CAPITAL STORIES FOR CHILDREN

- Hallo friendsCAPITAL STORIES FOR CHILDREN, In the article you read this time with the title , We have prepared this article for you to read and retrieve information therein. Hopefully the contents of postings Article ADVENTURE, Article ANIMATION, Article LATEST DONGENG, Article WORLD OF ANIMALS, We write this you can understand. Alright, good read.

Title :
link :

WWW.MOEISSUESOFTHEDAY
.BLOGSPOT.COM

Tuesday, October 2,2018
All Gave Some~Some Gave All
*****

a

President Trump Says ‘Holier Than Thou’ Democrats Smearing Judge Kavanaugh ‘Are Not Angels,’ Hits Blumenthal, Booker, Feinstein

Trump Just Sounded Alarm On Feinstein After Catching Her In The Act -’Worst I’ve Ever Seen’

Since Judge Kavanaugh was announced as President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court Senate Democrats have opposed his nomination. Now that there are sexual assault allegations out against him they are even more opposed to him. However, certain information that is pertinent to the allegations were kept away from the Senate Judiciary Committee so that they could consider all the facts.

Sen Dianne Feinstein ✔@SenFeinstein

From the moment I received Dr. Ford’s letter my actions have been consistent with her wishes. We kept her letter confidential and did not leak the contents or its existence to anyone. Survivors have a right to decide how their stories are made public.

7:59 PM - Sep 29, 2018

Fox News reported,

“President Trump briefly singled out U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein during his West Virginia rally Saturday evening, insinuating that the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee leaked a letter from a woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her decades earlier.

“When you look at releases and leaks and they say, ‘No, I didn’t do it.’ Dianne Feinstein, did you leak?,” Trump said to a chorus of boos from the crowd. “Remember her answer? Uh uh, uh, what? No, no, I didn’t leak. Maybe she didn’t, but that was the worst body language I’ve ever seen.”

Trump, who was in the state stumping for GOP candidates ahead of the midterm elections, was referring to the letter that Feinstein, of California, received from Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford in July. Feinstein maintains she never came forward with Ford’s claim because Ford had requested confidentiality.

“I don’t believe my staff would leak it,” Feinstein said in response to a question Thursday from Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas. “I have not asked that question directly.” Feinstein posted a Twitter message Saturday evening, denying that her office leaked the letter.

“From the moment I received Dr. Ford’s letter my actions have been consistent with her wishes,” Feinstein wrote. “We kept her letter confidential and did not leak the contents or its existence to anyone. Survivors have a right to decide how their stories are made public.”

But one way or another, news of the letter was eventually leaked, sparking a divisive nationwide debate over Kavanaugh’s nomination to the highest court and Democrats calling for an FBI investigation into the allegations.

Ford’s letter alleging Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her was first reported Sept. 12 by the website the Intercept. The Intercept reporter who broke the story tweeted: “Feinstein’s staff did not leak the letter to The Intercept.”

Ryan Grim ✔@ryangrim

Feinstein's staff did not leak the letter to The Intercept

6:33 PM - Sep 27, 2018

Ford claims Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students. More women have since come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. On Thursday, Ford and Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the allegations.

“Brett’s assault on me drastically altered my life,” Ford told the committee. At the hearing, Kavanaugh maintained his innocence and sparred with Democratic senators. “This confirmation process has become a national disgrace,” Kavanaugh told the committee.

Trump on Friday ordered the FBI to conduct a limited “supplemental background” investigation into the matter. Maryland lawmakers have also called on authorities to investigate Ford’s claims — and the authorities said they would do so, provided that an accuser files a formal complaint.”

Ford’s accusations are serious. She has accused Judge Kavanaugh of pinning her to a bed to try and rape her while they were at a house party in Maryland. This allegedly took place in the early 1980’s while they were in school. She further alleges that he tried remove her clothes and put his hand over her mouth to silence her. When this allegedly occurred Ford was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17.

Her husband, Russell Ford, has backed up her allegations. He has reported to media outlets that his wife has detailed the alleged sexual assault to him before in the past. Russell indicated they discussed it in a couples therapy session in 2012.

During the process of therapy, Russell said that his wife talked about being trapped in a room with drunken boys while she was in school and being pinned down where they tried preventing her from creaming for help.

Now, Ford is an accomplished academic. She serves as a clinical psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California where she lives with her family. Ford specializes in design and analysis as a biostatistician regarding clinical trials and other intervention evaluations.

