WASHINGTON — President Trump, ceding to a request from Senate Republican leaders facing an insurrection in their ranks, ordered the FBI on Friday to reopen a background investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, his nominee to the Supreme Court, and examine the allegations of sexual assault that have been made against him.
The announcement plunged Kavanaugh’s nomination into new turmoil after a tumultuous week on Capitol Hill, and will delay, by as much as a week, a final confirmation vote.
Trump and the Republican leaders had little choice but to ask Trump to order the FBI inquiry after Senator Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, first announced he was supporting Kavanaugh, and then, in a stunning reversal, said he would not vote to confirm him without an FBI investigation first.
Related: "The exchange, captured live on CNN, was one of many to illustrate the profound effect Ford’s testimony is having on victims of sexual assault, as they speak out — often angrily — about still not being heard or believed....."
Turns out it was all a staged production specifically for the CNN cameras.
Turns out it was all a staged production specifically for the CNN cameras.
With a handful of allies in a closely divided Senate, Flake, a conservative but an outspoken critic of the president, could determine the future of the Kavanaugh nomination, and that gave him leverage over Senate Republicans as well as the president.
“We ought to do what we can to make sure we do all due diligence with a nomination this important,” Flake told his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee after extracting a promise from Republican leaders to delay the final vote on the nomination until after the FBI investigation. “This country is being ripped apart here.”
The word Flake was never more appropriate.
The word Flake was never more appropriate.
Trump, who had hoped Kavanaugh would be sworn in by the time the Supreme Court opens its next term on Monday, said he was ordering the FBI to conduct what he called a “supplemental” investigation that he said “must be limited in scope and completed in less than a week,” as the Republican Senate leadership had asked for.
The FBI had already completed a background check on Kavanaugh, and it was unclear what the parameters of the new inquiry would be. Some senators said that would be up to the FBI, but Republicans especially questioned whether the new investigation would be able to answer even basic questions about alleged episodes that occurred decades ago.
The delay also thrusts the FBI, an increasing target of Trump’s ire, into the center of a politically charged controversy in the #MeToo period.
Well, it has now become clear that the #MeToo movement was begun as by controlled opposition to wield a political cudgel. Sad.
Well, it has now become clear that the #MeToo movement was begun as by controlled opposition to wield a political cudgel. Sad.
Kavanaugh said in a statement Friday that he would continue to cooperate with investigators to clear his name. Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for one of his accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, said her client welcomed the development but not the “artificial limits” imposed by senators. Mark Judge, a friend of Kavanaugh’s identified by Ford and another accuser at the scene of the episodes, said through a lawyer that he would cooperate with investigators.
The delay cast a cloud over what Republicans expected to be a triumphant day, but they still had reason to be optimistic: Despite adamant Democratic opposition, they were able to muscle the nomination through the Judiciary Committee with an 11-10 vote and send it to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation.
After the vote, the panel’s Republican members, looking somber, streamed into the Capitol suite of Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader. McConnell, of Kentucky, voiced the frustration shared by other Republicans on the committee: more accusations — false ones, they said — were all but certain to surface, he said, according to a senior Republican official familiar with the conversation. And with Democrats bent on opposing Kavanaugh, there would be no tangible benefit from an investigation, but holding only the narrowest of majorities, 51-49, McConnell had little choice but to agree.
Related: FBI reaches out to second woman who has accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct
I predict further allegations will come out next Wednesday or Thursday, backing up the process even more before he is defrocked as it were and set loose in the wilderness.
I'm going to say it again, as reprehensible as it sounds, but the only solution to this problem is either a) kill all the men, of which I am in favor, or b) reinstitute a strict segregationist code along gender lines while instituting a pud collar tracking device.
Then the United States must be broken apart, with each of the six or so regions going their own way. Washington D.C. is to be dissolved. That is how you drain the swamp, people!!
Related: FBI reaches out to second woman who has accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct
I predict further allegations will come out next Wednesday or Thursday, backing up the process even more before he is defrocked as it were and set loose in the wilderness.
I'm going to say it again, as reprehensible as it sounds, but the only solution to this problem is either a) kill all the men, of which I am in favor, or b) reinstitute a strict segregationist code along gender lines while instituting a pud collar tracking device.
Then the United States must be broken apart, with each of the six or so regions going their own way. Washington D.C. is to be dissolved. That is how you drain the swamp, people!!
Grassley put on a good face for reporters after the meeting.
He was frowning inside.
Even before an investigation was reopened, it appeared that Republican fears could be founded. Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for one of the accusers, announced Friday on Twitter that Julie Swetnick, one of his clients, would tell her story “directly to the American people” this weekend because Republicans have not allowed her to testify under oath.
He was frowning inside.
Even before an investigation was reopened, it appeared that Republican fears could be founded. Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for one of the accusers, announced Friday on Twitter that Julie Swetnick, one of his clients, would tell her story “directly to the American people” this weekend because Republicans have not allowed her to testify under oath.
So she will have her week on NBC like Omarosa?
Of course, she won't be under oath on TV.
Maybe they can ask her when she graduated and why she at high school parties with minors?
It must have ruined relationships for her, but at least she went on to have a productive career on Wall Street (she just cleared up her tax trouble, huh?).
Of course, she won't be under oath on TV.
Maybe they can ask her when she graduated and why she at high school parties with minors?
It must have ruined relationships for her, but at least she went on to have a productive career on Wall Street (she just cleared up her tax trouble, huh?).
Still, after days of pleading for an FBI investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct raised by Ford as well as two other women who have made accusations against Kavanaugh, Swetnick and Deborah Ramirez, Democrats said they were pleased by the president’s announcement, but elsewhere, passions were running high. Anti-Kavanaugh protesters roamed the halls of the Senate, and there was a heavy police presence.
WTF?
That shows you that this is a staged and scripted effort with the support of the powerful.
In this day and age, with all the gun violence and terrorists, who is allowed to roam the halls of Congress?
They should have been cleared out like right-wingers would have been.
That shows you that this is a staged and scripted effort with the support of the powerful.
In this day and age, with all the gun violence and terrorists, who is allowed to roam the halls of Congress?
They should have been cleared out like right-wingers would have been.
Behind the scenes, the White House and the Judiciary Committee Republicans were working Friday to reassure other wavering senators allied with the Arizona senator. They were increasingly confident that they would have the votes of Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine; Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska; and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, one of a number of Democratic incumbents running for reelection in November.
Her constituents are weighing in.
Her constituents are weighing in.
Another Democrat facing a difficult reelection battle, Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana, announced Friday that he would vote against Kavanaugh, saying he would “gladly welcome the opportunity to work with President Trump on a new nominee.”
Why bother with FBI investigation then?
I mean, you can see where that is going. Even if the FBI comes back and says couldn't find out more than we already know, the Democrats will say it doesn't matter, we need a new nominee -- and if we delay long enough we will have control of the Senate!
I mean, you can see where that is going. Even if the FBI comes back and says couldn't find out more than we already know, the Democrats will say it doesn't matter, we need a new nominee -- and if we delay long enough we will have control of the Senate!
--more--"
I say by this time next week Kavanaugh's name has been withdrawn and Trump has put forth another nominee.
"The lies that senators must tell themselves to support Brett Kavanaugh" September 28, 2018
I say by this time next week Kavanaugh's name has been withdrawn and Trump has put forth another nominee.
