Category: Senate

Barr Testifies, Democrats Attack

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The low moment of Wednesday’s Senate hearing:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) shut down Sen. Mazie Hirono’s (D-HI) line of questioning Wednesday against Attorney General William Barr, saying that she “slandered” Barr “from top to bottom.”
During Barr’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding special counsel Robert Mueller’s report which concluded that President Donald Trump did not collude with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election and that he did not obstruct justice by firing former FBI director Robert Mueller.
During her questioning of Barr, Hirono said that he joins Kellyanne Conway and Rudy Giuliani as people who have “sacrificed their once decent reputation for the grifter and liar that sits in the Oval Office.”
Hirono added, “You know the difference, but you’ve chosen to be the president’s lawyer and side with him over the interests of the American people.”
The Hawaii Democrat continued, “You called a press conference to once again clear Donald Trump” and that Barr “used every advantage of your office to create the impression that the president was cleared of misconduct.”
“You lied to Congress,” Hirono said. “You knew you lied. And now, we know.”
Hirono then noted that she voted against Barr’s confirmation and then called on him to resign, saying, “You have betrayed that trust. America deserves better. You should resign. I have some questions for you.”
Sen. Hirono then proceeded to ask Barr a series of questions, including whether he believes it remains ok for a president to ask someone to lie.
During Hirono’s questioning of Barr, Graham interrupted the Hawaii Democrat, saying, “Not really to this line of questioning. Listen, you’ve slandered this man.”
“You slandered this man from top to bottom, so, if you want more of this, you’re not going to get it, if you want to ask questions, you can,” Graham charged.

To state the obvious: If you’re a Democrat who’s been watching CNN or MSNBC for the past two years, you are convinced that “Russian collusion” was real, and therefore if Mueller didn’t prove this beyond all doubt, it was because of “obstruction of justice.” Nothing can convince Rachel Maddow or her audience otherwise. Trump must be guilty of wrongdoing — this is a foundational belief of the Left’s worldview — and therefore the Attorney General is part of the Trump conspiracy.

After testifying all day to the Senate committee, Barr decided against testifying to the House Judiciary Committee, which had wanted to have him interrogated by Democrat staffers who, I suspect, were endeavoring to set up a perjury trap so they could impeach Barr himself.

The Wall Street Journal:

This trashing of Bill Barr shows how frustrated and angry Democrats continue to be that the special counsel came up empty in his Russia collusion probe. He was supposed to be their fast-track to impeachment. Now they’re left trying to gin up an obstruction tale, but the probe wasn’t obstructed and there was no underlying crime. So they’re shouting and pounding the table against Bill Barr for acting like a real Attorney General.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)



 

Gillibrand Aide Abbas Malik Fired in Senate Sexual Harassment Scandal

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Democrat Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand aide Abbas Malik (right, in Army uniform).

Initial reports about the sex scandal in Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office did not name the perpetrator, but we now know that it was Abbas Malik, an Army veteran hired as Gillibrand’s military adviser and personal driver. A female staffer alleged that Malik — who was a decade her senior and married — repeatedly made unwelcome advances. She also said the male aide regularly made crude, misogynistic remarks in the office about his female colleagues and potential female hires. The female staffer said Malik retaliated against her when she reported his harassment, and she resigned because Gillibrand’s chief of staff, Jess Fassler, failed to take action. Politico “interviewed more than 20 former Gillibrand staffers” who corroborated Malik’s pattern of harassment, Marc Thiessen notes:

One former staffer said that “Malik often called her fat and unattractive to her face and made light of sexual abuse.” Others said Malik “regularly made misogynistic jokes, frequently appraised what they wore, disparaged the looks of other female staffers and rated the attractiveness of women who came in for interviews.” If a reporter could dig this information up, then her office could have done so, too. Only after Politico contacted Gillibrand’s office about the additional allegations against Malik did the senator finally fire him.
The fact is, while publicly positioning herself as a champion of harassment victims, Gillibrand apparently allowed a serial harasser to torment her female staff. And when a woman on her staff risked her own career to report the abusive conduct, “I was belittled by her office and treated like an inconvenience,” the woman told Politico. “She kept a harasser on her staff until it proved politically untenable for her to do so.”
Why did Gillibrand fail to act? Politico reported that “Malik had spent years by Gillibrand’s side as her driver — the senator officiated at his wedding — while the woman was a more recent hire and had significantly less stature in the office.” She apparently did not take action because she liked him personally. The hypocrisy is rank. Gillibrand is pushing legislation, the Military Justice Improvement Act, that would make independent prosecutors, rather than military commanders, responsible for handling allegations of sexual misconduct in the military, because of “the bias and inherent conflicts of interest posed by the military chain of command’s sole decision-making power.” Yet when faced with such allegations in her own office, she had no concern about bias and inherent conflicts of interest.
Gillibrand is a political opportunist who has seized on the #MeToo movement to advance her political career.

Abbas Malik was finally fired from his job after reporters began asking questions, but unfortunately, Gillibrand will remain in the Senate, because New York is a state completely controlled by Democrats. That such a hypocrite as Gillibrand think herself qualified to be president — Jess Fassler had been “tapped to serve as her presidential campaign manager” — tells you a lot about what’s wrong with the Democrats.



 

Mitch the Ninja Turtle Will Force Democrats to Vote on Their Own Plan

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Amateur hour in the House Democrat majority — the blundering overreach of freshman Rep. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez — gives Senate Republicans a chance to pounce and seize, so to speak:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the Senate would vote on the Green New Deal introduced last week by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
“I’ve noted with great interest the Green New Deal, and we’re going to be voting on that in the Senate to give everybody an opportunity to go on record,” McConnell told reporters.
The proposal, which is not expected to pass the Republican-dominated upper chamber, could force some Democrats to make a politically awkward calculation.
Democratic liberals, including all of the senators currently running for president, have come out in support of the legislation, which calls for generating 100 percent of the nation’s power from renewable sources within 10 years. . . .
Democratic moderates have been less than enthusiastic about the proposal. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi derisively referred to the House version of the resolution as a “green dream,” while only 11 of the 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats have signed on as sponsors.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) The clumsy attempt by Democrats to distance themselves from the crazy “Green New Deal” FAQ that has now been removed from Ocasio-Cortez’s website showed how the party’s brash young socialist celebrity was Not Ready for Prime Time. Even so eminent a progressive as Jonathan Chait has admitted that the problem with the proposal was not a “botched” roll-out, as some Democrats have claimed, but simply that the plan is a bad idea. And now McConnell, shrewd tactician that he is, will force Senate Democrats to vote on this idea.

In 2020, Democrats will be defending Senate seats in Alabama, Colorado, Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia. Does anyone suppose that “swing” voters in those states would vote for candidates who have endorsed Ocasio-Cortez’s wacky radical scheme?

Assuming that all 53 Republicans vote “no” on this idea, how many Senate Democrats does Mitch need to get to vote “no” in order to make the plan a loser by a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 margin? Because no fewer than five senators expected to seek the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — have endorsed the Ocasio-Cortez plan, what does this suggest the Democrat primary battle looming ahead? The televised debates will be a lunatic carnival of left-wing extremism, which will make it easy for President Trump and the Republicans to play the part of common-sense grown-ups in the upcoming campaign. Wanna buy some popcorn?



