The allegations escalate
Now we have the promised gang-rape allegations from a woman who went to Avenatti (Stormy Daniels’ lawyer) with allegations that Kavanaugh and Mark Judge ran or were participants in a gang rape ring in high school. Drudge has the link; you can read it yourself.
This woman didn’t see fit to report it till now, despite the extreme seriousness of the charges. Nor did anyone else, strangely enough. She says there were tons of people involved (but names no one except Kavanaugh and Judge), and lines of young men waiting to rape the inebriated women. And yet, crickets until now. And none of this, of course, was uncovered during Kavanaugh’s long previous career or in the FBI background checks. But that’s a mere detail, right? Surely this woman is telling the truth?
That was sarcasm on my part, of course. I also wonder whether many people on the left will believe this one, or whether they’ll just use it as a tool to try to shame the GOP into delaying the vote or Kavanaugh into withdrawing. Or perhaps they just want some of their voters to believe it, to help the Democratic masses get all fired up to take control of Congress from those gang-rapist-protecting Republicans.
The more outrageous the charges the better, for those purposes. Once you establish your sacred assumptions—for example, that women never lie, or that all Republicans are scum—any accusation is not only credible but true.
Needless to say, this is a pernicious, destructive, vile game. But the left sees it as a winning one. It’s been played before, in different forms. The Salem witth trials keep being mentioned, but I think that’s an insult to those who participated in that sad and terrible episode in American history for the simple reason that I think that in Salem the accusers were hysterical girls who believed in the apparitions they imagined to be bewitching them. It was a form of mass hysteria, although the consequences were extremely grave and included execution for those they accused.
This, on the other hand, is more akin to the blood libel, and even more to the Soviet show trials (minus the “trials” part, because none of this would ever support a court case). It is a test of our entire society. I hope we don’t fail that test.
[ADDENDUM: John Kass agrees:
But look deeper and you’ll see something else.
The sweeping away of traditions that have been carefully nurtured from the founding of this nation, to protect individual liberty and shield us from the passions of the mob.
Without these principles, we are no longer a republic.
And Kass wrote that before this latest accuser came out.]
[NOTE: This essay is worth reading, as well, as is this one by Victor Davis Hanson, who says we are in Orwell’s dystopia.
I also recommend this essay.]
I think at least some of these accusers are hysterical/crazy, like the girls (and men and women) in the Salem Witch Trials. Politics is the grain fungus/ergot poisoning of our times. Of course, the people who are exploiting these sad ladies are pure evil and committing blood libel for personal and political gain.
When you live in a world of hyperbole (Leftists do), it can’t help but become absurd. I saw this slippery slope long ago even with regards to the establishment of labor laws addressing sexual harrassment in the workplace. Who couldn’t know it would eventually devolve into “he said, she said”, because apart from improper speech/conduct that could be proven with witnesses (and now surveillance apparatus) what was to be gained? Even with those laws, look at the real (and supposed) breaches that went on and surfaced only years later. And why years later apart from it suddenly being deemed advantageous to address it?
Earl Warren and his coven made their pals in the press almost immune from defamation suits (indubitably knowing full well that the newspapers had no interest in defaming appellate judges and would not do so). In a just world, Mark Judge would own Michael Avenatti’s house by this time next year.
IMHO, what we are seeing here is the fallout of a large segment of a majority political group (Democrats), a goodly number to whom the 10 commandments are of no consequence. When bearing false witness, theft, covetousness, on and on (although the sin of adultery comes and goes according to circumstantial usefulness–hard to keep up with that one) fail to inform behaviour we end up where we are. I’ve heard people call our times a “post-Christian” society. No…we are a “post 10 commandments” society. Even 20 years ago, the average person understood what “theft” is whether or not one was affiliated with a religion. Today various forms of theft seem to be okay even among many people professing faith, not to mention adultery, etc etc.
one of these liars must be set an example for. Only reason why these liars could audaciously make up these false allegations is because there is no fear of facing any consequences even when their lies were exposed, that needs to be changed.
Only way to cut off the source of willing participants to make false claims for democrats is if Avenatti’s client should go to jail for life. I don’t care if the left claims harsh punishments for false claims would deter real victims from reporting, I don’t care, as a man to me false rape accusations is as big a concern as sexual assault to women, what makes the feminists think the laws should cater to the women in the expense of men and put the protection of women against assaults ahead of the protection of men against false accusations? Why should men become the second rated citizens and have our rights take a backseat to the women’?
When you falsely accuse someone of participating in a gang rape you should get the punishment of if you are the gang rapist, it is that simple.
Art Deco:
Kavanaugh probably can’t sue successfully because of Sullivan, but I see no reason why Mark Judge couldn’t sue. He was never a public figure before. He wrote a few books, but that didn’t make him a public figure.
Things will not look pretty if Men began to believe they became the oppressed class, If the moderate GOP isn’t willing to fight, men will vote in the most extreme right wingers to fight for them to force a change of the pendulum.
“lines of young men waiting to rape the inebriated women”
When I read that it brought to mind the scene from the movie Airplane where everyone lines up to slap the hysterical woman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNkpIDBtC2c
Gang rape is serious, but these accusations are so blatantly ludicrous, they expose the left for their hypocritical subversion of a brutal crime.
Women should be outraged that the Democrats have so cravenly diminished real violence against women and reduced it to a joke.
Every once in awhile I reflect that “The center cannot hold” and we’re all living in Yeat’s’ world. But it never quite comes to that. Courage.
I find it very hard to believe that, were these allegations of depraved and criminal conduct on the part of a judge’s son when he was in his teens true, rumors would not have swirled around him during his lengthy career in D.C.
This will never top until some of these accusers are made to pay a price.
Ultimately, the sort of hysteria of denunciation the Democrats are fostering and enabling, if not actually causing, results in a reaction.
Somehow, I don’t think the backlash to this will be a civilized as the ‘have you no sense of decency’ reaction to McCarthy, perhaps 9 Thermidor will serve as the model.
Worse, if they get away with it this time, it will get worse until we have our own 18 Brumaire….
I don’t think even the Senate Democrats actually believe these stories. How could they? This latest is more preposterous than the others.
I wish Mark Judge would sue the socks off these people.
” … even more to the Soviet show trials …”
Avenatti even bears a resemblance to that other feral, conscienceless, opportunistic fanatic, Lenin.
I think it’s pretty obvious that most Democrats in the U.S. have adopted a Krylenko-ist theory of law, and apply it in therms of the Marxist concept of class enemies.
It represents a move toward a kind of moral autism; which seems to me to be possible only under conditions of some other preexisting psychological – or even epistemological if you might prefer – derangement. It is as othershave mentioned before, a murderous will-to-power mentality gone wild, and become unmoored from any objective reality or sense of restraint.
I agree that Mark Judge should sue the crap out of these people, the lawyers and their clients.
“Avenatti even bears a resemblance to that other feral, conscienceless, opportunistic fanatic, Lenin.”
Yup. He looks like a shaved rat.
He’s $10 mill in debt so it’s a dry hole but presumably he’s got insurance.
Quite clearly a highly planned and well coordinated attack.
