Author: Frank Yacenda

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Illiberal Liberals

Illiberal Liberals

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I’m increasingly reminded how very illiberal many liberals are. This used to be a relatively rare occurrence, but in the age of Trump, and with the liberal affliction of Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS, reaching epidemic proportions, it’s happening pretty much all the time now.

There are unmistakable signs of this illiberal bent in all sorts of places, but every so often it takes on a personal dimension. Yesterday was one of those occasions. As many of you know, I regularly post my pieces on Medium, a site that supposedly promotes propagation and discussion of all different viewpoints. I say “supposedly,” because like most of social media, like Facebook and Twitter, if your views are liberal they get pushed, and if they’re not, they get buried, banned, shadow banned, or just ignored. I’ve read utter drivel on a variety of subjects, but with a liberal perspective, on Medium that get lauded (approvals are registered by “claps” by readers) with thousands and thousands of claps. Other posters and pieces – and I know this sounds like sour milk, but I do my best to base my postings on actual facts and not just figments of my paranoia or imagination – such as myself and my postings, not of a liberal tilt, are lucky to even get any readers. In general, if Medium promotes a piece, it gets exposure. If it doesn’t get promoted, one might as well throw a piece down a well, and it doesn’t matter how much sense it makes or how well informed it is.

Which takes me back to my story about the personal dimension of liberal illiberality I encountered yesterday. One of Medium’s promo emails, which list several postings site editors view as especially worthy of promotion, included a link that tied back to some piece of (I use the term loosely) poetry that, in less than subtle terms, accused the President of treason for some connection with Putin, which it seems the poster took as fact. It was, I don’t know, about five lines long, and wasn’t even good poetry. Never mind that it contained no evidence or even theory for what would normally qualify as a slanderous allegation, it was enough that this “poet” believed it. And, of course, in true Medium form, he had all sorts of sycophantic clappers. Yea! Great work! Right. Well, not being terribly judicious, I had to say something, so I posted a very simple response, which I think was in keeping with the style and depth of the original posting. What I said was, “Seriously? I mean, seriously???”

Well, next thing I know the poster did what liberals often do when confronted with something they don’t like. He blocked me. He didn’t argue against me. He didn’t ask my reason for posting what I did. He didn’t call me a nasty name, which at least would have been an honest thing to do. He just did the cowardly thing and blocked me, like I was some sort of stalker (believe me, I’m not) or threat to his life or safety (as many so called “liberals” actually are with those with whom they disagree). I’ve been online since the early days of the Internet, and even being the direct and sometimes controversial person I tend to be, I make a point of being reasoned and not engage in ad hominum attacks, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been blocked. And even most of those few times have been by disgruntled former girlfriends. But there you have it – this über-liberal and would-be poet couldn’t handle just four words of dissent with his ill-founded views.

I mean, me, I welcome disagreement. Of course, I love it when someone agrees with me, but I’d rather have someone disagree and say why then just ignore what I say, or do something gutless like blocking me. I’m not afraid of argument or dissent, and I have the facts to back up my positions. I’m even willing to admit when I’m wrong, which happens on rare occasions. Which I guess is part of liberals’ cowardice, because they often don’t base their positions on fact and simply can’t admit when they are wrong.

What happened yesterday isn’t an aberration, either. I have found almost universally it is so-called liberals who are quick to cut off contact when one utters something that diverges from their orthodoxy. This all began for me a few years ago when my oldest friend in the world, a besty since high school in the 1960s, decided I wasn’t liberal enough for him and he cut off contact after more than a half-century of friendship, 50-plus years of putting up with each other’s idiosyncrasies. In doing so, he accused me of having “changed“ in my views over the years. Funny that, which doesn’t seem like a crime to me, but funnier because it was said to someone who doesn’t really believe most people can or do change, not much. But not being afraid of dialogue, I wrote back and recounted all the key beliefs I held in high school – how I valued the individual and individual freedom, being paramount among them – and how I still was true to them. I also pointed out to him, inter alia, how he supported bombing the North Vietnamese back to the Stone Age, a not terribly liberal view, in those days. That aside, the point I was trying to make was, while we might disagree in our views, our values, I thought, were pretty similar.

Notice the distinction that I made between “views” and “values.” Views come and go. Values endure. That’s how I see it, anyway. Well, there were two values I guess we didn’t share – engaging in reasoned argument, and the value of friendship – because he never responded. Not then. Not since. After all, he’s a liberal, right, and I’m some sort of lesser person because I’m not. Speak of a holier-than-thou attitude, the hallmark of a hypocrite.

If truth be told, even during the many years when I was sympathetic to supposedly liberal causes and beliefs, I’ve always detested the word liberal. The reason was that it seemed to be a cop out, and people who claimed to be liberals were usually half-assed and didn’t really live by liberal values. I’d rather an honest radical – in some respects, I’m closer to that, radical, than liberal – than a wishy-washy liberal.

So now we’re seeing these self-styled liberals showing their true colors. If the facts don’t comport with their world view, they just change them, or make them up. If they don’t like someone, it’s easier to call them a name than look at their own hatreds and prejudices. The inconsistencies and downright fraud perpetrated on them by their appointed heroes doesn’t seem to phase them, but if someone they don’t like, or are told not to like, is the least bit inconsistent or less than honest, they’re all over him or her like a rash.

