NOVEMBER 21, 2018


NEWS AND VIEWS


https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-21/donald-trump-and-bernie-sanders-are-pharma-s-worst-nightmare
Politics & Policy
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Are Pharma’s Worst Nightmare
Drug-pricing initiatives from two very different sources share similar DNA.
By Max Nisen
November 21, 2018, 10:32 AM EST

PHOTOGRAPHS -- An issue that just may bring everyone together. Photographer: Jim Watson (Trump), Lisa Lake (Sanders)/Bloomberg

A new drug-pricing proposal released Tuesday by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna is the kind of thing you’d expect from progressive Democrats. They want to give the government the power to void patent protection for medications that are much more expensive in the U.S. than in other nations.

The more surprising thing is that the proposal shares DNA with President Donald Trump’s most recent and most serious proposal, which calls for lowering the prices of a certain subset of medicines paid for by Medicare to international levels over time.

Both measures have a tough path to actually becoming policy. But they may represent the beginning of a bipartisan conversation on drug prices that could be very uncomfortable for pharma.

Safe Haven?
Pharma stocks have held their value during the most recent selloff
Source: Bloomberg

Sanders and Khanna’s proposal is more radical, and would be more effective at lowering prices. Instead of focusing on just Medicare and medicines administered in doctors offices, as the Trump administration’s plan does, it could potentially apply to any branded drug. Also, the Trump plan only applies to half the country, to start.

Rather than compelling a price drop on a particular medication, the Sanders/Khanna plan would enable the launch of cheaper generic products if a drug is “excessively priced” relative to the average cost in a basket of other nations. That would erode both price and sales volume for that treatment, and end a valuable monopoly that might otherwise run for years. The law would also give the government wide latitude to label a drug as “excessively priced” for a variety of other reasons.

The plan’s aggression probably makes it a non-starter in its current form, given Republicans’ control of the Senate. Even the milder Trump plan, which still would effectively import price controls from other countries, will be a tough sell. For one, it’s not a natural policy fit for conservative lawmakers. But also, the pharma lobby is extremely powerful — a similar but far milder Obama administration proposal fell apart in 2016.

That doesn't mean pharma should rest easy. The Sanders/Khanna plan is a clear overture to the administration on a populist issue that is one of the few possible grounds for bipartisan action. While Republicans have traditionally been hostile to price controls, and have rejected previous Democratic proposals like permitting Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices, the Trump administration has cracked the door on importing price controls. Democrats appear willing to embrace that mechanism.

It’s easy to see why this approach appeals politically. Direct government negotiation, while ironically more of a market-based solution, does involve tough trade-offs. Negotiation doesn’t work without the ability to say no, and reducing patient access to drugs would be a politically difficult step. These plans avoid the difficult process of the U.S. figuring out a way to control prices on its own, and can be sold as an effort to get a fair deal for Americans.

There’s a robust debate to be had on whether this is the right way to go about things, and whatever drug pricing we get may not look much like either proposal. And it’s uncertain whether Congressional Republicans will want to even enter into dialogue. But if these plans represent a starting point for negotiation, with both sides in agreement that U.S. drug prices should somehow be tied to much lower prices abroad, then that’s a step forward in the policy discourse. Good news for many — but worrisome for pharma firms and their investors.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.


THE BACKGROUND ON THE ROBERTS REMARKS IS IN THIS ALJAZEERA ARTICLE, WHICH DETAILS TRUMP’S SHOVE AT HUMANITY. WHEN AN HISPANIC JUDGE ISSUED A STOP ON HIS MOVE, HE SLURRED HIM THROUGH THE NEWS, CALLING HIM “AN OBAMA JUDGE.” EARLIER BY SEVERAL MONTHS, HE HAD CALLED ANOTHER SPANISH LANGUAGE JUDGE “A SO-CALLED JUDGE.” HE SEEMS TO THINK THAT SUCH VERBAL SLAPS ARE PERFECTLY FINE, BUT THEY ACTUALLY ANGER MANY US CITIZENS WHO GREW UP HERE, AND WHO HAVE SEEN THE DEEPLY DISTURBING CHANGES THAT HAVE BEEN HAPPENING IN THE LAST TEN YEARS SINCE THE “TEA PARTY” CROWD PUSHED THEIR WAY INTO THE GOVERNMENT. THE TEA PARTIERS AREN’T SUPER PATRIOTS, THEY ARE SUPER WHITE POWER ADVOCATES AND AS TRUMP SO RECENTLY ANNOUNCED, “NATIONALISTS.” LOOK THAT UP ON GOOGLE. IS THAT NEW? NO, BUT IT HAS A MORE AGGRESSIVE AND THREATENING CHARACTERISTIC NOW – IT IS BOMBARDING WHAT THE USA STANDS FOR. NOW, THE TOP SUPREME COURT JUSTICE HAS SPOKEN OUT AGAINST HIS LATEST ABUSIVE ACTION. SEE THE DETAILS BELOW.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/trump-restricts-asylum-mexico-border-181109151937946.html

