Georgetown Prep’s New Motto: ‘Amo Cerevisiam’ (‘I Like Beer’)

During his sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh affirmed one thing as true: He really likes beer, and he liked it while he was a student at Georgetown Prep, the pricey Jesuit high school in the DC suburbs. Young Brett even listed himself as “Treasurer of the Keg City Club” in his high school yearbook. Surely Bill Shine, the former Fox News exec who is now White House Communications Director, advised him to declare his love of suds whenever those wine-sipping Democrats questioned him about his heavy drinking, since America’s Joe Sixpacks are Trump’s core voters.

One thing wrong with Brett Kavanaugh’s high school beer drinking: It wasn’t legal. As AP’s Alanna Durkin Richer points out, Maryland’s drinking age was raised to 21 in July 1982, when Brett Kavanaugh was a 17-year-old high school junior. He danced around this fact during committee testimony to avoid perjury, saying senior classmates could drink legally, but all this does is implicate the Georgetown Prep upperclassmen who bought him beer when he was 17.

Mr. Kavanaugh may have technically avoided perjuring himself about this one fact, if not several others, but he clearly has a rather distant relationship with the truth. Hey, we almost wrote this without using the phrase “sober as a judge.”

More:

“Brett Kavanaugh likes beer, but not questions about his drinking habits,” By Allyson Chiu, Washington Post

“Kavanaugh wrongly claims he could drink legally in Maryland,” Alanna Durkin Richer, Associated Press

“Brett Kavanaugh’s slippery answers about high school partying matter,” Matthew Yglesias, Vox

“At the Center of the Kavanaugh Accusations: Heavy Drinking,” Mike McIntire and Ben Protess, New York Times

“Many teens drink. Rich ones like Kavanaugh are more likely to abuse alcohol.” Suniya S. Luthar, Washington Post

“Trump on Kavanaugh: ‘I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he likes beer,'” Caitlin Oprysko, Politico

“Kavanaugh’s High School, Georgetown Prep, Warned Parents in 1990 of ‘Sexual or Violent Behavior’ at Parties,” Jon Schwarz and Camille Baker, The Intercept

Withdrawal Pains

On Tuesday, Rep. Tom Marino (R, PA-10) withdrew his name from consideration as America’s drug czar, tweeted President Trump, who nominated him. This followed a devastating 60 Minutes/Washington Post report on Mr. Marino’s role in sponsoring a bill that prevented the DEA from pursuing the crooked drug wholesalers, pharmacies and doctors responsible for illegal distribution of opioids, highly-addictive prescription drugs. Last year, opioid overdoses killed more Americans than died in the entire Vietnam Conflict.

Mr. Marino was one of the 23 sponsors and co-sponsors of the DEA-hampering bill who divvied up $1.5 million in Big Pharma campaign contributions. Of course, drug enforcement isn’t the only thing Republicans want to deregulate, but the others don’t send 40 Americans to the morgue every day. They’ll kill you more slowly.

Related:

“How big pharma’s money – and its politicians – feed the US opioid crisis,” Chris McGreal, The Guardian

Updates:

“Opioid Lobbyist Left a Digital Fingerprint on a Campaign by ‘Patient Advocates,'” Lee Fang, The Intercept

“Opioid Commission Member: We Worry Trump Won’t Act To Address Drug Crisis,” Esme Cribb, TPM Livewire

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Judge Thomas Hardiman: Miss Congeniality

The suspense is over: President Donald Trump named Federal Appellate Judge Neil Gorsuch as “Man Most Likely to Be Cast as a Supreme Court Justice in a TV Movie.” “I have selected an individual whose qualities define — really, and I mean closely define — what we’re looking for,” said the president, a devotee of central casting.

Judge Gorsuch is no stranger to DC. While a high school student at $30,000-a-year Georgetown Prep, he founded the Fascism Forever Club. That certainly would get the alt-right nod from the Commander-In-Fact, Mr. Steve Bannon.

Mr. Trump handled the Big Reveal with the decorum he became known for in his beauty pageants and reality TV shows. Rumor had it that SCOTUS runner-up Judge Thomas Hardiman would come to DC to heighten the suspense, but it was just fake news back-channel hype.

More:

“It’s ‘The Apprentice, Supreme Court Edition,’ as Trump Summons Finalists to White House,” Maggie Haberman, Michael Grynbaum, and Ron Nixon, New York Times

Related:

“Behind the Smoke Screen: What Reality-TV Veterans Think of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” Julie Miller and Josh Duboff, Vanity Fair

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Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length

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