His Funny Valentine: Trump Says 'Kim Jong Un And I Fell In Love’

Mod: Apparently for the empathy challenged Donald Trump being a mass murderer does not disqualify someone from being his special thing.

Trump: Kim Jong Un And I ‘Fell In Love’ (Huffington Post link): What a difference a year makes.

President Donald Trump told supporters at a rally in Wheeling, West Virginia, on Saturday that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have fallen in love. Yes, really. The former foes, who once hurled such insults as “Rocketman” and “Dotard” at each other, are now reportedly smitten if Trump’s latest comments are anything to go by.

“I like him, he likes me. I guess that’s okay. Am I allowed to say that?” the president said.

Referring to the pair’s highly choreographed summit in Singapore earlier this year, Trump said that both were “tough” and spent time going “back and forth.”

“And then we fell in love, okay” he said. “No really. He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”

Earlier Saturday, North Korea’s foreign minister said that there was “no way we will denuclearize” without concessions being made by the US.

Mod: Below are a few things real lovers never allow to get in the way.

Atrocities Under Kim Jong-un: Indoctrination, Prison Gulags, Executions (The New York Times link): With the meeting of President Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea on Tuesday in Singapore, human rights groups are watching for Mr. Trump to bring up North Korea’s widespread crimes against humanity. Mr. Kim rules with extreme brutality, making his nation among the worst human rights violators in the world.

In North Korea, these crimes “entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation,” concluded a 2014 United Nations report that examined North Korea.

Mod: There's more at the link, though I'm sure you get the point.

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$100,000.00 Reward Offered For Kavanaugh Documents

Mod: This could be your lucky day. You know, like state lottery lucky. By any chance did you happen to grow up in Maryland during the 1980s? 

$100k Reward Offered For Kavanaugh Documents (protectourelections.org link): Protect Our Elections, a Montgomery County Maryland-based nonprofit that strongly supports the democratic principles of transparency and honesty in the electoral process, is offering at least a $100,000 reward to any person or persons who provide conclusive and verifiable documentary evidence that Brett Kavanaugh committed perjury before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018.

Brett Kavanaugh stated unequivocally under oath the following:

- He has never sexually assaulted any female at any time;

- He has never passed out after consuming alcohol;

- He never attended a party/gathering with Christine Ford;

- He did not know Julie Swetnick;

- He did not expose himself to Deborah Ramirez;

- He did not have sex in high school with anyone;

- He never witnessed any sexual assaults.

- We are seeking documentary evidence such as photos, emails, letters, and other information that will conclusively prove that these statements are false.

In order to receive the reward, the evidence provided must be sufficient to result in a federal charge of perjury or false statement against Brett Kavauagh. If a person who provides the information desires confidentiality for any reason including a fear of retribution, he or she should indicate that in their submission.

We are prepared to present any credible evidence to both the FBI and Senators of both parties with a request for criminal prosecution. We are located in Montgomery County Maryland where Brett Kavanagh lived and attended high school, and can quickly investigate and verify any credible information.

Persons who want to make a tax-deductible contribution to this reward fund can make a secure donation on our website, www.protectourelections.org. We want to provide the strongest incentive possible for people to come forward with substantial documentary information, so we are asking both small and large donations.

In the event no person or persons meet the criteria for the reward, all funds donated to the reward fund shall be used to support a further investigation of Brett Kavanaugh after the 2018 midterm election. Please send all information to tips@protectourelections.org.

Mod: Remember when Donald Trump said an FBI investigation could never happen?

Trump orders FBI probe into Kavanaugh; Senate vote delayed (CNN link): Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation was suddenly thrown into doubt Friday after Republicans and the White House agreed to a one-week delay so the FBI can investigate sexual assault allegations facing President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee.

"I've ordered the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh's file," Trump said in a statement. "As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week."

The fast-moving developments Friday mean that the full Senate will not vote early next week, as expected. Members voted Friday night to formally open consideration of Kavanaugh's nomination, a procedural move that allows Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to keep his options open.

The delay is the result of a last-minute change of heart by Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, whose stunning move to force an investigation was quickly backed by several senators considered swing votes on Kavanaugh's confirmation.

Flake made the demand for the FBI probe after a chaotic scene at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting in which the panel advanced Kavanaugh by a 11-10 party line vote -- saying his vote was conditioned on a probe taking place, and that he would oppose Kavanaugh on the floor of the Senate unless his demand was met.

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American Bar Association: Delay Kavanaugh until FBI investigates assault allegations

Mod: One thing that jumped out for me is how frightened the Republicans are over the prospect of an FBI investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh. If the guy is innocent as he claims, what does he have to hide? Instead he opted for the Clarence Thomas "tantrum defense." The American Bar Association, who until now had given Kavanaugh a clean bill of health, is now calling for just such an investigation. It seems that they were not very impressed by what they saw from the nominee yesterday. 

American Bar Association: Delay Kavanaugh until FBI investigates assault allegations (CNN link): The American Bar Association is calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to halt the consideration of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh until an FBI investigation is completed into the sexual assault allegations that have roiled his nomination. In a strongly worded letter obtained by CNN Thursday, the organization said it is making the extraordinary request "because of the ABA's respect for the rule of law and due process under law," siding with concerns voiced by Senate Democrats since Christine Blasey Ford's decades-old allegations became public.

