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THE WITCH HUNT AGAINST BRETT KAVANAUGH
A couple of weeks ago, the Democratic Senator from California, Diane Feinstein, brought the public’s attention a letter accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape. According to the letter, an intoxicated Kavanaugh, then a seventeen-year-old high school student in Maryland, had pinned a fifteen-year-old girl – later identified as Christine Blasey Ford – down on a bed at a party, groped her, and attempted to remove her clothing. Kavanaugh covered her mouth to prevent her from screaming. The encounter ended when another man, Mike Judge, jumped on them. Ford claims to have been in fear for her life.
Both Brett Kavanaugh and Mike Judge have strongly denied the allegations that have been made against them. Kavanaugh indicated his willingness to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and stated that:
“This is a completely false allegation. I have never done anything like what the accuser describes – to her or to anyone. Because this never happened, I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself yesterday. I am willing to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in any way the Committee deems appropriate to refute this false allegation, from thirty-six-years-ago, and defend my integrity.”
In addition, the Senate Judiciary Council also received a letter, signed by sixty-five women, attesting to Kavanaugh’s sterling character.
Similarly, Mike Judge also released a statement saying:
“I did not ask to be involved in this matter nor did anyone ask me to be involved. The only reason I’m involved is because Dr. Christine Blasey Ford remembers me as the other person in the room during the alleged assault”
Judge continued:
“I have no memory of the alleged incident. Brett Kavanaugh and I were friends in high school but I do not recall the party described in Ford’s letter. More to the point, I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes.”
Regardless of the outcome of any vote, it is clear that the accusations made against Brett Kavanaugh will have long-ranging political consequence. If Kavanaugh is not appointed, the Republicans may very well lose their opportunity to appoint an originalist to the Supreme Court. It is unlikely that the Senate would be able to vet and confirm any nominee for the Supreme Court in the six weeks leading up to the election. And it is very possible that that election could culminate in a Democrat-controlled Congress. On the other hand, if Kavanaugh is confirmed the Democrats will certainly use the accusations as a political weapon to be wielded against Republicans.
Political consequences notwithstanding, the accusations made against Brett Kavanaugh are, in and of themselves, deeply suspicious. Christine Blasey Ford has failed to provide any evidence or corroborating details which could help prove the validity of her story. The alleged incident occurred almost forty years ago, bears no witnesses aside from the two men accused, and has no physical evidence.
What is truly amazing is that anyone is willing to believe Ford’s accusations in the first place. Ford, a registered Democrat who has financially supported numerous left-wing causes, waited until the man she was accusing was about to become a Supreme Court Justice, has changed her story numerous times, and is unable to remember the time or the location the alleged incident took place.
And any attempt to compel Ford to provide further information have been met with stonewalling and accusations of victim blaming by her supports. When her lawyer, Debra Katz was asked by CNN’s Alisyn Camerota whether Ford should ask other girls at the party to come forward as witnesses, Katz snapped: “that’s not her job to do that. If this is going to be investigated, it should be done by investigators.” It is hard to believe that any just society would condemn a man on such a preposterous lack of evidence.
At some point, society is going to need to have a discussion about what credible accusations of sexual assault look like. One would be hard pressed to argue that an accusation that bears no witnesses, no evidence, and no corroborating details should be powerful enough to destroy a man’s life or career. It is not acceptable that accusations which can be neither proven nor disproven should be used to take someone’s liberties from them.
HILLARY CLINTON BLAMES EVERYONE BUT HERSELF FOR HER 2016 ELECTION DEFEAT
Hillary Clinton has released her 2016 election memoir, What Happened. Throughout the five-hundred-and-twelve page book, Clinton manages to blame everyone and everything else but herself for her defeat at the 2016 Presidential election.
Of course, there are the chief left-wing villains: Clinton, like most feminists, blames ‘sexism’ and ‘misogyny’ for her defeat by a “flagrantly sexist candidate.” At one point, Clinton even claims that she cannot give “absolution” to young women who failed to vote in the election.
Next, there’s the alleged collusion between President Trump and the Russians, whom Clinton blames for “weaponising information, negative stories” about her. Not even former President Barack Obama escapes her ire: he committed the grave sin of not addressing the so-called Russia hacking in a national television address.
Then, there’s the email scandal. You know, the one where Clinton used a private server to handle thousands of confidential documents? Clinton told CBS News:
“I watched how analysts who I have a great deal of respect for, like Nate Silver, burrowed into all the data and said that ‘but for that Comey letter, she would have won’.”
White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has slammed Clinton’s book for being filled with “inaccuracies” and has accused Clinton of failing to accept the blame for her own election defeat. Huckabee commented:
“I think probably the biggest one is any place within the book where she lays the blame for the loss on anyone but herself.”
