Moderates United

Ouch, ouch, ouch.  Painful movie.  A horror movie, but with only human monsters.  Everyone an inch from the light, but lost nonetheless.  No helping hands are being extended.  No mercy possible.  It is a world with some loyalty–Marlon Wayons could and should have left his friend, but he didn’t–but precious little love.  Leto loves Jennifer Connolly, but he is no substitute for the needle and spoon. She curls up with them in the end, and goes to sleep, happy for a time.

As Hubert Selby says, in an interview with Ellen Burstyn (true story: I landscaped for her many, many years ago), he delivers catharsis-free, brutal narratives, but the consistent reaction he has gotten is that his work inspires compassion.  This makes sense to me.  Sometimes to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you have to see what they suffer.  It was not his intention: he was describing the world he knew, but on balance I think his work seems to have been beneficial.

And he makes the point that the key to ending suffering is to embrace it.  It is counter-intuitive, but it works.

I have a personal story, but it will bring up some feelings I am not going to process this moment.  Maybe tomorrow.

I saw, though, that he is sometimes included as one of the Beats, presumably because he deals with what we might generalize to the “Invisible People”.  The people you know are there–the people sleeping on the sidewalk, shooting up in an abandoned house somewhere, selling their bodies and dignity for intermittent moments free of pain–but about whom you don’t want to think.  They are too fucked up, you think.  There is nothing you can do for them.  They are not “one of us”.

I continue to dream of a great offensive into the world of pain, into the world of suffering.  But nothing large can be built overnight, and until I heal myself, I am myopic and as likely to do harm as good.

I will say, though, that I have suffered greatly for this dream, and will continue to do so, as long as needed until I punch through to the other side.

If we had kept Jeff Sessions seat, Jeff Flake likely would not matter.

I don’t know what is floating through Jeff Sessions brain, but he seems to have no problem with everyone treating Rod Rosenstein as the de facto head of the DoJ.

It seems to be some combination of failed wits and spinelessness.

I will say, though, as far as the investigation, the FBI can and should question the two men who claimed to be the actual assailants.  It may be possible to acquit Kavanaugh completely.  They can give the two men immunity for sworn testimony, and we can put this thing to rest beyond any reasonable objection, which is the goal.

Self evidently, the mouth frothing, shouting, and shit hurling will continue no matter what. If Trump nominated someone with the history and judicial views of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Democrats would still hate them.  They hate everybody, if Trump likes them.

But the hard core Left is no more than 10% of the country, and the useful idiots, added to their numbers, constitute in my own intuitive opinion no more than perhaps 30% of the country.  This leaves an overwhelming majority CAPABLE of being outraged by the abuse of our system, if they can be persuaded that is what is happening.  And after all that, that should not be hard.

Let’s hope the FBI gets a quick confession, and it all goes away.  Failing that, let’s hope Senate Republicans DO hold a vote one week from now.  Poll numbers will also be out by then, and unless I miss my mark, even moderate Democrats would do well to support this nomination, particularly if they face credible challengers. 

Nobody wants to see that shit show again, other than complete lunatics, which means it would be complete lunacy giving the Democrats back control of ANYTHING.

The world never stops moving.  But we can, from time to time, stop moving with it.

The world is much bigger than any of us, and it has more than enough power to crush us all.  That is why we need to stand apart sometimes, focus on what we value, focus on what matters to us in our lives, focus on what is great in our lives, focus on the people we care about, and remember what is merely whispering, and thus unheard in the noisy jungle of our 24/7 digital world.

To hear what is quiet, you need to be silent.

What the hell?

Let a couple FBI agents ask people who have already rendered sworn depositions that they were not lying.  Let them see if someone who could have come forward didn’t.  Let them verify the secondary accusations have no evidence to support them whatever.

One week: I can live with that.  It’s the Democrats who can’t.

One person on my Facebook said “it’s do or die time for the Democrats”.  I pondered it, and there is some truth to this.  They are hurting their “brand”, in my view at least, just prior to an important election.  And if even after these antics they still fail, well, what good are they to their base? And God knows few of us are crazy enough to want them running Congress.  As several have pointed out, imagine this madness on steroids, which is what an impeachment vote–I will note, for NOTHING, since there are no crimes Trump has committed–would be.

