When Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed and sworn in to the Supreme Court in October, his seat on the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was left vacant. In Novembe, Donald Trump nominated Neomi Rao, who now serves as administrator in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an agency within the White House Office of Management and Budget, to fill the seat. “She’s going to be fantastic—great person,” he said at the time.
While it’s no surprise that Trump tapped a nominee whose views are conservative, a new BuzzFeed News report cites pieces that Rao wrote that suggest extreme (and horrific) opinions on women and rape. BuzzFeed discovered a 1994 article from the Yale Herald in which then undergraduate Rao wrote that though a drunk man who raped women should be prosecuted, “a good way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober.” While as many as 50 percent of campus sexual assault cases involve alcohol, Reo, in those writings, put the blame squarely on victims’ shoulders: “And if she drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice,” she wrote. “Implying that a drunk woman has no control of her actions, but that a drunk man does strips women of all moral responsibility.”
It’s classic victim blaming and while the article is old, it doesn’t do much to calm the fears of those who’ve expressed concern about how Trump nominees might rule when it comes to sexual assault. On social media, the new revelations are sounding warning bells. “What Rao is saying here is that getting drunk means a woman kinda-sorta chose to get raped. Cool defense,” tweeted writer Jill Filipovic.
In a statement to Glamour, End Rape on Campus executive director Jess Davidson said Rao’s comments “are disqualifying for a judicial nominee or anyone interested in holding public office. Her comments condone victim blaming and perpetuate the rape culture in our schools and society that are dangerous to all individuals. Survivors are not ‘responsible’ for the violence they experience, and I am disturbed by Rao’s suggestion otherwise.”
Other writing from Rao uncovered by BuzzFeed News shows equally concerning viewpoints regarding race and LGBTQ+ issues. (In a 1994 column published in the Yale Herald about LGBTQ+ associations on campus, Rao wrote that “[t]rendy political movements have only recently added sexuality to the standard checklist of traits requiring politics.”) Nan Aron, president of the liberal advocacy group Alliance for Justice, told BuzzFeed that Rao’s columns are “consistent with the administration’s support of candidates who make racially insensitive statements and comments hostile to sexual assault survivors.”
“She shouldn’t be awarded a seat on what many view as the second highest court in the country, which is often a stepping stone to the Supreme Court,” Aron said.
If you’re finding it difficult to keep up with the fast-moving news cycle around Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, you are not alone. Sunday night brought a new allegation of sexual misconduct from a second woman via a piece by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer in The New Yorker. And now Thursday’s scheduled hearings—which were to feature testimony by Kavanaugh and his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford—may be in jeopardy of being canceled.
So let’s break down the latest updates in Kavanaugh’s nomination hearings.
A second woman, Deborah Ramirez, has accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.
Ramirez claims that the incident occurred during she and Kavanaugh’s freshman year at Yale University. She told The New Yorker that she was initially hesitant to speak publicly (partly because of gaps in her recollection due to the consumption of alcohol) but later told Farrow and Mayer that “she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.”
Like Ford before her, she is asking the FBI to investigate the incident and Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh denied the allegations in a statement to the magazine. “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so,” it reads. “This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name—and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building—against these last-minute allegations.”
But according to an unnamed former classmate, who told the New Yorker he is “one-hundred-per-cent sure,” Kavanaugh was the student who exposed himself to Ramirez. “I’ve known this all along,” he told the magazine. “It’s been on my mind all these years when his name came up. It was a big deal.”
Others, including the wife of one of the male students she says was involved in the incident, disputes Ramirez’s claims.
“We were the people closest to Brett Kavanaugh during his first year at Yale. He was a roommate to some of us, and we spent a great deal of time with him, including in the dorm where this incident allegedly took place,” a statement given to the New Yorker from the wife and three other classmates—identified as Dino Ewing, Louisa Garry, and Dan Murphy—reads. “Some of us were also friends with Debbie Ramirez during and after her time at Yale. We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it—and we did not.”
Christine Blasey Ford agreed to publicly testify about her allegations.
