The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

BREAKING: Kavanaugh’s One-Week FBI Investigator REVEALED!

Posted on | September 29, 2018 | Comments Off on BREAKING: Kavanaugh’s One-Week FBI Investigator REVEALED!

by Smitty

Must credit TheOtherMcCain.com!

However, this raises another question:

This guy seems so strangely familiar. . .

Category: Uncategorized

In The Mailbox: 09.28.18

Posted on | September 29, 2018 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.28.18

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: National Coffee Day
Twitchy: Turns Out The American Bar Association Story On Brett Kavanaugh Was #FakeNews
Louder With Crowder: Lindsey Graham Calls Out Democrat Senators By Name – Do The Right Thing
According To Hoyt: Business From The Wrong End
Monster Hunter Nation: Now Available In Paperback – Monster Hunter Files
Vox Popoli: An Informative Contrast, also, Why Western Civilization Needs Christianity Part One and Part Two

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – Finding Your Balls Edition
American Power: Democrats Poised For Major Gains In Midterms? also, David O’Brien, Storm Center
American Thinker: Christine Ford’s Expert Nonsense
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Fallen Idols News, also, Rule Five Kangaroo Court Friday
BattleSwarm: Kavanaugh Smear Twitter Roundup, also, Linkswarm For September 28
CDR Salamander: Absence Makes The Need Grow Fonder, also, Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Ashamed, also, Ford V. Kavanaugh
Don Surber: I Am The Mob
Dustbury: The Deepest Pockets Available
First Street Journal: Confirm Brett Kavanaugh!
The Geller Report: French Police Chief Stabbed To Death In Broad Daylight, also, 22-Year-Old Instagram Model Shot To Death In Baghdad
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, Neal Rauhauser Loses Again, also, Bonus Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
JustOneMinute: OK Wow
Legal Insurrection: Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Kavanaugh, But Flake Wants To Deny Floor Vote, also, Weak Republicans Denied Us A Victory
The PanAm Post: Donna Shalala Showcases The Democrats’ Ineptitude As Salazar Rises
Power Line: Kavanaugh Killed It, also, Thoughts From The Ammo Line
Shark Tank: Senator Rubio Comments On Kavanaugh Hearings
Shot In The Dark: #MeThree
STUMP: Russian Revolts Over Retirement Reductions, also, CALPERS Craziness
The Jawa Report: Sharia Implemented In Tara Fares
The Political Hat: Broke – Mathematics, Woke – STEAM, Bespoke – Social Justice Mathematics, also, Kavanaugh Hearings – Verdict First, Trial Later
This Ain’t Hell: 80-Year-Old Marine Vet To Receive Medal of Honor, also, Veteran Suicide Data Report
Victory Girls: Senator Feinstein Blames Judge Kavanaugh For The Mess She Created
Volokh Conspiracy: A Way out Of The Kavanaugh Debacle
Weasel Zippers: Prosecutor Who Questioned Ford Says Facts Wouldn’t Support Charging Kavanaugh, also, Governor Moonbeam Vetoes Bills That Would Allow Non-Citizens To Vote In Local Elections, Block Immigration Arrests In Courthouses
Megan McArdle: Where The FBI Needs To Look
Mark Steyn: Presumptions & Condescension, also, “Advise & Consent” As “Search & Destroy”


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The Deeper Meaning of Kavanaughkampf

Posted on | September 28, 2018 | Comments Off on The Deeper Meaning of Kavanaughkampf

by Smitty

Should we be just a bit creeped out by the Left fetishing these SCOTUS seats?

Patriots respect all three branches set forth in the Constitution. It’s a public thing. A practical matter. It’s needful.

Keep in mind that, for the Left, which rejects God, government itself becomes a quasi-theological object. Lefties ignore the law (e.g. BHO’s administration) all the time, but note the visceral pleasure they seem to feel when saying “Trump broke THE LAW.”

