So, the anonymous Kavanaugh accuser reveals herself
[Scroll down to see UPDATE below.]
Slowly, with exquisitely perfect timing, the news reveals itself, in order to give strength to the cries to delay the vote on Kavanaugh. The entire idea is to delay it long enough to get the thing to build—perhaps with more suddenly-surfaced accusers who were in the general right place at the general right time and have the right political leanings, with fuzzy stories that skip certain important details so they cannot be fact-checked or disproved.
There is nothing surprising about any of this; it’s the scorched earth policy I wrote about yesterday, and it will not end because it has worked in the past. I don’t know if it will work this time, but it is part of a dangerous and pernicious trend that’s been going on for a long time but is getting worse.
The more the Senate GOP caves to this, the more it will happen.
I may write about this tomorrow, as well; it’s Sunday, and I like to take Sunday off. But the breaking of the accuser’s identity and story moved me to write a brief post just to say a couple of things.
The first is to reiterate that there are reasons—very very good reasons—for the rules of evidence in our legal system, and for statutes of limitations. The longer the time between a supposed offense and the accusation, the more impossible it is for the accuser (or the accused) to remember correctly, and the more other memories and motivations can intervene. And that’s assuming good faith on the part of the accuser, because memory is very mutable even when someone is making a bona fide effort to remember correctly. There’s no reason to assume good faith here, of course, but even with it, a memory this old has no probative value. And a memory that surfaces in a therapist’s office is especially suspect.
The vagueness of the details—the accuser doesn’t know when or where this supposedly happened, except it was in high school at some get-together—makes it even more suspect. It also makes it impossible—literally impossible—for the accused to refute.
And that’s the beauty and the value of it, to the left.
Long-time readers here know I’ve been skeptical of all such accusations. I don’t care who makes them and I don’t care whether they are made towards people I agree with politically or people I disagree with politically.
If this sort of thing can hurt Kavanaugh, or anyone else, then no man is safe. There is always someone who can come out of the woodwork and say that something like this happened. Always. And it cannot be refuted.
And to my fellow women who disagree, or don’t care, think again. Some day it may be your son, your husband, your friend who is accused. And you know what else? Some day it may be women who are accused. Don’t think you’re safe, either.
[ADDENDUM: See also this as well as this.]
UPDATE 10:34 PM:
Jeff Flake is saying the following:
Flake (R-Ariz.) said he needs to hear more about the allegations raised publicly by Christine Blasey Ford on Sunday in a Washington Post article, and said other Republicans share his view. Flake is one of 11 Republicans on the narrowly divided panel and without his support, the committee cannot advance his nomination. However, GOP leaders could try to bring Kavanaugh‘s nomination directly to the Senate floor.
“If they push forward without any attempt with hearing what she’s had to say, I’m not comfortable voting yes,” Flake said. “We need to hear from her. And I don’t think I’m alone in this.”
Asked if the committee vote should be delayed to hear out Ford, Corker replied: “I think that would be best for all involved, including the nominee. If she does want to be heard, she should do so promptly”…
Flake declined to address whether Kavanaugh should withdraw his nomination: “I’m not responding to that question at all.” The retiring Arizona Republican has long been a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump, refusing to support his campaign in 2016 and often critiquing his policies and rhetoric. In return, Trump has repeatedly mocked Flake.
It’s not clear if this is will end up being a tempest in a teapot and the vote will ultimately go forward, or even whether Kavanaugh’s accuser wants to testify and would do so if given the opportunity, or how quickly that could be arranged.
But it’s pretty clear to me that she had hoped to derail Kavanaugh and at the same time remain anonymous. So the first step was taken, Feinstein dropped the news, and it didn’t have the desired effect. It wasn’t taken seriously enough by the Republicans, and it was the Republicans whose cooperation was necessary if the goal of delay and maybe even jettisoning the whole process was going to be reached.
Therefore it was decided that the accuser had to go public. That’s where we’re at now.
If Flake et al decide to stop Kavanaugh’s confirmation, mission accomplished by the left. If not, the ante will have to be upped. New accusers will come forward—or rather, they will be brought forward.
The underlying premise for these types of attacks is the premise that a person in public life must be a saint or is otherwise unworthy. The fact that the party of Bill and Hillary Clinton and Gerry Studds and Teddy Kennedy imply these claims is the height of hypocrisy.
Neo, I agree with all the points you make above. Furthermore, since this is coming from the left and in the aftermath of the lies and falsehoods that have already come from the Democrats to derail this appointment we must also recognize the possibility that this woman is simply a convenient liar.
The reason such charges have had such force is not just that the Democrat MSM runs with them (small voices, big megaphones), but that those at whom the charges are aimed instantly collapse into apology/denial status. They tactics work only because the attacked allow the attackers to define the terms of the argument. (Trump has shown himself to be relatively immune to this tactic because he, virtually alone, has the temerity to respond to such charges with a traditional “Go suck an egg” response). The Anita Hill controversy, as troubling as it must have been for Justice Thomas, has been belied by his perormance on the bench. I’m confident we will be able to say the same of Justice-to-be Kavanaugh, that is if he, Grassley and McConnell have the testicular fortitude to withstand the leftist harpies.
I hope Trump is on the phone to them all encouraging them to follow his own example to stand firm.
I think these things are part of a broader effort to make the mere allegation of something an undefeatable political weapon against the accused and the accused has no defense. Consider how there have now been two fairly high profile cases in the last few weeks to force us all to believe that the “A-OK” hand symbol is a wide spread white power symbol in spite of it meaning something entirely different to most people. This is Orwellian mind control. The Latest victim worked for the Coast Guard. The left controls the popular culture and can push an agenda relatively unopposed in many cases because our side cowers.
I agree, Neo. Memories from 36 years ago, without any contemporaneous corroboration, are simply not reliable. Further, even if it were true, it has not been followed by any other behavior of the type that anyone has ever alleged. And even more, the behavior, by a seventeen-year-old, which was even as described not a rape or attempted rape, should not negate an entire lifetime since. Nor should the behavior, as described, cause the kind of lingering trauma this woman says she has felt. She sounds unstable to me (although I am not a mental health professional).
Isn’t it interesting that she can’t remember where it was, when it was, or anything specific other than the names of two guys who are well-known among conservatives in the DC area? This, in an area where surely many, if not most, of her high school acquaintances were leftists. Most people in the DC area are.
I think, at best, that she has magnified a fairly trivial incident and “remembered” a couple of names for effect.
There are reports that days before going public with her allegation against Kavanaugh, Blasey Ford deleted all of her social media profiles, including her Facebook page.
Obviously, (1) there is something she doesn’t want us to know and (2) she had planned to “out” herself some time ago.
I despise these people and their tactics, with all of my being.
Following up on prior comment regarding Ford scrubbing her social media (yes, I know, “Zero Hedge” gets a little flaky, but screen caps don’t lie (unlike Democrats)
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-16/democrats-demand-kavanaugh-confirmation-suspension-until-serious-and-credible
Seems the pile on is just getting started: “Brett Kavanaugh’s High School Friend Isn’t Helping the Nominee’s Case — The alleged witness in the Kavanaugh case wrote a memoir about his own schoolboy days as black-out drunk”
I’d like to see all the records of her therapist. Is this something she brought up to win some points against her husband? Also, was she drunk when it “happened”? She wasn’t raped, according to what she says. Why wouldn’t she have talked about it to her school friends? If something like she says had happened to me, I think I would have told everyone I knew that these guys were real creeps and should be avoided at all costs. I don’t believe her at all.
Here is some info on Ford’s lawyer:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/timothymeads/2018/09/16/kavanaugh-accusers-lawyer-part-of-resistance-big-democrat-donor-and-has-trashed-paula-jones-n2519525
If I was Kavanaugh, my first thought is that I would just withdraw. My second thought is that then the general consensus would be the charges must’ve been true, and this would stick to me forever.
