KEN STARR: ‘I Believe Brett Kavanaugh.’
Author Archive: Stephen Green
September 27, 2018
More to come, I’m sure.
Apparently this is SOP for the FBI, but given that there is “no consensus about the accuracy of polygraph tests,” maybe it’s best not to waste too much time on them.
UP-TO-THE-MINUTE (OR NEARLY SO) UPDATES ON THE KAVANAUGH HEARING at the PJMedia Live Blog.
Update: “Feinstein is paving the way to prohibit questions on Ford’s character yet in he/she said cases, it is one’s impression of character that is the determining factor. There’s nothing else to go by when you have to unsubstantiated claims.”
Feinstein is no dummy. She’s trying to rule out in advance the only meaningful questions.
More: “The very first question, and Ford broke in to retract her previous written allegation that there was another “bystander” to the assault. She now says she misused the word, and that the “bystander” was actually downstairs — and therefore not a witness to anything.”
In fact, Ford has corrected her previous written allegations three or four times in just these first few minutes.
And: The big lie.
From the comments: “She’s avoiding anything that would get her on perjury. She’s only certain on matters which cannot be proved one way or another.”
(Bumped.)
DR. CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD: I Came Forward Because Reporters Were ‘Trying to Talk to My Dog Through the Window.’
WORST WARMONGER EVER: Trump Says Two-State Solution ‘More Difficult Because It’s a Real-Estate Deal’ But Better for Peace. “The President says he wants a deal between Israelis and Palestinians before the end of his term so ‘it will start moving pretty soon, pretty rapidly.'”
On the outside chance the Palestinians are willing to sit down for genuine negotiations, it will be because Trump was the first U.S. President willing to disabuse them of their notion that all of Israel could be theirs for the taking.
A REMINDER THAT BEIJING IS STILL RUN BY COMMUNISTS: China’s Muslim Detention Camps Spark Protests in Islamic World.
Muslim groups in India and Bangladesh held protests over the Chinese camps for the first time this month after former inmates began to talk publicly about their treatment, including being bound to chairs for hours on end and forced to renounce Islamic beliefs.
In Kazakhstan, many people were also outraged, and local lawyers and activists say hundreds of people have lobbied their government for help, following the detention of several Kazakh citizens and many more ethnic Kazakh Chinese nationals in the camps.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist group that claims a million members in 40 countries, called on Muslims this month to be wary of Chinese investment and to oppose Chinese rule in Xinjiang.
On Saturday, the group accused Pakistan’s government of betraying the Uighurs for the sake of China’s infrastructure program in the country, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC.
“Should the Muslims of Pakistan quietly observe the persecution of Uighur Muslims for the sake of CPEC and China?” it asked.
The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands pretty much anywhere else.
SUSTAINABILITY: As Debt Rises, the Government Will Soon Spend More on Interest Than on the Military. “Tax cuts, spending increases and higher interest rates could make it harder to respond to future recessions and deal with other needs.”
The run-up in borrowing costs is a one-two punch brought on by the need to finance a fast-growing budget deficit, worsened by tax cuts and steadily rising interest rates that will make the debt more expensive.
With less money coming in and more going toward interest, political leaders will find it harder to address pressing needs like fixing crumbling roads and bridges or to make emergency moves like pulling the economy out of future recessions.
Within a decade, more than $900 billion in interest payments will be due annually, easily outpacing spending on myriad other programs. Already the fastest-growing major government expense, the cost of interest is on track to hit $390 billion next year, nearly 50 percent more than in 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Tax cuts are the least of our debt problem given that Washington still enjoys record revenues, year after year. What Washington has is a spending problem, and zero appetite for addressing it.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: It’s SCOTUS Showtime in the Senate and Much, Much More. “Creepy Porn Lawyer Avenatti’s client came forward. She claims that for a few years when she was in college or of college age, she went to around 10 (TEN!!) high school parties where Kavanaugh was plowing chicks full of nite-nite drugs and booze so they were easy to rape. Who goes to high school parties once they are in college? Who goes to TEN rape parties where men were lined up, ready to rape?”
Admittedly it’s been a few decades, but in my experience high school girls went to college parties but never, ever the other way around.
WELL, GOOD: Latam nations, Canada ask ICC to probe Venezuela government.
The seven-page letter cited evidence gathered by a range of international experts and organizations, and asked for investigation of crimes said to have been committed after Feb. 12, 2014.
