"I Like Beer. Do You Like Beer?"... What I Believe

I am sitting in Chicago O'Hare International airport waiting for a connecting flight to Alaska, and just saw a post claiming that in the Alaska senate race, Sarah Palin is trailing in the polls. This is a good thing. Her deranged, word-salad rants during her vice presidential bid, and from then on, paved the way for a tRump presidency, and we know how that turned out. Our society, our World, doesn't need any more of that bullshit. The MAGA cult leader is now under FBI investigation for stealing top secret government documents and hiding them at his Florida country club, obstruction of justice--AGAIN--and we're waiting for the January 6th committee to resume. Now, this piece of shit appointed THREE supreme court justices, who in a just and sane world would have been impeached by now, since they all committed perjury in their confirmation hearings.

Brett Kavanaugh.  I don't call him Justice because he was a Yalie frat boy at our first and only meeting. 

This is not an accusation.  I have no proof of what happened, only the belief that it did.  I have come to understand that most people believe that in the "Land Of The Free" you have the right to believe anything you want, no matter how ridiculous, illogical, or politically inconvenient it may be. So I reserve the right to believe my story, and in truth, I have no reason to believe it to be untrue. 

When I saw him testify in his confirmation hearings I took an immediate disliking to him.  His arrogant defiance against legitimate lines of questioning, his phoney dismay at being exposed as a pig and an elitist at that, and his laughable emotional sniffing.  As a fan of beer, I had to cringe when he tried to use the line "I like beer. Do you like beer?" to one of the panel of questioners when asked about his behavior during his glory days at Yale.  During the hearings a photograph of him during that time was shown, and that is when I recognized him.  I lived in New Haven at the same time. Though originally from East Pediddleville, I had been in New Haven long enough to consider myself a "townie".  I spent four years there at the State University, then stayed on to be a denizen of the great local music scene of the 80's and 90's.  I saw that picture of him and it all came back to me, the memory of the night when Brett Kavanaugh assaulted me on the corner of College and Chapel!

I was out on the town at night, maybe after dinner or on the way to show. I don't remember exactly who I was with, but at one of those moments when the collective directions were being subconsciously determined I was standing right at the corner, perhaps a few inches off the sidewalk into the street, and a car slowly pulled up, as if to pick up or drop off a passenger, when unexpectedly a body lunged out of the open window and smacked me across the face! Dazed and astounded in the fractions of seconds afterwards I saw his sneering face retreating back into the now speeding car.  He had a light blue headband, possibly a tie, pushing his hair up from his face, with an expression that was triumphantly disrespectful.  He yelled something unintelligible as the car drove off, but at that point I had already moved from astonishment to a bit of amusement since this incident had been so out of the blue and successful. I won't say I was impressed, because no random act of violence is impressive, but you know what I mean.  There was no opportunity to jot down the license plate number.  Was this a fraternity hazing stunt? Some kind of drunken dare egged on by Squee?  Who knows?  I was ok but for the waning sting on my face, and I quickly chalked it up to the random Yalie-Townie interface that sometimes happens.  Seeing the photo of Kavanaugh nearly thirty five years later made me remember the incident.

Why do I believe it was him without really knowing, without really any solid proof?  I will say that believing it was him does call into question my understanding of the way the justice system works-innocent until proven guilty, and all that, but there was no police report, or description of the incident to police with a make and model of the car and a partial license ID.  This was just a random street violence case just like many others that never get reported and go unpunished.  Do I want to accuse him and have him charged? Not at all.  Not because I don't believe it was him, but because his punishment, in a very small way, is my belief turned to knowledge that he is unfit for the court.  He wants to get away with the lie that he deserves to sit on the Supreme Court, but as long as there is at least one person who knows that is not true, it is not true.  Justice.

So since I believe he hit me in the face that night, do I also believe the accusations leveled by the very courageous and principled Christine Blasey Ford?  You bet I do!  She couldn't let him cruise through his confirmation hearings without facing his shitty past (the one he seems to be proud of), knowing that such a shitty person who would bully and attempt rape and commit random street violence upon Townies could sit on the United States Supreme Court, put there by the shittiest of shit people--President Donald JOHN tRump.  I think that all three of his SCOTUS appointments, since they were appointed by a twice-impeached, big liar president who is now under investigation for insurrection, espionage, election tampering, witness tampering, et cetera, and since they all committed perjury over their potential rulings in the abortion issue, should be impeached themselves. I knew he'd be confirmed because of just how shitty the whole scenario was, and that's just what Justice in this country is nowadays.

Halfway through our trip in Alaska it was announced that Sarah Palin had lost her Senate bid, and it was reason for rejoicing.  We did drive through her hometown of Wasilla, seeing really only strip malls and other commercial establishments, on the way to  Talkeetna, a fascinating wild little town where they refer to Denali, the former Mount McKinley renamed as the original native name by President Obama, as "She".  Talkeetna was an unincorporated town that earlier in its history was threatened by the state to be made its capital.   They wanted no part of it. In 1997 they were mandated to elect a mayor, and not wanting to defile their quirky little place on the Earth (rumored to be the inspiration for the town of Cicely in the TV series Northern Exposure) with politics, elected the least partisan person they could find--a cat named Mr. Stubbs.  When Mr. Stubbs died, he was replaced by the current mayor, another cat named Denali, who we saw crossing the Main Street in town on our way out.  

Wasilla should have taken a lesson from Talkeetna, as the United States should have taken a lesson from New Haven in not electing to the Supreme Court an entitled, partisan liar guilty of sexual abuse and random drunken street violence.  Again, this is not an accusation, just a belief I have, and surely any and all MAGA types, no matter how closet authoritarian they may be, should agree with me that I have a right to believe it.  This country is in a deep shitload of trouble because of people like this. Liars. Cheaters. Bullies. Abusers. Fascists.