It’s Monday, September 24th, 2018…and here’s The Gouge!

We kick off the last week of September with this offering from the editorial board of the WSJ:

The Presumption of Guilt

The new liberal standard turns American due process upside down.

“As Judge Kavanaugh stands to gain the lifetime privilege of serving on the country’s highest court, he has the burden of persuasion. And that is only fair.”—Anita Hill, Sept. 18, 2018

“Not only do women like Dr. Ford, who bravely comes forward, need to be heard, but they need to be believed.”—Sen. Maize Hirono (D., Hawaii)

The last-minute accusation of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is an ugly spectacle by any measure. But if there is a silver lining, it is that the episode is providing an education for Americans on the new liberal standard of legal and political due process.

As Ms. Hill and Sen. Hirono aver, the Democratic standard for sexual-assault allegations is that they should be accepted as true merely for having been made. The accuser is assumed to be telling the truth because the accuser is a woman. The burden is on Mr. Kavanaugh to prove his innocence. If he cannot do so, then he is unfit to serve on the Court.

This turns American justice and due process upside down. The core tenet of Anglo-American law is that the burden of proof always rests with the person making the accusation. An accuser can’t doom someone’s freedom or career merely by making a charge.

The accuser has to prove the allegation in a court of law or in some other venue where the accused can challenge the facts. Otherwise we have a Jacobin system of justice in which “J’accuse” becomes the standard and anyone can be ruined on a whim or a vendetta.

Another core tenet of due process is that an accusation isn’t any more or less credible because of the gender, race, religion or ethnicity of who makes it. A woman can lie, as the Duke lacrosse players will tell you. Ms. Hirono’s standard of credibility by gender would have appalled the civil-rights campaigners of a half century ago who marched in part against Southern courts that treated the testimony of black Americans as inherently less credible than that of whites. Yet now the liberal heirs of those marchers want to impose a double standard of credibility by gender…”

The Journal‘s editors went on to note the various inconsistencies and gaping holes in Ms. Ford’s fable, including, but not limited to, her extremely selective recall of the facts and circumstances surrounding the supposed incident, her failure to report it to anyone, the complete lack of even remote corroboration from her purported witnesses and a refusal to take questions from attorneys or address her delay in coming forward.

They even correctly concluded…

“Such a process is designed to obscure the truth, not to discover it. None of these demands should be tolerable to Senators who care about finding the truth about a serious accusation.“

But then, they proffered a conclusion not supported by any facts thus far offered in evidence, and which dramatically raised our blood pressure:

“We don’t doubt that Ms. Ford believes what she claims.“

Seriously?!?  When recent history is replete with examples of women deliberately lying about sexual assault for far less compelling personal (Tawana Brawley, Crystal Magnum, Nikki Yovino and the UVA/University of Michigan rape hoaxes immediately come to mind), or political purposes, the Journal hasn’t a doubt as to Ms. Ford’s veracity?!?  With Liberal control over the SCOTUS on the line?!?

Yo, Wall Street Journal: wake up and smell the Progressive desperation!!!

As Andy McCarthy notes at NRO:

“…Understand, this is not about Christine Blasey Ford. She’s a tool — a quite willing tool, but a tool all the same. This is not even about the eminently qualified federal circuit-court judge Brett Kavanaugh — it would be no different regardless of which nominee President Trump selected in consultation with White House counsel Don McGahn, the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and the rest of the originalist, conservative legal community come of age. Democrats do not want a model of constitutional fidelity and judicial restraint elevated to the Supreme Court. End of story.

And who can blame them? Republicans did not want the eminently qualified federal circuit-court judge Merrick Garland to be elevated to the Supreme Court.

The only difference is that Republicans had the majority and the rules on their side. Now Democrats are out to prove that if you abuse the process until it becomes a circus, the rules don’t matter. The steroid effect of their media echo chamber can overcome any thin, fraidy-scared GOP majority.

Back in the Garland days of 2016, Republican control of the Senate meant there were civilized limits on opposition. The gentlemen were not willing to slander the gentleman as, say, a would-be rapist. But, in a stunning display of vertebrae, Republicans were willing to block the nomination, which they were legally entitled to do: They had the majority and nothing in the Constitution required them to vote on an outgoing Democratic president’s election-year nomination to fill the seat left vacant by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.

Realize, too, that everyone in that political dispute acted politically. If Obama had been a first- or fifth-year president with a Democratic majority in the Senate, he would never have nominated then-63-year-old Garland, a moderate liberal as to whom the press could portray opposition as unreasonable. Obama would instead have nominated a 40-something progressive ideologue — a living, breathing judicial personification of “I won, you lost” ram-Obamacare-through-with-no-Republican-support politics. When Republicans whined, the press would smirk and say, “Hey, elections have consequences.”

