(Jump to new material) First, here are the two articles by David Bernstein Dennis Prager is reading from:
Has There Been a Surge of Anti-Semitism Under and Because of Trump? || In short, probably not. And about that ADL study everyone is citing… (REASON.org)
Correcting the ADL’s False Anti-Semitism Statistic || The spread of misleading information on hate crimes is counterproductive in the fight against real and rising anti-Semitism (TABLET MAGAZINE)
Dennis Prager is livid at the lies (The Fake News) we are “bathed in” on a daily basis. This is a great segment to pair with an earlier upload of mine, titled: “Antisemitism In America ~ #FakeNews” (DENNIS PRAGER).
…The ADL also reports that “college campuses saw a total of 204 incidents in 2017, compared to 108 in 2016.” How many of these incidents were of the alt-right nationalist variety, and how many were related to leftist anti-Israel activism? There is no way of knowing from the ADL study, but to the extent the latter was the cause, that could hardly be blamed on Trump.
Finally, it’s worth noting, that despite showing a 57 percent increase in incidents overall, from 1,267 to 1,986, the ADL study shows a 47 percent decrease in physical assaults, from 37 to 19. This is obviously inconsistent with the meme that 2017 saw a surge in violent anti-Semitism. Physical assaults are also the most objective sort of incident to document, which adds to concerns about the robustness of the rest of the data.
[….]
I have no desire to let Trump off the hook for his very real flaws, and I am not nor have I been a Trump supporter or apologist. But the Jewish community’s assessment of the dangers of anti-Semitism should be based on documented facts, not ideology, emotion, partisanship, or panic. And the truth is this: The claim that anti-Semitic incidents increased 57 percent in 2017 is contradicted by the very ADL study on which that claim is based.
There are several problems with relying on this study for Trump-bashing, however. The first is that the study includes 193 incidents of bomb threats to Jewish institutions as anti-Semitic incidents, even though by the time the ADL published the study, it had been conclusively shown that the two perpetrators of the bomb threats were not motivated by anti-Semitism. One can only guess why the ADL chose to inflate its statistics in this way, but none of the explanations speak well of it.
Second, the ADL report itself acknowledges that some of the rise in incidents may simply be due to better reporting (“more people are reporting incidents to ADL than ever before”).
Third, “college campuses saw a total of 204 incidents in 2017, compared to 108 in 2016.” How many of those incidents emanating from traditional forms of anti-Semitism that one might associate with Trumpian populism, and how many from leftist/pro-Palestinian sources? The ADL doesn’t say.
Fourth, the ADL counts ambiguous incidents as anti-Semitic incidents, so long as they were reported as such. For example, the report states, “Jewish graves or cemeteries were desecrated seven times in 2017. The desecration of Jewish headstones is a classic anti-Semitic act employed for hundreds of years. The majority of the cemetery desecrations occurred in the first months of the year, at the same time as the bomb threats were called in to Jewish institutions, which contributed to a sense that the Jewish American community was under siege.” The problem is that desecrations of cemeteries of all faiths is not uncommon, and are often the product of either bored teenagers or vagrants. In fact, at least some of the cemetery incidents counted by the ADL were ultimately determined by police not to be anti-Semitic in origin. The desecraton of a cemetery in St. Louis got a particularly large amount of attention. The police eventually caught the perpetrator, and determined that he was just “mad and drunk,” not anti-Semitic. The ADL has not updated its study or press release to reflect such facts. Other questionable “anti-Semitic” incidents I’ve seen reported include graffitti with a swastika and “TRUMP.” Is the “author” supporting “Trump the Nazi” or attacking Trump by accusing him of being a Nazi? My inclination would in most cases be to suspect the latter, but surely it’s at least unclear….
NEW STUFF
AMERICAN GREATNESS has an excellent rebuff of David French’s recent article claiming “white supremacy” is growing thanks to us honkies.
…But David French at National Review has other post-election targets in mind—namely, the imaginary cabal of white supremacists taking over the Republican Party.
Outlandish Claims, Distorted Evidence French’s November 15 column, “The White-Supremacy Surge,” is more cowbell to amplify the media’s nonstop drumbeat that Donald Trump and his supporters are bigots, anti-Semites, and neo-Nazis. (A despicable Washington Postcolumn over the weekend suggested that massacres and death squads might be in the offing because of Trump.)
Sadly, French’s incendiary analysis wasn’t far from that Post screed. It is a literary junk drawer of anecdotal evidence and conjecture scattered with overworn insults about Trump supporters.
In an attempt to boost his inaccurate claim that white supremacy is surging, French cited a sketchy study while overlooking exculpatory data in the very same report, and he mentioned random racial crimes that are vile but no indicator of a coordinated white supremacist movement. “Trump’s words have emboldened white supremacists,” French outlandishly declared, again without evidence.
In an effort to prove his case, French conflated a rise in white supremacy with a speculative rise in hate crimes. According to a May 2018 report from California State University’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism—the paper French cites in his column—hate crimes increased by 12 percent in 2017 in 10 major cities. (The report documents the number of allegations, not convictions, reported to police. Dr. Brian Levin, one of the authors, confirmed to me via email that the center’s data “cover hate crimes reported to police at time complaint is made and is not dependent on how it is eventually charged.”)
