Knock me over with a little feather

Legal Insurrection: "Elizabeth Warren announces she’s running for President" - "If elected, she would be the first person who has committed an ethnic fraud to hold the presidency."

When it was advantageous for Warren to be a Republican, she was a Republican.
When it was advantageous for Warren to be a "minority," she was a minority.
When it was advantageous for Warren to be a Massachusetts liberal, she was a Massachusetts liberal.

Warren 2020: "What principles do you want?  I got 'em."  Bookmark: ElizabethWarrenWiki.

Shut up, they explained

Newsbusters: "Chuck Todd Bans 'Climate Deniers' from Climate Change Special."

Quick: someone check—are we still in the USA? Or did "democracy die in darkness" and certain positions are verboten from public speech?

And now that Todd has a taste for banning dissent from liberal orthodoxy, the possibilities are endless!

I've never understood this: if you're so secure in your position, why not invite one of those crazies onto your show and crush him in front of a national audience?  Liberals love the echo chamber and they hate free speech.

Extra - From Instapundit.

A conspiracy so deep

Spectator: "The Prague delusion"

Many months ago, when Michael Cohen first came to the attention of CNN, Bill Kristol, and other acolytes in the anti-Trump sorority, a rumor was floated that he had been in Prague in 2016 and had spoken to unnamed but highly placed ‘Russians’ either to hand over the US government to Vladimir Putin or to assure Putin’s connivance in making Donald Trump President.

A notable flaw in this theory was that Michael Cohen had never visited Prague, not then, not ever.

If you think that is a disabling flaw, however, you do not appreciate the robust goad to invention that hysteria provides. That fact that Michael Cohen has been shown not to have been in Prague is merely a fact. What is that against the ardent heart’s desire to Get Trump and cancel the effects of the 2016 election?

But it must be true because they fervently want it to be, just like the Kavanaugh allegations.

Cohen was in Prague!

So say four anonymous sources, quoting other anonymous sources, with no corroboration.  Legal Insurrection: "More “Russia Collusion” Media PSYOPs – McClatchy cell-phone ping report on Michael Cohen in Prague" - "Claims based on what unnamed people heard from unnamed people, none of whom are shown to have personal knowledge. This is the epitome of Trump collusion reporting."

No kidding.  A couple weeks back, there was a story on NPR (some lawyer named Ackerman Akerman) and, when pushed for the "meat of the allegation" against Trump, insisted that Michael Cohen met with Russians in Prague to set up some kind of quid pro quo.  Maybe they were running long on time but the interviewer abruptly ended the interview on what was an unproven meeting that has been vehemently denied by both Cohen and his lawyer, both before and after his cooperation with Robert Mueller.  Then people wonder why the media can't be trusted.

Extra - Found it:

SHAPIRO: There are a lot of different names and dates here. But to zero in on what if any criminal offense might have been committed by Donald Trump, what is the meat of the case against him here?
AKERMAN: The meat of the case is he sent his private lawyer to Prague. He was involved in taking and working through the Russians, straight from the time of the Trump Tower meeting, the June 4 email to Don Jr., to using, in effect, the stolen documents and emails from the Democratic National Committee to get himself elected.

Again: pure fiction, denied by everybody and NPR interviewer Ari Shapiro should have known this.  Cohen has/had a deal with Robert Mueller and it included telling the truth about his dealings with the Russians.  He has no incentive to lie to Mueller and cover up for Trump.  Yet - even today - he denies ever being in the Czech Republic.

To coin a phrase, it's fake news.

More - Minuteman: "Prague Summer yet again."

Going under

Hot Air: "A Stunner: National Debt Interest Will Soon Exceed National Defense Spending."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the interest payments will surpass Medicaid costs within 18 months and that they will exceed all national defense spending by 2023.

By 2025, the CBO figures interest costs will surge past the combined totals of all non-defense discretionary programs together, including funding for national parks, scientific research, health care, education, the court system and infrastructure.

Between now and 2023 nearly three-quarters of the federal debt will mature and must be refinanced at whatever the presumably higher interest rates are in effect then.

As the federal budget transitions into auto-pilot spending, mandatory budget obligations will force out discretionary spending, the things we call the "government."  Who's going to care if the government shuts down when there's one forest ranger left?

"Journalism"

Two different New York Times takes on $100,000 worth of bots. In one, the number is used to add shock value to a headline. In the other, the number is used to downplay a story’s significance. pic.twitter.com/HpeyrmgzLk

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 25, 2018

Extra - From Instapundit.

Flynn-flam

Victor Davis Hanson: "The never-ending, mysterious saga of Michael Flynn." "Michael Flynn is often cited as the Mueller’s investigation “big fish,” the sole high-ranking Trump Administration official so far to be indicted. He may well have been arrogant, and made money in the usual creepy Washington swampish way. But he certainly would not be facing criminal liability had the Justice Department and FBI not first targeted him as guilty of something, and then searched desperately to find or construct that something."

Merry Christmas!

What's that now?

USA Today: "Donald Trump can fund the border wall without congressional approval" - "The border wall will be built only if Donald Trump uses executive power to do it. He has the funds available and the authority to build the wall."

There's a lot of Kavanaugh here

Daily Caller: "Here are the most egregious fake news stories of 2018."

LOL: "I raise awareness on Facebook!"

Brinkmanship and bungling

Politico: "Inside the frantic negotiations that failed to avert a shutdown."

Lawmakers and aides in both parties are cautiously optimistic that the shutdown will be short, believing there’s an emerging consensus around a package of seven annual spending bills, including $1.6 billion in money for fencing. Everyone seems to realize that Trump’s dream of $5 billion for concrete wall funding is dead, including Trump himself. But nobody seems quite sure of what, exactly, Trump will sign after this week’s frenzied back and forth.

These shutdowns drive me crazy because Congress, fundamentally, has one job: fund the government.  I'd like to channel Bill Belichick and say "do your job."  This showdown could have been hashed out months ago before it got to the point where Congresspersons will have to fly back to Washington on Christmas Eve to get furloughed federal employees back to work.

How can we miss you if you won't go away?

Rich Lowry: "The Insufferable James Comey."  "None of Trump’s attacks on Comey has been as damning as the supposedly by-the-book FBI director admitting he did an end run around process in the Flynn interview, and soaking up laughter and applause for it."

It's come to this

Ace: "Trump Has Succeeded Where George W. Bush Failed: He Has Turned the Anti-War Left Into Passionate Neocon Warhawks and Intervention-Adventurers."  "Even Rachel Maddow is now in favor of a war with no clear endpoint and zero authorization from Congress."

Mattis: Take this Syria policy and shove it

Pretty wild day as Secretary of Defense James Mattis hands in his resignation and makes it pretty clear it's due to Trump's capricious decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.  As the Atlantic put it: "Trump Just Messed Up the One Thing He Did Better Than Obama."

According to NPR this evening, this was the first Secretary to publicly resign over a policy dispute since Cyrus Vance.

The bartender wants respect, you guys

Hot Air: "How Conservative Press Coverage Feeds Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."

Another state with pension problems

Hit and Run: "Kentucky Launches Special Session to Deal With State's Public Pension Crisis."

This is a completely unsustainable course... If the state's teacher pension system earns only 3.8 percent annually instead of the 6 percent returns that are baked into the plan's assumptions, it will be out of money by the mid-2030s.

