RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kavanaughs-foes-politicize-the-fbi-1538433332

The bipartisan bonhomie occasioned by the reopening of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s background investigation dissipated quickly. By the weekend, Senate Democrats—who had demanded the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation—were challenging its credibility, objecting to its scope and focus, and lamenting that the White House had any involvement in shaping the process.

The reopened investigation, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham—reflecting the White House’s view—potentially entailed interviewing Deborah Ramirez, who claims that Judge Kavanaugh committed lewd conduct while a freshmen at Yale, and the three purported witnesses named by first accuser Christine Blasey Ford—Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth and Leland Keyser—all of whom have attested they have no memory that would corroborate her accusation. Julie Swetnick’s sordid and implausible claims were to be left out, and if any new allegations against Judge Kavanaugh were to emerge, these also wouldn’t be investigated.

President Trump told reporters Monday: “The FBI should interview anybody that they want within reason, but you have to say within reason.” That qualification is crucial. It is clear that Judge Kavanaugh’s opponents are clamoring for an open-ended fishing expedition that, probably by design, would go on much longer than a week. They are insisting that the FBI investigate Judge Kavanaugh’s drinking while in high school and college and interview anyone who might know about it. Two such people have already come forward, and there are no disincentives for new claimants, possibly driven by partisan or personal animus, to emerge.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) tried to justify his demand to broaden the FBI investigation by claiming that heavy drinking was “directly relevant” to the sexual-assault allegations. If this approach were adopted, the FBI would have to interview a very large pool of witnesses about Judge Kavanaugh’s alcohol intake, and possibly many other personal traits, over many years. Never mind that alcohol use is a standard FBI question, certainly asked in the course of Judge Kavanaugh’s previous six background investigations. CONTINUE AT SITE

http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/01/theres-good-case-sanctioning-christine-blasey-fords-lawyers/

Like most professions, lawyers have codes of professional responsibility under which they operate. In the case of Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford’s counsel may well have violated them.

It has been widely reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee offered to send investigators to California to speak with Ford. Ford did not accept this offer. In addition, Ford reportedly was unable to attend a hearing set for Sept. 24 because she is afraid of flying and could not otherwise get to Washington by that date. The committee agreed to delay its hearing to Sept. 27.

Yet in her testimony, Ford stated it was not clear to her that the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) had offered to take her statements and testimony in California to prevent her from having to fly. Ford testified she would have accepted the offer had she known about it.

Indeed, she testified to Chairman Chuck Grassley, “If you were gonna come out to see me I would have happily hosted you and would have been happy to speak to you out there. It wasn’t clear to me that that was the case.” Ford also testified, “I was hoping that they would come to me [in California] but I realized that was an unrealistic request.” Not only was it not unrealistic, the offer was on the table.

Here I’ll assume Ford testified truthfully that she was not clear about the Judiciary Committee’s offer. (The alternative raises its own issues.) If Ford’s attorneys did not inform her clearly of the SJC’s offer, the Judiciary Committee could file a grievance against Ford’s attorneys, Debra Katz and Michael Bromwich, with the DC Bar. It would be even worse if they withheld this information from Ford because they were interested in a delay of the hearing for reasons other than their client’s interests.

Lawyers have obligations to their clients and to the tribunals before which they practice. In this case, the client is Ford, and the tribunal is the SJC.

DC Bar Rule 1.4(b), “Communication,” provides that “A lawyer shall explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed decisions regarding the representation.” Did Ford’s lawyers withhold from her the SJC’s offer to take her statement in California? Or did they fail to make clear to Ford what the SJC had offered?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/james_comeys_forked_tongue_goes_into_overdrive_on_kavanaugh.html

With the Russia collusion issue falling apart and winding down, fired former FBI director James Comey is now speaking out against the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh through the New York Times’ editorial page. Characteristic for him, he’s speaking with a forked tongue, playing Mister Probity to disguise his real aim of undercutting President Trump.

It’s obnoxious stuff, given that it involves piling on against Kavanaugh, but hey, anything to Get Trump and return from the wilderness of irrelevance.

Comey starts with this supposedly innocuous opener before showing his hand.

