Some thoughts on Justice Kavanaugh

Some thoughts.

The notion that the Supreme Court is above politics and its decisions are based on the Constitution and the plain letter of the law is simply false and people recognize it.  That's why confirmation battles have become so bitter.  The Supreme Court is political, and its members are either ideologues or politicians, based on their particular philosophy.

Brett Kavanaugh has been widely supported by the Republican establishment. We will not know what that really means to the ideological orientation of the Supreme Court until he votes on several divisive issues. Keep in mind that many of the Justices appointed by Republican presidents (Warren, Brennan, Souter) have ruled as Liberals after getting on the court. Others, like former Justice Kennedy, were weathervanes, making decisions based on the direction the political winds in Washington DC were blowing.

The fight was so bitter over Kavanaugh because the Left feared that a weathervane would be replaced by a conservative ideologue.  The Court has been a key player in the clash of cultures giving the Left via judicial fiat what they could not achieve at the ballot box or via legislation.

The latest battle ground is gender.  The Left is pitting women against men. In an inversion of Sharia, it stands for the principle that female testimony is more credible than male testimony. It used the weapon of unsupported accusations by women as a way to prevent a potentially conservative judge to swing the Court against their use of law-fare as a way to reshape the culture.

Now that that assault has been repelled, it remains to be seen if Kavanaugh is truly devoted to the Constitution. Or is he, like John Roberts demonstrated in his decision on ObamaCare, going to make judgements based on political pressure from the Left.

I hope that Justice Kavanaugh is ideologically Conservative, but I suspect that his careful path to the Supreme Court shows a political animal. I suspect that no one gets there without mastering the politics of Washington.

Conclusion: cautious optimism.

Former Google boss launches scathing Silicon Valley attack urging tech giants to end the delusion that it's making the world a better place

She said: ‘You can’t go about telling your advertisers that you can target users down to the tiniest pixel, but then throw your hands up in front of the politicians and say your machines can’t figure out if bad actors are using your platform.’

She said: ‘On the surface, things seemed really important and exciting. We were doing big things! Bringing the internet to the developing world! But also, on some level, it all felt a bit off, like when you go on vacation and find yourself wondering when it’s going to feel like the Instagram pics other people have posted.’

Miss Powell also levelled criticism at Amazon and Facebook.

I hope this is a trend.

The trap they laid for Kavanaugh (via Althouse)

It's not a bug, it's a feature! Basically this entire process has been designed from the get go as a Kafkaesque trap:

1) Hey, there are some terrible accusations and if you don't withdraw, they are going to come out and it's going to be embarrassing for you and your family. You should withdraw.
2) Okay, you deny the accusations and aren't withdrawing? Well we're going to draw this out so that all the crazies can come out of the woodwork and accuse you of being a closet horrific criminal. Don't make us have a hearing - you don't want that.
3) Okay, you're going to cause us to have a hearing? We're going to make sure the salaciousness of every accusation is stretched out in loving detail on TV.
4) Oh, this makes you angry? Well that's clearly a sign that you lack the temperament to be on the court.
5) You point out how partisan this has been? Clearly you're not going to be a fair umpire on the court. We, who were never going to vote for your confirmation anyway, are shocked that any potential justice would consider these obviously partisan attacks as partisan.
6) Does this process make you angry bro? Well, by the way you're acting, it's possible to see that this has damaged your mind and you're probably no longer fit to be on the court.
7) Oh, you got confirmed anyway? Nearly half the country is going to think of you as a rapist for the rest of your life. It'll be mentioned in every biography ever written about you and will be one of the only thing that anyone remembers about you in the future.

I cannot wait to see who wants to go through this process in the future. And boy, howdy, I cannot wait for the next time a Democratic president tries to get someone confirmed. It's gonna be lit!

Lawsuit accuses Seneca Valley 'mean girls' of targeting boy with false allegations

"Mean girls" conspire to accuse a boy of sexual abuse.  It's not just Brett Kavanaugh. 

In a tape-recorded interview with school officials in 2017, the lawsuit alleges K.S. said she made the sexual assault claim against T.F. because “I just don’t like him.”

“I just don’t like to hear him talk. … I don’t like to look at him,” K.S. reportedly disclosed in the recorded interview obtained by Fishman.

On Oct. 2, 2017, K.S. told fellow students “that she would do anything to get T.F. expelled … and accused T.F. of sexual assault” with school officials, the lawsuit states. T.F. was subsequently charged in juvenile court with indecent assault and two counts of harassment.

