My Opinion
The New York Times published an article based on “sources” that implied that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had discussed using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, and suggested the possibility of “wearing a wire”.
This smells like agitprop. The Justice Department would discuss impeachment, not the 25th Amendment, to remove a President, and FBI and Justice Department officials write contemporaneous notes of any interaction that is not routine. It is the White House cadre that discusses the 25th Amendment and records conversations. This sounds like someone in the White House is trying to push things forward by getting Rosenstein fired.
To listen to Brett Kavanaugh tell it, not only did he not sexually assault women, but he walks on water and used a pack of crackers and a tin of sardines to provide everyone at Trump’s inauguration with a tuna salad on whole wheat sandwich and a dill spear. His biggest problems are his high school yearbook and the writings of his ‘wingman’, Mark Judge. Judge’s works have more in common with Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress than Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. After looking at his yearbook, many of the women who initially signed a glowing letter of recommendation for Kavanaugh withdrew their support.
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I tweeted a thread about the accusations and info that is coming out from credible witnesses, to keep it all in one place. Wayne Freedman from ABC7 SF tweeted:
“Just spoke with #JamesRoche who was Yale roommate of Brett #Kavanaugh . He confirms that the #SCOTUS nominee was frequently drunk, and incoherently. Says he supports integrity of Debbie Ramirez, the 2nd accuser. #abc7now #KavanaughConfirmation Respects her courage.”
Michael Avenatti is now representing Debbie Ramirez & other accusers & tweeted:
“Warning: My client re Kavanaugh has previously done work within the State Dept, U.S. Mint, & DOJ. She has been granted multiple security clearances in the past including Public Trust & Secret. The GOP and others better be very careful in trying to suggest that she is not credible”
And others like that. To top it off yesterday, Trump tweeted his typical inanities with an interesting Freudian slip. It was quickly published & tweeted by RawStory before it could be *corrected*. 😉 😀
“The Democrats are working hard to destroy a wonderful man, and a man who has the potential to be one of our greatest Supreme Court Justices ever, with an array of False Acquisitions the likes of which have never been seen before!”
I tweeted that with this comment:
“Yeah. And nobody knows “False Acquisitions” better than Dotard! He’s had a long string of them. Ask the Banks, who won’t lend him $1. Possibly his best Freudian slip to date. He has many of those also.”
Kavanaugh confirmation is set for Friday, the day after testimony from 1 or 2 accusers & submission of written testimony against him. Guess we’ll see if the GOP/Dotard get their “get out of jail free” SCOTUS pick.
Hmmmm. So, it’s obvious now that the GOP/Dotard REALLY want Kavanaugh as SCOTUS! They are refusing to hear from his accusers. This is going to get very ugly!
Judiciary Committee refuses to meet with second Kavanaugh accuser: report
The Supreme Court is back in session on the first Monday in October and they want him on the court before then. They did a lousy job of vetting him. They refused to released documents which may show that he lied during his confirmation hearing to become an appellate judge. Kavanaugh was a bad choice even without all of his alcohol and sexual assault problems.
Avenatti represents a third woman who claims to be both a victim and a witness of Kavanaugh’s assaults. If this continues, more women will step forward. If he isn’t confirmed, his position as a member of the Court of Appeals gets shaky. If the Dems take power there will be hearings and investigations concerning Kavanaugh.
The question is do enough Repug Senators want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court? It isn’t certain that the votes are there.
Various big-money Republican donors *really* want Kavanaugh on the court, he has promised to destroy many worker and consumer rights that they despise. Given that politicians are basically prostitutes who are always in terror that their johns will find a more attractive whore if they don’t give their johns everything their johns want, it’s going to be a hard call for any Republican Senator to go against those donors.
What was most hilarious about the Faux News interview was Kavanaugh’s virginity defense. He couldn’t have done all that stuff because he was a virgin until he met his future wife! Erm… he’s accused of sexual assault, not rape. It’s like saying “I couldn’t have robbed a bank because I was a virgin!” I don’t think that one would get much of a reception from police officers, prosecutors, judges, or juries if you tried it as a defense….
yeah. You’re both correct I think.
Here’s the blow-by-blow live updated Senate Inquiry this morning:
Kavanaugh refuses to say yes to FBI inquiry as Republicans erupt at ‘sham’ hearing – live updates
They refused to let the FBI investigate. Saying they couldn’t find anything because it was so long ago is a move to deflect. I can think of a dozen ways of following up on the various charges, beginning with a nice long conversation with material witness and juvenile wingman, Mark Judge. The Senate didn’t hold an inquiry, they put on a show for Trump as McConnell tried to whip up at least 50 votes. Lindsay Graham’s hissy fit was just part of the push to get the Republican doubters to vote with the oligarchs who fund them.
Tomorrow’s vote is just for approval of the committee and even if the Repubs lose, the nomination will be sent to the floor of the Senate.
Sen. Collins did as expected. Waffled on a lot, pretended to be thinking about her decision & will vote for Kavanaugh. Apparently, Susan Rice is now thinking about running against Collins. *shrug*
OT: I came across this WP article Bryan. Could be useful for you maybe? They also have some useful free tools too. 🙂
Hidden WordPress Options Page
My own health is finally improving after my surgery a few weeks ago… Actually, about 4 weeks now! Time does fly. I spent the past few weeks after I got home running around fixing problems the Hospital caused (again), my previous GP caused, & the Gov. caused (as I expected) instead of *resting* as I was supposed to. *shrug* My new GP gave me a Med Cirt. until Oct. 31st. So that will help I hope. We’re working on figuring out some other issues I have, finally!