And why would anyone want to go through even THIS again?  Sweet Lord that was traumatizing for the whole country, and it was ONE HUNDRED PERCENT the Democrats fault.  They could have avoided all that.  Instead, they steered towards it, and made it unavoidable.

If you thought that was great, then by all means vote Democrat, and hope they win.

If you are among the millions of us who thought that that was AWFUL, and should never be repeated, ever, then vote Republican.

I’m still no fan of Jeff Flake, but if this is his price, I for one think the deal is worth it.  Let’s get this done. Let’s just confine it to one week. No more delays.  Set the vote now, for 1:30 next Friday or something.  Not a near eternity, which is becoming a synonym for a unit of time I will call the Mueller.

This eliminates, or reduces, one talking point, and by now I think that, as is the case with Trump, the fact that so many partisan zealots have dug so deeply into every last detail of his past and found nothing, indicates that he is much BETTER than most Americans, and oceans better than his accusers, most of whom would not last five minutes.

You there, the one reading.  Ponder your past.  Is there nothing in there someone could not use to spin a tale about you that eager minds would believe readily because they WANTED to, and stupid minds would believe because they are STILL incapable of realizing they are lied to most of the time, about nearly everything?

Do you want to retire as the man most responsible for granting victory to the use of character destruction as a political tool?

The FBI cannot investigate nearly four decade old charges, which the alleged victim HERSELF cannot remember details about.  The only POSSIBLE evidence is witness evidence, and most people can’t remember accurately what happened yesterday, much less last week, much less last year.

Do YOU remember the details of what you were doing 36 years ago?  Yes, if there was a traumatic event, perhaps you would remember some, but, again, the alleged victim HERSELF is missing most of the salient details.  If ANYONE should remember the where and when, it is the person claiming victimhood.  No one around her can be expected to even approach her memory, so this is the BEST CASE.

Combine this with her patent hyperpartisanship, and the fact that two men have come forward claiming to be the ACTUAL assailants, and you have an opportunity to do the right thing, or to end as a fucking goat. Your call.

Edit: and I will note the American Bar Association is demeaning itself.  They are apparently run by Democrat ambulance chasers and victimhood tort lawyers.  The FBI has no jurisdiction, and as lawyers, they should know that.

These are criminal allegations, and as such it is relevant no charges have been filed because, as I keep noting, THERE IS NO CASE.

Trump is a strong name.  So is Wynn.

It is ironic that Kavanaugh would have a friend named Judge.

And it is appropriate that, arguably, the weakest and least reliable Republican in Congress has the last name of Flake.  I think that literally every time I see his name.  I wonder why he registered as a Republican in the first place.  Democrat would have been so much easier.

The physical wounds of s rape fade in days or weeks. What lingers is the emotional damage, which can last a lifetime. It can breed phobias and panic attacks, nightmares, broken sleep. It can cause permanent behavioral changes. Things you used to like you don’t do any more. Where you used to trust now you doubt. Where you used to risk now you play it safe.

The damage arises from the combination of helplessness and rage. You have a terrifying situation you cannot escape no matter how hard you try.

For these reasons I would assert it is not ENTIRELY unreasonable to describe what was done to Brett Kavanaugh as a rape of sorts. It is certainly mildly hyperbolic, but what are certainly present are severe emotional distress, and some degree of helplessness.

He is fighting, and that is good. If you do everything you CAN do, true PTSD is much less likely. If he had quit early on he would have had bitterness in him most of his life. It would have a risk in any event.

We all need to think about what we are doing. I myself am not infrequently an asshole. I know it. I admit it, and I’m pretty sure I know why.

But I would be incapable of consciously choosing to do to Kavsnaugh what is being done to him. It would gnaw at my gut.

At the considerable risk of being misunderstood, might I assert that great evil requires great principle?

Much Leftist criticism might be summarized in the following sorts of statements:

White men were insufficiently Liberal while inventing Liberalism.

White men were insufficiently interested in women while laying the groundwork for what became feminism.

White men were excessively imperialistic prior to developing anti-imperialistic notions.

