OT: Twitter Thread on 3 Decades of Russian & Mafia Relationships with Trump

[cgmw]

I've spent a lot of time in Kavanaugh-country, especially the prep-school world and the "elite" universities and law schools they feed into.

It has been my experience that Kavanaugh has 3-4 very common traits of sexual abusers:

1) White affluence -- like Trump's Access Hollywood tapes, being rich and white excuses a lot of "locker room" behavior

2) Growing up in the 80s -- different norms and still a very "Archie Bunker" culture even in liberal Bethesda... nowadays kids have smartphones and snapchat, so behavior is actually toned down for fear of recording

3) Catholicism -- controversial to say, but the repressed sexual norms of the Catholic church (even in suburban Bethesda) have resulted in a lot of young men who get drunk to express themselves physically

4) Sports -- So I personally know a lot about this, but the confluence of white affluence with prep-school sports can create a culture of privileged testosterone that has pretty much defined the rape culture of an entire sport (lacrosse) that caused so many problems decades after Kavanaugh (who played football) at elite universities like Duke and UVA

That's not to say every rich white kid coming out of Catholic elite male prep-school culture is a rapist, but it is to say that uncovering old misconduct should come as no surprise to anyone. If you were a rich white kid at a Catholic prep-school and played sports in the 1980s, then you either participated in or witnessed plenty of behavior that would be considered misconduct in 2018.

Even if the specific allegations were hidden from Trump before the selection, we shouldn't be surprised that he picked a guy with maybe half a dozen markers for likely sexual misconduct. If anything, it's likely Trump actually sought out the validation of a "classier" sect of privileged white men who have each other's backs in denying sexual misconduct. It's like moving from Queens to Manhattan back in his slumlord days. Now the blue-blood elite establishment is forced to choose between protecting Kavanaugh and tacitly approving Trump's "stormy" pussy-grabbing past. Because that's what this has now become -- a debate on "high-class" rape cutlure of the 1980s is actually just a referendum on low-class Trump. I mean his daughter is currently a legacy student at Wharton, so maybe it's already happened.

This isn't a case of Kavanaugh needing to serve jail time or even have his law license revoked, but it's just plain sad in 2018 that one of our two major political parties still finds it necessary to select rich white men with questionable sexual backgrounds for President or a lifetime appointment on the nation's highest court. Do you have any idea how many thousands of highly qualified, intellectually and morally superior lawyers/judges are out there?

Sadder still is the 100% partisan divide on the Nation's highest court. It's hard to imagine the founding fathers envisioned the fate of our Judiciary left to a bottomfeeding debate between Fox News and Michael Avinatti.

/rant

[HarthorneWingo]

I've spent a lot of time in Kavanaugh-country, especially the prep-school world and the "elite" universities and law schools they feed into.

It has been my experience that Kavanaugh has 3-4 very common traits of sexual abusers:

1) White affluence -- like Trump's Access Hollywood tapes, being rich and white excuses a lot of "locker room" behavior

2) Growing up in the 80s -- different norms and still a very "Archie Bunker" culture even in liberal Bethesda... nowadays kids have smartphones and snapchat, so behavior is actually toned down for fear of recording

3) Catholicism -- controversial to say, but the repressed sexual norms of the Catholic church (even in suburban Bethesda) have resulted in a lot of young men who get drunk to express themselves physically

4) Sports -- So I personally know a lot about this, but the confluence of white affluence with prep-school sports can create a culture of privileged testosterone that has pretty much defined the rape culture of an entire sport (lacrosse) that caused so many problems decades after Kavanaugh (who played football) at elite universities like Duke and UVA

That's not to say every rich white kid coming out of Catholic elite male prep-school culture is a rapist, but it is to say that uncovering old misconduct should come as no surprise to anyone. If you were a rich white kid at a Catholic prep-school and played sports in the 1980s, then you either participated in or witnessed plenty of behavior that would be considered misconduct in 2018.

Even if the specific allegations were hidden from Trump before the selection, we shouldn't be surprised that he picked a guy with maybe half a dozen markers for likely sexual misconduct. If anything, it's likely Trump actually sought out the validation of a "classier" sect of privileged white men who have each other's backs in denying sexual misconduct. It's like moving from Queens to Manhattan back in his slumlord days. Now the blue-blood elite establishment is forced to choose between protecting Kavanaugh and tacitly approving Trump's "stormy" pussy-grabbing past. Because that's what this has now become -- a debate on "high-class" rape cutlure of the 1980s is actually just a referendum on low-class Trump. I mean his daughter is currently a legacy student at Wharton, so maybe it's already happened.