Thus, the moral of our story should be:

Hey Dems, if you don’t like it, then go win control of the Senate fair and square, and all the dominion over the courts that comes with victory. Until then, cry me a river. We are living in the filibuster-free, confirmation-conveyor-belt system that you designed for President Obama after derailing impeccably suitable Bush nominees when you had the votes and the raw parliamentary power to do so. We are living in the “all is fair in love and judiciary warfare” world that you created.

It should go without saying that the Supreme Court should not be this important. If it were just a judicial tribunal, even the highest-ranking one in the nation, the only thing we would care about would be having its bench filled by high-quality, high-character legal talent. The justices’ politics and partisan affiliations would be irrelevant because they would be technicians applying law to narrow legal questions, not making law and deciding how 325 million people who did not vote for them should live.

But the Left has turned the High Court into an über-legislature for imposing on the country the social-justice-warrior policy agenda that they cannot ride to victory at the ballot box. The Supreme Court is arguably just as vital to them as winning the White House, because justices often outlast even two-term presidencies by a factor of four or five.

Democrats are willing to use any tactics to block conservatives from the Supreme Court and seat their own ideologues. The question is not “Fair or unfair?” It’s “Will it work?” Republicans always seem flat-footed in response because they underestimate how far Democrats are willing to go to win, how willing they are to destroy people’s reputations if that’s what it takes. Republicans keep thinking it’s 1987 and the Bork debacle was the worst of it; in reality, we’re 30 years on, and the Bork debacle was just the beginning of it…”

As McCarthy observed in another commentary…

“…If Feinstein had raised the allegation in a timely manner, Kavanaugh would have been questioned about it during the hearing, the flimsiness of the claim would have been apparent, Kavanaugh’s unqualified denial would have been on the record, and the committee (including Democrats who had decided even before the hearing that they would vote against Kavanaugh even if the hearing established that he was Jesus of Nazareth in a robe) could weigh the allegation for what it was worth in voting on the nomination.

That is, if Democrats had not abused the process, there would already have been a vote on the nomination.

In other words, what Democrats have sought is delay. What Republicans are allowing them to have is delay. The contemptuous stall strategy is being rewarded…”

And as Keith Koffler notes in this late-breaking news flash, Dimocrats are taking every advantage of the time Republicans have granted them to concoct additional lies, this one only 35 years old!  Their first lie is coming apart at the seams, so they’ve stitched together another.  And badly at that, as Matt Vespa indicates at Townhall.com:   

““After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections.” Excuse me? So, once again, there’s no evidence. Just an unprovable allegation, which like Ford’s tale, seems pre-packaged to demand a delay—and you bet they’re going to get it.“

Hells bells, given another week, they’ll come up with pictures of Kavanaugh with a donkey in Tijuana.

For those still wondering why voters backed Donald Trump over traditional Republican candidates, the Kavanaugh fiasco is your answer.

Speaking of The Gang Who Still Can’t Shoot Straight, the WSJ‘s Kim Strassel details yet another reason why, absent The Donald…

The GOP Can’t Win for Losing

A Kavanaugh defeat would demoralize the Republican base, not energize it.

“…A few GOP optimists, inside and outside the White House, are spreading the claim that a Kavanaugh loss could have a midterm upside. The argument: Candidates would light up the base by highlighting Democrats’ ambush tactics. President Trump would name a new nominee, and voters would rush to the polls to guarantee a GOP Senate and an ultimate confirmation.

And then a flock of porcine wonders will fly.

Wiser Republicans note there’s a reason Spartacus & Co. are working so hard to defeat this nomination. It’s partly because they despise Judge Kavanaugh’s philosophy and fear a fifth conservative on the high court. It’s partly because they want to spare their red-state colleagues a difficult choice before the midterms. But it is mostly because it is a fabulous issue with the Democratic base. Nothing would more energize that part of the electorate than a Kavanaugh scalp.

It would signal the “resistance” is effective and spur an avalanche of votes for liberal candidates who promise continued obstruction of Mr. Trump’s agenda. Democrats will promise that Senate control would allow them to block any replacement nominee as well and keep the seat open until Democrats take the presidency in 2020. For voters still smarting over Merrick Garland, that’s the ultimate motivator.

Republican voters? Oh yes, the base is furious over the Democratic treatment of Judge Kavanaugh. They are angry over the theatrical and uncivil hearings. They are riled up over this late and dirty Democratic hit, the releasing of an accuser’s letter months after it was first obtained.

But listen to those base voters on Twitter, on radio, in public forums. They are prepared to release most of their rage over any Kavanaugh defeat on the Republican Party. One of their abiding complaints is that GOP politicians too easily succumb to liberal tactics. It is among the most-cited reasons they voted for Mr. Trump—that (for better or worse) he doesn’t back down. And while some are tolerant of a process that allows this accuser to speak, what the base mostly sees is an old, unsubstantiated, unprovable claim, and a partisan smear designed to deny a duly elected president his Supreme Court pick.

