New Marisa Papen Photos

Following-up from July, "Belgian Model Marisa Papen Slammed by Religious Leaders for Posing Nude at Israel's Western Wall."

And here's some new pics, at Drunken Stepfather, "MARISA PAPEN NAKED MOTOCROSS EROTICA OF THE DAY."

At for Playboy Portugal, "New Cover: Marisa Papen."

U.S. Has Highest Share of Foreign-Born Since 1910

I'm teaching immigration in my classes this week, so I took note of this piece at the New York Times from a couple of weeks ago.

It's fascinating, especially the share of immigrants from Asia.

I'm telling you, Irvine is practically Beijing west. The city is an Asian-majority burg, and it's trippy. Lots of folks wear hospital mask all the time, even while driving their cars (remember, the air quality in China is terrible). Also, lots of folks don't speak English. The kids are bilingual, but the parents, and for sure the grandparents, don't. I can go shopping, hitting two or three different stores, including Walmart, and not hear anyone speaking English.

At some point you'd like immigration rates to slow down, and remember, this is legal immigration. The numbers are too high. Assimilation is breaking down where I live. Let's slow things down. It's a national problem, but I'm seeing things close up right here in the O.C.

In any case, see "U.S. Has Highest Share of Foreign-Born Since 1910, With More Coming From Asia":

The foreign-born population in the U.S. has reached its highest share since 1910, according to government data, and the new arrivals are more likely to come from Asia and to have college degrees than those who arrived in past decades https://t.co/mqZE2cGOZt

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 13, 2018

WASHINGTON — The foreign-born population in the United States has reached its highest share since 1910, according to government data released Thursday, and the new arrivals are more likely to come from Asia and to have college degrees than those who arrived in past decades.

The Census Bureau’s figures for 2017 confirm a major shift in who is coming to the United States. For years newcomers tended to be from Latin America, but a Brookings Institution analysis of that data shows that 41 percent of the people who said they arrived since 2010 came from Asia. Just 39 percent were from Latin America. About 45 percent were college educated, the analysis found, compared with about 30 percent of those who came between 2000 and 2009.

“This is quite different from what we had thought,” said William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution who conducted the analysis. “We think of immigrants as being low-skilled workers from Latin America, but for recent arrivals that’s much less the case. People from Asia have overtaken people from Latin America.”

The new data was released as the nation’s changing demography has become a flash point in American politics. President Trump, and many Republicans, have sounded alarms about immigration and suggested the government needs to restrict both the number and types of people coming into the country.

The foreign-born population stood at 13.7 percent in 2017, or 44.5 million people, according to the data, compared with 13.5 percent in 2016...

Still more.

Shop Today's Deals

I'll be on the road today, heading to Santa Rosa, where my mom is hospitalized.

She was involved in a head-on collision last weekend on Highway 1. Apparently, my mom's husband lost control of the Chevy pickup and crossed over the double-yellow line into oncoming traffic. The truck was totaled. My mom broke her sternum and a rib. But she's been treated for lung cancer over the last few years. Her right lung was removed a couple of years back, and this summer she had chemotherapy and radiation for a growth found in her left lung. So, she's not so strong right now to begin with. It's hard for her to breathe. I've got to get up there to visit, because she's going to stay in the hospital for a few more days while doctors monitor a blood clot in her same lung. Oh boy, that's a lot isn't it?

Anyway, thanks for your support and prayers.

I might be able to do a little blogging over the weekend, depending on if I find a motel room up there. I'm just driving up early in the morning and I've got no reservations. I'll sleep in the car for one night if I have to, and then on Saturday perhaps I'll find a Motel 6.

Here's my Amazon links:

See, Today's Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

And also, KIND Bars, Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt, Gluten Free, 1.4 Ounce Bars, 12 Count.

More, Buck Knives 284 Bantam One-Hand Opening Folding Knife, and Buck Knives 110 Famous Folding Hunter Knife with Genuine Leather Sheath.

Here, Mountain House Just in Case.Essential Bucket.