In other words, a new college grad hired as a teacher in a Kentucky public school is being told to trust a retirement program that will likely implode before he or she turns 40. Seems like a big leap of faith.

The mid-2030s are going to be tough all over for retirement plans:

Considered separately, the DI Trust Fund reserves become depleted in 2032 and the OASI Trust Fund reserves become depleted in 2034. In last year’s report, the projected reserve depletion years were 2028 for DI and 2035 for OASI.

It seems cruel to tell people their money will be there, when it won't.

Chuck Todd something something

Twitchy: "‘Gee, ya think?’ Chuck Todd has an epiphany about MSM’s Donald Trump coverage."

It's all white noise now.  We get it: you don't like him.

NPR prepares its listeners for disappointment

NPR: "The Russia Investigations: An Unfinished Case Looks Weaker Than Ever."

The Left hates free speech, continued

Victory Girls: "In a rare and somewhat frightening bout of honesty, California Democrat Ted Lieu made two stunning (or maybe not) admissions on the air recently 1) that he would love to control speech and 2) the only thing stopping him from doing so is that danged US Constitution."

Have yourself a completely appropriate Christmas

Only if you're totally comfortable with that.

Well, this video won't embed.  Here's a link: "Baby just go outside."

So that DNA test was a great idea

White woman Liz Warren knows her claims of 1/1024 Indian heritage have resulted in ridicule.  So now it's time to come clean: "Elizabeth Warren finally admits she’s “not a person of color” (despite being touted as one for 25 yrs)."

She's totally going to put this behind her and grab the attention of the Democratic Party: "2020 Democratic Primary Poll: Elizabeth Warren Now Trails, Uh, John Kerry."  Or not.

Get Trumpy!

The former chairman of the Federal Election Commission says: "Michael Cohen Pled Guilty to Something That Is Not a Crime."  In significant detail, he notes the campaign finance "violation" that Cohen said he was guilty of has no standing in the law.

I noted that Cohen was forced to pay a $1 million fine.  The guy is worth $20 million after a lifetime of tax evasion and taxi cabs.  To hold on to the 95% of his fortune, I would bet he would sign off on whatever the SDNY asked.

Extra - Alan Dershowitz and Dan Backer have pretty much said the same thing.

The dreamy Democrat

Atlantic: "The Medical Ordeals of JFK" - "The core of the Kennedy image was, in many respects, a lie. A presidential biographer, granted access to medical files, portrays a man far sicker than the public knew."

Terror in Strasbourg

I've been to Alsace which is just a beautiful region of France, right on the German border.  Strasbourg is a wonderful city and they love Americans there because during World War II they liberated the city.  It was weird to see scenes on the news tonight of places I readily recognized.

California recognizes the pension threat

The San Francisco Chronicle (!) says maybe we should reform public pensions: "California’s golden pension rights need fixing."

Between the lines, [Governor Jerry] Brown is offering a different thought: You can’t promise money that isn’t there. The California’s public pension pool is tens of billions short of being fully funded, with cities feeling the same pinch. Pension promises made with the best intentions or from political loyalty may prove impossible to deliver.

This is a compliant I've made constantly about Social Security in that it has overpromised benefits it cannot possibly pay and obscuring that fact will lead to a cruel conclusion for retirees.

The ending of that Patriots-Dolphins game

Hush hush

Andrew McCarthy: "Why Trump is likely to be indicted by Manhattan US Attorney."

This is concerning the "campaign finance violation" of perfectly-legal non-disclosure agreements and allegations settled with a fine to the FEC, if you're a Democrat.  But if payouts are now illegal, we can start prosecuting Congressmen who have been paying out victims from the secret slush fund, since this clearly represents an in-kind campaign contribution.

Extra - Journalism, via Instapundit.

The Cohen fallout, part 2

David French on the Corner: "The Special Counsel’s Cohen Sentencing Brief Is Ominous for Trump."

It seems that we're circling back to an obstruction of justice charge because Trump either actively sanctioned Cohen's false testimony to Congress or did nothing to correct the record afterwards.

OMG you guys I was JK

Man, she's dim.  Hot Air: "Ocasio-Cortez To Trump Jr: Keep Trolling Me On Twitter And You Might Get Subpoenaed."

Twitchy: "Uh-oh! Looks like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might be in BIG trouble with the House Ethics Committee."

Scratch a liberal and find a dumb tyrant.

She'll never apologize

Ace: "NYT: Elizabeth Warren Stands By Her DNA Test. But Everyone Else Think She's an Stupid Old Prune-Idiot Sourcrotch."  He then quips: "Not fully the original headline."

To quote Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose: it's too late to turn back now.  Warren went all-in on her 1/1024 heritage and it's impossible for her to backtrack and hand Trump a yuuuge victory.

Extra - From Legal Insurrection.

43 on 41

Speaking of those super-smart Dems

Daily Caller: "Hirono says Dems can't connect to voters because they're too smart."  Plus they're busy clinging to their guns and religion.

Here's P.J. O'Rourke:

I wonder how many of the people who profess to believe in the leveling ideas of collectivism and egalitarianism really just believe that they themselves are good for nothing. I mean, how many leftists are animated by a quite reasonable self-loathing? In their hearts they know that they are not going to become scholars or inventors or industrialists or even ordinary good kind people. So they need a way to achieve that smugness for which the left is so justifiably famous. They need a way to achieve self-esteem without merit. Well, there is politics. In an egalitarian world everything will be controlled by politics, and politics requires no merit.

Let's throw in this C.S. Lewis quote for good measure:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Democrat Senator Mazie Hirono famously said that men should just "shut up" when it comes to allegations of sexual assault.  Interesting that super-smart people always want to prevent other people from speaking.

Why is everybody picking on AOC?

Oh, yeah, she's an idiot.  Hot Air: "WaPo: Four Pinocchios To Kickstart AOC’s Congressional Career."  Not even sworn in yet.

Extra - Twitchy: "People are wondering why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t getting the Dan Quayle treatment."

Is it over yet?

The Week: "The crisis Mueller is sowing"

At this point the most obvious fair-minded explanation of the Russia investigation is that it exists to paralyze the Trump administration. It certainly monopolizes the president's attention. When he is abroad he broods over the latest media talking points from his suite. When he is in Washington, he fumes in front of the television and tweets his favorite tidbits from Fox News. The special counsel has taken his attention away from diplomacy and the other ordinary business of the presidency. Mueller has failed to deliver the goods not simply because there are no goods to deliver but because delivering them is not the point. The point is to hurt Trump.

I try to be fair-minded about the Mueller investigation but my conclusion is that the whole thing had its genesis in the fruit of the poisoned tree, namely the phony Steele dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign.  (This was the actual collusion with Russians to collect dirt on a Presidential candidate.)  And here we are two years later with indictments handed down for process crimes of lying to the FBI or evading taxes from a decade ago.

Every article I read is some variation of "look at all this smoke!  There must be fire somewhere."  At least Watergate started with a break-in and Benghazi had four dead guys.  The big "crime" here is that Hillary lost.

How to tweet like Alexandria

Twitchy: "‘Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah’: Thread on how to tweet JUST like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez WINS Twitter."

I've been trying to stay away from that low-hanging fruit, but she makes it just too easy.

A model American

Fox News: "George H.W. Bush, 41st president of the United States, dead at 94."

Everybody said he wouldn't be too far behind Barbara.

