Tag Archives: sexual assault

national news

FBI probe would answer many questions, right?

Christine Blasey Ford has leveled an accusation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh; she wants the FBI to examine it thoroughly before she testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee that is considering whether to recommend Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the high court.

As a friend and former colleague of mine has asked on social media: One wants an FBI investigation. One doesn’t want an FBI investigation. Which one would you believe?

Ford wants the FBI to examine her allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. Kavanaugh doesn’t want the FBI to look into the allegation.

Hmm. My friend does pose a fair question.

The FBI took all of three days to conclude an investigation in 1991 when a University of Oklahoma law professor, Anita Hill, accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. She testified before the Judiciary Committee, as did Thomas. The committee recommended Thomas’s confirmation and the full Senate then confirmed him in a 52-48 vote.

Thus, if the FBI can help determine the veracity of the allegation made against the current high court nominee, why would the person accused of wrongdoing oppose it?

national news

How does POTUS even discuss sexual abuse?

We are living in the wackiest of worlds.

Donald Trump got elected president of the United States after admitting to groping women, grabbing them by their private parts, saying he could have his way with women because of his “celebrity” status.

The president than nominates a fellow to the U.S. Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh was coasting to confirmation. Then trouble presented itself in the form of an allegation by a woman who says that when she and Kavanaugh were teenagers, the future judge attacked her, committing an act of sexual assault at a high school party.

Kavanaugh denies the incident occurred. Christine Ford, who has become a college professor, insists it did.

Meanwhile, the president — the guy with his overloaded baggage wagon — weighs in with comments questioning the veracity of Ford’s allegation. He is backing Brett Kavanaugh to the hilt.

My question? How does the president of the United States dare comment on anything at all relating to this kind of allegation?

He doesn’t seem to understand that the record is replete with his own involvement with women. Doesn’t the president grasp the idea that his own acknowledgement of such bad behavior can haunt him continually?

Were the judge to speak to the Judiciary panel, he could do so privately. He could speak from his gut. He can persuade those on the Judiciary Committee that he’s all grown up no.

As for the president, I want to offer him some unsolicited advice: Don’t talk about sexual assault out loud, in public, in front of reporters. Donald Trump is in enough trouble as it is without being buried under reminders of his own sexual misbehavior.

legal news

Wait for FBI probe: What’s wrong with that?

Christine Ford has leveled a serious accusation against Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s nominee to join the U.S. Supreme Court.

She intends to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but wants the FBI to conduct a thorough investigation before she talks about her allegation: that Kavanaugh assaulted her sexually when they were teenagers.

The FBI can pull together all the evidence it needs to presumably determine whether Ford’s allegation holds up. Or it could come up empty. Or it could produce a result with no definitive answer.

Ford is asking that the FBI do its investigation before she talks.

If it delays Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote, so be it. If his confirmation — should it occur — come until after the court convenes its next judicial term, so be that, too.

The allegation is profoundly serious. Kavanaugh has denied categorically what the accuser has alleged. He is entitled to mount a vigorous defense. Ford, too, is entitled to get a fair and complete hearing of the allegation she has leveled against a man who wants to join the U.S. Supreme Court.

national news

Kavanaugh nomination on rocky ground, but not doomed

It’s pretty clear that Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s road to the U.S. Supreme Court has hit a serious pot hole.

I’m not yet sure his nomination to join the nation’s highest court is doomed.

A woman has come forward with a 35-year-old claim that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s nominee to the court, denies the event took place. The woman swears it did.

Speaking of “swearing” to the veracity of her allegation, Christine Ford is going to take an oath next Monday to tell the whole truth to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering whether to recommend Kavanaugh to the full Senate.

If she is proven to perjure herself before the court, then her allegations is toast.

Then again, Kavanaugh also will take an oath to tell the truth. If he lies under oath — or if it can be proven that he lied, which is a tall order — then his nomination is toast.

I’ve wrestled with this one. Can teenagers grow out of their youthful nastiness to become upstanding adults? Sure they can. If this event happened, does Kavanaugh’s status as a federal judge and a devoted husband and father negate what he might have done as a drunken teen?

