Last night, I noted that Kavanaugh’s first words to the American people and the world contained an obvious and provable lie. The line about no president having spoken to broader groups of people, blah blah, such an expansive search. It was outright farce, and the language could have been written by Trump. Indeed, if you go back and look at the entire speech, the original part where Kavanaugh praises Trump sounds “different” than the rest of the speech. Either someone wrote it for him and told him to say it, or he wrote it, knowing he had to say something about it assuage Trump.
So, one goes to bed wondering “Does this man, who is now already nominated to the Supreme Court believe that Trump is somehow his “boss,” still, or that he owes Trump something?”
Because that is the ultimate fear, right? Because who knows what goes on in those conversations, one on one, which promises are made. (Trump’s buddies would be sure to have stuff “on” Kavanaugh to “enforce” a promise, …believe me)
So, you go to bed, and then this morning when checking your twitter feed, you see this:
Source familiar tells NBC that Justice Kennedy had been in negotiations with the Trump team for months over Kennedy’s replacement. Once Kennedy received assurances that it would be Kavanaugh (his former law clerk) Kennedy felt comfortable retiring – @LACaldwellDC & @frankthorp
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) July 10, 2018
What.The.Fuck.
“Negotiations” about a SCOTUS justice retiring, and a SCOTUS justice retiring upon the condition that his replacement will be a former clerk?
No.
That is actually not supposed to happen. In fact, there was even a West Wing episode on this very issue, where an extremely elderly justice was falling behind in his work, was sick, colleagues wanted him to retire, and the Bartlett Administration (at least some members of the team) sort of approached one of the Justice’s old law clerks, now working at the White House, to go, you know, “talk to him” about retiring. And that law clerk was having none of it, because this is just so obviously NOT something you do.
This takes on even greater significance in a situation where Kavanaugh knows that he was the “deal” – the guy that would get Kennedy to step down, because he would be appointed and that made Kennedy happy, all as part of “negotiations” between Kavanaugh, Trump, Kennedy and who the fuck knows who else at this point.
This is not the damn way you’re supposed to run this country! When are people going to wake up? When are people going to see that what is happening before our eyes, and those little things that instantly strike you as odd, small things like a lie to begin a speech, is actually truly significant when one steps back and looks at the context of the lie, and what Trump worries about.
What does Trump worry about? What does Trump always fear the most? That he will be exposed as a scam artist, that it’s all a sham. So, on a sham appointment where the justice was picked prior to the announcement of Kennedy’s retirement, Trump might feel slightly “anxious” about the fact that he never really considered anyone else, or talked to anyone else. So Trump, feeling “concerned” about the process either tells Kavanaugh, “say this” or – even worse – Kavanaugh, having been in on the deal all along, knows what worries Trump, and wants to put Trump at ease, give him a sign that all things are simpatico, they are “on the same page,” leans into the microphone and tells the most obvious lie in his first sentence to the world (also one that made him look great, a Trump two-fer, because if it was the widest search ever, and came up with this fker, then he truly is the best. This is partly why I think that part was written for him. Kavanaugh had to know that the lie sounded pretty self-absorbed, something the rest of his speech avoided).
Anyway, because we live in a new America, governed in a new way, we can no longer just take small things for granted as just weird, “unusual” things that happen, but have no part of some big “conspiracy” … because no, it appears that it is just as likely that the lie Kavanaugh uttered last night was specifically put in that speech to cover something, as it is likely to be just a guy kissing someone’s ass.
That’s our brave new world, where you are forced to question every underlying assumption about limits that you once had. Where even, “Of course the Administration would not have “talked” to Kennedy about when to retire and entice it by naming his replacement …” No! No! You no longer get to have those basic assumptions.
That is not where you live anymore. Life is much harder now. There is no baseline safe zone. Trump is off to Europe to meet our “allies” and then afterward, report in to Putin, with only translators present …assume nothing, America.
