Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

SEPTEMBER 30,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

CANADA AND U.S. MAKE UP – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  The US and Canada reached a deal late Sunday on reforming the North American Free Trade Agreement.  Canada agreed to join the revised trade deal that the US and Mexico had signed last month — just hours before a midnight deadline, that allows Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto to sign the accord on his last day in office, two people familiar with the talks told The Washington Post.  The new treaty is expected to be signed by President Trump and his counterparts in Canada and Mexico within 60 days — preserving a three-country NAFTA trade pact.  The agreement will boost US access to Canada’s dairy market and protect Canada from possible US auto tariffs, two sources with direct knowledge of the talk told Reuters.  We have no further details at this time.

STUNNING – THIS STORY IS JUST GETTING STARTED – FROM FOX:   Rachel Mitchell, the sex-crimes prosecutor who questioned Dr. Christine Blasey Ford last week, wrote in a memo released late Sunday that there were inconsistencies in Ford's testimony and that-- given the information at hand-- she would not bring criminal charges against Judge Brett Kavanaugh.  Mitchell, who was hired by the Senate Judiciary Committee to assist Republicans, addressed the letter to “All Republican Senators,” and said no senator approved the memo. She noted in the assessment that she is a Republican, but said she is not a political person.  She identified Ford's case as an example of  “he said, she said,” and said her case is “even weaker than that.”   Ford, a California psychology professor, claims Kavanaugh assaulted her while at a house party in the 1980s when they were both teenagers. She said he pinned her to a bed, attempted to forcibly remove her clothes and prevented her from screaming. Ford said she was "100 percent" certain that Kavanaugh was her attacker.  Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations.  Mitchell, who worked as a sex-crimes prosecutor for nearly 25 years in Arizona, pointed out what she identified as timing inconsistencies. She wrote that Ford appeared to jump around on the timing of the alleged sexual assault, ranging from the “mid 1980s” to “early 1980s,” and then the “summer of 1982.”  “While it is common for victims to be uncertain about dates, Dr. Ford failed to explain how she was suddenly able to narrow the timeframe to a particular season and particular year,” she wrote.  Mitchell also pointed out that Ford has a history of struggling to name Kavanaugh as her attacker. Mitchell noted that his name was not in notes from her 2012 marriage therapy or her individual therapy in 2013.  This story was posted late tonight.  I'm sure there'll be more tomorrow.  It is an excellent takedown of Ford's case.

MAJOR ARTISTIC NEWS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  The Kent State School of Theatre and Dance has chosen to cancel its production of “West Side Story” due to some students remaining dissatisfied with the production’s casting decisions.  Theater major Bridgett Martinez, of Puerto Rican heritage, apparently thought her ethnic background alone would get her the play’s lead role of Maria. She was disappointed that she was cast as Maria’s understudy, reports KentWired.com, but got really upset upon seeing the full cast list.  “I was just blown away because it was not correct at all,” she said.  “Not correct” means several non-Latino students had gotten traditional “Latino” roles in the classic musical, including the leads.  Another theater major, Viviana Cardenas, was irked a role she wanted had gone to a black student.  This is complete madness.  If allowed to continue, it will shut down all college theater, or turn it into one of those "Everybody is a winner here at Dumbbell State" things.  Grow up.

September 30, 2018       Permalink

WE HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR THIS GREAT MOMENT – AT 2:18 P.M. ET:  We want her.  We yearn for her.  The nation cannot do without her.  And now we learn that we may indeed get the chance to have her as our guide and mentor.  I weep for joy.  And I am kidding.  From Daily Beast: 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), one of the most high-profile progressives in the U.S. Senate, said Saturday that she will seriously consider a presidential run after November’s midterm elections.

“Let’s face it, Donald Trump is taking this country in the wrong direction,” Warren told an audience member at a town hall in Holyoke, Massachusetts, according to remarks sent to The Daily Beast by a spokesperson.