And it gets worse.

Ricochet: "Things I Did Not See Coming When PDT Was Elected"

A lot of what has happened since Donald Trump became president has been predictable. The economic recovery was probably inevitable, given eight years of pent-up demand. Even a sitzpinkler like Jeb or Little Marco could have gotten some economic gains. Only a Democrat could have screwed it up. The betrayal of PDT by Senate Republicans and cruise-ship “conservatives” comes as no surprise. And the descent of the Democrat Left into derangement and full-on embrace of authoritarian Marxism is just an extension of prior existing trendlines.

But there are a few things that, if you told me in 2016 would happen if Donald Trump were elected president, I don’t think I would have believed you.

1. Senate Democrats debating whether “Boof” means fart. This is why they call themselves ‘The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body,” folks. About the only surprise is that a massive gasbag like Sheldon Whitehouse doesn’t understand how ‘boof’ could mean flatulence. Oh, and the Media Wing of the Democrat Party wants the FBI to investigate the meaning of ‘boof’ because it’s vital to our democracy or something.
2. A creepy porn lawyer is a viable Democrat candidate for the presidency. Seriously, I thought were another 10-12 years from this level of depravity. Man, was I wrong.
3. Democrats coming out in support of MS-13. Trump said the MS-13 was a violent street gang; you know, because of the gang rapes and hacking innocent people to death with machetes and stuff. Next thing you know, Nancy Pelosi is talking about “sparks of the divine” and media figures began defending MS-13 like they were just a few teenagers having some good clean fun. I guess I should have seen this coming given the general drift of the Democrats, but I didn’t.
4. Democrats Becoming the Anti-Beer Party. Conversely, after they started digging around in Brett Kavanaugh’s high school yearbooks to find something to prove that anyone who was ever a normal high school boy should never be a Supreme Court justice, the Democrats claimed outrage that young Brett Kavanaugh went to keg parties. Suddenly, drinking beer is so evil you half expect the Democrats to revive the 18th Amendment. The Democrats used to feign bonhomie with the working class, but since they have reinvented themselves as the party of incel women, they feel a lot freer to express their scorn for working class things like beer and football. (BTW, Democrats in New Jersey just passed a whole slew of regulations to clamp down on artisanal breweries in that state. {But then temporarily suspended the new regulations after public outcry.})
5. Odd New Respect for Kanye West. I mean, seriously, who saw that coming? See also, Lindsey Graham.

The Kavanaugh Allegations Are Psychological Terrorism, And It’s Time They End

The left’s smear tactics have come on full display during the surfeit of attacks on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Whether you support or oppose this SCOTUS nomination, the tactics being used are more extreme even than during the Clarence Thomas hearings.

But as we know, they are nothing new, and Democrats will continue to use them until the American people scream “Enough!” — because they are effective. The real goal is psychological terrorism—that is, engaging in a scorched-earth effort to destroy the target, and in so doing intimidating anyone willing to enter public service, or even just support a public figure that does not parrot the politically correct line.

The charges do not need to be true, or even credible. People do not recoil because of the charges themselves (although, as we see, the left spares no effort to dream up the worst accusations they can think of). People recoil out of fear.

This tactic relies on the human herding instinct. People naturally shy away from anyone so vilified, whether the charges are credible or not, simply out of fear of being smeared with the same brush. They don’t want to be ostracized by the group.

Such excommunication has real consequences on reputations, jobs, relationships, even survival. The real goal is to threaten the rest of us into silence. How many people, for example, never used Donald Trump yard signs or bumper stickers out of fear of ostracism, or even property destruction?

When there are people out in the streets who have demonstrated that they are violent, how willing are you to stand up in support of Trump?

Another Antifa member, a professor at the City University of New York, tweeted, “Reminder that if Trump does end up winning this stupid thing to assassinate Mike Pence *first*.”

When people tell you they are willing to kill, believe them.

Here's the process.  Recognize the pattern that the Left followed with Kavanaugh?

