The Donelson Files

Article 1, Section 5 of our Constitution gives each house of Congress the right to “punish its member for disorderly behavior.”  Diane Feinstein has disgraced herself, and taken the Senate a descent into Dante Inferno below what many thought possible.  San Francisco Chronicle stated the process unfair to Judge Kavanaugh and no one will confuse the Chronicle as part of the right wing conspiracy.  The Senate should censure Feinstein at the very minimal for what she did.

Feinstein was aware of the charges before the hearings began and refuse to share this information or even confront Kavanaugh with this when given the chance.  Even today, Grassley has yet to receive the un-redacted copy of the letter so we have no clue what was in the letter.  Feinstein misled her colleagues and in the process, disgraced the body she serves. The last three Senators censured dealt with financial misconduct.  For Feinstein, it was not about finances since she is worth nearly 100 million dollars but she is facing a tough re-election campaign and her own party refuse to endorse her at the state convention.  Her ambush of Kavanaugh was to save her political skin and she was willing to traffic in smear tactics that compare to Joseph McCarthy to do so.

National Review Michael Swartz noted, “Not only did she fail in her committee duties, but she did everything she could to make the charge public in a way that made the target’s defense difficult or impossible. The charge was lodged anonymously, and rather than subjecting it to vetting by her fellow senators, Feinstein made a transparently groundless referral of the matter to the FBI — as if there could conceivably be a federal law-enforcement dimension to the decades-old claim of sexual assault — which the FBI, to its credit, unceremoniously filed away. Left hanging in the glare of a still-untested sexual-assault charge — which today has the same resonance that a charge of Communist sympathies had in McCarthy’s day — are Judge Kavanaugh, his wife, and his two daughters. They are in a far worse position than was the young lawyer in whose defense Welch made his famous statement… Where does all this leave the Kavanaugh nomination? Barring the emergence of evidence unequivocally confirming the charge, senators who are on the fence might want to consider that a vote against the nominee now necessarily excuses and even legitimates Feinstein’s misconduct. If the senators don’t take their own institution’s procedures seriously, and refuse to stand against so blatant a breach, it’s hard to expect the rest of us to do so.”  If they don’t censure Feinstein, the Senate is rewarding this behavior and shouldn’t be surprise if it happens again.  It would even be better they expel Feinstein, if they want to prevent this in the future and send a message to future Senators that this behavior will never be tolerated.  It requires a two third vote to remove Feinstein from the Senate but only a majority to censure.  If Senate doesn’t expel Feinstein, then censure her.

PJ Media Roger L. Simon noted, “It took the French Revolution ten years (1789-1799) to go from an idealistic fight for freedom to the one-man rule of Napoleon, but these are fast-moving times and the #MeToo movement has gone from the necessary correction of monsters like Harvey Weinstein to an all-out assault on the rule of law and hatred of the entire male sex in about eighteen months. (Well, it was men who came up with the Magna Carta.)”

What we are witnessing is the end of the rule of law and presumption of innocent until proven guilty and simply assume all men guilty if accused of sexual assault and rape.  Worse, it is becoming a political weapon as woman will be believed based on whether a Republican or Democrat is being accused.  Karen Monahan accused Keith Ellison and has far more evidence that abuse may have occurred but Ellison has denied the charges. Because Ms. Monahan has more evidence doesn’t mean Ellison assaulted her but 95% of Democrat voters believe Ellison and not Monahan.  Democrats’ view of Kavanaugh’s guilt is reverse as they view him a sexual predator and yes, I have heard that phrase on programs I appeared on.

Senator Mazie Hirono, who demanded that men shut up about Kavanaugh, accepted money from Senator Tom Carper who is on his way to win re-election in Delaware.  Carper admitted in a child custody fight a couple decades ago that he struck his wife so Hirono is willing to deny Kavanaugh a seat on the Supreme Court based on allegations that no one can even prove  but is accepting money from a Senator who admitted abusing his ex-wife.  The hypocrisy is striking just as the hypocrisy about Keith Ellison who is running for the chief law enforcement officer of Minnesota is striking as no Democrats has yet demand that Ellison resigned his present congressional seat or position as number two man in Democratic National Committee. There is an investigation going by the DNC but call me cynical, but don’t expect any result from this investigation until after the election if at all.

Rape and sexual assaults are serious and need to be handled by the legal system and turn into political footballs and certainly not the accusation be used in political matters, especially if there is no or little evidence.   What will happen in the future?  In the future, women accusation against politicians or the powerful won’t be determine by the evidence but whether they can be used against their opponents.  The woman will only be believed if the right person is accused and we are now moving toward a world in which innocence is no longer assumed.

Roger L Simon concluded, “What we have here, Senator Feinstein, is the #MeToo movement going into its Robespierre period, lopping off heads as it goes.  Where this Reign of Terror will end, nobody knows, but Dianne Feinstein and this odd Dr. Ford (imagine being in therapy with her) have a lot to answer for.The endless tap dance about how and when Ford should testify — and the absolutely astonishing demand that Kavanaugh should testify first, before his accuser, turning the rule of law on its head — completes this picture of the #MeToo movement gone berserk.  Genuine victims of abuse will, of course, suffer as people become increasingly fed up with this charade.” Real women will suffer as a result.

We are in the final week of the Kavanaugh-Ford Confrontion and it is looking like an ambush. Are we are witnessing a smear job with a accused who so far has been less than forthcoming and evidence pointing to Kavanaugh innocence?