This isn't a case of Kavanaugh needing to serve jail time or even have his law license revoked, but it's just plain sad in 2018 that one of our two major political parties still finds it necessary to select rich white men with questionable sexual backgrounds for President or a lifetime appointment on the nation's highest court. Do you have any idea how many thousands of highly qualified, intellectually and morally superior lawyers/judges are out there?

Sadder still is the 100% partisan divide on the Nation's highest court. It's hard to imagine the founding fathers envisioned the fate of our Judiciary left to a bottomfeeding debate between Fox News and Michael Avinatti.

/rant

One thing that hit home for me is his freshman roommate writing about how aggressive Kavanaugh got when he was inebriated. It's what we called being a "bad drunk." My roommate freshman year was also a bad drunk. But he just wanted to fight people. Thankfully, he was a little twerp. lol

Read on Twitter

[cgmw]

I've spent a lot of time in Kavanaugh-country, especially the prep-school world and the "elite" universities and law schools they feed into.

It has been my experience that Kavanaugh has 3-4 very common traits of sexual abusers:

1) White affluence -- like Trump's Access Hollywood tapes, being rich and white excuses a lot of "locker room" behavior

2) Growing up in the 80s -- different norms and still a very "Archie Bunker" culture even in liberal Bethesda... nowadays kids have smartphones and snapchat, so behavior is actually toned down for fear of recording

3) Catholicism -- controversial to say, but the repressed sexual norms of the Catholic church (even in suburban Bethesda) have resulted in a lot of young men who get drunk to express themselves physically

4) Sports -- So I personally know a lot about this, but the confluence of white affluence with prep-school sports can create a culture of privileged testosterone that has pretty much defined the rape culture of an entire sport (lacrosse) that caused so many problems decades after Kavanaugh (who played football) at elite universities like Duke and UVA

That's not to say every rich white kid coming out of Catholic elite male prep-school culture is a rapist, but it is to say that uncovering old misconduct should come as no surprise to anyone. If you were a rich white kid at a Catholic prep-school and played sports in the 1980s, then you either participated in or witnessed plenty of behavior that would be considered misconduct in 2018.

Even if the specific allegations were hidden from Trump before the selection, we shouldn't be surprised that he picked a guy with maybe half a dozen markers for likely sexual misconduct. If anything, it's likely Trump actually sought out the validation of a "classier" sect of privileged white men who have each other's backs in denying sexual misconduct. It's like moving from Queens to Manhattan back in his slumlord days. Now the blue-blood elite establishment is forced to choose between protecting Kavanaugh and tacitly approving Trump's "stormy" pussy-grabbing past. Because that's what this has now become -- a debate on "high-class" rape cutlure of the 1980s is actually just a referendum on low-class Trump. I mean his daughter is currently a legacy student at Wharton, so maybe it's already happened.

This isn't a case of Kavanaugh needing to serve jail time or even have his law license revoked, but it's just plain sad in 2018 that one of our two major political parties still finds it necessary to select rich white men with questionable sexual backgrounds for President or a lifetime appointment on the nation's highest court. Do you have any idea how many thousands of highly qualified, intellectually and morally superior lawyers/judges are out there?

Sadder still is the 100% partisan divide on the Nation's highest court. It's hard to imagine the founding fathers envisioned the fate of our Judiciary left to a bottomfeeding debate between Fox News and Michael Avinatti.

/rant

One thing that hit home for me is his freshman roommate writing about how aggressive Kavanaugh got when he was inebriated. It's what we called being a "bad drunk." My roommate freshman year was also a bad drunk. But he just wanted to fight people. Thankfully, he was a little twerp. lol

Read on Twitter

In a left-of-liberal way, I have sympathy for these little rich white children who grow up with cultural carte-blanche EXCEPT for the acceptance of their own sexually repressed community. Is it really so surprising that Brett Kavanaugh would need to get drunk to show his boner? I mean what do we expect of little boys who are raised to believe that sexuality is evil, yet are also empowered with a (literal) get-out-of-jail-free card for basically any offense?

