And Kennedy decides to fuck us all

[BoSoxGal]

Outrage in Alaska after judge sentences no jail time to man who pleaded guilty to felony assault
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A group of Alaska residents vowed to launch a campaign against an Anchorage judge who sentenced no jail time to a man who was accused of offering a ride to a woman, choking her until she was unconscious and allegedly masturbating on her while she was unconscious. Justin Schneider, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault in the case, and Anchorage Superior Court Judge Michael Corey sentenced Schneider to two years with a year suspended.

A kidnapping charge was dropped as part of the plea deal. Schneider also received credit for a year he served under house arrest and will serve no additional time as long as he doesn't violate the conditions of his probation.

The case garnered national attention, and a Facebook group called NO retention for Judge Michael Corey, which has more than 2,000 likes, CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA-TV reports.

Elizabeth Williams, who started the Facebook group, told KTVA she had a visceral reaction when heard the verdict.

"I was just absolutely appalled that he was going to be out on the streets again, and that Alaskan women were again going to be let down by the justice system," Williams said. "I was also outraged that this woman didn't have a voice in the court proceeding, and that no one was advocating for her and no one was speaking for her needs including the judge."

Schneider choked an Alaska Native woman and then masturbated over her unconscious body, according to charging documents. He also told the woman he would kill her if she screamed, Anchorage police detective Brett Sarber wrote in a sworn affidavit.

The victim was not present or on the phone during the hearing.

Anchorage Assistant District Attorney Andrew Grannik said Wednesday that Schneider lost his job working for the federal government as a result of the case, a consequence he called a "life sentence," KTVA reports.

Grannik said he agreed to the plea deal based on Schneider's enrollment and progress in a treatment program, and an expert's assessment that the risk of him re-offending is low.

"I hope it doesn't happen," Grannik said. "That's the reason why I made the deal that I've made, because I have reasonable expectations that it will not happen. But I would like the gentleman to be on notice that that is his one pass -- it's not really a pass -- but given the conduct, one might consider that it is."

Corey accepted the deal, noting the outcome of the case could be described as "breathtaking," according to KTVA. He said his decision was based on the prospect of rehabilitation.

"Mr. Schneider is going to be a member of our community, and he would not be in jail for the rest of his life even if he had been convicted on all of the counts for which he was charged," Corey said.

He also told Schneider, "This can never happen again."

The sentence highlights a deeply flawed legal system, according to sexual assault advocates.

"This is another example of an Alaska native woman not getting the justice they deserve," Williams said.

A number of concerned citizens told the state law department that they also believed Schneider's sentence was too lenient.

The Alaska Department of Law stood by Corey's decision, and Criminal Division Director John Skidmore reviewed the case and said it was "consistent with, and reasonable, under current sentencing laws in Alaska."

Schneider did not have a criminal record prior to the incident.

Gov. Bill Walker agreed that the sentence was insufficient and said in a statement that he wants to toughen laws.

"I'm so mad, I can't see straight. I'm so angry," Anchorage resident Ann Septon told KTVA on Saturday.

"It's a complete disregard for what actually took place," said Anchorage resident Keeley Wilson.

[BoSoxGal]

(CNN)A district court judge dismissed a request to review a sexual assault case in which an 18-year-old was given two years on probation after being initially charged with two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault and battery.