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Ford had reached an agreement with the Senate Judiciary Committee to appear before them on Thursday. This was after much back and forth that saw Republican leadership pushing for a quick date while Ford and her legal team worked to ensure she was treated fairly.
“Despite actual threats to her safety and her life, Dr. Ford believes it is important for senators to hear directly from her about the sexual assault committed against her they will not impede the hearing taking place,” her lawyers said in a statement.
However, Sen. Dianne Fienstein (D-Calif.) is calling for Thursday’s hearings to be canceled.
In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Feinstein cited the second allegation against Kavanaugh as reason to postpone the hearings. She called for both Ramirez and Blasey Ford’s claims to be investigated by the FBI.
“We need a fair, independent process that will gather all the facts, interview all the relevant witnesses, and ensure the Committee receives a full and impartial report,” she writes. “Should the White House continue to refuse to direct the FBI to do its job, the Committee must subpoena all relevant witnesses.”
“It’s time to set politics aside,” she continues. “We must ensure that a thorough and fair investigation is conducted moving forward.”
The White House and leading Republicans are standing by Kavanaugh—for now.
White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec said in a statement to CNN, “This 35-year-old, uncorroborated claim is the latest in a coordinated smear campaign by the Democrats designed to tear down a good man. This claim is denied by all who were said to be present and is wholly inconsistent with what many women and men who knew Judge Kavanaugh at the time in college say. The White House stands firmly behind Judge Kavanaugh.”
Just this morning President Donald Trump called the allegations “totally political” and says “I am with him [Kavanaugh] all the way.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee went on Fox News Sunday to deride Ford’s claims. “What am I supposed to do? Go ahead and ruin this guy’s life based on an accusation?” he said. “I don’t know when it happened, I don’t know where it happened, and everybody named in regard to being there said it didn’t happen.”
Women are mobilizing in support of Blasey Ford and Ramirez.
A number of women’s groups have organized a walkout scheduled for 1 PM ET Monday. The National #BelieveSurvivors Walkout will call attention to the plight of survivors of sexual assault and misconduct everywhere, while also asking the Senate to vote against Kavanaugh’s nomination.
“The groundswell of support for Dr. Ford is exactly what the me too. movement is about. So often, survivors struggle to disclose their assault or abuse and when they do, the response is similar to what we’re seeing now,” says #MeToo founder, Tarana Burke. “It’s been almost 30 years since Anita Hill’s testimony and we want to ensure that the Senate Judiciary Committee does the right thing this time.”
We will continue to update this story as it evolves.
There wasn’t an organized Time’s Up or #MeToo protest at the 2018 Emmy Awards like there was at this year’s Golden Globes, but Evan Rachel Wood still found a way to speak out. While attending the ceremony on Monday night, Wood brought as her plus-one Amanda Nguyen, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in June for her work on behalf of survivors of sexual assault.
It’s especially notable given that many celebrities brought activists as their plus-ones to other award shows earlier this year, at the very forefront of the Time’s Up movement, but Wood was the only one to do so at the 2018 Emmys.
In an interview with E! News‘s Giuliana Rancic on the red carpet, Wood and Nguyen spoke about their work together; earlier this year, they both testified in front of Congress in support of the Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill of Rights. “I think we’re at a crucial time in history right now for women, and especially for civil rights. You know, if I have even a little bit of power right now, I want to use it for good,” Wood said.
“I’m also here supporting the ACLU and the fight to reunite immigrant families separated at the border — that’s why I’m wearing the blue ribbon,” she added. “I just feel like it’s important. It’s what I’m called to do. Amanda’s certainly been someone who’s inspired me to do more.”
Nguyen also explained how she and Wood first met. “I gave the speech at the Women’s March and Evan was there. I saw Evan speak, of course, and then we just connected,” she said. “I’m so grateful, again, and it just makes such a difference when we get platforms like this to discuss issues.”
Nguyen, 26, is the founder of Rise, a nonprofit organization that works to expand the rights of assault survivors. In 2016, she helped to draft the Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill of Rights, which sought to establish a universal standard for care for survivors and subsequently passed unanimously through Congress.
