Post-Kavanaugh-confirmation thoughts
I’m still at that big family event, so I’ll be relatively brief.
—I wonder what older Democratic senators such as Feinstein and Schumer, who started out as liberal Democrats rather than full-on leftists, see when they look in the mirror today. I’m not referring to their physical selves and the ravages of time, I’m referring to their consciences and the proverbial mirror rather than the actual one. Do they like what they see, or do they feel any sense of shame whatsoever? Was the path to this point so slow and gradual, with compromise after compromise and rationalization after rationalization along the way, that they no longer have any consideration except “ends justify means” in the path to power? Or did they never care about anything else, right from the start? I don’t ask the question of the younger ones like Kamala Harris, because she is now exactly what she was the day she was elected.
—I hope Justice-to-be Kavanaugh has remarkable powers of recuperation, and a good set of bodyguards for his entire family.
—Those who praised the #MeToo movement in general have been misguided, IMHO. It always contained the pernicious idea “believe the women”—a rubric that is incompatible with fairness and justice—plus a built-in contagion effect in which the very title of the movement encourages a willingness to join in the accusative chorus and be part of the victim group. If one harks back to the days when women’s accusations were often ignored even when they had substance, then something like “take women’s accusations seriously” or “don’t disbelieve the women” might make sense as a slogan (although I realize they’re not the least bit catchy). But a requirement to automatically believe any class or group of people is always going to lead to a dangerous miscarriage of justice. So this isn’t really a perversion of the #MeToo movement or a highjacking of it. #MeToo always continued that mob element.
—It will be interesting to see whether the energy on the right holds through the election of 2018. I fervently hope it does. It certainly has a decent chance of doing so, because this has been an exceptionally painful and difficult episode to witness and to experience. My guess is that it won’t soon be forgotten.
I wonder if, had they succeeded, any of the Dems would have a moment of regret for the depths they sunk to and the damage they did? Since they are an ends-justify-means mob, probably not. Since they didn’t succeed, is there any chance that they’ll regret their shenanigans? We’ll know the answer to that when Trump gets to replace RBG. They’ll double down, grow up, or stumble along the current path.
Believe all women isn’t the same thing as treat all accusations seriously. It was hard for the GOP to make that distinction in this case, since there was a face attached to the issue, but it’s one that they should begin making very soon, since it will surely fester and rise again.
I’ve got to think that Kavanaugh and his entire family are going to need full security details for the foreseeable future if not permanently. I’m not sure what the protocols are for the Supreme Court justices but whatever they are they need to be more for him.
It reminds me of the story of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, needing secret service protection because of threats on her life and safety. The education secretary!
Ridiculous.
“It will be interesting to see whether the energy on the right holds through the election of 2018. . . . My guess is that it won’t soon be forgotten.” [Neo]
I suspect that Trump will not allow it to be forgotten in the next 3 weeks. We cannot spare this man; he fights!
I was thinking about your first point too. Are there any reliable Democrats (not someone like Manchin) who have the guts to speak up about this publicly. Reading the articles about the displays in the senate gallery during the vote are shameful but nowhere is it mentioned that any of the Democrat senators called them out on the behavior. Maybe they did but if so it got little coverage.
As I’ve commented here before, Kavanaugh and his family having to run the gauntlet can’t help but have changed him and them; he and his family have got quite a few scars on them now.
If Kavanaugh didn’t quite realize before, he now–with certainty–knows who his enemies and the enemies of the Republic, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, due process, and the Rule of Law are, how savagely they will fight, and how low they will stoop to gain power.
Thus, despite Kavanaugh’s post swearing in pledge to be the same even-handed, thoughtful moderate he says he has always been, I expect that, post gauntlet, Justice Kavanaugh will have a much more gut level understanding of just what kinds of dark and sinister motives and forces the cases he will be evaluating and deciding on will have embedded in them, their ideological context and place in the Culture War that seeks to “fundamentally transform” our Republic, and he will likely be a much tougher sell than he might otherwise have been.
I expect a tougher, more realistic world-view and stance from him, that will effect how he votes.
The danger of ignorance.
I saw a comment “I wish we had lost the War of Independence.”
The seriousness of this malaise–this absence of thinking or even knowing what thinking is–is not to be laughed at. Yet, the flimsiness of the “arguments” is but a snow drift. While each snowflake is unique, they do pile into these snow drifts. Most drifts melt when the sun comes out; some get crusted with dirt; others remain at the poles.