This tendency, of course, is most evident when it comes to the President and TDS. These so-called liberals, led by the liberal stoolies in the mass media, are like a pack of rabid jackals. It’s gotten to the point where school kids are bullied for just having the name Trump, so much that they’re driven to want to change their name. And what do they get back? A bunch of ineffectual (though undoubtedly liberal) coping techniques from someone who, if thinly disguised, clearly shares the same view of the President that has led to this hapless kid being bullied (I’m somewhat qualified to comment on what does or doesn’t work with bullies, by the way, having been bullied relentlessly in grade school and even after).

I actually heard someone in the media today say that not only is Trump bad, but anyone who voted for him is equally bad. This is the kind of intolerance, not to mention ignorance, that is gaining traction in so-called liberal quarters.

I’m not so doctrinaire or limited in my view to accuse all liberals of this illiberal behavior, and I do recognize there still are some reasonable liberals with whom one can have a civil disagreement or discussion. That said, in my experience and observation, they are increasingly in the minority. They certainly are not the ones who are in a position to control either social or mass media. And they are not at all on the ascendancy.

If this were an earlier century, I have no doubt that many of these illiberal liberals would be happy to put anyone who disagreed with them into the village stocks and have the general populous hurl rotten vegetables at them. Or worse. Much worse. Now, we get ridiculed or bullied or blocked, as I was by that would-be poet on Medium, or by my erstwhile friend. But as is said, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I do wonder what these illiberal liberals would do if they were to get absolute power. Given all the signs, it’s not encouraging.

Image by Hasan Almasi Unsplash
The Pretense Is Over

The Pretense Is Over

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We had an election this week but it would be hard to recognize that. Whether in the media or in the streets, in the halls of Congress or even in the counting rooms of electoral officials, one side seems unable to swallow the results of the voting, which didn’t turn out as it had hoped and been promised. And now, in the aftermath, the pretense of civility, as thin as it might have been, has been cast aside and the true colors of the left are out in the open for all to see.

The left had been expecting a blue wave, a massive Democratic renunciation of the current administration and all that it stands for, and instead the voters returned what, at best, might be termed a blue ripple. While the Dems took control of the House of Representatives – which the party out of the White House does more often than not in off-year elections – it was by a much thinner margin than they had been expecting. Meanwhile, the Republicans deepened their control of the Senate, something that historically has happened only a handful of times in off-year elections, and which in real political terms is far more significant than control of the House.

Even more galling to the Dems was that Republican candidates who had embraced and been embraced by the President did better than the ones who didn’t, to the point where voters cast out such Democratic stalwarts as Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Joe Donnelly in Indiana in favor of Trump-backed candidates. While it wasn’t a big surprise that Heidi Heitkamp, who had angered North Dakota voters by her vote against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, was soundly defeated – just as fellow Democrat Joe Manchin, who had voted in favor of Kavanaugh, was returned to the Senate in West Virginia – the loss of Missouri and Indiana came as a bigger shock.

Apparently, though, it wasn’t enough to simply respect the will of the people and lick one’s wounds and wait for the next election year. Instead, Dems are resorting to some of their old, tried-and-true ways, in places as diverse as Florida, Arizona, and Georgia. The idea, unspoken but obvious by the tactics being employed, is if you can’t win an election you do your best to steal it. We’ll get to that a little later in this piece, but there are more egregious assaults on our democracy under way at present I think need to be discussed first.

Antifa, that group of anarchists that bills itself as anti-fascist but actually embodies and practices fascist tactics, has escalated its violent and confrontational actions to target commentators and journalists it doesn’t approve of. On Wednesday night, an Antifa mob descended on the Washington home of Fox News personality Tucker Carlson. They threatened Carlson and his wife – fortunately their four children were not in the house at the time – vandalized their home and car, blocked off streets, and yelled about pipe bombs.

“Tucker Carlson, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night!” the mob chanted.

The group’s Twitter feed – which Twitter has yet to take down – carries the same threat in a sticky post, and the group used a practice known as “doxxing” to publish the addresses of conservative commentators Carlson, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and others. Meanwhile, left-wing commentators refuse to concede that the attack on Carlson’s home was staged by a “mob,” calling it instead a “protest.” Some protest. Meanwhile, this kind of threatening behavior has become a commonplace as so-called “protesters” drive public figures from restaurants and other public places, egged on by no less than members of Congress, most notably California Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

Building on the neo-fascist theme, if you weren’t locked in a bank vault all day today, you heard the phrase, “This was a glass-breaking moment,” or some version thereof, repeated over and over, ad nauseum, by the parrots of the mainstream media, as well as by some politicians. Ostensibly what they were referring to was the President’s decision to replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General with Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’ chief of staff, who will be filling the post on an acting basis. Never mind that the ones using this expression are the same people who criticized Sessions and his initial appointment as AG. Apparently consistency has nothing to do with it when politics are concerned (I already discussed the whole issue of hypocrisy among the Dems, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it).

The real issue, though, isn’t consistency or its lack. The real issue concerns the utterly and irretrievably disgusting use of that phrase, “glass-breaking moment,” on the exact 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht – Crystal Night or, as it is otherwise known, the Night of Broken Glass, one of the darkest times in all of recorded human history. It was the night of November 9-10, 1938, when German paramilitary forces and civilians launched a massive pogrom against Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. The exact number killed is not known, though it is estimated in the hundreds, and 267 synagogues were destroyed along with 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses that were damaged or destroyed. Additionally, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Kristallnacht, that Night of Broken Glass, is marked as the beginning of the Holocaust. And it is to this monumental atrocity that these despicable excuses for human beings compare the firing of Jeff Sessions. Given the lockstep lack of originality among most in the media, one has to assume that this choice of phrase was carefully chosen on this specific day. The inescapable question is, now, who are the real anti-Semites?