"The basic principles that underscore the Senate's constitutional duty of advice and consent on federal judicial nominees require nothing less than a careful examination of the accusations and facts by the FBI," said Robert Carlson, president of the organization, in a Thursday night letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein.

"Each appointment to our nation's Highest Court (as with all others) is simply too important to rush to a vote," Carlson wrote. "Deciding to proceed without conducting additional investigation would not only have a lasting impact on the Senate's reputation, but it will also negatively affect the great trust necessary for the American people to have in the Supreme Court."

The comments are striking because the organization gave Kavanaugh its highest rating of unanimous, "well-qualified" for the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh himself touted that rating at Thursday's emotionally-charged hearing where he denied Ford's sworn testimony that he attempted to rape her when they were teenagers.

Kavanaugh noted he was "thoroughly vetted" by the ABA.

"For 12 years, everyone who has appeared before me on the D.C. Circuit has praised my judicial temperament," Kavanaugh said Thursday. "That's why I have the unanimous, well qualified rating from the American Bar Association."

In the letter, the ABA president says the Senate must remain "an institution that will reliably follow the law and not politics," saying a "thorough FBI investigation will demonstrate its commitment to a Supreme Court that is above reproach."

Republicans have rejected Democratic calls for an FBI probe and are planning to hold a committee vote Friday before moving the nomination to the floor this weekend.

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After Trump's tweet, Michael Avenatti responds with a brutal takedown

Mod: I don't know about you, but getting into a Twitter war with the President of the United States of America would be marvelous publicity for anyone. That said, what in the world is a President doing getting into an exchange like the one below? Would John Kennedy have set himself up for a take down like this? Ronald Reagan? I don't believe so. They were by no means stupid men.

Maybe that 25th Amendment idea some of Trump's people were kicking around a few months back isn't such a bad one after all. I mean, is this really the kind of public fight a sane person would want to involve himself in? Much less the supposed "leader of the free world?" Maybe along with that FBI investigation of Kavanaugh's troubled past we should also get a few psychiatrists into the Whole House for a professional evaluation of the Twitter King.

A few minutes later, Michael Avenatti followed up with this additional observation.

Of course Donald Trump Jr. is going to chime in. How could daddy's best boy resist? A complete fool who easily proves that the nut has not fallen very far from the nut tree.

Certainly the Trump years are a time that we will always be proud of. Then there was yesterday's press conference. Yet another occasion where Donald Trump got to show his respect for women.

Trump Interrupts, Talks Over Female Reporters to Defend Kavanaugh at Insane Press Conference (Daily Beast link): Four questions into a very rare solo press conference from President Donald Trump, after he had already called the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh a “big, fat con job” perpetrated by Democrats, CNN’s Jim Acosta suggested that he call on “one of our female colleagues.”

“What does that mean?” Trump asked. “I wouldn’t mind that at all,” he added. “Wouldn’t make any difference to me.” But once the president began to call on female reporters, starting with NBC News’ Hallie Jackson, the difference was clear. Repeatedly, these women tried to ask Trump about his comments questioning the credibility of Kavanaugh’s accusers, and repeatedly he interrupted and talked over them, saying what he wanted without waiting to hear their questions in several cases.

“When the allegations first surfaced, you initially said how important it was for Dr. Ford to testify. and that you wanted to hear from her,” CBS News’ Weijia Jang began. But before she could ask a question, Trump started to railroad right over her, saying, “I do. I wish it could have gone quicker.”

“You also said that if what she said were as bad as she claims, surely her or her parents would have reported it, and just today, you said you wouldn’t—” Jang said as Trump interrupted again. “So my question is,” she added, as the president continued talking, going off on a tangent about how picking a Supreme Court justice is just below “war and peace” on his personal list of important presidential decisions.

Following up on the question of Acosta’s that Trump did not answer, Jang tried to ask how the accusations against him by numerous women have affected his view of the Kavanaugh allegations. Before she could get it out, however, he started protesting the “false accusations,” saying, “You can check with Sean Hannity, you can check with Fox, because they covered it very strongly.” Finally, as he tried to move to the next question, an exasperated Jang said,  “If I could just actually ask that question, Mr. Trump, you didn’t let me ask my question.”

“You’ve been asking a question for 10 minutes,” Trump told her. “Please sit down.” Instead of sitting down, Jang ultimately got the president to admit that the allegations against him “absolutely” affect his opinion of the women accusing Kavanaugh.

Mod: Seeing how this is the Trump Era, it is completely natural for a United States Senator who has not obeyed Donald properly to receive death threats.

Flake: My office received call saying my family would be 'taken out' over Kavanaugh stance (The Hill link): GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) said on Wednesday that his office received a call saying that he and his family "would be 'taken out'" over his rhetoric on Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.

Flake recounted from the Senate floor how he told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that he didn’t think the Senate should proceed with the confirmation process until Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, was given the opportunity to testify.

“Not everybody felt that way," Flake said. "One man, somewhere in the country, called my office in Arizona and left a message saying that he was tired of me ‘interrupting our president’ and that for the offense of allowing Dr. Ford to be heard, for this offense, me and my family would be ‘taken out.’”

