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Here’s What Trump Understands About Kanye West

By
Gustavo
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0

The most compelling moment of Kanye West’s Oval Office meeting with President Trump made no headlines. As their conversation drew to a close, a reporter asked Trump whether solving the problems that plague Chicago was a “law enforcement issue” or a “legislative issue.” 

“It’s probably a combination of both,” Trump said. “It’s also a respect issue.” 

Gesturing to West and Jim Brown, the president continued, “They respect this guy, they respect this guy.”

“That’s a big thing,” he said. “Right now, they’re not respecting, let’s say, your mayor, or let’s say, like, me.” 

The importance of that point was lost, perhaps understandably, as we digested more entertaining moments of the Trump-West summit. But it explains a lot about the president’s strategy. 

Why should Trump, the leader of the free world, take time on a busy Thursday afternoon to let West regale the press with his eccentric pontifications in the Oval Office? Why affiliate with him at all?

Because West’s word means much more than Trump’s in Chicago. And it’s even broader than that: The power of celebrity is what enabled Trump to infiltrate and reshape the Republican Party.

The audience that knew and loved Trump from “Celebrity Apprentice” helped him win the GOP primary. It gave him an edge over the full stable of staid politicians. Critically, celebrities build trust— and “respect,” in the president’s words— with their fanbases. In both Trump and West’s case, that gives them an advantage with a sizable swath of people.

Trump understands and accepts the extent to which messaging depends on the messenger. Kanye West may not be a serious political thinker or have a spotless record, but his voice is more powerful than any politician’s with his fans. Where many an established politico would laugh at the notion of giving West a platform to wax philosophical about “Yeezy Centers of Ideation,” Trump understands how the benefits outweigh the costs for making inroads with the people who matter.

A candidate endorsement from Taylor Swift, or from Kanye West, won’t have a dramatic influence over the outcome of an election. But West’s prolonged engagement on an issue that affects the daily lives of his fans will make it much easier for Trump to work on solutions. It’s one of the many issues that set him apart from the rest of Washington, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

This time, I suspect it’ll be the former. 

Why Does Kanye West’s Political Stand Matter More Than Taylor Swift’s?

By
Gustavo
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0

I don’t look to any celebrities to inform my politics, but I do care a lot about the public reactions we’ve witnessed to both stars’ recent political comments.

I don’t care what Taylor Swift thinks about politics. I like her music well enough, but I look elsewhere for my political analysis. The same goes for Kanye West (although the truth is told, I don’t listen to his music at all). However, I care a lot about the public reactions we’ve witnessed to both stars’ recent political comments and what it says about the state of our body politic.

Swift has been cheered for her supposedly enlightened decision to abandon political neutrality and publicly support Tennessee’s Democratic nominee for Senate — a man who is, notably, running against a conservative woman. (A woman The Sisterhood would likely be supporting wholeheartedly if her politics looked different.) Meanwhile, Kanye has been publicly thrashed for enthusiastically supporting Donald Trump.

As you might have guessed, I relate much more to Kanye’s side of this story. Having grown up as a Jew in deep-blue New York, the daughter of a social worker, who studied at ultra-liberal Harvard University, I’m accustomed to strangers making assumptions about me and my politics. TL;DR: people who don’t take the time to ask always assume I’m a down the line liberal.

And why shouldn’t they? According to countless mainstream media outlets, women are a monolithic demographic. Unlike men, we supposedly all think alike about major political and cultural issues and are reliable Democratic voters. Those of us who dare to dissent are dubbed “gender traitors,” lest we are tempted to stray again.

Of course, I’m perfectly happy to stray if it means standing up for my own strongly held beliefs. So when self-identified feminists accused me of not being “a real woman” for expressing conservative opinions back in college, I decided the only thing I wasn’t was part of the organized feminist movement.

That said, standing up to peers on a college campus is one thing. Expressing unusual or unpopular opinions when you’re an internationally famous performer raises the stakes to a whole new level. So while I didn’t support the president in 2016, I have respect for Kanye doing so. It takes real guts.

Apple used to urge us to “think different,” but most people don’t. Standing apart from the crowd is hard. It can be uncomfortable or anxiety-provoking. Mockery, public shaming, and social isolation are not just theoretical; they’re likely. And here Kanye is vocalizing his love for President Trump anyway, in the face of an endless onslaught of negative comments from the hip-hop types, many of whom are furious with him.

T.I., for example, posted on Instagram that “the meeting was ‘next level’ sh-t and ‘the most repulsive, disgraceful, embarrassing act of desperation & auctioning off of one’s soul to gain power,’ he’s ever seen.”

West was further attacked by CNN commentators as anti-intellectual and “the token negro of the Trump administration.” People magazine ran an article claiming the Kardashians—a family he’s married into—are worried about West being “unhinged,” and referencing a previous bipolar diagnosis. CNN’s Don Lemon called West’s meeting with Trump “a minstrel show” and asserted “Kanye’s mother is rolling over in her grave.”