 

Mississippi Elects First Female Senator, Liberal Media Blame Racism

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When Democrats lose, the explanations are never surprising:

The Republican senator for Mississippi has been re-elected following a bitterly divisive runoff which evoked the state’s dark history of racist violence.
Cindy Hyde-Smith survived controversy caused by her racially charged comments to defeat Democrat Mike Espy, who had hoped to become the state’s first African-American senator for more than 130 years.
Ms Hyde-Smith, first appointed to the seat in April, had initially been comfortable favourite to win the race until footage emerged of her saying about a supporter at an 11 November rally: “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”

Sen. Hyde-Smith’s “public hanging” comment had nothing to do with race. The attempt by Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) to turn this into something it wasn’t just goes to show how compulsively dishonest liberals are. They even manufacture racism as necessary:

A group of nooses discovered hanging off trees near the Mississippi state Capitol were not a warning from a white supremacist group, but rather a “protest” by leftists against Mississippi Republican Senate candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Mainstream media organizations melted down on Monday after a number of nooses were found hanging in the vicinity of the capitol building, strung from trees as part of a “message” campaign — though the Associated Press, which first reported the story, didn’t give much more information about the “message” the nooses were trying to send, only that it was one of “hate.” . . .
Local news reported photos of the nooses, and, again, avoided printing the “messages” that were written on signs left near the ropes. . . .
Signs placed near the nooses but reported only as “hate” messages by the Associated Press and others, had plenty of information about who hung the nooses and why. But weirdly, the signs didn’t appear on anyone’s Twitter feed until late Monday evening, nearly 12 hours after news of the display went viral.
The signs indicated that the nooses were part of a protest by Democrats, warning against re-electing Hyde-Smith.

Unlike the liberal media, Mississippi voters aren’t stupid enough to be deceived by this obvious Democrat propaganda stunt. With 96% of precincts reporting last night, Hyde-Smith won 54%-46% over Espy.

When a white woman named Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election in 2016, Democrats blamed racism. When a white woman won a Senate election last night, Democrats blamed racism. So, whenever a Republican wins an election anywhere, racism is always to blame.

 

No ‘Wave’ for Democrats; GOP Gains in Senate; Some Races Still ‘Too Close to Call’

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Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday’s midterm elections, but their gains were not enough to called a “wave,” and Republicans managed to expand their Senate majority, while also winning key gubernatorial races. The anti-Trump backlash in the House was smaller than the anti-Obama backlash of 2010, when Republicans gained a whopping 63 House seats in the “Tea Party” election.

As my friend John Hoge points out, #MeToo was a loser — Democrat senators who voted against Justice Brett Kavanaugh were defeated in Indiana, where Mike Braun beat Joe Donnelly, and Missouri, where Josh Hawley beat Claire McCaskill. The only Democrat who voted for Kavanaugh, Joe Manchin, survived in West Virginia.

Three “rock star” candidates for Democrats — Beto O’Rourke in Texas, Andrew Gillum in Florida, and Stacey Abrams in Georgia — all went down to defeat, although Brian Kemp’s margin in the Georgia gubernatorial elections was close enough that some networks still considered the race “too close to call” as of Wednesday morning. In Florida, Republican Rick Scott’s victory over Sen. Bill Nelson was another slender win rated “too close to call” by the networks. Out west, Republicans lost the Nevada Senate seat of Dean Heller, but were leading in Arizona and Montana, both still rated “too close to call.”

UPDATE: Among Tuesday’s winners was Montana Republican Rep. Greg Gianforte who, uh, body-slammed his Democrat opponent by a margin of about 37,000 votes.

UPDATE II: One of the House races I had called attention to was Texas 23, where Democrats nominated a Filipino-American lesbian against Rep. Will Hurd, the only black member of the Texas Republican delegation. It appears Hurd survived that challenge by a margin of 700 votes. Democrats flipped two Texas House seats, defeating Pete Sessions in the 32nd District and John Culberson in the 7th District.

UPDATE III: Two of the early indicators that Tuesday would not be a “wave” election for Democrats came in Virginia 5 and Florida 18.

In the Virginia race, Democrats nominated far-left journalist Leslie Cockburn (her father-in-law was literally a Stalinist) in a largely rural district where the incumbent Republican had retired, citing personal problems with alcoholism. Cockburn’s daughter is actress Olivia Wilde, and the Democrat got a lot of Hollywood money. Unfortunately for the Hollywood Commies, Republicans nominated businessman Denver Riggelman, and he won by about 20,000 votes.

