On Further Consideration: With Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake threatening to withhold his vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee and President Trump agreed to a one-week snap FBI investigation of sexual misconduct claims against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Flake had said earlier in the day that he would vote for Kavanaugh and then he was tearfully confronted in a Capitol Hill hallway by women who had experienced sexual assault. In a later meeting to set the vote he said, “We ought to do what we can to make sure we do all due diligence with a nomination this important. This country is being ripped apart here.” The Republican Flake is retiring at the end of the year and his is one of few votes still in play.

The hallway confrontation appeared to have an impact on Flake. One of the women said, “Look at me when I’m talking to you. You are telling me that my assault doesn’t matter, that what happened to me doesn’t, and that you’re going to let people who do these things into power.”

Earlier in the day, at least five Democrats walked out of a Judiciary meeting when the Republicans voted to steam ahead with the Kavanaugh appointment.

The FBI investigation extends Kavanaugh’s nightmare — or path to justice as you choose to look at it — and so does celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti. The Stormy Daniels lawyer announced via Twitter that, “Because @realDonaldTrumpand the Senate Republicans refuse to allow my client Julie Swetnick to testify, we will be taking her story directly to the American people this weekend.” Swetnick has claimed she was present at parties in the1980s during which Kavanaugh took part in gang rapes. Hers are the most extreme accusations against Kavanaugh.

The nominee’s angry and self-righteous performance on Thursday may have solidified his support among conservatives and won him a Supreme Court seat, but he also revealed himself as a privileged American who’s unaware of the lives that are not like his. To his detractors, he came off as a spoiled teenager claiming the car was already dented. He did all the right things at the right schools while being a drunken party boy. And now he denies it. In his testimony he evaded, lied, and refused to confront something about the core of his being.

  Shamus Khan writes in The Washington Post, “How could a man brought up in some of our nation’s most storied institutions — Georgetown Prep, Yale College, Yale Law School — dissemble with such ease? The answer lies in the privilege such institutions instill in their members, a privilege that suggests the rules that govern American society are for the common man, not the exceptional one.”

Hit Job: One of the most telling moments in Kavanaugh’s testimony on Thursday was when he claimed to be the target of a political hit. By attacking Democratic critics and claiming that his troubles are the result of politics, he identified himself as a legitimate political target, a representative of the “other side” rather than a neutral judge on the US Court of Appeals and studied candidate for the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh said, “This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election. Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”

It may not be accusations of sexual assault but those words that haunt the rest of his judicial career.

Unfriendly: Facebook admitted that a breach of its system may have uncovered the personal information of as many as 50 million users and potentially taken control of their accounts. A Facebook executive declined to say whether the company thinks the attack was carried out by an adversary country.

Air Power: It’s been a week of firsts for the expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The F-35 was used for the first time in combat to hit a Taliban target in Afghanistan. The military also suffered its first loss of the $100 million jets when a Marine pilot had to bail out near Beaufort, SC. In military parlance its known as a “Class A mishap.” Total loss.

Tsunami: Nearly 400 people are dead in the Indonesian city of Palu, after it was struck by a 7.5-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami. An additional 540 people were injured and 29 still missing. The city was preparing for a beach festival.

The Obit Page: Marty Balin, the founder of Jefferson Airplane and longtime member of Jefferson Starship, has died at age 76.

Balin wrote or co-wrote several of the band’s big hits, including “It’s No Secret,” “Today,” “Comin’ Back to Me,” “Plastic Fantastic Lover,” “Share a Little Joke,” and “Volunteers.”

Art News: The Museum of Modern Art in New York is preparing to stage a show of the works of the late Charles White, one of the most famous black artists in the country whose name you probably still don’t know. Born in 1918, he died in 1979.

White’s most famous work, “Black Pope,” features a black man in robes with a large cross on his forehead and flashing the 1960s “peace” sign with two fingers on his left hand. His paintings depicted the dignity and rightful place of black Americans. His 1943 mural, “The Contribution of the Negro to Democracy in America” is a collage of strong black faces and figures, from slaves to soldiers and musicians, painted in the depression-era style against the timeline of American history. It’s as good as any depiction of America by Thomas Hart Benton.

-30-