Haha, NPR was asking for money all this week

Instapundit: "NPR has now amended their completely botched story about Don Jr’s testimony to the Senate in 2017."  Almost like they had their narrative, ran with it, and then had to do journalism.

Extra - Twitchy: "Totally bogus NPR story on Donald Trump Jr. made its way to CNN."  Really, CNN?  I'm shocked but not really.

The Cohen fallout

David French at National Review: "Trump’s Unacceptable Campaign Conduct and Two Other Takeaways from the Cohen Plea." 

As French and this Twitter chain from Popehat notes: it's not so much that a (then) real-estate guy was trying to ingratiate himself to the Russians, it's that he must have known his lawyer was lying to Congress but did nothing.  Cohen doesn't indicate that Trump told him to lie but I need a lawyer to explain where the line is on obstruction of justice.

Long forgotten: collusion to sway the election.

What media bias?

Federalist: "Manafort/Assange Drama Proves Media Will Buy Any Russia Conspiracy Story, No Matter Its Flaws" - "If this story had been true, it would have been proof of the conspiracy theory the Resistance/Media/NeverTrump has peddled without evidence for years, but being upset about it being false means that you're also guilty!"

Get woke, go broke

Daily Caller: "'Murphy Brown' reboot canceled after 1 season."  The 13-episode run was twelve-and-a-half too many.

I've only seen the show in painful promotional clips and it was a unique blend of political smugness and tight-lipped laughlessness.  For a second, I thought it was true when Ace reported: "CBS said the reason for the cancellation was "creative awfulness."  Buh-bye.

I knew it!

The Onion: "Study Finds Dogs Twitching In Sleep Are Dreaming About Tearing Owners Limb From Limb."

Meh, nobody cares

Hit and Run: "Trump Isn't Serious About Balancing the Budget - "As long as Medicare, Social Security, and the Pentagon can't be touched, it's hard to believe the president has discovered his inner fiscal hawk."

Still, one of the biggest impediments to Trump's interest in cutting the deficit is Trump himself. Publically, the president has promised not to touch entitlement programs such as Social Security or Medicaid—indeed, protecting those programs from supposed Democratic efforts to change them is a prominent message at nearly every Trump rally. And privately, the Post notes, Trump has taken Pentagon cuts off the table.

Of course, entitlement spending is the biggest single driver of America's long-term deficit. Absent any changes to current law, those two programs alone will run a $100 trillion deficit over the next 30 years while the rest of the government will run a slight surplus, according to Congressional Budget Office projections. Military spending, which Trump urged Congress to hike to an all-time high earlier this year, will total $718 billion next year and dwarfs all other non-entitlement spending in the federal budget.

In other words, it's very difficult to be serious about balancing the budget without at least acknowledging that Social Security, Medicare, and the Pentagon will have to be part of the solution.

Almost nobody cares about the national debt: it's paying for stuff right now and no President has ever faced a serious pushback on taxing future generations.  Nobody's going to touch entitlements.  We're just going to have to ride this out until the trust funds run dry.

Money for nothing

Heritage Foundation: "Universal Basic Income Has Been Tried Before. It Didn’t Work."  "These studies also made clear that it was the receipt of unconditional aid, not the phase-out of benefits, which led to the reduced work effort."

My first escape room

For the holiday of the day after vacation, the family headed over to Hadley to try out an escape room.  I've always like puzzles and it was a blast.  Lots of fun.

Sea of red

Fox News: "Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending drive our national debt to incredible heights."  The opinion piece points out, correctly, that the trajectory we're on is a future where the federal government collects taxes and then turns around and sends it to pay out entitlements.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For some reason

Zero Hedge: "Clinton Foundation Donations Plummet 90%."

OMG you guys, it's a Stalinist purge or something

Politico: "Mueller says powers still intact amid DOJ overhaul."  It's business as usual.  Everybody chill out.

Because of course they did

The Blaze: "NYT, CNN wildly skew story on sexual harassment, Pence’s Press Secretary busts them."  HT: Instapundit.

Just another left-wing operation now

Volokh Conspiracy: "American Civil Liberties Union, RIP" - "The ACLU no longer even pretends to believe in civil liberties."

First, the ACLU ran an anti-Brett Kavanaugh video ad that relied entirely on something that no committed civil libertarian would countenance, guilt by association. And not just guilt by association, but guilt by association with individuals that Kavanaugh wasn't actually associated with in any way, except that they were all men who like Kavanaugh had been accused of serious sexual misconduct. The literal point of the ad is that Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby were accused of sexual misconduct, they denied it but were actually guilty; therefore, Brett Kavanaugh, also having been accused of sexual misconduct, and also having denied it, is likely guilty too.

Can you imagine back in the 1950s the ACLU running an ad with the theme, "Earl Warren has been accused of being a Communist. He denies it. But Alger Hiss and and Julius Rosenberg were also accused of Communists, they denied it, but they were lying. So Earl Warren is likely lying, too?"

Yeah, during the Kavanaugh hearings is when I thought to myself: "The ACLU's transition to the very thing it once opposed is now complete."

All the way to the top

Wow.  Hot Air: "CIA: Saudi Crown Prince Ordered Khashoggi’s Execution."

Credit must be given

NBC News: "Arrests in GoFundMe homeless good Samaritan 'scam' show perils of crowdfunding."

There's a website here in Massachusetts which is kind of a muckraker site that scours the police blotters.  This guy was unwavering from the get-go that this heartwarming tale was a hoax to skim cash from suckers: "Just Like We Called It: The Homeless Guy In The Gas GoFundMe Scam Was In On It, And If You Donated To Them Like An Idiot You Deserve To Lose Your Money."

Good for you, my cynical friend.

Jim Acosta of the mighty microphone grab

Federalist: "Everyone Is Wrong About The Jim Acosta, White House Battle" - "Jim Acosta's behavior doesn't just damage his own reputation, it hurts CNN's and the entire journalism profession. The White House should avoid turning him into a martyr."

Yeah, "should" but won't because Trump is a counter-puncher 24/7.  The guy just can't let it go.  Is this thing really going to go to the courts?  C'mon already, what a waste of time.

Let Acosta back into the White House and then move the CNN chair to the back of the room behind the Des Moines Register.

On not accepting elections

Rich Lowry: "The left’s ‘Jim Crow’ fantasy of a stolen Georgia election."

Every indication is that Stacey Abrams lost fair-and-square in an election where everyone knew the rules beforehand, and they weren’t unreasonable. She’s nonetheless being hailed for not conceding, and her loss will always be taken as an indictment of Georgia rather than the verdict of voters.

I'm so old, I remember somebody saying it was "horrifying" to think somebody wouldn't accept the results of an election.

The trap we've set for ourselves

Hit and Run: "The National Debt Is Coming Due, Just Like We Told You - By 2020, interest on the debt will cost more than Medicaid. By 2025, it will cost more than defense spending. And that's just the start."

Veterans Day

I liked this picture because of the dog.

Florida recount

Good review here via Twitchy: "Charles C.W. Cooke lays out where things stand in Florida as deadline passes."

Osacio-Cortez doesn't understand stuff

IJR: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Responds After Fox News Mocks Her for Not Being Able to Afford a DC Apartment."  Which is the fault of the electoral system, you guys, or something.

Alexandria is confused by the exchange of goods and services for legal tender.  This is why she is correctly ridiculed when we say "just pay for it."  Gosh!

