The #MeToo Kavanaugh Ambush

[Optionpro007]

Grassley Sends Final Deadline for Kavanaugh Accuser’s Lawyers: 10 P.M. Friday
82

Mark Wilson/Getty Images
21 Sep 20181,039
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) set what he says is the final deadline Friday for Judge Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers to agree to have her testify at a hearing next week.

If Ford’s attorneys do not reach an agreement to one of the several options they have been offered for their client to tell her side of the story, Grassley will schedule a committee vote on Kavanaugh for Monday.

“Despite the fact that the July 30th letter remains hidden, my committee has been investigating the allegations and has heard from multiple witnesses since Sunday,” Grassley said in a statement to reporters after Ford’s attorneys, led by Democratic activist Deborah Katz, failed to respond first to a 10:00 a.m. deadline to agree to testify Monday and then a concession offer of 5:00 p.m. to testify Wednesday.

The statement continues:

Ms. Katz has discussed Dr. Ford’s allegations in numerous media interviews and said on TV Monday morning that Dr. Ford wants to share her account with the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s Friday night and nothing’s been agreed to despite our extensive efforts to make testimony possible. I’m extending the deadline for response yet again to 10 o’clock this evening. I’m providing a notice of a vote to occur Monday in the event that Dr. Ford’s attorneys don’t respond or Dr. Ford decides not to testify. In the event that we can come to a reasonable resolution as I’ve been seeking all week, then I will postpone the committee vote to accommodate her testimony. We cannot continue to delay.

Grassley’s move represents the firmest language yet that Senate Republicans have reached the end of their patience since Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh had groped her at a high school party more than 35 years ago threw the confirmation process into disarray last weekend. Grassley set a full public hearing under oath, only for Ford’s lawyers to repeatedly not agree to have their client testify.

In the intervening time, those lawyers have reportedly issued a fluid set of demands including excluding outside counsel from asking any questions at the hearing, having Ford not be required to appear in the same room as Kavanaugh, testifying in the opposite order of an actual trial with the accuser having the last word and the accused, Kavanaugh, having no opportunity to reply, and finally, Friday, claiming a further delay was needed because Ford was unwilling to board a plane for fear of confined spaces.

The Judiciary Committee also released the text of the previous offer, originally made with 5 p.m. deadline, that was put to Ford’s lawyers after they failed to meet the 10 a.m. deadline for the Monday hearing. “The Chairman has offered the ability for Dr. Ford to testify in an open session, a closed session, a public staff interview, and a private staff interview,” the offer letter explains. “The Chairman is even willing to fly female staff investigators to meet Dr. Ford and you in California, or anywhere else, to obtain Dr. Ford’s testimony.”

The letter goes on to refuse some of Ford’s lawyers’ most controversial demands:

Some of your other demands, however, are unreasonable and we are unable to accommodate them. You demanded that Judge Kavanaugh be the first person to testify. Accommodating this demand would be an affront to fundamental notions of due process.

…

You also demanded that only senators be permitted to ask questions of the witnesses. We are also unable to accommodate this demand. There is no rule of the Senate or the Committee that precludes staff attorneys from asking witnesses questions. We reserve the option to have female staff attorneys, who are sensitive to the particulars of Dr. Ford’s allegations and are experienced investigators, question both witnesses.

…

You demanded that the Committee issue subpoenas for the testimony of Mark Judge and other unidentified witnesses. The Committee is unable to accommodate this demand. The Committee does not take subpoena requests from witnesses as a condition of their testimony.

…

You demanded that the Committee call additional witnesses that Dr. Ford requests. We are unable to accommodate this demand. The Committee does not take witness requests from other witnesses.

The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, led by Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who withheld a letter detailing Ford’s account of her alleged sexual assault for more than six weeks, meanwhile issued a response admonishing Republicans for their handling of the situation. “[W]e are disheartened to see many of our colleagues in the majority have already made up their minds and begun to dismiss and diminish Dr. Ford’s experience,” the Democrats letter reads. “Up to this point, the Committee majority’s treatment of Dr. Ford has unquestionably been worse than the disgraceful treatment that Anita Hill received 27 years ago. We are better than this.”

