Trump is stoked. He thinks that display of entitled white boy rage by Kavanaugh was just the ticket.

President Donald Trump and his aides were ebullient Thursday as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh defiantly rejected charges of sexual misconduct — a mood that reflected some relief after Trump officials conceded that his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, offered a compelling performance in the first half of the day.

Trump and senior officials were impressed by Kavanaugh’s combative defense before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which the Trump nominee, alternating between fury and tears, called several misconduct charges against him a “calculated and orchestrated political hit” and “national disgrace” that had devastated his life and family.

Minutes after the committee adjourned Thursday evening, Trump tweeted that his nominee “showed America exactly why I nominated him.”

“His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting,” Trump wrote. “Democrats’ search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!”

Yeah. Don’t let those bitches get away with saying you attacked them, even though you did – fight back, get scary-mad, rage about your family as if what’s happening to them were not your fault, and generally act like a selfish privilege violent angry asshole. That’s the kinda guy we want on the Supreme Court!

Watching a nominee for the Supreme Court go full-tilt at a political party, accusing its members of orchestrating a political hit, is unprecedented. Brett Kavanaugh accused Democrats of executing a “calculated and orchestrated political hit." https://t.co/iIE0Klwta5

— Vivian Salama (@vmsalama) September 28, 2018

Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh decided that to have any chance to reach the court, he would have to shed the pretense he was a fair-minded, calm, judicious thinker. He came out in the afternoon filled with venom, screaming at the committee. https://t.co/5yNwwCU5wt

— Jen "get knocked down, get back up " Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) September 27, 2018

Apparently much of the country is in tears watching the testimony, and I can see why. Gut-wrenching.

Asked what her strongest memory is, Dr. Ford says, "The laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense."

"I was underneath one of them while the two laughed. Two friends having a really good time with one another." https://t.co/LDSuX8tP1O pic.twitter.com/RFAp6GLl3o

— ABC News (@ABC) September 27, 2018

Apparently conservative women support rape. Who knew?

Students from Liberty University, whose president Jerry Falwell Jr. is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, will rally in Washington on Thursday in support of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Liberty University and all the Jerries Falwell consider themselves intensely Christian, Christian all the way down, as Christian as it gets. It’s interesting to learn that it’s top most Christian to support – staunchly – a guy who brags about grabbing women by the pussy, who fucks around and brags about that, who fucks around while his wife is recovering from childbirth – a guy who lies and cheats and steals, a guy who exploits the poor, a guy who has nothing but contempt for justice, a guy who preaches for selfishness and against generosity, for nationalism and against globalism – a guy who spits on most of the ideas generally considered Christian.

The university and the organization Concerned Women for America (CWA) are sponsoring bus trips from the Liberty campus in Lynchburg, Va., to Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning.

So Concerned Women for America are fine with rape and opposed to women who are not fine with rape. I have to wonder why that is, exactly.

Students at the evangelical Christian university who are making the trek to Washington say while the allegations against Kavanaugh are serious, they’re calling for him to be granted a presumption of innocence.

Why? Why should he be given a presumption of innocence? Especially in order to strongarm him onto the Supreme Court? He’s not the only person who could possibly fill that seat, so why? This isn’t jail we’re talking about, it’s just not giving him this one important job.

“Our goal is to just get support for him. Moral support,” said Victoria Belk, 21, president of Liberty’s chapter of Young Women for America, the campus version of CWA. “This could be our brother, our dad, our boyfriend and we strongly believe in our justice system and you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

This could be their sister, their mother, their best friend, themselves. What about that? What about her? You’re not innocent until proven guilty at a job interview.

Some students making the trip find suspicion in the late arrival of the allegations, which surfaced shortly before senators were expected to vote on Kavanaugh.

“I don’t want to disregard the women who have accused Brett Kavanaugh of these actions, and I don’t want to say that what they’re saying is completely invalid,” said Christian Lasval, a 19-year-old sophomore. “But the timing of it all and the way that it’s been handled is a little suspect to me and it would not be beneath the Democrats, considering how low they’ve stooped in the past, that they would do this just to stifle his confirmation.”

Oh yes those evil Democrats, so unlike the Republicans who kept a Supreme Court vacancy open for nearly a year because they refused the let Obama (read:the nigger) appoint another justice.

