The Senate should stop asking them to rate nominated judges. The organization has now clearly demonstrated both liberal bias and a willingness to allow that bias to intrude on its advice to the Senate.
UPDATE: I wrote this post after Kavanaugh was voted out of committee. Now Flake is flaking on the full vote. Ugh.
He wants another week of FBI investigation on the "current allegation". This will do nothing beyond offer the Democrats time to trot out even more allegations. When this started, I would have said Ford's allegations are impossible to prove or disprove. However, we have now pretty strongly disproven them. Every witness she named said it did not happen. That's 4 to 1.
A Republican betrayal while you were watching Kavanaugh
I think the take-home here is that more Republicans opposed this than Democrats did, and the Republican House and Republican Senate passed it anyway. Apparently, all the Democrats got what they wanted, and so did most of the elected Republicans. The people who actually deliver the votes not so much.
Read the whole thing to see just how bad this legislation, passed while they were all pretending to fight over Kavanaugh's confirmation, actually is. No wonder Ryan is retiring; this legislation seems intended to make sure his nest has feathers from everyone in it.
Once you identify these terrorists, it is not enough to watch them for a little while and then shrug your shoulders and give up. You have to deport them before they attack.
It exists, it's just not reported. It's not reported because the media doesn't believe it swings elections. The media doesn't believe it swings elections because it is only prosecuted to the tune of an occasional few hundred votes. It's only prosecuted to the tune of an occasional few hundred votes because it's not a priority with prosecutors unless it becomes too obvious to ignore. And it rarely becomes too obvious to ignore because the media doesn't report it.
That the event happened (if it happened at all) 30 years ago does in fact matter -- it bears on whether we can prove it happened or not. Memories over that period of time are very unreliable and physical evidence goes missing or changes. Kavanaugh was a minor or young adult at the time and has done a lot of growing up since. If doing stupid shit while young was a disqualifier, Robert O'Rouke would not be running for Senate.
Some things are bad enough that you don't get a pass. Murder is on that list. Forcible rape probably is, too. But horseplay and mild groping at a drunken party as a minor probably shouldn't be. If it had happened last year, it would demonstrate something about Kavanaugh's lack of character in the present. But if it happened at all, it happened so long ago that it has little to say about the man today.
If Kavanaugh's anger is any indication, the Democrats will be paying a significant price for this attempt. As the saying goes, if you seek to kill the king, you had better not miss.
Wow. This is insane. The courts should toss it out as a political question to be resolves by the Senate, but Merkley is undoubtedly hoping he can find a friendly judge to issue an injunction first. That would delay matters. Then the appeals court would overrule the injunction -- more delay. Then it ends up on the Supreme Court... where a 4-4 court will tie, leaving the lower court ruling in place. So Merkley has to win at the appellate level, or maybe appeal straight to the Supreme Court after a favorable lower court ruling. And even if Kavanaugh is confirmed and seated, he might have to recuse from a case like this.
It's insane and the courts should throw it out, but if they don't, it's genius. Evil genius.
He's seen the real thing in Africa, and he sees the warning signs here in major cities. If we don't get a handle on illegal immigration, border control, and the criminal element in certain areas, we're going to end up in a very bad place indeed.
Wilson got himself in some legal trouble and tried to flee the country. He has now stepped down as CEO of the company. The lawsuits filed by that company will continue under new management, and financially, they are separate entities (ie, donations to Defense Distributed for their legal costs do not go to Cody Wilson, and vice versa). At least, that's what the new management is telling us.
I agree that the charges against Cody Wilson seem a little too smooth. He was making trouble for people and someone decided to make some trouble back. Note the similarity in what he is charged with to what Assange was charged with that forced Assange into hiding within an embassy... both sex-related, both debateable issues of consent or technicalities rather than anything forcible. Also, both likely enabled by lifestyle choices that left openings. If you're going to get into the national spotlight and make trouble for the Deep State, you've got to be squeaky clean.
I'm not sending money to the conspiracy theorists on this one, but I will subscribe to their free mailing list, to abuse an analogy.
Creepy porn lawyer Avenatti's client alleging repeated drugging and gang rape by Kavanaugh and his friends. The accusations are ludicrous, requiring his client to see this happen, and continue to go to these parties, and then have it happen to her, and still continue to go to these parties.
A pretty good summary of Rosenstain's thinking, I think. Rosenstein is clearly not a Trump ally and cannot be trusted, but he's also difficult to fire without paying a significant political cost. Immediately after Comey was fired, he was clearly invested in the plan to remove Trump. He may have been being sarcastic when he suggested wearing a wire to record Trump and using the 25th amendment to remove him, but it was sarcasm with a grain of truth. He did appoint a special counsel, with Mueller as the cover-up artist.
He's trying to please both sides (at least, enough to keep his job) and it is simply not possible.
Given that the accusations against him are completely unsubstantiated and apparently baseless, and that multiple claimed witnesses have denied anything of the sort took place, the Senate had damn well better vote to confirm him.
No Lawyers has the schedule for that day. Grassley says it won't necessarily come to a vote, only if they are ready. I'm guessing it's there as a threat.
It's clear the Democrats are just reaching for any delay they can manage, and their accusers have no evidence and aren't even willing to testify under oath. Te Republicans should stop indulging them and vote Kavanaugh in.
Was Downer recording his conversation with Papadopolous?
If in fact Downer was recording the conversation he had with Papadopolous, the one that has been mentioned as starting (or being one of the things that started) the Russia Collusion witch-hunt, then that claim is bombshell game changer. For one thing it makes it possible to know exactly what Papadopolous said and evaluate whether he actually suggested anything inappropriate to Downer. More importantly, it demonstrates premeditation on Downer's part. All of a sudden, it's not a casual conversation where Papadopolous got drunk and said some things he shouldn't have and Downer reported it like a good diplomat. Instead, it's a deliberate act that sounds more like an attempt at intelligence gathering -- or participating in a setup -- than an act of good citizenship.
It's likely Downer's report about what Papadopolous allegedly told him is under the redacted portions of the FISA warrant application, and possibly also discussed in other portions of the redacted information.
Australia and the UK should brace for the fact that this is going to come out whether they like it or not. Their intelligence agencies, along with ours, tried to swing a Presidential election. There's no longer any denying that.
It's not about "whether [she] is to be believed". It's about whether he did it, and if he did, is that disqualifying for a Supreme Court justice?
At this point, based on what literally all of the witnesses except the accusers have said, the things they are describing were not done by Brett Kavanaugh and did not happen as described. Maybe something happened, and that's being generous... but it wasn't the nominee who did it. The accusers won't even testify under oath.
But even if it was. Awkward drunken fumbling from 35 years ago, as a minor, past the statute of limitations in any case, and then an absolutely spotless sterling record since? It's not disqualifying.
The Senate will be voting on whether Brett Kavanaugh is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, not whether they believe any particular witness.
Shame on you, Lisa Murkowski, for confusing the two.
The Senate will never vote to remove Rosenstein. The only use impeachment has is to put a historical black mark on his record (which he richly deserves) and to give Trump an official reason to fire him (which, politically, should probably wait until after the election... and in any case, McCabe's memos gave Trump more than enough reason to fire Rosenstein).