Schumer and Pelosi and Feinstein have been left in the Dust Bin of History now. Harris, Booker et al are the New Democrats. There is no shame in the Dem party now, only that they have to win at all cost, consequences be Damned. This will not end well for America.
I’ve been reading opinions and comment threads. I’ve found no Democrats and no one on the left who will consider the Kavanaugh confirmation dispassionately, much less fairly. I suppose some must exist somewhere, but I’ve not seen it.
The closest were pragmatic arguments from occasional Democrat realists like Willie Brown who were careful to side with Ford but warned that the scorched-earth tactics were failing in the hearings and in national politics.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/Democrats-their-own-worst-enemy-in-Kavanaugh-fight-13267746.php
Brown is a corrupt pol of the old school, but he’s one of the best retail politicians around. He reads the signs well.
I have no feeling about energy lasting among those I work in the bureaucracy of the State of CT since those I normally associate with and work closely with are either libertarian or conservative leaning, but they all stated either confirm or they would write off the GOP. The Blumenthal shenanigans did make them despise him even more though and maybe since the GOP house in CT is making principled stands lately there is some hope for the GOP in the nutmeg state.
I think though, the women who normally supported Blumenthal are starting to have second thoughts about him, though because a lot of democrats have taken to the call in shows to complain about the lack of “credibility” of Fords claims. Will be an interesting month leading to the elections.
Though Kavanaugh was confirmed and this battle royal was won by Trump and his unlikely backers, Collins, Graham, and McConnel, the war will continue. The lawlessness and violence exhibited by the progs is going to be a common feature, which will probably escalate. Until……as happened in the 60s/70s, the law enforcement agencies crack down hard. These Soros paid and trained protestors are having a ball now. We’ll see how strong their commitment is when they start getting arrested/fined/imprisoned/skulls cracked/and worse. The violence of the 60s/70s ratcheted up to bombings, murders, and wide spread riots. I expect, sadly, the same thing to happen this time. It is sad.
Interesting observation about Feinstein and Schumer, Neo. I was contemplating writing to her, and asking if she likes what she sees when she looks at the reflection of her soul in the mirror of introspection. After due consideration, I decided that it was not worth the effort. For one thing, I doubt that there is any introspection. For another, I know she would never see the letter. I regret to say that she is one of my Senators; and, sadly, probably the more ethical of the two.
As for Schumer, I would never bother trying to penetrate the coating of sleaze that surrounds him.
Dianne Feinstein has been an ally of China with her driver/spy and the millions her husband has made from her position for decades. She has no scruples to lose.
Claire McCaskill is another Democrat who has made millions from her Senate seat, Her parents were minor politicians. Where did her money come from ?
I don’t know that Republicans are much better. I hated to see Tom Coburn give up and leave,.
“If one harks back to the days when women’s accusations were often ignored even when they had substance …”
There was never such a time, not in what used to be called Christendom.
I wonder what older Democratic senators such as Feinstein and Schumer, who started out as liberal Democrats rather than full-on leftists, see when they look in the mirror today.
I would wonder about Feinstein, not Schumer. Schumer has a long history as a monster. My personal memory of vicious antics by him dates back at least to 1995, before he transferred from the House to the Senate.
The theme that’s been stuck in my head since the confirmation vote is just:
“Now what?”
I sense an implication by many that this chapter is now closed. But it’s just one small event in a growing cold civil war.
The “resistance” continues to rage spiral, and I don’t see that abating in any way. What was thought to be a mid-term pendulum swing is now looking indeterminate (if polls even have any credibility at this point). What happens over the next month is anyone’s guess, and much can happen in that span of time.
Wish I could be optimistic. But optimism seems unwarranted.
I want to think Schumer and Feinstein have flashes of a conscience. But I can’t really believe it.
I used to think somewhat better of Feinstein. Perhaps I just didn’t know enough about her. Schumer has been vicious, capable of doing anything he thought he could get away with, for decades. I doubt when he looks in the mirror there’s a soul looking back at him.
And someone above noted the lack of Democrats calling for civility in the Senate offices, gallery, and on the streets. They wanted to maintain their power. If riots could do it, they were happy to permit and encourage the riots.
Curiously there is an argument from the left that it was Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ sleaze lawyer who ruined the Dem/Ford attack on Kavanaugh.
By piling on with the even more baseless and horrific accusation that Kavanaugh was a gang rapist, Avenatti broke the spell of Ford’s credibility. It’s a decent argument. That seemed to be the turning point for Kavanaugh, Graham and Collins.