Never forget: these men won’t ask Christine Blasey Ford questions themselves. Instead, they chose to have prosecutor do their dirty work for them, Mitch McConnell’s “female assistant.” Cowards, miscreants, and misogynists, each and every one.

— Soraya Chemaly (@schemaly) September 27, 2018

This is credible and devastating.

— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) September 27, 2018

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford: there are men and women all over this country crying – but most of all cheering – for you right now. Thank you.

— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) September 27, 2018

https://twitter.com/helenlewis/status/1045329506532315136

Durbin asks with what degree of certainty does Blasey Ford assert it was Kavanaugh who sexually assaulted her.

Blasey Ford: “100%.”

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 27, 2018

This is so emotionally wrenching. What human being thinks she is making this up???

— Jen "get knocked down, get back up " Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) September 27, 2018

This is horrifying. If Republicans confirm Kavanaugh after Ford's testimony it will be one of the greatest attacks on democracy & dignity in this country's history

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) September 27, 2018

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter…the uproarious laughter between the two, and them having fun at my expense…They were laughing with each other. Two good friends having a really good time with one another"

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) September 27, 2018

I’m not watching the hearing live; I’ll probably watch parts of it later. Twitter is supplying commentary.

Prosecutors have good spidey-senses. Mine says Dr. Ford is telling the truth. Her demeanor, the small details, her lack of willingness to force her memory, her emotion, her sense of duty as a citizen. And I believe her when she identifies Kavanaugh as the man who assaulted her.

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) September 27, 2018

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1045337462317428736

This is just so hard to watch. An institutional failure of the highest order, being televised nationally. What a failure: No witnesses. No FBI investigation. A GOP Chairman who claims to be fair but HAS NOT even brought forward a WITNESS who was IN THE ROOM. #KanavaughHearings

— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) September 27, 2018

As a fellow (former) prosecutor, I have a question for Ms. Mitchell: How can you as a professional person of law enforcement who knows the pain of sexual assault all too well participate in this very painful sham? You are being used and should yourself be ashamed. https://t.co/nxIH1uUUJP

— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) September 27, 2018

Senator Grassley makes Montgomery Burns look like a gracious people-person.

— Tom Sutcliffe (@tds153) September 27, 2018

Michael Lewis gives a glimpse of how Trump managed the transition from random real estate profiteer to idiot president.

[Chris] Christie volunteered himself for the job: head of the Donald Trump presidential transition team. “It’s the next best thing to being president,” he told friends. “You get to plan the presidency.” He went to see Trump about it. Trump said he didn’t want a presidential transition team. Why did anyone need to plan anything before he actually became president? It’s legally required, said Christie. Trump asked where the money was going to come from to pay for the transition team. Christie explained that Trump could either pay for it himself or take it out of campaign funds. Trump didn’t want to pay for it himself. He didn’t want to take it out of campaign funds, either, but he agreed, grudgingly, that Christie should go ahead and raise a separate fund to pay for his transition team. “But not too much!” he said.

Not too much! It’s only running the country! Watch the pennies!

So Christie got down to work.

The first time Trump paid attention to any of this was when he read about it in the newspaper. The story revealed that Trump’s very own transition team had raised several million dollars to pay the staff. The moment he saw it, Trump called Steve Bannon, the chief executive of his campaign, from his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, and told him to come immediately to his residence, many floors above. Bannon stepped off the elevator to find Christie seated on a sofa, being hollered at. Trump was apoplectic, yelling: You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?

Seeing Bannon, Trump turned on him and screamed: Why are you letting him steal my fucking money? Bannon and Christie together set out to explain to Trump federal law. Months before the election, the law said, the nominees of the two major parties were expected to prepare to take control of the government. The government supplied them with office space in downtown DC, along with computers and rubbish bins and so on, but the campaigns paid their people. To which Trump replied: Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money. Bannon and Christie tried to explain that Trump couldn’t have both his money and a transition.

Shut it down, said Trump. Shut down the transition.

And bring him two scoops of ice cream.

Christie pointed out that the media would disapprove, and Trump saw the point, so he let Christie get on with it.

With that, Christie went back to preparing for a Trump administration. He tried to stay out of the news, but that proved difficult. From time to time, Trump would see something in the paper about Christie’s fundraising and become upset all over again. The money that people donated to his campaign Trump considered, effectively, his own. He thought the planning and forethought pointless. At one point he turned to Christie and said: “Chris, you and I are so smart that we can leave the victory party two hours early and do the transition ourselves.”