A closer look at the statistics included in the report not only fails to bolster French’s claim, the data show that whites are the third-most frequently targeted group of victims, after black and LGBT people. Jews, Mexicans, and Muslims are less likely to be a victim of a hate crime than a white person, according to the study. Further—and highly relevant here—there is no proof that white supremacists committed most of the offenses noted in the study.
Then this: “We are forecasting a small to moderate increase for hate crime for 2017. Only a small number of agencies have partial year data for 2018, but most are down significantly… we are forecasting a significant national decrease in 2018 but only for the first half of the year.” (Emphasis added.)
So, despite the hysterical warnings from French and his collaborators in the media, there was only a small increase in hate crimes last year and those numbers dropped significantly in the first half of the year. This means there is no “surge” either in hate crimes or white supremacy. (The synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh last month singularly will change that forecast for the year. Trump also has been blamed for that massacre by French’s NRcolleague, Jonah Goldberg, even though the shooter did not vote for Trump and criticized the president for being “surrounded by kikes.”)
[….]
…He slammed Breitbart and The Federalist for allegedly endorsing white supremacy. (The author of the Federalistpiece he misrepresents is Jewish.) Non church-going Trump voters are closet racists, French concluded, because not enough of them have “warm feelings” for blacks, according to one survey: “The white-supremacist surge is a symptom of a greater disease, and it’s a disease with no easy cure.”
[….]
…A greater threat to civil society, in reality, is contemptible pieces of writing like French’s, which are intended to malign innocent people based on race and political affiliation, and further divide the country he laughably claims to want to save.
Yet false allegations of rape, while relatively rare, are at least five times as common as false accusations of other types of crime, according to academic literature. (NEW YORK TIMES)
…Cory Booker explain[ed] on Tuesday that “ultimately” it doesn’t matter if Kavanaugh is “guilty or innocent,” because “enough questions” had been raised that it was time to “move on to another candidate.” (NEW YORK TIMES)
What the American public see is something entirely different than what the Dems see:
Brett Kavanaugh is no longer a mere Supreme Court nominee. His name is now a veritable conservative cause — one that has united the right for the first time since the 2016 primary sent Republicans quarreling over Trump and Never Trump.
Whatever the outcome of the immediate contest, it’s increasingly clear that Democrats and the media establishment made an enormous miscalculation by waging total war against Kavanaugh and his family.
Liberals set out to cast the federal judge — amiable, well-credentialed, mildly conservative — as a demon. In the process, they have reminded GOP voters and all but the most stubborn Never Trump intellectuals that there are worse things than Donald Trump’s outbursts and the ineptitude of congressional Republicans…..
Trump merely repeats the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford — BOOM STICK!
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR:
Here are two good posts from Facebook I wanna share as well as some updated testimony by the “witnesses named.” Here is the first by COMMON SENSE SOAPBOX:
I don’t know whose house it happened at or even what year it happened. I don’t know if I got there before everyone else or after. I don’t know how I got there or how I got home over 8 miles away (at the age of 15).
My life time friend doesn’t remember any of this (and the other 3 people I said were there testified under oath they don’t know anything about this).
I have a fear of flying , but have no problem jet-setting all over the world while on vacation. I’ve been on airplanes more in the past two months than most people in a year, but my fear is completely legit.
I don’t know who paid for my hotel and polygraph test( the afternoon of my grandmothers funeral, or maybe it was the next day, who knows). And guess what? I flew there. Oh and that polygraph, it was only two questions, neither of which were about Kavanaugh. But hey, I passed so that’s all that matters. And my PhD in psychology definitely, in no way, helped me with it or my testimony today.
My friends on the beach encouraged me to continue contacting the media with my story (because we were running out of time). I can’t name them, so we’ll just call them beach friends. Yet while giving such great advice, none were willing to be character witnesses. Meanwhile, Judge Kavanaugh had hundreds of character witnesses step up in a matter of days.
My lawyers, out of the kindness of their hearts, are helping me for FREE yet I have a “needed” gofundme page that currently is sitting at $473,622. I’m so desperately in need of help there’s even a second gofundme with $209,987. I promise though I’m not getting anything out of my testimony, that money is just going to cover my expenses.
I’m super smart. I have a PhD and I teach graduate students. I know lots of big words, but it should be totally believable that I don’t understand basic questions.
I was the only person in the United States that didn’t know Congress agreed to come to me instead of me going to DC. They really do care about my flying phobia after all.
Get the picture yet, America?
CHANGING STORY
July 30 (to Dianne Feinstein): “It was me and four other people.”
August 7 (to polygraph examiner): “There were four boys and a couple of girls.”
September 16 (to Washington Post reporter): “There were three boys and one girl.”
The above graphic comes by way of POWERLINE (click it to enlarge), and here is the description: “…James Freeman observes that journalists seem to have lost interest in trying to ascertain whether Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee was accurate. Her story is shot through with holes. [….] He made the graphic illustration below drawing on public sources – ‘mainly the Washington Post and public legal documents’.”
USA TODAY continues to zero in on the “credibility” issues Blasey Ford has:
…Ford’s Story Changed In Key Ways
Ford’s retelling of the alleged sexual assault also included several conflicting accounts of the number of individuals at the gathering. The therapist’s notes stated that four boys had attempted to rape Ford. (Ford claims her therapist confused the total number of boys at the party with the number of boys who had attacked her.)
