"We must take our government back!" Abso-fucking-lutely!

These goons have hijacked our democracy and we need to take it back. Yes, there is a vast left wing conspiracy! It is a conspiracy to restore constitutional protections, and checks and balances. It is a conspiracy to turn the government around and start serving the people rather than the wealthy and their corporations. It is a conspiracy to kick corrupt Republican traitors out of office and pay for their crimes against our nation.

I hope the time I spent on this was worth it to you.

Senate Republicans on Thursday accused Sen. Cory Booker of creating fake drama by claiming to disclose “committee confidential” material on Kavanaugh when the documents had already been cleared for release...Fellow Democrats and progressive activists praised Booker for releasing the documents.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/congress/john-cornyn-accuses-cory-booker-of-grandstanding-over-document-claim

The GOP’s response to Booker’s outburst evolved. Initially, a senator questioned whether Booker "deserves to sit on this committee or in the Senate" for what he did. Then the documents he wanted were cleared for release, so they were no longer confidential when Booker put them out. So the response shifted to mocking Booker's "Spartacus" comment and arguing he was grandstanding over nothing...“I think this morning was a game-changer,” Clarke said. “What other information is in the hundreds of thousands of documents that haven’t been turned over? There is a looming feeling there is something they’re hiding.” “Cory and Senate Democrats were able to shame the committee into agreeing to make last night’s documents publicly available, and Cory publicly released those documents as well as other committee confidential documents today. And he’ll keep releasing them because Republicans are hiding Brett Kavanaugh’s record from the American people,” Lynch said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/07/what-cory-booker-accomplished-daring-gop-kick-him-out-kavanaugh-hearing/1221776002/

Booker spokeswoman Kristin Lynch said the senator had "said this morning that he was releasing confidential committee documents, and that's exactly what he's done," saying that he and Democrats had been able to "shame the committee" into agreeing to make the documents publicly available.At the Thursday hearing, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, accused Booker of political grandstanding.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/brett-kavanaugh-face-final-round-questions-marathon-confirmation-hearing-n906821

As Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearing continues, Sen. Cory Booker has distinguished himself as one of the most vocal opponents of the proceedings. Booker released confidential emails pertaining to the hearing, acknowledging the penalty of such action could be expulsion from the Senate. Many of Booker's supporters lauded the action, saying Booker's act of civil disobedience was for the good of the country. Others, including Booker's Republican colleagues in the Senate, accused him of grandstanding for purely political reasons. What do you think?
https://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2018/09/is_cory_booker_a_patriot_or_ju.html

In a move likely to add to tensions over documents related to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s record, Senator Cory Booker, D-N.J., released several pages of emails that were previously marked “committee confidential.” Booker argued the fact that tens of thousands of documents revealing Kavanaugh’s views on key issues were deemed “committee confidential” reflects the “absurdity” of the process, which he described as a “sham.” “The public has a right to access documents about a Supreme Court nominee’s views on issues that are profoundly important, such as race and the law,” Booker said in a statement. He added, “This process has demonstrated an unprecedented level of secrecy and opaqueness that undermines the Senate’s Constitutional duty to advice and consent.”...Meanwhile, Republicans on the committee accused Booker of political grandstanding, noting he is seen as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2020.
https://www.ktsa.com/booker-releases-confidential-kavanaugh-emails-despite-risk-of-expulsion/

It was a made-for-television moment — albeit later mocked by Republicans as grandstanding — and for Mr. Booker, it might come in handy. He is one of three Democrats on the Judiciary Committee — the others are Senators Kamala D. Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota — said to be contemplating presidential runs in 2020, and there is no time like a stately, nationally televised Supreme Court nomination hearing to grab the attention of the news media and amass valuable footage for future campaign commercials.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/us/politics/kavanaugh-hearings-kamala-harris-cory-booker.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fpolitics

“I am right now before your process is finished, I’m going to release the email about racial profiling, and I understand that the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate.” Booker said he is prepared to face whatever punishment awaits him because he felt it was necessary to get the information out there and expose the process that resulted in keeping it from the public in the first place...Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) cut even deeper, implying that Booker was simply grandstanding to benefit his greater political aspirations.
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/cory-booker-risks-ruining-senate-career-over-releasing-confidential-kavanaugh-email/

Boorish. Rude. Disrespectful. Insulting. Grandstanding. Hyperventilating. Deranged. Ridiculous. Drivel.Those were among the words angry Senate Republicans used this week to assail the conduct of Democrats at a Supreme Court hearing that was often tense and sometimes toxic. But Senate Democrats don’t care what Republicans think. They knew going into the hearing that they would have to push the envelope of the chamber’s decorum to have any hope of derailing the confirmation of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, while simultaneously showing voters — particularly theirs — that they would not be bulldozed by Republicans.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/us/politics/supreme-court-kavanaugh-senate.html