Nonetheless, I can’t help but notice no one opposing Kavanaugh spoke up against Avennati and his client. The media was pushing the bandwagon along, not realizing it was indirectly undermining Ford.
Things might have gone differently had Democrats pulled Avenatti’s claims back as ridiculous. But I guess they couldn’t — “Believe the women!” Besides it looked like the slime tactic was working.
And it might have, if Republicans hadn’t decided enough was enough. If they had let that pass, every SC nominee and quite a lot of Rep leaders would face the same treatment or worse.
One can only hope that the perpetrators of the Stalinist show trial of Kavanaugh
are all subjected to never ending unsubstantiated accusations of the most heinous sort; they deserve nothing less – and really much worse.
What the pig-dogs, Feinstein and Schumer orchestrated, along with their fellow Nazi-pig accomplices, would make Stalin’s “Himmler,” Lavrentyi Beria most proud.
You will recall Beria’s notorious remark; ” show me the man and I will show you the crime.”
It was Joe Stalin himself who referred to Beria as “my Himmler.”
By the way, when Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexually inappropriate conduct, she first requested anonymity.
Boy oh boy, that’s some coincidence, isn’t it?
Remember that Feinstein had a Chinese Communist spy as her driver and staff member for twenty years including when she was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. During those years her husband made millions in investments in China. She’s as corrupt as they come and has been for years.
neo,
“did they never care about anything else, right from the start?”
With the caveat that I suspect that they have from the very beginning fervently told themselves (and still do) that their intentions have always been altruistic… I’m reminded of Harry Truman’s assessment of such as they; “Professional liberals are too arrogant to compromise. In my experience, they were also very unpleasant people on a personal level. Behind their slogans about saving the world and sharing the wealth with the common man lurked a nasty hunger for power. They’d double-cross their own mothers to get it or keep it.” – Harry S Truman, pp. 55, American Heritage 7/8 1992, from a 1970 interview —
windbag,
Since they are an ends-justify-means mob, they’ll double down…
“SCREAMING PROTESTERS HEARD IN SENATE GALLERY”
https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/06/screaming-protesters-senate-gallery-kavanaugh-confirmation/
“Hysterical ‘Kavanope’ Harpies Set Women Back 100 Years”
https://pjmedia.com/trending/hysterical-kavanope-harpies-set-women-back-100-years/
“14 Completely Insane Reactions To Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation”
http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/06/14-completely-insane-reactions-to-brett-kavanaughs-confirmation/
“Watch: Leftists Freak Out, Claw At Supreme Court Doors Trying To Get In As Kavanaugh Sworn In”
https://www.weaselzippers.us/399096-watch-leftists-freak-out-claw-at-supreme-court-doors-trying-to-get-in-as-kavanaugh-sworn-in/
“MORE DEATH THREATS: GOP Senator’s Wife Received Gruesome Beheading Video After His Vote for Kavanaugh”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/10/gop-sen-gardner-doxxed-reveals-his-wife-received-text-of-gruesome-beheading-video-following-kavanaugh-vote/
LYNN HARGROVE
“There is no shame in the Dem party now, only that they have to win at all cost, consequences be Damned. This will not end well for America.”
Once the trash has been taken out, it will be a much better America. One that will have learned some hard lessons; allowing totalitarian ideologies that are inherently antithetical to America’s founding principles is a formula for societal dissolution. Allowing immigrants entry who are unwilling to fully assimilate is another factor in societal dissolution. People unwilling and/or incapable of debating their ideas in a rational manner to vote is another factor in societal dissolution. Allowing people to vote who cannot articulate American principles and their supporting rationale is another factor in societal dissolution. A healthy society must have a degree of societal consensus as to the virtues it embraces.
J.J.,
” The lawlessness and violence exhibited by the progs is going to be a common feature, which will probably escalate. The violence of the 60s/70s ratcheted up to bombings, murders, and wide spread riots. I expect, sadly, the same thing to happen this time. It is sad.”
Yes, though I expect the violence to be considerably greater, there are far more anarchistic radicals today than existed back then.
Oldflyer,
There are pictures taken of Feinstein during this travesty that reveal her to have moments when her willful blindness briefly slipped. In her “heart of hearts” she knows what havoc she has helped to create.
Pingback:Now that K's joined The Supremes there's only one thing for real Americans to do... - American Digest
Anarchist radicals doesn’t cover what democrats have become. They are progressive supremacist.
It used to be that Supreme Count Justices were careful to try to appear neutral, to not comment on politics, and not to make political statements.
