Monday, September 16, 2019

If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again


The brouhaha over a (very tenuously) alleged "assault" by Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, reported by the New York Times over the weekend, is utterly ridiculous and nonsensical.  It also exposes that newspaper (yet again) as a hollow shell of its former self, a propaganda organ rather than a serious journalistic endeavor.  Consider:
  • The alleged "victim" of the "assault" has no recollection of it ever occurring, and refuses to discuss it.  As another reporter noted, "Omitting this fact from the New York Times story is one of the worst cases of journalistic malpractice in recent memory."  The newspaper later updated its story to reflect this, but by then the damage was done.
  • The person the NYT claims made the allegations, Max Stier, was a Clinton lawyer during the Whitewater investigations in the 1990's, pitting him against Kavanaugh, who was at the time on the staff of independent counsel Ken Starr.  This provides potential grounds for animosity and/or lack of objectivity on Mr. Stier's part (which were not mentioned in the accusatory article).
  • The newspaper tweeted, then deleted, a weird message that appeared to come as close as possible to slandering Justice Kavanaugh without actually crossing the legal line defining that crime - again, without any first-hand evidence that the incident in question ever occurred.
  • As if prearranged and scripted in advance (which would not surprise me), almost every left-wing, progressive Democratic Party candidate for the Presidential elections in 2020 immediately began to parrot calls for Justice Kavanaugh's impeachment, despite no evidence whatsoever being advanced to support the allegations against him.

The entire episode is so blatantly scripted, so clearly the product of innuendo and suggestion rather than established fact, that it's sickening.  It's a new low even for the New York Times, which appears to have progressed (you should pardon the expression) from "all the news that's fit to print" to "all the partisan propaganda we think we can get away with".

I have a personal theory about the timing and nature of this attack on Justice Kavanaugh, which is not based on any private information or evidence, but is, I think, at least within the realms of possibility.  Justice Ginsberg, one of the leading left-wing judges on the Supreme Court, is elderly, and has suffered serious health issues in recent years (most recently pancreatic cancer, a disease with a five-year survival rate of less than one in ten patients).  What if it was known or suspected, in certain political circles, that her illness was, or is, rather more serious than has been publicly reported?  What if, privately, she isn't expected to live for much longer?

Would that be sufficient motivation for left-wing and progressive opinion-shapers to coordinate their attacks on Justice Kavanaugh, seeking to remove him from the court (or at least render his judgments suspect, to put it mildly), in advance of fighting to prevent another conservative judge from being appointed to replace Justice Ginsberg?  Both measures would (hopefully, from their point of view) affect the current conservative majority on the court, and if President Trump does not win re-election in 2020, might allow a Democratic Party successor to reverse it - or, at least, restore SCOTUS to a balance of perspectives, politically speaking (if not reverse the current situation).

As I said, I have no evidence whatsoever for that theory . . . but I find it compelling, nonetheless.  Hey, if an "authoritative" source like the New York Times can advance opinions without a single shred of evidence to support them, why can't I?

Peter

8 comments:

  1. Hi Peter,
    I'll grant your proposition about why the left is attacking, but you are making the very big assumption that Justice Ginsberg is still alive. There has not been a documented case of her beyond the photo taken in Nov, 2018, which the left tried to play as her attending a party in Jan, 2019. It's gotten so bad that people now talk about "Weekend at Ginsberg's".

    Of course, as long as she is "alive", or the left doesn't have to admit that she is dead, they can continue to run out the clock on her replacement, with (hopefully from their view) a Democrat President making the appointment.

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  2. @Steve Sky: A simple internet search would have shown you how wrong you are. She last appeared in public only a few weeks ago, to accept an honorary degree:

    https://news.yahoo.com/ruth-bader-ginsburg-makes-first-193618106.html

    Please check your facts before posting.

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  3. I think the difficulty with The Times is not that it is a newspaper of of unpleasant policy but that it has become simply a cooperative of loosely affiliated propagandists, operating with inadequate supervision. The air is filled with flying wads but the discharges lack balls.

    How I miss the World-Telegram. Heavy sigh.
    .

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  4. I would be absolutely unsurprised if the "Notorious RBG" is about to pass, the Left's ruling circles know this, and are utterly insane in desperation to not see SCOTUS move further Right.

    The courts, whether SCOTUS or lower courts, are how the Left has rammed so much sh*t through when voters and the legislatures say NAY.

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  5. Sundance at CTH thinks that this goes beyond a possible vacancy on the Supreme Court:

    "During the Obama administration the Lawfare group: (1) weaponized the IRS for political targeting; (2) weaponized the DOJ and FBI for political targeting; (3) weaponized the intelligence community for political activism; (4) created new legal theories around ‘disparate impact’ to weaponize the National Labor Relations Board; and generally used embedded officials to advance far-left political interests across the spectrum of govt.

    "After they lost the 2016 election the Lawfare group immediately: (1) worked to delegitimize the presidency of Donald Trump; (2) delegitimize National Security Adviser General Flynn; (3) target, disempower and isolate AG Jeff Session; (4) delegitimize AG Bill Barr and the institution of the FBI outside their control; (5) delegitimize DHS, Border Patrol and Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE); and (6) delegitimize any institution or office that would now be removing or overturning their former Lawfare constructs.

    What we are seeing today from the Lawfare Alliance appears as a designed effort to continue this overall agenda; now focused on delegitimizing the Supreme Court of the United States."

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  6. RBG was also present for the final determination on the Trump asylum denial EO last Wednesday.

    As to 'some political circles' may be expecting RGB to kick the bucket soon?

    Many of us have been expecting it for more than 3 years now. I think she's actually made by Mattel, Weebles wobble but they don't fall down.

    And, as to the New York Times, there's a reason they're called the 'New York Slimes.' Crazy that they are still considered a 'credible' news source. Absolutely crazy.

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  7. Babylon Bee reported the nyt got the tip from the Nigerians...
    https://babylonbee.com/news/new-york-times-reveals-source-on-kavanaugh-allegations-was-reputable-nigerian-prince

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  8. I'm speculating that if the left can oust Judge K and RBG can hold on another 18 months, then they expect President Sanders to appoint Barack Obama and Ilhan Omar to the court, cementing a liberal majority for the foreseeable future.

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