"The lies that senators must tell themselves to support Brett Kavanaugh" September 28, 2018
Make no mistake: Brett Kavanaugh’s a liar.
I guess it takes one to know one, Globe.
I guess it takes one to know one, Globe.
He lies about little things. He lies about big things. He lies under oath.
I get a newspaper full of them, what's your point?
I get a newspaper full of them, what's your point?
At the same time, though, it’s important to keep in mind that whatever any inquiry finds about that one incident won’t change the basic reality: Disqualifying information about the Supreme Court nominee is already hiding in plain sight. In such plain sight, in fact, that it takes a willful blindness not to notice it, a calculated effort to look the other way from blatantly deceptive statements dating back more than a decade and continuing through Thursday.
Like the Gulf of Tonkin, babies being thrown out of Kuwaiti incubators, nonexistent WMD in Iraq, and Assad gassing his own people?
Also hiding in plain sight of the Globe.
Like the Gulf of Tonkin, babies being thrown out of Kuwaiti incubators, nonexistent WMD in Iraq, and Assad gassing his own people?
Also hiding in plain sight of the Globe.
Whatever investigators finds, here’s some of what senators would need to ignore if they want to convince themselves they’re elevating an honest man to the Supreme Court:
ª In 2004, Kavanaugh said he was not involved in the handling of the controversial nomination of federal Judge William Pryor. That was a lie. E-mails later showed that he was involved.
ª Kavanaugh was asked if he was involved with a scheme to steal Democratic staff e-mails related to judicial confirmations. He lied about it. E-mails showed that he was involved.
ª In 2006, Kavanaugh was asked if he was involved in the controversial nomination of federal Judge Charles Pickering. He lied about that too and said he was not.
ª In 2006, Kavanaugh was asked about his role in the nomination of William Haynes, the Pentagon general counsel involved in creating the Bush administration’s interrogation policies. He lied about that.
Look at the Globe get all gussied up about emails!
As long as they are not Clintons or the Obama flunkies from the Department of Justice and FBI!
Good thing George W. Bush and the gang are now racial justice warriors against Trump, huh?
I guess front-paging and blaring Bush's Iraq war lies was no big deal, being that the ma$$ media and garbage pre$$ were complicit.
Look at the Globe get all gussied up about emails!
As long as they are not Clintons or the Obama flunkies from the Department of Justice and FBI!
Good thing George W. Bush and the gang are now racial justice warriors against Trump, huh?
I guess front-paging and blaring Bush's Iraq war lies was no big deal, being that the ma$$ media and garbage pre$$ were complicit.
Then, on Thursday, under oath and with the nation watching, he made statements so preposterous that senators should view them as an insult to their intelligence.
I get that every single day in the pages of my paper.
I get that every single day in the pages of my paper.
ª He said the term “devil’s triangle” in his yearbook entry referred to a drinking game. Google it. It doesn’t.
First thing I thought was Bermuda, but now the urban dictionary is the go-to resource for factual definition.
First thing I thought was Bermuda, but now the urban dictionary is the go-to resource for factual definition.
ª Then there was his assertion that his yearbook description of himself as a “Renate Alumnius” was meant only to signify his friendship with Renate Dolphin, a woman who attended another school and socialized with Kavanaugh. Other football players were described as “Renate Alumni.” We know what they intended to insinuate. You know what they meant to insinuate. Everyone knows. Senators may never be able to establish with forensic certainty that Kavanaugh’s entry was intended as a sexual boast, but they’re allowed to use common sense.
All this does is confirm in my mind that the entire ruling cla$$ is riddled with sexual deviants, perverts, and pedophiles.
Now, some of those might seem like ticky-tack kind of misstatements, but the pattern starts to look overwhelming. As former FBI director James Comey put it on Twitter: “Small lies matter, even about yearbooks.” The standard jury instruction, he noted, says: “If a witness is shown knowingly to have testified falsely about any material matter, you have a right to distrust such witness’ other testimony and you may reject all the testimony of that witness.”
Look at them cite the subversive Saint James Comey, and I take that to mean such things also apply to lying, agenda-pushing, war-promoting, $upremaci$T new$papers, right?
You lie about one thing.... (where's Cullen anyway?)
So whose lies do you believe?
You lie about one thing.... (where's Cullen anyway?)
So whose lies do you believe?
Kavanaugh’s pattern of dishonesty certainly affects how to view Ford’s accusation that he attacked her when both were in high school. She was highly credible as a witness, passed a polygraph, and, unlike Kavanaugh, has no demonstrated pattern of bending the truth.
Even if she lied and perjured herself.
Even if she lied and perjured herself.
But put aside that allegation for a moment, serious as it is. Forget about the FBI inquiry. You can believe that a Supreme Court nominee’s conduct in high school doesn’t matter anyway. You can believe that crass material in a yearbook shouldn’t be held against him as an adult. You can even believe that maybe he genuinely doesn’t remember the assault, which Ford says happened when he was very drunk.
Those are all separate questions from whether he’s been honest.
“Obviously, if Judge Kavanaugh lied about what happened, that would be disqualifying,” said Susan Collins after Ford’s allegations of sexual assault came to light.
Unfortunately, the only way for senators to convince themselves that Kavanaugh hasn’t already been shown to be a habitual liar is to lie to themselves.
Like the same thing the Globe staff does to itself every day.
Like the same thing the Globe staff does to itself every day.
--more--"
Oh, the screaming of liar shows their lynch mob mentality and how unhinged the Globe has become.
She said, he said, you say . . .
The Globe decided to only open letters for her!
Oh, the screaming of liar shows their lynch mob mentality and how unhinged the Globe has become.
She said, he said, you say . . .
The Globe decided to only open letters for her!
"Brett Kavanaugh’s defiance brings echoes of Trump-style combat" by Annie Linskey and Jess Bidgood Globe Staff September 29, 2018
WASHINGTON — It remains to be seen whether Brett Kavanaugh’s indignant defense against accusations that he assaulted a teenage girl more than 35 years ago will rescue his nomination in a closely divided Senate, but Kavanaugh’s performance certainly gives fuel to critics who view the Supreme Court as a partisan tool, now being reshaped by the most divisive president in recent memory.
More "anal-ysis" from the Globe, and that is about from where it came.
In sticking with Kavanaugh, who rudely shouted at Democratic senators during his hearing Thursday and broke down with emotion multiple times, Trump and Senate leadership appear less concerned with judicial temperament and neutrality than they do with scoring a conservative win.
Related:
"The current bizarre politics of Washington is rooted in the sexual politics of Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton, and much deeper political manipulation. The funniest thing is that the best thing that could possibly happen for the Democrats, and the worst thing that could possibly happen for the Republicans (a dead party walking without the social triggers), is for Kavanaugh to be seated and overturn Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade is a bizarre and technically terrible and legally strained - privacy rights, really? - decision which has given the Republicans a hammer to hit the Democrats with, and is basically the only thing keeping them alive as a party. Let the hillbilly states regulate the issue and, if you actually care about health care for women, set up a system to arrange and pay for women to be treated in non-hillbilly states. Eventually, the hillbilly states will mostly come around as the majority non-hillbillies will just get tired of all the religious nonsense, and once the issue loses its partisan political significance, it will just fade away. " -- xymphora
“A lot of us who were not used to seeing that kind of thing from a judicial nominee were very jolted by it,” Jeannie Suk Gersen, a professor at Harvard Law School, said of Kavanaugh’s fierce denial of the accusations.