And just when we thought it was impossible to stoop any lower, Senator Richard Blumenthal, that notorious liar from Connecticut, himself said that this was a glass-breaking moment, this action that is every bit the right of any President, to change members of his cabinet. Let’s not for even the scintilla of a second forget that Blumenthal is Jewish, and Blumenthal’s father fled Nazi Germany for the United States when he was 17 to protect his very life from the evil that had taken over Germany. And now his son was reducing all that to a glib political sound bite. Again, do we have to ask who the real anti-Semites are?

It’s hard to swallow my disgust over all this, but I will hold it down so we can get back to the electoral shenanigans I mentioned higher up in the piece. I saved these for last since, as bad as they are, I think the other things mentioned are even more serious and, as newer developments, pose an even bigger threat to our democratic institutions and way of life. Not that the integrity of our elections isn’t important, since it is, but the threat to electoral integrity is part of our history, considering how many dead Democrats have come out of their graves to vote over the years in various parts of the realm.

Anyway, in my own state of Florida, Congressman Ron DeSantis came out on top Tuesday over his radical opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, in what can only be described as a squeaker of a vote tally in the governor’s race, with less than 1 percent separating them. And Governor Rick Scott defeated long-time Democratic incumbent Senator Bill Nelson by an even more narrow margin in the senatorial contest, within the half a percent needed to trigger a machine recount in the Sunshine State. While Scott declared victory late on election night, even without Nelson’s concession, Gillum later actually conceded to DeSantis. Well, that was until those trusty stalwarts of Democratic electoral shenanigans, the Broward and Palm Beach county elections supervisors, took over. And their actions have thrown both key races into turmoil.

Most people in the country above the age of 21 remember the hanging-chad controversy of Palm Beach County that held up results of the 2000 presidential election for weeks. While those events predated the current elections supervisor, Susan Bucher, Bucher seems to be prepared to continue the tradition. And not to be outdone, Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes has a long history of issues going back through her 14 years in the position. Delayed counts, misplaced and missent ballots, and misprinted and destroyed ballots have been chronic issues and have led to several law suits filed against her over the years.

The most recent law suit, filed by Scott against Snipes since Tuesday’s election, has in just the past couple of hours gone against Snipes. Broward Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips found in Scott’s favor, saying in her ruling, “This court finds once again Broward County is under the microscope and being viewed by the entire nation. Hearing argument, this court finds that there has been a violation of the Florida Constitution, the Florida statute public records act and pursuant to the applicable case law.”

The question is whether the problems afflicting the count in Broward and Palm Beach are the result of corruption or incompetence. As the other Florida Senator, Marco Rubio, noted, the kindest judgment would be to say they are the result of incompetence. But after years of repetitive issues, that judgment might be far more kind than is justified. Even incompetents can show some sign of a learning curve.

Meanwhile, counting issues persist in the U.S. senatorial contest in Arizona between Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. You might recall that Sinema was telling people it was okay to join the Taliban while McSally was fighting combat missions over, among other places, Afghanistan, and also successfully suing the Defense Department over its policy requiring U.S. servicewomen while stationed in Saudi Arabia to wear the abaya when off-duty. In any case, three days after the polls closed Tuesday, some 600,000 ballots remain to be counted, mainly in Maricopa and Pima counties, home of Phoenix and Tuscon, respectively, both Democratic strongholds. And ballots continue to turn up in unlikely places. How can this be, one asks? Incompetence, or corruption? There is that great choice again.

In yet another hotly contested race, the Georgia governor’s race — you will remember this as the race that Oprah weighed in on, in support of Democrat Stacy Abrams — votes continue to be counted, too (are we seeing a repetitive common thread here?), and those pesky missing votes continue to show up. So far Republican Brian Kemp holds a narrow lead over Abrams, and if Kemp’s tally stays above 50% he will avoid a run-off election as called for by Georgia law. But days after polls closed, the counting (and vote finding) goes on. And now CNN has come out with a piece by Van Jones (now there‘s an impartial observer) urging Abrams not to let Kemp steal the election. So much for journalistic balance. But that’s a whole other subject.

We keep hearing from the Dems how they want every vote to count, but it seems the votes they want to count are those favoring their candidates. Disenfranchisement through extralegal and illegal means doesn’t seem to matter to them, except when its their candidates affected. As Nelson’s chosen attorney, Marc Elias – the attorney who retained Fusion GPS on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign to produce the infamous and largely bogus “dossier” that had Trump peeing on a bed in Moscow – said, he didn’t come to Florida for a recount but rather to see Nelson elected.

With all this going on, one has to ask who needs Russians to meddle in our elections when Americans are doing a perfectly respectable job of mucking things up on their own?

I don’t know about you, gentle reader, but all this continues to leave me deeply troubled, and things stay on course in a very negative direction. Negative, and scary.

Historical Footnote and Disclaimer: I know Bill Nelson personally from when I was a reporter in Brevard County, Fla., in the 1980s and he was a congressman, and I can’t imagine how anyone in their right mind could vote for this guy. There, I said it.

 

Crazies on the Left, Whackos on the Right
Crazies to the Left of Me, Whackos to the Right, Here I Am, Stuck in the Middle

Crazies to the Left of Me, Whackos to the Right, Here I Am, Stuck in the Middle

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Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you

                                                                                          — Stuck In the Middle With You, Stealers Wheel

Do you increasingly get the feeling that this country has gone mad? I mean, really mad? I’ll come right out and say it: I do.