Since 1988, she taught and worked at Stanford University, which she has been recognized for by Holton-arms, a school she graduated from in Bethesda, Maryland. In consortium, she still teaches there according to the local newspaper.

Time will tell what the outcome of the FBI investigation is, and what the Senate ultimately decides to do in voting for Kavanaugh. Regardless, Sen. Feinstein tampered with evidence and this will likely have some implications going forward.



President Trump Kills Another Obama Legacy

President Trump has continued his crusade against Obama-era regulations. This time the target was offshore drilling.

According to The Daily Caller:

The Trump administration rolled back another Obama-era regulation, rescinding a rule pertaining to the offshore drilling industry.

The Department of the Interior on Thursday announced changes to the 2016 oil and gas production safety systems rule, offshore drilling regulations that were put in place during the Obama administration.

Among the reforms: independent verification of safety equipment and procedures on offshore platforms is no longer mandated; oil companies no longer have to design their equipment to operate in the “most extreme” weather conditions; and the design of some offshore drilling equipment does not have to obtain safety certification from professional engineers.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement outlined all the changes in a 176-page report.

The Trump administration said that this change helps the administrations objective of energy dominance.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse referred Kavanaugh false accuser to reporter at same time notified FBI and Judiciary Committee
Posted by William A. Jacobson

“At the constituent’s request, I provided the constituent with the contact information of a reporter who might investigate the allegation.”

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has been one of the most aggressive interrogators of Brett Kavanaugh.

That interrogation focused on Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook entries, earning Whitehouse national mockery over a fart joke entry.

Whitehouse also announced a theory about a July 1, 1982 party, based on Kavanaugh’s contemporaneous calendar, which has been soundly debunked.

John McCormack at The Weekly Standard explains:

The potential significance of this event is that it is the only party or gathering listed on Kavanaugh’s calendar at which both Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth were listed as present, and Judge and Smyth are two people alleged by Ford to have been in attendance at the gathering where she was allegedly assaulted.

But the house where this gathering took place (according to Kavanaugh’s calendar) does not appear to match the description offered by Ford in her recollection of events, and there are other reasons to be skeptical of the theory put forward by Senator Whitehouse and several left-leaning journalists….

Ford recalled that the home where the alleged attack occurred was, according to the Washington Post, “not far from the country club” in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she had likely spent the day swimming prior to the alleged attack.

Tom Kane, one of the Kavanaugh friends who was listed in attendance, told CNN’s New Day on Friday that Tim Gaudette’s house was in Rockville, Maryland, 11 miles away from the country club.

“I saw it published today that someone’s floating the notion that there was something on July 1 at Tim Gaudette’s house,” Kane told CNN. “Tim Gaudette lived in Rockville. It’s 11 miles away from Columbia Country Club. And it wasn’t a single-family home. It was a townhouse.”

The publicity has stoked interest in Whitehouse’s Republican challenger, Robert Flanders. (See my write up of the race here, RI Senate Race could be the big surprise of 2018). In an email, Flanders’ campaign manager Richard Kirby says donations and calls are flooding in from around the country:

The Campaign has seen a big increase in not only contributions at various levels from all over the country, but also a never ending parade of telephone calls and emails condemning Sheldon Whitehouse for his extreme partisanship. Not to mention his rude condescending manner to Judge Kavanaugh. Contributions have been coming in from places such as Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nebraska even liberal California!

That national interest may be about to grow.

A Rhode Islander made an accusation that gained media attention alleging Kavanaugh participated in a sexual attack on a boat in Rhode Island. The accusation was made to Whitehouse’s office in the morning of September 24, 2018. The accusation quickly was in the media feeding the political frenzy.

The accuser, after the story became public and completely implausible, then recanted that night.

But how did the story get so quickly into the media? We may have the answer, and it points to Whitehouse.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has referred the matter to the Department of Justice and FBI for investigation and possible prosecution, because the accuser allegedly provided false information to the Committed during its investigation. (h/t Byron York Twitter)  The cover letter from Chuck Grassley and supporting materials are available at the Committee website.

In those materials was the letter Whitehouse sent to the Committee the same day the accuser contact Whithouse’s office. In that letter, Whitehouse states:

“This morning, a constituent contacted my office to report another allegation of sexual misconduct by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, nominee to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. At the constituent’s request, I provided the constituent with the contact information of a reporter who might investigate the allegation. I have also alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

I reached out to Whitehouse’s office for comment as to which reporter Whitehouse referred the accuser, but as of this writing have received no response.