Hold the hearing on Thursday and then the Committee vote on Friday. Delaying any further will not change the outcome. If Flake, Collins, Murkowski, Sasse, and Corker aren’t deeply offended by this attack and persuaded of it’s falsity, then they never will.
If Kavanaugh is not confirmed and returns to his current judicial position, the Democrats have got to proceed with impeachment, do they not? Are any of them suggesting or demanding that?
America is such a weird country, why couldn’t a public figure sue someone for lying about him? it makes no sense, public figures reputation is their most invaluable asset but somehow that is the only damage there is no recourse for them to take when this invaluable asset is being destroyed by a orchestrated smear campaign? so only average joe can sue someone for libel? whose reputation is basically worthless?
Someone needs to threaten to prosecute Avenatti’s client to make her say the democrats and Avenatti made her say it.
This Mark Judge guy, the one whose main picture online looks like he’s parading around in a Diderot turban, (probably just a hat) is likely someone whose life would not bear too close inspection. He seems fully to be one of those who wish to leverage, dramatize, and dine off of his schooldays. The kind of character who is either something of an attention seeking fabulist himself, or was the kind of heedless hungry for fun and acceptance kid who would jump with both feet into a pool at the first opportunity; not caring just where or upon whom he landed … like some crappy scene out of one of those contemporaneous party house moves of the same era.
I would not trust him, based on what has been revealed so far.
He’s probably not going to sue anyone. How can one defame him, given the ammunition he has handed to anyone looking for it?
This whole mess could be easily sorted out if ALL the Republican senators voted to accept Kavanaugh. The four wobbly Repubs are encouraging bad behavior which will set up the next nomination fiasco.
DNW:
Mark Judge also has admitted to having been an alcoholic and having had blackouts, so that would make it harder for him to deny the accusations successfully, although not impossible. He was apparently chosen because he admits to alcoholism and blackouts in his books, and he knew Kavanaugh. Those things helped the accusers form the narrative, IMHO.
He is not, however, a public figure—or he wasn’t before this, which at least makes it theoretically easier for him to sue because the bar is lower for proving defamation. But I agree that I don’t think he’ll sue. That may be why this accuser gave her name.
Many folks around me here in my California college town, do, I think, see the ends justifies the means in this Kavanaugh case. That is how serious they perceive the threat Trump poses to their world.
To them any slowdown, moratorium, or rollback of the perceived gains the progressive movement has given us are seen as a direct threat.
They see Republicans and Trump supporters as stupid, evil and unworthy of respect.
I agree with the opinion that Judge has been named as co-conspirator in these accusations specifically because he’s written about his problems with alcohol. I know nothing else about him. It used to be that people who strive to overcome and do overcome serious problems like this were admired. But it is typical of leftists that while they claim to be “for the people” they don’t consider the rights and dignity of any actual people who might get in their way or who can be used.
We will lose the test this time, I pretty much lost hope. The left is always 10 steps ahead of the republicans, the republicans insist on playing the game the losing way. However, in the long run the republicans have shown in history that they can adapt and implement the left’s latest gameplans into their playbook, just as they learned from the Clarence Thomas confirmation battle and use the same tactics against Bill Clinton. Battle
Neo, thank you for the link to Mr. Ben Moshe; I will henceforth refer to all of these attacks on Judge Kavanaugh as Denunciations.
As for the Greek Chorus demanding an Official FBI Investigation (Biden’s former advice to the contrary notwithstanding), J. E. Dyer reminds us why they believe the FBI is Their Friend.
(Somehow this whole affair screams out for Capitalized Nouns.)
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/09/26/why-are-dems-so-hot-for-an-fbi-probe-of-kavanaugh-allegations-joe-biden-could-tell-them-they-dont-need-one/
“So what is this passion for an FBI investigation about? We could speculate in various ways. It seems pretty thin to imagine that all these people just really, really want the FBI to type up an official report acknowledging that unadjudicable allegations have been made about 35-to-36-year-old events, for which the details are unclear and there are no witnesses, and which the FBI therefore has no means to determine anything more about.
One possibility does present itself, mere months after learning that Fusion GPS, being paid first by Hillary Clinton and the DNC and then by dark-money donors, pumped opposition research into the FBI through Christopher Steele and DOJ official Bruce Ohr.
Worth considering the implications, although we can’t know. We don’t know if media reporters might play a similar role, as they apparently did in feeding the FBI information about Paul Manafort’s storage locker. (The media seem to have been pretty active already in seeding the anti-Kavanaugh narrative.)
Maybe it’s something else. But at this point, it’s legitimate to harbor skepticism about the motive for a bizarrely insistent demand — and ask the question.”
Has this all been scripted, like a play by Euripedes about the Furies and the Maenads (thanks for that post, Neo)? — of course.
But our current Greek Chorus does more than just comment on the action on-stage; they create it.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/09/25/yale-classmate-of-kavanaugh-tells-limbaugh-show-reporters-contacted-me-tried-to-cue-me-give-them-dirt/
“CALLER: They’re trying to get dirt on him. I’ve had this happen once over the summer, and the person who called — the reporter — in the middle of the summer, when I wasn’t able to give her any dirt, she started to lead me, just like leading the witness. She started suggesting terrible things that I should say about him, and when I wasn’t able to do that she started leading me down the road. “Can I say anything negative about the groups that he participated in, you know, the clubs that he was a part of while he was at Yale?” Again, I wouldn’t say anything negative about them as well. I didn’t have anything negative to say but he was really offended. The reporters are calling me, of all people, to get negative things to come up with, and it really makes me suspicious that these women who are coming forward have had something similar to them done to them as well, that somebody’s leading them and spurring them on and urging them.“
According to her affidavit this woman contributed to the delinquency of minors on multiple occasions, as well as the absurdity of continuing to attend these parties while knowing what to expect. How many adult females do you know who attend high school drinking parties?
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/26/cowardly-republicans-grant-a-false-premise/
By Angelo Codevilla| September 26th, 2018
“The logic of a premise will drag you to its conclusion. When Senate Republicans accepted the premise that Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh was a legitimate personal complaint rather than a political maneuver orchestrated by the Democratic Party, they placed themselves in the grips of a logic leading them through bargaining about how to accommodate her as he was dogged by a nationwide campaign of personal and political vilification.
The logic’s next step is likely to come Thursday, when Ford does not show at the Judiciary Committee hearing amidst renewed Democratic and media accusations of a litany of sins by now all too familiar.
Republicans will be left with the same option they had when the Democrats first brought up their last-minute landmine—to press ahead with confirmation. But by accepting a premise they knew was false, they energized the Democrats’ constituencies and dispirited their own.
They embarrassed themselves by volunteering to be played for suckers, as well as looking callous toward victims of sexual assault. Brilliant.”
* * *
I’m not sure what the Republicans could have done differently in the beginning, that would not immediately lose the Senators looking for any political to vote down the nomination (Dem & GOP, sadly, and they are still at it).
This descent to the depths (while not totally unprecedented) is still very hard to combat, because the Right is standing on a pin-point of political civility while any step off of it leads to further attacks from the Left, their substance depending solely on the geography of the cliff from which the Republicans have fallen.