These voters handed Republicans control of the White House and Congress in large part to oversee these Supreme Court fights. Republicans have 51 votes, a sterling candidate, and no excuses. Good luck to any GOP candidate who turns around and promises a new nominee after a Kavanaugh fail. Why would or should voters believe Republicans would get it done the next time? Especially given that Democrats know they can repeat the ambush exercise. Among the reasons base Republicans lag Democrats in enthusiasm for this election is bitterness that the GOP failed in core promises to repeal ObamaCare and to restrain spending. A blown Supreme Court nominee would make matters far worse.

A newly minted Justice Kavanaugh is a crucial part of any winning 2018 message. His confirmation would be proof Republicans are willing to fight for and fulfill promises. It won’t guarantee that they’ll win the midterms and retain their majorities. But it will guard against the drubbing they’d receive from their own voters if they bow now to Chuck Schumer’s underhanded tactics.“

Progressives could provide a date/time-stamped video of Mother Theresa claiming Kavanaugh ravaged her 34 years ago and we’d assume it was fabricated.

Meanwhile, writing at the New York Post, Michael Goodwin concludes…

The ‘deep state’ leaves Trump with no good options

“President Trump is not generally given to understatement, but he soft-pedaled problems at the Department of Justice. There is, he said Friday, a “lingering stench” there.

A “stench” doesn’t describe the situation. A snake pit is more like it.

The report by The New York Times that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein plotted to remove Trump, either by wearing a wire or invoking the 25th Amendment, cements forever the fact that there was and still is a deep state centered in the nation’s top law-enforcement agency. This was a plot by power-mad individuals who aimed to overturn the 2016 election and thwart the will of voters.

Rosenstein, two weeks into his new job, reportedly suggested the ideas in a meeting with others at the FBI. He called the Times story “inaccurate” but denied specific allegations with lawyerly wiggle room, meaning Rosenstein is no Brett Kavanaugh when it comes to total assertions of innocence.

Later, the Justice Department conceded Rosenstein made the comments, but insisted he was joking. Joking, schmoking. I believe he was deadly serious based on the sequence of events before and ­after the meeting.

…Whether the plot revelation will be the end of Rosenstein is a guessing game. The advantages of keeping him, at least for now, involve calculations about what impact a firing would have on the midterms and the Mueller probe.

In addition, somebody would have to replace Rosenstein, and that’s not a battle Trump needs now, especially with Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination ­unresolved.

On the other hand, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned Trump Friday not to fire Rosenstein. In the political hall of mirrors, that could mean Schumer actually wants Trump to fire him so Dems would have fresh campaign fodder.

Thus, the president has no great option, only two bad ones. Keep the man who wanted to entrap and remove you, or fire him and bring on more trouble than you can handle.

Welcome to the snake pit.“

Since we’re on the subject of those who speak with forked tongues, also courtesy of NRO, Kyle Smith wonders…

What Is Hillary Clinton Thinking?

She actually believes she still has a shot at the White House.

When Homer Simpson looks in the mirror, he sees ripped chest muscles and arms like the trunks of beech trees. When Hillary Clinton looks in the mirror, she sees America’s sweetheart. She thinks: America adores me. She thinks: America already chose me to be president once! She thinks: Everyone is comparing me with Donald Trump and realizing I’m a better choice. She is hoping for a call that will never come: an earnest, sobbing plea from the Democratic party to be their standard bearer in 2020.

How else to explain Clinton’s latest media blitzkrieg? You’d think she’d be in Jimmy Carter mode: quiet, making a display of humility, working hard to rebuild her reputation for posterity by doing good deeds and writing non-political books (like Carter’s disarming series of memoirs). Instead, she is acting like a fired-up political candidate. The poor dear actually thinks she’s still in the game. The woman who, on Election Night 2016, slunk away in ignominy from thousands of supporters in the glass-ceilinged Javits Center without even saying thanks to the many who would have lain down in front of a bus for her, these days is once again singing her fight song. But it’s a pathetic 4 a.m. karaoke act and no one can bear to tell this frail elderly lady to stop screeching so they can mop the floors and turn out the lights. Because she has the personality of a cactus and hates everyone, H-Rod never should have entered politics to begin with, but her inability to leave it behind is an embarrassment. Not to me, mind you. Not to Republicans. We all hope she keeps talking. For us every HRC tweet and MSNBC appearance is a dopamine cookie. It is merely herself she is embarrassing…”

Hillary is the embodiment of the comic wisdom of the late, great Bob Hope:

Which finally brings us to The Lighter Side:

Magoo