Huckabee went on to criticise Clinton for accusing President Trump of not being a President for all Americans:
“That type of misunderstanding of who this President is, and frankly a misunderstanding of what he’s been doing, is exactly one of the reasons that Hillary Clinton is not the President and is instead pushing a book with a lot of false narratives and a lot of, I think, false accusations and placing blame on a lot of other people instead of accepting it herself.”
George Neumayr of The Spectator attributes Clinton’s election defeat to her status as a modern incarnation of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth:
“She is a failed Lady Macbeth, but a Lady Macbeth who wants us to feel sorry for her, what with her chardonnay-chugging and alternate nostril breathing after the election. She writes: ‘If you’ve never done alternate nostril breathing, it’s worth a try.… It may sound silly, but it works for me. It wasn’t all yoga and breathing: I also drank my share of chardonnay’.”
If Hillary Clinton is looking for someone to blame she should start by taking a long, hard look at herself. Throughout her campaign, Clinton came across as cold, calculating, and malevolent. She showed signs of narcissism, an astounding incapability of self-reflection, and a proclivity to blame everyone else but herself for her problems. Her attitude was that of arrogance and entitlement, as though the Presidency was her birthright, as though she was guaranteed to win.
HURRICANE HARVEY AFTERMATH
Fifteen people are dead and around thirty-thousand have been forced to seek emergency shelter in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
Speaking at Corpus Christi, President Trump praised Texas’ response to Hurricane Harvey:
“We want to do it better than ever before. We want to be looked at in five years and ten years from now as, this is the way to do it. This was of epic proportion. No one has ever seen anything like this.”
President Trump went on to say:
“I just want to say in working with the Governor and his entire time has been an honour for us.”
President Trump then travelled to Austin where he spoke at an emergency operations centre:
“Probably there’s never been anything so expensive in our country’s history. There’s never been anything so historic in terms of damage and in terms of ferocity as we’ve witnessed with Harvey.”
President Trump continued:
“And the sad thing is the never seen anything this long, and nobody’s ever seen this much water in particular. The wind was pretty horrific, but the water has never been seen like this to the extent. It’s maybe someday going to disappear. We keep waiting.”
The National Weather Service issued a flash-flood watch for Houston on Tuesday evening. A spokesperson said:
“There is the potential for catastrophic flooding over the next several days as Tropical Storm Harvey moves inland and slowly over southeastern Texas. Additional rainfall totals of 15-25 inches are likely with isolated amounts higher through mid next week.”
Meanwhile, Republican Congressman, Pete Sessions, has told MSNBC that east Texas and Lousiana are preparing for flooding. Sessions said:
“What lies ahead for everyone is to make sure that after the trauma of water that everybody has their tetanus shots, that they get their medicine, that we take care of children. Obviously when people get together we then — whether like it or not, we have diarrhoea problems, we have food problems, we have needs of people, we are prepared for the this. I believe the problem is that people are having trouble getting out of Houston because of the bands of rain.”
Ken Storey, a Professor of sociology, has been fired from his job at the University of Tampa in Florida for tweeting:
“I don’t believe in instant Karma but this kinda feels like it for Texas. Hopefully will help them realise the GOP doesn’t care about them.”
Unsurprisingly, numerous mainstream news figures have associated Hurricane Harvey to global warming. Together with guests from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other news outlets, CNN and MSNBC anchors have sought to blame Hurricane Harvey on the Trump administration’s environmental federal policies.
ESPN’S ROBERT LEE FIASCO
ESPN Vice-President, Jon Skipper has sought to set the record straight on the decision to remove Asian-American sport’s commentator, Robert Lee from the coverage of a sport’s game in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The decision to remove Lee occurred because it was believed his name, which bears a resemblance to the Confederate General, Robert E. Lee, would cause some offence.
In a memo obtained by CNN, Skipper attempted to explain why the controversial decision was made:
Skipper has received some support for his decision. In an op-ed, a former ESPN Vice-President, Roxanne Jones, defended the decision to remove Lee from the broadcast, writing:
“We want to pretend that sports are a safe sanctuary from the world’s ugly problems, but that has always been a farce. Truth is, not even the glorious game of football can keep America’s toxic culture of bigotry, hate and violence at bay. It’s just too heavy a burden.”
Others, however, have been quick to criticise the network’s decision. Fox News’ Brit Hume has commented that the second paragraph of Skipper’s memo contradicted the first. Hume noted that if there was no concern that Lee’s name would cause offence, there would be no reason to presume it would be a distraction.