Now, recently, the lefties on the Supreme court have stepped into the political arena with their comments.
We’ve had Justice Ginsburg popping off, now we have Justice Kagan who, in a talk at Princeton just last Friday, stated that she is now worried that Kavanaugh’s joining the court will decrease it’s “legitimacy.”
She also talked about how Kavanaugh joining the court will tarnish it’s “impartiality,” as if anyone with half a brain believes that the Justices don’t have their individual political views and agendas, or that these things don’t have an effect on the cases they decide to take, and on their rulings.
BTW: Kagan also mourned the fact that Kavanaugh would not likely be a neutral centrist vote mediating between left and right Justices, which statement, of course, admits that the Justices are not above it all and without their own ideological viewpoints and inclinations.
huxley on October 7, 2018 at 3:42 pm at 3:42 pm said:
Curiously there is an argument from the left that it was Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ sleaze lawyer who ruined the Dem/Ford attack on Kavanaugh.
One of the notable traits of the left for the past two or three years (actually for much longer, but it has accelerated lately) is the effort to “out-left” each other. No giveaway is too outrageous. No doomsday prediction is too far-fetched. No accusation or insult hurled at an opponent is beyond the pale. Avenatti clearly went too far, and likely overplayed the Dems’ hand.
Perhaps we have reached the outer limits? Let’s hope they take a few steps back.
“At the insistence of senators Collins, Flake, Feinstein, and others, the FBI conducted a seventh background check of Kavanaugh. All the senators were invited to read the report. Here’s a video of Senator Feinstein after she read it.”
“Feinstein directly after she read the FBI report.”
The main problem remains, most sadly and scarily, that the American people tend to be too ignorant to allow any punditry accurately to gauge what’s likely to happen next. Our education system, such as it is, has regularly indoctrinated kids into leftism, and severely curtailed the exercise of critical thinking, which is absolutely necessary for our nation to survive the radicals’ onslaught. It’s by dint of sheer luck, or maybe divine providence, that Trump destroyed Clinton. How long are we going to be able to ride that horse? It’s too likely the Dims will make a comeback, and then Ovomit’s “transform America” will really come home to roost: expanded Supreme Ct., appointment of flagrantly activist judges (i.e., radical leftist Lawyers Guild-types), rollback of all the positive economic steps Trump has taken, reversal of all the America-strengthening foreign policy steps he’s implemented, etc. In other words, something akin to Soviets 2.0. How do we avoid this near-inevitability? I dunno. With Clinton having handily won the popular vote, I suppose we can count on the Dims’ defenestrating the electoral college, too, simultaneously opening the borders, thus ending the grand American Experiment. So as to revel in the happy moment at hand, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”
windbag,
“Perhaps we have reached the outer limits? Let’s hope they take a few steps back.”
If they “take a few steps back” it will only be to regroup and strategize an even more subversive strategy with even more subversive tactics… arguably, it’s better that they continue off the deep end and through demonstrating their fanaticism, swell even further the ranks of the #walkaway movement.
McCaskill made her money the old fashioned way: she married it. Her husband, Joe Shepard, has been a real estate investor for many years in metro St. Louis, including a healthy slug of federally subsidized affordable housing. She says she has nothing to do with his business, which he was doing before they met in 2001. On the one hand, there is no reason to doubt her. On the other hand, Joe gets slopped in the federal trough.
It is all “just business”. The party of “the working people” switched tracks to adopt socialist and “Cultural Marxist” goals and ideology. That “new product” isn’t selling.
Stuffing the Supreme Court with Anti-Constitutional fan-boys, like the “Wise Latina”, are their only hope for power.
Justice Kavanaugh is a competent judge who understands the meaning of the Constitution and is thus a massive obstruction to their lust for power.
Socialist, and corruptocrat, power is their sacred objective. The means to that end are “justified business”.
The next “round” will be even more entertaining. Sending out the thugs of AntiFa and “Black Gangster Lives Matter” may seem reasonable from the rubble of the Democratic Party..
I have to give serious credit to Senator Flake. His push for an FBI investigation, that ultimately determined there was no corroboration of Ford’s accusations, created the environment in which Senator Collins could, with a clear conscience, vote ‘yes’ and, more importantly, give the speech she gave on the Senate floor; a speech I found to be terrific. Furthermore, this last FBI report is the ammunition that will be needed to defend the legitimacy of Justice Kavanaugh’s opinions on the Court and the Court itself. The Democrats will whine and cavil, as they have done over the years to Justice Thomas, but their complaints will find no home except with the most ardent of the Left.