We're talking about generations upon generations of men taught that their basic human impulses are evil, yet acting on those evil impulses will have no negative repercussions (in fact, you might be slapped on the back and welcomed to the Trump club).

If all of these boys were executed at age 18, then I'd have sympathy. But as adults they basically run the Republican party and a good chunk of corporate America, so cry me a river Brett Kavanaugh.

Supreme Court or not, my hunch is he'll be old, broken, and will die alone on the Eastern Shore of Maryland watching 120 Nats game piss drunk on his couch.

[HarthorneWingo]

I've spent a lot of time in Kavanaugh-country, especially the prep-school world and the "elite" universities and law schools they feed into.

It has been my experience that Kavanaugh has 3-4 very common traits of sexual abusers:

1) White affluence -- like Trump's Access Hollywood tapes, being rich and white excuses a lot of "locker room" behavior

2) Growing up in the 80s -- different norms and still a very "Archie Bunker" culture even in liberal Bethesda... nowadays kids have smartphones and snapchat, so behavior is actually toned down for fear of recording

3) Catholicism -- controversial to say, but the repressed sexual norms of the Catholic church (even in suburban Bethesda) have resulted in a lot of young men who get drunk to express themselves physically

4) Sports -- So I personally know a lot about this, but the confluence of white affluence with prep-school sports can create a culture of privileged testosterone that has pretty much defined the rape culture of an entire sport (lacrosse) that caused so many problems decades after Kavanaugh (who played football) at elite universities like Duke and UVA

That's not to say every rich white kid coming out of Catholic elite male prep-school culture is a rapist, but it is to say that uncovering old misconduct should come as no surprise to anyone. If you were a rich white kid at a Catholic prep-school and played sports in the 1980s, then you either participated in or witnessed plenty of behavior that would be considered misconduct in 2018.

Even if the specific allegations were hidden from Trump before the selection, we shouldn't be surprised that he picked a guy with maybe half a dozen markers for likely sexual misconduct. If anything, it's likely Trump actually sought out the validation of a "classier" sect of privileged white men who have each other's backs in denying sexual misconduct. It's like moving from Queens to Manhattan back in his slumlord days. Now the blue-blood elite establishment is forced to choose between protecting Kavanaugh and tacitly approving Trump's "stormy" pussy-grabbing past. Because that's what this has now become -- a debate on "high-class" rape cutlure of the 1980s is actually just a referendum on low-class Trump. I mean his daughter is currently a legacy student at Wharton, so maybe it's already happened.

This isn't a case of Kavanaugh needing to serve jail time or even have his law license revoked, but it's just plain sad in 2018 that one of our two major political parties still finds it necessary to select rich white men with questionable sexual backgrounds for President or a lifetime appointment on the nation's highest court. Do you have any idea how many thousands of highly qualified, intellectually and morally superior lawyers/judges are out there?

Sadder still is the 100% partisan divide on the Nation's highest court. It's hard to imagine the founding fathers envisioned the fate of our Judiciary left to a bottomfeeding debate between Fox News and Michael Avinatti.

/rant

One thing that hit home for me is his freshman roommate writing about how aggressive Kavanaugh got when he was inebriated. It's what we called being a "bad drunk." My roommate freshman year was also a bad drunk. But he just wanted to fight people. Thankfully, he was a little twerp. lol

Read on Twitter

In a left-of-liberal way, I have sympathy for these little rich white children who grow up with cultural carte-blanche EXCEPT for the acceptance of their own sexually repressed community. Is it really so surprising that Brett Kavanaugh would need to get drunk to show his boner? I mean what do we expect of little boys who are raised to believe that sexuality is evil, yet are also empowered with a (literal) get-out-of-jail-free card for basically any offense?

We're talking about generations upon generations of men taught that their basic human impulses are evil, yet acting on those evil impulses will have no negative repercussions (in fact, you might be slapped on the back and welcomed to the Trump club).

If all of these boys were executed at age 18, then I'd have sympathy. But as adults they basically run the Republican party and a good chunk of corporate America, so cry me a river Brett Kavanaugh.

Supreme Court or not, my hunch is he'll be old, broken, and will die alone on the Eastern Shore of Maryland watching 120 Nats game piss drunk on his couch.

LOL. Great points. Let me try, as I might, to boil this down to three words. "Catholic and wealthy." ... with all due respect to you wealthy Catholics out there.

