Monday, November 5, 2018

Opuscula

Thoughts
At Random

I GET MOST OF MY “NEWS” via the Internet. Most comes from organizations that claim to purvey the news vs. blogs such as this that are opinionated and biased.
That sounds like most “news” sites .

The difference between what is generally posted here and “news” sites is that this scrivener cites his sources.

I HAVE AN ACQUAINTANCE with a a bad habit of quoting something – “It is written” or "It is said” while forgetting to tell me WHO wrote or said whatever was written or said. Nice guy, but he never would have lasted as a reporter a few decades ago. Today? No one (but a few old curmudgeons) would complain about lack of attribution.

Kavanaugh accuser recants

It will come as no surprise to the GOP stalwarts but as a bit of an embarrassment to the Democrats who excoriated Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for sexual attacks that – it turns out – never happened. At least one woman has recanted.

    Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in a letter (http://tinyurl.com/ybvqht9w) to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray, wrote that Judy Munro-Leighton admitted to the committee on Nov. 1 that she previously lied.

    Munro-Leighton alleged in an email to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) in late September that Kavanaugh raped her.

    "She further confessed to Committee investigators that (1) she 'just wanted to get attention'; (2) 'it was a tactic'; and (3) 'that was just a ploy.' She told Committee investigators that she had called Congress multiple times during the Kavanaugh hearing process — including prior to the time Dr. Ford’s allegations surfaced — to oppose his nomination," Grassley wrote.

    Munro-Leighton said she never met Kavanaugh.

    Primary source: The Hill http://tinyurl.com/ycvu6xft

One of several to be investigated

    Grassley has thus far asked federal authorities to investigate: Julie Swetnick, who accused Kavanaugh of drunken behavior and sexual assault; Michael Avenatti, her lawyer who also represented porn star Stormy Daniels in a suit against President Donald Trump; and a man, who was never publicly identified but recanted an allegation he'd made against Kavanaugh.

    Primary source: USA Today http://tinyurl.com/ydaxzw7b

If should be noted that the USA Today article attempts to portray Grassley as a man on a witch hunt, suggesting that Grassley’s actions are motivated by the elections on November 6, 2018. “Just days before the midterm elections, Sen. Chuck Grassley asked the federal authorities on Friday to investigate another person he says made false claims against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.”

How was she discovered?

    Given her relatively unique name, Committee investigators were able to use open-source research to locate Ms. Munro-Leighton and determine that she: (1) is a left-wing activist; (2) is decades older than Judge Kavanaugh; and (3) lives in neither the Washington DC area nor California, but in Kentucky. On November 1, 2018, Committee investigators connected with Ms. Munro-Leighton by phone and spoke with her about the sexual-assault allegations against Judge Kavanaugh she had made to the Committee. Under questioning by Committee investigators, Ms. Munro-Leighton admitted, contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh and was not the author of the original “Jane Doe” letter. She further confessed to Committee investigators that (1) she “just wanted to get attention”; (2) “it was a tactic”; and (3) “that was just a ploy.” She told Committee investigators that she had called Congress multiple times during the Kavanaugh hearing process – including prior to the time Dr. Ford’s allegations surfaced to oppose his nomination.

    Regarding the false sexual-assault allegation she made via her email to the Committee, she said: “I was angry, and I sent it out.” When asked by Committee investigators whether she had ever met Judge Kavanaugh, she said: “Oh Lord, no.”

    Primary source: Townhall http://tinyurl.com/yanyfeyr

Yet, the Law & Crime website reports that

    the woman identified as Munro-Leighton reached out to Senate Judiciary staff by email, identifying herself as “Jane Doe from Oceanside CA.” This was on Oct. 3, 2018, three days before Kavanaugh was sworn in. The email contained a typed-up version of the anonymously written letter,  repeated that Jane Doe was raped by Kavanaugh, but was “deathly afraid of revealing any information about myself or my family.”

    Primary source: Law & Crime http://tinyurl.com/yamhq4ok

Is she or isn’t she the email originator, or is someone doing the old Bud Abbot and Lou Costello “Who’s On First” routine?

Image above is diagram of a baseball field with all the St. Louis Wolves players by position.

