Train Wreck

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).

Ventry came to the Senate Judiciary Committee from CRC Public Relations, a conservative p.r. firm infamous for the scurrilous “Swiftboat” attack on John Kerry in 2004. To further connect the dots, we should be aware that CRC has also been linked to right wing lawyer Ed Whelan’s reckless and absurd attempt to exonerate Kavanaugh by fingering a classmate who is currently a Georgia middle school teacher! There is no chance that The White House and Kavanaugh himself were unaware of at least the broad outlines of Whelan’s desperate ploy and that they signed off on accusing a private citizen of a felony to get Kavanaugh off the hook.

Every minute, it seems, new evidence comes to light of just how hypocritical and indecent these Republicans are. Yesterday, we also learned that CNN contributor and former Trump aide, Jason Miller, was accused of secretly slipping an abortion pill in a smoothie he gave to a woman he impregnated, while having an affair with another woman (who was also pregnant at the time!), ( Source: “Former Trump Aide Jason Miller Accused of Secretly Administering Abortion Pill,” by Alexandra Hutzler, Newsweek.com, 9/22/18). In Minnesota, Republican State Representative, Jim Knoblach was forced to abandon his campaign after his daughter accused him of sexually molesting her over a ten year period, (Source: “Minnesota legislator quits race after daughter says he molested her,” by Reid Thebault, The Washington Post,9/22/18).

Meanwhile, those Republicans who are not actively preying on women in their personal lives are busy cavalierly dismissing the seriousness of such behavior. In the last few days, both North Dakota Senatorial candidate, Kevin Cramer and Franklin Graham and other craven charlatans peddling a rancid and distorted theology he calls “Christianity,” Implied that Kavanaugh’s drunken inability to follow through with raping Dr. Ford was somehow exculpatory.

The entire Republican Party is a suppurating mass of unspeakable depravity that poses an existential threat to women everywhere. The only silver lining is that their poisonous misogyny is nearly matched by their ham-handed incompetence. As a result, we have a chance, not only to retake Congress, but to elect 12 Democratic women governors (3 of whom are women of color). There are 44 days until Election Day. From now until then, we need to work as if our lives depend on it, because, to tell the truth, they very well might.

#VOTE

#StaceyAbrams

#MichelleLujanGrisham

#PauletteJordan