COULD THIS PERSONAL CORRECTION BY CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS BE A GENTLE WARNING, MANO A MANO? I WONDER HOW ROBERTS FEELS ABOUT THE CRUDE AND SILLY SEXUAL JOKE THAT A SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE MADE RECENTLY, THAT SUPREME COURT JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG WAS "TOUCHED INAPPROPRIATELY" BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN. THAT IS EVIDENCE ENOUGH TO ME THAT THE TEA PARTY REPUBLICANS ARE NOT AMERICAN STATESMEN AT ALL, BUT PROFITEERS, POWER SEEKERS AND OFTEN IDIOTS.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/chief-justice-roberts-rebukes-trump-obama-judge-complaint-181121181426203.html
US Chief Justice Roberts rebukes Trump's 'Obama judge' complaint
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pushes back against Trump, saying there are no 'Obama judges or Trump judges'. November 21, 2018 13 minutes ago

Photograph -- President Donald Trump greets Chief Justice John Roberts on Capitol Hill [File Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo]

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US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back on Wednesday against Donald Trump's description of a judge who ruled against the president's new asylum policy as an "Obama judge".

It's the first time that the Republican-appointed leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of Trump, who has previously blasted federal judges who ruled against him.

Responding to a query made by the Associated Press, Roberts said, "We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them."

Roberts added that on the day before Thanksgiving that an "independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for".

The White House had no immediate comment on Roberts's remarks.

A halt to new asylum rules

The ruling Trump criticised that prompted Roberts's rebuke came from US District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco on Monday.

READ MORE
Trump restricts asylum at the US-Mexico border
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/trump-restricts-asylum-mexico-border-181109151937946.html

Tigar temporarily blocked the Trump administration from denying asylum to individuals who cross the US's border between official ports of entry.

In his ruling, Tigar issued a temporary nationwide restraining order prohibiting the enforcement of the policy. The order will last until until [sic] at least December 19 when the judge scheduled a hearing to consider a more long-lasting injunction.

"Whatever the scope of the president's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden," Tigar wrote.

After Tigar's ruling, Trump critcised the judge, calling him an "Obama judge" and the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals itself a "disgrace".

“Every case that gets filed in the 9th Circuit, we get beaten. And then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

But the initial travel ban ruling in 2017 was issued by US District Judge James Robart, an appointee of President George W Bush. Roberts also was appointed by Bush.

It was unclear what Trump meant when he said things would change. The 9th Circuit is by far the largest of the federal appellate courts, covering Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Some Republicans in 9th Circuit states have proposed splitting the circuit in two, but legislation has not advanced.

OPINION
Kavanaugh and white boys' club politics in the US
Hamid Dabashi
by Hamid Dabashi

The court has long had a majority of judges appointed by Democratic presidents, with the current breakdown at 16-7. But Trump has the opportunity to narrow that edge significantly because there are six vacancies, and he already has nominated candidates for five of them.

List of critcisms

The president’s latest remarks come as the Supreme Court is enmeshed in controversy over his appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Several justices have spoken out about judicial independence and the danger of having the court viewed as a political institution that is divided between five conservative Republicans and four liberal Democrats. Roberts is widely seen as the justice closest to the middle and likely to determine the outcome of high-profile cases that split the court.

Trump's remarks are part of a long list of criticisms from the president directed a [sic] judges and courts.

