China Jailed Its Feminists; the U.S. Arrested Feminist Protesters

Caption: Maria Houser Conzemius on the banks of the Mississippi River in happier times.

Pres. Donald Trump limited the scope of the FBI investigation to prevent any corroboration of Brett Kavanaugh's sexual misconduct or any real investigation into his alleged heavy drinking. The FBI interviewed nine people out of dozens of roommates, friends, and acquaintances who asked to be interviewed. They weren't interviewed, not even James Roche, Brett Kavanaugh's Yale roommate, who said Kavanaugh was "belligerent and aggressive" when he was drunk, and Roche said Kavanaugh drank heavily even for the norms of the times.

So Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the supposedly "pro-choice" moderate, could say with her Queen of the May 45-minute stemwinder of a speech, that she found "no corroborating evidence" that Kavanaugh had assaulted Christine Blasey when she was 15 and he was 17. No evidence except Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's credible testimony. Collins obviously chose to disbelieve her although Ford said she was "100% positive" that Kavanaugh had assaulted her. Both private school high school preppies, they traveled in the same elite social circles.

Women protesters stood outside with banners reading "We believe Christine Blasey Ford" and "If you don't respect our existence, expect resistance." Many of them were arrested.

In China on International Women's Day, Chinese feminists handed out stickers celebrating the event. Many were arrested and five feminists were jailed for 37 days until worldwide protests, including from Hillary Clinton, embarrassed the Chinese government enough that they released them. #MeToo went underground. Chinese women got around the censorship of the #MeToo meme by constructing a meme with the Chinese word for "rice" and another word, which sounded like "me too."

I expressed my rage at the mostly white male Republican dinosaurs holding up Brett Kavanaugh as a fine, principled individual, which he clearly is not, by donating twice to Crowdpac.com's fund to Sen. Susan Collins' opponent in 2020. A few hours ago the Washington Post said the fund for Collins' opponent is up to $3.5 million with about 121,000 contributors. I also donated to Crowdpac.com's fund to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Grassley's always particularly embarrassing and awful on the Judiciary Committee, as when he tried to get Robert Bork confirmed to the Supreme Court (he failed).

However, in the heyday of Trump, Sen. Grassley, who constantly interrupted and controlled testimony on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was able to get an equally scurrilous alt-right individual confirmed with the help of his elderly white male buddies like Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), whose sychophantic efforts to get Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Session's job and impersonations of an alpha male made me sick. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he didn't know Dr. Ford but was sure she was "mixed up." I was surprised he didn't just say she was crazy, which is how men have dismissed sexual allegations in the past.

Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) told Terry Gross on National Public Radio that her mother used to leave her alone for days without food. She was raped multiple times when she was nine years old and when she told her guidance counselor at school, her guidance counselor told her she was lying. This is what women and girls have had to put up with. I'm not going into what happened to me, but I, too, am a survivor.

Jeff Flake (R-AZ) should win an Oscar for his performance of a man pretending to wrestle with his conscience after being confronted by Ana Maria Archila, a sexual assault survivor who made him look at her instead of the floor as he stood in a Senate elevator. In the end, he had no integrity whatsoever even though he's leaving the Senate. His "doubts" were all for show. He even said he wanted an FBI investigation "limited in time and scope." I should have realized what that meant. He gave cover to his Republican friends and voted aye on Kavanaugh twice.

A Republican friend of mine called to ask me what my problem was with him. I'd already told his wife I had a problem with his being a Republican. I asked him if it was true that he voted for Trump. He told me he voted for Trump because Hillary "enabled" a sexual predator, Bill Clinton, and attacked women who alleged that Bill had sexual liaisons with them or had sexually assaulted them.

"So you voted for an actual sexual predator instead?" I said. I reminded him of the Access Hollywood tape during which Trump bragged to Billy Bush about grabbing women by their genitals. The only reason I can think of why a devout Catholic and otherwise good man would vote for Trump, a not-so-good man, would be to pack the Supreme Court with pro-lifers, but my Republican friend didn't say so.

The partisan divide shouldn't put friends at such odds, but the Kavanaugh hearing pushed me over the edge. I've never voted for a Republican and I'm not going to start now, especially not in the face of such pushback by Republican advocates for dismissing sexual assault allegations and Trump calling sexual assault survivors "a mob" and likening us to "arsonist[s]."

So many evils have been perpetrated by Trump that it's harder than ever to forget that Trump carried Iowa by 9.8%. Women have to be twice as qualified to be thought half as good, the saying goes, but in Hillary's case, even being 10 times as qualified wasn't enough. I doubt she would have started the trade wars currently hurting Iowa farmers. I doubt she would have withdrawn from the Paris Accord on global warming, which is drowning parts of Iowa with unrelenting rain as we speak.

I know Hillary sucked up to Wall Street. I know she ran an overly cautious, lackluster campaign. If she hadn't wanted to win so badly she might have won. If she'd taken risks and talked more about what she stood for, she might have won. If former FBI director James Comey hadn't inappropriately intervened with his partisan two cents 11 days before the election, she might have won. Comey's comments cut Hillary's lead in half right before the election. If the Russians hadn't meddled, she might have won. If Donna Brazile had been in charge of her campaign instead of Robby Mook, she might have won. (I'm just finishing Brazile's book "Hacks" about Brooklyn's inept handling of the election and their refusal to listen to her about the need to reach out to African-American voters.) If Obama hadn't sucked up to Wall Street and abandoned Main Street, the country might not fallen for a lying con artist, a phony populist who said, "What I've got planned won't help [rich] guys like me." The hell you say.

Misogyny killed Hillary. Trump stalked her on stage and loomed over her as she spoke. Now the dismissive misogyny of sexist Republican dinosaurs, including sexist women senators like Susan Collins and Joni Ernst, have put an alleged sexual assaulter on the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas, an alleged sexual harasser, is already on the Supreme Court. Who will respect SCOTUS after this enormity? The corporate patriarchy is cemented in place. Kavanaugh already has a record of backing employers against employees, including taking the side of Sea World against the estate of the woman who died at Sea World after the orca that killed her had already displayed worrisome behavior. Kavanaugh said it was an inherently dangerous job, like stock car racing.

I can't wait to vote on Nov. 6th, 2018, in 2020, in 2022, and beyond. We must vote the Trump Party and Trumpism out of existence. The Republican Party, as I told my Republican friend, no longer exists. Trumpism is a profound danger to our republic and our democratic values. Trump likes dictators. I think he'd like to be one himself.