Thread by @salstrange

Long thread warning. I want to connect a few dots. Some of this may get a little tin foil hat, so grains of salt and all that. Also, not everything has to be true for some of the connections to be relevant. Also, long thread. Long thread. 1/

Kavanaugh was one of the key players in getting SCOTUS to stop the 2000 Florida recount and anoint GWB (the same recount that would later prove GWB lost and the 2000 election was, effectively stolen). 2/

2000 was the first election where the GOP began to see fruit from the voter suppression trees they’d been planting. 12,000 FL voters were purged from the rolls under the guise that they’d been “confused” with felons. 3/

There was a settlement with the NAACP (voters that were purged were disproportionally African-American voters) but otherwise little changed. Because: racism. 4/

Ari Berman did an excellent write up of most of this back in 2015. That article details the roles Ted Cruz and John Roberts played in the theft of the election, and the cementing of voter disenfranchisement we’ve seen since since 2000. 5/

The article is still available for those that wish to read it:
thenation.com/article/how-th…

(Also, Jennifer Cohn @jennycohn1 has been screaming about this forever, btw, if you ever want more info on the election integrity issues tangled from 2000 to this current mess). 6/

Kavanaugh’s not in that article, but he was on the legal team. He’d also worked with Jeb a few months prior to that on school vouchers. He’d lost to Clinton during the Elian Gonzalez affair and was on Ken Starr’s team. miamiherald.com/news/nation-wo… 7/

So the understanding that the Bush power structure owes him as well as the Clinton derangement syndrome are easy to follow when you understand Kavanaugh’s history.

Kavanaugh may or may not be personally compromised through alcoholism. But his role in the stolen documents Leahy has called out should have disqualified him on ethical grounds. Dr Ford shouldn’t have ever had to come forward because Kavanaugh is a deeply tainted candidate. 9/

It’s shameful, put predictable, that so much of the media ignores the many, many ethically disqualifying factors Kavanaugh has against him in order to chase the sensational and allow the GOP to set the goal posts (again). But, it’s 2018 so, whatever. 10/

So we have an ethically compromised candidate with deep ties to the existing GOP power structure that is growing ever more corrupt the longer they remain unaccountable to the people via voter suppression. 11/

But why the rush and bloody battle to get him confirmed? Kavanaugh himself once said stacking the court in such a partisan manner was possible but unlikely because of the toll it would take on a president’s political capital. 12/

To understand why this is being shoved so shamelessly and viciously, though, we have to understand a couple things.

First, the GOP recognizes the level of this scam can only go on so long. Trump is a shield to do every unethical, repulsive thing they’ve ever wanted to do. 13/

When that is all used up they can revert back to the “respectable” line of “I was just supporting the will of the President and the people that elected him.

They have to do it all now before public outcry becomes such that even voter suppression cannot fully protect them. 14/

They don’t even need to stay in office once it’s done. For most of them, surrendering credibility for Trump will net them cushy jobs for the rest of their lives.

If you don’t believe me, Google where all the Bush war criminals are right now. 15/

So they get to use Trump and his insatiable need for narcissistic supply to pack the court, cripple the US in debt to give tax breaks to the billionaire class, and dismantle all our public protections and safety nets. 16/

They are changing policy in ways they never could before when they had to be accountable to the electorate. Effectively, the goal here is to take us into a new robber baron era, except less about industrial exploitation and more about information and technology exploitation. 17/

All those Libertarian, Rand-loving techbros we throw billions at without holding accountable? We’ll be living in their “fuck the unworthy” dystopia. I hope you all got A’s on your book reports for The Grapes of Wrath (only more climate change-y). 18/

Oh, and, for extra fun, please note that the US is not the current world leader of information warfare. Since our best tools were put out to our enemies (and, well, everyone else) by WikiLeaks sometime around 2013. 19/

(In case you were wondering how WikiLeaks ties into this, google that for a journey into depression. We have been behind the ball to Russia, China, and assorted criminal hackers for years now.) 20/

So, while the GOP has everyone screaming about border security and making poor brown people out to be cut-throats and terrorists, the real battle of our sovereignty is being fought online. 21/

And in case you’ve missed the headlines about our elections being hacked and foreign propaganda being used effectively via social media — we’re losing. Russia even got us to sink our own net neutrality laws to their advantage. 22/

So, okay. Maybe you feel like I’m getting off topic. I started out pointing out how Kavanaugh is a connected player in the Bush power structure and how this all ties into the billionaire class agenda. Now I’m on national security. 23/

How do these link up and why would the GOP — the party of flogging national security into the ground — suddenly not care about our national sovereignty? 24/

Well, a lot of that national security stuff is empty rhetoric. They used 9/11 as a power grab that would never have been possible before and deeply, deeply resent Obama for briefly bringing them down from that high. They’re back, now, baby! 24/

There is also every reason to believe some of them have been compromised by hostile foreign actors. They don’t need to be being actively blackmailed; all they need to know is that compromising docs exist and bad actors are willing to use them. 25/

So why do we have every reason to think many that have been tangled in the GOP power structure since the 2000 stolen election have ethically compromising documents out of their possession? I’m so glad you asked. 26/

Again, I encourage you to follow @jennycohn1 who has scores of info on this, but the tl;dr version: Rove and many key players were up to lots of election fuckery from pre-2000 on and were all using private SmarTech servers that were likely hacked. 27/

When Comey testified about the GOP hack, he claimed the GOP told him the SmarTech servers only had old “outdated material.”
(nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/…):

But here’s a little nugget from that bit of the NYT article: 29/

(You can read the whole tweet thread @jennycohn1 did on this part starting here:

https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1038214397397622784?s=20

). 30/

So Kavanaugh is ethically compromised, but is owed a SC seat by power players who have gone largely unchecked since the Bush era. Some are in it for policy, some for money, others have likely been compromised. There’s a little something for everyone. 31/

But, even if we accept all of this is true (and there are likely a few incorrect assumptions in the mix) the Senate isn’t likely to flip in November and Trump’s political capital isn’t running out in the next few months, so why the mad rush now? 32/

For one, who knows what else will come to light about Kavanaugh. He clearly has limitless disqualifying factors.

The bigger reason, however, is the Mueller investigation, and the Gamble vs US case that may well change how double jeopardy and duel sovereignty are handled. 33/

Effectively, this could decide if Trump/Pence can just issue blanket Presidential pardons and those guilty would no longer have to worry about state charges. As people higher up the food chain are implicated, the importance of this grows and the pressure amps up. 34/

If you need a primer on this, a friend of mine did one better than I could: 35/

It has to be Kavanaugh because he’ll vote how they want and he’s owed the position by Bush, etc. It has to be now because of Mueller and Gamble vs US. And they’re all in for policy, money, or blackmail. 36/

It matters that we’re having a national conversation about rape culture and sexual assault. But it’s worth remembering all this is going on while bad actors and useful idiots keep up the cultural warfare against women. 37/

So, hey, if you’d like to vote this Nov, this might be the last chance we have to stop and reverse any of this. Or hold people accountable. Or try to turn the worm and make things better. Also you should be calling your senators every day about Kavanaugh.

Just FYI.

End/