Now, first of all, when did it stop being tacky to bring up other people’s deceased parents, particularly while criticizing them? Second, how does Lemon know that? Perhaps West’s mother would have been proud of her son’s meeting with the president. Or perhaps she would have agreed with his political sentiments, or at least cheered his right to publicly express them.

In my mind, that’s the central point here. No one has to like Kanye’s music or agree with his political views. As a general rule, I don’t care what any celebrity thinks about current events or policy.

But as things have become uglier in the public square, disagreeing with socially sanctioned views becomes harder both for public officials and everyday people. Fewer people are likely to raise their hands and identify themselves as dissenters, lest they are hounded out of restaurants or doxed. But Kanye is.

Through his actions, Kanye is modeling courage. He’s creating more space for all of us to hold and voice unpopular positions. For that, I am grateful.

Completely Insane Reactions To Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation

By
Gustavo
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0

Liberals are losing it over Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Here are 14 of the most insane reactions.

1. This Woman Who Can’t Drive Because She’s Blind With Rage

2. Sen. Diane Feinstein Who Thinks America Is Done

3. The Women’s March

4. These Media Outlets Are Not Taking The News Well

5. This Woman Who Just Needs A Hug

6. This Guy Who’s Very Concerned About The Eskimos

https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1048664862426058754
https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1048658460945133568
https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1048631158429417475

7. Valerie Jarrett Who Is Being Very Calm

8. This Protestor Who Shrieked Like An Animal


https://twitter.com/esaagar/status/1048660808530575360

9. Lena Dunham Who Will Spend Today Reading About Other People’s Beauty Routines

10. ‘Conservative’ WaPo Columnist Jennifer Rubin Who Is Upset The Constitution Is A Thing

11. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Who Thinks She Speaks For All Women

12.Protestors Being Arrested on the Steps of the Supreme Court

13. This Feminist Clearly Thinking Rationally

14. These Protestors Who Are Threatening Violence

https://twitter.com/Bre_payton/status/1048713471318269954
https://twitter.com/Bre_payton/status/1048711299587362817

Brett Kavanaugh Confirmed To The Supreme Court

By
Gustavo
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0

Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to serve as a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States with a vote of 50-48 on Saturday.

After weeks of a brutal fight and an FBI investigation into allegations of sexual assault made against him, several key swing senators voted in favor of confirming Kavanaugh, including Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia — the only Democrat to cross party lines.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the one Republican present who did not vote to confirm Kavanaugh. She abstained from voting, saying hers would have canceled out the affirmative vote from Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, were he present. Daines missed the vote to walk his daughter down the aisle on Saturday.

“He unquestionably deserves confirmation, and the country deserves such a Supreme Court justice,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor ahead of the vote, adding: “We all know the events of recent weeks have strained the country’s comity and fanned the flames of partisan discord, but even more critically, our very commitment to the basic principles of fairness and justice is also being tested.”

“A vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh today is also a vote to send a clear message about what the Senate is,” he continued. “This is an institution where the evidence and the facts matter. This is an institution where the evidence and the facts matter. This is the chamber in which the politics of intimidation and personal destruction do not win the day.”

A number of protesters in the Senate gallery interrupted the voting process several times, raising their fists and yelling, “I don’t consent.” One woman was led screaming out of the chamber when Manchin announced his vote for Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh will be replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement from the court in June. His confirmation gives the court a reliable conservative majority for the first time in decades.

Christine Blasey Ford’s Ex-Boyfriend Told Senate Judiciary He Witnessed Her Coach A Friend On Polygraphs

By
Gustavo
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0

An ex-boyfriend of Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford told Senate investigators he witnessed her coach a friend on how to take a polygraph, contradicting her sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

In a sworn statement provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee, a man who claims to be an ex-boyfriend of Christine Blasey Ford says that he personally witnessed Ford coach a friend on how to take a polygraph exam. If true, it would mean Ford provided false testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week when she claimed she had never had any discussions with anyone about how to take a polygraph.

The troubling allegations about Ford’s polygraph history and potentially false testimony were revealed Tuesday in a letter from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, to attorneys for Ford. Ford and her attorneys have thus far refused to provide all polygraph-related documents and media to the Senate for review.

“The full details of Dr. Ford’s polygraph are particularly important because the Senate Judiciary Committee has received a sworn statement from a longtime boyfriend of Dr. Ford’s, stating that he personally witnessed Dr. Ford coaching a friend on polygraph examinations,” Grassley wrote. “When asked under oath in the hearing whether she’d ever given any tips or advice to someone who was planning on taking a polygraph, Dr. Ford replied, ‘Never.’”

“This statement raises specific concerns about the reliability of her polygraph examination results,” he continued. “The Senate, therefore, needs this information.”

 

 

The sworn statement from Ford’s ex-boyfriend directly contradicts what Ford repeatedly told the Senate under oath last week about her alleged lack of experience with polygraph exams, suggesting that Ford may have lied to the Senate panel.