Michael Anton’s “Flight 93” essay occasioned a great deal of comment during the presidential campaign, but I don’t remember anyone pointing out what seems to me to be the salient characteristic of those terrorist attacks that has a parallel to these denunciations of Judge Kavanaugh.
The terrorists were able to gain control of the cockpits of the commercial planes because it had become Received Wisdom, since the early days of airline hi-jacking, that the crew should comply with demands, take the planes to the requested destinations, and everyone would eventually get home safely (if you were not Jewish or military, that is).
Up to that point, no hi-jackers had ever intended to fly the planes into iconic buildings and massacre thousands of people. Any airline security team that suggested, “maybe we better start fighting back, before some hi-jacker does something really weird like..flying the planes into iconic buildings and massacring thousands of people” would have been (possibly was) laughed out of the room.*
Republicans always seem to be in the position of the airline crews faced with a coordinated terrorist attack when they were expecting a normal one-man-show hi-jack.
They should know better by now.
*All the more credit to the man who did look around the corner and prepare his company’s employees for any kind of disaster, and even predicted the one that actually happened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla#Corporate_security_career
PowerLine reminds us why we need Kavanaugh and other Constitution supporting conservatives on the courts – all of them, not just the Supreme Court: it’s only a matter of time before the financial discrimination practiced by these virtue-signalling organizations generates some lawsuits because somebody does something that actually is unconstitutional*.
Be nice to have judges who can recognize when that happens.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/free-speech-under-fire.php
“As he departed at the end of the evening, Mark [Steyn] commented that he loved the venue and would be delighted to return another time. Unfortunately, the feeling wasn’t mutual.
We paid the Guthrie over $40,000 for the venue and food service. One might think they would regard us as a good client. But no: when my development director contacted the Guthrie to inquire about dates for this year’s Fall Briefing, she was told that we were no longer welcome there. Apparently some Guthrie employees heard Mark’s speech and thought he was too conservative. So they told us to take our $40,000 elsewhere.
Like most nonprofits, the Guthrie fundraises aggressively. No doubt they tell donors and potential donors that their contributions are badly needed. It doesn’t look that way, though: if I were a donor who gave the theater, say, $10,000 last year, and I learned that the organization passed on a $40,000 payday for political reasons, I would conclude that the Guthrie doesn’t need my $10,000 as much as I thought. I would find another use for my money.
Free speech: in some venues, you can’t even buy it.”
*It actually only has to be statutorily illegal, but somehow that recognition also seems to be dependent on political affiliation these days.
Not one scintilla of this hog wallow is going to change one single Senate vote.
The Ds were always going to vote “No” and most of the Rs were going to vote “Yes” and the nigh-traitors were always going to squish out loud & in front of the cameras to prove to the cool kids that they were really cool & open-minded…and please still invite me to your cool kids parties…suckers.
At this point, just like with Justice Thomas, the only way a good person wins is to stand against the BS flood and insist on a vote that confirms Judge Kavanaugh & moves the flying monkeys off to their next target. Kavanaugh’s next 30+ years on the Supreme bench will drive this blood-letting into the memory hole & maybe cement Trump 2020 as well as the 2018 mid-terms.
RE: Calls for an FBI investigation. Could the FBI, once handed such a request, return it as unservicable given the vagueness of the charges, paucity of facts & witnesses, and the length of time since the alleged events occurred? Would be quite a risky play by the President and Grassley, but would be a fun twist (for me at least) on this tortured affair.
Of course, if Grassley is confident he has the votes then no need to take the risk.
John “Kavanaugh’s next 30+ years on the Supreme bench will drive this blood-letting into the memory hole & maybe cement Trump 2020 as well as the 2018 mid-terms.”
The Left still hasn’t forgotten Anita Hill, and they have made sure no one else will, but Justice Thomas’s vote still counts as much as one of the others’, and his decisions are just as valid as precedent.
Confirm Kavanaugh and let the Democrats pound sand.
* * *
The full expression is highly appropriate.
The expressions “go pound sand” and “not enough sense to pound sand” are American slang from the 19th century. It is a reference to menial, and often pointless, labor….The latter phrase often appears in a longer form, “not enough sense to pound sand down a rathole.”
John “… & maybe cement Trump 2020 as well as the 2018 mid-terms.”
* * *
The Right’s response to the spiraling clown circus in the Senate is along those lines.
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/26/trump-hits-back-three-times-as-hard/
“At the same time, President Trump has shown once again why he was able to turn around the election no one thought he could win in 2016. Unlike the Republican elites of old, Trump will not lie down and take it when the Democrats begin their mudslinging, he stands up and hits them back. Sometimes he hits twice as hard, but this time he is hitting back three times as hard. Republican voters, fed up with leftist antics, love it.
…
With this rapid succession of announcements, Trump has proven exactly why he was elected and what he is capable of. Not only is he prepared to play hardball and fight back when the Democrats fight dirty, but he is also ready to remind everyone that he is willing to pursue his agenda on immigration, trade, and an “America First” foreign policy with or without Congress.
This also further emphasizes that while Trump (and the congressional GOP on occasion) focuses on results and keeping his campaign promises, the Democrats will sink to unfathomable lows as they now lie to obstruct the president, even if it means smearing a good man’s name with phony accusations from accusers who could not be more unreliable.
And rest assured, voters still pondering the looming midterms will be watching as Trump continues to deliver while Democrats delay.”
one of these liars must be set an example for.
Start with “Stolen Valor” Blumenthal.
I’m getting a bad feeling the Kavanaugh smears will work. It comes down to votes and I don’t think McConnell has them.
As long as the media/victim circus plays on, the soft votes have cover to oppose Kavanaugh. If a vote is forced, for now, Kavanaugh will be defeated.
evil prevails because good people keep letting them win.
we need a miraculous John Grisham style last minute reversal
Men in the 20th Century thought that they could live lives without honor; that it was anachronistic, too harshly individualistic if not outright anti-social, an unequal concept too slanted to the advantage those already and unfairly possessing powers and excellences, and one likely to be leveraged by psychopaths for their own misbegotten ends.
Let’s replace it with a scientific understanding of the organism’s social needs, with the stipulation of the social context of all needs and opportunities, with compassion, with sympathy, with forbearance for “the least among us”.
And this is where it has gotten “us”: a slow-mo civil war with people who recognize no limits, no boundaries, and no point of satiety.
Please note about the latest accuser, Julia Swetnick.
1. Public records search indicates she was born on 30 December 1962.
2. By her own account, she is a graduate of Gaithersburg High School.
3. She would have acquired her diploma in 1980 or 1981.
4. She’s apparently the daughter of Martin Jay Swetnick and the late Elaine M. Swetnick. Martin Swetnick has an entry in American Men & Women of Science and his wife also worked as a geologist in some capacity. Mrs. Swetnick’s obituary in 2007 indicated she had three children, Julia resident then in Bethesda and Adam and Susan resident in Columbia, SC. Adam and Susan Swetnick have since decamped to Orlando; public records searches indicate they were born in 1961 and 1950, respectively. The obituary for their mother listed no spouse for any of her children nor any grandchildren.
