quote:

A second Democratic senator said there’s widespread disbelief in the caucus that Kavanaugh is holding on.

They fucked with the wrong guy.

At this point, he literally has everything to lose by walking away and nothing to lose by holding on. The only way he can retain his credibility is fight on.

They figured he'd scamper away when Ford hit, yet he was like "bring it on, I want a hearing tomorrow". Then they piled on some more horse dung and he didn't flinch.

I am going to take a nap. Wake me when it's over.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Don’t be discouraged. If people don’t want to post comments, you can’t stop them.

Hah. I see what you did there!

Thanks for the articles and insights JALLEN and sjtill. Please Keep them coming.

Regarding the Doc Fischer article - Flake scares me the most. The look on his face when stuck in that elevator by that lunatic protester just sticks in my mind. He is weak. He looked ashamed, not just uncomfortable. And who knows what other backroom deals he’s made.

I guess we’ll soon find out. Time is ticking away quickly. It’s hard to believe it’s already September.

“7. Kavanaugh will be confirmed as long as Collins believes she has cover, and the FBI supplemental investigation almost surely should be ample. Flake, regardless of his cable-news ambitions, made a deal with Grassley, and he almost-surely will stand by the deal because it was a personal backroom face-to face, man-to-man promise. Although no conservative can trust Flake on public-policy issues, he made a private deal with Grassley, man-to-man, and these guys never go back on a private one-to-one deal. Flake got what he asked for, and he will honor his personal backroom deal with Grassley.”

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

The lawmaker said Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is urging undecided centrist Democrats to wait until three undecided Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) — make their positions known.

“He’s telling them, ‘Keep your powder dry.’ That means you don’t have to decide this -- wait and see how it plays out. There’s some speculation that Kavanaugh may not last,” the lawmaker said. “They always vow to stay right until they don’t.”

A second Democratic senator said there’s widespread disbelief in the caucus that Kavanaugh is holding on.

That just makes me smile. Schumer knows, or guesses, they are going to lose the vote. Collins remains the key, and Trump has been in close contact with her with regard to what she wants out of this "supplemental" investigation.

Kavanaugh is NOT dropping out. They will vote when McConnell decides it's time... hopefully by the end of the week!

You know that even in a roll call vote, Senators do not vote in order. They vote when they feel like it, while the floor is open for voting, a minimum of 15 minutes, or as long as the Senate wants.

So, here is the scenario. It will be in prime time, of course. The vote count stands at 48 yeas, all Republicans but Collins and Merkowski, 43 nays, all God Damned Commies but the 6 running in heavy Trump states.

If the 2 women vote first, and yea, the 6 can vote either way. Pence will break the tie. Otherwise, they will have to vote nay and face the wrath of voters.

Maybe one woman should vote “Aye.”

“After you, my good friend!”

Kavanaugh may well be sacrificed in this high stakes game of political chicken.

quote:

If the 2 women vote first, and yea, the 6 can vote either way.

Yes, and here's how I see that scenario playing out:
If Collins is a "Yes" vote, she won't wait until the very end. She will vote in time to give cover to the other 6 undecideds.
I think Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake will vote however Susan Collins votes, Yea or Nay. Flake, in particular, will only be a NO vote if he can be the decider, as the dramatic John McCain on the Obamacare vote. Flake harbors illusions of grandeur.

The Case against Kavanaugh Is Collapsing

https://www.nationalreview.com...-nominee-collapsing/

There is entirely insufficient evidence to prove even one of the terrible allegations against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

A very strange thing happened over the weekend: If you follow Twitter closely, you’ll notice that the debate over Brett Kavanaugh moved significantly from the central question of last Thursday’s hearing — did he commit sexual assault? — to a raging debate over whether he lied about high-school slang, college drinking, and inside jokes, and whether he was just too “angry” to be a Supreme Court judge.

This torrent of commentary (most of it silly, including competing, furious arguments about how people described anal sex in 1982) obscures an important development: The sexual-assault claims against Kavanaugh are in a state of collapse.

Let’s deal with the easiest issue first. The day before the hearing, Michael Avenatti released a “declaration” by a client, a woman named Julie Swetnick, claiming that she saw Kavanaugh “waiting his turn” for gang rapes after facilitating them by spiking or drugging the punch at high-school parties. She claimed that she went to multiple such parties and was gang raped at one of them, though she would only assert that Kavanaugh was present on that occasion.

The claim against Kavanaugh was transparently absurd. The idea that a person would repeatedly attend gang-rape parties and that the existence of these parties (which would presumably generate multiple victims and bystander-witnesses) remained utterly secret for decades is nonsense. But left-wing Twitter took up the claims with a vengeance, dragging anyone who dared express doubt through the mud. After all, didn’t the Catholic Church scandals prove that crimes could be concealed? Didn’t Sixteen Candles have a subplot about a drunk male geek sleeping with a drunk popular girl? (Yes, that was an actual article in Vox.)