Right off the bat, Neo’s observation that
points out one of the things that left me less than in love with Susan Collins’s speech.
McCaskill made her money the old fashioned way: she married it. Her husband, Joe Shepard, has been a real estate investor for many years in metro St. Louis, including a healthy slug of federally subsidized affordable housing. She says she has nothing to do with his business, which he was doing before they met in 2001. On the one hand, there is no reason to doubt her. On the other hand, Joe gets slopped in the federal trough.
McCaskill was elected to the senate to replace the appointed Jean Carnahan. Of course Carnahan was appointed after Ashcroft stopped campaigning against her deceased husband after the plane crash. Remember the “Ashcroft lost to a dead guy”. They made fun of him, even though he did a class move and stopped making the case for his return to the senate. Fruit from a poison tree.
“Do they [Feinstein and Schumer] like what they see [when they look at themselves in a mirror], or do they feel any sense of shame whatsoever? Was the path to this point so slow and gradual, with compromise after compromise and rationalization after rationalization along the way, that they no longer have any consideration except “ends justify means” in the path to power? Or did they never care about anything else, right from the start?”
Diane Feinstein? I’m not sure.
Chuck Schumer? He has ALWAYS been a smoother, more ruthless version of Harry “It worked, didn’t it?” Reid.
I don’t think Schumer has any regrets. He’s been a leader in taking anyone and everyone into the sewer or wherever else to get his way. Feinstein, on the other hand, I believe has deep regrets. The news conference with Schumer, reviewing the FBI’s investigation – which has been commented on by many for the demeanor of Feinstein, is instructive. The commentary I have seen saw her reaction as a demonstration failure, that the FBI found nothing. I disagree. Her reaction was one of shame, shame for herself and what she had done to an innocent man. I don’t know whether that will have any effect on how she conducts herself in the future, but she’s looked into the abyss, seen herself, and didn’t like what she saw.
Neo,
There was a time when I would have agreed with Jonathan Swift: “I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.” For some time now the Democrats have been the party of the shameless. (Cough, cough. Obama?) Somehow, I had long held out some hope that there was a shred of latent decency or shame hidden somewhere in Feinstein, but the Kavanaugh episode thoroughly crushed that hope. Schumer is, of course, a very caricature of shamelessness. And Blumenthal! A man so far gone he can no longer rise even to the status of hypocrite. It is almost touching but ultimately disasterous, that Republicans (the “good sports” of politics) have for so long imputed “common decency” to the Democratic Party. Decent Americans are locked in a battle with a remorseless, shameless foe.
JTKu: The Feinstein video caught my eye too. Whatever was going on with her was deep, sad and unpleasant. She did seem on the verge of tears. Shame could very well be it. Though she would probably have felt better if they had brought Kavanaugh down….
https://twitter.com/zyntrax/status/1047924429127389184
Feinstein had long been one of the sensible Democrats in Congress. Compared to Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi, also from the Bay Area, Feinstein was a jewel.
But now she leaves the Senate with her reputation in tatters. A Chinese spy working as her chauffeur for years and now this dirty, rotten, sexual smear of a remarkable man based on uncorroborated accusations.
RE: The shrieking women in the gallery.. . they sounded other than human. Blood-Curdling, in fact.
#MeToo is a typical Motte-and-Bailey doctrine.
When challenged, its proponents retreat to the defensible motte of “women who reported used to not be taken seriously, to be slut-shamed, to be called hysterical and unreliable.” Which is sadly true, if dated by several decades now. (Unless, of course, it was a white woman accusing a black man, in which case get a rope.)
When the challengers stop paying attention, they go right back to the extremist bailey of “women never lie about rape! #yesallmen! #believethewomen! Patriarchy!!!”
Victor Davis Hanson used to write of Obama’s hubris and how he would likely be visited by Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, for his arrogance. I would say Lady N. has arrived and brought the Valkyries with her.
So much of what has happened — the Tea Party, the deluge of lost elections, the fragile work-around of executive orders, the election of Trump, and now a conservative Supreme Court — is the direct result of Obama’s top-down, by-any-means-necessary efforts to implement the “fundamental transformation of America,” supported enthusiastically by the Democratic Party.
And Obama and the Dems are still making things worse for themselves. All this coo-coo craziness will not help them in November.
windbag on October 7, 2018 at 12:18 pm at 12:18 pm said:
Believe all women isn’t the same thing as treat all accusations seriously.