“During some of the time we were dating, Dr. Ford lived with Monica L. McLean, who I understood to be her life-long best friend,” the ex-boyfriend, whose name was redacted from the statement he gave to the Senate, wrote. “During that time, it was my understanding that McLean was interviewing for jobs with the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

“I witnessed Dr. Ford help McLean prepare for a potential polygraph exam,” he said. “Dr. Ford explained in detail what to expect, how polygraphs worked and helped McLean become familiar and less nervous about the exam.”

At last week’s hearing, Ford was specifically asked by Rachel Mitchell, an experienced sex crimes prosecutor who was hired by the committee to question Ford and Kavanaugh, whether she had advised anyone on how to take a polygraph.

“Have you ever had discussions with anyone, besides your attorneys, on how to take a polygraph?” Mitchell asked.

“Never,” Ford responded.

“And I don’t just mean countermeasures,” Mitchell said, “but I mean just any sort of tips or anything like that.”

“No,” Ford said.

“[H]ave you ever gave tips or advice to somebody who was looking to take a polygraph test?” Mitchell continued.

“Never,” Ford replied again.

The ex-boyfriend also said in his statement that during their six-year-long romantic relationship, Ford never mentioned the alleged assault against her, Brett Kavanaugh, or a fear of flying.

Federal law makes it a crime to provide false information to congressional officials in the course of an investigation. A person convicted of lying to Congress can be imprisoned for up to five years under the statute.

In his letter, Grassley also repeated his request of Ford to provide her therapists’ records to the Senate for review. According to Ford, she first shared details of the alleged sexual assault against her with a marriage therapist and an individual therapist. Despite providing portions of the notes to a report for the Washington Post, Ford has thus far refused to disclose the records to the Senate.

“I renew my request for notes from therapy sessions in which Dr. Ford discussed the alleged assault by Judge Kavanaugh,” Grassley wrote. “The Washington Post reported that some notes were provided to The Post, and Dr. Ford’s testimony indicated that these notes were highly relevant to her allegations.”

“These notes have been repeatedly cited as corroboration even while written 30 years after the alleged event and in apparent contradiction with testimony and other public statements regarding several key details of the allegations, including when the alleged attack occurred, how many individuals were present in the bedroom in which the attack was alleged to have occurred, and how many individuals attended the party,” Grassley noted.

“Please provide the requested materials to the Senate Judiciary Committee immediately,” the letter from Grassley concluded.

The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be a Supreme Court Justice was favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee last Friday and is currently pending before the full Senate, which is awaiting the completion of a supplemental background check investigation by the FBI before it votes on whether to confirm Kavanaugh.

The United States Should Stop Humoring China’s Totalitarianism And Embrace India Instead

By
Gustavo
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0

Close ties between the United States and China have outlasted their purpose and, as the developments at Google show, have proved counterproductive to liberty and human rights.

These days, the front pages of newspapers and the leading mainstream stories are crowded with repetitive outrage and noise. To access the real news and get a sense of the currents of ideology that are truly reshaping the globe, you often have to turn to page C16 or scroll to the bottom of the page.

One such buried story, constantly simmering in the corners of news feeds, should be shouted through bullhorns all over Silicon Valley. I refer to Google’s alleged effort to design a search engine that will help the Chinese government repress dissent. The claims are highly credible, coming from data scientists who quit in protest.

Under pressure, Google has admitted the existence of “Project Dragonfly,” but is refusing to be transparent about the nature of the search engine the company is developing for the Chinese government. If an American corporation is indeed blithely engaging in such an irresponsible and morally reprehensible course of action, we ought to see protesters crowding outside the Google campus every day, blocking its data scientists as they attempt to buzz through the gates on their Segways.

The demands for transparency should be widespread, forceful, and persistent. But that does not seem to be happening.

We Already Know What China Will Do With This

As mentioned above, there have been multiple resignations at Google over the Maoist search engine it is said to be designing. A senior scientist, Jack Paulson, initially responded that if the claims were true, he could not continue working for Google. He has since also resigned and authored a letter to the Senate, stating that he has confirmed that the search engine is “tailored to the censorship and surveillance demands of the Chinese government.”

His letter further alleges that the engine ties users’ searches to their phone numbers. Thus, if a Chinese citizen searches for “human rights” or “the Dalai Lama,” the Chinese surveillance state—already of remarkable proportions—will know that individual’s identity.

This is especially disturbing given what we have recently learned about China’s “social credit” system. As detailed at length in a report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, this system aims to track every transaction and virtually every activity Chinese citizens engage in, such as purchases made at the local supermarket.

Astonishingly, it is already in effect in certain areas of the country and has already been used to destroy the careers of those who have dared to criticize the state. The report states that 10 million people have already been punished through reductions in their social credit scores. That is 3.5 million more people than the entire population of Ireland.

Obedient citizens receive points for their social credit scores when they perform actions the government deems beneficial, ranging from receiving a master’s degree in engineering to purchasing diapers for a newborn. These points aid those who receive them, allowing them to qualify for social and economic perks such as obtaining loans more easily.