Chief Justice of the Massachusetts District Courts Paul Dawley declined a review despite a petition with over 36,000 signatures calling for the judge who originally ruled in the case to be fired. In a letter, Dawley stated the sentence "was within the lawful bounds established by the Legislature."
Eighteen-year-old David Becker received a continuance without a finding, which means he won't be charged with anything immediately, according to court documents.
Instead, he will serve two years on probation, in both Massachusetts and Ohio, where he was planning to attend college, according to court documents. He is to remain drug and alcohol free for two years, stay away from the two victims in the case, and submit to an evaluation for sex offender treatment, according to Hampden County District Attorney spokesman James Leydon.
If he meets these terms and doesn't violate probation, the case will not appear on Becker's criminal record. Becker did not plead guilty to any of the charges.
Public outrage has brought attention to sexual assault cases like Becker's in recent months because some feel that those charged have been receiving light sentences in relation to the gravity of their crimes. Dawley's refusal to review the case comes during the same week that 22-year-old Stanford University student Brock Turner will be released from jail after serving six months for three sexual assault charges.
Becker's two-year probation sentence has resulted in a petition to remove Judge Thomas Estes, the judge in Becker's case, with 36,810 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.
Massachusetts Governor's Councilor Michael Albano wrote to Dawley on August 23 asking him to review the case, because he noticed a few discrepancies in it and wanted "to make sure that judicial protocol was followed," he told CNN.
Dawley responded on August 26 with a letter declining to conduct any review.
Becker was initially charged with two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault and battery by the East Longmeadow Police Department, which then filed a complaint with the Hampden County District Attorney's office, according to Leydon.
Two victims told police officer Michael Ingalls they had been sexually assaulted by Becker while they were unconscious after falling asleep at a friend's house, according to the police report. The victims and Becker were at the friend's house for a party, and both victims told Ingalls they had been drinking that evening, according to the police report.
Becker and the two victims fell asleep in a friend's bedroom on the same bed after the party, according to the police report. The first victim left the room after being awakened by Becker "with his fingers in her vagina" according to the police report. The second victim told Ingalls that Becker touched her repeatedly during the night and she pushed his hands away each time, according to the report. She woke up to Becker digitally sexually assaulting her as well, according to the police report.
In the police report, Becker only admitted to sexually assaulting one victim, but, in court, Becker did not plead guilty to any of the charges brought against him. Becker's attorney Thomas Rooke would not return CNN's request for comment.
The District Attorney's Office recommended Becker be found guilty and serve two years in prison, which would require him to be a registered sex offender, but Estes ordered a "continuance without a finding" under which Becker will serve two years on probation.
While Becker didn't plead guilty to any of the charges, the judge ordered a continuance because there were sufficient facts and evidence presented in the case to find him guilty of indecent assault and battery.
The continuance doesn't charge Becker with anything, it only extends his sentencing by two years. He does not have to register as a sex offender, and he can serve his probation out of state where he planned to attend college. If he successfully completes his probation under the given terms, the crime will not appear on his record.
Albano said he wrote to Dawley because he believed there were a number of unclear details in the case's outcome and trial. Albano charges that the district attorney dismissed the initial two counts of rape and only retained the charge of indecent assault and battery when recommending Becker serve two years in prison. This is still a reduced recommendation given the initial crime he was charged with. In Massachusetts, rape carries a sentence of up to life in prison, according to Massachusetts state law.
"This would be comparable to a murder charge being reduced to assault and battery," Albano told CNN. "Murder is life imprisonment. Rape is life imprisonment."
District Attorney's Office spokesman Leydon told CNN that Becker "admitted guilt through evidence ... in the crime that he committed and plea that he gave, [his crimes] fell more in line with indecent assault and battery charges than a rape charge."
Albano also told CNN that it wasn't made evident whether victims had adequate notice of the hearing date or that their testimony was considered.
Leydon confirmed to CNN that the victims and their families "were heavily consulted." He also confirmed that one of the victims made a victim impact statement, in which she stated that she didn't believe Becker should go to jail for what he did. The victim impact statement was not made available in the court documents. The other victim did not submit an impact statement, according to Leydon.
Albano, a governor's councilor who is running for sheriff of Hampden County, told CNN that he is hoping to meet with Dawley on Wednesday to see if there's anything else that can be done to have the case reviewed.
"When you have a case that screams out for answers, you have a responsibility to answer the questions," Albano said.

[BoSoxGal]

Just some food for thought . . .

[Bicycle Bill]

I share the outrage — along with countless others who have called for the removal of the judges involved — at the 'justice' dispensed (or more correctly, not dispensed) in the three cases BSG cited.

However, I do wish to point out that the Texas incident occurred — and was reported — in November 2013; the Alaskan assault happened — and was reported — in August 2017; and the Massachusetts case happened — and was reported — in April 2016.  Reported in a timely manner, in other words.

Not at all comparable to the accusations against Kavanaugh of conduct thirty or more years ago, or many of these #metoo stories by persons who finally decided to unburden themselves by coming forward and making allegations ten, twenty, or more years after the offense....

And just so you can now label me as 'sympathetic to pedophiles' or a 'brainwashed religious cult apologist' as well, I feel the same way about those 40- or 50-year-old men who suddenly remember that they were victims of Catholic priests back in their grade school years.

-"BB"-

[ex-khobar Andy]

Re the Alaska case:

"The Alaska Department of Law stood by Corey's decision, and Criminal Division Director John Skidmore reviewed the case and said it was "consistent with, and reasonable, under current sentencing laws in Alaska."