You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids, so we’ll be here to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.
Here’s the good news about Brett Kavanaugh, who looks likely to be the country’s next Supreme Court justice: He is great on carpool duty! Also, probably an attentive listener at parent-teacher conferences! This much, we have been told.
All week, during his confirmation hearings, Kavanaugh was painted as the nice guy. We heard about his commitment to hiring and mentoring women, his standing volunteer date at a local soup kitchen, and his passion for coaching girls’ basketball. All week, Republican senators, Kavanaugh’s colleagues, and the judge’s own unfailingly polite demeanor reminded us: This is a normal man. This is the dad next door.
The theme reached its saturation point today, when Rebecca Taibleson, a former clerk of Kavanaugh’s, pointed out that he’s a “regular at his local bar, where he’s partial to a Budweiser and a hamburger.”
I like beer and hamburgers and nice people. After watching over 30 hours of Kavanaugh-TV, I am thoroughly sold on the fact that he is a hoot at a neighborhood BBQ.
PHOTO: Drew Angerer
But here’s the bad news for anyone concerned about reproductive freedom, unchecked presidential power, or common sense gun reform: He refused to address his views on any of them. I heard his jump shot extolled this week, but based on what I’ve seen, it’s nothing compared to his duck. He dodged just about every opportunity to say something of substance.
Perhaps the most bizarre example of this: Kavanaugh repeatedly name-checked four landmark Supreme Court decisions, calling them “the four greatest moments in Supreme Court history.” But whenever someone asked him if these personal faves of his were “correctly decided,” he refused to say. Great, but not correct? Sounds like a MAGA hat went to law school.
Is there a protocol-related reason that might make Kavanaugh feel unable to confirm that something he just said is great is great? Maybe. But is it possible that this is all comical, tragic shadiness? I’m just a regular gal who likes Budweiser and beer, so what do I know?
And that’s not the only question I have. As a result of this weeklong shade brigade—brought to you by your own taxes, by the way—I still have several questions about Brett Kavanaugh, and you should too.
What was the point of all that relentless branding of Kavanaugh this week? Being nice to women and following precedent is to Kavanaugh as Calabasas is to Kim Kardashian—in other words, essential to his new brand. This was driven home hard all week. In the short term, this was likely meant to pacify whichever American women aren’t protesting his nomination yet. But it has a second, long-term purpose. If Kavanaugh gets on the Court, and casts ice-cold votes against women’s health interests, he’ll want us to remember that as a dude, he actually loves women. Awesome, cool. I’ll think of him fondly when I have to smuggle my birth control in from Toronto.
But wait—does he always follow precedent? If you ask him, abso-frickin’-lutely! (Frickin’ is for sure as crass as this guy gets.) But if you ask other knowledgeable parties: Not so much, especially when it comes to matters of same-sex marriage and abortion. When questioned on both topics, Kavanaugh repeatedly referenced specific decisions as the legal last word on the subjects—even though there were more recent cases expanding or clarifying the Court’s opinion on them. If that sounds complicated, you can read more about it here—but suffice to say that Kavanaugh has a curious habit of deferring to cases that happen to match his conservative beliefs, rather than the most current rulings. Convenient.
So, with that in mind—would he vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, or not? Judiciary Committee members tried, to no avail, to get a straight answer from him all week. Ten million times, Kavanaugh referred to Roe as “settled law”—though, characteristically, he would not say whether he believed it was correctly decided—and for some time, that chorus of “precedent on precedent” seemed, on its face, reassuring. But while Kavanaugh’s poker face never broke down, his show of sureness on the matter did. First, a leaked email from his time working in the White House seemed to indicate that Kavanaugh doesn’t really think Roe is all that airtight. Then, in what felt like perhaps the loudest indication of his own personal views from the entire proceedings, Kavanaugh referred to various kinds of contraception as “abortion-inducing drugs.” And perhaps that’s no big deal! Happens to all of us, right? We wake up, panicked, and we text our best friends, “Oh shit! Forgot to take my abortion last night!” Could be an honest mistake. Who knows.