Actually, Trump is so stupid that he thinks he’s smart.

Originally a comment by iknklast on It’s the lying.

Of course, that idea of lying is what makes this interesting. Democrats have gone down for lying, and Clinton’s impeachment centered a lot around his lying. But the interesting thing is that the Dems were, for the most part, dealing with consensual sexual acts between consenting adults (even accepting the possibility that Lewinsky couldn’t be consensual because of disparate power, but with that caveat, most women can’t be truly said to be consenting, since men in general have disparate power over women in general).

The Repubs, on the other hand, who seem to get away with it, are not consensual. Anita Hill did not consent to being sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas. The girls that Roy Moore messed with were not adults, and therefore unable to give consent to an adult male. Kavanaugh also was not dealing in consensual sex, either in his teenage exploits or the more recently alleged college exploits.

So it really is about the lying to most people, and that is the problem. I don’t hold with lying, but I also believe that a person’s consensual adult sexual life is their own business, and should not be part and parcel of the election/impeachment process.

But rape? No, Kavanaugh is not about the lying, it is about the rape. Rape – a crime. But not just a crime, a crime against another human being, a human being with less power, a human being who is denied their own bodily autonomy by the choice of another human being to rape. A crime which deprives human beings of their peace of mind, their happiness, their confidence. And even if rape itself did not occur (no penetration), it is still a crime – sexual assault. And it is targeting a specific group, a group historically oppressed and disenfranchised, a group that in general has less power and less ability to affect change. And those excusing it should ask themselves – would they excuse such a thing if it happened to them? Would they feel it was just juvenile antics? Would they be willing to sit in their living room for the rest of their life watching the news talk about the person who had perpetrated this act on them, and realizing that this man was now in one of the most desired jobs in the entire country, making decisions that affect the life of the victim (and everyone else) and nothing being done about it – except, of course, mocking and shaming the ones who bravely came forward? We all know the answer to that – if they were the victim, they would scream from the rafters until the perp was shamed and censured. They would not stand for it. But if it’s a woman?

The problem often is couched as lying, and in the case of Gary Hart and Bill Clinton, I think that’s reasonable. In the case of consensual sex, I think it’s reasonable to say it’s about the lying. But in a case of sexual assault, it is not reasonable. That tells women that they don’t matter, it’s okay what a guy does to them as long as he doesn’t lie about it. (And a lot of people have suggested that it would have been okay if he would just admit it and say he’s learned from experience, he’s sorry, and he won’t do it again – note: THIS DOES NOT MAKE IT OKAY).

Historian Claire Potter says it’s the lying at least as much as the sexual assaults.

The phrase “he said, she said” is often used to characterize the opaqueness of a sex crime: Without a direct witness, someone must be lying. But who? Is it equally likely that the accuser and the accused will lie? Conservatives don’t think so. Kavanaugh, as Thomas did, has categorically denied all charges, and his supporters have characterized Blasey as the agent of a smear campaign orchestrated to keep Kavanaugh off the court.

But Blasey’s story resonates with feminists and, in a change from 1991, with male Democratic senators — some of whom are former prosecutors shaped by the legal world that feminists made. Blasey’s supporters are strongly implying that Kavanaugh is lying and that Republicans are determined to keep Blasey — and possibly a second and a third accuser — from disproving these lies.

That so many people are focused on the question of lying instead of the underlying acts is the result of a fairly recent historical development. Lying has, of course, been a staple of American public life for centuries. But the exposure of lies, especially when those lies intersected with politicians’ dissolute private lives, became a staple of the new political journalism that emerged from the ashes of Watergate in 1974.

That’s what ended Gary Hart’s political career, she explains.

The destruction of Hart’s candidacy and the appetite of Americans for televised scandal set the stage for the Hill-Thomas hearings in a way that a decade of conversation about sexual harassment, a word that had entered the law in 1979, had not. And yet the question of whether Thomas had, as Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson put it, a “Rabelasian” sensibility that Hill was turning to political purposes was inseparable from whether he was lying about what had occurred.

Patterson speculated that Thomas probably had said and done the things that Hill had described — and that he had lied about it. In an op-ed in the New York Times, Patterson defended those alleged lies. “Judge Thomas was justified in denying making the remarks,” he wrote, “even if he had in fact made them, not only because the deliberate displacement of his remarks made them something else but on the utilitarian moral grounds that any admission would have immediately incurred a self-destructive and grossly unfair punishment.”

