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The Republicans' Big Hire for the Kavanaugh Hearing Is Fooling No One |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
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Wednesday, 26 September 2018 13:03 |
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Pierce writes: "They don't want to see campaign ads featuring them badgering Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. That's it."
The abject cowardice behind the decision to hire a woman lawyer to question Ford, rather than leaving the questioning to the all-male roster of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, is so obvious as almost to beggar comment. (photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
The Republicans' Big Hire for the Kavanaugh Hearing Is Fooling No One
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
26 September 18
They don't want to see campaign ads featuring them badgering Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. That's it.
 he general consensus is that Brett Kavanaugh did neither himself nor his nomination much credit with his interview on Fox News Monday night. My own opinions include:
a) that Martha McCallum did a pretty good job, given what I'd expected from her, which was very little. I'd have liked a couple of follow-ups, but she certainly gave Kavanaugh enough rope;
b) that my original assessment of Kavanaugh from his formal hearings a couple of weeks ago remains: the man is the worst witness for himself that I've ever seen;
c) that I wouldn't trust Brett Kavanaugh as far as I could throw the entire Georgetown Prep graduating class of 1983.
The guy can't help himself. It wasn't just that he didn't do these awful things, it's that he was a teetotaling virgin from the day he was born until some vague time after he went off to Yale and did not under any circumstances do anything to Deborah Ramirez. His college roommate already has called moonshine on much of this, and Kavanaugh's own high-school yearbook backs up the roommate's testimony fairly well.
Not only that but, at his weekly press gaggle outside the Senate chamber, Senator Chuck Schumer all but called Kavanaugh an inveterate liar.
In the past, Judge Kavanaugh, in his hearings, has not told the whole truth and nothing but—whether it was about Manny Miranda [the brains behind purloining the e-mails of Democratic senators back while Kavanaugh was working in the Bush White House], whether it's about Judges Pryor and Pickering, or about the torture investigation. The documents are at odds with what Judge Kavanaugh said.
Well, then.
"He has a right to say anything he likes in a public forum," said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, of Kavanaugh's interview on Monday night. "But I think he raised more questions than he answered. I think the net effect was to degrade the dignity of the process and his position. For him to be talking about his sexual history was totally unnecessary and well beyond claims that have been made as to his excessive drinking or potential sexual assault and prove nothing."
(It should be noted that, curiously, the Democratic senators are concentrating most of their rhetoric on the case of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who is still scheduled to appear on Thursday, and not on that of Deborah Ramirez, the second woman to come forward, and certainly not on whatever or whoever Michael Avenatti is talking about. "We don't know much about the second case," said Senator Richard Durbin.)
The big news was that the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee announced that they had hired a woman to question Ford if the latter comes to the hearing on Thursday. However, the Republicans kept the identify of the new committee counsel secret, according to Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, "for her own safety." My money is still on Jeanine Pirro until I hear differently.
Anyway, the abject cowardice behind the decision to hire a woman lawyer to question Ford, rather than leaving the questioning to the all-male roster of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, is so obvious as almost to beggar comment. None of the Republican members of the committee want to see commercials featuring footage of them beating up on a woman describing a sexual assault popping up on television the next time they run for anything. The tactic, in short, is fooling nobody, least of all Blumenthal, a former US attorney.
"I've decided what I'm going to do. I'm going to be asking questions," he said. "We're elected to advise and consent. I'm on the Judiciary Committee and my job is to ask questions. I am in no way going to concede or cede my role as a United States Senator.
"Why are they hiding? Why is the administration hiding the truth, and why are my colleagues hiding from their roles as members of the Judiciary Committee? There's no particular expertise that a questioner is going to have in this situation."
Back when Kavanaugh first met with the committee, Angus King, the independent senator from Maine, dropped by what were becoming very acrimonious hearings, largely because so much of Kavanaugh's record, particularly documents relating to his days as a political lawyer in the Bush White House, were being concealed one way or another from the rest of the world. "We are rushing this," King said. "And we don't know anything about this guy."
That situation hasn't changed.
"That's what I've been saying all along," King said Tuesday. "What's the rush here? This doesn't seem like a serious investigation now. This seems like checking a box. We're not talking about a new investigation, we're talking about re-opening an FBI investigation into these new charges. The Scalia seat was open for 14 months. This has been open for eight weeks."
One more day of this. They're going to try and push through the weekend to get Kavanaugh confirmed by the beginning of next week. I'm not entirely sure they have the votes. "Is the process broken?" Blumenthal asked. "I'll tell you this: the Brett Kavanaugh process is broken."
