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| Porn Users Forum » WHY DOESN'T POTUS ARREST BILL CLINTON, HILARY CLINTON, AND OBAMA? |
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| 09-29-18 04:49pm - 2276 days | #1201 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User  Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Christine Ford took a lie detector test recently, to support her claim that Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape her. But Kavanaugh does not believe that lie detector tests are reliable. That is his current opinion, as stated to the Senate committee. Even though he wrote a judicial opinion 2 years ago that lie detector tests were a useful tool of law enforcement. | |
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| 09-29-18 05:11pm - 2276 days | #1202 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
From Brett Kavanaugh's testimony under oath on Thursday, September 27, 2018 "Importantly her friend, Ms. Keyser, has not only denied knowledge of the party, Ms. Keyser said under penalty of felony she does not know me, does not recall ever being at a party with me ever. And my two male friends who were allegedly there, who knew me well, have told this committee under penalty of felony that they do not recall any such party and that I never did or would do anything like this. Dr. Ford’s allegation is not merely uncorroborated, it is refuted by the very people she says were there, including by a long-time friend of hers. Refuted." That is a lie. That is perjury. Ms. Keyser did not refute Dr. Ford's allegation of attempted rape. Leland Ingham Keyser, a friend of the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were at a party in high school, does not refute the veracity of the allegation, although she does not remember the alleged incident, her lawyer said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. When Brett Kavanaugh, a federal judge, twists the facts, that is lying. That is perjury. I don't know why the Democrats are not charging Brett Kavanaugh with perjury, for this statement and for other statements under oath, which can easily be shown as false. | |
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| 09-29-18 05:55pm - 2276 days | #1203 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
A more complete account of how Christine Ford's friend is not refuting Ford's accusation: ----- ----- Christine Blasey Ford's friend is not refuting Ford's allegation, will cooperate with FBI, lawyer 'Ms. Keyser does not refute Dr. Ford's account' By ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER Posted: 8:32 AM, September 29, 2018 (CNN) - Leland Ingham Keyser, a friend of the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were at a party in high school, does not refute the veracity of the allegation, although she does not remember the alleged incident, her lawyer said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, claims that during a party in the early 1980s at which Keyser and several others were present, Kavanaugh drunkenly pushed her into a bedroom, pinned her down and attempted to remove her clothes before she was able to escape. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegation. "Ms. Keyser does not refute Dr. Ford's account, and she has already told the press that she believes Dr. Ford's account," Keyser's attorney, Howard Walsh, wrote in the letter, which was sent to the committee overnight Friday. "However, the simple and unchangeable truth is that she is unable to corroborate it because she has no recollection of the incident in question." Walsh also said in the letter that Keyser will "cooperate fully" with an FBI investigation into the allegation. The letter comes after emotional testimony from Ford and Kavanaugh about the allegation at a committee hearing Thursday. Keyser felt the need for the letter, Walsh wrote, to clarify a previous statement about the allegation, which came up at the hearing and which she believed made it sound as if she did not believe the party had occurred. The previous statement, which Walsh released to CNN and the committee last week, said, "Simply put, Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford." In her testimony Ford said she remembered that Keyser, a longtime friend, was present at the party, but that it is not surprising Keyser would not recall the party because Ford did not tell her about the alleged assault at the time. "Oh no, she didn't know about the event," Ford told the committee, "She was downstairs during the event and I did not share it with her." Kavanaugh mentioned Keyser's statement several times during his testimony to stress that no one who Ford alleges attended the party has come forward to say they remembered being there. In addition, two others have issued statements saying they don't remember the party in question. "I have no memory of this alleged incident," said Mark Judge, Kavanaugh's friend, who Ford alleged was in the bedroom during the assault. In a letter he sent to the Judiciary Committee last week, Judge also said he did not recall the party and never saw Kavanaugh act in the matter Ford describes. Another person Ford claims was at the party, Patrick J. Smyth, has issued a statement in a letter from his lawyer to the committee saying he had no knowledge of the party or the allegation. "I understand that I have been identified by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as the person she remembers as 'PJ' who supposedly was present at the party she described in her statements to the Washington Post," Smyth said in the statement. "I am issuing this statement today to make it clear to all involved that I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh." "Personally speaking, I have known Brett Kavanaugh since high school and I know him to be a person of great integrity, a great friend, and I have never witnessed any improper conduct by Brett Kavanaugh towards women," the statement continued. "To safeguard my own privacy and anonymity, I respectfully request that the Committee accept this statement in response to any inquiry the Committee may have." On Friday, the White House agreed to ask the FBI to investigate "current credible allegations" as a part of Kavanaugh's background check. Lawyers for Judge and Smyth said they would cooperate. Additional allegation Besides Ford's allegation, the FBI is looking at the accusation of another woman, Deborah Ramirez, who has alleged Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at dormitory party while the two were undergraduate students at Yale. The FBI has reached out to Ramirez, her attorney said, confirming a report in The Washington Post. "We can confirm the FBI has reached out to interview Ms. Ramirez and she has agreed to cooperate with their investigation," the attorney, John Clune, said in a statement. "Out of respect for the integrity of the process, we will have no further comment at this time." Kavanaugh and the White House have denied Ramirez's allegation, which was reported by The New Yorker. "This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen, Kavanaugh said in a statement last Sunday when The New Yorker published the article. "The people who knew me then know this did not happen and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple." CNN has not independently confirmed Ramirez's allegations. Ramirez's lawyers wrote a letter to the leaders of the Judiciary Committee this week saying Ramirez, who lives in Colorado, was willing to cooperate with them regarding her allegation as well as a separate letter to the FBI's field office in Denver requesting that her allegation be included in the agency's background investigation for Kavanaugh's nomination. | |
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| 09-29-18 06:19pm - 2276 days | #1204 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Good Morning America Who is Mark Judge? Brett Kavanaugh's high school friend and the only named witness Good Morning America MORGAN WINSOR,Good Morning America 8 hours ago Who is Mark Judge? Brett Kavanaugh's high school friend and the only named witness originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Brett Kavanaugh's high school classmate Mark Judge has become a pivotal yet enigmatic figure in the contentious confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court nominee. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified under oath before the committee on Capitol Hill Thursday, alleges that Judge witnessed Kavanaugh sexually assault her at a party in suburban Maryland when they were teens in the early 1980s. She told senators Thursday that the "uproarious laughter between the two," referring to Judge and Kavanaugh, was among the most painful memories of the alleged attack. Kavanaugh and Judge have repeatedly denied the claims. Judge, who said he and Kavanaugh were "friends in high school," said in a statement he "never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes." In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee leadership on Friday, Judge said he will cooperate with any confidential law enforcement investigation into the accusations. The only named witness Ford, a 51-year-old psychology professor at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at Stanford University in California, broke her silence after 36 years, telling senators she didn't speak of the alleged incident in detail to anyone until 2012 when she was in a couples therapy session with her husband. She said she originally wanted to remain anonymous when she contacted her congressional representative in July, after learning that Kavanaugh was on President Donald Trump's shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees. But once her accusations became public, Ford said she believed it was her "civic duty" to share her story. After calling the office of her congresswoman, Ford said she also messaged The Washington Post's confidential tip line and identified Kavanaugh as her alleged assailant and Judge as a witness. Ford later agreed to speak publicly to a journalist at the newspaper and Judge was named in a Sept. 16 article about the alleged incident. The Washington Post reported at the time that Judge declined to comment. PHOTO: Christine Blasey Ford's handwritten account of her allegations against Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Cavanaugh dated Aug. 7, 2018, was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee staff with her polygraph report. (Senate Judiciary Committee) Two days prior to that article, before Ford's name was known, Judge gave an interview to The Weekly Standard in which he called the accusations "just absolutely nuts." He said The New Yorker had contacted him for comment on the allegations and that's when he first learned he was named in the woman's letter to lawmakers about Kavanaugh. Judge's attorney, Barbara "Biz" Van Gelder, subsequently emailed a letter dated Sept. 18 to Sens. Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, respectively. The letter contained a statement from Judge, saying he has "no memory of this alleged incident" that Ford describes. "Brett Kavanaugh and I were friends in high school but I do not recall the party described in Dr. Ford's letter. More to the point, I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes," Judge's statement reads, in part. "I have no more information to offer the Committee and I do not wish to speak publicly regarding the incidents described in Dr. Ford's letter." 'Wasted' high school years Judge and Kavanaugh both attended Georgetown Preparatory School, an elite, all-boys Catholic high school in North Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. | |
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| 09-29-18 06:20pm - 2276 days | #1205 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST: In 1997, Judge published a memoir about alcoholism during his teenage years, titled "Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk," in which he recounts booze-soaked parties with his prep school friends and alcohol-fueled attempts to hook up with girls. He also recalls working "at the local supermarket" in the summer of 1982. PHOTO: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, right, and Mark Judge, left, are pictured in an image from the Georgetown Preparatory high school yearbook. (Georgetown Preparatory School) Judge has authored several other books and is now a Washington-based conservative writer whose byline has appeared in publications such as The Daily Caller and The American Spectator. In a recent letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee leadership, Judge revealed he is a "recovering alcoholic and a cancer survivor" who has "struggled with depression and anxiety," and thus avoids public speaking. Another accuser names Mark Judge Since Ford's allegations became public, at least two other women have come forward accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct and one of them also named Judge. Michael Avenatti, an attorney who is known for representing adult film star Stormy Daniels, posted to Twitter Wednesday a photo of his newest client, Julie Swetnick of Washington, D.C., along with court documents detailing new allegations about the behavior of Kavanaugh and Judge during their high school years. In a sworn declaration provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Swetnick alleges she "became aware of efforts" by Kavanaugh and Judge and others to spike girls' drinks at house parties. Swetnick's declaration also includes an allegation that she was raped by multiple boys at a party in 1982 while she was incapacitated without her consent. She does not identify her alleged assailants or the location of the alleged incident but claims that Kavanaugh and Judge were "present." Judge's attorney, Van Gelder, told ABC News in a statement Wednesday that her client "vehemently denies" the claims. In a letter emailed to committee leadership Friday afternoon, Judge wrote that he doesn't know Swetnick and her allegations "are so bizarre that, even while suffering from my addiction, I would remember actions so outlandish." During her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, a visibly distraught Ford recounted how the alleged assault occurred. She said she was attending a "small gathering" at a house in the Bethesda area one summer night in 1982. She claimed Kavanaugh and Judge were among the party-goers. Ford said people at the party were drinking beer and she had one. She later went upstairs to use the restroom and was shoved from behind into a bedroom across from the bathroom, she said. She couldn't see who pushed her, she said, but Kavanaugh and Judge allegedly entered the room and locked the door behind them. Ford said someone pushed her onto the bed and Kavanaugh allegedly got on top of her, "groped" her and tried to remove her clothes, while Judge allegedly alternated between egging him on and telling him to stop. "I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hands over my mouth to stop me from yelling," she said. "Both Brett and Mark were drunkenly laughing during the attack. They seemed to be having a very good time. Mark seemed ambivalent, at times urging Brett on, at times telling him to stop. A couple of times, I made eye contact with Mark and thought he might try to help me. But he did not." Seared into her memory is "the uproarious laughter between the two and their having fun at my expense," Ford told senators. During the alleged assault, Ford said Judge jumped up on the bed twice while Kavanaugh was on top of her, causing them to topple over the second time and allowing Ford to get away. She ran out of the room, down the stairs and out of the house, she said. PHOTO: Christine Blasey Ford, with lawyer Debra S. Katz, left, answers questions at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018 on Capitol Hill. (Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images) Ford said she has not knowingly seen Kavanaugh since that night, but she claimed she saw Judge about six to eight weeks later at a Safeway in the Potomac, Maryland. Judge seemed to be employed at the supermarket chain when they ran into each other and she said "hello" to him, according to Ford. Judge's face turned "white" and he seemed "very uncomfortable in saying hello back," she said. "We had previously been friendly at the times we saw each other over the previous two years," Ford told senators. "I wouldn't characterize him as not friendly. He was just nervous and not really wanting to speak with me. He looked a bit ill." 'Bart O'Kavanaugh' A visibly emotional and irate Kavanaugh also testified under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, during which he denied all allegations against him. Kavanaugh told senators he "never did anything remotely resembling what Dr. Ford describes" and has never been in a room alone with Ford and Judge. PHOTO: Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh is sworn in before testifying during the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sept. 27, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Tom Williams/Pool Image via AP) Senators grilled Kavanaugh about his behavior during high school and questioned him about the veracity of Judge's book, "Wasted," in which Judge references a "Bart O'Kavanaugh" who "puked in someone's car" and "passed out on his way back from a party." When asked whether that character was a pseudonym for him, Kavanaugh told senators they would "have to ask" Judge. "Mark Judge was a friend of ours in high school who developed a very serious drinking problem and addiction problem that lasted decades and was very difficult for him to escape from and ... then he had leukemia as well on top of it," Kavanaugh said. "As part of his therapy or part of his coming to grips with sobriety, he wrote a book. That is a fictionalized book and an account." 'How'd you find me?' After listening to hours of impassioned testimonies from both Ford and Kavanaugh, Democratic senators continued their calls for an FBI investigation into the accusations and for key witnesses, like Judge, to be interviewed. That evening, Judge emailed a letter to the committee leadership asserting his and Kavanaugh's innocence. "I do not want to comment about these events publicly. As a recovering alcoholic and a cancer survivor, I have struggled with depression and anxiety. As a result, I avoid public speaking," Judge wrote, in part. "Brett Kavanaugh and I were friends in high school, but we have not spoken directly in several years. I do not recall the events described by Dr. Ford in her testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee today. I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes." His attorney, Van Gelder, also issued a statement on behalf of her client: "Mr. Judge does not recall the events described by Dr. Ford in her testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee today. We have told the Committee that Mr. Judge does not want to comment about these events publicly. We also have said that he is willing to answer written questions, and he has. In addition, he is willing to participate in a confidential, fact-finding investigation. He will not respond to any media inquiries." Van Gelder told ABC News in an email Saturday that she nor her client are commenting during the proceedings. Judge's whereabouts were unknown for several days as his name appeared in news articles and on TV. But a reporter with The Washington Post spotted him on Monday in Bethany Beach, Delaware, where he apparently has been laying low at a friend's beachfront house. Judge wouldn't talk to the reporter beyond asking, "How'd you find me?" Mark Judge says he will 'cooperate' with probe 'confidentially' The Senate Judiciary Committee reconvened on Capitol Hill on Friday to vote on advancing Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination to the full Senate floor. The Republican-led committee defeated a motion from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to subpoena Judge. "I'd like to make a motion to subpoena Mark Judge as a witness before our committee," Blumenthal said. "Evidently, he has never been interviewed by the FBI, he has never been questioned by any member of our committee, he has never submitted a detailed account of what he knows." Blumenthal also asked the committee chairman for more time to make a final appeal to halt the confirmation process, which Grassley granted. PHOTO: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley holds up a letter from Mark Judge, longtime friend of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 28, 2018. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) The meeting resumed later that afternoon and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) suggested delaying the Senate floor vote "for up to and not more than one week" to allow the FBI to conduct an investigation into any allegations against Kavanaugh. The committee subsequently voted 11-10, along party lines, to send the nomination to the floor. Judge emailed a letter to the committee leadership, saying he will "with any law enforcement agency that is assigned to confidentially investigate these allegations." Just as daylight began to wane from the skyline of the nation's capital, Trump announced he has ordered an FBI supplemental probe of Kavanaugh. "I’ve ordered the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh’s file," the president said in a statement Friday evening. "As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week." | |
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| 09-29-18 11:22pm - 2275 days | #1206 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
President Trump says the FBI will have free rein to do whatever they have to do. Brett Kavanaugh is a great man. The FBI will do a thorough investigation. Even if it takes one whole hour, and the scope is limited, because the White House and Senate are in charge of limiting the scope of what the FBI can investigate, Brett Kavanaugh will be shown to be the bestest, greatest man for the Supreme Court. Let me say this: we share a deep concern that the Democratic party is a bunch of corrupt criminals that are trying to destroy our great country, and we can not allow these mean, nasty scum-bags to destroy the reputation of Brett Kavanaugh. The FBI probe is a blessing in disguise. Let's put these Democrats in jail, where they belong. Lock them up. This includes Feinsteen, Rosensteen, and Muellersteen, those pawns of Satan, the great destroyer. Let us pray the nation will survive. Hallelujah and Amen. ----------- ----------- Trump asks if Feinstein leaked allegation against Kavanaugh, says FBI probe may be 'blessing in disguise' NBC News Lauren Egan Sep 29th 2018 8:15PM President Donald Trump on Saturday fully backed his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, said the FBI investigation of him may be a blessing in disguise and questioned whether Sen. Dianne Feinstein might have leaked the allegation from Christine Blasey Ford. The president spoke for the first time about his embattled nominee since ordering the additional FBI background check amid sexual misconduct allegations against the judge. Trump made the comments to reporters as he was departing for a reelection campaign rally in West Virginia later Saturday night. At the raucous Saturday night rally, Trump brought up Feinstein's name as a possible source of the leak and the crowd booed. The president went on to mock her response at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday when she was asked if she or her staff leaked Ford's allegation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh. See Also: White House limits scope of the FBI's Kavanaugh investigation Trump trashed Democrats and the media at the campaign event, saying the Kavanaugh hearing at which both the nominee and Ford testified showed that the Democrats were full of "anger" and "mean," "nasty" and "untruthful." The president said they were on a "mission to resist, obstruct and destroy. You've seen that over the last four days." "They don't care who they hurt, who they have to run over in order to get power and control," he continued. "That's what they want — power and control — w'’re not going to give it to them." He called the Democratic Party the "party of crime." The president also launched into a scathing attack against the press, calling it the "enemy of the people," as he has before and drawing cheers from the crowd of supporters. Earlier, Trump was asked by reporters about Kavanaugh when he was on his way to West Virginia. "I think it's going very well," Trump said. "The FBI as you know is all over talking to everybody...he's a very high-quality person. I would expect it's going to turn out very well for the judge, there's never been anybody that's been looked at like Judge Kavanaugh." Trump added that "having the FBI go out and do a thorough investigation, whether it's three days or seven days, I think it's going to be less than a week, but having them do a thorough investigation, I actually think will be a blessing in disguise, it'll be a good thing." | |