“It’s just like President Trump broke the mold in what it means to have a presidential persona,” Gersen added. “It is possible that Judge Kavanaugh’s performance is going to break the mold — it did break the mold — for future judicial nominees and the realm of acceptable nominees has just changed.”
Until last week, Kavanaugh and his defenders had downplayed his previous, highly partisan roles as a lawyer with the Ken Starr investigation of Bill Clinton and his service in the George W. Bush White House. Instead, they pointed to his solid legal scholarship, popularity within the legal community, and record as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since 2006, but, just a couple hours after Christine Blasey Ford told a rapt Senate Judiciary Committee that he had assaulted her, Kavanaugh on Thursday delivered a markedly heated rebuttal. He interrupted female senators. He dodged questions about old high school yearbook entries loaded with innuendo about sexual conquests. Denying the accusations of sexual misconduct against him as fantasies, he angrily reframed the allegations as concocted by his enemies, as just so much Washington score-settling.
In a remark that undoubtedly thrilled the president who nominated him, Kavanaugh specifically said allies of the Clintons were responsible for a strategy meant to destroy him and his family.
They are. Her lawyer and all the connections to the Deep State are out there.
“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election,’’ Kavanaugh told the committee, his voice raised and dripping with anger. “Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.’’
It was an unprecedented, over-the-top appearance. Indeed, Trump could not have chosen a more fitting vessel to introduce his in-your-face brand of partisanship to the Supreme Court.
“People say that everything that Trump touches dies, and we can only hope that the independence of the judiciary can withstand the onslaught of what Kavanaugh would represent,” said Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor who, while a well-known liberal, said he kept an open mind to the Kavanaugh appointment initially out of respect for a colleague. Kavanaugh is a law lecturer at Harvard’s law school.
“The display we saw during [Thursday’s hearing] convinced me that the court will really be in trouble if he’s confirmed,” Tribe said.
I wouldn't worry what kind of justice he would be. He won't be deciding whether migrant teenagers have abortion rights or whether the taxpayers should pay for the day-care should they decide not.
The real danger Brett Kavanaugh poses is that he would legitimize the murder of women.
He added that it will make the court a “more difficult place” that’s far less respected. “The court can only take so many hits,” he said, naming the Clarence Thomas hearings and the controversial Bush v. Gore decision as examples of what liberals see as two blemishes on the institution. “This will be a third strike,” Tribe said.
That's MY PRE$$!
Many Kavanaugh supporters noted that he was under particular stress due to the personal nature of the allegations, and merely exhibited a natural desire to punch back.
“It’s the height of hypocrisy to smear him and then say he can’t call out his critics in defending himself,” said Brian Baker, the president of 45Committee, a political nonprofit supporting his confirmation.
Baker said that Democrats have long tried to paint Kavanaugh as overly partisan, going back to his initial nomination to the federal appeals bench in 2003, three years before he finally made it onto the D.C. Circuit court.
“He is a respected appeals court judge who has written over 300 opinions that are thorough, fair, and demonstrate the finest temperament and integrity any judge could have,” Baker said. “Lost in all the drama of the unusual hearing over the decades-old alleged conduct is the fact that Judge Kavanaugh is perhaps one of the most qualified judges ever nominated to the court.”
The GOP’s determination to “plow through’’ the sexual assault allegations and install Kavanaugh, in the phrase used by majority leader Mitch McConnell, adds a dimension beyond partisanship. It is inflaming America’s cultural divides in a way that critics assert will further erode Americans’ confidence in the court. Feminist scholars say there’s a broader concern, regardless of whether Kavanaugh gets on the court: the future of the #MeToo movement.
The notion that a woman could testify credibly, and tell her excruciating story, but still seemingly fail to persuade the Judiciary Committee, demonstrates how little progress woman have made toward equality, said Naomi Alderman, a prominent feminist and author of “The Power,” a novel that explores the many ways in which women are repressed.
The victimhood never ends, and I'm ready to be killed at the hands of a woman. Just chop my head right off.
“Every teenage boy is getting the message that what you do in high school doesn’t count,” Alderman said. “A lot of women are watching this Kavanaugh nomination and wondering: ‘What are we supposed to do now? . . . It confirms what we knew already: that women’s testimony counts for [expletive]. ”
The movement has inspired women across the world to share their stories of sexual assault, and sparked a national reckoning that such assaults are far more widespread than was understood.
Of course, Kavanaugh’s confirmation remains uncertain. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday voted along party lines to advance his nomination to the Senate floor, but a bloc of undecided senators, led by Jeff Flake of Arizona, were successful in delaying the full Senate vote for one week to give the FBI a chance to investigate the claims that have been made against Kavanaugh.
It’s a move that the country’s legal establishment wanted.
The American Bar Association asked for the FBI investigation after Thursday’s hearing. Rushing the confirmation without an investigation, it said, would erode public confidence in the court. “It must remain an institution that will reliably follow the law and not politics,’’ the ABA’s letter said.
The dean of Yale Law School, Kavanaugh’s alma mater, also called for an independent probe. “Proceeding with the confirmation process without further investigation is not in the best interest of the court or our profession,” said Yale Dean Heather Gerken.
Yeah, we will get to them below.
Kavanaugh’s hearing was notable in part because he apparently made a choice that few justices before him have: to come out swinging.
“The style, in many ways, is the substance,” said Benjamin Barton, a law professor at the University of Tennessee. “The base that Trump appeals to, and that Kavanaugh was trying to appeal to, really, really want their people to fight. They want to see an aggressive performance.”
To some, the sharp-edged appearance was an outgrowth of a change in Senate rules that made it less likely Supreme Court nominees would need to appeal to a broad, bipartisan majority of lawmakers.
The Republicans eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in April 2017 to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch, which means they now need only a simple majority to approve justices for the high court. Before the invocation of the so-called nuclear option, Supreme Court justices needed 60 votes to move forward. (Democrats set the stage for lowering the vote threshold in November 2013 by eliminating the filibuster for other federal judges.)
Yeah, it was the short-sightedness of Harry Reid and the Democrats that brought this about, and they were warned at the time it would come around to bite them in the ass.
Trump campaigned on a pledge to appoint deeply conservative justices, and his nominees have helped him retain a base of religious and hard-right voters despite a rocky presidency.
“The Supreme Court, long term, has been always somewhat of a political body, that’s the nature of the Supreme Court in the United States, but it’s been unusual to have it be so starkly partisan and it’s been unusual to use a confirmation to stoke the flames of the base, and that’s on both sides I think,” Barton said. He added, “The trend where people consider the Supreme Court to be a political body, more than a judicial body, will continue.”
The display of partisanship will cause problems down the road if Kavanaugh is confirmed: Progressive and social groups that come before the court will regularly call for his recusal, said Dennis Burke, a former lawyer on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
So you best not.
“They’re going to look at Kavanaugh and say he already made up his mind,” said Burke. “They’re going to look at him and say, ‘He’s never going to give us a fair shake.’ ”
Is that what he has gotten?
If he does make it, they will have deserved it. This smear job has now made him much less sympathetic to your cause if he's on the bench. He was one of the more moderate of the bunch on the list.
