UPDATED (10/1): NEW COLUMN: GOP Betrayal: The Cross Examination That Never Was

Constitution, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, Natural Law, Republicans

THE NEW COLUMN IS “GOP Betrayal: The Cross Examination That Never Was.” It’s now on WND.com and the Unz Review.

An excerpt:

By the time this column goes to press, Christine Blah-Blah Ford would’ve appeared before the coven once considered the greatest deliberative body in the world: The United States Senate.

At the time of writing, however—on the eve of a hearing conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee to ascertain the veracity of Blasey Ford’s sexual assault claim against Judge Brett Kavanaugh—I hazard that voter distrust in the Republicans will prove justified.

True to type, Republicans will deliver a disaster to their supporters—to those banking on the confirmation of another conservative to the Supreme Court bench.

To question the two adversaries, the psychology professor versus the Supreme Court nominee, the Republicans chose an unknown, unremarkable quantity—a Phoenix-based prosecutor named Rachel Mitchell. Mitchell heads the Special Victims Division of Maricopa County, which consists of “sex-crimes and family-violence bureaus.”

This slipshod selection seemed forensically tailored to Judge Kavanaugh’s alleged crime. It almost suggested Republicans believe such a crime had occurred. Or, worse: These slithering opportunistic reptiles (with apologies to the reptile community) must feel politically compelled to conduct themselves as if Kavanaugh were indeed culpable.

Days before the hearing, this writer had warned that the Republicans did not have the male bits to defend Kavanaugh themselves: “With their choice of sex-crimes prosecutor Mitchell to quiz Brett Kavanaugh and his nemesis, what are Republicans saying? That they think a sex crime occurred?”

A better choice would have been Olivia Benson, leading lady on TV’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” Actress Mariska Hargitay would’ve put on a better show than Mitchell and consulted with sharper legal minds for her script. Hargitay is a liberal, but she’s a pro.

Mitchell, a humdrum, minor state functionary, was unlikely to effect a cross examination for the ages—which is what was required if Brett Kavanaugh was to have a fair shake.

For his part, Kavanaugh is oddly obtuse for one who is said to be such a great jurist. Meek, mild and emotional, he does not seem up to the task of defending himself.

Had the Republicans, also the laggards who dominate the Judiciary Committee, chosen to meaningfully fight for their candidate; they might have opted for one of two dazzling legal scholars. (Please, gentle reader, do not, in the same breath, mention TV judge Andrew Napolitano. Napolitano is a left-libertarian mediocrity who, predictably, has taken the Left’s position on the violence-against-women sub-science.) …

… READ THE REST. “GOP Betrayal: The Cross Examination That Never Was” is now on WND.com and the Unz Review.

UPDATE (10/1):

Thrown to the wolves: ‘The White House authorizes FBI to expand Kavanaugh investigation.”

Sick society. A well-to-do, whiny Cali prof gets boatloads of money for?

Poor mom.

Blah-Blah’s Year Book:

The New American ‘Justice’

Constitution, Justice, Law, Republicans

“… never in our lifetimes have sitting members of Congress attacked our justice system as they now are. Lawmakers had never mocked the idea of due process, called for the collective punishment of American citizens or declared that the burden of proof is on the accused.“—Tucker Carlson.

“… Elected officials have announced they no longer believe in our Western understanding of justice … We accuse you of a felony. Your job is to show you’re innocent. You’re a sex criminal, prove you’re not. …”

… Senate Republicans declared in effect that all allegations against Brett Kavanaugh must be heard no matter how frivolous or obviously fraudulent they are. We can’t control the Senate Republicans, obviously. They exist in their own world. But we can remind them what is at stake here.

… You wanted secure borders. You wanted an end to ObamaCare and you wanted non-crazy people on the Supreme Court of the United States.

You didn’t get the first two. You’re starting to realize you probably never will, because Republicans in the Senate don’t care enough to protect you.

Don’t feel too bad: They don’t care enough about Brett Kavanaugh or our Constitution to protect them, either.

MORE: “If you’re a Republican, you may be wondering why should I bother to vote?”

