Monthly Archives: September 2018

Who Won [Updated]

Featured image I caught only bits and pieces of Christine Ford’s testimony, and have seen some of the commentary on it. I watched Judge Kavanaugh’s opening statement and portions of the questioning, including Lindsay Graham’s epic denunciation of the Democrats. That was enough, I think, to make an educated guess as to the hearing’s consequences. The consensus of the commentariat is that Ford was “credible.” That isn’t surprising. Most witnesses are credible »

Kavanaugh killed it

Featured image Watching Judge Kavanaugh’s statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I think he is killing it. He demonstrates indignation and appropriate emotion, every bit as much as Ford. He has rightly focused his remarks on the game against him played by the Democrats. Here he has nailed it. He called them out in every respect. He omitted only their names, but we know who they are. The truth shall set us »

The burden of persuasion

Featured image Having watched most of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I thought that Ford was a credible witness. That is my take. Ford’s testimony was short of relevant facts. It was deficient in important respects. Yet I don’t think one can doubt that she was the victim of an assault. Where is a witness to corroborate any element of her story dating back 35 years? Whodunnit? The »

The NRA Fights Back

Featured image The Democrats have plunged us into a bizarre fantasy world in which Brett Kavanaugh, by all accounts one of the most honorable men in public life, is effectively on trial as a would-be rapist. Not because there is any evidence to that effect, but because it serves the Democratic Party’s political convenience. I have been waiting for more people on the sane side of the political fence to denounce the »

Avenatti: Myth versus fact

Featured image As I write, Senator Grassley has welcomed Christine Blasey Ford’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning to oppose the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court based on her alleged personal experience with him when he was 17 and she 15. This week attorney Michael Avenatti entered the fray with a client retailing a sort of McMartin preschool rendition of her knowledge of Judge Kavanaugh at parties »

A Case of Mistaken Identity?

Featured image A few days ago–it seems like a year–there was considerable buzz around the idea that Christine Ford might have described something close to an actual event, but identified the wrong perpetrator. That speculation has since faded. However, within the last two hours the Judiciary Committee put out a statement that summarizes events in the Kavanaugh smear from July 30 to the present. The chronology provides overwhelming evidence of bad faith »

Two Questions

Featured image It’s late, I’m exhausted, and I still have three long days on the road ahead of me (but not to worry—Week in Pictures will appear without fail on schedule first thing Saturday). But two questions keep occurring to me that I’m not sure anyone is asking. 1  If Brett Kavanaugh withdraws or is rejected because a Senate majority believes that the accusations make him unfit to serve on the Supreme »

Illegal Immigrant Arrested In Serial Murders

Featured image A serial killer who attacked homeless men with a baseball bat has terrorized Los Angeles, killing three and leaving others in critical condition. On Monday, Ramon Escobar was arrested for the baseball bat murders. It sounds as though he likely committed additional murders in Houston, as well as other violent crimes. Escobar is an illegal immigrant who was deported multiple times and released by ICE under Obama administration guidelines, despite »

Tomorrow @ Yale

Featured image I’m in the midst of a grueling road trip that finds me today in the last place I want to be right now—Washington DC. Fortunately, I get to leave town first thing Thursday morning before the Official Madness Meter gets cranked up to 11. I tweeted a couple days ago that what the Kavanaugh matter needed was more cowbell. We got quite a lot more of it today. Thursday afternoon »

The Democrats’ Descent Into Madness Continues

Featured image Judge Kavanaugh released a statement today that said, among other things, that Julie Swetnick’s story is “from the Twilight Zone.” In my view, the entire Democratic Party has entered the Twilight Zone. The latest is from Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who says he is going to court to try to block the Senate from voting on Kavanaugh’s nomination: Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., says he will seek a federal court »

Third Time’s a Charm?

Featured image Lawyers tell a story about the guy who was arguing an appeal and getting skeptical questions from a judge. “Your Honor, if you don’t like that argument,” he said, “I have two others that are equally persuasive.” This is where we are now with the Democrats’ attempt to derail Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer and purportedly a Democratic presidential candidate, has unveiled accuser number three, »

And now, the McMartin phase

Featured image With the appearance today of creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick, we approach a new phase in the Kavanaugh confirmation proceedings. We now approach the McMartin preschool case phase. We confront the Kavanaugh Krime Wave. The Democrats have responded, shall we say, in predictable fashion. Senate Minority Leader Schumer asserted in a statement: “Republicans need to immediately suspend the proceedings related to Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, and »

Free Speech Under Fire

Featured image Alan Dershowitz is a lifelong Democrat, but the issues he is most passionate about–free speech and the State of Israel–are more popular on the right than the left, so in recent years he has become something of a conservative hero. The current assault on free speech by the Left, as manifested in universities, social media platforms and elsewhere, is one of the key issues of our time. That is why »

Joe Biden then and now

Featured image The big Democratic talking point of the moment against moving to a confirmation vote on Judge Kavanaugh is the necessity of an FBI background check to investigate the Democrats’ late hits. Democrats amplify the talking point by dint of repetition among their media adjunct. Against the odds, then Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden usefully explained the vacuity of this talking point under somewhat analogous circumstances in 1991. “The next »

Dear Senator Feinstein

Featured image Ranking Judiciary Committee Democrat has apparently sought to call off tomorrow’s hearing with Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh. Senator Feinstein has sought the postponement of the hearing on the pretext of the New Yorker’s Deborah Ramirez story. The Ramirez story is all the buzz among Yale students who think they have something valuable to offer the rest of us, but it died of humiliation shortly after publication. Judiciary Committee »

Will She Or Won’t She?

Featured image Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley today rejected the Democrats’ request to delay Thursday’s hearing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. (The real hearing, of course, ended a couple of weeks ago, and this is a post-hearing farce.) His letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein is embedded below. A few choice quotes: You suggest that Dr. Ford’s testimony should be further delayed because of allegations made in the »

They all laughed

Featured image President Trump spoke to the United Nations General Assembly this morning. I have posted the video immediately below. Politico has posted a good transcript of the speech here. I thought this was an excellent speech recapitulating the leading points of Trump’s reorientation of American foreign policy in favor of America’s friends and adversely to America’s foes. This foreign policy resists the encroachment of multilateral institutions and global governance on American »