Grossly unfair? To be denied a seat on the Supreme Court he’d never deserved in the first place? Unfair to say a liar, which in this case meant also a perjurer, should not be on the Supreme Court? Let’s not forget why Bush nominated Thomas at all: it was because he felt it wouldn’t look too swell to put a white guy in Thurgood Marshall’s seat but he couldn’t find an outstanding Republican black guy so he had to go with a mediocre one. (There was of course no question of putting a woman in that seat, black or white – we already had the woman!)

In hindsight, it seems fairly clear that Thomas’s supporters — two of whom, Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), are still on the Judiciary Committee — knew that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill and other women. Journalist David Brock, who famously characterized Hill as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty” during the hearings, later admitted that he had not only lied about Hill as part of a coordinated effort to protect Thomas but that he had helped Thomas to silence another potential accuser.

And Joe Biden also helped to silence the other potential accuser.

As the accusations against Kavanaugh pile up, it seems likely that some, if not all, Senate Republicans and President Trump, suspect — or even know — that Kavanaugh has done what his accusers say he has done. And it seems clear that many Republicans are embracing Patterson’s approach, arguing that even if Kavanaugh is lying about his dissolute youth, who can blame him given how disproportionate the punishment would be over a crime from decades ago?

Except not getting a very important public official job that’s all about law and truth and integrity is not a punishment. No doubt Kavanaugh would be very disappointed (as so many teenage girls were no doubt disappointed to find themselves being raped by classmates), but people are disappointed not to get jobs all the time. I see no reason at all to treat Kavanaugh’s potential disappointment as more important than anyone else’s, let alone as a “punishment” let alone a disproportionate one.

Republicans are still determined to push the Kavanaugh nomination through, despite the fact that a growing number of journalists and attorneys are dedicating themselves to finding evidence to support Blasey’s claims. The question is whether any potential victory will be worth the cost. Kavanaugh may end up on the Court, but he’ll be tainted and delegitimized in the eyes of millions of Americans. Is that how Brett Kavanaugh wants to go down in history?

Yes, it apparently is.

Hey kids of all ages, looking for a fun new Halloween experience? The West Midlands police have just the thing for you!

The West Midlands force used its Facebook page to advertise a charity event that will see thrillseekers pay £75 to bed down in Birmingham’s old Steelhouse Lane lock-up.

The message said: ‘These cells were occupied by none other than the original Peaky Blinders, Fred West and many more. Be there if you dare!’

That’s serial murderer of women Fred West, who killed at least 12 young women, at least 8 of whom were raped, bound, tortured, and mutilated.

Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality Party, said: ‘We have seen the glorification of violence against women used to sell all manner of things. To see police turn it into a funfair experience shows that they either don’t understand the root causes of the violence, don’t see the extent of it or don’t care about it.’

Or they just think it’s funny.

West Midlands Police said the event, organised by a third party, was to raise funds for a charity helping victims of modern slavery.

‘West’s name was used to promote this worthy cause,’ a spokesman said.

‘On reflection the organiser has agreed that using his name was insensitive and has, therefore, removed it from any advertising of this event.’

So now there’s the Ghomeshi-Buruma backlash, because of course there is. I’ve been expecting it.

Some of the biggest names in English letters, including Joyce Carol Oates, Ian McEwan, Lorrie Morre and Colm Tóibín, have released a joint letter in which they express dismay at what they call the “forced resignation” of the editor of the New York Review of Books under a #MeToo stormcloud.

Ian Buruma stepped down from the editorship of America’s most prestigious literary magazine earlier this month in the wake of his decision to publish a highly controversial article by former broadcaster and alleged sex attacker Jian Ghomeshi. The 3,400-word essay, in which Ghomeshi played down allegations of sexual violence brought against him by 20 women as “inaccurate” under the headline Reflections from a Hashtag, kicked up a storm on social media.

You know…I wonder what would have happened if Ghomeshi had been accused of assault by multiple men? Not “sex play” gone a little overboard but just plain assault. Would Ian Buruma have thought a self-absorbed whine by the accused a good idea then?

The signatories to the joint letter said they found it “very troubling that the public reaction to a single article – repellent though some of us may have found this article – should have been the occasion for Ian Buruma’s forced resignation”.