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| 09-30-18 09:36am - 2275 days | #1207 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Brett Kavanaugh is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court. Also says that if he lied, he is unfit to be a judge. My personal take: it seems apparent to me that Kavanaugh has lied. I do not see why he is not facing perjury charges. He has distorted the truth in his testimony, said untrue things, under oath. The Democrats are a weak party. At least the Republicans, who are complete hypocrites, have the strength and will to attack their opponents, with lies and slander and whatever they can do to advance their agenda. If the Democrats can't put Kavanaugh in jail for perjury, or make a very good attempt, they are fucking idiots who deserve to be treated with contempt for their stupidity and weakness. ------- ------- Politics Christine Blasey Ford Would Have Been Called ‘Hysterical’ If She Acted Like Kavanaugh: Pelosi HuffPost Sebastian Murdock,HuffPost 19 hours ago House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that if Christine Blasey Ford had behaved like Brett Kavanaugh did when he testified about her sexual assault allegation against him, she’d be labeled “hysterical.” Speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Saturday, Pelosi said Kavanaugh is unfit to be on the Supreme Court. “I couldn’t help but think that if a woman had ever performed that way, they would say ‘hysterical,’” Pelosi said about Thursday’s emotional testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During the hearing, Blasey recounted the night she says Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed, covered her mouth with his hand, and attempted to forcibly remove her clothing at a gathering in high school. In his own testimony, Kavanaugh forcefully declared his innocence, at times yelling, crying and interrupting senators. The judge called the allegations a “gross character assassination” conceived by Democratic lawmakers and fueled by “revenge on behalf of” Bill and Hillary Clinton. “I think that he disqualifies himself with those statements and the manner in which he went after the Clintons and the Democrats,” Pelosi told interviewer Alex Wagner. She added that “if he is not telling the truth to Congress or to the FBI, then he’s not fit not only to be on the Supreme Court, but to be on the court he’s on right now.” An FBI investigation into the allegations was opened Friday. Kavanaugh has also been credibly accused of sexual misconduct by two other women. “It’s not time, shall we say, for a hysterical, biased person to go to the court and expect us to say, ‘Isn’t that wonderful,’” Pelosi said. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 09-30-18 10:32am - 2275 days | #1208 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The truth comes out: The Republicans, not the Democrats, are the ones who are telling us the truth: Somebody tried to rape Christine Ford. But it wasn't Brett Kavanaugh. Brett Kavanaugh is a fine, decent, honorable man, who deserves our trust and respect, who deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. It was someone else who tried to rape this poor woman, Christine Ford. She was only 15 at the time of the attempted rape. Kavanaugh was only 16 at the time: he might have been drinking beer in this time period, but he denies trying to rape, or even have sex, with Christine Ford. It was someone else who tried to rape Christine Ford. 2 men have come forward, and have admitted that one of them tried to have sex with Christine Ford, many years ago. Republicans are the party of truth, honor and justice. They have searched their souls, and believe Christine Ford was attacked as a child (15 years old), but her memory is poor, this was many years ago, and since 1 man has admitted trying to have sex with her, this lets Brett Kavanaugh off the hook, since he is such a wonderful man, and besides, Kavanaugh says he never tried to rape anyone. But what is most important is that all this happened many years ago, so the two men would not be liable for any criminal charges about the attempted rape. And Christine Ford, a wonderful woman, needs to move on with her life, and, like a true Christian, forgive those who trespassed against her. ------ ------ U.S. Standing By Kavanaugh, Republicans Subscribe To Doppelganger Theory [HuffPost] Ryan J. Reilly September 28, 2018 Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he believed "something happened" to Christine Blasey Ford, but rejected her story. WASHINGTON ― In standing by President Donald Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have tried to avoid accusing Christine Blasey Ford of lying about her account of sexual assault as a teenager in the early 1980s. Instead, they’ve subtly adopted another theory: that someone assaulted Blasey, but it wasn’t Brett Kavanaugh. “I do believe something happened to her, I don’t know when and where, but I don’t believe it was Brett Kavanaugh,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Friday. “I do believe that something very, very, very bad happened to Dr. Ford, and I am very sorry,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said Friday. “But I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh was involved.” Blasey went before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday and said she was certain that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. She said Kavanaugh, now a federal judge and nominee for the Supreme Court, had pinned her on a bed and covered her mouth, trying to remove her clothes, but that she got away when his friend, Mark Judge, jumped on them. Blasey’s hourslong testimony, in which she answered queries from Democratic senators and a woman prosecutor hired by Republicans to do their questioning, was widely considered credible. Dismissing her entirely would require saying a psychologist who spoke with emotion about sexual assault was a fraud. But Kavanaugh allies had already begun laying the groundwork for an alternative ― that she was simply mistaken about who assaulted her. And even when she said she was sure that was not the case, Republicans stuck with it. The idea of a Kavanaugh doppelgänger was floated in a Washington Post column and a Wall Street Journal editorial board column earlier this month. But it was taken to an extreme when Ed Whelan, a conservative lawyer and friend of Kavanaugh, posted a series of tweets detailing his theory that someone else assaulted Blasey, complete with identifying details about the man in question. Whelan later deleted his tweets and apologized. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee made an explosive charge ahead of Thursday’s hearing: that two men came forward to claim may have been the subjects of Blasey’s story. In a timeline of events distributed to reporters, they wrote that committee staff on Monday interviewed “a man who believes he, not Judge Kavanaugh, had the encounter with Dr. Ford in 1982 that is the basis of his complaint.” They received an in-depth statement from him on Wednesday. The same day, staff “spoke via phone with another man who believes he, not Judge Kavanuagh, had the encounter with Dr. Ford in 1982 that is the basis of her allegation.” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Blasey about the two men who claimed they may have sexually assaulted her. “With what degree of certainty do you believe Brett Kavanaugh assaulted you?” he asked her. “100 percent,” she replied. But other than that timeline and brief mention, the fact that two men came to the Senate Judiciary Committee to present themselves as potential predators got little attention. “Two men came forward and said they may have had an encounter with Dr. Ford,” said Taylor Foy, spokesman for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), when asked whether the committee reported the men to law enforcement. “No one said they committed assault or admitted any wrongdoing.” Even in the case of wrongdoing, it’s unlikely they would face criminal charges. At the time of the alleged assault, it likely would have been classified as a misdemeanor with a statute of limitations of a year, and Blasey has not filed a complaint. Still, it calls into question how credible investigators believed the men really were. Democrats were not notified about the two anonymous men in advance. A spokeswoman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee, said they ”learned about the two anonymous men from the press when they forwarded the release.” Ultimately, even without much reference to the two anonymous individuals, Republicans said they believed Blasey while dismissing her. Kavanaugh said he didn’t do it; they said they believed him more. “There’s no doubt in my mind that she truthfully testified that she had had a sexual assault, that she had been assaulted sexually in her past,” Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said Friday. “I don’t feel that the evidence shows that Judge Kavanaugh was there that night.” Grassley said he found her testimony before the judiciary committee to be “credible” and believed her to be “sincere in her version of the facts.” “But I also found Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony credible and sincere,” Grassley said Friday. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 09-30-18 12:22pm - 2275 days | #1209 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Politics: White House says the FBI probe will be full and impartial. (White House position may change, depending on what the FBI says: The White House always retains the right to change their position, on any matter: As Trump has shown repeatedly.) Democrats are sneaks and liars: they don't trust President Trump, our Commander-in-Chief. Democrats must be flushed down the sewer into the depths of Hell, which is where they belong. Don't trust the President? How dare them? Any amount of beer drunk over 30 years ago should be off limits to the FBI. This is supposed to be an investigation of an honorable man. Not a smear campaign by the sneaking Democrats who are too cheap to drink hard liquor. Down with Democrats. (Kavanaugh, has promised, once he's on the Supreme Court, to crucify any Democrats who come within his reach: especially the Clintons, those sex-obsessed sons-and-bitches-from-hell.) ------ ------ politics White House Says No Limit on Kavanaugh Probe, Democrats Cry Foul By Sahil Kapur , Laura Litvan , and Ben Brody September 30, 2018, 7:19 AM PDT Updated on September 30, 2018, 11:26 AM PDT FBI said to not be looking into third accuser of court nominee President Donald Trump’s team pushed back against reports that the White House has laid down the ground rules for a brief FBI probe into Brett Kavanaugh, while Democrats said a limited inquiry could taint the Supreme Court nominee. Trump ordered the investigation on Friday into the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh following a request by Senate Republicans, a turnabout for a nominee the party had hoped to power through the chamber and onto the nation’s top court by early this week. The probe, though, will be limited in scope in ways determined by the White House, a person familiar with the proceedings said on Saturday. That includes not following up on claims of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh from a third woman, Julie Swetnick. The nominee’s alcohol use may also reportedly be off-limits. Not true, said senior Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway. “The White House is not getting involved in the FBI investigation in that way,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “The president very much respects the independence of the FBI.” Reveals Assault Trump’s former campaign manager revealed that she, too, had been a victim of sexual assault. “I feel very empathetic, frankly, for victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment and rape,” Conway said during an exchange about the possible motivations of those who have come forward to accuse Kavanaugh. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said on CNN that she’s concerned the White House will micromanage the FBI investigation. Questions about Kavanaugh’s drinking habits are also relevant, she said in a second interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” and shouldn’t be made off-limits. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the White House isn’t directing the process. “The Senate is dictating the terms,” she said, adding she was not aware of any directives from White House Counsel Don McGahn, and adding that senators would need to answer questions about any limits they might have placed. Not Fishing Conway and Sanders both characterized the week-long probe as not meant to be a fishing expedition. Sanders added that the White House didn’t expect significant new allegations to arise in the FBI investigation given six prior background checks into Kavanaugh. Besides the contours of the brief FBI probe -- one which Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on Fox News could wrap up as soon as Monday or Tuesday -- Democrats questioned Kavanaugh’s partisanship and judicial temperament. Kavanaugh said during Thursday’s hearing, in a fiery opening statement, that opposition to his appointment was stoked by “revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars of money from outside left-wing opposition groups.” “It made me wonder about his suitability to serve on the bench,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said in a partial clip from an interview that will air Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “I thought his anger got the best of him.” Blackout Drunk Klobuchar had a heated exchange with Kavanaugh during Thursday’s hearing, in which she asked the federal judge whether he’d ever been blackout drunk. “I don’t know,” he said. “Have you?” Kavanaugh later apologized. “I was really stunned by how he acted,” she said on CNN. “This is a -- basically a job interview for the highest court of the land.” Three Senate Republicans sided with Democrats on Friday in seeking the extended federal background probe of Trump’s second high-court pick. Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine forced the hands of Republican leaders in seeking the delay, because Kavanaugh must have the support of at least two of them to win confirmation in a chamber Republicans govern, 51-49. Raucous Hearing The about face came after the raucous Senate hearing in which Kavanaugh forcefully and tearfully denied claims by California professor Christine Blasey Ford that he’d sexually assaulted her in high school. Kavanaugh on Friday continued to defend himself and said he’ll be cooperating with FBI investigators. On Thursday, the Judiciary committee heard Ford testify that she’s “one hundred percent” certain Kavanaugh attacked her in 1982 when they were teenagers, describing in detail being held down on a bed at a beer-soaked high school gathering. She described “uproarious laughter” by Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge, who’s said he doesn’t recall such an incident. Asked to square the accounts of Ford, whom Trump described as “a very credible witness,” and Kavanaugh, Conway said “I think they could both be right.” ‘Something Terrible’ “I think something terrible could have happened the same summer she and I were 15, and that Judge Kavanaugh was not involved,” Conway said. A second woman, Deborah Ramirez of Colorado, claims Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a drunken party when they were freshmen at Yale University. In the most lurid allegation yet, the third woman, Swetnick, has said in a sworn statement that Kavanaugh took part in efforts during high school to get girls intoxicated so that a group of boys could have sex with them. Swetnick attorney and Trump antagonist Michael Avenatti, has kept up a running critique of the FBI process on Twitter, and said he and his client haven’t been contacted by the agency. The American Bar Association and Heather Gerken, dean of Yale Law School where Kavanaugh earned his law degree, called for a delay in Kavanaugh’s confirmation to allow an investigation. Kavanaugh would probably have to recuse himself from cases involving congressional Democrats if he’s confirmed to the Supreme Court, given his partisan tone in last week’s hearing, Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, both Democrats, said in interviews Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Flake, also interviewed for “60 Minutes,” said some of Kavanaugh’s comments to senators on Thursday were “a little too sharp.” | |
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| 09-30-18 06:55pm - 2275 days | #1210 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump's support of Kavanaugh appears to be wavering. If Trump was 100% behind Kavanaugh, he would never have approved the new FBI investigation into Kavanaugh. Because the only evidence or testimony that will probably be found will cast doubts on Kavanaugh's testimony. That's my opinion. But Kavanaugh was not a secret drinker. He drank openly. So, if people are going to speak honestly to the FBI (and it's a criminal matter if you lie to the FBI), then the FBI report will show Kavanaugh to be a heavy drinker. And there is the chance that witnesses will be found that will report sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh while drinking. Because Kavanugh appears to have been a sloppy drunk, who was aggressive while drinking. The FBI report could hurt Kavanaugh's chances of appointment to the Supreme Court. It could also open the chance that Kavanaugh could be removed from his position as a federal judge. Because of perjury charges from his testimony. This seems to be a bad move by Trump, if he fully supports Kavanaugh. Even though it appears that Trump was forced to approve the FBI investigation by Senate holdouts. But Trump has the power to control the FBI investigation. To limit the scope and length of the investigation. And, so far, it doesn't appear that Trump is forcing the investigation into a narrow focus. -------- -------- Politics The Latest: Yale friend says Kavanaugh was a heavy drinker Associated Press Associated Press 1 hour 57 minutes ago WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh (all times local): 7:25 p.m. A former Yale University classmate of Brett Kavanaugh's says he is "deeply troubled" by what he says has been a blatant mischaracterization by Kavanaugh of his drinking at Yale. Charles "Chad" Ludington now teaches at North Carolina State University. He says in a statement released Sunday that he was a friend of Kavanaugh's at Yale and sometimes drank with him. Ludington described Kavanaugh as "a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker." He says that on many occasions he heard Kavanaugh slur his words and saw him stagger from alcohol consumption, and was often belligerent and aggressive when drunk. Ludington says he plans to speak to the FBI, which has reopened its background investigation of Kavanaugh in light of allegations of sexual misconduct brought against the Supreme Court nominee. ___ 5:45 p.m. Deborah Ramirez, who's accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when they were students at Yale, has spoken with FBI agents as part of the bureau's investigation of the Supreme Court nominee. That's according to a person familiar with the matter who couldn't discuss the confidential investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. In an interview with agents on Sunday, Ramirez detailed her allegation that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in the early 1980s. The person familiar with the matter said Ramirez also provided the agents with names of others who she said could corroborate her account. President Donald Trump ordered the FBI on Friday to reopen Kavanaugh's background investigation after several women accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. ___ 10:10 a.m. Senior Trump administration officials say the White House isn't "micromanaging" a new FBI background check of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Republican senators and the White House have agreed to the investigation after California professor Christine Blasey Ford testified at a Senate hearing that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona sough the investigation and asked that it be limited in scope and last no more than a week. Kavanaugh has denied Ford's allegation. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and senior adviser Kellyanne Conway denied during TV interviews Sunday that the White House is directing the process. Sanders says the White House counsel has allowed the Senate to dictate the terms and scope of the investigation. Trump had opposed another background review for Kavanaugh. ___ 12:35 a.m. A lawyer for the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when they were students at Yale says she has agreed to cooperate with an FBI investigation. Deborah Ramirez's lawyer, John Clune, says agents want to interview her. Ramirez has said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in the early 1980s. Two other women have accused the appeals court judge of sexual misconduct. President Donald Trump has ordered the FBI to reopen Kavanaugh's background investigation. While the scope of the investigation remains unclear, Trump says the FBI "has free rein" and that he wants agents to interview whomever they deem appropriate. | |
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| 09-30-18 09:36pm - 2274 days | #1211 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Why are Republicans ramming Brett Kavanaugh on to the supreme court? David Smith in Washington The Guardian Sat, Sep 29 3:58 AM PDT Mitch McConnell has made it clear: Dr Christine Blasey Ford does not matter. This is about shaping the judiciary for years to come They blocked Barack Obama’s pick for the supreme court. They threw in their lot with Donald Trump, a political neophyte and TV celebrity facing multiple sexual harassment allegations. It is entirely unsurprising that the Republican party seems ready to ram through the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. Their logic: the end justifies the means. Republicans are aware that presidents, senators and representatives come and go, but supreme court appointments are for life. They aim to capture the court – with its power to shape abortion rights, worker protections and who gets to vote – for a generation. That, they have determined, is the big prize, even if it entails riding roughshod over the #MeToo movement and alienating millions of women. For a long time, Republicans have arguably been much more ruthless than Democrats. The comedian Bill Maher is fond of saying that Democrats keep bringing a knife to a gunfight. “Republicans, they’re all claws and sharp teeth and fangs when they fight,” he told viewers earlier this year. “The Democrats? Their weapon of choice is adaptive coloration.” Trump provides bluster and arm-waving from the White House but the cold calculation comes from the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. It was he who masterminded the opposition to Obama’s choice, Merrick Garland, on the flimsy pretext that the vacancy came up in a presidential election year. The empty supreme court seat became a crucial reason for many conservatives to vote for Trump instead of Hillary Clinton, especially after the former’s tactical masterstroke of publishing a list of judges he would choose from. It worked: the seat went to the rightwing Neil Gorsuch. The lesson: cynical, hardball tactics pay off. Geoff Garin, a Democratic strategist, tweeted on Friday: “Rushing to confirm Kavanaugh at this point would be as outrageous as denying Merrick Garland’s nomination any consideration at all. McConnell is stripping the supreme court of its legitimacy through his determination to stack it with rightwingers by any means at his disposal.” ‘Keep the faith’ Whatever his feelings about Trump, McConnell saw him as a price worth paying for complete Republican control of Washington which, for example, enabled sweeping tax cuts for the rich. It was small wonder, then, that last week McConnell reminded hardliners at the Values Voter Summit in Washington how Trump is transforming the courts. The president has appointed 26 of 167 current circuit judges, more than any recent president at this point in their first term. The supreme court is the icing on the cake. McConnell said: “Here’s what I want to tell you: in the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States supreme court. So, my friends, keep the faith. Don’t get rattled by all of this. We’re going to plough right through it and do our job.” Republicans have been as good as their word. At first, at Thursday’s epic hearing on Capitol Hill, the plan appeared to be unravelling under the clarity and composure of Christine Blasey Ford, as she detailed the allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when both were teenagers. But both Kavanaugh and Senator Lindsey Graham rallied the troops with nakedly partisan attacks, reminding them to put party before country. First, exuding a sense of entitlement, Kavanaugh gave a roar of white male privilege straight from the Trump playbook. Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and commentator, said on Friday: “We talk about the Republican party becoming Donald Trump’s party. We’re seeing the party that followed Donald Trump is now becoming Donald Trump. It is embracing his smash-mouth, conspiracy-theory style of politics. “The danger to the institution of the supreme court is incalculable at this point. For a judge to go off on such a brazen partisan rant is an extraordinary moment. It surrenders any pretence he has to a judicial temperament.” Graham, seething, claimed the treatment of the nominee was the “most despicable” thing he had seen in all his time in politics. He told Democrats: “What you want to do is destroy this guy’s life, hold this seat open and hope you win in 2020.” One Republican observer said, half-jokingly: “Lindsey Graham stole the day and will be the next GOP presidential candidate (in 2024). He is really smart and fearsome.” By 9.30pm on Thursday, McConnell had issued a press release: “I Will Proudly Vote to Confirm Judge Kavanaugh.” ‘Worth a political bullet’ On Friday, the Republican steamroller ground to a surprising if temporary standstill. Jeff Flake of Arizona surprised the Senate judiciary committee by demanding a renewed FBI investigation into Ford’s allegations. Trump acceded but ordered that it “must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week”. If the bureau fails to uncover new evidence, Flake and other senators will probably have the cover they need to vote yes. That would mean two of the supreme court’s nine justices – Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas – carry the baggage of sexual assault or harassment allegations, while another owes his seat to McConnell’s political gamesmanship. Two Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee were also there for Thomas’s confirmation in 1991. They will be keenly aware that despite the trauma of Anita Hill’s credible testimony, Thomas remains on the court as its most conservative justice. Hardball tactics paid off. Hill was credited with inspiring “the year of the woman”: in 1992, 28 women were elected to the House and four to the Senate, more than doubling the total. But some have retired from politics while Thomas marches on. By a similar calculation, Republicans appear willing to accept pain at the polls in November for the sake of Kavanaugh who, at 53, could sit on the court for decades. But one key difference between Hill and Ford is the rise of #MeToo. “Apparently Republicans have calculated that it’s worth taking a political bullet for,” Sykes said. “They’re on a mission to confirm Judge Kavanaugh but at the cost of looking like they are ignoring women. “They’re going to pay a heavy price in the long term. I think this is something we’re going to be talking about 20 or 30 years from now. It’s going to help define Republicans for a generation of women.” | |
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| 09-30-18 11:28pm - 2274 days | #1212 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Kavanaugh has been cleared of all charges against him by the Republicans. Christine Ford's accusations can be forgotten. Kavanaugh is one of the finest, most honest men to be nominated for the US Supreme Court. And Trump was right: Put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court now, without wasting any more taxpayer money on stupid accusations by the Democratic party. Go, Kavanaugh. Lock them up, lock them up, chants the Republicans, talking about the slime-ball Democrats who have wasted Republican time and money on this terrible witch hunt. One question: the outside counsel says there are holes in Christine Ford's testimony. But she does not analyze Brett Kavanaugh's testimony. Didn't he also testify at this hearing? Doesn't his testimony count? Maybe, the fact that the outside counsel was hired by Republicans, affects the bias of the memo she wrote. ---------- ---------- Senate GOP's Outside Counsel Says ‘Reasonable Prosector’ Would Not Bring Case Against Kavanaugh HuffPost Saba Hamedy,HuffPost 1 hour 12 minutes ago Rachel Mitchell, the outside prosecutor hired by Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans to lead the questioning of Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, has sent out a memo arguing that a “reasonable prosecutor” would not bring a case against Kavanaugh based on Blasey’s allegations. Blasey went before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week and said she was certain that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. Her hours-long testimony, in which she answered queries from Democratic senators and Mitchell, was considered widely credible. In a recent YouGov survey, Americans said, 41 to 30 percent, that they believed Blasey was telling the truth; they were split, 35 percent to 38 percent on whether Kavanaugh was similarly honest. Still, Mitchell, an Arizona prosecutor specializing in sex crimes, outlines in her memo what she believes are inconsistencies in Blasey’s testimony, according to multiple outlets which obtained the memo. “A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that,” Mitchell writes in the memo, which the Washington Post and CNN obtained. “Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event, and those witnesses either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them. For the reasons discussed below, I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee. Nor do I believe that this evidence is sufficient to satisfy the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.” Mitchell argues that Blasey has “not offered a consistent account of when the alleged assault happened”; has “struggled to identify Judge Kavanaugh as the assailant by name”; “has no memory of key details of the night in question”; and “has not offered a consistent account of when the alleged assault happened.” She also wrote that she believes “the activities of congressional Democrats and Dr. Ford’s attorneys likely affected Dr. Ford’s account.” Mitchell’s memo ― which is addressed to all Republican senators ― doesn’t analyze Kavanaugh’s testimony, during which he denied the allegations against him, attacked the partisans who raised them, and portrayed himself as an aggrieved victim. The memo, news of which first surfaced Sunday night, also comes after the White House formally asked the FBI to reopen its background investigation into Kavanaugh on Friday. Committee Republicans had shocked observers by agreeing in a last-minute move prompted by Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to request a formal investigation into the claims of misconduct. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday voted to advance the nomination of Kavanaugh. Two other women have also come forward with accusations of misconduct against Kavanaugh, which he has also denied. Ryan J. Reilly and Elise Foley contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 09-30-18 11:40pm - 2274 days | #1213 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Many women line up in support of Kavanaugh. PU members should also line up in support of Kavanaugh. After all, he is a white male, good-looking, and admits he drinks beer. That proves he is a good guy. We need to support both Christine Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. They are both innocent until proven guilty. -------- -------- Many women line up in support of Kavanaugh Associated Press MEG KINNARD,Associated Press Sat, Sep 29 3:18 PM PDT Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh gather inside the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018. The Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing from Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — As the Senate is divided on President Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick, so too are women across the country. Female voices have echoed throughout the U.S. Senate this week demanding male senators justify their support for Brett Kavanaugh's U.S. Supreme Court nomination despite an allegation of high school sexual assault. But other women have spent hours calling Senate offices in support of Kavanaugh, condemning what they saw as an anti-Republican ploy that's damaged not only Kavanaugh's reputation and livelihood but also his accuser's. To Hannah King, a college senior from Bristol, Tennessee, Christine Blasey Ford's allegations of a drunken attack by Kavanaugh at a 1982 party when both were in high school were jarring and scary. But while King expressed empathy for Ford, she also said she's concerned about the timing of Ford's allegations, which surfaced publicly only after Kavanaugh — already a federal judge — was nominated to the Supreme Court. "It was too timely and strategic," said King, 21. "Anything like that makes you question how true it is." King spoke Friday after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance Kavanaugh's nomination to the full Senate. Hours later, Trump ordered an FBI investigation of Kavanaugh upon Republican Sen. Jeff Flake's insistence. Flake's demand came after two women who said they had experienced sexual assault confronted him on an elevator at the Senate and demanded he take action against Kavanaugh. Two other women besides Ford have also lodged public sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh. "A lot of times, you cope by suppressing and forgetting," said King, who leads the King University College Republicans. "But someone's promotion isn't something that should prompt someone to come forward." That sentiment was shared by Sarah Round, 69, a retired elementary school teacher of Newport Center, Vermont, who felt empathy for Ford but not at the expense of Kavanaugh's reputation and future. "Possibly something happened to her," Round said. "But I think she embellished what happened, or she would have gone to some authority or said something about it years ago." Nancy Mace, the first woman to graduate from The Citadel and a Republican state representative from Daniel Island, South Carolina, said she had been sexually assaulted as a teen herself. She expressed sympathy for Ford, but said Kavanaugh deserved protection, too. "I'm very empathetic to women who've been through this type of situation," said Mace, 40. "But on the other side, we have laws in this country that protect individuals from being wrongfully accused." Emma Scott, an 18-year-old University of South Carolina freshman from Charleston, South Carolina, said that, while she doesn't doubt Ford endured a trauma of some kind, she wasn't convinced it could be tied to Kavanaugh. "If you're going to use sexual assault to slow somebody down, it had better be the truth," Scott said. "Even if Brett Kavanaugh is innocent, he is still going to live with this the rest of his life." Mace said that she viewed the testimony as an "at all costs" effort by Democrats to win back control in Congress and possibly hold the seat open until a future Democratic president can fill it. "Ford is political collateral, and they do not care," Mace said. Susan Conger, 64, a former math teacher from Augusta, Georgia, who also worked in the Reagan administration, said she turned off her television during Thursday's hearing but has followed the news coverage of the testimony. "Instead of watching, I decided I would be better served by praying for the people who were talking and listening," Conger said. Conger has spent time volunteering with her local women's Republican club, calling the offices of senators asking them to support Kavanaugh's nomination. "I'm sorry that this terrible thing happened to her at the hands of someone," Conger said. "It's not that I think that his accuser is a bad person. It's not my job to judge her because I don't know her." Kevin Bishop, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham — who gave a fiery defense of Kavanaugh after the judge's testimony Thursday — said Graham's office has received as many women calling in support of Kavanaugh as in opposition. Round, of Vermont, said she feels the whole episode could end up hurting Democrats more than helping them in this fall's elections, just more than a month away. "I am digging my heels in, and I'm hoping that a lot of conservatives are determined to vote Republican," Round said. "I think it's galvanized the women on the right more than it's galvanized the women on the left." ___ | |
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| 09-30-18 11:51pm - 2274 days | #1214 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
John Oliver pokes holes in Brett Kavanaugh’s ‘absolutely terrifying’ testimony Kyle Moss 48 minutes ago On Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver broke down and poked holes in supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony from Thursday. Including parts of Kavanaugh’s opening statement that Oliver found “absolutely terrifying,” because it means he’ll be bringing a partisan point-of-view to the bench if confirmed. “This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about president Trump and the 2016 election,” Kavanaugh said in his statement. “Revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.” Oliver, who pointed out that Kavanaugh himself has stated the court must never be viewed as a partisan institution, said that Kavanaugh’s opening statement was “positively Trumpian.” “It is worth taking a moment to note the norm that has just been shattered, because I know we’re all basically callused to people talking that way now, but we are supposed to have at least nine people left in America who do not talk that way,” Oliver said, referring to the supreme court justices. Kavanaugh’s now-infamous calendars were also a topic of conversation. After Kavanaugh choked up talking about his father telling stories from his calendars at Christmas every year, Oliver did some math. “Kavanaugh just said that his dad started keeping calendars in 1978, when Kavanaugh was 13. Meaning he would’ve been 14 at the time his dad had even a single calendar to read to his children from,” Oliver said. “And an adult man reading last year’s calendar to his 14-year-old son is literally the saddest Christmas I can imagine, other than being one of the innocent people who gets murdered in the movie Die Hard.” | |
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| 10-01-18 11:35am - 2274 days | #1215 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
It appears the FBI investigation is a sham, done to prove that the Republicans are fair and open, and that confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is the right thing to do. A fucking waste of time and resources. If the FBI investigation is truly limited in time and scope, then the Republicans who requested the investigation should vote no on confirming Kavanaugh. Except they are probably hypocrites who will vote to confirm, saying he passed a further FBI investigation. A political farce that will fool no one. No wonder that Trump approved the investigation. Potential witnesses are contacting the FBI with information, and the FBI response is they are not interested. That's a simplification. The FBI is telling potential witnesses to call a toll-free tip line, instead of sending investigators out to question the witnesses. This is even after the witnesses have made several attempts to tell their story to the FBI. Does the FBI have any choice in the matter? The White House has said the FBI is free to conduct the investigation without White House interference. The White House lies all the time. If the FBI does this sham investigation, then they are as corrupt as Trump claims. In this case, they are working directly for Trump's interests, instead of doing their job in the national interest. No wonder Trump demands personal loyalty over all. Trump is not above the law. Except if the US government follows Trump's orders, the law is a sham, and he is free to break the law. ---- ---- Accelerated FBI investigation could lead to Kavanaugh confirmation vote this week Luppe B. Luppen 2 hours 28 minutes ago The FBI appears to be preparing to bring the limited investigation of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to a rapid conclusion, limiting the delay negotiated Friday by Sen. Jeff Flake and setting the stage for a confirmation vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination this week. Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said that a floor vote on Kavanaugh would not take place on Monday even if the FBI investigation concludes Monday morning because the Senate’s rules for invoking cloture require several days’ delay. “If the [FBI’s] report comes in today,” Stewart said, “Leader [McConnell] could file cloture, setting up a Wednesday cloture vote, and Thursday confirmation.” The deal brokered by Flake called for a cloture vote no later than this Friday. But word that the FBI could finish the review by Monday morning — and the Sunday night dissemination of a memo by the Arizona prosecutor who questioned Ford during last week’s hearing — stoked fears among Democrats that a rushed confirmation vote could follow close behind. The New York Times reported Sunday evening that the FBI’s “‘limited’ supplemental background check of Judge Kavanaugh could be finished by Monday morning.” Also on Sunday evening, a five-page memo to “all Republican Senators” written by Rachel Mitchell, who was brought in by Republican senators on the judiciary committee to question Ford, appeared in the Washington Post. Mitchell’s memo applies withering skepticism to Ford’s testimony and says, “I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee.” The previous day, the Times reported that the FBI had only been authorized to speak to four witnesses: Mark Judge, the friend of Kavanaugh’s who Ford had said was in the room during the alleged assault; Leyland Keyser, a friend of Ford’s who she says was a guest at the party where the alleged assault occurred but was not told about it; P.J. Smyth, another guest at the party, and Deborah Ramirez, who has also made an allegation that Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party at Yale University. Reportedly excluded from the list were Kavanaugh and Ford; Ford’s husband; Julie Swetnick, a separate accuser; a number of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates who have come forward to challenge his testimony about his drinking, and any witnesses who could corroborate Ramirez’s or Swetnick’s accounts. The New Yorker magazine Sunday evening recounted the obstacles that potential witnesses who are not on the list of four witnesses have encountered in their efforts to make contact with the FBI or Senate investigators. For instance, Mark Judge’s ex-girlfriend has hired a lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, and is reportedly seeking to provide information rebutting the account that Judge has provided through the press and written statements to the Judiciary Committee out of “a sense of civic duty to tell what she knows.” Kaplan told the New Yorker that she has had no response from Senate investigators other than to say her emails had been “received,” and an FBI official suggested that she call a toll-free tip line. An anonymous Yale classmate, whom the New Yorker reports is attempting to corroborate Ramirez’s accusation, after multiple attempts to reach the FBI in Washington, D.C. and at a local field office, was similarly referred to a toll-free number and ended up submitting his information through an online portal. Edited on Oct 01, 2018, 11:44am | |
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| 10-01-18 02:25pm - 2274 days | #1216 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Can I sue this writer for plagiarism? I said the Kavanaugh investigation is a sham, in a post before I read this article. However, the article goes into more detail. So it's worth reading. The only problem is: we have to wait for the report of the FBI investigation, to see if the FBI investigation is a sham or not. Except, early indications are that the investigation is a sham. Witnesses have tried contacting the Senate committee, and the FBI investigation, and they are basically being ignored. The White House said it was taking a hands-off approach to the investigation. But that turns out to be lie, if you read this article. The White House is limiting the scope of the investigation. Limiting the scope and time allowed for the investigation. --- --- Politics The Kavanaugh Investigation Is a Sham, and Republicans All Know It GQ Jay Willis,GQ 3 hours ago On Friday, shortly after announcing his support for embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, a somber Jeff Flake changed his mind. Sort of. “I think that we ought to do what we can to make sure we do all due diligence with a nomination this important,” he said, as the committee's other Republicans rolled their eyes in frustration. Flake asked for a supplemental FBI investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh, but with the caveat that it not delay the final confirmation vote for more than one week. The truth is very important to Jeff Flake, unless finding it would take longer than seven days, in which case, says Jeff Flake, what else is there to be done? By all accounts, the process that ensued has been—and this is a technical term—a bureaucratic clusterfuck of the highest order. The White House quickly moved to limit the scope of the inquiry, excluding from the list of potential witnesses former classmates who could corroborate or debunk some of Kavanaugh's more obvious lies, especially those related to his drinking habits. According to the New Yorker, would-be tipsters found themselves ignored, referred, and eventually lost deep within the bowels of the FBI's automated phone-menu hell. [A former Yale] classmate said that he was “one-hundred-per-cent certain” that he had heard an account that was practically identical to [Deborah] Ramirez’s, thirty-five years ago, but the two had never spoken about it. He had hoped to convey this to the F.B.I., but, when he reached out to a Bureau official in Washington, D.C., he was told to contact the F.B.I. field office nearest his home. When he tried that, he was referred to a recording. After several attempts to reach a live person at the field office, he finally reached an official who he said had no idea what he was talking about. At this point, he went back to the official at the F.B.I.’s D.C. headquarters, who then referred him, too, to an 800-number tip line. (He eventually left a tip through an online portal.) Even after Trump, perhaps aware that pre-baking a law enforcement investigation is not a good look, tweeted his desire that investigators interview "whoever they deem appropriate," sources told NBC News that this proclamation had no effect on the Bureau's mandate. And if Flake had objections to any of this, it didn't matter, since the "commitment" he procured from committee chair Chuck Grassley was memorialized only in a "gentlemen's agreement." [A] White House official made clear that the White House is the client in this process. This is not an FBI criminal investigation—it is a background investigation in which the FBI is acting on behalf of the White House. Procedurally, the White House does not allow the FBI to investigate as it sees fit, the official acknowledged; the White House sets the parameters. On Monday afternoon, the New York Times reported that under intense pressure from Democrats, the White House had authorized the Bureau to "expand its abbreviated investigation"—for real this time, apparently. Trump attached a "within reason" qualifier to this directive, however, and the original Friday deadline remains in place. This was always the riskiest possible outcome of Senate Democrats' demands for an FBI investigation: that if it occurred, Kavanaugh's enablers would employ a perfunctory process rigged to turn up as little of substance as possible. Grassley and company did not care whether Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath or committed sexual assault before Jeff Flake began having second thoughts. Why would they care about those things now? To them, this is a simple, straightforward exercise in the provision of political cover, and their only incentive is to do the bare minimum required to get Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to vote yes, and to soothe Jeff Flake's guilty conscience enough to allow him to do the same. Jeff Flake Is Another Spineless Do-Nothing Who Will Be Forgotten by History An encounter with protestors in a Senate elevator is the perfect metaphor for his public-service career. This, of course, would be an acceptable outcome for Flake, who desperately wants to be remembered as a good and decent person, but remains as reluctant as ever to put in the work of doing things that good and decent people do. In a 60 Minutes interview alongside Delaware senator Chris Coons, with whom he negotiated the last-minute delay on Friday, Flake was asked if learning that Kavanaugh lied under oath would torpedo the nomination. He paused, and frowned the sort of frown one uses to convey their earnestness about the subject at hand. "Oh yes," he said. Call it the coward's paradox: If Kavanaugh lied, Jeff Flake would vote no, but also, he'd might never have the chance to find out. Republicans want this investigation to be a mere performance of justice—one that allows Flake, Collins, and Murkowski to cast votes to confirm, all while telling themselves that they did the right thing. | |
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| 10-01-18 02:58pm - 2274 days | #1217 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The real news: the very real news, instead of the lies Trump tells daily: ---- ---- Trump has testy exchange, insults female reporter. Trump is so pumped up by showing his power and mastery over a female, he calls his pal Putin. Putin congratulates Trump, and offers to send 2 divisions to help Trump round up and execute all slime-ball Democrats. Trump says wait, I need to declare martial law, before I can order civilians put to death. Putin says, dear Trump, my friend, declare martial law. The people love you. They will love you even more when blood flows freely in the streets. The people might even proclaim you King Trump, which is what you always wanted. Trump says: You're right. Send a few missiles to take out Hawaii, I will declare martial law, and we can both celebrate. (After all, we still have Puerto Rico, if anyone wants to take an island vacation.) | |
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| 10-01-18 03:41pm - 2274 days | #1218 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The truth comes out: Donald Trump Jr. (the son, not the President of the United States) says he is more concerned how the Me Too movement will impact his sons than his daughters. Daughters expect boys to be boys. But to expect boys to feel threatened by girls who want to stop boys having fun, that's going way too far. "My father's motto is: grab them by the pussy." But if I teach that to my sons, my sons could get sued, maybe even serve time in jail. That's not right. That is un-American. Donald Trump Jr. is calling for a conference with his father, and Ivanka, to pass laws preventing women from suing or harassing sons who are only expressing wild spirits. Look at Brett Kavanaugh. The poor bastard is going through hell, just because he groped a young female. Kavanaugh was drunk. It was not deliberate. It was just a bit of fun. And the bitch took it the wrong way. She should feel complimented that Kavanaugh, a handsome young stud, wanted to party with her. ------- ------- Donald Trump Jr. expresses more concern for his sons than daughters amid #MeToo movement Good Morning America MEGHAN KENEALLY,Good Morning America 5 hours ago Donald Trump Jr. expresses more concern for his sons than daughters amid #MeToo movement (ABC News) Donald Trump Jr. is more concerned about the perceived threat posed to his sons than to his daughters in the #MeToo era, he said in a new interview. The father of five talked about his fears amid these times of sexual misconduct accusations and the assault allegation facing Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh. "I've got boys and I've got girls and when I see what's going on now, it's scary for all things," Trump, 40, told DailyMailTV. A DailyMailTV reporter then asked President Donald Trump's eldest son whether he feared more for his daughters or sons. "Right now, I'd say my sons," he said of his three male children who range in age from 5 to 9. His two daughters are 4 and 11. (MORE: Donald Trump Jr. posted image appearing to mock allegations against Brett Kavanaugh) DailyMailTV released a clip of the interview and fuller portions of it, which was conducted alongside his girlfriend, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, and will air on DailyMailTV Monday and Tuesday. "The other problem is that for the people who are real victims of these things, when it is so obviously political in cases like this, it really diminishes the real claims," Trump, who’s in the midst of a divorce, said. The interview took place while the couple was in Montana campaigning for Republican Senate candidate Matt Rosendale. (MORE: Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she is 'really turned on' by #MeToo movement) The Daily Mail did not specify the exact date of the interview but Guilfoyle appears to be wearing the same dress she wore at an event for Rosendale last Tuesday, two days before Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the clip, Guilfoyle does not specifically name Kavanaugh or Ford but seems to reference the case, saying she thinks "it's important in terms of doing an investigation to get the facts out there." (MORE: List of Trump's accusers and their allegations of sexual misconduct) "It's very tough 35 years later but it doesn't mean it should be ignored. But people need to be careful to understand the politics involved, as well, and what motivations people may have," she said, appearing to reference Ford's allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in high school in 1982. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the accusation. | |
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| 10-01-18 05:41pm - 2274 days | #1219 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
President Donald Trump, Man of the Hour, Man of the Year. He takes joy shitting on women in public. Why don't women shit back on him? Because he's the President, dumbass. You have to respect the President, even if the person holding the job is a pile of shit and corruption. And Trump lies out of both sides of his mouth. The lies are even coming out of his ass, if you want the truth. Trump says: “I want them to do a very comprehensive investigation,” referring to the FBI investigation. This is in spite of instructions to the FBI to limit the scope of the investigation, and to limit the time frame to 1 week or less. The less facts the FBI investigates, the happier Trump and the Republican party will be. So, the FBI appears to ignoring people who knew Kavanaugh in the past, who are willing to testify. The FBI has been instructed to limit the investigation. Except that Trump lies when he says the FBI can investigate fully. They can't. The FBI has to follow the limits set by the Republicans and by the president. To limit the trauma done to Kavanaugh and his family. (We don't want any testimony damaging to Kavanaugh, because Kavanaugh is such a fine, honorable guy.) ----- ----- Trump has sharp words for ABC's Vega, CNN's Collins Associated Press DAVID BAUDER,Associated Press 2 hours 8 minutes ago NEW YORK (AP) — ABC's Cecilia Vega and CNN's Kaitlan Collins were targets of a combative President Donald Trump for asking questions about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh at the White House on Monday. Trump called on Vega at the start of the Rose Garden event on trade and appeared to mock her. "She's shocked that I picked her," Trump said. "She's, like, in a state of shock." He appeared to mishear Vega as she answered him, "I'm not. Thank you, Mr. President." "That's OK," he said. "I know you're not thinking. You never do." "I'm sorry?" Vega responded. "Go ahead," Trump said. Vega asked him to clarify his feelings about the limits of the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh. Trump stopped her, saying he would talk about the subject later but first wanted to answer questions about trade. Vega pivoted to ask him about the prospects for trade legislation before Congress. Later, Collins attempted to change the subject to ask two questions about the Kavanaugh investigation, and Trump wasn't having it. "Don't do that. That's not nice," he said, adding that he wanted to answer a question about trade and moving on to another reporter. He came back to Collins, however, and she asked if he would consider it disqualifying if Kavanaugh was found to have been lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee when testifying about a woman's claim he sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. Trump talked about his surprise in how much Kavanaugh had talked about beer and noted that people weren't asking about Kavanaugh's behavior over the last 20 years. "You didn't answer my question, Mr. President," Collins said when he was done. Trump went on to discuss how he had avoided alcohol. Collins tried again. "You know what? You've really had enough," Trump said. "You've had enough." Later, Vega tweeted: "A news conference means you get to ask whatever question you want to ask. #FirstAmendment." Collins retweeted it with the message, "Ditto." Neither ABC nor CNN had an immediate comment. Trump cites the 'trauma' of the FBI investigation on Kavanaugh and his family Dylan Stableford 4 hours ago President Trump on Monday said he isn’t limiting the scope of the FBI’s investigation into sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh and would be open to the bureau questioning all three of the Supreme Court nominee’s public accusers. But the president also said he wants the probe done quickly to limit the “trauma” to Kavanaugh and his family. “I want them to do a very comprehensive investigation,” Trump said in during a Rose Garden press conference that was meant to tout a newly signed trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. “I want it to be comprehensive. I actually think it’s a good thing for Judge Kavanaugh. I think it’s actually a good thing, not a bad thing. I think it’s a good thing.” “Now, with that being said, I’d like it to go quickly,” the president continued. “And the reason I’d like it to go quickly is quickly is simple. It’s very simple. It’s unfair to him. What his wife is going through. What his beautiful children are going through is not describable. It’s not describable. It’s not fair.” Trump said it would be fair to scrutinize him, not Kavanaugh, because it’s “part of my job description to handle this crap.” President Trump delivers remarks on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) during a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on Monday. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Trump, though, said nothing about the trauma inflicted on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez or Julie Swetnick, the three women who have publicly accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Instead, the president cast fresh doubt on the veracity of their allegations. And the president did not mention their names. “Certainly, we gave the doctor a tremendous time, which is great,” Trump said of Ford, who testified that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in suburban Maryland when they were teenagers. “She spoke well,” the president said. “But, you know, there are some questions that haven’t been answered, like: what year was it? What day was it? Where was it? What’s the location? A lot of people are saying, ‘What’s going on?’ With all of that, you cannot say we’ve done anything but be respectful.” According to multiple reports, the FBI has spoken with Ramirez, who alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party at Yale, but not Swetnick, who says she attended more than 10 parties in the early 1980s where Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, were present. Swetnick said she was a victim of “gang rape” at one of the parties. At another, she said she witnessed Kavanaugh and Judge in a line outside a room “waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside.” The president was asked if he believes the FBI should interview all three women. “It wouldn’t bother me at all,” Trump said, before adding: “Now it depends; I don’t know all three of the accusers. Certainly, I would imagine, they’re going to interview two. The third one I don’t know much about. But it wouldn’t bother me at all.” But Trump couldn’t resist the urge to knock Swetnick, who is being represented by Stormy Daniels’s attorney — and noted Trump antagonist — Michael Avenatti. “I’ve heard that the third one has — I have no idea if this is true — has very little credibility,” the president said. Trump also saw fit to cast aspersions on one of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Without naming the senator, Trump said he or she had been in a “somewhat compromising” position in the past. “I’ve seen that person in very bad situations,” the president said. Since Thursday’s hearing, critics have questioned Kavanaugh’s repeated assertions that while he enjoyed drinking in high school and college, he rarely drank to excess. Trump, though, seemed to hear the opposite. “I watched that hearing, and I watched the man saying he did have difficulty as a young man with drinking,” the president said. “I believe he was very strong on the fact that he drank a lot, so I don’t see where there would be a big discrepancy.” “I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he’s likes beer and he’s had a little bit of difficulty,” Trump continued. “He talked about things that happened when he drank.” Trump was asked if he would pull the nomination if Kavanaugh was found to have lied about his drinking habits to Congress. “I don’t think he did,” Trump replied. Trump, a known teetotaler, then mused about what his life would’ve been like if he weren’t one. “I can honestly say I’ve never had a beer in my life,” the president continued. “I’ve never had alcohol, for whatever reason. Can you imagine if I had what a mess I’d be?” At the start of Monday’s event, Trump bristled at the number of questions from reporters about Kavanaugh and the FBI investigation. “What does that have to do with trade?” Trump said when he was asked by ABC’s Cecile Vega about the FBI probe, telling her he’d take questions on Kavanaugh after those about the pact. As the Kavanaugh questions kept coming, Trump’s irritation grew, until he refused to take a follow-up on his Supreme Court nominee from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “Hey, you’ve had enough,” the president said. ___ | |