If this is true, and obviously I don't know Alaska law, should outrage not be directed at the Alaska legislators rather than the judge?

[ex-khobar Andy]

Mitchell's Wikpedia page noted that

Following the hearing, she issued a memorandum concluding a reasonable prosecutor would not file charges based on the evidence before the committee.

An editor has added the following:

This conclusion is controversial for at least two reasons: firstly, that the purpose of the hearing was not to determine whether criminal charges should be brought against Kavanaugh but rather to evaluate his suitability for the Supreme Court; and secondly because the inconsistencies in Dr. Ford's testimony which Mitchell cited as reasons for this conclusion (for example, Dr. Ford's inability to be precise about the date of the assault) are common in sexual assault cases and in fact often present in cases in Maricopa County which Mitchell has prosecuted.[24]

[BoSoxGal]

Six times Brett Kavanaugh was background checked by the FBI, but they never spoke to his college roommate?

Who DID they talk to? Just the friends he steered them to? Is THAT how FBI background checks work?

Brett Kavanaugh's college roommate reveals he was ‘never contacted by FBI for background checks’

Brett Kavanaugh’s former college roommate has revealed the FBI has failed to contact him during any of the agency’s background checks into the Supreme Court nominee.

Jamie Roche, now a software executive in San Francisco, shared a bedroom with Mr Kavanaugh while they were both studying at Yale in 1983 – a year after the judge allegedly committed a serious sexual assault at a house party.

The FBI is currently conducting an additional investigation following the initial accusation - made by California professor Christine Blasey Ford - as well as another by Deborah Ramirez, who claims Mr Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a dorm party at Yale.

On Twitter, Mr Roche wrote: “As Brett Kavanaugh's college freshman roommate, I was never contacted by the FBI for any of their background checks.

“I assume college behaviour was not a topic of interest. They did not find Debbie's story because they were not looking for it.”

[Big RR]

I recall getting a security clearance background check a number of years ago and, as I recall, they didn't check any of the references I listed, but did contact my neighbors (and a few of my references' neighbors. I would have been surprised if they contacted my college roommate (and was glad they didn't); my guess is they don't do this unless a question is raised. A SC background check is probably more thorough, but likely doesn't go back that far unless a specific question arises.

I also had a friend who worked for NSA (he's now retired) and they contacted me at my place of employment for a reference (they also talked to a few people at my job about me), but I don't believe they went back to his college.

[Scooter]

So some testimony from the FBI about how (in general terms) they conduct their background checks would be helpful to dispel this "he had six background checks and nothing ever came up" excuse. The number of times Kavanaugh hammered at it during his testimony should alone be enough for a perjury charge if he knew that no background check would have included the relevant people, because that would show a deliberate attempt to mislead the committee.

[Big RR]

Scooter--my guess is that these responses would not be perjury; generally, misleading testimony that is not untruthful will not be found to be perjury, as the law places the responsibility on the shoulders of the questioner to follow up and clarify any answers.

Now I am nor sure if such misleading testimony could rise to the level of obstruction, but my guess is not.

[liberty]

Just some food for thought . . .

Perhaps it should be a felony to not report a rape to the police so that evidence could be gathered…….


Don’t be a stupid Neo-liberals, of course if the victim is dead there can be no requirement do anything. Dead people have a hard time obeying the law. Neo-liberals

[Scooter]

Why not go back to the Old Testament rule where a woman who doesn't cry out so as to alert others when raped is stoned to death as an adulteress or fornicator?

[Lord Jim]

of course if the victim is dead there can be no requirement do anything. Dead people have a hard time obeying the law.

I've read that several times, and it still makes absolutely no sense to me...

Did you mean to say, "if the perp is dead"? (Of course even then it wouldn't really make sense, since presumably they would have committed the crime before they died...)

[Sue U]

So some testimony from the FBI about how (in general terms) they conduct their background checks would be helpful to dispel this "he had six background checks and nothing ever came up" excuse. The number of times Kavanaugh hammered at it during his testimony should alone be enough for a perjury charge if he knew that no background check would have included the relevant people, because that would show a deliberate attempt to mislead the committee.

Oh, there's already plenty enough to show a deliberate attempt to mislead the committee. The question is whether the GOP Senators actually give a shit that the man being considered for a lifetime appointment to the most powerful judicial position in the nation is willing to lie, prevaricate, dissemble and obfuscate in his sworn testimony before them. Because he is, and they apparently don't. And despite the dramatic headline, this is not actually "all" of Brett Kavanaugh’s lies, distortions and absurdities; it's just the ones from last week.

