Displaying posts categorized under

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

The Feminist Cult of Victimhood Protesters play political dress-up to deny reality. Dawn Perlmutter

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271385/feminist-cult-victimhood-dawn-perlmutter

Christine Blasey Ford is the latest poster child in the feminist cult of victimhood. She achieved that status by claiming she was physically attacked at a high school party by Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh three decades ago. She immediately became the perfect useful idiot whose false memories and false allegations are being fully exploited to postpone the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. She is the latest symbol of oppression among anti-Trump women activists. Instead of characteristics like honor, integrity and courage, feminist heroines must first and foremost be victims, real or imagined.

The current feminist movement has become a cult of angry miserable women recruited by the guru of man hating misery Hillary Clinton. There are certain predisposing factors that facilitate recruitment into cults. These factors typically include: a desire to belong, impaired capacity for critical thinking, disillusionment, dissatisfaction, idealism, lack of self-confidence and a desire for meaning in one’s life. Thousands of vulnerable unhappy women were ripe for recruitment into the cult of women activists. Now thoroughly indoctrinated in anti-Trump hatred they have been brainwashed, organized and unleashed on the public. Their goal is to destroy the Trump administration, their strategy is resistance and their tactics are accusation, disinformation, and extortion. Christine Blasey Ford’s attempt to politically assassinate Kavanaugh can be likened to the Manson cult followers who were sent out to start ‘Helter Skelter’, an apocalyptic race war initiated by murdering influential white people.

Cults often like to create a recognizable visual identity. This is often accomplished with uniform clothing that functions as a recognizable symbol of the group. The latest popular outfit of women’s rights activists are full length scarlet robes and puritanical white bonnets. Always seeking attention these women have hung up their Women’s March ‘pussy hats’ to dress up as characters from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. Groups of feminist protesters have been dressing in creepy cult-like ankle-length red dresses and cloaks, red gloves and white bonnets during protests in courthouses, government building and other public places. The uniforms signify their new-found identity and purpose in life in their Anti-Trump sisterhood.

Four Reasons the New Accusations Against Kavanaugh Are Weaker Than Ford’s By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/trending/four-reasons-the-new-accusations-against-kavanaugh-are-weaker-than-fords/

As Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh lost all credibility, it was reasonable to assume there was a reason for all the stalling. Many believed that somewhere, somehow, leftists would find someone else to come forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against Judge Kavanaugh.

Earlier this evening The New Yorker published a story written by Ronan Farrow and Jane Meyer proving that theory correct. This story centers on Deborah Ramirez, who has come forward (or was pushed to come forward) with a claim that while she and Kavanaugh were both students at Yale, they were both at a drunken dorm party where Kavanaugh allegedly exposed himself to her.

Judge Kavanaugh has already released a statement denying the allegation. “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name — and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime — against these last-minute allegations.”

Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director at the Judicial Crisis Network, released the following statement to PJ Media regarding the allegations:

Senate Republicans must not allow unsubstantiated and discredited allegations from over three decades ago to destroy the life and reputation of a good man. Countless people from every phase of Brett Kavanaugh’s life have testified that he is a good man of the highest character and integrity. Chuck Schumer vowed to oppose Kavanaugh with everything he’s got, and apparently that took the form of character assassination. This has all of the ingredients of a smear campaign on steroids. Senate Republicans should stand up to these unsubstantiated and discredited allegations and move forward with a vote to confirm Kavanaugh.

While reading The New Yorker story, the weakness of the allegation becomes apparent immediately. In fact, I would argue that these new allegations are even weaker than Ford’s accusations. Here are four reasons why Ramirez’s accusations are even weaker than Christine Blasey Ford’s.
The Top Five Shameful Ways Democrats Have Tried to Thwart Kavanaugh’s Confirmation
1. Ramirez admits gaps in her memory and wasn’t certain it was Kavanaugh

According to the article, “Ramirez acknowledged that there are significant gaps in her memories of the evening, and that, if she ever presents her story to the F.B.I. or members of the Senate, she will inevitably be pressed on her motivation for coming forward after so many years, and questioned about her memory, given her drinking at the party.”