Later, in her July letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Ford again placed the number of individuals at the party at five, stating the gathering included her and four other individuals. But Ford then identified the four by name, and that group included three boys and one girl. And finally, during her Senate testimony, Ford unequivocally stated that “there were four boys I remember specifically being there,” in addition to her friend Leland Keyser.
Another significant change in the scenario came when Ford testified about the location of the party. She had originally told the Washington Post that the attack took place at a house not far from the country club. Yet, when Mitchell revealed a map of the relevant locations and reminded Ford that she had described the attack as having occurred near the country club, Ford backtracked: “I would describe [the house] as it’s somewhere between my house and the country club in that vicinity that’s shown in your picture.” Ford added that the country club was a 20-minute drive from her home.
Finally, Ford altered her description of the interior layout of the home and the details of the party and her escape. A “short” stairwell turned into a “narrow” one. The gathering moved from a small family room where the kids drank beer (and which Ford distinguished from the living room through which she fled the house) when she spoke to the Washington Post, to a home described in her actual testimony as having a “small living room/family room-type area.” And in an obvious tell to the change, Ford suggested that she could draw a floor plan of the house.
These four points are significant. First, because Ford had waited 30-plus years to report the purported attack, a therapist’s notes from Ford’s sessions with her husband countered claims that Ford had invented the assault to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation. But the notes did not name Ford’s attacker. And the timing of the assault summarized by her therapist, whom Ford saw individually the following year, conflicted with Ford’s current claims against Kavanaugh.
The final three contradictions are even more significant because in each circumstance Ford altered her story only after Kavanaugh and Senate investigators had obtained evidence to disprove her original tale. For instance, investigators had obtained statements from Kavanaugh and the two men and one female lifelong friend of Ford’s, and they all denied any recollection of the gathering.
These Contradictions Mean Ford’s Not Credible
Investigators also spoke with former classmates of Kavanaugh, including two men who showed staffers the “party houses” near the country club during the relevant time period. And the detailed description of the home interior Ford originally provided allowed investigators to compare her story to the layout of the homes of the individuals Ford identified. But then Ford changed her description of the house’s floor plan.
Since media leaks of Ford’s charges first broke, Kavanaugh and his supporters have stressed the impossibility of proving the negative: Kavanaugh could not prove he did not attack Ford. But Kavanaugh could prove that Ford’s story could not possibly have happened by showing that none of the individuals at the supposed party lived in a house near the country club, and that none of their houses matched that described by Ford. Kavanaugh and investigators were poised to do so when Ford changed her story.
Open-minded Americans of all stripes should see that — emotions aside — Ford’s testimony is completely devoid of credibility: so much so, that Mitchell told the Senate this week that Ford’s allegations do not even meet the preponderance of evidence standard. That standard, which governs in civil litigation, asks whether it is more likely than not that an event occurred.
Yes, victims must be believed. But Ford is not a victim — at least not of Kavanaugh.
Okay, it’s time to just blow this wide open. “We should believe Dr. Ford! She took a polygraph! That means she’s telling the truth!” Sorry, but that’s not how this really works. In fact, if anything, the polygraph results further destroy her already flimsy story and lack of credibility.
First, the examination didn’t happen at a police station or even an office. It was at Ford’s hotel. Bizarrely, the person conducting the polygraph — who was a third-party examiner and not a law enforcement official — had Ford scribble down her nearly 40-year-old memory of the drunken party, and then asked her two vague questions.
1) Is any part of your statement false? 2) Did you make up any part of your statement?
This is absolutely important to understand: Again, the polygraph test didn’t actually ask the main accuser any questions about Kavanaugh. His name was never brought up by the interviewer. Instead, Ford was simply asked if she she believed her own hand-written statement.
It gets even more strange, as nowhere in that written statement does the name “Kavanaugh” appear, either. Furthermore, she scratches out corrections on her own statement and if you listened to her testimony yesterday, her story has shifted once again from the statement posted here. Oh, and icing on the cake, the statement to the polygrapher also contradicts the July 30th letter to Diane Feinstein and then another contradiction to her Washington Post story.
July 30 (to Dianne Feinstein): “It was me and four other people.”
August 7 (to polygraph examiner): “There were four boys and a couple of girls.”
September 16 (to Washington Post reporter): “There were three boys and one girl.”
The fact that Ford “passed” the polygraph based on a statement that she later herself contradicted while telling the story to other people shows how unreliable this “evidence” truly is.
HOT AIR has a great post on this discrepancy: “Pull the other one, sir. It’s got bells on it. Ford’s story, confirmed by nobody else she claims was present, including her lifelong friend, has been shifting and getting dodgier by the day.”
Ford’s lawyer took her to a polygraph examiner who concluded she was not being ‘deceptive’ with claims about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh
Attorney sent the results to Senate Republicans but refuse to show them a therapist’s notes from the sessions where Ford first discussed it
The polygraph test consisted of two yes-no questions
Ford and Kavanaugh are scheduled to testify in a Senate hearing on Thursday
Polygraphs, so-called ‘lie detactor’ tests, are generally inadmissible in court
The California woman who first accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault passed a ‘lie detector’ test in August that consisted of two questions.
Christine Blasey Ford’s attorneys sent Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans a report from a polygraph examiner who interviewed her on August 10.