Just look at the events of the last week or so. First we have some whacko in Miami sending out pipe bombs all over the country. And then, with those events still occupying the news, we get some other crazy who goes into a synagogue in Pittsburgh and kills 11 people at a baby-naming ceremony. Either of these events would be deplorable enough on its own and one would think all Americans of right mind would stand together to reject them. But no, not in the current frenetic environment, where everything it seems has to have a political interpretation put on it.

While the pipe-bomb thing was going on every shade of political spin was put on it. The Left said it was Trump’s fault, while the Right hypothesized that it might be some Democrat trying to discredit the Republicans in advance of the mid-term elections. And then, in the aftermath of the synagogue shooting, once more the Left said it was all Trump’s fault while Trump condemned the violence in the strongest terms and somewhere in the clamor calmer minds learned that the killer couldn’t stand Trump and was just some garden-variety loner anti-Semite.

These dichotomous reactions, disturbingly, are becoming pretty reliably predictable. To the Left, of course, everything bad that happens, without exception, is Trump’s fault. This includes some misguided whacko sending out pipe bombs, a crazed anti-Semitic mass murderer targeting innocent people, category 4 hurricanes, rising sea levels, Russians showing up in jack boots at U.S. polling places, and – if it ever comes to pass – Martians landing in New Jersey. It’s not a misnomer when this is called Trump Derangement Syndrome. And on the Right all blame rests with the Democrats and that misleadingly labeled sub-set, the Progressives, whom they say are the real instigators of violence in the country.

Amid this national insanity I somehow, and somewhat unexpectedly, find myself in what arguably remains identifiable as the Middle. I guess I can say it’s the Middle if I find myself condemning violence of any ilk, whether advocated or carried out by anyone of any political persuasion. I guess I can say it’s the Middle if I keep troubling myself with seeking out the facts and not relying on the blather that increasingly marks what one gets told in the mass media. And I guess I can say it’s the Middle if I still value discourse and reasoned debate and don’t go willy-nilly cutting people off because I disagree with them.

Actually, I think I’ve inherited this Middle because all the other shades of middleness receded around it. Mostly this has been the Left moving far away, indeed, in that direction. And the Right, while not moving all that much, taking up something of a fortress position in its direction to defend against the war parties of the Left. While before one could say one was in the mainstream to be in the Middle, lately it feels pretty darned lonely here on this shrinking island.

The divisions brought out by the two big news events of the last week didn’t end with just hurling accusations and inuendo back and forth. No, they go far beyond that. And – I have to say it – mostly the more extreme divisiveness is originating on the Left. For instance, since when has it become acceptable to spurn the President of the United States and shout out insults at him? What has happened to the idea that, even if we don’t like the occupant of the office, we respect the office of President? I was no fan of Barrack Obama or his policies, but I can’t imagine that if he invited me to the White House (spoiler alert: He never did) I wouldn’t have gone. Or, if he came to visit some group I was part of, I wouldn’t have welcomed him. That’s called respect for the office of the President. One can even say it’s common courtesy. But all that has gone out the window when White House invitations regularly are now spurned, whether by athletes, performers, or business people.

But wait, it gets worse. In the aftermath of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the President said he was going to visit the scene of the worst act of anti-Semitism in U.S. history. It’s hard to imagine that he would not do this. It’s equally hard to imagine how he would not have been roundly criticized if he didn’t. But then he’s criticized for actually going, spurned by members of the congregation, and greeted by thousands of organized demonstrators loudly hurling insults at him. Is this the madness America has descended into? At least Rabbi Jeffrey Meyers, whose congregation it was that was attacked, in the end did the right thing and met with the President and First Lady.

“I welcome him as an American. He is the president,” Myers told the Washington Post before the visit. “I chose to take the polite and respectful path.”

Exactly.

Myers had some other words of wisdom to offer. Speaking to his congregation after the killings, he said, “Words of hate are unwelcome in Pittsburgh. It starts with everyone in this room, and I want to address for a moment some of our political leaders who are here. Ladies and gentlemen, it has to start with you as our leaders. Stop the words of hate. My mother always taught me, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing.’ If it comes from you Americans will listen.”

Well, I don’t know how much Americans are listening. Or maybe they are, as the rhetoric of our so-called leaders becomes more and more vitriolic and inciting. There is little talk of unity, of mending fences, of coming together first and foremost as Americans. Instead, every trait, both mutable and immutable, seems to have become a point of division. It goes beyond the political divisions, and encompasses race, sex, religion, class, income, even age, with one group pitted against another, each individual set against every other individual. This divisiveness didn’t start in the age of Trump, but it certainly has not abated, either.

It seems not that long ago when we could be classified as a net-gain society. A gain made by some could be seen as a gain by all. When did we become a net-loss society, when a gain by some becomes a loss to everyone else? It feels like that’s where we are now, and have been for much of this century. It’s more than sad. It marks a fundamental change in our previously optimistic society. And it will be hard to turn it around.

Is this really where we want to be? Is this as good as it gets and it’s all downhill from here?

Well, there’s still some room in the Middle, and I’m going to do my best to cling to this shrinking island and hope the crazies and whackos don’t overwhelm it. Are there any other resistors and residents of the Middle out there? If so, please make your presence known.

Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh
Why It’s Become Impossible to Vote for Democrats

Why It’s Become Impossible to Vote for Democrats

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I consider myself an independent. To my recollection, I have never registered with any party in the half century in which I have been voting. For many years I felt my journalistic ethics prevented me from choosing one party over another. More recently, my frustrations with the various parties and the state of the American political system in general have continued to make it difficult to cast my lot with any one party.