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RSN: General Petraeus Flip-Flops on Burn Pits |
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Wednesday, 26 September 2018 13:03 |
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Hickman writes: "The Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is promoting a media campaign in support of a bill introduced to Congress on May 1, 2018, by Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and Congressman Brian Mast, H.R. 5671 - The Burn Pit Accountability Act. The face of the IAVA's media campaign is none other than General David Petraeus, retired, the former Commander of all military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2008 to 2010."
U.S. Army soldiers watch garbage burn in a burn-pit at Forward Operating Base Azzizulah in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan. (photo: Reuters)
General Petraeus Flip-Flops on Burn Pits
By Joseph Hickman, Reader Supported News
26 September 18
he Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is promoting a media campaign in support of a bill introduced to Congress on May 1, 2018, by Congresswoman Gabbard Tulsi and Congressman Brian Mast, H.R. 5671 – The Burn Pit Accountability Act. The face of the IAVA’s media campaign is none other than General David Petraeus, retired, the former Commander of all military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2008 to 2010. The media campaign has angered many members from other veterans’ organizations who believe this is nothing more than the IAVA playing political games.
Shortly after the wars began in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the U.S. military constructed open-air burn pits on their bases. Many of these burn pits were massive in size, burning tons of trash each day. Anything and everything was burned in the burn pits, including plastics, paint thinners, treated lumber, medical waste, and even human body parts. Shortly after servicemembers began returning home from their tours in those countries, many found themselves experiencing health ailments ranging from respiratory issues to rare bronchial diseases and cancers. There are now over 100,000 veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who are sick or dying from the illnesses they contracted from inhaling the toxic fumes from the burn pits.
From 2003 to 2008, civilian environmental health experts in Iraq and Afghanistan collected thousands of air, water, and soil samples from both Iraq and Afghanistan for scientific analysis. One area they found with extremely high levels of toxins was near Balad Air Base in Iraq. The report was sent to members of the Senate and House, and on October 31, 2008, Senator Russ Feingold sent a letter to General Petraeus citing the data collected and questioning whether or not the burn pits were hazardous to U.S. service members. On December 4, a little over a month later, General Petraeus responded to Senator Feingold's letter, stating he believed the environmental experts were incorrect in their findings. Petraeus sided with a DoD environmental assessment that claimed the toxins were not high enough to cause concerns. He went on to say in the letter, “There is and will continue to be a need for burn pits during contingency operations.” During the time frame he was in command, over 160 open-air burn pits were operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With the introduction of H.R. 5671, General Petraeus has apparently changed his mind about the health dangers linked to the burn pits. On August 21, 2018, General Petraeus, representing the IAVA, wrote a letter to members of Congress stating, “I write to bring to your attention what could be this generation’s Agent Orange – the exposure of our military personnel to airborne hazards from burn pits used to destroy human, medical, and other waste generated in the Iraq, Afghanistan, and other post-9/11 war zones.” In a Fox News interview on September 3, 2018, General Petraeus said the U.S. has a “sacred obligation” to help burn pit veterans. Two days later on September 5, the IAVA released a mass e-mail to its members and subscribers titled, “General Petraeus Has Our Backs on the Burn Pits.”
The IAVA claims they are the only veterans group fighting for veterans on this issue, but there are other veterans groups such as Burnpits360 and Disabled American Veterans who have been addressing the issue of burn pits and advocating for veterans since long before the IAVA. Many members of those groups believe “the Bill’s practical effect will actually harm many Veterans who are seeking compensation for disabilities result from environmental exposures, such as burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Today, over 100,000 veterans are sick and many are dying from their exposure to the burn pits. They don’t need the IAVA to play politics, and they don’t need speaking on their behalf a retired general who was responsible for the use of burn pits, and who is now trying to fix his very tainted reputation. What veterans need is for Congress to act swiftly and pass a bill that will actually make a difference in their lives.
Joseph Hickman is a Senior Research Fellow for The Center for Policy and Research. He is also a freelance journalist and author of three books, Murder at Camp Delta, The Burn Pits, and The Convenient Terrorist. You can follow him on Twitter at @JosephHickman0
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RSN | Fox News Reveals: Brett Kavanaugh Does Not Tell the Truth |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=20877"><span class="small">William Boardman, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Wednesday, 26 September 2018 11:29 |
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Boardman writes: "In the one abortion case Brett Kavanaugh has ruled on as a federal judge, he treated a pregnant 17-year-old woman with no dignity and no respect, and he went out of his way to do it. The woman was a Jane Doe fleeing from family violence in Central America, where her parents had beaten her pregnant sister so badly she miscarried."
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. (photo: AP)
Fox News Reveals: Brett Kavanaugh Does Not Tell the Truth
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
26 September 18
I’ve always treated women with dignity and respect.
– Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Fox News, September 24, 2018
his is not true. Brett Kavanaugh has not always treated women with dignity and respect, unless you mean abusing his judicial authority in an attempt to prevent a woman from having the legal abortion she wants constitutes some form of “dignity and respect.”
In the one abortion case Brett Kavanaugh has ruled on as a federal judge, he treated a pregnant 17-year-old woman with no dignity and no respect, and he went out of his way to do it. The woman was a Jane Doe fleeing from family violence in Central America, where her parents had beaten her pregnant sister so badly she miscarried. Jane Doe was in US custody, she wanted an abortion, and the US refused. She sued and won the right to an abortion. The US appealed and the case reached the US District Court where Kavanaugh sat. The court ruled to allow Jane Doe (J.D. in the court’s opinion), then at least 15 weeks pregnant, to have her abortion. In an opinion concurring with the majority decision, Judge Patricia Ann Millett wrote:
Fortunately, today’s decision rights a grave constitutional wrong by the government. Remember, we are talking about a child here. A child who is alone in a foreign land. A child who, after her arrival here in a search for safety and after the government took her into custody, learned that she is pregnant. J.D. then made a considered decision, presumably in light of her dire circumstances, to terminate that pregnancy. Her capacity to make the decision about what is in her best interests by herself was approved by a Texas court consistent with state law. She did everything that Texas law requires to obtain an abortion. That has been undisputed in this case.
What has also been expressly and deliberately uncontested by the government throughout this litigation is that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment fully protects J.D.’s right to decide whether to continue or terminate her pregnancy. The government—to its credit—has never argued or even suggested that J.D.’s status as an unaccompanied minor who entered the United States without documentation reduces or eliminates her constitutional right to an abortion in compliance with state law requirements.
Where the government bulldozed over constitutional lines was its position that—accepting J.D.’s constitutional right and accepting her full compliance with Texas law—J.D., an unaccompanied child, has the burden of extracting herself from custody if she wants to exercise the right to an abortion that the government does not dispute she has. The government has insisted that it may categorically blockade exercise of her constitutional right unless this child (like some kind of legal Houdini) figures her own way out of detention by either (i) surrendering any legal right she has to stay in the United States and returning to the abuse from which she fled, or (ii) finding a sponsor—effectively, a foster parent—willing to take custody of her and to not interfere in any practical way with her abortion decision….
The irreparable injury to J.D. of postponing termination of her pregnancy—the weekly magnification of the risks to her health and the ever-increasing practical barriers to obtaining an abortion in Texas—have never been factually contested by the government.
Ignoring the health risk question, Kavanaugh’s nine-page dissent argued for waiting for Jane Doe to find a sponsor with little consideration of her as a person with a complicated problem. His summary of Jane Doe’s situation lacks Millett’s humane concern, as he wrote with dry starkness:
To review: Jane Doe is 17 years old. She is a foreign citizen. Last month, she was detained shortly after she illegally crossed the border into Texas. She is now in a U.S. Government detention facility in Texas for unlawful immigrant minors. She is 15-weeks pregnant and wants to have an abortion. Her home country does not allow elective abortions.
He might as well say she is just a pawn in the game, she doesn’t matter. Kavanaugh later treats the majority opinion reductively, as if it was only about abortion ideology, not the time-constrained needs of a 17-year-old girl. And in doing so, he uses the loaded language of an anti-abortion ideologue:
The majority apparently thinks that the Government must allow unlawful immigrant minors to have an immediate abortion on demand. [emphasis added]
And later Kavanaugh writes similarly:
The en banc majority, by contrast, reflects a philosophy that unlawful immigrant minors have a right to immediate abortion on demand, not to be interfered with even by Government efforts to help minors navigate what is undeniably a difficult situation by expeditiously transferring them to their sponsors. [emphasis added]
This is not honest, truthful argument. This is tendentious and false. Kavanaugh makes clear that he would choose a legalistic rigidity requiring Jane Doe to find a sponsor, regardless of how long that might take or whether it was even possible. Clearly, delay might make her abortion medically more difficult, or impossible. That, although he is not forthright enough to say so, seems to be Kavanaugh’s preferred outcome. That inference is reinforced by Millett’s response to Kavanaugh:
Judge Kavanaugh’s dissenting opinion (at 4) suggests that it would be good to put J.D. “in a better place when deciding whether to have an abortion.” That, however, is not any argument the government ever advanced. The only value of sponsorship identified by the government was that sponsorship, like voluntary departure from the United States, would get J.D. and her pregnancy out of the government’s hands.