Plus, Koffee Kult Dark Roast Coffee Beans - Highest Quality Gourmet - Whole Bean Coffee - Fresh Roasted Coffee Beans, 32oz.

And, Samsung 65NU7300 65" NU7300 Smart 4K UHD TV 2018 with Surge Protector + Cleaning Kit (UN65NU7300).

BONUS: David Limbaugh, Jesus Is Risen: Paul and the Early Church.

Will the Democrats Wake Up?

This is great.

It reminds me of Theodore White, The Making of the President, 1960.

From Dan Balz, at WaPo, "Will the Democrats Wake Up Before 2020?":

From the Magazine: They have no unifying leader and no clear message — yet. Will the Democrats wake up before 2020?

A definitive inquiry into the state of the party. https://t.co/yGBu7cOIUb pic.twitter.com/QpgJezNKnY

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 2, 2018

The Iowa State Fair is an obligatory stop on the road to the White House, a cultural and culinary festival of heartland sensibilities, varied livestock and all manner of unhealthy food. The stands that populate the fairgrounds offer such treats as deep-fried mac and cheese, deep-fried pickles and ice cream nachos, along with the traditional favorites of pork-on-a-stick and foot-long corn dogs. In the summer of 2015, Donald Trump descended on the fair from his helicopter and was mobbed by press and public. On a recent muggy August morning, the arrival of Steve Bullock is far less dramatic.

Bullock, 52, the second-term governor of Montana, is dressed in blue jeans, a blue button-down shirt and boots. He ambles down the main street of the fairgrounds virtually undetected. Only a few heads turn as he stops to talk with his friend Tom Miller, Iowa’s long-serving attorney general. Bullock’s political calling card these days is that he is a Democrat who won reelection by four points on the day that Trump was winning his state by 20 points. That won’t get you elected president, but it’s enough to start a conversation. Which is why Bullock is here in Des Moines in the summer of 2018: to start a conversation.

Next summer, the Iowa State Fair will be overrun by presidential candidates. This year, the pickings are slimmer — dark horses and lesser-knowns who might or might not eventually compete for the 2020 nomination. Among the Democrats who have decided to skip the fair are the big three: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Among those who have decided to show up are Rep. John Delaney of Maryland, who has already visited all of Iowa’s 99 counties; Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and former HUD secretary; Tom Steyer, the billionaire Californian on a mission to force impeachment proceedings against the president; and Michael Avenatti, the combative lawyer for adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. As a sign of the times, the swaggering Avenatti, who has never run for office, creates the biggest waves in Iowa with his message that Democrats will need a real fighter — hint! — to topple the president.

Each year, the Des Moines Register sponsors what it calls the Political Soapbox for state and national politicians. The venue consists of a small stage along the fairgrounds’ main drag, a sound system, a few bales of hay and folding chairs for spectators. Politicians take the stage for a few minutes, deliver a speech, answer questions and hope the buzz lasts long enough for them to make their way to see the famous butter cow. It does not always go well: In 2011, Mitt Romney, in a testy exchange with a fairgoer, uttered the famous line that “corporations are people, my friend,” which didn’t do much to create a regular-guy image. In 2015, Trump smartly gave helicopter rides to kids.

As Bullock takes the stage, he finds himself in competition with a children’s Big Wheel race nearby, which is another reason the Soapbox can be a humbling venue. Bullock makes a joke about the tiny three-wheelers screeching along the pavement, offers a few obligatory comments about his connections to Iowa — his mother happens to have been born in the state — and then begins to road-test a message. Trust in government has disappeared, he says. He blames it on lost faith in all institutions and the corrupting influence of money, particularly big money whose origins are hard to trace. He tells the audience, “If we want to address all of the other big issues in our electoral system, in our political system, if we really want to address income inequality, if we want to address health care, if we want to address rights, you’re not going to be able to do it until you’ve also addressed the way that money is corrupting our system.”

