We need the wall, we need our immigration laws changed, we need our border laws changed, we need Republicans to do it because the Democrats aren't going to do it. This is one instance of many.
Setting everything else aside for another moment, #Kavanaugh's testimony is a virtually perfect illustration of how ugly it looks to ignore your white privilege.
1/6
In dodging Sen. Whitehouse's questions about the 'Ralph Club,' Kavanaugh boasted about getting into Yale, and then Yale Law School. "Worked my tail off," he said.
2/6
Later, he said, "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."
“For many years, I've been complaining about the horrible trade deals that our country was making. Our presidents and their representatives were just not treating our workers fairly.”
“They weren't, frankly, treating our companies fairly. Those days are over. Right now, we have companies pouring back into our country. We have fair deals. We have really fair deals, and we have many deals in the works.”
Many people have asked me, why do I meet with foreign leaders? Why do I even waste my time? The fact is, it's very important. I've said for a long time, if you're President, you should meet with foreign leaders.
You have nothing to lose & you have a lot to gain. You look at what happened in Singapore, you look at what happened with Chairman Kim, & all that's taken place, we have the remains back of our great heroes that were lost so many years ago.
The Democratic Party is considering de-emphasizing or eliminating #superdelegates, which are heavily criticized for being small-d undemocratic, which they absolutely are. But please consider this defense of this essential protection against populist demagogues. /1
Lots of things have changed since the Founders founded, but their deep-seated fear of the damage a populist demagogue could do to a democracy remains absolutely valid. Hamilton's Federalist Papers are riddled with warnings from top to bottom. /2
Federalist Paper 1 featured this warning: "[O]f those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants." /3
Now is perhaps as good a moment as any to brush up on the concept of “in-kind contributions.” Under federal law, these are amounts paid to influence an election that don’t go through campaign's bank account. The key word here is "contributions." That's what they are. /1
Let's take a keg of beer at a campaign event. If the campaign paid for it, it has to be reported as an expense. /2
But if someone who's not the candidate brought it, that’s an in-kind contribution. It doesn’t matter that the campaign never saw the cash. The beer purchase has to be reported by the campaign as a contribution, and then as an expense. /3
1/ Ignore the salacious details for just a moment. An agent of a federal candidate is reported to have transferred $130k three weeks before an election to kill a story that would hurt the candidate. This gets @alt_fec's attention. wsj.com/articles/trump…
2/ Here's 52 USC §30101(8)(A): "The term 'contribution' includes— (i) any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office..."
3/ And on the flip side: 52 USC §30101(9)(A): "The term 'expenditure' includes— (i) any purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit, or gift of money or anything of value, made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office..."