More seriously, the other problem that is left out of the equation is that he is clearly a very bad drunk. I hate bad drunks. And, yet, still able to pull off good grades, etc.

[HarthorneWingo]

Oh man, I can't wait for Thursday. That's going to be some big time TV drama that's going down in the history books. The republicans hired some bitch ass female sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona to cross-examine Blakey-Ford.

[Dantares]

Oh man, I can't wait for Thursday. That's going to be some big time TV drama that's going down in the history books. The republicans hired some bitch ass female sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona to cross-examine Blakey-Ford.

fireworks indeed! everyone is talking about Lindsey Graham's speech.

Watch on YouTube

Chris Cuomo's response is let's not let emotions get ahead of facts.

Watch on YouTube

[HarthorneWingo]

Oh man, I can't wait for Thursday. That's going to be some big time TV drama that's going down in the history books. The republicans hired some bitch ass female sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona to cross-examine Blakey-Ford.

fireworks indeed! everyone is talking about Lindsey Graham's speech.


Chris Cuomo's response is let's not let emotions get ahead of facts.

Graham's speech was planned. The hearing was such a sham and Kavanaugh became unhinged blaming this on some left-wing conspiracy aimed at destroying him. Yet he wouldn't call for an FBI investigation. He also showed that he does not have the temperament to be a Sup. Ct. justice and he is very political with big credibility problems. In nomination is a complete mess.

Even Chris Wallace on Fox News called it an unmitigated disaster.

Watch on YouTube

_______________________________________________________________________

Classmate of Kavanaugh who partied with him are all emailing/texting/tweeting each other astounded at his lies.

Watch on YouTube

[duetta]

Think 11 in '21. McConnell may think he's checkmated us - but just like he changed the rules, we can change the rules too.

We live in 'interesting times' - and must step up our game or be left behind.

[Clyde_Style]

Read on Twitter

[Dr. Detfink]

Regarding the title of this thread, if you've paid to have anything built from a home to a business to a Church to even a tool shed, YES you've had to deal with the mafia. Ozark season 2 is very much about that.

After Mr "Pubic hair on a coke can" Clarence Thomas...and Ken Starr report...what this disgusting piece of human excrement has done pales in comparison to America's past politicians.

[Clyde_Style]

I'm assuming Mueller is holding off on new bombs temporarily as this extraordinary SCOTUS fiasco plays out (and simultaneously incriminates both the WH and the GOP on a new set of conspiracy charges that could now become fodder for this newly opened FBI investigation into Kavanaugh).

It actually works very much to Mueller's advantage that this confirmation process has dragged out this long (and is now doomed to failure evidently because Kavanaugh is dirty as hell). That will leave only a month or less before the November elections which will also leave not enough time to steamroll an alternate SCOTUS pick. So if Mueller did or does intend to drop some serious charges on major Trump players before election day (and I discount any theories that Mueller's sense of fair play ethically inhibits him from doing so for fear of election tampering), these recent SCOTUS hearings set him up to send massive shockwaves through the GOP prior to November.

Considering how just a small fraction of actual charges made yet account for the full breadth of Trump & associates criminal actions, there are so many possible indictments of major names yet to drop. The indictments can't be on hiatus indefinitely so I'm thinking when Mueller resumes his indictments there may be a flurry of them in rapid succession.

As mentioned before, Roger Stone is on deck. Julian Assange is in the batter's box ready to be released by Ecuador into UK custody for extradition to the United States. If anyone missed it, the Russians were plotting to steal Assange out of the embassy in London and bring him to safety in Russia. Somehow this was not reported by the bigger news outlets. Crazy

https://thehill.com/policy/international/407739-russians-considered-plan-to-smuggle-julian-assange-out-of-embassy-in-uk

Trump's troubles keep worsening as a judge made a new ruling pushing further the proceedings on the emoulements case against Trump.

Now that Trump is seeing his hand-picked protector for SCOTUS go down in flames, it must be hitting home to him now he will not escape criminal prosecutions on both State and Federal levels.

But that didn't stop the GOP from using the Kavanaugh ruckus as a screen to secretively just pass several trillion dollars more in tax cuts for their rich sponsors. These guys are gutting our budgetary stability by killing tax revenues while the average person, even Trump supporters, are now quite aware these bills are screwing all of us.

