And speaking of Google and the algorithms it uses…
Just now I read that Brett Kavanaugh had issued a statement about the new accusations and the fact that he plans to fight them. I wanted to look at his exact words, so I Googled “Brett Kavanaugh statement” and then the filter that said to limit the selection to only the last hour.
The first page that came up was divided between Christine Blasey Ford’s statement that she will not let fear intimidate her into not testifying, and a petition signed by 900 Yale graduates saying they believe Christine. Not a thing about Kavanaugh’s statement.
So I went to page 2, and in the ten links there I found a single one to Kavanaugh’s letter. The link was to a Fox News story. But it contained only a few quotes.
I finally got to the full text of the letter by Googling one of the exact quotes from the Fox story. That made it much much easier, and there were several sources from which to choose. Here’s one, and this is a portion of it:
There is now a frenzy to come up with something—anything—that will block this process and a vote on my confirmation from occurring.
These are smears, pure and simple. And they debase our public discourse. But they are also a threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country. Such grotesque and obvious character assassination—if allowed to succeed—will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from service.
As I told the Committee during my hearing, a federal judge must be independent, not swayed by public or political pressure. That is the kind of judge I will always be. I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process. The coordinated effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out. The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out. The last-minute character assassination will not succeed.
I have devoted my career to serving the public and the cause of justice, and particularly to promoting the equality and dignity of women. Women from every phase of my life have come forward to attest to my character. I am grateful to them. I owe it to them, and to my family, to defend my integrity and my name.
He owes it to all of us.
ADDENDUM: And I think it’s very important to look back at this piece of history from twenty-seven years ago. It is very powerful:
The Duck (DuckDuckGo) is a much better search engine. I just checked and the actual statement is at the top link from redstate.com
I had a similar experience. I was looking up an old article I had read at the LAtimes about the effect of “green” power sources on the grid. The article was pretty even-handed i.e. pointed out real problems and Google did not have the link (after about 5 pages I gave up) but the Duck had it at the top.
See also the story about Googlers conspiring to tilt search engine results to thwart the President’s travel restrictions from terrorist dense countries.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/trump-news-google-employees-discussed-13283235
I saw the letter on Twitter in hard form but I can’t remember whose Twitter feed.
BTW, I don’t have a Twitter account and therefore do not “follow” or subscribe to anyone’s feed. I have favorites so I simply go to their feed directly each day when I have time. For instance, I go to Dan Bongino https://twitter.com/dbongino
Or I go to Ann Coulter https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/
Or Michelle Malkin https://twitter.com/michellemalkin
This deprives those Tweeters from having me in their statistics but I don’t need to be a statistic myself. I do not sign into YouTube when I browse videos or channels either. I use DuckDuckgo for searching.
I’ve been in IT for over 30 years and value my privacy because I have a good job.
I use ProtonVPN (free if you have ProtonMail) when I do need to login to anything serious.
I use Brave browser and have everything cleared when I exit. This means it is inconvenient for me and I have to remember passwords.
While I have a FB account and Instagram account, I use those lately purely for food and pictures of me and my daughters with only good friends.
The people employed IN THESE companies are privileged – don’t understand how privileged they are – don’t understand what dire circumstances they would find themselves if they implement their ideas or economic policies and do not understand much about life at all.
As a well rounded computer person who has grown my own vegetables, replaced everything in my house, played sports, hiked, backpacked, fished, etc, I find these people in these IT companies MORE dangerous than journalists because they aren’t even regulated the same. They simply alter what we see with no care.
Here is Kavanaugh’s letter
https://twitter.com/JoanieBaloney90/status/1044310295617982467
I second Bob’s suggestion to use DuckDuck go. I have to use google at work, but for my home computer I switched to DDG two years ago and it hasn’t let me down.
Or from a news person Shannon Bream’s twitter feed. The letter.
https://twitter.com/ShannonBream/status/1044283670650146816
Trouble is, the Brins and Zuckerbergs are uneducated geeks, who came up with (fairly obvious, in retrospect) ideas that made them impossibly wealthy. They are the equivalent of idiot savants. They have zero knowledge of the classical liberal arts (the classics of philosophy, history, economics, for example). They likely have never heard of the Weimar Republic.
They are know-nothings with incredible power over the Ignorati, which is our large majority.
