September 20, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In a letter to his Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Grassley has set forth the rationale of his prescribed method of proceeding on the late hit of Christine Blasey Ford on Judge Kavanaugh with the hearing proposed for next Monday. Here we can see the Democrats’ refusal to participate in any method of proceeding that fails further to obstruct or protract the committee’s consideration of the Kavanaugh nomination:
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September 20, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are at best disingenuous scoundrels. How does a straightforward and decent man like Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley deal with them? The current outrage featuring the late hit on Judge Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford presents a case study. Senator Grassley is crazy like a fox, leaving them free to reveal their bad faith and dishonesty and misconduct in word and deed so long as he
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September 20, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In the old Rolling Stones song, “Something happened to me yesterday” (“something I can’t speak of right away”). In the case of Christine Blasey Ford’s late hit on Judge Kavanaugh, I have the distinct impression that something didn’t happen to her yesterday — the “something” being an assault by Judge Kavanaugh and the “yesterday” being approximately 35 years ago when CBF and Judge Kavanaugh were high school students. Earlier this
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September 20, 2018 — Scott Johnson
On Monday President Trump ordered the declassification of 20 or 21 previously redacted pages from the Carter Page FISA applications. The declassification order also extends to the redactions made to text messages from senior Justice Department and FBI officials. Kelly Cohen covered the declassification order for the Washington Examiner here. Democrats find this a profoundly alarming development. On Tuesday Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff and Sens. Chuck Schumer and
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September 18, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I have repeatedly observed here that if the so-called Steele dossier commissioned by the Clinton campaign is what it purports to be, it disseminates intelligence supplied by Russian authorities and, further, the intelligence is highly likely to constitute Russian disinformation. Eric Felten comes at the related issues from different angles in articles carried in the past two issues of the Weekly Standard. In “The Romanian ruse” Eric traces the origin
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September 18, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Today’s Wall Street Journal has published an editorial on the Kavanaugh ambush. I detect Kim Strassel’s hand in the editorial. The Journal condemns the charade staged by Senate Democrats starring Christine Blaesy Ford: [Ford’s] is simply too distant and uncorroborated a story to warrant a new hearing or to delay a vote. We’ve heard from all three principals, and there are no other witnesses to call. The only purpose of
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September 18, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The long descent on which Senate Democrats have taken us now results in the smearing of Brett Kavanaugh. Neither Chuck Schumer nor Dianne Feinstein — nor any of the other Senate Democrats who announced their opposition to Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court months ago — is fit to carry Kavanaugh’s briefcase. How have we arrived at this pass? If we were to assign a date to the beginning of
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September 17, 2018 — Scott Johnson
A KSTP/Survey USA Poll gives us the first glimpse of the state of play in cop killer loving cum lawman wannabe Keith Ellison’s bid for Minnesota Attorney General. Only Republican candidate Keith Wardlow stands in his way. The poll results show a dead heat at 41 percent each. Democrats have held a lock on the office roughly since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. While Republicans have
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September 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
On Friday Paul Manafort agreed to a guilty plea to resolve the pending federal charges against him in the District of Columbia (the pending charges set forth in a superseding criminal information), the charges remaining against him in the Eastern District of Virginia and to the related charge of obstruction of justice. None of it has anything ot do with the Trump presidential campaign, of course, but the agreement leaves
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September 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In a book to be published this week, Jeanne Marie Laskas tells the story of the ten thousand letters a day Americans wrote to President Obama. “Every evening for eight years,” the publisher recalls, “at his request, President Obama was given ten handpicked letters written by ordinary American citizens—the unfiltered voice of a nation—from his Office of Presidential Correspondence.” And Laskas reports that President Obama responded in his fashion. The
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September 15, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Earlier this year I wrote a series of posts contra the dross of April Doss. The “dross” was found in the Weekly Standard cover story by Doss. The cover story disparaged House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and asserted that he is retailing a “conspiracy theory” involving the Obama administration’s misuse of FISA on Carter Page to surveil the Trump presidential campaign. Doss purported to lay down the truth about
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September 15, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday morning I revisited former Obama administration Secretary of State John Kerry’s coaching of the powers that be in Iran on the fine art of resistance to the Trump administration. Yesterday afternoon Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked at a press conference (transcript here) about Kerry’s freelance diplomacy, as Michael Rubin calls it in this excellent New York Post column. Pompeo responded: “What Secretary Kerry has done
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September 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The Weekly Standard has just published two short pieces responding to Democratic talking points about the after-hours Democratic hit on Judge Kavanaugh by ranking (and now rank) minority Judiciary Committee member Dianne Feinstein. First, Virginia Hume explains how the letter rising to Judge Kavanaugh’s defense came together in the immediate aftermath of the hit becoming public. Despite the lyin’ Dems and their idiot parrots, according to Ms. Hume, it was
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September 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was an Obama administration holdover in the Department of Justice for the first few weeks of the Trump administration. In that capacity she played a leading role in the events that culminated in the resignation and indictment of Michael Flynn relating to his alleged dishonesty about an intercepted conversation with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. Subsequent events based on Yates’s testimony
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September 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll has discovered ANGELS AMONG US. She writes: I have always understood that I would do very poorly in a barter economy. Should all of civilization go to hell, I don’t see myself surviving by saying, “I will tell you three good jokes for that potato.” And that was when I was a standup comic. A columnist would have even less leverage: “Here, read this. You might enjoy the
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September 13, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Paul Mirengoff has brought us a long-running series on “The war on standards” in the name of equality of results. The Democrats have devoted their creative juices to seeking new frontiers to conquer in erasing natural distinctions in the treatment of fellow citizens or those residing in the space formerly occupied by citizens. The concept of citizenship is well on its way to erasure as well. Melvin Carter is the
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September 13, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Seattle’s Todd Herman invited me to appear on the first hour of his show on Seattle’s AM 770 KTTH on Tuesday afternoon for a segment discussing my “Antatomy of a Fusion smear” series. Todd understood what I was up to. He wrote that my “continuing work on laying out the template of Simpson’s smear process is the best I have seen.” Yesterday I posted the first hour of Todd’s Tuesday
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