But they refused on Wednesday to provide the committee with copies of notes from her psychotherapy sessions. Ford has said she first spoke to a therapist in 2012 about her memories of an ordeal.
‘Any request that she expose her private medical records for public inspection represents an unacceptable invasion of privacy,’ attorney Debra Katz wrote.
Katz, however, handed over the polygraph results to buttress her client’s accusation.
The test examiner asked Ford to write down a description of what happened to her at a high school party in the early 1980s, where she claims a drunken teenage Kavanaugh groped her and tried to remove her clothing while pinning her to a bed and covering her mouth.
AFTER INTERVIEWING HER ABOUT HER STATEMENT, THE EXAMINER ASKED HER A PAIR OF YES-OR-NO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WRITTEN NARRATIVE.
‘IS ANY PART OF YOUR STATEMENT FALSE?’ HE ASKED, FOLLOWED BY: ‘DID YOU MAKE UP ANY PART OF YOUR STATEMENT?’ FORD ANSWERED ‘NO’ TO BOTH QUESTIONS.
The report doesn’t mention questions about any specific parts of her story.
The polygraph examiner wrote that her two responses were ‘not indicative of deception,’ and that the chance she was lying was a tiny fraction of one per cent….
(DAILY MAIL | emphasis added | editor’s note: there were no comparison questions asked in differing ways to create a baseline)
Earlier today Allahpundit looked at the negotiations taking place between Christina Blasey Ford and the Judiciary Committee. The GOP agreed to push the date to Wednesday but is requiring that Ford testify first. A Politico story published today points to one additional factor which is apparently motivating Ford to push the date of the hearing back as far as possible: She plans to drive cross country to the hearing in Washington, DC.
Chairman Grassley, obviously losing patience with Ford’s lawyer, had said in a letter that his staff welcomed the opportunity to meet with Ford at a time and place convenient to her to facilitate Monday’s hearing. And as Sciutto mentioned above, that offer Wednesday included a flight to California. [….] Of course, Democrats will frame this as Grassley “bullying” Ford into speaking before there’s been the full FBI investigation she demanded, but it really does seem as though Republicans are bending over backward to get Ford’s testimony on the record.
Now, here is the issue, this goes to show that this is not genuine but merely political. And it shows as well that Dr. Ford is willing to lie about even small items regarding herself to make a political point (by stalling a hearing):
CONSTRUCTION and COUNSELING TIMELINE LIE
In her testimony on Thursday, Dr. Ford stated that she put a second door on her house in 2012. However, in dated pictures, the second door was already installed in March of 2011 (GATEWAY PUNDIT):
Real estate and other records undercut a key part of Christine Blasey Ford’s account of why she finally came forward with charges of attempted rape against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh after some 30 years.
Ford testified last week that she had never revealed the details of the alleged attack until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. She said the memories percolated up as they revisited a disagreement they’d had over her insistence on installing a “second front door” when they had remodeled their Palo Alto, Calif., home.
The need to explain a decision her husband “didn’t understand,” Ford testified, pushed her to say she wanted the door to alleviate symptoms of “claustrophobia” and “panic attacks” she still suffered from an attempted rape allegedly perpetrated by Kavanaugh in high school during the early 1980s.
“Is that the reason for the second door — front door — is claustrophobia?” asked Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “Correct,” Ford replied.
Ford never specified when the renovation took place, leaving a possible impression that it and the therapy session happened around the same time.
But documents reveal the door was installed years before as part of an addition, and has been used by renters and even a marriage counseling business.
“The door was not an escape route but an entrance route,” said an attorney familiar with the ongoing congressional investigation. “It appears the real plan for the second front door was to rent out a separate room.”
The discrepancy raises fresh doubts about Ford’s candor and credibility amid other inconsistencies, congressional and other knowledgeable sources say, including her purported “fear of flying.” Ford initially refused to submit to an interview with the committee because of an alleged airplane phobia, but investigators established that she had taken a number of flights back East this summer, and had previously flown to Hawaii, Costa Rica, French Polynesia and other South Pacific islands.
[…]
Since the second front door was installed, moreover, students from local colleges have lived in the additional room with the private door. In fact, under congressional questioning Thursday, Ford testified she has “hosted” various other residents there, including “Google interns.”
The attorney said the tenants call into question Ford’s claims about why she installed the additional exterior door in her home.
“Renters and a business operating out of Dr. Ford’s home would explain the added door,” he said. “Clearly, there were business purposes [for it], not just ones related to her anxieties.”…
NO WITNESSES
Here is Christina Ford’s claim:
One evening that summer, after a day of swimming at the club, I attended a small gathering at a house in the Chevy Chase/Bethesda area. There were four boys I remember being there:Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth, and one other boy whose name I cannot recall.
REFUTED
All of Ford’s named witnesses of the party, both male and female, have now denied any recollection of attending such a party.
…”In fact, I have no memory of this alleged incident,” Judge said in his statement to the committee. “Brett Kavanaugh and I were friends in high school but I do not recall the party described in Dr. Ford’s letter. More to the point, I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes.”
“I have no information to offer the Committee and I do not wish to speak publicly regarding the incidents described in Dr. Ford’s letter,” Judge added…
On Saturday night, Leland Ingham Keyser, a classmate of Ford’s at the all-girls school Holton-Arms and her final named witness, denied any recollection of attending a party with Brett Kavanaugh.