We don’t know what the accuser did with that information, and whether Whitehouse’s referral was the spark that lit the media fuse that morning. Nonetheless, this raises serious questions as to the motivation of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

Why refer the accuser to a reporter unless Whitehouse wanted to feed the media firestorm against Kavanaugh? And why do that prior to notifying the FBI and Judiciary Committee, thereby potentially damaging their ability to investigate?

Unraveled: How a Democratic Senator's Theory About Kavanaugh's 1982 Calendar Totally Fell Apart

Guy Benson @guypbenson

One popular theory buzzing around on the Left late last week went something like this: Instead of helping to exonerate him, Brett Kavanaugh's calendars from the summer of 1982 might actually demonstrate his guilt.  In question was a calendar entry from July 1st, a Thursday.  Kavanaugh testified that the likeliest evenings on which drinking parties would have occurred that summer were weekend nights.  He then proceeded to argue that he was either out of town, or otherwise occupied, for virtually all of his Friday and Saturdays that summer.  But perhaps he deliberately focused everyone's attention on weekends for good reason, critics theorized, pointing to the last week night prior to that year's July 4th weekend.  Could Kavanaugh have actually provided the world with documentation that he actually did attend very party he's repeatedly denied being at?  Sen. Sheldon "Inspector Clouseau" Whitehouse decided it was a good idea to present this half-baked notion before the committee:

Whitehouse is a Rhode Island Democrat whose office received a separate and completely uncorroborated anti-Kavanaugh rape allegation that made its way into the press.  The claim has since been recanted, with possible legal trouble ahead for the false accuser.  At the beginning of this clip, Whitehouse asserts he doesn't believe Kavanaugh told the truth about inside jokes referenced in his high school yearbook (read this thread for a detailed response to various attempted 'fact checks,' including questions over whether Kavanaugh 'lied' about his drinking and other small matters), then launches into the 7/1/82 theory of the case.  Is this a potential smoking gun? After all, some key names from Ford's account match up with the people Kavanaugh listed as in attendance at that particular gathering.  John McCormack lets the facts dismantle this idea:

The house where this gathering took place (according to Kavanaugh’s calendar) does not appear to match the description offered by Ford in her recollection of events, and there are other reasons to be skeptical of the theory put forward by Senator Whitehouse and several left-leaning journalists. Ford recalled that the home where the alleged attack occurred was, according to the Washington Post, “not far from the country club” in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she had likely spent the day swimming prior to the alleged attack. Tom Kane, one of the Kavanaugh friends who was listed in attendance, told CNN’s New Day on Friday that Tim Gaudette’s house was in Rockville, Maryland, 11 miles away from the country club.  "I saw it published today that someone’s floating the notion that there was something on July 1 at Tim Gaudette’s house,” Kane told CNN. “Tim Gaudette lived in Rockville. It’s 11 miles away from Columbia Country Club. And it wasn’t a single-family home. It was a townhouse.”

Mr. Kane told the Weekly Standard that he has no recollection of Ford ever attending a party at this house, which does not in any way match her description of the home in which she was allegedly assaulted.  Another piece that disproves this would-be puzzle is the list attendees recorded on the calendar, which (a) doesn't align with Ford's (inconsistent) memory of who was in attendance, and (b) includes someone she wouldn't have forgotten:

During Ford’s testimony Thursday, she explained that Garrett (whose nickname was “Squi” and who also is listed on Kavanaugh’s calendar as attending the July 1 party at Tim Gaudette’s townhouse) was the only social connection to Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge she can recall. Ford said during testimony that she had socialized with Garrett for “maybe a couple months” before the alleged party occurred and that Garrett was someone she “went out with for a few months.” She added: “After that we were distant friends and ran into each other periodically at Columbia Country Club, but I didn’t see him often.” If one of the people at the same small gathering was someone she “went out with for a few months,” wouldn’t there be a good chance she would recall his presence?

Yes, there certainly would be.  And there's also this: "Kavanaugh testified that his calendar indicates that prior to the gathering at Tim Gaudette’s he had been doing a football workout, which was 'usually 6:00 to 8:00 or so, kind of—until near dark. And then it looks like we went over to Timmy’s.' We don’t know for sure if Kavanaugh worked out until 8:00 p.m. that evening, but if he did, that fact would be inconsistent with Ford’s description of an assailant who was 'extremely inebriated' from drinking beer by the time the alleged assault occurred “early in the evening” at a 'pre-gathering.'"  Some people have posited that perhaps the alleged assault took place at a later party that night, but as McCormack notes, Ford testified that the fateful gathering she recalls was a 'pregame'-style event, not a later party, which would have taken place after her curfew.  

