“They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.” —John Adams (1775)

My wife, Ann, is traveling with friends in the Northeast this week. One stop was to walk in the footprints of Patriots at Lexington and Concord. She sent me a text message photo of a plaque engraved with the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Shot Heard Round the World.” Her accompanying message was simple: “God Bless America.”

In a follow-up conversation, she described the contrast of being at that place where Patriots were willing to fight and die for Liberty — their own and generations to follow — while she simultaneously felt besieged by the current progressive assault on our Constitution and its principles.

“What struck me most was the very sad and stark contrast between those Patriots who took to the field in Concord, charging against an enemy and an empire to defend Liberty, versus the current crop of politicians who are engaging in an appalling game to destroy a good man, and by extension, our Constitution. I am very discouraged by their disgraceful antics. [Our son] is serving our nation as a Marine, abiding by his oath to our Constitution, and I expect our nation’s leaders to honor his service and that of all those like him – risking their lives to defend Liberty. These politicians can do so by honoring their own constitutional oaths.”

I asked that she not be discouraged, noting that while the battle for Liberty began at that old bridge in Concord, it did not end in 1783 with cessation of hostilities. Defending Liberty requires constant vigilance every day, and always will.

It’s no small irony that the hallowed ground at Lexington and Concord is now surrounded by a Democrat corridor where the majority of residents (though certainly not all) support the same statist tyranny that, in principle, those early Patriots were fighting. This is a shameful betrayal of the Liberty that first generation of American Patriots, and generations since, have defended with their lives.

It’s likewise ironic that a mere 30 miles from Concord is the town of Salem, notorious for a shameful series of colonial “trials” of more than 200 people who were accused of witchcraft and were presumed guilty — unless they could establish their innocence. Many of the accused were executed.

It is from that disgraceful chapter in English colonial history that the term “witch hunt” was derived.

Today’s campaign by Democrats and their media brethren to “destroy a good man” is nothing less than a modern-day witch hunt. Ancient, unsubstantiated accusations have been put forth and, just as in 17th-century Salem, the accused is being required to prove his innocence.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh got underway, I wrote about the Democrats’ efforts to stop the nomination: “Obstruction of Justice: The Kavanaugh Blockade.”

After the hearings concluded, ranking committee Democrat Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) delivered a vicious late hit on Kavanaugh with uncorroborated allegations of an assault by the nominee some 36 years ago. I have covered the formulation and execution of Feinstein’s scripted charade in great detail in my column, “Judging Kavanaugh — Feinstein’s ‘Guilty Until Proven Innocent’ Strategy.”

There is now evidence backing up the assertion that Feinstein and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) cooked up this collusion and obstruction strategy in July, even timing the drop of the alleged victim’s letter after the Kavanaugh hearings closed.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch is calling for an investigation into the Feinstein/Schumer scripted charade, starting with the timing of the media leak of the Ford accusations. (Memo to the FBI: Put Feinstein and Schumer under oath…)

Supporting the contention about the script, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) declared: “I believe the Schumer political operation was behind this from the very beginning. Monica McLean was Ms. Ford’s roommate and she was one of the so-called ‘beach friends’ that encouraged Ms. Ford to go to Feinstein. McLean worked for Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, now a virulent anti-Trump critic [who was] former counsel to Chuck Schumer. I strongly suspect that Chuck Schumer’s political operation knew about Ms. Ford’s allegations as far back as July and manipulated the process all along…”

Coinciding with Feinstein’s receipt of that letter was a conference call to Democrats about the Kavanaugh nomination from leftist strategist Ricki Seidman (who is now one of the accuser’s “advisers”). In that conference call, Seidman said, “Over the coming days and weeks there will be a strategy that will emerge, and I think it’s possible that that strategy might ultimately defeat [Kavanaugh].”