The accuser’s employer, Palo Alto University, has scrubbed her data from her faculty listing:
https://www.paloaltou.edu/faculty-directory/b
This development genuinely did surprise me. Not that the left is above scorched earth tactics, far from it. But I assumed such a move would occur much earlier in the process. It seems the left was hoping something else would derail him, such that they wouldn’t have to resort to this Hail Mary.
Of course, it is possible the accusations are entirely true. If so, Kavanaugh should withdraw immediately, if he’s an honorable man (and I believe he is).
Otherwise, full steam ahead. Yes, ram his nomination through. Let’s just forget about any “precedents” such might set. The left cares nothing about such niceties. Let’s also ignore any speculation about the impact on the midterms. The left will exploit their carefully crafted narrative no matter how the right responds.
Either Kavanaugh withdraws or he is confirmed, on schedule. No hesitation or second guessing. Period
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/jeff-flake-traitor.php
Yeah, it’s pretty much what you expect.
CapnRusty on September 16, 2018 at 9:32 pm at 9:32 pm said:
The accuser’s employer, Palo Alto University, has scrubbed her data from her faculty listing:
https://www.paloaltou.edu/faculty-directory/b
* * *
This was probably done to forestall doxing the prof — although that term usually applies to publishing the contact information of a previously unidentified or pseudonymous person rather than the re-publishing of hitherto publicly available contact information for a person who is not posting or commenting anonymously.
That may also be a legitimate reason for taking down her social media accounts before they attract the kind of screaming hordes from the right that are routinely employed by the left.
Takes one to anticipate one.
The article about Ford’s lawyer is… interesting.
I note that her status as a big-time donor is sometimes being attribruted to Ford, who was only small-time.
And also not that many of the accounts I’ve read are interpolating Kavanaugh’s name into restatements of Ford’s narrative where it did not originally appear.
And here’s the best nominee for spin so far, with its pseudo-intellectual analysis of the ultimate meaning of accusing Kavanaugh in the World of Trump, because nobody ever ever never did anything that awful before when the Democrats ran the country.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/kavanaugh/570406/
The Subtext of Kavanaugh’s Nomination Bursts Into the Open
A sexual-assault allegation against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee brings the fight over gender and power to the fore.
3:58 PM ET
Garrett Epps
Professor of constitutional law at the University of Baltimore
If I were writing a political thriller that depended on taking down a man of sterling reputation, I would deliberately include as a “witness” someone who was already known by his own account as being unreliable when drunk.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-mark-judge-high-school-drunk-allegation-alcohol/
Just sayin’.
In fact, this whole episode sounds like a really bad TV-movie script.
I could give you several ways to tie all of it together into a deliberate hit-piece that went out of control because Feinstein did (or didn’t, in one version) play the cards at the right time.
AesopFan: Jeff Flake is going to be a very rich and famous man, very soon. Come next year, he will have a book deal, endless speaking engagements, possibly a column for the NYT, WaPo or the like, and most likely plenty of mingling with glitterati. “House Repiblicans” who eagerly trash the president for the delight and reassurance (“look, look our views are ‘bipartisan'”) of rich liberals are a pricey commodity. This future informs his every move.
Ackler — Indeed.
Insightful analysis by John Fund — the last three paragraphs:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/whats-in-it-for-republicans/
“What’s in It for Republicans?
By CHARLES C. W. COOKE
September 15, 2018 1:22 PM
Vox’s Dylan Matthews tries to catch Senator Feinstein’s Hail Mary pass, even as he acknowledges that we can at present see no ball:
…
What’s “in it for Republicans?” You mean other than refusing to establish a precedent by which any nominee for anything can be vetoed by vague, anonymous, half-peddled, whisper-driven accusations? …
It would be suicidal because it would ensure that eleventh-hour efforts would be marshaled against every qualified nominee from now until the end of time. It would be unjust because it would ensure that innocent people would be railroaded and, in time, that good people stayed well clear of politics lest their names be unfairly sullied (note that ThinkProgres has already laundered “we have a letter” into “Kavanaugh is a rapist”). …
Naturally, Republicans should refuse to be sucked into such an immoral arrangement. If there is a case here, it should be publicly aired, publicly examined, and publicly debated. While there is not, the answer to any would-be short-circuiters must be “no, no, no, no, no,” for any other path will lead us down the path to superstition, to caprice, and, ultimately, to the habitual presumption of guilt. And the long-term losers from that transformation will look a lot different than
Judge KavanaughRoy Moore.”* * *
Made a little change there for Charles — because this is what anyone with any brains could see coming when those as-yet un-adjudicated accusations were made without any opportunity for an adequate defense.
Yes, maybe the charges had more “substance,” and double yes, who wanted to stand up for that “deplorable Roy Moore?” — but that was the out-of-town tryout and this is the Broadway opening.
Instapundit has a link to analysis about how it is no coincidence that this ridiculous story was only first documented in 2012, the year in which Kavanagh’s name was mentioned in the run-up to the election as a likely Romney Supreme Court pick. Smearus interrupts, obviously, but the smear is still in play 6 years later.
Of course, these attacks against conservatives are not new — Moore was targeted precisely because the operations had worked so well before. Clarence Thomas’s victory over Anita Hill is an aberration in the history of slanders, and so why not play the odds again?
https://www.city-journal.org/dems-anita-brett-kavanaugh-16173.html
“It’s uncanny how closely the Democrats are following the Anita Hill playbook as they try to “Anita” Brett Kavanaugh, looking to prevent his confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice. Like Hill, Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford is a professor who made her accusation in the expectation of anonymity, never dreaming that newspapers from coast to coast would blazon her name across Page One. Hill had received assurances from a Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee staffer that, in all likelihood, Clarence Thomas would quietly withdraw his name from consideration, to spare himself and his family embarrassment. After all, Hill’s friend, administrative law judge Susan Hoerchner, had reportedly sprung a similar surprise on a fellow judge, with complete success, and it may well have been she who urged Hill to try the same tactic with Thomas. But there’s nothing leakier than a politician’s office, and Senate Democrats plainly considered Hill as a mere tool to derail Thomas’s confirmation without any concern about what would happen to her.
I didn’t believe Hill’s accusations back then, and now, having a clear picture of Justice Thomas’s sterling character, and having just reread the transcript of the Hill-Thomas hearings, I believe them still less.
…
Also, those who believe her ask, how would such a prim-seeming young lady know some of the very concrete salacious details of what she claimed Thomas had said to her a decade earlier? The answer: the most graphic detail, complete with photograph, is in a federal appellate case whose transcript was in the library of the federal agency where Hill had worked as a Thomas employee. The other lurid detail comes from The Exorcist, a bestselling book and hit movie during the 1970s. But even supposing that Hill was telling the truth—which I do not—the most you could say, as Judiciary Committee member Orrin Hatch commented, is that Thomas talked dirty to her. He never touched her.
Having watched Kavanaugh’s testimony and having heard the encomia on his character from the many women whose careers he has fostered as a judge and professor, as well as from his colleagues, I strongly doubt that he did what Ford alleges, and what her allegation suggests was a rape attempt was, by her own description, nothing of the kind—though, following the Hill playbook, she has already taken a lie-detector test and hired a well-known lawyer. But again, supposing it were true—as I do not suppose—he was 17 years old at the time. Do the Democrats really think that a single teenage indiscretion should have a place in confirmation hearings?
But ever since their savaging of Robert Bork, no dirty trick is too dirty for the Democrats when it comes to the Supreme Court.
…
So dedicated were they to preserving what they called “settled law” during the Thomas hearings that they didn’t even blush to have committee member Edward Kennedy—responsible for the gruesome death of a young woman staffer when he was allegedly driving drunk—question Thomas about this charge of sexual harassment.”
* * *
I didn’t know the source of Hill’s lurid account until now.
There are plenty of fictional parallels to Ford’s — or real ones; she is a psychologist, after all.