Okay, so—what could this guy have possibly told Senator Susan Collins (R—Maine), a key vote in his confirmation and a firm advocate of choice, to reassure her that he won’t gut abortion rights? Hard to say. If you’re a Maine resident and want to talk it over with someone from her staff, call (202) 224-2523 and press 0 to be connected.
Does Kavanaugh really believe that a sitting president can’t be investigated or indicted? Kavanaugh went out of his way to say that “no one is above the law,” and reiterated over and over the importance of an “independent judiciary,” but he evaded all Trump-related questions under the guise of wanting to “stay three zip codes away” from political matters. Fine.
What should concern us here is the same thing that’s concerned us since it was announced that Kavanaugh would be the Supreme Court nominee: Despite what his pals and coworkers would have us believe, he’s not coming into this nomination with a reputation for measuredness. On this issue, he’s coming in as a potential presidential appointee, culled from a short list of options, and what seemed to set him apart from everyone else was his stated belief that presidents shouldn’t have their days interrupted by investigations. Kavanaugh had the opportunity this week to assuage the country’s collective raised eyebrow on that one by firmly asserting that he wouldn’t let presidential power go unchecked. He simply didn’t do it. He wouldn’t tell the committee whether he’d recuse himself in Trump-related matters.
Furthermore, as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D—Rhode Island) pointed out, he may have chosen his words carefully to create an “escape hatch” that would allow him to spare President Trump from having to appear before a grand jury by differentiating those circumstances from ones that eventually led to President Richard Nixon handing over the infamous Watergate tapes. Clever.
How good of a friend would Kavanaugh be to the NRA? Uh, BFF-level, it seems. Claiming a blind loyalty to precedent once again, Kavanaugh more or less confirmed that he would be unlikely to vote for the regulation of semiautomatic weapons or the future regulation of 3-D printed weapons. He hinted at his personal ideas about how to deal with America’s mass-shooting crisis when he talked about his daughters’ (private) school: “They do a lot of things now that are different than they did just a few years ago in terms of trying to harden the school and make it safer for everyone.”
Wasn’t there something in the mix about him doing something sketchy with emails?Yes, though the implications are unclear. In the early 2000s, while he was working in the Bush administration, Kavanaugh was the recipient of some strategy intel on several Democratic congresspersons. As he testified this week, he didn’t know that the information had been stolen in a hack of the congresspersons’ emails. But Kavanaugh’s emails from back then—which leaked this week—make that theory seem kinda hard to believe. Much of the information that was passed on to Kavanaugh was still labeled “not for disclosure”—meaning that he wants us to believe he saw that and thought, “Well, shucks, I guess the Dems didn’t want anyone outside their office to see this except for me, a guy working in a Republican White House. Two points!” And, um, the subject heading of this one is literally “spying.” Anyway, seeing as double standards don’t exist, I’m sure we’ll be hearing cries of “But his emails!” any second now.
Lastly: Why was Kavanaugh taking notes with a Sharpie all week? Sir! What do you have against the other side of the paper?
Megan Angelo writes about TV and is the author of the novel Followers, which will be published in 2019.
As a former prosecutor (and former attorney general of California), Harris has perfected her cross-examination technique, and it is quite a sight to behold. Watching her line of questioning in Senate hearings has become a thing to watch. But there was one question in particular that had many women across the country cheering from their living rooms.
“Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Harris asked Kavanaugh. When he offered to answer a more specific question, she clarified, “Male versus female.” Then she repeated the question.
Kavanaugh stumbled over his words and finally responded: “I’m not thinking of any right now, Senator.”
There it is, right there—the crux of the frustration for women (and men) who believe in reproductive freedom. There is no comparable situation where the government gets to make bodily decisions for men in this country.
His answer is one of concern for those watching to see how Kavanaugh handles questions about women’s reproductive freedom. In an interview with Glamour shortly after Trump announced his nomination, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand expressed her fears that women would seek illegal abortions if the conservative judge was confirmed.