Couple this government-is-‘god’ view with the Postmodern concept of Truth as a social construct. We’ve just seen a feminist shrink from California (three strikes, and that lady’s waaaaay out) decide that, nearly two score years ago, a SCOTUS nominee got all PG-13 on her.

And we’re supposed to:

  • accept this accusation as conviction
  • throw a good man’s career under the bus, sans trial
  • not ask any “hahrd” questions, because then we’re as bad as the alleged assailant.

Is it really about Brett Kavanugh and Christine Blasey Ford, or is the SCOTUS seen as the last bastion of relatively rational thought?

The effort to undermine our Constitutional order is a long-standing game of patience for the godless Commies. “A Republic, if we can keep it” has never been under greater pressure than it has this century.

Hopefully, when the history gets written, the 2008 election shall have been the zenith of this attack, and 2016 the Battle of the Bulge moment when the last of their reserves prolonged the demise.

The concern is that the people are too complacent. This confirmation fracas, far from a reasonable dispute between honest folk of differing opinion, was an overt assault the basic Rule of Law, Due Process, and Western Civilization in general. DO WE GRASP THIS?

“To my Republican colleagues: if you vote no [to confirm Brett Cavanaugh], you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.”–Sen. Lindsey Graham

Or, as the Left calls it: “Thursday”. Because this travesty is NOT the exception. This is the Left trying to run the ball straight up the middle. And if these liars are permitted to turn their falsehood into points, will they say “Enough!”?

Let us endeavor to get the Red Wave going in November. We can retain liberty, and not let the Left roll us back to a pre-Civil War era, where we are just thralls on a Democrat plantation.

I’m actually confident about restoring liberty. Here’s why. The Democrat message is fundamentally dishonest, and flawed. The Socialist sales pitch sounds swell, until reality sets in. Making everyone thralls of the State has to be sold with deception.

But those deceptions are wearing thin, as the Kavanaugh confirmation debacle shows. The conservative, moral, capitalist argument puts more emphasis on having everybody grow up. Not as much sizzle as the “free stuff” or “class warfare” arguments of the Left, but certainly more durable.

Half of this battle is showing up; the other half of the battle is remaining engaged.

UPDATE: PowerLine offers the view that the Kavanaugh attack is a simple “chilling effect” play to dissuade honorable people from seeking public office.

It seems like an awful lot of effort just to “send a message”. The risk of the blowback we hope to see at the midterms seems awfully high.

Category: Uncategorized

#Kavanaugh: Graham Emerges Heroic

Posted on | September 27, 2018 | 1 Comment

 

Sen. Lindsey Graham is one of the Republicans I’ve hated most over the years, because of his pro-amnesty stance on immigration. Most other conservatives feel the same way. But today? He was absolutely a hero.

“This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics,” Graham said, and pointed the finger quite obviously at Dianne Feinstein. “If you really wanted the truth, you really wouldn’t have done what you’ve done to this guy. . . . I hope the American people can see through this sham. That you knew about it and you held it. You had no intention of protecting Dr. Ford. She’s as much of a victim as you are. God, I hate to say it, cause these have been my friends, but let me tell ya when it comes to this, you’re looking for a fair process? You came to the wrong town at the wrong time, my friend. This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward because of this crap!”

 

Feinstein held onto Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation for six weeks, waited until after Judge Kavanaugh had sat through more than 30 hours of testimony to the Judicial Committee, and then went public with this charge from circa 1982, which has been denied by everyone Professor Ford claimed could have verified it, and which does not comport with any known facts. Then, in today’s hearings, Democrats had the effrontery to demand an FBI investigation which could have been inaugurated in July, if only Feinstein had asked for it. However, Feinstein would not share Ford’s accusation with Republican members of the committee. Why? Because she obviously viewed it as a “hole card” she could play late in the game, as part of a calculated strategy to delay Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Feinstein should be ashamed, and every Democrat who has cooperated with Feinstein’s unethical behavior should be ashamed.