“Repellent” is meaningless. “Repellent” conceals rather than explaining. It’s not “repellent.” It ignores a large number of women who were beaten up to focus on a self-centered piece by the man who beat them up. It’s about treating men as people and women as things.

The correspondents continued: “Given the principles of open intellectual debate on which the NYRB was founded, his dismissal in these circumstances strikes us as an abandonment of the central mission of the review, which is the free exploration of ideas.”

Like “ideas” about how it’s ok for men to assault women? Those ideas?

But wait, it gets better (worse – much worse).

The letter injects an ethical tension between #MeToo’s push against largely male sexual misconduct and the sometimes conflicting impetus towards freedom of expression right into the heart of the literary world. It also pits many of the NYRB’s most celebrated writers against the magazine’s own publisher, Rea Hederman.

On Monday, Hederman released an official account of the events leading up to Buruma’s dramatic departure. By contrast to the views expressed by the joint letter-writers, and by Buruma himself who has depicted himself as a victim of social media bullying, Hederman said Buruma’s exit had nothing to do with the “Twitter mob”.

It had everything to do, he said, with mistakes and misjudgments made by Buruma.

In a statement circulated to 300 NYRB contributors, Hederman said that Buruma had cast longstanding editorial practice aside and excluded all the magazine’s female staff from the process that led to Ghomeshi’s article being published. The draft of the article was shown to only one male editor on the staff, while six female editors – including four long-term staff members who had worked with Buruma’s predecessors, Bob Silvers and Barbara Epstein – were effectively shunned.

Wow.

Hederman went on to reject claims by Buruma that the staff rallied behind the decision to publish the article. The statement said that in fact many editors “felt his comment that the staff came together after initial objections to the Ghomeshi piece did not accurately reflect their views.”

I disputed that at the time. Buruma himself simply talked nonsense about it – he said there were disagreements about publishing but also there was consensus. I pointed out that was incoherent; I had no idea he’d fixed it by excluding all the women. Fucking hell.

The contributors who signed the joint letter may not have even known that.

It is not clear whether the signatories to the joint letter, who also include Anne Applebaum, Alfred Brendel, Ariel Dorfman, Alan Hollinghurst, Michael Ignatieff, Caryl Phillips and James Wolcott, had had the chance to read Hederman’s account before expressing their collective outrage.

In his statement, Hederman was also critical of the way that Buruma had handled the editing and packaging of the Ghomeshi piece. In particular, the point of view of the 20 women who have come forward to tell stories of abuse against the former broadcaster should have been reflected.

How about Ian Buruma, Jian Ghomeshi, John Hockenberry, and Brett Kavanaugh all go off to a tiny island somewhere to talk it over for the rest of their lives. I’d add Bill Cosby but he’s just been sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison.

Then, feeling much better once that awful boring pre-written speech was over, Trump energetically got on with attacking the women who say Brett Kavanaugh assaulted them.

In which the President of the United States suggests that a woman who has been drinking cannot be sexually assaulted. pic.twitter.com/072B8HM7ov

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 25, 2018

The part where he talks trash about the International Criminal Court.

His delivery is truly terrible – he slurs his words and looks as if he can barely keep his eyes open. He comes across as drunk or exhausted at best. Note the flub where he says “reported” for “repeated” and pretends he didn’t.

TRUMP: "We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism around the world." pic.twitter.com/XrNVI2rIIJ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 25, 2018

As far as the United States is concerned the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority.

He’s utterly disgusting.

Twitter is working on new rules.

For the last three months, we have been developing a new policy to address dehumanizing language on Twitter. Language that makes someone less than human can have repercussions off the service, including normalizing serious violence. Some of this content falls within our hateful conduct policy (which prohibits the promotion of violence against or direct attacks or threats against other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease), but there are still Tweets many people consider to be abusive, even when they do not break our rules. Better addressing this gap is part of our work to serve a healthy public conversation.

With this change, we want to expand our hateful conduct policy to include content that dehumanizes others based on their membership in an identifiable group, even when the material does not include a direct target. Many scholars have examined the relationship between dehumanization and violence. For example, Susan Benesch has described dehumanizing language as a hallmark of dangerous speech, because it can make violence seem acceptable, and Herbert Kelman has posited that dehumanization can reduce the strength of restraining forces against violence.