“Simply put, Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford,” lawyer Howard J. Walsh said in a statement sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
On Saturday morning, after President Trump authorized a one-week FBI probe into Ms. Ford’s charges, Mr. Walshagain repeated her denial in a new statement to committee staff.
“Ms. Keyser asked that I communicate to the Committee her willingness to cooperate fully with the FBI’s supplemental investigation of Dr. Christine Ford’s allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh,” Mr. Walsh said. “However, as my client has already made clear, she does not know Judge Kavanaugh and has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford.”
The fact Ms. Keyser says she didn’t know Mr. Kavanaugh in those days is another set back for Ms. Ford.
…On Saturday, Keyser said through her lawyer in a letter to the committee that she was willing to “cooperate fully with the FBI’s supplemental investigation” into Kavanaugh.
“However, as my client has already made clear, she does not know Judge Kavanaugh and has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford,” the letter from Howard Walsh, Keyser’s attorney, said. It continued that Keyser “does not refute Dr. Ford’s account, and she has already told the press that she believes Dr. Ford’s account.”
“However, the simple and unchangeable truth is that she is unable to corroborate it because she has no recollection of the incident in question,” the letter continued.
Mark Judge, a friend of Kavanaugh’s who was allegedly present during the assault, has also said that he will cooperate with the FBI investigation….
“I understand that I have been identified by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as the person she remembers as ‘PJ’ who supposedly was present at the party she described in her statements to the Washington Post,” Smyth says in his statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I am issuing this statement today to make it clear to all involved that I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh. Personally speaking, I have known Brett Kavanaugh since high school and I know him to be a person of great integrity, a great friend, and I have never witnessed any improper conduct by Brett Kavanaugh towards women. To safeguard my own privacy and anonymity, I respectfully request that the Committee accept this statement in response to any inquiry the Committee may have.” (TOWNHALL)
Other testimonies:
RACHEL MITCHELL
Arizona sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell told Republican senators in a conference meeting Thursday evening that she would not charge Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh after hearing testimonies of the Judge or his accuser Christine Blasey Ford.
Mitchell, who took a leave of absence from Maricopa County’s Deputy County Attorney and division chief the County Attorney’s Office’s Special Victims Division to join the Senate Judiciary Committee’s team of attorneys for the hearing, “broke down her analysis” of both testimonies to GOP lawmakers. In a nearly 30-minute presentation, Mitchell went over the “facts that were established and not established” and concluded that not only would she not charge Kavanaugh based on the record of evidence from both parties, but would not even pursue a search warrant for the judge, which in virtually all cases would require the standard of probable cause to be met, Politicoreported.
NEW: Montgomery County (Md) police chief and prosecutor release letter “.. stand ready to investigate any sexual assault allegation from any victim where the incident occurred in our jurisdiction”
…Continuing…
Swetnick (and Ford) could go to local PD and demand a criminal investigation, in contrast to the FBI’s background investigation. Ford’s claim is likely too thin to lead anywhere, though. And if there’s anything at all to Swetnick’s claim, chances are that the FBI probe will turn up something and Kavanaugh will be borked long before Maryland police got around to looking at it.
Here’s Avenatti today trying again to answer the question everyone had about Swetnick’s affidavit, namely, why she didn’t tell the cops about multiple parties she attended where women were allegedly being drugged and gang-raped. Avenatti’s theory: She was young ‘n stuff. No wonder Senate Democrats are keeping their distance.
EDITOR’S NOTE:If these women walked into the police station and gave testimony for a police report, if found lying could be criminally prosecuted. WHICH IS WHY THEY HAVE NOT DONE THINS! They know that even if caught in a lie, politics ties the hands of Repoublicans going after Dr. Ford. But not a local Police Department.
Wednesday on the radio, Mark Levin addressed the latest sexual assault allegations raised against Judge Brett Kavanaugh and pointed out a pattern:
“No witnesses, no corroboration, no evidence. That’s the pattern.”
EDITORS NOTES
Just some separate responses to some Facebook comments:
BTW, just as a passing observation. With what the Left feels is the “bar to reach” as a nominee to the Supreme Court, they are insuring conservative, Evangelical, Catholic, and Mormon nominees in the future. People who were raised religiously from birth, went to private schools (or were home schooled, then off to religious based (Catholic or Protestant) type universities (like St. John’s or Biola). In other words, I would bet a person being “left of center” their whole life would have less “firewalls” to act out their passions as students. And so, open themselves up to similar tactics… which will succeed at a greater rate.
I was thinking about this. IF THIS happened (which I doubt) I have two thoughts. The first being perception versus reality. I heard a caller on a radio show mention this and it made a lot of sense. she said that her and her friends went to quite a few parties as young teenagers… and that if she asked each one of her friends about an event that happened that one of these parties they would all have differing perspectives of the real event. Especially an event from so many years ago. We even see this in the gospels where a lot of times the writers saw the same event but wrote differently about it based on the importance that they saw in it or who they were writing to. So to dr. Ford’s perceived reality is probably different than the actual event — again even if it took place at all.
…if this did happen, is, I imagine most girls that went to House Parties and indulged in drinking and hanging out with teenage boys, we’re felt up at one point or another. Not always, but the idea is not far-fetched. For her to be traumatized for an entire life by not even having any clothes removed is more a commentary on the constitution of left-leaning women. They are the founders of safe spaces and the “snowflake” generation. Modern feminism weakens the woman, and does not empower.