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| 10-01-18 08:48pm - 2274 days | #1220 | |
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biker (0)
Active User  Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
Any judge found lying under oath are needs to be disqualified from their post. There is no room in our justice system for this kind of behavior. His behavior during the hearing disqualifies him. It is that simple. To bad the Republicans are now the ass end of our society. Warning Will Robinson | |
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| 10-02-18 11:59am - 2273 days | #1221 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
More Yale classmates come forward claiming Brett Kavanaugh has been lying [The Independent] Clark Mindock ,The Independent•October 2, 2018 As the FBI marches forward with its investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct made against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, a growing cohort of the judge’s former classmates are coming forward with contradictory memories of how the man behaved in his youth. Mr Kavanaugh has denied any allegations of sexual misconduct, and suggested during Senate testimony last week that he was generally well-behaved in college - someone who liked beer, but did not let his drinking go too far. The New York Timeshas reported that the FBI has at least four witnesses who are of interest to the intelligence agency as it takes a look at Mr Kavanaugh’s past. However, several people who are not on the list have contradicted the nominee’s testimony about the nature of his partying and behaviour over three decades ago. Chad Ludington, a Yale classmate of Mr Kavanaugh’s who said he frequently drank with the nominee in college, toldThe New York Times: “When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. “On one of the last occasions I purposely socialised with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail.” Mr Ludington is joined by the likes of Kit Winter, who shared a dorm at Yale with Mr Kavanaugh; Liz Swisher, a college friend; and James Roche, a Yale roommate, in suggesting that Mr Kavanaugh was less than truthful when he told the Senate that he was never a belligerent drunk in college. Others who claim to have known Mr Kavanaugh in college have said that he was often very drunk, in spite of his claims last week. “I watched the whole hearing, and a number of my Yale colleagues and I were extremely disappointed in Brett Kavanaugh’s characterisation of himself and the way that he evaded his excessive drinking questions,” Lynne Brookes, a former roommate of Deborah Ramirez, who has accused Mr Kavanaugh of forcing her to touch his penis against her will, said during a CNN interview. “There is no doubt in my mind that while at Yale, he was a big partier, often drank to excess, and there had to be a number of nights where he does not remember. In fact, I was witness to the night that he got tapped into that fraternity, and he was stumbling drunk in a ridiculous costume saying really dumb things”. “I can almost guarantee that there’s no way that he remembers that night,” Ms Brookes continued. “There were a lot of emails and a lot of texts flying around about how he was lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee today”. Mr Kavanaugh has denied Ms Ramirez’s accusations, and told the Senate Judiciary Committee that The New Yorker article detailing her allegations was the first time that he had heard the claim. But, former classmates say that Mr Kavanaugh or his legal team began reaching out to them before the article was published on 23 September. Those classmates, a NBC News report says, were contacted as early as July about the allegations, and the classmates say they are in possession of text messages from that time. Kerry Berchem, one of those former classmates, says that she attempted to get those texts to the FBI several times. “I am in receipt of text messages from a mutual friend of both Debbie and mine that raise questions related to the allegations,” Ms Berchem said in a statement provided to NBC. “I have not drawn any conclusions as to what the texts may mean or may not mean but I do believe they merit investigation by the FBI and the Senate.” Mr Roche, Mr Kavanaugh’s college roommate, has also spoken up in support of Ms Ramirez, saying that Mr Kavanaugh was usually reserved but “a notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time, and … he became belligerent and aggressive when he was very drunk”. “Based on my time with Debbie, I believe her to be unusually honest and straightforward and I cannot imagine her making this up,” Mr Roche continued in a statement. “Based on my time with Brett, I believe that he and his social circle were capable of the actions that Debbie described". The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Friday to send Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination to the full Senate for consideration. That measure was approved along party lines, but one Republican senator, Jeff Flake, suggested that he would not vote to approve Mr Kavanaugh before the full Senate without an FBI investigation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has meanwhile attacked what he has called Democrats’ delay tactics to undermine the confirmation, and has promised to bring Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination to a vote this week. | |
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| 10-02-18 04:02pm - 2273 days | #1222 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
This is horrible. The New York Times, that scumbag paper, is accusing President Donald Trump's father of fraud. And it writes that Donald Trump benefited directly from the fraud. All I can hope is that President Trump aims the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service biggest guns at the New York Times, to destroy the Fake Newspaper and keep it from spreading any more lies about our Glorious Leader for Life, President Donald Trump, who was sent from Heaven Above to destroy scumbag Democrats and evil women who have accused the President of dirty sex. Thank God that Melania is supporting her husband 100%. ----- ----- Politics NY Times: Trump got $413M from his dad, much from tax dodges [Associated Press] Associated Press•October 2, 2018 NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Times reported Tuesday that President Donald Trump received at least $413 million from his father over the decades, much of that through dubious tax dodges, including outright fraud. The 15,000-word Times report contradicts Trump's portrayal of himself as a self-made billionaire who started with just a $1 million loan from his father. The Times says Trump and his father, Fred, avoided gift and inheritance taxes by setting up a sham corporation and undervaluing assets to tax authorities. The Times says its report is based on more than 100,000 pages of financial documents, including confidential tax returns from the father and his companies. A lawyer for Trump, Charles J. Harder, told the Times that there was no "fraud or tax evasion" and that the facts cited in the report are "extremely inaccurate." The New York state tax department told The Associated Press that it is reviewing the allegations in the Times and "is vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues of investigation." The department typically refers findings to the state attorney general's office. The Times says the Trump family hid millions of dollars of transfers from the father to his children through a sham company owned by the children called All County Building Supply & Maintenance. Set up in 1992 ostensibly as a purchasing agent to supply Fred Trump's buildings with boilers, cleaning supplies and other goods, the father would pad invoices with markups of 20 percent or even 50 percent, thereby avoiding gift taxes, the newspaper reports. The Times says that before Fred Trump died in the late 1990s, he transferred ownership of most of his real estate empire to his four living children. The value of the properties in tax returns summed up to $41.4 million, vastly less than the Times says they were worth. The same properties would be sold off over the next decade for more than 16 times that amount. In total, the president's father and mother transferred over $1 billion to their children, according to the Times tally. That should have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million, based on a 55 percent tax on gifts and inheritance at the time. Instead, the children paid $52.2 million, or about 5 percent. Tax experts cited in the report say that Trump is unlikely to face criminal prosecution in helping his parents evade taxes because the maneuvers occurred long ago and are past the statute of limitation. The president's brother Robert Trump said that "all appropriate gift and estate tax returns" were filed. "Our family has no other comment on these matters that happened some 20 years ago," he said in a statement to the Times, "and would appreciate your respecting the privacy of our deceased parents, may God rest their souls." The Times report says documents it reviewed show that the future president was earning $200,000 a year in today's dollars at the age of 3. By the time Trump had graduated from college, the report says, he was getting the equivalent of $1 million a year from his father. When he was campaigning, Trump repeatedly boasted of his ability to turn a small loan from his father into his fortune. "My father gave me a very small loan in 1975," he said, "and I built it into a company that's worth many, many billions of dollars." | |
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| 10-02-18 09:16pm - 2272 days | #1223 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
A Classmate Has Told the FBI That Kavanaugh Lied Under Oath About Knowledge of Yale Assault, Report Says Fortune October 1, 2018 A Yale classmate and friend of Brett Kavanaugh, the embattled Trump nomination for Anthony Kennedy’s former seat on the Supreme Court, has reportedly delivered text messages to the FBI that were exchanged among Kavanaugh’s friends related to an accusation of assault before the details became public. If the texts were found to be accurate, they contradict sworn testimony by Kavanaugh. The classmate, Kerry Berchem, prepared a memo about the text messages and attempted to submit them to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27 following Kavanaugh’s testimony and that of Christine Blasey Ford, according to NBC News, which obtained a copy of the memo. The Republican staff of the committee didn’t forward the memo to the FBI and a spokesperson for Charles Grassley, who chairs the committee, said the texts weren’t relevant. A Democratic senator on the committee, Richard Blumenthal, said he worked with Berchem to submit them to the FBI directly. Berchem knew both Kavanaugh and Deborah Ramirez, who said that 35 years ago Kavanaugh exposed himself and thrust his penis into her face in a party at a Yale dorm when both were freshmen. Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27 that he had not heard of Ramirez’s allegations before they were made public in a New Yorker story published Sept. 23. However, Berchem said in her memo that she exchanged texts with another classmate, Karen Yarasavage, also a friend of Kavanaugh, ahead of that publication date. One of the texts reportedly from Yarasavage asked Berchem to go on the record to defend Kavanaugh. Others said that Yarasavage had been in contact with “Brett” and “Brett’s guy,” and that she had sent “Brett’s team” a photo showing Ramirez and Kavanaugh together at a 1997 wedding. Berchem reportedly text Yarasavage that Ramirez had “clung to me” at the wedding to avoid Kavanaugh and his friends. Berchem confirmed the memo with NBC News, though provided only a general statement about its contents. She said she’d attempted to provide the texts to the FBI on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 without confirmation before Blumenthal’s staff got involved. Yarasavage and other classmates mentioned in Berchem’s memo declined to speak with NBC News. | |
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| 10-03-18 02:01am - 2272 days | #1224 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
President Donald Trump, a true genius and one of the most respected men in politics today, doubts the credibility of Christine Ford, the woman who has accused Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape back when they were both teenagers. Trump reveals that Christine Ford has shattered lives: Brett Kavanaugh, a husband and father. Brett's wife, and his two daughters. They will have to live with the shame of Christine Ford's wild accusations of a man of honor, who went to Yale and studied law because Brett Kavanaugh is one of the finest, most honorable men in America. Yes, it's true that Kavanaugh likes beer. He admitted as much. But both men and women like beer, and by admitting that he likes beer, Kavanaugh has shown us that he is not just a rich man from a wealthy, high-class background, but also a man of the people, who enjoys what the ordinary people enjoy. So, come out in the upcoming elections, and vote Republican: Make America great again. Note: although Trump respects and admires Christine Ford, he knows she has been shamefully used by the scumbag Democrats, who have tried to smear Brett Kavanaugh, just like the Democrats tried to smear Donald Trump. But Trump was too smart for the evil Democrats: Trump loves all people, even the women who have tried to bring him down, and Trump has the courage and smarts to tell America what is really happening. Donald Trump: my hero. -------- -------- Trump mocks Christine Blasey Ford at Mississippi rally Yahoo News David Knowles Oct 2nd 2018 9:39PM President Trump is done playing nice with Christine Blasey Ford. At a Tuesday rally in Southaven, Mississippi, Trump attacked the credibility of Ford, one of three women to accuse his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. “How did you get home? I don’t remember,” Trump said in mocking Ford’s answers before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “How did you get there? I don’t remember. Where is the place? I don’t remember. How many years ago was it? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. What neighborhood was it in? I don’t know. Where’s the house? I don’t know. Upstairs, downstairs, where was it? I don’t know. But I had one beer, that’s the only thing I remember.” With the crowd laughing and cheering his impression of Ford, Trump then turned serious. “And a man’s life is in tatters. A man’s life is shattered,” Trump continued. “His wife is shattered. His daughters who are beautiful, incredible young kids — they destroy people, they want to destroy people. These are really evil people.” Trump’s comments marked a departure from his strategy of avoiding any criticism Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hours after Ford detailed her allegation of Kavanaugh’s drunken sexual assault at a party when the two were in high school, Trump offered Ford praise. “I thought her testimony was very compelling and she looks like a very fine woman to me, very fine woman,” Trump told reporters in the White House last Friday following Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It was an incredible moment I think in the history of our country. But certainly [Ford] was a very credible witness. She was very good in many respects.” Trump came to Mississippi to try to avert an embarrassing loss in the Senate for Republicans in the deep red state, throwing his weight behind incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. Facing a three-way race between Democrat Mike Espy and far-right Republican state senator Chris McDaniel, Hyde-Smith basked in the president’s support. Trump, however, spent far more time discussing Kavanaugh’s confirmation process than Hyde-Smith’s candidacy. Earlier Tuesday, Trump praised Kavanaugh as “an outstanding person” who has been “very brutally treated,” and lamented what he described as an unfair playing field for men in the #MeToo era. “It is a very scary time for young men in America when you could be guilty of something you may not be guilty of,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before boarding Marine One. “This is a very, very — this is a very difficult time.” The F.B.I. is currently looking into the allegations against Kavanaugh and is expected to wrap up its investigation this week. _____ | |
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| 10-03-18 08:17am - 2272 days | #1225 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The smear campaign against Christine Ford continues. Here is a man, unknown name, who says he was a boyfriend of Christine Ford many years ago. He says Christine lied under oath. Also says she is a thief who used his credit card to make charges without his permission. Also says that Christine cheated on him and was unfaithful. So, this unknown witness is evidence that Christine Ford is a liar who can't be trusted. Let's try to forgive this lying bitch, and make Kavanaugh a Supreme Court justice. The FBI can investigate these claims. Since Christine Ford stole money from the man by using his credit card without permission, as the Republicans and President Trump have stated repeatedly, there should be police records of her crime. And if Christine Ford was sentenced to jail or prison, her jail and prison records must be made public. If not, this cast doubts on the unknown man's claims Christine Ford is a lying, unfaithful bitch who can't be trusted. Can Christine Ford pick the man out of lineup, since the man claims he was in a relation with Christine Ford for 6 years? If she can't, this casts doubt on Christine's memory. This is a stunning piece of new evidence. The Senate panel needs to interrogate the man, getting details on how often Christine fucked the man, what positions she enjoyed, if she gave enthusiastic blow jobs, and other facts that will expose Christine Ford's character. And how often Christine was unfaithful. Was it just with a single man, or did Christine seek group sex, in wild drunken parties, where she boasted of her sexual skills? The Republicans and Brett Kavanaugh want to know the truth! ------------- ------------- 4 hours ago In a sworn declaration to the Senate Judiciary Committee released Tuesday, an ex-boyfriend of Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, contradicts her testimony under oath last week that she had never helped anyone prepare for a polygraph examination. The former boyfriend, whose name is redacted, also claims that Ford never voiced any fear of flying during their six-year relationship, and seemingly had no problem living in a small apartment with one door -- apparently contradicting her claims that she could not testify promptly in D.C. due to a fear of flying, as well as her suggestion that her memories of Kavanuagh's alleged assault prompted her to feel unsafe without a second front door. The boyfriend also charges that Ford was unfaithful to him and used his credit card without her permission to rack up $600 in bills to purchase merchandise. The statue of limitations means Christine Ford can't be convicted for her former crimes. But she could be prosecuted for her current perjury. Republicans, the party of Truth, Honor, and the American Spirit of fighting for our wonderful ideals. | |
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| 10-03-18 09:47am - 2272 days | #1226 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Donald Trump must be careful if he plans to visit China. He could be arrested and placed under control until he pays all taxes owed to China. Trump is like a bull in a china shop: he is famous for his flouting of the laws of many countries, including the US and China. So, unless his secret service protective agents are armed with the latest, biggest handguns, Trump is placing his secret service agents in harms way on his next visit to China. ----- ----- China's missing X-Men actress Fan Bingbing: What happened Fan Bingbing was reported missing, detained and "placed under control". by Jennifer Bisset October 3, 2018 6:57 AM PDT Fan Bingbing plays Blink in X-Men: Days of Future Past. 20th Century Fox The details behind Fan Bingbing's three-month disappearance aren't as exciting as you might think. The Chinese actress, known for X-Men: Days of Future Past and who had a role in Iron Man 3 as assistant Wu Jiaqi, and her companies face nearly 884 million yuan (about $129 million) in fines and back taxes, China's taxation authorities said on Wednesday, according to state news agency Xinhua. She reportedly underpaid more than 255 million yuan in taxes. Fan had been missing from the public eye since June, neglecting her Weibo account, China's Twitter-like platform, and her 69 million followers. Reports suggested she was involved in an investigation into tax evasion in the film industry, with speculation she had been detained. In September, state-run newspaper Securities Daily ran a story saying Fan had been "placed under control", but the story was quickly taken down. On Wednesday news arrived that Fan had been in secret detention for two weeks under "residential surveillance" at a "holiday resort" in Jiangsu, according to the South China Morning Post. Following the announcement, Fan returned to social media and her Weibo account to post an apology, saying she accepted the tax authorities' decision and would "try my best to overcome all difficulties and raise funds to pay back taxes and fines." Fan is known as China's highest-paid actor, with an income of 300 million yuan in 2017. This saw her top Forbes magazine's list of China's highest earning celebrities, holding the title for a fourth year in a row. In addition to Fan's case, Chinese authorities said if other TV and film personnel and entities check themselves and make up the tax payments they've missed to the taxation department before Dec. 31, they would be exempt from penalties. CNET's Marrian Zhou contributed to this report. First published on Oct. 3, 1:53 a.m. PT. Correction, 6:57 a.m. PT: This story had the incorrect amount that Fan Bingbing and her companies were fined. Fan and her firms reportedly face nearly 884 million yuan (about $129 million) in fines and back taxes. Update, 6:57 a.m. PT: Adds apology from Fan posted to social media. | |
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| 10-03-18 10:38am - 2272 days | #1227 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Follow the money: Follow the money the secret PACs are paying to low-class slobs and other undesirables to help speed the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Two men testified that they were the ones who had an encounter with Chistine Ford, where one of the men drunkenly tried to have sex. And that Brett Kavanaugh had nothing to do with the attempted rape. Now an unidentified man claims he had a 6-year relation with Christine Ford. During that time, she had no fear of flying in an airplane. During that time, she stole money from the man by un-authorized use of his credit cards for $600. It's unclear if the man filed formal charges, or if Christine Ford was sentenced to jail or prison. Without official records, Trump and the Republican party have said that any historical acts must be viewed with suspicion, due to lack of details and corroborating evidence. If the man did not file a police report, which is what Christine Ford should have done when she claimed Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape her, then both the un-identified man and Christine Ford have stories that are not backed up. During the six-year relationship, Christine Ford was unfaithful. So she is not only a liar, but a faithless slut, who can not be depended on. Except: what hard evidence does the man have to support his accusation that Christine Ford was unfaithful? Did he get smear samples from Christine Ford's vagina, that prove she was unfaithful? Without proof, it's only the man's word. Not only that, but the Republicans have not identified the man's name. No police reports, which the Republicans say are needed to show the act took place. The Republicns are experts handling smears against their opponents. Going back to the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, where the Republicans showed Anita Hill was not a credible witness with her accusations against Clarence Thomas, who was soon appointed to the Supreme Court. The Republicans have a history of showing that women are not to be trusted, and that they can put their candidate on the Supreme Court, even when there are questions about the character of the candidate. | |