However, a journalist who dares to criticize the state or expose corruption will find that his or her social credit score has taken a nosedive, destroying his life opportunities in one fell swoop. As detailed in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s reportage, this has already occurred in the case of journalist Liu Hu, who had revealed government corruption.

Why Should Americans Enable a Totalitarian Regime?

The reports on this unabashedly dystopian “social credit” scheme and Google’s snitch search engine are wedged in the subsections of the mainstream news. Often a story related to China’s totalitarian tendencies will appear prominently, only to evaporate from public attention within a day or two in the general squall of outrage over our domestic affairs.

Such has been the fate of the story regarding the 1 million members of the Uighur ethnic minority group, whom the Chinese government has forced into re-education camps, and the story about Xi Jinping’s president-for-life status, and the story about how “disrespecting” the Chinese national anthem now carries up to a three-year prison sentence. These days, the word “Tibet” is barely ever mentioned, although religious, political, and cultural repression continues unabated in what should rightfully be a sovereign nation. The examples of this abound.

We acknowledge that Iran and North Korea are totalitarian states, but we refuse to acknowledge the authoritarian states with which we freely do business. Saudi Arabia is one example, but at least there is some minimal effort towards reform in that kingdom, despite the brutal flogging and jailing of secularist writers like Raif Badawi. China, however, is plunging further into totalitarianism while aggressively expanding into areas of the South China Sea, encroaching on the territory of Vietnam and the Philippines by constructing artificial islands.

Thus, the United States is right to define China as a “strategic competitor” rather than an ally, a recent and welcome adjustment. So much is evident. This is a good example of what Confucius himself called “the rectification of names,” the delineation of reality with precise definitions. But, given China’s indulgence of its leaders’ totalitarian instincts, it seems wise to begin cultivating alternatives. We need to find methods for checking China’s power by creating a new liberal democratic bulwark in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

The United States Should Pivot to a Better Ally

In other words, we need to make India our primary global ally. The logic of this is unimpeachable. India is the world’s largest democracy, and it has its own serious issues with China.

Like the United States, it is ethnically and religiously diverse. We share key elements of a common heritage and a common language inherited from the British Empire. We have both historically attempted, against considerable resistance, to safeguard the fruits of liberal democracy against the forces of both radicalism and reaction. Perhaps our partnership could help us whether our internal storms, reinforcing our mutual commitments to democratic ideals?

The United States and India are in a curious geographical relation, located on opposite sides of the globe, yet possessing an odd correspondence with each other. Yet, thanks to the Cold War, we once found ourselves perplexingly estranged. India was officially non-aligned, yet tilted slightly towards the Soviet Union. The distance this created between our two nations was unfortunate, unnecessary, and did not reflect our populations’ attitudes towards each other. Now is the time for an unabashed embrace.

Of course, for this to be a feasible plan, the United States needs to respect India and avoid transforming it into a materialistic clone of the United States. India has wisely rejected many tech corporations’ overtures, sensibly suspecting Mark Zuckerberg and others of attempting to penetrate its markets only to culturally devour it. We need to find a respectful way of shifting towards India, ensuring our shared economic prosperity without ruining anyone’s culture.

The United States tied ourselves to China to end the Cold War. That strategy was successful, but it has outlasted its purpose and, as the developments at Google show, have proved counterproductive to the sacred causes of liberty and human rights. Let’s throw in our lot with a country that shares our values and make India our primary global ally and a central counterforce against China’s totalitarian ambitions. Our reasons for doing so would be practical, moral, and mutually beneficial.

61 Questions The FBI Should Ask About Christine Blasey Ford’s Story

By
Gustavo
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0

I’ve drawn up a list of questions relevant to the FBI investigation of Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Several, including the first ones, are for the FBI to answer. The rest are for the FBI to ask of Ford and others, including her parents and her siblings. The FBI may not read this, of course, but it may help you assess the FBI’s work and Ford’s credibility. It can be difficult for any of us to remember an incident. And our memories can play tricks. As an examiner, all we can do is try to help the alleged witness remember what happened, with all five senses and the accompanying emotions.

I number these for reference. I have sought to avoid including any questions that appeared to have been answered already.

I won’t address why I’ve included each question, but let me describe the two groupings of questions.

First, there are a few questions on Ford’s knowledge of national current affairs and of Washington, D.C., affairs, and on her knowledge of Kavanaugh’s career. It may be that because she lives on the West Coast and works in a field unrelated to history, current events, journalism, law, and government, Ford may have been totally oblivious to Kavanaugh’s career. Until we know the answers to those questions, we don’t know. But a good prosecutor could line up one detail after another, and raise suspicions about why, after all of the national notoriety Kavanaugh received, especially after his nomination to the D.C. Circuit (that lasted three years), she raised no allegation against him before his nomination to the Supreme Court.

Second, there are questions about who knew Ford was leaving the gathering on the first floor to go upstairs. It is not likely that two boys lay in wait on the second floor for her. So they must have gone up the stairs behind her, so close behind her that she didn’t have enough time to get to the bathroom. Not just one boy, but two. And neither of them lived in that house. And she didn’t notice, or hear, that? And no one else noticed this oddity either?