In Florida, incumbent Republican Rep. Brian Mast faced a challenge from former Obama administration staffer Lauren Baer, a lesbian who is married to a Federal Election Commission lawyer, Emily Meyers. Between them, Baer and Meyers have four Ivy League degrees (Harvard, Yale Law, Brown and Columbia Law). “It’s a breakthrough race for our community,” one Florida gay activist gushed in a September interview, calling Baer “one of the most exciting and qualified candidates running for Congress in Florida this year.” Democrats used to be the “party of the working man,” but now they’re the party of Ivy League lesbians. Florida voters said, “Hell, no.” Mast was re-elected by a 30,000-vote margin.

By the way, I wish to apologize to readers for the lack of blogging on Tuesday. What happened was this: In July, my 17-year-old son got a speeding ticket in southern Virginia, while he and a friend were coming back from a trip to North Carolina. He had originally been scheduled for an October court date, but that conflicted with one of his soccer games, so he rescheduled it for November, without noticing that the date was Election Day, and I had to accompany him to court.

So I thought, OK, we’re going to drive four hours for this early-morning court appearance, and then turn around drive back in time for me to blog the election. However, the plan was changed and I didn’t realize it until we were leaving out Tuesday morning with one of my older sons driving. The trip was extended so that we could drive down to Fort Bragg, hang out with my Army son and his wife, then bring back his wife and new baby for a visit. So it was about 7 p.m. before we got on the road, and past 2 a.m. before we got back home. Because I hadn’t anticipated this, I’d left my laptop at the house, and the only way I could follow the results Tuesday night was on my phone.

As to my teenage son’s ticket, the judge liked him, and agreed to continue the case for six months. If my son goes without any further driving infractions between now and May, the charges will be dropped. Otherwise, I’ll be the one going to prison, because I’ll strangle the boy. Make me miss an Election Day? That’s justifiable homicide!



 

#FakeNews: NBC Withheld Evidence of Avenatti’s Kavanaugh Deception

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Thursday, we reported (“Grassley Refers Creepy Porn Lawyer and His Lying Client for FBI Investigation”) that Julie Swetnick and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, are suspected of giving false statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process.

Now, NBC News is admitting that another one of Avenatti’s clients, whose affidavit he provided as corroborating Swetnick’s tales of attending gang-rape parties with Kavanaugh, contradicted those claims:

When Sen. Chuck Grassley referred attorney Michael Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick to the Justice Department for criminal investigation Thursday, he cited Swetnick’s interview with NBC News as evidence the two were trying to mislead the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In the NBC News interview that aired on Oct. 1, Swetnick back-tracked on or contradicted parts of her sworn statement where she alleged she witnessed then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh “cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of boys.”
NBC News also found other apparent inconsistencies in a second sworn statement from another woman whose statement Avenatti provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee in a bid to bolster Swetnick’s claims.
In the second statement, the unidentified woman said she witnessed Kavanaugh “spike” the punch at high school parties in order to sexually take advantage of girls. But less than 48 hours before Avenatti released her sworn statement on Twitter, the same woman told NBC News a different story. . . .
The statement also said that Kavanaugh was “overly aggressive and verbally abusive to girls. This conduct included inappropriate physical contact with girls of a sexual nature.”
But reached by phone independently from Avenatti on Oct. 3, the woman said she only “skimmed” the declaration. After reviewing the statement, she wrote in a text on Oct. 4 to NBC News: “It is incorrect that I saw Brett spike the punch. I didn’t see anyone spike the punch…I was very clear with Michael Avenatti from day one.” . . .
In a subsequent text on Oct. 5, she wrote, “I will definitely talk to you again and no longer Avenatti. I do not like that he twisted my words.”