Over the years I have voted for what I felt was the better candidate. In my younger years that usually, but by no means always, translated to the Democratic candidate. In more recent years, as my views evolved and the Democratic Party seemed to stray further and further from my values, my choices more commonly translated to voting for the Republican candidate. And in between and occasionally, despairing of both major parties, I have voted for the Libertarian candidate, who often has represented my views best even knowing there was virtually no chance that candidate would be elected.

Now, while I still won’t identify as a Republican, after Thursday’s travesty in the Senate Judiciary Committee and seeing the despicable, dishonest, and blatantly political behavior of the 10 Democratic senators on the committee, I believe it has become impossible for me to vote for any Democratic candidate, in any race, in any locale, ever. I don’t like using words like “evil” when it comes to political behavior, but what I witnessed on the tube during the grilling of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by the Democratic senators I feel qualifies as just that – evil. What’s more, I cannot see how any right-thinking, fair person of good will could ever support or vote for one of those people or support a party that would orchestrate – as was absolutely clear was the case – such a display of utter mindless political barbarity. Certainly not me. As of Thursday afternoon, I’m out.

A big part of my antipathy stems from my feelings on hypocrisy. I’ve never been able to stomach hypocrisy, regardless the party or source from which it stemmed. But it was hard to hold down my lunch observing the unbridled hypocrisy on display on the Democratic side of the committee dais.

Here is how Merriam-Webster defines hypocrisy:

“a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel

“especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion ”

Let’s run down the list of the most egregious cases of hypocrisy on display Thursday:

  • Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California, Ranking Member of the Minority. Feinstein received the letter from accuser Christine Blasey Ford in July and sat on in for two months. She did not mention it to the committee or committee chairman, she did not mention it to Judge Kavanaugh in her meeting with him, she did not request an FBI or any other kind of investigation of it, and she did not mention it at any point during the intensive confirmation hearings Judge Kavanaugh went through. Instead, she waited until after the process was completed and the appointment was set to go to a vote, and then suddenly she produced the letter, demanded an FBI investigation, and claimed she hadn’t gone public with it to protect Ms. Blasey Ford’s privacy (this is a whole other can of worms, but we’ll get to that a bit later in this posting). The Senate should censure Feinstein for the outrageous way she handled the whole matter.
  • Richard Blumenthal, Senator from Connecticut. Watching Blumenthal challenging Kavanaugh was, to put it politely, revolting. This fraud repeatedly lied about his military record during the Vietnam War, referring on several times during his electoral campaign to his service in Vietnam and what it was like coming back home from the war. The only problem with that was that Blumenthal never served in Vietnam. After receiving five draft deferments, and with conscription closing in on him, he enlisted in the Marine Reserve, meaning he was safe and sound in the U.S. and would never see combat, nor anything else, in Vietnam. Without faulting him for staying out of a war many people, including this author, sought to steer clear of, the issue is with how he deliberately lied and misconstrued his military service. His lies (which he explained by saying he had “misspoken”) were revealed by The New York Times, which noted that, while he had uttered them so many times they had become part of the news record in Connecticut, “It does not appear that Mr. Blumenthal ever sought to correct those mistakes.” Blumenthal at the time was the attorney general of the Nutmeg State, which would seem to carry a high bar for integrity. Blumenthal clearly lacked, and lacks, that integrity. Regardless, we can lay the blame for sending this fraud to the Senate on the voters of Connecticut, who elected him despite the falsehoods he plied on them. As is said, we get the government we deserve. Or, in this case, even less.
  • Mazie Hirono, Senator from Hawaii. This is another senator that makes one wonder how the voters of her state could ever send such a low figure to the Senate. Hirono showed her sexism last week with her own words, which I hope are henceforth always tied to her: “Guess who’s perpetuating all of these kind of actions? It’s the men in this country. And I just want to say to the men in this country: Just shut up and step up.” That was bad enough, but it wasn’t the only thing Hirono said or did that underscores Hirono’s hypocrisy. She actually sent out a fundraising email 30 minutes into Blasey Ford’s testimony before the committee, seeking to garner donations for her political campaign off the back of someone she believed suffered sexual assault. When the faux pas was realized, Hirono’s crack team sent out a second email apologizing for the first one, saying any funds raised would be donated to “organizations helping survivors of sexual assault.”
  • Dick Durbin, Senator from Illinois. Now what can we say about “Dirty Dick,” a serial liar, or the voters who keep sending him back to the Senate? Dick Durbin is going to question someone’s veracity? Really? One can’t make these things up.
  • Kamala Harris, Senator from California. Harris distinguishes herself by browbeating and rudely speaking over white men giving testimony. She did this last year with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then Homeland Security Secretary and later the President’s Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly, and NSA Director Mike Rogers, and she did it again Thursday with Brett Kavanaugh. Harris, who has presidential aspirations, is known for protecting prosecutorial misconduct when she was California Attorney General, and while she is quick to criticize sexual harassment, she got her start and some cushy jobs as the 29-year-old mistress of Willie Brown, the married 60-year-old mayor of San Francisco who was then overseeing what is viewed as one of that city’s most corrupt administrations. There is so much corrupt and hypocritical about Harris one could write an entire piece, but we’ll let it go at this for now. As for the voters who sent Harris to Washington, she has said California is the future of the country. Let’s hope not.

While all the Democrats, as well as the Republicans, on the committee showed the highest respect for Ms. Blasey Ford – as well they should have – once it was Judge Kavanaugh’s turn to be heard, the Democrats turned into a pack of jackals, attacking him, challenging his veracity, asking him the most banal and minute questions about when he was a high school student, and demanding repeatedly that he call for an FBI investigation of himself and the allegations. Kavanaugh for his part called the Democrats’ actions for what they were, a “calculated and coordinated political hit.”

