I Am Spartacus — Brett Kavanaugh Edition

Universal Studios

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Last week, conservative stalwart Ed Whelan took to Twitter to suggest that Christine Blasey Ford was mistaken about her encounter with a drunken and violent Brett Kavanaugh at a house party when they were teenagers. It’s not that the attempted rape never happened, Whelan said, it’s that it was someone else who tried to rape her. He even named his suspect, a completely innocent man who has nothing to do with any of this.

Whelan apologized and took down his Twitter account the next day. Ever since, conservatives have been trying desperately to pretend he doesn’t exist and that they never knew him. But not everyone has forgotten. Earlier today the Senate Judiciary Committee published a timeline of its investigation so far, and it turns out that Whelan’s mystery suspect has come forward:

But wait! There’s another one:

There sure do seem to be a surprising number of people willing to incriminate themselves of felonies for the sake of helping Kavanaugh make it to the Supreme Court. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

And while we’re on the subject, Kavanaugh has claimed that although he wasn’t perfect as a teenager, he was pretty damn good. Sure, a beer now and then, but that’s pretty much it. For a light drinker, however, various documents from the period in question sure do seem to refer a lot to sex and heavy drinking. Here’s a definitely NSFW sample:

  • Keg City Club (Treasurer) — 100 Kegs Or Bust: this one is pretty self-explanatory.
  • Beach Week Ralph Club – Biggest Contributor: ralphing is a slang term for vomiting. The implication here is that during Beach Week Kavanaugh was the heaviest drinker and most prodigious vomiter.
  • FFFFFFFourth of July: this is apparently a variation of “Find them, finger them, fuck them, forget them.”
  • Boofed: not entirely clear, but apparently a variation of bufu, slang for buttfucker.

It is, of course, entirely possible that Kavanaugh, like lots of teenage boys, tossed off this kind of slang solely as a way of looking tough in front of his friends. Who knows? But this, along with other evidence, sure seems to indicate, at the very least, that Kavanaugh was a hard partier and a heavy drinker during his high school and college years. Was he also an FFFF man? I suppose it’s possible we’ll get a better idea about that at Thursday’s hearing.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate