Saturday, October 13, 2018

One Ford Narrative Too Many

Political Cartoons by Chip Bok
Victor Davis Hanson  . . . "Senate prosecutor Rachel Mitchell might have proven in court more a depositioner than an inquisitor in her seemingly circular questioning, but in retrospect she proved a brilliant interrogator nonetheless in getting Ford to testify to a host of things that simply could not all be true—and would come back to haunt Ford in Mitchell’s damning summary of Ford’s likely untruths.
'And why exactly were there so many contradictions as outlined in Mitchell’s written summation?
"Christine Ford in July may have had no idea that her original anonymous accusation would ever become sensationalized publicly, much less put her into a position of trying to reconcile a number of irreconcilable narratives.
"Instead, Ford had initially thought a single anonymous but poisonous letter would do the trick far better than had previous weeks of grandstanding Democratic baiting, demonstrations, and walkouts. A last-minute drive-by and anonymous charge of sexual assault would panic Republicans with the mere whiff of #MeTooism, shock and cower a goody-two-shoes, family-man Kavanaugh, and thus force a beleaguered, pre-midterm-anxious President Trump to withdraw the nomination—all without the disclosure of Ford’s name and thus without any further need to substantiate her narratives.
"As a side note, in this context, I am confused by the bipartisan outrage solely directed at Senator Dianne Feinstein’s or her staff’s lowdown leaking of Ford’s name. Of course, it was unethical and so typical of the twilight years of the senior senator from California. But, then again, so is authoring an anonymous hit piece without any corroborating evidence but with misleading written assertions (such as how Ford sought “medical treatment” for the assault—without disclosing she meant marriage counseling 36 years after the fact.) It seems far less noble to charge Kavanaugh with sexual assault anonymously than to have come forward at the outset and demonstrate the charge transparently. The cloak of anonymity does even more damage to the idea of jurisprudence than does the unethical removal of it by a would-be enabler.
"Yet the radical change of events that followed the disclosure of Ford’s name did lead to discovery of lots of Ford narratives with still more to come." . . .

Maxine Waters hit with 3 ethics violation charges


Personal Liberty  . . . "CBS News reports that the charges related to whether Waters gave inappropriate assistance to a bank that got federal bail-out money and to which she had personal connections. The ethics committee charged that Waters organized a meeting in 2008 between Treasury officials and executives from OneUnited Bank, where her husband was once a board member and had large investments. The bank received $12 million from the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Waters with the white-hating Farrakhan

"Waters serves on the House Financial Services Committee, and there have been rumors for some time that she had acted inappropriately regarding the bailout funds.

"According to CBS, Waters has defended her request for the meeting between Treasury officials and OneUnited executives as part of her efforts to advocate on behalf of minority-owned businesses. She maintains she is innocent of any wrongdoing.

"The charges are that she violated a House rule that members must “behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House;” that she violated the “spirit” of the House rule that prohibits a member from receiving compensation for exerting improper influence from her position in Congress; and that she violated the Code of Ethics for Government Service.
"She will face a public [trial] before the Ethics Committee in the fall."

Friday, October 12, 2018

Brutality is in the Eye of E. Holder

Stilton's Place


. . . "Hillary Clinton, who once swore to accept the results of the election in which Donald Trump kicked her fanny, just declared "You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about. That's why I believe if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that's when civility can start again. But until then the only thing Republicans seem to recognize and respect is strength."

"Hang on - we're pretty sure that there's a word that distills that whole thought. "Strength" applied in a way that lacks "civility"...  Oh yeah, now we remember! That word is violence.

"And let's not forget Mad Maxine Waters, who helped pour gasoline on this anti-American fire by saying "If you see anyone from the Cabinet in a restaurant, a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and create a crowd! And you push back on them! And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere!" Except, perhaps, the death camps that Maxine and her chums seemingly have in mind for citizens who won't do what they're told." . . .

Hillary Clinton’s security clearance has been withdrawn at her request.

State Dept. Provides Update on Ongoing Review of Clinton-Era Officials’ Handling of Classified Material  "The U.S. State Department recently confirmed that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security clearance has been withdrawn at her request. Clearances for five other individuals whom Clinton designated as researchers have also been withdrawn, including close aide Cheryl Mills, according to the State Department’s update of its ongoing review of the mishandling of classified information related to the use of Clinton’s non-government email server.
 
"Documents containing classified material have been sent to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and all valid security incidents have been added to the security file for some individuals.  Department authorities are continuing to review tens of thousands of documents for classified content. 
 
"The update was provided to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and is being released for the first time following consultation with the State Department.  The update follows a letter from the Department in May of 2017 confirming the Department’s review into any mishandling of classified information stemming from the use of Clinton’s non-government email server.  That letter, which responded to an inquiry from Grassley, also outlined the review and adjudication process.
 
"The recent letter from the State Department is available HERE." . . .



Democrats Go MEAN!

Political Cartoons by AF Branco
Townhall
Tammy Bruce  You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” announced Hillary Clinton during an interview on CNN. This after the Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearings descended into mob action to destroy that man and his family.
Here is a twice-failed presidential candidate, former senator and secretary of state, revealing her rejection of the peaceful transfer of power, a hallmark of the American system. One could see this as her confession explaining the Democratic Party’s obscene and contrived effort to politically and socially assassinate a good man for committing the crimes of being a conservative and being nominated by President Donald Trump.
You see, the mob action hasn’t only been on the street. It was witnessed by us in the Senate, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein first decided to hide the Ford allegation from the committee, deciding to use it as an improvised explosive device against not just then-Judge Kavanaugh but the process itself.
Even more shocking was Hillary’s next remark during the interview: “That’s why I believe, if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again.”
Many women across this country, and around the world, know what this means. Her rhetoric is shockingly similar to an abuser’s — Hillary Clinton is telling us that once we comply, once we give them what they want, they’ll stop hurting us. But as long as we’re bad, they will punish us. Because, you see, they’re only hurting us to make things better. We deserve it, and this is for our own good.
Political Cartoons by Tom Stiglich
Hillary is not one to say something out of turn. It’s not coincidental that just two days after the former secretary of State gave her seal of approval for euphemistic “incivility,” her friend, former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., reinforced this new narrative.
At a campaign rally in Georgia, Mr. Holder told the crowd, “Michelle [Obama] always says that, you know, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ No, no. When they go low, we kick them [to applause]. That’s what this new Democratic Party is about.”
Even The Washington Post seemed taken aback by Mr. Holder’s remarks, reporting, “For the second time this week, a leading Democratic voice is proposing that the party pursue a meaner, more combative approach — with this one going so far as to allude to metaphorical violence.”
Metaphorical? Taking these comments by Democratic Party leadership in context is key. What exactly has been happening just prior to these statements, moreover, for the past one-and-a-half years?
Conservatives and Republicans have been personally harassed and attacked in public. There has been violence, including attempted mass murder of Republican congressmen, the almost fatal injury of Rep. Steve Scalise, and the attempted stabbing of a Republican candidate. Women who work for the administration have been harassed at movie theatres, restaurants and while conducting official business.
During and in the immediate aftermath of the Kavanaugh hearings, Republican senators were chased down hallways, accosted in elevators and harassed at airports. The president, secretary of Defense and the Navy chief were sent threatening letters containing the raw ingredient for the poison ricin. Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign office has received a letter containing a powder. A Republican senator’s wife received a video of a beheading sent to her private cell phone number.
Democratic Party operative, who had worked for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and Democratic Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Maggie Hassan, posted online home addresses and personal phone numbers of Republican Judiciary Committee members. Arrested, this man was determined to be such a threat to others the judge has denied him bond.
Sen. Rand Paul is also concerned and noted a frightening possibility on “Fox and Friends.” Daily Wire reports, “… Paul condemned the violent rhetoric of the political Left and the Democratic Party and warned that someone is going to end up getting killed if the inflammatory rhetoric doesn’t stop. ‘I was there at the ball field when Steve Scalise almost died from a very, very angry violent man who was incited really by rhetoric on the left,’ Paul said.
“‘And this hasn’t been reported enough, when he [the gunman] came on the field with a semi-automatic weapon firing probably close to 200 shots at us, shooting five people and almost killing Steve Scalise, he was yelling ‘this is for healthcare!’ Paul said, reported Daily Wire. “‘So what happens is that when Democrats say ‘get up in their face,’ they need to realize that there are a lot of unstable people out there. There are people with anger issues, there are people who are prone to violence.’”
We should take Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder very seriously. This is indeed the “New Democratic Party” as Mr. Holder put it. Rep. Maxine Waters was simply the first one to announce it when she encouraged Democrats to “confront” the president’s supporters. Now Cory Booker, Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton, among others, have endorsed the politics of harassment and chaos.
Americans want solutions, ideas and progress, not threats. Democrats don’t have any new ideas or policy that address our concerns as Americans, so they’re hoping they can harass and frighten you into voting for them. This is what they think of you, and they will fail. Again.