He talks about what he’s done in Montana, working with a Republican legislature. “If we can do this in Montana,” he says, “it underscores to me that, look, this isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue; this is an issue about the fundamental trust and faith in our government.” His short speech completed, he takes a few questions. The last person asks whether he plans to run for president. “The question is when will I decide if I’m going to do anything after I serve as governor,” he says playfully. Then more seriously he adds: “Look, I do think that I do have a story of how I’ve been able to bring people together, and I think that’s in part what our country desperately needs. … So right now, what I’m doing is listening, and that’s honestly as far as it goes.” Within 10 days, he will be in New Hampshire...

There's lots more, at the link.

Out Today: Tucker Carlson, Ship of Fools

At Amazon, Tucker Carlson, Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution.

Harvard Rated Asian-Americans Lower

I'm discussing civil rights in my American government classes this week, and I want to read and blog this blockbuster piece that was at the New York Times in June.

See, "Harvard Rated Asian-American Applicants Lower on Personality Traits, Suit Says":

Breaking News: Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower on personal traits, according to an analysis by a group suing the school for bias https://t.co/rkb3pUi3Y7

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 15, 2018

Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than others on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records filed Friday by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university.

Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, according to the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria. But the students’ personal ratings significantly dragged down their chances of being admitted, the analysis found.

The court documents, filed in federal court in Boston, also showed that Harvard conducted an internal investigation into its admissions policies in 2013 and found a bias against Asian-American applicants. But Harvard never made the findings public or acted on them.

Harvard, one of the most sought-after and selective universities in the country, admitted only 4.6 percent of its applicants this year. That has led to intense interest in the university’s closely guarded admissions process. Harvard had fought furiously over the last few months to keep secret the documents that were unsealed Friday.

The documents came out as part of a lawsuit charging Harvard with systematically discriminating against Asian-Americans, in violation of civil rights law. The suit says that Harvard imposes what is in effect a soft quota of “racial balancing.” This keeps the numbers of Asian-Americans artificially low, while advancing less qualified white, black and Hispanic applicants, the plaintiffs contend.

The findings come at a time when issues of race, ethnicity, admission, testing and equal access to education are confronting schools across the country, from selective public high schools like Stuyvesant High School in New York to elite private colleges. Many Ivy League schools, not just Harvard, have had similar ratios of Asian-American, black, white and Hispanic students for years, despite fluctuations in application rates and qualifications, raising questions about how those numbers are arrived at and whether they represent unspoken quotas.

Harvard and the group suing it have presented sharply divergent views of what constitutes a fair admissions process.

“It turns out that the suspicions of Asian-American alumni, students and applicants were right all along,” the group, Students for Fair Admissions, said in a court document laying out the analysis. “Harvard today engages in the same kind of discrimination and stereotyping that it used to justify quotas on Jewish applicants in the 1920s and 1930s.”

Harvard vigorously disagreed on Friday, saying that its own expert analysis showed no discrimination and that seeking diversity is a valuable part of student selection. The university lashed out at the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, Edward Blum, accusing him of using Harvard to replay a previous challenge to affirmative action in college admissions, Fisher v. the University of Texas at Austin. In its 2016 decision in that case, the Supreme Court ruled that race could be used as one of many factors in admissions.

“Thorough and comprehensive analysis of the data and evidence makes clear that Harvard College does not discriminate against applicants from any group, including Asian-Americans, whose rate of admission has grown 29 percent over the last decade,” Harvard said in a statement. “Mr. Blum and his organization’s incomplete and misleading data analysis paint a dangerously inaccurate picture of Harvard College’s whole-person admissions process by omitting critical data and information factors.”

In court papers, Harvard said that a statistical analysis could not capture the many intangible factors that go into Harvard admissions. Harvard said that the plaintiffs’ expert, Peter Arcidiacono, a Duke University economist, had mined the data to his advantage by taking out applicants who were favored because they were legacies, athletes, the children of staff and the like, including Asian-Americans. In response, the plaintiffs said their expert had factored out these applicants because he wanted to look at the pure effect of race on admissions, unclouded by other factors.