In addition to her acknowledged memory gaps, she reportedly “was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty.” What changed? Christine Blasey Ford. “Ramirez said that she hoped her story would support that of Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor who has raised an allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh that bears several similarities to Ramirez’s claim.” So, Ramirez went from uncertain, to confident in order to support Ford’s claim.

Did I mention Ramirez is a Democrat?
2. The New Yorker tried to find eyewitnesses… and failed

Despite contacting “several dozen classmates of Ramirez and Kavanaugh” about the incident, they were unable to find any eyewitnesses to the alleged incident that supposedly occurred at a party with lots of Yale students present.

The New Yorker has not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party. The magazine contacted several dozen classmates of Ramirez and Kavanaugh regarding the incident. Many did not respond to interview requests; others declined to comment, or said they did not attend or remember the party.

None of the people who believe Ramirez’s story claim to have witnessed the incident, only to have heard about it.

3. Others alleged to have been involved deny it happened

Remember how Christine Blasey Ford named three individuals who either witnessed her alleged assault, or were present at the party, and that none of them corroborated her story? Well, Ramirez also mentioned witnesses involved in the incident who deny it happened.

Fourth Supposed Witness To Kavanaugh Accuser’s Alleged Assault Indicates It Didn’t Happen By Margot Cleveland

http://thefederalist.com/2018/09/23/fourth-supposed-witness-kavanaugh-accusers-alleged-assault-says-didnt-happen/

Christine Blasey Ford’s charge that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 36 years ago crumpled late Saturday when the final witness Ford identified failed to back her story.

In a Saturday evening email, an attorney representing Ford’s former classmate, Leland Ingham Keyser, stated that his client “does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without Dr. Ford.”

Keyser is now the fourth person to refute Ford’s story. Kavanaugh immediately and unequivocally denied Ford’s charge that, while intoxicated, he pushed her into a bedroom, pinned her to a bed, and attempted to rip off her clothing. Kavanaugh also implored the Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing the following day so he could clear himself.

In addition to Kavanaugh, Ford claimed that three other teens were at the party that occurred circa 1982, although she is not sure of the year or location. Ford also said Mark Judge, a friend and Georgetown Preparatory classmate of Kavanaugh, was in the room with her and Kavanaugh at the time of the assault.

Judge refuted Ford’s claim in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, writing “I have no memory of this alleged incident.” “Kavanaugh and I were friends in high school but I do not recall the party described” by Ford, Judge continued. Judge ended his statement by stressing that, while he did not remember the supposed party, he “never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes.”

Ford also identified another Georgetown Prep student by his initials “PJ,” and later Patrick J. Smyth, a fellow 1983 grad of the North Bethesda, Maryland all-boys school, came forward to respond to Ford’s charge. In a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Smyth said he wrote “to make it clear to all involved that I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh.”

Smyth then added: “Personally speaking, I have known Brett Kavanaugh since high school and I know him to be a person of great integrity, a great friend, and I have never witnessed any improper conduct by Brett Kavanaugh towards women.”

Rod Rosenstein’s Resistance By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/rod-rosenstein-resistance-president-trump/

Weasel words, weasel moves from an emotionally overwrought deputy AG eager to ingratiate himself with Democrats

Rod Rosenstein is even a weasel when repudiating his weasel moves. Here (with my italics) is the deputy attorney general’s non-denial denial of a New York Times report Friday that he brainstormed about ousting President Trump in May 2017:

The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect. . . . I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Let’s parse this.

The Times story “is inaccurate and factually incorrect.” Rosenstein won’t say exactly what is wrong in the report. He is careful not to say that the gist of the report is wrong — he just hopes that, if he sounds indignant enough, you will hear it that way. The Times may have gotten a few details wrong, but you can bet the story is essentially true.
You can’t trust “anonymous sources”: this from the guy who, in approving a FISA warrant application to spy on an American political campaign, relied on anonymous sources — some of them Russian operatives — who were channeling information through a foreign spy from whom the Justice Department continued to take information even after telling a federal court that the spy had been cut out of the investigation for leaking to the media.
And my favorite: Rosenstein knows “there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment” against President Trump. Of course, that does not respond to what the Times report actually says, which is that back in May 2017, when he was an emotional wreck because Democrats were being mean to him, Rosenstein urged that there might at that time be a basis to remove the president under the 25th Amendment (specifically, Section 4) if he could get enough top officials to agree that Trump was unfit to discharge his duties.

