Monday, October 01, 2018

The he-said/she-said soap opera never ends

 
 
spca


 
 
Okay, Kavanaugh.  Philip Klein offers Rachel Mitchell’s findings based on the questioning Mitchell did of Dr. Christine Blasey:
 

 
 
·         "Dr. Ford has not offered a consistent account of when the alleged assault happened," describing how it has varied from "mid 1980s" to "early 1980s" to the summer of 1982. Mitchell also notes, "Her August 7 statement to the polygrapher said that it happened one 'high school summer in early 80’s,' but she crossed out the word “early” for reasons she did not explain."
·         "Dr. Ford has struggled to identify Judge Kavanaugh as the assailant by name" — noting that it took over 30 years, at best, if true that she told her husband his name several years ago.
·         "Dr. Ford has no memory of key details of the night in question — details that could help corroborate her account." Mitchell notes that she doesn't know the time or place of the incident; she doesn't remember how she got to the party or how she got home. The latter point is significant, given that by Ford's account she was driven home and that the country club that was apparently near the house is a 20 minute drive away. "Given that this all took place before cell phones, arranging a ride home would not have been easy," Mitchell wrote. "Indeed, she stated that she ran out of the house after coming downstairs and did not state that she made a phone call from the house before she did, or that she called anyone else thereafter."
·         "Dr. Ford’s account of the alleged assault has not been corroborated by anyone she identified as having attended — including her lifelong friend."
·         "Dr. Ford has not offered a consistent account of the alleged assault" — among other things, her accounts about the number of people at the party and whether she could hear conversations varied.
·         "Dr. Ford has struggled to recall important recent events relating to her allegations, and her testimony regarding recent events raises further questions about her memory." This is, perhaps, the most damning of all. Her patchy memory from 36 years ago could be chalked up to the odd way that trauma affects individuals, allowing her to recall certain details with confidence while forgetting others. But her failure to recall significant details of interactions that happened over the past few weeks or months is damning. For instance, "Dr. Ford could not remember if she showed a full or partial set of therapy notes to the Washington Post reporter." She also "does not remember if she actually had a copy of the notes" when she texted the Washington Post. The notes, which are touted as the single piece of documentary evidence of her previously describing the assault, were not turned over to the committee. She also could not recall whether the polygraph occurred on the day of her grandmother's funeral.
·         In addition, "She claimed originally that she wished for her story to remain confidential, but the person operating the tipline at the Washington Post was the first person other than her therapist or husband to whom she disclosed the identity of her alleged attacker. She testified that she had a 'sense of urgency to relay the information to the Senate and the president.' She did not contact the Senate, however, because she claims she 'did not know how to do that.' She does not explain why she knew how to contact her congresswoman but not her senator."
·         Mitchell also provides a detailed timeline of how she made the allegations, displaying that "The activities of congressional Democrats and Dr. Ford’s attorneys likely affected Dr. Ford’s account."
 
 
It’s not as open and shut as the media likes to play it.  Who’s telling the truth?  I have no idea.  But it’s not open and shut and the FBI investigation is a waste of time.  We have serious issues.  I don’t know why we can’t address them.  But the Democratic senators cannot focus on anything important.  They just care about this issue that will never be proven.
 
 

 
A central aim of the Democrats’ strategy in the Kavanaugh hearings has been to obscure the most important class issues. They adopt the tone of phony moral outrage over the three-decade-old allegation while expressing no similar anger or even concern over the crimes committed by the American ruling class throughout the world.
Not a day goes by where the US military is not dropping bombs or launching drone strikes, with the death toll from the “war on terror” well over one million. Thirteen thousand immigrant children are currently locked up in internment camps. Thousands of workers in the US die each year from industrial accidents and work-related illnesses. When Democratic Senator Cory Booker complains about the “patriarchy,” he looks past the fact that the fall in life expectancy in the working class is largely driven by alcoholism, drug abuse and depression among men.
Kavanaugh is himself complicit in these crimes, from which the relentless focus on allegations of sexual misconduct is intended as a diversion. There is documentary evidence Kavanaugh helped author Alberto Gonzales’ “torture memos” during the Bush administration. He is on the record praising the constitutionality of mass surveillance by the National Security Agency. Email exchanges prove he advocates repealing the right to abortion for millions of women across the country.
The Democratic Party’s refusal to address such issues is a deliberate decision. They are themselves guilty of involvement in these crimes—and intend for them to continue, whether Kavanaugh or some other reactionary is on the court.
The Democrats are not even capable of addressing the fact that twenty years ago Kavanaugh was a central player in the Republicans’ anti-democratic use of sex scandals to attempt to bring down the administration of Democratic President Bill Clinton. To raise this issue would expose the fact that the Democrats are engaged in the same methods today.
 



Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 
Monday, October 1, 2018. The KRG held elections and much more.