“Christine Ford is a professor at Palo Alto University who teaches in a consortium with Stanford University, training graduate students in clinical psychology. Her work has been widely published in academic journals.” – WaPo
If Jeff Flake screws up this nomination, it will be the duty of every Republican to harm him if they can. To pursue him even into the private sector and target whichever business is unlucky enough to employ him.
This is how you treat traitors.
On the Hoerchner connection – does any of this look familiar?
In the second article, notice the element that is conspicuously absent in the kavanaugh (and Thomas) cases.
http://confirmationbiased.com/how-anita-hills-witnesses-stories-did-not-add-up-susan-hoerchner/
“One of the most unusual aspects of Hill’s case was the weakness of her corroborating witnesses. Susan Hoerchner was Hill’s star witness—the only witness to testify that Hill told her at the time specifically that she was being sexually harassed by Thomas. The problem is that Hoerchner’s testimony on that point was completely contradicted by her own earlier statements.
Hoerchner first spoke with the Judiciary Committee staff on September 18th. According to contemporaneous notes, Hoerchner told Committee staff that she had one conversation with Hill about Thomas’ conduct “in the spring of 1981.” (See Biden summary of staff contacts here)
The trouble with this timeline, of course, is that Hill did not even start working for Clarence Thomas until late August 1981, and by her own account, Thomas did not begin the alleged harassment until several months after she began working for him.
During a subsequent in-person interview with Committee staff, Hoerchner stuck to her timeline. She explained that she and Hill had been in regular phone contact when they both lived in D.C., but lost touch after Hoerchner moved away. She moved to California in September 1981 to care for her ailing father, so she was sure the call occurred before then (pp. 4, 7-8, 22). Hoerchner repeated the timeline in answer after answer until, shockingly, Anita Hill’s attorney (Janet Napolitano) interrupted the interview and asked to confer with the witness. After a private conference, Hoerchner suddenly developed amnesia about the timing of the call and where she was living at the time.
Hoerchner also appeared uncertain during that interview whether Hill had ever mentioned Thomas by name. She said Hill reported “undergoing sexual harassment at work by her boss” (p. 4). When asked if Hill mentioned the name Clarence Thomas, Hoerchner hesitantly stated, “I think she referred to him as Clarence.” It was only after pressure from Democratic counsel that she suddenly declared herself certain that Hill had used the name Clarence.”
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-10-14/news/mn-494_1_harassment-case
Hill’s Friend Had a Role in 2nd Harassment Case : Judges: Susan Hoerchner was a corroborative witness in California.
October 14, 1991|TRACY WOOD | TIMES STAFF WRITER
Susan Jane Hoerchner, the college friend who testified Sunday in support of Anita Faye Hill, was a key corroborative witness earlier this year in a California sex harassment case that resulted in the presiding judge of the Norwalk Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board stepping aside, state officials said.
During her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee into allegations of sex harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, Hoerchner acknowledged playing a role in the case of Donald H. Foster, presiding judge of the workers’ compensation board before he retired.
John Duncan, deputy communications director of the state Department of Industrial Relations, which runs the workers’ compensation system, said records indicate that a sex harassment investigation of Foster was begun in February after a complaint from a woman probationary workers’ compensation judge.
Hoerchner, 47, was a supporting witness to the probationary judge’s claim that she had been harassed, Duncan said.
A department affirmative action officer subsequently determined that there were “a number of allegations from a series of present and prior subordinates of the judge that seemed to demonstrate a pattern of behavior.”
…
Foster on Sunday termed the case a “tempest in a teapot . . . a minor incident,” and denied that it had any connection with his retirement.
He claimed that the woman “withdrew her allegation, and I want to forget about it. I’m 70 years old. I wanted to retire and I retired.” He added that he retired because of health problems brought on by his 18 years as a workers’ compensation judge, eight of them as presiding judge, and for financial reasons.
Changes in state pay policies would have reduced his retirement benefits if he had stayed longer, Foster said.”
More wise words today from Instapundit:
MAN WHO SAT DOWN FOR INTERVIEW WITH WOMAN IN BATHTUB FULL OF FRUIT LOOPS SAYS TRUMP PRESIDENCY ISN’T “NORMAL.”
The thing to remember about Democrats is that for them, “normal” means Democrats in power. No more, and no less.
74 Posted at 6:25 pm by Glenn Reynolds
* * * (ellipses represent things we already have heard)
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-allegations-serious-but-not-solid/
“We don’t need certainty, however, to make a decision on whether a man should sit on the Supreme Court. I have the same standard for Brett Kavanaugh as I did for Roy Moore, for Donald Trump, for Bill Clinton — or for any other politician who’s accused of misconduct. Is it more likely than not that the allegation is true?
… But the evidence against Kavanaugh falls far short of the evidence arrayed against each of these men. So far at least it falls far short of the evidence against virtually any other politician or celebrity who has faced consequences during this #MeToo moment. Here’s why:
First, one way to help test the veracity of old claims is to ask whether there is any contemporaneous corroboration. Did the accuser tell a friend or family member or anyone about the alleged assault when it occurred? …
That’s almost three decades of silence — three decades when memories can grow cloudy and recollections can change.
But even the allegedly corroborating notes of the therapist raise a separate problem. They actually contradict her story on a key detail. …
Those are important discrepancies, and if six years ago she told the therapist four men and says two men now, that suggests that her memory of the event may be suspect.
As a former trial lawyer, I can tell you that while neither notes nor memories are infallible, in a contest between contemporaneous notes and later verbal testimony about those notes, the content of the written notes usually prevails. Juries are extremely skeptical of witnesses who contradict written notes — after all, the notes are taken when the words are immediate and there isn’t the overwhelming pressure of a trial to conform your testimony to the desired outcome.
At least the investigation seems somewhat manageable. If there were only four boys there, who were the other two? Let’s hear from them. In fact, investigators should interview everyone else at the party.
Yet given all the years that have passed, would it be possible to find anyone who remembers being at that party? Would they remember any details at all? If someone saw Kavanaugh stumbling drunk at the party, that would obviously bolster Ford’s account. If another attendee says, “He was totally sober and with me the whole time,” that helps Kavanaugh. But the odds of getting details that precise are long indeed, and there is always a chance that a motivated classmate might lie — for either person.
Finally, there are no other allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. If there’s one thing we’ve seen time and again, it’s that one allegation often triggers a cascade of additional claims. There seem to be precious few men who engage in serious sexual misconduct just once. If this was the kind of behavior that Kavanaugh engaged in, then look for more people to come forward. If no one does, however, we’re left with a sole claim, made by an opposing partisan (Ford is an outspoken progressive), that Kavanaugh strenuously denies, that lacks any contemporaneous corroboration, and that is contradicted in material respects by her therapist’s own notes.
That does not add up to “more likely than not.”
But these conclusions are tentative and preliminary. The next three days are crucial. We’ll likely hear more from Ford. I expect we’ll hear more from Kavanaugh. People who were at the party may come forward with their own accounts. The news cycle is moving so fast that it seems almost absurd to speculate about the state of our knowledge even 24 hours from now, but if this is the core evidence supporting the (very serious) claim against Kavanaugh, it’s not sufficient to derail the nomination of a man with an otherwise sterling record of professional excellence and personal integrity.”
* * *
On the news cycle quip, remember that this story has only been known since THURSDAY, and yet everybody on the Left asserts that it is settled science that Kavanaugh is guilty guilty guilty.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-attacks-aim-to-brand-him-illegitimate/
“All of this will strike some as a Hail Mary pass by Senate Democrats who want to delay any confirmation vote and spare their colleagues running in states Trump won from having to cast a vote on Kavanaugh. In the #MeToo atmosphere of today, there’s no telling what a roll of accusatory dice might bring.
I fear we are about to relive at least part of the national psychodrama over Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill. That ideological maelstrom transfixed the country and divided it into bitter warring camps of Thomas supporters and Hill sympathizers. And that was when there was just one 24-hour cable news channel and no Internet or social media.