Booker said on Thursday morning that he felt compelled to publicly release the documents from Kavanaugh’s time in the George W. Bush Administration, because he felt the process has not been fair and that the public should know what is in them. “I knowingly violated the rules that were put forth, and I’m told that the committee confidential rules have knowing consequences,” Booker said during the hearing. “I am going to release the email about racial profiling, and I understand that the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate.” “I openly invite and accept the consequences of my team releasing that document right now,” he added...Republicans immediately dismissed Booker’s mechanisms as grandstanding and an open audition for a 2020 presidential campaign.
http://time.com/5388683/cory-booker-brett-kavanaugh-documents/

Democrats on the Judiciary panel rebelled, arguing from the start of the hearing that a lot of the material marked “committee confidential” should have been released to the public. At least two Democrats, Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, released some of the classified material..At one point, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas accused Booker of grandstanding because he was “running for president.”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/analysis-what-we-learned-from-more-than-39-hours-of-kavanaugh-confirmation-hearings

The fact that anyone would have the slightest bit of respect for the author of the Op-Ed is

disturbing, to say the least. Instead of honoring their oath of office to defend the Constitution, which would require them to report DJT's inability to carry out his duties as president, this self-identified cabal of "patriots" claiming to be working to defend the nation from DJT have carried out a coup and are secretly running the Executive Branch to protect the conservative agenda and continue to implement it. This is a constitutional crisis of enormous dimensions and must be dealt with before we completely lose control of our own government. The Op-Ed is an admission of the commission of a crime and an extra-judicial assumption of power by an unelected group of ideological zealots.

It seems to me, when a group of people are marginalized and given limited access to good education,

good jobs, and livable neighborhoods, they are forced into a black market economy that is by definition violent. There were Jewish gangs fighting each other, and Irish gangs fighting each other, and Italian gangs fighting each other back when those groups were marginalized. When you are judged by the color of your skin, it is that much harder to break into mainstream society. We need to address underlying causes. Conservatives don't believe in "underlying causes."

Question submitted by Nitram

If anyone has any doubt that George Will sees Democrats as only a slightly less evil alternative

to Trump, he wrote this: "A Democratic-controlled Congress would be a basket of deplorables, but there would be enough Republicans to gum up the Senate’s machinery, keeping the institution as peripheral as it has been under their control and asphyxiating mischief from a Democratic House." In other words, no government is better than a Democratically-led government, and only slightly better than a Trump-led government. Will's mind is poisoned against the Democratic Party, and he is blind to the fact that the Democrats are a far better alternative to a Tump presidency and a Republican-controlled Congress. Will as much as admits that Republicans are useless except as an obstacle to Democratic initiatives. His intellectual dishonesty and his inability to see past his blind hatred of the Democratic Party, render him totally incapable of making a clear analysis of the political and economic state of the union. In Will's mind, the best government is a total stalemate in which the government can do nothing at all. He sounds like an anarchist, or a radical libertarian to me.

Make no mistake about it, Will vehemently hates liberals and Democrats.

And he always will. He writes in this OP that "congressional Democrats are equally supine toward Democratic presidents," ignoring the fact that no Democratic president has come anywhere close to the danger to democracy, national security, or the economy that Trump represents. Will actually makes the point that no one has ever been the immoral, insane monster that Trump is, but still writes not a word about the fact that Democrats are the only viable alternative. Will wants people to vote for libertarians, independents and moderate Republicans, when only a Democrat could possibly defeat Trump.

You make a good point. Trump is surrounded by people who, like him, have learned to lie their way

out of trouble and into positions they desire. It is an ingrained habit, and they don't really have any other strategies to see them through life. They also are not intelligent enough to remember all their lies and make their stories consistent over time.

Good article. It is interesting how comedy is one way we get used to new ideas and changes in

society's norms. Helps us see the absurdities and even the idiocies of customs we take for granted. Seinfeld's comedy is a good example.

I think the exploitation and the reduction of women to lesser, child-like beings, is the crime here,

not necessarily hate per se. It is true that they hate feminists and anybody else who stands up for women's right to be in every way citizens with all the rights that men take for granted. But there is something more subversive and more horrible than hate in the agenda to reduce women to chattel or child-like wards of men. I don't think Southern plantation owners hated their slaves unless they tried to escape slavery or challenged their owner's authority over them. They benefited from the labor, and the sense of superiority they enjoyed by virtue of being a slave's master