In short, virtually none of the details match with Ford's description, meaning that we can conclude with relatively strong certainty that Ford was not assaulted at Timmy's party on July 1, 1982.  Will Sen. Whitehouse, who saw fit to float this weak theory, stipulate as much, now that it's blown up? I'll leave you with my response to the Democrats' latest talking point (aside from predictably moving the goalposts on the FBI's limited inquiry into this, which I still believe is a good idea).  

It's really a neat trick to execute a hit job Kavanaugh via deeply unethical handling of an unsubstantiated allegation, lend credibility to a nutty gang rape theory by demandingthat he withdraw his nomination on the eve of a high-stakes hearing, then cite his righteous, boiling anger at the aforementioned tactics as evidence that he's temperamentally unfit for the job:

Guy Benson ✔@guypbenson

1. Declare Kavanaugh unacceptable the moment he’s nominated.
2. Withhold bombshell, uncorroborated allegation until after hearings.
3. Suggest he’s a predator & liar for days.
4. Declare him temperamentally unfit when he furiously responds to previous two steps.

4:00 PM - Sep 30, 2018

Shameless.

That sign telling you how fast you’re driving may be spying on you
By Justin Rohrlich

The next time you drive past one of those road signs with a digital readout showing how fast you’re going, don’t simply assume it’s there to remind you not to speed. It may actually be capturing your license plate data.

According to recently released US federal contracting data, the Drug Enforcement Administration will be expanding the footprint of its nationwide surveillance network with the purchase of “multiple” trailer-mounted speed displays “to be retrofitted as mobile LPR [License Plate Reader] platforms.” The DEA is buying them from RU2 Systems Inc., a private Mesa, Arizona company. How much it’s spending on the signs has been redacted.

Two other, apparently related contracts, show that the DEA has hired a small machine shop in California, and another in Virginia, to conceal the readers within the signs. An RU2 representative said the company providing the LPR devices themselves is a Canadian firm called Genetec.

The DEA launched its National License Plate Reader Program in 2008; it was publicly revealed for the first time during a congressional hearing four years after that. The DEA’s most recent budget describes the program as “a federation of independent federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement license plate readers linked into a cooperative system, designed to enhance the ability of law enforcement agencies to interdict drug traffickers, money launderers or other criminal activities on high drug and money trafficking corridors and other public roadways throughout the U.S.,” primarily along the southwest border region, and the country’s northeast and southeast corridors.

“There used to be an old police saying, ‘If you robbed a bank, please drive carefully,’” former NYPD Detective Sergeant and Bronx Cold Case Squad commander Joseph Giacalone told Quartz, explaining that if a getaway driver didn’t do anything to attract the attention of police and get pulled over, they usually had a half-decent chance of fleeing. “But that’s no longer in effect because you can drive slow, you can stop at every red light, but these license plate readers and surveillance cameras track your every movement.”

And therein lies the real issue: What is a game-changing crime-fighting tool to some, is a privacy overreach of near-existential proportion to others. License plate readers, which can capture somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 plates a minute, cast an astonishingly wide net that has made it far easier for cops to catch serious criminals. On the other hand, the indiscriminate nature of the real-time collection, along with the fact that it is then stored by authorities for later data mining is highly alarming to privacy advocates.

“License plate readers are inherently a form of mass surveillance,” investigative researcher Dave Maass of the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation told Quartz. “You look at something like a wiretap and most of the time it’s looking for a specific person and capturing specific conversations with that person. But here they are collecting information on everybody, not all of whom have been accused of a crime, in case they may one day commit a crime. This is un-American.”

The DEA does not release how much of the data it collects is connected to crimes. The nonprofit American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland found that only 47 out of every 1 million plates scanned by police in the state, or 0.005%, were linked to a serious crime. The Atlanta PD captured data from 128.5 million license plates last year; 786,580 of those—0.6%—were suspected of having a connection to a crime. Of 22 million license plates recorded in Austin, Texas during that same period, 3,200 of them—0.01%—were linked to alleged criminal activity.

Still, it’s not the data collection itself that’s the issue, as much as what authorities do next with that information, explained Maass.

“The technology is fairly simple, but as they start collecting more and more data and applying more and more algorithms to that, you can get information about people’s travel patterns, where their doctor’s office is, where they sleep at night, or put in the address of a place and see who visited it: an immigrant health clinic, a medical marijuana facility, or even a [marijuana] grow [operation] that would be completely legal under state law but illegal under federal law,” Maass said. “You could [link someone to] an abortion clinic, any number of sensitive locations.”