 

[TreeFrogTrader]

Grassley Sends Final Deadline for Kavanaugh Accuser’s Lawyers: 10 P.M. Friday
82

Mark Wilson/Getty Images
21 Sep 20181,039
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) set what he says is the final deadline Friday for Judge Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers to agree to have her testify at a hearing next week.

If Ford’s attorneys do not reach an agreement to one of the several options they have been offered for their client to tell her side of the story, Grassley will schedule a committee vote on Kavanaugh for Monday.

“Despite the fact that the July 30th letter remains hidden, my committee has been investigating the allegations and has heard from multiple witnesses since Sunday,” Grassley said in a statement to reporters after Ford’s attorneys, led by Democratic activist Deborah Katz, failed to respond first to a 10:00 a.m. deadline to agree to testify Monday and then a concession offer of 5:00 p.m. to testify Wednesday.

The statement continues:

Ms. Katz has discussed Dr. Ford’s allegations in numerous media interviews and said on TV Monday morning that Dr. Ford wants to share her account with the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s Friday night and nothing’s been agreed to despite our extensive efforts to make testimony possible. I’m extending the deadline for response yet again to 10 o’clock this evening. I’m providing a notice of a vote to occur Monday in the event that Dr. Ford’s attorneys don’t respond or Dr. Ford decides not to testify. In the event that we can come to a reasonable resolution as I’ve been seeking all week, then I will postpone the committee vote to accommodate her testimony. We cannot continue to delay.

Grassley’s move represents the firmest language yet that Senate Republicans have reached the end of their patience since Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh had groped her at a high school party more than 35 years ago threw the confirmation process into disarray last weekend. Grassley set a full public hearing under oath, only for Ford’s lawyers to repeatedly not agree to have their client testify.

In the intervening time, those lawyers have reportedly issued a fluid set of demands including excluding outside counsel from asking any questions at the hearing, having Ford not be required to appear in the same room as Kavanaugh, testifying in the opposite order of an actual trial with the accuser having the last word and the accused, Kavanaugh, having no opportunity to reply, and finally, Friday, claiming a further delay was needed because Ford was unwilling to board a plane for fear of confined spaces.

The Judiciary Committee also released the text of the previous offer, originally made with 5 p.m. deadline, that was put to Ford’s lawyers after they failed to meet the 10 a.m. deadline for the Monday hearing. “The Chairman has offered the ability for Dr. Ford to testify in an open session, a closed session, a public staff interview, and a private staff interview,” the offer letter explains. “The Chairman is even willing to fly female staff investigators to meet Dr. Ford and you in California, or anywhere else, to obtain Dr. Ford’s testimony.”

The letter goes on to refuse some of Ford’s lawyers’ most controversial demands:

Some of your other demands, however, are unreasonable and we are unable to accommodate them. You demanded that Judge Kavanaugh be the first person to testify. Accommodating this demand would be an affront to fundamental notions of due process.

…

You also demanded that only senators be permitted to ask questions of the witnesses. We are also unable to accommodate this demand. There is no rule of the Senate or the Committee that precludes staff attorneys from asking witnesses questions. We reserve the option to have female staff attorneys, who are sensitive to the particulars of Dr. Ford’s allegations and are experienced investigators, question both witnesses.

…

You demanded that the Committee issue subpoenas for the testimony of Mark Judge and other unidentified witnesses. The Committee is unable to accommodate this demand. The Committee does not take subpoena requests from witnesses as a condition of their testimony.

…

You demanded that the Committee call additional witnesses that Dr. Ford requests. We are unable to accommodate this demand. The Committee does not take witness requests from other witnesses.