A book that deals with repressed memories in modern psychology entitled, “Confabulations: Creating False Memories, Destroying Families,” shows that bad memories come out of these sessions were repressed memories are supposedly remembered again. I had heard that this is how Dr Ford finally recalled these memories. Whether this is true or not I do not know, but the book is a good read.
MEMORY
UPDATE For years I have known that hypnosis as a psychotherapy is dangerous. Most of the “alien abduction” stories, or contacts with spirits or past historical figures comes from some altered state of mind. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus mentions hypnosis in her TED-TALKS which I edit into the below audio a bit. I mentioned to a cyber acquaintance that I wonder if part of her (Christine Blasey Ford) therapy included hypnosis. This is what he said (I will emphasize the main point):
The timing of the specificity of her memories is certainly disquieting, but unless we learn more about her therapy, it will be hard for this to be more than speculation. It seems very likely that the name “Kavanaugh” never in fact came up until this summer, despite reports to the contrary.
True dat. HOWEVER, new information has come forward to bolster the hypnosis angle. Here is a great post by GATEWAY PUNDIT:
Christine Ford has not turned over her therapist’s notes to the Senate regarding her suppressed memories about Judge Kavanaugh abusing her decades earlier. This may be because if the memories were revealed through hypnosis they would be “absolutely inadmissible” in the court of law in many states, including New York and Maryland.
>>>Editor’s Side Note: (1) Dr. Ford released any confidentiality when she shared her therapy notes with the Washington Post, and (2), the FBI needs to view her therapy notes.
[….]
One of Christine Blasey Ford’s research articles in 2008 included a study on self-hypnosis. The practice of self-hypnosis is used to retrieve important memories and “create artificial situations.”
My cyber acquaintance’s response after reading the story above? “Wow” Continuing on now with the previous post:
If I’ve learned anything from my decades working on these problems, it’s this: Just because somebody tells you something and they say it with lots of confidence, detail, and emotion does not mean that it really happened. We can’t reliably distinguish true memories from false memories; WE NEED INDEPENDENT CORROBORATION. Such a discovery has made me more tolerant of friends and family who misremember. Such a discovery might have saved Steve Titus. We should all keep in mind that memory, like liberty, is a fragile thing. — Dr. Loftus
The only book I have read from years ago is “Confabulations: Creating False Memories, Destroying Families.” I would be curious to know if some of the counseling for Dr. Ford included hypnosis. I would also like to know the factors used to “recover” Ms. Ramirez’s memory. There have been many more studies based a lot more in control groups and the scientific method:
The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory
Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial
The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse
Memory Warp: How the Myth of Repressed Memory Arose and Refuses to Die
Victims of Memory: Sex Abuse Accusations and Shattered Lives
National Review has an excellent article regarding the issue of false memories, “‘False Memories’ Are More Common Than You Think”. In this excellent radio segment by the JOHN & KEN SHOW I add video and end in humor to embolden the idea herein.
Mark Steyn filled in for Rush on Friday, and I caught this interview that discusses just how bad the media has gotten in regard to anything Republican. Joe’s article can be found at THE HILL.
An extended excerpt from Joe Concha’s article:
The examples of misleading tales are apparent for all to see, mostly on the anti-Kavanaugh side.
For example, MSNBC goes heavy with a story affirming the allegations from Ford’s classmate based on a Facebook post. The classmate later admitted to not even knowing Ford or hearing a story firsthand. The national news outlet covered this without, apparently, any reasonable vetting.
“I did not know her personally but I remember her. This incident did happen,” Ford schoolmate Christina King Miranda wrote. “Many of us heard a buzz about it indirectly with few specific details. However, Christine’s vivid recollection should be more than enough for us to truly, deeply know that the accusation is true.”
This was enough for MSNBC and other outlets to run with the story.
Third-party tale? She didn’t know Ford directly? Screw it. Let’s go with it anyway.
It’s gossip treated as gospel.
MSNBC would later in a subsequent tweet note that King Miranda had removed the post without deleting the initial tweet, which was retweeted nearly 900 times.
The follow-up tweet was retweeted less than 100 times, or nine times fewer, for those keeping score at home.
“That it happened or not, I have no idea,” King Miranda told NPR on Friday. “I can’t say that it did or didn’t.”
“I had no idea that I would now have to go to the specifics and defend it before 50 cable channels and have my face spread all over MSNBC news and Twitter,” she later added.
Meanwhile, CNN anchor Jim Scuitto tweets out an incomplete claim about how and where Ford could potentially be interviewed, publicly or privately or in Washington, D.C., or California, where she lives. The tweet’s omission is egregious enough that committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley’s (R-Iowa) office is forced to respond to.
“The offer to #ChristinaBlaseyFord is blunt: testify in public six days from now while under death threats or your allegation will be ignored in the confirmation of a SCOTUS nominee. That is quite a choice,” Scuitto wrote in a tweet that is retweeted more than 7,600 times and liked 17,000 times.
“This is not close to the offer to #ChristinaBlaseyFord,” replied Grassley’s office to Scuitto, a former Obama State Department official. “Chairman Grassley offered an open or closed hearing, reached out to discuss timing that would work for Dr. Ford, has even offered to send staff to California. This deserves a correction.”