Defamation Attacks Follow a Definite Pattern

In 2010, Laird Wilcox penned an article titled “The Practice of Ritual Defamation,” that describes the process. The most salient points are quoted here:

1. In ritual defamation the victim must have violated a particular taboo in some way, usually by expressing or identifying with a forbidden attitude, opinion or belief…
2. The method of attack… is to assail the character of the victim… Character assassination is its primary tool…
3. An important rule in ritual defamation is to avoid engaging in any kind of debate over the truthfulness or reasonableness of what has been expressed, only condemn it…
4. The victim is often somebody in the public eye – someone who is vulnerable to public opinion…
5. An attempt, often successful, is made to involve others in the defamation…
6. In order for a ritual defamation to be effective, the victim must be dehumanized to the extent that he becomes identical with the offending attitude, opinion or belief, and in a matter… where it appears at its most extreme.
7. Also to be successful, a ritual defamation must bring pressure and humiliation on the victim from every quarter, including family and friends. If the victim has school children, they may be taunted and ridiculed as a consequence of adverse publicity.
8. Any explanation the victim may offer, including the claim of being misunderstood, is considered irrelevant. To claim truth as a defense for a politically incorrect value, opinion or belief is interpreted as defiance and only compounds the problem…

Obama’s Social Experiments Are Wreaking Havoc on America Today

Barack Obama's biggest harm to America was not his economic policies but his social policies.

Here are five key ways Obama's policies impacted American culture, beginning with #MeToo, sexual assault, and Brett Kavanaugh.
1. The sexual assault maelstrom.
2. Transgender ideology.
3. "The Handmaid's Tale."
4. Same-sex marriage.
5. Race.

Read the whole thing.

The Grievance Studies Scandal: Five Academics Respond

NOTE:

For the past year scholars James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian have sent fake papers to various academic journals which they describe as specialising in activism or “grievance studies.” Their stated mission has been to expose how easy it is to get “absurdities and morally fashionable political ideas published as legitimate academic research.”

To date, their project has been successful: seven papers have passed through peer review and have been published, including a 3000 word excerpt of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, rewritten in the language of Intersectionality theory and published in the Gender Studies journal Affilia.

Postmodernists pretend to be experts in what they call “theory.” They claim that, although their scholarship may seem incomprehensible, this is because they are like mathematicians or physicists: they express profound truths in a way that cannot be understood without training. Lindsay, Boghossian, and Pluckrose expose this for the lie that it is. “Theory” is not real. Postmodernists have no expertise and no profound understanding.

Read the whole thing.

The Sexual Revolution Is Over

It’s impossible to know when this “revolution” began with any precision, but perhaps we could date it from the publication of “sexologist” Alfred Kinsey’s two famous studies, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948 and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953. Kinsey conducted hundreds of interviews and concluded from these that most Americans’ private sexual practices differed sharply from their professed beliefs about sexual morality. Holding as he did to a crassly Darwinian worldview in which men and women are highly developed animals and so merely animalistic in their appetites, Kinsey believed Americans could achieve greater happiness and fulfillment only by expressing their sexual urges without deference to arbitrary cultural and religious rules. Except, of course, the rule of consent. That one had to stay.

Kinsey’s many critics, then and since, have pointed out the laughably unscientific nature of his research, but it didn’t matter. The second half of the 20th century in the United States is the story of the slow collapse of a broadly Christian cultural consensus on sexual morality.

At least one sensible way of understanding the ongoing succession of men credibly charged with sexual harassment and assault is that LMen, especially men of a hubristic bent and in positions of authority, were only too happy to discard the old rules governing the expression of their appetites, but those rules were put in place over many centuries in large part because such men were apt to behave like beasts without them. Setting aside morality and ontology, Kinsey’s presupposition that men are animals isn’t entirely wrong.

The counterargument to this interpretation is the one made by my liberal friends: These things have always happened, only now it’s reported. It’s not an unreasonable point—men have forced themselves on disinclined women since there were men and women. This is the experience of Pamela Andrews in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, published in 1740, and of Tamar, half-sister of the loathsome Amnon, in the Book of Second Samuel.

The question, though, is whether these things happen more frequently as a result of the dissolution of sexual mores. Such a thing is perhaps unknowable in a strict sense, but the important thing is this: It looks and feels like men behave badly much more often than they used to. It’s hard to believe that Harvey Weinstein would have dared to engage in the systematic abuse of women if he had achieved his fame and wealth in the 1890s rather than the 1990s.

Read the whole thing.

Ann Coulter: "NO MORE MR. WHITE GUY"

Why do liberals hate white people?  The airwaves are filled with press babes and babettes telling us how bad it is if old white guys ask the sainted-must-be-believed Ford questions about her -or-uncorroborated accusation that Brett Kavanough tried to rape her 35-or-so-years-ago at a party that four other witnesses denied they attended.


Read the whole thing.