Thank you, Sen. Graham, for courageously speaking the truth. I hereby take back half of the bad things I’ve said about you.

UPDATE: Great headline from Ace:

MANSPLAINED! Graham Runs a Train on Senate Democrats

After the hearing ended, I spoke to a source on Capitol Hill who told me that there should be an ethics investigation of Feinstein’s handling of the Ford letter.



 

Category: Senate, Supreme Court

#Kavanaugh Hearing Update: A Few Thoughts on Prosecutorial Discretion

Posted on | September 27, 2018 | 2 Comments

Remember the Kaitlyn Hunt saga?

While watching today’s morning session of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, I found myself thinking about that 2013 case, in which an 18-year-old former high-school cheerleader was caught in a lesbian affair with a 14-year-old girl. When that story made nationwide headlines, I took alarm because the so-called #FreeKate movement was trying to put a “gay loophole” into statutory rape laws.

As the case progressed, I had frequent occasion to mention that Hunt had been offered a plea bargain and had, unwisely, refused that offer.

No prosecutor wants to take a statutory rape case to trial because, in most such cases, it involves an underage person who was a willing participant in this sexual activity which, as a matter of law, made her a victim. Generally, the underage victim does not want the accused person to go to prison, but the crime has been brought to attention of the police by the minor’s parents, and this puts the prosecutor in a difficult spot. If clear evidence of the illegal sexual relationship exists — as in the Hunt case — the prosecutor would be derelict in his duty if he failed to bring charges. However, he doesn’t want to spend the taxpayer’s money for a trial that would require him to put the minor victim on the witness stand, to endure cross-examination by the defense attorney. Therefore, in such cases, a plea-bargain is offered and, in almost every case, the accused takes the deal. Why didn’t Hunt take the plea?

Politics — she and her parents believed she was a victim of “homophobia,” and that they could mobilize gay-rights activism on her behalf, thus forcing the prosecutor to drop the charges. Oops.

 

Kaitlyn Hunt went to jail because of that miscalculation, and I’m watching this Kavanaugh hearing with the same sense of regret I felt as I watched the Hunt case hurtle toward a predictable disaster.

This didn’t have to happen. When Christine Blasey Ford contacted Diane Feinstein in July, she said she wanted to remain anonymous. Feinstein could have done many things with this. Among other things, she could have informed the Judiciary Committee chairman, Senator Grassley, about this information she had received. Instead, Feinstein held onto the letter for weeks, and it was not until Sept. 13 — after Judge Kavanaugh had sat through more than 30 hours of hearings — that Feinstein went public with this startling accusation. Those of us who, as conservatives, find ourselves forced to defend Judge Kavanaugh, are not responsible for the consequences of Feinstein’s decision. This was her exercise of prosecutorial discretion, as it were, and the entire responsibility rests on Feinstein and the Senate Democrats.

Don’t blame me, in other words, because circumstances compel me to cast doubt on Professor Ford’s credibility. That’s like people who kept yelling “homophobia” at me during the Kaitlyn Hunt ordeal.

Really, I’m just a guy with a blog. I can’t tell other people what to do. Dianne Feinstein didn’t ask for my advice, and all I can do under these circumstances is to fight the battle thrust upon me. Selah.



 

Category: Senate, Supreme Court

While Watching the #Kavanaugh Hearing

Posted on | September 27, 2018 | 1 Comment

Not going to live-blog today’s Senate Judiciary Committee, exactly, but I do want to have a thread to share a few of my thoughts and allow the commenters to provide their own feedback. When confronted with something like Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation, intelligent people must consider the possibility that it is either true or false. If she is telling the truth, not only did Brett Kavanaugh engage in bad — and perhaps criminal — behavior, but he is also lying in his denials. Yet this would also mean that all the other people named by Professor Ford as witnesses, but who instead denied any knowledge of the events she described, are also lying. The fact that these other witnesses failed to corroborate Professor Ford’s story, and that by her own admission she never told anyone about it until 2012, makes this story unverified although we cannot claim to know that she is lying. That is to say, it is still possible that Professor Ford’s story could be true even if no one else remembers the particular house party she described. This perplexes me, and it should bother everyone, for many reasons. Having called attention to this crucial aspect of the drama, however, I’ll leave off for now.