More than 20 hours later, Sciutto sends a second tweet clarifying his original tweet. That is retweeted just 134 times and liked just 320 times.
[….]
Washington Post bureau chief Philip Rucker also was lambasted for a story involving a photo showing a ritual that Kavanaugh’s fraternity at Yale participated in back in 1985 involving a flag woven together by women’s underwear.
[….]
[….]
One small problem: The photo doesn’t have Kavanaugh in it….
Dennis Prager plays some Donald Trump, comments a bit… then Prager starts to get into the real reason he is discussing this… MEDIA BIAS. The New York Times is caught lying (red handed – or keyboard). This is a great example of how the Left creates narratives out of thin air… and I bet more than a few swallow this stuff.
A Congressional report says the Obama administration deliberately misled Congress and the public in its efforts to funnel billions of dollars to Iran as part of the nuclear deal; Rich Edson reports from the State Department. (See more at RIGHT SCOOP; The AP makes clear without saying it that this was a money laundering operation.)
House Intel Report: Mccabe Said Agents Who Interviewed Flynn ‘Didn’T Think He Was Lying’ (THE HILL)
Byron York: Comey told Congress FBI agents didn’t think Michael Flynn lied (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)
Rush Limbaugh goes over some of the most recent redactions (unredacted) showing General Michael Flynn DID NOT LIE (*megaphone effect*), and the many judges demanding to see what crimes or evidence the Mueller team has – because they see none!
REDACTIONS:
Outrageous Redactions to the Russia Report (NATIONAL REVIEW)
The question is — if given a chance to have some time with these kids — what would I do to try and counter these actions? They are based on cultural myths passed on by parents, uncles, and the like. In other words, how would you begin to counter these myths? FIRST the actions, then some thoughts.
Students at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, tore down the Stars and Stripes during a walkout over gun violence. CHANNEL 4 in Chicago has more on the violence.
Here are the Chicago students being allowed out of school for 17-minutes:
Here is expanded footage of the walkout protesters trashing the Chicago Walmart pic.twitter.com/lnVsp8h9sD
I would start a reading club and meet weekly to discuss the issues in the book we would be currently reading. My first book I would have us read is Out Of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa. At some point I would have the kids listen to the audio chapter from Thomas Sowell’s book regarding slavery. Of course during this time one would be befriending and involved in a loving support of positive outcomes based in truth. As Christians, we should gravitate towards truth in outcomes in all things. Another study and discussion of a topic is the broken home. Something Larry Elder confronts in his own discussion with his father: Dear Father, Dear Son: Two Lives… Eight Hours. There are many resources to counter bad thinking on my page regarding RACIAL MYTHS… but the problem in the inner cities will continue as long as the family is broken and the blame is laid at the feet of historical myths and lies.
Author Michael Wolff admitted Monday that he did not interview Vice President Mike Pence or any Cabinet members, though some of the more incendiary claims in his book “Fire and Fury” are credited to Cabinet members. (GATEWAY PUNDIT)
Host Norah O’Donnell asked Wolf,
“Did you speak to any members of the president’s Cabinet for this book?”
Wolff responded, “I did not.”
You did not?” O’Donnell repeated.
“I did not,” Wolff confirmed.
She then asked Wolff if he ever interviewed Vice President Mike Pence.
…Some of the claims in the book have proven to be false, such as when Wolff wrote that then-candidate Donald Trump did not know who former Speaker of the House John Boehner (R.-Ohio) was. Trump tweeted about Boehner in 2015, repudiating the book’s claims.
One New York Times reporter said that the overall message of White House chaos under the Trump administration is believable despite the information included in the book.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, whom WikiLeaks exposed as being the reporter who would “tee up stories” for the Clinton campaign, is one of the reporters who has tried to toe the line on whether the book’s claims are true:
“I believe parts of it and then there are other parts that are factually wrong…”
“I can see several places in the book that are wrong. So for instance, he inaccurately describes a report in the New York Times. He inaccurately characterizes a couple of incidents that took place early on in the administration. He gets basic details wrong…
“He creates a narrative that is notionally true, conceptually true, the details are often wrong.”
On the other hand, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota criticized Wolff’s book and said, “this isn’t really journalism.”….
For extra measure to make the point that Leftists are driven by “feelings,” MSNBC’s Katy Tur told “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff Monday that his controversial book “FEELS TRUE,” adding, “congratulations on the book, and congratulations on the president hating it” (TOWNHALL):
(As A Side-Note) The author, Michael Wolff, said he didn’t know if people were telling him the truth, some [he said] knowingly lied to him, etc. I think this is all a plan to obfuscate and keep the press and Trumps detractors writing about tabloid “truths” while REAL WORK and POLICY is steaming along behind all the headlines. I love it. Whether some of the crazy headlines are accidental, or, the Trump team knows how the press core and “fourth rail” will act — like throwing bones to hungry dogs — nonetheless, the most conservative agenda since I have been alive is pumping through.
— Just my two-cents.
But the book’s author, Michael Wolff, says he can’t be sure that all of it is true. (BUSINESS INSIDER)
Here is POWERLINE laying down the law (really, common sense):
…Even liberals, like The New Republic, have big doubts about Wolff’s book. Already Wolff is backing away from backing up all the details of the book. As Business Insiderreported this morning:
Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” included a note at the start which casts significant doubt on the reliability of the specifics contained in the rest of its pages.
