It’s Friday, September 28th, 2018,…but before we begin, we offer two thoughts on the Kavanaugh kangaroo court: first, our adaption of Cordell Hull’s response to the Japanese ultimatum of December 7, 1941: In all our 62 years, we have never seen a spurious accusation more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions – on a scale so huge that we never imagined until today that any political party in this country was capable of uttering them.
Second, the despicable nature of Progressives’ obviously political assault on Brett Kavanaugh was never better-illustrated than by the reaction of my sister’s 10th-grade AP class, who compared Kavanaugh’s travails to the Salem witch trials and the HUAC/McCarthy investigations of the ’50s…though the HUAC/McCarthy hearings at least were rooted in fact.
Oh,…and Rachel Mitchell was a HORRIBLE CHOICE as the Republican interrogator. Personally, it’s our belief Mitchell’s cross-examination skills have been clouded by too many free lunches.
That being said, Republicans have scheduled a vote for tomorrow. Stay tuned!!!
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up in the last edition of September, the WSJ details why Senate Republicans need to…
“Thursday’s Senate hearing on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination was an embarrassment that should have never happened. Judge Kavanaugh was right to call the confirmation process a “disgrace” in his passionate self-defense, and whatever one thinks of Christine Blasey Ford’s assault accusation, she offered no corroboration or new supporting evidence.
Ms. Ford certainly was a sympathetic witness—by her own admission “terrified” at the start and appearing to be emotionally fragile. Her description of the assault and its impact on her was wrenching. She clearly believes what she says happened to her. (An assertion with which we vehemently disagree!!!) Her allegation should have been vetted privately, in confidence, as she said she would have preferred. Instead ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein held it for six weeks and it was leaked—perhaps to cause precisely such a hearing circus.
Yet there is still no confirming evidence beyond her own testimony, and some (most, if not all!!!) of what she says has been contradicted…
The real Democratic goal is to push a confirmation vote past Election Day. They can then spare their incumbents running for re-election from taking a difficult vote. If they win the election, they will then try to block any confirmation until they take over the Senate in January. No nominee to the right of Merrick Garland would then be confirmed in the final two years of the Trump Presidency. The Supreme Court would be divided 4-4 until 2021 at least.
Senate Republicans should understand that these are the real political stakes. This nomination isn’t only about the fate of a single man whose reputation can be discarded like some tabloid celebrity. This is about the future of the Supreme Court and who will control the Senate. If Republicans reject Mr. Kavanaugh based on what we know now, millions of voters will rightly be furious.
But as important, a rejection will bring dishonor to the Senate. (Whatever dubious level of honor is left that vacuous body.) It will validate the ambush and smear politics that Democrats are using. And it will turn Supreme Court nominations over to the justice of the social-media mob and the politics of accusation. It’s time for Senators to stand up and confirm Brett Kavanaugh.“
There’s just three problems…
…two of which owe no allegiance whatsoever to the Republican Party: the aptly-named Jeff Flake, who, having read the tea leaves of voter unrest back in Arizona, didn’t even bother to run for reelection; and Lisa “Ursula the Sea Witch” Murkowski, who, similarly shunned by Alaskan Republicans, retained her Senate seat by running as an Independent.
In a related item, Kimberly Strassel highlights the overarching importance of…
“The Ford-Kavanaugh hearing consumed most of Thursday, and unsurprisingly we learned nothing from the spectacle. Christine Ford remains unable to marshal any evidence for her claim of a sexual assault. Brett Kavanaugh continues to deny the charge adamantly and categorically, and with persuasive emotion.
Something enormous nonetheless has shifted over the past weeks of political ambushes, ugly threats and gonzo gang-rape claims. In a Monday interview, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski noted: “We are now in a place where it’s not about whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified.” Truer words were never spoken. Republicans are now voting on something very different and monumental—and they (At least three of them!) need to be clear on the stakes.
To vote against Judge Kavanaugh is to reject his certain, clear and unequivocal denial that this event ever happened. The logical implication of a “no” vote is that a man with a flawless record of public service lied not only to the public but to his wife, his children and his community. Any Republican who votes against Judge Kavanaugh is implying that he committed perjury in front of the Senate, and should resign or be impeached from his current judicial position, if not charged criminally. As Sen. Lindsey Graham said: “If you vote ‘no,’ you are legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.” (A number of which less despicable things were committed by Senator Grahamnesty!)
The stakes go beyond Judge Kavanaugh. A “no” vote now equals public approval of every underhanded tactic deployed by the left in recent weeks. It’s a green light to send coat hangers and rape threats to Sen. Susan Collins and her staff. It is a sanction to the mob that drove Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife out of a restaurant. It is an endorsement of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who kept the charge secret for weeks until she could use it to ambush the nominee with last-minute, unverified claims. It’s approval of the release of confidential committee material (hello, Spartacus), the overthrow of regular Senate order, and Twitter rule. It’s authorization for a now thoroughly unprofessional press corps to continue crafting stories that rest on anonymous accusers and that twist innuendo into gang rapes. A vote against Brett Kavanaugh is a vote for Michael Avenatti. No senator can hide from this reality. There is no muddy middle…”
Case in point, as NRO’s Andy McCarthy recounts…
“…Each passing day now, we see the wages of abuse of the committee process. In the best of times, it is a commonplace for prominent people to be accused of misconduct. Some allegations are concrete and provide real investigative leads. Others are empty smears. There is a process in place for the FBI and committee staff, which is well-resourced at taxpayer expense, to vet these allegations. By the time a nominee testifies, decisions have been made about what matters are worth pursuing — in public hearings and private sessions — and which additional witnesses could add value with committee testimony (as opposed to written submissions). As I pointed out again on Wednesday, this confirmation process is not supposed to be a trial. It is not supposed to resemble a criminal investigation. The objective is to assemble enough information that the Senate can exercise its constitutional advice-and-consent function — so senators can responsibly decide whether to approve the nomination. The point is not to resolve every claim or render a “guilty” or “not guilty” verdict.