--more--"
What do you see in that face?
Related:
The Crucifixion of Brett Kavanaugh
"Inside our secret courts; Criminal charges often disappear without a trace. There are few rules and fewer records. In these private hearings, who you are — and who you know — may be just as important as right and wrong" by Jenn Abelson, Nicole Dungca and Todd Wallack | September 30, 2018
Leneeth Suazo, four months pregnant, had tried to ignore her ex-boyfriend’s menacing voice mails, phone calls, and text messages since he kicked her out of his apartment.
Now it was New Year’s Eve and the doorbell wouldn’t stop ringing at the apartment complex where Suazo had taken refuge. She knew it was Jim Phane outside, pressing every buzzer in the building.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door. Phane, let in by a neighbor, was standing there, begging Suazo to talk to him.
Fearful that he’d attack her as he had once before, Suazo discreetly pressed record on her cellphone. Phane threatened her, and when he noticed the phone was recording their conversation, he lunged.
“Jim, don’t touch me. Don’t touch my face. I don’t want you to touch me . . . Stop!”
Suazo later told police that he grabbed her jaw, shoved her, and elbowed her belly before fleeing as she screamed. A judge granted a restraining order, based on her application outlining the alleged history of violence, and police sought a felony assault and battery charge against the ex-boyfriend, but justice would elude her. The case would go into the darkest corner of the Massachusetts criminal justice system, where closed-door hearings are often held in private offices without public notice, where the outcome is up to the discretion of a single court official who may not have a law degree, and where thousands of substantiated criminal cases go to die every year.
Call it our secret court. No other state in the country has anything like it.
At Phane’s closed-door hearing in Dorchester early last year, assistant clerk magistrate Helen White found enough evidence to issue the criminal complaint, despite Phane’s denials. “I never hit a girl in my life,” he later told the Globe. But the clerk offered Phane a huge break: If he stayed out of trouble for a few months, he could avoid a public courtroom, and the criminal charge would never appear on his record, according to an attorney’s contemporaneous notes.
Every year, tens of thousands of cases wind up in secret court sessions — formally known as “show cause hearings” — that are presided over by court clerks and usually held for suspects who haven’t been arrested and don’t pose a flight risk or danger to others. People are generally entitled to these hearings for misdemeanors, but police can request them for felonies as well.
The quality of justice behind the clerks’ closed doors can depend on where the hearing is held, who you know, or the color of your skin, according to a Spotlight Team investigation. It’s a land of arbitrary second chances, where the powerful, the privileged, and the lucky can see serious charges like reckless endangerment of a child and motor vehicle homicide quietly swept away in private hearings.
The state’s 68 clerk magistrates at District and Boston Municipal courts operate with enormous discretion to halt criminal proceedings even though many have slender qualifications: About 40 percent of clerks and their assistants, including Helen White, lack law degrees, one clerk magistrate did not go to college at all, and another has only an associate’s degree.
Show cause hearings were originally created to weed out baseless allegations, but, in practice, there are so few checks on the clerks’ power that they regularly go far beyond that, brokering deals and, in nearly half of the cases, rejecting requests for charges.
Clerk magistrates, who are appointed by the governor, routinely refuse to issue charges even when there is significant evidence — as in the case of a judge caught on camera taking someone else’s $4,000 watch off a security belt at Logan International Airport. Over the last two years, clerks have set aside nearly 62,000 cases, including more than 18,000 after a clerk concluded there was probable cause to believe that the accused committed a crime, according to court data.
The Spotlight Team uncovered cases where clerks tossed charges involving serious injuries or deaths, including one brought against a Quincy taxi driver who ran over and allegedly dragged an elderly man, killing him.
A much better known defendant, Jared Remy, also benefited from the selective leniency of the secret court system. Charges arising from his threats to kill a former girlfriend disappeared after a hearing before a clerk in Lowell District Court in 2000, 13 years before the son of the famous Red Sox broadcaster stabbed a different girlfriend to death.
The Globe also investigated multiple cases where clerks refused to issue charges in private sessions against police and politicians, including Brockton City Councilor Michael Brady who avoided drunken driving charges in a 1999 clerk’s hearing and now serves as a state senator.
Didn't he just get busted for drunk driving?
In anticipation of the Spotlight story, court administrators sent clerks a note a week ago praising their efforts handling criminal cases.
There are few requirements, educational or otherwise, to become a clerk magistrate, despite the fact that the job has lifetime tenure and a salary of about $155,000 and, unlike judges, no mandatory retirement age.....
--more--"
I wonder how they got in there.
You know, I know someone over at the State Police.....
WASHINGTON — It remains to be seen whether Brett Kavanaugh’s indignant defense against accusations that he assaulted a teenage girl more than 35 years ago will rescue his nomination in a closely divided Senate, but Kavanaugh’s performance certainly gives fuel to critics who view the Supreme Court as a partisan tool, now being reshaped by the most divisive president in recent memory.
More "anal-ysis" from the Globe, and that is about from where it came.
In sticking with Kavanaugh, who rudely shouted at Democratic senators during his hearing Thursday and broke down with emotion multiple times, Trump and Senate leadership appear less concerned with judicial temperament and neutrality than they do with scoring a conservative win.
Related:
"The current bizarre politics of Washington is rooted in the sexual politics of Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton, and much deeper political manipulation. The funniest thing is that the best thing that could possibly happen for the Democrats, and the worst thing that could possibly happen for the Republicans (a dead party walking without the social triggers), is for Kavanaugh to be seated and overturn Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade is a bizarre and technically terrible and legally strained - privacy rights, really? - decision which has given the Republicans a hammer to hit the Democrats with, and is basically the only thing keeping them alive as a party. Let the hillbilly states regulate the issue and, if you actually care about health care for women, set up a system to arrange and pay for women to be treated in non-hillbilly states. Eventually, the hillbilly states will mostly come around as the majority non-hillbillies will just get tired of all the religious nonsense, and once the issue loses its partisan political significance, it will just fade away. " -- xymphora
“A lot of us who were not used to seeing that kind of thing from a judicial nominee were very jolted by it,” Jeannie Suk Gersen, a professor at Harvard Law School, said of Kavanaugh’s fierce denial of the accusations.
“It’s just like President Trump broke the mold in what it means to have a presidential persona,” Gersen added. “It is possible that Judge Kavanaugh’s performance is going to break the mold — it did break the mold — for future judicial nominees and the realm of acceptable nominees has just changed.”
Until last week, Kavanaugh and his defenders had downplayed his previous, highly partisan roles as a lawyer with the Ken Starr investigation of Bill Clinton and his service in the George W. Bush White House. Instead, they pointed to his solid legal scholarship, popularity within the legal community, and record as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since 2006, but, just a couple hours after Christine Blasey Ford told a rapt Senate Judiciary Committee that he had assaulted her, Kavanaugh on Thursday delivered a markedly heated rebuttal. He interrupted female senators. He dodged questions about old high school yearbook entries loaded with innuendo about sexual conquests. Denying the accusations of sexual misconduct against him as fantasies, he angrily reframed the allegations as concocted by his enemies, as just so much Washington score-settling.
In a remark that undoubtedly thrilled the president who nominated him, Kavanaugh specifically said allies of the Clintons were responsible for a strategy meant to destroy him and his family.
They are. Her lawyer and all the connections to the Deep State are out there.