5. The Swetnick’s home in Gaithersburg was 20 miles distant from the Kavanaugh’s home in Bethesda.
6. “Heavy.com” contends that Julia Swetnick has a degree from the local community college and also one from one of the state Universities in Maryland. The local community college had in 1980 two campuses, one 15 miles from the Kavanaugh home and one 22 miles from the Kavanaugh home.
7. Ain’t it funny that he socialized regularly with people with whom he’d ordinarily have no occasion to cross paths and he ran rape gangs unknown to people in his demonstrable social circle but well known to people you wouldn’t think he’d ever met.
8. Ain’t it funny that none of the background checks undertaken on Kavanaugh or Julia Swetnick uncovered any of this.
9. Ain’t it funny that Michael Avenatti made use of a photograph of his client that’s easily 20 years old.
Julie Swetnick, was an adult, attending high school parties in 1982 – 2 years after graduating HS! She claims to have witnessed underage drinking & “gang rapes” of minors and did nothing to stop it and didn’t report any of it. She also claims that she was drugged and raped at the same parties. Why did she continue to go back? Why did she go after she graduated from high school?
I would say that she and her accusations deserves an investigation! Has the local police department been notified?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/09/accuser-julie-swetnick-graduated-high-school-in-1980-why-was-she-at-high-school-parties-with-minors-in-1982/
there would be no openings for democrat to make fake accusations against if Kavanaugh wasn’t such a bum drunk in high school, and allowing his buddy to publicize it by writing a book about it like it was a proud experience deserving to be immortalized.
Kavanaugh deserves it and brought it to himself, how poetic, like in the most typical shakespeare tragedies, an otherwise perfect hero whose downfall is bought upon by the only fatal human trait that he possessed.
Trump should have nominated a woman and forced the democrats to demonize and beat up a woman for the people to see. Stupid Trump and stupid republicans, has Trump realized that women are good luck for him, his most helpful lieutenants are most female. GOP should have vetted him better, being such a drunk in high school is vulnerable for these type of attacks.
John:
Apparently she also lived over 20 miles away.
is now too late for Kavanaugh to play the “I was born without testicles” card?
Is now too late for Kavanaugh to play the “I was born without test*cles” card?
Here’s a good one: “The woman who is being raped while all of us are present, is the blindfolded lady who represents Justice, and the perpetrators are the Democrat party.”
From the John Kass quote:
“But look deeper and you’ll see something else.
“The sweeping away of traditions that have been carefully nurtured…to protect individual liberty and shield us from the passions of the mob.
“Without these principles, we are no longer a republic.”
Gosh, I’m old enough to remember Harry Reid’s “nuclear option”, the weaponization of the IRS, ramming the ACA (AKA Obamacare) through Congress, the demonization of Fox News, the demonization of the Republican Party, the persecution of James Risen, the attempted tear-down of Sharyl Attkisson, the impeachable actions of the first AG and the “Taking the Fifth”(!) by by the second…and the tour de force: the alliance of the Obama administration with a particular group of murderous religious fanatics running a country whose avowed goal is the destruction of the USA.
All this together with an extraordinarily systematic pattern of dishonesty and deception (of which its practitioners were singularly proud—viz. Jonathan Gruber and Ben Rhodes) to boot.
And, in general, treating the Constitution like a doormat.
(All this for starters….)
So when exactly did John Kass wake up?
there would be no openings for democrat to make fake accusations against if Kavanaugh wasn’t such a bum drunk in high school, and allowing his buddy to publicize it by writing a book about it like it was a proud experience deserving to be immortalized.
1. There is no indication that Kavanaugh had a drinking problem as an adolescent or young adult. None of the indicators are present. No academic failure, no appearance tickets, no accidents, nothing.
2. There is no indication that Judge and Kavanaugh have been active friends at any time since 1989 and the smart money says they have not been.
3. No clue why you fancy Judge would have had Kavanaugh clear either of his manuscripts. He’s only mentioned in passing as having had a banal weekend mishap.
We had what as known as the Franklin Credit Union scandal in Omaha in the 90’s. Part of it involved a young woman who alleged sex and drug parties with prominent Omahans. She testified to a grand jury that she had sex with the Omaha police chief numerous times. She also testified that he had no scars on his body.
He had a major scar on his arm from a bone graft that followed after a gunshot wound. The liar spent years in prison. She thought she would get a book and film deal. Lots of damage to fine Omaha people. I knew the judge who was alleged to have been at these parties along. Great guy.
accusations against Kavanaugh are officially worse than Moore’s, for those who were so convicted that Moore was a creep, are you still sure now? The worse allegation against Moore was him making out with a 16 year old girl at 30, Kavanaugh is now being accused of being the co ring leader of a gang rape cult literally as bad as Cosby and Bill Clinton.
I hope GOP gave Moore the same benefit of doubt as they are giving Kavanaugh. I am mad as h**l but at the same time seeing a bushie getting the same treatments from the left as Moore the despicable Bannon supporting demagogue does give me some satisfaction
a book about it like it was a proud experience deserving to be immortalized.
Mark Judge published a piece of confessional literature. Are you ordinarily this stupid?
If he wanted to confess he should go to a church.
that stupid book gave the democrats ideas.
That Mark Judge looks the part as a pervert though, striking resemblance to the pervert prosecutor from the old show night court.
accusations against Kavanaugh are officially worse than Moore’s, for those who were so convicted that Moore was a creep, are you still sure now? The worse allegation against Moore was him making out with a 16 year old girl at 30, Kavanaugh is now being accused of being the co ring leader of a gang rape cult literally as bad as Cosby and Bill Clinton.
Given the context, the accusation is frankly bizarre. Avenatti has provided no evidence that Swetnick was acquainted with either Kavanaugh or Judge and every element of her account is implausible. They never attended any of the same schools, lived nowhere near either one, and associating would have required she as a community college student insert herself into a social scene run by high school students and remain in that scene for 2 or 3 years. She was older than Kavanaugh and Judge.
If he wanted to confess he should go to a church.
that stupid book gave the democrats ideas.
He wrote it 20 years ago. He almost certainly was making regular confessions at the time. Of course he gave no though to partisan politics. That aside, Kavanaugh has a cameo, nothing more.
I think you should sober up before you post again.
That Mark Judge looks the part as a pervert though, striking resemblance to the pervert prosecutor from the old show night court.
Some remarks merit deletion by the moderator
Art Deco:
so saying Mark Judge looks like John Larroquette deserve to be deleted?
What was the point of ousting himself as a virgin, wasn’t it more helpful to just declare he never got wasted in a party in high school? Wasn’t it more helpful to just declare that him and Mark Judge were never close in High school? The most damning corroborations supporting the accusations is the circumstantial evidence that he was BBF with Mark Judge in HS and Mark Judge confessed in his book blacking out in parties with his friends was a frequent occurrence in high school. Why hasn’t Kavanaugh made any attempts to clearing things up regarding his alleged drinking problems in HS and friendship with Judge, is it because he has something to hide?
When the democrats accuse you of doing horrible things during blackouts, keep arguing that you are a perfect gentleman when sober is not going to help your case. one sentence can clear up everything. “I never drink in high school”
Ford’s legal team has finally released the text** of her supposed “polygraph test,” which you can see on line, and what a shabby thing it is.