Both sides filed papers Friday asking for summary judgment, an immediate ruling in their favor. If the judge denies those requests, as is likely, a trial has been scheduled for October. If it goes on to the Supreme Court, it could upend decades of affirmative action policies at colleges and universities across the country.

Harvard is not the only Ivy League school facing pressure to admit more Asian-American students. Princeton and Cornell and others also have high numbers of Asian-American applicants. Yet their share of Asian-Americans students is comparable with Harvard’s.

In Friday’s court papers, the plaintiffs describe a shaping process that begins before students even apply, when Harvard buys data about PSAT scores and G.P.A.s, according to the plaintiffs’ motion. It is well documented that these scores vary by race.

The plaintiffs’ analysis was based on data extracted from the records of more than 160,000 applicants who applied for admission over six cycles from 2000 to 2015...

Keep reading.

Decent Democrats?

Following-up from last night, "Have Democrats Any Decency?"

Here's the astounding Derek Hunter, at Town Hall, "Is There a Decent Democrat Left in America?":

Derek Hunter - Is There A Decent Democrat Left In America? https://t.co/Lrjs3bFLfX

— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) September 27, 2018

The attempted character assassination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh has brought out the worst in Democrats, every Democrat, everywhere. They’ve convicted a good and decent man of things he wasn’t even falsely accused of, so desperate are progressives to stop someone who believes the Constitution means what it says from sitting on the Supreme Court. From elected officials to unelected Democrats with media credentials, the last two weeks have exposed the Democratic Party as a gaggle of guttersnipes willing to destroy a man for the “crime” of disagreeing with them politically. After watching this unfold, you really have to wonder one thing: Is there a single decent, honest Democrat left in the United States?

The circus Democratic Senators created surrounding the Kavanaugh nomination should serve as a scarlet letter on every single one of them for the rest of their lives and should stain the buildings they’ll fund in their states with our tax dollars with will bare their names. It’s a disgrace...

Keep reading.

Barbara Palvin Rocks (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.

Wages Are Rising in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic

Well, you don't say?

At WSJ, "Labor Shortage Lifts Wages on Europe’s Eastern Flank":

Unlike in some Western economies, wages are rising fast as workers grow scarce in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic https://t.co/kX0itdZkNo

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 29, 2018

Unlike in some Western economies, wages are rising fast as workers grow scarce in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.

BUDAPEST, Hungary—Akos Niklai says he has increased wages at his historic restaurant in downtown Budapest by around 20% in each of the past three years. He still struggles to retain staff.

The Hungarian businessman was recently forced to stop serving lunch on Sundays due to a worker shortage. Unemployment in this nation of 10 million people is at an all-time low of 3.6%, down from 10% five years ago.

“It is very hard to find labor in Budapest,” said Mr. Niklai. “Wages are still not high enough.”

In a half-dozen countries across Central and Eastern Europe, hourly labor costs are shooting up by 9% or more a year, defying a trend of weak wage growth that has bedeviled many advanced economies for years.

The increases seem to answer a question economists have been puzzling over for several years: Does low unemployment still cause wages to rise?

In many Western economies, that notion has been tested by slow wage growth despite falling jobless rates. But in places such as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, supply and demand appear to be pushing up wages as labor becomes scarce.

“These fundamental economic mechanisms are still working,” said Nigel Pain, an economist in Paris with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “If labor markets tighten we will see some pick up in price pressures.”

The wage increases are also putting pressure on Eastern European leaders—many of whom have called for stricter limits on immigration—to allow in more workers or risk lower future economic growth.

In Poland, for example, job vacancies are at a record high, and more than 40% of manufacturing firms say labor shortages are limiting production, according to a March OECD report. Poland’s ruling party has opposed immigration from Muslim countries, and the European Union has sued Poland and other countries for refusing to accept refugees under an EU-wide relocation plan.

“Wage pressure is rising,” said Andrzej Malinowski, the president of Employers of Poland, a business federation. Around 40% of large Polish companies employ workers from neighboring Ukraine, and 30% intend to hire Ukrainians in the near future, said Mr. Malinowski.