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| 10-03-18 11:23am - 2272 days | #1228 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Charges, counter-charges, what a mess. Republicans, even the most intelligent, will have a problem finding the truth about Christine Ford. An un-identified ex-boyfriend of Christine Ford says she coached a female friend on how to take a lie detector test. The female friend denies she was coached by Chrisine Ford about a lie detector test. Christine Ford, under sworn testimoney, denied she had coached the female friend on taking a lie detector test. But the ex-boyfriend, without any proof, says Christine Ford lied, and did coach her female friend on how to take a lie detector test. Republicans, and President Trump, say, that without hard evidence, such as a police report, these accusations are just hearsay, and not be believed. Can't believe Christine Ford. Can't believe Christine Ford's friend. Can't believe the un-identified man who was Christine Ford's boyfriend. I have not read reports on why the man who was Christine Ford's boyfriend is not identified. Is being an ex-boyfriend of Christine Ford a shameful action, that the man's identity should be withheld? In that case, what about the Senators on the committee? They are talking to Christine Ford. They were in the same room as Christine Ford. Do they realize that they are now objects of shame, that should resign from the Senate, before they bring shame and corruption and worse to the Senate? What is really strange: the FBI is supposed to be investigating the allegations by Christine Ford that Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape her. But the FBI is not questioning Christine Ford. Or many witnesses who knew Brett Kavanaugh, and have tried to offer knowledge about Brett Kavanaugh to the FBI. Maybe the FBI does not need facts or evidence or too many witnesses that can muddy the investigation. Maybe the FBI wants to make up its own facts, in the style of Donald Trump: "real facts", versus the fake facts that people who knew Christine Ford and Brett Kavanaugh can offer. Makes you wonder how good or reliable the FBI is: are they part of the political operation? Remember, the FBI is supposed to operate independently of politics: but under the Truma administration, Trump demands personal loyalty, while also demanding strict independence. Which seems to be conflicting demands. ----------- ----------- Christine Blasey Ford's Friend Says Ford Didn't Coach Her On Polygraph Exam [HuffPost] Sebastian Murdock ,HuffPost•October 3, 2018 A friend of Christine Blasey Ford said Wednesday that, contrary to claims by Ford’s onetime boyfriend, the psychology professor did not coach her on taking a polygraph exam in the 1990s. Monica McLean’s statement was released by Ford’s lawyers after the ex-boyfriend wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee claiming that she had advised her friend on polygraph tests before government job interviews. “I have NEVER had Christine Blasey Ford, or anybody else, prepare me, or provide any other type of assistance whatsoever in connection with any polygraph exam I have taken at any time,” McLean said in the statement relayed by attorneys Michael Bromwich and Debra Katz. In her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Ford had said she never coached anyone on polygraphs. Ford appeared before the committee to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while the two were in high school. According to her emotional testimony, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, covered her mouth with his hand and attempted to forcibly remove her clothing. In his own testimony, Kavanaugh denied Ford’s accusation, at times yelling, crying and interrupting senators. On Tuesday, the anonymous ex-boyfriend sent a letter to lawmakers contending that she had helped McLean prepare for a polygraph test. He also said that Ford never mentioned the alleged assault while the two were dating between 1992 and 1998. The FBI’s investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh, which could finish before the end of the week, has been criticized by Ford’s attorneys as not thorough enough. On Wednesday, after an NBC report said the bureau had no intention of interviewing Ford, her lawyers demanded they be allowed to speak with investigators. “It is inconceivable that the FBI could conduct a thorough investigation of Dr. Ford’s allegations without interviewing her, Judge Kavanaugh, or the witnesses we have identified in our letters to you,” they wrote. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 10-03-18 07:59pm - 2272 days | #1229 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Chelsea Clinton: a goody two-shoes? Yes, she is trying to be a good person, fighting for decency. But maybe there is another side to the story. Critics argue that the children of prominent political figures should be off limits. Except: who started this: who put his wife and 2 young daughters in the spotlight, to bolster his image as a wonderful husband and father of 2 young daughters? Brett Kavanaugh, of course. It's a common strategy, uses by thousands or millions of politicians: showcase your family (wives, children, whatever) to show that you are a supporter of family values. Brett Kavanaugh is the one who is using his wife and daughters to bolster him image as a family man. So, maybe it makes sense to poke a hole in that image, since Brett Kavanaugh is also accused of attempted rape. Does the image of Brett's wife and daughters shield him from accusations of rape? He's playing to the crowd. Let the crowd know that maybe he's not the most wonderful man in the public eye. That Brett is using his family as a shield. Brett Kavanaugh tells the story, while testifying under oath, that his 10-year-old daughter, Liza, said to the mother, Ashley, that "We should pray for the woman", (The woman is Christine Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of attempted rape.) Kavanaugh said: "A lot of wisdom from a 10-year-old." So Kavanaugh is the one who is bringing attention to his wife and daughters. Showing that his family worships God, and is compassionate, even to the woman who has accused the father of attempted rape. Who the hell asked Kavanaugh to bring his wife and daughters into the drama? Kavanaugh, or his handlers. Maybe it's OK to draw a political cartoon of the daughter praying to God, since Kavanaugh is the one who made up the story: whether the story is true or not: there is no factual evidence the story is true: no videotape of the incident. Merely the words of Brett Kavanaugh. And as Donald Trump and the Republican party have stated, unless you have hard evidence for a fact, that "fact" should be regarded with suspicion. The Republicans are saying this about Christine Ford's testimony, time and again and again. The same applies to Brett Kavanaugh's testimony: what hard evidence is there that the 10-year-old daughter asked the family to pray for Christine Ford? Was the action schooled or coached, or was it the innocent wish of a 10-year-old girl? What has Brett Kavanaugh and his wife told the 2 young daughters? What videotapes and sound recordings, which are necessary evidence-according to the Republicans, are there to support the story? We need to get the 10-year-old on to stand, and make her submit to a lie detector test: to get an oral history of what the Kavanaugh family has told and coached the 2 children, about Christine Ford. Since Brett Kavanaugh is testifying to the Senate stories about his wife and children. Enquiring minds want to know. Is Brett Kavanaugh telling his wife and children that Christine Ford is a good woman, who is mistaken? Or is Brett Kavanaugh telling his wife and children a darker story about Christine Ford? And maybe Chelsea Clinton is taking the goody two-shoes attitude too far: The Republicans, along with Brett Kavanaugh, are slinging as much mud as possible against Christine Ford. Brett Kavanaugh even testified that the Clinton family is part of the mud-slinging attack against him. Is Chelsea Clinton deaf and blind to Brett Kavanaugh's words and actions? Does she want to stand up and defend Brett Kavanaugh's family, while Brett Kavanaugh stabs her in the back and tries to bury her family in slurs and insults? ------- ------- Chelsea Clinton: 'Please leave Judge Kavanaugh's daughters alone' The Wrap Itay Hod Oct 3rd 2018 6:15PM Chelsea Clinton has come out in defense of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s daughter, after a political cartoon featuring 10-year-old Liza Kavanaugh sparked outrage from critics who argued that children of prominent political figures should be off limits. “Please leave Judge Kavanaugh’s daughters alone,” she tweeted Wednesday. “They do not belong in your cartoons, ‘jokes’, or skits. If you can’t make your point about Judge Kavanaugh, whatever it may be, without bullying his kids, it’s not worth making.” Last week, Chris Britt, a veteran Creators Syndicate editorial cartoonist, came under fire after publishing a cartoon that seemed to mock Brett Kavanaugh’s young daughter for praying. The cartoon was in reference to Judge Kavanaugh’s opening statement last week, in which the Supreme Court nominee said that his daughter suggested to her mother, Ashley Kavanaugh, to pray for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who accused her father of sexual assaulting her in the early 1980s. The cartoon, showing Liza during a bedtime prayer, was titled: “Kavanaugh’s daughter says another prayer.” A speech bubble above the girl’s head, read: “Dear God, Forgive my angry, alcoholic father for sexually assaulting Dr. Ford.” (Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied Ford’s accusation.) The image sparked swift backlash on social media. Britt told The Washington Post that he has received multiple death threats as a result and that he has filed a report with law enforcement. Also Read:Joe Scarborough Slams 'Mainstream Media' Over Kavanaugh Coverage: 'So One-Sided' “I don’t mind people being angry with my cartoons,” he said, but people “posting my home address online and [threatening] me” is another matter. | |
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| 10-03-18 08:14pm - 2272 days | #1230 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Vladimir Putin is the world's savior. This is from a weekly show on (Russian) state television. I thought Donald Trump was the world's savor. From what I've heard on Fox News. Can we have two saviors of the world? Maybe. Since Trump and Putin seem to respect and admire each other so much. I have wondered why Trump has not asked Putin for the loan of some of his state-trained assassins to eliminate the Democrat opposition party in the United States. Wouldn't that make Trump's program of making America great again, far easier, if the Republican party did not have to deal with slime-ball Democrats? ---- ---- https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/09...g-for-vladimir-putin A sea of troublesThings are going wrong for Vladimir Putin A burst of electoral and other reverses Print edition | Europe Sep 29th 2018 VLADIMIR PUTIN is the world’s saviour. So says a weekly prime-time show on state television, “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin.” Its latest episode featured the Russian president heroically bringing peace to Syria over a lunch of lamb and raspberries with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Mr Putin being mobbed by women at a forum in St Petersburg; Mr Putin hitting a distant target at a firing range with a new sniper rifle. The aim of the programme is to boost the president’s image. But as the past few weeks have shown, Mr Putin is starting to miss his mark. The foreign adventures that have brought Russia’s new tsar a big boost over the past few years are starting to go wrong. The exposure of two military security agents named by the British police as the men who tried to murder Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a nerve agent have brought global embarrassment by revealing the remarkable incompetence of the security agencies. The affair is also soon expected to produce a new round of American sanctions. Meanwhile, the wars in Ukraine and Syria are becoming more costly. On September 17th, as Israel bombed Syrian military installations, Syrian forces accidentally shot down a Russian spy plane with 15 crew on board. In response, the Kremlin lashed out at Israel and agreed to supply S-300 missile systems to Bashar al-Assad, despite protests from Israel, thereby risking further escalation. The war in Ukraine, meanwhile, has produced a religious split between Russian and Ukrainian churches, undermining Mr Putin’s claim to be the unifier of the Russian world. But Mr Putin’s main problems lie at home. In the past few weeks the Kremlin has suffered the biggest electoral fiasco since large-scale protests broke out over election-rigging in 2011, losing four gubernatorial elections this month. The losses are all the more striking since the elections themselves were neutered. Any serious challenger was barred from standing, so the rivals to the Kremlin’s candidates were meant to be no-hopers. Yet in an atmosphere of economic stagnation and building discontent, even these tame elections turned into a form of protest for voters who have traditionally supported Mr Putin—pensioners, low-paid workers and the young from provincial towns. Moscow, the scene of the largest protests in 2011, has been placated with money, renovation and social projects, but the resentment in the regions has grown. The alarm bell rang first in the far east of the country, where an incumbent governor installed by Moscow was forced into a run-off. Mr Putin, who was in Vladivostok for an annual pow-wow with China, had personally endorsed him. “I know you have a second round ahead of you. I think everything will be all right,” Mr Putin told Andrei Tarasenko, the governor, in a televised meeting. It was not. Emboldened, voters gleefully turned up for the run-off on September 16th in far greater numbers than they had done in the first round, to vote for the 37-year-old Communist challenger, Andrei Ishchenko. A last-minute attempt to rig the result was so clumsy that the government did not risk upholding it, but instead of awarding the prize to the rightful victor has called for a re-poll. On September 23rd three more governors backed by the Kremlin lost the second round of their elections, in each case on an increased turnout. Don’t mess with the pensioners The immediate cause for all this is a proposed hike in the age at which Russians can retire and claim a state pension. Mr Putin had previously vowed that this would never happen. And of course, the security services are exempt. Under the proposal, Russian men can expect to retire at 65 and die at 66; many will never receive a pension at all. Small wonder they are miffed. In the past six months, Mr Putin’s approval rating has fallen by 15 percentage points. Only 48% of Russians trust the president or say they would vote for him today, even though he was re-elected in March with 76% of the vote. The rating of the Kremlin’s United Russia party is below 30%. Despite all the propaganda, people no longer see Mr Putin as their saviour, and blame him for spending too much time on making Russia great again rather than helping them get by. Even the wealthy elite are feeling tetchy and uncomfortable, thanks both to the growing confrontation with the West (which threatens their fortunes) and the unchecked power of the FSB, the secret police (which threatens their liberty and even their lives). A few years ago, an endorsement from Mr Putin was seen as guaranteeing political victory. Today, standing close to Mr Putin carries a risk, both inside and outside the country. None of this means that Mr Putin’s system is about to crumble. But he may try to mitigate its vulnerability with violence at home and abroad. Another sign of that came on September 24th, when Alexei Navalny, an opposition leader who had spent the previous 30 days in jail for organising a protest rally nine months ago, was re-arrested two minutes after being released. With the appetite for protest rising, he and his anti-corruption investigations are becoming a threat. If that were not enough, Mr Putin’s security men have also been threatening extrajudicial acts. Viktor Zolotov, Mr Putin’s former bodyguard who now commands a 300,000-strong internal army designed to put down any sign of revolt, on September 11th bizarrely challenged Mr Navalny to a duel and promised to “make a juicy beefsteak” out of him. His threat testified only to the Kremlin’s growing fear of an open and honest contest. This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "A sea of troubles" | |
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| 10-03-18 08:22pm - 2272 days | #1231 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
https://heavy.com/news/2018/07/brett-kav...ren-kids-daughter-m/ Brett Kavanaugh’s Children: Daughters Margaret & Liza By Jessica McBride Updated Sep 27, 2018 at 3:54pm Getty Brett Kavanaugh's children are two daughters, Margaret and Liza. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee to replace Anthony Kennedy, has two children with his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh. He revealed during his nomination press conference that his daughters sometimes call him “Coach K.” Specifically, the Kavanaugh kids are two daughters named Margaret and Liza. Kavanaugh walked into the first day of his confirmation hearing clutching his daughter’s hand. However, his daughters were later escorted from the room after protesters began shouting. On September 27, 2018, in an emotional and angry statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee – after Professor Christine Blasey Ford accused him of sexual assault dating to the 1980s – Kavanaugh brought up his daughters. Struggling not to break into tears, he said that his 10-year-old daughter had suggested the family pray for Ford. Kavanaugh also said that explaining what was going on to his daughters was the worst experience of his and his wife Ashley’s lives. Brett Kavanaugh and his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, sat down for a joint interview with Fox News on September 24, 2018. They discussed the effect of the nomination on their children: Kavanaugh, the former staff secretary to George W. Bush, also played a role in drafting the Ken Starr report into the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton. Trump revealed his pick for Supreme Court on July 9, 2018. Kavanaugh was one of four rumored finalists, along with Judges Amy Coney Barrett, Thomas Hardiman, and Raymond Kethledge. In his nomination speech, Kavanaugh spoke emotionally about his wife and two daughters, who were at the press conference. He described coaching his girls and taking them to sporting events. “I thank God every day for my family,” Kavanaugh said in the press conference. Here’s what you need to know about Brett M. Kavanaugh’s children: Kavanaugh Called His Daughters ‘Spirited’ & Says He Coaches Their Basketball Teams brett kavanaugh daughter Brett Kavanaugh spoke movingly about his two girls at the press conference announcing his nomination to the nation’s highest court. “I have two spirited daughters, Margaret and Liza. Margaret loves sports and she loves to read. Liza loves sports and she loves to talk,” he joked, then playfully giving his daughter “five.” “I tried to create bonds with my daughters like my dad created with me. For the last seven years, I coached my daughters’ basketball teams. The girls on the teams call me coach K,” revealed Kavanaugh. “I am proud of our Blessed Sacrament team that just won the city championship,” he added. “My daughters and I also go to lots of games.” He said they recently went to a Notre Dame game during the Final Four. Brett M. Kavanaugh’s daughters are with his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, who he described as a west Texan. The parents were married in 2004, and the eldest daughter was born 13 months later. According to The Washington Examiner, “In 2004, Kavanaugh married presidential assistant Ashley Estes, who gave birth to their daughter, Margaret, 13 months later. The family lives in Chevy Chase, directly across the street from White House Counsel Dan Bartlett.” brett kavanaugh family U.S. President Donald Trump introduces U.S. Circuit Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh with his family. Brett Kavanaugh is a judge serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court. He is a graduate of Yale Law School who also spent time in private practice. At his confirmation hearing in May 2006, Kavanaugh spoke of his family, saying, “And I thank my family for being here. Since I last appeared before the Committee, there have been two major changes in my record, and they’re both sitting behind me. My wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, and my 8-month-old daughter, Margaret Murphy Kavanaugh. She’s watched a little C-SPAN in her day. This is her first live Senate hearing, however. I’m not sure–as you’ve probably already noticed, Mr. Chairman, I’m not sure she’s going to make it very long, but she wanted to be here for the start.” Bush nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Court of Appeals, and he spoke at the swearing-in ceremony in 2006. According to a story posted by the White House, Bush mentioned Kavanaugh’s daughter Margaret at the event. “Welcome the star of Brett’s most recent televised hearing, Margaret Murphy Kavanaugh,” Bush said to laughter from the crowd. “Margaret has his mother’s — has her mother’s good looks, and her dad’s preference for hearings that do not last too long.” At the same hearing, Brett Kavanaugh called Margaret, his only child at the time, a “daily inspiration.” “Ashley and our little girl Margaret are a daily inspiration. Ashley, as the President noted, is from Abilene, Texas. For those of you who don’t know much about Texas geography, it’s about halfway between Dallas and Midland,” he said. “Ashley’s parents are here, and I thank them for coming. Ashley likes to remind me that true love, true love is a Texas girl who is willing to marry a guy with a lifetime appointment in Washington, D.C.” Kavanaugh’s Wife Has Deep Ties to the Bush Administration brett kavanaugh family Swearing-in Ceremony for Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia with his wife Ashley Estes Kavanaugh. Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, the spouse of Brett Kavanaugh, has deep ties to the administration of George W. Bush, as does her husband. That had some observers thinking the Bush family ties could potentially reduce Brett Kavanaugh’s chances to be a Trump nominee because there is no love lost between Trump and the Bushes. According to her LinkedIn page, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh worked as media relations coordinator for the George W. Bush Presidential Center from 2009-2010; worked as Director of Special Projects for the George W. Bush presidential Foundation from 2005 to 2009; was President George W. Bush’s personal secretary from 2001 to 2005; was an assistant in the White House from 2001 to 2005; and worked on the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign from 1996 to 2000. Her time with Bush dates to his work in Texas as governor there. She was assistant to George W. Bush from 1996 to 1999. She attended the University of Texas at Austin from 1994 to 1997. Her LinkedIn page says she is Town Manager, Section 5 of the Village of Chevy Chase, Maryland. A newsletter for the town reports, “She has lived in Section 5 on Underwood Street for the last ten years along with her husband, Brett, and their two daughters, Margaret and Liza.” A bio for Brett Kavanaugh also sketches out his Bush ties, saying, “From July 2003 until his appointment to the court in 2006, he was Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary to President Bush.” Published Jul 7, 2018 at 12:31pm | |
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| 10-03-18 08:49pm - 2272 days | #1232 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Sarah Huckabee Sanders hits CNN's Jim Acosta with a low blow while arguing about 'facts' Nicole Gallucci ,Mashable•October 3, 2018 The White House press briefings are back and they're as unhinged as ever. In an on-camera briefing on Wednesday, the first since September 10, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly excused Trump's shameless mocking of Christine Blasey Ford on Tuesday night as the president simply stating "facts." After CNN's chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, asked Sanders about Trump's words, the two engaged in a brief but heated exchange and Sanders accused CNN of not stating facts. SEE ALSO: Trump claims it's a 'very scary time for young men in America' and... NO IT IS NOT When asked if she thought Brett Kavanaugh – Trump's Supreme Court nominee who Ford accused of sexual assault – was a victim, Sanders said, "I think both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh are vicitms at the hands of the democrats," and went on to say it's crucial to look at the facts present in both testimonies. Acosta then proceeded to ask if Sanders had any problem with Trump's widely criticized comments about Ford at Tuesday night's rally in Mississippi. "I don't have any problem stating facts, no... I know that's probably something you do have a problem with but we don't," Sanders said before moving on to another question. Https%3a%2f%2fvdist.aws.mashable.com%2fcms%2f2018%2f10%2ffeab1a62 76b9 33f3%2fthumb%2f00001 Https%3a%2f%2fvdist.aws.mashable.com%2fcms%2f2018%2f10%2ffeab1a62 76b9 33f3%2fthumb%2f00001 "Actually, Sarah, we do state the facts and I think there have been many occasions when you don't state the facts if I may respond," Acosta replied. After the tense moment, many picked up on Sanders' defensiveness and called her out on social media for her snark. | |
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| 10-03-18 09:35pm - 2271 days | #1233 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trying to get a simple, honest answer from the White House is an experiment in frustration. Donald Trump lies all the time. His White House spokespeople do the same. ---- ---- White House Won't Say If Trump Is Limiting FBI's Kavanaugh Probe [HuffPost] Ryan J. Reilly ,HuffPost•October 3, 2018 WASHINGTON ― White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to say Wednesday whether the Trump administration was limiting the scope of the supplementary background investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the White House had not authorized the bureau to interview either Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of drunkenly sexually assaulting her in the early 1980s while accompanied by his friend Mark Judge. Huckabee Sanders said Kavanaugh and Ford had been heard “in the most public way possible” during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing after the allegations emerged. That gave senators an opportunity to question both Kavanaugh and Ford directly, she said. “If they had additional questions for either one of them, they had a time and an opportunity, certainly, to ask those,” she said. The FBI background investigation into Kavanaugh isn’t a criminal probe, so it’s not necessarily improper for the White House to direct the bureau’s actions. The White House is, essentially, the bureau’s client. Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, told reporters on Wednesday that the background check process is unlike anything else the FBI does. “Everything else the FBI does ... the client is the American people. In background investigations ... the client is the White House,” Figliuzzi said. “There’s a flaw there because it’s essentially like hiring a private detective agency to follow your cheating spouse. You work for your client, you do what they want, and they shape the outcome.” But limiting the probe would expose the White House to criticism that it isn’t really interested in getting to the truth of the matter, but is simply seeking to ― in the words of Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) ― give Republicans “more cover.” This story has been updated with a quote from Frank Figliuzzi. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 10-03-18 09:39pm - 2271 days | #1234 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Democratic Senators Accuse Republicans Of Lying About Kavanaugh's Earlier FBI Reports Nick Visser HuffPost•October 3, 2018 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused their Republican colleagues of mishandling confidential information contained in Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s past FBI background checks on Wednesday and alluded that the files may contain evidence of inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse. In a letter addressed to committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), eight of the panel’s 10 Democratic members said the majority’s official Twitter account was incorrect when it sent out a message saying: “Nowhere in any of these six FBI reports ... was there ever a whiff of ANY issue ― at all ― related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse.” The eight lawmakers indicated that statement was false and called on Grassley to issue an immediate correction. “While we are limited in what we can say about this background investigation in a public setting, we are compelled to state for the record that there is information in the second post that is not accurate,” the Democrats wrote. “It is troubling that the Committee Majority has characterized the information from Judge Kavanaugh’s confidential background investigation on Twitter, as that information is confidential and not subject to public release.” Sens. Chris Coons (Del.