To anyone who’s grown bored of my barrage of unhinged conspiracy theory-related tweets about McConnell-Chao-Anschutz-Gorsuch-Kavanaugh connections: I’m sorry, and I can’t blame you for being bored.
I believe, though, that if Kavanaugh’s appointed, it’s game over for America.
With a Supreme Court stacked against everything good for 99% of Americans, the sky’s the limit for fascist takeovers of every federal department, and for a Federalist Society rewrite of all policy.
“Vote!”—absolutely! But what if our votes are voided by a stacked court?
Write/call your Senators; write letters to editors; do whatever you can to stop Kavanaugh’s appointment.
That Kavanaugh’s backers are doing everything they can to bury his records from the Senate’s and from the public’s eyes is a huge red flag.
scientificgames.com/about/board-of…
Perelman’s the Chairman of Scientific Games. Sounds innocuous enough, but let’s take a look at someone who recently resigned from the Scientific Games board...
sec.gov/Archives/edgar…
Viet Dinh resigned from the Scientific Games board less than one month ago. Who’s Viet Dinh, exactly?
Okay—that’s over, and its conclusion is exactly what we expected.
Voting is obviously the most important thing we can do at this point. Apart from that, what can we do?
This is what I’m going to do:
(1)
I’m going to dig into the FEC database and look into the big money donors—say, $25,000 and higher—for each and every sitting Republican Senator.
Bearing in mind that donations aren’t illegal, I’m not going to wrack my brain trying to connect money to legislation.
(2)
What I’m going to do is connect each donor to the organization or organizations they work for or benefit from—their board directorships, their holdings, etc.
(3)
In March 2017, Kavanaugh’s Whitewater partner Viet Dinh called Brian Benczkowski to “investigate” Trump Tower-Alfa Bank. Days later, Dinh donated to @OrrinHatch’s PAC. Hatch, of course, voted to confirm Benczkowski as Assistant AG, but there’s more...
Fun fact: Thirteen years ago I stood in the Illini Union, not far from the site of today’s speech, to hear freshman Senator Barack Obama speak while Senator Durbin fielded questions from those in the small crowd. It was obvious then that Obama was meant for bigger things.
I felt like Durbin and Obama were my Senators, looking out for my interests. Although I live in North Carolina now, I still feel that Durbin has my back.
When Thom Tillis visited my workplace early on in his first year in the Senate, I didn’t even get up from my desk.
No real reason to write this, except maybe for a longing for the days when many of us felt there was a huge possibility that America would shift from the horror (remember that?) of the George W. Bush years.
twitter.com/i/moments/9765…
Seems important, as Kennedy’s retirement may have been known for months prior to his announcement, and Cornyn’s on the Judiciary Cmte. Which “other Senate colleagues” were present?
Also, did Chao and McConnell violate criminal law with this appointment?
It’s also very interesting that Chao appointed at least two of Kavanaugh’s law firm partners—and Whitewater team members—to Senior Executive Service positions...
Kavanaugh is a thirty-year member of The Federalist Society, who claimed to not fully understand the organization under questioning from Senator Durbin in 2004.
Kavanaugh’s Whitewater team partner, Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Criminal Division Brian Benczkowski, was less clear with Senator Durbin.