So between the tax scams pissing off enough people and woman voters becoming galvanized for decades to come, Mueller dropping serious bombs after the Kavanaugh proceedings end and before November could turn the vote seriously blue and perhaps flip even the senate and not just the house.

One lingering question I have is about Rosenstein's nature and true affiliations. His bro-ness with Kavanaugh and association with many from the same circles that have strains of radicalized, trumped up anti-liberal demagogery makes one wonder where his affiliations truly stand. I do believe Mueller is not a partisan, but a career crime fighter. Rosenstein gets the benefit of the doubt thus far as he has stood between Mueller and Trump, but someday I'd like to learn what this guy is fully about, because something about his appearance at the Kavanaugh hearings does not sit right with me and makes me very uneasy.

Back to lurk mode. Still too busy to wink.

[cgmw]

I'm assuming Mueller is holding off on new bombs temporarily as this extraordinary SCOTUS fiasco plays out (and simultaneously incriminates both the WH and the GOP on a new set of conspiracy charges that could now become fodder for this newly opened FBI investigation into Kavanaugh).

It actually works very much to Mueller's advantage that this confirmation process has dragged out this long (and is now doomed to failure evidently because Kavanaugh is dirty as hell). That will leave only a month or less before the November elections which will also leave not enough time to steamroll an alternate SCOTUS pick. So if Mueller did or does intend to drop some serious charges on major Trump players before election day (and I discount any theories that Mueller's sense of fair play ethically inhibits him from doing so for fear of election tampering), these recent SCOTUS hearings set him up to send massive shockwaves through the GOP prior to November.

Considering how just a small fraction of actual charges made yet account for the full breadth of Trump & associates criminal actions, there are so many possible indictments of major names yet to drop. The indictments can't be on hiatus indefinitely so I'm thinking when Mueller resumes his indictments there may be a flurry of them in rapid succession.

As mentioned before, Roger Stone is on deck. Julian Assange is in the batter's box ready to be released by Ecuador into UK custody for extradition to the United States. If anyone missed it, the Russians were plotting to steal Assange out of the embassy in London and bring him to safety in Russia. Somehow this was not reported by the bigger news outlets. Crazy

https://thehill.com/policy/international/407739-russians-considered-plan-to-smuggle-julian-assange-out-of-embassy-in-uk

Trump's troubles keep worsening as a judge made a new ruling pushing further the proceedings on the emoulements case against Trump.

Now that Trump is seeing his hand-picked protector for SCOTUS go down in flames, it must be hitting home to him now he will not escape criminal prosecutions on both State and Federal levels.

But that didn't stop the GOP from using the Kavanaugh ruckus as a screen to secretively just pass several trillion dollars more in tax cuts for their rich sponsors. These guys are gutting our budgetary stability by killing tax revenues while the average person, even Trump supporters, are now quite aware these bills are screwing all of us.

So between the tax scams pissing off enough people and woman voters becoming galvanized for decades to come, Mueller dropping serious bombs after the Kavanaugh proceedings end and before November could turn the vote seriously blue and perhaps flip even the senate and not just the house.

One lingering question I have is about Rosenstein's nature and true affiliations. His bro-ness with Kavanaugh and association with many from the same circles that have strains of radicalized, trumped up anti-liberal demagogery makes one wonder where his affiliations truly stand. I do believe Mueller is not a partisan, but a career crime fighter. Rosenstein gets the benefit of the doubt thus far as he has stood between Mueller and Trump, but someday I'd like to learn what this guy is fully about, because something about his appearance at the Kavanaugh hearings does not sit right with me and makes me very uneasy.

Back to lurk mode. Still too busy to wink.

Super interesting take re: the timing of a Kavanaugh defeat + another Mueller bomb + the mid-terms. I've got to wonder whether the radical right base isn't galvanized when a Supreme Court nominee takes off the fake gloves and reveals himself as a card-carrying conspiracy theory wingnut rambling about the Clintons. If Kavanaugh loses and Mueller hits with an indictment against Don Jr. or Kushner, I could see the radical right coming out in droves.

You've got a non-partisan political scientist publishing a book soon saying that Russia in fact swayed the 2016 election, but does anyone really care? Will it drive more voters to the polls for midterms? If anything, I think it seems to have the perverse effect of reinforcing radical right conspiracy theorists.