Let begin with what we know as of Sunday night, all of those who have been identified as being at the party including one friendly witness that was supposed to back Ford’s claim have all denied that the event occurred so we have no witnesses to the alleged rape and sexual assault.   As for Ford’s friendly witness, she even denied that she even know Kavanaugh.  The case against Kavanaugh is imploding.

What did happen some 36 years ago and with no witnesses to collaborate the story, what will a hearing settle other than get Ford statement on the record.  This case is similar to the original Thomas –Hill hearing 27 years only there was even less evidence than in that case.  (For those who might not remember, the FBI concluded that the charges against Thomas unsubstantiated and it is a good thing for Ford that Feinstein sat on this as oppose taking it to the FBI several weeks ago since she would look even worse than Hill did in her hearing. It is obvious that even Feinstein had her own doubt about the story and released it in this fashion because she was attempting to smear Kavanaugh’s reputation if he got confirmed.)

Here is a question I was asked and it is a good question, why would Ford lie knowing what storm awaits her. Even a liberal friend, who was a rape victim, admitted that women do lie about being rape.  A few years back, a woman lied about being rape by fraternity members at University of Virginia to a reporter of the Rolling Stone magazine. (Rolling Stone lost more than 1.5 million dollars in a lawsuit over this case.)  So why would a woman lie about being raped to a national magazine Kavanaugh case enters the final week but what we are learning, this is looking more like a? Did she assume that she would not be exposed and that automatically believed?

In looking at Ford’s own career, we see a Professor who was politically active and her brother law firm worked with Fusion GPS.  Fusion GPA worked on behalf of Obama campaign, doing opposition research (which occasionally does include looking for dirt on the opposition campaign.)  It is known that as early as 2012 that Ford feared that Kavanaugh could be a nominee for the Supreme Court and CNN reported that Kavanaugh was on Romney’s short list.  Ford’s brother law firm work with Fusion GPS was in 2016 so there was no evidence to suggest that Ford got any information from Fusion GPS about Romney possible nominee to the Supreme Court.

Professor Ford was politically astute and her brother may be equally politically aware.  So was Ford prepared to do sabatoged the Kavanaugh nomination if Romney did this in 2013, if elected?   Was Ford willing to do what it takes to stop Kavanaugh nominations?  That is a big if but what we are learning about Ford and her legal team, it is not beyond imagining since her team are made up of political operatives with law degrees. Truth is not their concern.  My own view is that Ford is complicit in this and not an innocent bystander exposed accidently by Feinstein.  I don’t know what happened 36 years ago and no one does but based on what we know, there is no evidence to suggest Ford was sexually assaulted or the event happened as she said.

Did Professor Ford think that she would not exposed by Feinstein and did this slip out of her control?  Or did she understand that once she wrote her letter and Feinstein got a copy, was she prepared to do what was needed to stop Kavanaugh’s confirmation?  These are questions that can no longer be ignored as the case against Kavanaugh has imploded with every witness denying anything happened.  I can’t imagine any woman lying about rape but it does happen.  And as I will discuss later, Christine Ford and Diane Feinstein has hurt the MeToo Movement and undermined other women who will have a stronger case against powerful people.

In a recent discussion, I heard a leftist talk show viewed Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas as sexual predators prepared to strip women their right to choose.  The problem with this argument is that anyone who actually witnessed the actual Thomas-Hill hearing would know that Thomas confirmation came as a result of Thomas testimony being viewed more truthful as Anita Hill. 

For those who don’t remember or those not old enough to know the actual truth and exposed to revisionist history, not a single colleague of Anita Hill came forward to support her allegations and Senate Judiciary Committee included a panel of women, seven of whom worked with Thomas rejected Hill’s charges and one of those women was a previous victim of sexual harassment.

Hill didn’t mention the more salacious details that later become a focal point in the hearing to the FBI in initial meetings.  Charles Grassley and Arlen Spector asked Hill why her story changed and Hill responded, ““I did not tell the FBI all of the information because the FBI agent made clear that if I were embarrassed about talking about something, that I could decline to discuss things that were too embarrassing, but that I could provide as much information as I felt comfortable with at that time.”  Both of the FBI agents responsible for the initial investigation into her charges filed statements about the untruthfulness of Hill’s testimony. Anita Hill testimony was rebuked by her own fellow colleagues and while there have many attempts to rewrite the history of the hearings but the reality is Thomas testimony and follow up testimony backed up Thomas’ version, not Anita Hill.

Anita Hill did not support women in every cases where sexual harassment occurred.  Just read this Hill’s quote about a charge that President Clinton grope a White House volunteer, “For President Clinton, he’s going to suffer a disadvantage because it is now that these allegations are coming out, during his presidency. But I think what Ms. Steinem also says is we have to look at the totality of the presidency and how has he been on women’s issues generally? Is he our best bet, notwithstanding some behavior that we might dislike? I don’t think that most women have come to the point where we’ve said, well this is so bad that even if he is better on the bigger issues, we can’t have him as president.” Translation, if a Democrat is accused, the woman expendable since a Democrat is “better on the bigger issues” like abortion.  That is the Anita Hill I remember and Clarence Thomas was right when he described what happen to him as “high Tech lynching.”    It is looking  more like Kavanaugh case is ambush similar to Clarence Thomas leaving one to ask, do Democrats have no shame to attempt the same tactics some 27 years apart? I don’t have to answer that for the answer is obvious.