Journal of the Plague Years

October 12, 2018

     Yesterday the Oval Office was the setting for a scene more fitting for Barnum & Bailey than for the high minded affairs of state that august setting usually requires.  Kanye West burst into the West Wing sporting a MAGA hat, armed with his unique brand of proudly narcissistic ignorance and delivered a rambling, incoherent paean to Trump.

     Predictably, everyone from Black Twitter to The Washington Post was mesmerized by the insane spectacle.  It is truly a sign that we are living in bizarro world when it is a sign of “wokeness” to delete Kanye West and stream Taylor Swift.  There was speculation about Kanye’s mental health, but whether he is bipolar or “sleep deprived,” he is clearly seen as nothing more than a prop by Trump.  It is the ultimate humiliation to be the useful idiot of Putin’s useful idiot, but in 2018, here we are. Continue reading “Leave nothing to chance”

October 10. 2018

     After the bruising fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, watching his jovial, backslapping, ceremonial swearing in at The White House was jarring indeed.  It was a stark reminder of how politicized and diminished The Supreme Court is in the wake of McConnell’s ruthless manipulation of the confirmation process. McConnell didn’t hesitate to steal a seat from President Obama or to conceal Kavanaugh’s record, suborn his perjury, and whitewash an investigation into possible sexual assault in order to ram him through.  To the contrary, McConnell is proud of his accomplishment- a partisan, conservative Supreme Court majority to enshrine minority rule for a generation. Continue reading “Stay thirsty”

October 8, 2018

 

It is no exaggeration to say, as Charles Blow has, that we are in the midst of a Cold Civil War.  On one side, we have people who happily put brown children in cages,  re-hire cops who have murdered innocent Black children in cold blood and privilege the rights of rapists over survivors.  They bond with their leader by delighting in cruelty to those of us they disdain as beneath them.  If you think that this is a new phenomenon in American life, I have some lynching postcards to show you (Source:  “Cruelty Is The Point,” by Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 10/3/18). Continue reading “Civil War”

October 6, 2018

     In the last week, as we have watched displays of anger on all sides, we have once again been reminded, in ways too painful to contemplate, whose anger is deemed worthy of respect and response, and whose anger is belittled and dismissed.

    We had Kavanaugh’s red-faced tirade, his face contorted with rage at the thought that a woman might hold him to account for his behavior and keep him from his gilded perch on our nation’s highest court.  Kavanaugh’s entitled tantrum was so disturbing that it prompted former Supreme Court Justice Stevens to state that it disqualified him from a seat on the Supreme Court (Source: “Kavanaugh does not belong on the Supreme Court, retired Justice Stevens says,” Reuters.com, 10/5/18). Continue reading “The uses of anger”

October 3, 2018

 

Stop being surprised. Stop looking for decency or humanity from Trump or anyone in his orbit.  Understand that Trump is a depraved monster devoid of decency, who has lived his entire life free of consequences.  We all need to fully comprehend that he has millions of cultists who will gladly follow him into the abyss and govern ourselves accordingly.  Yesterday, at a rally for a female Congressional candidate in Mississippi, Trump viciously mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and the crowd cheered in response, (Source: “Trump Taunts Christine Blasey Ford at Rally,” by Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker, The New York Times, 10/2/18).  Think for a moment about what those in the audience were applauding — the sound of the leader of the free world mocking an accomplished woman’s sober account of the soul shattering impact of a sexual assault at the hands of an entitled frat boy, who happens to be that leader’s pick to sit on our nation’s highest court. Continue reading “Message to the 53%”

October 1, 2018

 

On Friday, brave activists, Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher, confronted Senator Jeff Flake and shamed him into agreeing to the compromise proposed by Democratic Senator Chris Coons for a one week delay in a floor vote to allow the FBI to investigate the sexual assault claims against Brett Kavanaugh (Source:  “The #MeToo Activists Who Confronted Jeff Flake Brought Victims Back to the Center of the Kavanaugh Debate,” by Mark Joseph Stern, Slate.com, 9/28/18).

Our relief was short lived because within 48 hours, The New York Times reported that The White House and the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee had sharply limited the scope of the inquiry, by dictating precisely who the FBI was permitted to interview.  The Republicans are hellbent on turning the renewed investigation into a farcical, hollowed out echo of an actual investigation.  In a legitimate investigation, the FBI might interview Kavanaugh’s classmates from high school and college to determine the likelihood that he was a frequent heavy drinker.  They would search out Mark Judge’s co-workers at Safeway to pin down a timeline that might corroborate Dr. Ford’s recollection, (Source:  “The FBI Investigation We Deserve,” by Harry Litman, The New York Times, 10/1/18).  Those avenues of inquiry have all been foreclosed, making it clear that this is yet another whitewash designed to check a box, rather than get at the truth.  It is enough to make one sick with rage. Continue reading “Believe them the first time”