* * *
We know that, but you are talking to people who objected to the civil and true extension #AllLivesMatter by their own politicians.
They have to contend for “believe all women” because “treat accusations seriously and investigate them” has mostly taken down their own predators on the Left.
* * *
Ilion on October 7, 2018 at 3:11 pm at 3:11 pm said:
“If one harks back to the days when women’s accusations were often ignored even when they had substance …”
There was never such a time, not in what used to be called Christendom.
* * *
Please put a bit more effort into getting educated.
There has always been such a time, and Christian-majority-lands were just as bad as any other, because Christendom has always been full of nominal Christians rather than the Real Sort.
That prejudice in favor of male denials (or worse, “so what?”) had gradually (and too slowly) been pivoting around to “take accusations seriously and investigate them” when the pendulum swung over to the polar opposite of “believe all men” and became “believe all women.”
Because the ultimate purpose is contention, not solution.
huxley on October 7, 2018 at 3:42 pm at 3:42 pm said:
Nonetheless, I can’t help but notice no one opposing Kavanaugh spoke up against Avennati and his client. The media was pushing the bandwagon along, not realizing it was indirectly undermining Ford.
* * *
Because they were anticipating the same result as in the #MeToo accusations, which were originally against real serial sexual abusers and had exactly that effect of escalating accusations that turned out to be true.
Their problem was that Kavanaugh was not, and never had been, a real serial sexual abuser (not even for n=1).
Snow on Pine on October 7, 2018 at 4:52 pm at 4:52 pm said:
…
BTW: Kagan also mourned the fact that Kavanaugh would not likely be a neutral centrist vote mediating between left and right Justices, which statement, of course, admits that the Justices are not above it all and without their own ideological viewpoints and inclinations.
* * *
I read that article, and it struck me as a blatant admission that (1) the 4 Leftist justices are entitled to be impartial because they are always correct; (2) the 4 Rightist justices are not entitled to be impartial because they are always wrong; (3) the vacillators, like Kennedy, are impartial when they vote with the Left and biased when they vote with the Right.
Important to read (h/t PowerLine). Lots of reminders of sightings of that mythical creature, apparently never encountered by the Democrats and their Leftist handlers: the Woman Who Lies about sexual assault.
https://www.city-journal.org/rape-16216.html
The feminist movement has shifted the definition of rape to include regret.
Heather Mac Donald
October 7, 2018
“Even before the sexual revolution destroyed the norms that once governed the male libido and that steadied the relationship between the sexes, sex was the realm of ambiguity and indirection. The #BelieveSurvivors contingent asserts that survivors rarely if ever lie about their experiences—meaning, they rarely make those experiences up out of whole cloth. This assertion is mostly true; in most cases of alleged campus rape, something did happen between the accused and the accuser. The issue is how to classify what happened. (To be sure, there are rapes that go unreported, but there are also outright fabrications, such as the Rolling Stone University of Virginia campus rape hoax, which cost the magazine millions in damages, and the Duke lacrosse team rape hoax, for which the local prosecutor lost his law license.) The #BelieveSurvivors movement claims unique authority to interpret women’s experiences, even if that means ignoring a woman’s own classification of her experience as not rape.”
What I find very disconcerting is not that some of the D leaders are making ridiculous wild claims, but that a fair number of followers actually believe them as gospel truths.
For them, Kavanaugh *is* a rapist–not just a person accused of groping with weak evidence.
For them, Kavanaugh at the hearing revealed that he would rule however his Republican masters told him to.
For them, the Republicans turned the hearings into a circus.
“Incredulous stare” doesn’t begin to cover it.
The unconventional warfare thumbrule is that if only 10% of the population rebels, then there will be civil war. I don’t think that we’re there yet, but it is cause for concern.
Baffling reaction from Jordan Peterson:
He first tweeted this (https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1048320826376740865): “If confirmed Kavanaugh should step down.”
And then added this (https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1048643964050370560): “That might decrease residual alienation from the left, and make things less polarized moving forward. Of course, that has to be balanced against handing any victory to the ‘believe all accusers’ crowd.”
Given his own history with the left, how in the world could he possibly think such a move “might decrease” the left’s “residual alienation”?
Ann: That is surprising. Peterson goes on to tweet:
I’m not certain that is the right move. It’s very complex. But [Kavanaugh] would have his name cleared, and a figure who might be less divisive might be put forward.
I don’t see how K gets his name cleared and what figure would Democrats find less divisive? This just reinforces Democrats for their bad faith, bad behavior.