The New York Post (http://tinyurl.com/yaestkbb ) apparently tried to bring slightly off-color humor into the flap headline Grassley calls for feds to probe woman who falsely accused Kavanaugh of sex assault. Sound like something from a sci-fi flick.

The question that should haunt both parties is “Who DID post the ‘original Jane Doe letter’.” This is turning out to be a true “#MeToo” witch hunt.

Talking to the wrong person

The New Arab reports that Egyptian President Abel Fattah al-Sissi met with Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen a/k/a Mahmoud Abbas in Sharm al-Sheikh in the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday. They discussed ways to advance Egyptian-mediated talks between Hamas and Israel.

    Hamas chased Abu Mazen’s PLO out of Gaza and took full control of what it calls a government.

    In other words, Abu Mazen has no standing in Hamas’ Gaza; indeed, he is losing credibility even in the areas controlled by the so-called “Palestinian Authority.”

Sharren Haskel, a Likud Member of Knesset (parliament) said, “The attempts at an arrangement in Gaza aren’t in relation to Israel, but attempts by Arab states to bridge [differences] between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The riots on the borders started as a result of the struggle between Hamas forces and the PA and the desire of Abbas to ignite the area against Israel.” (http://tinyurl.com/ycrlaz7s )

The meeting included Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Qatar and Hamas.

The PA would pay 80 percent of the government workers' salaries after six months, when Qatar would reduce its assistance, according to Lebanese website Al-Akhbar.

Ramallah would act as middle-men for funding to Gaza, due to international donors being unwilling to provide aid directly to Hamas.

Abbas would also agree to a "graded reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas that will eventually bring Abbas back to Gaza" according to the deal, with the PA eventually governing the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Meanwhile, a three-year ceasefire would require Hamas to end border protests and stop militias in Gaza firing rockets into Israel. (http://tinyurl.com/y8w8xb7p ) After three years, having rearmed with upgraded weapons from Iran, Hamas would fully reopen hostilities with Israel.

According to the New York Post (http://tinyurl.com/y7jvg78r ), Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire brokered by Egypt on Saturday after waves of Israeli jets slammed the Gaza Strip in retaliation for dozens of rockets fired from the Palestinian territory — one of the worst flare-ups of violence since 2014.

“Egyptian and international efforts succeeded in ending the current round of escalation,” a Palestinian official told Reuters.

A spokesman for Hamas, which controls Gaza, and a statement from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group separately confirmed a truce was reached.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not comment. A senior Israeli defense official said, “Only the facts on the ground will dictate our further response.”

    If the temporary cessation of attacks from Gaza depends on Abu Mazen and the PLO funding Hamas civil servants, the truce probably won’t last a month. The PLO is infamous for taking a percentage of all money funneled through it for any civil efforts,

It is almost over

Today is Monday, November 5, 2018.

Tomorrow is ELECTION DAY.

Translation: The end of all the negative advertising; and end (for now) of the lies one candidate tells about the other. Neither party is without blame.

Above cartoon of man rejoicing that election day is at hand (and soon over)

Hopefully losers will be more civilized than the loser at the last Presidential Election. The loser’s actions and remarks are, in my opinion, a good deal responsible for much of the chasm between Americans. A lousy loser. The winner was sufficiently gracious to halt Justice Department investigations into the loser’s past actions (and worse, inactions).

Don’t focus on what the opponent did; tell me what you will do if elected.

One candidate tells me what he will do and “we know what he (his opponent) will do.” How can anyone know what another will do when we are hard pressed to know what WE would do in any particular situation.

TV stations will shift to their annual fourth quarter cash cow –Medicare advertisements.

Advertisements by Medicare plan providers and advertisements by those claiming to get the best plan for people unable or unwilling to do their homework.

    Trouble is, these pitchmen claiming they check all plans are, like politicians, liars. They are paid commissions by the plans; if a plan refuses to pay the piper, the plan simply doesn’t exist.

The independents promise to find a plan that includes your doctors. Maybe. But even if they DO find such a plan, the plan may not allow its Primary Care Provider (PCP) to refer the person to the specialist. Been there, done that.

So we go from having our intelligence insulted by politicians to being inundated with half-truth commercials for Medicare plans. Not lies, exactly, but not complete truths, either.


PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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