Ooooookay, most of you have already seen this, some of you told me about it, but anyway – Ronan Farrow once again:

Senate Democrats are investigating a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. The claim dates to the 1983-84 academic school year, when Kavanaugh was a freshman at Yale University. The offices of at least four Democratic senators have received information about the allegation, and at least two have begun investigating it. Senior Republican staffers also learned of the allegation last week and, in conversations with The New Yorker, expressed concern about its potential impact on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Soon after, Senate Republicans issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote. The Democratic Senate offices

Oh come on.

Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh has calendars from the summer of 1982 that he plans to hand over to the Senate Judiciary Committee that do not show a party consistent with the description of his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, according to someone working for his confirmation.

Dear Diary: Today did not go to party where did not assault Christine Blasey who was not there and neither was I.

The calendars do not disprove Dr. Blasey’s allegations, Judge Kavanaugh’s team acknowledged. He could have attended a party that he did not list. But his team will argue to the senators that the calendars provide no corroboration for her account of a small gathering at a house where he

This really is something else.

https://youtu.be/HNx7cBaBxWs

One of my proudest moments [was] when I lookeda Barack Obama in the eye n I said [raising hand and pointing as if sticking his manly finger in Obama’s face] “Mister President you will not fill this Supreme Court VAcancy.”

You just know what he was really saying was “Nigga you will not fill this Supreme Court VAcancy.”

The crowd cheered.

He (and the Republicans in general) had no actual substantive reason to refuse to fill the seat. None. It was a complete defiance of precedent, rules, normal procedure, the whole idea of working together to accomplish necessary functions of government. It was just a power move, and a calculated insult to Obama.… Read the rest

Lindsey Graham is quite clear about his determination to ignore anything Christine Blasey Ford says in her testimony to Congress in a few days.

“You can’t bring it in a criminal court, you would never sue civilly, you couldn’t even get a warrant,” Graham said on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace. “What am I supposed to do? Go ahead and ruin this guy’s life based on an accusation? I don’t know when it happened, I don’t know where it happened, and everybody named in regard to being there said it didn’t happen.”

Ruin his life? He’s a Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. How is that ruin?

But more to the … Read the rest

Jennifer Weiner is also interested in women’s anger right now. She remembers the Anita Hill hearings all too well.

I remember her turquoise suit, her red lipstick, her perfect posture, her poise. I remember Justice Thomas’ denials, and the senators’ sneers and the pundits’ dismissals. She followed him from one job to another, they’d say. A few jokes about pubic hairs on Coke cans? Couldn’t have been that bad, right?

I knew why she’d followed him. By 21, like most women, I’d had experience with the way the world makes excuses for young men (and old ones), and instead trains its scrutiny on the women who dare to complain. What’s your problem? Was it really such a big deal?

Deborah Cameron looks back on the anger of the early women’s movement:

The first piece of writing students do for the course I teach on second wave feminism is a short response to the material they’ve read in the first two weeks–mostly personal essays and group manifestos dating from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their responses are always varied, but there’s one thing that gets at least a passing mention from almost everyone: how angry these women were.

For Teresa Green, who turned her response into this 2016 guest post, what was most striking wasn’t just the anger itself, it was “the fact that they boldly express it with no qualms about the male egos or female

Four Post reporters give us some background:

When Donald Trump won his upset presidential victory in 2016, Christine Blasey Ford’s thoughts quickly turned to a name most Americans had never heard of but one that had unsettled her for years: Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh — a judge on the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — was among those mentioned as a possible replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. When Trump nominated Neil M. Gorsuch, Ford was relieved but still uneasy.

Then, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced his retirement, and Ford, 51, began fretting again.

“Her mind-set was, ‘I’ve got this terrible secret. . . . What am I

Pliny the in Between on the MeToo gauntlet:

… Read the rest

Atwood based The Handmaid’s Tale on reality, including recent history. Shannon Quinn gives some examples:

During her research process in the 1980’s, Margaret Atwood found an article about a fundamentalist Christian group in New Jersey called The People of Hope, who wanted to return to the old ways of society spelled out in the Bible. The group was started in 1975 by a New York stockbroker and ordained Catholic priest named Robert Gallic. They called the women “The Handmaidens of God”. Atwood took a pen and circled the word “Handmaidens” with a pen. She found the name for her dystopia’s subservient female characters, and the inspiration for the fictional religious group who would take over the government.

Women in

A very very far-right Congressional Representative, Paul Gosar, has a bunch of siblings who did a political ad…for his opponent.

The brothers and sisters — Tim, Jennifer, Gaston, Joan, Grace and David — appeared in campaign advertisements for David Brill, the Democrat hoping to unseat Gosar in Arizona’s 4th Congressional District in the upcoming midterm election.

The Gosar siblings framed their endorsement of Brill as a matter of values, saying their brother, who has long drawn headlines for his far-right views, and his politics were simply too much for them to stomach.

“We gotta stand up for our good name,” said brother David Gosar in the advertisement. “This is not who we are.”

“I couldn’t be quiet any

The Times editorial board says, sarcastically, have sympathy for the poor Republicans who tried so hard to pretend they’d improved since the shitshow over Clarence Thomas.

Leave it to Donald Trump to strip away the mask and reveal the troglodyte beneath. Administration officials reportedly labored to keep him from going on the attack against Dr. Blasey, but after a few days, the presidential id once again rose up and overwhelmed them and their message. On Friday morning, Mr. Trump tweeted:

“I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with Local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask

Archaeologist Ticia Verveer on Facebook:

These lovely glass birds contained cosmetics in powder form, to which access was gained by breaking the end of the bird’s tail. This type of powder container was made by glassblowing, a technique perfected circa 50 BC by Roman glassworkers in the eastern Mediterranean region.

Production of these small glass birds was particularly abundant during the reign of Emperor Augustus (27 BC-AD 14) and was still quite popular until circa AD 70.

Although many such birds have been found in Greece, Cyprus, and Syria, northern Italy (particularly Piedmont) and the canton of Ticino in modern Switzerland seem to have been the principal region for the production and distribution of this type of container.

H/t Vanina… Read the rest

How to keep up. An hour or two ago the Times published a story reporting that Rod Rosenstein was talking about invoking the 25th Amendment in 2017.

Huge scoop by ⁦@adamgoldmanNYT⁩ and ⁦@nytmike⁩ on Rod Rosenstein talking about secretly recording Trump and raising 25th amendment in the Comey firing aftermath https://t.co/IJTpHUpkP4

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 21, 2018

Many many journalists and lawyers and such on Twitter pointed out that Trump is likely to see this as the perfect pretext to fire Rosenstein, and wondered if the Times had really thought this through. There were a lot of tweets of the infamous Times headline about the FBI’s finding no evidence of Russian interference some ten minutes before the … Read the rest

In other news, it’s no longer August so here in the US the frenzy about Halloween is being whistled up by marketers. How about a sexy handmaid costume??!

An upsetting dystopian future has emerged where women no longer have a say. However, we say be bold and speak your mind in this exclusive Brave Red Maiden costume.

Oh yes, that’s the way to “be bold and speak your mind” – by wearing a tiny skirt to signal “this way to the important bit” and shoes you can’t walk a step in. Hahaha theocratic oppression of women, great, now spread your legs, bitch.… Read the rest