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‘People actually laughed at a president’: At U.N. speech, Trump suffers the fate he always feared

Video link here

Mod: Here in the United States Trump only speaks to specially hand selected audiences of his cultish followers. But you cannot do that at the United Nations. And when he attempted to make one of his standard MAGA speeches before the assembled leaders of the world? It got the response it deserved.

‘People actually laughed at a president’: At U.N. speech, Trump suffers the fate he always feared (The Washington Post link): President Trump has long argued that the United States has been taken advantage of by other nations — a “laughing stock to the entire World,” he said on Twitter in 2014 — and his political rise was based on the premise that he had the strength and resolve to change that.

But at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump got a comeuppance on the world’s biggest stage. Delivering a speech that aimed to establish U.S. “sovereignty” over the whims and needs of other nations, the president’s triumphant moment was marred in the first minute when he was met by laughter — at his expense.

The embarrassing exchange came when Trump boasted that his administration had accomplished more over two years than “almost any administration” in American history, eliciting audible guffaws in the cavernous chamber hall.

The president appeared startled. “Didn’t expect that reaction,” he said, “but that’s okay.” Members of the audience chuckled again — perhaps this time in sympathy.

Trump continued his address, which lasted an additional 34 minutes, but the moment marked a pointed rejoinder from the international community to a president who has delighted in poking traditional U.S. allies and partners in the eye on trade, security alliances and general diplomatic bonhomie.

“He has always been obsessed that people are laughing at the president. From the mid-’80s, he’s said: ‘The world is laughing at us. They think we’re fools,’ ” said Thomas Wright, a Europe analyst at the Brookings Institution.

“It’s never been true, but he’s said it about every president. It’s the first time I’m aware of that people actually laughed at a president. I think it is going to drive him absolutely crazy. It will play to every insecurity he has.”

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Kavanaugh Friend Mark Judge Reportedly Admitted to ‘Taking Turns’ Having Sex With Drunk Girl

Mod: Yesterday we were treated to an onslaught of agitated nonsense from a commenter who desperately wanted to cast some shade on many of the things being reported both in the press, and here. This is one of the things this dude claimed: "Judge was offered up by Ford as a witness for her. Bad choice since he has no recollection of the events she says he witnessed. Back to square one. Shame on Feinstein for sitting on the letter for so long." As has often been said here before, if all you do is watch Fox News you will find yourself being embarrassed by those who are far better informed. What follows below is a pretty fair example of better information.

Kavanaugh Friend Mark Judge Reportedly Admitted to ‘Taking Turns’ Having Sex With Drunk Girl (The Cut link): When Christine Blasey Ford publicly came forward with her sexual-assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, she named conservative writer Mark Judge as Kavanaugh’s alleged accomplice during the incident. Both Judge and Kavanaugh have denied Ford’s allegations; Judge also claimed that “no horseplay” occurred at the Georgetown Prep parties they attended. But, in a Sunday night report by The New Yorker, Judge’s ex-girlfriend of three years Elizabeth Rasor says he told her a “very different story” about those parties.

Rasor says that Judge “told her ashamedly” about an incident in which he and other boys took turns having sex with a drunk woman, per The New Yorker. He seemed to think it was consensual, she added, and he didn’t name anyone else who had been involved. There is no indication that Kavanaugh was one of the boys, The New Yorker notes.

An hour after the report was published, attorney Michael Avenatti tweeted an email in which he claimed to have “significant evidence” that Kavanaugh, Judge, and others would “participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs in order to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them.”

Speaking with The New Yorker, Rasor, who dated Judge for three years, said she felt morally obligated to dispute Judge’s claims about the prep school party culture. She told the magazine, “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t reveal information that was told in confidence,” before adding, “I can’t stand by and watch him lie.”

In a statement, Judge’s attorney said that he “categorically denies” Rasor’s account. An unnamed woman who attended high school in Montgomery County, Maryland, around the same time as Judge and Kavanaugh also refutes Judge’s claims about the social scene. The woman, who asked to be kept anonymous out of fear of retaliation, told TNY that the male students “would get a female student blind drunk” and then try to take advantage of her. “They treated women like meat,” she said.

Despite being named by Ford as a witness, Judge, who once praised “uncontrollable male passion” in his writing, has thus far refused to testify on Ford’s sexual-assault allegations.

Kavanaugh’s Alleged Accomplice Once Praised ‘Uncontrollable Male Passion’ (The Cut link): According to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when she was 15 and he was 17, Kavanaugh wasn’t the only man in the room when he allegedly held her down and “fumbled with her clothes, seemingly hindered by his intoxication.” Ford says conservative writer Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s friend and classmate from Georgetown Preparatory School, who now writes for websites like the Daily Caller and once authored a book about his personal struggle with alcoholism as a teenager, was also present.

According to Ford, Judge stood across the room and turned up the music to drown out her yelling, while he and Kavanaugh, both of whom were drunk, “laughed maniacally.” Judge then allegedly proceeded to jump on Ford and Kavanaugh twice, which toppled over the latter and helped Ford free herself. (Kavanaugh “categorically and unequivocally” denies the allegations.)

Judge said the accusations are “absolutely nuts” in an interview with the Weekly Standard, insisting that he “never saw Brett act that way.” But the writer’s public musings on sexual assault and masculinity bring into question the merit of his views on sexual assault.

