Monday, September 24, 2018

Ramirez: I Think it was Kavanaugh Who Waved His Penis in My Face

John R. Houk
© September 24, 2018

It is very apparent that Christine Blasey Ford will not be able to substantiate her accusation of rape by Judge Brett Kavanaugh when he was 17 and she was 15. So what do the desperate Dems do? They find another woman with an even sketchier memory than Ford’s who claims sexual assault by waving his penis in front of her face when Freshmen at Yale.

So says the memory of a then drunken Deborah Ramirez at a drunken dorm party.


I haven’t had the chance to digest all the facts on the Ramirez accusation yet, ergo below are a couple of posts from relatively Conservative sources (because I don’t trust lame-stream media sources and because I know Dems lie).

JRH 9/24/18

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JUDGE SEX CLAIMS 
Who is Deborah Ramirez? Brett Kavanaugh’s Yale University classmate who accused him of sexual misconduct

By Nicola Stow
September 24, 2018 3:57 pm
The Sun

Who is Deborah Ramirez?

Deborah Ramirez, 53, was raised a "devout catholic" in Connecticut, according to the New Yorker.

She and Kavanaugh were classmates at Yale, where she studied sociology and psychology. the pair graduated in 1987.

According to NBC News, Deborah is a board member and volunteer at Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence, an organisation that helps domestic abuse victims.

She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado. … READ THE REST
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Yes, Let’s See The Emails That Led To Deborah Ramirez’s Accusation Against Kavanaugh


By ALLAHPUNDIT
Posted at 1:31 pm on September 24, 2018
Hot Air


Here’s how the New Yorker described Deborah Ramirez’s journey towards speaking up:

She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away…

Mark Krasberg, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico who was also a member of Kavanaugh and Ramirez’s class at Yale, said Kavanaugh’s college behavior had become a topic of discussion among former Yale students soon after Kavanaugh’s nomination. In one e-mail that Krasberg received in September, the classmate who recalled hearing about the incident with Ramirez alluded to the allegation and wrote that it “would qualify as a sexual assault,” he speculated, “if it’s true.”

Emails? Tell us more about these emails, Jane Mayer:


Read the excerpt above again. After 35 years of uncertainty, within the span of six days, Ramirez somehow recovered her memories sufficiently to accuse a Supreme Court nominee of having sexually assaulted her. And coincidentally, this memory recovery appeared to happen only after her classmates had begun emailing about Kavanaugh’s time at Yale following his nomination this summer. At some point, by Ronan Farrow’s own admission, Senate Democrats got involved in the process.

Robert VerBruggen raises a very obvious possibility: “These emails would appear to be important evidence regarding how this ball got rolling. They also may bear on the question of whether Ramirez’s memory closely matches the anonymous source’s simply because they’re both the account that was circulating while Ramirez was putting her memories together and contacting her former classmates. Let’s see them.” Yeah, let’s. Let’s see if it was Ramirez or someone else who first identified Kavanaugh as the person who assaulted her. Let’s see just how many gaps in Ramirez’s memory required filling in by others, seemingly not one of whom actually witnessed the incident. Let’s find out how many second-hand or even third-hand “witnesses” were needed to help the victim herself “remember.”

The New York Times spent a lot of time looking for first-hand witnesses over the past week. No dice:

The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.

This sure sounds like a case of someone’s hazy memory being reshaped after the fact through the power of suggestion. Ramirez may have remembered that someone did something lewd to her once at a Yale party along the lines of what she described to the New Yorker and then gradually became convinced that it was Kavanaugh after classmates told her “I heard from a friend of a friend at the time that it was Kavanaugh.” Or maybe it was less innocent than that: One person who spoke to the New Yorker told them that they thought Ramirez’s accusation “may have been politically motivated,” albeit without hard evidence. Imagine how much suggestive power a plea from someone attached to Senate Democrats in a high-stakes confirmation battle might have had on the memory of a person who’s inclined for ideological reasons to support Democrats anyway.

Ramirez isn’t the only person connected to the New Yorker piece whose credibility is shaky. I can’t imagine what Ronan Farrow was thinking attaching his name to such a journalistic sh*tpile, lacking not only even one first-hand witness to the incident but saddled with a victim whose memory he has every reason to believe is unreliable. He and Jane Mayer seem fully aware that the story is garbage too, per their careful framing of Ramirez’s accusation. It’s not that it’s true or even probably true, you see, it’s that Democrats are interested in it:


What a shrewd way to launder a smear into “news.” Investigate it privately, leak to the New Yorker that you’re investigating it, then cite their report that you’re investigating it privately as evidence of its seriousness, worthy of yet another delay in the confirmation vote. If you asked me yesterday to name five big-name non-Fox mainstream reporters who are broadly respected on the right, I would have told you “Jake Tapper, Ronan Farrow, and uhhh…” That’s a testament to how compelling Farrow’s #MeToo reporting over the past year has been: Even credentials like a stint on MSNBC and time spent working for the Obama administration weren’t enough to spoil all the credibility he earned among right-wingers from his reporting on Weinstein, Eric Schneiderman, and Les Moonves. The scariest words any Republican heard over the last week were “Ronan Farrow is looking into this” because you know what that usually means — he has the goods. Multiple accusers, in all likelihood, and even if not, at least multiple examples of contemporaneous corroboration from a single accuser. Instead he produced Deborah “I think it happened, but maybe not” Ramirez. The New York Times wouldn’t publish her claim, so thin was it. But Farrow would.

I don’t think his motive here was primarily partisan, although he obviously leans left. Weinstein and Schneiderman were both Democratic power players and he had no qualms about nuking them from orbit. More likely he and the New Yorker decided to lower their standards because the hunt for a second Kavanaugh accuser is the hottest story in America right now. Ramirez was under some form of pressure (intentional or not) from her classmates, it seems, to confirm that Kavanaugh was the man who assaulted her. But Farrow was under pressure too. He owns this beat. He’s the reporter everyone is looking to for the smoking gun that Kavanaugh really is a sleaze. And the clock is ticking. It’s possible that the Judiciary Committee will vote to confirm Kavanaugh this week, which wouldn’t close any window on accusations against him but might very well close the window on public interest in the matter. Under normal circumstances, Farrow and Mayer would have kept the story in a drawer and spent the next few weeks talking to sources while they tried to substantiate Ramirez’s claim. Instead the two of them and the New Yorker threw what they had at the wall, replete with some ass-covering “to be sure” qualifiers. Maybe Kavanaugh did something to Ramirez, but maybe not — but maybe! Ask yourself: What possible reason could there have been to rush this half-baked story into print apart from either (a) trying to monetize intense public interest in a topic with whatever you have available, or (b) derailing Kavanaugh’s nomination? Are either of those reasons conducive to good, responsible journalism?

Here he is this morning defending the report. He has enough home runs already as a reporter that one strikeout in a big spot won’t damage his general reputation but Republicans will probably never look at him the same way.

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KAVANAUGH AND LAST-MINUTE ACCUSATIONS
Democrats pull out all the stops.

By Joseph Klein
September 24, 2018
FrontPageMag.com


Democrats are pulling out all the stops and enabling salacious last-minute accusations against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh in order to sink his candidacy. Now that Christine Blasey Ford has finally agreed to testify this Thursday at an open hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding her charge that Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a long-ago high school party, these new charges have suddenly emerged from left field.

On Sunday, a former classmate from Judge Kavanaugh's time at Yale accused the Supreme Court nominee of exposing himself to her at a party. The New Yorker has just published an article written by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer, based on information that was reportedly sent to at least four Democratic senators. The article recounted a claim by Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of Brett Kavanaugh’s, concerning “a dormitory party gone awry.” As the article acknowledged, however, “her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident.” The article goes on to say that in her initial conversations with The New Yorker, Ms. Ramirez was “reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty.” It was only after “six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney” that Ms. Ramirez was suddenly able to pinpoint Judge Kavanaugh as having committed an unsavory act, even though she admitted being “foggy” at the time. The New Yorker article also noted that the magazine “has not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party.”

Meanwhile, the ever-present Michael Avenatti, attorney of porn star Stormy Daniels, tweeted that he had information from anonymous sources that Judge Kavanaugh and his friend had "targeted" women with drugs and alcohol at parties to facilitate "gang rape."

Haters of Judge Kavanaugh are turning the process of Senate confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee into something worse than a travesty. His opponents in the Senate have transformed their “advise and consent” function into a campaign of no-holds barred character assassination.