A number of his sources, he says, were definitely lying to him, while some offered accounts that flatly contradict those of others. But they were nonetheless included in the vivid account of the West Wing’s workings, in a process Wolff describes as “allowing the reader to judge” whether they are true.
Does the idea that Trump didn’t actually want to win the election make any sense at all? It’s one thing to expect to lose because the polls say you’re going to lose; but the intent to lose, as stated in Wolff’s account, simply can’t square with any serious understanding of human ambition, even with a person as unusual as Donald Trump. In addition, if this claim is true, how does it feel to be Hillary Clinton now—losing to someone who didn’t want to win?….
Even the White House NYTs correspondent distances herself from the veracity of what Wolff has written:
Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for the New York Times, ripped author Michael Wolff on Friday for “getting basic details wrong” about President Trump’s campaign and administration in the newly published book “Fire and Fury.”
“I believe parts of it and then there are other parts that are factually wrong,” she said on CNN. “I can see several places in the book that are wrong. So for instance, he inaccurately describes a report in the New York Times. He inaccurately characterizes a couple of incidents that took place early on in the administration. He gets basic details wrong.”
Haberman said Wolff’s “style” is to create a broad narrative in a story, but gets many of the details wrong…..
Dennis is joined by protester Austin Morgan, Senior at University of Wyoming, regarding the “fuss” [lies] over Dennis’ speech Thursday. Dennis has been labeled by the protesters as anti-academic, a rape advocate, and of spewing hate speech against blacks, women, Muslims, and fellow Jews. I include a call from the following hour regarding Matthew Shepard. See more at NY-POST.
A student government diversity leader has vowed to work “tirelessly” to shut down conservative Dennis Prager’s upcoming talk at the University of Wyoming.
So far, Hunter McFarland has amassed a group of nearly three dozen peers who say on social media they plan to help protest the talk, titled “Why Socialism Makes People Selfish.”
McFarland, director of diversity for the university’s student government, told The College Fixshe wants Prager’s talk to be canceled because he “is an anti-academic, rape advocate who spews hate speech against Muslims, Black people, Latinas, and many other groups who deserve to be protected at the University of Wyoming.”
[….]
According to the Laramie Boomerang, McFarland told Jessie Leach, president of the university’s Turning Point USA chapter, in an email that “If you continue, you will have the entire campus against you. This will be another Milo situation.”
McFarland was referring to anti-feminist provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who has had speeches canceled at multiple campuses nationwide and was prevented from speaking earlier this year at UC Berkeley because of riots.
A Facebook event page for the protest against Prager currently list about three dozen people planning to attend the demonstration.
However, Prager vowed he won’t let the protesters derail his visit to the Wyoming campus.
“This event will take place as planned,” he said in a press release.
Prager said he intends to answer every question students throw his way, arguing the attempt to silence him is the latest attack against conservatives appearing on college campuses.
“This is yet another example of the illiberal left’s attempt to shut down free speech on college campuses. Rather than simply choosing not to attend, or offering a dissenting viewpoint in an informed, respectful and courteous manner, their preferred approach is to intimidate and shut down conservative speakers,” he said….
The second part is the ongoing debate between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Lawrence Krauss. This ends the debate — effectively — any discussion of Craig’s use of the BGV Theorum. Two places to go to read the dialogue of this debate ending in full — which shows Dr. Krauss to be intentionally misrepresenting Dr. Vilenkin’s work. The first place to go is of course one of the principle players site, Dr. Craig (above and below):
The second place to go has a good summary and bullet point addition to the above, and where I found this nugget… which shows Dr. Kruass apparently wanted to hide what he knew was, a) a trouncing of himself in a public debate (yes, Dr. Craig is that good), b) willfully trying to hide his willful miss-characterization of Dr. Vilenkin’s work, or c), both.
(Via Wintery Knight) ~ “UPDATE:Dr. Craig reports that Dr. Krauss refused to let the organizers live-stream the three Australia debates, as well as refusing to let the Australian Broadcasting Corporation live-broadcast the three debates.”
Wow. As an ex-con, and someone who has raised boys that are actively wanting to be in law enforcement ~ (the oldest is part way done getting into the Sheriff’s … although he may be going active duty soon if they accept him into EOD, versus if he is going to stay in the airwing of the Corp as a reservist) ~ I know intimately what covering up a lie looks like. Dr. Krauss fits the criteria — fidgeting with which drink he is going to choose while Dr. Craig responds, to his mannerisms setting up the email, to his trying not to have the debate go public — he is truly “busted”!
(The description for the video below) In a mention of his interview with Charles Krauthammer, Dennis Prager revisits the insanity of recent positions within atheistic cosmology. The astrophysicist Dennis Prager refers to, Lawrence Krauss, who was recently shown to be dishonest in a public forum on this very issue
This is the maddest I have ever heard Dennis Prager.
Prager plays audio [I add the video] of a reporter saying the President is inflaming America. Please! The media has done nothing but malign Trump with PROVABLY false stories and scares. The media scared people with the increase in antisemitism (lie), with all the attacks on people by Trump supporters (lie), all the scare-tactics with Trump’s policies (lies). Yeah, Trump’s Tweets are an issue.
