Sunday, September 30, 2018
"Lindsey Graham threw off the mantle of John McCain in one of the great moments in American history!"
Joe DiGenova gives us his thoughts on the Ford v. Kavanaugh hearings. "Diane Feinstein is now infamous for her duplicity and dishonesty. The Democrats have eschewed all integrity, all honesty, in the pursuit of power."
AI and humans
KaiFu Lee and FeiFei Lu
AI pioneer KaiFu started Google in China in 2005. In a wired interview he was asked about his concerns about AI. He says fifty percent of people will lose their jobs to AI.
Citi recently warned that big layoffs could be coming based on automation-related replacements. Entrepreneurs are trying to build things that save cost. There’s no way you can stop that. So yes, this is a big concern. For specific domains, AI will take over in a couple of years.Read more here.
...The first concern is what I call low-compassion, low-creativity jobs—probably half the jobs that humans have. These are for sure going to be taken by AI over the next 15 years.
... Li believes AI has the potential to free us from more mundane tasks, so we can focus on things that require creativity, critical thinking, and connection. A nurse, for example, might be freed from managing medical equipment so he can spend more time with a patient. “If you look at the technology’s potential,” she says, “it’s unbounded.” But only, she notes, if you put humans at the center.
Ritual Defamation
Stella Morabito writes in The Federalist,
In 1990, a Kansan civil liberties advocate named Laird Wilcox wrote an excellent and cogent essay entitled “The Practice of Ritual Defamation.” The essay provides a major public service. It clarifies the mechanics of ritual defamation and lists its eight primary features. It’s a short must-read for any citizen with a shred of goodwill.Read more here.
...Wilcox’s definition of defamation is as follows: “Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication.
...Yes, abortion is a sacred cow to the Dems, but they know that even if Roe is reversed, abortion would remain legal in practically all of the states. (Footnote: Kavanaugh seems to have also violated their taboo on sexual abstinence, a highly punishable offense in their eyes.) But mostly they consider Kavanaugh guilty because he reveres the U.S. Constitution as the law of the land and the protections it guarantees to individuals.
...As a federalist, he would believe that unbridled centralized government power goes against the letter and spirit of the Constitution. That is the forbidden attitude that the Democrats seem to believe justifies their ritual defamation of Kavanaugh.
“The method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim. . . Character assassination is its primary tool.”
Indeed. The character assassination has been non-stop. Kavanaugh went from Boy Scout to serial rapist literally overnight.
“An important rule in ritual defamation is to avoid engaging in any kind of debate over the truthfulness or reasonableness of what has been expressed, only condemn it. .. . . The primary goal of a ritual defamation is censorship and repression.”
Yes, the last thing totalitarians are interested in is arriving at the truth. Lost in the muck is any reasoned debate about Kavanaugh’s views. Indeed, the purpose of assassinating his character is to associate these views with sexual perversion and hypocrisy, i.e., to censor and repress him and those with similar views.
So you don’t need to be a nominee to the Supreme Court to suffer from ritual defamation. At root, the treatment of Judge Kavanaugh is meant to be an example of how you—yes, you—will be crucified too if you ever express a taboo opinion.
Many will choose to lay low to avoid such treatment. But that’s the whole idea, because it means giving in to the bullying, and thereby allowing repression and censorship to grow. This enhances the trickle-down effect of ritual defamation, so that any unknown can get victimized for expressing an opinion considered taboo—i.e., politically incorrect—by bullies.
Any nay vote on Kavanaugh from Republicans would suffice here as involving them in the defamation. Weak Republican senators such as Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins were always ripe for the picking, and having the show trial, complete with the optics of a soft-spoken victim who needs no evidence, certainly helps to pull such Republicans into the defamation process.
And we all know that bully-like swarming is the order of the day, whether in person or on social media. By the way, doesn’t this September 26 photo taken in a basement corridor of the U.S. Capitol look like Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein applying pressure to Republican Murkowski, who was said to be wavering on voting for Kavanaugh?
...Let’s not forget this fact: Judge Kavanaugh is being defamed primarily because he really believes in the U.S. Constitution. If he was willing to kowtow to Dems and rewrite the Constitution consistent with leftist views, Democrats would have no problem whatsoever confirming him to the Supreme Court.
The previous ritual defamation of Justice Clarence Thomas involves another layer of taboo in the eyes of the Democrat elite: independent thought. Thomas provided the best description of the Democrats’ real reason for defaming him during his 1991 confirmation hearings: “It is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.”
Of course, Kavanaugh also deigns to think for himself, and conservative so-called “white males” have been out of fashion for some time now.
"Take lots of selfies, Jeff!"
Megan Fox writes at PJ Media,
...Only this time, instead of torturing the Kavanaughs with the Muppet Show of Hate in the Senate, we're going to do it with the FBI. The same FBI, by the way, whose operatives were texting each other about stopping the election of the president who nominated Kavanaugh. Sure. This will be fair.After the Kavanaugh hearings, Senator Flake and Coons were cheered at a rock festival. Megan continues,
...I knew the minute Flake walked out of the Senate meeting he was going to ffffffffff**k it up. He only cares about one thing: Jeff Flake being loved. And look at him now! He's on a stage being cheered by hot girls with low morals who love abortion. Score! It's much more difficult to do the right thing and keep your word and vote yes on the confirmation of a man you know has been railroaded by the Democrat smear machine.
Smiling from ear to duplicitous ear, Sen. Jeff Flake (fake Republican-Ariz.) took the stage in front of a roaring crowd of #GlobalCitizens at a rock festival on Saturday. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), the chap who seems to have talked Flake into betraying his constituents and party leaders, was alongside him in a bipartisan show of support for the big fat wrench in the form of a "one-week" delay in the confirmation process for Judge Kavanaugh. I put "one-week" in quotes because the chances of it ending before the midterms are about as minuscule as Lindsay Lohan making good life choices. It's possible, but it sure doesn't look like it's happening any time soon.Read more here.
...I hope Senator Flake is having a wonderful time in the green room with all those celebrities who would like nothing more than to wipe his constituents off the map. How fun for him. Take lots of selfies, Jeff! #GoFlllllllakeYourself
Journalism today
Michael Walsh writes in PJ Media about journalism as practiced today in America.
...How times have changed. Today's reporters may still think they're helping save both the human race and the planet, but the context is now completely different. Unlike the older reporters, who generally had majored in the liberal arts in college and often drifted accidentally into journalism, they've been schooled in it, and not just in journalism but in the entire panoply of contemporary Leftist issues, including environmentalism, feminism, and the moral rightness of the Democrat Party, which they view as the locomotive of the civil-rights movement and thus forever on the side of the angels. They are not just reporters out for a story; they are in service to a Cause.Read more here.
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Body Language
A little after the 6-minute mark in this video notice Christine Blasey Ford's "cute little girl" voice. Then, when she is done testifying, she pulls her glasses on top of her head and we see a more defiant facial expression.
"The Democrats are telling us: Republicans, beware–if this can happen to Brett Kavanaugh, it can happen to anyone. You’d better go quietly and cede power to us."
John Hinderaker writes at PowerLine,
...Brett Kavanaugh enjoys one of the most spotless reputations of anyone in American public life. He has been enthusiastically endorsed by those who have known him all his life–by girls he knew in high school and college, by judges he has served with, by professors and students and Harvard and Yale law schools, by judges who have worked with him, by his judicial clerks–most of whom have been women–by the American Bar Association, by sitting Supreme Court justices. In short, everyone who has ever known or dealt with Brett Kavanaugh endorses him.Read more here.
I think that Judge Kavanaugh’s pristine reputation is one reason why the Democrats have unleashed against him a smear campaign unparalleled in American history. This is the message they are trying to send: If we can do this to the Boy Scout Brett Kavanaugh, we can do it to anyone. Are you thinking of serving in a Republican administration? Or accepting an appointment to the federal judiciary from a Republican president? Think twice, and then think again.
Because our smear machine will reach back to middle school if necessary. If we can’t find any dirt on you, we will manufacture some. There is no depth to which we will not stoop, and your honesty, integrity and spotless reputation are no match for our control over the media and our determination to dredge up ridiculous allegations against anyone who stands in our way.
Really, the more ridiculous the better. If we can accuse Brett Kavanaugh, one of the most respected lawyers and judges in America, of gang rape, we can accuse anyone of anything! And our insane accusations will dominate the news.
That is the Democratic Party’s message. And we have learned from the Christine Ford fiasco that accusations don’t require corroborating evidence. A single wacky, false allegation will negate decades of hard work on behalf of the American people.
By smearing the ultimate Boy Scout, the Democrats signal that they are determined to go lower than anyone has ever gone in American history. They intend to deter normal people from serving in Republican administrations, or accepting appointments from Republican presidents, or, ultimately, from identifying themselves with the Republican party. Given that strategy, the fact that they are smearing a man of obviously sterling character on absurdly flimsy grounds is not a bug, it is a feature. The fact that the Democrats’ smears are so patently false is ultimately their main point.
By smearing the ultimate Boy Scout, the Democrats signal that they are determined to go lower than anyone has ever gone in American history. They intend to deter normal people from serving in Republican administrations, or accepting appointments from Republican presidents, or, ultimately, from identifying themselves with the Republican party. Given that strategy, the fact that they are smearing a man of obviously sterling character on absurdly flimsy grounds is not a bug, it is a feature. The fact that the Democrats’ smears are so patently false is ultimately their main point.
The Democrats are telling us: Republicans, beware–if this can happen to Brett Kavanaugh, it can happen to anyone. You’d better go quietly and cede power to us.
What is this really all about? Protecting abortion!
Feinstein hides a story of attempted rape for six weeks so she can torpedo his nomination at the last moment! If Kavanaugh shows anger after being accused of rape, then that proves he is a rapist! If he doesn't, that proves he is insincere!
About the Supreme Court
On July 17, Victor Davis Hanson wrote in National Review this about the Supreme Court
What is sacrosanct? Whatever advances progressive causes.