As we enter what’s likely to be another sad episode in the borking of Supreme Court nominees, we’d do well to remember that after the American people heard both sides in the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill slugfest, they believed Thomas by a two-to-one margin. Something similar may happen again, but if liberals fail to derail Kavanaugh, they will still try for a consolation prize.
After Clarence Thomas was confirmed by a vote of 52 to 48 in 1991, we had a drumbeat of books, articles, and conferences all dedicated to rewriting the history of the incident. Two years later, a Newsweek poll showed that most of those surveyed believed Hill, even though no new evidence had been uncovered.
So even if Brett Kavanaugh takes his seat on the Supreme Court, liberals will have extracted a pound of flesh. Just as with the Florida recount of 2000 and the Trump election of 2016, any confirmation will be branded as suspect and accomplished only through brutish tactics and the wholesale disregard for the truth. The effort to sink Kavanaugh is not just a naked attempt to change a confirmation vote but to forever brand him as illegitimate.”
Via Instapundit:
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2018/09/16/accusation-kavanaugh-plan-2012/
“Is the accusation against Kavanaugh the culmination of a set-up from 2012?
Posted by Bookworm
A 2012 New Yorker piece naming Kavanaugh as a potential Romney pick for the Supremes may provide the genesis for Christine Ford’s questionable accusation.
…
By now you’ve all heard that Christine Blasey Ford is the woman accusing Kavanaugh of attacking her 35 years ago, a claim he strenuously and absolutely denies. Her story is a bizarre pastiche of precise details and huge memory holes. It’s also got a big lie planted right in the middle, which is Ford’s claim that she always meant to be private and only went public now because she couldn’t hide anymore.
That’s bull crap. The moment Ford sent a letter to a Democrat pol, she knew with absolute certainty that this would be a big deal, that her name would emerge, and that she’d become the Democrats’ new darling.
But this post is going to focus on one of the more weird things about Ford’s accusation against Kavanaugh, which is the fact her therapist’s notes date from 2012:
Ford said she told no one of the incident in any detail until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. The therapist’s notes, portions of which were provided by Ford and reviewed by The Washington Post, do not mention Kavanaugh’s name but say she reported that she was attacked by students “from an elitist boys’ school” who went on to become “highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington.” The notes say four boys were involved, a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist’s part. Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two in the room. (Emphasis mine.)
Put aside for now the fact that the notes don’t jive with the accusations Ford is making. Focus, instead, on that date: 2012.
It’s a weird date. Keep in mind that Ford, aside from being a Bernie supporting academic, is a psychologist. Part of getting a degree in psychology is going through analysis. One would think that, even if, as a shy 15-year-old, Ford was too afraid to go public with her charge against Kavanaugh, when she went through psychoanalysis on her way to her degree, she would have spoken about this alleged assault, especially because she says it traumatized her for years. But she didn’t. Instead, suddenly, in 2012, she’s bathed in flop sweat from an incident decades before.
So what happened in 2012? Coincidentally (or not), 2012 was another election year.
In 2012, Romney ran against Obama. Up until his 47% gaffe, Romney was doing well. He actually had a shot of winning.
For the Democrats, as has been the case since Bork, having a Republican in the White House, especially with the ever-aging but never retiring Ruth Bader Ginsburg a perpetual risk, raised the specter of a conservative judge getting appointed to the Supreme Court. With that in mind, one Twitter user, who must have an amazing memory, remembered something interesting he’d read back in 2012:
…
If a Republican, any Republican, wins in November, his most likely first nominee to the Supreme Court will be Brett Kavanaugh. (Emphasis mine.)
In 2012, Romney might have won the election. In 2012, Toobin stoked Democrat fears that Kavanaugh, a conservative, might get on the Supreme Court and overturn Obamacare. And in 2012, Ford, a psychotherapist who undoubtedly had years of prior therapy herself, suddenly can’t stop talking about her hitherto undisclosed claim that Kavanaugh was a bad boy almost 30 years before.
So here’s the question: What do you think the odds are that, when Romney seemed within striking distance of the White House, and Kavanaugh seemed like a potential Supreme Court nominee, Ford came up with a story about Kavanaugh trying to rape her? Knowing Democrat fanaticism as we do, it’s easy to imagine that, in 2012, while Ford couldn’t go back in time to 1983 to make contemporaneous claims she could still try to lend an air of verisimilitude to her otherwise unconvincing narrative by concocting a tale for a therapist, thereby creating a “just in case” record.
If this supposition is true, Ford positioned herself so that, during a potential future Romney administration, she could torpedo a Kavanaugh nomination. As it turned out, her plan took a few more years to come to fruition than she had originally thought, but it still might work.
Contact your Senator (if s/he is a Republican) and tell your Senator not to go wobbly on this one. There’s a strong likelihood that it’s a time bomb, put into place six years ago, and exploding now, sending defamatory falsehoods flying all over the place.”
AesopFan:
I stood up for Roy Moore, for what it’s worth. See this as well as this.
And I don’t even like the guy.
For that matter, I even stood up for Al Franken.
Via Instapundit (cleaned up Twitter thread – I HATE that platform):
https://twitter.com/ishapiro/status/1041452279558270976
Ilya Shapiro
?Any GOP nom now subject to character assassination bc of apocalyptic narrative Dems bring to Sup Ct fights & for being picked by Trump, whose election the left has never accepted, whose authority to make picks further questioned after indictments/pleas of several associates. 3/x
…?
Indeed, Justice Gorsuch continues to be seen as “illegitimate” by many progressives because he “stole” Merrick Garland’s seat (though of course Garland was never attacked personally). Only way to end this circus is to vote on Kavanaugh and let political chips fall where they may.
Don Kilmer
Maybe we should go back to Senators beating each other (nearly to death) with walking-canes. I’ll bet the mood is nearly the same.
Ilya Shapiro?
Or whatever implement Spartacus used.
She, her husband, and her therapist should be questioned in an open session. The names of all her school classmates should be obtained so they feel like they may be questioned too. Everything about Ford’s story should be out there for all to see and hear. All the contradictions should be emphasized.
And what is this thing about a party with only 4 guys? I would push for specifics on every word out of her mouth. I would ask her husband the grounds for the marital therapy. I still don’t believe a word of this. Anyone who supports her should be put through the wringer. And the Dems should learn that simple allegations will hurt them.
Thanks Aesop for the great collection of info. Andthanks to Book for picking up on the Romney timing.
Sounds like a sexual fantasy of her after watching the accused starring jodie foster
To become really repetitious…& really depressing & I half apologise for that.
This s–t is how we got Trump & this is the SSDD that will get him re-elected in 2020. AND this is the sort of s–t that will see someone somewhere start shooting. This has no happy ending at all.
After some research i discovered that the film the accused was in fact based on a rape case happened in 1983 in which a 21 yo woman was raped by coincidentally also 4 men in a bar which always involved dancing, loud music and an audience watching. I don’t know how well known the case was around the nation or if the alleged victim could have learned the news, could there be a connection? I am going to give her the benefit of doubt that she truly believes it had happened instead of a fabrication to derail the nomination, I know it is far fetched but could somehow a rape case she heard from the news in 1983 intrigued her enough to form sexual fantasies in her mind that had messed up her brain and became segments of memory that she believes truly had happened to her…
The Democratic Party of the USA, its cohorts and supporters, has become the party of The Big Lie.
(And the party of the—even Bigger—Cover-Up…which is, of course, merely another manifestation of the Big Lie.)
This is nothing new.
They will stop at nothing.
(Nothing new here, either.)
And in their hysterical, shameless—and disgusting—abuse of what they consider “morality”, “ethics” and “responsibility”, they have consciously decided to emulate the tyrannous, intimidating, threatening and murderous “isms” of the 20th Century and the bloody revolutions that preceded them.
Such that those who do not fall into line, and who do not adopt the glorious narrative—the sacred party line—are Enemies of the People, people who must (for the sake of “morality) be demonized absolutely; ultimately, such people will have lost their right to exist.
The writing is on the wall.
It has been there for some time.