Get on with it already

Observer: "Team Mueller is Holding ‘Dozens of Sealed Indictments,’ According to Intel Source."

Prediction: none of them are related to Russian collusion.

The never-ending campaign

Cook Political Report: "Why Aren't Democrats More Excited About the 2018 Results"

Again, for the record, reading too much into a midterm election outcome is dangerous and often very wrong. But, we also know that the 2020 race for the Democratic nomination has started. And, I know from my conversations with Democratic activists, that many are uninspired by the cast of potential candidates in front of them now. The 2018 election was supposed to anoint a clear frontrunner. It didn’t. It may have put a renewed focus on midwestern-based figures like Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. What 2018 did do, which is why Republicans aren’t disheartened by Tuesday’s results and Democrats are less than ebullient about them — was show just how similar the Electoral College map looks to the one in 2016. 

I disagree about a Democratic frontrunner: Elizabeth Warren is the woman for the Dems.  Go Liz!

Hawaiian judge syndrome

USA Today: "Federal appeals court rules against Trump administration effort to end DACA program."  Check out this stellar legal reasoning:

"In a world where the government can remove only a small percentage of the undocumented noncitizens present in this country in any year," the panel said, DACA lets it "devote much-needed resources to enforcement priorities such as threats to national security, rather than blameless and economically productive young people with clean criminal records."

Oh, is that how it works?  The court acknowledges that the President has wide latitude when it comes to immigration policy unless he wants to decide how to implement that policy.

Or as Ace put it more succinctly: "9th Circuit: Trump Cannot Use an Executive Order to Reverse Obama's Executive Order on DACA Because We Like Obama and ORANGE MAN BAD."

The Senate popular vote and gerrymandered states

Dude, do you even Constitution?  Federalist: "Joy Behar Claims Democrats Lost Senate Races Due To Gerrymandering."  These dim-bulb media types just latch on to the conspiracy theories that fit their narrative and never look back.

Traitors in our midst

Hot Air: "Progressives: White Women Need Accountability And ‘A Lot Of Learning’ After Failing To Vote Uniformly For Left-Wing Candidates."

Identity politics, all the way down.

A very typical midterm

In the past, I would have stayed up late but I just started a new job...

That said: I think it's fair to say there was no "blue wave" this year.  The typical loss for the President's party in the first midterm is 28 seats in the House and 3 in the Senate.  At this point in the night, it looks like the Democrats will pick up 30+ seats in the House (to gain control) but lose four seats in the Senate.  (AZ still in play).

But as Chris Wallace noted: the Democrats had an unusual number of Senate seats to defend this year so it's not surprising that the GOP picked off a couple of Senate seats in red-leaning states.

So Republicans won in Republican-leaning states and Democrats picked up House seats where the Republicans were vulnerable.  So: expected but not "wavy".

Florida Senate

Nate Silver: "The Upshot’s model shows Scott at only about 60 percent to win, and the ABC News Decision Desk isn’t going to call the race tonight, from what I understand."

What?  It's barely a coin flip for Scott?  Here's the NY Times election page:

Candidate Party Votes Pct.
Rick Scott
Republican
4,045,238 50.4%
Bill Nelson*
Democrat
3,987,787 49.6
8,033,025 votes, 99% reporting (6,101 of 6,111 precincts)

There are 10 precincts left to report; how is it possible to pick up enough votes?

Update: Fox News just called Florida Senate for Rick Scott.  So much for that.

in the People's Republic of Massachusetts

There are so few competitive races here (Baker will win governor and Pocahontas will be Senator) that I think all the voters were showing up for the referendum questions.  We've been absolutely bombarded in the Bay State on Question #1: whether to limit the number of patients that nurses can be assigned at any given time.

The nurses' union has poured a huge amount of money into the race but the hospitals have fought back and it looks like it will be voted down.

Update - Question #1 goes down.

Those darn rich people

Twitchy: "Elizabeth Warren forgot to check herself before she wrecked herself (again)."  "Honest question: Is there any topic on which Elizabeth Warren has even a shred of credibility?"

Before you vote: Remember that the Democrats lied about Kavanaugh

Hit and Run: "False Rape Allegations Against Brett Kavanaugh Prove That Due Process Matters - "Judy Munri-Leighton admitted to lying, and Julie Swetnick's story collapsed."

Man, she's dim

When confronted about the cost of their proposals, most Democrats fall back on the ol' "making the rich pay their fair share."  Ditzy Occasional Cortex doesn't even fake it that much.

Hot Air: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: How Can We Afford My Proposals? ‘I Find The Question So Puzzling…’"  Future of the Democratic Party, everyone.

AYFKM

Hot Air: "You Can’t Alter Citizenship Laws By Executive Order Says… Obama?"

Why can't this guy go away?

How original

Fox News: "Jane Fonda compares Trump to the Third Reich, Hitler."

Get some new writers, Jane.  We're heard it all before.

Women never lie about that, except when they do

Twitchy: "Woman who claimed Brett Kavanaugh raped her now says she made the whole thing up."

I agree with Ace here:

This demands jail time. You cannot just defame people and lodge false accusations to Congress because your Pussy-Hat told you it was okay to lie.

It's now altogether obvious that this nutcase along with Ford and Swetnick just made up the whole story because bearing false witness to derail Kavanaugh's nomination was a more powerful incentive than common decency.

Sauce for the goose

Like so many Democrat-led initiatives (nuclear option, anyone?), the practice of court shopping to find a Hawaiian judge was all the rage just a little while ago:

Democrats were ecstatic when a judge in Honolulu barred enforcement of the Trump administration’s travel ban. They were thrilled when a judge in Chicago halted a policy to rescind grant funding to sanctuary cities. In both cases, the judges extended their ruling beyond the litigants to the whole country, issuing so-called national injunctions.

But now?

For opponents of Donald Trump’s administration, this legal maneuver has seemed like a godsend. Now it may come back to haunt them, as a single federal judge in Texas considers putting the Affordable Care Act on ice—not only in Texas, but anywhere in the country.

Now these two lawyers writing for the the increasingly-left-leaning Atlantic think that national injunctions are a bad idea.  For some reason.

Internet heartbreak

Geez, it's real chaos when the WiFi goes down.  I've discovered how dependent I've become on Google Home.

Currently slumming it on a cell phone hotspot.

Stay classy, LA

Seriously, though.  This was a nice move by the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

Almost like there's no story to be found

Federalist: "Why Did Media And Democrats Abandon Their Investigation Into Brett Kavanaugh?" - "If Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is really a rapist and sexual assailant, as Democrats and media claimed, shouldn't the story continue to be covered?"

Blame game

Hit and Run: "Trump's Rhetoric Is Divisive, Contemptible, Un-Presidential. It's Also Not Responsible for the Synagogue Shooting." - "Killers are responsible for their actions and the leap from rhetoric to action, along with all the blood they shed, is on their hands alone."

OMG no way

Twitchy: "Sen. Claire McCaskill says she’s 100 percent behind President Trump on stopping the migrant caravan."

I didn't know Claire was in so much trouble.  Somebody got some bad internal poll numbers.

Oh, Claire!

Menendez may be a corrupt weasel...

...but he's a Democrat.  Good enough for us.  Hot Air: "New Jersey Star-Ledger Endorsement: ‘Choke It Down And Vote For Menendez’.

Red Sox win!

And Manny Machado fell on his ass swinging ether on a Chris Sale third strike.  Wicked pissah.

