{"id":8326,"date":"2018-10-08T11:02:14","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T09:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=8326"},"modified":"2018-10-08T11:05:44","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T09:05:44","slug":"finally-the-republicans-grow-a-spine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/8326\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally, the Republicans grow a spine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So the GOP held their nerve and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-us-canada-45774174\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confirmed<\/a> Brett Kavanaugh&#8217;s ascension to the Supreme Court, where he will be fully aware of the nature of the progressive forces ranged against ordinary Americans. In going all-in with their vile, baseless accusations against Kavanaugh, the Democrats may have blundered badly; if he was a nice, fair, and reasonable chap before the nomination, his experience over the past few weeks may have altered him somewhat.<\/p>\n<p>In all honestly, I thought the Republicans were going to bottle it when they called for the FBI investigation, but it seems as though they played that hand deftly. The investigation didn&#8217;t reveal anything new about Kavanaugh and left prominent Democrats, as well as Christine Blasey Ford&#8217;s legal team, flailing around in frustration that the FBI was not doing their bidding. For once, the Republicans had the upper hand and they carried the momentum right through to the final Senate vote on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The Democrats may also come to regret asking for the investigation. I don&#8217;t know what powers the senate committee has now Kavanaugh has been confirmed, but take a look at this letter from committee chairman Chuck Grassely to Ford&#8217;s lawyer:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">BREAKING: New SenGrassley letter to Ford legal team regarding dispute over turning over evidence. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/5NRnaM6ozA\">pic.twitter.com\/5NRnaM6ozA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShannonBream\/status\/1048056982568099841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 5, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Pay special attention to the final paragraph, and the reference to &#8220;recently uncovered\u00a0 information&#8221;. This most likely refers to communications, perhaps uncovered by the FBI\u00a0 investigation the Democrats insisted on, which show Ford&#8217;s allegations and subsequent testimony was part of a coordinated political attack on Kavanaugh. This would certainly explain why the Democrats suddenly went quiet and, would you believe it, Ford is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/news\/christine-blasey-ford-wants-to-move-on\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">no longer pursuing<\/a> her allegations.<\/p>\n<p>As I said, I don&#8217;t know what powers the senate committee has now Kavanaugh&#8217;s been nominated, but I hope the Republicans fully investigate what has gone on here and if there is any wrongdoing on the part of Feinstein et al, they apply the full force of the law. If the GOP does have evidence this was a coordinated hit as Grassley&#8217;s letter implies, they need to gradually leak this in the run-up to the mid-term elections and level criminal charges a few days before. The Republicans have shown rare backbone in the face of appalling behaviour from the Democrats, and they should waste no time in pressing home their advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, liberals have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/magazine\/story\/2018\/10\/07\/kavanaugh-confirmation-democrats-anger-221089\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">decided<\/a> that after accusing a Supreme Court nominee of\u00a0 gang rape and dragging him and his family through the mud they have been too <em>nice<\/em>. From what I&#8217;m hearing on social media, a lot of people who would never support a Trump administration are intending to vote Republican, so disgusted are they at Kavanaugh&#8217;s treatment. Things could get a lot worse for the Democrats by the time 2018 is out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So the GOP held their nerve and confirmed Brett Kavanaugh&#8217;s ascension to the Supreme Court, where he will be fully aware of the nature of the progressive forces ranged against ordinary Americans. In going all-in with their vile, baseless accusations &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/8326\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8326"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8326"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8330,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8326\/revisions\/8330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}