He trotted out the myth that revealing clothes could lead to assault. In a piece from 2017, Judge wrote that “what women wear and their body language also send signals about their sexuality.” While he also explicitly wrote several times in one paragraph that women shouldn’t be raped, he followed each statement with a hard “but.”

“… Women who dress like prostitutes are also sending out signals,” he wrote. “The signal is not that they should be raped. But if a posture while drinking coffee is indicative of the soul and personality within, than so is marching down the street in your underwear.”

In a favorable review of the publisher Hard Case Crime, which Judge praises for “[reinvigorating] the idea that male passion is good and beautiful,” he bemoaned social justice warriors who conflate sexual assault and what he believes to be “beautiful” displays of male sexual energy.

“There’s also that ambiguous middle ground, where the woman seems interested and indicates, whether verbally or not, that the man needs to prove himself to her,” he wrote. “And if that man is any kind of man, he’ll allow himself the awesome power, the wonderful beauty, of uncontrollable male passion.”

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Justice Toast: Brett Kavanaugh Accused of Sexual Misconduct by Second Woman

Mod: One thing is for certain, this is going to be quite a week. 

Brett Kavanaugh Accused of Sexual Misconduct by Second Woman (Variety link): Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who is facing heavy scrutiny after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accused him of sexually assaulting her in high school, has been accused by another woman, Deborah Ramirez, of sexual misconduct.

In a New Yorker report from Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer, Ramirez recounts an incident that she says occurred during the 1983-84 academic year, when both she and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale University. Ramirez alleges that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a college party, where they had both been drinking, “thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.”

Four Democratic senators have received information about the allegation through a civil rights attorney, and at least two have begun investigating it, according to the report. Senior Republican staffers are also aware of the allegation.

Though Ramirez was initially hesitant to characterize her memories, which contained gaps due to the alcohol, after six days of “carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney,” Ramirez felt confident in her recollections. She believes an FBI investigation into the alleged incident is warranted.

Mod: A link to the New Yorker article can be found here.

The Kavanaugh nomination just got even more complicated (CNN link): Democrats are demanding an immediate halt to Brett Kavanaugh's nomination process after his increasingly troubled hopes of reaching the Supreme Court were hit by a new allegation of sexual misconduct as a young man.

Kavanaugh quickly denied the new accusation by a female former fellow student about an alleged incident when he was at Yale University in the early 1980s. He branded the story reported by The New Yorker as part of a smear campaign by Democrats, a charge echoed by the White House.

The fresh trouble for Kavanaugh emerged hours after arrangements were finally locked in for a Senate hearing on Thursday at which his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, will allege that he sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers in high school.

The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein, responded to the new allegation by calling on the Republican committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, to order an "immediate postponement" of any further action on Kavanaugh's nomination.

Her intervention is likely to focus extra scrutiny on the accusation reported by The New Yorker and to raise the stakes even further for Thursday's hearing at which Kavanaugh is expected to present a vehement defense, which now looms as crucial for his confirmation hopes.

Michael Avenatti Has Multiple Witnesses That Brett Kavanaugh Participated In Gang Rapes (Politics USA link): Attorney Michael Avenatti has multiple witnesses willing to testify that Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge participated in the drugging and gang raping of women at DC house parties in the 1980s. Avenatti released his email to Mike Davis, Chief Counsel for Nominations for U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary which gave details on the new allegations.

Michael Avenatti doesn’t have to wait for the Senate Judiciary Committee to open their process to his witnesses. Avenatti could hold a press conference tomorrow and go straight to the media. Avenatti has got multiple witnesses. Three women have come forward so far, but it is about to get so much worse for Republicans.

The new witnesses should be enough to sink Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination. If any of these gang rapes happened in Maryland, that state has no statute of limitations on rape and sexual assault.

This is information that must be delivered to the American people. Any other victims, witnesses, or representatives of these individuals can not sit by and let Chuck Grassley and the Republican men on the Senate Judiciary Committee push through the nomination of a potential sexual predator to the Supreme Court.

The time to act is now. If the Judiciary Committee doesn’t allow these witnesses to testify, then they have no other choice but to go public before Thursday’s scheduled hearing.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Jim Bakker: Trump was chosen by God to prepare Christians for the End Times

Mod: Our favorite personal messenger of God has apparently been talking one on One with the Big Guy about the soon to come end of the world. Which is a good thing in the opinion of some because then everyone Jim Bakker likes gets to go to heaven. The rest of us? Not so much. You're either in or out, apparently. So who is the End Times change agent in all of these big events according to Bakker? None other than Donald Trump.

Jim Bakker: Trump was chosen by God to prepare Christians for the End Times (Dead State Link): On The Jim Bakker Show this Monday, host Jim Bakker revealed to his audience that God had communicated to him a message about President Trump and why he’s currently in the White House. Long story short: the end is nigh.

According to Bakker’s account of God’s message, the first horse of the Apocalypse has been released on earth — but thanks to Trump’s election, Christians now have some time to prepare.

“Have you ever seen a time when we hate our president like the people do now?” Bakker said before repeating a theme he’s mentioned before.

“Literally half the nation hates the president and would probably kill him if they got a chance.”

God’s message, as relayed by Bakker, says that the world is now living out “Revelation, Chapter 6,” which deals with the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.

