Trump Jr. mocks sexual assault claim against Kavanaugh

Donald Trump Jr. posted an image on Instagram with the caption “Judge Kavanaugh sexual assault letter found by Dems…”

The photo attached shows a crumpled-up piece of notebook paper with a scribbled message: “Hi Cindy will you be my girlfriend, Love Bret.” The note has boxes to check for “yes” or “no” and seems to compare Kavanaugh’s accuser to a schoolyard crush.

.. Trump Jr. also “liked” a tweet from conservative actor James Woods which compared the accusation to a #MeToo “lynching.” Woods later deleted the tweet.

Republican Rep. Billy Long of Missouri also took to Twitter to mock the accusation, retweeting a message from another user who posted a black-and-white photo of a little boy kissing a little girl on the forehead.

Republicans push to confirm Kavanaugh amid fears it will come at a political cost

Already burdened by an unpopular president and an energized Democratic electorate, the male-dominated GOP is now facing a torrent of scrutiny about how it is handling Kavanaugh’s accuser and whether the party’s push to install him on the high court by next week could come at a steep political cost with women and the independent voters who are the keystone for congressional majorities.

.. Flake lashed out at the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., for appearing to mock the allegations against his father’s nominee on social media, an example of how many Republicans are straining to both firmly support Kavanaugh and not seem hostile to Christine Blasey Ford

.. As GOP senators implored Ford to appear before the committee, there was a range in the tone of statements about her, veering from the flippant — “I’ll listen to the lady, but we’re going to bring this to a close,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said this week — to the encouraging.

.. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) continued Wednesday to take command of the Republican response to Ford, refusing to budge on his plans for the Monday hearing and dismissing the request from Ford’s lawyers for additional investigation by the FBI.

.. Republican campaign veterans said the GOP’s reliance on Grassley — a sharp-tongued, 85-year-old conservative who has been in Congress since 1975 — as its point person brings complications as voters begin to pay closer attention

.. Supreme Court nominations have become TV shows. And if your cast is mostly older, white Republican male senators, you’re going to have issues in that environment.”

.. rising concerns about how the Kavanaugh issue is beginning to overshadow the Republican campaign touting the GOP-authored tax law and economic progress

.. several top GOP lawmakers have told colleagues that they hope Ford declines to show up for the hearing even as they issue statements urging her to do so

.. Republicans are walking a tightrope in defending Kavanaugh without reinforcing the public perception that the party and president are unwilling to hold members of their party accountable for alleged sexual misconduct against women, including Trump and former U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore

Christine Blasey Ford Wants F.B.I. to Investigate Kavanaugh Before She Testifies

Judge Kavanaugh has told associates that he did not know who his accuser was until she identified herself in The Post and that once he saw her name he vaguely recalled her being part of the social circle associated with his all-boys high school in suburban Maryland at the time.

A person close to Dr. Blasey, who asked not to be identified to discuss her situation in detail, said Dr. Blasey knew the future Judge Kavanaugh in passing before the gathering where she says the attack took place, which could make it harder for his defenders to make a case that she had confused him for someone else.

.. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, posted on Twitter a video clip of Judge Kavanaugh speaking at his alma mater, Georgetown Preparatory School, in 2015. “What happens at Georgetown Prep stays at Georgetown Prep,” he said to laughter. “That’s been a good thing for all of us, I think.”

.. The sight of Professor Hill being grilled on national television by an all-white, all-male Judiciary Committee enraged women, contributing to the so-called Year of the Woman in 1992 when scores of women ran for public office.

Republicans, clearly mindful of the optics, were considering employing a special counsel or staff to question Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh, to avoid a repeat of the Hill-Thomas scenario. Democrats accused Republicans of trying to rush through a hearing without a proper investigation of serious charges.

“She is under no obligation to participate in the Republican efforts to sweep the whole thing under the rug, to continue this nomination on a fast track,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who won her Senate seat in 1992. “It’s basically a railroad job. This is what they did to Anita Hill.”

.. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican, called Dr. Blasey’s accusations “a drive-by attack on the character of this judge,” and referred to them as “false allegations,” in remarks on the Senate floor.

.. Uncharacteristically, the combative Mr. Trump stuck to the strategy of not attacking the accuser directly on Tuesday as well, instead expressing sympathy and faith in Judge Kavanaugh while assailing Democrats for trying to torpedo his nominee.

“I feel so badly for him that he’s going through this, to be honest with you,” Mr. Trump said of the judge. “I feel so badly for him. This is not a man that deserves this.”

Professor Hill, in an opinion article published Tuesday in The New York Times, warned senators against repeating her experience in 1991.

“That the Senate Judiciary Committee still lacks a protocol for vetting sexual harassment and assault claims that surface during a confirmation hearing suggests that the committee has learned little from the Thomas hearing, much less the more recent #MeToo movement,” she wrote, adding that the committee should “serve as fact-finders” not “destroy the lives of witnesses who are called to testify.”

Here Are The Ways Christine Blasey Ford’s Story Is Being Dismissed

Conservatives are coming up with conspiracy theories about Ford and saying her allegations are just too old to investigate.

Well, Kavanaugh Didn’t Sexually Assault Every Woman

.. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee released a letter signed by 65 women who said they knew Kavanaugh in high school and could vouch for his “decency.” Two women who said they dated Kavanaugh also released statements Monday saying that they knew him as a good guy.