Trump last year referred to a jurist who ruled against him on his travel ban as a "so-called judge". Trump as a presidential candidate in 2016 said a judge in a case involving Trump University was biased against him because of the jurist's Mexican-American heritage.

The US Constitution established the federal judiciary as a co-equal branch of government with the executive and legislative branches as part of a system of checks and balances on power.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES


RUTH BADER GINSBURG -- https://www.oyez.org/justices/ruth_bader_ginsburg
PHOTOGRAPH -- The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent a lifetime flourishing in the face of adversity before being appointed a Supreme Court justice, where she successfully fought against gender discrimination and unified the liberal block of the court. She was born Ruth Bader on March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. Her father was a furrier in the height of the Great Depression, and her mother worked in a garment factory. Ginsburg’s mother instilled a love of education in Ginsburg through her dedication to her brother; foregoing her own education to finance her brother’s college expenses. Her mother heavily influenced her early life and watched Ginsburg excel at James Madison High School, but was diagnosed with cancer and died the day before Ginsburg’s high school graduation. Ginsburg’s success in academia continued throughout her years at Cornell University, where she graduated at the top of her class in 1954. That same year, Ruth Bader became Ruth Bader Ginsburg after marrying her husband Martin, who was a first-year law student at Cornell when they met. After graduation, she put her education on hold to start a family. She had her first child in 1954, shortly after her husband was drafted for two years of military service. Upon her husband’s return from his service, Ginsburg enrolled at Harvard Law.

Ginsburg’s personal struggles neither decreased in intensity nor deterred her in any way from reaching and exceeding her academic goals, even when her husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1956, during her first year of law school. Ginsburg took on the challenge of keeping her sick husband up-to-date with his studies while maintaining her own position at the top of the class. At Harvard, Ginsburg tackled the challenges of motherhood and of a male-dominated school where she was one of nine females in a 500-person class. She faced gender-based discrimination from even the highest authorities there, who chastised her for taking a man’s spot at Harvard Law. She served as the first female member of the Harvard Law Review. Her husband recovered from cancer, graduated from Harvard, and moved to New York City to accept a position at a law firm there. Ruth Bader Ginsburg had one more year of law school left, so she transferred to Columbia Law School and served on their law review as well. She graduated first in her class at Columbia Law in 1959.

Even her exceptional academic record was not enough to shield her from the gender-based discrimination women faced in the workplace in the 1960s. She had difficulties finding a job until a favorite Columbia professor explicitly refused to recommend any other graduates before U.S. District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri hired Ginsburg as a clerk. Ginsburg clerked under Judge Palmieri for two years. After this, she was offered some jobs at law firms, but always at a much lower salary than her male counterparts. She instead took some time to pursue her other legal passion, civil procedure, choosing to join the Columbia Project on International Civil Procedure. This project fully immersed her in Swedish culture, where she lived abroad to do research for her book on Swedish Civil Procedure practices. Upon her return to the States, she accepted a job as a professor at Rutgers University Law School in 1963, a position she held until accepting an offer to teach at Columbia in 1972. There, she became the first female professor at Columbia to earn tenure. Ginsburg also directed the influential Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union during the 1970s. In this position, she led the fight against gender discrimination and successfully argued six landmark cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Ginsburg took a broad look at gender discrimination, fighting not just for the women left behind, but for the men who were discriminated against as well. Ginsburg experienced her share of gender discrimination, even going so far as to hide her pregnancy from her Rutgers colleagues. Ginsburg accepted Jimmy Carter’s appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1980. She served on the court for thirteen years until 1993, when Bill Clinton appointed her to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg began her career as a justice where she left off as an advocate, fighting for women’s rights. In 1996, Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in United States v. Virginia, holding that qualified women could not be denied admission to Virginia Military Institute. Her style in advocating from the bench matches her style from her time at the ACLU: slow but steady, and calculated. Instead of creating sweeping limitations on gender discrimination, she attacked specific areas of discrimination and violations of women’s rights one at a time, so as to send a message to the legislatures on what they can and cannot do. Her attitude is that major social change should not come from the courts, but from Congress and other legislatures. This method allows for social change to remain in Congress’ power while also receiving guidance from the court. Ginsburg does not shy away from giving pointed guidance when she feels the need. She dissented in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. where the plaintiff, a female worker being paid significantly less than males with her same qualifications, sued under Title VII but was denied relief under a statute of limitations issue. The facts of this case mixed her passion of federal procedure and gender discrimination. She broke with tradition and wrote a highly colloquial version of her dissent to read from the bench. She also called for Congress to undo this improper interpretation of the law in her dissent, and then worked with President Obama to pass the very first piece of legislation he signed, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, a copy of which hangs proudly in her office.