“This is what He told me,” Bakker claimed. “He said, ‘Donald Trump is a respite in this troubled times and I sent him in grace to give you time to prepare for what’s coming on earth.’”

“God has given us a man who is not afraid to fight,” Bakker continued.

“We have a president people think is crazy. They call him crazy, but he’s making peace treaties, he’s doing all the things to try to solve the world’s problems and God has put him on earth—God spoke to me the other night, He said, ‘I put Donald Trump on earth to give you time, the church, to get ready.’”

Bakker didn’t address why Trump would be making peace treaties and trying to solve the world’s problems if it’s all going to be ending soon. But then again, Bakker isn’t amusing because he’s logically consistent.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Ronald Reagan’s Daughter Patti Davis Reveals She Didn’t Disclose Sex Assault For Decades

Mod: After Trump's rather unhinged attack on Christine Blasey Ford this week, Ronald Reagan's daughter Patti Davis stepped up to defend her. Here is the Huffington Post's account of what she had to say.

Reagan’s Daughter Patti Davis Reveals She Didn’t Disclose Sex Assault For Decades (Huffington Post link): Ronald Reagan’s daughter was raped 40 years ago. But she didn’t speak of it for several years, Patti Davis revealed in a powerful Washington Post op-ed Friday.

“I never told anyone for decades — not a friend, not a boyfriend, not a therapist, not my husband when I got married years later,” noted Davis, an author. Nor did she remember some important details of the attack.

Both situations are common for survivors of assault, according to experts.

Davis revealed her experience in support of Christine Blasey Ford, the California psychology professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were teens.

Davis’ article appeared while Twitter messages from sexual assault survivors flooded #WhyIDidntReport in response to President Donald Trump’s dismissive comments about Blasey’s experience and his assumptions about the ease of reporting sexual assault.

“If the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents,” Trump tweeted Friday. He also said he wanted to know the “date, time and place.”

In Davis’ case, the attack occurred when she met with a music executive in his office about songs she had written. “He was ... on top of me — so quickly — with his hands under my skirt and his mouth on mine, that I froze,” she recalled. “I lay there as he pushed himself inside me.”

She no longer remembers what month it was, if the executive’s assistant was outside the door, what her attacker said.

“It doesn’t surprise me one bit that for more than 30 years, Christine Blasey Ford didn’t talk about the assault she remembers,” Davis added. Nor does it surprise her that Blasey doesn’t remember where it occurred or the specific day.

“Your memory snaps photos of the details that will haunt you forever, that will change your life and live under your skin. It blacks out other parts of the story that really don’t matter much,” Davis wrote.

Perhaps the “aging men” ready to question Blasey should think about the “courage it takes for a woman to say: Here is my memory. It has haunted me for decades ... you need to know about it now because of what is at stake in this country,” said Davis.

It’s not the first time Davis has challenged Trump’s positions. She wrote in the Post in June that her father would have condemned Trump.

“He would plead with Americans to recognize that the caustic, destructive language emanating from our current president is sullying the dream that America once was,” she wrote.

Mod: Trumpy may have blown it.

Susan Collins 'appalled' by Trump's tweet about Christine Blasey Ford (CNN link): Sen. Susan Collins said she is "appalled" by a tweet from President Donald Trump disparaging the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

The Maine Republican called the statement from the President "inappropriate and wrong." "I was appalled by the President's tweet," Collins said Friday, according to audio obtained by CNN of an event where she spoke with local reporters.

The senator, who is a crucial swing vote on Kavanaugh's nomination, was responding to a question on what she thought of a tweet from the President suggesting that Christine Blasey Ford should have come forward with her allegation against Kavanaugh earlier.

We know that allegations of sexual assault -- I'm not saying that's what happened in this case -- but we know that allegations of sexual assault are one of the most unreported crimes that exist, so I thought that the President's tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong," Collins said.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

'No accident' Brett Kavanaugh's female law clerks 'looked like models', Yale professor told students

Mod: Yet another inconvenience to the Kavanaugh nomination to the Supreme Court has emerged. 

'No accident' Brett Kavanaugh's female law clerks 'looked like models', Yale professor told students (The Guardian link): A top professor at Yale Law School who strongly endorsed supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a “mentor to women” privately told a group of law students last year that it was “not an accident” that Kavanaugh’s female law clerks all “looked like models” and would provide advice to students about their physical appearance if they wanted to work for him, the Guardian has learned.

Amy Chua, a Yale professor who wrote a bestselling book on parenting called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, was known for instructing female law students who were preparing for interviews with Kavanaugh on ways they could dress to exude a “model-like” femininity to help them win a post in Kavanaugh’s chambers, according to sources.

Kavanaugh is facing intense scrutiny in Washington following an allegation made by Christine Blasey Ford that he forcibly held her down and groped her while they were in high school. He has denied the allegation. The accusation has mired Kavanaugh’s confirmation in controversy, drawing parallels to allegations of sexual harassment against Justice Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill in the 1990s.

Yale provided Kavanaugh with many of the judge’s clerks over the years, and Chua played an outsized role in vetting the clerks who worked for him. But the process made some students deeply uncomfortable.

One source said that in at least one case, a law student was so put off by Chua’s advice about how she needed to look, and its implications, that she decided not to pursue a clerkship with Kavanaugh, a powerful member of the judiciary who had a formal role in vetting clerks who served in the US supreme court.