Precise details of the DEA’s license plate reader program are extremely difficult to pry loose. The DEA declined to comment on either the program in general or its latest purchase of license plate readers; Sherman Green, the Department of Justice contracting officer handling the RU2 deal did not respond to an interview request.

Maass said the DEA augments its own data collection by buying access to commercial databases, including one maintained by Vigilant Solutions of Livermore, California. In January, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency purchased access to Vigilant’s LPR data which reportedly allows investigators to trace plates going back five years.

Some LPR cameras can capture “contextual photos,” which include shots of the driver and passengers. Companies like Palantir Technologies, which was co-founded by controversial venture capitalist Peter Thiel in 2003, are incorporating facial recognition technology into license plate reader software; officers can access Vigilant’s “Intelligence-Led Policing Package” on their mobile phones.

Law professor Andrew Ferguson, a former public defender and author of 2017’s The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement, said the DEA “finds itself at the intersection of new technology scandals [accusations of secret, and possibly illegal, bulk data collection by the DEA have surfaced in recent years] because they maintain both domestic and international jurisdiction and thus can argue the need to use surveillance tools that would not be acceptable in purely local law enforcement.”

“For example, most other domestic law enforcement agencies couldn’t claim any right to know information from secret NSA wiretaps…but because the DEA can claim that they are tracking international drug traffickers and thus need to know information obtained outside the states, they can use invasive techniques domestically.” In addition, the DEA has largely worked under the radar, as our national approach to large scale drug prosecutions has not changed from administration to administration. The DEA has been funded, and with federal funds comes playing around with new surveillance technologies.”

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told Quartz he thinks it’s wrong for the government to arbitrarily collect such a broad swath of data in the first place. Holding onto it for future analysis only makes things worse, he said.

However, the law enforcement community at large argues that none of this data is being used to spy on everyday Americans.

“We don’t know when somebody’s going to commit a crime, we don’t know when somebody’s going to run over somebody and take off,” said Joe Giacalone. “So that data should be there forever. We never know when we’re going to need it.”

Kabrina Chang, a professor of law and ethics at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business told Quartz, “We as a society have to think long and hard about the consequences. I don’t think anyone would begrudge law enforcement help in doing their jobs; we all want them to do their jobs really, really well. But what are we willing to give up?”

DEA expects to take delivery of its new license plate-reading speed signs by October 15.



Prosecutor Memo: Ford Claim “Even Weaker” Than Usual He-Said, She-Said; Update: Memo Added
ED MORRISSEY

After last Thursday’s testimony by Christine Blasey Ford, commentators rushed to call her a credible witness. Did the professional prosecutor with 25 years of experience in sexual assault cases agree? Not really, no, as Rachel Mitchell explained in a detailed analysis she provided after the hearing to the Senate GOP caucus, The Arizona prosecutor laid out her case in a memo published earlier today by the Washington Post.

The “bottom line,” Mitchell writes, is that this case doesn’t meet either a probable-cause nor a preponderance-of-evidence standard. Furthermore, the experienced sex-crimes prosecutor states, there are significant reasons to doubt Ford’s recollections:

In the legal context, here is my bottom line: A “he said, she said” case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that. Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event, and those witnesses either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them. For the reasons discussed below, I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee. Nor do I believe that this evidence is sufficient to satisfy the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.

Mitchell notes how the story has changed in the telling of it, even over the last couple of months, although she never states that Ford is being deliberately deceptive. One key point: in her original letter, Ford told Feinstein that she could hear Kavanaugh and Mark Judge talking with other party-goers while she hid in the bathroom, but testified in the hearing that she didn’t hear any talk at all. Ford had just “assumed” a conversation took place. Furthermore, the timing of the attack seems to have shifted since Ford’s initial text to the Post on July 6, when she described it as the “mid 1980s,” a time which matched the Post’s reporting of her therapist notes that said Ford had claimed it occurred in her “late teens.” Only after Ford got in contact with Feinstein did the timing of the attack get narrowed to the “summer of 1982.”

There are logical gaps in Ford’s story as well as suspicious details within it, Mitchell argues. For instance, Ford can recall that she was taking no medication the night of the alleged assault and that she had only one beer — but she can’t remember how she got to the party, and more importantly, how she left:

Given that this all took place before cell phones, arranging a ride home would not have been easy. Indeed, she stated that she ran out of the house after coming downstairs and did not state that she made a phone call from the house before she did, or that she called anyone else thereafter.

