23 September 2018

CONGRESSIONAL CONTEMPT FOR TRUTH

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford v. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, an extrajudicial case on trial:

Let's start with an indisputable standard: No one is entitled to a seat on the Supreme Court. It must be earned, to the satisfaction of both the Article I and Article II designated branches of our Republic. Ya want it, ya gotta earn it.

I should make clear up front, I am not unbiased here. In my view, Kavanaugh is a bad guy. In the hearings, he masked his arch conservatism, he masked his rigid anti-abortion philosophy. This this is the guy who urged Ken Starr to humiliate Bill Clinton by asking detailed questions about his sexual liasons, and this is the guy who was involved in White House torture discussions and then denied it.

As a judge, he voted against providing contraception to employees of religious organizations. The man is basically opposed to abortion and contraception.

And most obscenely, this is the guy who tried as hard as he could to prevent a17 yr.-old immigrant from getting a rape abortion, even though under Roe she was constitutionally entitled to the procedure. The girl was in custody and 17 weeks pregnant, but K did everything he could to delay the decision until she passed the 20-week mark in Texas that would have denied her the right to the procedure. Despite her status, he wrote, in his opinion, that the federal government had an interest in her fetus. I never knew that. How scary. Brett Kavanaugh has "a permissible interest" in every fetus in the United States.  Sounds like the basis of a Steven King horror novel. Perhaps the federal government will create a department to regulate fetuses, and make rules about who can make em, when, how, etc.  

Happily the D.C. Circuit Court, sitting en banc, overruled  Kavanaugh, and the teenager got her abortion. But on the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh and his like-minded colleagues will be beyond overruling. So the political fight to keep him off the Court is worthwhile.

Now, is the Blasey Ford incident disqualifying? Before we answer that question, we need to learn what happened.

Let's take a logical approach. There are three possibilities: i) it happened, ii) it did not happen, and iii) we cannot be sure one way or the other.

Those are the only relevant issues. Whether Diane Feinstein should have revealed the Ford letter earlier, whether Ford should have written earlier, whether 165 virgins attest he did not rape them, etc., are all partisan bullshit tropes, and avoid the key issue.

1. First, let us assume for the sake of argument, it did happen. Assume Ford is telling the truth. Does 17 yr.-old Brett Kavanaugh's drunken attempt to rape a 15 year old girl disqualify him?  Maybe not in Turkey, or Afghanistan, or elsewhere, but in our culture, Yes. In my opinion, a definite yes. If it happened to my daughter I would want to impose corporal punishment on the boy. Serious corporal punishment. I probably would not do it, but I would want to.

When I was 17, I was just as eager as most of my peers to engage in sexual advances, but the notion of putting my hand over a girl's mouth to stop her from screaming while I forcibly tore off her clothes is inconceivable to me. Not only would I never do a thing like that, I do not know anybody who would. So, culturally, anyone who would do this is a shit, period. Perhaps he is living a good life now, and there are 165 women who say he didn't try to rape them, but that doesn't give the shit a passing grade to get on the Supreme Court.

Moreover, if it happened, but he testifies to the contrary, then he has perjured himself, and he is toast. Period

Now, let's dissolve the assumption we were working on above,(i.e.' it did happen) and ask the Q, did he do it?

Blasey Ford is a compelling witness. She is a psychologist, has a Masters and Ph.D, and is a solid citizen. She has everything to lose and nothing to gain by coming forward. She told her therapist about this 6 years ago. At the request of her counsel, she took a lie detector test. She has received death threats, needed to abandon her residence, send her daughters away. She has little to gain by this, much to lose.

Everything I have read supports the notion that this kind of traumatic event sticks. It is never forgotten. She may not remember the address of the house, etc, but she would never forget being choked by the hand on the mouth, the fear he was going to kill her in the process of raping her. Never. 

Why didn't she report it? Please. She was 15, she had a beer, she shouldn't have been there, her parents would have killed her if they learned she was at this house party with drunken boys. No 15 yr.-old girl would have called the cops. If there is one thing the Me Too movement has demonstrated, it is that these things are mostly unreported even by adults, no less errant 15 yr. olds.

He, on the other hand, apparently ran with a drunken crowd. The witness Judge, admits he was, in that period, a total alcoholic, totally blitzed all the time. That was the culture at this elite boys school. Kavanaugh had the title "Kegmaster" and was proud of it. And Judge refuses to testify before Congress.

Does this prove it happened? Not at all, but what it does establish is that this is an allegation with sufficient indicia of truth that it deserves serious attention.

So let's ask the FBI to check this out. This is easy. He says No, it did not happen. She says Yes, it did. Y'think this incident wasn't the talk of the day at both schools that Monday?  And just the other day, NPR reported that a Ford classmate wrote on her Facebook page that "it really happened and everybody was talking about it ". I suggest the Feebs could, in two weeks, produce a large report of what everybody said, because someone spilled the beans, and the kids at the house knew everything and told everyone.

But the Republicans on the committee refuse to seek an FBI report and to call other witnesses, as they did on the Clarence Thomas hearing. There was a third person in that room, and Ford wants his testimony. Why does the Committee refuse to call a percipient witness? I suggest they know he will have to attest to the drunken culture of these prep school boys, including his pal Brett.

So, if you had an FBI report as above, and added that to the witness testimony of the person in the room, and the people who were contemporaneously told of the event, the "jury' could decide if it happened or not. If they conclude yes, and he denies it, then he is a liar and the trial is over. Indeed, if they decide he did it, he should be toast whether he lies about it or not. If the jury decides he did not do it, they can proceed to vote on confirmation,disregarding the Ford allegations.

But this jury is not unbiased. Every decision they have made so far has the result of denying access to the truth. They are reluctantly giving this woman a bare bones hearing because a failure to do so would negatively affect their electability. This is a show trial. The chair of the committee has already said Ford is mistaken. Just yesterday, Mitch McConnell promised that Kavanaugh will he confirmed very soon. The Republicans are going to just bull ahead and do it. The result: the eleven white guys who rule the committee will be disgraced, as will Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh.

And the rest of us will need to worry about our rights to abortion, contraception, gay marriage, and our secular democracy.