(Hypocrisy alert: These spurious charges are coming from the party of serial sexual assailant Bill Clinton and his chief defender and enabler Hillary Clinton, and DNC Deputy Chair Keith Ellison. Somebody get Juanita Broaddrick and Clinton’s other victims on the line…)

Feinstein’s complainant is one Christine Blasey Ford, a leftist Bernie Sanders-supporting California college professor, who alleges that she was subject to some kind of assault, maybe in the summer of 1982, at some location she can’t recall, by then-17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh.

Republicans won’t tolerate Feinstein’s absurd standard of justice in the Senate. Instead, they’ll afford Judge Kavanaugh a full measure of self-defense while Feinstein and her Demo colluders adjudicate their “guilty until proven innocent” standard in the court of public opinion, in which the loudest voice is their Leftmedia propaganda machine.

This week, after the Judiciary Committee had set a date for Feinstein’s alleged victim to testify, the fourth and final person that Ford claimed had direct knowledge of her alleged assault, a lifelong friend, declared she also had no knowledge of the assault. And what did the Democrats do? They trotted out another, even less credible individual alleging in a New Yorker article that she had also been assaulted — though even the hard-left New York Times refused to run her story. That sequence of accusations and denials is covered in detail in “Destroying Kavanaugh, One Scripted Attack at a Time.”

Predictably, as the Feinstein/Ford farce began to fade, attorney and self-promoting provocateur Michael Avenatti emerged from his rat hole hoping to steal some thunder from the Feinstein/Ford charade. Avenatti produced allegations from another woman who claims she was sexually assaulted at a party roughly 36 years ago. She does not claim Kavanaugh was involved in the assault but that she recalls through her intoxicated fog that he and his friend Mark Judge were at a party in “approximately 1980-1981.”

You know, Kavanaugh, that “party animal.”

If a salacious claim has Avenatti’s brand on it, you can trust it’s all about Avenatti. Laughably, he demanded that his client’s “privacy and that of her family be respected.”

The accumulation of unsubstantiated and uncorroborated charges aside, allow me to focus on two aspects of how Democrats have responded to these allegations: the insistence that the complainant should be believed regardless of the truth, and the insistence that Judge Kavanaugh is “guilty until proven innocent.”

These are the “ends justify the means” standards of “justice” upon which totalitarian regimes are built.

What follows are a few excerpts from the last week that demonstrate leftists’ relentless effort to turn Rule of Law on end, and to replace it with their own rule.

Consider some shameful remarks from Hawaii’s junior senator, Mazie Hirono — remarks that best frame the Demos’ assertion that Ford should be believed regardless and that Kavanaugh is guilty until proven innocent.

Hirono is leading the #MeToo chorus, insisting, “Women like Dr. Ford … need to be believed. They need to be believed. I just want to say to the men in this country, just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change.” Others are echoing that “believe her” mantra.

In response, noted George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley, a Democrat, observed, “Democrats have insisted Ford has a ‘right to be believed.’ There are basic principles of due process that establish a right to be heard, not a right to be believed.”

Likewise, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz (also a Democrat) protests: “The most disturbing thing is these people who are on television, some people I know and respect, [who say] ‘I believe her.’ You’ve never met her. You don’t know anything about her. Are women born with a special gene for telling the truth and men with a special gene for lying? … I want to hear both sides of the story and make a determination. That’s what the American system of justice is all about.”

Hirono was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper, “Doesn’t Kavanaugh have the same presumption of innocence as anyone else in America?”

She responded, “I put his denial in the context of everything I know about him. … His credibility is already very questionable in my mind and in the minds of a lot of my fellow Judiciary Committee members — the, um, Democrats.”

On her refusal to answer the question, Turley noted, “What’s really troubling is that it’s an easy answer. The answer is, ‘Of course. In any nation which values the Rule of Law there is a presumption of innocence.’ The fact that she had to demur on that question is quite troubling.”