Migration patterns have been a major factor behind the wage boom. Labor is particularly scarce in the former communist states because workers have been migrating to Western Europe, where they can earn more. And limits on immigration from outside the EU add to the labor squeeze.

Low unemployment has also given workers more bargaining power. In the Czech Republic—where unemployment is 2.3%, the lowest in the EU—average wages grew by around 6% year-over-year in the three months through June, after adjusting for inflation, close to a 15-year high. Workers at Skoda Auto, the Czech unit of Volkswagen AG , recently got a pay raise of 12% and bigger bonuses.

Amazon.com Inc. announced in early August that it would sharply increase hourly wages for its workers across the region—by between 5% and 11% for staff in the Czech Republic, by up to 17% in Poland and by as much as 20% in Slovakia, a spokeswoman said.

“Eastern European countries are trying to persuade workers not to leave,” said Dan Bucsa, an economist with Italian bank UniCredit who focuses on the region...

Keep reading.

BBC's Africa Cameroon Investigation on Twitter

This is mind-boggling.

Click through and read the whole thing:

Wow. https://t.co/VaCVHAPUw0

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) September 24, 2018

HOONIGAN Mazda Miata Long Jump (VIDEO)

I went down to the Hoonigan shop yesterday afternoon to pick up some t-shirts. I wear Hoonigan gear all the time nowadays. I first picked up a Hoonigan shirt at Tilly's sportswear last year. I didn't know what it was. The shirt was cool, though, and it indicated that Hoonigan's was located in Long Beach, so I checked 'em out and the rest is history.

Here's the homepage, and check this background briefing, "Understanding Hoonigan."


More later.

Nice Gals Enjoying the End of Summer

It's Rhian Sugden and friends.

Hairy Mary’s 💚 pic.twitter.com/cNixgow7js

— Rhian Sugden (@Rhianmarie) September 26, 2018

Have Democrats Any Decency?

No. They have none. Absolutely none.

And it didn't just take the diabolical anti-Kavanaugh smear campaign for people to take notice. The left's never had any decency. I just takes some occasionally earth-shattering political events to hit you upside the head and remind you. This last few weeks has been one of those events, but again, this stuff ain't new.

See Molly Hemingway, "Media Sink to New Lows in Their Anti-Kavanaugh Smear Campaign."

“Have they no decency?” is the right question. https://t.co/LaxISWxuqK

— Brit Hume (@brithume) September 30, 2018

And also, see Michelle Malkin on Chris Britt of the Seattle Times:

I worked with Chris Britt at the Seattle Times in the mid-1990s. He was a genuinely nice guy.

I don't know what happened to him.

Damn. https://t.co/FnnINYw1pU

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 1, 2018

The F.B.I. Must Investigate Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's Credibility

A must-read post from Ace, "If The FBI Is Investigating These Allegations, They Absolutely Must Investigate Ford's Credibility":

3. Obviously, any time she claims she doesn't know and that only her lawyers would know, her lawyers must be asked under oath.

Her lawyers, by the way, cannot invoke lawyer-client privilege regarding notes they gave to a third party. Information given to a third party is not a confidential lawyer-client communication and not shielded by privilege.

There is no such thing as "Lawyer-Feinstein privilege," and Ford's political operators with legal licenses should not be permitted to invent one...

There's 10 questions altogether, so read the whole thing.

Yasmin Brunet Caught on a Beach

At Taxi Driver, "Yasmin Brunet Caught Topless on a Beach."

Brigitte Gabriel, Rise

At Amazon, Brigitte Gabriel, Rise: In Defense of Judeo-Christian Values and Freedom.

David Horowitz, The Politics of Bad Faith

Following-up from my previous entry, "Never Negotiate With Democrats."

I'm reminded of David Horowitz's book, The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's Future.

Never Negotiate With Democrats

This is a must read essay, from the Other McCain, "Never Negotiate With Sociopaths: Liars, Democrats and the #Kavanaugh Smear":

There was a moment during Thursday’s hearing when Christine Blasey Ford was asked, “Was it communicated to you by your counsel or someone else, that the committee had asked to interview you and that — that they offered to come out to California to do so?”