Cartoons added by TD

I kid you not: "Ritual to Hex Brett Kavanaugh"

Facebook


Please join us for a public hex on Brett Kavanaugh, upon all rapists and the patriarchy at large which emboldens, rewards and protects them. We are embracing witchcraft's true roots as the magik of the poor, the downtrodden and disenfranchised and it's history as often the only weapon, the only means of exacting justice available to those of us who have been wronged by men just like him.

He will be the focal point, but by no means the only target, so bring your rage and and all of the axes you've got to grind. There will also be a second ritual afterward - "The Rites of the Scorned One" which seeks to validate, affirm, uphold and support those of us who have been wronged and who refuse to be silent any longer.

50% of the event proceeds will be donated to charity:
25% to the Ali Forney Center and 25% to Planned Parenthood.

Please note that no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
 The comments section contains more intelligence, so all is not lost to America. 
Especially if the commenters vote Republican. 

Ian Macfarlane

Trump defies DiFi and Kamala, nominating 3 Federalist Society members for Ninth Circuit

Legal Insurrection
Thomas Lifson  "The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is about to become about ten percent less crazy. President Trump has nominated three new judges for the 29-seat circuit court, over the objections of the two senators representing their home state of California. Until Trump discarded the practice, home state senators were allowed to veto judicial nominations for courts in their states, a custom known as the “blue slip.”   That seems quaint these days, a relic of a bygone era in which actual qualifications, not ideology were the issue in Senate confirmation votes that, anyway, required a filibuster-proof 60 votes."


"As a result, President Trump and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are filling the federal bench with judges and justices that read an apply the Constitution, instead of deciding which outcome they want ideologically, and then finding a rationalization for it. Emily Cadei and Kate Irby of the Sacramento Bee report:" . . .
. . . President Trump’s nominees for the appeals court — litigators Daniel Collins and Kenneth Lee and Assistant United States Attorney Patrick Bumatay — are all based in Southern California, are prominent members of the conservative Federalist Society, and have worked for Republican administrations. None of the three were approved by Feinstein or Harris via a process known as a “blue slip,” the senators’ offices confirmed Thursday.  . . .
 It will be a fight  “ 'I repeatedly told the White House I wanted to reach an agreement on a package of 9th Circuit nominees, but last night the White House moved forward without consulting me, picking controversial candidates from its initial list and another individual with no judicial experience who had not previously been suggested," Feinstein said in a statement." . . .


. . . "It is time to accept the reality that Justice Kavanaugh was properly and fairly nominated, and confirmed, to the Supreme Court.  The arguments by some on the left are illogical or devoid of any factual support or corroboration.  By consistently making such arguments, Democrats could well be hurting themselves with moderate and centrist voters and, ultimately, helping Republicans as the midterms inch closer."