“We are at the brink of not having reproductive freedom in this country, not having the ability to decide when and how many children we’re going to have,” Gillibrand told Glamour. “This nominee believes that a boss should decide whether I get access to birth control…. We should fight back with everything we have—because everything’s at stake.” And Washington Senator Patty Murray told Glamour that a Kavanaugh confirmation would create “a court [with] five men on it who will overturn Roe v. Wade.”
Kavanaugh continued to evade discussion of his views on Roe v. Wade when asked by Harris whether he believed that a woman’s right to privacy included her right to terminate a pregnancy. He danced around the issue of nominee precedent, saying that he should not comment on specific cases and the importance of judicial independence. (While Kavanaugh has been quoted as saying Roe v. Wade is “settled law,” a 2003 leaked email provided to The New York Times and published Thursday shows the judge challenging whether the case was “settled law of the land.”)
Harris didn’t just grill Kavanaugh on women’s rights; she also spent eight minutes on the Mueller investigation of possible collusion with Russia and asked Kavanaugh if he believed there was blame on both sides (referencing Trump’s response for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year during a white supremacist rally). He evaded concrete answers on both issues. “I am not here to assess comments made in the political arena, because the risk is I’ll be drawn into the political arena,” Kavanaugh said regarding Charlottesville.
You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids—so we’re here to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.
There’s a chance—if you were in your office, or at a doctor’s appointment, or on a treadmill—that you spotted some of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings on mute. If you did, then you saw a lot of white guys. And so perhaps you assumed that it was them who stole the show.
Not so. A chorus of women’s voices—those of the senators on the dais, and those of the protestors in the gallery—became the soundtrack of the day. Women spoke when they were called upon, and frequently when they were not.
That unfamiliar audio—the sound of women interrupting men—gave Day One of Kavanaugh’s grilling on Capitol Hill an unexpected vibe. An event that could have felt (and sometimes did feel, what with a group of Offred-themed protestors in the halls) like one step closer to life inside the Handmaid’s Tale, delivered occasional moments of triumph. Brave women delivered a flat-out, top-of-their-lungs refusal to let one more man bent on legislating their bodies breeze into power without a fight.
The battle began just seconds into the hearing. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the committee chairman, had barely finished clearing his throat when Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) jumped in.
“Mr. Chairman,” she said, “I’d like to be recognized for a question before we proceed.”
Harris went on to ask for a delay based on the late release of 42,000 pages of documentation related to Kavanaugh’s job in the administration of President George W. Bush. A lawyer for Bush released the papers to the judicial committee just last night. Yes, last night—as in the tail end of #ldw, as in 12 hours before the start of the hearings, as in barely enough time for these senators to digest their hot dogs and aloe their sunburns, let alone read the equivalent of the entire Lord of the Rings series 27 times. Harris’s peers on the Judiciary Committee (the Democratic ones, at least)—Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI)—picked up her lead, demanding that Sen. Grassley adjourn the session until they could review the material.
Sen. Grassley steadfastly denied the Democrats’ motions, but he couldn’t thwart the momentum of the women on the committee. There was the quiet swagger of ranking member, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), slyly rocking Planned Parenthood pink and giving Kavanaugh a taste of how she plans to come for him on his record on reproductive freedom. “The impact of overturning Roe [v. Wade] is much broader than a woman’s right to choose,” she said to him. “It’s about protecting the most personal decisions we all make from government intrusion.”
There was Sen. Klobuchar, who achieved the burn of the day while discussing Kavanaugh’s assertion that sitting presidents can’t be prosecuted. The question the hearings must answer, she said, is “whether this judge, at this time in our history, will administer the law with equal justice as it applies to all citizens, regardless of whether they live… in a small house or the White House.”
There was Sen. Harris, making her opening statement late in the afternoon, and commenting bluntly on the way the Supreme Court—Brown v. Board of Education, to be exact—has affected the arc of her own life. Without it, she said, “I most certainly would not be sitting here as a member of the United States Senate… So, for me, a Supreme Court seat is not only about academic issues of legal precedent or judicial philosophy. It is personal.”