Mitchell also raises questions about Ford’s memory in the near term. Ford couldn’t recall whether she’d been recorded during her polygraph, even though that was a significant event from less than two months earlier. Ford also couldn’t recall whether she shared her therapy notes with the Washington Post or summarized them. In fact, Ford seemed to insist that she had paraphrased them, even though the Post report clearly stated that Ford had provided at least a portion of them to the reporter.

Ford never shared her therapy notes with the committee, Mitchell points out, which makes it tougher to determine just how dispositive they might be. However, the Post’s account of those notes give different details than those Ford gave the committee. Ford claimed that the Post’s account of them was in error. Although Mitchell doesn’t make the argument explicit here, the prosecutor clearly implies that a refusal to share share supposedly dispositive evidence reduces Ford’s credibility.

This won’t help much in dealing with the media onslaught on Kavanaugh, of course. Mitchell was hired by the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to handle Ford’s allegations, after all, which the media will stress — if they cover this aspect at all. However, Mitchell addresses that in her memo as well, reminding people that she has no particular political aspirations:

This memorandum contains my own independent assessment of Dr. Ford’s allegations, based upon my independent review of the evidence and my nearly 25 years of experience as a career prosecutor of sex-related and other crimes in Arizona. This memorandum does not necessarily reflect the views of the Chairman, any committee member, or any other senator. No senator reviewed or approved this memorandum before its release, and I was not pressured in any way to write this memorandum or to write any words in this memorandum with which I do not fully agree. The words written in this memorandum are mine, and I fully stand by all of them. While I am a registered Republican, I am not a political or partisan person.

After reading the memo, it should be clear how Mitchell approached this task — as a prosecutor rather than a defense attorney, in order to get as clear a picture as she could. That may not have made for great sound bites, but it gave Mitchell significant credibility in assessing the case Ford presented. In a legal sense, it was a wise approach. Perhaps it wasn’t satisfying politically — certainly not so much as the Republican responses during Kavanaugh’s questioning — but it laid the basis for fair-minded members of the Senate to dispense with this allegation and evaluate Kavanaugh based on his life’s work. The political failing of this is that there are so few of that group left in the upper chamber … which is no failing of Mitchell’s.

Update: One point should be noted: Mitchell doesn’t address Kavanaugh’s testimony or credibility at all in this memo. That may be because Republicans on the panel decided to use their time in the second half of the hearing to push back against Democratic attacks on Kavanaugh, leaving Mitchell little time to assess his responses. However, it may also be because Kavanaugh shouldn’t have had to endure this questioning based on the vague and contradictory allegation in the first place.

Outsiders vs. Insiders: All hail the new breed of fiercely combative and fighting Republicans

Jeffrey A. Rendall

It’s impossible to tell whether American politics indelibly changed last Thursday but the weeks and months ahead will provide plenty of clues.

What began as a star chamber-like show trial orchestrated by leftist Democrats seeking to delay if not defeat the nomination of the honorable Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court soon devolved into a virtual shouting match between very angry people on both sides of the political spectrum. Foremost among the combatants was the nominee himself who purposely paused numerous times during his opening statement to steady his emotions (which ran the gamut between rage, frustration, sorrow, guilt (at putting his friends through this) and gratitude).

For those observing the spectacle at home the show was riveting and difficult to turn off, providing the type of drama people typically pay top dollar to witness on stage and in movie houses. The ratings for the day-long program should rival those of the most-watched presidential debates of recent times. Seeing as the “show” took place on a workday, however -- and at least half the public is tuned-out anyway -- the hearing probably didn’t rival the Super Bowl for viewership – but if it’d come at primetime on Sunday evening… who knows?

Thanks to a last-minute “yes” by wobbly Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake, Kavanaugh’s nomination was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday with Democrats continuing their absurd grandstanding behavior -- but ultimately lacking the numbers to turn the judge away.

(Note: Flake voted yes with the recommendation of delaying the full senate vote pending a one-week FBI investigation – stupid!)

Politicos are still in shock from Thursday’s hearing and the fierceness demonstrated by Kavanaugh together with a few of the presiding Republican senators. Some wonder whether this incident might mark a turning point in American politics where Democrats will no longer get away with jerking people around.

Rich Lowry wrote at National Review, “[H]ow is a person who maintains his innocence supposed to react when a political party will credit any allegation against him, when swathes of the media presume his guilt, when every aspect of his teenage years — including notations in his yearbook — are used against him, when all the testimonials in his favor and his decades of spotless public service mean nothing?