But what is the thinking behind snickering at “white men” judging an accusation of sexual assault? Chuck Grassley is a big rapist?

You can be for rape or against it -- I happen to be against it -- but the idea that alleged sexual assault survivors need the loving care of black, Indian or Hispanic men to judge their stories flies in the face of crime statistics from around the globe.

In the history of the world, there has never been a more pacific, less rapey creature than the white male of Western European descent.

I realize it gives The New York Times’ editorial board (recent acquisition: Sarah Jeong) warm feelings every time someone throws in the word “white” as an intensifier, denoting extra hatefulness, but really, guys, it’s getting old.

Can we please, for the love of God, drop the painfully trite, mind-numbing cliche about “white men,” as if somehow their whiteness makes evil even eviler?

Mark Steyn recalls: "Hearing the Women, Then and Now"

So on Thursday the Senate will hear evidence of what allegedly happened in an upstairs room at an unknown house somewhere near Columbia Country Club, Maryland sometime in the early Eighties. Presumably Judge Kavanaugh will be cross-examined on how close "anything close to it" actually got. This is the pitiful state to which the United States Senate has reduced its "advise and consent" role.

It was different nineteen years ago, when I had the misfortune, briefly, to be living in Washington, DC - just for a few weeks while covering the Clinton impeachment trial. I stayed at the Mayflower Hotel, which my editors kicked up a fuss about until Monica checked in a few doors down the corridor from me and I was the only guy on the inside. Anyway, I wanted to check my recollections of that period, so I looked up the moldering pile of clippings from London's Daily Telegraph, Canada's National Post and the other papers that carried my daily trial diary. Just to set the scene: obviously, nailing Clinton is a lot trickier than Clinton nailing you. The general flavor of the times is caught in this January 22nd 1999 column:

Ace of Spades: Sean Davis, Rush Limbaugh: Republicans Can Either Confirm Kavanaugh or Lose the Senate in November

I don't think Republicans want to hold either chamber of Congress; many Republicans prefer being like Ben Sasse, having no power whatsoever except to burble up baby-talk homilies that he can quote in fundraising letters.

Having power is scary -- you are forced to make decisions that actually have consequences, and those consequences may involve the leftwing media saying mean things about you.

So it's better to be a Controlled Opposition. They don't want actual power, which is a hard thing to have; they just want position, privilege, prestige and perks.

Since these dirtbags, sell-outs, and corporate shills prefer being in the minority, I say vote to keep them in power to spite them. Make them squirm.

The rubber is about to meet the road for Senate Republicans. They have a simple choice: they can vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, thereby ending the baseless and unsubstantiated Democrat- and media-fueled smear campaign against him, or they can kiss House and Senate majorities goodbye for the next decade, if not longer.

In case the election of one Donald J. Trump was not enough to compel the D.C. Republican establishment swamp creatures to wipe the muck from their eyes and see what's happening with their own constituents, Republican voters have had enough of feckless do-nothings whose careers consist of little more than not doing everything they promised to do.

Give us the House, the Senate, and the White House, they said, and we'll repeal Obamacare. Give us power across the major elected branches, and we’ll secure the border, they promised. With a Republican president in the White House and a Republican majority in the Senate, we’ll confirm the most conservative Supreme Court nominees you can imagine, they claimed.

Yet here we are. Obamacare is still on the books, and a wall is still not on the border. The only compelling reason left for Republicans to continue voting for Republicans is the confirmation of conservative jurists to fill the federal judiciary. The confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch was nice, but it changed nothing, as he replaced the staunchly conservative Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch's appointment merely maintained the status quo.

...

Republican lawmakers have to understand that their voters have zero patience for their excuses for not doing what they promised. It's why they elected Trump in the first place. Republican senators failed to repeal Obamacare after promising to do so for years. That was strike one. They've steadfastly refused to secure the border, let alone build a barrier along the most porous sections of the nation’s border with Mexico. That was strike two.

A refusal to vote to confirm Kavanaugh in the face of a blatantly obvious Democrat smear campaign, orchestrated in concert with a compliant and obscenely partisan national media, will be strike three, and there will be no more at-bats. I have spent a career working in and covering politics, and I have never witnessed the kind of anger among rank-and-file GOP voters generated from a combination of the unsubstantiated Democrat attacks on Kavanaugh and the flaccid response of emasculated Republicans.

Marsha Blackburn for U.S. Senate

Has The Keith Ellison Domestic-Abuse Investigation Been Shut Down?