White men did not ban slavery fast enough while being the first large group in human history to do so.

There is an inherently sadomasochistic streak running particularly through self loathing white Leftists.

As I pointed out a few weeks ago or something, stating Voter ID laws is racist is more or less equal to claiming some races cannot be expected to participate as adults in our society, that asking blacks to have valid ID is somehow different from asking g whites to have valid. The whole claim of “racism” rests on this difference.

What if we called Voter ID laws homophobic? Would that make sense? What if we called misogynistic? Would that make sense? What if we said they discriminated against Asians? Would not everyone ask “why Asians”?

They need to hear Ford out today, if she shows up.  Kavanaugh, of course, has the right to at least tell his story, which is that there is no story.  There is no side to something which didn’t happen, or at least, that he was not a part of.

Tomorrow Grassley needs to say something like this:

This has been quite an ordeal.  The confirmation of a Supreme Court justice was not supposed to be like this.  It was supposed to rest on their records, their characters, and while we do have the FBI undertake background checks, it is assumed that major problems would show up in twenty years (or whatever it is) of public service.

Judge Kavanaugh has had a great many people vouch for his character.  Everyone who has worked with him has applauded him, his family believes in him, and some 75 women have come forward to specifically vouch for him.  He has a lot of support.   He has a lot of women in his life who have known him for a long time, and who respect him and who do not believe that, at his worst, he was ever as bad a person as he is said to have been, by one person who was here yesterday, and two who emerged at the last second to level outrageous accusations from long, long ago.

Here is my view: we CANNOT and SHALL NOT make this the new standard.  We cannot make every nominee to the Supreme Court go through this, if they happen to favor judicial opinions which are unpopular with an element of our society which is highly ideological, well organized, and willing to go to nearly any length to disrupt our process.

Mrs. Ford may be telling the truth.  I don’t know.  It is also possible she is NOT telling the truth.  I don’t know that either.  But if we make unsubstantiated allegation the new standard, there is no new low which is not possible.  We make a mockery of the process.  We turn the next Supreme Court confirmation hearing into a circus, IN ADVANCE, if the nominee is presented by a Republican, and, in the current hyperpartisan atmosphere, specifically President Trump.

We KNOW, from their own public speeches, that the Democrats vowed to oppose ANYONE President Trump put forward.  Anyone.  Ponder that.  Judge Kavanaugh, obviously, is someone, and they have certainly been as good as their word.

But the Senate is supposed to be a place of sober contemplation.  It is supposed to be where our most experienced leaders, our wisest minds, go to temper reckless populism–which is represented by the House, in all its sometime exuberance–with quiet consideration, and mature discussion.

It is ironic that we are in fact considering a man for the highest court in our land.  Our laws are fashioned from the principle that many can be convicted in so-called Court of Public Opinion, who are in fact innocent.  Lynch mobs do deliver immediate action, but their history of delivering justice is, to put it in the best possible light, mixed, and their history of great injustice is long and well documented.

We do things the way we do for a reason.  We do them because, on balance, they are most likely to render justice, to render decency, to render fairness.

And in my view the standard moving forward should be clear: if we could not so much as bring a criminal case with regard to any given serious allegation, then we should not consider it at all.  Yes, fine, we need to do background checks, of course.  If there are any patterns of behavior discussed  in hushed tones and anonymously, then that needs to be known and brought into the deliberation room, brought into the light.

But short of that, there is no limit to how many sensational charges can be brought.  Perhaps next time it will be from 50 years ago.  Perhaps next time there will be a murder in some foreign country, or even here.  Perhaps even now, strategists are contemplating the stories that will be told in 3 years the next time this situation occurs.

As I say, I don’t know if Professor Ford is telling the truth.  And this is core, salient fact of this case: we don’t know.  We can’t know.  She can’t tell us where this alleged assault happened.  She can’t tell us when.  She has no contemporaneous witnesses whose credibility is equal to the seriousness of the allegations.  No prosecutor in the country would bring charges based on the evidence.

In this country, people do not go to jail based on hearsay, and asking us to delay one moment longer in confirming Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is to ask us to convict him of a crime no one here can provide sufficient evidence he committed.

Therefore, I move for an immediate vote.