First of all, the documentation of the polygraph tests that I’ve seen usually starts out with a recitation of the qualifications of the person administering the test. No so here. I don’t even see a signature of the test administrator on the documents Ford’s team has released.
Next, we see a scribbled couple of paragraphs by Ford on steno paper—with corrections and cross outs (for instance, Ford has crossed out “early” and left 1980s as the time frame for this alleged attack) that summarize her recollections of the incident, but which do not name Kavanaugh, just two males “Brcaa”(is that supposed to be Brett Kavanaugh?) and “Mark” being the villains of the piece.
And the actual polygraph test? Well, unless they are holding a lot more back, this “test” consisted of Ford being asked just two questions:
Is any part of your statement false? Reply No.
Did you make up any part of your statement? Reply No.
Thats it!
No certification as to the qualifications of the person administering and interpreting the test. Apparently no calibrating questions, or the several pages of questions—put different ways—that are apparently the standard for these tests.
What a joke!
Later reporting says that a retired, ex-FBI agent administered the test.
** https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2018/09/26/this-is-bad-looks-like-christine-blasey-fords-lawyers-just-torpedoed-her-case-by-releasing-polygraph-results-pics/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
Wasn’t it more helpful to just declare that him and Mark Judge were never close in High school?
Why would he say that? They were friends at age 17.
Art Deco: so saying Mark Judge looks like John Larroquette deserve to be deleted?
That’s not what you said. There’s no point to any of your remarks here other than your love of obnoxious trash talk.
The most damning corroborations supporting the accusations is the circumstantial evidence that he was BBF with Mark Judge in HS and Mark Judge confessed in his book blacking out in parties with his friends was a frequent occurrence in high school.
Only in the gorgonzola between your two ears is it ‘damning’ to have had an alcoholic friend 30+ years ago.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/seven-questions-about-the-avenatti-swetnick-story/
Most of them are obvious; this one was intriguing, because it exactly fits the scenario that everyone sentient knows would have been the result of Kavanaugh testifying to the Senate before Ford.
“Is is not a little strange that there are only two details provided, and that they are happen to be public knowledge already? The two names given are Mark Judge’s and Brett Kavanaugh’s. The time given is “BEACH WEEK,” which is listed on the calendar that Brett Kavanaugh released this morning. Why is there nothing new?”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/25/brett-kavanaugh-1982-calendar-evidence-against-assault-claims/1429142002/
Dave is on a mission to lower the average intelligence value of Neo’s commenters to that of any typical blog, averages being highly influenced by extreme values.
I have all of the NRO stories lined up to read next.
They haven’t been this passionate and unanimous since their “NeverTrump” edition.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/will-ford-testify-tomorrow-republicans-wont-hold-their-breaths/
“USA Today reports what initially appears to be a bombshell new development about Ford’s account . . .
‘In her declaration, Adela Gildo-Mazzon said Ford told her about the alleged assault during a June 2013 meal at a restaurant in Mountain View, California, and contacted Ford’s attorneys on Sept. 16 to tell them Ford had confided in her five years ago.’
Except . . . that contradicts Ford’s account to the Washington Post.
‘ “She was like, ‘I can’t deal with this. If he becomes the nominee, then I’m moving to another country. I cannot live in this country if he’s in the Supreme Court,’ ” her husband said. “She wanted out.”
These were the lengths that Ford, a professor and mother of two, once considered to avoid revisiting one of her most troubling memories — one she’d discussed only in therapy and with her husband.’
So she remembers the events from the 1980s clearly and accurately, but forgot discussing the events with her friend at dinner five years ago?”
Not a difficult mission with om here helping out sharing the load.
…and if the democrats are successful at promoting hatred and blind lies to get what they want, we all stand to gain some sort of social utopia in the end?
Why not take a few days and ask the FBI to investigate? Why the hurry for a lifetime appointment? Are you afraid of what they might find? Professor Ford has stated her willingness to cooperate in an FBI investigation. She knows that lying to the FBI is a felony and she won’t be getting any pardons from Trump. I believe the women. You would too, if they were accusing Democrats. But your sense of truth is impaired by your hyper-partisanship.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/jennifer-rubin-falsely-claims-prosecutor-hired-to-question-kavanaugh-accuser-is-linked-joe-arpaio/
Wow, isn’t it great to see such wonderful bi-partisan denunciations! /sarc (do I really need to say that?)
Except:
“Mitchell, a Republican and veteran prosecutor, has spent more than two decades supervising attorneys who handle child-sex-abuse cases. Her office holds separate elections from, and is not overseen by, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Arpaio, who was jailed for ignoring a court order to refrain from using racial profiling to enforce immigration law, has said he does not know who Mitchell is.”
Thom on September 26, 2018 at 5:35 pm at 5:35 pm said:
Why not take a few days and ask the FBI to investigate?
* * *
Because they had two months to do that while Feinstein was withholding the letter from Ford? If she had submitted it to the Committee, they could have asked the FBI to investigate.
And 6 years from the time of her therapy remembrances? She could have asked the FBI to re-open one of their background checks.
And 30 years before that, in which the FBI did at least six investigations of Judge Kavanaugh and didn’t have anyone bring up any of these denunciations?
Then, of course, there is the small wrinkle that the FBI is full of people who are on record as desiring to tank the Trump administration any way they can.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/09/26/why-are-dems-so-hot-for-an-fbi-probe-of-kavanaugh-allegations-joe-biden-could-tell-them-they-dont-need-one/
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/christine-blasey-fords-polygraph-statement-inconsistent-with-letter-dianne-feinstein/
Dave:
Kavanaugh has already admitted he did some drinking in high school—much like about 99% of Americans. The reason he admitted it is because it was true. He also has said he never drank to blackout.
Thom:
Because the FBI doesn’t investigate allegations of 36-year-old crimes where the jurisdiction is only local and all named witnesses deny the allegations.
Go get some better talking points.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/republicans-respond-after-third-brett-kavanaugh-allegation/
“Democrats had nothing to do with these women coming forward. They came forward on their own,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, who sits on the Judiciary Committee.
* * *
Well, maybe not elected Democrats…
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/09/25/yale-classmate-of-kavanaugh-tells-limbaugh-show-reporters-contacted-me-tried-to-cue-me-give-them-dirt/
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/how-did-the-media-miss-the-rape-gangs/
“At this stage I think it is a sure bet that the New York Times, the Washington Post, and countless other media outlets have talked to, or tried to talk to, every single person of consequence in Brett Kavanaugh’s high-school and college life. And yet, until celebrity porn lawyer Michael Avenatti and his client went public with these charges, not a single news outlet had found — or at least reported — any hint that it was just about an open secret that Kavanaugh was part of a crowd where organized rape gangs acted with impunity.
If we must believe Ms. Swetnick, we must also believe that the best journalistic outlets in America completely missed this story. (We also must believe that the FBI as well as the Democratic party’s best opposition researchers missed it too.)
If all this is true, what an unbelievable example of collective incompetence. (Or I suppose, it’s theoretically possible that all of these outlets knew about all of this and refused to report on it because they’re in on the conspiracy).