Below are 61 questions the FBI should answer about Ford’s story.

The Prior Six Background Checks

1. In the prior six FBI checks, do the names of Christine Blasey Ford and her friend Leland Ingahm Keyers appear?

2. Did the names of Mark Judge or Patrick James (“PJ”) Smyth, whom Ford named as present, appear in the background checks?

3. Did the names of any women from Holton-Arms School appear in the background checks?

4. Did the names of anyone from Columbia Country Club appear?

Washington Happenings And Kavanaugh’s Career

5. How often and for what purposes has Ford returned to the D.C. area?

6. Over the past 20 years, how did Ford keep up with national events? And of local D.C. area news? Through relatives, friends, former classmates, newspapers, the internet, or some other way? Would friends, colleagues, former classmates, etc., regard her as fairly knowledgeable about national events or D.C. area affairs?

7. How many of Ford’s relatives, in addition to her brothers Tom and Ralph III, are lawyers?

8. Was Ford aware that candidates for bar admission must be the subject of background checks on moral fitness?

9. Was Ford aware that Kavanaugh’s mother was the judge in a case involving her parents? And she was a judge in a 1998 case where one of her brothers appeared?

10. Under what circumstances did Ford learn that federal government personnel are the subject of FBI background checks? Have any of her friends, co-workers, relatives, etc., ever been the subject of FBI background checks?

11. Did Ford know Kavanaugh attended Yale undergrad and Yale Law? If so, when did she first learn this?

12. Did Ford ever learn of his admission to the bar in any state, or D.C.?

13. Did Ford know he clerked for Third Circuit Judge Stapleton, Ninth Circuit Judge Kozinski, and Supreme Court Judge Kennedy? If so, when did she first learn this?

14. Did Ford know he worked in the Office of the Solicitor General at the Department of Justice, in the Office of Independent Counsel Ken Starr (in connection with the impeachment of President Clinton), and with the first presidential campaign of George W. Bush, or in the George W. Bush White House? If so, when did she first learn any of this?

15. When did Ford first learn of the mid-2003 nomination by President George W. Bush of Kavanaugh to the D.C. Circuit, which ended with his mid-2006 confirmation, and any of the news concerning these events in those three years?

16. Did Ford ever consider, during the time of his 28-year legal career, before his name appeared on a list of possible candidates for nomination to the Supreme Court, contacting any authorities?

The Alleged Incident — Identification

17. Have Ford and her friend Leland Ingham Keyser ever been shown high school-age pictures, in proper police investigative fashion, of the following people whom she alleges, were present at the gathering and whom she alleges she knew their names at the time: Kavanaugh, Judge, and Smyth?

18. Have Kavanaugh, Judge, and Smyth ever been shown high school-age pictures, also in proper police investigative fashion, of the following people whom Ford alleges, were present: Ford and Keyser?

19. Has Ford ever described the physical appearance, including face, facial hair, hair, and clothes, of herself, Keyser, Kavanaugh, Judge, and Smyth on the night of the alleged incident? What were those details?

The Alleged Incident — Before The Gathering

20. When did Columbia Country Club pool close on any given day in the summer of 1982?

21. In the summer of 1982, did Ford customarily eat dinner at the Columbia Country Club? Or at the home of a friend? Or the home of her parents?

22. When, and from whom, did Ford learn of the gathering in the Maryland residence? How would she have learned the address?

23. How much time elapsed between Ford’s swimming and diving at the Columbia Country Club and the time she arrived at the gathering at the residence in Maryland?

24. In the summer of 1982, did Ford customarily wear a watch? Did she have a purse, a book bag, a swim bag, or anything that she carried or wore?

25. In the summer of 1982, would Ford customarily have removed her swimsuit before leaving the Country Club? Why did she not remove her swimsuit when she left the Country Club the day of the alleged incident?

26. Ford testified she didn’t recall how she got to the home of the alleged incident. Did she ride a bicycle in the summer of 1982? Did she walk distances more than a half mile? If she had walked that night, would she have remembered it—because it was unusual, or because of the weather, or the darkness, or the distance? Would she have walked alone? When she was driven to any activities on summer evenings in 1982, who would customarily drive her? Or who might have driven her, even if not customary? Parents? Siblings? Friends?

27. In the summer of 1982, would Ford ordinarily have told her parents or siblings or friends where she was going, for what purpose, or for how long, especially if it were after dark? During the summer of 1982, were both parents living at her home? Were her siblings living at her home? And what were their ages? How unusual was it for her to stay out after dark?

28. Whom did Ford expect to see at this gathering? Some boys? Boys from any particular school? Boys she knew?

29. How many people did Ford expect to see at this gathering?

The Alleged Incident — At The Gathering

30. Ford testified that the gathering at the residence in Maryland occurred at “night.” Was it dark when she arrived? Was it dark when she left?