If DiFI held this since July
If the FBI didn’t feel this was worth pursuing
If the woman told her story to the press
Then why do some senators feel the need to hear more? (CYA)
Title IX comes to the Senate.
If Grassley-and-Committee don’t proceed with the nomination as scheduled, the Republicans will lose an untold number of votes in November 2018, due to them being perceived, correctly, as a gang of gutless wonders, trembling-scared to do, without excuse, what the other side will do as a matter of course without apology.
They will lose more votes as a result of that perception, than the Democrats will gain because of any issue with the Kavanaugh nomination, given that the Democrat side is already foaming at the mouth.
To add to all of the above information, I had a relative by marriage who told blatant lies, and once she’d told them a few times I’m sure she could have passed a lie detector test. She came to believe her own fantasies.
Now that the woman’s name is out there, memories of what she was like in the high school years are going to emerge. This may not be pretty.
Well, Neo, the comments section of this post should be required reading for every Republican Senator this morning. And now we have the information that Judge Kavanaugh’s mother was the judge in a foreclosure case involving the Potomac, Md. home of Ford’s parents! See the links at Instapundit right now. Sheesh!
David Bernstein wrote the following comment on Instapundit. He makes a very important point, that the letter was intentionally misleading on a critical point, and Sen. Feinstein may have fallen for it.
Here is the whole comment:
“COULD THIS BE WHY SENATOR FEINSTEIN DIDN’T PURSUE FORD’S ALLEGATIONS UNTIL THE BITTER END? It’s possible that it was a purely tactical decision. But now that I’ve read the letter Ford wrote to Feinstein about Kavanaugh,[https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/16/politics/blasey-ford-kavanaugh-letter-feinstein/index.html] one line stuck out: “I have received medical treatment regarding the assault.” Reading that, I would naturally think that the writer saw some sort of medical doctor about the assault within some short time frame after the assault. If I were on Feinstein’s staff, I would have contacted her and asked if she could provide any reasonably contemporaneous medical records. The answer, “Well, I brought it up at a couples therapy session 30 years later, without mentioning Kavanaugh’s name, and I also mentioned it to a personal therapist the following year” isn’t what we normally mean by “receiving medical treatment” after an assault.
“If the letter had been released, the first question from Republicans would have been about this “medical treatment.” Psychological counseling many years later, yes. Medical treatment, no. And Ford’s a psychology professor, so the difference shouldn’t be that obscure. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t plausible explanations for why she used the phrase “medical treatment” that would not undermine her credibility. But I am saying that if you allege sexual assault in the distant past against a Supreme Court nominee, and you claim in writing to have undergone medical treatment as a result of the assault, but you never saw a medical doctor, and didn’t even see a therapist for thirty-three years, a Senator might not want to stake her reputation on your claim.”
The problem with Republicans like Flake and Corker is they still believe the Democrats do any of this in good faith. And at this point, I don’t trust the Dems to do anything in good faith. After all they have seen and know, they’re either still naive or too stuck in the swamp.
@Melissa and others. Flake and Corker have a slightly different idea, that if they take what they think is the reasonable high road that it will get reported widely enough to be noticed by the general public. It will not. It will only be noticed by the conservative press, which will include many people comparing them to Charlie Brown kicking the football again.
If they didn’t take the high road, that would get reported.
I think they are trying to play to the popular history books by people trying to explain what happened writing ten years from now. That’s likely narcissistic of them. They may not even get a mention.
Republican voters logic bewilders me, why would they not come out to vote in record numbers to retaliate the despicable democrats if the nomination get delayed due to democrats play dirty? Just because we have some enemy assisting turncoats on our side we will punish and obstruct republicans and president trump even further by not showing up, makes no sense. Stop acting self righteous by using your valuable vote as some imaginary self serving demonstration of principles, play to win, making sure democrats don’t get rewarded for their dirty schemes should be the number one priority, I don’t care if rinos get benefited somehow as the biproduct.
With any luck THIS will finally get the Republican base engaged in the 2018 midterms.
As many of the posters above point out if the vote doesn’t proceed as planned there seems little chance for the base to care about who wins or loses.
If the Senate Republicans won’t fight why bother voting for them.
According to reports, student’s who have taken the accuser college professor’s classes say things in their ratings like they are “scared of her,” that she is “dark” and “mad,” and they warn other students not to take any of her classes or interact with her; to just stay away from anything to do with her.
Reports are that the accuser spent this past weekend erasing her social media presence from the web, to make an evaluation of her political beliefs hard to do.
There is also a story out today that says that Kavanaugh’s mother–also a judge–was the judge in the accuser’s mother’s home foreclosure case.
Kavanaugh’s accuser sounds like a real far Left whack job, who probably relishes her role in trying to derail and stop Kavanaugh’s nomination.
You might also recall what happened a couple of decades ago, when some psychiatrist’s interest in the fad of “repressed/recovered memory” of supposed past sexual assaults destroyed quite a few accused people’s lives, and sent some innocent people to jail, some for decades.
This vague accusation–according to reports, she doesn’t remember exactly where, she doesn’t remember exactly when, and she never reported it at the time–is almost certainly just a fabrication.
This is an important test for the Republicans. These extreme political maneuvers by Democrats continue because they have worked. However, when personal attacks like this happen to a Democrat they circle the wagons to protect their own.
This is what happens when Trump replaces a swing vote with a judge of great character. I hope all Republicans recognize that this is a dress rehearsal for what will happen when Trump has the opportunity to replace the first liberal justice.
Collapse now and the next nomination will make this one pale by comparison.
Looked at the headline of the story and, then, actual samples of her student’s ratings. The headline said that a rating called her “mad.” I didn’t see this, although I did seen one rating that used the phrase “method to her madness.”
However, I did see another rating in which one of her student’s expressed the opinion that there was “something wrong with her,” and his/her surprise that someone hadn’t caught on to this.
See the news item here: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/09/kavnaugh-accuser-is-unhinged-liberal-professor-who-former-students-describe-as-dark-mad-scary-and-troubled/
via Instapundit again:
If you’ve lost Susan Collins…
https://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/406952-collins-knocks-democrats-over-handling-of-kavanaugh-assault?__twitter_impression=true
“Collins questioned why Democrats had waited for weeks to come forward with the allegation, arguing it wasn’t “fair” to either Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s.
“What is puzzling to me is the Democrats, by not bringing this out earlier, after having had this information for more than six weeks, have managed to cast a cloud of doubt on both the professor and the judge,” Collins told The New York Times.
Collins asked if Democrats believed Ford, “why didn’t they surface this information earlier,” and if they didn’t believe Ford, “why did they decide at the 11th hour to release it?”
“It is really not fair to either of them the way it is was handled,” Collins said. “
White male NeverTrumpers should understand that they are in the crosshair as well, their political careers are just as over as Trump supporting conservatives. When Pence runs for President, they will still be able to find some women who had crossed path with him to make accusations against him, no one is safe.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/406982-kavanaugh-says-hes-willing-to-testify-on-womans-allegation
“Kavanaugh in a new statement called the woman’s accusation a “completely false allegation.”
“This is a completely false allegation. I have never done anything like what the accuser describes—to her or to anyone,” Kavanaugh said. “Because this never happened, I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself yesterday.”
The federal judge said he would speak to the Judiciary panel “in any way the committee deems appropriate” in order to “defend my integrity.”
Kavanaugh was spotted by television cameras walking to the White House shortly before his statement was released.
It is the latest sign the White House is digging in as his nomination has been thrown into turmoil.”
* * *
A couple of thoughts before I read any more new reports.
“Digging in” is the only expedient thing to do, and the Left / Dems have repeatedly demonstrated its efficacy. Many people have noted that they always circle the wagons around their people, regardless of the allegations (unless they have an ulterior motive for discarding them — #MeToo sacrifices of men no longer powerful enough or politically useful come to mind).
The Left knows that they can hammer any negative stories into submission, after enough time (see above on the shift in “I believe her” about Anita Hill).