…
Democratic politicians are constantly saying that Kavanaugh deserves no presumption of innocence and that they already believe the accusations with remarkably little or no pushback from interviewers (Jake Tapper a notable exception). The pundit panels and talking heads are heavily loaded with people who insist it is up to Kavanaugh to disprove these charges. Politically that may be true, but that’s in part because the people shaping the conventional wisdom keep putting the burden of proof on the accused.
One of the most clichéd and self-serving adages in journalism is “If your mother says she loves you, check it out!” Well, if the mainstream media wants to claim that is not getting swept up in this hysteria, they should be sprinting like O. J. through an airport across suburban D.C. to try to verify or debunk Swetnick’s story. And if it turns out to be true, all the reporters who’ve been covering this story should hang their heads in shame that it took a celebrity porn lawyer to discover what they could not. And if it turns out to be false, they should be every bit as eager to say so as they would be if it were true. I do not expect any such enthusiasm.”
Thom,
Talking about your hyper-partisanship, Im absolutely convinced your trust and belief in any woman’s sexual assault allegations are directly proportional to the political affiliation of the man being accused. We’ve already seen how that plays out if the accused is someone like Bill Clinton.
Please spare us the moral preening.
“Trump should have nominated a woman and forced the democrats to demonize and beat up a woman for the people to see. Stupid Trump and stupid republicans…”- Dave
I think they were saving a woman nominee to replace RBG, for the woman’s seat on the court.
Part of the reason we’re being treated to this mass insanity by the Democrats is to make up for not doing this to Gorsuch. The rabid left was furious that the Democrats didn’t put up more obstacles to the confirmation of Trump’s first pick.
It’s like one of those zombie movies where the non-zombie is forced out in the open and their only chance of survival is pretending to be a zombie. This, of course, is taking a charitable view of what the Democrats have been doing.
I also posted this at Althouse.
When we look back at this, I think we are going to see that Kavanaugh’s principal vulnerability was his apparent fondness for beer expressed openly in his high school senior yearbook, together with his friendship with Mike Judge, who wrote quite graphically about his struggles with alcoholism, including blackouts. Using these keys the Dems built a flimsy edifice around a woman with psychological problems (Ford) who had a history with a therapist of describing a sexual assault that occurred when Kavanaugh was in high school. The details retroactively were shaped to focus on Judge and Kavanaugh, and the witnesses appeared in sequence.
It is the perfect Ben Rhodes operation.
Amadeus – “It is the perfect Ben Rhodes operation.”
Excellent.
And true in more ways than one.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/09/25/yale-classmate-of-kavanaugh-tells-limbaugh-show-reporters-contacted-me-tried-to-cue-me-give-them-dirt/
RUSH: We’re back with Jenny in Wyoming, who was at Yale in residential college at the same time as Brett Kavanaugh for a number of years. Your call yesterday from the Huffing and Puffington Post, did they try the same thing yesterday? Did they try to lead you into answers they already had and were trying to get you to confirm?
CALLER: Honestly, I sort of directed the conversation earlier than giving her a chance to do that. It was a very young girl. I did ask her age. She was 28 and I was thinking, “This girl doesn’t know anything. She wasn’t even around during the Clinton era. …—
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/beto-orourke-wont-get-brett-kavanaugh-treatment/
“The point here, we should stress, is not that people can’t redeem themselves. We’re all sinners. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. It is not a matter of O’Rourke’s being disqualified; that’s for Texans to decide. The question is whether we should tolerate a blatant double standard in the media reporting on which we rely to make important decisions.
Like Brett Kavanaugh, Beto O’Rourke is seeking one of the most important positions in the U.S. government. Unlike Kavanaugh, O’Rourke will have no swarms of reporters combing through files and tracking down witnesses about the details of years-old misconduct — misconduct that, in O’Rourke’s case, is not merely “alleged” but actually happened. There will be no television-spectacle hearing. He will be treated with respect, not treated as if he were a criminal suspect.
It’s good to be a Democrat.”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/the-democrats-descent-into-madness-continues.php
“Given that Merkley announced his opposition to Kavanaugh’s confirmation on July 9, that is hardly a credible assertion. But in any event, the idea that a federal judge can or will order the Senate not to vote on a nomination, or anything else, is laughable. The Democrats have gone mad.”
COMMENTS
johnmorrissey • an hour ago
whom the Gods would destroy …..They first make mad
South of Reality johnmorrissey • an hour ago
No, they first make them progressives and then the madness happens on its own accord.
kr • an hour ago
Who knows what an obama appointed judge might do.
1Harriet1 • an hour ago
Over 60 friends and classmates of Brett Kavanaugh just sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee saying these allegations today were a lie and false and never happened AND no one remembers a Julie Swetnick.
J Powell • 28 minutes ago
Is it madness if they win?
I live in SoCal, and all the telecasts re: Kavanaugh have the same format: Kavanaugh has been accused by [2,3,4, etc.] women of sexual abuse when in school. Kavanaugh denies he did anything wrong; Democrat senators demand the FBI look into the allegations before confirmation, but the GOP is blocking the investigation. The victims have not been allowed to present their cases to the Senate.
The telecasts never mention that the allegations have no specificity, the accusers refuse to present their cases under oath, and there is no corroboration by any potential witness. Uninformed viewers are left with the impression that the allegations are true, and that the GOP is trying to nominate a rapist to SCOTUS and resisting reasonable demands for investigation by Democrats.
The MSM telecasts are straight Democrat propaganda, and I suspect they are successfully turning politically non-involved voters against Kavanaugh and the GOP.
Not so crazy after all, huh?
Gracie • 8 minutes ago
They haven’t gone mad: they have just removed any remaining camouflage for their objective. The are willing to do anything to deny President Trump a placement on the Supreme Court. Anything in the way is just an obstacle and doesn’t change the objective.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-biggest-divides-on-the-kavanaugh-allegations-are-by-party-not-gender/
“I think we can safely say that members of the two parties differed on gender issues before Clinton-Trump, and it’s likely the last two years reinforced and perhaps exacerbated existing tensions along party lines.
There is one important caveat to party being a bigger divide than gender on these issues. Many polls don’t break down people by party and gender (so male Democrats and female Republicans, for example). But the polls that do break down by gender and party usually find that within each party, there is a gender gap, with more women taking the view that gender discrimination and misconduct is a major issue and more men expressing concern about how the #MeToo movement might have negative effects on men. Republican men, for example, are more likely than Republican women (68 percent vs. 59 percent) to think workplace dynamics are harder for men now that there is more attention to sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, according to Pew.
Overall, the data suggests that on these issues, party, not gender, is the main divide. So this CNN segment that went semi-viral last week, depicting several conservative-leaning women defending Kavanaugh and being skeptical of Ford, should not have been surprising. Nor would a segment showing older men defending Ford — if the men were Democrats. Views on sexual misconduct have, like seemingly every issue, become partisan in America today.”
