It’s all politics which means there are no easy answers on what to do

Let me start by explaining the basic framework. This is all politics. No one among the Democrat senators believes a word of Ford’s testimony. Not one of them would say a word were Kavanaugh a Democrat nominee. It is all show for the morons who vote for them. The disdain the Democrats have for their own voters is gigantic. They see them in the same way as I do: as low information, dumb beyond belief fools without a shred of common sense. They can see perfectly well that all of this has no other purpose but to make it harder for a government from the other party to govern. They want to pack the court with judges who will vote to do those things that cannot be done via a democratic legislative process. They understand perfectly well that they are trivialising accusations of rape. They comprehend without a shred of doubt that they are making the United States less governable. They can see without any hesitation that Ford is a stooge that has been put forward because the saps in their electorates across America eat all this up and hunger for more. They therefore do it because they enjoy the power this provides to them. They do it because they believe it will attract more voters than it will repel. They are making it as plain as day that they think their own constituency is ignorant and repulsive. But this is their line of work and if they are to keep their jobs, this is what they must do.

The Republicans think exactly the same – that Democrat voters are fools. And they know just as well as the Democrats that there is a proportion of the voting population that will make their vote depend on this and this alone. They understand rape is a terrible event in anyone’s life and would not nominate anyone if there were any genuine evidence that any of the accusations made against Kavanaugh are true. Aside from those members of their Senate caucus who prevented a majority vote from succeeding, they would have nevertheless taken the risk of the bad press that will follow when and if they confirm Kavanaugh’s nomination. They have a razor-thin majority in the Senate that can only survive a near-unanimous vote from their side of the aisle. They are counting on there being enough common sense and sound judgment left with the voting public to be able to succeed and retain the House and Senate majorities in November. They see the Democrat tactics for what they are.

As for the notion of sexual assault, to really believe that is the issue makes you so stupid that it is painful to see what nitwits politicians have to deal with routinely. Nowhere else have I found it so well put as here in a post at Powerline with the title, #COUNTMEOUT!.

I think the #MeToo “Movement” is the most dangerous movement since the KKK, which it resembles with its mob mentality. And, I speak with total moral authority because I am a woman, whose every squeak and whine is, therefore, “credible.” I can credibly accuse any male from my kindergarten, high school, college, or long-ago workplaces, of the most lurid crimes, with no corroboration or even dates of occurrence. They will be pronounced guilty by man-hating leftist women and their wussified, terrified, man-shaped consorts who are so generally-repulsive that their only chance at getting laid is to pretend to be “feminist.”

Even after Tawana Brawley, and Mattress Girl, the Duke LaCrosse team accusers, and the fraternity gang rape that never happened, after every poop swastika and banana peel in a tree, all men and most women feel they HAVE to give an obligatory genuflection to “but, of course, the #MeToo movement is an important and wonderful thing.” No. It is not.

It is a deadly cocktail of Professional Victimhood, Neo-Victorianism, the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials and the certainty of being found guilty of the Stalinist Show Trials. No man is safe, no matter how many decades go by, from being accused of sexual crimes. It is the weaponization of the fantasies or distorted accounts of minor, unprovable, or consensual sexual incidents redefined later by unhinged women.

The post then continues in the same vein which I would say really must be read, but if you are reading it here, would mean it will be read mostly by those who do not need to and never by those who need to. But read it anyway.

And then there is this from Mark Steyn.

I mentioned with Tucker the other night the condescension of Gentleman Jim Acosta, who airily presumes that, if you’re a woman, any woman, you believe the accuser and assume this Kavanaugh guy is a serial gang-rapist. That’s how it goes: Identity politics makes moron cultures of formerly sophisticated societies. So it was inevitable that when a picture from yesterday’s hearing popped up, of the judge with three females sitting behind him, the wankerati of Twitter immediately assumed that they were just three regular all-American women staring in disgust at the rape beast of Bethesda.

In fact, they were Kavanaugh’s wife, mother, and one of their dearest friends. And the reason they look like that is because they’re crushed and broken by what Dianne Feinstein, Blumenthal, Whitehouse and the other whatever-it-takes Democrats chose to do to them. It is a testament to the thoroughness with which these malign carbuncles on the body politic set about their task that, in a certain sense, one could forgive the Twitter mob its carelessness: Mrs Kavanaugh was all but unrecognizable from the woman who’d sat behind her husband just a fortnight ago. She was, indeed, a different person, and she will be for the rest of her life.