UPDATE: Observing the reaction on Twitter, it’s obvious that many people who have never watched a Senate committee hearing are watching this one. So at least this televised trainwreck will have some educational value. Lemons, lemonade, some assembly required.

UPDATE II: So, it’s five minutes of Democrats pontificating, alternating with five minutes of patient fact-based question from the lawyer chosen by the Republican side of the committee. Chairman Grassley occasionally makes a few points.

Via Stephen Green at Instapundit:

“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.

UPDATE III: Can I mention that politics is a team sport? This is important to understand. When a waitress at a D.C. restaurant claimed that Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd tried to make a “sandwich” with her, Republicans were like, “Believe the survivors!” So you have to understand, in this particular situation, that the debunking of Professor Ford’s claim is a task undertaken by Republicans as a partisan duty, in the same way that defending Professor Ford as 100% credible is a partisan duty for Democrats. I don’t like this. It’s not my choice, but has been thrust upon me, to defend Judge Kavanaugh and to decry the tactics used by Democrat in their attempt to derail his nomination. We must fight the battles we are in, without regard to how we got into them. There is no use wishing things were some other way than they actually are.

UPDATE IV: This hearing is traumatizing me. Having to listen to pious lectures about “credibility” from, e.g., Senator Blumenthal? Recovering from this will require years of therapy. Or maybe a few beers. Readers are invited to contribute to the Trauma Recovery Fund.

UPDATE V: A Few Thoughts on Prosecutorial Discretion.

UPDATE VI: Watching Judge Kavanaugh’s opening statement. It’s gut-wrenching, and also makes me angry enough to chew through steel. As he recites all the evidence pointing toward his innocence, you get the sense of how wrong it was for him to have been falsely accused in such a manner, simply because the Democrats wanted to block his nomination.

UPDATE VII: Wow. Fireworks. CrazyTown.

FINAL UPDATE: Graham Emerges Heroic.



 

Category: Senate, Supreme Court

The Big Day: Avenatti Client Discredited, Ford’s Accusation Now Collapsing

Posted on | September 27, 2018 | Comments Off on The Big Day: Avenatti Client Discredited, Ford’s Accusation Now Collapsing

 

Wow, what an eventful 24 hours this has been! The client of the Creepy Porn Lawyer, Julie Swetnick, came forward with her wild “gang rape” tale and was almost immediately was discredited. First, we learned her ex-boyfriend had gotten a restraining order against her, then Lisa Miller (who partied with the Georgetown Prep football team back in the day) explained she never saw anything like what Swetnick described and, also, there was no way this trashy Gaithersburg girl was at those parties.

Possibly more consequential, at least two men have contacted Senate Judiciary Committee investigators to say that they believe that they, and not Kavanaugh, may have been the preppie boys Ford described having a drunken encounter with at a house party. This calls to mind the mistaken-identity scenario Ed Whelan discussed last week, and it certainly would explain why Ford was so certain it was Kavanaugh while Kavanaugh was certain it wasn’t him. Memory is tricky, and if you’ve seen one Irish Catholic prep-school jock, you’ve seen ’em all.

So the big televised showdown today in the Judiciary Committee may prove to be a complete debacle for the Democrats who put their faith in Ford as the weapon that would destroy Kavanaugh, and as for the Creepy Porn Lawyer’s client — wow, she had Crazy Eyes, didn’t she?