In one case, Jed Rubenfeld, also an influential professor at Yale and who is married to Chua, told a prospective clerk that Kavanaugh liked a certain “look”.

“He told me, ‘You should know that Judge Kavanaugh hires women with a certain look,’” one woman told the Guardian. “He did not say what the look was and I did not ask.”

Sources who spoke to the Guardian about their experiences with Chua and Rubenfeld would only speak under the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution and damage to their future careers. Some elements of this story were first published by the Huffington Post.

Chua advised the same student Rubenfeld spoke to that she ought to dress in an “outgoing” way for her interview with Kavanaugh, and that the student should send Chua pictures of herself in different outfits before going to interview. The student did not send the photos.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Is the GOP having a senior moment? Older voters are deserting in droves

Mod: Do you believe older folks are a lock for the GOP this November? You know, that segment of voters most likely to actually go to the polls? Think again.

The GOP's older voter problem (CNN link): Is the GOP having a senior moment? Late summer surveys by CNN and other organizations show senior voters tilting decisively towards Democratic congressional candidates. That would dramatically reverse the recent pattern in midterm elections when the elderly provided a major boost to GOP candidates.

In CNN surveys conducted in early August and early September, registered voters who are 65 years of age and up preferred Democratic congressional candidates to Republicans by margins of 20 and 16 percentage points, respectively. 

CNN is not the only news organization to report this kind of GOP deficit among seniors. A late August Washington Post-ABC News survey found that if older voters were casting their ballots today, they would back Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives over Republican candidates by a whopping 22-point margin, 57% to 35%. Similarly, a national poll by Marist College conducted in early September found that among voters 60 years of age and up, they favored Democratic congressional candidates by a 15-point margin.

This is a potentially huge problem for Republicans: In the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections when Republicans regained control of the House and Senate, respectively, GOP candidates were solidly backed by voters 65 and up. When Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, they had a narrow advantage among senior voters.

Trump is always bragging about setting records. I wonder how he feels about this one. 

Bob Woodward's 'Fear' is the fastest-selling book in Simon & Schuster's history (Los Angeles Times link): Bob Woodward's "Fear: Trump in the White House" has sold more than 1.1 million copies in its first week of release, making it the fastest-selling book in the history of its publisher, Simon & Schuster.

The publisher has ordered a 10th printing of the book, which as of Wednesday morning was the No. 1 bestselling book at Barnes and Noble and at Amazon. Woodward's is the latest in a string of books about the Trump White House, and looks to be on track to be the most successful. Entertainment Weekly notes that journalist Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury," which dominated the bestseller charts when it was published in January, sold 500,000 in its first two weeks of release. Former FBI Director James Comey's memoir "A Higher Loyalty," which also made extensive headlines, sold 300,000 copies in its first week.

"Fear," which relies heavily on anonymous sources, contains several explosive allegations about the Trump White House. Woodward is a veteran Beltway journalist whose claim to fame was, with co-writer Carl Bernstein and the help of an anonymous source called Deep Throat, exposing the Watergate scandal in the pages of the Washington Post.

In “Fear,” Woodward claims that aides to President Trump would remove papers from his desk so that he wouldn't sign them. The book also suggests that Trump called Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions "mentally retarded" and a "dumb Southerner," which Trump has denied.

Woodward quotes one source that said that Chief of Staff John Kelly called Trump an "idiot," saying, "He's gone off the rails. We're in Crazytown. I don't even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I've ever had."

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Kavanaugh Kaos: Is the Pussygrabber Pussy Whipped?

Mod: Many have speculated that the real First Lady is not Melania, but rather daughter Ivanka. Certainly the two have appeared to be far more affectionate in public. So can it be the "First Lady" is now telling the Fat Orange that the time has come to cut Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh loose? America wonders.

“Cut Bait”: As the Kavanaugh Nightmare Escalates, Trump is Gripped with Uncertainty as Ivanka Suggests Cutting the Judge Loose (Vanity Fair link): The threat of losing the House and Senate has stopped Trump from going scorched-earth on Christine Blasey Ford. If Trump antagonizes women voters, it could increase the odds Republicans would lose both houses in Congress.

After days of obsessing over the anonymous New York Times op-ed and Bob Woodward’s book Fear, Donald Trump’s mood was improving markedly last week as he watched Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination sailing toward a confirmation vote. “Everyone thought Kavanaugh was a slam dunk,” an outside adviser to the White House told me.

In a phone call with Sean Hannity over the weekend, Trump even boasted he’d gotten past Woodward’s book—he told people it was a dud. But his reprieve would be short-lived. On Sunday, college professor Christine Blasey Ford told The Washington Post that Kavanaugh had allegedly attempted to rape her at a party when they were teenagers, thrusting Trump and the White House into a #MeToo crisis at a moment when they can’t afford to antagonize women voters ahead of the midterms.

According to three sources, Kavanaugh’s imperiled confirmation has unsettled Trump and the White House. “Everyone knows his predisposition is to punch back, but this is a different situation than an election,” a former West Wing official briefed on the strategy discussions said. In the past, Trump responded to allegations of sexual misconduct by channeling his mentor Roy Cohn: deny everything, and go on the attack.