“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election,’’ Kavanaugh told the committee, his voice raised and dripping with anger. “Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.’’
It was an unprecedented, over-the-top appearance. Indeed, Trump could not have chosen a more fitting vessel to introduce his in-your-face brand of partisanship to the Supreme Court.
“People say that everything that Trump touches dies, and we can only hope that the independence of the judiciary can withstand the onslaught of what Kavanaugh would represent,” said Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor who, while a well-known liberal, said he kept an open mind to the Kavanaugh appointment initially out of respect for a colleague. Kavanaugh is a law lecturer at Harvard’s law school.
“The display we saw during [Thursday’s hearing] convinced me that the court will really be in trouble if he’s confirmed,” Tribe said.
I wouldn't worry what kind of justice he would be. He won't be deciding whether migrant teenagers have abortion rights or whether the taxpayers should pay for the day-care should they decide not.
The real danger Brett Kavanaugh poses is that he would legitimize the murder of women.
He added that it will make the court a “more difficult place” that’s far less respected. “The court can only take so many hits,” he said, naming the Clarence Thomas hearings and the controversial Bush v. Gore decision as examples of what liberals see as two blemishes on the institution. “This will be a third strike,” Tribe said.
That's MY PRE$$!
Many Kavanaugh supporters noted that he was under particular stress due to the personal nature of the allegations, and merely exhibited a natural desire to punch back.
“It’s the height of hypocrisy to smear him and then say he can’t call out his critics in defending himself,” said Brian Baker, the president of 45Committee, a political nonprofit supporting his confirmation.
Baker said that Democrats have long tried to paint Kavanaugh as overly partisan, going back to his initial nomination to the federal appeals bench in 2003, three years before he finally made it onto the D.C. Circuit court.
“He is a respected appeals court judge who has written over 300 opinions that are thorough, fair, and demonstrate the finest temperament and integrity any judge could have,” Baker said. “Lost in all the drama of the unusual hearing over the decades-old alleged conduct is the fact that Judge Kavanaugh is perhaps one of the most qualified judges ever nominated to the court.”
The GOP’s determination to “plow through’’ the sexual assault allegations and install Kavanaugh, in the phrase used by majority leader Mitch McConnell, adds a dimension beyond partisanship. It is inflaming America’s cultural divides in a way that critics assert will further erode Americans’ confidence in the court. Feminist scholars say there’s a broader concern, regardless of whether Kavanaugh gets on the court: the future of the #MeToo movement.
The notion that a woman could testify credibly, and tell her excruciating story, but still seemingly fail to persuade the Judiciary Committee, demonstrates how little progress woman have made toward equality, said Naomi Alderman, a prominent feminist and author of “The Power,” a novel that explores the many ways in which women are repressed.
The victimhood never ends, and I'm ready to be killed at the hands of a woman. Just chop my head right off.
“Every teenage boy is getting the message that what you do in high school doesn’t count,” Alderman said. “A lot of women are watching this Kavanaugh nomination and wondering: ‘What are we supposed to do now? . . . It confirms what we knew already: that women’s testimony counts for [expletive]. ”
The movement has inspired women across the world to share their stories of sexual assault, and sparked a national reckoning that such assaults are far more widespread than was understood.
Of course, Kavanaugh’s confirmation remains uncertain. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday voted along party lines to advance his nomination to the Senate floor, but a bloc of undecided senators, led by Jeff Flake of Arizona, were successful in delaying the full Senate vote for one week to give the FBI a chance to investigate the claims that have been made against Kavanaugh.
It’s a move that the country’s legal establishment wanted.
The American Bar Association asked for the FBI investigation after Thursday’s hearing. Rushing the confirmation without an investigation, it said, would erode public confidence in the court. “It must remain an institution that will reliably follow the law and not politics,’’ the ABA’s letter said.
The dean of Yale Law School, Kavanaugh’s alma mater, also called for an independent probe. “Proceeding with the confirmation process without further investigation is not in the best interest of the court or our profession,” said Yale Dean Heather Gerken.
Yeah, we will get to them below.
Kavanaugh’s hearing was notable in part because he apparently made a choice that few justices before him have: to come out swinging.
“The style, in many ways, is the substance,” said Benjamin Barton, a law professor at the University of Tennessee. “The base that Trump appeals to, and that Kavanaugh was trying to appeal to, really, really want their people to fight. They want to see an aggressive performance.”
To some, the sharp-edged appearance was an outgrowth of a change in Senate rules that made it less likely Supreme Court nominees would need to appeal to a broad, bipartisan majority of lawmakers.
The Republicans eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in April 2017 to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch, which means they now need only a simple majority to approve justices for the high court. Before the invocation of the so-called nuclear option, Supreme Court justices needed 60 votes to move forward. (Democrats set the stage for lowering the vote threshold in November 2013 by eliminating the filibuster for other federal judges.)
Yeah, it was the short-sightedness of Harry Reid and the Democrats that brought this about, and they were warned at the time it would come around to bite them in the ass.
Trump campaigned on a pledge to appoint deeply conservative justices, and his nominees have helped him retain a base of religious and hard-right voters despite a rocky presidency.
“The Supreme Court, long term, has been always somewhat of a political body, that’s the nature of the Supreme Court in the United States, but it’s been unusual to have it be so starkly partisan and it’s been unusual to use a confirmation to stoke the flames of the base, and that’s on both sides I think,” Barton said. He added, “The trend where people consider the Supreme Court to be a political body, more than a judicial body, will continue.”
The display of partisanship will cause problems down the road if Kavanaugh is confirmed: Progressive and social groups that come before the court will regularly call for his recusal, said Dennis Burke, a former lawyer on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
So you best not.
“They’re going to look at Kavanaugh and say he already made up his mind,” said Burke. “They’re going to look at him and say, ‘He’s never going to give us a fair shake.’ ”
Is that what he has gotten?
If he does make it, they will have deserved it. This smear job has now made him much less sympathetic to your cause if he's on the bench. He was one of the more moderate of the bunch on the list.
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What do you see in that face?
Related:
The Crucifixion of Brett Kavanaugh
"Inside our secret courts; Criminal charges often disappear without a trace. There are few rules and fewer records. In these private hearings, who you are — and who you know — may be just as important as right and wrong" by Jenn Abelson, Nicole Dungca and Todd Wallack | September 30, 2018
Leneeth Suazo, four months pregnant, had tried to ignore her ex-boyfriend’s menacing voice mails, phone calls, and text messages since he kicked her out of his apartment.
Now it was New Year’s Eve and the doorbell wouldn’t stop ringing at the apartment complex where Suazo had taken refuge. She knew it was Jim Phane outside, pressing every buzzer in the building.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door. Phane, let in by a neighbor, was standing there, begging Suazo to talk to him.
Fearful that he’d attack her as he had once before, Suazo discreetly pressed record on her cellphone. Phane threatened her, and when he noticed the phone was recording their conversation, he lunged.
“Jim, don’t touch me. Don’t touch my face. I don’t want you to touch me . . . Stop!”
Suazo later told police that he grabbed her jaw, shoved her, and elbowed her belly before fleeing as she screamed. A judge granted a restraining order, based on her application outlining the alleged history of violence, and police sought a felony assault and battery charge against the ex-boyfriend, but justice would elude her. The case would go into the darkest corner of the Massachusetts criminal justice system, where closed-door hearings are often held in private offices without public notice, where the outcome is up to the discretion of a single court official who may not have a law degree, and where thousands of substantiated criminal cases go to die every year.
