CHRISTINE ROSEN: Impeaching the New York Times Kavanaugh Story.

As Pogrebin and Kelly describe, Ramirez and some classmates “had been drinking heavily when, she says, a freshman named Brett Kavanaugh pulled down his pants and thrust his penis at her, prompting her to swat it away and inadvertently touch it. Some of the onlookers, who had been passing around a fake penis earlier in the evening, laughed.” Ramirez didn’t think it was funny and goes on to claim that this single episode scarred her for life. “I had gone through high school, I’m the good girl, and now, in one evening, it was all ripped away,” she told the Times. “By preying upon her in this way, she added, Kavanaugh and his friends ‘make it clear I’m not smart.’”

At the very least this is an overreaction. It’s also probably not true. When Ramirez initially made allegations about Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, the Times acknowledged that it couldn’t verify the story she was telling. This acknowledgment came after Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer at the New Yorker published a highly speculative bit of rumor-mongering about Kavanaugh based on what Ramirez herself admitted were drunken recollections and “significant gaps in her memories.”

Pogrebin and Kelly imply that the FBI did not thoroughly investigate Ms. Ramirez’s claims. “Ms. Ramirez’s legal team gave the FBI a list of at least 25 individuals who may have had corroborating evidence. But the bureau—in its supplemental background investigation—interviewed none of them, though we learned many of these potential witnesses tried in vain to reach the FBI on their own,” Pogrebin and Kelly claim.

Shameful, from top to bottom. And do read the whole thing.

MEANWHILE, AT THE NATION’S COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Russia carried out a ‘stunning’ breach of FBI communications system, escalating the spy game on U.S. soil.

BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE DOES: Ilhan Omar Thinks That She Was the Real Victim on 9/11.

YES: Cruz Warns GOP Not To ‘Abandon’ the Second Amendment.

RELATED:

HMM: Meet the Quds 1. “Is Iran secretly designing, testing and producing missile systems for exclusive use by its proxies?”

On September 14, several explosions rocked the Khurais oilfield as well as the Abqaiq refinery, one of Saudi Arabia’s most vital petrochemical installations. Several hours later, the Houthis claimed that they had targeted both facilities with ten drones as part of their “Balance of Deterrence” campaign.

What made this attack different from other recorded Houthi drone attacks was not only the unprecedented amount of material damage caused but also lingering doubt about the nature and the attribution of the attack. First, a video allegedly showing flying objects entering Kuwaiti airspace led to speculation that like a previous “Houthi” drone attack this strike might actually have originated in Iraq or even Iran. While the video remains unverified, the fact that the Kuwaiti government launched a probe into the issue lends some credence to the idea that something might have happened over Kuwait that day. Speculation about the origins of the attack was further fueled by a tweet by Mike Pompeo in which he claimed that there was no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.

Then the question arose whether drones had been used at all, or whether the attack might in fact have been a missile strike.

Much more at the link.

BILL GERTZ: Xi Jinping Has Created a ‘Communist Nightmare.’

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Cuba’s acute fuel shortage begins to bite.

IN A WORD, “PRACTICE”: Senators want to know why the military bombed ‘a bunch of terrorists hiding in the bushes’ with the super-expensive F-35.

TL;DR: BECAUSE OUR ELITES KEEP DROPPING THE BALL. Why populism is back in full force.

JONATHAN CHAIT: What If the Only Democrat Who Isn’t Too Radical to Win Is Too Old?

What if all [Biden’s] major competition raced to the left, succumbing to the fashionable delusion that the party rank and file demanded a Bernie-like nominee? And what if the only self-styled moderates in the race (Michael Bennet, Amy Klobuchar, John Hickenlooper, and so on) lacked the name recognition to mount a credible challenge?

Indeed, two candidates seem to have realized this problem. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker have dropped out of the left-wing arms race and begun positioning themselves as heirs to the Obama style of optimism and uplift. But it’s already getting late, and each candidate has already devoted most of the time between their launch and the Iowa caucuses trying to avoid getting dragged on Twitter. What’s more, the fact that both Harris and Booker are trying to squeeze into the same political space increases the probability that neither will achieve escape velocity.

Meanwhile, Biden looks like a candidate hoping to somehow stagger across the finish line. He has campaigned at a leisurely pace. His first debate performance was disastrous. The next two started out vigorous, but saw him slowly flag as the evening wore on. Thursday night included a rambling answer in which he urged parents to “make sure you have the record player on at night.” Biden’s lack of awareness of Twitter may be to his benefit, but it’s more disturbing if he lacks a working knowledge of such innovations as the compact disc player.