1) Right to Left. The majority of post-war Republican Supreme Court nominees, who were initially perceived as conservative, turned liberal on the bench (Harry Blackmun, William Brennan, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Earl Warren), or went from right-wing to center-right or centrist (Warren Burger, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts). Perhaps the pressures of approval from the liberal social and political culture of Washington, D.C., becomes finally overwhelming. Or justices sense that the liberal media and historians will praise and memorialize a “maverick” who “grows,” “matures,” or “evolves,” while dismissing a “recalcitrant,” “hard-core,” or “reactionary” justice who remains a strict constructionist. A conservative president perhaps realizes that he will get more praise from the Left than blame from the Right when his malleable nominee bolts and become progressive. The ongoing liberal political reassessments of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in part came from their nominations of Justices Kennedy, O’Connor, and Souter. Or perhaps as we age we all tire a bit and cave to popular pressures and prefer “to just get along” in our sunset years. Controlling the culture — and the threat of ostracism from it — is a powerful tool in massaging political ideology.
2) Never Left to Right. In contrast, few Democratic nominees become centrist or conservative. To do so would be to suffer something like the “Dershowitz effect” that brands independent-thinking liberal legal scholars, such as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who remain progressive but honor the law, as veritable traitors and pariahs. Most Democratic justices arrived at the Court either from the academic world, the bureaucratic state, or private legal practice — all overwhelmingly liberal environments. They certainly realize that university appearances, favorable media coverage, and legacy and historical memorialization all hinge on remaining liberal or intensifying their liberal fides. Moreover, vote against Second Amendment rights, and no right-wing zealot is going to corner you at a D.C. bistro. But vote against Roe v. Wade and be prepared to have enraged leftists camped on your Chevy Chase lawn yelling “traitor!” and “fascist!”
3) Swing Vote. A swing vote is usually a Republican who on occasion votes in a progressive mode. Kennedy supposedly had institutionalized his swing seat to the point that progressives assumed that his billet was an inheritable permanent swing slot — as long as the Court was divided and Congress was in Republican hands. In contrast, no one could ever assume that a Justice Kagan or Sotomayor would become a swing voter. This is also no such thing as a “swing” seat when there are five progressive justices on the Court.
4) The Ginsburg Rule. It’s now permissible for liberal nominees to speculate on future Court cases, or decline to speculate, whichever helps them most. Liberal nominees fearlessly showcase their progressive fides on affirmative action, abortion, or gay marriage when their confirmation vote is assured; if the Senate is closely divided between left and right, however, they claim they cannot comment on individual hypothetical scenarios. Republican nominees, if retreating to the “Ginsburg Rule” to decline comment will be damned as being “evasive,” “stonewalling,” or “deceptive.” If they’re candid about their views (on the assurance they will be confirmed), they are then slurred as “divisive,” “brazen,” or “scary”.
Liberals appreciate an institution that can bypass the messy process of legislation in a constitutional republic and short-circuit the clingers, deplorables, and irredeemables and their often-Neanderthal, obstructionist representatives.
National Walkout Planned In Support Of Christine Blasey Ford Amid New Kavanaugh Accusations
5) Better Than the Congress. Liberals see the Court as a political institution; conservatives, more as an arbitrator of laws and guardians of the perceived original intent of the Constitution. As in the case of the military (that can by fiat include women in combat units, green-light gays in the military, or enhance transgendered recruitment), liberals appreciate an institution that can bypass the messy process of legislation in a constitutional republic and short-circuit the clingers, deplorables, and irredeemables and their often-Neanderthal, obstructionist representatives. Too often, the red-staters vote supposedly against their own interests and are not capable of seeing, much less voting for, what is good for them. Instead, a majority of highly educated “apolitical” elite minds can perform the role of Platonic Guardians. As “wise men and women,” justices by fiat override both presidential executive orders and congressional and state legislation to do what is “good” for Americans even if the beneficiaries at present are either unwilling or unable to appreciate their betters.
6) Gaffes. There are no liberal judicial gaffes. Any written or spoken word in a conservative justice’s past is seen as a window into his or her dark heart. Not so with liberal nominees. If Sonia Sotomayor has stated that a justice’s innate competence often rests with her ethnic or gender status, it is considered either irrelevant or a cry of the heart:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has claimed that abortion was a valuable institution because it ostensibly targeted inordinately the poor and non-white:
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.
In the summer of 2016, she intervened in an ongoing presidential election to say of the Republican nominee:
I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president. . . . For the country, it could be four years. For the Court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.
She, of course, would almost immediately rule on a number of Trump executive orders. Mutatis mutandis, a Republican nominee would have been asked to withdraw or, if confirmed, to step down had she said anything similar to Sotomayor’s or Ginsburg’s comments.
7) Stare Decisis. The Latinate advisory “to stand with prior decisions” does not really hold sway. It is now a trite catch phrase, not a judicial protocol. For liberals, precedent means little if it was not liberal, but everything if it was. Roe v. Wade at the time was acclaimed as a “landmark,” “historic,” and “path-breaking” decision that overturned all precedents; but to even modify Roe today would violate the sanctity of Supreme Court precedent. So stare decisis really is fluere decisis — to flow with prior decisions, to reject or honor them as the present necessity deems past precedent either expedient or an impediment.
8) The Law Follows Reality. In the progressive legal mind, popular culture and collective progressive habit need a law to sanctify reality. The neo-Confederate idea of sanctuary cities does not nullify the Constitution because they are useful to the open-borders movement. By contrast, a travel ban against countries deemed unable to verify the passports and records of their citizens would be unconstitutional, given the perception that it falls inordinately on unstable Muslim-majority nations. The legality of gay marriage or abortion depends entirely on how popular or acceptable to the public such trends have become, or how useful such changing protocols are to political ends. The constructionist idea in contrast believes that the spirit of law exists across time and space and predates popular practice. The law is immune from considerations of whether it enhances or retards progressive change. When the Court bucks popular culture, it is derided as little more than the cranky work of “nine old men”; when it accelerates perceived social justice, then the justices become “far-seeing,” “lively,” “engaged,” and “spirited.” When nine justices rule progressively, they are properly shielded from popular passions and benefit from their separation from the politics of the day; when they don’t, they are “out of touch” and “clueless” to the world about them.
9) Pressure Groups. Liberal legal experts at CNN or NPR, the ACLU, trial-lawyer associations, university law schools, and judicial activist groups all play a necessary role in apprising the public of the ideological landscape of the Court. As didactic and objective helpers, they purportedly inform justices of arguments that they may not yet have fully appreciated. Conservative counterparts, on the other hand, such as the Federalist Society, are improper, polarizing, politicized, and harmful in their “collusion” in and “contamination” of the judicial process owing to their “litmus-test” rigidity.
10) Stare Legibus? There is no such allegiance to conducting the Supreme Court according to its constitutional origins and mandate. When it proves disruptive to progressive change, then it should be “packed” and reformulated by liberal reformers. New amendments to the Constitution during a Democratic presidency would wisely increase the number of justices and thereby marginalize reactionary holdovers. The “advise and consent” of the Senate can mean either a filibuster-proof vote, a simple majority, or in theory just talk and no vote at all — all depending on the political make-up of the bench at any given time, and the role of a nominee in potentially changing the ideology of the Court. For the last half-century, the Supreme Court’s liberal majority made the Court the iconic “crown jewel” of American democracy. With Trump’s two conservative picks, and a possible third in the next two years, the Court will soon be recalibrated as the costume jewelry of the Constitution — widely derided as an antiquarian relic, analogous to the ossified Electoral College or the parochial idea of two senators for each state regardless of population size.
What is sacrosanct? Whatever advances progressive causes.
1) Right to Left. The majority of post-war Republican Supreme Court nominees, who were initially perceived as conservative, turned liberal on the bench (Harry Blackmun, William Brennan, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Earl Warren), or went from right-wing to center-right or centrist (Warren Burger, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts). Perhaps the pressures of approval from the liberal social and political culture of Washington, D.C., becomes finally overwhelming. Or justices sense that the liberal media and historians will praise and memorialize a “maverick” who “grows,” “matures,” or “evolves,” while dismissing a “recalcitrant,” “hard-core,” or “reactionary” justice who remains a strict constructionist. A conservative president perhaps realizes that he will get more praise from the Left than blame from the Right when his malleable nominee bolts and become progressive. The ongoing liberal political reassessments of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in part came from their nominations of Justices Kennedy, O’Connor, and Souter. Or perhaps as we age we all tire a bit and cave to popular pressures and prefer “to just get along” in our sunset years. Controlling the culture — and the threat of ostracism from it — is a powerful tool in massaging political ideology.
2) Never Left to Right. In contrast, few Democratic nominees become centrist or conservative. To do so would be to suffer something like the “Dershowitz effect” that brands independent-thinking liberal legal scholars, such as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who remain progressive but honor the law, as veritable traitors and pariahs. Most Democratic justices arrived at the Court either from the academic world, the bureaucratic state, or private legal practice — all overwhelmingly liberal environments. They certainly realize that university appearances, favorable media coverage, and legacy and historical memorialization all hinge on remaining liberal or intensifying their liberal fides. Moreover, vote against Second Amendment rights, and no right-wing zealot is going to corner you at a D.C. bistro. But vote against Roe v. Wade and be prepared to have enraged leftists camped on your Chevy Chase lawn yelling “traitor!” and “fascist!”
3) Swing Vote. A swing vote is usually a Republican who on occasion votes in a progressive mode. Kennedy supposedly had institutionalized his swing seat to the point that progressives assumed that his billet was an inheritable permanent swing slot — as long as the Court was divided and Congress was in Republican hands. In contrast, no one could ever assume that a Justice Kagan or Sotomayor would become a swing voter. This is also no such thing as a “swing” seat when there are five progressive justices on the Court.