31. In the summer of 1982, did Ford have 20/20 vision? With glasses or contacts?

32. Did Ford see anyone at the gathering she had not met before? Did she see anyone whose presence was a surprise? Was she happy to see anyone present? If so, whom?

33. When did Ford first learn that there were no adults present?

34. Did the house belong to one of the people Ford identified? Keyser, Judge, Smyth, Kavanaugh, or the unnamed other?

35. While Ford may have forgotten, did she know at the time whose house it was?

36. Was this the first time Ford had a beer? Or beer at a gathering with boys? Did she have an empty stomach?

37. How long would Ford estimate that she was in the home before she left the first floor to go to the second-floor bathroom?

38. For what purpose was Ford going to go to the bathroom? Use toilet, fix hair, felt sick, etc.? If she had a purse or a bag, did she bring it with her to the bathroom? If she had a purse or a bag, did she have such articles with her when she left the bedroom and the house?

39. Did Ford announce her intent to anyone to use a bathroom? Since she had not been to the house before, how did she learn its location? Did she have a choice of bathrooms, such as one on the first floor, and one on the second? Did someone show her the way to the bathroom?

40. What was the lighting like on the first floor? Stairwell? Second floor?

41. When Ford was on the first floor, could she hear the music from the second floor? (Maybe that’s the reason the music was being played on the second floor. Maybe that’s the reason the volume was turned up when the door was shut.)

42. Where were Kavanaugh and Judge just before Ford went upstairs to use the bathroom? Were they in the living room? (If so, they followed her, and they followed her close enough that she couldn’t get to the bathroom before being pushed into the bedroom.) Or were they absent from the living room (perhaps, therefore, on the second floor)?

43. Were the stairs a full story or a half-story? Were they carpeted or hardwood?

44. What was the layout of the second floor, seen, even if briefly, from the top of the stairs? Were there any doors on either side of the hallway between the top of the stairs and the bedroom into which she was pushed?

45. How long was the time between Ford being pushed into the bedroom and her hasty departure?

46. Ford remembers the “uproarious laughter” by the two attackers. She testified that one or both boys raised the volume of the music. Does she remember anything else about the music being played?

47. What was the lighting like in the bedroom? Bright? Dim? A ceiling fan?

48. Does Ford remember any smells of the boys—bad breath, liquor, beer, sweat, cologne?

49. When Ford left the bedroom, were her clothes or hair disheveled? If so, did she take any time to compose these while she was in the bathroom, or before she came downstairs, or after she left the house?

50. Did Ford go out the front door or some other door? Did she go out the same door in which she entered?

51. Ford testified the living room was sparsely (or modestly) furnished and to the position of the bed in the bedroom. What else regarding the outside of the house (brick, stone, siding, doorway, door) or inside (colors of carpet, walls, drapes, artifacts hung on the walls)?

52. Before Ford left the house, did she say or do anything to signify to any of the others that she was leaving?

53. From where people were standing or sitting, could anyone have seen Ford leave the house?

54. Did Ford look toward anyone? Was anyone looking her way?

The Alleged Incident — After Ford Exited The Gathering

55. When Ford left the house, did she expect her friend Keyser to follow her?

56. Since Ford says she doesn’t remember how she got home: Might she have taken a bike? Might she have walked? If she was driven, who might have driven her and how would they have known that she was ready to be picked up and where?

57. How did Ford know the way to her home? Any recollection of street names that she saw going or coming from the home?

58. Did anyone at the gathering (Keyser, Kavanaugh, Judge, Smyth) know where Ford lived?

59. When Ford arrived home, how late was it? Was anyone awake (parents, siblings) and active (watching TV, entertaining friends, etc.)?

60. Since Ford left abruptly, and alone, at night, from a house she hadn’t been to before, why does she think Keyser never asked her why she left abruptly? Although Keyser does not recall this evening or this incident, does Keyser regard Ford’s behavior in going upstairs with two boys during high school years to have been unusual? And departing abruptly from small gatherings to have been unusual?

61. Did Ford ever ask anyone, even just out of curiosity, how the rest of the evening went?

Kavanaugh Accuser’s Polygraph Claims Don’t Match What She Wrote To Feinstein

By
Gustavo
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Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a drunken high school party sometime in the 1980s, has made several conflicting statements about the number of people she says were present at the party the night of the alleged assault.

In a story published by The Washington Post on September 16, Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two — Kavanaugh and his friend Mike Judge — in the room at the time of the alleged assault. The Post cited notes from a couples therapy session in 2012 as evidence to back up the claim. In these notes, it says “four boys were involved, a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist’s part.” Post reporter Emma Brown immediately clarifies: “Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two in the room.”

In her letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, however, Ford wrote, “the assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others.” These statements contradict the number of people she wrote in her polygraph statement was at the party that night. The polygraph statement was released today.

In her handwritten statement, she made on August 7, which you can read in full here, she wrote that “there were four people boys and a couple of girls” at the party on that night. In the released text of her opening statement for Thursday’s morning hearing, she says four boys were there plus her female friend.