While many people speculate as to when the 83-year-old justice will retire, any assumption of frailty would be utterly misplaced. Ginsburg works with a personal trainer in the Supreme Court’s exercise room, and notably, can lift more than both Justices Breyer and Kagan. Ginsburg has not missed a day of oral arguments, not even when she was undergoing chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer, after surgery for colon cancer, or the day after her husband passed away in 2010. Justice Ginsburg has proven time and again that she is a force to be reckoned with, and those who doubt her capacity to effectively complete her judicial duties need only to look at her record in oral arguments, where she is still the among the most avid questioners on the bench today.

Cases argued
Duren v. Missouri (1978)
Califano v. Goldfarb (1976)
Edwards v. Healy (1974)
Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1974)
Kahn v. Shevin (1973)
Frontiero v. Richardson (1972)


I WONDER IF REPUBLICANS THESE DAYS ARE VYING FOR THE HONOR OF BEING THE CRUDEST, RUDEST, MOST CRASS AND MOST DOWNRIGHT IGNORANT POLITICIANS AROUND. WHETHER THEY ARE TRYING TO DO THAT OR NOT, THEY CERTAINLY SEEM TO BE AHEAD IN THAT COMPETITION, INCLUDING YESTERDAY’S CASE IN MISSISSIPPI BY Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith's in Jackson, Miss A WOMAN RATHER THAN A MAN. WELL, THAT’S NOT HOW WOMEN’S LIBERATION SHOULD WORK. IT SHOULD BE POSITIVE, NOT MORE HATEFUL. THIS TIME IT’S THE RECENTLY ELECTED SC REPRESENTATIVE REP. RALPH NORMAN. SOMETHING ABOUT THAT PARTICULAR UGLY JOKE REALLY “GROSSES ME OUT!” HE TAKES A WOMAN OF AMAZING CREDENTIALS AND ACHIEVEMENTS AND SMEARS HER IN THIS WAY. WHY DO THOSE MEN THINK THEY DESERVE TO BE IN PUBLIC OFFICE?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/congressman-jokes-that-ruth-bader-ginsburg-was-molested-by-lincoln/
CBS NEWS September 20, 2018, 2:47 PM
Congressman jokes that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was molested by Lincoln

A South Carolina Republican congressman joked at a Thursday debate with his Democratic opponent that 85-year-old Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was "groped" by Abraham Lincoln.

"Did you hear about this?" Rep. Ralph Norman said at the opening of the debate, according to The Post and Courier. "Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln."

The line was an apparent reference to the sexual assault allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who has been nominated by President Trump to the Supreme Court. Christine Blasey Ford, a California academic, has accused Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her at a booze-fueled house party when they were both in high school. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.

FBI investigation may not help Kavanaugh accuser

The congressman's jab prompted "some scattered nervous laughter from the Kiwanis Club of Rock Hill," according to the paper. Norman, a freshman lawmaker who won a special election to his seat in 2017, is currently running for reelection.

Norman's brief tenure in the House has attracted national attention before. Earlier this year, during a meeting with gun control activists, the congressman placed a loaded pistol on the table. Norman said he did this to show that "guns don't shoot people; people shoot guns." He also said he was "not going to be a Gabby Giffords," the former congresswoman who was shot and nearly killed while meeting with constituents in 2011.