Hillary’s Hypocrisy Is In Crisis By Christopher Gage

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/23/hillarys-hypocrisy

Hillary Clinton employs just 30 words before ladling a characteristic untruth across the page of The Atlantic this week. It shouldn’t surprise anyone inured to her austere relationship with the truth.

The essay, an excerpted afterword of the soon-to-be published paperback edition of What Happened, is sparse in the details of what actually happened in 2016, and why Hillary Clinton can only call herself Madam President in some parallel and cosmically unfortunate universe.

A lady who even lies about the genesis of her own first name, dives straight into attacking President Trump, claiming, charitably, that she gave him a chance to lead unhindered. That, the computer tells us, is a lie.

Plucking her concession speech for focus-grouped slithers of integrity, Hillary claims she was true to the words: “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.” Perhaps forgetting that the Clinton campaign set to sabotage the 63 million votes of Americans they regard as irredeemable oafs, before those votes were even stamped on ballot papers via the apparent telekinesis of Vladimir Putin.

She expects us to believe she was gracious in defeat. But disfiguring the truth has always been a pathological challenge for Hillary Rodham Clinton. A game. And it’s one she thinks she is rather good at.

The emotional manipulation begins with a degree of shameless untruth common to the state-controlled airwaves of banana republics. No time is wasted in conjuring up lurid imagery of President Trump, The Heartless.

“Exhibit A is the unspeakable cruelty that this administration has inflicted on undocumented families arriving at the border, including separating children, some as young as eight months, from their parents,” she offers.

The language employed is typically Clintonian—emotive, evasive, manipulative, and larcenous. After all, that paragraph of wanton untruth could easily have applied to the Obama or Bush administrations. That context, of course, doesn’t enter into it.

Orwellian falsities thread the essay brazenly. Man, these people are stupid! cackles the pant-suited purveyor of piffle.

Trump Should Not Delay Declassification Much Longer By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/23/trump-should-not

After weeks of threatening to act, President Trump last week finally demanded the declassification of key documents related to the Justice Department’s investigation of his campaign team. The White House wants the DOJ to disclose specific passages contained in the final renewal of the FISA application to wiretap Carter Page; the reports made by former assistant Attorney General Bruce Ohr in connection with the probe; and text messages from several officials, including former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe.

The directive was a welcome—and long overdue—step in the congressional investigation into how the nation’s law enforcement and foreign intelligence apparatus was weaponized against the Trump campaign and his incoming administration.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and several of his colleagues have been pushing to get the documents released to the public. “If the president wants the American people to really understand just how broad and invasive this investigation has been to many Americans, and how unfair it has been, he has no choice but to declassify,” Nunes told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News last Sunday. Trump issued his order the next day; Democrats and the media were outraged, as by now we know is their custom, and made up all kinds of excuses as to why the information should remain under seal, including a supposed potential threat to national security and a way, allegedly, to undermine the special counsel’s farcical investigation into Russian election collusion.

Unfortunately, the president now is backtracking. In two tweets Friday afternoon, Trump said that he has instructed the department’s inspector general to “review these documents on an expedited basis.” The retreat came amid concerns expressed by Justice officials and “key allies,” whose role in the Trump-Russia collusion set-up is getting serious scrutiny. The president did suggest he wants the documents released quickly, but set no deadline. (There is now an interesting sideshow playing out in the media between Camp Rosenstein and Camp McCabe that undoubtedly is related to declassification.)

What Is Hillary Clinton Thinking? By Kyle Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/hillary-clinton-2020-presidential-campaign-farce/

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

W hen 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.