The Repubs lied and cheated their way to install a lying mean drunk who may be a rapist on the Supreme Court, which means that instead of starting the impeachment of sociopath in the White House, a Democratic Congress needs to impeach Kavanaugh who wasn’t qualified for the Court of Appeals and certainly wasn’t qualified for the Supreme Court.
Susan Collins is old news and will probably be retired when her term ends in 2020.
It is bad enough to have to deal with the weaknesses of your own body without having to fight with the bureaucracy to get well. I have been lucky so far, but it was a full time job keeping my Mother’s doctors from killing her before her time. The assholes don’t read patient’s charts, and don’t understand interactions between drugs.
Yep. GOP have been wanting to stack the SC with puppets for over 2 decades. they finally succeeded. Only hope now is that a full & formal investigation is launched, and if it does indeed show Kavanaugh has no moral character and broke US State/Federal laws, the Dem’s may have grounds for impeachment. Same for the other GOP appointees.
Mom died 20 yrs ago because her GP was a lazy careless bastard. instead of her having a chest X-ray & scan for signs of cancer annually (because she was in a high-risk group), he made it every two years. When it was discovered she had lung cancer, it was too late to operate to remove the tumor. if she’d had the scan a year earlier, they would have been able to. She may still not have survived, but her chances would have been far higher. My previous GP the past year was like him. Lazy and; careless. Also an immigrant with dubious training. The Gov. here have been relaxing standard’s & training over the past 25+ years. This is the result.
I’ve finally managed to get some R&R and my head isn’t as full of wool and so easily distracted for the 1st time in over a year. I’m sure it won’t last long. Finally managed to get some work done on my blog! 😆 I must say, the latest cPanel v74 is so much better! Has everything including the Kitchen sink (metaphorically of course!)
I installed WP 4.9.8 with Multisite enabled (was easier than the last time I tried that a couple years ago) and PHP 7.2. Using the Elegant Themes DIVI theme as it’s very easy to configure and modify & comes with some very useful features for me. Even got SSH & SSL/TLS working fine (last time had a lot of trouble via cPanel). I have a generous 30 GB of SSD storage space and u/l bandwidth, so I can easily play with setting up a few other sites via Multisite to test the viability of the theme/plugins etc. That’s mainly for some friends that want to host a blog but have zero technical ability! 😉
Currently @ my k42 domain – kryten42[dot]com in the WP test directory /wp — Nothing much to see yet. Just playing with plugins and theme config in another (non-public) test dir. 😀
My domain and hosting service is reg’d until 2022, so I have plenty of time! 😆
I can’t spend more than 1 hour or so as a time before getting tired, but that’s a lot better than a couple weeks ago.
I’ll answer later as I’m tied up leading new tenants through their first hurricane routine. It’s a hemorrhoid.
No problem Bryan. No response needed, just letting you know where I’m at. I understand how busy you are. Good luck with the tenants! At least I don’t have that to deal with. Small mercies… 😉 😆
here, for a laugh! Another FL Congresscritter caught being very naughty! 😆
Florida Congressman Dupes Banks for Mortgages
Mario is a real jerk. A good woman is running against him, and should win if people wake up to what these crooks are costing them. If you can afford condos in South Florida and Washington, DC you can afford to pay your taxes. If he claims the condo in DC as his primary residence he isn’t eligible to be a Congresscritter from Florida.
Okay, here’s the deal. “Primary residence” for mortgage purposes does *not* mean the same thing as “primary residence” for voting / representation purposes. It is quite legal to claim one residence as your primary residence for mortgage purposes and another residence as your primary residence for voting / representation purposes. Otherwise there isn’t a single Congressman who would qualify for office, because they spend more time in DC than they spend in their district. What is *not* legal is to take out two mortgages as “primary residence” mortgages within a one year period.
For mortgage purposes, you must sleep the majority of the days in a year in that primary residence. Quite obviously you cannot do that on two homes simultaneously, and if you claim to do so, it’s fraud, and if it’s a federally backed loan, it’s Federal fraud. Courts especially frown upon doing this with multi-unit housing. It’s legal to buy a four-plex and live in one unit as your primary residence for mortgage purposes, but you must actually have your head on a frickin’ pillow there for the majority of nights in a year. If you don’t, the mortgage company can foreclose, can refer you to law enforcement, or both.
Now, practically speaking, the mortgage company doesn’t really care as long as they get their money. We’re talking about an industry that created the “liar loan”, after all. Still, if you’re caught, it’s bad news.
That’s as may be but it doesn’t address Florida laws concerning voter eligibility and the homestead exemption. The Feds and their laws may allow more than one primary residence, but Florida doesn’t. The homes of Congresscritters in DC have to be listed as “vacation homes” if purchased, so you don’t call them primary residences on any paperwork unless you withdraw your claim for a homestead exemption.
Again, it all boils down to the fact that “primary residence” on mortgage paperwork does *not* mean the same thing as “primary residence” on Florida voter eligibility and homestead exemption papers. Words mean what they’re defined to mean in the law, not what common sense says they mean. That’s how law *works*.
That said, this dude is accused of having two “primary residence” mortgages within a 12 month period, which is, well, illegal.