We are no longer living in a republic, and no longer governed by the rule of law, if Senate Democrats succeed in their dishonest smear campaign against Brett Kavanaugh. Abandoning every concept of justice and all standards of decency, Democrats have disgraced themselves in their desperate partisan effort to derail Judge Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court. And if the GOP majority in the Senate cannot summon the courage to stand firm against this stampede of flimsy accusations, what point is there in even having a Republican Party?
Democrats have turned the confirmation process into a surrealistic circus of smears that Judge Kavanaugh himself called the “Twilight Zone.”
“This process is a disgrace and is harming good people,” a group of Judge Kavanaugh’s high-school friends declared in a letter sent Wednesday to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley and the committee’s ranking minority member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein. These friends were reacting to the latest and most lurid of the accusations made against Judge Kavanaugh, this one by a woman named Julie Swetnick, who is represented by Michael Avenatti. Swetnick’s bizarre claim that Kavanaugh was a participant in gang rapes at house parties was denounced as false by those who knew him during his days at Georgetown Prep.
“Nonsense,” these 60 friends declared in their letter to Sens. Grassley and Feinstein. “We have never witnessed any behavior that even approaches what is described in this allegation. It is reprehensible. In the extensive amount of time we collectively spent with Brett, we do not recall having ever met someone named Julie Swetnick. Nor did we ever observe Brett engaging in any conduct resembling that described in Ms. Swetnick’s declaration.” . . .

You can read the rest of my column at The American Spectator.



 

Category: Senate, Supreme Court

In The Mailbox: 09.26.18

Posted on | September 26, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #390
357 Magnum: Lawyers Behaving Badly
EBL: Andrew Breitbart – On Clarence Thomas And Political Correctness
Twitchy: Did Kavanaugh Accuser Julie Swetnick Accidentally Implicate Herself In A Crime?
Louder With Crowder: Rebuttal – John Oliver’s Dangerous “Hate Speech” Lies

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Podcast #92 – The Nordic Walking Episode
American Power: Senate Majority Leader McConnell Promises Vote On Kavanaugh Confirmation
American Thinker: Trump’s Real Job Approval Could Be As High As 60%
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: Pat Condell On “Brexit Morons”, also, A Smear Too Far
CDR Salamander: Buy Italian, All The Cool Kids Are
Da Tech Guy: Kavanaugh As Will Cane In Washington Town, also, Will Ford Cut & Run?
Don Surber: Only 21% Believe The Media
Dustbury: Somehow It Missed Me
First Street Journal: Hold Them Accountable!
The Geller Report: Somali Muslim Migrants Riot At Minnesota Amusement Park On Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, Force Evacuation, also, Bolton Warns Iran of “Hell To Pay” If Aggression Continues
Hogewash: Don’t Know Much About The Constitution, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Legal Insurrection: 60 Kavanaugh Classmates To Sign Letter Scotching Swetnick Allegations, also, Kavanaugh Dismisses New Allegations – “Ridiculous And From The Twilight Zone”
Michelle Malkin: Stop Google’s Kiddie Predators
The PanAm Post: At The UN, Discussion of How To Remove Maduro From Office
Power Line: Third Time’s A Charm, also, Dear Senator Feinstein
Shark Tank: Gillum’s Tallahassee Crime Claims Skewered By His Former Chief Of Staff
Shot In The Dark: Advice For Modern Life
The Jawa Report: Sandcrawler PSA
The Political Hat: Transing Academia
This Ain’t Hell: President Trump Visits The UN, also, Navy Says Assault Rifles Seized From Persian Gulf Boats
Victory Girls: The Blasey Ford roller Coaster Ride Continues
Volokh Conspiracy: Why It’ll Be Difficult To Assess Ford’s Credibility
Weasel Zippers: Illegal Alien Accused Of Murdering Fishing Boat Crewmate Makes Bail, also, Avenatti Bombshell Witness Claim Actually The Fruit Of A 4chan Prank?
Mark Steyn: Hearing The Women, Then & Now


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