Notice anything? In the “on the basis of” bit? Here it is again:

Some of this content falls within our hateful conduct policy (which prohibits the promotion of violence against or direct attacks or threats against other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease)

See it? There’s only one redundancy, or pairing. There’s no “race, race identity” or “ethnicity, ethnicity identity” or “national origin, national origin identity” or “sexual orientation, sexual orientation identity” or ditto for age, disability, or serious disease – there is only the one pair: gender, gender identity. There is, of course, no mention of “sex” at all.

Why? Why just the one? If one, why not all? Why is it only gender (and sex) that is considered to have a twin in the form of “identity”? If it works for gender (and sex) then why doesn’t it work for all of them?

Twitter’s Dehumanization Policy

You may not dehumanize anyone based on membership in an identifiable group, as this speech can lead to offline harm.

Definitions:

Dehumanization: Language that treats others as less than human. Dehumanization can occur when others are denied of human qualities (animalistic dehumanization) or when others are denied of human nature (mechanistic dehumanization). Examples can include comparing groups to animals and viruses (animalistic), or reducing groups to their genitalia (mechanistic).

“Or reducing groups to their genitalia” – by which they mean knowing who has which genitalia, which set of genitalia can rape which other set of genitalia, which set of genitalia can push out a baby and which cannot, which set can impregnate a woman and which cannot, which set can be taken out in public to threaten or shock or intimidate and which cannot, which has historically been seen as a symbol of and even actual basis of power and authority and which has not. Twitter thinks that is “dehumanizing.” Well Brett Kavanaugh’s shoving his set in the face of a classmate while laughing at her was pretty dehumanizing, but I don’t think pointing out that Kavanaugh is the class of human who has a dick to take out is dehumanizing.

Then they give the same list all over again, in case you missed it.

Identifiable group: Any group of people that can be distinguished by their shared characteristics such as their race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, serious disease, occupation, political beliefs, location, or social practices.

Emphasis added.

Ok that’s it. From the Times:

Brett Kavanaugh’s page in his high school yearbook offers a glimpse of the teenage years of the man who is now President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee: lots of football, plenty of drinking, parties at the beach. Among the reminiscences about sports and booze is a mysterious entry: “Renate Alumnius.”

The word “Renate” appears at least 14 times in Georgetown Preparatory School’s 1983 yearbook, on individuals’ pages and in a group photo of nine football players, including Judge Kavanaugh, who were described as the “Renate Alumni.” It is a reference to Renate [last name], then a student at a nearby Catholic girls’ school.

The Times gives her last name, but I was alerted to this news by a suitably angry post from Lindsay Beyerstein pointing out that the Times redacts people’s names all the time for the flimsiest of reasons but didn’t see fit to redact this one, and that’s infuriating. Yes it is.

But the story itself…that is fucking disgusting. That man must not be on the Supreme Court. Boys don’t say that kind of thing out of affection or gratitude; it’s slut-shaming. Boys importune girls for sex and call them sluts in the same breath.

Two of Judge Kavanaugh’s classmates say the mentions of Renate were part of the football players’ unsubstantiated boasting about their conquests.

“They were very disrespectful, at least verbally, with Renate,” said Sean Hagan, a Georgetown Prep student at the time, referring to Judge Kavanaugh and his teammates. “I can’t express how disgusted I am with them, then and now.”

So that’s who he was in high school. He was a cruel entitled bullying pig who joined with other cruel entitled bullying pigs to leave a permanent slut-taunt at a high school girl in their yearbook. That’s who he is.

(Now, scrolling down on the Times story, I see a headline “Pigs All the Way Down” – yes, exactly.)

Ironically, Renate X is one of the 65 women who signed a letter saying how awesome Kavanaugh is. She wasn’t aware of the yearbook item then.

“I learned about these yearbook pages only a few days ago,” Ms. X said in a statement to The New York Times. “I don’t know what ‘Renate Alumnus’ actually means. I can’t begin to comprehend what goes through the minds of 17-year-old boys who write such things, but the insinuation is horrible, hurtful and simply untrue. I pray their daughters are never treated this way. I will have no further comment.”

Oh, we all know what it means. The meaning is hideously obvious.

Alexandra Walsh, a lawyer for Judge Kavanaugh, said in a statement: “Judge Kavanaugh was friends with Renate [X] in high school. He admired her very much then, and he admires her to this day.

“Judge Kavanaugh and Ms. [X] attended one high school event together and shared a brief kiss good night following that event,” the statement continued. “They had no other such encounter. The language from Judge Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook refers to the fact that he and Ms. [X] attended that one high school event together and nothing else.”