Bringing out women who didn’t experience any sexual misconduct to vouch for the character of a man is a common tactic. It happened during Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearing and when then–Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes was under fire. But just because a man didn’t mistreat all women doesn’t mean he didn’t mistreat one woman.

If It Could Happen To Kavanaugh, It Could Happen To Any Man

If it could happen to him, Joe from your office could be next. Maybe Ray, the friendly guy who bags your groceries. Or even you.

“If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried. We can all be accused of something,” said a lawyer close to the White House.

But it hasn’t happened to every man. Neal Gorsuch made it onto the Supreme Court bench just fine. So did John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) tweeted a similar concern.

Joe Walsh

And remember this: If stupid, bad, or drunken behavior as a minor back in high school were the standard, every male politician in Washington, DC would fail.

Every single one. Hypocrites.

Alexandra Petri at The Washington Post has a solid response to this worry.

Ford Got Low Marks On A Professor-Rating Website

The conservative Drudge Report ran with a story from Grabien News on Monday that purported to have uncovered negative reviews of Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, by her students and posted on RateMyProfessor.com. This attack would seemingly undermine Ford because a bad professor can’t also be a victim of sexual assault, or something?

But they messed with the wrong woman. No, really. The story was literally about the wrong woman. The reviews were about Christine A. Ford, a social worker who taught at California State University at Fullerton.

Although Grabien News posted a retraction, Drudge deleted the tweet and pretended nothing ever happened.

.. It Was So Long Ago

Ari Fleischer, who served as President George W. Bush’s press secretary during the run-up to the Iraq War, said he wasn’t sure Kavanaugh should be held responsible for something he did in high school.

“How much in society should any of us be held liable today when we lived a good life, an upstanding life by all accounts, and then something that maybe is an arguable issue took place in high school?” Fleischer said on Fox News. “Should that deny us chances later in life? Even for a Supreme Court job, a presidency of the United States or you name it. How accountable are we for high school actions, when this is clearly a disputable high school action? That’s a tough issue.”

Donald Trump Jr. put up an Instagram post implying that they were just kids back then and it was just like when a boy asks a girl out on a date with a handwritten note.

Ford, meanwhile, said that the incident with Kavanaugh “derailed me substantially for four or five years,” leading her to struggle academically and socially. She also had trouble forming relationships with men.

According to The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, because the alleged assault happened so long ago, just ignore it: “Yet there is no way to confirm her story after 36 years, and to let it stop Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation would ratify what has all the earmarks of a calculated political ambush.”

.. They Were Just Horsing Around

Carrie Severino, the chief counsel at the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, attempted to defend Kavanaugh on Tuesday by characterizing the behavior described by Ford as “rough horseplay.”

Josh Marshall

“Her allegations cover a whole range of conduct from boorishness to rough horseplay to actual attempted rape. If you go to rape, yes, that’s a very serious allegation,” she said.

When the CNN anchor pointed out that Ford never once described what Kavanaugh did as horseplay, Severino replied, “She’s certainly implying that it’s attempted rape, but you have to look at ― there are 35 years of memory that we’re trying to play with here. I’m saying that the behavior she described here could be a whole range of things. I know her perception of it was one way.”

Yes, that’s what high school students do all the time. Just men and women, horsing around, with one trying to remove the other’s clothes.

.. Something About The Salem Witch Trials

Lance Morrow, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal comparing Kavanaugh to women who had been accused of being witches. He said that “hysterical fantasies had real consequences,” resulting in the death of women believed to be witches.

Morrow goes after Ford for first not identifying herself and points out that because there was no police report, no witnesses and the other guy in the room at the time (whose reliability as a character witness is questionable) denies that the incident took place.

“The thing happened — if it happened — an awfully long time ago,” he added, “back in Ronald Reagan’s time, when the actors in the drama were minors and (the boys, anyway) under the blurring influence of alcohol and adolescent hormones.”

Something About The Russia Investigation

The Liberty Counsel, a conservative group supporting Kavanaugh, sent out a press release with at least seven reasons the public should not trust Ford. One of them seemed new and different:

Ford has a brother, Ralph Blasey, who worked for Baker Hostetler, a law firm that retained Fusion GPS, the infamous DC company that produced the unverified Steele dossier on President Donald Trump and Russia, sparking the Russia investigation.

It’s ridiculous to think that because Ford’s brother works at a law firm that had some tie to the Russia investigation, she is in on some grand conspiracy to bring down Kavanaugh and Trump. But Blasey worked at the firm from 1989 to 2004 — long before Trump was president or even considering running for president.

.. Ford Bears A Grudge Against Kavanaugh’s Mom

Right-wing websites started running with a theory about why Ford is coming out against Kavanaugh (other than that he allegedly assaulted her): His mother, formerly a Maryland district judge, ruled against Ford’s parents in a foreclosure case.

“Isn’t it kind of amazing that all the media reports today didn’t mention this little conflict of interest for Blasey-Ford?” wrote the site Pacific Pundit.

They didn’t mention this story because it’s not true, as Snopes points out. Kavanaugh’s mom did preside in a foreclosure case involving Ford’s parents, but the outcome of the case was actually favorable for them.