Lindsey Graham and his descent into Trumpism

Lindsey Graham is the saddest story in Washington, wrote Frank Bruni, an opinion writer in The New York Times. This is an excellent chronology describing hos Senator Graham has descended into the "hell", the work he has attributed others. Look inward, Senator, as you read the Bruni opinion!

Senator Lindsey Graham descended into the vortex of political ambition

Senator Lindsey Graham and his relentless pursuit of ambition has caused him to be the person he defined Donald Trump to be and the process of "going to hell"

The Brett Kavanaugh nomination is now over.  It was an especially ugly episode of a reality -show presidency to the Supreme Court that degraded almost everyone who was swept up with it and the many characters left staggering away from it looking worse than ever.

That's Senator Lindsey Graham.  He is at the head of the pack of the degraded.  Sadly, it's Graham we hear talking and talking and talking even more, in committee rooms and on stages and before television cameras that he rushed to in the way a toddler chases soap bubbles.  

Graham's words are whichever ones guarantee a major role and a powerful patron, which means, that these days, he sounds like a more articulate echo of his golf buddy- Donald Trump.

That wouldn't, by itself, be cause to dwell on Graham. Washington is lousy with lackeys, and not even the maddest of kings thins their ranks.

But, Graham is weirdly special. Because, Bruni, wrote, "I can't think of another Republican whose journey from anti-Trump outrage to pro-Trump obsequiousness was quite so illogical or half as sad, and his conduct during the war over Kavanaugh completed it.  For Donald Trump, he fought overtime, he fought nasty and he fought without nuance.

In so doing, he distilled our rotten politics- its transactional nature, its tribal fury, its hysterical pitch- as neatly as anybody in the current Congress does.

Has a diva at La Scala ever delivered an aria as overwrought as the one that Graham performed on the day when both Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee?  I doubt it.

"Boy, you all want power," GRaham, who serves on the committee, railed at his Democratic colleagues, accusing them of ginning up, accusations against Kavanaugh.  "God I hope you never get it,"  Because Graham and his fellow Republicans exercise it so much more responsibly?  Because they're so principled themselves? I guess that's why hey minimize Russian interference in our elections, indulge Trump's bromances with Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte in teh Philippines and Kim Jong-un in North Vietnam; and smile upon his mendacity, misogyny, racism and unchecked greed. They're modeling integrity in government.

"You want this sean?", Graham yelled to them. "I hope you never get it."  No, Senator Graham, you do more than hop. You cheat.  LEt me introduce you to Merrick Garland, a figure far less partisan than Kavanaugh and thus much more more deserving of a seat on the highest court in the land. You and your Republican colleagues in the Senate, every bit as desirous of power a Democrats are, crushed him and the fact that it didn't involve an attack on his reputation doesn't diminish its ruthlessness.  

"This is not a job interview," Graham told Kavanaugh, soothing him.  "This is hell."

Interesting word choice.  I remember when Graham used "hell" in a different context.  This was back in December 2015. It was when he was campaigning vainly for the Republican presidential nomination, saw Trump clearly and didn't suck up to him.

"You know how you make American great again?", Graham said back then.."Tell Donald Trump to go to hell."

"If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed," he said then, apparently referring to the Republican Party's prospects in 2016.  "And, we will deserve it."  He called Trump the "world's biggest jackass".  He said that choosing between Trump and Senator Ted Cruz who survived much deeper into the party's 2016 presidential primary than did Graham, was like deciding whether to be shot or poisoned.  Trump returned these kindnesses by publicly divulging Graham's mobile phone number and forcing him to get a new one.

There were sound policy reasons for Graham's revulsion. At the risk of alienating some of the conservatives in South Carolina who routinely voted for him, he had pressed for sensible immigration reform, the kind that didn't involve ethnic slurs, the forced separation of children from their parents and border walls. Graham was one of the Senate's most ardent hawks and Trump was dissing foreign military interventions, damning NATO, pimping for Putin and peddling isolationism.

There were also personal reasons for Graham's revulsion.  Graham's closest ally and contant companion in teh SEnate, a man he claimed to revere beyond measure, was John McCain. And Trump, at the beginning of his campaign, bizarrely and grotesquely mocked McCain's long, brutal years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. Trump's belittline of Senator McCain never ceased, and GRaham took prper offense, at leasst for a while.  Then, Trump became president, started inviting Graham to play golf and Graham parted ways with his nerae and his spine. What beautiful fairways yu have, Mr. Trump. What a virile tee shot.