4) The Ginsburg Rule. It’s now permissible for liberal nominees to speculate on future Court cases, or decline to speculate, whichever helps them most. Liberal nominees fearlessly showcase their progressive fides on affirmative action, abortion, or gay marriage when their confirmation vote is assured; if the Senate is closely divided between left and right, however, they claim they cannot comment on individual hypothetical scenarios. Republican nominees, if retreating to the “Ginsburg Rule” to decline comment will be damned as being “evasive,” “stonewalling,” or “deceptive.” If they’re candid about their views (on the assurance they will be confirmed), they are then slurred as “divisive,” “brazen,” or “scary”.
Liberals appreciate an institution that can bypass the messy process of legislation in a constitutional republic and short-circuit the clingers, deplorables, and irredeemables and their often-Neanderthal, obstructionist representatives.
National Walkout Planned In Support Of Christine Blasey Ford Amid New Kavanaugh Accusations
5) Better Than the Congress. Liberals see the Court as a political institution; conservatives, more as an arbitrator of laws and guardians of the perceived original intent of the Constitution. As in the case of the military (that can by fiat include women in combat units, green-light gays in the military, or enhance transgendered recruitment), liberals appreciate an institution that can bypass the messy process of legislation in a constitutional republic and short-circuit the clingers, deplorables, and irredeemables and their often-Neanderthal, obstructionist representatives. Too often, the red-staters vote supposedly against their own interests and are not capable of seeing, much less voting for, what is good for them. Instead, a majority of highly educated “apolitical” elite minds can perform the role of Platonic Guardians. As “wise men and women,” justices by fiat override both presidential executive orders and congressional and state legislation to do what is “good” for Americans even if the beneficiaries at present are either unwilling or unable to appreciate their betters.
6) Gaffes. There are no liberal judicial gaffes. Any written or spoken word in a conservative justice’s past is seen as a window into his or her dark heart. Not so with liberal nominees. If Sonia Sotomayor has stated that a justice’s innate competence often rests with her ethnic or gender status, it is considered either irrelevant or a cry of the heart:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has claimed that abortion was a valuable institution because it ostensibly targeted inordinately the poor and non-white:
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.
In the summer of 2016, she intervened in an ongoing presidential election to say of the Republican nominee:
I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president. . . . For the country, it could be four years. For the Court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.
She, of course, would almost immediately rule on a number of Trump executive orders. Mutatis mutandis, a Republican nominee would have been asked to withdraw or, if confirmed, to step down had she said anything similar to Sotomayor’s or Ginsburg’s comments.
7) Stare Decisis. The Latinate advisory “to stand with prior decisions” does not really hold sway. It is now a trite catch phrase, not a judicial protocol. For liberals, precedent means little if it was not liberal, but everything if it was. Roe v. Wade at the time was acclaimed as a “landmark,” “historic,” and “path-breaking” decision that overturned all precedents; but to even modify Roe today would violate the sanctity of Supreme Court precedent. So stare decisis really is fluere decisis — to flow with prior decisions, to reject or honor them as the present necessity deems past precedent either expedient or an impediment.
8) The Law Follows Reality. In the progressive legal mind, popular culture and collective progressive habit need a law to sanctify reality. The neo-Confederate idea of sanctuary cities does not nullify the Constitution because they are useful to the open-borders movement. By contrast, a travel ban against countries deemed unable to verify the passports and records of their citizens would be unconstitutional, given the perception that it falls inordinately on unstable Muslim-majority nations. The legality of gay marriage or abortion depends entirely on how popular or acceptable to the public such trends have become, or how useful such changing protocols are to political ends. The constructionist idea in contrast believes that the spirit of law exists across time and space and predates popular practice. The law is immune from considerations of whether it enhances or retards progressive change. When the Court bucks popular culture, it is derided as little more than the cranky work of “nine old men”; when it accelerates perceived social justice, then the justices become “far-seeing,” “lively,” “engaged,” and “spirited.” When nine justices rule progressively, they are properly shielded from popular passions and benefit from their separation from the politics of the day; when they don’t, they are “out of touch” and “clueless” to the world about them.
9) Pressure Groups. Liberal legal experts at CNN or NPR, the ACLU, trial-lawyer associations, university law schools, and judicial activist groups all play a necessary role in apprising the public of the ideological landscape of the Court. As didactic and objective helpers, they purportedly inform justices of arguments that they may not yet have fully appreciated. Conservative counterparts, on the other hand, such as the Federalist Society, are improper, polarizing, politicized, and harmful in their “collusion” in and “contamination” of the judicial process owing to their “litmus-test” rigidity.
10) Stare Legibus? There is no such allegiance to conducting the Supreme Court according to its constitutional origins and mandate. When it proves disruptive to progressive change, then it should be “packed” and reformulated by liberal reformers. New amendments to the Constitution during a Democratic presidency would wisely increase the number of justices and thereby marginalize reactionary holdovers. The “advise and consent” of the Senate can mean either a filibuster-proof vote, a simple majority, or in theory just talk and no vote at all — all depending on the political make-up of the bench at any given time, and the role of a nominee in potentially changing the ideology of the Court. For the last half-century, the Supreme Court’s liberal majority made the Court the iconic “crown jewel” of American democracy. With Trump’s two conservative picks, and a possible third in the next two years, the Court will soon be recalibrated as the costume jewelry of the Constitution — widely derided as an antiquarian relic, analogous to the ossified Electoral College or the parochial idea of two senators for each state regardless of population size.
Results
Victor Davis Hanson writes in National Review,
...The Democrats were eager to see Republicans come off as crude and then ensured that they acted so themselves. They had no new argument either in supporting Ford or opposing Kavanaugh — other than the old saw of serially calling for a delaying “FBI investigation.”Read more here.
Kavanaugh, in the end, himself proved the most reliable, factual, and transparent witness, and Republican Senators belatedly discovered that they were far better questioners than any expert prosecutor.
Politically, the result is twofold. It is not certain that Kavanaugh will be confirmed, but any Republican who believes that he is a sexual assaulter and unfit for the Supreme Court will likely face ostracism. Second, should he be confirmed, Kavanaugh will not just be a knowledgeable conservative jurist, but a skilled and unafraid advocate in the tradition of Antonin Scalia.
Men Aren’t The Enemy
Guest post
by Suzann Darnall
I do not usually cover what is essentially the same topic for two weeks in a row. But, I feel this is an important issue and somewhat of a crisis point for our country at this time. It needs to be addressed. Frequently and intensely. The time has come to take the gloves off when dealing with the hate-mongers of the Left. They are not only trying to destroy our country, they are willing to throw ALL of our men and boys under the bus as they are driving it off the cliff of sanity. I am telling you, in my opinion, these people, especially the women, are bat-turd crazy!!!
Misandry is defined as “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against the male sex. In this time it has become a virulent societal disease which is running rampant and destroying lives through, among other measures, the use of lies as a means to bring down any and all men deemed a threat to anything the Femi-Nazis deem worthy. At the top of their list is the ever sacred cow of the Left: abortion . . . which is another tool they use to destroy males as many opt to abort perfectly healthy baby boys simply because they ARE baby boys.
This male-hatred has been on display in hyper-drive since Trump began his campaign for President. It actually managed to ramp up when he was elected President. And, as astonishing as it seems, the manic women of the Left have driven it to ever more hysterical heights because Brett Kavanaugh was nominated for the Supreme Court.
One of the issues that keeps coming up from feminists is how they are losing, or in danger of losing, their rights. Ummm . . . I don’t think so. Women are more than half the population of America at this point. So, if women are going to the polls and voting for politicians, laws, amendments, and such, in elections, they can make a difference to keep what they want and change what they will. At this point in time the feminists are doing more to try and take away rights from others. Among the rights they want to take away from males seems to be the right to free speech, equality, and even life.
In a variety of ways, including literally, they are telling men to “sit down and shut up.” They want men to be penalized in a myriad of ways for any success and kept from achieving success whenever possible. At least a small group of them even advocate for the abortion of ALL male fetuses.
The majority of today’s feminists also “unwelcome” women who do not believe everything current feminism supports. In the limited world of today’s feminism one can seemingly only be a part of the sisterhood if one welcomes abortion and hates men, to list their two main agenda items. Being a happily married wife and mother seems to slide one across the line into their “people it is okay to hate” zone. A woman like me is evidently just as bad as the dreaded man.
Phrases and mottos they use and advocate include: “men are trash”, “all men are potential rapists”, “rape culture”, “toxic masculinity”, and “man-hating”. These are considered, by feminism adherents, to be perfectly acceptable language, plus many more than are even more reprehensible.
Sorry not sorry, but I vehemently disagree! Men are not trash. Not all men are potential rapists. While rape does occur, it is not a cultural norm for America. There is nothing toxic about masculinity. Hating someone simply based on their gender is as reprehensible as hating someone based on their race.
Not only are these toxic feminists going after Conservative politicians, but they are targeting every one of our husbands, fathers, husbands, sons, grandsons, friends, and pretty much all men in general. They are just getting lots more publicity when it is President Trump or Judge Kavanaugh in their sights.
Another right that feminists wish to take away from men is the presumption of innocence. Although not explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution, “innocent until proven guilty” is considered to be covered by 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments. Even the United Nations considers “presumption of innocence” to be a universal human right. Feminists would have men considered automatically guilty in the case of an accusation of rape or sexual assault. No need for proof, witnesses, or even a trail. The man is just guilty ‘cause he is male and his accuser is female. This is just plain WRONG!
I am saddened to see the hostility aimed at the men in our society. I do not by any means think all men are perfect. There are bad men, just as there are bad women. But, to paint all men as evil just based on gender is truly wicked.
While he spoke on a slightly different topic, I still think Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr said it best, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” In addition to race, I believe he would have wanted people to not be judged solely on their gender, but their character. I think that is only fair. Judge each according to their works. Do not assume, presume, or prejudge.