At which point, her lawyer Michael Bromwich grabbed the microphone to interrupt: “We’re going to object, Mr. Chairman, to any call for privileged conversations between counsel and Dr. Ford.”

A poker player would call that a “tell.” Among the many things we learned from Thursday’s hearing was that the excuse given for delaying Professor Ford’s testimony was a lie. She wasn’t afraid of flying. She was a frequent flyer, traveling to vacations around the world and, in point of fact, at the time the Senate Judiciary Committee was offering to fly to California to interview her, Professor Ford was not in California. She was already in the D.C. area, having flown there to strategize with her lawyers, who were recommended to her by Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She had also flown to the D.C. area in August, when she took a polygraph test at the Hilton Hotel near Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

This was all a set-up, a carefully planned ambush by Democrats, calculated either to force Judge Kavanaugh to withdraw his name for the Supreme Court nomination, or else to delay the process past the midterm elections, turning the nomination into a campaign issue.

Once you understand this, the coordination between Senate Democrats and Professor Ford’s lawyers appears highly significant. Anyone could look at the calendar and see how long Feinstein, her Democrat colleagues and the media prepared this ambush. On June 27, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement and, within a few days, Professor Ford contacted the Washiington Post to share her 1982 tale about Judge Kavanaugh, who was widely reported to be on President Trump’s short list of candidates to replace Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh’s name was announced July 9, and days later, Profesor Ford met with her Democrat congresswoman, Rep. Anna Eshoo, who recommended that Professor Ford detail her accusations in a letter to Feinstein. That letter was hand-delivered to Feinstein on July 30. The next day, Aug. 1, in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt radio program, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said:

“If we could get this all done by October 1st when the Supreme Court starts its new fall session, [that] would be ideal. But I think we can get it done soon after that if we don’t get it done by October 1st.”

Grassley explained in that interview that the hearing would likely be delayed until after Labor Day, because August was already booked up with the Senate committee scheduled to consider a series of votes on President Trump’s lower-court appointees. The clock was ticking, however, and Professor Ford’s lawyers wasted no time getting to work. By Aug. 7, Professor Ford was being polygraphed — and Feinstein didn’t say a word about this accusation to her Republican colleagues on the committee. That’s a crucial fact to keep in mind, now that the vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation has been delayed because Jeff Flake got harassed in an elevator by Soros-funded protesters.

The confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh began Sept. 4. Feinstein had been in possession of Professor Ford’s letter for 36 days, and the accuser had been a client of the lawyers recommended by Feinstein for five weeks. Yet while Judge Kavanaugh sat for more than 30 hours of hearings in the Judiciary Committee, where Feinstein was the ranking Democrat member, she never asked a single question about this accusation and, most importantly, nobody on the Republican side of the aisle had any clue that Christine Blasey Ford existed, and was working with a team of lawyers hand-picked for her by Feinstein.

Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony ended Friday, Sept. 7, and the Judiciary Committee vote was already scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 20, allowing another week for the full Senate to debate the nomination and vote, thus to have the new appointed confirmed by the time the Supreme Court convened on Oct. 1. Feinstein, who had been holding onto Professor Ford’s letter since late July, waited until Thursday, Sept. 13, to go public with it, pretending that this delay was about protecting the accuser’s anonymity...

Still more.

David M. O'Brien, Storm Center

At Amazon, David M. O'Brien, Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics.

Senate Judiciary Committee Testimonies Personified the Nation's Bitter Political Divisions

This is good, at LAT, "Emotionally wrenching testimony leaves the Senate, and the nation, bitterly divided":

The two parties could not have come up with witnesses who more perfectly embodied the nation’s bitter partisan divide — or could more effectively widen them— than Ford & Kavanaugh. https://t.co/NUEneVGja1

— David Lauter (@DavidLauter) September 28, 2018

If each side had set out to design witnesses who more perfectly embodied the nation’s bitter partisan divide — or could more effectively widen it — they scarcely could have done better than the two who faced off Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Frequently fighting back tears, Christine Blasey Ford described the sexual assault she says she suffered during the summer of 1982, when she was 15, at the hands of a man now nominated to the nation’s highest court. Her anguished testimony made her an Everywoman stand-in for victims of sexual violence. And as a white, female university professor from California, she virtually personified the Democrats’ resistance to President Trump.