PRESIDENT TRUMP THREATENS NORTH KOREA
Donald Trump has warned North Korea that it would be met with “fire and fury” if it continued its sabre-rattling. Trump stated:
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal statement. As I said, I said they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
North Korea has responded to Trump’s threat by threatening to strike the US military base in Guam. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s warning has many people concerned that a potential standoff between the two countries may devolve into a war. According to a CNN poll, seventy-two percent of Americans feel uneasy about potential conflict with North Korea. Despite this, the same poll shows that sixty-percent of Americans feel North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons is a threat that needs to be contained.
Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has warned that a full-blown war with North Korea would be “catastrophic“, commenting that it would be “more serious in terms of human in terms of human suffering than anything we’ve seen since 1953.”
A war with North Korea is unlikely, however. President Trump would need to seek the approval of Congress before he could launch an attack on the rogue nation. As Republican Senator for Alaska, told Erin Burnett on Out Front:
“One of the options that they’re looking at that would eventually materialise is a preemptive war on the Korean Peninsular launched the US. Well, that would clearly in my view require the authorization from Congress.”
HEATED EXCHANGE OVER “RAISE” IMMIGRATION POLICY INITIATIVE
A heated exchange between Trump advisor Stephen Miller and CNN speech-giver Jim Acosta over the Trump Administration’s new immigration policy has illustrated the implicit bias and ignorance of the mainstream media.
The exchange began when Acosta quoted the poem on the Statue of Liberty. The poem, Emma Lazarus’ “the New Colossus”, goes:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbour that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
“The Statue of Liberty has always been a beacon of hope to the world for people to send their people to this country, and they’re not always going to speak English Stephen, they’re not always going to be highly skilled.”
Miller responded by correctly pointing out that the poem had been added to the base of the Statue of Liberty in 1903 – two decades after it had been installed, and reminded Acosta that the poem had never encapsulated US immigration policy. He then went on to challenge Acosta on the supposed principle encapsulated by the poem:
“In 1990s, when we let in half a million people a year, was that violating or not violating the law of the land? Tell me what years meet Jim Acosta’s definition of the Statue of Liberty per law of the land. You’re saying a million a year is the Statue of Liberty number — 900,000 violates, 800,000 violates it.”
Acosta then changed tactics by suggesting that the requirement for immigrants to speak English was racist, arguing that it would “only bring in people from Britain and Australia.” Miller responded by accusing Acosta of having a ‘cosmopolitan bias‘:
“Jim, I just got to say, I am shocked by your statement, that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English. It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree that in your mind … this is an amazing moment … that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would speak English is so insulting to millions of hardworking immigrants that do speak English from all over the world.”
Jim Acosta has claimed victory over Stephen Miller, commenting: “I think what you just saw in the briefing room is that he [Miller] really just couldn’t take that kind of heat and exploded before our eyes.”
However, it was Stephen Miller that won the argument. Miller remained calm, used arguments that required reason and evidence, and called out Acosta’s biases and ignorance at the appropriate moments. Miller argued using facts, Acosta argued using emotions. In the end, it is Acosta, and by extension the left-wing media, that have been shamed.
CNN’S FAREED ZAKARIA BLAMES WHITE MEN FOR HILLARY CLINTON’S DEFEAT
CNN host, Fareed Zakaria, has blamed the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential election on the insecurities of white working men. Zakaria told CNN’s New Day that the election of Donald Trump was really “a kind of class rebellion against people like us, educated professionals who live in cities, who have cosmopolitan views about things.”
Zakaria went on to explain:
“A real sense of cultural alienation, older, white, noncollege education Americans have, a sense that their country is changing because of immigrants. Because maybe blacks are rising up to a central place in society, because gays being afforded equal rights. Because of, frankly, working women. Everybody is muscling in on the territory that the white working man had.”
Zakaria’s comments seem to come from a piece he had written for CNN. The piece, entitled Why Trump Won, chalked Trump’s victory up to a division of Americans along four lines.
First, Zakaria blames capitalism. Zakaria claims that the US economy only enriches those with education, training, and capital. Second, Zakaria blames culture, claiming that whites are bucking against increasing rights for gays, the rise of African-Americans and Hispanics to a more central place in society, and increases in immigration. Third, Zakaria claims animosity towards elites led many white working class men to vote for Trump. Fourth, Zakaria claims that the advent of social media now means many Americans have access to seemingly unlimited number of news sources, rather than just the original two or three.
Zakaria’s views are indicative of what drove many to vote for Trump in the first place. He, like many on the left, believes Trump’s election victory is the result of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, and jealousy. This rhetoric, which is blaming white voters for Clinton’s defeat, reeks of arrogance and snobbery. Ordinary people are sick of being insulted in this manner. Mr. Zakaria, shame on you.
King Alfred Press 