Plus: “If Biden isn’t up to this, he needs to collapse soon enough for another mainstream liberal Democrat like Booker or Harris to take his place.”

I’m not getting cocky, but neither Booker not Harris seems like much for moderate Dems to pin their hopes on.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Media Whiffs Another Attempt to Smear Kavanaugh. “In unison now: The American Left has lost its mind. Sure, we’ve been saying that for a while now, but — and this is almost impressive — it keeps getting worse.”

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Biden Mainstreams Incoherence While Becoming an Unlikely Defender of the Constitution.

SAD: Third Of Families Sit In Silence While Eating, Shock Survey Reveals.

THE UNIVERSE IS A GLAMOROUS ACTRESS FROM HOLLYWOOD’S GOLDEN ERA — WE MAY NEVER KNOW HER TRUE AGE: Study finds the universe might be 2 billion years younger.

HIS POSITION HAS EVOLVED: Presidential Candidate O’Rourke And Texas Senate Candidate O’Rourke Disagree On AR-15 Ownership.

YES, BUT HE’S A DEMOCRAT: Giuliani: Yang’s $1,000 Per Month Giveaway ‘Illegal.’

FROM THE TRUE CONSERVATIVE WHO UNDERSTANDS CONSERVATISM BETTER THAN YOU FAKE CONSERVATIVES EVER COULD:

It’s so difficult to tell these days whether gun confiscation or socialized medicine is the more truly conservative position under True Conservatism™, so I’ll just let you decide.

MAKE ARMS SALES GREAT AGAIN: Poland Gets All-Clear to Buy US F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

JON CALDERA: Denver’s Airbnb rules intolerant to property rights, freedom of association.

When I see one, I have two contradictory thoughts: What an eyesore, and why can’t I live there?

Living next to loud neighbors isn’t much fun. So, it is easy to understand the frustration some have living next to an Airbnb rental.

Most short-term rental guests are just fine until they rent a house or condo for a weekend bachelor party or a marathon session of “cannabis tourism.”

But the City of Denver’s little jihad against fledgling entrepreneurs, like those who do short-term rentals of their property, isn’t about noisy guests. It’s about control, limiting choice and stopping free association.

There’s a word for a political system under which people are allowed a veneer of property rights, but in which unaccountable government actually calls the shots.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY: Slippery Florida Woman Slips Out Of Handcuffs, Climbs Into Front Seat, Drives Off In Cop Car. “There is almost nothing in the world I would rather see more right now, maybe not even my sons bring home straight A’s, than that police officer trying to report to his chief where his patrol cruiser went.”

Much, much more at the link.

SOCIALISM WITH A SOUR FACE: ‘Extremely Unfair’: Sanders Denies His Form of Socialism Is the Same as Venezuela’s or Cuba’s.

I DON’T KNOW ART, BUT I KNOW WHAT I LIKE: One of the World’s Biggest Porn Sites Is Branching Into Fine Art.

Link is safe for work.

GOVERNMENT MEDICINE: A Vietnam veteran was ‘feasted on’ by ants before his death at an Atlanta VA hospital, his daughter says.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Fascist Fangs Come Out at Dem Debate.

I didn’t watch all of Round 3, I went back to my old ways and let Twitter and my PJ Media colleagues watch it for me. Doing that gives me a good way to assess which candidates are resonating and who’s getting the most favorable buzz.

I did, however, tune in every now and then, immediately regretting the decision each time.

Each time I did, I saw a different candidate explain why the federal government needed to intervene in my life in order to make it “better.” Suffice it to say that I was not moved by the sales pitch.

It reminded me very much of PJ O’Rourke’s quip about the title of one of those books Hillary Clinton allowed herself to be named author of: “Washington is the village, and you’re the child.”

CONVENIENCE: Walmart rolls out grocery delivery subscription.

The service will charge an annual membership fee of $98 for subscribers to access same-day delivery, which will be offered in 1,400 stores in 200 markets. By year-end, it will extend to a total of 1,600 stores — or more than 50% of the country.

The move allows the nation’s largest grocer to further tap into time-starved shoppers looking for convenience at a time when Walmart is locked in an arms race with Amazon and others to expand fresh-food delivery — one of the fastest growing e-commerce sectors.

We’ve been using their grocery pickup service for a year or two, and have been happy with it. This would be nicer.