I find it astonishing that Senator Susan Collins isn’t going to do the right thing on her own, and that we have to force her, in this case, to vote against Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But, I suppose I should not be surprised. Susan Collins is one of those Republicans people often look to do “do the right thing” but I can’t remember the last time she actually did the right thing.
One way or another, we’ve got to throw her out of office and replace her with a Democrat. But, in the meantime, there is an interesting project going on at Crown Pac.
Promise to donate money, at leat $20.20, if she votes Yes on Kavanaugh. The money will be used to fund the endorsed Democrat who ends up running against Collins in the next election.
A typical Maine Senate seat costs, I think, about $6 million to run for, if you are a well established incumbent like Collins. If this program raises about 3 million or so, that’s enough to knock her off her game if the Democrats can find a well liked candidate that knows how to run a campaign. There must be somebody in Maine like that.
The goal of the campaign is to raise $1.5 million. Obviously I think they should double that goal. So far, just under 50,000 people have pledged just over $1.3 million.
A good amount of that $6 or so million you need to run a campaign in Maine, may be one million bucks worth, maybe more comes from corporations, and probably, some of those corporations are boycottable. They include General Dynamics, DLA Piper, Elliot Management, the Cohen Group (different Cohen, I hope), and Lion’s Gate Entertainment.
Here’s what the good people of Maine are saying to Susan Collins:
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I think whatever Susan Collins does, it will be what she thinks is the “right thing”.
You should open your mind to the possibility that other people can think the “right thing” is the opposite of what you think the “right thing” is.
Susan Collins might say to you – we will have to agree to disagree.
I look forward to seeing how everyone votes on Thursday.
I would vote YES to confirm.
Trump did what he thought was the right thing by failing to condemn Nazis and white supremacists.
The leaders of the Confederacy did what they thought was the right thing by starting a brutal war just so their friends could continue to own slaves.
The leaders of the Catholic church has, for centuries, protected men and women who abused and raped children, and others, because they thought it was the right thing.
We all know you are an amoral and bigoted “might makes right” libertarian POS. People like you choose “the right thing” based only on how well it preserves your interests and keeps others you think are undeserving from having a voice, or chance at a decent future.
Other people, decent people, believe that’s the wrong approach.
I don’t think this movement will work, but since we know this nominee lied throughout his testimony (don’t bother with your usual “his opinion” bullshit, if you were an honest broker you wouldn’t do that, we know you’ve never been an honest broker, so we know what your dishonest attempt to deflect would be), and if there is any chance stopping, or even postponing, his confirmation, the country will be better off for it.
Some of us still care about the country, as opposed to your kind putting yourself ahead of it. You are one of the reasons things are in such bad shape.
Given today’s revelations by Christine Blasey Ford I cannot fathom how you could support a sexual assaulter for SCOTUS. Especially one who won’t admit to his behaviour and who seems completely unrepentant – and who, by his demonstrated aversion to the historic Roe vs Wade decision displays a more general antipathy to women’s rights and their rights to be respected.
Then again it’s you, so I am not surprised.
If Kavanaugh is voted down because of these revelations, then the rule will be for any nominee you dislike, find someone to make accusations that can’t be disproven.
Dean:
I agree – this torpedo attempt will not work. I don’t know what happened at this party. But there was no contemporary report – she waited until 2012 to “talk” about it. Even then she didn’t use Kavanaugh’s name. The other person in the room denies it, as does Kavanaugh. I am sorry, but this is not going to raise any second thoughts for the Republican senators (or probably 2 or 3 democrats).
Kavanaugh is supremely qualified and will be confirmed, in my opinion.
You obviously have no understanding of the trauma experienced by, nor any empathy for, victims of sexual assault. If you did you wouldn’t vomit up this sort of bilge.
See above. Also, you don’t know what else has been said that hasn’t been reported.
Of course they do – they are accused of crimes. Doesn’t mean that they’re telling the truth though.. People don’t usually start admitting to their crimes until they know that they can’t avoid the truth – ask Paul Manafort about that…
I hear that Donald Trump is looking for extra legal representation. You should offer your services.
