copy and paste accidentally included way too much, captions, random shit

when copy and paste goes horribly wrong

i meant to include just the first pair and last pair of paragraphs

at this point I feel like I've gone through all of the stages of grief over the kavanaugh nomination, except hope/acceptance

I think I'm gonna stick with anger for the foreseeable future

when copy and paste goes horribly wrong

― Karl Malone,

it's okay, boo, so did the Senate

sleeve that's the right response I think

xp so it does sound like they want to prevent leaks

I suspect that there will be a leak of some kind before week's end.

I'm about to take one brb

lol

Someone tell maggie haberman

senior aides are telling me that tensions are rising as the door to the oval office bathroom has become...unhinged

I mean, I don’t know what’s not enraging any more but that LGM post is def enraging. I need a nazi to punch.

the rage factor increases by 1.5 when you consider how much gerrymandering has tilted things in the GOP's direction, especially in state legislatures. also the whole "blatantly trying to prevent people from voting while convincing their own base that rampant voter fraud is a real problem" thing

as a functionally disenfranchised citizen I can tell you that rage is fine as long as you show up. All I have anymore, really, is faith in you. Make them suffer for all of this.

Sometimes I wonder if my choice to live here is partially driven by a desire to never feel like a loser again - I can point to the Capitol from my house, and I can say, “not my fault”

we will definitely show up

If all US ilxors moved to a key swing state we could change the course of history!

For all my snide shitpostery im with tombot, and most of you i think, as well.

xp no because fuck texas

going to be voting in TN if my driver's license & voter registration card don't go missing like the other 2/3 of things we've tried to have mailed to us here

we shouldn't fuck texas, I'm still hoping beto can win

Until i was like 45 yeah, but now i know/am aware/have learned of many legit texans and will ally.

im in tx, beto fever is real

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's counsel has issued the following statement: pic.twitter.com/xfVZOKdKjH

— Melissa Schwartz (@MSchwartz3) October 4, 2018

profoundly disappointed, yes

i 90% think that the bullshit "investigation" is an excuse for republicans to confirm him while citing that the a investigation (which they will undoubtedly call "thorough") failed to find evidence of kavanaugh's wrongdoing. it would be a specious argument, of course, but they wouldn't be called out on it by state television and everyone else on their side will be too busy owning the libs to care.

i 10% think that the bullshit "investigation" is purposefully the worst investigation of all time so that a) kavanaugh can be denied his confirmation in a way that allows him to save face, with democrats as the villains rather than kavanaugh shamefully rescinding his nomination, allowing republicans to paint democrats as the villains who denied a good man his deserved seat based off of nothing but their petty criticism of a thorough fbi investigation that found no wrongdoing

when lindsey graham called this shit "the twilight zone" he was totally right

Texas is fine politically for most part if you're in an urban center...it's a number of suburbs and pretty much all rural areas that fuck stuff up.

This 'investigation' is just another instance of the GOP smugly baring their asses at law and civil society, which I hope they recognize will at some point provoke extra-legal responses from their constituents. You can only shove your middle finger in people's faces so many times before somebody snaps that shit right off your hand.

I mean, seemingly. If you live exclusively in the Fox-Sphere like all these people do, they’re doing righteous work.

Only faith I have, looking at precedent (always Watergate, not much analogous here), is this shit could take years.

Like if there ISN’T some retribution here, this country’s essentially done.

I'm strongly hoping for real changes in Texas, I feel like we're right on the cusp. It pisses me off to no end that I live in Austin, yet I'm stuck with a Republican rep because they gerrymandered the fuck out of the city. Surely a wave election could fix some of that.

Previously anonymous New Yorker source agrees to be named, and he is Kavanaugh’s former suitemate at Yale—now a religious history professor. https://t.co/gujwWPXxxX pic.twitter.com/orzqefF8lF

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 4, 2018

sorry didn't to blast with such bold type

*mean to

according to Daniel Dale he says he hasn't been able to get in touch with the FBI