Meanwhile the only real question politically is has this Kavanaugh mess pissed off enough white women? Or do we actually have to get him on the bench to overturn Roe (which he'll certainly try to do) before there's enough outrage to swing votes?

I'm really not convinced that so-called "moderate," independent, or certainly uneducated white voters give a sh*t and that Trump was right when he said he could shoot somebody in Times Square and they'd still vote for him. And I'm also not convinced that non-white and college-educated white people are fired up enough to swing both houses. I'm not sure there's anything Mueller could do to change that short of a smoking gun linking Trump to Putin.

[Dantares]

lol

Watch on YouTube

[HarthorneWingo]

I like beer. Beer, beer, beer and more beer. I forgot, did I tell you that I FREAKING LOVE BEER?

Watch on YouTube

[thebuzzardman]

I like beer. Beer, beer, beer and more beer. I forgot, did I tell you that I FREAKING LOVE BEER?

Watch on YouTube

I thought Kavanaugh was going to break out into this song:

Watch on YouTube

[Clyde_Style]

I'm assuming Mueller is holding off on new bombs temporarily as this extraordinary SCOTUS fiasco plays out (and simultaneously incriminates both the WH and the GOP on a new set of conspiracy charges that could now become fodder for this newly opened FBI investigation into Kavanaugh).

It actually works very much to Mueller's advantage that this confirmation process has dragged out this long (and is now doomed to failure evidently because Kavanaugh is dirty as hell). That will leave only a month or less before the November elections which will also leave not enough time to steamroll an alternate SCOTUS pick. So if Mueller did or does intend to drop some serious charges on major Trump players before election day (and I discount any theories that Mueller's sense of fair play ethically inhibits him from doing so for fear of election tampering), these recent SCOTUS hearings set him up to send massive shockwaves through the GOP prior to November.

Considering how just a small fraction of actual charges made yet account for the full breadth of Trump & associates criminal actions, there are so many possible indictments of major names yet to drop. The indictments can't be on hiatus indefinitely so I'm thinking when Mueller resumes his indictments there may be a flurry of them in rapid succession.

As mentioned before, Roger Stone is on deck. Julian Assange is in the batter's box ready to be released by Ecuador into UK custody for extradition to the United States. If anyone missed it, the Russians were plotting to steal Assange out of the embassy in London and bring him to safety in Russia. Somehow this was not reported by the bigger news outlets. Crazy

https://thehill.com/policy/international/407739-russians-considered-plan-to-smuggle-julian-assange-out-of-embassy-in-uk

Trump's troubles keep worsening as a judge made a new ruling pushing further the proceedings on the emoulements case against Trump.

Now that Trump is seeing his hand-picked protector for SCOTUS go down in flames, it must be hitting home to him now he will not escape criminal prosecutions on both State and Federal levels.

But that didn't stop the GOP from using the Kavanaugh ruckus as a screen to secretively just pass several trillion dollars more in tax cuts for their rich sponsors. These guys are gutting our budgetary stability by killing tax revenues while the average person, even Trump supporters, are now quite aware these bills are screwing all of us.

So between the tax scams pissing off enough people and woman voters becoming galvanized for decades to come, Mueller dropping serious bombs after the Kavanaugh proceedings end and before November could turn the vote seriously blue and perhaps flip even the senate and not just the house.

One lingering question I have is about Rosenstein's nature and true affiliations. His bro-ness with Kavanaugh and association with many from the same circles that have strains of radicalized, trumped up anti-liberal demagogery makes one wonder where his affiliations truly stand. I do believe Mueller is not a partisan, but a career crime fighter. Rosenstein gets the benefit of the doubt thus far as he has stood between Mueller and Trump, but someday I'd like to learn what this guy is fully about, because something about his appearance at the Kavanaugh hearings does not sit right with me and makes me very uneasy.

Back to lurk mode. Still too busy to wink.

Super interesting take re: the timing of a Kavanaugh defeat + another Mueller bomb + the mid-terms. I've got to wonder whether the radical right base isn't galvanized when a Supreme Court nominee takes off the fake gloves and reveals himself as a card-carrying conspiracy theory wingnut rambling about the Clintons. If Kavanaugh loses and Mueller hits with an indictment against Don Jr. or Kushner, I could see the radical right coming out in droves.

You've got a non-partisan political scientist publishing a book soon saying that Russia in fact swayed the 2016 election, but does anyone really care? Will it drive more voters to the polls for midterms? If anything, I think it seems to have the perverse effect of reinforcing radical right conspiracy theorists.