September 28, 2018

The gulf between the morning and the afternoon at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing couldn’t have been wider. In the morning, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, her voice quavering, eyes wide, painstakingly detailed her assault at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh 36 years ago. She stated definitively that she knew it was Brett Kavanaugh who attacked her. Dr. Ford brought tears to our eyes as she discussed how Kavanaugh’s attempted rape destabilized her for years afterward. She was so haunted by the terror of being immobilized under the weight of a misogynistic, privileged jock behind a locked door, that she had a second front door installed in her home 30 years later, so that she might always have a means of escape. The argument over this eccentric renovation request led Dr. Ford to reveal to her husband that she had been assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh as a teenager. We have all known women like Dr. Ford —-earnest, likeable, yet haunted by something they will not name. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was terrified and utterly believable. Continue reading “Mad As Hell”

September 25, 2018

Around the country, women are radioactive with rage over the disgusting spectacle that has erupted around the effort to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Two women have come forward with credible claims of sexual assault against Kavanaugh and the Republican response has been smug contempt and disdain. In the functional equivalent of swinging his shriveled member in our faces, Mitch McConnell characterized these painful revelations as “a shameful, shameful smear campaign [that] has hit a new low,” (Source: “Mitch McConnell appears to have conveniently forgotten who Merrick Garland is,” by Chris Cillizza, CNN.com, 9/25/18).

Keep in mind that, while we have been having this street brawl over Kavanaugh, record numbers of immigrant children are being detained at the border and the government is raiding funds for AIDS and Head Start to pay for it. Keep in mind that the administration is quietly challenging the citizenship of Latinx people born in the Rio Grande Valley, refusing to renew their passports. Keep in mind that DHS has just announced a radical new interpretation of “public charge” doctrine that will allow the U.S. government to deny green cards and visas to immigrants who are, or are likely to, avail themselves of any government assistance exceeding $1821 over the course of a year, (Source: “Trump’s anti-immigration ‘public charge’ proposal solves a problem that doesn’t exist,” The Editorial Board, The Los Angeles Times, 9/25/18).

While we have been watching Kavanaugh go on his “Like A Virgin” tour on Fox News, this administration has been aggressively trying to destroy the access of African-Americans and Latinos to higher education- by attacking Harvard’s admissions policies on the one hand, and Howard University’s financial stability on the other.

This is what’s behind the Republicans’ savage determination to install a lying, serial sexual predator on the Court at any cost. The gloves are off and any pretense of regular order or fairness is mangled beyond recognition. Republicans know what’s coming in November and they are looking for an insurance policy to secure control for a generation. We understand the ultimate goal of this naked power grab. It is not simply to ensure a fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, although it is that. It is not simply to enshrine the power of corporations over workers and consumers, to make gutting regulations Constitutionally bulletproof, although it certainly is that. It is to establish, once and for all, the power of a wealthy, misogynist and racist minority to treat women like meat and everyone else like trash. There are many names for that, but democracy sure isn’t one.

#VOTE

#KavaHELLNO

September 23, 2018

It is hard to look away from the slow motion train wreck of the Kavanaugh confirmation process. Friday night, after doddering misogynist, Chuck Grassley, gave Dr. Christine Blasey Ford an ultimatum, demanding that she accept or reject the Republicans’ offer to testify in their kangaroo court, the Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans caved and gave Dr. Ford a whopping additional 24 hours to make her decision.

Yesterday, Dr. Ford agreed to go forward, despite the daunting circumstances. Yesterday, we also witnessed the resignation of Garrett Ventry, the communications aide charged with managing the Kavanaugh confirmation process, after it was revealed that Ventry had been accused of sexual harassment during his tenure with the North Carolina House Majority Leader. Ventry was fired from that position amid charges, not only of sexual harassment, but of lying on his resume (Source: “Aide to Chuck Grassley resigns amid reports he had been accused of sexual harassment,” by Deidre Sheagreen, USAToday.com, 9/22/18). Continue reading “Train Wreck”

September 20, 2018

 

The reactions that have greeted Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s decision to go public with her allegations against Brett Kavanaugh are the clearest example yet of the profound danger our country faces.  Supporters of Kavanaugh have leveled so many violent threats against her that Dr. Ford and her two teenage sons have had to leave their home and hire security (Source:  “Kavanaugh Accuser Christine Blasey Ford Is Moving Out of Her Home Due to Death Threats,” by Opheli Garcia Lawler, TheCut.com, 9/18/18).  In the genteel remove of the Senate, befuddled fossils like Chuck Grassley have rejected Dr. Ford’s call for the FBI to investigate prior to the hearings, stating that it’s not the FBI’s job to investigate claims such as hers.

Grassley may not know how the internet works, but those of us who can use Google, or are old enough to remember the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings, know that Article II, Section 2  of the Constitution requires that judicial appointments be made with the “advice and consent” of the Senate.  If the Senate refuses to conduct hearings in a manner actually designed to elicit the facts to inform that obligation, it is an empty ritual devoid of meaning. Continue reading “E Pluribus Unum?”