> the Cohen Group (different Cohen, I hope)
My first thought on reading this was former Senator from Maine and Secretary of Defense William Cohen.
DLA Piper is a multinational law firm that was the 12th largest donor to Obama’s inauguration.
Good luck trying to boycott them.
“You should open your mind to the possibility that other people can think the “right thing” is the opposite of what you think the “right thing” is.” That statement belabors the obvious. Perhaps you “should” take your own advice.
I think that the “right thing” is to look at the evidence, and to disgard a nominee against whom credible accusations of severe misconduct can be made. Especially if that nominee’s paper trail shows evidence of , say, perjury? I also think that the “right thing” is to select a judge appropriate for the age we live in, and a right wing zealot who shows zero evidence of having any empathy for anyone who is not in the sets rich, white, male and conservative is not the right choice for anything except Reich lieutenant. I’ve seen enough evidence to show me that the man is a privileged freak who does not belong on the SC.
Itch McCornhole’s decision to deprive president Obama of the chance to select a SC judge was a ham fisted and heavy handed act that deserves punishment. And what better punishment could there be than to have the selected judge’s own bad Kharma come back to torpedo him.
I feel confident that Kavanaugh will either be voted down, in which case Orange Julius will simply come up with somebody equally dedicated to the wealthiest top 1%; or he will be voted in, in which case, the women of Murka may just decide to terminate the stranglehold of the GOP in November. With great prejudice.
Well – you judge your way and I will judge mine.
I listened to the hearings and have never seen a better performance.
Kavanaugh is really just amazing and has a very deep understanding of the body of Supreme court caselaw and how it should be applied to actual cases and controversies.
This last minute allegation isn’t going to work and isn’t “evidence”, but a naked allegation.
It’s not about “evidence” as it’s not a trial. It’s a hearing to determine Kavanaugh’s suitability to sit on the Supreme Court and despite your rabid conservative woody for him he has a prima facie case to answer in terms of his unsuitability.
There is no excuse for rushing Kavanaugh through. Especially considering the way that the Republicans persistently stymied the nomination of Merrick Garland. Kavanaugh should be properly vetted, and your unalloyed enthusiasm for him simply reflects again your devotion to ideology over objective fact, due process, and simple decency.
Bernard:
The sexual assault allegation wasn’t brought up in the hearing.
It could have been brought up – as one of the members of the committee had the letter since July 2018 – but it wasn’t.
So this is not about a hearing – that has already happened.
This is about delaying the vote, which they know they are going to lose.
That explains the timing of the allegation leak.
Ford didn’t care enough to write a letter when Kavanaugh was being considered to be a Judge.
Ford didn’t care enough to write a letter when Kavanaugh was being considered to be an Appellate Judge.
Nope – she only cared enough when he was shortlisted for the Supreme Court.
Even then, she wrote her letter to a democrat. Not a newspaper, not the police.
This allegation has very little credibility, as there is nothing which happened before this year which shows she ever named Kavanaugh to anybody during the last 35 years.
Kavanaugh should be confirmed, and I hope he is, and without delay.
Let’s establish a few facts, given that you seem to be constitutionally incapable of understanding the psychology of victim’s of sexual assault.
Dr Ford was profoundly traumatised by the actions of Brett Kavanaugh and his accomplice in the events that Ford describes. She has every reason to choose to not pursue disclosure – the stress of reliving the events, the fear of being reviled by acquaintances and friends of Kavanaugh, the cost of defending herself legally.
As to whether she should have spoken up at earlier appointments of Kavanaugh, that presumes that she was aware of hearings for his suitability before the confirmations were complete. It’s highly likely that for more junior positions she’d have no forewarning, and even if she did she would have had to balance the certain cost to herself against any perceived benefit in coming out.
With respect to the current nomination, the reporters and politicians who were alerted by Ford to Kavanaugh’s actions were obliged to maintain confidentiality until recently, and so they had no recourse to raising this at the initial hearings. Perhaps Ford thought -or hoped – that other factors would sufficiently flag Kavanaugh as an inappropriate pick for the Supreme Court. It’s obvious though that her advice to other people long preceded the public revelation, and that her coming forward was a result of her coming to the conclusion that it was important that the public fully understood the nature of the events she describes.