Meanwhile the only real question politically is has this Kavanaugh mess pissed off enough white women? Or do we actually have to get him on the bench to overturn Roe (which he'll certainly try to do) before there's enough outrage to swing votes?

I'm really not convinced that so-called "moderate," independent, or certainly uneducated white voters give a sh*t and that Trump was right when he said he could shoot somebody in Times Square and they'd still vote for him. And I'm also not convinced that non-white and college-educated white people are fired up enough to swing both houses. I'm not sure there's anything Mueller could do to change that short of a smoking gun linking Trump to Putin.

Trump's base is at most 15-20% of registered voters with the rest of registered Republicans that voted for him and reflexively supporting the GOP not having the level of zeal you're speaking of. However, the zeal of the opposition is far more energized this time around. A truly exponential increase in women candidates are running for office as Democrats and they will pull a big female vote in blue and red states, including some female Republican votes after these Kavanaugh hearings.

So on balance I do not see the fired up numbers you anticipate in support of Trump, not when many veterans and active military finally gave up on Trump after the McCain funeral and, as mentioned before, the tax scam is not going unnoticed on the Republican side of the fence either.

Trump has gained no supporters, but he surely has lost some. And the democrats have outregistered the republicans with new voters joining the voting rolls these recent months by a huge margin. They are organizing for real for the first time in years and it will show at the polls whether Mueller carpet bombs the administration before or after the polls.

P.S. Yes, Russian hackers altered the voter rolls (small changes to names and addresses produced inconsistencies that prevented voters from voting) thus bumping off what appears to be tens of thousands of registered democrats. As the electoral college was decided by 77,000 votes in total in the four key swing states, that alone was perhaps sufficient to completely steal the election. Trump IMO is not a legitimate president because I don't believe he actually won.

But I agree with you that the fundamental reason most voters will head to the poll to vote against Trump is not his obvious role as an extension of the Russian mafia from thirty years ago to the present. It is because Trump is a monster and a disaster who has pissed off many people including some who unwisely sat it out in 2016 and now they have to vote this time. Add in any defectors who previously voted for him and I don't see how his base really has much say in it this time.

[HarthorneWingo]

I like beer. Beer, beer, beer and more beer. I forgot, did I tell you that I FREAKING LOVE BEER?

Watch on YouTube

I thought Kavanaugh was going to break out into this song:

Watch on YouTube

Excellent selection, btw. If he had done that, I might be supporting his nomination.

[HarthorneWingo]

Kavanaugh's done. Toast. Finito. Asta La Vista, baby. Auf Wiedersehen scheizerkopf ...

His college roommates from Yale are coming out of the woodwork to talk about what a stumbling, bumbling, black-out, aggressive drunk Kavanaugh was a school.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/us/politics/fbi-kavanaugh-investigation-scope-democrats.html

As agents conducted their review, which involves interviewing four potential witnesses, a college professor in North Carolina became the latest in a series of former Yale classmates of Judge Kavanaugh’s to accuse him of giving untruthful testimony by minimizing his use of alcohol when he was a student.

The professor, Chad Ludington, said he frequently saw Judge Kavanaugh “staggering from alcohol consumption” during their student years. He said he planned to tell his story to the F.B.I. at its office in Raleigh, N.C., on Monday. A spokesman for the White House declined to comment on Mr. Ludington’s allegations.

And just to be fair, and because it involves a former NY Knick, here's Chris Dudley's take:

That description was challenged by Chris Dudley, a former N.B.A. player and close friend of Judge Kavanaugh’s who attended Yale and played basketball with Mr. Ludington. Mr. Dudley said he was certain that he “never, ever saw Brett Kavanaugh black out” from drinking, and “never, ever saw him act inappropriately toward any woman in the 35 years that I’ve known him.”

[thebuzzardman]

Solid read if there are any conservatives on here, other than lapsed ones like myself:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/republican-party-conservative/571747/

The Republican Party Abandons Conservatism

The conservative virtues remain real virtues, the conservative insights real insights, and the conservative temperament an indispensable internal gyro keeping a country stable and sane...

[duetta]

Elizabeth is getting in. Go Elizabeth, go. "Pocahontas" is going to scalp the man who had his pubic hairs transplanted on to his scalp...