“Working people have taken one punch to the gut after another,” she continued. “And I am worried down to my bones about what Donald Trump is doing to our democracy.”

Warren told the group that Washington was broken long before Donald Trump came to town but added that it has “gotten a whole lot worse” going on to express her outrage at hearings Thursday over sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“And then this week, I watched 11 men who were too chicken to ask a woman a single question,” she added. “I watched as Brett Kavanaugh acted like he was entitled to that position and angry at anyone who would question him. I watched powerful men helping a powerful man make it to an even more powerful position.”

COMMENT:  Yup, we sure need that level of intellect.  And that level of civility.  What will we do if our Lizzy doesn't come to save us?

September 30, 2018       Permalink

SON OF WISDOM – AT 1:32 P.M. ET:  Well, the apple didn't fall far from the tree.  The son of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a giant of the Supreme Court, shows he has his father's careful mind.  From Fox: 

The son of late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia told Fox News on Sunday that his father wouldn't have been shocked by the partisan conflagration surrounding the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, owing to what he called the improperly outsized power of the Supreme Court in modern life.

"On a general level, he wouldn't be terribly surprised about the intensity surrounding this Supreme Court nomination, because so much of it comes down to Roe v. Wade -- at least, that's how the left is presenting it," Christopher Scalia said, referring to the landmark 1973 case holding that women have a constitutional right to an abortion within certain trimesters.

In one fell swoop, Roe effectively prevented states from deciding on their own how to regulate abortion, and several states immediately took steps to try to restrict abortion rights in response.

"My father often said, with Roe v. Wade in particular but other cases as well, the court was really trying to come in and settle a cultural issue that should have been resolved in elections, and the legislative process," he added during his appearance on "Fox & Friends." "By trying to short-circuit that process, the Supreme Court caused more damage and, as a result, Supreme Court nominations and confirmation battles have become more heated, because justices have taken on the role that properly belongs to legislators."

COMMENT:   He is correct.  The purpose of a court, any court, is to interpret the law, not to make the law, and surely not to change social and religious customs at will.  Even Ruth Ginsburg lamented that she'd wished the issues of Roe had been decided by the states. 

I would introduce, though, one gentle note of dissent:  The Court was controversial, to some degree, long before Roe.  In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the Court "nine old men," and tried to pack it with additional justices because some of his New Deal legislation had been declared unconstitutional.  He was rejected.

In 1954, there was an expected uproar after Brown vs. Topeka Board, the famous school desegregation decision, was handed down.  Chief Justice Earl Warren, heading a unanimous court, became, for the South, Public Enemy Number One.

And in 1962, the Court again became the center of anger when it released its decision restricting prayer in public schools.

But it was Roe, in 1973, that galvanized objections to what some saw as the growing, arbitrary power of the Supreme Court.  And indeed, the Court, in a 7-2 decision, with Justices White and Rehnquist dissenting, involved itself in deep issues of theology, biology, and ethics.   Roe has become what is probably the single most controversial decision in Court history.

September 30,  2018     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 29,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

WOMEN FOR BRETT – FROM MSN:   COLUMBIA, S.C. — 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.  As others have pointed out, women have men in their lives, and they wouldn't want them treated this way.  I've always believed that one of the most overlooked constituencies in America is mothers of sons, who are horrified at the way their boys are treated at some schools and many colleges.  Don't get them too angry.  I think Hillary did. 

WILL THIS MAN SURVIVE? – FROM BIZPACREVIEW:    CNN may have some regrets after asking a “group of expert commentators” about their reaction to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings with Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford.  While the commentators delivered a predictable narrative on the testimonies of the Supreme Court nominee and the woman accusing him of sexually assaulting her nearly four decades ago, one of the group went rogue.  Citing facts as the basis and not the spectacle that unfolded, CNN legal analyst, Paul Callan, gave a no-nonsense assessment of why he was in favor of the Senate confirming Kavanaugh, while delivering a scathing appraisal of Ford’s testimony and Democrats’ behavior.
“Many Americans will ultimately come away from Thursday’s hearing feeling disgusted not over the character of Judge Brett Kavanaugh but that of those Democratic senators who attempted, on the weakest of evidence, to portray the judge as an attempted rapist,” Callan wrote. “Their strongest documentary evidence appeared to be inscriptions about beer drinking in his high school yearbook.”  Noting that courts of law are where claims of criminal conduct are to be resolved, Callan argued that Ford did not meet the standard for delivering the missing pieces in her story.  Read the whole thing.  It's excellent.  Then pray for this analyst to survive.  I wonder if we'll ever see him again on CNN.