That's the sad part, wrote Bruni.  And this is the absolutely pathetic twist:  Senator McCain, battling brain cancer, stopped spending much time in Washington, and aw his friend's health deteriorated, Graham's ardor and cheering for Trump intensified. Senator McCain, you see, wasn't just Graham's friend. He was his road to greater relevance. And, Trump presented a veritable expressway.  So, Graham switched vehicles and directions, and pressed the pedal to the metal.

He went from defending Jeff Sessions to pushing him toward the exit, from sounding the alarm about Russia to hyperventilating about the Justice Department and the FBI, for calling Trump a "kook" to savaging the media for portraying him as one, from wanting to put Trump on a bed of nails to fluffing his pillow and smoothing his duvet. At times, he gushes so much that he makes Rudy Giuliani look withholding.

Shocker of shockers:  Graham has now a nearly open line to Donald Trump and he gets his calls returned.  White House reporters routinely mention this and him. 

Graham has all the television time that he could ever want.  He even got a prime spot at The Atlantic a Festival in Washington, where he was interviewed by the magazine's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Moreover, the Style section of The Washington Post wrote a feature about him.

Graham claims that he's serving a higher purpose by softening Donald Trump's caustic stances where they sorely need to be softened, but that certainly has not happened with the immigration debacle.  Graham notes that he does chastise Trump, occasionally.

But, his smearing of Christine Blasey Ford and the Democrats who championed her was so vehement that he earned public raves from Giuliani, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Eric and Trump and right winger San Hannity.

They and Donald Trump are the Graham constituency now. 

So, what's the new Graham agenda? According to a few people who know him well, he's auditioning to be attorney general.

Him or Sessions? It's like deciding whether to be shot or poisoned, and to plunder a quote from a quintessential Washington hack, God I hope he never gets it.


Maine Writer- Lindsey Graham has proven he has become a lock step Trumpzi.

Donald Trump mocking sexual assault survivors and the disabled

I apologize to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford for the outrageous behavior of Donald Trump in stoking misogyny by mocking sexual assault survivors.  He did the very same to a disabled man when he was campaigning to stoke his right wing cult. For many people, the mocking of a disabled person was the low point in his campaign and I know several people who changed their opinion about him as a result of that horrible acting out in such a heinous manner.  Time after time, Donald Trump has shocked the world with his rudeness, I can't understand how anybody can tolerate being in the same room with him or his cult.  

This letter to the editor was published in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Seacoastonline.com.  "Shame on Trump for mocking sexual assault survivors" from State Representative Debra Altschiller of Stratham, NH.

Watching the president of the United States mimic and mock sexual assault survivor Dr. Christine Blasey Ford on Tuesday night from a rally in Mississippi made my knees buckle.  I know I'm not the only one.

I have two jobs, one is as the community liaison for our local domestic and sexual violence crisis center and the other is as a legislator representing my hometown.

Volunteering is part of my core values and I donate my time as a confidential advocate for survivors of domestic and sexual violence.  I have heard, and seen how vicious, cruel, and savage sexual, and domestic violence is to the victims, their families, friends and communities.  Survivors all over our state in New Hampshire have been finding the courage to come forward and seek solace and support, and they are being met with disdain and disbelief from the highest office in the land and silence from Donald Trump supporters.  I know what that feels like.

In May of 2017, I gathered up my courage to speak on teh floor of the New Hampshire House of Representatives.  My service to my community and state in this role was coming up on five months.  In that short period of time, in a place I revered, I and the small number of women, and supportive men I worked with had experienced a State House culture saturated in misogyny, victim blaming, and trivializing of sexual assault and abuse, also known as rape culture. I spoke out. 

Many were taken aback by the term which means "a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse".  The Center for Disease Control (CDC) had reported just the week before that New Hampshire had some of the highest sexual assault rates in the nation.  This was reinforced just last week with the release of the latest FBI crime rate data, showing the rate of rape is significantly higher here than the rest of the country.  When I made this speech, the majority of the GOP stated a walkout.