Not exactly. He’s being considered for the highest judicial post in the United States of America. The post requires men and women to be of fine moral character. I mean, Douglas Ginsburg withdrew his high court nomination in 1987 after he admitted to smoking pot while in college. This allegation against Judge Kavanaugh in my mind rises to a higher level of misbehavior.

But still, the two principals are going to take an oath to tell the truth. One of them is lying. The Senate Judiciary Committee — deeply split already along partisan grounds — will have to decide whom to believe.

Good luck, ladies and gentlemen of the committee.

national news

Astonishing: Trump sounds reasonable, measured!

1 Comment

An amazing thing occurred today that compels me to say something positive about Donald John Trump.

The president of the United States sounded reasonable, rational, measured and downright sensible in his response to a planned hearing involving a woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both teenagers.

There was none of the usual crap that flies out of Trump’s mouth when women accuse powerful men of sexual misbehavior.

The president instead said the accuser, Christine Ford, needs to be heard. Yes, he complained that the accusation became known so late in the Kavanaugh confirmation process. But again, he refrained from the usual bellicosity one usually hears from the president.

Trump has been known to dismiss female accusers. There were those who have accused him of various acts of sexual misbehavior; he called the women who accused former Alabama judge Roy Moore of raping them “liars.”

So, you see, to hear the president speak in such measured tones today makes High Plains Blogger want to say something positive about the tone of voice he used.

Let’s hope there’s more measured tones in store.

national news

Let the accuser — and the accused — make their case

I’ve been quiet about Brett Kavanaugh’s recent troubles and the allegation brought by a woman who has accused the U.S. Supreme Court nominee of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers.

Until now.

Christine Ford is going to get to make her case next week in a hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Kavanaugh, nominated by Donald Trump, has denied the accusation that when he was 17 and his accuser was 15 he forced himself on her and sought to rape her at a high school party.

Man, this is serious stuff. You know?

I want to hear both of them. I want them both to look nation in the eye and make their case. Do I believe Christine Ford? I cannot state yet whether I believe or disbelieve her. And do I believe Judge Kavanaugh’s denial? Same answer.

I need to watch their body language. I need to look into their eyes.

I also want the FBI to conduct a complete, thorough and meticulous background check to ascertain which of these people is telling the truth. If that’s possible.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican “swing vote,” has declared that any evidence that Kavanaugh has lied about this alleged encounter is a deal-breaker. He cannot serve on the nation’s highest court. No kidding?

Thus, the rush to confirm this individual can wait for as long as we need to determine the veracity of the complaint brought against him. If the FBI investigation goes past the date in October when the high court convenes its next judicial session, well, so be it. The court has functioned before without  all nine SCOTUS seats being occupied (isn’t that right, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who obstructed President Obama’s nominee to succeed the late Antonin Scalia?).

The hearing will be open. The public will get to see for itself. Let’s give this accuser her the opportunity she deserves to make her case … and let’s give the accused the chance he deserves to defend himself.

May the more credible person win the day.

national news

POTUS ridicules ‘Me Too’? No kidding?

Donald John Trump Sr. no doubt would boast about the “stones” he packs around.

I’ll refer to them in the proverbial sense, given that he stood before that rally crowd in Great Falls, Mont., this week and actually poked fun of the “Me Too” movement, which grew out of revelations of sexual harassment/assault/misbehavior among powerful men in politics and entertainment.

He did precisely that even though the president himself has been accused by women of groping them, of committing sexual assault. He has actually acknowledged that his “star” status has enabled him to grab women by their genitals.

And so for Trump to ridicule the Me Too movement in the manner that he did demonstrates clearly and without equivocation that he doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about the country beyond his blindly faithful base of voters.

They cheer, laugh, hoot and holler when he denigrates others.

Donald Trump relishes it.

Sickening.

entertainment news

Jury delivers justice to ‘America’s Dad’

Earlier today, a Norristown, Pa., jury of seven men and five women did something many of us a decade ago never would have imagined.

They convicted one of America’s most iconic entertainers of three counts of sexual assault. To be totally candid, I am still trying to process the conviction of Bill Cosby of the crimes he was accused of committing.