Call it our secret court. No other state in the country has anything like it.
At Phane’s closed-door hearing in Dorchester early last year, assistant clerk magistrate Helen White found enough evidence to issue the criminal complaint, despite Phane’s denials. “I never hit a girl in my life,” he later told the Globe. But the clerk offered Phane a huge break: If he stayed out of trouble for a few months, he could avoid a public courtroom, and the criminal charge would never appear on his record, according to an attorney’s contemporaneous notes.
Every year, tens of thousands of cases wind up in secret court sessions — formally known as “show cause hearings” — that are presided over by court clerks and usually held for suspects who haven’t been arrested and don’t pose a flight risk or danger to others. People are generally entitled to these hearings for misdemeanors, but police can request them for felonies as well.
The quality of justice behind the clerks’ closed doors can depend on where the hearing is held, who you know, or the color of your skin, according to a Spotlight Team investigation. It’s a land of arbitrary second chances, where the powerful, the privileged, and the lucky can see serious charges like reckless endangerment of a child and motor vehicle homicide quietly swept away in private hearings.
The state’s 68 clerk magistrates at District and Boston Municipal courts operate with enormous discretion to halt criminal proceedings even though many have slender qualifications: About 40 percent of clerks and their assistants, including Helen White, lack law degrees, one clerk magistrate did not go to college at all, and another has only an associate’s degree.
Show cause hearings were originally created to weed out baseless allegations, but, in practice, there are so few checks on the clerks’ power that they regularly go far beyond that, brokering deals and, in nearly half of the cases, rejecting requests for charges.
Clerk magistrates, who are appointed by the governor, routinely refuse to issue charges even when there is significant evidence — as in the case of a judge caught on camera taking someone else’s $4,000 watch off a security belt at Logan International Airport. Over the last two years, clerks have set aside nearly 62,000 cases, including more than 18,000 after a clerk concluded there was probable cause to believe that the accused committed a crime, according to court data.
The Spotlight Team uncovered cases where clerks tossed charges involving serious injuries or deaths, including one brought against a Quincy taxi driver who ran over and allegedly dragged an elderly man, killing him.
A much better known defendant, Jared Remy, also benefited from the selective leniency of the secret court system. Charges arising from his threats to kill a former girlfriend disappeared after a hearing before a clerk in Lowell District Court in 2000, 13 years before the son of the famous Red Sox broadcaster stabbed a different girlfriend to death.
The Globe also investigated multiple cases where clerks refused to issue charges in private sessions against police and politicians, including Brockton City Councilor Michael Brady who avoided drunken driving charges in a 1999 clerk’s hearing and now serves as a state senator.
Didn't he just get busted for drunk driving?
In anticipation of the Spotlight story, court administrators sent clerks a note a week ago praising their efforts handling criminal cases.
There are few requirements, educational or otherwise, to become a clerk magistrate, despite the fact that the job has lifetime tenure and a salary of about $155,000 and, unlike judges, no mandatory retirement age.....
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I wonder how they got in there.
You know, I know someone over at the State Police.....
"Harvard Law students protest any return of lecturer Brett Kavanaugh to Cambridge" by Michael Levenson Globe Staff September 28, 2018
While Republicans work furiously to salvage Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, there’s another position he may be struggling to hold on to: lecturer at Harvard Law School.
Students at the school have been protesting Kavanaugh’s nomination for days and demanding that he not return to campus without an independent investigation of the allegations that he sexually assaulted women when he was a student at Georgetown Prep and Yale College.
On Friday, John Manning, Harvard Law School’s dean, who initially praised Kavanaugh as “an inspiring teacher and mentor” when President Trump nominated him in July, responded publicly for the first time, writing in an e-mail to students that “these have been painful, difficult times for our nation and our community.”
“The Supreme Court confirmation fight has brought into sharp focus questions about sexual assault, fair process, fitness and character for high office, the integrity of the political process, and more,” Manning wrote. “I appreciate the many students who have spoken out and expressed views on these critical issues.”
At the same time, Manning refused to comment on Kavanaugh’s status at Harvard, where he has taught since 2008, and is slated to return in January to teach a three-week course on the “Supreme Court since 2005.”
Several students said they were not satisfied with Manning’s response, particularly after Heather Gerken, the dean at Kavanaugh’s alma mater, Yale Law School, released a statement Friday declaring that she, along with the American Bar Association, supports an independent investigation of the assault allegations before a confirmation vote is taken.
Related:
"Educational, legal, and religious institutions important to the life of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have come out with calls to either delay or outright cancel the confirmation process as the Senate wrestles with the Kavanaugh nomination in the face of allegations of sexual assault. Earlier this month, the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary gave its highest rating of ‘‘well-qualified’’ to Kavanaugh. Committee member Paul T. Moxley said in a statement to the Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh, ‘‘enjoys an excellent reputation for integrity and is a person of outstanding character.’’ Kavanaugh and others had cited the ABA’s high regard of Kavanaugh as proof of his professional and moral bona fides. The Jesuits took an even stronger stance. Following Thursday’s testimony by Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, the magazine of the Jesuit religious order in the United States publicly withdrew its endorsement of Kavanaugh. An editorial in America Magazine declared that ‘‘this nomination is no longer in the best interests of the country.’’ Kavanaugh was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit high school, when the alleged assault took place. The editorial doesn’t attempt to parse whether Kavanaugh’s or Ford’s testimony was more credible, but it concluded that ‘‘in a world that is finally learning to take reports of harassment, assault and abuse seriously,’’ the nomination must be abandoned. The magazine had given Kavanaugh a full-throated endorsement, stating that his addition to the Supreme Court may furnish the fifth vote needed to overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. On Friday morning, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley played down the significance of the ABA position. The Iowa Republican described the ABA as an interest group like any other. ‘‘We’re not going to let them dictate our committee’s business,’’ Grassley said....."
"Educational, legal, and religious institutions important to the life of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have come out with calls to either delay or outright cancel the confirmation process as the Senate wrestles with the Kavanaugh nomination in the face of allegations of sexual assault. Earlier this month, the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary gave its highest rating of ‘‘well-qualified’’ to Kavanaugh. Committee member Paul T. Moxley said in a statement to the Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh, ‘‘enjoys an excellent reputation for integrity and is a person of outstanding character.’’ Kavanaugh and others had cited the ABA’s high regard of Kavanaugh as proof of his professional and moral bona fides. The Jesuits took an even stronger stance. Following Thursday’s testimony by Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, the magazine of the Jesuit religious order in the United States publicly withdrew its endorsement of Kavanaugh. An editorial in America Magazine declared that ‘‘this nomination is no longer in the best interests of the country.’’ Kavanaugh was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit high school, when the alleged assault took place. The editorial doesn’t attempt to parse whether Kavanaugh’s or Ford’s testimony was more credible, but it concluded that ‘‘in a world that is finally learning to take reports of harassment, assault and abuse seriously,’’ the nomination must be abandoned. The magazine had given Kavanaugh a full-throated endorsement, stating that his addition to the Supreme Court may furnish the fifth vote needed to overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. On Friday morning, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley played down the significance of the ABA position. The Iowa Republican described the ABA as an interest group like any other. ‘‘We’re not going to let them dictate our committee’s business,’’ Grassley said....."