Archie Parnell, Norman's Democratic opponent in both the special election and in this November's midterm election, is also no stranger to controversy. Unsealed records from his 1973 divorce, which were first reported on by The Post and Courier, showed that he was accused by his then-wife of beating her. Parnell has not denied the allegations, and CBS News does not consider the race to be competitive.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


ABOUT “WHITE BOYS CLUB POLITICS” – READ THIS ARTICLE, PARTLY TO SHOWCASE THE TRUMPIAN CONNECTION HERE AND TO COMPARE IT WITH TODAY’S STORY ABOUT SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS’ CRITICAL COMMENTS WHICH HE MADE YESTERDAY; AND TO SEE HOW EXTREME TRUMP’S ASSAULTS ON JURISTS HAVE BEEN; AND FINALLY, ABOUT TRUMP’S SLANDERING ATTACK ON A JUDGE WHO RECENTLY COUNTERED HIS BORDER PATROL ACTIVITY AS NOT BEING IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONSTITUTION. DO YOU FEEL HE DESERVES EVEN MORE LEEWAY THAN THE LEGISLATURE HAS ALREADY GIVEN HIM? I DO NOT.

THIS ARTICLE IS FROM OCTOBER 1 OF THIS YEAR, WRITTEN BY A RECOGNIZED AND SCHOLARLY DEFENDER OF FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE, HAMID DABASHI. APPARENTLY, HE TOO, SAW THE BIZARRE BEHAVIOR OF KAVANAUGH IN HIS “WITNESSING” BEFORE THE SENATE AS BEING IMMATURE AND EVEN PSYCHIATRICALLY BORDERLINE. BEHIND HIS UNHINGED AND DEEPLY DISHONEST BEHAVIOR IS THE SAME KIND OF PERSONALITY TYPE THAT I SEE IN DONALD TRUMP.

WHEN WE ARE RID OF TRUMP, WE CAN BEGIN TO GET RID OF OTHERS OF THAT KIND, OR SO I BELIEVE, AND THAT IT’S HIGH TIME TO DO IT. THE NEW DEMOCRATS WILL BE SEATED IN THE HOUSE A THE FIRST OF 2019 SO THAT WE CAN HAVE ENOUGH VOTES TO BE EFFECTIVE. IT’S GOING TO START SOON, I HOPE, JUDGING FROM THE LAST WEEK OR SO WITH RACHEL MADDOW. I LIKE WATCHING HER BECAUSE SHE NOT ONLY THINKS THE WAY I DO WHICH MAKES ME TRUST HER, BUT SHE KEEPS HER EYES ON THE PRIZE POLITICALLY, SO THAT SHE MISSES VERY LITTLE. EVENTS ARE MOVING SO FAST NOW THAT I DO HOPE NO UNFORESEEN EVENT MAKES US DEMOCRATS LOSE OUT IN WHAT IS A COMBAT WITH HUGE POLITICAL AND CULTURAL STAKES. IT IS OUR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC THAT WE MUST PROTECT, OR PERHAPS REGAIN WOULD BE THE BETTER WORD. I HAVE HOPE, THOUGH, BECAUSE THE MUELLER PROBE IS STILL ONGOING, WE HAVE GAINED STRENGTH IN THE HOUSE, AND NO DEMS SEEM TO BE ASLEEP ON THEIR FEET AS THEY WERE AROUND THE TIME OF THE ELECTION. I BELIEVE HILLARY CLINTON THOUGHT SHE HAD THAT ELECTION “IN THE BAG.”

WHEN THE TRULY FREE-THINKING AMERICANS STOOD UP IN LARGE NUMBERS THIS MONTH AND EVICTED ENOUGH REPUBLICANS FROM THE HOUSE AT THE MIDTERMS TO CHANGE THE BALANCE OF POWER A BIT, WE WILL HAVE A FIGHTING CHANCE TO MOVE FOR IMPEACHMENT, I THINK. ANYTHING LESS THAN IMPEACHMENT WILL NOT SATISFY ME. I THINK IF THE MUELLER PROBE OPENS UP THE PATH AGAINST TRUMP PERSONALLY AND HE CAN POSSIBLY BE LINKED SPECIFICALLY TO CRIMINAL ACTS RATHER THAN JUST THE INTERMINABLE SLEAZE THAT WE ARE ALL BECOMING SO ACCUSTOMED TO, I WILL BE SO HAPPY. RACHEL MADDOW SAID SEVERAL WEEKS AGO THAT THE MUELLER INFORMATION WILL PROBABLY BE PRESENTED TO THE LEGISLATURE RATHER THAN SIMPLY PUBLISHED. THAT’S BETTER, BECAUSE OTHERWISE IT’S POSSIBLE NO CONCRETE ACTION WILL BE TAKEN.