Let's start with some good news.  Neera Tanden finally found the man of her political dreams.  For years, people would caution her, "Neera, be practical.  You're just not impressive enough to land Satan."  But Neera had her heart set on being the First Lady in Hell and now, thanks to her merger with Bill Kristol, she's as close to that position as she's ever been.  Caitlin Johnstone (CONSORTIUM NEWS) reports:

  In a conference at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, “Resistance” leader and professional left-puncher Neera Tanden met with Iraq-raping neocon Bill Kristol to discuss bipartisanship and shared values. While leprechauns held hands and danced beneath candy rainbows and gumdrop Reaper drones, the duo engaged in a friendly, playful conversation with the event’s host in a debate format which was not unlike watching the Pillsbury Doughboy have a pillow fight with himself in a padded room after drinking a bottle of NyQuil.
To get the event started, the host whose name I refuse to learn asked the pair to discuss briefly what common ground such wildly different people could possibly share to make such a strange taboo-shattering dialogue possible.
“Issues around national security and believing in democratic principles as they relate to foreign policy,” replied Tanden. “And opposing authoritarianism, and opposing the kind of creeping populism that undermines democracy itself.”
Neera Tanden, in case you are unaware, is a longtime Clinton and Obama insider and CEO of the plutocrat-backed think tank Center for American Progress. Her emails featured prominently in the 2016 Podesta drops by WikiLeaks, which New Republic described as revealing “a pattern of freezing out those who don’t toe the line, a disturbing predilection for someone who is a kind of gatekeeper for what ideas are acceptable in Democratic politics.” Any quick glance at Tanden’s political activism and Twitter presence will render this unsurprising, as she often seems more concerned with attacking the Green Party and noncompliant progressive Democrats than she does with 
advancing progressive values. Her entire life is dedicated to keeping what passes for America’s political left out of the hands of the American populace.
Kristol co-signed Tanden’s anti-populist rhetoric and her open endorsement of neoconservative foreign policy, and went on to say that another thing he and Tanden have in common is that they’ve both served in government, which makes you realize that nothing’s black and white and everything’s kinda nebulous and amorphous so it doesn’t really matter if you, say for example, help deceive your country into a horrific blunder that ends up killing a whole lot of people for no good reason.


Following the above PDA, Tanden and Kristol are said to have retired to the two-star American Inn & Suites in Orange, California -- the cheapest accommodations near Yorba Linda and the Richard Nixon War Criminal Library and Museum -- which is where the two-some plan to hold both their reception and their first animal sacrifice.  Remember, boys and girls, the happy couple is registered at fetish stores near you.

Not sure whether The Problem From Hell Samantha Power was the couple's matron of honor or their handmaid, but she did crawl out from under her rock to Tweet.

 4m4 minutes ago
Jack Posobiec  🇺🇸Retweeted Samantha Power
You mean like you guys with Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Maidan, Kosovo...
Jack Posobiec  🇺🇸added,
Russia likes sovereignty, except that of Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, the United Kingdom, the United States...
1 reply10 retweets33 likes
 
 




I guess he told her.  I don't think people have laughed so hard at Samantha Power since those wedding photos.

Meanwhile, the KRG held elections Sunday.

 4h4 hours ago
Draw media's approximate breakdown of the seats the political parties gained in 30 September : 40-42, 21-23, 11-13, New Generation: 7-9, : 7-8, 5-6.
0 replies3 retweets14 likes
 
 




Like their hero and former leader, the party of Jalal Talabani just can't get it up which is why the PUK still can't come in first place.  If the results hold, this will be an improvement over third place to Gorran but long gone are the days when Kurds flocked to the Talabani's PUK.  Not even 80% of the votes have been counted so these numbers are not complete and things remain fluid.  KDP spokespeople are stating that they have 45 seats but, again, these numbers can change.  The results thus far appear to have sent Gorran into silence.


  1.  5h5 hours ago
movement’s media expressed their joy after the polls ended and counting started, claiming that they have gained a big victory, but later they stopped covering results when they found out they were wrong.
0 replies0 retweets1 like
 
 



Talabani hand-puppet Joel Wing looks at the early results and the KDP having won twice the seats as the PUK to insist that this means "the KDP - PUK domination" will continue.  The results thus far indicate only KDP domination.


  1.  4h4 hours ago
: Latest result on the Kurdistan Region's Parliamentary Election For updates, follow here:
1 reply4 retweets16 likes
 
 




Only the anti-Barzani nut job Joel Wing could look at the current results and see good news for Talabani's PUK.  Some early results are showing the KDP with 46% of the votes and the PUK with 17%.  The PUK is not dominating anything.  That's why they started their usual crap of "voter fraud!" before the UN told them to knock it off.  Joel Wing has been either an idiot or a liar when it comes to the KRG repeatedly.  Wasn't it 2012 when he was telling us that Massoud Barzani had lost all support?  Bless crazy Joel Wing and the corporate press that props his tired ass up.



This morning on NPR's MORNING EDITION, Jane Arraf was hitting the crack pipe as she insisted
"the interesting thing is there are opposition parties."  She then goes on to call Gorran an older party.  Gorran, created by CIA seed-money does not have a long history.  "We did not see a lot of people," Arraf insisted of the one polling place that they went to in the morning and stayed all day.  It's really great that she can go to one polling place out of all the polling places in the three provinces -- not "regions," NPR -- and feels she can extrapolate from there.

Extrapolate?  I'm being kind and using it in place of "lying."

Jane always speaks for the prime minister -- whomever that is.  So this is a really hard time for her as Hayder al-Abadi is supposed to be on his way out and no one has emerged yet to be considered the new prime minister.  Poor, Jane.  It was so much easier when she was at CNN and could just broadcast whatever Saddam Hussein wanted her to.

One thing that is known about the elections yesterday:




  1.  57m57 minutes ago
's [journalist who was assassinated in 2013 in Kalar] widow Shirin Amin, will be a new MP of faction at the parliament. .
0 replies2 retweets11 likes
 
 





Yesterday, Isaiah's "Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Barbra Clones" and "Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hogwarts" and Kat's  "Kat's Korner: Ann Wilson sings of and for the boys" and  "Kat's Korner: Cher gives us another classic" went up.  New content at THIRD:




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