I despise them and their products. Facebook? Pfaugh! Linked In? Not me. Google? I search knowing of their biases, their non-information, keep slogging until I finally find it.
But beware. These titans intend to bestride the earth, in company with tyrannical politicians.
This is how spin works as demonstrated by Neo’s link to CNBC for Kavanaugh’s letter:
“Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Monday lashed out at a report detailing a second allegation of sexual assault against him, calling the accusation “grotesque and obvious character assassination” and vowing not to withdraw his nomination.”
LASHED OUT — think of all the other wordings the writer could have used to describe a remarkably disciplined response to the slurs being thrown about him.
The Clarence Thomas hearings were the final straw that flipped me from D to R. Millions more will change because of the hearing this Thursday.
And I hope Judge Kavanaugh sues these people for libel. Clear case of actual malice.
Amazing Red surge for America
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-24/real-red-wave-republican-sentiment-soars-record-high
AesopFan,
And there is the MSM favorite, “Republicans pounce…”
OMG, it’s come to this
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408172-kavanaugh-i-was-a-virgin-through-high-school-and-college
Baklava:
Whoa! Too much information.
But that immediately disqualifies him from the Court, doesn’t it? 🙂
As someone elsewhere said, the guy’s practically Amish.
And now we’ll have women coming forward and saying he’s a liar because they slept with him in college. Soon the number will rival the number of my generation who claim to have been at Woodstock.
I will go on record as saying I was not at Woodstock, and I neither slept with nor was raped by Brett Kavanaugh, or anyone named “Brett” for that matter.
Maybe Neo, now people will realize how “conservative” he truly is and it is a disqualifier.
As for proving he is a liar – he has categorically denied being at the parties and categorically denied having sex. He has boxed himself in totally.
This is all too much but I relate to Brett. My virginity was had by a woman who was also a virgin and then I didn’t have sex for 3 years after that. I am Brett. My middle name is Brett. LOL
Fractal Rabbit on September 24, 2018 at 6:16 pm at 6:16 pm said:
AesopFan,
And there is the MSM favorite, “Republicans pounce…”
* * *
I wish John Hayward hadn’t gone to Twitter; I liked his snarky essays better.
However, you have to go with the pundits you have…
https://twitter.com/Doc_0
More John Hayward Retweeted CNN Breaking News
He “lashed out?” Wow, what a brute. Keep an eye on him and let us know if it looks like he might “pounce,” okay? Republicans are prone to pouncing.
More
Allow me to burst any dream bubbles that might be floating out there: if the Dems are able to kill the Kavanaugh nomination with this bullshit, there will not be a confirmation before the midterm, during the lame duck, or probably during the rest of Trump’s presidency.
5h5 hours ago
More
The Dems are not going to say, “Well, I guess we’d better play fair with the squeaky-clean conservative dreamboat Trump named instead of Kavanaugh.” No, it won’t matter if the nominee is female, minority, etc.
More John Hayward Retweeted Noah Rothman
I cannot comprehend the mindset of anyone that thinks a successful hyper-Borking of Kavanaugh would be followed by Dems agreeing to a rushed confirmation of a more conservative pick. At that point Dems would have total control of the process and would not relinquish it.
Baklava on September 24, 2018 at 6:26 pm at 6:26 pm said:
OMG, it’s come to this
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408172-kavanaugh-i-was-a-virgin-through-high-school-and-college
* * *
I can already hear the doubters laughing, but I know quite a number of men who can make this claim, and women as well. It’s not all that uncommon in some groups (mostly religious), although it seems to have been rare at both of the high schools in question back in the eighties, according to their yearbooks.
The closing episode of “West Wing” ended up with almost all of the principals of the cast, unmarried Democrats in the show, pairing off for the night after the election of their candidate.
And the real Democrats wondered who were all of those “moral majority” people who kept electing Republicans.
Well, Mr. Trump stressed the relationship, but can anyone doubt that at least Republicans have moral principles that can be stressed?
Thank you neo for that video of Justice Thomas’ rebuttal. It was indeed powerful stuff. I watched Thomas’ facial language, especially the eyes. They were the eyes of an innocent man, holding on to his justifiable outrage tightly. He was also prescient in his opining that his unconscionable treatment demonstrated that something profoundly wrong had emerged in America’s discourse and politics.