The media are, of course, a big part of this auto-humiliation, having constructed around her a fake township of fawning admirers: It Takes a (Potemkin) Village to keep her self-delusion alive. She is the geriatric version of the Batkid, the leukemia-stricken little boy for whom the entire city of San Francisco agreed to dress up in costume and behave as characters from Gotham City to cheer him on for a day. (Batkid is reportedly in remission and recently celebrated his ninth birthday, by the way.) As Hillary tears her way from the pages of The Atlantic to Maddow to Twitter, her acolytes cheer her on. She’s a “rock star,” exclaimed one fan on Twitter this week. Nay, she’s a Power Ranger! said another. Last year Clinton herself invited us to think of her as Wonder Woman. Yeah, remember that time when Wonder Woman collapsed while she was getting into her limo on a balmy September day? Remember when Wonder Woman frumped it up in pastel pantsuits, blamed the “glass ceiling” whenever she failed, and loaded up her staff with sexist men? Remember when Wonder Woman owed her entire career to leveraging the success of her immensely more charismatic husband? Remember when Wonder Woman remained married to a sexual predator for decades and put down her golden lariat of truth to help him smear his female victims? Hillary Clinton is as much like Wonder Woman as Dianne Feinstein is like Beyoncé.

Long-Time Friend of Christine Blasey Ford Contradicts Her on Party By Mairead McArdle

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/christine-blasey-ford-friend-contradicts-her-on-party/

A friend of the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault has denied that she was at the party where the alleged assault occurred.

The Senate Judiciary Committee reached out to Leland Ingham Keyser, a friend of Christine Blasey Ford. Ford claims Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed when he was drunk, covered her mouth, and tried to remove her clothing at a party in the early 1980s when they were in high school.

Keyser’s lawyer, Howard Walsh, responded to the committee late Saturday in a written statement.

“Simply put, Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford,” the attorney wrote.

Keyser — a lifelong friends of Ford’s according to Walsh — is the third individual to deny suggestions that they were at the alleged party. Mark Judge and Patrick J. Smyth have also issued statements rejecting Ford’s recollection.

Poking a Hole in Professor Ford’s ‘Fear of Flying’ Excuse By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/trending/poking-a-hole-in-professor-fords-fear-of-flying-excuse/

Last night’s 10:00 pm deadline for Christine Blasey Ford’s team to agree to come to testify came and went, and unfortunately, Senator Chuck Grassley has given her yet another extension—until 2:30 pm ET today—to reach an agreement.

Personally, I don’t think Ford has any intention of testifying, and I don’t believe Democrats actually want her to either. Ford’s demands have been crazy and absurd, and the entire negotiation circus feels more like a stalling tactic than a negotiation in good faith on Ford and her team’s part.

One of her recent excuses was based on the claim that she couldn’t possibly make it to the hearing in time because Ford has a fear of flying (aviophobia) and would have to drive. Now, let’s put aside the fact that Republicans have literally offered to come out to California to accommodate her, and look into this claim. According to a report from ABC News, we get the following nugget of information.

Meantime lawyers for Ford are asking the Senate Judiciary Committee to schedule a hearing for her to be heard on Thursday, allowing time for Ford to make the drive from California to Washington D.C. Ford’s friend, Kate Devarney, told CNN this week that Ford’s fear of flying is directly related to her allegation of assault, and that an airplane is “the ultimate closed space where you cannot get away.”

Grassley’s Kangaroo Court By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/kavanaugh-hearings-chuck-grassley-senate-judiciary-committee-chairman/He must not let Democrats delay the Judiciary Committee’s hearing or turn it into even more of a farce.

So now it looks like next Thursday.

On Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s manifestly meritorious nomination to the Supreme Court, what was supposed to be the vote out of the Senate Judiciary Committee this past Thursday now appears to be sliding into a hearing to be held next Thursday. Or, who knows, maybe a Thursday or two after that. Or maybe The First of Never — though even that would undoubtedly be postponed to The Twelfth of Never.

Delay, delay, delay. It is what the Democrats want and it is what the Democrats are getting. They took the measure of their opposition and figured the GOP would bring a knife to a gunfight. From the first day of the confirmation hearing, committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) ceded control of the proceedings to the minority — in particular, to its ever-harder-Left, mak show presidential primary contestants.

It’s a kangaroo court.

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.