The irony of the Democrats’ clearly orchestrated campaign meant that any chance of a fair hearing for either Blasey Ford or Kavanaugh was lost. Even if one was persuaded to believe Blasey Ford, it was impossible to take her testimony out of the context of the Dems intent to derail Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. And that same intent to derail his candidacy meant there was no fair chance given to Kavanaugh or his rebuttal of the accusations made against him, and he was forced into the impossible position of having to prove a negative. I’m inclined to think raising his voice and crying while making his statement, and later his growing belligerence at the Dems’ questions, didn’t enhance Kavanaugh’s position, but neither did it give us any real insights into the veracity or lack thereof in his statements.

Repeatedly we heard how Blasey Ford had made a compelling and credible presentation, but I’m sorry, I heard nothing of substance from her that we didn’t already know. She still was unable to state exactly where this alleged attack took place, how she got to or from the house in question (which the Arizona prosecutor, Andrea Mitchell, that the Republican senators relied on to question Blasey Ford and, at least at the outset, Kavanuagh, established was some 7 miles from Blasey Ford’s home), or the names of any other parties who could have corroborated her allegations. I don’t usually like to agree with political commentator Dick Morris, but I have to concur with his assessment of Blasey Ford as a “very damaged woman.” While something at some time somewhere might have happened to her, it was not at all clear that it was what she has accused Brett Kavanaugh of doing. I come back to my contention in my previous posting that we might never know what did, or did not, happen between Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh, and for someone to pretend they do know is absurd.

Perhaps the most contentious and most questionable issue concerns Feinstein’s insistence that she had not shared Blasey Ford’s accusations when she first received them in July because Blasey Ford wanted to maintain her anonymity. Yet Blasey Ford was attempting to share her accusations with the Washington Post, and eventually she shared those and her therapist’s notes with the Post as well. Now let’s say you wanted to preserve your privacy. Wouldn’t the Washington Post be the place you’d go to do that? Blasey Ford also acknowledged that her attorneys, Debra Katz and Michael Bromwich – both, especially Katz, strongly supportive of Democrats and Democratic causes – had been recommended to her by Feinstein’s staffers. While Bromwich said they were working pro bono, during one break Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was caught on video handing a cash-sized envelope to Bromwich, who promptly put it into his jacket pocket. What was in that envelope, we wonder?

Until this week I have not been a huge fan of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. But it was Graham who finally broke the tedium of Mitchell’s questioning of Kavanaugh and spoke out, just as the Democrats had had an opportunity to do, and called out the Democrats’ thinly veiled attempt at destroying Kavanaugh’s nomination, as well as his reputation.

Addressing Kavanaugh, Graham asked, “Are you aware that at 9:23 on the night of July the 9th, the day you were nominated to the Supreme Court by President Trump, Sen. [Chuck] Schumer [Senate Minority Leader] said – 23 minutes after your nomination – ‘I will oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have and I hope a bipartisan majority will do the same. The stakes are simply too high for anything less.’ Well, if you weren’t aware of it, you are now.”

Then addressing committee Democrats, Graham bellowed, “If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come to us. What you want to do is destroy this guy’s life, hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020. You said that – not me!”

Speaking again to Kavanaugh, Graham said, “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. When you see [justices] Sotomayor and Kagan, tell them Lindsey said ‘hello,’ ’cause I voted for them. I would never do to them what you’ve [the Democrats] done to this guy. This is the most unethical – sham – since I’ve been in politics. And if you really wanted to know the truth, you sure as hell wouldn’t have done what you’ve done to this guy.”

Graham went on to say the Democrats had no interest in protecting Blasey Ford, adding “she is as much of a victim as you [Kavanaugh] are.”

And then addressing the bigger issue, Graham said, “This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward, because of this crap. Your high school year book [one of the things the Democrats had repeatedly questioned Kavanaugh about].”

Even Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, often a darling of the liberal media though he is a Republican, unloaded on the politicization of the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh by the Dems.

After all was said in done, on Friday, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican, after initially saying he would support Kavanaugh’s nomination, putting to rest whether the Republicans would have enough votes to secure the nomination, went off to a secret meeting with Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat. And by the time that meeting was over and Flake and Coons took their seats with the committee, Flake announced he would only vote for Kavanaugh if an FBI investigation was conducted. A time limit – maybe up to a week – he said should be set on this investigation so a vote could be held, but in one single stroke Flake handed to the Democrats exactly what they wanted, justifying his decision by saying he was doing it to keep the country from being torn apart.

Well, Sen. Flake, the country is already torn apart, and caving to such a naked political ploy won’t make it any less so. If anything, it will make the divisions deeper and more set. And as for me, the Democrats won’t get another one of my votes. After Thursday’s events, my conscience couldn’t accept giving them any.

Image CNN, AP via theguardian.com

Debra Katz
Democrats’ Dangerous Game and Republicans’ Tepid Response

Democrats’ Dangerous Game and Republicans’ Tepid Response

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The game the Democrats are playing with the Christine Blasey Ford accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is at least as dangerous as it is disingenuous, and the ramifications of their actions and statements stand to further undermine Constitutional government in the country. Meanwhile, while attempting to bend over backwards to appease Blasey Ford and her supporters, the Republicans are displaying a wishy-washiness bordering on cowardice, aiding the Democrats in their blatantly nefarious scheme and further lowering the public’s assessment of Congress.