Taylor Swift, having wrecked country music, now wrecks politics

Being a liberal is so easy, with no downside; being a conservative can be dangerous these days and takes guts. TD

Taylor Lewis  . . . "By endorsing Democrats, Swift joins the long and stupid tradition of celebrities opining on political affairs.  It was, at least for her, a risk-less move.  Few if any Swift fans will refuse to buy her songs off iTunes because she isn't a Donald Trump fan.  Meanwhile, liberal listeners have been begging for Swift to denounce the president for some time.  The Bredesen-Cooper nod will placate them temporarily, until, that is, another injustice requires a Swiftian reproof.


"The whole business is as uninspiring as the canned melodies and prosy romantic themes that constitute the "Shake It Off" singer's radio-friendly oeuvre.  Swift is a political naïf.  Her first foray into advocacy is as unimaginative as you can get.  It's chock-full of the platitudinous pap that once filled Hillary Clinton's website.  Trite phrases like "the fight for LGBTQ rights" and "systemic racism" fill the sanctimonious jeremiad, which, most unsurprisingly, reads like a college freshman essay composed after a blithe browsing of a Jacques Derrida Tumblr fan page.
"It's silly to expect any better.  The entertainment industry as a whole is cursed with a simplistic view of politics.  For singers, songwriters, musicians, actors, comedians, showrunners, producers, directors, models, reality TV stars, social media personalities, agents, and other Hollywood Hills notables, politics is a daft struggle between good and evil; in more Swiftian pop-culture patois, it is the liberal, caring "love wins" wizards and witches versus the reactionary, intolerant followers of Lord Voldemort.
"This moral assuredness leads to many horribly trite opinions and the occasional combustion of righteous pretense."  . . .  Read more...

If the word "mob" offends the left, how about "ProgMob"?

Well, if our country is so racist, why is it that the Left has to reach so far to find examples of racism? People didn’t have to do any reaching to find examples of racism in the fifties and sixties, did they? So, if racism is such an all powerful force in America today, how is it that liberals have gotten so desperate to see race in every issue that they've had to latch on to pitiful issues like these to support their claims?  Jonah Goldberg.
Rich Terrell
From 2015: 15 Moronic Things Liberals Call Racism Since Obama Was Elected
"Bizarrely, racism in America is no longer mainly about race. Sure, race is involved in a peripheral manner, but racism has mainly become an excuse, a dodge, a way to escape responsibility. 
"When a black liberal is criticized, he cries racism. When liberalism fails, liberals cry racism. When the Democrat Party gets in trouble, liberals cry racism. It has become the ever present background noise of politics, like birds chirping in the forest. 
"Racism does still exist and always will, but once the Democrat Party joined the GOP in being opposed to racist policies, appealing to racism became a dead dog political loser in this country. The very fact that we've become so hypersensitive about it as a country is evidence of how far it has been pushed to the fringes." . . . 

Trump's New Medicare Rule To Reduce Prescription Drug Prices Through Competition

Forbes  "Earlier today, the Trump administration announced a new rule that will help reduce prescription drug prices for many seniors enrolled in the Medicare Advantage program. How does it work? By reforming a long-standing quirk in Medicare that prevented drugmakers from competing with each other.
How competition lowers drug prices
"When U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced the Trump administration’s detailed plan to reduce high prescription drug prices, much of the press yawned because many journalists assume that the only thing that can reduce drug prices is government-administered price controls.
"In contrast to that conventional wisdom, the plan contains a number of elegant and subtle solutions that will enhance the role of competition in bringing drug prices down.
"A surprising fact that few people know is that America leads the world in encouraging doctors and patients to use low-cost, high-value generic drugs. More than four-fifths of all prescriptions in the U.S. are for unbranded, off-patent generic drugs that cost less than your typical bottle of mineral water. For people with run-of-the-mill medical issues like high blood pressure, early-stage diabetes, and high cholesterol, these inexpensive drugs are a tremendous boon to public health." . . .