Foreign ministers from the countries said the experts had found that the Venezuelan government bore responsibility for crimes ranging from torture, murder and rape to forced disappearances and violations of due process.
“There is a large and growing body of evidence that the Maduro regime has committed gross human rights violations against its own people,” Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told a news conference with her counterparts during the annual United Nations General Assembly.
This “for the people” act has finally worn thin — until the next time.
KIDS THESE DAYS: Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet. “They’re waiting until all is secure before tying the knot.”
New data show younger couples are approaching relationships very differently from baby boomers, who married young, divorced, remarried and so on. Generation X and especially millennials are being pickier about who they marry, tying the knot at older ages when education, careers and finances are on track. The result is a U.S. divorce rate that dropped 18 percent from 2008 to 2016, according to an analysis by University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen.
Improving on Boomers’ divorce rates is a low hurdle, but this is still good news.
BOMBSHELL: Two Men Tell Judiciary Committee They Did It, Not Kavanaugh. “Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have reportedly conducted two interviews.”
YES. The Kavanaugh Battle Is The Culmination Of Unanswered Leftist Kulturkampf.
Consider the Democrat game. As Andrew McCarthy pointed out in his superlative essay, in the history of recent judicial nominations it has been only Republicans showing bipartisanship for Democrat-nominated judges. Why? Because conservative instinct dictates judging a person by merit.
How was that paid in return? Robert Bork was blocked, Miguel Estrada was blocked (which led his wife to suicide), and Samuel Alito was filibustered. What did Republicans give in return? Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Brayer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor sailed through, until Merrick Garland was finally stopped, and then not based on his judicial philosophy but timing.
Even then, the process was within the letters of the law, unlike the coordinated character assassination against Kavanaugh, or the public humiliation of Judge Amy Coney Barett during her circuit court confirmation. As McCarthy writes, “Republicans have defeated Democratic nominees, but they never Bork them. They never demagogue Democratic nominees as sex offenders, racists, or homophobes. There are no ‘Spartacus’ moments.”
This is common sense, but something Republican leadership apparently fails to understand.
The time to answer it is now. Hold the vote.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Japan is developing supersonic glide bombs to defend remote islands.
Garren Mulloy, an associate professor of international relations at Japan’s Daito Bunka University and an authority on defence issues, said the new weapon would be designed to complement the cruise missiles that the Japanese military has already deployed.
“Up until now, the Japanese have been very short of these precision-guided munitions, especially in comparison to the US, Nato or the Russians, so it comes as no surprise that they want to look into these sorts of weapons,” he said.
The weapons are expected to be deployed aboard mobile, land-based launchers.
Given Tokyo’s concern over the possibility of China occupying the Diaoyu Islands – the archipelago in the East China Sea that Tokyo controls but Beijing claims – it is possible that the first units would be deployed on islands within range of that potential flashpoint.
I’ve joked for years that if you want to see the future of Japan, picture a mountainside geriatric facility guarded by those flying sentinel robots from The Matrix.
TYLER O’NEIL: Georgetown Prep Fires Back at Allegations: Sexual Assault Not Tolerated at Kavanaugh’s High School. “It is demonstrably false that such behavior is tolerated.”
September 26, 2018
THIS PROBABLY DISQUALIFIES HIM FROM ANY FUTURE SUPREME COURT NOMINATION: Lil Xan Was Hospitalized for Eating Too Many Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
NOT WANTED BY WHOM? Houston mayor says so-called ‘robot sex brothel’ slated to open is not wanted.
SUZANNE VENKER: What Republicans Get That Democrats Don’t About Sex. “Human nature is more complex than progressive slogans.”
CHANGE? Californians To Try To Kill High-Speed Rail Project By Referendum.
The debates over repealing the gas tax and the floundering bullet train have a significant intersection. As the Times reports, state representatives have recently suggested that some funds from the new gas taxes may eventually need to go into funding the rail project. None of these proposals are sitting well with the groups who feel that they’ve been overly taxed already with little to show for it. The total cost of the high-speed rail project had already doubled yet again from the 2013 projection of $33B to $77B. The completion date has already been stretched out to 2033 and nobody knows how high the total cost could go by then.
At the same time, the state needs an estimated $177B over the next ten years to try to bring their roads and bridges up to some reasonable measure of safety and repair. California’s state government currently has no idea where that money is going to come from unless they go back to the well yet again and raise taxes even more. This appears to be prompting some fiscal sanity among a growing number of residents who are pushing back against their liberal stronghold leadership.
To say nothing of California’s public pension crisis.