RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/flake-demands-one-week-delay-for-fbi-probe-before-kavanaugh-vote/

Huddling with committee Dems before the vote, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) ultimately declared that he would vote to pass Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh out of the Senate Judiciary Committee but would not support a floor vote in the full Senate until the FBI investigates sexual assault allegations against the judge.

Flake originally said in a morning statement that he would vote to support Kavanaugh. “What I do know is that our system of justice affords a presumption of innocence to the accused, absent corroborating evidence. That is what binds us to the rule of law,” he said. “While some may argue that a different standard should apply regarding the Senate’s advice and consent responsibilities, I believe that the constitution’s provisions of fairness and due process apply here as well.”

Then Flake was confronted at the Senate elevator by two survivors of sexual assault: Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher.

“You’re telling me my assault doesn’t matter,” Gallagher told Flake. “You’re letting people who do these things into power. That’s what you’re telling me when you vote for him. Don’t look away from me. Look at me and tell me that it doesn’t matter what happened to me, that you will let people like that go into the highest court of the land and tell everyone what they can do to their bodies.”

“You’re allowing someone who is unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions … you are allowing someone to take responsibility for his own actions to sit in the highest court in the country and to have the role of repairing the harm that has been done in this country to many people,” Archila said.

Flake listened quietly to the pair and thanked the women before excusing himself to get to the hearing. CONTINUE AT SITE

At the hearings yesterday, the GOP senators were even more lavish than the Dems, in their praise of Dr. Christine Ford’s “courage” in confronting the scourge of sexual harassment and being a “voice for all the victims and survivors.” Oh Puleez! Rosa Parks she ain’t.

It was even more sickening than the efforts of the Dems in asking the “gotcha” question intended to floor Brett Kavanaugh. The prize in a long list of contenders including proven liar oily faced Richard Blumenthal, preening Cory Booker, squirming Feinstein, and Harris always rehearsing for 2020, goes to Dick Durbin who tried to pin Kavanaugh down by defying him to demand an FBI investigation from the White House.

The winner by a mile? Senator Lindsay Graham. rsk

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/kavanaughs-testimony-was-his-joseph-n-welch-moment/

Christina Ford’s testimony did not alter, positively or negatively, the facts of her allegations. She still cannot adduce where or when the alleged assault of 36 years prior occurred, or how she arrived at, or departed from, the alleged, but unnamed, location of the assault, or how many people and of which gender were present at the alleged assault. Nor did she name a single witness that could corroborate her narrative. Nor could she refute any of the named witnesses who contradicted her accounts.

The entire purpose of today’s hearing was for the Democrats to call for a lengthy “FBI investigation,” and thereby delay the hearings until after the midterms, excusing Trump-state senators up for reelection from having to vote No on Kavanaugh, while giving time for a likely fifth, sixth, and seventh psychodramatic accuser to step forward, whose lurid falsified allegations take days to refute, but insidiously bleed Kavanaugh by a thousand lies.

It is true that Ford was an empathetic witness in recounting what she seems to believe happened. And the argument of her supporters is that, because she sincerely believes that she was assaulted and that on some occasions 30 or more years after the alleged incident mentioned it to others, therefore her allegations are proven — when in fact raising the allegations 30 years and more later confirms only that she believes her own allegations, not that her allegations as they concerned Judge Kavanaugh are valid.

There was almost no attention paid to the Ramirez and Swetnick accusations — apparently because Democrats concluded that the advantages of trying to prove a Kavanaugh pattern of illegal or improper behavior was far outweighed by the utter lack of credibility by subsequent accusers, who, if they were to appear, would make that embarrassing fact quite clear. There was still no adequate explanation of why Democrats forced Ford to lose her anonymity or why they did not prompt an “FBI Investigation” immediately upon receipt of the allegation by Senator Feinstein.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-kavanaugh-stakes-1538088433

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 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.”

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. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271462/kavanaugh-kicks-away-democrats-political-hit-lloyd-billingsley

“I was pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me.” Christine Blasey Ford testified Thursday. “He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me. I yelled, hoping someone downstairs might hear me, and tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy. Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time because he was so drunk, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothes. I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming. This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me. Both Brett and Mark were drunkenly laughing during the attack.” And so on.