I want to go on record that if Kavanaugh is the father he thinks he is now is the moment to fight like a tiger.
Do not back down.
Or a bear. Choose your totem animal.
Cornhead: “And I hope Judge Kavanaugh sues these people for libel. Clear case of actual malice.”
Kavanaugh is a public person and it’s hard for such people to sue successfully. Plus, he’ll be busy on the Supreme Court. But Mark Judge is a private person, and I hope he will consider suing the socks off some of these liars.
J. Thomas’s statement is the gold standard for backbone, forthrightness, passion under tight control, and–yes–dignity.
Clarence Thomas was great. He’s probably, however, a much better speaker than Kavanaugh, from what I have seen. We’ll see how this week goes.
So far, 2 accusers, 0 first-hand corroborating witnesses. The intensive search might now turn to corroboration. Surely they can turn up a witness or two with fuzzy memories to match the fuzzy memories of the accusers?
Or not.
Uncorroborated hearsay will do fine for postmodernist mobs, but is it enough to swing the vote of a blue state RINO?
> Bob and physicsguy
Using DuckDuckGo.
Switched to Duck Duck Go a couple of weeks ago, after I started to strongly suspect that Google was censoring the returns I got from my searches.
“This is a high-tech lynching”
Boy, does that bring back memories! I remember the circus that he went through and everything he said was so well put; but, that phrase – “a high-tech lynching” – stuck with me because it is so accurate a description.
And, I think we are witnessing another “high-tech lynching”!
I am hoping that there are many people who–viewing this whole attempted death by a thousand cuts attack on Kavanaugh–realize that what they are trying to do to him they can do to anybody.
An accusation that, some decades ago–the accuser is not sure exactly where it was, or when, but they’ve just recently remembered that it happened–someone did something awful to them can be mis-remembered, fantasized, fabricated and thrown at anyone, particularly in this hysterical, leftist-generated atmosphere–with the accused having little chance of proving such an accusation wrong.
The accused could be your husband or wife, it could be your son or daughter, it could be you, and the only thing that prevents such witch hunts is the law, legal procedures, and standards for evidence.
Sweep those laws aside, eliminate those procedures and standards for evidence, and we are at the mercy of whoever cries out and points a finger, no matter how mistaken, deranged, or malicious they might be.
I just hope this realization occurs to a lot of people, and they vote this November, and thereafter, to stop the Left and Democrats from making a lynch mob, baying for blood our “new normal.”
I got sucked into watching almost every minute of the hearings. When Justtice Thomas said “high tech lynching” I yelled and cheered. A great moment.
Its terrible that the lying left wing media has distorted what really happened.
For those who believe that all women should be believed, that men are guilty until proven innocence in cases of sexual assault, that women would never lie about it, I have two words: Emmett Till.
Just for the record, sex, per se, is neither moral nor immoral. In Brett Kavanagh, I see someone who was a very intelligent young man, and as is common among such gifted persons, he was probably a little behind his peers in social development. I do not find it surprising for such a person to begin being sexually active a little later than the average.
Not that it is any of our business to know or care about something that should be a private matter. So long as he has not broken any laws, and I do not think he has, none of this should have any bearing on his confirmation.
I’m hoping that the Democrat/Left’s full, Salem witch trial mode behavior is pushing more and more former Democrats to see the light and just “#Walkaway.
P.S.–Is Hawaii’s Democrat Senator Mazie Hiruno, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in contention for the dumbest member of Congress award?
It seemed like she noticed that all sorts of Lefties–inside Congress and out–were making more and more outrageous statements about Kavanaugh, and about just ignoring the Rule of Law, and Constitutional protections if the accused were male, so she stepped up to the microphone and tried to top those statements, to position herself to the Left of the leftmost statement she had heard.
Apparently, according to Hiruno, whenever a woman accuses them of sexual assault, all men are automatically guilty. It’s apparently in men’s DNA.
Said Hiruno, “I just want to say to the men in this country, just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change.”
And she succeeded. Yea her!
Lee on September 25, 2018 at 6:24 am at 6:24 am said:
For those who believe that all women should be believed, that men are guilty until proven innocence in cases of sexual assault, that women would never lie about it, I have two words: Emmett Till.
* * *
It’s not only women who lie for political reasons.
Check into the story of Leo Frank.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leo-Frank