Another of my heroes gave an even greater piece of advice to guide our interactions with other people. In various scriptures in the New Testament Jesus told us, “love one another.” A really simple recipe. Basically one ingredient: love. Maybe we should give it a try.
by Suzann Darnall
I do not usually cover what is essentially the same topic for two weeks in a row. But, I feel this is an important issue and somewhat of a crisis point for our country at this time. It needs to be addressed. Frequently and intensely. The time has come to take the gloves off when dealing with the hate-mongers of the Left. They are not only trying to destroy our country, they are willing to throw ALL of our men and boys under the bus as they are driving it off the cliff of sanity. I am telling you, in my opinion, these people, especially the women, are bat-turd crazy!!!
Misandry is defined as “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against the male sex. In this time it has become a virulent societal disease which is running rampant and destroying lives through, among other measures, the use of lies as a means to bring down any and all men deemed a threat to anything the Femi-Nazis deem worthy. At the top of their list is the ever sacred cow of the Left: abortion . . . which is another tool they use to destroy males as many opt to abort perfectly healthy baby boys simply because they ARE baby boys.
This male-hatred has been on display in hyper-drive since Trump began his campaign for President. It actually managed to ramp up when he was elected President. And, as astonishing as it seems, the manic women of the Left have driven it to ever more hysterical heights because Brett Kavanaugh was nominated for the Supreme Court.
One of the issues that keeps coming up from feminists is how they are losing, or in danger of losing, their rights. Ummm . . . I don’t think so. Women are more than half the population of America at this point. So, if women are going to the polls and voting for politicians, laws, amendments, and such, in elections, they can make a difference to keep what they want and change what they will. At this point in time the feminists are doing more to try and take away rights from others. Among the rights they want to take away from males seems to be the right to free speech, equality, and even life.
In a variety of ways, including literally, they are telling men to “sit down and shut up.” They want men to be penalized in a myriad of ways for any success and kept from achieving success whenever possible. At least a small group of them even advocate for the abortion of ALL male fetuses.
The majority of today’s feminists also “unwelcome” women who do not believe everything current feminism supports. In the limited world of today’s feminism one can seemingly only be a part of the sisterhood if one welcomes abortion and hates men, to list their two main agenda items. Being a happily married wife and mother seems to slide one across the line into their “people it is okay to hate” zone. A woman like me is evidently just as bad as the dreaded man.
Phrases and mottos they use and advocate include: “men are trash”, “all men are potential rapists”, “rape culture”, “toxic masculinity”, and “man-hating”. These are considered, by feminism adherents, to be perfectly acceptable language, plus many more than are even more reprehensible.
Sorry not sorry, but I vehemently disagree! Men are not trash. Not all men are potential rapists. While rape does occur, it is not a cultural norm for America. There is nothing toxic about masculinity. Hating someone simply based on their gender is as reprehensible as hating someone based on their race.
Not only are these toxic feminists going after Conservative politicians, but they are targeting every one of our husbands, fathers, husbands, sons, grandsons, friends, and pretty much all men in general. They are just getting lots more publicity when it is President Trump or Judge Kavanaugh in their sights.
Another right that feminists wish to take away from men is the presumption of innocence. Although not explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution, “innocent until proven guilty” is considered to be covered by 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments. Even the United Nations considers “presumption of innocence” to be a universal human right. Feminists would have men considered automatically guilty in the case of an accusation of rape or sexual assault. No need for proof, witnesses, or even a trail. The man is just guilty ‘cause he is male and his accuser is female. This is just plain WRONG!
I am saddened to see the hostility aimed at the men in our society. I do not by any means think all men are perfect. There are bad men, just as there are bad women. But, to paint all men as evil just based on gender is truly wicked.
While he spoke on a slightly different topic, I still think Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr said it best, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” In addition to race, I believe he would have wanted people to not be judged solely on their gender, but their character. I think that is only fair. Judge each according to their works. Do not assume, presume, or prejudge.
Another of my heroes gave an even greater piece of advice to guide our interactions with other people. In various scriptures in the New Testament Jesus told us, “love one another.” A really simple recipe. Basically one ingredient: love. Maybe we should give it a try.
A charlatan
Conrad Black writes in National Review,
...Senators Collins, Corker, Flake, and Sasse seem to like Kavanaugh more than they dislike Trump, and on an issue where the Republican party is almost united, breaking ranks at this point, unless the Kavanaugh position is legitimately undermined, would be seen by everyone as malicious: acting out their hostility to the president at the expense of a distinguished judge fighting for his reputation against unworthy calumnies. Avenatti was a Rahm Emanuel political operative when a law student, went bankrupt as a lawyer, and appointed himself the counsel for Stormy Daniels. He was reduced to crowd-funding to try to pay for his self-publicizing tour as he tried to blackmail the president. There is no place for such a charlatan in the confirmation procedure of a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.Read more here.
What did she say on social media?
Ace of Spades writes,
If The FBI Is Investigating These Allegations, They Absolutely Must Investigate Ford's CredibilityHe then goes on to list ten questions
that must be asked of Ford, and her lawyers, and Democrats -- under oath.
Commenters are saying: She should be made to recover/reveal her deleted/nuked social media accounts.Read the whole thing here.
There was a reason her Political Operatives With Legal Licenses bleach bitted them. It's time to see what she's been saying for the past decade.
The Democrats demanded a full investigation -- it's time to have one.
Slippery Slope
In CDN, Jacquie Kubin writes about "the quavering voice of Blasey Ford and the railroading of Brett Kavanaugh."
Her allegations may very well ruin one man’s life, career and family and erase two-hundred years of jurisprudence from our history.Read more here.
Unfortunately for the #MeToo movement and women’s believability going forward, Ford and the Democrat senators who do less to seek the truth than bolster the ego of Dr. Ford, have done more to harm the credibility of women already reticent to come forward.
These hearing should not have been held based on what she said. Or he said. The legal term for that is hearsay.
These hearings instead should be based on the real, credible and actionable information that proves Ford’s statements. That is something Ford is unable to provide. And because of that, these hearings should not have been held.
...A marital spat over a home remodel led to emergence of the alleged attack in “recollected memories.” But then, a little later in her testimony, Ford changed her story and claimed that her second door is actually there for “sponsored interns from Google and students” to use. Really?
Seems like the purpose of the door is not exactly as Ms. Ford would ask us to believe. It was not installed as a second escape route for a person suffering from claustrophobia as a result of an attack. It was installed to give the interns and students they sponsored a private door to enter their area of the house.
...Because when we fail to demand verifiable honesty we, as Americans, lose. We take one more step toward living in an oligarchy run by a kangaroo court society that can destroy anyone at any time. Because they said so.
How convenient that no one caught that little omission of fact.
To date, there is no one willing to stand up and confirm her story. In fact, those she has identified as witnesses have all – to a person – denied being present or seeing Brett Kavanaugh ever act in the manner in which she describes.
...If you don’t know, for sure, before you destroy the life work of a man and toss America’s base of fairness into the wood chipper, you need to be 100% sure of your accusations.
I have heard nothing that convinces me Ford’s accusation has one iota of truth to them. An investigation would have proven this out. But then that would have been fair to Kavanaugh. Just another Republican mistake.
...A jurist Democrats are attempting to destroy for the sake of hard-left, take-no-prisoners power politics.
...Christine Blasey Ford is accusing Judge Kavanaugh of a moral crime, and she does so freely, knowing she has zero responsibility to provide some verifiable proof. She must offer some proof beyond “I believe this happened,” “I do not remember date details, or “who I talked to after being assaulted.” But under the current kangaroo court proceedings the Democrats have so predictably engineered, she has no need to do so.
... first, it is Brett Kavanaugh. Then it is your son, husband, brother, father or friend. We have arrived at a point where we are one slippery slope away from what the German Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller described in
“First they came …“
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Friday, September 28, 2018
I highly recommend this podcast!
Michael Knowles does not believe Christine Blasey Ford. Feinstein is impressed that Ford has a PhD and is a college professor, therefore Ford should be taken seriously.
Knowles said, "Oh sure, we don't know any whacky college professors, do we? This is about the fictitious right to kill a baby in the womb! Collegial? This is anything but collegial! This is about destroying a man's life, and his family's!
The Left (Cory Booker) says, "Tell your truth (not the truth, but your truth)." The reason they say that is because they know they can't stand on the objective facts. Michael then goes point by point taking apart her story.
Knowles said, "Oh sure, we don't know any whacky college professors, do we? This is about the fictitious right to kill a baby in the womb! Collegial? This is anything but collegial! This is about destroying a man's life, and his family's!
The Left (Cory Booker) says, "Tell your truth (not the truth, but your truth)." The reason they say that is because they know they can't stand on the objective facts. Michael then goes point by point taking apart her story.
More comments
Commenters at The Conservative Treehouse had this to say about about the Ford vs. Kavanaugh issues.
Not Ideal says:
September 28, 2018 at 3:51 pm
If they win the mid-terms, Congress will not give Trump a single appointment — any position — for the rest of his presidency. No judges. No cabinet. No ambassadors. Nothing.
I think it’s 50/50 if they even fund the executive branch. I’m serious.
The Listener says:
September 28, 2018 at 3:50 pm
Never forget that there are members of the FBI who secretly work in collusion with the Democrat party. They have pulled an attempted soft coup on our President and there is no way that all of them have been found and fired..
I don’t trust this. They probably have already set up something to frame Kavanaugh on or some little bitty something to blame on him and take him down. Now they can investigate forever. All the Democrats have to do is keep bringing up one thing after another.
Not Ideal says:
September 28, 2018 at 3:51 pm
If they win the mid-terms, Congress will not give Trump a single appointment — any position — for the rest of his presidency. No judges. No cabinet. No ambassadors. Nothing.
I think it’s 50/50 if they even fund the executive branch. I’m serious.
The Listener says:
September 28, 2018 at 3:50 pm
Never forget that there are members of the FBI who secretly work in collusion with the Democrat party. They have pulled an attempted soft coup on our President and there is no way that all of them have been found and fired..
I don’t trust this. They probably have already set up something to frame Kavanaugh on or some little bitty something to blame on him and take him down. Now they can investigate forever. All the Democrats have to do is keep bringing up one thing after another.