Well, even Jordan Peterson can be wrong sometimes.
Cbi on October 7, 2018 at 11:09 pm at 11:09 pm said:
What I find very disconcerting is not that some of the D leaders are making ridiculous wild claims, but that a fair number of followers actually believe them as gospel truths.
* * *
The headline is an accurate reflection of the story, but it is not the kind of disgrace we (well, except for Manju) mean by the term. The Commenters (at least on the first page) agree with our definition.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Kavanaugh-s-Supreme-Court-13287331.php
Editorial: Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation was disgrace from start to finish
Chronicle Editorial Board Oct. 6, 2018 Updated: Oct. 6, 2018 10:50 p.m.
AesopFan: The SF Chron usually has a surprising number of conservative commenters and letter-writers. Not that it changes anything.
Considering the roar from the wounded left barking in an unrelenting thunderous chorus, it is doubtful that Feinstein, Shumer, et al, are feeling any sense of shame. More likely they wonder why no gratitude for their efforts from the mob on their side.
Such is the way of the mob, however. No gratitude – just ceaseless yelling, snapping, growling, and nursing their various victimhoods.
And yet Senator Chris Coons (D/Delaware) wants to continue the fight against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, at least that’s how it sounded from a sound bite today. How to give the Republican party more ammunition to use against all Democrats before the vote in November I could not have expected.
Nemesis indeed.
It would appear that most of this can be attributed to the facts that the Republicans with to govern, and the Democrats wish to rule.
I doubt that any of the top Democrats have conciences, and as to Chuck Schumer, I doubt that he has a soul any more, and I bet he didn’t even get a reciept.
Schumer is what he has always been. I don’t think the man has any shame whatsoever, and will do anything it takes to acquire power- for Schumer, there are no limits, but he always makes sure others do the dirty work.
Feinstein, to my eye, displayed some chagrin during the Ford/Kavanaugh hearing- during her questioning Kavanaugh, I thought that some of the life went out of her, and she seemed to have no stomach for continuing it. Kavanaugh definitely set her back on her heels.
The actions of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and in the Senate generally are further evidence supporting what I have long believed: that many people, maybe most people, and certainly most politicians, are atheists. If you truly believed in a God who knows your every action and before Whom someday you will stand, how could you act the way you do?
I don’t believe any Dem on that Committee, except Harris and Hirono, actually believed any of those accusations. The rest were simply slanderers. They should all be praying there is no God.
Being a voter in California I have to weigh in on the Senate race. I will confess that at one point obviously long before the Kavanaugh nomination I toyed with the idea of voting for Feinstein to make sure her far left opponent didn’t win though I figured I wouldn’t need to because she would coast to victory. After the Chicom chauffeur and the Kavanaugh smear I would have a hard time voting for her if she were running against David Duke.
She really deserves to be punished for her role in the Kavanaugh circus. But I still don’t think it’s a good idea to put someone from the Dems’ hard left in the Senate because it will only encourage them and they are the real source of most of what is wrong with the party today. And if you think he will do less damage as a freshman Senator, consider the freshman center from Illinois elected in 2004 who caused quite a bit of damage even before his first term was scheduled to end in 2010. Bottom line is I won’t be voting for any Democrat. And I feel really, really good about that.
From Wikipedia:
McCaskill was married to David Exposito, with whom she had three children. The couple divorced in 1995, after 11 years of marriage, while McCaskill was Jackson County Prosecutor. David Exposito was found murdered in Kansas City, Kansas on December 12, 2005.[84] Exposito’s murder has never been solved.[85]
I’m not saying it means anything. Just interesting …
“Her reaction was one of shame, shame for herself and what she had done to an innocent man.”
You are most certainly a “far, far better [person] than I”….
I would have said, “Well, she LOST, didn’t she?…”.
(Should one try to imagine how what her “reaction” would have been had she WON?….)
No, sorry. I agree whole-heartedly with “Banned Lizard”. In fact, I don’t think there can be any doubt. Once, again, if she felt even a shred of shame, of contrition, it’s because she FAILED in what she believed—absolutely—should have been “a sure thing”.
Reminds me of Hillary, actually….
I should add that if “…she felt even a shred of shame, of contrition…”then maybe—just maybe—she would have, um, apologized?
(Just sayin’….)