So were there four people there that night total? Were they all boys? Or were there four boys and a couple of girls? What girls besides the one she names in her opening statement? This all remains unclear.

Ronan Farrow Hurts The Me Too Movement With His Anti-Kavanaugh Hatchet Job

By
Gustavo
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0

What we know about the new allegation leveled last night against Brett Kavanaugh in a New Yorker report by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer doesn’t amount to much. In a familiar sounding scenario, we have a woman, Deborah Ramirez, accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault, in a room full of people where nobody else who she says was in the room remembers the incident occurring, at a party that almost nobody can remember happening.

The one exception reported is an anonymous source that says he heard from someone, not Ramirez, at the time about the alleged event involving Kavanaugh while he and the accuser were students at Yale. Beyond that, there is some chatter about email rumors circulating among former Yale students this summer and fall. Everyone Ramirez named in the room that has spoken disputes that the incident occurred. On top of all of this, Farrow admits in his piece that Ramirez was uncertain about the allegation at first, but after six days of talking to her attorney, the three-decades-old memory returned to her.

So bereft of evidence is the story that The New York Times, along with other outlets, investigated the story and found it too wanting of evidence to publish. The New York Times reports:

The New Yorker did not confirm with other eyewitnesses that Judge Kavanaugh was at the party. The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.

It is not clear if those emails from the accuser are part of the email chains reflected in the piece.

False Equivalence

This morning, Farrow came under questioning on CNN regarding the efficacy of his reporting and cited another story he reported on involving sexual assault allegations, which he says is similar to this one.

The case that Farrow cites to prove this claim is his story about former New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman. In that story, Farrow had four separate women making very similar allegations of sexual violence against Schneiderman. Some sought medical treatment, and Schneiderman did not deny the incidents took place, but rather said they were consensual. There were no witnesses in the Schneiderman incidents that refuted the claims made by the women.

To suggest that the Schneiderman case has less damning evidence attached to it than the Ramirez case is just patently false by any reasonable standard. In the former, all parties agree incidents occurred, while in the latter Kavanaugh and others deny it flatly and every single potential eyewitness named by the accuser who has spoken publicly has no recollection of it taking place. This claim that the two cases are analogous is awfully close to pure gaslighting.

Farrow’s Motivation

There is really no way to know whether Ramirez’s claim is politically motivated, nor is there any way to know if the New Yorker’s unethical decision to run the story was politically motivated. The best-case scenario is they just wanted to be first and win all the clicks. However, those claiming, as President Trump did this morning that there is a political motivation behind the unveiling of this allegation have good reason to wonder, given the timing and tenuous evidence presented.

Farrow tries to use the case of Schneiderman, a Democrat, to prove that he is after all abusers and not just Republicans. But why then did he use such a blatantly different standard in deciding to run the Kavanaugh story? Why were fewer facts and elements of corroboration needed to push this story through?

Damaging The Me Too Movement

Whether his nomination survives or not, Brett Kavanaugh’s reputation is not the only thing damaged by this reckless reporting. The Me Too movement will also suffer. Thus far the movement has clung to decent standards of evidence and a presumption of innocence in most cases. None of the major takedowns occurred with such flimsy stories behind them.

The New Yorker is now opening the door to other outlets and entities to a world in which presumption of guilt is the norm in these cases. There are those on the left who approve of this approach. They argue that sure, a few innocent men might go down, but it’s more important to believe all women for the greater good of society.

This is a dangerous and illiberal road that many if not most Americans will refuse to walk down. The power of the Me Too movement has been the overwhelming amount of evidence against so many well-liked famous men. What our eyes have been opened to is just how much evidence exists, how quickly the dominoes, including evidence, fall once an accuser comes forward.

In fact, one of the planks of Kavanaugh’s defense is that there is no long pattern of abusive behavior as we have seen in so many Me Too cases. There is no breaking of the dam leading to a flood of allegations. But Ronan Farrow found one. And even though every other outlet decided there wasn’t enough evidence, he knew that true or not, Ramirez coming forward would harm one of Kavanaugh’s central defenses.

If the presumption of innocence and journalistic integrity are abandoned, if instead, we operate off of the idea that even an allegation with little to no corroboration is enough to pronounce a man guilty in the reputable press, we will move into a terrifying moment where a most basic American principle will wither away.

Ronan Farrow has chosen to make his beat sexual abuse by powerful men. He has done some excellent reporting and taken down many men who clearly deserved it. He has done so by sticking to very high standards. Yesterday he failed that test. His hatchet job is a disgrace to his own work, a disgrace to the New Yorker, and a smear against Brett Kavanaugh. But perhaps worst of all it will and should make many Americans skeptical of his important work, and the work of others going forward.

Republicans Have A Simple Choice: Vote To Confirm Kavanaugh Or Get Slaughtered In November

By
Gustavo
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0

The rubber is about to meet the road for Senate Republicans. They have a simple choice: they can vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, thereby ending the baseless and unsubstantiated Democrat- and media-fueled smear campaign against him, or they can kiss House and Senate majorities goodbye for the next decade, if not longer.