That article came via this post at PJM
https://pjmedia.com/trending/what-republicans-get-that-democrats-dont-about-sex/
Here we go, another accuser. Kavanaugh now officially has more accusers than Roy Moore did. For those holier than thou conservatives who chose to accept sheer number as substitutte for substantial evidence and refused to back Roy Moore because of that, thank you so much. False accusations against Kavanaugh is the fruit of GOP’s betrayal of Roy Moore needs to be bought up ad infinitum like a broken record until a long term memory is formed in holier than thou conservatives so the mistake won’t be repeated.
Sorry to tell never trumpers that the pleasure you get from winning a “I told you so” over people on your side will not alleviate the pain and rage you get from seeing democrats win.
Dave:
I can’t help you with this level of stupid. Roy Moore is not Bret Kavanaugh. Different people. Different charges. Are you Roy Moores’s secret love child, (apologies to Roy)? Democrats do evil stuff, they are Democrats after all, they don’t need hints from Republicans or “never-trumpers.”
But hey Dave, keep the comedy coming.
om:
Roy Moore as it stands now is cleaner than Kavanaugh, at least he wasn’t accused of gang raping anyone or spiking any drink.
accusations against moore were less corroborated, older than Kavanaugh’s accusations, and much less severe.
lol. Dave, you heard Roy Moore being interviewed by Sean Hannity?
Another thing, If Roy Moore had won we wouldn’t be needing Jeff F**k’s vote. see the butterfly effect resulting from the mistake of not defending Moore whose allegations were way more flimsy than Kavanaugh’s at least Kavanaugh’s alcoholism is well documented.
Dave:
Remember the First Rule of Holes, when you are stuck in a hole, stop digging.
Another tip, when you believe accusations posted by Democrats about Bret Kavanaugh at face value, you appear less than wise when bringing up Roy Moore. “One of these things is not like the other” remember that concept.
om:
convicting Roy Moore in your mind on such a shaky ground what you did to Roy Moore is the same as what the liberals are doing to kavanaugh.
funny how you accuse me of using the left’s fabricated evidence against Kavanaugh, but then didn’t you convict Moore in my head based on evidence provided by the left too?
“I’m not sure what the Republicans could have done differently in the beginning, that would not immediately lose the Senators looking for any political [cover/excuse] to vote down the nomination” Angelo Codevilla
That is the quandary Grassley and McConnell face[d]. Flake was never going to vote for Kavenaugh. Collins and Mutkowski are blue-State Republican Senators and cannot afford to alienate the base that elected them and lacking principled convictions, they lack the courage to stand upon principle. The political cover the dems are offering allows them to escape responsibility for their actions. Manchin wants to do the right thing, whether he’ll demonstrate Kennedy’s “Profile in Courage” we’ll shortly know.
“Democrats are similarly upbeat that Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) can be persuaded to vote no, senators and aides said.”
“The two biggest wild cards remain Manchin and Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.). Both are paying close attention to how GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine vote, according to one person familiar with their thinking.”
Red-state Democrats refuse to come out against Kavanaugh
“As long as the media/victim circus plays on, the soft votes have cover to oppose Kavanaugh. If a vote is forced, for now, Kavanaugh will be defeated.” huxley
That is my perception as well.
Dave,
when you find yourself in a hole… stop digging.
Dave:
Are you really a mind reader too? I haven’t written anything about Roy Moore loosing in Alabama or who he married or who he dated, And I seriously doubt that you and he are related.
Your hole is getting deeper. Get a grip and put down the shovel.
Bret Kavanaugh is the current target of the Democrats not Roy Moore.
om:
the bottom line is this, accusations against Roy Moore are no more solid than accusations against Kavanaugh, they were all based on unsubstantiated stories discovered by liberals happened many years ago without solid corroborating evidence. you are a hypocrite if you are absolutely convicted that one is innocent and one is a pervert without a doubt.
No more hiring senators to the cabinet positions, kavanaugh has already been confirmed if useless sessions just stayed in Alabama.
Dave:
Read this slowly and read it again if you have to.
Who said Roy Moore is a pervert? I have not made that charge and have never said or written that. You seem fixated on Roy Moore and not the current unsubstantiated charges against Bret Kavanaugh.
No doubt the Democrats will have dug up and lined up all sorts of accusers, who will–one after the other–say to a breathless MSN that they have some vivid memories of something or other that Kavanaugh did to them at some time or other.
As of yet, though, I have not seen any of them say that they were so outraged that they immediately lodged a police report.
As these accusations tumble out, the accusations get more and more convenient and more unbelievable; they don’t make the whole mass of them more believable, they make them less.
This is obviously a political hit job, an attempt to dogpile Kavanaugh, with none of his accusers believing that they will pay a penalty for what appear to be all to convenient lies.
Lies and vague stories conconcted in ways that will minimize their exposure to charges of purjury if they testify under oath before Congress, which I doubt many of them will.
For they and their handlers believe that the sheer number of such accusations will make it unnecessary for them to actually testify about the details of their particular accusations.
This unseemly, vicious, disgusting, immoral, death by a thousand cuts is all the Left and the Democrat’s doing; they own it, and I hope it destroys them come November 8th.
This attack against Kavanaugh is also a radical Feminist attack against men in general, as we are told by all our “woke” “betters” that we as a sex are all guilty, and that we should own up and “shut up”; bow our heads and take our well deserved punishment.
We need to be very clear that, if we as citizens allow this public Auto-da-fe to happen, if Congress allows this to happen, the Rule of Law is de facto finished, and from here on in no one can be safe from vague accusations.
A side effect, of course, is that good and talented people who might have considered serving in high government positions requiring confirmation hearings will shun the whole notion, because they do not want to be treated as Bork, Thomas, and now Kavanaugh have been treated. It will simply no longer be worth it.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2018/09/metoo-depends-on-credibility-of.html
common sense
Dave; om:
I discourage private, personal fighting in comment threads. Please desist.
Dave:
During the Roy Moore controversy, I wrote a lot of posts pointing out all the flaws in the accusations against him. You can look them up with the “search” function here. I think the accusations against him were very poorly evidenced, very old, and very weak. I’m not going to go into it again here.
However, unfortunately they were very effective, and cost the GOP a seat in the Senate, a seat they could sorely use right now. However, the charges were not older or weaker than those against Kavanaugh for the most part, and certainly not significantly older. You can look it up. In fact, one involved actions that supposedly had occurred in 1991. The rest were from the very late 1970s, and these charges were made around a year ago, which would mean the charges were from around 37 or 38 years earlier and around 26 years earlier. The charges against Kavanaugh are from either 1981 or 1982, and perhaps 1983, which makes them from 35-37 years old. This is not a significant difference at all, and in addition we have the 26-year-old charge against Moore, significantly more recent than any of the charges so far against Kavanaugh.
In addition, Moore was fully adult at the time the abuses were alleged to have happened. Kavanaugh was not.
So one could argue that the charges against Moore were at least marginally more believable than those against Kavanaugh. In addition, the fact that Moore did marry a much younger woman, and did date younger women prior to that, was used (wrongly, in my opinion) to add fuel to the accusation fire. Whereas Kavanaugh never did anything remotely in the ball park of what he’s been accused of; au contraire.