Extra - Show us the letter "K", Manny!

Democrats with bylines, continued

Twitchy: "‘You got caught’: NBC News’ Kate Snow, who interviewed Julie Swetnick, adds some ‘important context’."

The context is that NBC News ran with an uncorroborated (and, frankly, unbelievable) account against Brett Kavanaugh for the ratings.  The fact that it played into the media's liberal bias was just icing on the cake.

Democrats with bylines

NBC News will issue their correction after the damage is done.  Ace: "NBC KNEW Avenatti was lying on the day BEFORE Kav Confirmation Hearing."

You can suck it, Chuck Todd.

Oh, please do go on with your call to tone down the rhetoric

Twitchy: "Civility: New York Times now printing fantasies of President Trump being assassinated with help of Secret Service." 

Also: Thanos did nothing wrong

You may think you're woke, but you'll never be Trump-made-me-realize-Hitler-wasn't-all-that-bad woke.https://t.co/RmFCAq5qC8 pic.twitter.com/lVcgvUSptc

— Stephen Herreid The Just (@StephenHerreid) October 23, 2018

Hide the bias

This is a remarkable opinion piece from Axios: "4 ways to fix "fake news."  This is one of them:

Media: News organizations should ban their reporters from doing anything on social media — especially Twitter — beyond sharing stories. Snark, jokes and blatant opinion are showing your hand, and it always seems to be the left one. This makes it impossible to win back the skeptics. 

So the article straight-up admits that the media has a liberal bias and the answer is for the media to hide it; furthermore, social platforms should assist with the deception.  Yes, that will fix the "fake news."

Why won't these rubes accept ManBearPig?

Washington Free Beacon: "NPR: How Do We Talk to the Dangerous Idiots Who Disagree With Us?"

Some funny stuff culminating in typical feminist whining about the Patriarchy.

American firearms

Federalist: "The Five Most Important Guns In American History."

As an amateur Civil War historian, it's interesting to note that the Spencer Repeating Rifle was just coming into use around the Battle of Gettysburg and some believe the war could have ended in that battle if the Union had adopted the rifle just a little earlier.

Utterly unbelievable

Fox News: "Jamal Khashoggi, missing activist and writer, killed in fight, Saudi state media reports."

Jamal Khashoggi, the missing activist and writer last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Turkey on Oct. 2, was killed in a fight, state media reported on Friday.

“Discussions between citizen Jamal Khashoggi and those who met him while he was in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul led to a brawl and a fist fight, which led to his death,” a statement provided on state television said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Do you know how you know this is a load of B.S.?  The Saudis don't do manual labor.

Bases loaded, bottom of the ninth

Andrew Benintendi to the rescue:

Fiat justitia ruat caelum

Atlantic: "Why Won’t Turkey Release the Khashoggi Tapes? - If Turkish officials really have the grisly recordings, they must share them—and soon."

Fauxcahontas lies again

Hit and Run: "The Complex, Childish Identity Politics of Elizabeth Warren’s Native Heritage."

No amount of plaintive claiming from Warren that to question her Native roots is to "call my mother a liar," is going to change the fact that saying you are Native American does not make it so.

Warren claimed that her paternal grandparents did not approve of her mother's Native American heritage and that's why her parents had to elope (they didn't.)  For this story to make sense, based on Warren's own DNA report, that means her grandparents were so racist they didn't want their son marrying a woman who was 1/512 Indian.

Can a person die from schadenfreude?

Washington Post: "Judge throws out Stormy Daniels’s defamation lawsuit against Trump"

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit from adult film actress Stormy Daniels that claimed President Trump defamed her when he suggested she had lied about being threatened to keep quiet about their relationship.

Federal District Judge S. James Otero in Los Angeles had indicated during a late September hearing that he was skeptical of Daniels’s claim on First Amendment grounds. The ruling ordered Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, to pay Trump’s legal fees.

I don't normally watch the Fox News lineup but I have to watch tonight.

We are all Cherokee now

James Freeman in WSJ: "Did Elizabeth Warren Just Kill Identity Politics? - If the Massachusetts senator is now a person of color then the term has no meaning."

Fauxcahontas makes it worse

Elizabeth Warren, desperate to get the fake Indian charge behind her, released her DNA test results.  Everybody laughed.

Federalist: "Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Test Proves She Was Lying - Acting as if the results of the senator's DNA test are a vindication of her initial claims is an assault on reason."

Turtleboy: "Elizabeth Warren Using Ancestry Test Showing She’s 1/512 Indian To Prove She Didn’t Lie About Native American Ancestry Is the Most Liz Warren Thing Ever."

National Review: "Native Americans React to Warren’s DNA Test"  "Many in the Native American community reacted angrily Monday after Senator Elizabeth Warren released the results of a DNA test showing that she has a distant Native American ancestor."

Powerline: "To make matters worse for Warren’s claim, the study was based not on Native American DNA from within the U.S., but rather on Mexican, Peruvian, and Colombian DNA."

And, of course, Professor Jacobson: "Elizabeth Warren DNA test does NOT prove she’s Native American, contrary to the hype."

Old 1/1024 thought this was going to help but instead it's going to open up a whole new line of ridicule.  Good.

1. Warren's NOT Native American.
2. Media can't do math.
3. Media will pump out lies fast and issue corrections slowly.
4. Warren is desperate to get the "Pocahontas" label off of her.
5. Real Native Americans and Native American groups are disgusted by her. https://t.co/yRPcuymlcG

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 16, 2018

Probably because there ain't none

Jonathan Turley writing in The Hill: "Three reasons Mueller may not charge Trump with obstruction."

FFS

From tonight's Red Sox game: "Ball 2"

Gee, what's the big deal, gosh

Fox News: "Senate Dem hopeful Kyrsten Sinema said 'I don't care' if people go to fight for Taliban against US."

Washington Examiner: "Kyrsten Sinema in 2002: It'd be 'inappropriate' to condemn destruction of property by anarchists."

That was great

Fox News: "Louisiana Sen. Cassidy confronts anti-Kavanaugh protesters: 'I know your parents are using you as tools'."

Why aren't her kids in school?  Does she really need to drag them into the Senate hallway to make her point?

They should be institutionalized

Twitchy: "‘Hold my beer’: Vox, Slate take Kavanaugh Derangement Syndrome to its logical conclusion."

(No longer workin' at the) Car Wash

Interesting mini-documentary on Reason about how unionization and the minimum wage is pushing more car washes in New York City towards automation and the black market: "The $15 Minimum Wage Is Turning Hard Workers Into Black Market Lawbreakers - An in-depth look at New York's car wash industry, and the real world consequences of politicians interfering with a complex industry they don’t understand."

The Russia probe is back in vogue

Guess who is answering questions.

Guess who is taking the Fifth.

The clown show media

Long piece by Becket Adams: "Confirmation bias: Brett Kavanaugh and the major media's worst moment."

From the smaller errors to the more egregious ones (like NBC's decision to air the Swetnick interview), there’s only one thing that ties all the awful reporting together. Every single story worked against Kavanaugh, as if with a unity of purpose intended to ensure that he would never be given a fair chance to clear his good name and reach the Supreme Court.

Whether through bias or the politically-correct culture that says #BelieveAllWomen, the media never bothered to push back on these stories that - even today - have no corroborating evidence whatsoever.  It was so much easier to pick sides and develop the preferred narrative.  Shame on them.