Unless you’ve been trapped in a collapsed coal mine somewhere in a remote part of China, you’ve heard almost ad nauseam of the Blasey Ford accusations against the High Court nominee. She was 15, she said, when a boy she identifies as an inebriated 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh forced himself on her, groped her through her clothing and tried to remove her one-piece swim suit, and covered her mouth to prevent her from screaming. She says she thought her attacker might inadvertently kill her. Kavanaugh denies the incident ever happened, says he never did anything of the sort Blasey Ford is alleging, many women who knew and know him assert such an act would be completely out of character for him, and the one potential witness to the incident, Mark Judge, a friend of Kavanaugh’s, also insists the incident never happened.

Now let’s start with the one clear fact that arises from this whole matter: Other than possibly the accuser and the accused, no one knows what actually did or didn’t happen at that house party 36 years ago. I don’t know, you don’t know, and neither do any of those who have taken up Blasey Ford’s side, saying they know she’s telling the truth. This includes N.Y. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand who demonstrated some sort of miraculous powers of divination when, at a Capitol Hill press conference, Gillibrand confidently trumpeted, “I believe Dr. Blasey Ford because she’s telling the truth. You know it by her story. You know it by the fact that she told her therapist five years ago. She told her husband. This is a trauma she’s been dealing with her whole life. She doesn’t want to be in a bedroom that doesn’t have two doors. People knew that about her a long time ago.”

Apparently the vast majority of women don’t agree with Gillibrand. A poll conducted by the left-leaning Huffington Post found only 25% of a cross section of women believe Blasey Ford’s claims to be credible. That’s three points lower than the percentage of men who found them to be credible. But it’s clear who Gillibrand and others in her camp are appealing to. The same poll found 53% of Democrats found the allegations credible, compared with 4% of Republicans and 19% of independents who did.

In fact, there is plenty of reason to doubt Blasey Ford’s account, including that she can’t remember the year this alleged event took place, she can’t remember how she got to this party or how she got home, and she never told anyone about the incident, never filed a police report, and kept the whole thing a secret until she mentioned it in a couples counseling session, which reportedly took place six years ago, not five. There is no mention of Kavanaugh in the therapist’s notes, parts of which were provided by Blasey Ford to the Washington Post, and those notes of the conversation say there were four boys present while now the accuser says there were two.

I know I am not alone when I say I can recall in vivid detail – detail as if the incidents happened yesterday – various pivotal events in my life. I certainly can recall in such detail incidents that happened when I was 15 and in high school, as was Blasey Ford, and that was not 36 years ago but 53 years ago. I’ve heard and read several accounts this week from others, both men and women, how they also remember key incidents in their lives from many years ago. And this includes women who actually were raped and who question how Blasey Ford can’t recall every detail of this alleged incident. But, as I said, I wasn’t there, no one else other than the accuser and accused and maybe one or three others was there, so anyone who claims otherwise is, to put it politely, either an idiot or someone with an agenda to promote.

And that is where a deeper shadow casts itself across Blasey Ford’s account. There appears to be a very big agenda in play, evidenced by the way Blasey Ford’s allegations were made and how they were handled once they found their way to California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Rather then making her allegations known both to Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, as well as committee Chairman Charles Grassley, as would have been reasonable, Blasey Ford sent them only to Feinstein. That was in July. And then Feinstein proceeded to sit on Blasey Ford’s letter for two months. Feinstein now alleges that Blasey Ford didn’t want to go public with her allegations, but of course that changed as soon as Blasey Ford’s allegations could set up a roadblock to Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Feinstein didn’t even come out with the letter during the confirmation hearings and Kavanaugh’s meetings with lawmakers, but she waited until after the hearings were over and a vote on approving Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court was imminent. And then suddenly Feinstein came out with the allegations. Long-time watchers of Supreme Court confirmation hearings have called Feinstein’s actions unprecedented, and worthy of censure. The whole thing stinks of political maneuvering to discredit Kavanaugh and to block his appointment, and that raises questions about Blasey Ford’s motivations as well in this whole affair.

Then we look at the attorney representing Blasey Ford, Debra Katz, who is a big-time political activist and contributor and fundraiser for Democratic candidates – including Hillary Clinton – and with ties to Democratic financier George Soros. A fierce and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump who, of course, nominated Kavanaugh to the top court, Katz has a lot less to say when confronted with political icons on the Democratic side of the aisle who have been accused of sexual misconduct, including sexual assault. These include former President Bill Clinton and now-resigned Senator Al Franken of Minnesota. While expecting us to take Blasey Ford’s allegations at face value, Katz has demeaned Clinton accuser Paula Jones, who alleged that Clinton, at the time Governor of Arkansas, had her brought to a hotel room where he exposed himself to her and pressured her to commit a sex act. Clinton eventually settled with Jones for $850,000, most of which went to her attorneys. About this incident – by no means the first allegation of sexual misconduct, including rape, leveled against Clinton – and calling Jones’s suit “very, very, very weak,” Katz said to CNN, “She’s alleged one incident that took place in a hotel room that, by her own testimony, lasted 10 to 12 minutes. She suffered no repercussions in the workplace.”

Katz also downplayed Franken’s actions, which were even caught on film, saying they didn’t rise to the same level of misconduct alleged against film mogul Harvey Weinstein, further defending Franken to The New York Times, saying, “He did not do this as a member of the U.S. Senate. He did this in his capacity of someone who was still functioning as an entertainer.”