They know the Right does not have the media power or political will to keep hammering the negatives (because we are the Party of Gentlemen and Ladies, not bar-room brawlers).
They will attack anyone to the right regardless of moral probity — look what they did to Mitt Romney (having no woman willing to bring forward an accusation of sexual misconduct against Mr. Clean, they went with “women in binders” and actually got some traction out of the story!).
[subparagraph on Romney – since they could not credibly accuse him of any real moral failings, they simply made things up; when that didn’t get enough reaction to swing Independents, they shifted to “he’s not the kind of guy I want to have a beer with” — yeah, Mormons don’t drink AT ALL is not important here — and then complained when the Right went with a populist glad-handing snake oil salesman (who is also a teetotaler for other reasons) — they use whatever attack gets a response.]
Digging is is the right thing to do – hit them back (without savaging Ford and making her more sympathetic; a “more in sorrow than anger” approach is warranted) – but destroy Pelosi and the Dem apparatchiks in the media.
PS say what you will about Nixon, his “Checkers Speech” salvaged his political career.
“Part of getting a degree in psychology is going through analysis. One would think that, even if, as a shy 15-year-old, Ford was too afraid to go public with her charge against Kavanaugh, when she went through psychoanalysis on her way to her degree, she would have spoken about this alleged assault, especially because she says it traumatized her for years”
If I remember correctly, her PhD is not in Psychology but a related field. She may not have gone through analysis but I am sure a GOP staffer is looking into it.
Without conceding that we need to support conservative politicians who have demonstrable moral failings of a serious and pervasive nature, we need to take a closer look at WHY the Dem-Left playbook works.
They dismiss overt violence, including rape and murder, by their favored victim groups.
They excuse and condone sexual impropriety and worse by their political allies.
They excoriate and condemn the smallest failing of their political enemies.
They obfuscate the complaints against their side and magnify those against the other.
This works because they never admit their people did anything wrong (“Hillary was never indicted”) or, if well and truly caught out or legally judged guilty, they drop the matter until enough time has passed they can lie the subjects back into exoneration (preferably by using movies which they can manipulate for dramatic emphasis; see “Truth” about the Rather & the Memo).
Conservatives just don’t DO that sort of thing, and I don’t argue that we should if the accused are actually in the wrong about a serious situation, but can’t we at least circle the wagons for the innocent, and rail against all irrelevant charges with more committed fervor??
The Left can’t even keep their stories straight on their own side.
PS – has anyone seen any indication of HOW Ronan Farrow got the redacted information from Feinstien’s* letter before even the FBI? He was interviewing the accuser and alleged participant before most people knew the letter existed.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/35928/soon-yi-previn-dismisses-woody-allen-sexual-amanda-prestigiacomo
Dylan Farrow said: “I have a message for the media and allies of Woody Allen: No one is ‘parading me around as a victim’ — I continue to be an adult woman making a credible allegation unchanged for two decades, backed up by evidence.”
* * *
*I said Pelosi earlier — tomato, tomahto.
Something I missed the first time around.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2018/09/16/so-the-anonymous-kavanaugh-accuser-reveals-herself/#comment-2398969
“And here’s another odd but meaningful detail: The Washington Post says that Ford confided her lurid tale to its reporters at the same time that she alerted Sen. Feinstein–that is, in July. So both the Post and Feinstein sat on the story for nearly three months, only to reveal it after Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings wound up but just in time to derail the full Senate vote scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 20.
I wonder if that means yet another Montgomery County connection. I’m sure a number of Posties live out there.”
* * *
Yep – she’s right.
This explains how the Post had time to get therapist’s notes, a polygraph test, and an interview all done between the breaking story on Wednesday 9/13 and this article THREE DAYS LATER (and they complained about the speed with which Kavanaugh rallied his friends in support).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/california-professor-writer-of-confidential-brett-kavanaugh-letter-speaks-out-about-her-allegation-of-sexual-assault/2018/09/16/46982194-b846-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html?utm_term=.3034ac902bc0
“She contacted The Post through a tip line in early July, when it had become clear that Kavanaugh was on the shortlist of possible nominees to replace retiring justice Anthony M. Kennedy but before Trump announced his name publicly. A registered Democrat who has made small contributions to political organizations, she contacted her congresswoman, Democrat Anna G. Eshoo, around the same time. In late July, she sent a letter via Eshoo’s office to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
In the letter, which was read to The Post, [when??] Ford described the incident and said she expected her story to be kept confidential. She signed the letter as Christine Blasey, the name she uses professionally. “
This was a good article from the blogger Instapundit linked to, and has some bearing on the case. What if Kavanaugh just didn’t ask permission and didn’t call the next day? When any man can be hauled up on rape charges for kissing without a permit, who knows what (if anything) happened that has blossomed over 30 years in Blasey’s mind into something that STILL isn’t rape.
https://blogstupidgirl.wordpress.com/2018/09/11/old-affirmative-consent-ask-permission-at-every-step-of-sex-new-affirmative-consent-you-have-to-call-the-next-day-too/
“Now, my reaction was: He might be only 24, but he’s quite the operator. For the price of four Ubers and a little PC lingo he picked up from the mandatory sexual-assault-prevention sessions he had to sit through in college, he’s finagled two complete booty calls with a hot older woman (that’s how 30 looks when you’re a guy that age) who doesn’t mind having instant sex with a complete stranger. And now he’s back on Tinder–but with a 22-year-old this time! Talk about a fig-balsamic reduction!
I have some ideas for Ms. Sender. Here’s one: You can lead a horse into your bedroom but you can’t make him call you the next day.
Here’s another: A “culture of care for the other person, of seeing and honoring another’s humanity and finding ways to engage in sex while keeping our humanity intact” used to be known as waiting until marriage. As the old Yiddish saying went, “no chuppah, no schtuppa.”
But that’s patriarchal repression of a woman’s sexuality, and we can’t have that.”
Mike K:
No, psychologists do not have to undergo analysis or even therapy. Psychoanalysts do have to undergo analysis.
Two different disciplines and types of training.
Scott Adams says that the Right and Left are watching two different movies.
Rosa Brooks is a poster child for that, although I appreciate the rationality of her response as a whole.
https://twitter.com/brooks_rosa/status/1041482381625122816
Rosa Brooks
?Tweet 9 of a bunch: And to all who say “well yes but the GOP would draw and quarter any Dem nominee with similar accusations against him,” you’re right, but why would Dems want to do the same things the GOP does?
Tweet 10 of a bunch: and to those who say, “But the GOP would not treat allegations of assault by a black teen as forgivingly,” I agree as well. But again, we shouldn’t conform to the bad behavior of others.
* * *
If everybody actually treated the other side the way they think their own side behaves (when it manifestly does not), then maybe we really could all just get along.
On Instapundit:
COULD THIS BE WHY SENATOR FEINSTEIN DIDN’T PURSUE FORD’S ALLEGATIONS UNTIL THE BITTER END? It’s possible that it was a purely tactical decision. But now that I’ve read the letter Ford wrote to Feinstein about Kavanaugh, one line stuck out: “I have received medical treatment regarding the assault.” Reading that, I would naturally think that the writer saw some sort of medical doctor about the assault within some short time frame after the assault. If I were on Feinstein’s staff, I would have contacted her and asked if she could provide any reasonably contemporaneous medical records. The answer, “Well, I brought it up at a couples therapy session 30 years later, without mentioning Kavanaugh’s name, and I also mentioned it to a personal therapist the following year” isn’t what we normally mean by “receiving medical treatment” after an assault.
If the letter had been released, the first question from Republicans would have been about this “medical treatment.” Psychological counseling many years later, yes. Medical treatment, no. And Ford’s a psychology professor, so the difference shouldn’t be that obscure. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t plausible explanations for why she used the phrase “medical treatment” that would not undermine her credibility. But I am saying that if you allege sexual assault in the distant past against a Supreme Court nominee, and you claim in writing to have undergone medical treatment as a result of the assault, but you never saw a medical doctor, and didn’t even see a therapist for thirty-three years, a Senator might not want to stake her reputation on your claim.