WE REALLY NEED TO WORK ON THE CONSTITUTION IN SOME SIX OR EIGHT WAYS OR MORE SO THAT WE CAN AVOID SUCH A MESS AS WE ARE IN NOW, AND HAVE MORE EASILY ACTIONABLE AND LESS WEAK-KNEED WAYS OF WORKING ON THE LEGAL STRUCTURE. IT SHOULDN’T BE THIS EASY TO ELECT A FASCIST TO THE PRESIDENCY, AND SO DIFFICULT TO GET RID OF HIM. I’M PRAYING FOR ENOUGH HONEST AMERICANS STAND UP AGAINST TRUMP SO THAT THIS NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET CAN END.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/kavanaugh-white-boys-club-politics-181001093025096.html
OPINION/UNITED STATES
Kavanaugh and white boys' club politics in the US
Kavanaugh's testimony exposed not only his own lack of credibility but also the deep-seated misogyny of US politics.
Hamid Dabashi by Hamid Dabashi
1 Oct 2018

PHOTOGRAPH -- Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC [Tom Williams/Pool Image via AP]

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Like millions of other people around the globe, in the United States and elsewhere, I was transfixed by the testimonies of both Dr Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, watching them from beginning to end.

I found her testimony believable, his not.

This is not a matter of blind partisanship. This is the result of being a witness in real time to a noble truth shining against a whole regime of falsehood - from President Donald Trump who nominated him to the 11 Republican members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee who were trying to railroad his confirmation and to Judge Kavanaugh himself.

Dr Ford is one of a number of women who have accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual assault and who had dared to go public against a powerful man and the even more powerful men supporting him. They came forward with their allegations of sexual assault at a time when the #MeToo movement falsely promised that such daring attempts to bring up sexual violence against women would be met with more sympathy by the public.

Her courageous act exposed how the class supremacy of white wealth and power would instantly resort to vindictive anger and fury to silence and dismiss anyone who would dare challenge its institutional privileges.

After watching the two testimonies, I am more convinced than ever before that Judge Kavanaugh would be a calamitous appointment to the Supreme Court and would tip the balance in a decidedly reactionary right-wing swing for decades to come.

Witness for the prosecution

Facing accusations of multiple sexual assaults by a number of women, Judge Kavanaugh made even more evident his schoolyard bullying tendencies, brazen partisanship, and disdain for those who challenge his politics and doubt his judicial integrity during that fuming, sniffing, self-pitying spectacle he staged on September 27.

In sharp contrast to him stood the towering courage of Dr Ford who came forward, faced the blatant hostility of 11 white Republican men tipping the balance of the US judiciary committee and accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when she was 15 years old.

Why do I find her testimony more believable?

Because her first and final witness was Judge Kavanaugh himself!

The quiet power and neuroscientific precision of Dr Ford's testimony reduced Judge Kavanaugh to a 17-year-old boy sitting in a 53-year-old man's suit, angry, conspiratorial, vindictive, in full denial, self-entitled, and seemingly caught red-handed. It was as if he was sitting in the principal's office with his parents, vehemently and nervously defending himself.

In his spectacular performance, Judge Kavanaugh produced the single most believable eyewitness Dr Ford needed to convince me in her story: The man I saw on TV behaved like a 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh the morning after he had sobered up from a terrible deed he had done the night before and had moved into full, self-entitled, white boy denial.

Dr Ford's supporting evidence was her own life - going through extensive therapy, suffering from anxiety and claustrophobia to the point of demanding a second security door in her home and more importantly, dedicating her career to the very science that would teach her how never to forget the precise scientific description of what had happened to her.

She sat there in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee having earned an undergraduate degree in experimental psychology (1988), a master's degree in clinical psychology (1991), a PhD in educational psychology (1996) and writing her dissertation on "Measuring Young Children's Coping Responses to Interpersonal Conflict", before earning yet another master's degree in epidemiology (2009).

Dr Ford had translated her teenage trauma into a lifelong academic and scholarly career. On September 27, she sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee the victim, the eyewitness, and the expert - all in one.

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter," she said when asked what she remembered the most of that night.