While Judge Kavanaugh weathers these latest accusations, which he adamantly denies, his real test will be on Thursday, assuming that Christine Blasey Ford will follow through on her agreement to testify at an open hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Her attorneys stalled for a week before making the announcement that Ms. Ford would testify despite certain “unresolved” issues. Among the issues Ms. Ford’s attorneys have raised was the refusal of the committee to subpoena one of the purported witnesses, Mark Judge, who Ms. Ford reportedly claims was involved in the alleged incident, as well as “who on the Majority side will be asking the questions, whether senators or staff attorneys."

A week has already gone by since Ms. Ford went public with her story in an interview with the Washington Post while Ms. Ford and her attorneys stalled for time. They raised one procedural issue after another while claiming that the committee majority was “bullying” Ms. Ford. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-I) has bent over backwards to accommodate Ms. Ford’s preferred scheduling for her appearance. He extended the deadline several times for her to come to a decision on whether to testify at all. He had offered various options for her to testify publicly or privately or to be interviewed by committee staff in her home state of California, whichever setting would make her more comfortable. However, in Senator Grassley’s e-mail thanking Ms. Ford for finally agreeing to a time certain for her testimony, Senator Grassley correctly reminded her attorneys that “the committee determines which witnesses to call, how many witnesses to call, and what order to call them and who will question them. These are nonnegotiable.”

While the negotiations with Ms. Ford’s attorneys for her testimony were underway, Democrats were sitting on the latest allegations, ready to pounce as soon as Ms. Ford’s accusation was about to be heard. Some Democrats are already using the Ramirez episode to push anew for a fresh FBI investigation and to postpone Thursday’s scheduled hearing.

Ideally, if the Democrats cannot apply enough pressure to force a withdrawal of Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination through their relentless campaign of character assassination, they want to push any Senate votes until after the midterm elections at the earliest. Then they will claim that the newly elected senators should be involved in the confirmation decision. In the meantime, Judge Kavanaugh’s adversaries in the Senate, the mainstream media and progressive circles continue to bludgeon Judge Kavanaugh in the court of public opinion. All of their stratagems are an obvious attempt to buy time in order to persuade any wavering senators that Judge Kavanaugh is too tainted by sexual assault charges – whether proven or not - to sit on the Supreme Court.

Proof does not matter to those wanting to bring Judge Kavanaugh down at any cost. Regarding Ms. Ford’s accusation, they know that the proof so far is non-existent, aside from Ms. Ford’s own assertions contained in her confidential letter given to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, last July, and in her Washington Post interview. While a redacted version of Ms. Ford’s letter has been published, Senator Feinstein has refused to date to give even Senator Grassley a copy of the completely unredacted version. The FBI has already conducted 6 background checks, no federal crime is alleged, and there is no forensic evidence to investigate after 30 years at a site that Ms. Ford cannot even identify.

What we do know so far tends to undercut the credibility of Ms. Ford’s accusation. Ms. Ford cannot corroborate her decades-old charge of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh. Whatever corroboration Ms. Ford was hoping for from “witnesses” she claimed were at the alleged party is non-existent. The individuals she reportedly named in her unredacted confidential letter given to Senator Feinstein have either denied being at such a party or do not recollect what Ms. Ford has alleged. Moreover, by her own admission to the Washington Post, Ms. Ford “said she does not remember some key details of the incident.” She does not remember, for example, where it happened, how the party came together in the first place, or how she got home after the alleged incident. She believes the alleged incident occurred during the summer of 1982, but reportedly could not be more precise on the day or even the month of the party.

Afraid that Ms. Ford’s sexual assault allegation could be readily challenged and anxious to establish some sort of pattern of sexual misconduct beyond this single alleged incident, the Kavanaugh haters have latched onto Ms. Ramirez’s story.