Now consider that, whether true or not, the allegation Blasey Ford has made against Brett Kavanaugh occurred when they were both still in high school. Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised at the Democrats’ double standard. This is the same political party that stood by 37-year-old Massachusetts Sen. Teddy Kennedy, who in July 1969 left a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, to die in his submerged car in Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island rather than jeopardize his political career. There was a time when even some Democrats and the media questioned Kennedy’s actions, but that time seems to have disappeared in the rear-view mirror. Now Katz, Gillibrand, and Hillary Clinton say a woman who accuses a man of sexual misconduct should always be believed. Except, of course, when the accused is a Democrat or otherwise one of their tribe. Or one’s husband.

And then there is Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, who might exist in a class of her own. Hirono, who refused to meet with Kavanaugh when the nominee was going around and sitting down to answer senators’ questions, called Chairman Grassley’s assertion that he had made numerous attempts at contacting Blasey Ford “bullshit,” and then went on to insult all men in the country.

“Guess who’s perpetuating all of these kind of actions? It’s the men in this country,” Hirono told reporters. “And I just want to say to the men in this country: Just shut up and step up.”

Hirono might as well have said for men to shut up and go sit in the back of the bus and take whatever accusation, no matter how untrue or unfair, is thrown at them. While one can marvel at the kind of bigoted moron who would make a statement like that, it also makes one wonder about the quality and mentality of voters – both male and female – in Hawaii who would send a person of this nature to Washington.

But therein lies the danger of the Democrats’ strategy (if one is to grace their actions with a word as exalted as “strategy”). There seems to be a cynical and calculated effort to discredit not only individual political actors, whether Kavanaugh or Grassley or Trump, or the Republican Party, but to discredit and undermine the very underpinnings of American government. By playing to people’s prejudices and their growing basic lack of knowledge or critical analysis of events, bolstered by a compliant and uncritical mainstream media, they are working to undermine the legitimacy of not only the President and anyone, such as Kavanaugh, nominated by the President, but the framework and processes of all three branches of government. In the process, they risk undermining the legitimacy of Constitutional government itself – of which, of course, they are a part. Already we see revelations of government employees actively conducting a kind of silent coup against duly elected officials, most prominently the President (don’t believe me – listen to the perpetrators of this silent coup in their own words).

It would seem this phenomenon furthers the Dems cause, but ironically much of the effect of this unscrupulous strategy by Party leaders is backfiring on them as it spawns upstarts on the far left who are defeating more traditional Party stalwarts, such as the what we’ve seen happening in New York, Massachusetts, and Florida.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this whole phenomenon comes not from the Democratic side of the aisle, but from the Republican side. While it is understandable that the President and Sen. Grassley want to be seen as reasonable and willing to have Blasey Ford air her allegations, they are bending over so far that they are contributing to undermining the Constitutional order in the process of Senatorial confirmation and, in the case of Grassley, giving away far more than is called for or is useful. The public, when polled, already gives the U.S. Congress a 17% approval rating. The current charade can only further lower that already low view in which the Senate is held, and stringing things along and giving in to the kind of political blackmail Feinstein and Katz and, we have to assume, Blasey Ford intended to inflict does not improve the public’s view of the Legislative Branch.

Negotiation continues to go on between Grassley and Judiciary Committee staff and Blasey Ford, through her attorney Katz. Even if Blasey Ford’s accusations can neither be proven nor disproven, there need not be any doubt about the intents of Katz or Feinstein or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Their intents are all too obvious. So while Grassley wants to come across as fair – as he should – he should not give away the store in the process. Many of the demands coming from Blasey Ford and her supporters are patently absurd and should be rejected on their face. This includes any call for an FBI investigation, forcing Kavanaugh to make his presentation before Blasey Ford does (I can’t even imagine how that might work, and it completely flies in the face of normal adversarial procedure), or that no attorneys question Blasey Ford (in other words, let’s have the media put on the air how it’s only the “old white men” on the Judiciary Committee – combining ageism with racism with sexism for the Dems, who have no problem with any of these “isms” when they think it will favor their position – considering the veracity, or lack thereof, of Blasey Ford’s allegations).

Now here is how I think Grassley should proceed with moving things forward:

  • He should subpoena Blasey Ford to appear before the Judiciary Committee, preferably on Monday. Enough with this pussy-footing around and negotiating. If she has something to say, let her say it. She’s had 36 years to think this over and so there are no grounds for further delay. This is the U.S. Senate she’s screwing with and the power of the Senate should be brought to bear on her, just as it should be for anyone who has something material to say about a Supreme Court candidate. These are matters of national concern, not the fodder of political game playing.
  • Normal precedence will be followed – Blasey Ford goes first, Kavanaugh goes after her.
  • Every member of the Judiciary Committee should have a right to question both Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh, with the usual time and other limitations in play. And if the committee chairman feels it is necessary, committee attorneys also should have the right to question both parties.
  • The Senate should formally censure Feinstein for seriously interfering with the Senate’s performance of its Constitutional duty and bringing it into “dishonor and disrepute.”
  • And perhaps most crucial of all: There should be no further delay in the confirmation vote on Kavanaugh. It should be held by Thursday or at the latest Friday of this week. And if Blasey Ford refuses to appear or continues to equivocate, then as soon as on Monday.

The Democrats have shown they will resort to almost any sleazy tactic to get their way and block the normal, Constitutionally mandated processes of government and of the Senate. By taking a tepid, half-assed position, Republicans earn no points among their own supporters and risk giving the Dems an advantage they clearly do not deserve. With the legitimacy of public institutions hanging in the balance, this is a time for strength, not weakness, courage, not cowardice.

Image of Debra Katz via CBS and Facebook