Republican Congressman Ralph Norman today:

“Did y’all hear this latest late-breaking news from the Kavanaugh hearings?” Norman said during his opening remarks of a debate against his Democratic challenger Thursdayin South Carolina,according to The Post and Courier. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out that she was groped by Abraham Lincoln.”

The congressman made the joke after telling the crowd that he almost had to miss the debate and travel back to Washington to address the accusation.

Haw haw haw haw – geddit? Abraham Lincoln, because Ginsburg is so old. Haw haw haw, sexual assault is so hilarious.… Read the rest

John Lundin on Facebook:

There’s something sick about ‘campaigning’ for a Supreme Court nomination to begin with, then this…

“When you rent a bus that seats 80 but only 6 women show up”

That’s just weird. A bus? With his face plastered on the side along with WOMEN FOR KAVANAUGH? Weird weird weird. But then it’s “Concerned Women for America” – concerned about all this scary talk of equal rights and abortion and stuff. More bible, less feminism, please.

… Read the rest

Matthew Desmond on the vast number of the working poor in the US:

These days, we’re told that the American economy is strong. Unemployment is down, the Dow Jones industrial average is north of 25,000 and millions of jobs are going unfilled. But for people like Vanessa, the question is not, Can I land a job? (The answer is almost certainly, Yes, you can.) Instead the question is, What kinds of jobs are available to people without much education? By and large, the answer is: jobs that do not pay enough to live on.

In recent decades, the nation’s tremendous economic growth has not led to broad social uplift. Economists call it the “productivity-pay gap” — the fact that

George Felis shared this post on Facebook and was inspired by comments to take a more extended look at the “why do people shrug off bullying when it’s only girls?” question. I got his permission to quote what he said.

Evidence that Kavanaugh was a high school bully would be generally taken to be a plausible indicator of his character, and even those who disagreed — those who rejected the idea that such youthful bad behavior could serve as a significant indication of the kind of person he is to this day — wouldn’t simply fail to understand why or how someone might think otherwise. But much of the conversation around the evidence that Kavanaugh committed sexual assault on a

Dick Polman at the Atlantic collects some of the ways Republicans are displaying their settled, instinctive indifference (or outright hostility) to women:

After Christine Blasey Ford, a clinical-psychology professor, put her name to the accusation, announcing publicly that she’d passed a polygraph and had shared her story in a 2012 therapy session, Senator Orrin Hatch, a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s all-male Republican contingent, told the cameras: “This woman, whoever she is, is mixed up.” He also said that even if the assault accusation were true, the past wouldn’t matter so much: “It would be hard for senators not to consider who he is today.”

His Republican colleague Bob Corker voiced sympathy for Kavanaugh, but none for

Lili Loofbourow has a scorching analysis of the whole “never mind the women what about the poor men” phenomenon at Slate. I saw it via about 14 people at Facebook and they nearly all quoted a different passage, which shows how good it is.

The “locker room” once invoked to normalize Trump’s language (every man talks this way behind closed doors!) has expanded into a locked American bedroom with a woman trapped inside. It’s all in good fun, defenders declare. Horseplay.

Kids having fun!

This group has opted instead to defend male impunity for sexual assault and frame a woman’s story of coping with years of trauma as a true crisis … for men. A White

Trump again sides with the man. In other news, flies swarm rotting meat.

President Trump said on Wednesday that he found a sexual assault allegation against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, his Supreme Court nominee, difficult to believe and described the furor surrounding it as “very unfair” to the judge.

He somehow managed to refrain from trashing the woman directly, but…

But he expressed sympathy for his nominee.

“Really, they’re hurting somebody’s life,” he said of the senators considering Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination. “Justice Kavanaugh has been treated very, very tough, and his family. I think it’s a very unfair thing what’s going on.”

Him. Him him him. Never mind her, she doesn’t count. Yes if it’s true then he was … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Prosecutors look for corroborating evidence.

I haven’t seen the apologists trot this one out yet, but based on discussions about Shermer, Krauss, et al, I’m sure it’s coming: “you can’t vote no on his nomination based on this unless there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of his guilt!”

Bullshit. “Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” is the legal standard used in criminal trials. There’s no good reason to apply that standard here.

First, there’s no need to “borrow” any particular legal standard at all. A Senate confirmation isn’t a legal trial at all, let alone a criminal one. Kavanaugh doesn’t have any real legal rights here whatsoever. He’s not entitled to due … Read the rest

Five prosecutors point out that prosecutors deal with conflicting claims all the time.

While some argue that the truth about this incident will come down to a “he said, she said” situation, that’s not how it looks to us. Prosecutors and investigators are confronted with these scenarios frequently and don’t just throw up their hands and say, “We can’t decide.” Instead, prosecutors look for corroborating evidence — and there are strong indications already that Ford is telling the truth about her attack. Here are some of those indicators:

First, there is corroboration. Ford’s therapist’s notes in 2012, provided to The Washington Post, generally record her account of the attack. To believe that this is a made-up tale to prevent

Oh really.

Brett Kavanaugh talking about his high school in 2015: “What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep.”

I can't imagine any parent accepting this view. Is this really what America wants in its next Supreme Court Justice? pic.twitter.com/WhL8YeZQ78

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) September 18, 2018

… Read the rest

Jennifer Rubin on Trump’s latest move to obstruct justice:

The move is unprecedented. Never have we seen a president declassify documents in contravention of clear warnings from the intelligence community that doing so would harm national security. That this occurs in yet another effort to derail an investigation into his own wrongdoing, and to smear law enforcement officials, only underscores the degree to which Trump now puts his own political survival above the security of the American people.

I would omit that “now” – he’s done that all along.

“At best, a disgraceful distraction from the [Supreme Court nominee Brett M.] Kavanaugh matter; at worst, an abuse of power tantamount to obstruction of, and tampering with, the Russian investigation,”