But then the Wall Street Journal did some actual reporting, “contacting dozens of former classmates and colleagues,” only to find it “couldn’t reach anyone with knowledge of [Swetnick’s] allegations.” Moreover, “no friends have come forward to publicly support her claims.” Again, she alleged repeated gang rapes. Yet there are still no other witnesses.

It also turns out that a former employer, a company called WebTrends, once sued Swetnick for defamation and fraud. Among other things, it contended that Swetnick engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct and then, “in a transparent effort to divert attention from her own inappropriate behavior,” made uncorroborated sexual-harassment complaints against the two men who accused her of such behavior.

The case was never adjudicated, but it’s just one reason that the commentariat should be hesitant to credit lurid allegations from an unknown individual. Shouldn’t there be a modicum of due diligence before leaping to the conclusion that a man is a rapist?

Meanwhile, Deborah Ramirez’s allegation — that Kavanaugh exposed himself at a party at Yale — remains essentially where it was last week, uncorroborated and difficult to believe. She was drinking heavily at the time. She confesses that her memory contains “gaps.” She even told other classmates that she wasn’t certain it was Kavanaugh. No one else could even confirm he was at the party where the incident allegedly occurred.

No responsible journalistic outlet should have run the story. And without more evidence, no fair-minded person should believe it today.

Which brings us to Christine Blasey Ford. Yesterday, Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell released a memorandum to all Republican senators summarizing Ford’s evidence against Kavanaugh. I’d urge you to read the entire thing. Democrats are describing it as a “partisan document,” but it refers to multiple, undisputed facts that should cause even Ford’s most zealous defenders to pause and reevaluate her claims.

Ford has no corroborating witnesses, and even the friend she says was at the party in question has denied being there or knowing Kavanaugh at all. She doesn’t know who invited her to the party, where it took place, how she got there, or how she got home after, by her account, Kavanaugh attacked her. But the problems go beyond gaps in memory. She has offered substantially different accounts about when the attack occurred (she’s previously said it happened in the “mid Eighties,” in her “late teens,” and in the “Eighties.” Now she’s saying it happened in 1982, when she was 15) and how it occurred (her therapist’s notes conflict with her story of the attack, and she has offered different accounts about who attended the party).

All of these inconsistencies and omissions are important. None of them help her case.

For a brief moment after the hearing, Democrats believed that one of Kavanaugh’s calendar entries corroborated Ford’s story. A July 1, 1982, note says, “Go to Timmy’s for Skis w/Judge, Tom, PJ, Bernie, Squi.” According to the Democratic theory, because Ford testified that “Skis” was short for “brewskis” (beer), and because Mark Judge and “PJ” were allegedly at the party where Ford claimed she was assaulted, this could be the documentary evidence that the party took place.

Interestingly, no Democratic senator explored this theory with Kavanaugh while he was testifying, and Ford’s team never raised it, either. It was left to be floated after Kavanaugh was off the stand. And now legions of Democrats are presenting it as “corroboration.”

It’s nothing of the sort. First and most important, “Timmy’s” house was ten miles from the country club Ford has described as in proximity to the party, and it did not meet the description of the house that Ford offered in her testimony. Second, the lineup of attendees does not mention a single female and is substantially different from the one she has described. And finally, the lineup includes “Squi,” the nickname for Chris Garrett, a boy Ford was (according to her testimony) seeing at the time. It would be odd indeed to remember a party’s attendees and forget that one of them was your then-boyfriend.
Comments

In other words, for the July 1 theory to be correct, Ford’s previous testimony would have to be substantially incorrect. The theory is so thin that even a CNN analysis described it as “circumstantial, at best.”

No responsible lawyer would bring even a civil case on the facts described above, and civil cases must meet only the lowest burden of proof. Believe women? Believe men? No. Believe evidence. It’s possible that the FBI investigation will uncover additional material facts. It’s also possible that the investigation will leave us back where we started — with entirely insufficient evidence to prove even one of the terrible claims against a person who was once one of the most-respected public servants in America.

Instapundit link

quote:

POLL: Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll: 60% Want Kavanaugh Confirmed if FBI Dismisses Allegations.

Plus: “69 percent agree with Kavanaugh’s pronouncement and Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) statement that the proceedings have been a national disgrace.”

Also note Heitkamp now 10 points behind in ND.

Yes, just polls, but encouraging!

Lindsey Graham interview w Hannity

https://video.foxnews.com/v/58...etwork#sp=show-clips

Two surprising things from Graham

1. He claims the FBI review has not been expanded. The "agreement" w Flake/Collins/Murkowski was to interview PJ, Keyser, Judge, and the accuser Ramirez.

The first 3 are the people that Christine Ford said were at the "party".

This conflicts w what President Trump said yesterday.

2. Graham said he thinks Kavanaugh will be confirmed. They talked about how unpredictable Jeff Flake is. Graham said if they fell one vote short, he would recommend the president renominate Kavanaugh and tell the voters of Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota to make their decision.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:

Also note Heitkamp now 10 points behind in ND.