None of this should be used to cast aspersions against Ford – she has every right to try to maintain her anonymity if she lives in fear of repercussions, especially if there are other mechanisms possibly available to see a just decision on the proposal to put Kavanaugh forward.
You say that she has no credibility. You say that only because you are acting like the defense for a mafia crook, and not on the basis of any demonstrated understanding of the complexities of Ford’s trauma or of the actions that she has taken out of your sight and other the rest of the US public. This might be expected of you if you were trying to keep your crooked client out of jail, but it is despicable behaviour for a citizen to perpetrate against his fellow countrymen when there is a process occurring to establish the suitability of a Supreme Court candidate. That you support Kavanaugh despite a profoundly serious body of evidence suggesting that his nomination requires at least a considered and forensic investigation of his background, without rushing through the result, only adds to the picture of your motivation by ideology and biases rather than by objective assessment.
You display a very pathological approach to issues of sexual assault. I pity the women in your sphere, because they would either suffer from your apparent misogyny, or they would be forced to deal with your hypocrisy in how you deal with them compared to your pronouncements on women whom you have never met.
Ford deserves to be heard, with care and compassion. She has little to gain and a very great deal to lose by coming forward, and this should be considered in the calculus. Listen to Emma Brown of the Washington Post speaking on Maddow last night, if you are still unable to comprehend the situation in which Ford found herself. If Kavanaugh has a defensible case he should stand with confidence in front of a recommenced hearing, and face his accuser.
That you barrack for such a dubious character as Kavanaugh is simply a reflection of your own deficiencies. Stop projecting them onto Ford if you wish to be considered seriously – the rest of us make our own assessments based on all the evidence and not just on your say-so, and against Ford you simply to not stack up.
And by way of coda, and to reference the quote with which I opened, there is another hearing…
At first I thought this was a Dianne Feinstein stunt. But the Washington Post gives the details, and it looks like Feinstein saw this would go nowhere and hid the letter.
Republicans are calling to hear the woman’s story in person, but Feinstein is balking, calling for a delay with an FBI investigation. No indication that Ford is willing to testify under oath. She much preferred a friendly lie detector test.
And now we see the two Trump supporters admitting secual assault of women doesn’t matter when it’s done by their people.
There is no bottom to the depths of disgusting ricka and mikeN demonstrate
MikeN has helps contribute to the assault on Christine Blasey Ford by his sotto voce suggestion that her lie detector test was “friendly” and therefore ,what? Apparently not legitimate? AFAIAC, MikeN is a contributor to the assault on Christine Blasey Ford, and on all woment in America, based on that snide remark.
MikeN and/or RickA: If the allegations by Christine Blasey Ford against Kavanaugh are true, and I have a hard time believing that they are not, would you want this man on the Supreme Court? Can you explain away a drunken teenage indiscretion so easily? Anyone other than a privileged white boy would end up in jail if caught in such an act. Do we really want another SC justice who abused women on the court? Is that all you want, just another Clarence Thomas who barely opens his mouth but who faithfully votes on the side of the rich and powerful? Someone who has shown a tendency to lie and get away with criminal behavior, and then warms a seat for thirty years at the behest of conservative villains? I kinda think so.
MikeN and/or RickA: Why the rush to justice? The country waited powerlessly for how long while the villain aka Itch McCornhole killed the nomination of Merrick Garland, a well respected and moderate man who graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School? Why? Because the God damned monied bastards who run the show did not want a moderate, well respected jurist suitable for the 21st century, but instead wanted another bronze age dullard to vote in lock step for the powerful.
MikeN and/or RickA: Suppose that the allegation of sexual assault, and the allegations of perjury against Kavanaugh are not true? What if he is as pure as the driven snow in that regard. Why do you feel that the country should be burdened with another lifetime appointment of another well networked Yale educated dullard to interpret the laws of the land in one particular immoderate way? Because he “performs” well under questioning? One of his past jobs was to prep SC nominees for interrogation! Big fucking deal. The majority of the people in this land elect Democratic presidents, and want moderate supreme court justices, but the old guard traditions manage to let the American party of Lords continue to rule the land, and select justices more suitable for the time of King George.