The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, led by Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who withheld a letter detailing Ford’s account of her alleged sexual assault for more than six weeks, meanwhile issued a response admonishing Republicans for their handling of the situation. “[W]e are disheartened to see many of our colleagues in the majority have already made up their minds and begun to dismiss and diminish Dr. Ford’s experience,” the Democrats letter reads. “Up to this point, the Committee majority’s treatment of Dr. Ford has unquestionably been worse than the disgraceful treatment that Anita Hill received 27 years ago. We are better than this.”

She will say that she is having her hair done the day of the hearing so it needs to be moved out until after the elections.

Just sayin.

-posted anonymously

 

[Optionpro007]

She will say that she is having her hair done the day of the hearing so it needs to be moved out until after the elections.

Just sayin.

-posted anonymously

I understand Da Lady can fly on brooms but can't fly on airplanes. Very suspicious......

 

[TreeFrogTrader]

I understand Da Lady can fly on brooms but can't fly on airplanes. Very suspicious......

She lived in Hawaii for a while.

Apparently she flew there on her broom or used Uber to go there.

Oh that's right. She could have sailed there on the U.S.S Bullshit.

I suppose you could just ask her, but hey, she probably would need to have the FBI do an investigation and then tell her.

 

[elderado]

Balls out.

 

[Tom B]

Grassley’s Kangaroo Court
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
September 22, 2018

So now it looks like next Thursday.

On Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s manifestly meritorious nomination to the Supreme Court, what was supposed to be the vote out of the Senate Judiciary Committee this past Thursday now appears to be sliding into a hearing to be held next Thursday. Or, who knows, maybe a Thursday or two after that. Or maybe The First of Never — though even that would undoubtedly be postponed to The Twelfth of Never.

Delay, delay, delay. It is what the Democrats want and it is what the Democrats are getting. They took the measure of their opposition and figured the GOP would bring a knife to a gunfight. From the first day of the confirmation hearing, committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) ceded control of the proceedings to the minority — in particular, to its ever-harder-Left, mak show presidential primary contestants.

It’s a kangaroo court.

Understand, this is not about Christine Blasey Ford. She’s a tool — a quite willing tool, but a tool all the same. This is not even about the eminently qualified federal circuit-court judge Brett Kavanaugh — it would be no different regardless of which nominee President Trump selected in consultation with White House counsel Don McGahn, the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and the rest of the originalist, conservative legal community come of age. Democrats do not want a model of constitutional fidelity and judicial restraint elevated to the Supreme Court. End of story.

And who can blame them? Republicans did not want the eminently qualified federal circuit-court judge Merrick Garland to be elevated to the Supreme Court.

The only difference is that Republicans had the majority and the rules on their side. Now Democrats are out to prove that if you abuse the process until it becomes a circus, the rules don’t matter. The steroid effect of their media echo chamber can overcome any thin, fraidy-scared GOP majority.

Back in the Garland days of 2016, Republican control of the Senate meant there were civilized limits on opposition. The gentlemen were not willing to slander the gentleman as, say, a would-be rapist. But, in a stunning display of vertebrae, Republicans were willing to block the nomination, which they were legally entitled to do: They had the majority and nothing in the Constitution required them to vote on an outgoing Democratic president’s election-year nomination to fill the seat left vacant by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.

Realize, too, that everyone in that political dispute acted politically. If Obama had been a first- or fifth-year president with a Democratic majority in the Senate, he would never have nominated then-63-year-old Garland, a moderate liberal as to whom the press could portray opposition as unreasonable. Obama would instead have nominated a 40-something progressive ideologue — a living, breathing judicial personification of “I won, you lost” ram-Obamacare-through-with-no-Republican-support politics. When Republicans whined, the press would smirk and say, “Hey, elections have consequences.”

Thus, the moral of our story should be:

Hey Dems, if you don’t like it, then go win control of the Senate fair and square, and all the dominion over the courts that comes with victory. Until then, cry me a river. We are living in the filibuster-free, confirmation-conveyor-belt system that you designed for President Obama after derailing impeccably suitable Bush nominees when you had the votes and the raw parliamentary power to do so. We are living in the “all is fair in love and judiciary warfare” world that you created.