The Plum Line Opinion
All of Brett Kavanaugh’s lies, distortions and absurdities

By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer
October 2 at 1:02 PM

In defending Brett Kavanaugh, many Republicans have insisted that decades-old misbehavior should not be disqualifying in a Supreme Court nominee. Which most people would agree with, depending on the severity of the misbehavior.

But at this point, we have to ask another question: Just how much dishonesty would it take to disqualify someone?

It’s not a simple question; we might decide that if a candidate shaded the truth a time or two in his or her confirmation hearings without lying outright, we’d let it go. But Kavanaugh has piled up an extraordinary number of falsehoods, misleading characterizations, and statements that are, though perhaps not provably false, utterly impossible to believe.

Since each day seems to bring more people saying he isn’t telling the truth about one matter or another, I’ve assembled a list of Kavanaugh’s false and questionable statements. Considerations of space prevent me from going into too much detail; instead this is intended as a concise but reasonably thorough accounting. I have drawn from many sources, but I’d recommend Nathan J. Robinson’s opus on this topic for more. I’ll start with the most recent.

In a Sept. 25 interview with Senate Judiciary Committee staff, Kavanaugh was asked about the allegation by Deborah Ramirez, a classmate at Yale, that he exposed himself to her when they were freshmen, which was reported by the New Yorker. The staffer asked, “since you graduated from college, but before the New Yorker article publication on September 23rd, have you ever discussed or heard discussion about the incident matching the description given by Ms. Ramirez to the New Yorker?” Kavanaugh answered with one word: “No.”

In his public testimony two days later, he was asked when he first heard about Ramirez’s allegations, and he said, “In the last — in the period since then, the New Yorker story.” That answer is less clear, but if he knew about the allegation prior to the publication of the story on Sept. 23, it would mean he had lied in his Sept. 25 interview.

Yet according to an NBC News story published last night, Kavanaugh and people working with him were coordinating a defense to Ramirez’s story before it was published with some friends of his from Yale: “In a series of texts before the publication of the New Yorker story, [Karen] Yarasavage wrote that she had been in contact with ‘Brett’s guy,’ and also with ‘Brett,’ who wanted her to go on the record to refute Ramirez.”

In fairness, the New Yorker story itself contains a denial from Kavanaugh, which alone suggests he knew it was coming before publication. So maybe in his testimony Kavanaugh actually meant he didn’t know about it until alerted to it by the reporters’ request for comment, and his point was that he was unfairly blindsided by the piece. But we can’t be sure.

Still, let’s look at some of the other things he has said, many of which concern Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her:

• “I never attended a gathering like the one Dr. Ford describes in her allegation,” Kavanaugh said in his testimony. Ford described a small gathering of fewer than 10 teenagers at which beer was consumed. But his own calendars reference such gatherings.
  
  “Dr. Ford’s allegation is not merely uncorroborated, it is refuted by the very people she says were there, including by a long-time friend of hers. Refuted.” This is false. The people in question said they have no memory of the event, which is very, very different from refuting the idea that the event ever took place. Since nothing of note happened to them at the gathering, there’s little reason to think they would recall it all these years later.
  
  Kavanaugh repeatedly characterized his drinking as regular but moderate, insisting that he has never been so drunk that he couldn’t remember what happened the next day. “Like most people in college I went to parties and had beers,” he said to Judiciary Committee staff. Yet multiple people have now described him as being frequently stumbling drunk in high school and college. “He frequently drank to excess,” one classmate said. “I know because I frequently drank to excess with him.” Another said, “I definitely saw him on multiple occasions stumbling drunk where he could not have rational control over his actions or clear recollection of them.”
  
  “And yes, there were parties. And the drinking age was 18, and yes, the seniors were legal and had beer there,” he said in his interview with Fox News. In his testimony, he repeated the same idea: “My friends and I sometimes got together and had parties on weekends. The drinking age was 18 in Maryland for most of my time in high school, and was 18 in D.C. for all of my time in high school. I drank beer with my friends.” This is false. The drinking age in Maryland was raised to 21 in 1982, when Kavanaugh was 17. There was not a single day during his entire time in high school when it was legal for him to drink.
  