Oh, and here’s a rather apt metaphor for the auto-da-fe to which Kavanaugh was subjected by the relentless, steely-eyed, cold-blooded (if ultra-hysterical) Democratic machine over the past several weeks (and, most likely, will continue to be subjected in the conceivable future…):
https://twitter.com/xxlfunny1/status/1048873156650393602/video/1
(Or maybe one should ditch poetic license and just call it “In praise of sunroofs”?….sunlight, of course, being the best disinfectant….)
First, we need to name the phenomenon. I call it:
Democrat Derangement Syndrome.
Not Trump, not Bush, not Kavanaugh, not Palin — altho the Dems were and are acting deranged in much of their criticism of these Reps; and not Republican.
It’s Democrats who have the problem – it’s
Dem Derangement Syndrome.
I actually think most of the violence will be way toned down as soon as more of the violent folk get put in jail, with publicity. The sooner this starts happening, the less the total violence.
I don’t believe the vast number of snowflakes are ready to accept being jailed for their “outrage of the week”.
Because of continued Dem Derangement, the Rep energy in opposition will likely continue. Good ads are needed. The Gasbag ad against Da Nang Richard seems pretty good. (BTW, there’s a lovely Blumenthal Church in Bratislava.)
Reps are, hopefully not just temporarily, quite united against the smear jobs. They need to focus on how all who vote for Dems, are voting in favor of smear jobs & disrespect for American institutions. The Dem hypocrites who call for civility, at a funeral, but show none whatsoever at Senate hearings.
More focus on the #WalkAway folk would be good, too.
Black support for Trump is up to some 36%? If they fail to vote for the Dems, there might even be a small Red Wave.
Dems like women – don’t want men.
Dems like blacks – don’t want whites.
Dems like LGBTqx – don’t want sexually normal folk.
Dems like atheists & anti-Christians – don’t want Christians.
If most of the Dem unwanted folk vote Rep, the Dems are in big trouble.
Looking at Trump tweets, he’ll claim he loves women, he’s great for blacks, he’s always been open & welcoming to LGBTqx folk, and he wants all religions to get along — he’s in favor of ALL Americans…
(pretty strongly anti-illegal immigration)
There a lot of analyses about why Trump won – how Trump broke the Clinton campaign camel’s back.
There were a few bricks, and lots of straws. The straws don’t matter so much. The bricks were: a) anti-immigration (both legal but especially illegal); b) stagnating economy, bad for the workers; and c) pro-life voters, especially Christians.
The Kav Derangement by Dems was because he’s pro-life, the (c) brick means the pro-life folk might start winning. If so, it’s partly due to sonograms — the visibility of a fetal human inside the womb, often including pictures. (I haven’t seen any analysis claiming that sonograms helped Trump — yet they did.)
Another factor is demographics — pro-life women are having more kids than pro-abortion women. Demographics is destiny; this also relates to (a) anti-immigration against those who don’t assimilate.
Since 1974, there has been a March for Life by pro-life, anti-abortion folk, because of Roe v Wade in 1973, a 7-2 decision (I somehow thought it was 5-4).
That’s 44 years of constant desire, mostly very peaceful protest, to protect innocent unborn human life.
Roe v Wade was a decision, it is NOT an Amendment to the US Constitution. Altho it is treated like an Amendment — it can be called a Fake Amendment (tho because it is actual law, it’s not as fake as most Fake News).
There is an actual 10th Amendment which covers abortion:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Altho there are many whose opinion is that making abortion illegal is a power prohibited to the States due to a penumbra of an implicit privacy protection by the Constitution. It takes 5 or more SC Judges to disagree.
When (not if) Roe is reversed, the power to specify legalization issues will go back to the states, and it’s likely that big Dem states will have legal abortion laws, while some Rep states will have much more restrictive laws.
Since many pro-life folk vote Rep for this reason primarily, but otherwise are big-gov’t, mildly or strongly anti-business, any Rep majority will be weaker after Roe is repealed.
http://www.answers.com/Q/Who_was_on_the_US_Supreme_Court_during_Roe_v._Wade
The Club for Growth has a good record of backing conservative candidates who can win.
Please consider contributing to their PAC.
https://www.clubforgrowth.org/
Update: Hugh Hewitt said this a.m. that Justice Kavanagh has hired 4-women Interns for the new session. Two are Black.
Don’t cha just LOVE IT??!!
SCOTTtheBADGER on October 8, 2018 at 1:29 am at 1:29 am said:
It would appear that most of this can be attributed to the facts that the Republicans with to govern, and the Democrats wish to rule.
* * *
Well, Sen. Graham got woke to that, didn’t he?
AesopFan: He certainly did!