After I spoke, the minority leader rose to move my remarks be entered in the permanent journals, as is customary.  The Speaker of the Hosue insisted that without a quorum (achieved by the walkout) that request could not be honored.  I was essentially shunned and shushed.

Two weeks later, when the House reconvened, a female member, who has served more than a decade in the House, rose to ask that now that we had a quorum, would my remarks now be entered into the permanent journal?  This time, in a roll call vote, every single Republican voted to erase my words.  That experienced was followed by online harassment from elected officials.

I wont be silenced.  Dr. Ford won't be silenced.  Every child abused by a coach, teacher, family member or priest should not be silenced. Every person abused or violated will not be silenced. The President of the United States has taken his honorable position and dishonored it, himself and our country with his disgusting behavior. 

Please do not be discouraged. We who can must continue to speak up. Do it with your vote in November.

From State Rep. Debra Altschiller, Stratham, NH.

Character revealed ~ echo opinion by David Ignatius

This column is spot on one of my favorite "echo" articles re-blogged while scanning the nation's news.  David Ignatius is a columnist for The Washington Post and a pundit who frequently appears on MSNBC Morning Joe.  This opinion was published in the Wisconsin Kenosha News. 

America watched three searing versions of reality television this week. They all demonstrated that under the glare of the lights and the stress of questioning, character reveals itself.

David Ignatius opinion, published in the Kenosha News, a Wisconsin newspaper.

Christine Blasey Ford was a startlingly powerful witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, in part because she had been unknown to most Americans before the cameras started rolling. Her answers were clear and concise. 

She described what she remembered from 36 years ago, and what she didn’t. She never embellished her statements or added extraneous comments. With her simple responses of “yes,” “no” and “correct,” she maintained her dignity while describing the most upsetting experience of her life.

Ford seemed in some ways a modern American “Everywoman,” voicing publicly the often-hidden trauma that millions of women have experienced. She may have been “terrified” when the hearing began, as Republican interrogator Rachel Mitchell commented, but she gained confidence as the hearing progressed. 

It will be harder now for people to question her motives.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh followed with an enraged response and rebuttal. He’s usually a practiced performer before the cameras, but Thursday he was deeply shaken, pausing many times to control his tears and maintain his composure. In contrast to Ford’s quiet demeanor, Kavanaugh was almost shouting in his opening statement. He said that Democrats’ attempt to “blow me up and take me down” was a “national disgrace.”

As Kavanaugh struggled to prevent an emotional meltdown, you felt the tremors that have rocked American life as women have spoken out about abuse. Sometimes, when Kavanaugh spoke about the possibility that he might never teach or coach basketball again, he seemed to feel his life had been undone by the accusations from Ford and two other women.

Kavanaugh was least compelling when he took his defense into a political space, calling the accusations against him “a calculated and orchestrated political hit,” and “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.” It was hard to imagine a man so angry and traumatized serving as a dispassionate Supreme Court justice.

What Kavanaugh couldn’t do, even in his poignant denials, was to erase the impression that Ford’s testimony had left. Whether the Senate votes to confirm him as justice or not, Kavanaugh will struggle to recover from the hurt that was so evident in his face Thursday. We should want him to heal: Just as Ford could be your sister, Kavanaugh could be your brother.

On the eve of this visceral day of testimony, we entered the fever dream of President Trump, the man who has been popping the nation’s boiler at its seams. This was a very different self-portrait from the quietly anxious Ford, or the indignant Kavanaugh. In his 75-minute news conference from the United Nations in New York Wednesday night, Trump was rambling, evasive, boastful, contemptuous.

Trump often seems calculating in his tweets and tempests, but Wednesday night he seemed almost out of control. He bounced from topic to topic. One minute he was denouncing the “con artists” who had attacked Kavanaugh, the next he was insisting he had an open mind on Ford’s accusations, and then skittering back to discuss his own supposed victimization by the media and other tormentors.

Trump’s performance was a stream-of-consciousness tour of the world as imagined by what he called his “very, very large brain.” As he spoke, it was obvious that he truly believes what he told the U.N. Tuesday, that he had “ accomplished more than almost any administration.” The laughter that greeted that boast was quickly transformed in Trump’s mind, to a positive “they were laughing with me.” Communist dictators Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un were his friends — and even Iran’s President Hasan Rouhani got stroked as a prospective future friend of the great deal-maker.