  In one of his friend Mark Judge’s books, a memoir of his time in high school, Judge uses pseudonyms for other people he describes. At one point he refers to a “Bart O’Kavanaugh” throwing up in a car. Sen. Pat Leahy asked, “Is that you that he’s talking about?” to which Kavanaugh got indignant and accused Leahy of trying to “make fun of some guy who has an addiction,” meaning Judge. Pressed on whether “O’Kavanaugh” was him, Kavanaugh finally said, “You’d have to ask him.”
  
  His yearbook refers to him as “Beach Week Ralph Club — Biggest Contributor.” Beach Week is a yearly bacchanal of drinking, drugs, and sex that D.C.-area prep school kids engage in with little or no adult supervision, but Kavanaugh claims that all that was being memorialized was the fact that “I’m known to have a weak stomach and I always have … whether it’s with beer or with spicy food or anything.”
  
  Kavanaugh claimed that a series of sexual references in his yearbook actually amounted to a vernacular unique to him, in which commonly understood slang terms took on meanings different from what every other person anyone can find understood them to mean. He said the “Devil’s Triangle,” which refers to a threesome with two men and one woman, was actually a drinking game similar to quarters, despite the fact that there is no reference anywhere on the Internet to such a drinking game, and claimed that “boofing” referred not to one of its two common meanings (anal sex or the practice of taking drugs as suppositories) but to flatulence. A reference to “FFFFFFFourth of July” was not a sexual one, but mocking a classmate who stuttered.
  
  He claimed that multiple references to him and his friends being “Renate alumni,” referring to a young woman from a nearby school, were not sexual boasting and slut-shaming, but were merely included on their yearbook pages to show their affection and admiration for her. “That yearbook reference was clumsily intended to show affection, and that she was one of us,” he said. That must have been why one of his classmates, joining in the show of “affection,” included a poem: “You need a date / and it’s getting late / so don’t hesitate / to call Renate.” When Sen. Richard Blumenthal raised it, Kavanaugh affected deep umbrage, claiming he actually thinks “she’s a great person.” If there’s a single person in America who believes that yearbook reference was meant to show affection, they have yet to make themselves known.
  
  “I got into Yale Law School. That’s the number one law school in the country. I had no connections there. I got there by busting my tail in college.” This picture of Kavanaugh is absurd. He went to an elite prep school with other children of wealth and influence, he got into Yale as a legacy (his grandfather went there), and one suspects that being a Yale undergrad didn’t harm his chances of getting into Yale Law School.
  
  “I grew up in a city plagued by gun violence and gang violence and drug violence,” he said in his first round of hearings. Kavanaugh grew up in Bethesda, Md., a wealthy suburb where there is almost no gun violence or gang violence. Though there is plenty of drug use, since the drugs are taken by wealthy white people, the police don’t get involved and there isn’t much violence around it.
  
  When Kavanaugh was working in the Bush White House on judicial confirmations, a Republican Senate staffer stole Democratic documents and shared what they contained with Kavanaugh, among others. In his hearings, Kavanaugh claimed “I never suspected anything untoward” in the information he was given, despite the fact that it contained references to confidential information about Democrats’ internal discussions and strategy that they had no legitimate access to.
  
  He claimed to have no knowledge of the sexually explicit jokes, comments and emails by Alex Kozinski, a judge for whom he clerked and to whom he remained close afterward, and who was recently forced from the bench when his history became public. Another of Kozinski’s former clerks wrote, “I do not know how it would be possible to forget something as pervasive as Kozinski’s famously sexual sense of humor or his gag list, as Kavanaugh has professed to in his hearings.”

Taken in total, what we have here are some apparent outright lies, some deceptions, some mischaracterizations, some evasions and a general picture of someone who decided that giving truthful answers to all these admittedly personal questions would only get him into more trouble. Does that mean Kavanaugh shouldn’t serve on the Supreme Court? Sen. Jeff Flake told “60 Minutes” that if it became clear that Kavanaugh had not been truthful in his testimony, then he should be rejected.

Whether you think any particular falsehood is a big deal or not, there’s no doubt that he hasn’t been honest or truthful. Now the senators just have to decide whether they care.

Source: WaPo.

[rubato]

of course if the victim is dead there can be no requirement do anything. Dead people have a hard time obeying the law.

I've read that several times, and it still makes absolutely no sense to me...

Did you mean to say, "if the perp is dead"? (Of course even then it wouldn't really make sense, since presumably they would have committed the crime before they died...)

If liberty starts to make sense check yourself in to a clinic and ask for a cranial MRI.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

if liberty starts to make sense check yourself in to a clinic and ask for a cranial MRI.


yrs,
rubato

I had a cranial MRI earlier this year, they didn't find anything.