UPDATED (12/12/-18): On The Pseudo-Science of Violence Against Women: Judge Napolitano Takes The Left’s Perspective

Canada, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Gender, libertarianism, Old Right, Pseudoscience, Sex

Speaking to Arthel Neville, left-libertarian Judge Andrew Napolitano repeated old feminist canards about sexual assault: It’s allegedly an under-reported, ever-present crime in American society.

This misrepresentation is predictable, coming from Napolitano (a creedal left-libertarian).

Find the truth in “Sub-Science Bolsters Violence-Against-Women Claims” (1999). I wrote it in… 1999 for the Calgary Herald:

Moreover, take into consideration that Canada’s Violence Against Women industry (addressed in the column) takes direction from its American sisterhood. In the War On Men, Canada follows, America leads.

The research on violence against women amounts to mostly:

… single sex survey with no input from men. It reflects an exclusive ideological focus on female victimization and excludes, conveniently, violence females incur from other females. Neither were women asked about their own acts of violence towards the man in the relationship even though dozens of two sex surveys conducted in Canada and the U.S. confirm “that women in relationship with men commit comparatively as many acts of violence as men do, at every level of severity,” as Fekete writes.
Developed at the height of the post-Lepine “war against women” panic, the VAW questionnaires are the product of a collaboration with advocacy groups and feminist stakeholders. They are fraught with problems of unrepresentative sample, lack of corroboration, a reliance on anecdotes, and a use of over inclusive survey questions.
Undergirding the promiscuous statistics yielded in the survey is a reliance on prevalence figures. When claims makers say a third of all women have been assaulted in their lifetime, they refer to the prevalence of assault over a life-time, instead of the incidence of assault over, say, a 12-month period (that being approximately 3 percent). Lifetime rates inflate outcomes considerably and make for good copy. “What existential meaning,” wonders Prof. Fekete, “can be attached to a report that once in an entire lifetime someone that a woman knew touched her knee without an invitation?” ….

READ: “Sub-Science Bolsters Violence-Against-Women Claims.”

As to my Judge Andrew Napolitano archive: it’s  here. It’s mostly BAD, if you’re a libertarian on the hard Right:

UPDATED (12/12/018):  And note, these were finer points of law that Judge Napolitano fudged, not uncharacteristically. The guy is reliably clueless.

See: “Andrew McCarthy BLASTS Judge Napolitano’s Accusations of Trump Campaign Violations : “That’s Not What Happened at All!” (Video)”

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UPDATES (9/26): Christine Blasey Ford’s Contempt For Kavanaugh’s 6th Amendment Confrontation Rights

Constitution, Criminal Injustice, Feminism, Gender, Justice, Law, Morality, Sex

A family member of Christine Blasey Ford told a friendly network that Ford was a serious person, a scientist, no less.

For one thing, Ford is a psychologist. As such, she can only be a social scientist, not a scientist.

For another, if Ford’s “science” is anything like her callous attitude toward the rights of the accused in our adversarial understanding of the law—then she is not  a”scientist,” and most definitely no “serious person.” She might even be legitimately considered a bit of a menace.

One item on Blasey Ford’s long list of demands to the US Senate Judiciary Committee, before she relents and goes away, is that “Brett Kavanaugh should be questioned first, before he has the opportunity to hear Ford’s testimony.”

Kavanaugh goes first and is denied the opportunity to hear the accusations against him, confront his accuser, and fashion a response to her accusations.

Make no mistake, Blasey Ford is submitting Kavanaugh to a public lynching, a trial by any other name, except that this trail is without protections such as the presumption of innocence.

And certainly without the 6th amendment constitutional protections:

The 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution sets out many rights for defendants during a criminal prosecution, including the right of the accused to confront their accusers. The relevant text of the Confrontation Clause of the 6th Amendment reads as follows: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him.

Impotent Republicans are incapable of standing up for anything. GOP Chairman Chuck Grassley JUST caved again to Blasey Ford, giving her Highness still more time to decide on yet MORE conditions for her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

UPDATES (9/26):

Why not Harmeet K. Dhillon?

A sex-crimes prosecutor? What on earth for?

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