The F.B.I. is back in the middle of it. When we were handed the Hillary Clinton email investigation in 2015, the bureau’s deputy director said to me, “You know you are totally screwed, right?” He meant that, in a viciously polarized political environment, one side was sure to be furious with the outcome. Sure enough, I saw a tweet declaring me “a political hack,” although the author added, tongue in cheek: “I just can’t figure out which side.”

And those were the good old days. President Trump’s decision to order a one-week investigation into sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, his Supreme Court nominee, comes in a time of almost indescribable pain and anger, lies and attacks.

Here’s Comey, trying to make you think he’s Mr. Objectivity with one hand and pulling a fast one for the lefties with the other.

In other words, he would have you think the FBI is this objective outfit, just looking for the facts, ma’am, even after the amazing revelations of the Comey bureau’s Deep State politicking.

Then we get right down to his real complaint:

We live in a world where the president routinely attacks the F.B.I. because he fears its work. He calls for his enemies to be prosecuted and his friends freed. We also live in a world where a sitting federal judge channels the president by shouting attacks at the Senate committee considering his nomination and demanding to know if a respected senator has ever passed out from drinking.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/american-bar-association-backs-kavanaugh-despite-previous-letter-to-the-contrary/

The American Bar Association (ABA) has clarified its position regarding the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, explaining in a Friday letter that a previous letter urging the Senate to delay his confirmation had not been reviewed by the relevant committee prior to its release.

The chairman for the American Bar Association Standing Committee, the body tasked with evaluating the qualifications of judges, said in the letter that he was not given an opportunity to review a letter sent by the ABA president Thursday urging that the confirmation be delayed.

“The Committee conducts non-partisan, non-ideological, and confidential peer review of federal judicial nominees. The ABA’s rating for Judge Kavanaugh is not affected by Mr. [Robert] Carlson’s letter,”committee chairman Paul Mosley wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Carlson’s letter, sent Thursday evening following the testimony of Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford, seemed to reverse the ABA’s previous endorsement of the confirmation, instead calling for a delay until the FBI investigated the allegations of sexual assault.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/nature-90-nurture-10/

Anyone with an ounce of common sense, two eyes, and a grasp of history understands instinctively that most genetic traits are inheritable. Height, body type, skin color, even eye color run in genetically related families, and those families, bound together in local, tribal, ethnic, and national communities, reflect that. There’s nothing inherently conspiratorial, “racist” or “supremacist” about any of this. And yet, for decades, ideologically driven scientists and cultural Marxist apologists have struggled with such a raw truth, and have endeavored to show that nurture, not nature, is the determining factor, especially when it comes to talents and intelligence. After all, what do human sperm and eggs have to do with the making of the New Soviet Man omelet?

So this book is sure to cause a fuss:

There are few areas of science more fiercely contested than the issue of what makes us who we are. Are we products of our environments or the embodiment of our genes? Is nature the governing force behind our behaviour or is it nurture? While almost everyone agrees that it’s a mixture of both, there has been no end of disagreement about which is the dominant influence.

And it’s a disagreement that has been made yet more fraught by the political concerns that often underlie it. Traditionally, those on the left have tended to see the environment as the critical factor because it ties in with notions of egalitarianism. Thus inequalities, viewed from this perspective, are explained not by inherent differences but by social conditions.

Similarly, those on the right have leaned towards a more Darwinian conception, in which different social outcomes are accounted for by differences of suitability to the environment. In turn, such an understanding has in the past led to the promotion of eugenics (both on the left and right) – through selective breeding, sterilisation and, in the case of the Nazis, wholesale murder.

And this is from the Guardian, Britain’s leftiest of left-of-center newspapers. In an even-handed review of Robert Plomin’s new book, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are, Andrew Anthony writes:

In common with many other scientists, Plomin believes that Freud sent society looking in the wrong place for answers to the question of what makes us as we are. The key to personality traits does not lie in how you were treated by your parents, but rather in what you inherited biologically from them: namely, the genes in your DNA.

He finds that genetic heritability accounts for 50% of the psychological differences between us, from personality to mental abilities. But that leaves 50% that should be accounted for by the environment. However, Plomin argues, research shows that most of that 50% is not attributable to the type of environmental influences that can be planned for or readily affected – ie it’s made up of unpredictable events. And of the environmental influences that can be moderated, much of it, he argues, is really an expression of genetics. CONTINUE AT SITE