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) did not join their colleagues to sign the document, although it’s unclear why. Grassley’s office rejected the assertion, calling the letter “baseless innuendo” on Twitter later on Wednesday and saying it reflected “more false smears from Senate Democrats.” “Nothing in the tweet is inaccurate or misleading,” officials wrote on the Senate Judiciary account. “This committee stands by its statement, which is completely truthful.” The back-and-forth comes the same week the FBI is conducting a new investigation into several allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh from the early 1980s, when he was in high school and college. Three women have accused the judge of sexual impropriety, including Christine Blasey Ford, who gave testimony about her allegation of sexual assault before the judiciary committee last week. Several of Kavanaugh’s old acquaintances have gone public in recent weeks about their interactions with the judge, and many have spoken about his involvement in a clique known for heavy drinking. Kavanaugh has denied all the allegations and moved to paint himself as a student focused on academics and athletics who occasionally drank alcohol but never “to the point of blacking out.” The FBI is expected to complete that probe this week, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said it will not be made public and that the document will be viewable only by the chamber’s lawmakers. McConnell has expressed his strong desire to hold a vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination in the coming days once the report is complete. President Donald Trump has grown increasingly antagonistic this week as the FBI inquiry moves forward. He broke his relative silence on the allegations of sexual misconduct during a rally in Mississippi on Tuesday, mocking Ford and the broader Me Too movement. Several Republican lawmakers, seen as crucial undecided votes on the Kavanaugh nomination, on Wednesday lambasted the president’s behavior at the rally. “There’s no time and no place for remarks like that,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said during an appearance on the “Today” show. “To discuss something this sensitive at a political rally is just not right. It’s just not right. I wish he hadn’t done it... it’s kind of appalling.” This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 10-04-18 09:31am - 2271 days | #1235 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The FBI can be a strong investigation organization. So why was the latest investigation into the Ford-Kavanaugh issue so weak? The investigation did not bother to talk to Ford (the accuser) or Kavanaugh (the accused). The investigation did not talk to people who knew Kavanaugh in college, who contacted the FBI and volunteered information about Kavanaugh. Why not? It was not in the scope of the investigation. So, either the White House or the Senate was directing the FBI. And the FBI was not doing an independent investigation. Conclusion: A deeply flawed investigation that did not try to properly investigate the accuser, the accused, or people who knew Kavanaugh while he was in college, to see if Kavanaugh lied or misled while testifying to the Senate. The FBI investigation was a political ploy by the Republicans to say that Kavanaugh was investigated by the FBI. He was investigated in a flawed, sham investigation. The FBI was used. Can you trust the FBI? Fuck no. Can you trust the Republican party? Fuck no. Can you trust the president? Fuck no. ------------ ------------ Many of Brett Kavanaugh's ex-classmates wanted to talk — but FBI reportedly 'ignored' them HuffPost US Dominique Mosbergen Oct 4th 2018 10:56AM Dozens of people reportedly reached out to the FBI in recent days in the hopes of sharing potentially helpful information with the bureau as it conducted its “limited” probe into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But the individuals say investigators did not respond to their outreach — a silence that has prompted questions about just how “limited” in scope the inquiry really was. The White House announced in the middle of the night on Thursday that it had sent the results of the FBI’s supplemental background investigation of Kavanaugh to the Senate. “With this additional information, the White House is fully confident the Senate will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” deputy press secretary Raj Shah said on Twitter. Hours earlier, NBC News reported that more than 40 people “with potential information into the sexual misconduct allegations” against Kavanaugh, including multiple high school and college classmates of the judge, had tried to contact the FBI to no avail. Attorney Alan Abramson told the outlet that he’d reached out to the bureau on behalf of his client, who he described as a friend of Deborah Ramirez, the Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s who has accused the judge of thrusting his penis in her face at a college party. Abramson said Ramirez had told his client in the early ‘90s “about an incident that happened during Ms. Ramirez’ freshman year at Yale.” He said his client was willing to provide this “pertinent information” to the FBI — but said he had not heard back from the bureau. Kenneth Appold, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary who’d been a suitemate of Kavanaugh’s when the alleged incident with Ramirez occurred, told The New Yorker that he’d also not been contacted by investigators despite having reached out to the FBI and submitting a statement through the bureau’s website. Appold said he had not been present at the party where the alleged incident had taken place but he said an eyewitness had told him about it soon after it occurred. “I can corroborate Debbie’s account,” Appold told the magazine. “I believe her, because it matches the same story I heard 35 years ago, although the two of us have never talked.” According to The New Yorker, several other former Yale classmates of Kavanaugh’s said they’d reached out to the FBI about the judge “but had not received a response.” Two high school acquaintances of Kavanaugh’s said they’d submitted sworn declarations to the FBI but had not been contacted by the bureau. Several former classmates of Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, tried to share their stories with the F.B.I. as it investigated sexual-assault allegations against him. https://t.co/Mli3bLcVro — The New Yorker (@NewYorker) October 4, 2018 Also on Wednesday, CNN published several more examples of former Yale classmates of Kavanaugh’s whose attempts to contact the FBI with information had amounted to naught. The outlet noted that none of these individuals claim to be direct witnesses of the alleged incident with Ramirez. Liz Swisher, a former classmate of Kavanaugh’s who had ... questioned Kavanaugh’s truthfulness about his drinking at Yale in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNN she had not been contacted by the FBI. Chad Ludington, another former classmate who said he often drank with Kavanaugh during their early years at Yale, also filled out a form, but had not been contacted back by the FBI as of Wednesday afternoon. [...] Mark Krasberg, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico who was also a classmate of Kavanaugh’s and Ramirez’s without direct knowledge of the alleged incident, had also not heard back from the FBI despite numerous attempts to reach out to lawmakers’ offices and FBI offices directly. Quoting security experts, CNN noted that it’s not unusual for the FBI to ignore requests from people who reach out to them with information. “As a general matter, if the FBI is conducting an investigation ... they decide who they need to talk to,” said Carrie Cordero, a former counsel to the U.S. assistant attorney general for national security. Still, Democratic lawmakers have expressed alarm at the FBI’s apparent overlooking of potentially important witnesses in their probe of Kavanaugh. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement Wednesday that she had “serious concerns that this is not a credible investigation.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the FBI’s investigation did not appear to be sufficiently thorough. ″[It] doesn’t sound like the complete, thorough investigation that frankly senators deserve and would be due if you had a thorough background check,” Gillibrand said. "There are witnesses who can corroborate, and possibly substantiate, those kinds of allegations, that still have not been interviewed." @SenBlumenthal on allegations of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking levied at #SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh https://t.co/EFcoh3Huf6pic.twitter.com/QOzrJ4sLzi — The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) October 3, 2018 According to The New York Times, the FBI reached out to 10 people and interviewed nine as part of its probe into Kavanaugh’s past. Ramirez said she was interviewed by two agents at her lawyer’s office in Boulder, Colorado, last week; and three former classmates of Kavanaugh’s ― Mark Judge, Tim Gaudette and Chris Garrett ― were reportedly also questioned as part of the investigation. Other than Ramirez, at least two other women have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct: Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who claims the judge sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers; and Julie Swetnick, who has accused Kavanaugh of being present during a “gang rape” in the early 1980s. Neither woman was interviewed by the FBI. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the misconduct allegations against him. Speaking to The New Yorker, Ramirez said this week that she was troubled by what she described as the FBI’s apparent lack of willingness to substantiate her claims. “I am very alarmed, first, that I was denied an FBI investigation for five days, and then, when one was granted, that it was given on a short timeline and that the people who were key to corroborating my story have not been contacted,” she said. “I feel like I’m being silenced.” The White House refused to say on Wednesday whether the Trump administration had limited the scope of the FBI’s investigation into Kavanaugh. Earlier in the week, President Donald Trump had claimed the bureau would have free rein to interview whomever they needed. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 10-04-18 04:34pm - 2271 days | #1236 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Maybe the FBI, that corrupt organization that is white-washing accused attempted-rapist Brett Kavanaugh, can investigate Amy Schumer. Thank God Trump was elected president. If it had been "Lock Her Up" Hilary Clinton, imagine the criminals on our streets, the rapists from Mexico and other scumbag countries flooding our neighborhoods with knives and illegal handguns. Trump, a strong supporter of law and order (especially when he talks about the corrupt Department of Justice, the corrupt FBI), is strongly for locking people up, keeping them behind bars, even the children of illegal immigrants). And here is Amy Schumer, looking like a hippie from the 1970s in a recent photo, being detained at the Senate building. Amy, I hardly knew you, and hope you will get help: Don't you realize that Brett Kavanaugh is one of the finest men on this planet, that Donald Trump personally vouches for Kavanaugh? Let us hope that President Trump will take pity on Amy Schumer, and issue a Presidental pardon if she is sentenced to prison for more than 10 years. However, prison time, among the rapists and murderers and con artists, should teach Amy Schumer the value of a strong God-fearing man like Brett Kavanaugh, who will keep these criminals off the street and in prison, where they belong. God save Donald Trump, our president, our hero, man of the century. -------- -------- Amy Schumer Detained At Kavanaugh Protest In Senate Building by Greg Evans October 4, 2018 1:51pm MSNBC/Twitter Actress Amy Schumer was among the Kavanaugh protesters detained by police at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington DC today, as captured on video by MSNBC cameras. Schumer was protesting the possible confirmation of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The judge has been accused of sexual assault by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, among others. In another video posted on Twitter, Schumer is seen answering “Yes” when a police officer asks if she wants to be arrested. (Those who don’t wish to be arrested are told to exit). In video shared by MSNBC, police seems to be removing, one by one, protesters from the Hart atrium. Watch the video below. MSNBC tweeted the photo of Schumer, along with others, apparently being detained in an area outside the main protest area. The MSNBC tweet included the message, “Actress Amy Schumer is detained with other anti-Kavanaugh protesters at the Hart Senate Office Bldg. atrium on Capitol Hill.” The footage also was shown, briefly, during MSNBC’s TV coverage. Earlier today, Schumer tweeted a message to the daughter of a friend saying, “I’m here with your mom, and she loves you very much, and I think we’re going to get arrested.” The daughter then posted the video: Actress Emily Ratajkowski, who appeared in Schumer’s I Feel Pretty, was arrested at the protest today, tweeting, “Men who hurt women can no longer be placed in positions of power.” | |
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| 10-04-18 06:10pm - 2271 days | #1237 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Republicans are the party of strength and moral courage. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stood up and announced that protesters who have screamed naked threats will not scare the mighty Republican Party, and will not stop the Republican party from doing its God-given plan (sent down to earth by God to President Donald Trump) of putting Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. Down with all scum-bag Democrats and low-life women who try to drag us into the moral swamp that President Trump has sworn to drain. Once the swamp is gone, Republicans can stand proudly, grab women by the pussy, and fuck the hell out of any woman, married or unmarried, that catches their eye. God be praised. ---------------------------- ---------------------------- Politics Mitch McConnell: Brett Kavanaugh Protesters Won't 'Scare Us' Igor Bobic ,HuffPost•October 3, 2018 WASHINGTON ― Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday vowed that the angry protesters who have flooded the U.S. Capitol in recent weeks in opposition to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will not “scare us out of doing our duty.” Hundreds of protesters and activists ― in many cases women who are survivors of sexual assault ― have hounded senators in hallways on Capitol Hill, restaurants and airports over the past few weeks, urging them to oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination. The appellate court judge has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women. He denies the accusations, which the FBI is investigating this week. On Monday, female activists at Reagan National Airport in Washington approached several GOP senators ― including McConnell ― as they returned to the nation’s capital after the weekend and asked questions about sexual assault and Kavanaugh. The Kentucky Republican looked straight ahead and kept walking while three women trailed him, attempting to engage him on the issue. “We would like to know if you believe survivors of sexual violence,” Naina Khanna, the executive director of Positive Women’s Network USA, said to McConnell in a video posted to Twitter. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that senators will not be scared by protesters who have been confronting them. (Aaron Bernstein / Reuters) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that senators will not be scared by protesters who have been confronting them. (Aaron Bernstein / Reuters) Addressing the matter on the Senate floor on Wednesday, McConnell also brought up that protesters had heckled Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and forced him to leave a Washington restaurant last month. At least three GOP senators were also targeted by an anonymous person who posted their personal information, including cellphone numbers and home addresses, on the internet. “I’m not suggesting we’re the victims here. But I want to make it clear to these people who are chasing my members around the hall here, or harassing them at the airports, or going to their homes. We will not be intimidated by these people,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. The GOP leader pledged that the protesters are not “going to scare us out of doing our duty. I don’t care how many members they chase, how many people they harass here in the halls. I want to make one thing perfectly clear: We will not be intimidated by these people.” He further accused the demonstrators of engaging in an “organized effort to delay, obstruct and intimidate those of us who will be voting this week.” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), another senator who was approached by activists at Reagan National Airport on Monday, grew emotional while discussing the incident with reporters on Tuesday. Unlike some of his other colleagues, he engaged with and answered questions posed by the progressive activists. “Look, I know a lot about sexual assault,” Corker said Tuesday without elaborating. “And so the thought that we don’t care about that is ridiculous.” The Tennessee Republican, who is supportive of Kavanaugh’s nomination, added that “the way they’re going about it is actually hurting the effort” to raise awareness about sexual assault. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 10-04-18 06:26pm - 2271 days | #1238 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
We need to clean the swamp in Washington. Place the entire FBI under arrest. Force them to take lie detector tests. While questioning them, ask them about crimes they have done. Lock them up, if the lie detector tests show they are lying. Trump, make America clean again. ------- ------- Kavanaugh’s Treatment of Renate Schroeder in High School Was Worse Than We Thought [The Cut] Sarah Nechamkin ,The Cut•October 4, 2018 As the FBI investigation into Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh wraps up, several former classmates of Kavanaugh have spoken out, frustrated that they have not been reached by the Bureau as potential witnesses; many of them have information they say directly contradicts statements Kavanaugh made under oath. Shortly before Kavanaugh appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about the high school-era sexual-assault allegations against him, the New York Times published a piece showing he had mocked a girl from a nearby school, Renate Schroeder, in his yearbook, calling himself a “Renate Alumnius” — a reference apparently meant to imply he’d had sex with her. Upon learning about this, Schroeder told the Times that“the insinuation is horrible, hurtful, and simply untrue.” At the hearings, an irate Kavanaugh insisted the moniker was meant to “show affection, and that she was one of us … It was not related to sex.” One of his classmates disagrees. In a statement obtained by the New Yorker, which he signed and anonymously submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the FBI, the classmate wrote that he remembers hearing Kavanaugh “talk about Renate many times,” giving the impression that “Renate was the girl that everyone passed around for sex.” He writes in the statement: I recall that Brett Kavanaugh had made up a rhyme using the REE NATE pronunciation of Renate’s name. I specifically recall one day walking down a hall with Brett Kavanaugh on the way to class, and hearing Brett Kavanaugh sing this rhyme. While I cannot recall the exact words he sang, the general theme was that Renate could be used for sex as a last resort. What I recall from the rhyme that I heard Brett Kavanaugh sing is: ‘REE NATE, REE NATE, if you want a date, can’t get one until late, and you wanna get laid, you can make it with REE NATE.’ The above rhyme may not be word for word, but the substance of the message is 100 percent accurate … I thought that this was sickening at the time I heard it, and it left an indelible mark in my memory. Related Articles Former Classmate ‘Shocked’ That Kavanaugh Testified ‘Devil’s Triangle’ Wasn’t About Sex More Than 650 Law Professors Sign Letter in Opposition to Kavanaugh’s Nomination All of Brett Kavanaugh’s Classmates Who Have Accused Him of Lying | |
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| 10-04-18 09:20pm - 2270 days | #1239 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The FBI investigation is a sham. It whitewashes Kavanaugh. So Republicans can vote yes, with a clear conscience. Did Kavanaugh lie during his testimony? Do bears shit in the woods? Do Republicans put the party first, before truth or justice or the American way? Do bears shit in the woods? Stand up for Brett Kavanaugh, if you believe Donald Trump's grab them by the pussy is good advice. But Kavanaugh did not grab Ford by the pussy hard enough, to make her want to fuck. He is paying for that now. (Except the FBI report omits any evidence that Kavanaugh lied repeatedly during his testimony: the FBI sold out the American people, on the orders of the White House and the Republican party.) -------- -------- Kavanaugh: 'I might have been too emotional' during Senate testimony NBC News Rebecca Shabad Oct 4th 2018 9:13PM WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh defended his "emotional" congressional testimony last week in a remarkable op-ed published Thursday night, on the eve of a critical vote in his confirmation process. "I was very emotional last Thursday, more so than I have ever been. I might have been too emotional at times," he wrote in an op-ed titled "I am an Independent, Impartial Judge," published by The Wall Street Journal. "I know that my tone was sharp, and I said a few things I should not have said. I hope everyone can understand that I was there as a son, husband and dad. I testified with five people foremost in my mind: my mom, my dad, my wife, and most of all my daughters." Kavanaugh said that his reaction was based in the fact that he had been subjected to "wrongful and sometimes vicious allegations," adding that his time in high school "has been ridiculously distorted." "Against that backdrop, I testified before the Judiciary Committee last Thursday to defend my family, my good name and my lifetime of public service. My hearing testimony was forceful and passionate. That is because I forcefully and passionately denied the allegation against me," Kavanaugh said. Kavanaugh testified last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee following testimony from Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh responded to critics who have said the tone of his congressional testimony — in which he said the allegations against him had been deployed for partisan purposes, and that political enemies were taking "revenge" on him for his work investigating former President Bill Clinton — raised questions about his ability to be impartial and nonpartisan. "If confirmed by the Senate to serve on the Supreme Court, I will keep an open mind in every case and always strive to preserve the Constitution of the United States and the American rule of law," he wrote. His comments came hours ahead of a key procedural vote that requires a simple majority that the Senate is set to take at 10:30 a.m. Friday on his nomination, which will determine whether it advances to a final floor vote. The op-ed also came on the heels of the release of the FBI's report of its speedy investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him, which Republicans said Thursday had vindicated him and Democrats blasted as incomplete. All eyes remain on four undecided senators: Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Meanwhile, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a lifelong Republican who was nominated by President Gerald Ford, reportedly said at an event in Boca Raton, Florida, Thursday that Kavanaugh does not belong on the high court. "I thought [Kavanaugh] had the qualifications for the Supreme Court should he be selected," Stevens said, according to the Palm Beach Post. "I've changed my views for reasons that have no relationship to his intellectual ability... I feel his performance in the hearings ultimately changed my mind." | |
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| 10-05-18 04:17am - 2270 days | #1240 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The FBI involved in a shameful sham investigation that amounts to a cover-up. What does it mean? It means: the FBI can not be trusted. In spite of the shiny badges, they can do shitty things. Just like Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh, they can twist or ignore facts. Who can you trust? Apparently, very few in government, or law enforcement. ----- ----- The F.B.I. Probe Ignored Testimonies from Former Classmates of Kavanaugh By Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow October 3, 2018 Several former classmates of Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, tried to share their stories with the F.B.I. as it investigated sexual-assault allegations against him. Photograph by Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg / Getty Frustrated potential witnesses who have been unable to speak with the F.B.I. agents conducting the investigation into sexual-assault allegations against Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, have been resorting to sending statements, unsolicited, to the Bureau and to senators, in hopes that they would be seen before the inquiry concluded. On Monday, President Trump said that the Bureau should be able to interview “anybody they want within reason,” but the extent of the constraints placed on the investigating agents by the White House remained unclear. Late Wednesday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the F.B.I. probe was over, and cleared the way for an important procedural vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination to take place on Friday. NBC News reported that dozens of people who said that they had information about Kavanaugh had contacted F.B.I. field offices, but agents had not been permitted to talk to many of them. Several people interested in speaking to the F.B.I. expressed exasperation in interviews with The New Yorker at what they perceived to be a lack of interest in their accounts. Deborah Ramirez, one of the women who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual abuse, said in an interview that she had been hopeful that her story would be investigated when two agents drove from Denver to Boulder, Colorado, last weekend to interview her at her lawyer’s office. But Ramirez said that she was troubled by what she perceived as a lack of willingness on the part of the Bureau to take steps to substantiate her claims. “I am very alarmed: first, that I was denied an F.B.I. investigation for five days, and then, when one was granted, that it was given on a short timeline and that the people who were key to corroborating my story have not been contacted,” Ramirez said. “I feel like I’m being silenced.” Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale, says that he exposed himself to her during a drunken dormitory party and thrust his penis in her face, which led to her touching it against her will. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation, along with that of Christine Blasey Ford, a professor from California who said that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when they were teen-agers. Several former Yale students who claim to have information regarding the alleged incident with Ramirez or about Kavanaugh’s behavior at Yale said that they had not been contacted by the F.B.I. Kenneth G. Appold was a suitemate of Kavanaugh’s at the time of the alleged incident. He had previously spoken to The New Yorker about Ramirez on condition of anonymity, but he said that he is now willing to be identified because he believes that the F.B.I. must thoroughly investigate her allegation. Appold, who is the James Hastings Nichols Professor of Reformation History at Princeton Theological Seminary, said that he first heard about the alleged incident involving Kavanaugh and Ramirez either the night it occurred or a day or two later. Appold said that he was “one-hundred-per-cent certain” that he was told that Kavanaugh was the male student who exposed himself to Ramirez. He said that he never discussed the allegation with Ramirez, whom he said he barely knew in college. But he recalled details—which, he said, an eyewitness described to him at the time—that match Ramirez’s memory of what happened. “I can corroborate Debbie’s account,” he said in an interview. “I believe her because it matches the same story I heard thirty-five years ago, although the two of us have never talked.” Appold, who won two Fulbright Fellowships, and earned his Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale in 1994, also recalled telling his graduate-school roommate about the incident in 1989 or 1990. That roommate, Michael Wetstone, who is now an architect, confirmed Appold’s account and said, “It stood out in our minds because it was a shocking story of transgression.” Appold said that he initially asked to remain anonymous because he hoped to make contact first with the classmate who, to the best of his recollection, told him about the party and was an eyewitness to the incident. He said that he had not been able to get any response from that person, despite multiple attempts to do so. The New Yorker reached the classmate, but he said that he had no memory of the incident. Appold reached out to the Bureau last weekend but did not hear back. Frustrated, he submitted a statement through an F.B.I. Web portal. During his first year at Yale, Appold lived in the basement of Lawrance Hall, one of the university’s freshman dormitories. He was in the same suite of bedrooms as Kavanaugh, sharing a common room. Appold said of Kavanaugh, “We didn’t hang out together, but there was no animosity between us either.” He said he believes that “there were two sides to Brett.” Those who have described the judge as studious and somewhat reserved or shy are correct, he said. He added, “That was true part of the time, but so are the other things that have been said about him. He drank a lot, and when he was drinking he could be aggressive, and belligerent. He wasn’t beating people up, but there was an edge and an obnoxiousness that I could see at the hearings. When I saw clips”—of Kavanaugh’s Senate testimony—“I remembered it immediately.” Appold said that he learned about the alleged incident with Ramirez during the winter of the 1983-84 school year. He recalled being told that, during a party in a first-floor common room in Lawrance Hall, Kavanaugh went over to Ramirez, who had been participating in a drinking game, “and opened his pants, and pulled out his penis, and tried to put it in her face.” But she waved him away. Appold recalled hearing that Ramirez said something like “It’s not a real penis.” He said that the remark made no sense to him at the time, and he understood it only after reading Ramirez’s allegation in The New Yorker and learning that people had been playing pranks with a fake plastic penis at the party. In an interview with The New Yorker last month, Ramirez said, “I remember a penis being in front of my face,” and that “I knew that’s not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.” She recalled remarking, “That’s not a real penis,” and that other students were laughing at her confusion and taunting her; one encouraged her to “kiss it.” Appold recalled being “shocked” when he was told of Kavanaugh’s alleged behavior. “The person who saw it was taken aback by what he had seen,” too, he said. Appold added, “It was a disturbing thing. I think everyone recognized that a line had been crossed here.” Video From The New Yorker Looking back, Appold said, “The thing I ask myself is, why didn’t anybody do anything about it? Why didn’t anybody report it?” But, he added, “The times were different then. Today I’m an educator, and if something like this happened, I’d know exactly where to go to the Title IX people. But back then there was no place to report these uncomfortable things—we tried to forget about them.” Kavanaugh has argued that, if he had behaved as Ramirez described, the whole campus would have talked about it, but Appold said that, to the contrary, “It was more, like, ‘Don’t talk about it.’ ” Appold said that he did not initially oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court. Because he had not witnessed the alleged misconduct himself, Appold said, he had not been sure whether to regard it as an assault, in legal terms, or as something less serious, although he saw it as “morally wrong, either way.” After seeing Kavanaugh’s blanket denials of Ford and Ramirez’s allegations, and his assertions of his rectitude during his high-school and college years, Appold said, “I had concerns that there was a good chance he wasn’t telling the truth.” He was certain, he said, that “what he said about drinking was not accurate.” Beth Wilkinson, Kavanaugh’s attorney, said, “There is no new information here. The Judge stands by his denial.” The F.B.I. declined to comment on its investigation. Ramirez said that the F.B.I. agents she spoke to interviewed her in a comprehensive and sensitive manner. Several of their questions appeared to mirror Republican speculation that the allegations against Kavanaugh were coördinated by Democrats or were otherwise politically motivated. (Ramirez said that neither was true.) “They asked me if I’d ever been in touch with Dr. Christine Ford,” Ramirez recalled, “and if I knew how reporters got my name.” She told the agents that she has never had contact with Ford, and began receiving calls from reporters unbidden. Ramirez said that her main concern, after her F.B.I. interview, was that the agents who interviewed her might not be the same ones talking to people who could corroborate her account—she felt that continuity was important. But she had not anticipated that people she believed had relevant information wouldn’t even be interviewed. “Being told that these people haven’t even been contacted,” Ramirez said, “it’s very troubling to me.” | |