Dr. Ford described herself as “a fiercely independent person and I am no one’s pawn.” Yet, since she accused Kavanaugh it has become clear that she is a partisan, activist Democrat. Ford was flanked by attorney Debra Katz, a partisan Democrat who defended Bill Clinton, not the women who accused him, and Michael Bromwich, a POTUS 44 appointee who also served as an attorney for fired FBI boss Andrew McCabe.

In testimony it emerged that Dr. Ford had sent her letter to Dianne Feinstein, not to both Republicans and Democrats on the judiciary committee. That is what one would expect if Ford’s action was simple “civic duty,” as the professor has proclaimed, and not part of an attempt to smear Kavanaugh and block him from the high court.

Ford was well cast as an ingenue and professional victim, clad in blue like Anita Hill, as ranking member Feinstein noted. In effect, the accuser served as her own expert witness, speaking of the brain’s “hippocampus” and explaining “the etiology of PTSD is multifactoral.” Yet despite her ease with psycho-medical jargon, the professor was shaky about her handlers, the polygraph, and many other details. The professor even told the committee she did not know what “exculpatory evidence” is. So at times, as Joseph diGenova predicted, she did “look like the loon she is.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-should-be-angry/

Kavanaugh’s powerful testimony may well end up changing the course of the Supreme Court, and of our politics.

Brett Kavanaugh may have saved his Supreme Court confirmation with one of the most memorable statements in modern congressional history.

After his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, delivered a compelling, sympathetic performance earlier in the day, Kavanaugh entered the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with his chances hanging by a thread. Commentators speculated about how he’d inevitably be dumped by the GOP. Instead, he transformed his situation with a sustained exercise in righteous indignation as forceful and compelling, in its way, as Clarence Thomas’s attack on a “high-tech lynching” that saved his nomination in 1991.

Kavanaugh had been stilted and overly programmed prior to Thursday, including in his initial round of Senate hearings and in an interview with Fox News earlier in the week. But, after days of enduring a process of unprecedented nastiness, Kavanaugh didn’t hold anything back.

In his opening statement, he was personal about the devastating effects of the charges levied against him, both on his reputation and on his family. He was excoriating about how Ford’s allegation was handled by Senate Democrats, who sat on it until the last moment. He scorned the ridiculous charges that have been layered on since, including that he was party to gang rapes. He invoked all he had invested in public service and in his friendships over the years. He expressed regret, as he should, over juvenile references in his high-school yearbook. He acknowledged enjoying beer, as a teenager and still as an adult. And he was angry, very angry, at the Democrats who have attacked his integrity and welcomed any bottom-feeding allegation, including a grotesque smear dredged up publicity-hungry lawyer Michael Avenatti.

His face was distorted in fury, he had trouble composing himself, and at times he wept. This was an incredibly raw performance by the standards of Washington and especially by the standards of Senate confirmation hearings.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lindsey-graham-says-stop-1538089494

The U.S. Senate is sometimes called “the Club.” No Member in our time more personifies the Club than South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham. On Thursday at the Kavanaugh hearing, he dropped out.

When his turn arrived to question Brett Kavanaugh, Senator Graham instead stared across the long table at the Judiciary Committee’s Democrats and, well, unloaded. He called their tactics against Judge Kavanaugh “the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics.” A moment’s pause and then this: “Boy, do you want power, and I hope you never get it.”

What caused Lindsey Graham to pop?

A phrase rolling through the Kavanaugh confirmation story the past few weeks is character assassination. It is an ugly thing, and most of the time American politics stops short of defeating an opponent solely by tearing him apart personally and then using the damage to his reputation as a pretext to defeat him.

By the midday recess of Thursday’s hearing, that manifestly was the Democrats’ strategy. The hearing made clear that Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation was not going to be corroborated. But the Democrats’ real interest wasn’t Ms. Ford. It was Judge Kavanaugh. The informal standards of the Senate Club were shattered Thursday by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Richard Blumenthal, Mazie Hirono, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.