This is enormously significant, as Ashe Schow of the Daily Wire points out: “NBC had all this but didn’t report it at the time, before Kavanaugh’s was confirmed. I wonder why.”

Kavanaugh was confirmed Oct. 6, and NBC News had known since Oct. 4 that the corroborating affidavit supplied by Avenatti was contradicted by the woman who signed it, yet they sat on this evidence — clearly indicating that Avenatti was engaged in deception — for three weeks. NBC thereby became complicit in this deception.

Claiming that a man nominated for the Supreme Court had once engaged in a criminal conspiracy to gang-rape teenage girls is not trivial and if, as now seems probable, Michael Avenatti deliberately created this false narrative, Avenatti has committed a very serious crime. Didn’t NBC News have an obligation to report the evidence it had obtained that indicated Avenatti was engaged in a criminal effort to deceive the Senate?

NBC News promoted Julie Swetnick’s claims against Kavanaugh in an “exclusive” interview five days before the Senate voted. How can they excuse the irresponsibility of giving credibility to Avenatti’s client in this way, and then not following up when they learned that Avenatti’s other client was unwilling to stand by her affidavit? If you want to know why Americans don’t trust the news media, this is it.



 

 

ConFFFFFirmed!

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Brett Kavanaugh is sworn in by Chief Justice Roberts.

Saturday was my birthday and I got some great gifts: Auburn lost to Mississippi State, and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in after the Senate voted 50-48 to confirm his nomination:

Judge Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as the 114th Supreme Court justice late Saturday, just hours after the Senate voted to approve President Trump’s nominee to the nation’s highest court after a rancorous confirmation battle.
Kavanaugh was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts in a private ceremony, accompanied by his wife and children. The ceremonial swearing in is expected to happen on Monday evening at the White House. It means that now-Justice Kavanaugh will begin hearing cases before the court on Tuesday.
The Senate voted 50-48 to confirm Kavanaugh, mostly along party lines, after a weeklong FBI probe helped settle concerns among most wavering senators about the sexual assault allegations that nearly derailed his nomination and led to a dramatic second hearing. Saturday’s roll call marked the tightest successful Supreme Court confirmation vote in over 100 years, closer than even that of Clarence Thomas who similarly faced sexual misconduct allegations.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was the sole Democrat to vote “yes.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was a “no,” but voted “present” as a courtesy to Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who was attending his daughter’s wedding in Montana.
Democrats reacted to the vote by urging supporters to turn out to the polls in November for the midterms.
“The American people are raising their voices to a deafening roar today. We will not stop marching, we will not stop fighting, and we will vote on Election Day for leaders who share our values,” Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said in a statement. . . .
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., brushed off criticism from Democrats and said it was “a good day for America and an important day for the Senate.”
“We stood up for the presumption of innocence, we refused to be intimidated by the mob of people coming after Republican members at their homes and hallways,” he said.
At a rally in Topeka, Kansas, President Trump hailed the confirmation as a “tremendous victory” and slammed Democrats for their treatment of Kavanaugh during the contentious confirmation hearing.
“What he and his family endured at the hands of Democrats is unthinkable. In their quest for power, the radical Democrats have turned into an angry mob, you saw that today with the screaming and shouting,” he said, referring to protests outside the Senate and Supreme Court earlier in the day.

Did I mention Auburn lost? That Mississippi State quarterback was something else — 6-foot-5, 230 pounds, Nick Fitzgerald ran for nearly 200 yards, and really made Auburn look bad, but I guess I should get back to recapping the Supreme Court nomination.

Here’s some whining from a Vox-dot-com writer:

Forty-nine Senate Republicans and one Democrat just confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the United State Supreme Court. No allegations, no protesters, no public opinion poll showing Brett Kavanaugh is the most unpopular person to be elevated to the nation’s highest court in recent history was going to stop them. . . .
The Senate has answered definitively: We do not believe her, not really, and we don’t care that the public does.
This is the governing ideology of the Republican Party: We don’t care what anybody else thinks. We have the power. We have the will. We have the votes. We’ll do what we want.
In politics, there’s winning the argument, and there’s winning the vote. Republicans lost the argument, but they ultimately had the votes.