"Let's see if McConnell has a coming out party like Graham."
Here are some comments from readers of Ann Althouse's blog on this morning's Senate Judiciary Committee vote.
Blogger Temujin said...
The Dems are once again posing as Lucy, holding the football in place for the Republican Charlie Browns to run up to kick it. They'll push this back a week. The Dems will bring in another 4-5 women who say Kavanaugh drugged and touched them, then scream and shout that it needs more time.
Charlie Brown will run up and miss.
This is a farce.
Blogger Ann Althouse said about Flake...
It's literally ineffectual in that it has no effect. It seemed as though he were imposing a condition and that his vote along with the Democratic Senators on the committee would produce a majority committee vote that would result in an FBI investigation. That wasn't what happened. He could have allied with the Dems and made a different majority. He had been talking with them for a while and it was an anxious interlude. But in the end he was talk without effectual action.
Blogger Diogenes of Sinope said...
Somehow selling out his Republican peers for his Democrat "friends" is noble?
What a rotten turd Flake is.
Blogger Rob said...
Flake lived up to his name. But if he, Collins and Murkowski condition a yes vote on there being an FBI investigation, what choice would McConnell have?
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"I took it to mean that Flake will vote against it on the floor vote unless it's delayed for an FBI investigation now. Yep, so I fully expect an investigation."
Flake will have another opportunity to do something that gets what he purports to want, but this is a matter of intense party discipline and the midterm elections are at stake. We'll see what he does later. I'm sure the Republicans all want this to go away and the Democrats are hoping to make a creditable stand that will look good and not bad in the midterms.
Blogger Diogenes of Sinope said...
The FBI investigation will last no longer and range no further than the Mueller Russian collusion investigation.
Bay Area Guy said...
Flake is a Beta Male par excellence. Can I trade him for a real woman of either party?
Michael K. said...
It’s highly uncertain that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will agree to delay the vote, which is on pace for Tuesday of next week.
Let's see if McConnell has a coming out party like Graham.
Blogger Temujin said...
The Dems are once again posing as Lucy, holding the football in place for the Republican Charlie Browns to run up to kick it. They'll push this back a week. The Dems will bring in another 4-5 women who say Kavanaugh drugged and touched them, then scream and shout that it needs more time.
Charlie Brown will run up and miss.
This is a farce.
Blogger Ann Althouse said about Flake...
It's literally ineffectual in that it has no effect. It seemed as though he were imposing a condition and that his vote along with the Democratic Senators on the committee would produce a majority committee vote that would result in an FBI investigation. That wasn't what happened. He could have allied with the Dems and made a different majority. He had been talking with them for a while and it was an anxious interlude. But in the end he was talk without effectual action.
Blogger Diogenes of Sinope said...
Somehow selling out his Republican peers for his Democrat "friends" is noble?
What a rotten turd Flake is.
Blogger Rob said...
Flake lived up to his name. But if he, Collins and Murkowski condition a yes vote on there being an FBI investigation, what choice would McConnell have?
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"I took it to mean that Flake will vote against it on the floor vote unless it's delayed for an FBI investigation now. Yep, so I fully expect an investigation."
Flake will have another opportunity to do something that gets what he purports to want, but this is a matter of intense party discipline and the midterm elections are at stake. We'll see what he does later. I'm sure the Republicans all want this to go away and the Democrats are hoping to make a creditable stand that will look good and not bad in the midterms.
Blogger Diogenes of Sinope said...
The FBI investigation will last no longer and range no further than the Mueller Russian collusion investigation.
Bay Area Guy said...
Flake is a Beta Male par excellence. Can I trade him for a real woman of either party?
Michael K. said...
It’s highly uncertain that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will agree to delay the vote, which is on pace for Tuesday of next week.
Let's see if McConnell has a coming out party like Graham.
The "ayes" have it, if you include Jeff Flake
11 to 10 was the vote to advance the Kavanaugh nomination to the floor of the Senate. Flake is urging a one week additional investigation by the FBI before the Senate votes. Why does Jeff Flake's nose twist over to the left side of his face?
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Committee voting on Kavanaugh tomorrow at 9:30 A.M.
Matt Vespa reports at Town Hall that the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote tomorrow at 9:30 A.M. on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. Read more here.
Ford v. Kavanaugh
Tucker devotes his entire show tonight to the Ford v. Kavanaugh hearings. Superb coverage!
Innocent until proven guilty?
Andrew on the Kavanaugh hearings: facts are all that matter! This is an important day for America. Unsubstantiated, unprovable allegations. Innocent until proven guilty! None of us is wholly clean and any of us can be slandered.
President Trump asks why the Democrats didn't bring this right at the beginning of the hearings. Feinstein's answer, of course, is that Ford asked for privacy and Feinstein honored that request. Trump said it is "a big, fat, con!
Michael Avenatti is a creation of the press. His client on the Kavanaugh case said there were ten gang rape parties that she attended! Her boyfriend had to get a restraining order against her. The media created this Frankenstein and now he is destroying the village!
Innocent until proven guilty? The Leftists want the power, so they throw away the cherished principle of innocent until proven guilty!
Democrats have lost the meaning of what America stands for! Keep the lights burning, Republicans, they are the only lights left in Washington D.C.
Ethan Van Sciver is a comicbook artist who has worked for DC Comics since 1997. November 9, 2016 changed everything for him. People knew he was a Republican but it wasn't a problem until Republicans gained power. In 2014 the SJW invasion happened: "Let's kill the white males and replace them with women!" DC Comics let him quit because crazy maniacs threatened him and his wife. Comic stores are in freefall. Women are no longer allowed to look sexy in comics. They have become PC vehicles for far Leftwing propaganda.
Comicsgate is the future of comics.
President Trump asks why the Democrats didn't bring this right at the beginning of the hearings. Feinstein's answer, of course, is that Ford asked for privacy and Feinstein honored that request. Trump said it is "a big, fat, con!
Michael Avenatti is a creation of the press. His client on the Kavanaugh case said there were ten gang rape parties that she attended! Her boyfriend had to get a restraining order against her. The media created this Frankenstein and now he is destroying the village!
Innocent until proven guilty? The Leftists want the power, so they throw away the cherished principle of innocent until proven guilty!
Democrats have lost the meaning of what America stands for! Keep the lights burning, Republicans, they are the only lights left in Washington D.C.
Ethan Van Sciver is a comicbook artist who has worked for DC Comics since 1997. November 9, 2016 changed everything for him. People knew he was a Republican but it wasn't a problem until Republicans gained power. In 2014 the SJW invasion happened: "Let's kill the white males and replace them with women!" DC Comics let him quit because crazy maniacs threatened him and his wife. Comic stores are in freefall. Women are no longer allowed to look sexy in comics. They have become PC vehicles for far Leftwing propaganda.
Comicsgate is the future of comics.
More from Lindsey
Sen. @LindseyGrahamSC delivers a powerful message to America and his colleagues: "This is hell. This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward because of this crap." pic.twitter.com/Z7FbjVgTK9
— Kyle Morris (@RealKyleMorris) September 27, 2018
Lindsey seems upset!
Lindsey Graham goes off on Senate Democrats pic.twitter.com/FfmLNAP9DO
— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) September 27, 2018
The Pay Off?
From Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse:
During a break in the testimony of Christine Blasey-Ford, Democrat Rep Sheila Jackson Lee attempts to discretely pass along an envelope to notoriously corrupt DC attorney Michael Bromwich.
During a break in the testimony of Christine Blasey-Ford, Democrat Rep Sheila Jackson Lee attempts to discretely pass along an envelope to notoriously corrupt DC attorney Michael Bromwich.
Problems with Ford's story
Paul Sperry raises some questions in the New York Post.
Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Brett Kavanaugh are serious. She is accusing him of violent attempted rape. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me. He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing,” she told The Washington Post, recounting the alleged incident at a high school party “one summer in the early 1980s.”
But her story is also growing less believable by the day. Here are eight reasons why it’s hardly “anti-woman” for senators to question her account at Thursday’s hearing:
1) For starters, Ford still can’t recall basic details of what she says was the most traumatic event in her life. Not where the “assault” took place — she’s not sure whose house it was, or even what street it was on. Nor when — she’s not even sure of the year, let alone the day and month.
Ford’s not certain how old she was or what grade she was in when she says an older student violently molested her. (But she doesn’t plead inebriation: She described having just “one beer” at the party.)
2) Ford concedes she told no one what happened to her at the time, not even her best friend or mother. That means she can rely on no contemporaneous witness to corroborate her story.
3) Worse, the four other people she identified as attending the party, including Kavanaugh, all deny knowledge of the gathering in question, including Leland Ingham Keyser, who she calls a “lifelong friend.”
Keyser’s lawyer told the Senate Judiciary Committee: “Simply put, Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with or without Dr. Ford.”
The other two potential witnesses — Mark Judge and Patrick “P.J.” Smyth — also deny any recollection of attending such a party. The committee took their sworn statements “under penalty of perjury.” “These witnesses directly contradict Professor Ford’s allegations against Judge Kavanaugh,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley advised Ford’s attorneys last week.
In her original letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Ford claimed that Kavanaugh talked to Keyser and Smyth right after he assaulted her. Yet neither shares her memory.
This is, to say the least, highly problematic for her case. No witness corroborates any part of her story.
4) Her own immediate family doesn’t appear to be backing her up, either. Her mother, father and two siblings are all conspicuously absent from a letter of support released by a dozen relatives, mostly on her husband’s side of the family.
The letter attests to her honesty and integrity. “Why didn’t her parents and brothers sign the letter?” a congressional source familiar with the investigation wondered.
5) This summer, Ford tried to reach out to old friends from high school and college to jog her memory. They couldn’t help her. “I’ve been trying to forget this all my life, and now I’m supposed to remember every little detail,” Ford complained to one friend in July, according to an account in The San Jose Mercury News.