Going from "meh" to MAGA

Federalist: "I Was A Never Trumper Until Democrats Went Gonzo On Kavanaugh. Now, Hand Me That Red Hat - As a voter who recognizes the unfortunate realities of our politics, I believe supporting Trump has become the responsible choice."

Not so interested in that story

Hot Air: "Scarborough: Is The Media Going To Investigate How And Why Democrats Handled Ford’s Letter The Way They Did?"

Once again with feeling: the media has shown zero objectivity during this whole affair.

End zone dance

Hot Air: "Kavanaugh Ceremonially Sworn In At The White House; Update: “Proven Innocent”

Interesting that all the Supreme Court justices showed up for this ceremony.

Conspiracy

Kevin Williamson: "Kavanaugh Was Pizzagate" - "A thing that has been not entirely appreciated about the Kavanaugh affair: This was the Left’s version of Pizzagate. And the Democrats’ Pizzagate wasn’t carried out by fringe nutters on obscure conspiracy sites: It was carried out by Senate Democrats and leading progressive activists on well-known conspiracy sites such as the New York Times opinion section."

Word salad

Alexandria is the gift that keeps on giving:

Hat tip: Victory Girls.

Creepy porn lawyer

Hit and Run: "Brett Kavanaugh Will Be Confirmed, and Liberals Should Blame Michael Avenatti - Sen. Susan Collins called the Swetnick story "outlandish." It might have given her cover to confirm the judge."

Suck an egg, NY Times

The tired old Gray Lady: "F.B.I. Review of Kavanaugh Was Limited From the Start."  How strange!  This just happens to align with Democrat talking points.

Here's the bottom line: after all the sound and fury, there isn't a single corroborating witness to support any of the women who have accused Kavanaugh.  Not one.  And there's not a single bit of contemporaneous evidence to support these claims.  Not one.

One more day

David French: "The Complete Case for Kavanaugh."

Not to belabor this point but the mainstream media has really beclowned themselves.  Even this morning on NPR, the host corrected a White House spokeswoman who said there is "no evidence" to support Ford's claims.  Nuh-uh, he countered: there is Ford's testimony.  That's the "evidence."

KUPEC: It made complete sense that he was upset. And considering the many, many women who have come out in his defense, saying what an incredible person he is, not just as a judge, but his treatment of women - and these are women who start in high school.
INSKEEP: Let me just be clear, very quickly, on two things you said. No evidence - we have to note there is sworn testimony by a person who says she's the victim, so we can't truthfully say no evidence.

At this point, I wanted the White House rep to say: "Steve Inskeep stole my purse!" and it would be true that Steve Inskeep is a purse-snatcher because #Believeallwomen.

Into the arena

Abraham Lincoln on Ulysses S. Grant: "As early as 1862 when Grant received criticism for the heavy losses at Shiloh, Lincoln responded, "I can't spare this man, he fights!"

Bret Stephens in the New York Times (!): "For Once, I’m Grateful for Trump."

I’m grateful because Trump has not backed down in the face of the slipperiness, hypocrisy and dangerous standard-setting deployed by opponents of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. I’m grateful because ferocious and even crass obstinacy has its uses in life, and never more so than in the face of sly moral bullying. I’m grateful because he’s a big fat hammer fending off a razor-sharp dagger.

The mainstream media fell to their fainting couch again: "But his temperament!" they sobbed, "so unpresidential."

Saturday vote

Legal Insurrection: "McConnell Files Cloture to End Kavanaugh Date, Confirmation Vote Could Come on Saturday."

From Sheila Jackson Lee's office

Politico: "Ex-Democratic staffer charged with posting senators’ private info."  A.k.a. "doxxing."

The idiot mainstream media

Here's Jonah Goldberg yesterday: "You Idiot Reporters Are Making It Worse."  "Every 15 seconds, you’re demonstrating why millions of people love it when Trump calls you the fake news."

And here he is today with a follow-up:

Every profession, class, and group is prone to tribal thinking (technically: the coalition instinct), but the press is one of the very few that takes profound offense at the suggestion this observation applies to them. This haughtiness invites rage at times like this. And, while you can complain about Trump fueling that rage, responding to it with even more haughtiness just perpetuates the cycle.

Yeah, sure, it all started with Trump.

Extra - Instapundit: "Modern journalism in one tweet."

Your objective and professional mainstream media

Twitchy: "SCOOP! New York Times obtains 1983 letter from Brett Kavanaugh admitting to hanging with ‘prolific pukers’."

Wow!  Teenage boys are jerks!  Who knew?

On a side note, I was listening to NPR this afternoon and one of the hosts, after some audio of somebody questioning Christine Ford's version, added: "But Ford has been able to provide some details of that evening."

O RLY?  Besides the allegation against Kavanaugh, she remembers she had one beer and the house she was in had a narrow staircase.  I guess those are "details."  Otherwise, she doesn't know who invited her, whose home it was, where it was, the date, how she got there, how she got home, and the four people she identified at the party all said it never happened.

She remembers that one beer, though.  That's a detail.  Good on you, NPR.

That was quick

WSJ: "FBI Probe of Kavanaugh Is Expected to Wrap Up Very Soon."

GOP aides on the Hill and another person familiar with the process said they were expecting the bureau to conclude its report as soon as late Tuesday or early Wednesday. Agents had interviewed at least four key people as of Tuesday in its background investigation of Judge Kavanaugh. The White House had given the bureau until Friday to wrap up the probe.

As we know from the Mueller probe, lying to the FBI is a crime.  I bet this focused the attention of certain witnesses.

The case against Kavanaugh is collapsing

David French in the National Review:

A very strange thing happened over the weekend: If you follow Twitter closely, you’ll notice that the debate over Brett Kavanaugh moved significantly from the central question of last Thursday’s hearing — did he commit sexual assault? — to a raging debate over whether he lied about high-school slang, college drinking, and inside jokes, and whether he was just too “angry” to be a Supreme Court judge.

This torrent of commentary (most of it silly, including competing, furious arguments about how people described anal sex in 1982) obscures an important development: The sexual-assault claims against Kavanaugh are in a state of collapse.

If the media was anywhere near objective and fair in this process, it never would have gone this far.

The media is so desperate to stop Kavanaugh that they have literally resorted to writing stories about him being accused of THROWING ICE at someone in College.

Whoever wrote this should put "DNC Comms staffer" in their twitter bio because this isn't journalism.

Embarrassing. https://t.co/se6Z0ciBai

— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) October 1, 2018

The Fake News Media

Know how the mainstream media complains about bloggers?  They're not professionals, they run with rumors, they don't check sources, stuff like that.

Today NBC ran an interview with Julie Swetnick and actually prefaced the story by saying it was complete B.S.  But, hey, let's run this unsubstantiated smear anyway!  Because journalism.

Maybe the funniest thing I've seen in a NASCAR race

In today's race, a car crashed into a sidewall and one of the panels stuck to the back of the car, which then drove around the track like one of those banner planes you see at the beach.

The new standard

Red State: "It Looks Like Maxine Waters’s Staff Doxxed Several GOP Senators During The Kavanaugh Hearing." 

She needs help to pay for her pro bono lawyers

Turtleboy: "Christine Blasey-Ford Has Raised Over $500K With GoFundMe Scam And She’s Obviously Lying About Not Remembering Who Drove Her Home That Night."