Guess what? Republicans are almost certainly going to have more Senate votes after Nov. 6. Heidi Heitkamp is toast in North Dakota, Joe Donnelly in Indiana has given Republican voters more reason to hate him, as has Claire McCaskill in Missouri, the two most recent polls show Florida a dead heat, Montana is within the margin of error, and even Bob Menendez could lose in New Jersey. At this point, a 55- or 56-seat Senate majority seems the most likely outcome of the midterm elections, and there’s almost no chance that Chuck Schumer will be holding the gavel anytime soon. Republican voters have been united and energized by the Kavanaugh fight, which exposed the desperate lengths to which Democrats were willing to go to obtain power. Heck, at one point, they even resorted to witchcraft in their desperation.

 

Democrats have already identified the scapegoat for their failure:

Attorney Michael Avenatti stymied Democrats’ attempts to derail confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Democratic senators and aides told CNN.
“Democrats and the country would have been better off if Mr. Avenatti spent his time on his Iowa vanity project rather than meddling in Supreme Court fights,” a top Democratic Senate aide told CNN ahead of Saturday’s vote to confirm Kavanaugh.
“His involvement set us back, absolutely,” said the aide, referring to Avenatti’s fledgling 2020 presidential campaign.
Avenatti, who represents porn star Stormy Daniels, entered the Kavanaugh foray as an attorney for Julie Swetnick, a Washington, D.C. woman who claimed that Kavanaugh was present at house parties in the early 1980s were girls were gang raped.
Avenatti pushed Swetnick’s case at his cable TV mainstays, CNN and MSNBC, but ultimately failed to produce the witnesses he claimed would come forward to support his client’s case. . . .
While Kavanaugh appeared on the ropes after Ford’s story emerged, conservatives rallied around him in response to the Swetnick allegations.
Asked about Avenatti’s involvement in the Kavanaugh case, Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, suggested that the attorney distracted from Democrats’ mission to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
“Well you know at some point there were a lot of folks coming forward making all sorts of accusations,” Peters told CNN. “It turns it into a circus atmosphere and certainly that’s not where we should be.”

 

Democrats and their media allies have no one but themselves to blame for Avenatti’s opportunistic showboating. Bad causes attract bad people, and the smear campaign against Kavanaugh was a perfect example of this principle. “Boy, ya’ll want power,” as Lindsey Graham told Democrats during the confirmation. “I hope to God you never get it.”

“The left has given up trying to persuade people of their point of view,” Mike LaChance of Legal Insurrection said on Twitter. “All they offer is rage and hostility to those who don’t agree with them.”

 

Donald Trump’s instincts were again proven correct:

The president commented on the narrow Senate confirmation vote to confirm Kavanaugh during his trip aboard Air Force One to Kansas. A handful of leftist women protesters were dragged out of the Senate chamber during the vote, shrieking as Senators moved forward with the confirmation.
“When you hear those screamers in Congress today, the screaming, you see how orchestrated it is, how phony it is,” Trump said, referring to the protesters. “They practice it together and they do it with the Democrats.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed that Trump called Kavanaugh at the end of the Senate vote. He was sworn into office later Saturday evening.
Trump asserted that many women were concerned with the Kavanaugh proceedings were worried about men in their lives.
“[T]hey’re thinking of their sons, they’re thinking of their husbands and their brothers, their uncles, and others,” Trump said. “And women are I think extremely happy.”
Trump said that many women were in some ways more upset than men by the uncorroborated accusations by Christine Ford.
“Women were outraged at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh, outraged, and I think that’s a total misnomer because the women, I feel, were in many ways stronger than the men in his favor,” Trump said.
When reporters asked if he believed that Ford misidentified an attack from Kavanaugh over 30 years ago, Trump replied, “100 percent.”