But he’s been surprisingly measured in his defense of Kavanaugh. In a news conference today, Trump told reporters, “I feel so badly for him that he’s going through this,” but refrained from attacking Ford. According to sources, several factors are at play. White House advisers are worried that more damaging information about Kavanaugh could come out. Two sources told me the White House has heard rumors that Ford’s account will be verified by women who say she told it to them contemporaneously. People worry, without apparent evidence, of another Ronan Farrow bomb dropping. One source says Ivanka Trump has told her father to “cut bait” and drop Kavanaugh.

Another reason Trump hasn’t gone to the mat for Kavanaugh is that he’s said to be suspicious of Kavanaugh’s establishment pedigree. “‘He’s a Bush guy, why would I put myself out there defending him?’” Trump told people, according to a former White House official briefed on the conversations. Trump also has expressed frustration with White House counsel Don McGahn, who aggressively lobbied for him to choose Kavanaugh, a source said. “Trump wants this guy on the court, but Trump knows there are five other people he could put on the court if this falls apart,” a former official said.

But the threat of losing the House and Senate seems to have helped convince Trump not to go scorched-earth on Ford. If Trump antagonizes women voters, it could increase the odds Republicans would lose both houses in Congress. “Trump knows the Senate is not looking good,” an outside adviser said. “It’s all about the impeachment, he knows it’s coming.”

Mod: As always in the Trump era, it has gotten very ugly out there.

Kavanaugh Accuser Forced Out Of Her Home Over Threats, Lawyers Say (The Hill link): The woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault has been forced out of her home due to death threats, her lawyers said Tuesday.

Christine Blasey Ford's lawyers told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in a letter that the Palo Alto University professor has been effectively forced into hiding over violent messages targeting her and her family. "In the 36 hours since her name became public, Dr. Ford has received a stunning amount of support from her community and from fellow citizens across our country. At the same time, however, her worst fears have materialized," her lawyers wrote in the letter.

"She has been the target of vicious harassment and even death threats. As a result of these kind of threats, her family was forced to relocate out of their home. Her email has been hacked, and she has been impersonated online," the letter continued.

Ford's lawyers said in the letter that she would not testify during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing set for Monday until the FBI investigates her allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh.

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Coming Very Soon - Stormy Daniels' tell-all book on Trump: salacious detail and claims of cheating

Mod: It can be difficult to keep up with everything going on in the Trump world. But something you do need to remember, be it support for a pederast in the Alabama Senate race, or trying to put some dirtbag suspected of drunken sexual assault on the Supreme Court, chances are sleaze is going to be a significant portion of it. Today we have news that a Stormy Daniels book not only exists, but is about to become available to the general public. One written in extremely personal detail. These are troubled times.

Stormy Daniels' tell-all book on Trump: salacious detail and claims of cheating (The Guardian link): In a tell-all memoir, the pornographic actor Stormy Daniels details salacious descriptions of her time with Donald Trump, wonders if he is fit to be president and claims he offered to cheat for her in his reality TV show.

A copy of the book, Full Disclosure, was obtained by the Guardian. In it, Daniels describes her mounting disbelief as Trump began to win primary contests in 2016 for the Republican presidential nomination. Former castmates whom she had not heard from in years, but who had heard her story about sleeping with Trump in 2006, would call her up to marvel at the news.

“It will never happen, I would say,” Daniels writes. “He doesn’t even want to be president.”

But as Trump kept winning, Daniels writes, she began to think she might be in danger. The story she had to tell about Trump seemed more sensitive the more he won. And she had already been threatened once, years earlier, and warned never to tell the story about Trump, she has claimed.

Those moments of fear and doubt – and Daniels’ decision on the eve of the election to sign a $130,000 hush agreement – hang around a detailed description of Daniels’ alleged tryst with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, California. In the book, Daniels writes in sometimes excruciating detail about the president’s genitals and describes her disgust with herself for letting the scene play out.

She continued to answer Trump’s many phone calls over the next year in hopes that he would make good on his promise to put her on his reality television show, The Apprentice, Daniels writes. Trump even suggested that a cheat could be arranged to allow her to survive through more episodes of the show, she writes.

“We’ll figure out a way to get you the challenges beforehand,” she quotes him as saying. “And we can devise your technique.”

“He was going to have me cheat, and it was 100 percent his idea.”

Whenever she saw Trump on television for years afterwards, Daniels writes, an internal monologue would play out: “‘I had sex with that’, I’d say to myself. Eech.”

Trump has denied any affair with Daniels, although he admitted to personally reimbursing his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the money Daniels received in the hush agreement.

With its intensely intimate portrait of a clownish and insecure Trump, the book lands after weeks in which the White House has struggled to debunk a portrait of an outmatched and incompetent president in a separate book, Bob Woodward’s Fear, and to debunk an editorial by anonymous administration official claiming that subordinates routinely ignore and subvert the president’s orders.

The proliferation of damning narratives have been dismissed by the White House as made-up stories, floated as a distraction, Trump claims, from his achievements.

But his approval rating appears to be slumping toward the mid-30s, a historic low for presidents at a similar stage in their first terms. Opinions about Trump’s presidency are scarce in Full Disclosure, although when Daniels tells a story about Trump growing agitated about a golf course plan, she notes, “there was nothing that made him seem as petulant and prone to tantrums as he has been as president.”