“Kavanaugh’s anger over these kinds of attacks says nothing about his jurisprudence. His extensive opinions as a D.C. Circuit Court judge are all carefully reasoned and written. His opinions on the Supreme Court, should he make it there, will no doubt be the same. Hearing a case or writing an opinion isn’t the same as defending your integrity in a high-stakes political showdown...

“Brett Kavanaugh, like all Supreme Court nominees, has carefully calculated his way through his public career. But if he gets on the Court, it will be because he abandoned the usual constraints and showed the nation a powerfully human reaction to the attacks on him. His opening statement may well end up changing the course of the Supreme Court, and of our politics.”

That’s no joke. The reason why Americans reacted so strongly to Kavanaugh’s “performance” was it vastly departed from his previous appearances before the committee or in other interviews on TV. Judicial nominees are not usually visibly contemptuous when speaking to senators – that’s a job for ordinary run-of-the-mill politicians who always get away with fits of temper.

If you’re not passionate in politics you’re not gonna last long. Who wants to vote for a boring guy or gal?

The nastiness on Thursday and through much of the past three years has generated much discussion about the direction of our culture and society. Pundits quickly blame/credit Donald Trump for the marked shift in political winds but the president was maybe just the first to expose a needed alteration in GOP strategy on how to deal with unreasonable leftists on a mission to destroy the foundations of the world’s preeminent modern republic.

Everyone understands democracy is messy and sometimes leads to extreme reactions but it’s gotten ridiculous of late. The Kavanaugh matter showed Democrats don’t value anything other than preserving their sacred cow issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. What Democrats can’t win through legislation the courts grant by fiat. Kavanaugh represents a potential departure from Democrats’ victory playbook so they’d rather kill his nomination by any means necessary, sacrificing dignity and reputations along the way.

To them it’s a small price to pay since their mind-numbed minions don’t give a hoot about means as long as they come out ahead on the ends. Liberal voters prefer a certain type of personality in their politicians – that’s why Democrats are pretty much all the same. Is there any temperamental difference between Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton? Heck no – they’re all petulant, selfish and spiteful, even towards each other at times. Is there a single Democrat you’d describe as a “gentleman?” Who, Corey Booker?

Nothing much restrains the left these days. Starting with their post Inauguration Day anti-Trump protests leftists have maintained their intensity and viciousness to an extraordinarily high level – and as demonstrated by their no-holds-barred hatred towards Kavanaugh their bitterness isn’t just confined to our unusual outsider president.

Trump perhaps set the standard for a new breed of more provocative politics during the 2016 presidential campaign (both in the GOP primaries and general election) by harshly reacting to the very first question he received during a candidate debate (from Megyn Kelly, then of Fox News) regarding his past treatment of women. The hard-driving “You’re Fired!” celebrity businessman wasn’t about to curb his personality to fit the staid arena of politics.

Trump’s confrontational and combative nature led to a number of testy exchanges between himself and Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz (among others). The “niceties” of Republican politics were ejected out the window, for better or worse. Sure, there’d been verbal “brawls” before (anyone remember Mitt Romney and Rick Perry going at it in Las Vegas?) but Trump’s barbs were personal and cut deep.

Even so, raw feelings are rarely seen in the Senate where the clubby atmosphere and snail-like pace leads to a more congenial environment. And you’re more likely to fall asleep at a committee hearing than needing to defend against pointed insults being hurled at you. In such rooms the senators are so proximate they can probably taste the spittle of someone seated on the opposite side.

That all changed on Thursday. Kavanaugh looked directly at his Democrat antagonists and aired out his grievances.

Kavanaugh even highlighted how one of the Democrats called him “evil” in the lead up to the hearings – and stared right at perpetrator Corey Booker. Kavanaugh also questioned why the “Ranking Member” sat on the Blasey Ford story for two months before exposing it (and after his four days of hearings and 65 in-office meetings with senators had concluded).

Kavanaugh glared at Dianne Feinstein as he snarled the words. There was no hiding for anyone. Nor should there have been. Democrats weren’t there to listen to Kavanaugh and didn’t listen to anything he said or did. Based on the earlier theatrics of mousy witness Christine Blasey Ford Democrats figured the nomination was all-but dead and they could now head home to campaign, displaying Kavanaugh’s bloody scalp as a trophy to their leftist constituencies.

Thankfully this time Republicans actually stood up to them, led by the most unlikely bully-deterrent of all-time, Lindsey Graham. Graham called the process a “sham” and excoriated his Democrat colleagues for what they’d put Kavanaugh through. Considering how many times Graham and his dearly departed best friend John McCain reached across the aisle to befriend Democrats, the senator didn’t hold back in his critiques.