6) Yet she still pushed forward with her bombshell charge, contacting The Washington Post tip line and Democratic lawmakers, while hiring a Democratic activist lawyer. Ford is also a Democrat, as well as an anti-Trump marcher, raising questions about the motive and timing of the allegations along with their veracity.
7) Ford contends that notes her therapist took in 2012 corroborate her account. But they don’t mention Kavanaugh.
They also point up inconsistencies in her story. For instance, her shrink noted that Ford told her there were “four boys” in the bedroom, not two as she now says. The notes also indicate Ford said she was in her “late teens” when she was assaulted. But Ford now says she may have been only 15.
8) In another inconsistency, Ford told The Washington Post she was upset when Trump won in 2016, because Kavanaugh was mentioned as a Supreme Court pick. But Kavanaugh wasn’t added to Trump’s list of possibles until November 2017, a full year later.
On top of all that, Kavanaugh “unequivocally denied Dr. Ford’s allegations . . . under penalty of perjury” during a Sept. 17 interview with committee lawyers, Grassley said, adding he was “forthright and emphatic in his testimony” and “fully answered all questions.”
The sworn interview will no doubt be used to test the consistency and veracity of his public statements Thursday.
Yet Democrats have already tried and convicted Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Without hard evidence, without substantiation, some even go beyond Ford’s claims to call him an out-and-out “rapist,” “sexual predator,” even a “child predator.”
As a result, Kavanaugh and his family, “including his two young daughters, have faced serious death threats and vicious assaults,” Grassley said. “And they’re getting worse each day.”
Ford, who also has received threats, is by all accounts a respected scientific researcher in the field of psychology with an impressive pedigree. While that makes her credible, the same can’t be said for her story. Unless she can fill in the many holes, Kavanaugh still deserves the presumption of innocence.
She forgets
Ace of Spades writes,
Ford has selective memory when it comes to recent events too -- she also can't remember if she gave her therapist's notes to the Washington Post. She has to claim that, because she refused to give them to the Senate. If she gave them to the Washington Post, it would raise questions about why these notes are too personal for the Senate but sharable with the press.Read more here.
What will this day bring?
JJ Sefton writes at Ace of Spades,
Good morning kids. Thursday's here and after the last 24 hours I feel as if I've had my kishkes ripped out, not so much because of the completely outrageous, risibly false and lurid allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, made all the more laughable as they seemed to come almost every 15 minutes from such outstanding examples of humanity as bald-headed shyster-cum-pornographer Michael Avenatti as the afternoon wore on into the evening, but because people on our side (and I'm not necessarily blaming Chuck Grassley or Mitch McConnell) are now looking as if they are wavering in their support of the nominee.Read more here and click on his links.
Forget the fact that Brett Kavanaugh has already undergone 6 independent FBI background checks despite 1991-era "Slowhand" Biden calling them irrelevant and modern day Democrats (Biden included) screaming for them con gusto, that scores of witnesses, both men and women, with direct first hand knowledge of Kavanaugh and the accusers have come forward to categorically shred the allegations and stand up for the nominee, that even cursory examination of evidence such as the ballyhooed polygraph test have been exploded, that all of the accusers are rabid Trump-hating leftists, that their legal adviser(s) are all from the same firm and big machers in Leftist activist causes and Dem fundraising, that the accusers themselves cannot even get their stories straight about where and when things took place, that nearly a dozen gang-rape parties took place and not one police report was ever filed and that the lying whore-mouthed Ramirez went back time and again to willingly attend them and that now two men have come forward to essentially confess to the assault of Ford and exonerate Brett Kavanaugh, and on and on and on and on. And do not get me started on how all of this was unleashed at the absolute last second by Chi-Com flunky/traitor Dianne Feinstein. No, all of this is to be disregarded because it's for a lifetime appointment.
In fact, the more frequent, lurid, outrageous and transparently false the accusation, the more they seem to be teetering. For pity's sake, why oh why?! I'm referring of course to the anti-Trump or to be charitable Trump-averse Senators on the judiciary committee and elsewhere. To cap it all off, missing the spotlight, Democrat 2020 Presidential hopeful Kamala-Toe Harris informs us that during law school, an anonymous source who just came forward says she witnessed Brett Kavanaugh use a time machine to travel back to 1932 to kidnap, gang-anal-rape the Lindbergh baby with several other Brett Kavanaughs from other space-time dimensions, and then drain its blood in order to bake toll house cookies under the guidance of his rabbi, while simultaneously causing the Dust Bowl due to having studied the Joo weather control chant.
Laugh if you will, but Jeff Flake and Lisa Murkowski are agonizing over the accusation and view it as an abrogation of their Constitutional oaths if they do not give it the full and serious consideration it deserves. After all, once again, we are talking about a lifetime appointment here.
President Trump commenting yesterday on this obscenity, which no doubt is going to go down as a low point in history, even for the Democrats who are responsible for virtually all of them, Tweeted:
The Democrats are playing a high level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person. It is called the politics of destruction. Behind the scene the Dems are laughing. Pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family!
THIS x infinity, not just about Brett Kavanaugh but about everything they have ever done in the name of permanently seizing absolute power and subjugating this nation. But of course, we are saddled with clueless dolts such as this Senator Kennedy from Louisiana who burped up that Supreme Court nominations being politicized is the fault of the Congress. No, dunderhead. It's the fault of the Democrat-Left who view the courts as their means to rubber stamp and impose their insane destruction on and against the will of the American people and will stop at nothing to hold on to that awesomely powerful weapon of subjugation, it's original purpose notwithstanding.
I do not know what outrage and insanity will come today but first and foremost, Brett Kavanaugh is not just fighting for a seat on the Supreme Court - he is literally right now fighting for his life, his livelihood and the life of his family. If this smear campaign is not only not defeated but rammed back down the vile throats of every Democrat-Leftist-Media traitor who unleashed and/or pimped it, Justice Kavanaugh will no doubt lose his seat on the DC Circuit where he now works, could very well be disbarred and will no doubt become a pariah and unemployable in his chosen field. This is the same lousy, miserable evil tactic unleashed on Memories Pizza, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Mozilla's Brendan Eich and on and on and on.
They don't want to debate you. They don't want to defeat you. They want and need to see you destroyed. By Any Means Necessary.
Well, this might come as a shock to some people but the feeling is mutual, except that absolutely I renounce the use of violence up until the moment it becomes a self-defense issue. And I recognize with every passing day and every new outrage, the situation may very well devolve to that, and sooner than we know or want. With that preamble out of the way, and bearing in mind what we went through during the 8-year-long Obama reign of error as well as the completely unhinged behavior that has led to the open harassment, beatings and shooting of Republicans and conservatives, both private citizens and public figures, there is nothing more to be said than to openly CONDEMN the Democrat Party, its leadership, elected officials, operatives, lobbyists, PACs and constituents and charge them with (yet again) the malicious intent to subvert the proper functioning of the Senate with the goal of sabotaging the will of people as confirmed with the 2016 presidential election.
My feelings about said party are well known and documented in these pages. Suffice it to say that their record of insurrection, treason, crackpot socialism, legislative destruction that has led to financial and cultural/societal ruin, and corruption in the name of absolute power has left a trail of tears and blood in its wake, that gathers into a river that flows into the ocean created by the millions upon millions of victims of the global totalitarian Socialist enterprise it has been a part of. This nation and indeed this world would be a far better place if the Democrat party and its affiliates were outlawed, and every vestige of its poison purged from the bureaucracy, our media, our culture and most importantly our schools.
I don't know how we do that while still remaining within the bounds of the documents we revere and hold sacred when the enemy is openly calling for their shredding, by the principles of a just and stable law when all around the enemy flouts them at every turn, or via elections where our enemy will stop at nothing to cheat and rig them in their favor.
Circling back to the top, I have no idea what this day is going to bring, but all I can say is pray as hard as you can for Brett Kavanaugh, his family and his friends, and pray that those putatively on our side somehow put aside whatever political backroom wheeling and dealing, look into their hearts and find whatever vestige of character, decency and honor that Washington DC has not stripped from them and do the right thing by moving forward with this nomination and ultimately a confirmation.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Ann Coulter weighs in...
Ann Coulter writes in Taki's Magazine, that it's
...great how the media act as if attempted rape was perfectly acceptable in America, until we were educated by the #MeToo movement. No, the breakthrough of the #MeToo movement was that it was finally acceptable to call out liberal sexual predators.Read more here.
Until recently, it was OK to rape and even murder girls — but only if your name was “Clinton,” “Kennedy” or “Weinstein,” et al. Then Hillary lost, and Teddy was dead, so there was no point in ferociously protecting the Democrats’ rapists any longer.
Kamala Harris has run 3,600 different ads against Kavanaugh on Facebook!
2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris has run 3,600 different ads against Kavanaugh on Facebook. Julie Bykowicz reports at the Wall Street Journal,
The ads are slight variations on the same message, urging voters to sign a petition opposing Judge Kavanaugh. Most ads highlight what she says is his opposition to Roe v. Wade and loyalty to President Trump. Ms. Harris’s petition links to a fundraising page suggesting contributions of $15 or more to her campaign. She isn’t up for re-election this year.Read more here.
Did the GOP choose the wrong person to question Ford?
Alan Dershowitz believes the GOP picked the wrong person (Rachel Mitchell) to question Christine Blasey Ford. He is quoted in the Washington Examiner,
We'll know soon.
..."I want to see the greatest engine of truth ever invented used effectively, namely used a cross-examination. And I'm worried that we don't have the right people. The woman who has been hired to conduct the cross-examination has probably rarely ever cross-examined anybody," he said on Fox News.Read more here.
Dershowitz went on to say Mitchell's decades of experience won't save her.
"She's a prosecutor. Prosecutors put on cases and mostly defendants don't take the stand. So this is a woman with 20 years of experience as a prosecutor but no experience as a defense attorney, so I don't think she's the right person to question Dr. Ford," he said.
We'll know soon.
Will the Republican Party be dead if they fail to confirm Kavenaugh?
Andrew plays clips of our President speaking at the UN yesterday. Very patriotic and powerful.
Chuck Schemer says there is no presumption of innocence! Andrew brings on his favorite guest, Jenna Ellis of the Dobson Policy Center in Colorado Springs. She says Schemer's statement is false because American citizens have constitutional protections regardless of where they may be speaking. Our freedom and our liberty cannot be foreclosed by any government actor without due process. The burden of proof is always on the accuser or claimant.
Andrew asks Jenna how Roe v. Wade got to be at the center of this issue. Her answer: The Left has targeted the institution of the family and the institution of the church for the last fifty years.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is bringing in a female who is an expert in prosecuting sex crimes to question Ford tomorrow.
Andrew believes the Republican Party will be dead if they do not stand up and appoint Kavanaugh.
It literally says in the Bible that the Bible isn't literal! "The Spirit gives life, but the letter killeth!" God gave us reason and the ability to understand the world.
The Gosnell movie comes out October 12. They are prescreening it now around the country. They chose the Hyatt in Austin, Texas as one prescreening. Planned Parenthood pressured the hotel to cancel the screening. Gosnell was convicted for killing babies outside the womb.
We are watching the complete failure of Leftwing culture. Marriage was created by the Church to protect women. The divorce rate has dropped 18% from 2008 to 2016!
Chuck Schemer says there is no presumption of innocence! Andrew brings on his favorite guest, Jenna Ellis of the Dobson Policy Center in Colorado Springs. She says Schemer's statement is false because American citizens have constitutional protections regardless of where they may be speaking. Our freedom and our liberty cannot be foreclosed by any government actor without due process. The burden of proof is always on the accuser or claimant.
Andrew asks Jenna how Roe v. Wade got to be at the center of this issue. Her answer: The Left has targeted the institution of the family and the institution of the church for the last fifty years.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is bringing in a female who is an expert in prosecuting sex crimes to question Ford tomorrow.
Andrew believes the Republican Party will be dead if they do not stand up and appoint Kavanaugh.
It literally says in the Bible that the Bible isn't literal! "The Spirit gives life, but the letter killeth!" God gave us reason and the ability to understand the world.
The Gosnell movie comes out October 12. They are prescreening it now around the country. They chose the Hyatt in Austin, Texas as one prescreening. Planned Parenthood pressured the hotel to cancel the screening. Gosnell was convicted for killing babies outside the womb.
We are watching the complete failure of Leftwing culture. Marriage was created by the Church to protect women. The divorce rate has dropped 18% from 2008 to 2016!
Courage
In the Mill Street Gazette, Adam Mill writes,
...As liberals fawn over Anonymous or Rod Rosenstein and their alleged “courage” for standing up to Donald Trump, I’m left to ask, “What courage?” It takes no courage to join the 91% of anti-Trump media or the duplicitous never-Trumper Administration Officials who undermine the elected president for cheap applause at Washington cocktail parties. Using your office in the executive branch to oppose Trump while pretending to work for the Administration is cowardly, dishonorable, and anti-democratic.Read more here.
But, among the leftist mob, a few true heroes have begun to walk away. Imagine being a liberal resisting the get-Trump mob that is increasingly irrational? Now that’s courage and I want to take a moment to celebrate a few honorable and courageous liberals and Democrats who have risked everything to stand alone in opposition to the dangerous anti-Trump mob:
1. Fareed Zakaria: Mr. Zakaria is a reliable liberal and Trump critic. He nevertheless authored an op ed in the liberal Washington Post decrying the increasing trend of leftists to shout down or censor their opponents. Zakaria wrote, “freedom for the thought we hate is under pressure in the United States-and from the left.” He also quoted one of my heroes, John Stuart Mill to warn against the Left’s tendency to “impose…its own ideas and practices…on those who dissent from them.” I can almost hear the dinner party invitations being torn in half. My heart soared with hope upon reading his rare voice of reason. Thank you, Mr. Zakaria.
2. The 9th Circuit sides with Trump supporters in riot civil rights case. The 9th Circuit has applied the law to protect the speech rights of Trump supporters who were attacked during a peaceful protest. In the belly of the beast, some of the most liberal judges ever to don a robe had the guts to tell the mob that the deplorables have the right to peacefully speak and assemble.
3. Alan Dershowitz: Dershowitz, a card-carrying liberal from the day he first drew breath, is perhaps the most consistent hero challenging the left’s attacks on civil liberties. In an Op Ed in the Hill last April, he shamed the ACLU in a beautiful piece exposing how the ACLU turns a blind eye to violations of civil liberties if it helps get Trump. His liberal peers heap scorn on him and treat him like a traitor.
4. Michael E. Horowitz: Mr. Horowitz serves as the Inspector General of the Department of Justice. President Obama appointed him in 2012. Yet, he has been one of the most important forces that exposed the bias and election interference of the FBI/DoJ. He continues to do vital work to hold the Department of Justice accountable. Without the honorable work of Mr. Horowitz, we would not have seen the Strzok/Page text messages. Mr. Horowitz is undoubtedly reviled within the party who appointed him. His courage is unparalleled.
5. Jack Dorsey: In spite of significant pressure to drop President Trump from Twitter, Dorsey has continued to allow the President access to the platform to directly reach the American public. Recently he made this astonishing admission, “We have a lot of conservative-leaning folks in the company as well, and to be honest, they don’t feel safe to express their opinions at the company…They do feel silenced by just the general swirl of what they perceive to be the broader percentage of leanings within the company, and I don’t think that’s fair or right,” he added. “We should make sure that everyone feels safe to express themselves within the company, no matter where they come from and what their background is. I mean, my dad was a Republican.” Can you imagine the leftists he triggered by insisting that non-leftist speech should be accommodated? This may seem like a simple thing. But in Mr. Doresey’s environment, this was tremendously courageous.
6. The Facebook 100: A small group of 100 Facebook employees have joined together to form an online group supporting political diversity within Facebook. Brian Amerige, a senior Facebook engineer bravely wrote, “We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology.” Not surprisingly, their peers at Facebook have declared their speech “offensive to minorities,” and have sought to silence the rebels.
These liberals are all alone. But they shouldn’t be. They are true American heroes speaking real truth to the real power of the dangerous mob. Instead of arguing with the mob, we can best resist it by finding more honest liberals like these and lifting them up. We need them now more than ever. Shine a light on their examples as they walk away from the mob. Others will follow.
Ten Red Flags
Adam Mill introduces himself at The Federalist.
Mill offers ten red flags
Read more here.
I stand athwart the streamroller of sexual misconduct complaints that crush the innocent, end marriages, and destroy careers. In the Me Too era, I am an employment attorney in the politically incorrect vocation of defending who must pay if misconduct is found.
My skin is thick, and I do not melt when asked, “How dare you!” I dare because I do not want the innocent to be wrongly punished. I know it’s a very unfashionable to advocate on behalf of the presumption of innocence, and I am often reminded of how insensitive and outdated the principle is in today’s climate.
...Without naming any particular accusation, I offer these factors for consideration to the fair-minded who remain open to the possibility that guilt or innocence is not simply a question of politics. I also remind the reader that politicizing these accusations have allowed men like Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Matt Lauer, Les Moonves, Bill Clinton, and Keith Ellison to escape accountability. Nobody seems to care if they walk the walk so long as they talk the talk.
Mill offers ten red flags
that warn that an innocent person stands accused.
1. The accuser uses the press instead of the process.
2. The accuser times releasing the accusation for an advantage.
3. The accuser attacks the process instead of participating.
The few times I’ve been attacked for “harassing” the victim, it has always followed an otherwise innocuous question about the accusation, such as: Where, when, how, why, what happened? I don’t argue with accusers, I just ask them to explain the allegation. If I’m attacked for otherwise neutral questions, it’s a red flag.
4. When the accused’s opportunity to mount a defense is delegitimized.
The Duke Lacrosse coach was fired just for saying his players were innocent. When the players dared to protest their innocence, the prosecutor painted their stories in the press as “uncooperative.” If either the accused or the accused’s supporters are attacked for just for failing to agree with the accusation, it’s a red flag.
5. The accuser seeks to force the accused to defend himself or herself before committing to a final version.
6. The accused makes a strong and unequivocal denial.
7. The accuser makes unusual demands to modify or control the process.
8. When the accuser’s ability to identify the accused has not been properly explained.
9. When witnesses don’t corroborate.
10. When corroborating witnesses simply repeat the accusation of the accuser but don’t have fresh information.
Read more here.
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Maybe?
At a certain point you have to at least entertain the possibility the adults in the 70s were actively trying to kill us. pic.twitter.com/CJegSO4F0v
— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) September 25, 2018
What is a human being? What is a man? What is a woman?
Transhumanism? You are going to enhance me by adding stuff to my brain? Instead of having a relationship with another human, I will be able to have a relationship with a robot?
When Andrew was a kid, America was thinking about its past. Movies were westerns or about World War II. And those were the games kids played. Now, everything is superheroes and science fiction. What are our ethical and moral problems going to be? Detective stories are now about the nature of humanity.
There are now people who feel that sex robots have to be regulated.
The reason Andrew is so opposed to feminism is because of feminism's opposition to femininity. We need women to be feminine and men to be masculine. The conversations we need to be having: What is a human being? What is a man? What is a woman?
When Andrew was a kid, America was thinking about its past. Movies were westerns or about World War II. And those were the games kids played. Now, everything is superheroes and science fiction. What are our ethical and moral problems going to be? Detective stories are now about the nature of humanity.
There are now people who feel that sex robots have to be regulated.
The reason Andrew is so opposed to feminism is because of feminism's opposition to femininity. We need women to be feminine and men to be masculine. The conversations we need to be having: What is a human being? What is a man? What is a woman?
Bill Cosby to prison
Fox is reporting that Bill Cosby has been sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. Read more here.