In the afternoon, the man she has accused, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, channeled the president who nominated him, delivering a blistering, angry denial in which he repeatedly declared his innocence and portrayed himself as a victim of “a frenzy on the left” born of “pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election” and “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.”

At the risk of torching any image of judicial temperament, Kavanaugh interrupted Democratic senators and glared at them, once sitting mutely rather than answer a question. He cast the fight mostly not as one of credibility — his word against Ford’s — but as raw partisan battle. He portrayed himself as the victim of “a calculated and orchestrated political hit” and “grotesque and coordinated character assassination.”

His tight-lipped fury marked a dramatic shift from a genteel performance at his earlier confirmation hearing. But it drew deeply from the well of grievance toward Washington and liberal politicians that has cemented conservative loyalty behind Trump through repeated crises in the three years since he opened his presidential campaign.

Underscoring the implicit demand for tribal unity — and its intended audience — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Kavanaugh’s strongest supporters on the committee, nearly shouted at the Senate’s remaining undecided Republicans when his turn came to speak.

“To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics,” Graham declared.

Whether the hearing changed any senator’s vote is yet unknown. The committee’s 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats are expected to vote Friday, and the full Senate could begin preliminary votes Saturday.

Only a handful of votes remain uncertain — perhaps three Republicans and a couple of Democrats. But much like the confrontation between professor Anita Hill and Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas before the same committee 27 years ago, the day’s drama seemed all but certain to become a national touchstone.

“This kind of mass national exposure is really unusual,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Think of the very few moments in which a large part of the nation pauses to consume something in common,” she said. “People assume if you were alive and above 15 when the Anita Hill hearing happened, you will remember it, and there is no need to explain what it is. This will also be one of those moments.”

Ford’s testimony revealed her as a naif in the world of politics. From her opening declaration about how terrified she felt at the witness table to her description of trying to interview prospective lawyers from her car parked outside a Walgreen’s drugstore, she appeared as an innocent suddenly parachuted, against her better judgment, into a Washington maelstrom.

“She came across as exactly the kind of witness one would hope she would be,” said Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law and a former sex-crimes prosecutor. “Helpful, interested in providing the truth, willing to qualify the testimony where she needed to and very much a person doing her duty rather than grinding any ax.

“For survivors of any kind of assault or misconduct there was catharsis in this,” she added. “As difficult and excruciating as it was to see her relive the trauma, she held up incredibly well.”

Indeed, Ford’s soft-stated testimony elicited praise even from many Republican senators.

“I found no reason to find her not credible,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican.

Kavanaugh, by contrast, made no effort to portray himself as outside the political realm, and he drew a polarized response. Democrats, as well as some nonpartisan observers, took note of the partisan framing of his anger and predicted his comments could leave permanent doubt about his impartiality if he does win confirmation.

“I think he has really raised serious questions about his temperament,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. “He has raised threats of conspiracy and shown himself to be hot-headed in a way which really makes it questionable that he can be a fair judge.”

But Kavanaugh’s testimony drew support where it counted most — from the inveterate television watcher in the Oval Office, who cleared much of his calendar to watch the nearly nine-hour proceedings, a day after he seemed to hint that he might be wavering on the nomination.

“Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him. His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting,” Trump declared in a tweet shortly after Kavanaugh finished.

Conservative defenders of Kavanaugh’s were equally cheered by his partisan fire.

“Kavanaugh is not being withdrawn after this. The Republicans are going to have to confirm him or watch Trump and the GOP voters burn down the remains of the party, deservedly so,” declared Erick Erickson, the conservative commentator.

Before Thursday, many had predicted the hearing would replay the bitter 1991 clash between Hill and Thomas after she had accused him of sexual harassment...

More.