The New York Times published an op-ed column last week by a psychiatrist, Richard A. Friedman, who cited neurological science to conclude that Ms. Ford’s claim that she has “a vivid memory of an attack that took place when she was 15” is “credible.” The reason, he wrote, is that “memories formed under the influence of intense emotion — such as the feelings that accompany a sexual assault — are indelible in the way that memories of a routine day are not.” The only problem with Dr. Friedman’s thesis is that Ms. Ford has apparently forgotten such key details surrounding the alleged sexual assault as when and where it happened and how she got home. Moreover, when Ms. Ford finally told someone about the incident in any detail some 30 years later in 2012, during a couples therapy session with her husband, she did not name Judge Kavanaugh specifically, according to the therapist’s notes that Ms. Ford had provided to the Washington Post in connection with her interview. The Washington Post reported that the therapist’s notes it reviewed “do not mention Kavanaugh’s name but say she reported that she was attacked by students ‘from an elitist boys’ school’ who went on to become ‘highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington.’”

Ms. Ramirez’s story is even less credible. It took an attorney and six days of very belated reflection to help revive her memory of an incident she claimed happened while she herself was very drunk.

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), one of Judge Kavanaugh’s fiercest critics who told men to “shut up” regarding Ms. Ford’s allegations, said she doubts Judge Kavanaugh’s credibility because of “how he approaches his cases.” Aside from mischaracterizing the constitutional textualist reasoning underlying Judge Kavanaugh’s opinions, she is saying that she does not believe Judge Kavanaugh’s denial of the sexual misconduct allegations lodged against him because of the opinions he wrote that she does not like. Such circular “reasoning” would be amusing if it were not so emblematic of what one writer called “Kavanaugh Derangement Syndrome." Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is also suffering from the same syndrome. She said Thursday regarding Ms. Ford: "I believe her because she is telling the truth and you know it by her story."

Ms. Ford’s supporters are exploiting the “Me Too” movement to declare Judge Kavanaugh guilty simply because Ms. Ford is a woman who has made what they call, without any corroborating evidence to date, a “credible” charge. The same would presumably be the case for Ms. Ramirez. They argue that since the Senate Judiciary Committee is not a criminal judicial trial, but rather a legislative hearing for confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee, the normal burden of proof shouldered by the accuser should not apply. Judge Kavanaugh should have to prove that he is not guilty, they are in effect insisting. This is another case of Kavanaugh Derangement Syndrome.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the normal burden on the prosecution in a criminal case - to prove the accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt - is not applicable regarding the charge against Judge Kavanaugh since he is not a defendant in a criminal trial. However, that should not flip the burden of proof onto Judge Kavanaugh altogether. Judge Kavanaugh is being subjected to charges of a criminal nature that could not only deprive him of a seat on the Supreme Court for which he is otherwise eminently qualified. Ms. Ford’s unsubstantiated accusation can completely destroy Judge Kavanaugh’s life by causing irreparable damage to his reputation for integrity and good character and to his career, which he has built up during decades of public service. His family’s lives have been completely upended. Placing the burden on Judge Kavanaugh to prove that he was not involved in an uncorroborated incident from years ago, about which even his accuser does not recall key details, turns the fundamental constitutional principle of due process upside down. Ms. Ford should have the burden to prove her accusations by at least a preponderance of all the evidence presented.

This charade must come to an end. No more extensions for Ms. Ford to come forward and testify. If Ms. Ford does not follow through with her agreement to testify in an open Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this Thursday and do so upon the conditions set by the committee, she should go home while the committee proceeds to an immediate vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination. If Ms. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh do testify, the senators deciding on whether to confirm Judge Kavanaugh as well as the American public following the testimony must remember one cardinal rule. In a nation guided by fairness and law, a person is innocent until proven guilty. Sadly, many of Judge Kavanaugh’s haters have thrown that rule aside.

If Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination is pulled as a result of the smears and character assassination, President Trump should immediately nominate someone on his short list such as Amy Coney Barrett and the Senate Republican majority should then push through the new nominee’s confirmation as soon as possible. Delay is not an option.

Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam.
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Critics condemn New Yorker over uncorroborated Kavanaugh story: 'Lazy at best, slimy at worst'


By Brian Flood
September 24, 2018
Fox News

The New Yorker's sketchy report that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh may have exposed himself to a college classmate decades ago has media critics asking if the prestigious magazine cares more about getting a story or getting it right.

The article, headlined “Senate Democrats Investigate a New Allegation of Sexual Misconduct, from the Brett Kavanaugh’s College Years,” was co-bylined by Pulitzer Prize winner Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer. It details a claim by Debbie Ramirez, who said Kavanaugh sexually harassed her during a Yale University party.