One Democratic Senator after another took the allotted time to say Ms. Ford had been the victim of a sexual predator, specifically Judge Kavanaugh. None bothered to say the acts were “alleged.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/confirm-brett-kavanaugh-1538089143

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. 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 of what she says has been contradicted. The female friend Ms. Ford says was at the home the night of the assault says she wasn’t there. The number of people she says were there has varied from four to five and perhaps more, but every potential witness she has cited by name says he or she doesn’t recall the party.

She still can’t recall the home where the assault took place, how she got there or how she got home that evening. She has no witnesses who say she told them about the alleged assault at the time—until she first spoke of it at a couples therapy session 30 years later in 2012. Mr. Kavanaugh’s name doesn’t appear in the notes of her therapist.

https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/rabbi-aryeh-spero/rabbi-spero-women-teenage-sons-and-daughters-will-support-kavanaugh

Chuck Schumer, the Democrats, and their spokespeople in the Senate seem to be spooking-out certain Republicans with a threat that if Republicans vote for Judge Brett Kavanaugh they will lose the support of women in their constituency.

However, the tens of millions of women who currently have or have previously raised teenage boys, and even teenage girls, will probably be alarmed if a precedent is set in a Senate confirmation vote that would penalize or snuff out the opportunities of a fully grown man who did something foolish while yet a minor or was accused of something that was never verified with any surety.

Parents of boys and girls lovingly sacrifice their life’s energies, time, and money so that their children will have a bright future – economic, social, and familial. And all parents, since they themselves were once young, know of the mistakes teenagers make or the non-mistakes that merely involve rowdiness. What a frightening and demoralizing thing it would be to parents if after thirty years of proper and refined living and accomplishment by their children, a new American convention is established by the Senate that all lifetime achievements can be wiped away by a single instance in their child’s life. A person’s life, their child’s life, can be destroyed by an accusation, especially if it craftily summons-up whatever happens to be the politically correct, avant-garde sin of that given era.

Today’s Democrats play dirty, despicably dirty. In their quest for personal power, riches, and control over all aspects of American civic life, Democrats will equally play dirty tricks against conservative women running for office, bringing up or fabricating events from when they were once teenage girls, charging them from that full basket of the new Seven Sins: racism, intolerance, nationalism, whiteness, Christian Evangelicalism, Islamophobia, and anti-LBTG. We have seen them reach into this basket on many occasions. The Democrats have been successful in concocting false narratives that most often, in the court of public opinion, end up beating facts and the truth. For them, winning is everything, the only thing that counts.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/09/27/kavanaugh-ford-hearing-in-awful-process-democrats-gain-advantage-as-republicans-walk-on-eggshells.html

The testimony of Christine Blasey Ford before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court was a plus for Democrats who want to derail the nomination, because Republicans were walking on eggshells.

The 11 Republican senators on the committee – all men – clearly did not want to appear to be bullying Ford or to look like they were being accusatory or insensitive toward a woman who claims she was a victim of sexual assault committed by Kavanaugh when the two were in high school.

Ford came across as earnest, likeable through her nervousness, and seemed to do her best to answer questions from both sides during her testimony.

But it’s a fact that there is no corroboration of her version of the sexual assault she says happened about 36 years ago (she said she is not sure of the exact year). And when you take a step back, aspects of her account do not make sense under any objective examination.

At the end of the testimony, Mitchell laughed with Ford, commiserating with her about how bad the hearing format was. All of this strengthened Ford’s standing and made her a more sympathetic figure.

For example, Ford (about 15 at the time) obviously needed a ride home right after the alleged assault. But she could not or would not say who took her home or what she said to that person in the immediate aftermath of what she said was a sexual assault.

Republicans faced a two-fold problem at the hearing.

First, Rachel Mitchell, the experienced prosecutor to whom Republicans ceded their five-minute questioning rounds, treated the proceeding as if she was taking a deposition from Ford. Attorneys routinely take depositions – statements under oath – to be presented as evidence during trials or hearings.