YES, next question.

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, the Minnesota arm of the Democratic Party, concluded its investigation into domestic abuse allegations against Rep. Keith Ellison two weeks ago, Karen Monahan told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Sunday.

Monahan, a Sierra Club activist and Ellison’s ex-girlfriend, accused the Minnesota Democrat of emotionally and physically abusing her during their relationship.

“I only know the MNDFL did an investigation that ended two weeks ago,” Monahan wrote in a private Twitter message to TheDCNF on Sunday.

The Liberal Hive protects its own.

SATIRE: Feelings Don't Care About Your Facts

My fellow Americans: I feel like I need to say this.

A lot of you are angry. You're concerned about what's going on right now, and you're worried about the future. You're disgusted by the actions of your political opponents, and you feel hope and anticipation whenever there's the slightest possibility that their goals will be thwarted. You're filled with dread when they're winning, and you're lifted into paroxysms of joyous schadenfreude when they fail.

Good news: Those feelings are all you need! If there was ever a time in American history when it was worthwhile to pay attention to facts and evidence, those days are over. Thanks to the cutting-edge technology of the early 21st century, choosing to go with your gut has never been easier or more effective. Name the outrage, and you're just a click away from the corresponding mob.

Read the whole thing.

DRUDGE ON KAVANAUGH

KAVANAUGH DEFIANT: Lifelong record of promoting dignity...

'I was a virgin'...

Never Been Involved In Gang Rape...

'I have faith in fairness of American people'...

LIMBAUGH TO REPUBLICANS: CONFIRM OR LOSE MIDTERMS!

MCCONNELL: FLOOR VOTE NO MATTER WHAT...

Fate rests with Sen. Collins?

BUCHANAN: Huge stakes of Thursday's confrontations...

WASH POST PAGE ONE: Fight takes on symbolism in divided era...

YALE cancels classes to accommodate protests...

KIMMEL: Cut His Penis Off...

ANNALS OF LIBERAL HATE: Now #MeToo is coming for your thought crimes

#MeToo is totalitarian.

People are right to be concerned that #MeToo has gone too far. There are few who don’t think the movement has done good work in exposing predatory men and encouraging victims to come forward.

But when an editor is forced out of his job because he published something controversial, or a friend of the accused suffers professionally for his kind words, we’ve gone to the crazy place and need to come back from it.

Predatory men are all over the media and the “arts.”

It’s a place for good-looking and amoral people. 

It’s part and parcel of what they sell.

It practically defines who they are. 

Harvey Weinstein was able to get women to have sex with him in return for given them movie roles.

 And don’t think for a moment that the women who gave him sex were not aware of the bargain they were making. 

He was exposed before there was a #MeToo movement.

Afterward it was a way for the women who participated to claim the virgin-victim status.

And now it’s become the tool to destroy the men that Liberals don’t like, even the men who maintained their virginity well into their adulthood, like Bret Kavanaugh. 

Break up the Tech Monopolies

DRUDGE:

WIRE: Tech Giants Spend $80 Billion to Make Sure No One Else Can Compete...

GOOGLE Tells Congress How To Legislate Privacy...

Search engine answers questions -- before asked...

Chrome update tracks you online... 

Tech Giants Spend $80 Billion to Make Sure No One Else Can Compete

Time to break up the Tech Monopolies.

General Motors Co. and Google couldn’t be more different. GM musters an army of people and machines to produce the 10 million cars it sells each year. What Google makes doesn’t really exist: You type on a laptop or click play on a YouTube video, and Google zips back bits of digital information.

But Google parent Alphabet Inc. and the other four dominant U.S. technology companies—Apple, Amazon​.com, Microsoft, and Facebook—are fast becoming industrial giants. They spent a combined $80 billion in the last year on big-ticket physical assets, including manufacturing equipment and specialized tools for assembling iPhones and the powerful computers and undersea internet cables Facebook needs to fire up Instagram videos in a flash. Thanks to this surge in spending—up from $40 billion in 2015—they’ve joined the ranks of automakers, telephone companies, and oil drillers as the country’s biggest spenders on capital goods, items including factories, heavy equipment, and real estate that are considered long-term investments. Their combined outlay is about 10 times what GM spends annually on its plants, vehicle-assembly robots, and other materials.

The have no real competition and aim to keep it that way.

Vatican Cardinal: Pope Francis Is ‘Ice-Cold, Cunning Machiavellian’

Asking the important questions: Is the Pope Catholic?