When Senator Dianne Feinstein inquired: "How are you so sure that it was he," Professor Ford simply said: "The same way that I'm sure that I'm talking to you right now, just basic memory functions and also just the level of norepinephrine and epinephrine in the brain… That neurotransmitter encodes memories into the hippocampus, and so the trauma-related experience then is kind of locked there whereas other details kind of drift."

The scream that Dr Ford said that horrific night had stifled finally come out in the precise, specific, scientific, staccatos of her testimony 36 years later for the whole world to hear.

Has something broken?

There is much more at stake here than the barefaced, boastful, ambitions of an ultra-conservative judge riding on the political wave of Trump and Trumpism - brandishing his toxic masculinity, repeatedly yelling: "I drank beer with my friends, almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers, sometimes others did… I liked beer, I still like beer." His pathetic bravura machismo had only one audience: Donald Trump, so he would not drop him cold and move on to the next on his list.

The spectacle of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings and the obscenity of a gang of 11 white men shamelessly disregarding a woman describing a traumatic experience dismantled every shred of credibility the US Senate may have ever thought it had.

"The US Senate used to be known as the world's greatest deliberative body. On Thursday, it shredded most of what remains of that reputation."

That is the judicious opinion of Edward Luce of the Financial Times, who seems to have a distant and generous memory of a time when the US Senate was worthy of that praise. I have no such memory.

For the over 40 years that I have lived in the US and for as long as my memory of racism and misogyny in the US remembers, the US Senate has never been anything but what we saw during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing - an overwhelmingly white privileged, self-entitled group of men perpetuating the privileges of their race and class.

Their outrageous demographic obscenity was emphasised that much more by the presence of a Rachel Mitchell, a sex crimes prosecutor who they had brought to do their dirty work for them: questioning Dr Ford as if she were a suspect.

A New York Times editorial published on September 28 rightly pointed out the cowardice of those 11 Republic senators who did not dare face Dr Ford themselves. It noted:

"Eventually, as Judge Kavanaugh testified, the Republican senators ventured out from behind their shield. Doubtless seeking to ape President Trump's style and win his approval, they began competing with each other to make the most ferocious denunciation of their Democratic colleagues and the most heartfelt declaration of sympathy for Judge Kavanaugh, in a show of empathy far keener than they managed to muster for Dr Blasey."

This is at the crux of the matter - the structural white masculinity at the heart of right-wing American politics. There is a long distance between the neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville and this spectacle of white male privilege ganging up against a vulnerable woman. But the two poles connect the same spectrum of raging white power.

Historical context

Over the more than four decades I have lived in the US, this is the fourth time that I have seen the nation transfixed by a public spectacle on which hangs the fate of the country - its moral fibre, its sense of self-respect, its fear of decadent implosion.

The first was the July 1987 televised congressional hearing of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council on the Iran-Contra affair, when the Reagan administration was implicated in illicit exchange of arms for the release of US hostages and the use of the proceeds to finance a covert operation in Nicaragua. On that occasion, the depth of US clandestine treacheries interfering in other nations' affairs was put on full global display.

The second was the testimony of attorney Anita Hill, who accused Judge Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court nominee, of sexual assault. During those proceedings, the selfsame shameless masculinist abuse targeted a young African American woman daring to share publicly her harrowing experiences.

The third was the trial of O J Simpson in 1994 when the racial divide tearing this country asunder was on full display.

And the fourth was these US Senate confirmation hearings of Judge Kavanaugh, a deja vu of the Anita Hill hearings, which look and feel as if nothing has changed in between. Some of the very same Republican senators are still serving on the same committee staging an identical, callous disregard for another human being's suffering.

These four events were massive dramatic spectacles, which brought the entire nation in front of TV screens, wondering where their country was headed.

The point at issue in all of these cases and in this most recent trauma is not just the overwhelming testimony of Dr Ford and the categorical way in which it was disregarded by the Republicans.

It is also the structural misogyny that comes down from Trump, spreads to almost the entirety of the Republican party, represented by the 11 white men serving on this committee and then manifested in the angry, vindictive, and arrogant screed of Kavanaugh.

In the end, Dr Ford's testimony will go down in history as one of those pivotal moments which pave the way for women to have a safe and dignified space to live, work and thrive, to be taken seriously in their pain and suffering, so the deep-seated misogyny of power can be dismantled.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hamid DabashiHamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.