Susan Barsy

Sep. 26, 2018 By Susan Barsy in Governing , The Trump Years Tags: Brett Kavanaugh , equality , President Trump , Republican party , US Senate , US Supreme Court , women , women's rights Leave a comment Something decisive will occur in the Senate this week. Not just a nomination hearing, but a political drama crystallizing in the minds of Americans... the nature of a political party, and an institution. In a hearing set for Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider whether Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is a person of respectable character. They will hear from a California psychology professor, Christine Blasey-Ford, who has come out of nowhere with a believable claim that in 1982 Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when she was 15. Kavanaugh denies it. Despite the perturbation the allegations are causing, Senate Republicans are intent on shielding the nominee. Determined to treat whatever is disclosed in tomorrows hearing as irrelevant to his confirmation, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell anticipates that, after hearing from the two parties in a non-judicial setting, the committee will vote on the confirmation the very next day. On the way to that vote, America will see how its leaders behave. How do senators treat a woman whose personal story threatens the plans of President Trump and the Republican Party? How considerate are they in sorting out this very unsavory #MeToo story, which the recent openness of women in discussing sexual assault is empowering? To what extent have senators reckoned with the implications of sexual equality, or how badly are they out of step with the times? President Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress have dug in their heels, exploiting their every institutional advantage in an effort to mute a damning social narrative and push Kavanaugh through. Trumps White House has become Kavanaughs sanctuary. He has been holed up there like a wanted man, arming himself with the latest in dis-ingenuity. Kavanaughs proxies have spread out on the news circuit, ...Read More