Christian Adams describes the deranged mob scene at the Capitol:

I was in the Senate gallery this afternoon when Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed. You would have thought I was at an exorcism in an insane asylum.
Perhaps you were watching on television and heard the disruptions, though you certainly didn’t see them. The attenuated audio probably didn’t catch the frightening, incoherent shrieking – including the lingering screaming and howling as they were being dragged down the hallways outside the gallery.
If there was any doubt that the opposition to Kavanaugh was unhinged, uncivil, disruptive, rude, and borderline nuts, my experience in the gallery made it clear. . . .
“Mob rule is necessary,” one shrieking woman shouted before security personnel could settle her down.
At least she was honest. It did not appear that Capitol Police removed her for her crime, unfortunately. That would soon change.
Another crazed woman later screamed, “I will not consent, I will not consent, I will not consent, I will not consent.” She was like a feminist automaton: “I will not consent, I will not consent.” Capitol Police were less forgiving and dragged her out the doors and down the hallway.
I have visited hospitals for the seriously mentally ill, and the shrieks from this woman were as odd and unearthly as anything I ever heard inside a mental hospital.

Once the party of the working man, Democrats have become the party of the screaming woman. Trump has literally driven them insane.

(Hat-tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

It’s hard to think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than to watch demented Democrats shrieking in helpless rage as a Senate Republican majority rams a conservative Supreme Court justice down their throats, except the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!



 

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

 

Truth Triumphs Over Lies: Collins, Flake, Manchin Will Vote ‘Yes’ on Kavanaugh

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Cue the sad trombone for the #Resistance mob. Barring unforeseen developments, it now appears that the Senate will confirm Brett Kavanaugh as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court:

Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh is heading to confirmation to the Supreme Court this weekend after two key undecided senators — Susan Collins of Maine and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia — announced Friday that they would support his elevation to the high court, ending the most divisive confirmation fight in decades.
Ms. Collins’ lengthy speech on the Senate floor dwelled as much on Judge Kavanaugh’s judicial record as on the sexual misconduct charges that have consumed his nomination. She did conclude, “We will be ill-served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence.” . . .
Mr. Manchin, a Democrat, immediately followed with a statement proclaiming his support.
“I have reservations about this vote given the serious accusations against Judge Kavanaugh and the temperament he displayed in the hearing,” he wrote. “And my heart goes out to anyone who has experienced any type of sexual assault in their life. However, based on all of the information I have available to me, including the recently completed F.B.I. report, I have found Judge Kavanaugh to be a qualified jurist.” . . .
With the Senate and the nation bitterly divided, Judge Kavanaugh’s future came to rest with four undecided senators: three Republicans — Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Ms. Collins — and one Democrat, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. But one by one, they let their positions be known.
Mr. Flake said Friday that he would vote for Judge Kavanaugh “unless something big changes.”

(Hat-tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

UPDATE: In the speech announcing her intention to vote “yes,” Sen. Collins took direct aim at Michael Avenatti’s client Julie Swetnick:

The presumption of innocence is relevant to the advice and consent function when an accusation departs from a nominee’s otherwise exemplary record. I worry that departing from this presumption could lead to a lack of public faith in the judiciary and would be hugely damaging to the confirmation process moving forward. Some of the allegations levied against Judge Kavanaugh illustrate why the presumption of innocence is so important. I am thinking in particular not of the allegations raised by Professor Ford, but of the allegation that, when he was a teenager, Judge Kavanaugh drugged multiple girls and used their weakened state to facilitate gang rape. This outlandish allegation was put forth without any credible supporting evidence and simply parroted public statements of others. That such an allegation can find its way into the Supreme Court confirmation process is a stark reminder about why the presumption of innocence is so ingrained in our American consciousness.

Avenatti immediately lost his fecal continence on Twitter.