Thursday, October 11, 2018

Civility and the Hillarycrats

Townhall Cartoons

Political Cartoons by Tom Stiglich

Political Cartoons by AF Branco

Political Cartoons by Pat Cross

Political Cartoons by Steve Kelley

And from Rich Terrell at AfterMath


Confirmation bias: Brett Kavanaugh and the major media's worst moment

Washington Examiner  "For all the recent talk about facts versus “fake news,” telling the truth, and recapturing the public's trust in the era of President Trump, some of our most important newsrooms blew it when it mattered most. Worse still, some demonstrated an immediate willingness to trade this industry's already badly battered reputation for a political victory.
Ian Macfarlane


"We are now at the unsuccessful conclusion of a four-week-long effort by certain media organizations to prove Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a violent sexual predator and a lying alcoholic. The reckless and grossly irresponsible scramble by the New Yorker, NBC News, the New York Times, and others to make Kavanaugh into a monster produced some of the worst journalism of the Trump era to date – and that's a pretty high bar.
"There were plenty of minor fouls, including when the Times assigned a news story on Kavanaugh to a magazine opinion writer who openly opposed his nomination. Others were much greater, including when NBC published an anonymously written letter alleging (with zero corroboration) that Kavanaugh was observed by an anonymous woman in 1998 to have pushed another anonymous woman.
"Journalists make mistakes, of course. But had all of the sloppy and often unethical reporting on Kavanaugh been the product of mere negligence or human error, the law of averages suggests that some of the errors would have been in his favor. None of them were. From great to small, they all tried to prove Kavanaugh unfit to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. It would be hard to blame a viewer or reader who concluded that these newsrooms acted not as the gatekeepers of truth, but as willing agents in the Democratic Party’s 11th-hour effort to destroy the judge’s good name, along with his chances of becoming the swing vote on the Supreme Court.
"It began on Sept. 12. The Intercept’s Ryan Grim first reported that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., possessed a confidential letter alleging an “incident” between Kavanaugh and a woman “while they were in high school.” Soon after the publication of the Intercept report, Feinstein referred the secret letter to the FBI." . . . Full article...

Life and death in the fake news business
Personal Liberty
" . . .this president has to go, and your assignment is to keep cutting him, it’s beyond the point where anybody in your business cares who he is and what he’s done and what he’s doing, so pump up the hysteria, shove in the blade wherever you can, THIS is how your success will be measured, you want a light to shine on you, so attack, attack without letup, don’t think, don’t think about what’s going on here, the important thing is:
"The news business is: careers.
"Having a career is life. Losing it is death.
"Your career is on the line." . . .
 Again: Ashley Kavanaugh Should Sue Christine Blasey Ford
. . . "A worryingly large number of people seem to think the War on Brett Kavanaugh is over now that he’s Justice Kavanaugh.
"It’s not.
"Another phase of it is just starting – and going by the continued assaults on Justice Thomas, it is not a phase that will end before Justice Kavanaugh’s death. As the Democrat-aligned POLITICO reports; “Democrats Not Giving Up Kavanaugh War”.
. . . This will stop the moment it becomes clear that Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, Julie Swetnick, Ronan Farrow, Jane Mayer, Kasie Hunt, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Heidi Przybyla, Frank Thorp, Kate Snow, etc. and their editors are faced with the very real prospect of a proper no-holds barred cross-examination in a courtroom.I guarantee that the very same people gleefully issuing dark warnings about House Democrats launching their own “investigation” of the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh will turn on a dime to complain about the Kavanaughs refusing to be “gracious in victory”, and scream that it is time to let bygones be bygonee and “move on.”These are people of bad faith and they deserve nothing but contempt. . . .
Matt Nuskind