And, every minute or so for much of the morning proceedings, there were the largely female protestors, each of them exacting their own tiny revenge against civilization’s long tradition of men talking over women. You know whom life did not prepare for this gender bender? One Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). He was visibly rattled as protestor after protestor screwed up his what-a-good-man speech about Kavanaugh.
(Side note: Don’t ask Orrin Hatch to be your best man unless you like such pillow-soft jokes such as: “You also apparently like to eat pasta with ketchup, but nobody’s perfect.” As far as I’m concerned, it’s marinara and bodily autonomy, or bust. That’s just a simple matter of good taste.)
After one too many ladies made themselves known, chin trembling, Sen. Hatch gathered himself and said, “I don’t know that the committee should have to put up with this type of insolence.”
Insolence—yes, that’s the word you were looking for, if you think that women concerned for their own liberty and mortality are just being brats.
Insolence—yes, that’s the word you were looking for, if you think that women concerned for their own liberty and mortality are just being brats. That’s the word you were looking for, if you think women exercising their right to free speech are the same as toddlers who refuse to hold your hand in the parking lot. That’s the word you were looking for if, despite your literal seat of power, you can’t help but feel—as Sen. Hatch so clearly seemed to—like you’ve never been closer to losing control.
So there’s the big takeaway from today’s episode of Who Wants to Revoke Reproductive Freedom? But there are little ones we need to discuss, too. A few distinctions from the day’s events:
Least effective prop: Big quotes.
PHOTO: Bloomberg
Some poor staffer was at the FedEx store all weekend, getting these big quotes just right, and it’s on his or her behalf that I beseech you, senators: For whom are the big quotes? For whom! They’re behind the rest of the people on the committee, and we at home can’t see them at all. Down with big quotes.
Best athletic performance: The aide behind Sen. Chuck Grassley. During the chaotic first hour of the hearing, this poor guy was out of his chair and squatting to whisper into his boss’s ear every 15 seconds. His quads had to be on fire.
Most sympathetic onlookers: Kavanaugh’s family.
PHOTO: Tom Williams
“My daughters, Margaret and Liza, thank the committee for arranging a day off of school today,” Kavanaugh quipped early into the proceedings. Good thing he made it clear that was a joke; otherwise I’d nail him for perjury. Nothing underscores how poorly this man understands women than the assertion that these two would rather be sitting here listening to politicians drone than be at school during the crucial week in which summer makeovers are revealed and fall alliances are formed. (And they still had to hear about Marbury v. Madison multiple times.) Also, my heart goes out to the aunts, uncles, and cousins Kavanaugh says are sitting behind him. This day was like, six and a half baptisms, except worse, because Ted Cruz talked.
Least sympathetic onlooker: The woman in navy just over Kavanaugh’s shoulder.
PHOTO: SAUL LOEB
She smirked. She rolled her eyes. She laughed. She seemed, generally, to think that she was at a talk show taping, and I bet she’s still wondering why there wasn’t a prize beneath her chair.
Best Law & Order antics: Sen. Richard Blumenthal. After lunch, when the Democrats resumed their complaints about the previous night’s document dump, Sen. Grassley snapped, exasperated, that his staff was able to read them all by 11 p.m. Then Blumenthal was all, like, But the documents weren’t even fully uploaded by 11 p.m.! You got a time machine or what, Chuck?
Dumbest theory: Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE). Sen. Sasse took some shots at the protestors, calling them “people trying to get on TV.” Yeah. For sure, in 2018, when we have Instagram, YouTube, and near-constant editions of Bachelor franchise programming, the easiest way to earn fame is to hike to D.C., sit through government proceedings, and yell about fundamental rights, all in hopes of being the roughly one in 25 protestors you can partially see on camera for exactly one second. Nailed it, Sasse.
Most worthy of further exploration: Hold on—ketchup on spaghetti? Is that some sort of sick joke?
Megan Angelo is a TV critic; catch her Kavanaugh recaps here all week.