Time to move the goalposts again

The Democrats have been unified in their call for an FBI investigation (the 7th, I guess) for Brett Kavanaugh and today they got it.  It won't last more than a week because as they told us, ad nauseum, the Clarence Thomas investigation only took three days.  So a week should be plenty of time for the FBI to investigate a party, somewhere in Maryland, maybe in 1982 that nobody except Chrissy Ford remembers.

With this hard-won victory in hand, it's time to shift those goalposts.  First, a week isn't long enough:

Gosh, nobody could see that coming. https://t.co/gGrEmHrV1R

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) September 28, 2018

Second, even if the FBI clears Kavanaugh, he's still just the worst:

After spending two weeks demanding an FBI investigation in the hope/belief that the GOP would never allow one, only to have Jeff Flake force the issue at the last moment, the minority party suddenly shifts to Plan B. Time now to start downplaying the value of the forthcoming FBI investigation that’s likely to find nothing incriminating against Kavanaugh.

Like Ace, I totally want a portion of this investigation to look into GoFundMe princess Chrissy Ford who can't fly (unless it's on a vacation) and has no idea who is paying for all these polygraphs and trips to Washington.

This is news

Red State: "BREAKING. Collins, Murkowski, And Donnelly Make Their Decision."  For Kavanaugh.

Catching up

I'm totally getting caught up on the Kavanaugh hearings after a long day of end-of-fiscal-year madness at work.  Seen at Ace:

Congrats, Democrats. This is the world you wanted. An innocent man's wife and daughters are being violently threatened, and lawmakers are being doxxed, barely a year after a horrific mass assassination attempt against Republican congressmen. https://t.co/ZPk2daCPiZ

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 27, 2018

I'm so old, I remember when Democrats were telling us about the dignity of John McCain's example. 

A decree from the Mayor

CNBC: "Dunkin' makes it official: It's dropping 'Donuts' from its logo."  For those of you outside of the New England area, Dunkin' Donuts is a coffee chain separated by 300 yards in every direction.

Ford Escape

As I predicted.  Twitchy: "Now Christine Blasey Ford’s legal team is pushing back on hiring of “experienced sex crimes prosecutor”.

She won't testify under oath.  Not going to happen.

Meh, we'll run a correction later

National Review: "Jane Mayer: Accuser Told Ronan Farrow She Wasn’t Sure of Story."

Strangely, the first thing I thought of was this piece of trivia from the movie "Bright Lights, Big City":

"Gotham", the fictitious New York magazine for which Jamie Conway works as a fact-checker, is clearly an unflattering caricature of "The New Yorker", where author/screenwriter Jay McInerney had also worked as a fact-checker.

Perhaps the New Yorker should have hired a coked-out fact-checker for this dumpster fire story.

This will be the pretense for Ford to back out

Breaking news from the Judiciary Committee:

Judiciary Cmte to Ford team: The Committee determines which witnesses to call, how many witnesses to call, in what order to call them, and who will question them. These are non-negotiable.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) September 23, 2018

Judge, have you ever done a keg stand?

Washington Examiner: "Democrats poised to grill Brett Kavanaugh on drinking, partying in high school."  It's pretty much all they got.

All over but the shouting

Erick Erickson: "BREAKING: Christine Blasey Ford's Female Witness Doesn't Remember Anything."

So Ford has identified three eyewitnesses at this party (not counting Kavanaugh) and all of them have now provided sworn statements to the Judiciary committee saying this never happened.  Are we done here yet?

Extra - Reaction from Twitchy.

Spoiler alert: Godot didn't show up either

Hot Air: "Christine Ford Meets Deadline By Not Agreeing To Terms."

The "acceptance" is just another delaying tactic.
The "negotiation" is just a means to eventually decline to testify.

She cray-cray

New Neo: "It’s like having an argument with your crazy girlfriend: the latest from Ford."

Most of us have had the experience of arguing with a person like this. Give an inch? They take a mile. Make concessions? They want more. They are the poor suffering victims. They don’t like your tone of voice. They don’t like the expression on your face. If you try to be calm, you’re cold. If you try to be sympathetic, you’re condescending. Nothing you do is okay, and everything they do is okay.

Meanwhile, Dianne Feinstein (among others) is complaining that the Republicans are being stubborn and uncooperative what with their requests and extended deadlines.

McCarthyism 2018

Wall Street Journal: "The Presumption of Guilt - The new liberal standard turns American due process upside down."

Do you remember the 21st night of September?

NPR: "The Song That Never Ends: Why Earth, Wind & Fire's 'September' Sustains."

"The, kind of, go-to phrase that Maurice used in every song he wrote was 'ba-dee-ya,' " she says. "So right from the beginning he was singing, 'Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember / Ba-dee-ya, dancing in September.' And I said, 'We are going to change 'ba-dee-ya' to real words, right?' "

Wrong. 

I've always kinda liked this version from "Get Over It":

Tick tock

Grassley says: tell us if you're testifying by 10pm or we're voting Monday.

Good.

Extra - Powerline has Grassley's statement which includes the (obvious) observation that, here in America, there's the accusation and then the defense - not the other way around.

I have a regret

When I was making my prediction last night, I toyed with the idea of making another prediction: that the Kavanaugh accuser would claim she's afraid to fly and, darn it, I just can't make it from California to Washington D.C. in time.

But then I said: "nah, that is too crazy and desperate a dilatory move."  I was a fool!  Ace: "Literally Un-believable: "Dr. Ford" Doesn't Want to Come to DC to Testify, Because She Doesn't Want to Fly, Now."  As Ace notes, Ford should get some of the Pussyhat Resisters! to pile in an RV and drive day and night to protect birth control, or something.

Oh, that's different

Hot Air: "Hmmm: Only 5% Of MN Democrats “Believe The Woman” When It Comes To Ellison."

Avoiding the perjury charge

David French: "Do Democrats Really Believe Christine Blasey Ford Doesn’t Have to Prove Her Claims?"  Nope.  They just want them out there:

As of this moment, they are actually seeking to derail a Supreme Court nomination and impugn the nominee’s character without a single piece of sworn evidence. Indeed, all the legally binding statements on the matter contradict the accuser.

This cannot stand. Ford’s team has to either reverse course or drop its complaint. Yes, of course, testifying before the committee would be “partisan.” No, the members of the committee are not “neutral.” But that’s not just the reality of the Senate, it’s the fundamental reality of the justice system itself. It is an adversarial system. If you seek to prove your claim under any standard, you have to expose yourself to the most partisan possible scrutiny — cross-examination by a lawyer trained to find flaws in your testimony and paid to work relentlessly until he discredits your case.

It's notable that even the letter sent to Dianne Feinstein hasn't been entered into evidence.  The Democrats desperately want the Republicans to overreact to this nothingburger, but they refuse to take the bait.  It must be infuriating. 

Prediction: Ford will never testify under oath. 

Hmmmm....

Hot Air: "NRO’s Ed Whelan: “Much More” Is Coming To Show That Kavanaugh Is Innocent."

For the record, I predicted this debacle would "seal the deal" for Kavanaugh.  It's all over but the shouting and the inevitable cries of "sexism!"

Extra - Federalist: "The Kavanaugh Allegation Process Is A Miscarriage Of Justice For Everyone."  Certain members of the media have declared the nomination "donezo" for...reasons.  Probably #MeToo.