In case the election of one Donald J. Trump was not enough to compel the D.C. Republican establishment swamp creatures to wipe the muck from their eyes and see what’s happening with their own constituents, Republican voters have had enough of feckless do-nothings whose careers consist of little more than not doing everything they promised to do.

Give us the House, the Senate, and the White House, they said, and we’ll repeal Obamacare. Give us power across the major elected branches, and we’ll secure the border, they promised. With a Republican president in the White House and a Republican majority in the Senate, we’ll confirm the most conservative Supreme Court nominees you can imagine, they claimed.

Yet here we are. Obamacare is still on the books, and a wall is still not on the border. The only compelling reason left for Republicans to continue voting for Republicans is the confirmation of conservative jurists to fill the federal judiciary. The confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch was nice, but it changed nothing, as he replaced the staunchly conservative Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch’s appointment merely maintained the status quo.

Republican lawmakers have to understand that their voters have zero patience for their excuses for not doing what they promised. It’s why they elected Trump in the first place. Republican senators failed to repeal Obamacare after promising to do so for years. That was strike one. They’ve steadfastly refused to secure the border, let alone build a barrier along the most porous sections of the nation’s border with Mexico. That was strike two.

A refusal to vote to confirm Kavanaugh in the face of a blatantly obvious Democrat smear campaign, orchestrated in concert with a compliant and obscenely partisan national media, will be strike three, and there will be no more at-bats. I have spent a career working in and covering politics, and I have never witnessed the kind of anger among rank-and-file GOP voters generated from a combination of the unsubstantiated Democrat attacks on Kavanaugh and the flaccid response of emasculated Republicans.

The stakes of the current battle over Kavanaugh are far bigger than a single Supreme Court seat, and Republican voters understand this, even if their elected lawmakers don’t. It’s bigger than Roe v. Wade, Obamacare, or Second Amendment rights. Democrats are trying to turn the rule of law on its head, to destroy the presumption of innocence — not for themselves, mind you, but for anyone who dares to oppose their totalitarian political agenda.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) made clear on CNN on Sunday that Kavanaugh does not deserve to be presumed innocent, notwithstanding the lack of any corroborating evidence of any of the allegations made against him, entirely because his political ideology and judicial philosophy do not align with those of the Democratic Party.

When asked whether Kavanaugh is entitled to the presumption of innocence, Hirono said, “I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases.” Translation: he is guilty because of what he believes, not because of anything he’s actually done. Laverentiy Beria, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s most trusted police inquisitor, who famously declared, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime,” would surely applaud the totalitarian sentiment underlying Hirono’s statement.

If Kavanaugh is not safe from reputation- and career-destroying smears, no one is. Not you. Not your husband. Not your son, father, or brother. If they can destroy Kavanaugh, they can do it to anyone you love and trust, regardless of any mountains of facts or evidence to the contrary.

The Republican base understands this to its core. But do Republican lawmakers? It’s not clear that they do, especially given the way they allowed themselves to get played by nakedly political activists who hijacked Senate Judiciary Committee proceedings over the weekend.

The Democrats have one goal: to prevent the nation’s elected Republican government from doing what it was elected to do. That’s the whole purpose of the Robert Mueller probe, which to date has not produced a shred of evidence that Trump treasonously conspired with the Russian government to steal an election from Hillary Clinton. It’s the reason for the lawless and anti-democratic “resistance” within federal agencies, which gleefully uses its power and total lack of accountability to the electorate to wreak havoc on our nation’s institutions.

Democrats refuse to accept that they lost the election fair and square, and they refuse to accept that Trump and Republican lawmakers have the right under the U.S. Constitution to nominate and confirm Supreme Court justices. The last week has proven that Democrats will do anything, whether it’s spinning up federal investigations on false premises, sabotaging legal processes within federal agencies, or cooking up vile smear campaigns to prevent the confirmation of the next Supreme Court justice, all the way to 2020 and perhaps even beyond, if necessary.

Republican voters know exactly what’s happening right now, and they’re out for blood. The only question left is who they’re going to punish. If Senate Republican leaders don’t immediately end this entire charade and schedule a floor vote for Kavanaugh, their heads will be on the chopping block.

An electorate already disgusted with consistent GOP failure to honor its promises is not going to lift a finger to keep the same do-nothings in power. If they’re going to stand by and allow to Democrats to do whatever they want, there’s simply no point in electing Republicans again.

Conversely, if GOP lawmakers show that they do have a spine and are no longer willing to let the other side get away with reputation murder, they might actually keep both their House and Senate majorities in November. As Trump has shown, even discouraged Republican voters are willing to stand behind somebody who’s willing to stand up for them.

It’s time for Senate Republicans to stand and be counted. If they do the right thing, they will be rewarded at the polls. If they continue to cower and allow themselves to be bullied by tinpot totalitarians like Chuck Schumer and Mazie Hirono, then they’re going to deserve everything that’s coming to them in November.

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