It should go without saying that the Supreme Court should not be this important. If it were just a judicial tribunal, even the highest-ranking one in the nation, the only thing we would care about would be having its bench filled by high-quality, high-character legal talent. The justices’ politics and partisan affiliations would be irrelevant because they would be technicians applying law to narrow legal questions, not making law and deciding how 325 million people who did not vote for them should live.

But the Left has turned the High Court into an über-legislature for imposing on the country the social-justice-warrior policy agenda that they cannot ride to victory at the ballot box. The Supreme Court is arguably just as vital to them as winning the White House, because justices often outlast even two-term presidencies by a factor of four or five.

Democrats are willing to use any tactics to block conservatives from the Supreme Court and seat their own ideologues. The question is not “Fair or unfair?” It’s “Will it work?” Republicans always seem flat-footed in response because they underestimate how far Democrats are willing to go to win, how willing they are to destroy people’s reputations if that’s what it takes. Republicans keep thinking it’s 1987 and the Bork debacle was the worst of it; in reality, we’re 30 years on, and the Bork debacle was just the beginning of it.

I learned this in terrorism cases. Radical left-wing attorneys, who style themselves “political lawyers,” try to turn the proceedings into a zoo, chaos being the weapon of those for whom the rules assure defeat. Either the judge takes control of the courtroom with a firm hand, enforces the rules, and penalizes the antics, or there are interminable delays, baseless smears, and general bedlam.

The Kavanaugh confirmation hearing is bedlam. To reiterate what I argued on Friday, there is no reason to have another hearing. The Democrats waived any entitlement to a hearing by their calculated failure to raise Dr. Ford’s claims after learning of them nearly three months ago, and during the days-long hearing already held. To drop a bomb at the eleventh hour as they did was not an assertion of rights; it was an obstructionist ploy to delay a vote they were about to lose.

Even if they had not waived any right to a hearing, there would be no point in conducting one. Dr. Ford’s 36-year-old claim is too stale to resolve. We have statutes of limitations because time plays tricks on our capacity to recall and relate remote events. An accused does not have a fair opportunity to defend himself as witnesses disappear, or their memories fade and falter, and evidence is lost. As the Supreme Court observed in Doggett v. United States (1992), a case involving an eight-year delay between allegation and adjudication (i.e., a bare fraction of the 36-year delay we’re talking about here), speedy trial rights are of constitutional pedigree and “unreasonable delay” prejudices the accused’s fundamental right to mount a defense, “skew[ing] the fairness of the entire system.”

Ford says a sexual assault happened, though she is sketchy on the details. Kavanaugh says he had nothing to do with it, and he is adamant in his denial. A hearing would not establish either that the incident is a fabrication or that Kavanaugh is culpable. At the end of a hearing, we’d be exactly where we are now. That’s when you don’t have a hearing: when it is obvious that having one would be pointless.

If Senator Grassley wants to forgive the Democrats’ gamesmanship and display sensitivity for Dr. Ford, fine: Take submissions in writing from relevant witnesses — particularly Ford and Kavanaugh. Let the committee weigh them with everything else in the record. But there is no need to produce a television spectacle.

Alas, the committee is reportedly negotiating the terms of Ford’s appearance, terms that would turn the proceedings into an even farcier farce. Ford’s side demands that Kavanaugh, the accused, should be made to testify first — before there is a sworn allegation against him. Then he is to be sequestered from the hearing room (maybe held in the Tower!) while Ford takes center stage; no committee lawyers allowed, no Republican retention of a savvy female litigator to cross-examine Ford — just the Senate’s old white guys, the better to generate made-for-TV footage for the Democrats’ upcoming “War on Women 2” election ads.

It couldn’t more patently be a political stunt.