Yes, just polls, but encouraging!

The concern with some of the at-risk Dems being so far behind is the attitude of "I lost, viva la partie'!" votes.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
They’re not admitting it yet, but the Kavanaugh overreach is a looming disaster for the Democrats’ hopes of capturing the Senate.

https://spectator.org/the-dems-midterm-mess/

^^^ From the article:

"Staffers in the office of a different California Democrat also risk generating a voter backlash. That would be just after the “doxxing” of Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch, including the disclosure of addresses and cell phone numbers, from an IP address inside the office of Rep. Maxine Waters. The rather rude attempt at intimidation occurred while the Ford-Kavanaugh testimony was happening Thursday, and it’s apparently not the first time that IP address has been associated with such conduct. We surely haven’t heard the end of this one."

quote:

Graham said he thinks Kavanaugh will be confirmed. They talked about how unpredictable Jeff Flake is. Graham said if they fell one vote short, he would recommend the president renominate Kavanaugh and tell the voters of Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota to make their decision.

I heard that and I loved it! Graham is becoming a leader on this. It's a great idea. Let the voters decide! There is nothing that will get them more pumped up.

McConnell rips Feinstein today from the Senate floor

https://youtu.be/vQE5wds32eM

from:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.c...ote-this-week-video/

McConnell:

"One thing for sure. The Senate will vote on Judge Kavanaugh, here on this floor, this week"

quote:

Originally posted by deepocean:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
I have not infrequently gone to quite a bit of trouble to research a topic, find what I think is an excellent and thoughtful article, post it with a link, then watch while posts I consider far more frivolous get pages of comments. Sometimes I don't know why I bother.
Your record--and your reputation--is at quite a different level completely.
Keep at it, please!

Don’t be discouraged. If people don’t want to post comments, you can’t stop them.

Somebody needs to take over this gig when I go away. That day is coming up sooner than you can imagine.

sjtill and JALLEN: I have have often been grateful for the wisdom you both post. Perhaps when people so consistently post thusly people take it for granted. Fortunately, wisdom is no less valuable in life when it is rare or underappreciated.

Jim, I understand you are very sick. Many of us know your posts likely come at great effort given your condition. Please know your thoughts, posts, and wisdom are always appreciated.

Jim, I feel the same way. I don’t often post comments because I’m busy- on my 16th deployment, flying combat everyday, trying to keep my marriage together, etc. but I read and appreciate most of the articles you post. Thanks man. There are a few people who make great analysis (sdy) or post good articles, or just make great comments that I enjoy (para). This forum is exceptional because good moderating has attracted and kept good people. Wish I could share dinner and a beer with most of the folks here.

On thread topic: I’m excited to see another Trump victory when Kavanaugh is confirmed.

Jim, first I hope you get better. I enjoy reading your comments but rarely post as I am not as knowledgeable as some on this board. Please continue as I enjoy your entries. Thank you.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
I heard that and I loved it! Graham is becoming a leader on this. It's a great idea. Let the voters decide! There is nothing that will get them more pumped up.

You'll notice that Graham refers to NBC News as a "co-conpirator" in the attempted destruction of Judge Kavanaugh, and I think that's entirely correct.

Like many of you, I have not been a fan of Graham, but I'll say this for him- he's seen the light. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Graham stated that if Donald Trump got the Republican nomination, he would lose, and lose badly. His remarks were presented in a taunting way.

Well...

Graham is not an idiot, and it seems that he now realizes that the ONLY person who would be willing to do the things Donald Trump has done for the nation in his capacity as POTUS, is Donald Trump.

So, we'll call it even, Senator Graham, and if you keep going in the direction we see from you right now, you may very well garner my praise.

Bet none of y'all saw this coming:

I truly love the emerging Republican strategy:

Either: Go on the record and vote to confirm Kavanaugh now, or, we are going to own your ass at the polls with sweeping Republican gains in the midterms and the Senate will be able to confirm whomever they want.

The GDC’s backed into a corner right now makes my heart all tingly.

You don't say ...

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
Feinstein is toast...
She may or may not win re-election... but even her State Party has turned against her.

Unfortunately, there's no possibility of a Republican coming out of Commiefornia:

The California Democratic Party voted to endorse a progressive state senator over incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the party's executive board meeting in Oakland on Saturday.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politi...ses-opponent-n891556

This vote actually happened back in July.

Knowing the polls aren't worth the paper they're reported on, Feinstein still held an 11 point lead over de Leon in the latest poll. However, this poll was before she caused the Kavanaugh debacle, so it will be interesting to see how that shakes out for her.

You can't be progressive enough in her district for the supporters/voters of that area, doing this is her way of demonstrating she's capable of being on the fringe of society.

We probably want her to be re-elected, better her than a pure communist... eventually she'll be out, either by age, health or inability to affiliate with the bernsters of the bay...