Yet, beneath the story's explosive thesis lie substantive seeds of doubt and a complete lack of corroboration that prompted howling from a chorus of media critics.


“It's worth noting that Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer could not confirm ‘with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party.’ It's also worth noting that this disclaimer was buried to the ‘10th paragraph’ of the Deborah Ramirez report. Lazy at best, slimy at worst,” Mediaite columnist Joseph Wulfsohn wrote.

National Review editor Charles C.W. Cooke penned a column calling the piece “grossly irresponsible,” which slams The New Yorker for publishing the story.

“I am struggling to remember reading a less responsible piece of ‘journalism’ in a major outlet,” Cooke wrote.“There is no scaffolding beneath this story."

Jedediah Bila wrote that she is typically a fan of Farrow but his latest report is “not good journalism.”

“New Yorker piece doesn’t even confirm that Kavanaugh was at the party, contains an admission of memory gaps by Ramirez due to intoxication, and has numerous people on the record disputing her claim. Once again, I’m awaiting facts: evidence, corroboration, possible testimony,” Bila wrote.


The story has been criticized for admitting a lawyer spent six days assessing Ramirez’s memory, failing to confirm Kavanaugh actually attended the party, burying the fact that the New Yorker couldn’t confirm the story with witnesses and relies on decades-old hearsay.

“Ronan Farrow, Jane Mayer and the New Yorker ran with a story where the accuser still, today, right now, can not say that the person she is accusing actually is the one who did what she is alleging. IS THAT NUTS,” New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz wrote in a series of tweets mocking the story.

“The New Yorker piece is a terrible piece of journalism and it really seems like Farrow and Mayer know it,” Markowicz wrote. “I can't remember the last time I was this angry about something in politics. This is disgusting.”

“I have no words for how sickened I am by how the left and the establishment media are weaponizing non-credible sexual assault claims to destroy a human being,” Daily Caller media editor Amber Athey tweeted.

Syndicated radio host Dana Loesch questioned if Farrow -- who helped launch the #MeToo movement with his reporting on disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein – was given a byline to add credibility to the report. Erick Erickson echoed Loesch, saying the piece doesn’t live up to Farrow’s pristine reputation.

“All of these New Yorker stories about Kavanaugh seem as if they're Mayer stories that Farrow was added to for credibility. Because they're not up to his standard sourcing. Hell, they're not really even sourced,” Erickson wrote.

Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York sarcastically noted that the latest allegation “has it all.”

“Accuser was drunk. ’Significant gaps' in her memory, recovered recently with help of lawyer. Memories fuzzy all 'round. Some say never happened. Accuser 'never described incident until Brett's SCOTUS nomination,’” York wrote.

While many of the piece’s critics are conservative pundits, several mainstream media members have also questioned the report. “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King asked Mayer if she was ok knowing that Ramirez admitted that she had gaps in her memory from the night in question.


“The story is very transparent about what she does and doesn’t remember,” Mayer insisted.

The CBS morning show further pressed Mayer, and Fox News contributor Stephen Miller called the exchange “embarrassing” after co-host Norah O’Donnell tweeted a clip.

The New York Times wasn’t as comfortable as Mayer, Farrow and The New Yorker -- admitting it couldn't find anyone with firsthand knowledge of the claim. 

“The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge," the Times wrote in a story that followed the New Yorker report. "Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.”

“So it was too shaky for the New York Times, but The New Yorker went with it. Very telling,” Fox News’ Britt Hume wrote.

Pundit Steve Cortes wrote that the “sham” story “couldn't even meet the low standards” of the Times.

Despite all the criticism the story has received, Farrow and Mayer spent Monday morning defending their work with a variety of media appearances.
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Ramirez: I Think it was Kavanaugh Who Waved His Penis in My Face
John R. Houk
© September 24, 2018
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Yes, Let’s See The Emails That Led To Deborah Ramirez’s Accusation Against Kavanaugh

Copyright HotAir.com/Salem Media. All Rights Reserved.
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KAVANAUGH AND LAST-MINUTE ACCUSATIONS

© COPYRIGHT 2018, FRONTPAGEMAG.COM
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Critics condemn New Yorker over uncorroborated Kavanaugh story: 'Lazy at best, slimy at worst'

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