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| 10-05-18 04:18am - 2270 days | #1241 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST: In addition to Appold, several other former Yale classmates said that they had reached out to the F.B.I. about Kavanaugh, but had not received a response. Stephen Kantrowitz, a former Yale classmate, said in a text message, “No one who lived in Lawrance Hall (so far as I know) has been contacted by the FBI What a charade.” Two high-school acquaintances of Kavanaugh’s have also submitted sworn declarations to senators and to the F.B.I. A classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Georgetown Preparatory School, who asked to remain anonymous because of the intensity of the partisan fight over Kavanaugh’s nomination, submitted a signed declaration to the F.B.I. after visiting the F.B.I. field office nearest his home, where he was told that the Bureau didn’t do “in-person interviews.” He said that he was hoping to hear something back, but hadn’t yet. In his statement, which his attorney also sent to several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, he described Kavanaugh as part of a clique of high-school athletes, most of whom were on the football team, who “routinely picked on” less physically fit or popular students. He said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh physically attacking another student, but he recalled him doing “nothing to stop the physical and verbal abuse.” Instead, he said, Kavanaugh “stood by and laughed at the victims.” Both Ford and Ramirez have said that they remembered Kavanaugh laughing during their ordeals. “It was so wrenching for me when I heard Dr. Ford mention how they were laughing,” the Georgetown Prep classmate said, in a phone interview. “That really, really struck a chord. I can hear him laughing when someone was picked on right now.” In his statement, the classmate also said that he recalled, “on multiple occasions, Brett Kavanaugh counting on his fingers how many kegs they had over the weekend.” The amount that he heard Kavanaugh describe, he said in the statement, “seemed to be an extreme amount of beer drinking for someone to consume at any age, let alone someone in high school.” He said that he also recalled Kavanaugh participating in general conversations “where the football players were bragging about their sexual conquests over the prior weekend.” His statement also challenges Kavanaugh’s assertion in last week’s hearing that he never denigrated a female student named Renate Schroeder, whose married name is Renate Dolphin, and who attended Georgetown’s sister school, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, in Bethesda, Maryland. Kavanaugh and thirteen other Georgetown Prep boys described themselves in their high-school yearbook as “Renate Alumnius,” which other classmates have told the Times was a crude sexual boast. During his Senate hearing, Kavanaugh said that the reference was an endearment, saying, “She was a great friend of ours. We—a bunch of us went to dances with her. She hung out with us as a group.” He said that a “media circus that has been generated by this, though, and reported that it referred to sex. It did not.” But the classmate who submitted the statement said that he heard Kavanaugh “talk about Renate many times,” and that “the impression I formed at the time from listening to these conversations where Brett Kavanaugh was present was that Renate was the girl that everyone passed around for sex.” The classmate said that “Brett Kavanaugh had made up a rhyme using the REE NATE pronunciation of Renate’s name” and sang it in the hallways on the way to class. He recalled the rhyme going, “REE NATE, REE NATE, if you want a date, can’t get one until late, and you wanna get laid, you can make it with REE NATE.” He said that while he might not be remembering the rhyme word for word, “the substance is 100 percent accurate.” He added, “I thought that this was sickening at the time I heard it, and it left an indelible mark in my memory.” Reached for comment, Dolphin noted that she had asked for her name to be removed from a statement signed by female supporters of Kavanaugh’s nomination. “If this report is true, I am profoundly hurt,” she said, of the account in the affidavit. “I did nothing to deserve this. There is nothing affectionate or respectful in bragging about making sexual conquests that never happened. I am not a political person, but my reputation matters to me and to my family. I would not have signed the letter if I had known about the yearbook references and this affidavit. It is heartbreaking if these guys who acted like my friends in high school were saying these nasty, false things about me behind my back.” Angela Walker, who was in Dolphin’s class at Stone Ridge, also submitted a declaration to the F.B.I. Though she did not mention Dolphin in the declaration, Walker voiced support for her in a phone interview. “It’s really horrifying what they did to her,” Walker said. “It’s a terrible betrayal.” She noted, too, that the depiction of Dolphin reported in the classmate’s statement “is not the Renate that I knew—it’s not possible.” Walker’s declaration described attending a large house party with Georgetown Prep boys, where, she wrote, “A friend from Prep warned me not to go upstairs, where the bedrooms were, cautioning me that it could be dangerous.” A sworn statement by a former Georgetown Preparatory School classmate of Brett Kavanaugh, obtained by The New Yorker, has been reproduced below. A previous version of this piece misstated where the F.B.I. agents who interviewed Ramirez travelled from. Jane Mayer has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995.Read more » Ronan Farrow is a contributing writer to The New Yorker and a television anchor and investigative reporter whose work also appears on HBO. He is the author of the book “War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence.”Read more » More:Brett KavanaughChristine Blasey FordDeborah Ramirez | |
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| 10-06-18 09:08am - 2269 days | #1242 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The Republican party, champion of men's rights to rape women, champion of the right of businesses to pay their workers as little as possible. Don't forget to vote Republican, if you are man who has flirted with underage women. Also, if you are a wealthy businessman and think your workers are asking for too much money. Go, Trump, hero of the Moral Majority of White Men everywhere who grab women by the pussies in the fight to have a good time. However there is hope for a higher minimum wage: Some days Trump said he was in favor; other days, he said he was against, when talking about a federal minimum wage. ------- ------- Amazon Called For Raising The Minimum Wage. Republicans Say It's Fine As It Is, Thanks. [HuffPost] Arthur Delaney ,HuffPost•October 5, 2018 WASHINGTON ― The second-largest employer in the United States thinks it’s time for Congress to raise the minimum wage, but the Republicans in control aren’t quite ready for that discussion. Far from it. The chairman of the Senate labor committee, in fact, suggested Friday that he does not even support the concept of a federally enforced minimum wage. He said Congress should stay out of the way and let the market determine pay. “For the government to fix wages is not the way to give the largest number of Americans a good living wage,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told HuffPost. “The way to do it is the way we’re doing it: cut taxes, reduce regulations, improve the economy, and wages go up.” The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and prevails in the 21 states that don’t mandate a higher one. It hasn’t been raised since 2009, when the last of a series of increases signed into law by former President George W. Bush took effect. The idea of raising the minimum wage tends to be popular among the public, polling well even among GOP voters. Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill typically come together every few years to implement a wage floor hike, often as part of a larger legislative compromise. (The raise during the Bush years was passed in a military spending bill for the Iraq War.) But proponents of a raise have made little headway in recent years with Republicans in control of the House and Senate. Former President Barack Obama joined congressional Democrats in pressing for a hike in 2013, making it a feature of his economic agenda. He continued that push in vain until the end of his second term, ultimately becoming the first president since Ronald Reagan to not sign a minimum wage raise. Meanwhile, cities and states around the country have plowed ahead with their own minimum wage increases, sometimes even doubling the federal level. The labor-backed Fight for $15 has played a large role in that, helping to organize local campaigns to get minimum wage proposals on ballots and in front of state legislatures. Unlike just a few years ago, more states than not now require employers to pay a higher wage floor than the federal level. For the government to fix wages is not the way to give the largest number of Americans a good living wage. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) Even if both parties can hash out a deal, it isn’t at all clear what the new minimum wage would look like. The success of the Fight for $15 has prodded more and more Democrats to rally around that number, with pressure from progressives making it hard to support anything less. And yet Republicans refused to put even $9 up for a vote during Obama’s second term. Many have said they are philosophically opposed to raising it at all, arguing it would kill jobs. Amazon announced this week that it would be raising pay for its workers to $15 per hour, saying it had listened to critics who’d pilloried the company for wages so low that some of its workers qualified for food stamp benefits. The online retailer employs more than half a million Americans. Amazon also said it would advocate for a higher federal minimum, though it did not specify $15. “We will be working to gain congressional support for an increase in the federal minimum wage,” Amazon spokesman Jay Carney, a former White House press secretary, said in a press release. An Amazon spokesperson declined to share more information about its lobbying plans. Alexander suggested Amazon’s pay hike is a better way to raise wages anyway. “The right way to raise pay is for Amazon to raise pay because the economy’s so good it has to do it to attract workers,” he said. Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who are also members of Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said they weren’t interested in a minimum wage hike. It doesn’t bode well for progressives that any minimum wage hike would have to go through Alexander’s committee. His resistance to a minimum wage raise is nothing new, having opposed all the recent proposals by Democrats. In a 2013 committee hearing, he even argued the minimum wage should be abolished while debating with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a vocal backer of the Fight for $15. (The minimum wage has been on the books since the Great Depression.) To further complicate matters, there’s no telling where President Donald Trump comes down on a minimum wage increase, if his own public statements are any indication. While campaigning in 2016, then-candidate Trump declared that the federal minimum wage must go up, saying “I would like to raise it to at least $10.” Later in the campaign, Trump completely reversed himself, saying the federal government shouldn’t get involved in setting a wage floor. “I’d rather have the states go out and do what they have to do,” he said at the time. Trump’s flip-flops on the issue have been so numerous that The Washington Post created a lengthy timeline breaking down his shifting stances. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Edited on Oct 06, 2018, 12:22pm | |
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| 10-06-18 12:23pm - 2269 days | #1243 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Senator Susan Collins says she will vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Says Kavanaugh is innocent until proven guilty. Wonderful woman, who supports the right of a man to rape a schoolgirl, unless he is found guilty of rape. Kavanaugh was not found guilty of rape. He was not even found guilty of lying under oath. Plenty of people tried to contact the FBI, saying that Kavanaugh had lied under oath, but the FBI did not want to talk to them: FBI was too busy with other things, like polishing their shiny badges. The badges prove the FBI is full of shit. ----- ----- $3 million raised for Sen. Susan Collins' opponent amid outcry on Kavanaugh vote Christal Hayes, USA TODAY Published 6:23 p.m. ET Oct. 5, 2018 | Updated 9:52 p.m. ET Oct. 5, 2018 Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Friday she will vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, all but ensuring the Senate will elevate the conservative jurist to the nation’s highest court. (Oct. 5) AP WASHINGTON - Sen. Susan Collins' announcement Friday that she would vote "yes" on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh likely ended the uncertainty over his confirmation. But while Collins spoke on the Senate floor and explained why she would be voting for Kavanaugh, people angry over her decision were donating cash to defeat her in her next election. More than $50,000 was given over the course of her nearly 45-minute speech, bringing the total raised on an online crowdfunding campaign to defeat Collins in her 2020 election to more than $3 million as of 7 p.m. The campaign by three activists groups, Be A Hero Team, Maine People's Alliance and Mainers for Accountable Leadership, had been criticized by Collins and others over several weeks as a possible attempt to bribe Collins into voting against Kavanaugh. The groups started raising money in August, asking people across the nation to donate to Collins' opponent in an attempt to show her the stark opposition to Kavanaugh. No one has yet filed to run against Collins in 2020. Susan Rice, former President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser and United Nations Ambassador, suggested on Twitter Friday that she could challenge Collins. The donation page, titled "Either Sen. Collins VOTES NO on Kavanaugh OR we fund her future opponent" went down briefly on crowdfunding website crowdpac.com Friday afternoon because of "overwhelming" traffic to the page, Be a Hero said in a statement. The groups are also raising money on the website ActBlue and say in total, between the two the amount has topped $3 million. The groups say donations are coming in every three seconds. The page has said those donating wouldn't be charged if Collins voted no on Kavanaugh. But on Friday, Collins seemingly put an end to the uncertainty, giving a nearly 45-minute speech on the Senate floor that explained her process and why she'd be voting to confirm him. "Susan Collins has betrayed the people, and especially the women and survivors, of Maine," the campaign organizers said in a statement. "Thousands of Mainers wrote, called, visited, protested, begged and pleaded with Susan Collins to do the right thing - to be a hero - and vote no. She ignored them." The statement continued, "For years she has claimed to be an independent, a different kind of Republican, but today she shattered that facade forever. Her vote will reverberate long after she has left the Senate." The organizers said they were committed to defeating Collins in 2020 and pledged to "never let her forget" this decision. "Maine deserves a Senator who would recoil at the idea of confirming a proven liar, an emotionally unstable partisan, to the Supreme Court," the statement said. "Maine deserves a Senator who will believe survivors, who will listen to their stories, and who will represent them with honor. Susan Collins is no longer capable of that." During her speech on the floor, Collins went through the issues, from Obamacare, same-sex marriage and abortion rights, and said Kavanaugh's record and pledges before Congress were enough to keep her vote. Protesters flooded the halls of the Senate Friday, expressing their anger at Senators who've said they will vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and pledging their fight is far from over. (Oct. 5) AP She said Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teens, offered a compelling testimony before Congress, but ultimately no one could vouch for her claims or even remember the party. Collins said the allegations, in her eyes, "fail to meet the 'more likely than not'" standard. She said she believes voting against Kavanaugh without witnesses or proof could start a "dangerous" precedent. "I do not believe that these charges can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the court," Collins said, adding that her decision should not be "misconstrued as suggesting that unwanted sexual contact of any nature is not a serious problem in this country." A watchdog group asked the Justice Department to investigate the campaign against Collins out of concern the money donated was an attempt to bribe Collins' vote and called it illegal. It's illegal if "the payments are made in return for an explicit promise or undertaking by the official to perform or not to perform an official act," the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) wrote in a letter to the Justice Department. | |
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| 10-06-18 10:59pm - 2268 days | #1244 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Wonderful news: Brett Kavanaugh is sworn in to the Supreme Court. This confirms that the Senate is corrupt and full of shit. The Senate and Trump have put a man on the Supreme Court that probably attempted rape while in high school. Also lied under oath to the Senate. Also had a history of drunkeness in high school and college. Those are not crimes, but lying about his personal history under oath is perjury. And this is the man Trump and his allies in the Senate put on the Supreme Court. There was no question Trump is and was corrupt. But this just shows the Senate is corrupt as well. And the FBI, which conducted a sham investigation to whitewash Kavanaugh, can share the blame and corruption: The FBI is a corrupt tool that ignored evidence and testimony that was freely available, to produce a report that is secret to the American public, that allowed Kavanaugh to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Respect the President? Respect the Senate? Respect the FBI? ----------------- ----------------- Politics|Kavanaugh Is Sworn In After Close Confirmation Vote in Senate Kavanaugh Is Sworn In After Close Confirmation Vote in Senate Video Over repeated interruptions by protesters in the gallery, the Senate on Saturday voted 50 to 48 to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as the next Supreme Court justice.Published OnOct. 6, 2018CreditCreditImage by Doug Mills/The New York Times By Sheryl Gay Stolberg Oct. 6, 2018 WASHINGTON — Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court on Saturday by one of the slimmest margins in American history, locking in a solid conservative majority on the court and capping a rancorous battle that began as a debate over judicial ideology and concluded with a national reckoning over sexual misconduct. As a chorus of women in the Senate’s public galleries repeatedly interrupted the proceedings with cries of “Shame!,” somber-looking senators voted 50 to 48 — almost entirely along party lines — to elevate Judge Kavanaugh. He was promptly sworn in by both Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the retired Justice Anthony M. Kennedy — the court’s longtime swing vote, whom he will replace — in a private ceremony. For President Trump and Senate Republican leaders, who have made stocking the federal judiciary with conservative judges a signature issue, the Senate vote was a validation of a hard-edge strategy to stick with Judge Kavanaugh, even after his nomination was gravely imperiled by allegations by Christine Blasey Ford that he had tried to rape her when they were teenagers. The president was exultant. “He’s going to go down as a totally brilliant Supreme Court justice for many years,” he told reporters, whom he had invited to join him in watching the vote on television aboard Air Force One. But Mr. Trump also derided the sizable protests against Judge Kavanaugh on the steps of the Supreme Court and the Capitol as “phony stuff,” and said it was a misnomer to imply that women were upset at his confirmation. “Women, I feel, were in many ways stronger than the men in this fight,” the president said. “Women were outraged at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh. Outraged.” The Kavanaugh confirmation, playing out against the backdrop of a midterm election where control of Congress is at stake, gave Republicans what they believe is momentum to ensure that they keep their slim Senate majority. Republicans are now painting Democrats and their activist allies as angry mobs. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, delivered a speech on Saturday assailing what he called “mob rule,” while the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, told reporters that “the virtual mob that has assaulted all of us in this process has turned our base on fire.” The bitter nomination fight, coming in the midst of the #MeToo movement, also unfolded at the volatile intersection of gender and politics. It energized survivors of sexual assault, hundreds of whom have descended on Capitol Hill to confront Republican senators in recent weeks. But it also left many feeling dispirited, as though their elected representatives have not heard their voices. And in the end, it challenged Americans’ faith in the Supreme Court as an institution that is above politics. Washington had not seen such a brutal nomination fight — Mr. Cornyn called it a “cruel and reckless and indecent episode” — since 1991, when the law professor Anita F. Hill accused then-Judge Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her. Senators of both parties wondered aloud how the chamber, and the nation, will heal. “The road that led us here has been bitter, angry and partisan — steeped in hypocrisy and hyperbole and resentment and outrage,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor, minutes before the vote, adding, “When the history of the Senate is written, this chapter will be a flashing red warning light of what to avoid.” How Every Senator Voted on Kavanaugh’s Confirmation The Senate voted 50-48 on Saturday to confirm the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. Oct. 6, 2018 Saturday’s vote reflected that fury, with the Capitol Police dragging screaming demonstrators out of the gallery as Vice President Mike Pence, presiding in his role as president of the Senate, calmly tried to restore order. “This is a stain on American history!” one woman cried, as the vote wrapped up. “Do you understand that?” | |
