Lobenthal.com

Democrats must declare from the get-go that the Kavanaugh “confirmation hearings” are a complete and utter sham.

Before they question him about his perjury in 2006, his totalitarian views on executive immunitiy, his opinions on torture expressed to the Bush White House, his selection by Anthony Kennedy, why he lied about how extensive was Trump’s “search process,” his mysterious debt discharge and who paid for it, why he has permitted/abetted the GOP in its massive cover-up of his paper trail. . .

Et. al.

At New York City Ballet next week:

Mimi Paul coaches Emeralds.

Patricia McBride and Edward Villella coach Rubies.

A friend writes in: “A dear friend, I was told, listened obsessively to a recording of Listzomania before his suicide. During the interwar years in Europe, playing Das Lied vom traurigen
Sonntag, the Hungarian ‘Szomorú Vasárnap’ recorded by the Rezs? Seress, was
banned from the airwaves. In the English-speaking world it became known as the
Hungarian Suicide Song and for obvious reasons. Growing up, I was mesmerized
by my mother’s LP recording of Richard Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder sung by
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Buffeted by the years and as my German improved to a
point where I could internalize the words without following the libretto, I had to
put it on total ban. Along with most music. And for decades. I listen, cautiously, to
some music again. But the entire Vier Letzte Lieder? Never.”

Kavanaugh’s appointment is being driven by criminal conspiracy, and if the White House manages to install Kavanaugh on the Siupreme Court, the court’s legitimacy must be declared vacated.

the Supreme Court conclusively loses its legitimacy, and frankly, should be kept at arm’s length.

When great American institutions are defaced to this degree, it’s time to reform them in the long term, but time to isolate them in the short term to limit the harm they can do.

From the Preface to Gwen Raverat’s Period Piece: A Victorian Childhood:

“This is a circular book. It does not begin at the beginning and go on to the end; it is all going on at the same time, sticking out like the spokes of a wheel from the hub, which is me.”

Two years after the fact, Sen. Schatz said that the Democrats should have shut down the Senate when McConnell mugged the Constitution and torpedoed Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination.

Why are the Dems not planning to do the same thing now that Brett Kavanaugh is being appointed with the direct object of obstructing justice and inoculating Trump?

And why did Chuck Schumer just broker a deal to fast-track McConnell’s right-wing extremist nominees in the lower court?

We need younger, better, more committed, tougher Democratic legislators.

The President’s go-strategy is projection; we are correct to assume that every accusation he makes against anyone betrays his own intentions and behavior.

Moustafa Bayoumi asks in the Guardian why this goes under the radar: “The circus show that is the Trump administration has, like a fireball in an air shaft, swallowed all the oxygen in the room. The administration’s endless scandals give us just the justification we need to focus almost exclusively on our domestic life and not on America’s meddling in rest of the world.:

Democrats must craft their own foreign policy, rather than”Me-too”ing the dreadful GOP international misadventures and carnage.

Sen. Chris Murphy has a clue: “US bombs. US targeting. US mid air support. And we just bombed a SCHOOL BUS. The Saudi/UAE/US bombing campaign is getting more reckless, killing more civilians, and strengthening terrorists inside Yemen. We need to end this — NOW,”

In every possible way:  totalitarian Kavanaugh will let Trump establish himself as above the law and lead to a further erosion of equal protections of every kind.

It will, Miles Mogulesco writes at Campaign for America’s Future, “delegitimize the Supreme Court as an independent branch of government, and lead the nation towards an authoritarianism which undermines the rule of law.”

Every single GOP senator who goes along with the awful, traitorous gag must be denounced.