Blasey Ford and her crowd can, and the flip-flop sure didn't help dispel the stereotype of the lying lawyer talking out of both sides of their mouth.
Senate Republicans agreed Friday to delay a vote on Kavanaugh for a week to allow the FBI to investigate the assault allegations. The FBI investigation, students said, should determine not only if Kavanaugh can serve on the court, but if he can teach in Cambridge.
“Certainly, someone who is not fit to serve on the US Supreme Court is not fit to teach at Harvard Law School,” said Alyx Darensbourg, a second-year student from Bakersfield, Calif.
Kavanaugh himself suggested during his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that he may be too toxic to return to Harvard, where he holds the title Samuel Williston Lecturer on Law.
“I loved teaching law, but thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed,” Kavanaugh said, referring to the Democratic members of the committee, “I may never be able to teach again.”
Maybe he can get a job at $loan Kettering.
Maybe he can get a job at $loan Kettering.
Students who were watching the hearing on campus cheered when they heard that remark, Darensbourg said.....
Maybe they should just take him out back of the courthouse and shoot him.
Maybe they should just take him out back of the courthouse and shoot him.
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At least the $$$ is rolling in:
"Harvard endowment posts 10 percent return" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff September 28, 2018
At least the $$$ is rolling in:
"Harvard endowment posts 10 percent return" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff September 28, 2018
Harvard University’s endowment — the largest academic fund in the world – posted its highest returns in four years, although it continued to lag behind several other Ivy League institutions.
Harvard University reported on Friday that its endowment posted a 10 percent investment return in the fiscal year that ended in June, compared with an 8.1 percent increase in the prior year. The fund’s assets, which also include gifts, climbed to $39.2 billion from $37.1 billion.
Harvard has been restructuring its investment team and portfolio in recent years after a string of disappointing results and criticism of its large employee compensation packages. In 2016, the Harvard Management Company hired N.P. “Narv” Narvekar as its chief executive officer. Narvekar, the former Columbia University endowment chief, has cut the number of employees at Harvard, sold off certain investments, marked down the value of its extensive natural resources assets, and relied more on outside consultants to manage funds.
It will take Narvekar and his team least another two years to turn things around in an endowment as large and complex as Harvard’s, but Friday’s results indicate that they are on the right path, said Charles Skorina, an executive recruiter in San Francisco who follows endowments and pensions.
Unlike most other universities, Harvard had long thrived on an endowment strategy that relied on a crew of in-house experts to manage complex and exotic portfolios that included hedge funds, real estate, and natural resources, such as timberland and wineries.
But the endowment was battered by the financial crisis a decade ago and has struggled to regain its footing. Harvard has posted returns significantly behind other Ivy League colleges for the past decade. Since the 2005 departure of Jack Meyer — the legendary manager who oversaw Harvard’s investments for 15 years and grew assets by five times — the endowment’s leadership has also been marked by frequent turnover.
Harvard has little trouble fund-raising and just concluded a $9.6 billion capital campaign, exceeding its original goal by $3 billion, but the university and donors made sure that some of those funds could be used for current needs and weren’t tied up in the lackluster endowment.
Yeah, they don't di$criminate (unless, you know).
I'm sorry, what did your watch say?
Yeah, they don't di$criminate (unless, you know).
I'm sorry, what did your watch say?
The university is also facing outside threats to its endowment. Congressional Republicans last year passed a tax plan that will require Harvard and several other institutions to pay a 1.4 percent levy on their investment returns.
And earlier this month, Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jay Gonzalez revealed his plan to pay for the state’s transportation needs, early childhood education, and public education, by taxing private colleges. Under his plan, Gonzalez estimates that Harvard would have to pay $563 million in taxes.....
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Can still put the heat on Trump even as the Mueller probe fizzles out:
Here is the "latest case in which the president and his company may now be exposed to a lengthy legal process and possible discovery by plaintiffs who oppose him politically, a process that could include depositions of witnesses and the disclosure of Trump Organization financial documents."
Related: Pop Goes the Weisselberg
Yeah, his fate is already sealed despite the truth:
"Democrats have been clamoring for the release of the Russia investigation documents for months, but it was only in recent weeks that panel chairman Devin Nunes, Republican of California, also began to opine that the transcripts should be made public — adding that it should be done before the midterm elections....."
WOW!
They turned that inside out and upside down!
Democrats have been blocking their release just as they have been blocking, slow-walking, and redacted anything that comes from the stonewalling, politically-tainted, and subversively corrupt Department of Justice and the water-carrying pre$$ has completely distorted it.
You know, just when you think you have seen it all.....
Can still put the heat on Trump even as the Mueller probe fizzles out:
Here is the "latest case in which the president and his company may now be exposed to a lengthy legal process and possible discovery by plaintiffs who oppose him politically, a process that could include depositions of witnesses and the disclosure of Trump Organization financial documents."
Related: Pop Goes the Weisselberg
Yeah, his fate is already sealed despite the truth:
"Democrats have been clamoring for the release of the Russia investigation documents for months, but it was only in recent weeks that panel chairman Devin Nunes, Republican of California, also began to opine that the transcripts should be made public — adding that it should be done before the midterm elections....."
WOW!
They turned that inside out and upside down!
Democrats have been blocking their release just as they have been blocking, slow-walking, and redacted anything that comes from the stonewalling, politically-tainted, and subversively corrupt Department of Justice and the water-carrying pre$$ has completely distorted it.
You know, just when you think you have seen it all.....
House GOP to call Rosenstein back to Capitol Hill,
That all goes away in November. Google and Facebook (none of our business, Globe?) will be off the hook, too.
Time to start playing taps for the Trump presidency. There will be no deal to save it.
Are you ready for a Democrat in 2020 (I guess she has already retained her Senate seat)?
The Globe sure is, and is on the warpath for her.
"US attorney’s office won’t say whether it is still investigating Baker’s son" by Matt Stout Globe Correspondent September 28, 2018
More than three months after a woman accused Andrew “A.J.” Baker of groping her on a plane, federal officials would not say this week whether they are still pursuing an investigation into Governor Charlie Baker’s adult son.
No charges have been filed, but authorities have provided little information since, and US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling’s office this week would not confirm or deny a probe existed, echoing its earlier public statements, but a Lelling spokeswoman noted that in any investigation, it would not provide a public update if it chose not to pursue charges.
They don't believe the woman?
They don't believe the woman?
A “visibly shaken” woman told police that A.J. Baker had groped her on the JetBlue flight and stopped only after she asked a flight attendant to move her seat, according to a police report .
The 29-year-old woman told State Police that she was “touched inappropriately” by Baker, and that he had groped her right breast. One witness described seeing Baker “lean over” toward the woman “a couple of times,” and another said she heard the woman tell Baker “don’t do that . . . don’t do that” before summoning an attendant to move her seat.
Baker, who has not been charged, told police he was asleep the “whole time,” but a flight attendant reported speaking to him and told police that Baker said, “it was OK because [the woman] was his sister’s best friend.”
There is nothing in the report that indicates Baker and the woman knew each other prior to the flight.
According to the report, Baker later appeared confused when the flight attendant told him he may need to speak to police once they landed, witnesses told police.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, according to the report.