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| 10-06-18 11:02pm - 2268 days | #1245 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/us/po...h-supreme-court.html The final result was expected; all senators had announced their intentions by Friday. Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia was the lone Democrat to support Judge Kavanaugh. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — the sole Republican to break with her party — was recorded as “present” instead of “no” as part of an agreement with a colleague, Senator Steve Daines of Montana, who was attending his daughter’s wedding and would have voted “yes.” By voting present, Ms. Murkowski spared Judge Kavanaugh the indignity of being confirmed by a single vote. The last time a justice was confirmed by that margin was in 1881, when Stanley Matthews was confirmed 24 to 23. Justice Thomas was confirmed by a four-vote margin. When Saturday’s vote was over, Ms. Murkowski seemed drained. “I don’t know what you were doing when those voices were shouting — and screams and, I’m sure, tears,” she told reporters, “but I was closing my eyes and praying, praying for them and praying for us and praying for the country. We need prayers. We need healing.” Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation fulfills a long-held dream of conservatives, who have waged a decades-long campaign to remake the high court. In replacing Justice Kennedy, a moderate conservative, he will give the court a reliably conservative bloc. At 53, he is young enough to serve for decades, shaping American jurisprudence for a generation, if not more. Image Demonstrators protesting Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court on the steps of the Capitol on Saturday.CreditErin Schaff for The New York Times Mr. McConnell was unequivocal about what Republicans had accomplished. “It is the most important contribution we have made to the country that will last the longest,” Mr. McConnell said in an interview, ticking through two Supreme Court justices and 26 federal appeals court judges confirmed in the last two years. From the moment Mr. Trump nominated Judge Kavanaugh in July, Democrats made defeating his nomination their singular mission. Mr. Schumer vowed he would oppose Judge Kavanaugh “with everything I’ve got.” Democrats raised questions about his partisan past — he worked on the investigation that led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment and for the George W. Bush White House — and his judicial philosophy. They warned that he would overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, and raised questions about his expansive view of executive power, which they regarded as troublesome given that Mr. Trump is the subject of investigations into his conduct. They also questioned Judge Kavanaugh’s truthfulness about his role in several partisan episodes. But until Dr. Blasey went public, Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation seemed assured. Her account — first in an article in The Washington Post and later in riveting testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee — unleashed a cascade of other allegations and prompted a last-minute F.B.I. inquiry into the judge’s conduct. Judge Kavanaugh vigorously denied the allegations in his own angry and emotional testimony before the Judiciary Committee. Before Saturday’s vote, one of his accusers, Deborah Ramirez, who has said Judge Kavanaugh thrust his genitals in her face during a drunken dormitory party at Yale, issued a statement deploring what was about to happen. “Thirty-five years ago, the other students in the room chose to laugh and look the other way as sexual violence was perpetrated on me by Brett Kavanaugh,” she wrote. “As I watch many of the senators speak and vote on the floor of the Senate I feel like I’m right back at Yale where half the room is laughing and looking the other way. Only this time, instead of drunk college kids, it is U.S. senators who are deliberately ignoring his behavior. This is how victims are isolated and silenced.” Sign up for The Campaign Reporter Hey, I’m Alex Burns, a politics correspondent for The Times. I’ll give you the latest reporting and intel on the midterms and take your questions from the campaign trail. But just as Ms. Ramirez and Dr. Blasey became symbols of the #MeToo movement, Judge Kavanaugh became a symbol for aggrieved men. A hashtag, #BeersForBrett, sprang up on Twitter — a reference to the nominee’s response when senators asked him about his college drinking habits. “I liked beer. I still like beer,” he said. As it did for the past week, the Senate debate on Saturday turned as much on Judge Kavanaugh’s own conduct during his Senate testimony as it did on questions of the law. Democrats railed against his fiery rhetoric — he had called Dr. Blasey’s allegations “a calculated and orchestrated political hit” and directed barbed comments at his Democratic questioners — as the language of someone who was unfit for the nation’s highest court. “I had concerns at the very beginning of this process, and I fear it more than ever at the end of the process,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said Saturday on the Senate floor. “Any remaining hope that Judge Kavanaugh could be trusted to be an impartial justice or perceived to be an impartial justice was shattered by his opening statement at his last hearing.” Republicans cast him as a man unjustly accused, who was trying to defend himself. Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, said he saw “someone who was seeking sincerely to defend his own record of public service, his own private conduct against great adversity, in circumstances in which he and his family have been dragged through the mud by no choice of their own.” While the brawl over Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation may be over, people on both sides of the debate agree it will have lasting ramifications on the Senate, the country and the court. Even some of the judge’s future colleagues sounded unsettled. On Friday, on the eve of the vote, two of them — Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — expressed concern that the partisan rancor over his nomination would damage the high court’s reputation. “Part of the court’s strength and part of the court’s legitimacy depends on people not seeing the court in the way that people see the rest of the governing structures of this country now,” Justice Kagan said in an appearance at Princeton University. “In other words, people thinking of the court as not politically divided in the same way, as not an extension of politics, but instead somehow above the fray, even if not always in every case.” Perhaps in an effort to tamp down the passions he has engendered, Judge Kavanaugh was sworn in quietly on Saturday, with his wife and two daughters by his side. When the last several justices were sworn in, the administration of at least one of the oaths was televised. But the court released only still photographs of Judge Kavanaugh’s ceremony. He will take his place on the bench, as the nation’s 114th justice of the Supreme Court, on Tuesday. Nicholas Fandos, Catie Edmondson and Adam Liptak contributed reporting. A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 6, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Senate Votes 50-48 to Put Kavanaugh on Supreme Court. | |
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| 10-08-18 02:40am - 2267 days | #1246 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
I never realized that perjury could be political. It does not matter if Kanavanugh lied. The bar for impeachment is very high, and it has happened to a sitting Supreme Court justice only once in American history. Impeachment requires a House vote. If a majority of House members vote to impeach, the Senate holds a trial to weigh the charges. Conviction and removal from office requires a 67-vote supermajority in the Senate. So, even if Kavanaugh lied, you can't just try him in a federal court. It has to be "proved" by the House and the Senate. ------ ------ Cory Booker says Kavanaugh impeachment shouldn't be off the table Hunter Walker White House Correspondent ,Yahoo News•October 7, 2018 Sen. Cory Booker speaks during the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Fall Gala on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP) DES MOINES, Iowa — New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said on Sunday the possibility of impeaching Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh shouldn’t be off the table if Democrats take one of the houses of Congress in next month’s midterm elections. Kavanaugh was confirmed on Saturday by a narrow vote following a contentious process that included multiple sexual assault allegations. Other Democrats have raised the possibility of impeaching Kavanaugh over allegations that he committed perjury in his hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Booker sits. News accounts have quoted acquaintances who contradict Kavanaugh’s testimony about his behavior as a young man, and evidence has surfaced calling into question some of his assertions about his time in the George W. Bush administration, but Kavanaugh insists he told the truth. Impeachment would require the Democrats to win a House majority and control that chamber’s judiciary committee. The question would then go to trial in the Senate. “The reality is, right now, Republicans control the House and the Senate, and there’s no way to do even an investigation unless we flip one of the houses. So I think even before you start focusing on questions about his truthfulness before a Senate committee, you’ve got to focus on the urgency of the work over the next 30 days, and that’s where my focus is,” Booker said. Booker spoke to Yahoo in Iowa, where he is making multiple campaign appearances in support of Democratic congressional candidates. He said he is working to help secure a Democratic majority. After the midterms, Booker said, the party can determine what its priorities should be. “I think that after the dust settles on the night of the 6th, I think that’s where we start to evaluate … what is the best thing for us to be focusing on in terms of what’s best for America and the American people,” Booker said. Booker’s emphasis on the midterms echoed a speech he made at the Iowa Democratic Party’s fall gala Saturday night after his arrival in the state was delayed by the Kavanaugh vote on the Senate floor. In those remarks, Booker struck a hopeful note and urged Democrats who are “angry” and “upset” to “stay faithful.” He also cautioned members of the party against being “caught up in a state of sedentary agitation” and urged them “not to wait for the hope, but to be the hope.” In one of his calls to electoral action, Booker referenced comments President Trump made last week mocking one of Kavanaugh’s accusers, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Cory Booker and fellow Democrat Kamala Harris of California listen to Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Pool/Getty Images) “We’re not defined by a president who mocks a hero in Dr. Blasey Ford. We’re not defined by a president who does not believe women. We’re going to be defined when this state says not only do we believe women, we elect women!” Booker said. The bar for impeachment is very high, and it has happened to a sitting Supreme Court justice only once in American history. Impeachment requires a House vote. If a majority of House members vote to impeach, the Senate holds a trial to weigh the charges. Conviction and removal from office requires a 67-vote supermajority in the Senate. Democrats have a strong chance of taking the House in the midterms. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, who would most likely become chair of the House Judiciary Committee if the Democrats have a majority, has said he supports the idea of investigating Kavanaugh for perjury, which could begin an impeachment process. However, Democrats have much slimmer chances of taking control of the Senate, and there is no way they will come close to 67 seats. The perjury allegations against Kavanaugh come from three things: his denials of all the sexual assault accusations levied against him, his claims about his youthful drinking and evidence that he lied under oath during prior confirmation hearings. During his Supreme Court confirmation testimony, which was under penalty of perjury, Kavanaugh said he “never blacked out” while drinking as a young man. Since then, multiple people who knew Kavanaugh in college have come forward to say they witnessed Kavanaugh “stumbling drunk.” The allegations about previous perjury by Kavanaugh emerged based on emails from his time working on President George W. Bush’s White House staff that were released as part of his Supreme Court confirmation process. Those messages indicate Kavanaugh had received Democratic strategy memos that had been stolen in the early 2000s. In confirmation hearings held in 2004 and 2006 when Kavanaugh was nominated to federal judgeships, he denied receiving those memos. Supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. (Photo: Saul Loeb/Pool/AP) An FBI investigation into the sexual assault allegations was authorized by the White House after the Republican leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee requested it. The White House limited the scope of the investigation and insisted that it be completed in seven days; the FBI ultimately finished after five days. Republicans have called the FBI investigation a thorough exoneration. Booker, who read the FBI’s full report on the probe, said it was unsatisfactory. “I think the way the FBI was limited in their investigation was a sham. There were so many things even in the handful of interviews they did do that would have motivated investigators to ask more questions, interview more people,” Booker said. “Clearly the FBI was severely constrained in the scope of their investigation in a way that did not honor the courage of the survivors who came forward.” Booker noted that the FBI did not interview “multiple people” named by one of Kavanaugh’s accusers, Deborah Ramirez, as able to corroborate her claims that Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her at a party when they were both students at Yale. Booker said there were “a number of things that the FBI could have easily investigated to see if he was lying about his past conduct.” He said he supported further investigation of Kavanaugh. “If there is conclusory evidence that shows unequivocally that he lied to a Senate committee, that is a crime and he should be held accountable for those criminal acts,” Booker said. Booker has made campaign appearances around the country during this election cycle. However, Iowa holds unique importance as an early presidential primary state, and this trip was Booker’s first visit to the state during this cycle. Booker’s appearance here fueled speculation he might mount a White House bid in 2020. Yahoo News asked Booker if he would support renominating President Barack Obama’s last Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, who was blocked by Republicans. Booker brushed off the question about presidential politics. “That’s a speculative hypothetical,” Booker said. “I can’t even engage with it. The reality is, I’m the senator from New Jersey. With 30 days before the election, my focus is the work before us.” | |
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| 10-08-18 11:39am - 2267 days | #1247 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
What is the connection between President Trump, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the Bulgarian female journalist who was raped and beaten to death? Enquiring minds want to know. ------- ------- World Popular Bulgarian Journalist Victoria Marinova Raped And Beaten To Death [HuffPost] Dominique Mosbergen ,HuffPost•October 8, 2018 Popular Bulgarian Journalist Victoria Marinova Raped And Beaten To Death A popular Bulgarian journalist who had reported on an investigation into alleged corruption involving European Union funds was raped and beaten to death, authorities said. A popular Bulgarian journalist who had reported on an investigation into alleged corruption involving European Union funds was raped and beaten to death, authorities said. The semi-nude body of 30-year-old Victoria Marinova was found in a park in the Danube town of Ruse on Saturday. She’d been beaten with such force that she was unrecognizable, according to the Federation of European Journalists. Marinova is the fourth high-profile journalist to be killed in Europe since the beginning of 2017. Her death follows the alleged slaying of a Washington Post journalist in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Related Video: Journalist Allegedly Killed in Saudi Consulate Bulgarian officials said there was no evidence to suggest that Marinova’s killing was related to her work. “It is about rape and murder,” Interior Minister Mladen Marinov said, according to The Guardian. People who worked with Marinova said otherwise. “Viktoria’s death, the brutal manner in which she was killed, is an execution. It was meant to serve as an example, something like a warning,” Asen Yordanov, owner of news website Bivol.bg, told AFP. Marinova had recently launched her own news talk show called “Detector.” In the first episode, she interviewed two investigative reporters who were recently arrested while looking into corruption involving the misuse of EU funds. The two journalists — Attila Biro of the Romanian Rise Project, and Dimitar Stoyanov, a reporter for Bivol.bg — had uncovered “large-scale and wide-spread corruption” in EU-funded projects in Bulgaria worth hundreds of millions of Bulgarian leva, the European Council said. Ricardo Gutiérrez, head of the European Federation of Journalists, called for enhanced protections for journalists across Europe. “This is the fourth brutal murder of a journalist in a Member State of the European Union since 2017,” Gutiérrez said in a statement. “The killers and their sponsors obviously aim to intimidate the entire profession.” Kim Wall, a Swedish journalist, was decapitated in August 2017 while conducting an interview on a submarine owned by inventor Peter Madsen, who was later convicted of the crime. Two months later, Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb. In February 2018, Slovakian journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée were shot dead in their home. Kuciak had been investigating alleged political corruption at the time. The media freedom representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called for a “full and thorough” investigation into Marinova’s slaying. “Shocked by horrific murder of investigative journalist Victoria Marinova in Bulgaria,” Harlem Desir wrote on Twitter. As The Guardian noted, Bulgaria was ranked 111 of 180 countries in this year’s Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index. That’s lower than any other EU member and behind other nations in the western Balkans. | |
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| 10-08-18 06:17pm - 2267 days | #1248 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Why can't China kidnap President Trump and force him to confess his crimes? Trump is the most corrupt president the US has ever had. China would be doing us (all US citizens) and the rest of the world, including China, a big favor if they kept Trump at a secret location and waterboarded him. Trump has said he favors waterboarding. Great. Waterboard the bastard, until he confesses all of his crimes. Which would take years, because his entire life is filled with illegal acts that have not been punished. ------ ------ The Guardian Movies Fan Bingbing’s mysterious disappearance: what it means for China’s elite Three months ago, one of the country’s best known actors went missing. Now, seemingly chastened, she has reappeared with a bill for £112m in unpaid taxes and fines Steve Rose Thu 4 Oct 2018 11.27 EDT Last modified on Fri 5 Oct 2018 04.39 EDT Imagine if Jennifer Lawrence or Scarlett Johansson went missing and nobody knew where they had gone – even three months later. That is what happened to Fan Bingbing. Fan is one of China’s best known and highest-paid actors, thanks to a string of domestic hits such as Cell Phone and Double Xposure, and small roles in Iron Man 3 and X-Men: Days of Future Past. The 37-year-old was on the jury of the Cannes film festival last year, and is set to star in a new thriller opposite Jessica Chastain and Penelope Cruz. On 2 July this year she posted details of a visit to a children’s hospital in Tibet on Weibo (China’s answer to Twitter). Then her account went dead, leaving her 63 million followers, and pretty much the rest of China, wondering where she had gone. Had Fan been abducted? Arrested? Was she just taking a career break? The questions piled up, then tipped over into conspiracy theory. There were baseless rumours such as she had fled to the US, with the help of Jackie Chan. That she and husband Li Chen gambled away $12m (£9.2m) in three days in Las Vegas. That she was being held in a military prison in Beijing after having an affair with Chinese vice-president Wang Qishan. “Someone is trying to use Fan Bingbing to get to Wang Qishan,” exiled businessman Guo Wengui told reporters. Fan strenuously denied the affair and was suing Guo at the time of her disappearance. Jackie Chan, who had starred with Fan in his 2016 movie Skiptrace, denied all knowledge of Fan’s whereabouts. The most credible rumour may have been that Fan was in trouble with the tax office, which is not quite as prosaic as it sounds. Shortly before her disappearance, the popular TV presenter Cui Yongyuan posted on social media what appeared to be two separate contracts for Fan’s work on her forthcoming movie Air Strike, starring Bruce Willis. One contract was apparently for 10m yuan (£1.3m); the other for 60m yuan (£7.6m). The implication presumably was that this was a “yin-yang contract” – two for the same job. The smaller figure, it was implied, was declared to the tax office; the larger one purported to indicate what the star was actually paid. Fan denied the allegation, and Cui promptly retracted it, but the authorities reportedly began to investigate shortly before Fan went off the radar. This Wednesday, the mystery was apparently partly explained with the news that Fan and her companies had been ordered to pay 883m yuan (£112m) in unpaid taxes and fines. She has not been charged with any crime. Fan’s first public communication since July was a grovelling confession on Weibo: “For a long time, I did not distinguish between national, social and personal interests,” she wrote. “As a public figure, I should abide by the law, and play a leading role in society and industry … Without the good policies of the party and the state, and without the love of the people, there would be no Fan Bingbing.” In short, Fan seems to have been made an example of. Fan Bingbing: missing Chinese actor hit with $129m tax bill Read more China’s movie industry has mushroomed over the past decade. In 2007, its total box office was just over 3bn yuan (£335m); last year it was 56bn yuan (£6.4bn). It is poised to overtake the US as the world’s biggest film territory. This cultural explosion has brought in a new breed of moneyed celebrity, some of whom have no inhibitions about its wealth. Three years ago, for example, the nation was gripped by the wedding of high-profile actor Huang Xiaoming to Hong Kong-born Yang Ying – AKA Angelababy, who is often considered China’s answer to Kim Kardashian (Kim has 118 million followers on Instagram; Angelababy has 96 million followers on Weibo). The event, which was livestreamed on the internet, was like a royal wedding, with a comparable budget – an estimated $31m (£24m). There was a 10ft wedding cake, a holographic castle, a $1.5m (£1.1m) wedding ring, a custom Dior dress that took five months to make and goodie bags including mobile phones for the 2,000 guests. But this summer the authorities apparently decided to take action. Already the content of Chinese films is carefully vetted and must promote “core socialist values”. Then, in June, official agencies announced a joint clampdown on actors’ pay, citing not only tax evasion but “money worship”, “the youth blindly chasing celebrities” and “distorted social values”. In August, nine major production companies issued a joint pledge to cap actors’ salaries at 40% of total production costs, and lead actors’ salaries at 70% of the cast’s total pay. The same month, Huang was linked to a scandal involving share-price manipulation and questioned by the authorities. He denied any involvement, but still publicly apologised for his “indiscretion in wealth management”. Then, last month, a Beijing university published the Film and Television Star Social Responsibility Report, ranking the 100 top celebrities. Fan Bingbing came last. The authorities have warned that others will face penalties and “administrative punishment” like Fan if they do not “undergo self-examination and make remedial payments to taxation authorities” before the end of the year. More than the regulatory crackdown, it is the nature of Fan’s disappearance that has sent a jolt through Chinese society. According to reports, Fan was detained at a “holiday resort” in Wuxi, under a 2013 legal framework known as “residential surveillance at a designated location”. It is essentially a legalistic euphemism for disappearance and forced detention. “In practice it often means someone is held in secret and denied all contact with the outside world,” says Michael Caster, a human rights advocate and editor of The Peoples Republic of the Disappeared, a collection of first-hand accounts of victims of such forced detentions. “Many of them were subject to one form of torture or another, from prolonged sleep deprivation to physical pain, beatings, stress positions, mental abuse and threatening family members.” In many cases, the outcome is forced confessions. Until now, forced detentions have been used against suspected political dissidents and human rights defenders, such as Caster’s former colleague, lawyer Wang Quanzhang, who went missing in 2015 and has not been seen since. In another case, Chen Yong, a driver for a Fujian official, disappeared in April. A month later, his family were told he was dead. Applying such blunt force to the entertainment industry would be new, but not entirely out of character. “President Xi Jinping has made it very clear that he wants to do away with elites and the fetishism around money and certain forms of power,” says Caster. “If you have people looking to what celebrities do and say online versus what the party dictates, that may be very plausibly part of it. Anything that rises to a level of social, economic or political power is seen as a threat to the supremacy of the Communist party.” We are unlikely to ever know what exactly Fan Bingbing underwent, but the implication is clear: if the authorities can get to the biggest celebrity in the land, they can get to anyone. | |
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| 10-10-18 01:07pm - 2265 days | #1249 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
James Comey is on the run. Sources have revealed that his ex-boss, President Donald Trump, has used his mob connections to put out a hit on Comey. The twist is that Mike Pence is the paymaster. No one will suspect that Mike Pence would be involved in such a dirty deal. And the Senate, with a strong Republican majority, will deny Pence's guilt to their dying breath. Can the New York Times find evidence of the plot against James Comey, in time to stop the killers? Or will James Comey go down in history as a corrupt FBI official who was part of the Washington swamp? Stay tuned for further developments. | |
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| 10-10-18 06:48pm - 2265 days | #1250 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Who you gonna call if you want a sham investigation? The friendly FBI, of course. They will issue a clean report on Kavanaugh, who had multiple witnesses willing to testify Kavanaugh lied under oath. Who you gonna call if you want the truth from the White House? Nobody. The White House is full of professional liars. --- --- Politics FBI Chief Says Kavanaugh Investigation Was 'Limited In Scope' At White House Direction [HuffPost] Marina Fang ,HuffPost•October 10, 2018 FBI Chief Says Kavanaugh Investigation Was Limited In Scope At White House Direction The White House imposed limits on the FBI’s background investigation into the sexual assault allegations against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the bureau’s director said Wednesday, explaining that the limited scope was “consistent with the standard process for such investigations.” The White House, not the Senate Judiciary Committee, ordered the investigation into Kavanaugh, FBI Director Chris Wray told Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) in response to a question on the bureau’s process. Harris then asked Wray to clarify whether the White House limited the FBI’s investigation. “Our investigation here, our supplemental update to the previous background investigation, was limited in scope,” Wray said. Wray explained that for background investigations, the FBI typically follows guidance set by whatever entity orders the investigation. “In this case, it’s the White House,” he said. Wray’s comments contradict claims from the White House that the Senate Judiciary Committee controlled the investigation. “The White House is not micromanaging this process,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Sept. 30, while the investigation was ongoing. “The Senate is dictating the terms.” Trump told reporters on Oct. 1 that the investigation would be “within the bounds of what the Senate wants.” “We don’t want to go on a witch hunt, do we?” he said, adopting his preferred phrase. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), whose call for the investigation forced a delay in Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote, pushed for a wide-ranging investigation into the credible claims against Kavanaugh. “It does no good to have an investigation that just gives us more cover, for example. We actually need to find out what we can find out,” he said. When the White House and Senate Republicans announced the FBI’s findings after less than a week, Democrats criticized the limited probe as a sham and part of Republicans’ plans to rush through Kavanaugh’s nomination. Many key people were not interviewed, including Kavanaugh himself. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, was also not included. The FBI did speak to Deborah Ramirez, who said that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while they were students at Yale University. But the bureau did not follow up with dozens of other classmates and acquaintances who publicly refuted Kavanaugh’s claims under oath that he did not drink excessively in his youth. Many of them said that they received no response after reaching out to the bureau. Wray declined to say Wednesday if the bureau’s investigation covered whether Kavanaugh had lied to Congress during his testimony. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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