Rosenstein's anguish
Andrew McCarthy writes at National Review,
...Regarding this eye-popping Times claim that he proposed wiretapping Trump, Rosenstein’s allies are reduced to insisting that he was just kidding. Clearly, enough people heard the deputy AG talk about covertly recording the president that he cannot credibly deny doing so. Thus, as is his wont, Rosenstein has issued a non-denial denial: “I never pursued or authorized the recording of the President.” Notice: No one is saying he gave a directive; the allegation is that he floated the idea.Read more here.
In fact, Rosenstein may not have been totally serious about wiring up. But I believe he was dead serious about appearing ready to monitor the president — i.e., about assuring anti-Trump bureaucrats that he was with them, especially those who had good relations with Democrats, such as McCabe.
Still, this was more than idle chatter: Rosenstein’s “joking” about secretly recording Trump came in this context of exploring whether a case for removing the president from office could be built.
Hence, the non-denial denials from Rosenstein.
...Tellingly, Rosenstein avoids claiming that he never discussed the 25th Amendment at all, with anyone. Again, it seems the evidence he did so is sufficiently convincing that Rosenstein dares not flatly deny it; he must instead deflect it. It also seems manifest that the deputy AG was more serious about being perceived as favoring Trump’s removal than about putting his neck on the line in an actual removal effort.
...We come now to the most consequential step the deputy AG took to appease Democrats: his appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel.
...May 17, 2017: Rosenstein appoints a special counsel to take over the Russia counterintelligence investigation, specifying no crime and providing no factual recitation of grounds for a criminal investigation against President Trump. Nor does the deputy AG explain why the Justice Department is too conflicted to conduct the Russia probe itself. (Mueller will proceed to staff his investigation with top prosecutors from the supposedly conflicted Justice Department, and later — with Rosenstein’s approval — will transfer his Russia indictments to components of the supposedly conflicted Justice Department.)
...To summarize, when he thought it would be popular, Rod Rosenstein was all in on removing FBI director Comey, eagerly volunteering to write the coup de grâce memo. When Comey’s firing ignited bitter protest and recriminations, a distraught Rosenstein blamed Trump for using him. The deputy AG ostentatiously sidled up to the bureaucracy’s “Trump is unfit” faction, expressing openness to wiretapping the president in an effort to force his removal under the 25th Amendment. Indeed, just days after his memo excoriating Comey, Rosenstein confided in FBI officials that he wished Comey were back at the helm and that he hoped to get Comey’s advice on the appointment of a special counsel.
When Democratic pressure to appoint a special counsel reached fever pitch with the Times’ publication of its report, based on a Comey leak, that Trump had pushed for the FBI to drop the Flynn investigation, Rosenstein decided to appoint a special counsel without specifying any crime against Trump. As he brainstormed about the possibility of ousting Trump under the 25th Amendment, Rosenstein flirted with the idea of appointing Obama’s deputy AG, James Cole, as special counsel. Ultimately, he appointed Mueller, the former Obama and Bush FBI director — Comey’s predecessor at the Bureau and colleague in the Bush Justice Department. Mueller staffed his investigation with top officials from the Obama Justice Department, which had green-lighted an investigation of Trump’s campaign.
Immediately after announcing Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein further assuaged Senate Democrats, promising that Mueller would have no limits. Rosenstein then approved a FISA warrant application that alleged, apparently based on the Clinton-campaign-generated Steele dossier, that the FBI believed Trump campaign officials were complicit in Russia’s hacking conspiracy against the 2016 election. Subsequently, Rosenstein memorialized his authorization to Mueller to investigate “allegations” of collusion — apparently without spelling out any collusion evidence and very likely relying on the Steele dossier.
In Chicago last month, Rod Rosenstein was the featured speaker at annual meeting of the notoriously anti-Trump American Bar Association. Upon his introduction, his speech was delayed by a raucous standing ovation. The beaming deputy attorney general seemed to have gotten over his anguish.
Our 1984 world: Are we no longer in America?
Some excerpts of Victor Davis Hanson writing at National Review,
George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is no longer fiction. We are living it right now.Read more here.
Google techies planned to massage Internet searches to emphasize correct thinking. A member of the so-called deep state, in an anonymous op-ed, brags that its “resistance” is undermining an elected president. The FBI, CIA, DOJ, and NSC were all weaponized in 2016 to ensure that the proper president would be elected — the choice adjudicated by properly progressive ideology. Wearing a wire is now redefined as simply flipping on an iPhone and recording your boss, boy- or girlfriend, or co-workers.
But never has the reality that we are living in a surreal age been clearer than during the strange cycles of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
In Orwell’s world of 1984 Oceania, there is no longer a sense of due process, free inquiry, rules of evidence and cross examination, much less a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Instead, regimented ideology — the supremacy of state power to control all aspects of one’s life to enforce a fossilized idea of mandated quality — warps everything from the use of language to private life.
...(Republicans may or may not lose the House over the confirmation circus, but they most surely will lose their base and, with it, the Congress if they do not confirm Kavanaugh.)
...That an assertion becomes fact due to the prevailing ideology and gender of the accuser marks the destruction of our entire system of justice.
...In our 1984 world, the accused is considered guilty if merely charged, and the accuser is a victim who can ruin a life but must not under any circumstance be made uncomfortable in proving her charges.
Doublespeak abounds. “Victim” solely refers to the accuser, not the accused, who one day was Brett Kavanaugh, a brilliant jurist and model citizen, and the next morning woke up transformed into some sort of Kafkaesque cockroach. The media and political operatives went in a nanosecond from charging that she was groped and “assaulted” to the claim that she was “raped.”
In our 1984, the phrase “must be believed” is doublespeak for “must never face cross-examination.”
Ford should be belived or not believed on the basis of evidence, not her position, gender, or politics. I certainly did not believe Joe Biden, simply because he was a U.S. senator, when, as Neal Kinnock’s doppelganger, he claimed that he came from a long line of coal miners — any more than I believed that Senator Corey Booker really had a gang-banger Socratic confidant named “T-Bone,” or that would-be senator Richard Blumenthal was an anguished Vietnam combat vet or that Senator Elizabeth Warren was a Native American. (Do we need a 25th Amendment for unhinged senators?) Wanting to believe something from someone who is ideologically correct does not translate into confirmation of truth.
...“medical treatment” now means that 30 years after the alleged assault, Ford sought counseling for some sort of “relationship” or “companion” therapy, or what might legitimately be termed “marriage counseling.” And in the course of her discussions with her therapist about her marriage, she first spoke of her alleged assault three decades earlier. She did not then name Kavanaugh to her therapist, whose notes are at odds with Ford’s current version.
...A former teenage friend of Ford’s sent out a flurry of social-media postings, allegedly confirming that Ford’s ordeal was well known to her friends in 1982 and so her assault narrative must therefore be confirmed. Then, when challenged on some of her incoherent details (schools are not in session during summertime, and Ford is on record as not telling anyone of the incident for 30 years), she mysteriously claimed that she no longer could stand by her earlier assertions, which likewise soon vanished from her social-media account. Apparently, she had assumed that in 2018 Oceania ideologically correct citizens merely needed to lodge an accusation and it would be believed, without any obligation on her part to substantiate her charges.
When a second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, followed Ford seven days later to allege another sexual incident with the teenage Kavanaugh, at Yale 35 years ago, it was no surprise that she followed the now normal Orwellian boilerplate: None of those whom she named as witnesses could either confirm her charges or even remember the alleged event. She had altered her narrative after consultations with lawyers and handlers. She too confesses to underage drinking during the alleged event. She too is currently a social and progressive political activist. The only difference from Ford’s narrative is that Ramirez’s accusation was deemed not credible enough to be reported even by the New York Times, which recently retracted false stories about witness Mark Judge in the Ford case, and which falsely reported that U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley had charged the government for $50,000 office drapes.
As in 1984, “truths” in these sorts of allegations do not exist unless they align with the larger “Truth” of the progressive project. In our case, the overarching Truth mandates that, in a supposedly misogynist society, women must always be believed in all their accusations and should be exempt from all counter-examinations.
Little “truths” — such as the right of the accused, the need to produce evidence, insistence on cross-examination, and due process — are counterrevolutionary constructs and the refuge of reactionary hold-outs who are enemies of the people. Or in the words of Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono:
Guess who’s perpetuating all of these kinds of actions? It’s the men in this country. And I just want to say to the men in this country, “Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing, for a change.”
The View’s Joy Behar was more honest about the larger Truth: “These white men, old by the way, are not protecting women,” Behar exclaimed. “They’re protecting a man who is probably guilty.” We thank Behar for the concession “probably.”
According to some polls, about half the country believes that Brett Kavanaugh is now guilty of a crime committed 36 years ago at the age of 17. And that reality reminds us that we are no longer in America. We are already living well into the socialist totalitarian Hell that Orwell warned us about long ago.
We have closer relations now with Poland, India, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, but not so much with France, Germany, United Kingdom, Russia, China, and Iran!
At the United Nations, President Trump singled out for praise four countries. Steven Nelson reports in the Examiner,
President Trump spotlighted four countries for praise in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, as he called for a world of "sovereign and independent nations."
"Humanity is better because of this beautiful constellation of nations, each very special, each very unique, and each shining brightly and its part of the world," Trump said.
"There is India, a free society, over a billion people, successfully lifting countless millions out of poverty and into the middle class," he told world leaders in New York.
"There is Saudi Arabia, where the king and the crown prince are pursuing bold new reforms," he continued. "There Israel, proudly celebrating its 70th anniversary as a thriving democracy in the Holy Land."
"In Poland, the great people are standing up for their independence, their security, and their sovereignty," he continued.
The geographically diverse countries mentioned in the speech each have had their leaders visit Trump at the White House.
On the other hand, also at the United Nations, John Siciliano reports at The Examiner that five countries held a closed door meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini who announced to the press at the UN that China, Russia, France, United Kingdom and Germany would defy Trump's sanctions on Iranian oil that are due to take effect in November.
Mogherini meets the press at the UN
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