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Blind justice, or blinded justice?

There’s been a lot of noise coming from the Republicans lately about what they deem as the unfair treatment of Kavanaugh. It’s all a bunch of bullshit really. All one needs to do is look back over the 8 years that Obama was in office to see that, particularly with how they treated Obama’s last nominee, Merrick Garland. They refused to even hold a hearing, much less a vote, for nearly a year as the clock ran out on Obama’s second term. How fair was that? If you think that Garland was treated fairly, yet rant and rave that Kavanaugh’s treatment has been unfair, you’re not really being totally honest.

Republican’s can point fingers all they want, but they have nobody else but themselves to blame for this. They did everything they could to obstruct each and every one of Obama’s judicial appointments. So much so, that the Democrats were forced to remove the 60 vote filibuster threshold in order to get any judicial appointments through the Senate. What were the Republicans doing instead? What was the most constructive thing that they could come up with to do with their time while Obama was in office? How about attempting to repeal the ACA over 70 times, knowing full well that Obama would veto it each and every time.

Fast forward to the present, after McConnell completed the dismantling of the filibuster by removed the 60 vote threshold for SCOTUS nominees. Among the consequences of that Senate rule change was to transform the confirmation hearings into a highly partisan farce. Democrats, left with few other options to block Kavanaugh’s confirmation, resorted to assaulting Kavanaugh’s character by dredging up decades old sexual assault allegations. Republicans, faced with what they called “credible” accusations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, continued the farce by relenting to demands for an additional FBI investigation into the matter. I say farce, because the FBI was clearly directed to not look too deeply into the allegations, as the Trump administration establishing guardrails that would all but guarantee an outcome in their favor.

I don’t see any corroborating testimony. Do you see any corroborating testimony?

If anything, this whole debacle has exposed how little the truth really matters anymore. We have a president who lies daily, and I’m not talking about simply mistaking the facts or getting them confused. He is literally attempting to mislead the American public on a daily basis. So much so, that his lawyers are absolutely terrified of Trump being interviewed by Mueller because they know the inevitable result is that he would perjure himself. Fittingly, we now have a nominee for The SCOTUS who was caught lying during his hearing, and who also expressed a clear political bias, in a fit of anger no less.

Remember, these are the same people who were so fired up about Clinton lying on the stand, and more directly to American’s in general, that they launched an expensive and lengthy investigation that culminated in a failed impeachment attempt. Keep in mind how the Republican’s lost their fucking minds over calls for an FBI investigation into Kavanaugh’s sexual conduct. This is Kavanaugh we’re talking about; the very same guy who proposed to purposely embarrass Clinton and aggressivley assault his character by asking lots of pointless questions about his sexual encounters with Lewinsky. It is no wonder then that Kavanaugh would attempt to paint the Democrats as seeking revenge for how he treated Clinton since it’s obvious that’s what he would do, given what we know about his work as deputy to independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

The Devil’s Triangle?

All that is to say, in Kavanaugh’s own words even, that “what goes around, comes around”. It’s telling that he would even say such a thing, and it’s clearly something that will guide his decisions on the bench of The Supreme Court for decades to come. He’s been a partisan hack his entire life, having worked on Ken Starr’s independent investigation, and in the junior Bush’s administration where he helped craft their quasi-legal justifications for torture. He’s kissed all the right asses along the way to get where he is now, and I’m still as certain as I was last week that his life’s ambitions will be realized over the weekend, truth, justice, and integrity be damned.

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Boys will be boys.

No matter which side of the aisle you lean on, it’s suspicious timing for the Democrats to drop 11th hour sexual assault allegations like this. That being said, I’d like to point out that Senator McConnell is now very much reaping what he has sown. Merrick Garland wasn’t even given so much as a meeting for 10 months. If they had been in as much of a hurry to fill a Supreme Court vacancy back then, we wouldn’t be watching this trainwreck unfolding before our eyes.

I remember the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings back in 1991, and I can tell you that little has changed since then. Now I know what you’re thinking dear non-existent reader, “but Jaime Christ, we didn’t have a Me Too movement back then”. While that is true, I’d argue that such a point is moot. Considering that Judge Kavanaugh is still likely to be confirmed this Friday, and old white guys still appear to have the same mindset as they did 27 years ago… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me.

Okay, that’s not exactly honest. There is one difference that I would like to point out. His defenders it seems, rather than accuse Kavanaugh’s accusers of lying, or just going the easier route of claiming not to believe their stories, have chosen an even more heinous defense. I’ll dub it the “If True” defense. Basically, it is an attempt to minimize the alleged attacks, and it goes something along these lines: If these allegations are true, it still doesn’t fucking matter.

But rather than launch into a lengthy explanation, let’s go straight to the source. This is Kevin Cramer, Republican Rep. from N.D., who’s comments encapsulate the “If True” defense quite perfectly:

“These are teenagers who evidently were drunk, according to her own statement. They were drunk. Nothing evidently happened in it all, even by her own accusation. Again, it was supposedly an attempt or something that never went anywhere”

First, he’s making the defense that all involved were drunk teenagers, (even though Blasey claims to have had only 1 beer that evening), and we all know that teenagers can’t hold their liquor and therefore cannot be held responsible for their actions while under the influence. As if that wasn’t enough, he also attempts to minimize the attack by calling it an attempt that never went anywhere. He’s actually stating a position that since they were drunk minors, and no penile penetration occurred in any of the victim’s orifices, that none of it really matters and we should all just move along and let Kavanaugh ascend to the highest court in the land, posthaste.

Then there was our illustrious Commander in Chief, with his patently thoughtless and ill informed opinions, when he assured the American people that if it were a real assault someone would have called the police already. Never mind that an estimated 80% of all rapes go unreported. Even more entertaining was Brett’s buddy Ed Whelan who spun a wild yarn on twitter. He used Google Maps and Zillow of all things to push a crazy theory that the actual offender was a Brett Kavanaugh look-alike. He then proceeded to post the name of the aforementioned look-alike along with his photo, and publicly accused a private citizen of rape.

The best defense though was Kavanaugh’s own when he gave an interview on Fox News, seated next to his supportive and loving wife, and commenced to deny, deny, deny! During those denials, he made the not so dubious claim that he was a virgin during his high school career, and remained a virgin for some number of years thereafter. It’s an admission that none of us were even remotely curious about to be sure, however it would not have precluded him from making any, eh-hem… failed attempts at rape. Having never succeeded at doing the deed during that period of time, by force or otherwise, is not a valid defense.

All of this is to say that despite the Me Too movement, despite the precipitous fall from grace of the once mighty Kevin Spacey’s and Harvey Weinstein’s of the world, and despite seeing the man formerly known as America’s Father get carted off to jail in cuffs this week, history will almost assuredly repeat itself.