Matthew Rhys wins for "The Americans"

I was flipping back and forth from the Emmys and "Monday Night Football," only to see if my favorite show - "The Americans" - would finally win something.  The Emmys were just awful and I muted every stilted speech before the awards were announced.  But Matthew Rhys won for Best Actor in a Drama and his speech was adorbs:

Well, that souffle collapsed

Fox News: "Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford demands 'full investigation' by FBI before testifying, in letter from her lawyers."

I've seen this movie before: make outrageous demands in the interest of "justice" that you know will never be accepted then run away.  Just call the vote already.

Extra - Ace: "Breaking: Kavanaugh's Accuser Says She Won't Testify Until The FBI, Which Has Already Declined to Investigate Her Non-Federal-Jurisdiction 37 Year Old Allegations, Completes Its Investigation, Sometime After a Democrat is President."

Talk it out

Powerline: "Senator Collins's good idea."  She proposes that counsel for Kavanaugh and Hope question each other's clients.  "But I have a hunch that if Sen. Collins’s proposal is embraced, Prof. Ford will withdraw from the hearing."

Related - Minuteman: "Disingenuous Level Max."

Turn off the cameras

Hot Air: "Senate Judiciary Committee To Hold Public Hearing Monday With Kavanaugh And Accuser."  They'll be televised:

If you thought the grandstanding from 2020 contenders like Cory Booker and Kamala Harris was overbearing the first time around, it’s almost unfathomable how obnoxious it’ll be this time. Booker will cry. A lot.

OMG, why does this need to be a public hearing?  Spartacus will be insufferable.

I'm convinced that this eleventh-hour stunt will seal the deal for Kavanaugh.  What kind of message would the Republicans be sending if they allowed this uncorroborated to derail a nominee?  Even Susan Collins came out and called it unfair.  Nobody's changing their vote at this point.

Extra - Well: "Kavanaugh's accuser's lawyer: It's not her job to corroborate her story."  Oh.  I guess she's just here to make allegations.

Segregation now, segregation forever!

A couple months ago, a black female working the summer at Smith College was either eating her lunch or sleeping in a closed building.  A Smith employee, following college policy, saw her and notified campus police who did a check.  And there it would have ended except for all the racism.

You would have thought Smith would have learned the lessons of Mizzou or Evergreen College, but no.  They suspended the reporting employee pending an investigation and generally did everything you'd expect from a liberal, Western Massachusetts, Northampton-based college.  Still - unbelievably! - it just wasn't enough.  Here come the demands: "Woman at center of controversial Smith College incident pens letter on ACLU website calling for 'affinity housing' for students of color."

In Kanoute's letter, she makes several "demands" for reform at the school -- including a call for a controversial practice called "affinity housing" for students of color.

That's right: it's come to this.

"The supposed 'integrated housing' system currently on campus forces (people of color) into unsafe spaces," alleges one post on the group's Facebook page. "It does nothing to uphold principles of equity or justice. While affinity housing is not a perfect solution, students of color have expressed their need for a house that truly values their labor."

It's going to be a tough world for these womyn after graduation.

Fake news

Tell me again how media bias is all in my head.  Ace: "NYT: Whoopsie! I Guess We Shouldn't Have Suggested That Nikki Haley Was Responsible for a $50,000 Expenditure for Curtains That Was Actually Made During the Obama Administration." 

The Paper of Record, ladies and gentlemen. 

The Kavanaugh circus

Hot Air: "Report: Feinstein Forwarded Letter About Kavanaugh To The FBI — With The Accuser’s Name Redacted."

For the record, I believe the "virtuous" version of Feinstein in this article.  I think Democrat Senators such as Feinstein and Leahy believe in the Senate as an institution, unlike crazy Kamala and Spartacus, who view it as a platform for grandstanding.

Evidence not needed

Since Adam Schiff hasn't found any evidence in the phony-baloney Russian collusion charge against Trump, he swears the Democrats will move on to the phony-baloney money laundering charge.

This is their entire agenda.

By golly, this fellow tells some untruths!

Now safely out of office, the Associated Press re-discovers the fact check for Obama: "AP Fact Check: Obama doesn’t always tell the straight story."

Remember when Politifact rated Obama's claim about keeping your health plan as "half-true" only to name it "Lie of the Year" in 2013?  Then the media wonders why Americans think they're biased:

"Without evidence."  Except, you know, for the texts.  This is lame even for @cnnpolitics. https://t.co/RZbMxi030d

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) September 12, 2018

Steele trap

Conrad Black: "The Mueller Charade"

When the Mueller charade is finally out of the way, everyone involved in the false applications for a FISA surveillance warrant against junior Trump campaign helper Carter Page will face the music, including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and very prominent members of the Obama administration. Whatever happens in November, all this will unravel. The combination of the jungle ruthlessness of high American politics with the idealism of the Constitution occasionally creates bizarre and sordid dramas. Eventually, just when the pious claptrap about no one being above the law becomes almost insufferable, the puritanical conscience of America rises like a cobra and strikes the wrongdoers. The twist here is that the hunted president, who has broken no laws, will make the kill. It’s reality politics, wending toward a surprising climax.

Somebody wrote the other day that Americans "don't like to be pushed around."  And this is what motivates my defense of Trump: here's a guy whose entire Presidency so far has been under a cloud because of this phony Steele dossier paid for by Hillary's campaign and the DNC.  Trump committed the unpardonable sin of beating Hillary and for this he must suffer a thousand cuts from CNN and Stephen Colbert.  Why?  Because he's intemperate and not particularly articulate.

But there's no crime.  It's bizarre that whenever I bring this up the standard response is "you don't know what Mueller knows!"  Yeah, that's right, the critical, earth-shattering, Presidency-ending information is just lying dormant, waiting for its moment to appear.  Won't we be surprised?

It's much more likely we'll see Hillary go to prison.  After all, she's the one who actually hired Russian agents to create the Steele dossier to sway the election.

Never go full Mizzou

You don't want to go full Mizzou, Evergreen.  Hot Air: "Evergreen State College Professor: Freshmen Enrollment Down To 300 Students."

Avoiding the title of "Mayor Bankruptcy"

Zero Hedge: "A More Likely Reason Rahm Emanuel Dropped Out: The Chicago Time Bomb."

Rahm knows the risks of collapse are rising. He’s passed property tax hikes, emptied the reserves and employed every budget trick he can to make the numbers “better.” He’s even sold off public assets – the city’s future sales tax revenues – to “shore up” the city’s finances, and yet Chicago is still junk rated by Moody’s.

Chicago's pension obligations are staggering and, by far, the worst among major cities.  Rahm knows there are no more levers to pull; he's out of options so it's better to leave the mess to the next guy.

Even Paul Krugman?

The Hill: "Economists agree: Trump, not Obama, gets credit for economy."

Awww...don't be sad, "new normal" Obama.  Trump found that magic wand.

Fishing expedition

Andrew McCarthy: "Mr. Rosenstein, What Is the Crime?"  "For precisely what federal crimes is the president of the United States under investigation by a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department?  It is intolerable that, after more than two years of digging — the 16-month Mueller probe having been preceded by the blatantly suspect labors of the Obama Justice Department and FBI — we still do not have an answer to that simple question."

Tweet of the day

Kiki Papadopoulos, George’s mother, says she was there when FBI agents showed up and requested interview and advised her son to decline and get a lawyer. The lesson, she said: “if you only listened to your mother none of this would have happened.”

— Rosalind Helderman (@PostRoz) September 7, 2018