Dianne Feinstein did that to her, consciously. The Ranking Member is in a tricky position back home. She’s on the California ballot this November, but, having been outflanked on her left, she is not the official Democrat nominee. So she cannot afford to be insufficiently “progressive”, and thus concluded it was necessary to, in Kavanaugh’s words, “destroy” his family.

Nothing personal, just business.

And this too shall come to pass

All you young folks out there have almost certainly never heard of Norman Rockwell, but he was was among the greatest artists of my North American youth, mostly famous for his cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post, which was a weekly directed at us aspiring members of the bourgeoisie. (And as an aside, let me note I went looking at his work online because I was reading an article at QoL which might interest you as well). This is Rockwell’s painting, The Connoisseur. No one knows whether it is a tribute to Jackson Pollock or a parody. But whatever it is, the painting on the wall struck me as possibly the most riveting and appealing abstract painting I have come across so went searching to find out who had painted it, whether it was Pollack or Rockwell or someone else. This then is possibly the most fascinating part of all. From Norman Rockwell made fun of Jackson Pollock by painting the same way.

Called The Connoisseur, the painting is a mix of art criticism (this is what we’re forced to look at now!) and bravado (but I can do it too!). It mixes Jackson Pollock’s trademark drip painting with Rockwell’s trademark illustrations. Pollock, of course, famously painted with the canvas on the floor.

Pollock Drip Painting

The catch to Rockwell’s painting? He did it the same way.

Norman Rockwell Creating A Jackson Pollock Style Drip Painting

According to the Norman Rockwell Museum, Rockwell rearranged his entire studio in 1961. He painted the abstract image first, on the floor like Pollock, and then combined the man and Pollock in his final painting.

While we can’t be sure if Rockwell’s Pollock was parody or homage, we do have a hint. He submitted a section of the sample painting to an art exhibition and signed it with a fake Italian signature. He won the contest and earned a similar honorable mention by submitting as Percival at the Berkshire Museum. It sounds more like Banksy than Rockwell, and it shows the satiric side of the master of illustration.

As we get older we can dimly recognise the very different features of the world ahead that we will only see the first few elements of, but which for the young will be the world they grow up in. That world will in turn disappear before them as they too age. And what should strike you as you look at the painting is that even Jackson Pollock is now passé. His time has come, and also gone.

#COUNTMEOUT!

Nowhere else have I found it so well put: #COUNTMEOUT!.

I think the #MeToo “Movement” is the most dangerous movement since the KKK, which it resembles with its mob mentality. And, I speak with total moral authority because I am a woman, whose every squeak and whine is, therefore, “credible.” I can credibly accuse any male from my kindergarten, high school, college, or long-ago workplaces, of the most lurid crimes, with no corroboration or even dates of occurrence. They will be pronounced guilty by man-hating leftist women and their wussified, terrified, man-shaped consorts who are so generally-repulsive that their only chance at getting laid is to pretend to be “feminist.”

Even after Tawana Brawley, and Mattress Girl, the Duke LaCrosse team accusers, and the fraternity gang rape that never happened, after every poop swastika and banana peel in a tree, all men and most women feel they HAVE to give an obligatory genuflection to “but, of course, the #MeToo movement is an important and wonderful thing.” No. It is not.

It is a deadly cocktail of Professional Victimhood, Neo-Victorianism, the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials and the certainty of being found guilty of the Stalinist Show Trials. No man is safe, no matter how many decades go by, from being accused of sexual crimes. It is the weaponization of the fantasies or distorted accounts of minor, unprovable, or consensual sexual incidents redefined later by unhinged women.

And then continues in the same vein which I would say really must be read, but if you are reading it here, would mean it will be read only by those who do not need to. But read it anyway.

And then there is this from Mark Steyn.

I mentioned with Tucker the other night the condescension of Gentleman Jim Acosta, who airily presumes that, if you’re a woman, any woman, you believe the accuser and assume this Kavanaugh guy is a serial gang-rapist. That’s how it goes: Identity politics makes moron cultures of formerly sophisticated societies. So it was inevitable that when a picture from yesterday’s hearing popped up, of the judge with three females sitting behind him, the wankerati of Twitter immediately assumed that they were just three regular all-American women staring in disgust at the rape beast of Bethesda.

In fact, they were Kavanaugh’s wife, mother, and one of their dearest friends. And the reason they look like that is because they’re crushed and broken by what Dianne Feinstein, Blumenthal, Whitehouse and the other whatever-it-takes Democrats chose to do to them. It is a testament to the thoroughness with which these malign carbuncles on the body politic set about their task that, in a certain sense, one could forgive the Twitter mob its carelessness: Mrs Kavanaugh was all but unrecognizable from the woman who’d sat behind her husband just a fortnight ago. She was, indeed, a different person, and she will be for the rest of her life.

Dianne Feinstein did that to her, consciously. The Ranking Member is in a tricky position back home. She’s on the California ballot this November, but, having been outflanked on her left, she is not the official Democrat nominee. So she cannot afford to be insufficiently “progressive”, and thus concluded it was necessary to, in Kavanaugh’s words, “destroy” his family.

Nothing personal, just business.

“Advice and consent replaced by search and destroy”

I made it through until lunch, but with lunch 3:00 am here in Melbourne, I bailed out. Did not get to hear Kavanaugh himself in real time, but he actually says what needs to be said that virtually no one else has till now said. But he is dead on. You can also read some of the highlights here. Very powerful, and obviously true. If you have the time.

But what I did watch was the first half of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony. It was amazing to watch the Republican female lawyer cross-examination. Very slow build up on what she was getting at, since she could cross-examine only during a sequence of five-minute bites, but eventually you could see where she was going. Some of the bits that did ring true to me and show CBF a liar:

  • she flies everywhere – the statement that she did not want to fly, and therefore could not attend the hearing, is a complete lie
  • she denied ever having heard that the Committee had offered to fly out to see her in California if she didn’t wish to come to Washington
  • she was asked if she had discussed whether she should denounce Kavanaugh, she said that she had, but only with some “beach friends”, casual acquaintances who obviously cannot be found and examined
  • she had no sensible reason for having had a lie-detector test in July-August for reasons that could not be explained unless she was absolutely wishing to come forth and spike the nomination
  • she lived something like 6-8 miles from the country club and yet insists she ran out of the house after being assaulted but has no recollection of how she might have gotten home – and at 15, as she noted, she was not able to drive.

What I find quite interesting, but is never brought up since saying anything along these lines is verboten, is that she was a complete party girl; no shrinking flower. The notion that a random high school attack was so devastating that it has scarred her for life is improbable, to say the very least. The things you have to believe to be a Democrat! Sickening and depraved.

And PDT. Trump blasts ‘sham’ Senate hearing, tweets support for Kavanaugh.

President Trump showered praise on Judge Brett Kavanaugh moments after a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee into sexual assault claims against the Supreme Court nominee ended Thursday.

“Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him,” Trump tweeted. “His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting. Democrats’ search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!”

Kavanaugh and Ford at midnight tonight AEDT

Judge Kavanaugh and Professor Blasey Ford to Testify on Allegations

The Senate Judiciary Committee hears testimony from Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Professor Christine Blasey Ford about her allegations that Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while the two were teenagers.

  • Program Image
    9:45 AM EDT in the US 
  • In Australia it will be 11:45 pm AEDT, with the testimony to begin at midnight. Ladies first in the order of battle.

    Judge Brett Kavanaugh & Professor Christine Blasey Ford Testify

    The Senate Judiciary Committee hears testimony from Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Professor Christine Blasey Ford about her allegations that Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while the two were teenagers.

There are some very sick people out there

And by this I mean any Senator who takes seriously these accusations against Brett Kavanaugh. Twilight Zone, Kavanaugh’s observation, is hardly getting there. This is closer.

TRUMP: EVIL IS AT WORK

But the vile hatred and willingness to entertain obvious lies that ultimately debase our political system of free debate and open inquiry is so morally repulsive that one can only hope the result is a Republican tidal wave at the elections in November. Nothing else will purge the American political system of such madness. You might as well treat alien visitation as a genuine threat to national security, and there is plenty of evidence for that. Try this: Reasons to Believe How seriously should you take those recent reports of UFOs? Ask the Pentagon. Or read this primer for the SETI-curious.

But when, in December, the New York Times published an undisputed account of what might once have sounded like crackpot conspiracy theory — that the Pentagon had spent five years investigating “unexplained aerial phenomena” — the response among the paper’s mostly liberal readers, exhausted and beaten down by “recent events,” was markedly different from the one in those movies. The news that aliens might actually be visiting us, regularly and recently, didn’t provoke terror about a coming space-opera conflict but something much more like the Evangelical dream of the Rapture the same liberals might have mocked as kooky right-wing escapism in the George W. Bush years. “The truth is out there,” former senator Harry Reid tweeted, with a link to the story. Thank God, came the response through the Twitter vent. “Could extraterrestrials help us save the Earth?” went one typical reaction.

Suddenly, aliens were an escapist fantasy — but also more credible (legitimized by the government!) than mere fantasy. That Pentagon report, which featured two gripping videos of aerial encounters, was just one beat in a recent search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence (or SETI) drumroll: In October, an object passed through our solar system that looked an awful lot like a spaceship; astronomers spent much of 2016 arguing over whether the weird pulses of light coming from a distant star were actually evidence of an “alien megastructure.” An army of Silicon Valley billionaires are racing to make first contact, and our new superpowered telescopes are discovering more conceivably habitable planets every year.

This at least is mostly harmless.

UPDATE: From CNN even:

President Trump just wrapped a rare news conference — the 4th of his presidency, by CNN’s count — where he touched on a variety of topics.

Many questions were centered on his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who is facing allegations of sexual assault, and Trump’s time at the UN. Here are the biggest lines:

  • On the allegations against Kavanaugh: “And these are all false, to me. These are false accusations in certain cases, and certain cases even the media agrees with that.”
  • On Democrats’ handling of the Kavanaugh conformation process: “They’re actually con artists, because they know how quality this man is, and they have destroyed a man’s reputation.”
  • On the possibility he could change his mind about Kavanaugh: “They’re giving the women a major chance to speak. Now it’s possible I’ll hear that and say hey I’m changing my mind. Hey, that’s possible.”
  • On assault allegations he has faced personally: “I was accused by, I believe it was four women… who got paid a lot of money to make up stories about me,” Trump said as he continued to blast the media for repeating the allegations.

Everyone else checks the latest polling before they say a word. PDT just says what he thinks, and what he thinks is almost always the right answer.

A COMPLETE CIRCUS: Now this, from Instapundit.

THURSDAY WILL BE BONKERS: Bombshell: Man Tells Judiciary Committee He Did It, Not Kavanaugh.

On the Road to Washington

All the pictures of her that I’ve seen show someone in their early twenties, or so it seems to me. It may actually be how she looks today in reality that will be quite telling. Juanita Brodderick has aged since she was attacked by Bill Clinton in the 1970s which may make the association with her rape accusation seem less plausible than it actually is. In the vid, however, there Christine is, a bit aged and befuddled, perhaps the consequences of her alcoholic past and who knows what else given her California home.

The woman is also supposed to be an adult, a similar age to someone old enough to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. Maturity, however, does not appear to be one of her strengths.

There is then, of course, Kavanaugh’s calendar, discussed here. This is August, 1982.

kavanaugh kalendar

Every movie and party he went to, but no beach house and no Christine.

PDT at the UN

I sat up to watch PDT at the UN last night and it was epic. You might have thought he was running to be President of the World, and in many ways he was. But he was also trying to influence his own Congressional elections in November. The video goes for an hour but the speech itself only goes 35 minutes, and is worth every second. In essence, there are a lot of bad guys out there but we will do everything we can to stop them. Meanwhile, the US is going great guns. Not everyone will hear it that way, but that to me is what he said. You can see the official summary here if you don’t have time to watch it through.

A masterclass in dealing with the left

It’s not over yet, but so far you’d have to say that PDT has provided an example of how to deal with the left and its insane media corp of liars. Give ’em enough rope, etc. Plenty of rope, and a genuine possibility that they have overreached themselves. There is no denying that half of the American population is itself now entirely out of its mind, and care not a jot whether any of it is actually true, but are content to use any means to achieve an end. And what an end: the preservation of abortion as an absolute right through until the ninth month of pregnancy. If there is anything else that matters, no one seems to have brought it up. So where are we now? First from Drudge.

CHRISTINE GETTING COLD FEET? 

Along with this.

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…
BUCHANAN: Huge stakes of Thursday’s confrontations…
WASH POST PAGE ONE: Fight takes on symbolism in divided era…
YALE cancels classes to accommodate protests…

Not to mention this.

FLASHBACK: Obama speechwriter photographed groping Hillary Clinton likeness.

Nor this.

We are dealing with lying nutters. If a self-governing democracy is the ideal, it will only work with a population that shows prudential caution when others make decisions they do not happen to agree with. As for advice on how to respond to the vile attacks on his name and reputation, there was this advice following from Kavanaugh’s interview on Fox News.

I would have liked to see Kavanaugh go after the two women who are lying about him–I think there is little chance that they believe the tales they are peddling–but realistically, that job will fall to others when Kavanaugh and Ford, assuming she shows up, testify on Thursday.

Kavanaugh’s testimony will only be relevant insofar as viewers are convinced he is telling the truth. If he comes across as he did tonight, I think a large majority will believe him. Meanwhile, Judge Kavanaugh may want to review tapes of Clarence Thomas’s Judiciary Committee testimony. As I recall, Thomas put on a master class in how to respond to Democratic Party smears.

And back then, even some Democrats voted for Thomas. That will not happen again for a Republican nominee for a long long time to come.