The crux of the book, however, follows Daniels’ decision to go public with her story about Trump just before the election, after years of hiding the affair, she writes, from her then-husband. Going public meant that she and her daughter would be less vulnerable to attack, she reasoned. She recounts a story she has told elsewhere, of being approached by a large man in a gym parking lot in 2011 and warned not to tell the story about Trump. Trump has said the parking lot story is “a total con job.”

Beginning with Daniels’ youth as a girl named Stephanie Clifford growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Full Disclosure tells a vivid story of childhood poverty, neglect and abuse, including sexual abuse by a middle-aged man beginning when Daniels was nine years old. The stories are intercut with light moments such as her time with a beloved pet horse and a crush on Patrick Swayze so intense she kissed a hole in her Dirty Dancing poster.

“The deck has always been stacked against me,” she writes, but “I own my story and the choices I made.”

The memoir narrates Daniels’ first experiences as a stripper while still in high school, and how she broke into the porn industry, through which she rose to become an award-winning director, writer and star.

It was in that role that Daniels attended a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, California, in 2006, where she and two colleagues greeted golfers between holes. There she first sees Trump: “He had a red cap, a Trump crest as a placeholder for the MAGA slogan not one of us could see coming.”

Trump’s bodyguard invites Daniels to dinner, which turns out to be an invitation to Trump’s penthouse, she writes, in a description of alleged events that Daniels has disclosed previously but which in the book are rendered with new and lurid detail. She describes Trump’s penis as “smaller than average” but “not freakishly small.”

“He knows he has an unusual penis,” Daniels writes. “It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool…

“I lay there, annoyed that I was getting fucked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart.

“It may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had, but clearly, he didn’t share that opinion.”

Daniels’ alleged relationship with Trump included one moment in 2007, she writes, in which she is with Trump in a hotel room watching a Shark Week broadcast on cable television when he receives a phone call from Hillary Clinton, then running against Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“Then, to make it crazier, Hillary Clinton called,” Daniels writes. “He had a whole conversation about the race, repeatedly mentioning ‘our plan’...

“Even while he was on the phone with Hillary, his attention kept going back to the sharks.”

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Televangelist Pat Robertson Casts Spell on Hurricane Florence

 Link to Pat's miracle here

Mod: Now that the hurricane has actually landed and is causing much of the havoc predicted well in advance by climate scientists, in retrospect it does appear that Pat Robertson's necromantic efforts didn't work quite as well as he'd hoped.

Televangelist Warlock Pat Robertson Casts Spell on Hurricane Florence (The Stranger link): As you know, the Southeastern United States is bracing itself for Hurricane Florence, a category 4 storm that could cause "catastrophic" damage once it reaches landfall this Friday. Millions of residents have been ordered to move inland, and Imbecile-in-Chief Donald Trump is keeping himself busy by arguing with Puerto Rican officials about how he didn't botch their hurricane disaster, like, at all.

But if you're concerned about the life-threatening conditions those in the South are facing... don't be! Because televangelist warlock Pat Robertson has cast a spell on the hurricane, which has forbidden it from touching America!

Normally in times of national crisis, self-proclaimed Christians such as Robertson pray for something good to happen and then go on about their business. However, this must be a pretty serious situation, because Robertson has apparently shunned his religion's historical hatred of the dark arts and has turned to witchcraft in order to stop the hurricane, casting a "shield of protection" over his home state of Virginia.

“In Jesus’ holy name, be out to sea!” Well. That should take care of it.

Pat Robertson Establishes A ‘Shield of Protection’ Against Hurricane Florence (Right Wing Watch link): Televangelist Pat Robertson spoke at a special prayer service at his Christian Broadcasting Network today, ordering Hurricane Florence not to harm any of his facilities and to turn back out to sea. At the moment, Hurricane Florence is a Category 4 storm that is expected to hit the eastern coast of the United States sometime later this week. In preparation, Robertson is declaring a “shield of protection” over his CBN network and Regent University and calling on God to intervene and turn the storm away from land.

Robertson claimed that when he first arrived in Virginia in 1961 to establish CBN, the region was threatened by Hurricane Esther, which he feared would destroy his fledgling network. As such, Robertson and his staff gathered in prayer and commanded the storm to shift course, which he claims miraculously happened because God stepped in to save CBN.

With another storm approaching, Robertson again gathered with CBN staff today to order Florence to veer away from land and produce no damage.

“I don’t want that thing to come in,” Robertson said. “I don’t want it to hurt Regent, I don’t want it to hurt CBN, I don’t want it to tear up the beautiful campus, I don’t want it to tear these trees down, I don’t want to see any damage, I don’t want a bunch of glass flowing, and I don’t want [damage] all over this area that is counting on us to pray for them.”

Robertson then commanded Florence, in the name of Jesus, to change its path away from land and to spin off into the Atlantic ocean.

“We declare in the name of the Lord that you shall go no farther, you shall do no damage in this area,” he said. “We declare a shield of protection all over Tidewater and we declare a shield of protection over those innocent people in the path of this hurricane. In Jesus’ holy name, be out to sea!”

Robertson then assured those who had gathered in prayer that they will “live to mark this day” as the moment when their prayers guaranteed that “we are not going to let Hurricane Florence hurt us.”

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