LOWEST OF THE LOW – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  In a shocking irony, the John Jay College (New York City) professors accused of pimping out their students raked in more than half a million dollars in government money to study prostitution.  Thousands more in taxpayer and non-profit cash poured in for the academics to study addiction — at the same time the profs were allegedly running their own on-campus snakepit called “the swamp,” where drugs were sold and used.  Four professors at the publicly funded criminal justice college are on paid leave while the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and State Inspector General probe allegations they brought the underworld they studied into the hallways of John Jay.  Accusations of rape, sexual harassment, facilitating prostitution, and using and selling drugs first surfaced several weeks ago in the written complaints of two John Jay graduates, which were shared with The Post and authorities.  How did the presence of this cesspool go unnoticed by other members of the faculty, in a school devoted to teaching law enforcement? 

September 29, 2018       Permalink

BAR ASSOCIATION STANDS BY KAVANAUGH – AT 2:20 P.M. ET:  Remember that we were told, a few days back, that the American Bar Association had asked for a delay in the confirmation hearings to allow for an FBI investigation.  Not so fast, Jones.  Turns out it never happened.  From the Washington Examiner: 

A committee for the American Bar Association that evaluates the professional qualifications of judges said it still stands behind Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The association’s president urged the Senate Judiciary Committee late Thursday to stall a confirmation vote until the FBI has conducted an investigation into Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her.

The letter was not seen by the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary before it was sent to the panel, committee chairman Paul Mosley wrote in a separate letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Friday.

The Standing Committee “acts independently” of the association’s leadership, he said.
“The Committee conducts non-partisan, non-ideological, and confidential peer review of federal judicial nominees. The ABA’s rating for Judge Kavanaugh is not affected by Mr. [Robert] Carlson’s letter,” the letter concluded.

The American Bar Association's Thursday call for the postponement of a vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination was seen as significant because the Standing Committee had said a month prior that Kavanaugh was “well qualified” to serve on the Supreme Court. It’s the highest rating a judge can receive from the committee.

COMMENT:  Another case of fake news.  Obviously poor journalistic work.  No one checked the details on the story before it went out.

I think readers would be shocked at how often this happens.

September 29, 2018       Permalink

KAVANAUGH – AT 1:30 P.M. ET:  Nothing dramatic to report yet on the FBI probe into Judge Kavanaugh.  We know that it's underway, and there are reports this morning that the holdout senators – Flake, Collins, and Murkowski – are having serious influence on the shape of the investigation.  I have no problem with that as long as the president has the final say.

One former FBI official cautioned that investigations take on a life of their own, and that the promise of wrapping things up in a week might not be possible to keep.  For Republicans, that would be a nightmare, an extended probe, with all kinds of speculation floating around as to the cause of the extension.

We've learned that only senators will have access to the final FBI report.  That is fantasy, of course, as the lights of Leak City will be turned on, and we can assume that at least some of the report will be leaked. 

It is known that Professor Ford will now undergo a full FBI interrogation.  Up to now we have depended only on what she's told the Senate Judiciary Committee.  This sets up the intriguing possibility that she or her handlers might resist an interrogation, or ask for special favors.  I wonder what would happen if she refuses full cooperation.

We know also that Judge Kavanaugh will be questioned extensively.  Both he and Professor Ford will be under oath, and can be prosecuted if it can be proved they lied.

September 29, 2018       Permalink