Here Democrats willfully thwarted the process and Republicans let them get away with it. Rather than submitting Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations to the process, Senator Feinstein sat on them, then sprang them at the last second, after Kavanaugh met with any senator who would meet him privately (apparently 65 did), gave 31 hours of masterful testimony, and appeared poised to have his nomination approved by the committee, albeit on a party-line vote.
Committee chairman Chuck Grassley could have told committee Democrats that, having abused the process (after making a despicable circus out of the hearing), the minority had waived the right to present more evidence. Of course, Grassley has the thinnest of margins; thus, he had to weigh the fact that Republican moderates (including those sensitive to the party’s standing among women) were less concerned about procedural regularity than with the potential perception that the committee had given a wronged woman the back of the hand. But any solicitude was going come with costs — that’s why leadership jobs are hard. (Though far less hard than earning a living in the real world!)
Rather than allowing the process to be derailed, Chairman Grassley could have invited Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh to submit affidavits for the record. Or, if Grassley felt he had to hold a hearing, he could have set it on a short date and given Ford a choice: Show up and testify, content herself with submitting a sworn statement, or decline to participate. Meantime, a vote could have been scheduled and held right after the short hearing date — after all, this exhibition is optics, it is not actually about changing anyone’s mind. Democrats would have cried foul through their media megaphone; Republican moderates would have whined. But the blunt fact would remain: Democrats strategically orchestrated this sideshow, and there has already been more relevant information amassed about Kavanaugh than about any nominee in the nation’s history. It was past time to vote — to dare GOP moderates to be the ones to block Kavanaugh’s nomination, because the moderates are not going to grow more backbone with more delay.
Instead, Senator Grassley decided to bend over backwards to show how fair he and Republicans are. He negotiated terms with Ford’s counsel — empowering them as if they had cards to play. He indulged demands for delay, postponing the vote. Naturally, the delay undermined any sense that there is a procedure for raising allegations — to ensure that they are timely raised, that they are subjected to a vetting process to separate corroborated accusations from unsupported slander. This made more unverifiable smears inevitable, and created an expectation that there must be more delay while the new smears are investigated.
Meanwhile, the point of the hearing was lost. It is no longer about whether there is enough information for senators to exercise their constitutional advice-and-consent function. It is a Kafkaesque criminal trial in which Kavanaugh must establish his innocence, his accusers must be presumed credible because of our #MeToo moment, and nothing dispositive can happen until the FBI conducts a full-blown investigation of decades-old allegations of state-law offenses that the Bureau has no jurisdiction over, and that no state would proceed on because doing so would offend the Constitution’s speedy trial guarantee and state statutes of limitations.
You want to say Grassley had no choice? I’m not buying it. There is always a choice, and when you make the short-term easy one (What’s the harm in letting them have their hearing? What’s the harm in engaging in extended negotiations over a witness’s presumptuous, outlandish demands rather than issuing a subpoena and getting on with it?), you are responsible for the foreseeable, inevitable long-term consequences — more delay, more demands for investigation, more public doubt about a patently qualified nominee’s legitimacy.
That’s where we are today, with a hearing that could be, at most, just the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.“
Which brings us to another WSJ offering, this from Abigail Shrier, who documents the evolutionary progress as…
“Pity Lady Justice; she’s had a rough couple of weeks. On “State of the Union” Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper tossed Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii what should have been a grapefruit: “Doesn’t Kavanaugh have the same presumption of innocence as anyone else in America?” Ms. Hirono responded: “I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches cases.” Conservative jurists in America have been put on notice: They are to forfeit their most basic rights as punishment for their judicial philosophy.
…If Judge Kavanaugh were liberal, Sen. Hirono makes clear, she would give him the benefit of the doubt. If he adjudicates like a conservative, that’s evidence of rape.
This is not a fair hearing. This is not any hearing at all. This is a series of political stunts calling itself “debate” over who should sit on the Supreme Court. Those who believe a sole witness’s inchoate recollection of a never-reported incident 36 years ago have every right to this instinct, but they cannot pretend to have seen sufficient evidence to adjudicate the matter. Not without corroboration or any pattern of similar acts by the accused. For those who are already convinced of Judge Kavanaugh’s guilt, it is enough to believe no politically conservative Catholic—“some frat boy named Brett”—as NARAL called him—should ever sit on the highest court of the land. Who but a monster would refuse to endorse the right to abortion? And isn’t that tantamount to violence against women? What other evidence do we really need?
Either we’re going to take sexual assault seriously because we’re interested in protecting women, or we’ll allow it to be transformed into merely the newest political weapon. If we choose the latter, we will have encouraged victims and witnesses of even the most heinous crimes to decline to report them for decades, waiting for the politically opportune moment. And we will have helped turn a grievous crime into a cheap register of public passion that flips like a weather vane at the next election.“
Any questions?!?
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with The Lighter Side:
Magoo
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