[Lord Jim]

I had a cranial MRI earlier this year, they didn't find anything.

[BoSoxGal]

The Angry White Male Caucus
Trumpism is all about the fear of losing traditional privilege.

By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist

Oct. 1, 2018

When Matt Damon did his Brett Kavanaugh imitation on “Saturday Night Live,” you could tell that he nailed it before he said a word. It was all about the face — that sneering, rage-filled scowl. Kavanaugh didn’t sound like a judge at his Senate hearing last week, let alone a potential Supreme Court justice; he didn’t even manage to look like one.

But then again, Lindsey Graham, who went through the hearing with pretty much the same expression on his face, didn’t look much like a senator, either.

There have been many studies of the forces driving Trump support, and in particular the rage that is so pervasive a feature of the MAGA movement. What Thursday’s hearing drove home, however, was that white male rage isn’t restricted to blue-collar guys in diners. It’s also present among people who’ve done very well in life’s lottery, whom you would normally consider very much part of the elite.

In other words, hatred can go along with high income, and all too often does.

At this point there’s overwhelming evidence against the “economic anxiety” hypothesis — the notion that people voted for Donald Trump because they had been hurt by globalization. In fact, people who were doing well financially were just as likely to support Trump as people who were doing badly.

What distinguished Trump voters was, instead, racial resentment. Furthermore, this resentment was and is driven not by actual economic losses at the hands of minority groups, but by fear of losing status in a changing country, one in which the privilege of being a white man isn’t what it used to be.

And here’s the thing: It’s perfectly possible for a man to lead a comfortable, indeed enviable life by any objective standard, yet be consumed with bitterness driven by status anxiety.

You might think that this is impossible, that having a good job and a comfortable life would inoculate someone against envy and hatred. That is, you might think that if you knew nothing of human nature and the world.

I’ve spent my whole adult life in rarefied academic circles, where everyone has a good income and excellent working conditions. Yet I know many people in that world who are seething with resentment because they aren’t at Harvard or Yale, or who actually are at Harvard or Yale but are seething all the same because they haven’t received a Nobel Prize.

And this sort of high-end resentment, the anger of highly privileged people who nonetheless feel that they aren’t privileged enough or that their privileges might be eroded by social change, suffuses the modern conservative movement.

It starts, of course, at the top, with that walking, talking, golfing bundle of resentment that is Donald Trump. You might imagine that a man who lives in the White House would no longer feel the need to, for example, make false claims about his college record. But Trump still doesn’t get the respect he obviously craves.

Indeed, it seems apparent that his jihad against Barack Obama was fueled by envy: Obama was a black man who was also a class act, with all the grace and poise Trump lacks. And Trump couldn’t stand it.

Kavanaugh is clearly cut from the same cloth, and not just because he rivals Trump in his propensity for lying about matters great and small.

As a lot of reporting shows, the angry face Kavanaugh presented to the world last week wasn’t something new, brought on by the charges of past abuse. Classmates from his Yale days describe him as a belligerent heavy drinker even then. His memo to Ken Starr as he helped harass Bill Clinton — in which he declared that “it is our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear” — shows rage as well as cynicism.

And Kavanaugh, like Trump, is still in the habit of embellishing his academic record after all these years, declaring that he got into Yale despite having “no connections.” In fact, he was a legacy student whose grandfather went there.

Indeed, my guess is that his privileged roots are precisely why he’s so angry.

I very much ran with the nerds during my own time at Yale, but I did encounter people like Kavanaugh — hard-partying sons of privilege who counted on their connections to insulate them from any consequences from their actions, up to and including abusive behavior toward women. And that kind of elite privilege still exists.

But it’s privilege under siege. An increasingly diverse society no longer accepts the God-given right of white males from the right families to run things, and a society with many empowered, educated women is finally rejecting the droit de seigneur once granted to powerful men.

And nothing makes a man accustomed to privilege angrier than the prospect of losing some of that privilege, especially if it comes with the suggestion that people like him are subject to the same rules as the rest of us.

So what we got last week was a view into the soul of Trumpism. It’s not about “populism” — it would be hard to find a judge as anti-worker as Brett Kavanaugh. Instead, it’s about the rage of white men, upper class as well as working class, who perceive a threat to their privileged position. And that rage may destroy America as we know it.

[wesw]

[wesw]

the country club repubs are never trumpers....., dumbass.