212 Posted at 1:49 am by David Bernstein
Just a further thought.
This episode is not unlike the Battle of the Bulge in WW II. The war is all but over. Kavanaugh’s confirmation is all but decided. Then the enemy throws everything it has at a single strategic point in a do-or-die effort to change the outcome.
In past posts I have made the comparison between Trump and George S. Patton in their modes of operation. Let us hope that my assessment of Trump’s military familiarity is accurate. After all, Patton came to the rescue at Bastogne because he realized that the war could still be lost. So far, Trump appears to be doing the same. Susan Collins, refusing to fold, is akin to Gen. Anthony McAuliff’s “Nuts!” response to offers of surrender. Let us hope that this engagement turns out the same way now as it did 74 years ago.
(n.B., Perhaps a sincere prayer for “good weather” would help. The second line of Patton’s prayer doesn’t even require modification: “Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.”
It’s not like people never lie about things.
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/crime/baldwin-false-hate-crime-arrest-1.21031288
“Baldwin woman fabricated story of teens yelling ‘Trump’ at her, police say
Adwoa Lewis admitted to writing a note that she said she found next to her slashed tire, police said.
…
Lewis told officers on Sept. 2 that four teens confronted her about 11:15 p.m. the previous day as she drove home on Jackson Street and told her “she didn’t belong here,” police said Saturday. Lewis also said the teens shouted “Trump will make America great again,” LeBrun said at the time.
Lewis told police that she found the note and slashed tire on her 2008 Toyota Prius parked in front of her house the next morning.
Police determined after an “extensive investigation” that Lewis’ story was fabricated, police said. When questioned about discrepancies in her story, Lewis admitted writing the note herself and placing it on her car.”
Some TwitBits – reading them so you don’t have to.
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2018/09/17/huge-if-true-kurt-schlichter-drops-the-mother-of-all-truth-bombs-on-christine-blasey-fords-credibility/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
(on the foreclosure connection from Kurt Schlichter – see supra)
Watch this be reframed as foreclosure as punishment, for resisting son’s advances.
…
Don’t give them any ideas.
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2018/09/17/the-plot-thickens-erick-erickson-points-out-wapo-story-contradicts-christine-fords-lawyer-ruh-roh/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
“From the Maven.net:
‘It is worth noting that Christine Ford’s first mention of Brett Kavanaugh came after the New York Times ran a story suggesting he could be on the Supreme Court if Mitt Romney were elected.’
They continued …
‘But beyond that, the story no longer adds up in real ways. Christine Ford’s lawyer claims Ms. Ford wanted anonymity and reached out to Dianne Feinstein privately. The Washington Post, however, reports that Ford first reached out to them via a tip line to tell her story.
Then, while still claiming to not want to come forward, Ford both lawyered up and got a polygraph.
She now claims she knew she would have to come forward because the media was working on stories and would expose her, but that comes full circle to her calling a tip line and outing herself.’
Spin spin.”
Republicans need to fight back with bigger and dirtier smears of Democrats. If they don’t, then the Democrats will smell weakness, and there will be no end to this kind of thing. First, there was the Steele dossier and the FBI conspiracy to impeach Trump. Now there’s the Kavanaugh smear.
So, here’s a concrete suggestion. Make a fake video of Dianne Feinstein and her Chinese chauffeur/spy having sex in the backseat of her limousine. All while DiFi whispers nuclear weapons secrets into his ear. Leak the video to a 1000 internet sources. Use the leak as justification for an investigation. Charge her with treason. Arrest her and jail her without bail. Lesson taught.
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2018/09/17/shocka-sen-dicky-durbin-just-accidentally-proved-timing-on-christine-blasey-fords-accusations-is-absolutely-political/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
“If you had any doubt as to whether or not Democrats deliberately sat on the accusations from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford against Brett Kavanaugh for political purposes, Sen. Dicky Durbin looking to stall her testimony should wipe all doubt AWAY.
‘John Berman
?
@JohnBerman
JUST NOW: @SenatorDurbin told me he supports public testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford…but this week would be too soon.’
They knew about these accusations.
For months.
While they cried they didn’t get the documents they needed to make a decision.
And now that they’ve leaked this woman’s name and her allegations they want to stall her testimony which would stall the vote … they are absolutely pathetic.”
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2018/09/17/womp-womp-david-frum-trips-spectacularly-over-feinstein-durbin-and-schumer-in-rush-to-paint-gop-as-complicit/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
Look at this nonsense:
David Frum
?
@davidfrum
We may never know the truth of what happened all those years ago. But we know now that the key decision -makers in the Kavanaugh nomination are all complicit in Trump’s own history of sexual abuse. How can they judge fairly? Me yesterday in @TheAtlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/kavanaugh/570409/ …
John McCormack shared a few inconvenient facts with David:
John McCormack
@McCormackJohn
Four Republicans on Judiciary—Lee, Sasse, Flake, Graham—did not vote for Trump.
Feinstein, Durbin, Schumer & Murray declined to investigate a public accusation of forcible rape—backed up by contemporaneous accounts— against sitting president in 1999. 1/2
No, the Democratic hypocrisy on Broaddrick is no reason to ignore Ford—allegation should be considered fairly. But if we’re judging senators’ ability to judge, this is a fair point. 2/2
Twitchy quoted most of Erickson’s post, but this commenter makes a good point, which is not new, but is becoming increasingly relevant.
https://www.themaven.net/theresurgent/erick-erickson/the-washington-post-story-contradicts-christine-ford-s-lawyer-AFLVa7hSNEKYwrAtuuMB1Q/
“DavidMKern
3 hrs
Now that a questionable accusation from decades ago about somebody Erick supports (Kavanaugh) has entered the picture, he finds it reasonable to question the accuser and to find fault in her story. But for Judge Moore or Trump, who Erick didn’t like, accusations that come out decades later were not to be challenged, and anybody who sought to do had unrighteous motives, placing politics above morality.
When you are dealing with a set of liberal politicians who will stop at nothing to keep their political agenda on track, it is not hard to find multiple witnesses willing to bring forth accusations of decades old sexual misconduct. If one witness isn’t enough to bring down Kavanaugh, I wouldn’t be surprised if others magically appear. Erick has written numerous posts about Democratic politicians willing to blatantly lie for political reasons, so false testimony about ancient sexual allegations is nothing new.
In Judge Moore’s case, Mo Brooks (who Erick greatly respects) didn’t find the evidence against Moore very credible:
Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks: Roy Moore accuser forged yearbook inscription, is ‘clearly a liar’
Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks said Tuesday that a woman who accused Republican nominee for US Senate Roy Moore of sexually assaulting her when…
http://www.cnn.com
“What you have is the mainstream leftwing socialist Democrat news media trying to distort the evidence to cause people to reach the conclusion that Roy Moore engaged in unlawful conduct with a minor and my analysis of the evidence is that is not the case,”
Erick is a big fan of the “rule of law,” as am I. But the “rule of law” doesn’t just assume somebody is guilty because an accuser (or accusers) come forth. Instead, it requires a trial to evaluate the evidence, allowing the accused to challenge the integrity of the witnesses. In Judge Moore’s case, the accusations were nearly 40 years old, and he had been happily married since 1985. But because Erick didn’t like Moore, he supported the movement to keep him out of the Senate and the accusations of Moore’s ancient sexual misbehavior never saw a trial.
I don’t know if Moore was guilty of sexual improprieties a long time ago. But the point of the “rule of law”, is that there was nothing like sufficient evidence to convict him, even if he was guilty. The same reasoning applies to Trump, who had a known track record of sexual immorality. But the rule of law doesn’t allow for an automatic conviction for a new crime because of a previous conviction. Rather, each accusation is to be evaluated on its own merits.