Think about this for a moment. There will be no more “alleged” adjective attached to the counts of sexual assault that Cosby committed against Andrea Constand, a one Temple University employee with whom Cosby was acquainted.

Cosby is now a convicted felon who faces the possibility of a lengthy prison term for the three counts of sexual assault. As I understand it, he could be sentenced to 30 years in prison: 10 years for each of the counts.

Now, as an 80-year-old felon, does anyone really expect the judge to throw Cosby in prison for 30 years? I don’t think so.

However, I won’t buy into the canard that Cosby’s age by itself should compel sentencing leniency. As has been noted already, he wasn’t 80 when he attacked Constand; the assault occurred in 2004, meaning Cosby was a “spring chicken” of 66 years of age. As such, he ought to spend a good stretch of time behind bars.

I am left to wonder out loud whether we are witnessing the “Me Too” and “Time’s Up” movements coalescing at just the right moment as it regards Bill Cosby. The jury that heard this retrial convicted the once-revered Cosby after the emergence of the twin movements that arose from accusations of sexual abuse that have leveled high-level entertainers and politicians.

Cosby’s original trial, which ended with a hung jury in 2015, hadn’t yet been overshadowed by the movement that has empowered women around the world to speak out against abuse, harassment and assault.

We have entered a new era. Justice has been delivered to Bill Cosby. The man once known as “America’s Dad” has become “America’s Sexual Predator.”

national news, political news

‘Proud husband and father’ faces the music

Eric Greitens is trying to have it both ways.

The Republican governor of Missouri has now been accused of forcing himself onto a woman with whom he had a sexual relationship. He has admitted to an extramarital affair, but denies the sexual assault allegation.

Oh, but there’s more. Greitens, once a rising star in the GOP — a handsome former U.S. Navy SEAL and all that kind of thing — says his transgression has “nothing to do with governing,” that it is a totally private matter.

But … it isn’t. Not really.

You see, this “family values Republican” proclaimed on the campaign stump while running for his office that he is a “proud husband and father.” That’s right. He used his alleged pride in marriage and parenthood as a campaign hook. He sought to win the support of fellow proud spouses and parents who share his so-called traditional family ethic.

I have to offer the young man a piece of unsolicited advice about his path to high public office. It is that he shouldn’t have bragged in the open, out loud about being a proud hubby and dad while he was messing around with a woman to whom he was not married.

I keep thinking of former Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards, who made similar declarations about his ailing wife only to be shown to be a philanderer.

He, too, tried to have it both ways. It didn’t work for him. I cannot imagine how Eric Greitens can get away with it.

He is facing possible impeachment in Missouri. Hang on, dude. Your ride toward political oblivion is likely to get rather bumpy.

Disgusting.

national news

Oh, the irony of this proclamation

Donald J. Trump’s proclamation utterly drips with irony.  It is soaked in it.

The president has declared April to be National Sexual Assault and Awareness Month. I am left to declare: Wow! Double and triple wow!

The man who has admitted to groping women now has put his name on a campaign to call attention to it. He has invited a month-long campaign of snickers mixed with outrage from women — and men — on whom the irony isn’t lost at all.

“Sexual assault crimes remain tragically common in our society,” the president’s proclamation read. “And offenders too often evade accountability.”

Think of the latter part of that previous quotation. “Offenders too often evade accountability.” Gosh, does the president have anyone in mind? I do. So do millions of others.

While assorted public figures — from Hollywood moguls and actors to prominent politicians — have seen their careers vaporized by scandal, one man retains his position as the most powerful individual on Earth. That would be, um, Donald John Trump.

Women have accused him of varying degrees of sexual misbehavior. Some have filed lawsuits. He denies the allegations. Strangely, the women who come from different chapters in Trump’s pre-presidential life, all tell essentially the same story. They have the ring of credibility, despite Trump’s assertion that they’re all liars — which is hilarious given the president’s penchant for prevarication.

Trump has zero moral authority to declare anything close to what he has declared for the upcoming month. He did anyway.

The man has no shortage of hubris.