Whatever happens, I think that this is going to be a win win for progressives. If Lord Kavanugh’s nomination gets derailed, that will be a win for everybody. And if it doesn’t, there will be hell to pay in November for his supporters.
BTW, I see that conservative Pat Robertson’s magic spell did not in any way move Florence from her predicted path of destruction. I wonder how many of the people who will ultimately die from this storm actually thought his magic Jesus incantation would work? Also, I haven’t heard anything from the conservative sponsor of NC’s “House Bill 819 (S.L. 2012-201), which prevented local and state agencies from incorporating sea level rise due to climate change in planning efforts, making it easier to expand development in low coastal areas.” How much will that totally stupid conservative bill cost the American taxpayer in lives and dollars lost in years ahead?
Anybody heard from Pat McElraft lately? Is she on a raft floating down the the Tar River or what?
“Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead
radicals.”
– Mark Twain
It is truly insulting to have the “but this woman waited a long time to say anything so clearly she’s lying” card played by the resident right wingers. Their implication is that these accusations are always taken seriously (even though they know women always lie) so if anything had happened back then she should have come forward. I don’t know whether they are simply being dishonest, are truly as ignorant as they seem, or just don’t think there is ever a need to investigate things involving assault. They should be ashamed, but they’ve both demonstrated they jettisoned any sense of dignity they may have had a long time ago
>did not want a moderate, well respected jurist
If Garland’s a moderate, how come everytime there’s a 5-4 decision, liberals tell us with Garland it would have gone the other way?
I can buy that the woman was silent about the allegations until 2012.
I can see why she would be so traumatized she couldn’t remember how she got home.
I don’t get how she could be so traumatized for years according to her, but not be able to identify details like where this happened. Whose house it was, how she got there, who told her about the party, even the city. She’s also not sure about the date, and isn’t even certain about the year.
This looks like a story made to avoid immediate falsification like Brett Kavanaugh was on vacation that week.
Note the therapist’s notes from 2012 actually says four boys, which she now says is an error and she said there were four boys at the party. Note also don’t say Kavanaugh, just someone important in DC. Her husband is saying she gave the name. At the school she went to, lots of people would have ended up as important people in DC.
So it could be a real event, that she and her husband are not attributing to Kavanaugh to try and destroy his nomination. With Anita Hill, the timing in her friend’s statement did not match when she was working for Clarence Thomas, and other witnesses suggested that that boss did not have the same sterling reputation as Thomas.
RickA: It would be highly educational for you to be sexually assaulted by somebody physically bigger and stronger than you, who is also in a position of power, but fortunately for you, it is not likely to happen. If it did, however, it might substitute for your lack of empathy for non-white, non-male, non-straight, non-xtian, non-greedbots; but then again, it probably wouldn’t.
MikeN: You sure called that Christine Blasey Ford testimony scene all wrong. She has now volunteered to testify. Let me quote one of your own. “You should open your mind to the possibility that other people can think the “right thing” is the opposite of what you think the “right thing” is.” You thought that Christine Blasey Ford did not have the guts to testify before Congress. And you were wrong. Takes away one of your big smear tactics. What are you going to attack next?
Questions to the conservatives: When did you guys decide that it was alright to sacrifice any sense of decency to your blind ambition and greed? When did you make maleness a religion? Was it before or after you decided to throw in your lot with a lying con-man named Trump? Just wondering.
SteveP:
I am sure that would be educational – but it has never happened to me, so you will have to let me know what that was like.
Of course that has nothing to do with whether the alleged event ever took place or not.
What a pity she never complained to anybody, using an actual person’s name, over the last 35 years.
It is also too bad she is an activist democrat and has motive to try to prevent this nomination.
If the accuser were a pro-life republican who had mentioned the incident contemporaneously and didn’t wait until the person was shortlisted for the Supreme court to speak, it wouldn’t look so suspicious.
But it does look very suspicious – to me anyway.
I mean really – she doesn’t remember which house, how she got there, how she got home, what day, what month or what year this happened?
Yes, she is willing to testify. It wasn’t clear from previous news stories, only that committee Democrats were against it. Their goal is to delay, so they are asking for FBI investigation.