The “rule of law” only works if you have a society dedicated to the truth and committed to applying justice faithfully and without prejudice to all. The reality of our political world is that liberal Democrats* don’t seek to apply justice faithfully and without prejudice. If Erick didn’t have an intense dislike Moore and Trump, he would see that what the Kavanaugh accusations is just another example of liberal Democrats seeking to bring down political opponents with unprovable accusations of decades old sexual misconduct.”
* * *
My only quibble would be to strike “liberal” and substitute “many Republicans and most”
I’m beginning to think that Elon Musk should get out of Tesla and start developing body cams that can be implanted in all boys as soon as they can walk. Hillary would probably invest.
Some good comments on this one.
https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/christine-blasey-fords-collateral-damage/
“Trust a “psychologist” to wreak havoc with someone else’s family.
When Christine Blasey Ford finally surfaced her over three decades-old claim of sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh, when they were both teenagers, did she consider for a moment the affect of her accusation on Kavanaugh’s daughters, already escorted from the hearing room after witnessing their father being endlessly attacked by maniacs in the audience, not to mention Kavanaugh’s wife?
And how about the dozen girls the judge used to coach who came to the hearing? Originally thrilled to be so honored, how do you think they and their families now feel?
…
They are collateral damage, scarred on one level or another for life, just as Ford insists she was.
Perhaps that’s what she wants. Or perhaps she was blinded by her own narcissism augmented by political bias.”
this may be why she wanted to remain anonymous making her allegations.
Not saying that student reviews are always trustworthy (I used to get some humorously inept ones), but they are as credible as her complaints seem to be.
https://news.grabien.com/story-somethings-wrong-her-christine-fords-students-savage-her-rev
“More supportive students offered tempered praise.
“You know, she’s a tough cookie and may not be that personable, but I really like her as a professor and feel that I would enjoy taking her for another course in the future,” a student wrote in 2013. “Stay on her good side though and participate.”
The most positive review she received conceded that “her personality is polarizing” but said the class was still worthwhile. “
Kavanaugh and the White House are going to fight this. Good. He insists that he didn’t do this, ever, to this woman or anyone else.
IF this happened at all, her explanation for not telling her parents sounds valid. She was out drinking with upper classmen and she shouldn’t have been. She’d get grounded if she told them. But the idea that she never told anyone, if the incident happened as she described, is incredible. She had no girlfriends? She didn’t tell anyone that Brett and Mark were dangerous? Especially since I infer that Brett and Mark were “cool” guys whom she might have wanted to hang out with. I was once a teenaged girl, not very popular. I don’t believe this story.
AesopFan, Mo Brooks is the guy who should be the Senator from Alabama. I chalked that one up to McConnell who blocked Brooks in favor of Strange who was appointed in a corrupt deal with the Governor. Brooks, if not blocked from any donations, would have won the primary and not Moore, who had baggage and was a setup for the lies and slanders.
They used a literal forgery to shoot down the Roy Moore campaign in Alabama, which the accuser even bragged about being forged by adding an extra surname, date, and place to the signature.
The Democrats don’t even have to pretend they want anything but President Trump stopped and the USA that elected him destroyed, and not only will they get the support of over half the population, but a significant number of Republican politicians as well.
Kate:
The problem with relying too much on the fact that she didn’t tell girlfriends is that it is fairly easy to dig up a girlfriend who will suddenly say she told her. People on the left are motivated to do almost anything to stop Kavanaugh. Lying in order to stop what they think is a great evil (conservative control of SCOTUS) is justified, I believe, in many people’s minds, for the greater good.
Neo, “The problem with relying too much on the fact that she didn’t tell girlfriends is that it is fairly easy to dig up a girlfriend who will suddenly say she told her.” You’re right, and so this is likely to become an ugly high school cat fight, thirty-six years later. There are 65 women on record as saying Brett was never like this. Now that she’s identified herself, some of those women will remember her.
This would be an excellent reason for insisting on no delay. Let her testify tomorrow, when there’s not enough time to cook up the girlfriend story.
Steven Hayward quoting Ruchard Epstein at powerlineblog.com (“Richard Epstein Nails it”):
The link:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/richard-epstein-nails-it.php
I continue to be struck by the fact that Ms Ford attempted to scrub her entire social media history. Why did she not want us to know what people have said about her? Of course it’s not working, and the comments from students show that they thought her to be abnormal.
Capn Rusty, perhaps in her social media ramblings she has at some point made similar allegations about someone else, or a situation resembling her current accusations, which would undercut her current story.
Doens’t seem like the Democrats understand the word “backlash”.
Or the concept.
Or the dynamic.
(Even after November 2016.—Oh, but that was the Russians, wasn’t it?…)
Well, just maybe they need some instruction….
Kate on September 17, 2018 at 12:53 pm at 12:53 pm said:
This would be an excellent reason for insisting on no delay. Let her testify tomorrow, when there’s not enough time to cook up the girlfriend story.
* * *
Indeed.
Unless one is already waiting in the wings.
See precedent in re Anita Hill.
On the scrubbed social media: never tempt geek nerds — there is a way to find everything, even if it was missed by The Wayback Machine.
T on September 17, 2018 at 9:56 am at 9:56 am said:
This is an important test for the Republicans. These extreme political maneuvers by Democrats continue because they have worked. However, when personal attacks like this happen to a Democrat they circle the wagons to protect their own.
This is what happens when Trump replaces a swing vote with a judge of great character. I hope all Republicans recognize that this is a dress rehearsal for what will happen when Trump has the opportunity to replace the first liberal justice.
Collapse now and the next nomination will make this one pale by comparison.
* * *
Truer words were never spoken.
We shall soon see what Judge Kavanaugh has for a spine.
And a brain.
If he cannot face down and persuasively defeat these obviously defective allegations, maybe he isn’t the right man to hold the line on the Court.
Good summary, nothing new.
https://news.grabien.com/story-8-reasons-question-veracity-kavanaughs-accuser
This accusation is so obviously fake in so many ways, most of which already mentioned. I’ll just add this: The accusation was first developed in 2012 when Kavanagh’s name was first put out as a possible USSC nom by Romney (if he had won). He wasnt nominated then because Romney lost but he continued to sit on the second highest court in the land, unchallenged. Why?
How could she and her partisan handlers allow such a dangerous predator to sit on the second highest court?
Unless this all just about getting Trump, of course.
What this woman is doing is bad for women – as well as bad for poor Kavanaugh and the rest of humanity – but if what you really care about is women then you should care about how this casts a shadow on every accusation of sexual impropriety. Of course, if all you care about is getting Trump then the loss of credibility to women who have real accusations is just so much collateral damage.
Witness the fall of the American cult and empire. It’ll take awhile but as Daniel saw with Nebu, emperors and empires aren’t invulnerable.
A good way to have someone pass a lie detector test is to implant false memories. Which hypnosis therapy can do quite easily. Your human minds aren’t as difficult to control as you were led to believe.
This conditioning process can be broken by interrogators of course.
The Democrats don’t even have to pretend they want anything but President Trump stopped and the USA that elected him destroyed, and not only will they get the support of over half the population, but a significant number of Republican politicians as well.
I remember back in the primaries where the Alt Right boys came to tell us that we had to kiss the Trum ring else Demoncrats will destroy us. Some people here temporarily left to comment at Breitbart because their cognitive dissonance tolerance couldn’t handle any actual open discussions here.
Now that Trum is President, HRC will be in jail because we have someone with X temperament as President (though he does not have that temperament, that was just a fake out), the Leftist alliance is still destroying America. That hasn’t stopped. The obvious solution is we must bow our knees and kiss the Rings of even more Powerful megalomaniacs and totalitarian wannabes. That’ll work, right.
Human trash arrogant ignorant wannabe crusaders that have no understanding nor comprehension of what they face. Hearing American voters and ignorant former Democrats lecturing others about how they know how to fight the Leftist alliance when 6 years ago they were voting Hussein in, voting the Leftist alliance, and thought the traitors were the religious Amish luddite freaks in their nation, is like watching a Clown Show.