The Other McCain

Bobby Bradshaw spent seven months in jail because a crazy woman with a fake Russian accent falsely accused him of rape:

“If everyone knew the whole story, they could make a movie out of it,” he said. “It’s something you couldn’t write. It’s too crazy.” . . .
At the July hearing, the woman, speaking with a thick accent, testified that she had only lived in the country since 2008. But when Defense Attorney Brandy Spurgin visited her later in Warren County, where she was in jail for violating probation in another case, the accent was gone.
“The biggest red flag for me was learning that the accent was fake,” Spurgin said.
The woman testified that when she met Bradshaw she was completing a drug rehabilitation program and living in a halfway house called Oasis. She testified she’d voluntarily entered drug court in Warren County. She also had an outstanding warrant for domestic violence charges in Citrus County, Fla.
Records show that in 2009 she pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence, and in 2012 she was charged with filing a false report in a sexual assault case.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) DNA evidence cleared Bradshaw in this case, which points to the basic problem with the whole “rape epidemic” hysteria feminists have ginned up on college campuses. Over and over again, we are confronted with dubious cases — often reported to university officials months after the alleged incidents — where there is no evidence beyond the claims of the accuser. There’s no DNA, no medical exam, no 911 call, no police report, just a woman making an accusation that her drunken hookup with a fellow student was rape. It’s always a “he-said/she-said” scenario and there’s no way any prosecutor would take a case like that to criminal court. Under pressure from feminists (and federal authorities) to “do something” in such cases, universities have set up extra-judicial disciplinary tribunals where accused male students can be subjected to administrative punishment without the constitutional due-process protections they would have in an actual courtroom.

It is apparent that university officials — sincerely desiring to protect women from sexual assault but also desiring to protect themselves from lawsuits, federal regulators and bad publicity — have created a climate in which a “believe the survivors” doctrine gives deranged or dishonest women carte blanche to make accusations like Jackie’s tall tale of gang rape at the University of Virginia.

Go back and re-read Cathy Young’s interview with Paul Nungesser, the Columbia University student who was accused of rape by “Mattress Girl” Emma Sulkowicz. According to that account, Nungesser had hooked up with Sulkowicz twice during their freshman year, then hooked up with her again at the start of their sophomore year. After that third hookup, Nungesser says Sulkowicz gave no indication that she considered her sexual activity with him to be coerced or abusive. It was apparently only after she compared notes with Nungesser’s ex-girlfriend that Sulkowicz decided to accuse Nungesser of rape.

HELLO? 2 + 2 = ?

If it walks like a vindictive bitch and it talks like a vindictive bitch, maybe you should suspect it is a vindictive bitch.

This is not to say I’d be willing to provide a character reference for Paul Nungesser, however, nor am I saying that I know for a fact that he did nothing wrong in his hookup with Sulkowicz. What I’m saying is that Sulkowicz’s motive for bringing a rape accusation against Nungesser looks more like revenge than justice, and if it weren’t for all the shrieking hysteria ginned up by feminists, people wouldn’t be afraid to say so. Feminists have succeeded in intimidating people into silence — “Shut Up, Because Rape!” — so that the voices of common sense cannot be heard. It’s the same story with the UVA hoax, as Ace of Spades says:

“In order to appease a noisy and influential political lobby, we’re all required to pretend along with Jackie.”

There is no actual evidence that anybody raped Jackie, just as there is no actual evidence that Paul Nungesser raped Emma Sulkowicz, and yet feminists are such an “influential political lobby” that we are required to “pretend along” with the accusers.

People are afraid to tell the truth, afraid to speak from the basis of their own experience and common sense, because they don’t want to be called names: Sexist, misogynist, “rape apologist.” Yet all of us know that some women are liars and some women are mentally unbalanced, and it isn’t hard to see how this endless crusade about a (non-existent) “rape epidemic” on college campuses could encourage crazy or dishonest women to make false accusations. Or, at least, these women make accusations for which there is no credible evidence and thus no basis for criminal prosecution, so that the only purpose served by making such an accusation is (a) to damage the reputation of the accused, and (b) to qualify the accuser as a “survivor” deserving of sympathy and support.

When we see feminists heaping praise on Emma Sulkowicz, we have to wonder what the effect of that celebration might be on the unhappy woman who wishes she could be applauded as a courageous feminist heroine. There has been a lot of talk about the “1-in-5” statistic, the debunked claim that 20% of female college students are victims of sexual assault. But investigate another statistic: What percent of female college students are mentally ill? Depression, anxiety, drug addiction, alcoholism, personality disorders — whatever the numbers may be, we cannot deny that a certain percentage of women are crazy.

Also, a certain percentage of women are vindictive bitches.

“I’m beginning to think that most lefty movements are just about broken people trying to manipulate the rest of us so they can feel good about their broken selves.”

It’s so true. In a nation of more than 300 million people, you can organize a movement of millions merely by appealing to the abnormal, the vindictive, the insane and the dishonest.

But why bring up the Hillary Clinton campaign now, huh?