Maybe Chairman Grassley and his colleagues will figure that out on Thursday. Or is it the next Thursday? Or the day after the midterms? . . .

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018...grassley-senate-judiciary-committee-chairman/

 

[Tom B]

 

[smallfil]

Grassley Sends Final Deadline for Kavanaugh Accuser’s Lawyers: 10 P.M. Friday
82

Mark Wilson/Getty Images
21 Sep 20181,039
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) set what he says is the final deadline Friday for Judge Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers to agree to have her testify at a hearing next week.

If Ford’s attorneys do not reach an agreement to one of the several options they have been offered for their client to tell her side of the story, Grassley will schedule a committee vote on Kavanaugh for Monday.

“Despite the fact that the July 30th letter remains hidden, my committee has been investigating the allegations and has heard from multiple witnesses since Sunday,” Grassley said in a statement to reporters after Ford’s attorneys, led by Democratic activist Deborah Katz, failed to respond first to a 10:00 a.m. deadline to agree to testify Monday and then a concession offer of 5:00 p.m. to testify Wednesday.

The statement continues:

Ms. Katz has discussed Dr. Ford’s allegations in numerous media interviews and said on TV Monday morning that Dr. Ford wants to share her account with the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s Friday night and nothing’s been agreed to despite our extensive efforts to make testimony possible. I’m extending the deadline for response yet again to 10 o’clock this evening. I’m providing a notice of a vote to occur Monday in the event that Dr. Ford’s attorneys don’t respond or Dr. Ford decides not to testify. In the event that we can come to a reasonable resolution as I’ve been seeking all week, then I will postpone the committee vote to accommodate her testimony. We cannot continue to delay.

Grassley’s move represents the firmest language yet that Senate Republicans have reached the end of their patience since Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh had groped her at a high school party more than 35 years ago threw the confirmation process into disarray last weekend. Grassley set a full public hearing under oath, only for Ford’s lawyers to repeatedly not agree to have their client testify.

In the intervening time, those lawyers have reportedly issued a fluid set of demands including excluding outside counsel from asking any questions at the hearing, having Ford not be required to appear in the same room as Kavanaugh, testifying in the opposite order of an actual trial with the accuser having the last word and the accused, Kavanaugh, having no opportunity to reply, and finally, Friday, claiming a further delay was needed because Ford was unwilling to board a plane for fear of confined spaces.

The Judiciary Committee also released the text of the previous offer, originally made with 5 p.m. deadline, that was put to Ford’s lawyers after they failed to meet the 10 a.m. deadline for the Monday hearing. “The Chairman has offered the ability for Dr. Ford to testify in an open session, a closed session, a public staff interview, and a private staff interview,” the offer letter explains. “The Chairman is even willing to fly female staff investigators to meet Dr. Ford and you in California, or anywhere else, to obtain Dr. Ford’s testimony.”

The letter goes on to refuse some of Ford’s lawyers’ most controversial demands:

Some of your other demands, however, are unreasonable and we are unable to accommodate them. You demanded that Judge Kavanaugh be the first person to testify. Accommodating this demand would be an affront to fundamental notions of due process.

…

You also demanded that only senators be permitted to ask questions of the witnesses. We are also unable to accommodate this demand. There is no rule of the Senate or the Committee that precludes staff attorneys from asking witnesses questions. We reserve the option to have female staff attorneys, who are sensitive to the particulars of Dr. Ford’s allegations and are experienced investigators, question both witnesses.

…

You demanded that the Committee issue subpoenas for the testimony of Mark Judge and other unidentified witnesses. The Committee is unable to accommodate this demand. The Committee does not take subpoena requests from witnesses as a condition of their testimony.

…

You demanded that the Committee call additional witnesses that Dr. Ford requests. We are unable to accommodate this demand. The Committee does not take witness requests from other witnesses.

The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, led by Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who withheld a letter detailing Ford’s account of her alleged sexual assault for more than six weeks, meanwhile issued a response admonishing Republicans for their handling of the situation. “[W]e are disheartened to see many of our colleagues in the majority have already made up their minds and begun to dismiss and diminish Dr. Ford’s experience,” the Democrats letter reads. “Up to this point, the Committee majority’s treatment of Dr. Ford has unquestionably been worse than the disgraceful treatment that Anita Hill received 27 years ago. We are better than this.”

Damn goal posts keep moving! How do you even win with a game stacked that high against you? Told Chuck Grassley that voters watching him with the midterm elections coming and that better be the last deadline! Sheesh! Liberals get everything handed to them on the silver platter! Like Donna Brazile giving Hillary Clinton the debate questions? Too many liberals including, these RINOs in Congress. That is why we have to drain the swamp!

 

[TreeFrogTrader]

Ginsburg groped by Abraham Lincoln?

Let the viewers decide.

You guys in the back who are laughing your arse off need to hold it down. That's not politically correct.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/us/politics/ginsburg-lincoln-groping-joke.html

 

[Optionpro007]

I stand with Brett Kavanaugh

By Andrea G. Bottner | Fox News

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Kavanaugh accuser granted another extension

Senator Grassley has granted Dr. Ford another day to decide whether to testify before the senate.

Who do you believe in a he said-she said situation?

For me, in this case, it’s easy. I stand with Brett Kavanaugh. I know Brett as a fantastic basketball coach, a mainstay at Sunday mass, a gentleman in social situations, an involved parent, and a good neighbor. I have watched him proudly guide my daughter’s basketball team through fantastic wins and heartbreaking losses, always exuding good sportsmanship. I have socialized with him and his wife through the years and always enjoy seeing their family.

Even if I didn’t have the opportunity to have met him personally, I would know him as someone with an impeccable public record. As a Judge, he has the respect of liberal and conservative legal scholars, he has held numerous high-level, sensitive governmental positions that required him to undergo intensive vetting procedures, he is a professor at a prestigious university, and currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. Overwhelmingly, those who know him well have said there is no way the Brett they know would have acted as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has alleged.

As someone who has spent a large part of my career at both the U.S. Department of State and Justiceworking with sexual assault and domestic violence survivors, I have extreme respect for every woman who speaks up about sexual wrongdoings they were victim to. I know how empowering it is to take back your dignity by releasing that dark secret. And, I believe Dr. Ford deserves to be heard and that this accusation should be taken in context with the weight of the evidence on both sides.

Sadly, too many people today seem to think that in a he said-she said situation, we should always believe the woman. That’s sexism, pure and simple. Our legal system requires much more than simply assigning blame based on gender. In fact, it requires that we assume someone is innocent until enough evidence is presented to convince us otherwise.

I say this even though I have welcomed the emergence of the #Me Too movement which has helped women come forward and speak about past abuse.#MeToo has made a huge impact on our society, revealing terrible abuses of women and men by those in some positions of power and helping bring them to justice.There has been great support shown for those speaking the truth and reclaiming their power.

What happens though when some aren’t speaking the truth?

Someone making false accusations can do immeasurable damage, particularly when gender is involved -- we now live in a world of assassination politics. People know that accusations will get attention, whether they are true or not and can be used for political ends.

Undoubtedly, many who are taking the side of the accuser today are doing so believing they are standing with a legitimate victim. Yet they should step back and ask themselves why they are signing letters attesting to the truthfulness of someone they do not know and who has alleged a three decades old crime with no substantiation. They cannot know the truth and do know this charge can destroy someone.

Women are in a difficult position in the age of #MeToo. We should applaud women who have the strength to come forward and tell their truth. But women should always form their own opinions after considering facts and never rush to judgment simply based on gender.

Andrea G. Bottner is Senior Advisor to Independent Women’s Forum, Founder of Bottner Strategies and former Acting Director of the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). Bottner has a personal connection to Brett Kavanaugh.