Hirono is now spinning this yarn: “Look, we’re not in a court of law. We’re actually in a court of credibility…”

Got that? Witch hunt.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) insists: “[These charges] are serious and credible, and now the person with the most knowledge about them, namely Judge Brett Kavanaugh, has a responsibility to come forward with evidence to rebut them.”

So Kavanaugh is “the person with the most knowledge” about the charges who must prove his innocence? Witch hunt.

As a condition of her testimony, Ford and her lawyers brazenly insisted that Kavanaugh testify first.

Dershowitz noted that this demand is “the most absurd, anti-due process, anti-American concept.” He added, “Every civil libertarian in the country, liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, led by the Civil Libertarian Union should be outraged. … It is insane to ask an accused person to deny the accusation before he has heard the accusation being made and cross-examined.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) insisted, “Kavanaugh has not asked for the FBI to review these claims. Is that the reaction of an innocent person? It is not.” Witch hunt.

Responding to Gillibrand’s assertions, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said, “There is a presumption of innocence and you do not have to prove your innocence. … Judge Kavanaugh does not have the burden of proving his innocence. … The government has the burden of proof in a criminal case. … The FBI has no jurisdiction in this matter.”

Chuck Schumer has doubled down, declaring that according to “standard operating procedure,” the nominee is afforded “no presumption of innocence…” Witch hunt.

On the Avenatti allegations, Schumer insists, “Republicans need to immediately suspend the proceedings related to Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, and the president must order the FBI to reopen the background check investigation.”

Memo to Chuck: Remember in the nomination hearings for Clarence Thomas, when then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) rebuffed committee calls for an FBI investigation into Anita Hill’s spurious accusations? “The next person that refers to an FBI report as being worth anything obviously doesn’t understand anything,” declared Biden. “[The] FBI explicitly does not, in this or any other case, reach a conclusion. Period. The reason why we cannot rely on the FBI report — you wouldn’t like it if we did — is because it is inconclusive. They say ‘He said, she said, and they said.’ Period. So when people are waving [an] FBI report before you, understand they do not, they do not, they do not reach conclusions.”

Of course, Feinstein, Hirono, Schumer and Gillibrand know that there’s no due process in the court of public opinion, which is precisely why they’ve cast it there.

So what’s next?

Democrats continue to throw up obstacles to Ford’s testimony.

Feinstein wants to have Republican members of her committee question the alleged victim, because the optics of older white men questioning a female “attempted assault victim” would provide plenty of video and sound bites going into the midterm elections. But Republicans appear to be holding firm in their intent to have an experienced prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, question Kavanaugh’s accuser.

Recall last week, responding to Ford’s initial refusal to testify, Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) responded, “It raises the question: Do they want to have the hearing or not?”

Good question.

Given that Ford’s claims are now fully discredited by those she insisted could corroborate them, she may be a no-show on Thursday — in which case she and her Democrat handlers will claim that the conditions were “hostile” and “unfair” while at the same time denying Judge Kavanaugh a chance to defend his good name against specific charges. However, her attorney has released Ford’s prepared opening remarks, am indications she will appear.

Judge Kavanaugh has also released his (opening remarks)[https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/651940992/read-brett-kavanaughs-opening-statement-for-senate-hearing].

Grassley has scheduled a vote on the Kavanaugh nomination for Friday at 9:30 a.m.

Of course, the Avenetti client claims will, by design, throw a wrench into the works, invoking a familiar refrain from Democrats insisting the Kavanaugh nomination “should be withdrawn.”

According to Blumenthal, “This nomination will not only cast a shadow over Judge Kavanaugh … it will also stain the United States Supreme Court irreparably.”

No, it is Feinstein’s Democrat Party farce that is casting shadows and stains. It is likely much of that shadow will fall on the Democrats she has enlisted to participate in this farce, and the stain will be on the United States Senate.

Ford’s lack of credibility notwithstanding, it is Feinstein, et al., who have lost ALL credibility. Of their deeply cynical strategy, Donald Trump declared, “It’s a very dangerous game for our country.”

Indeed, it is.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776