It was the key moment of the entire session. Kavanaugh, Graham and others were indeed fighting back – and that’s why they “won” the day. J. Christian Adams wrote at PJ Media, “Kavanaugh won because he fought back. Kavanaugh won because he was unwilling to suffer from the ritual defamation of the Left. He broke free from the traditional advice administration handlers give nominees -- to be deferential and measured to the senators -- and went after the Democrats and his opponents for what they are.

“Ritual defamation has become the favorite tool of the institutional Left to advance policy.  If anyone stands up to the Left’s narrative -- whether it be voter fraud, race, life, or the purely ideological role of the mainstream media -- they are targeted for ritual defamation by Leftist organizations...

“Kavanaugh won because the evidence cut in his favor, but also because his appearance galvanized Americans exhausted by decades of the deconstructive tactics of those trying to destroy Brett Kavanaugh and his family. His performance didn’t bridge any divides, but it gave us confidence we can now stand our ground.”

This is too true. If anyone should understand being unfairly attacked it’s Adams, a conservative who’s out in the proverbial trenches exposing voter fraud. For his efforts Adams’s been rewarded with leftist smear campaigns all his own for researching and revealing breaches in the law by illegal aliens and others who shouldn’t be participating in the electoral system. Instead of being thanked and praised for doing what’s right for everyone he’s called names and labeled a hater.

Following Kavanaugh’s – and Graham’s – example expect to see more conservatives fighting back against leftist intemperance. If Republicans would only elevate Jim Jordan to lead the House they’d get some feistiness there as well. Even stodgy old Mitch McConnell’s senate floor speech last week showed a type of irritation and impatience with Democrats he’d rarely displayed before.

No more Mr. Nice Guy – it’s almost like a dream, isn’t it? What does Mitt Romney think now?

During his impromptu eruption Graham asked Kavanaugh if this process was akin to a “job interview” -- and the judge matter-of-factly replied it was part of the Senate’s constitutional duty of “advice and consent.” If this month’s confirmation hearings did constitute an “interview” for a position on the Supreme Court bench, it concluded with the most unusual behavior ever by an applicant.

How many individuals vying for a job would yell at and chastise half the people interviewing him? Was it speaking the truth or lack of judicial temperament?

Does temperament even matter here? Where Kavanaugh’s headed, not really. Michael Barone explained why at The Washington Examiner, “Judicial temperament is indeed important—for trial judges. They must deal personally with litigants and criminal defendants, almost all of whom are not experienced lawyers. They must deal with lawyers who may have little experience trying cases. They have to deal with jurors, lay persons by definition (though lawyers can serve on juries, as I have three times). Trial judges need to stay in command of the proceedings and, usually, to maintain a calm, disciplined atmosphere. They should be careful not to lose their tempers. They need judicial temperament.

“Appeals judges don’t. Judges on appeals courts—which Kavanaugh is and will continue to be if he is confirmed—don’t deal with the general public. They deal personally only with lawyers, whose clients may sit in the courtroom but never, or only very rarely, participate in the proceedings. It doesn’t really matter if they lose their temper...

“The judicial temperament argument is pure makeweight, a media meme which tells us nothing more than that most mainstream media operatives don’t want to see Republican nominees serve on the Supreme Court.”

Chances are Kavanaugh, if/when confirmed, will represent the best of both worlds. Kavanaugh demonstrated remarkable calm and self-discipline during his official senate confirmation hearings despite persistent prodding and pontificating from his senate Democrat interrogators. Simply put, he didn’t flinch.

It was only when Democrats intensified their witch hunt and sought to destroy him and his family that Kavanaugh got angry. As the judge pointed out in his opening statement one of the things he enjoys most in life is coaching Girls Basketball. Thanks to the Democrats and their absurd character assailing sideshow Kavanaugh doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to do it again.

If Democrats are allowed to succeed all of society will lose capable and giving people like Kavanaugh because no one will put themselves out for fear of being run through the wringer by the politically correct thought police.

At this point it’s hard to predict how the Kavanaugh saga ends but America’s political class received a severe jolt last week. Conservatives searched long and hard for someone other than Trump to stand up to the ugly left – and thanks to a normally calm judge and a reformed RINO senator, we finally got it.

G’ day…Ciao…
Helen and Moe Lauzier

Thus Article

That's an article This time, hopefully can give benefits to all of you. well, see you in posting other articles.

You are now reading the article with the link address https://capitalstories.blogspot.com/2018/10/www.html

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: