Besides the Tory conference, there are two current topics of interest to this blog. One is the Christine Blasey Ford / Brett Kavanaugh affair.
There is so much material online about the credibility of both individuals concerned that it's hard for anyone, especially me, to add anything helpful. So I'll just ramble a bit.
I immediately took a dislike to he good Doctor Ford when I first heard her testify in that scratchy, vocal-fry, so-called “valley girl” voice. The more times you hear it the more farcical it sounds. Can that really be her voice? Is she having us on? Can she be a college lecturer with that voice?
Vocal fry aside, how much credibility could there be in the utterances of a 50-year-old woman pretending to be a baby? Numerous analyses of her body language, her alleged psychological problems and the supposed lies and holes in her testimony are available online. It’s easy to forget that she wasn’t raped.
But on the other hand, various statements are appearing all over the www - from former class-mates and uni-buddies of the good judge, accusing him of all sorts of drunkenness and debauchery and falling over each other to cast the first stone.
From the unique vantage point of an ignorant keyboard warrior, I’m inclined to dismiss the whole thing as ‘plague on both their houses’ until further notice, or unless something relevant comes up.
I guess it all boils down to who you prefer to back? Trump, or everyone else.. Here’s an interesting take on Trump by Theodore Dalrymple, which I present for your consideration.
As for the aptly named. senator Flake, oy vey.
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The other topic is the Tommy Robinson / Jason Farrell debacle. I’ve seen numerous bits and pieces about that online, too. There’s the video, filmed “on the way to the interview’ where TR correctly predicts an imminent stitch-up. I think it’s available on one of Biased-BBC’s open threads. He knows what they’re likely to get up to, and true to form, they do.
Sky’s malicious edit must be potentially litigious (suitable to become the subject of a lawsuit). Jason Farrell and whoever colluded with him in manipulating the footage must be properly reprimanded, surely.
I saw yet another video, recorded some time ago by his cousin Kevin I think, also involving Sky News, in which another manipulative interviewer tries to trick TR into taking responsibility for Darren Osbourne’s crime. Sky’s general idea is that TR’s warnings about the dangers (associated with Islam) are more inflammatory than the dangers themselves. (systematic sexual grooming, terrorism, etc) The premise is that if everyone agrees to keep quiet, the nasty things will go away.
There’s an online article, penned by Jason Farrell, promoting his interview here. It may or may not have been amended in response to Tommy Robinson’s exposé, which ‘went viral’.
Incidentally, Gabriel Gatehouse seemed to think it was a good interview. Will he back-track now the trickery has been revealed, I wonder?
The article even uses the misreported quote as a headline:
’Tommy Robinson: I don't care if I incite fear of Muslims’
We now know that he didn’t say that at all. The article looks like a “how-to” lesson in biased reporting. The strapline includes the obligatory label: “The far-right activist‘ The rest of the copy sets off with a whopper; in bold.
Tommy Robinson has told Sky News he does not care whether his message "incites fear" of Muslims as long as it "prevents children from getting raped”.
Not “his message”, though, eh? The message in question occurred within a public information / educational film - intended as a warning to potential victims. In Holland.
Another label follows: “The English Defence League founder‘ and, for the third time, the misquote reappears, with “I” suddenly amended to “it”.
Challenged over whether he (!) was attempting to demonise the Muslim community, he said: (referring to the Dutch educational film) ”To be honest with you, I don't care if it incites fear as long as it educates the children and prevents them from being raped.”
Rob Burley didn’t do himself any favours with his unpleasantly snobbish sneer at the very idea that the BBC would be ‘interested’ in anything Tommy Robinson might have to say, as noted by Craig here.
I wonder if the BBC will be equally uninterested when and if the TR team succeed in prosecuting Sky for their malicious conduct.
Practice and ethics of the press? Leveson inquiry all forgotten already?
