The Tesla CEO, who has a history of ill-advised comments, is now facing a legal challenge after he referred, without evidence, to a British diver as a “pedophile.” The diver, Vernon Unsworth, came into conflict with Musk during the rescue operation of 12 Thai youths who were trapped in a cave with their soccer coach.

Musk had tried to intervene in the operation by offering the services of a mini-submarine. Unsworth, who was helping with the rescue, criticized Musk’s suggestion as a public relations stunt. In response, Musk tweeted out a challenge to Unsworth, referring to him on July 15 as “pedo guy.” Although Musk initially apologized, the billionaire inventor continued to taunt the diver. In an email interview with a BuzzFeed reporter, Musk described Unsworth as “an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years.” Musk also claimed that Unsworth journeyed to Thailand “for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.” Usworth’s lawyer has repeatedly called these allegations “false,” and threatened a lawsuit. “I fucking hope he sues me,” Musk wrote to a Buzzfeed reporter earlier this month.

Unsworth’s lawsuit, now filed, lays out a factual critique to these and other claims. “Mr. Unsworth is not a pedophile. Mr. Unsworth has never engaged in an act of pedophilia. Mr. Unsworth is not a child rapist,” the lawsuit states.

Shareholders of Telsa are already reportedly unhappy with Musk’s loose cannon behavior, which has recently included tweeting a plan to re-privatize the company, and openly smoking marijuana on a podcast. The lawsuit is not likely to cheer them up.

The bombshell news that Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist, has come forward to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge of sexually assaulting her when they were all teenagers presents a dilemma for those who support his nomination. Do they continue to fight on Kavanaugh’s behalf and risk looking like they are indifferent to serious allegations of sexual assault? Or do they push Kananaugh to resign, even amid ambiguous evidence, at the cost of due process?

Between these two stark choices lie a range of options. One of the most thoughtful responses was from Sarah Quinlan of RedState who argued that a thorough investigation of the allegations was needed to preserve the legitimacy of the courts. “It would hurt the legitimacy of the Supreme Court to force a confirmation through when there appears to be a serious and credible accusation without an attempt to investigate the claims,” she contended.  

An equally judicious approach was taken by David French of National Review, who judged the accusation as “serious” but not definitive. French also allowed that more evidence could come forward to change that assessment, so his position seems to be the same as Quinlan: Let the process shift through competing claims.

Some of French’s colleagues reacted differently. Jim Geraghty muddied the water by pointing to a lack of corroborating evidence: “As of this writing, there are no photographs of the two together, no letters between them, no physical evidence proving that the two met each other, much less that the events occurred as she described.” But it’s not surprising that such letters and photographs don’t exist. Ford is not claiming that she and Kavanaugh had a relationship. Rather, her account is of being assaulted by him at a small party. Asking for evidence that isn’t pertinent to the claims is clearly a tactic of obfuscation. 

In The Federalist, David Marcus claimed that the fact the allegations weren’t brought forward in the hearings is proof they were weak. “After a lifetime of good service, Kavanaugh is being thrown under the bus of a single vague accusation,” Marcus laments. “Feinstein could have raised this months ago, could have made it a point of questioning during the hearings. She didn’t. ... I think she knew it wasn’t a strong enough allegation.” Marcus’s narrative ignores Ford’s own account, however: Ford herself was deeply divided, wanting to share her story but unwilling to go public. That fact alone explains why the story came out the way it did, via leaks after after the hearings.

Many on the right have argued that the allegations should not be given much weight since Kavanaugh was 17 years old at the time. The polemicists making this claim—and one libertarian, Megan McArdle—went so far as to suggest that it would be no problem if Kavanaugh even committed murder or rape as a teen:

As against those who argue that the accusation is likely true but immaterial, others claim that Kavanaugh is the target of a smear. Candace Owens, the communications director of Turning Points USA, described it as a #MeTooWitchhunt:

For the last 20 months, as the Trump administration has been beset by scandal after scandal, conservatives have held on to a simple mantra: judges. In June of this year, shortly after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt said:

The president and the GOP-controlled Senate have already put one-eighth of the federal appeals bench in their seats. Each of those new appointees— all principled “originalists” in the mold of the late Justice Scalia—will have more than 400 participations in 2018 alone. Critics from the #NeverTrump crowd need to balance their criticism with this remarkable record of repair of the bench.

The confirmation of judges has, in many ways, been the inverse of the rule within the administration: disciplined and effective, with unimpeachable conservative credentials. Trump seems to understand this. While he shouts out his judicial record at rallies, he largely stays out of the way. He knows that, as long as conservative judges keep getting approved, both his base and the Republican establishment will be in his corner. Confirm enough judges and all sins are forgiven.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Trump against nominating Kavanaugh to replace Kennedy, reportedly citing his sizable and controversial paper trail from the Bush administration. But Trump apparently took a liking to Kavanaugh and nominated him anyway. What has followed has been a nightmare, with that paper trail playing only a small part. Kavanaugh may have lied under oath. Over the last few days, he has been accused of sexual assault as a teenager. Senate Republicans—and prominent conservatives—appear to be standing by him for now, but his nomination is in jeopardy. A scheduled committee vote on Thursday may be pushed back to allow his accuser to testify before Congress.

The fact that Trump himself has stayed silent on this issue so far is a testament to how important judicial nominees have been to his presidency. But Trump’s recklessness in nominating Kavanaugh has imperiled what would unquestionably be his most important achievement as president—ensuring a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for a generation—which can only imperil his support among conservatives.

Republicans face a tricky political question. Is there enough time to push through a (likely more conservative) nominee before the midterms? If not, is it better to abandon a damaged nominee, in the hopes of making the composition of the Supreme Court an election issue? Or would scuttling the nomination only demoralize their voters, who are growing weary of a scandal-prone president fond of shooting himself in the foot? There is, of course, a moral question about Kavanaugh’s nomination as well. But Republicans have shown a willingness to set those aside again and again over the past three years.

On Friday morning, the venerable literary journal posted an article by Ghomeshi, who had been fired in 2014 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Though guaranteed to generate backlash for its personal exculpation marinated in self-pity, the piece’s egotistical approach also obscures the facts of the case.

A key paragraph runs:

In October 2014, I was fired from my job at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation after allegations circulated online that I’d been abusive with an ex-girlfriend during sex. In the aftermath of my firing, and amid a media storm, several more people accused me of sexual misconduct. I faced criminal charges including hair-pulling, hitting during intimacy in one instance, and—the most serious allegation—nonconsensual choking while making out with a woman on a date in 2002. I pleaded not guilty. Several months later, after a very public trial, I was cleared on all counts. One of the charges was separated and later withdrawn with a peace bond—a pledge to be on good behavior for a year. There was no criminal trial.

When Ghomeshi says “allegations circulated online” it sounds like they appeared on Facebook or a blog post. In fact, the trigger for his firing was the pending publication of reported news story in The Toronto Star, one of Canada’s oldest and most respected newspapers. The phrase “several more people accused me of sexual misconduct” is, at best, vague. In fact, there are 24 separate allegations of sexual assault, many involving brutal behavior such as choking and punching. Later in the essay, he suggests that his misconduct was an outgrowth of becoming a celebrity. But in fact, some of the allegations against him date to his days as a university student.

Nor does Ghomeshi mention that the charge that was withdrawn was done so on the condition that he admit to wrongdoing. The statement made by the complainant Kathryn Borel after Ghomeshi acknowledged his misconduct is worth quoting because it is far more specific and detailed than the narcissistic reverie that the New York Review of Books published:

My name is Kathryn Borel. In December of 2014, I pressed sexual assault charges against Jian Ghomeshi. As you know Mr. Ghomeshi initially denied all the charges that were brought against him. But today, as you just heard, Jian Ghomeshi admitted wrongdoing and apologized to me. It’s unfortunate but maybe not surprising he chose not to say much about what exactly he was apologizing for. I’m going to provide those details for you now. Every day over the course of a three-year period, Mr. Ghomeshi made it clear to me that he could do what he wanted to me and my body. He made it clear that he could humiliate me repeatedly and walk away with impunity.

There are at least three documented incidents of physical touching. This includes the one charge he just apologized for, when he came up behind me while I was standing near my desk, put his hands on my hips and rammed his pelvis against my backside over and over, simulating sexual intercourse.

Throughout the time that I worked with him, he framed his actions with near-daily verbal assaults and emotional manipulations these inferences felt like threats or declarations like I deserved to have happening to me what was happening to me. It became very difficult for me to trust what I was feeling.

Ghomeshi presents his experiences of being accused as “a crash course in empathy.” But the essay he wrote shows very little empathy. Instead, he continues to minimize his misconduct and spends thousands of words trying to elicit pity for the figure he seems to see as the true victim of the story: himself.

On Thursday night, Ed Rollins, a longtime Republican consultant, appeared on Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs Tonight program and strongly defended President Donald Trump’s denial of the official death count (2,975 dead) from 2017’s Hurricane Maria. The episode is the latest installment in an ongoing, very public, spat after President Trump reacted with outrage and disbelief to critics pointing out the death toll from Hurricane Maria, which he had been extolling earlier this week (in the context of Hurricane Florence preparations) as a major success in crisis management. 

Along with host Lou Dobbs, Rollins tried to contest the official death count by suggesting that since it’s an estimate, it shouldn’t be treated seriously. Rollins also criticized Florida Republicans such as Governor Rick Scott and Congressman Ron DeSantis, both of whom openly disagreed with the president’s denial.  

“The reality is the Democrats are playing to Puerto Ricans who have moved to this country, moved to Florida, politics, and they’re not for us anyways,” Rollins said. “So, at the end of the day here, the president is accurate.”

It’s not clear what to make of Rollins’ words. It’s not true that Puerto Ricans have “moved to this country,” since Puerto Rico is part of the United States. Nor is it clear why the fact that these Puerto Ricans might not be Republicans has to do with evaluating the death count from the hurricane. 

The Intercept first reported on Wednesday that Senator Dianne Feinstein was in possession of a letter accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of some impropriety. On Friday morning, The New Yorker published the details of the claim. The anonymous woman says that at a high school party in the 1980s, Kavanaugh physically assaulted her:

In the letter, the woman alleged that, during an encounter at a party, Kavanaugh held her down, and that he attempted to force himself on her. She claimed in the letter that Kavanaugh and a classmate of his, both of whom had been drinking, turned up music that was playing in the room to conceal the sound of her protests, and that Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand. She was able to free herself. Although the alleged incident took place decades ago and the three individuals involved were minors, the woman said that the memory had been a source of ongoing distress for her, and that she had sought psychological treatment as a result.

Kavanaugh denies the allegation, and his classmate told The New Yorker that he didn’t recall the incident. Some Kavanaugh allies promptly dismissed the woman’s claims on Friday:

The New Yorker’s reporting also calls Feinstein’s behavior into question. The senator sat on the letter rather than disseminate it to colleagues, and it may now be too late for her Democratic colleagues to review it with the scrutiny it deserves.