How did she know?

While reading this article about how the impact of the assault influenced her to move 3,000 miles away a couple of things jumped out at me:

• to put in the title of the article that she "moved 3,000 miles to reinvent her life" implies that this was a very traumatic event for her, so much so that she moved (at least partially) because of it. Ok, let's buy into that premise for a moment...
• if someone so wronged you that you'd move across the country to get away from them, you would think that you'd also want to keep them out of your head too. Meaning, it's probably pretty low on the things you want to be thinking about - and being 3,000 miles away is good way to do that. Right?
• in the article it says this:
  

  When Donald Trump won his upset presidential victory in 2016, Christine Blasey Ford’s thoughts quickly turned to a name most Americans had never heard of but one that had unsettled her for years: Brett M. Kavanaugh.

  Ok, seems like a reasonable thing for her to think about given the "trauma" of the event, right?

Well, here's my question, how did she know he was a judge?

Here we have a situation where she was groped by a boy who went to a different high school than her. You would assume that given the article says that she moved to California "after high school", their paths would not have crossed again.

So, they're 3,000 miles apart and yet she somehow managed to:

• know that he went on to college
• know that he went on to law school
• know that he became a judge
• know that he became a judge high enough to even be considered as s supreme court nominee 
• know that he's a conservative - remember, she didn't think of him for any other president, just Trump which means she knew he would be a good supreme court candidate for (someone she considered) an alt-right president - but not Bush, or Obama.

And she did all of this while 3,000 miles away while trying to get on with her life and put the entire incident behind her. Quick... aside from during an election season where there are political signs all over the place, how many people do you think can name a single judge from their district? I'm guessing near zero. So, how does someone 3,000 miles away know that some twerp from a different high school became a high ranking judge?

I can only come up with two possible answers for this:

1. she's not being totally honest about all of this, or
2. she's mentally unhinged, because she's a stalker

Don't misinterpret my conclusions as dismissing the impact of being seriously groped. But, for someone who was supposedly trying to move on, she sure kept up on what this "attacker" was doing with his life. I know of women who have had much worse done to them (actual rape, not just serious groping) and I'm pretty sure the last thing they're thinking about for 36 years is what their attacker is up to - just so they can pounce when he's at the pinnacle of his career. That's the actions of someone who needs serious mental help.

Remember, she didn't just pop up after Trump announced him as a candidate claiming that she knew him in high school and he did a horrible thing, the article says she thought about him the minute Trump was elected. Even before his name was in the press. She already knew he became a lawyer, became a judge and was high in the ranks of judges. She knew all about his career - from 3,000 miles away.

Something doesn't add up.  I would love it if the Senators (if they get to question her) asked her about this.

The other aspect of this, of course, is why the "journalist" didn't think to ask her these questions? But you probably know the answer to that one already...

Does the left really want us to look like Russia?

One thing that I've thought differentiated the US from other countries is how we look at other people's success. While some other countries look at it in a negative light we tend to encourage it and celebrate it. While it might seem like a weird thing that stuck in my head, this difference was made very clear to me years ago when Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was one of the more popular game shows. I remember reading, or hearing, about how the audience in some foreign countries would try to give the contestants the incorrect answer because it wasn't fair that they might win. I managed to find references to this: here, here, and here. And from the last one:

"...Russian audiences often deliberately provide incorrect answers to sabotage a contestant reaching out for help. A Russian historian, Geoffery Hosking, speculates that this behavior is born from the long history of communalism in Russia, which existed long before the commies took over, when individual responsibility was a collective chore, and those who rocked the boat made everyone else tipsy. Russians see the would-be millionaires on the show getting rich off the backs of audience members, so why help them along when you can take them down a peg or two?"

No doubt a normal human reaction is jealously and America are not immune to it. But there are different ways to react to it. For me, and I suspect a lot of people, its a bit of a motivator. In other words, when I see someone who is more successful than I am I try to think about what they've done that I could emulate - in other words, try to learn from them. But, and here's the difference, no matter how jealous I may get, I don't think its ever turned into a desire to "get even" with them in some way. Of course, the exception to this is when I think they may have cheated/stole their way to the top, but I actually think those are more rare than most people want to believe. And I think its this "get even" attitude that has not been prevalent in the US... up until now.

In recent times the class warfare rhetoric has heated up and while some of it is nothing new, I find it more than a little disturbing when I see things like this where people are cheering the government soaking "the rich" via the tax system. I think this bothers me more today than previous instances because instead of it being simply a grumbling from the "jealous people" who are just never happy as long as someone else has one dollar more than them, we now have a president who is trying to change the attitude of the country about it - meaning, I fear he is trying to turn our country into what we see in countries like Russia where we want to "take people down a peg or two" if they have more than us, rather than look at it a something to strive for.

Of course there have always been people in the US with this attitude but for the most part it has been the fringe left-wing communists who have spouted this garbage. It wasn't too long ago most people would have avoided this kind of divisive talk - anyone remember this (also here) from Chris Matthews. I really wonder if he would make this statement again today.

Thatcher vs Blair

[1] I miss Maggie.