This unseemly, vicious, disgusting, immoral, death by a thousand cuts is all the Left and the Democrat’s doing; they own it, and I hope it destroys them come November 8th.
There are 2-4 others who own this situation, most notable among them Jeff Flake. Flake’s remarks in the last couple of days (attacking the President for issuing statements of support for his own nominee) are the work of a man without a chest. Susan Collins is playing the concern troll.
Tomorrow tells the tale. If Ford shows and survives whatever cross-examination is allowed, Kavanaugh is toast.
It’s not right, it’s not fair, but I fear it’s reality.
Snow on Pine on September 26, 2018 at 8:39 pm at 8:39 pm said:
No doubt the Democrats will have dug up and lined up all sorts of accusers, who will–one after the other–say to a breathless MSN that they have some vivid memories of something or other that Kavanaugh did to them at some time or other.
As of yet, though, I have not seen any of them say that they were so outraged that they immediately lodged a police report.
* * *
You might be channeling Red State:
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/09/26/dear-heaven.-kavanaugh-accusers-coming-woodwork
“Here’s the letter to Cory Gardner that anonymously accuses Kavanaugh of sexual assault in 1998. Senate Judiciary Committe spokesperson said they have “no reason to assign the letter credibility.” ”
“Another accusation against Kavanaugh that he was asked about by Senate staffers this week: an alleged rape on a boat in Rhode Island in 1985. Kavanaugh denies.”
“It’s clear that Senate Democrats are now peddling the most insane accusations against Kavanaugh in order to get rid of him. We’re one news cycle away from them demanding the FBI investigate a constituent letter accusing him of putting AIDS in the fluoride for mind control.”
https://www.redstate.com/tladuke/2018/09/26/kavanaugh-accusers-time-file-charges-ladies/
“So while people who act like they are concerned about sec harassment to go on T.V. and bellow about FBI investigations, why not do the real thing. The only thing that will stop this nomination from going forward and will put a bad Boy Scout behind bars and lose him his current job is a CRIMINAL investigation done by police where the alleged crime occurred.
File a criminal complaint and let’s see where the chips fall. Finally, put your mouth and pent-up righteous indignation on the legal line and show that you are serious about combatting sex harassment and not scoring PR points.
Unless, of course, you are worried about the penalty of filing a false police report.”
This is bullshit, all the way down. The Republicans, except the squishy four, will all vote to confirm. The Democrats, except the red-staters, will all vote to deny. The aforesaid muddlers will vote based purely on their home-state political considerations. The result will be exactly what it would have been on the day of the nomination. This whole circus has been nothing but a complete joke.
huxley:
I disagree somewhat. I don’t think one single Senate vote depends on how she does, or even whether she shows up. The voting will go entirely according to politics and party, and the few possible swing votes will vote on calculations of self-interest. Ford is a MacGuffin at this point, as are the others. She has served her purpose even before she testifies.
Did you see this?
FWIW, this post links to all of Red States articles on Kavanaugh-gate (no one else has called it that; I wonder why — is it because Woodward is now persona non grata to both sides?)
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/09/22/breaking.-kavanaugh-accusers-third-witnesse-located-testimony-game-changer
It seems like this has gone on forever, but it’s only been 13 days since Feinstein dropped the letter in the hearing room (there is a colloquial idiom involving liquid refreshment serving dishes that might be relevant here).
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/dianne-feinstein-refers-letter-on-supreme-court-nominee-kavanaugh-to-feds.html
Richard Saunders:
Great minds thinking alike and all that. Before I saw your comment about what will happen, I wrote the comment above, and even published it as a post.
Some well-considered speculations from another blog comment thread.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/09/26/the-creature-in-the-garden/#comment-558400
“BobtheRegisterredFool | September 26, 2018 at 2:41 pm | Reply
..
Despite my questions yesterday, reversing suffrage is probably not a reasonable response to this.
There is an almost sound argument that Title IX has lead to some unreasonable expectations on the part of the accusers. That they simply had not realized the level of proof that is appropriate to the venue. That in absence of these issues being decided on campus under the current implementation of Title IX, the accusers would have made their accusations and brought substantive evidence in a time frame that matches that of a normal legal proceeding.
Reversing women’s suffrage is the more effective trolling point, but repeal of Title IX is perhaps a more productive discussion. That said, in the current situation such a repeal would also be an ugly mess.”
* * *
Ford may not have realized the difference in rules; would Feinstein & the Congressional Dems be that naive?
Baklava on September 26, 2018 at 8:46 pm at 8:46 pm said:
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2018/09/metoo-depends-on-credibility-of.html
common sense
* * *
I laughed at this note (emphasis mine), but I really feel more like crying.
“NOTE: This is the fifth in a series of posts about Kavanaugh this morning.”
AesopFan:
Ford went to college three decades ago. When she was in school, Title IX operated mainly around student athletics. It wasn’t till the Supreme Court decided in the 1990s to extend it to sexual harassment that the current state of affairs began. Then it got even worse under Obama in 2011. But my point is that all three accusers went to school under the older rules, not the newer ones. So they don’t have the excuse offered in that quote you gave.
Nor do their lawyers, who know full well what sort of evidence is needed to make a real case, but are betting that real evidence won’t be needed, with the help of their friends the propagandists of the MSM.
We are caught up in an internet frenzy of crowd-sourcing investigation, expert witnesses, prosecution & defense statements, and the rest of the substance of a courtroom. Can we possibly obtain justice under those conditions?
Given that there are people who NEVER accept the judgments in actual literal criminal trials, we can’t expect that we will have 100% acceptance of a virtual-trial, so are we any worse off?
At least they run their course faster than the courts do.
https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/09/26/whoa.-christine-ford-julie-swetnick-direct-connection
“Via the Wall Street Journal:
Roughly a decade ago, Ms. Swetnick was involved in a dispute with her former employer, New York Life Insurance Co., over a sexual-harassment complaint she filed, according to people familiar with the matter. Representing her in the complaint was the firm run by Debra Katz, the lawyer currently representing Dr. Ford. The company ultimately reached a financial settlement with Ms. Swetnick, the people said.”
neo on September 26, 2018 at 10:11 pm at 10:11 pm said:
“But my point is that all three accusers went to school under the older rules, not the newer ones. So they don’t have the excuse offered in that quote you gave.”
Thanks for the clarification on Title IX timing – this is what the back-and-forth of debate is supposed to do.
Richard Saunders on September 26, 2018 at 9:54 pm at 9:54 pm said:
This is bullshit, all the way down. The Republicans, except the squishy four, will all vote to confirm. The Democrats, except the red-staters, will all vote to deny. The aforesaid muddlers will vote based purely on their home-state political considerations. The result will be exactly what it would have been on the day of the nomination. This whole circus has been nothing but a complete joke.
* *
Agree about the joke part, but I think the Gang of Four-plus-Four would all have voted to confirm on the original date, because they didn’t see any cover for voting no.
Feinstein hoped to introduce that reason with the Ford letter, and, had everything stopped right there, I think the Dems would all have gone to NO, as would some or all of the Reps.
With the flakiness (pun intended) of the denunciations now blindingly apparent, I can’t predict what they will do, so I will go read Neo’s new post and cogitate.