I 100% believe in girls punching boys who kiss them when they say no, and I don’t care how old they are, IT IS ALWAYS A GOOD TIME TO LEARN THAT YOU SHOULD GET PUNCHED. And it is *NEVER* a good time to scold girls for responding physically to being assaulted. Never.

I made this (from @justonecookbook) and it was easy, beautiful, and delicious. Recipe here: justonecookbook.com/okra-ohitashi/

I know there are a lot of parts that need to move to push this mess forward, but I would like to suggest that in addition to focusing our efforts on national-level predictors like the state and the house, that we really, REALLY think about state and local politics. One of the reasons (not the only reason, but one of them) that we are in this mess where we need to win 70% to get 51% is because states have gummed up voting.

If you’re not sick of sexual harassment, Slate just dropped this piece about sexual harassment by Jed Rubenfeld at Yale.

slate.com/news-and-polit… I’ve now read it all the way through, and I just want to say that (a) the women who came forward are heroes, given the environment, and (b) damn.

So, like, Collins sure *sounds* like someone who was deeply undecided for weeks right now. 🙄 She also sure sounds like someone who is telling those who have money that they need to throw it her way to fend off the inevitable anger this decision will bring her way.

It was a huge shock for me years later when I realized that Monica Lewinsky was only three years older than me.

I imagined her as much older. I didn’t have a TV and couldn’t afford a newspaper subscription, so all my news came from what other people said. I imagined someone much older than me, someone worldly with a lot of experience.

Brett Kavanaugh praised Rehnquist’s agenda in his confirmation hearings.

Rehnquist’s agenda included rolling back criminal protections that the Warren Court enacted in response to racial injustice.

https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1047909031636029441

“The Warren Court” gets a bad rap from conservatives as a boogeyman.

That Court found constitutional rights that conservatives think shouldn’t really exist, like the right to have legal counsel provided for you if you can’t afford it.

I don't know if people who don't pay attention to the judiciary have ANY idea how unusual Kavanaugh's remarks were.

Sure, they sound about par for the course in partisan politics. But judges don't get to be partisans in public. At all. I've never heard any judge or justice make remarks so nakedly partisan in my lifetime, and that includes when I was serving as a clerk in their chambers, where such remarks would not be a violation of the canon of ethics.

Kavanaugh’s defense was: I was a model student, I liked beer and occasionally drank too much, but I never got aggressive and I didn’t black out. We would be having a *very* different conversation if he had said, “I had a problem with drinking when I was younger. I hope I didn’t do this but can’t rule it out. I’ve changed since then and am sincerely sorry for anyone I’ve hurt.”

Just to drag this piece further, fuck the privilege that makes you think that it’s a rare event to have people say nasty false shit about them.

https://twitter.com/volokhc/status/1047251407928090624

As if there aren’t women/gay men/trans folk/people of color who hear people saying things at this level of outrage all day and who have internalized rage of a degree that Kavanaugh will never know.

🙄 Sure, Eugene, but what’s your excuse for his lying about not remembering discussing sexual matters with Kozinski?

https://twitter.com/volokhc/status/1047251407928090624

I don’t know why people feel like this is a good time to tell on themselves, but “you don’t get to be a regular person” is literally in the canon of judicial ethics.

For the record, I once threw a glass of ice (just the ice, no glass) at a man who was mansplaining something he knew literally nothing about.

I HAD CITATIONS, HE WAS WRONG, AND HE JUST KEPT GOING. Also for the record, that man was my husband and he was trying to get my goat and IT WORKED.

I think that’s the maddest he’s ever made me.

The point of the bar fight story was not that Kavanaugh got in a bar fight (whatevs, don’t care), but that it corroborated the claim of Chad Ludington, Yale classmate, who said Kavanaugh was a liar.

google.com/amp/s/www.nyti… There are a lot of people who want to pretend people are just bringing these stories up for no reason.

There is a reason. In its totality, it is pretty clear that the people who have been calling him a belligerent drunk are right.

People who find it unbelievable that Dr. Blasey could remember the assault in incredible detail, but not know how she got to the party, you can interrogate your own brain on trauma and memory.

If you’re of the right age, here’s a near-contemporaneous test. What were you doing when you heard the Challenger exploded?

For people of the right age, you know the answer to this question.

People often say “you just hate Kavanaugh because of Trump” and here’s a true fact about two judicial Trump appointees. When I first started asking questions about judicial confidentiality, before I turned to the judiciary, I asked two trusted friends for advice about who to talk to and what the rules were.

One of those friends is currently a Trump appointee.

In years to come, people will be shown Kavanaugh’s opening hearing speech where he rips off his “I am but an independent judge” mask and says “LO IT IS I SUPER PARTISAN MAN I HAVE BEEN HERE ALL ALONG!” And they will say GEEZ how did people vote to confirm him after that?!

After a little time to calm down and engage in sober reflection, I have decided to amend this sentiment.

I want *every* Republican on the judiciary committee who votes for Kavanaugh out, not just Lindsey Graham.

https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1045470044329627648

This is the list.

Chuck Grassley (2022)
Orrin Hatch (retiring)
Lindsey Graham (2020)
John Cornyn (2020)
Michael Lee (2022)
Ted Cruz (2018)
Ben Sasse (2020)
Jeff Flake (retiring)
Mike Crapo (2022)
Thom Tillis (2020)
John Kennedy (2022)

I hereby pledge that for the rest of my life I will donate to Lindsey Graham’s political opponent in EVERY SINGLE RACE.

Join me? The great thing about having reminders in the cloud is that you can set yourself up to do just this.

And remember that the Republicans ostensibly hired Rachel Mitchell to “depoliticize” the hearing and to get to the truth.

Source: When Kavanaugh politicized the hearing, and it became clear that Mitchell’s careful questioning was bringing out a truth that they didn’t want, the Republicans immediately wrested the hearing from her hands and yelled at the Democrats.

For the record, I’ve talked about how I hate phone calls on here before.

I did not when I was younger. When I first started my Kozinski clerkship, I was fine with the phone. My husband (then just boyfriend) and I talked on the phone every day on the early days of my clerkship (we were in separate states).

Then I stopped.

Grassley definitely starting this hearing off by asking for civility and then lecturing everyone. “Let’s be civil, and by civil I mean I get to whine about my issues and you shut up.”

#fordhearing