Watching Trump in this ultimate reality show, viewers could see for themselves what has been described in recent books by Bob Woodward and Michael Wolff — a president who acts so unpredictably that his closest aides must work around his rants and impulses to keep the government running. The world watched this careening, self-obsessed president live on Tuesday night. What a disturbing show it was.

America is living under a volcano. Thursday’s competing testimonies from Ford and Kavanaugh will probably make a polarized nation even more divided. The healing begins when we have a leader who stops spewing lava and starts building unity, but that seemed a very distant hope this week.

David Ignatius can be reached via Twitter: @IgnatiusPost.

Brett Kavanaugh and lack of judicial temperament - PBSNewsHour

Transcript from the Public Broadcasting PBSNewsHour with Judy Woodruff, an interview with Amna Nawaz and two expert women who helped to provide perspective about the September 27, 2018, Judge Brett Kavanaugh interview with the US Senate Judiciary Committee.

According to the American Bar Association (ABA), judicial temperament means that a judge exhibits "compassion, decisiveness, open-mindedness, sensitivity, courtesy, patience, freedom from bias and commitment to equal justice."

AMNA NAWAZ:
In key moments this week (Judiciary Committee interviews with Judge Brett Kavanaugh), it was the tone that mattered.

Amna Nawaz is National Correspondent and substitute anchor for PBS NewsHour since April 2018.

Aside from the specifics of the sexual assault allegations (described by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford), there were questions about Ford's composure when compared to Kavanaugh's anger and if the same rules applied to both witnesses.

The overt politics of the hearing were also a departure from precedent.

Here to help make sense of it all, Marcia Coyle of "The National Law Journal," and Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University.

Welcome to you both.

Marcia Coyle, I would like to start with you.

You have watched a lot of confirmation processes, tracked them over the years. A lot has been said about the demeanor of Judge Kavanaugh yesterday. Have you ever seen someone deliver speech, remarks, a response in a similar demeanor in past years?

MARCIA COYLE:
Amna, I think the closest that I have seen come to Judge Kavanaugh was Justice Clarence Thomas, when he went before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991.

I was thinking last night as I was watching Judge Kavanaugh of the old cliche that the best offense — or the best defense is a good offense. And Justice Clarence Thomas in '91, he spoke first, before Anita Hill, and then he was given rebuttal time. And on his rebuttal time, he came out with the now — the phrase that has lingered in so many memories of that period, in which he called the confirmation process a national disgrace, but a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks.

And at that moment, you could tell that the atmosphere in the room and on the committee had changed.

Last night, with Judge Kavanaugh, he didn't have race to use like Clarence Thomas did, but what he did have was partisanship. And he — his emotional, angry, often belligerent delivery focused on what he felt was a conspiracy on the left to search and destroy him. And he said that he saw this as revenge for the 2016 presidential election, his own ideology, and the work he did for the independent counsel who had investigated the Clinton White House. So this was being done on behalf of the Clintons.

It was such a stark partisan kind of attack. And it is something that I have never seen before, not from a judicial nominee.

AMNA NAWAZ:
Deborah Tannen, I would love to get your take on this.

Now, you study language and how people use it, how it is perceived. Belligerent, angry, these were a lot of the words that were used to describe the way in which Judge Kavanaugh defended himself.

How are you, as someone who studies this from an academic viewpoint, taking in what you saw yesterday?

DEBORAH TANNEN:
I would add to that so many aspects of his self-presentation that were completely out of place in that context.

He was interrupting the senators. He was disrespectful to the senators, the Democratic senators. He turned the question back on them. I like beer. Do you like beer? What do you like to drink?

The interruptions, the overlap, supporting along with them when he was supposed to answer a question, he really never answered the questions. But he never said, I'm not — sorry, I can answer your question. He certainly didn't say sorry about anything, but simply took the floor and went on repeating the things that he had said with his opening statement.

And the contrast with Dr. Ford was really quite striking. She apologized when she had nothing to apologize for. And, by the way, I would point out that, for women, I don't think that really is an apology. It's just a way of being — taking into account the effect of what you're saying on the other person, so trying to be helpful.

So, it's pretty routinized, women saying, I'm sorry. But you — and we did once hear Judge Kavanaugh apologize, to Senator Klobuchar. But it was after a recess. And you kind of had the feeling that maybe somebody pointed out to him he had gone a bit too far.

AMNA NAWAZ:
Let me ask you about something you just mentioned, the difference between the two testimonies.

This is something we have heard a lot today. Was there a gender dynamic at play? Or were we just watching two different personalities make their cases?

DEBORAH TANNEN:
Yes, of course.

It was almost like stereotypical representations of how women and men would be expected to present themselves and to behave. So, he was blustery. He was taking up as much talk space as possible. The anger is an emotion that is approved of in men and is often seen as positive in men.

She could not be angry. She had many — much reason to be, but she didn't show anger. And it would be very unacceptable for a woman to show anger.

So, everything about her self-presentation was self-effacing, deferential. What's interesting is that most people, men, as well as women, would be deferential to the senators in a setting like that.

He threw all that to the winds, and was actually not — not only fulfilling our expectations of men, but not fulfilling our expectations of a person who was presenting himself before a body that was going to judge him. He was acting more like he was the judge.

AMNA NAWAZ:
I would like to ask Marcia Coyle about the impact of that, because, as we know, this is part of an interview process, an assessment process, for a very big, important job.

I want to show a graphic now that talks a little bit and shows quite clearly sort of the partisan nature of this process over the years. This is starting with John Paul Stevens in 1975, showing the Senate confirmation votes. Started back then a 98-0 vote. You see those margins growing tighter and tighter each year, until Justice Neil Gorsuch's vote last year. That was 54-45.

Marcia, you mentioned this earlier, of course, the partisan nature of that vote. But Judge Kavanaugh himself delving into that partisan conversation, does that impact, do you think, how he does his job moving forward?

MARCIA COYLE:
Oh, moving forward?

Well, I think only he can — if he is confirmed, he's the only one who will be able to tell if he brings — if he takes on to the court a bitterness, an anger towards any groups on the left, any parties on the left that would come before him.

I can't answer that for him. I think, in terms of the court itself, that I'm — I think most of the justices know Judge Kavanaugh, like him, respect him. They have hired many of his former clerks for their own chambers.

But I have to believe that there was a certain amount of cringing going on last night. I was thinking — she didn't say this in the context of the nomination hearings, but Judge Kagan recently said in a public conversation that the court — the court relies on — for its legitimacy that the American people believe that its decisions are made with a certain amount of integrity.

So, any time there is a partisan cast to any cases that come to the court, they worry about this. And they worry that they will be viewed as a partisan institution.

Now, I'm sure many people probably believe the court practices politics, not law. But, as she said, you have to look at the institution. And the American people do respect it because they still do believe that there is a certain amount of integrity in the decision-making.

I think probably Justice — Judge Kavanaugh's comments last night, as well as his appearance on FOX television, which is associated with a certain political view, probably is a little worrisome in terms of how some people will view him if he is confirmed.

AMNA NAWAZ:
And we will see if he is, indeed.

Marcia Coyle, Deborah Tannen, thank you very much for your time.

MARCIA COYLE:
Pleasure.

South Carolina echo opinion ~ Brett Kavanaugh is a flawed SCOTUS candidate

Kavanaugh should be replaced with less controversial Supreme Court nominee~ echo opinion letter published in the South Carolina newspaper The State

Brett Kavanaugh has been a controversial nominee for the Supreme Court from day one. 

Many of us believe he perjured himself in his recent Senate Judiciary hearings. And he is very unpopular with the general public for his extreme views, despite a promotional TV ad campaign funded by God knows who. 

Now, he has been accused of attempted rape by a very credible professional woman. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is a psychologist and university professor at PaloAlto. She has provided therapy notes from marriage counseling in 2012, where she shared her story of attempted rape with a marriage counselor. She has also passed a polygraph.

It is nonsensical that the president and Republicans in Congress would choose to pursue more Senate hearings on Kavanaugh when he could be easily replaced by a less controversial nominee. The hearings will be excruciating for both Kavanaugh and the alleged victim, and it’s really a no-win situation for Republicans. They will lose support and votes by fighting this fight.

It seems this fight is really President Trump’s fight. 

It’s only about Kavanaugh in the sense that Trump believes Kavanaugh would protect him from any legal accountability in the Mueller probe.  From Yvonne Crisp, Irmo South Carolina