State Police did not arrest him. Baker told police that he was not on any medication and had two glasses of wine in Washington before his flight but hadn’t finished the second glass, according to the report.
Roberto Braceras, A.J. Baker’s attorney, declined to comment on the probe. Kristen Setera, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Boston office, also declined comment, citing Department of Justice policy.
Efforts by the Globe to reach the woman have not been successful. The Globe does not identify victims of possible sexual crimes.....
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You know it is bad for A.J. when his father says he believes the woman.
Yeah, the state will take good care of you:
"Teen in DCF care allegedly trafficked for sex by worker at DCF-financed group home, AG says" by Katie Camero Globe Correspondent September 28, 2018
You know it is bad for A.J. when his father says he believes the woman.
Yeah, the state will take good care of you:
"Teen in DCF care allegedly trafficked for sex by worker at DCF-financed group home, AG says" by Katie Camero Globe Correspondent September 28, 2018
A minor in the care of the state Department of Children and Families was allegedly trafficked for sexual servitude by a worker at a Saugus group home that is operated under contract to the state’s child protection agency, prosecutors said Friday.
Ashley Goodrich, 27, faces four counts of trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude, one count of deriving support from prostitution of a minor, and four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to Attorney General Maura Healey’s office.
Oh, no, she was pimped out by another woman!!!
Oh, no, she was pimped out by another woman!!!
According to prosecutors, Goodrich was an employee of Eliot Community Human Services, which ran a group home for minors in the custody of DCF at which the children were expected to receive support programs and services.
Goodrich, however, allegedly used her access to the children to recruit the child to perform sex acts in Worcester and Boston that were arranged after she posted online ads promising sex in return for cash, Healey’s office alleged.
Goodrich allegedly drove the minor to the pre-arranged meetings that were sometimes held while the teen had fled the Saugus home, prosecutors said in a statement.
The charges came following a four-month investigation after the case was referred to Healey’s office by the Suffolk district attorney’s office.....
"After Suffolk DA candidates forum, accusations of playing race card arise" by Maria Cramer Globe Staff September 29, 2018
The comment followed a question about police accountability.
What would the candidates for Suffolk district attorney do if a police officer fatally shot someone on the streets, a young man asked Thursday night during an intimate candidates’ forum in the Back Bay.
Rachael Rollins, the first black woman to secure the Democratic nomination for Suffolk District Attorney, stood and pointed to her challenger in the general election, Michael Maloney, a white man, according to a video of the debate later posted on Maloney’s Facebook page.
“I have said to police officers that look very much like that man right there, if you are not racist, if you are following the law, we will get along very well together,” Rollins said as Maloney stood quietly 5 feet from her. “But if you have racist Facebook pages, if you are discharging your weapon in an incident that requires no such behavior you will be held accountable by me.”
The comment was made at a candidates’ night hosted by More Than Words, a nonprofit dedicated to helping young people who are homeless or in the foster or criminal court system.
It was the first time both candidates appeared together following the Sept. 4 primary in which Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, stunned the county by handily beating four other Democrats.
The forum was mostly civil but Rollins’s reference to Maloney sparked a heated back and forth Friday between both campaigns that touched on the tense topic of race.
Maloney, a 38-year-old criminal defense attorney who did not reply to Rollins’s comment at the time, said Friday that he was stunned by her apparent reference to his race.
“Just the overall tone and the respect was poorly lacking,” he said. “My jaw dropped in that moment. I don’t shy away from confrontation . . . I wanted to bite my lip and chill until I fully absorbed it.”
He accused Rollins of using race to undermine his campaign.
“She’s trying to compensate for her lack of qualifications by playing the race card,” Maloney said.
In a statement, Rollins’s spokesman, Corey Welford, said the context of Rollins’s comments, following the question of a young man of color about lethal force, is critical.
“It is clear that Mike’s comments are offensive, insensitive, and uninformed,” Welford said. “The reality is that our systems — including the criminal justice system, our education system, health care, and other systems — do not treat all people fairly. Rachael has a healthy respect for those in law enforcement, has working relationships with the police, and will hold police who are not doing their job accountable. Those things are not at odds.”
Rollins’s reference to Maloney was made during an emotional moment for the Democratic nominee. Rollins, who was raised by an Irish-American father and a black mother, seemed to fight back tears as she addressed the issue of police-involved shootings, specifically of African Americans.
“Black people are dying every day on the street,” said Rollins, 47, during the forum. “That’s why I’m running . . . There are people who have lost their lives because of systemic problems.”
Yeah, if you cry you must be credible!
I'm tired of being emotionally manipulated and blackmailed!!!!
Yeah, if you cry you must be credible!
I'm tired of being emotionally manipulated and blackmailed!!!!
Later in the forum, both candidates were asked to name their favorite characters from a young adult novel.
Rollins, after pausing for several seconds, said “Atticus Finch,” the lawyer who defends a black man against rape charges in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“Tom Sawyer,” Maloney replied.
Rollins shook her head and frowned.
“Racist,” she said.
Maloney’s campaign manager, Linda Arian, who sat in the front row, loudly said, “Tom Sawyer is not racist.”
Maloney laughed and said, “I want to say ‘Huckleberry Finn.’ ”
Welford said Rollins responded to Maloney’s answer the way she did because “the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn novels are known to have racial themes and language.”
On Friday, Maloney noted Rollins was scheduled to campaign with Senator Edward Markey, who is also white, over the weekend.
“I think it’s ironic that she’s pointing a finger at me . . . later she’s out campaigning with white guys that look like me,” Maloney said.
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Really set of some explosions:
"It will take an army of workers to replace and rebuild natural gas pipelines in the Merrimack Valley, but with the energy industry suffering from a labor shortage, and the overall job market incredibly tight, where will this army come from?
Looks like illegals then!
Lawmakers, residents demand Columbia Gas step up help
Looks like illegals then!
Lawmakers, residents demand Columbia Gas step up help
In North Carolina, partisan politics meets storm recovery
Forget this country, and I stand by my earlier solution, the most nonviolent and beneficial to all. Break 'em up.
One thing they all agree on:
"Rami Elhanan stood before a gathering Saturday afternoon on the lower level of Temple Beth Zion and spoke about how Israeli forces shot and killed seven Palestinians, including two children, Friday afternoon during mass protests in the Gaza Strip....."
Out was the worst day since the May massacre during the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's and I'm so thankful the Globe saw fit to report on the six-month anniversary of the perpetual and persistent Palestinian protests in Gaza (had to pick up a PBS report to do it), although I'm tired of talk while Israel takes action.
Thankfully the $pinele$$ and impotent EU is filling the void -- at least until war on Iran is declared.
Forget this country, and I stand by my earlier solution, the most nonviolent and beneficial to all. Break 'em up.
One thing they all agree on:
"Rami Elhanan stood before a gathering Saturday afternoon on the lower level of Temple Beth Zion and spoke about how Israeli forces shot and killed seven Palestinians, including two children, Friday afternoon during mass protests in the Gaza Strip....."
Out was the worst day since the May massacre during the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's and I'm so thankful the Globe saw fit to report on the six-month anniversary of the perpetual and persistent Palestinian protests in Gaza (had to pick up a PBS report to do it), although I'm tired of talk while Israel takes action.
Thankfully the $pinele$$ and impotent EU is filling the void -- at least until war on Iran is declared.