Judicial courtesy presumably restrains Millett from saying outright what she clearly describes: that Kavanaugh is arguing speciously and dishonestly. Jane Doe had already decided to have an abortion. Kavanaugh is not telling the truth to suggest otherwise. Kavanaugh’s argument serves only a callous, ideological purpose, lacking any of the human decency Millett expresses in her conclusion:
The government’s mere hope that an unaccompanied, abused child would make the problem go away for it by either (i) surrendering all of her legal rights and leaving the United States, or (ii) finding a sponsor the government itself could never find is not a remotely constitutionally sufficient reason for depriving J.D. of any control over this most intimate and life-altering decision. The court today correctly recognizes that J.D.’s unchallenged right under the Due Process Clause affords this 17-year-old a modicum of the dignity, sense of self-worth, and control over her own destiny that life seems to have so far denied her.
Kavanaugh told Fox News: “I’ve always treated women with dignity and respect.” That’s simply not true. He did not treat Jane Doe with dignity and respect. Not even close. As a pridefully professing Christian, Kavanaugh seems not to have accepted the lesson of Matthew 25:45: "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
“I’m a good person,” Brett Kavanaugh keeps telling us. But Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t tell the truth.
Would a good person conceal his involvement with government torture and other human rights abuses? Would a good person conceal his involvement with mass surveillance of American citizens? Would a good person conceal the rest of his record in the executive branch? Would a good person have so much to hide as Brett Kavanaugh has relentlessly kept hidden? Brett Kavanaugh refuses to tell the truth.
Does that mean he’s a liar? Does that mean he’s delusional? Does that mean he’s in deep denial approaching pathological dimensions? Does that mean he’s an unscrupulous political operative for whom facts are what he says they are at any given moment? Does any of this matter? Why should we care why he doesn’t tell the truth? It doesn’t matter.
The Supreme Court Justice we deserve would be a reliable truth-teller.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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The Watergate Reboot Is About to Be Broadcast in High Definition |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
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Wednesday, 26 September 2018 08:16 |
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Pierce writes: "It appeared that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had been summoned to the White House for the purposes of being told that he wasn't the deputy attorney general any more, and by someone who is probably not the president*."
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The Watergate Reboot Is About to Be Broadcast in High Definition
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
26 September 18
Especially if the headlines read "President* Fires Rosenstein."
 ou knew that El Caudillo Del Mar-A-Lago, gutless wonder that he is, would arrange to be out of town when this happened. I just looked out a window of the Capitol and, glorioski, there was All Hell, running loose in the rain.
As of 11:30 Monday morning, it appeared that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had been summoned to the White House for the purposes of being told that he wasn't the deputy attorney general any more, and by someone who is probably not the president*. Whether Rosenstein resigned or was fired makes a monumental difference in what happens going forward.
For example, if Rosenstein makes them fire him—which is what Pete Williams of NBC News said was going to happen—then the president* cannot use the Vacancy Act to replace him with someone that the Senate already has confirmed. (Deputy Attorney General Ben Carson?) That obviously changes all the calculations when you consider that Rosenstein had been tasked with overseeing the Mueller investigation, which now stands in more peril than it ever has before.
(Here's a fine primer on the Vacancies Act from Steve Vladeck, which he wrote back in May when it looked like the president* was going to try and force everybody to resign.)
So, if Kelly does the president*'s bidding, they're going to have to get the Senate to confirm whoever's next, and won't that be a bowl of buttercups, since that person clearly will be installed to shut down Mueller's probe? In addition, as to the politics, if tomorrow's headlines read, "President* Fires Rosenstein," the Watergate flashbacks go into living color, Hi-Def, and Panavision.
(My love for chaos drives me to imagine another scenario: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III looks at Monday's events and decides that This Outrage Against the Rule of Law cannot stand, and, since he's got to be fed up with the president* anyway, then he quits On Principle, leaving the president* to put up another attorney general before, perhaps, a Democratic Senate.)
Most folks in the Congress were still in Kavanaugh hibernation when the story broke, but there certainly will be comments a'plenty when they finally emerge, blinking, into the downpours, both literal and metaphorical. We all picked a really bad week to stop doing crystal meth. More, you can guaran-damn-tee, to follow. Also, nice work, New York Times. Judy Miller would be proud.
Update (2:12 p.m.): It gets stranger. From NPR:
Ultimately, he was not removed but the White House did say after his meeting that Rosenstein would return on Thursday for another meeting then with President Trump, who is in New York City on Monday. Trump and Rosenstein "had an extended conversation to discuss the recent news stories," said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, and Rosenstein is scheduled to return for another conversation in person with the president.
Thursday? Why does Thursday ring a bell? Oh, right. So, is the Rosenstein meeting meant to distract attention from the Ford testimony, or is Camp Runamuck hoping that the Ford testimony will cover Rosenstein's eventual dismissal? This White House is a house of mirrors. Figuratively, of course. If it were an actual house of mirrors, the president* would never leave.
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o one knew.