Bull shit.

Some of Judge Kavanaugh’s high school peers said there was a widespread culture at the time of objectifying women.

“People claiming that they had sex with other people was not terribly unusual, and it was not terribly believable,” said William Fishburne, who was in Judge Kavanaugh’s graduating class and was a manager for the football team. “Not just Brett Kavanaugh and his particular group, but all the classmates in general. People would claim things they hadn’t done to sort of seem bigger than they were, older than they were.”

“People.” It was an all-boys school. It wasn’t “people,” it was boys.

Bill Barbot, who was a freshman at Georgetown Prep when Judge Kavanaugh was a senior, said Judge Kavanaugh and his clique were part of the school’s “fratty” culture. “There was a lot of talk and presumably a lot of action about sexual conquest with girls,” Mr. Barbot said.

“Sexual conquest,” aka rape. If it’s conquest, then it’s rape.

Ms. Dolphin was a subject of that braggadocio, according to Mr. Hagan and another classmate, who requested anonymity because he fears retribution. They said Judge Kavanaugh and his friends were seeking to memorialize their supposed conquests with the “Renate” yearbook references.

“She should be offended,” Mr. Hagan said of Ms. Dolphin. “I was completely astounded when I saw she signed that letter” on Judge Kavanaugh’s behalf.

Others say it was just what everybody did, no big deal, lighten up, boys will be boys, yadda yadda.

Michael Walsh, another Georgetown Prep alumnus, also listed himself on his personal yearbook page as a “Renate Alumnus.” Alongside some song lyrics, he included a short poem: “You need a date / and it’s getting late / so don’t hesitate / to call Renate.”

[That’s how it’s pronounced? Weird.]

Mr. Walsh, a bank executive in Virginia, was one of scores of Georgetown Prep alumni who signed a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee leaders vouching for Judge Kavanaugh’s “sharp intellectual ability, affable nature, and a practical and fair approach devoid of partisan purpose.” He did not respond to requests for comment.

Ms. Dolphin was aware that members of Judge Kavanaugh’s clique were reciting that poem, according to a person familiar with her thinking. She told the football players that she found it offensive, believing it made her seem like a cheap date, and she asked them to stop.

A cheap date, a desperate date, a will say yes to anyone date – aka a slut. The poem is a slut-shame poem.

That man should never be on the Supreme Court.

The mass migrations have begun.

A woman in Charleston moves out of a house that has flooded three times in three years.

Millions of Americans will confront similarly hard choices as climate change conjures up brutal storms, flooding rains, receding coastlines and punishing heat. Many are already opting to shift to less perilous areas of the same city, or to havens in other states. Whole towns from Alaska to Louisiana are looking to relocate, in their entirety, to safer ground.

The era of climate migration is, virtually unheralded, already upon America.

The population shift gathering pace is so sprawling that it may rival anything in US history. “Including all climate impacts it isn’t too far-fetched to imagine something twice as large as the Dustbowl,” said Jesse Keenan, a climate adaptation expert at Harvard University, referencing the 1930s upheaval in which 2.5 million people moved from the dusty, drought-ridden plains to California.

This enormous migration will probably take place over a longer period than the Dustbowl but its implications are both profound and opaque. It will plunge the US into an utterly alien reality. “It is very difficult to model human behaviour under such extreme and historically unprecedented circumstances,” Keenan admits.

The closest analogue could be the Great Migration – a period spanning a large chunk of the 20th century when about 6 million black people departed the Jim Crow south for cities in the north, midwest and west.

…

“The Great Migration was out of the south into the industrialized north, whereas this is from every coastal place in the US to every other place in the US,” said Hauer. “Not everyone can afford to move, so we could end up with trapped populations that would be in a downward spiral. I have a hard time imagining what that future would be like.”

Grim.

Within just a few decades, hundreds of thousands of homes on US coasts will be chronically flooded. By the end of the century, 6ft of sea level rise would redraw the coastline with familiar parts – such as southern Florida, chunks of North Carolina and Virginia, much of Boston, all but a sliver of New Orleans – missing. Warming temperatures will fuel monstrous hurricanes – like the devastating triumvirate of Irma, Maria and Harvey in 2017, followed by Florence this year – that will scatter survivors in jarring, uncertain ways.

I’m not sure about the “few decades” part, since that’s just more of what’s already happening.