Everyone willing to believe her, would you also believe a similar story made against a Democratic nominee?
Because if Kavanaugh is voted down over an uncorroborated story, this will become routine.
“It would be highly educational for you to be sexually assaulted by somebody physically bigger and stronger than you, who is also in a position of power, ”
No, way out of bounds, even as much as a hypothetical as I know you wrote it. As out of touch about, and dismissive of, abuse and sexual assault of women as he seems to be, this is a bit much.
It would be nice if he would educate himself and try to think rationally about these issues, but we know he’ll never do that
Dear RickA: That never happened to me either. You magically assumed that it had. Another wrong assumption by a conservative. You make so many of them these days.
You see RickA, I am able to empathize with people to whom it has happened, unlike, apparently, you. I’ve also seen the long term damage it has done to people to whom it has happened, also, apparently unlike you.
Your knowledge of human psychology is miserably immature in other ways too, RickA. What the fuck do you expect someone traumatized by a sexual attack at that age to do? Most of the forces of society, peer pressure, and so forth, at that time would have pressed her to keep quiet. I’m pretty sure she was smart enoughto know that it would be a life upending event for both her and Kavanaugh for her to go to the police, and that she had little or no evidence to prove her case so , ultimately, she was smart enough to know that she might only damage herself some more by pursuing it. She knew that Kavanaugh had gotten away with attempted rape and there was practically nothing she could do about it. What a horrible, powerless feeling. Maybe if she had a gun in her purse, she could have shot him dead. That would have kept us from being here. But I digress. She probably knew, as a young woman, that her chances of justice, real justice, were slim and none against a privileged, prep-school brat who she knew first hand had serious sociopathic tendencies. You of course remember what happened to Anita Hill in the day. I’ll never forget the look of recognition in Mrs. Thomas’ eyes when the expression “Long Dong Silver” came up! That was a good one.
But now, think of this. If, as I guess, she is telling the truth, she will have to live practically every day of the week of her life remembering the most traumatic event of her life, delivered to her whenever the news reports about Supreme Court and the highly respected conservative justice on it who tried to rape her. How do you think that feels? Oh wait. That’s right. You are a conservative! You don’t have to have empathy for other people, and other people’s problems are none of your concern! Especially if those people are standing up to lying, privileged white males! Got it.
BTW, do you know that Brett Kavanaugh belonged to The 100 Keg Club at his prep school? The members were all supposed to have acquainted themselves with 100 kegs of beer during their senior year. Do you think that it is at all possible that someone who would so brazenly flaunt his school’s, his family’s, his state’s, and his church’s rules by belonging to a drinking club at that age , would ever flaunt any other rules in his lifetime? What sort of character do you think he has? Oh wait. You studied law and not psychology. So you might not know that sociopaths are very good at lying. The more that I see of Brett Kavanaugh, the more I tend to push his slider up the sociopath spectrum. And damn it, most people would never know.
So, we have another Clarence Thomas in the making. Well, if he does make the cut, we can still impeach him later. And his selection would probably increase Democratic election turnout, so there is that silver lining.
> And his selection would probably increase Democratic election turnout, so there is that silver lining.
That’s what Democrats are looking for here. They don’t really believe the story. It’s why Dianne Feinstein never introduced it, never asked Kavanaugh any questions about it in person or at the committee interview closed to the public or in the public hearing.
“But it does look very suspicious”
Of course it is suspicious to you rickA — the person involved isn’t a white male, so there is no reason to consider taking the accusations seriously because the accuser is not an important member of society (in your warped libertarian world).
I think that this is a highly plausible scenario. There appears to be a prima facie case that Kavanaugh has lied on multiple occasions, during the questioning for the current position and during previous interviews, and perjury isn’t something to be taken lightly… regardless of the fact that RickA, miken, and locus seem to be OK with it.
Small world. Her brother worked for same law firm that Fusion GPS hired.
Her parents went to court over a foreclosure. The judge was Kavanaugh’s mother.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley says Sen. Dianne Feinstein is refusing to cooperate in setting up follow-up calls with Dr. Ford and SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The play is to demand the FBI investigate to produce delay, and when Republicans refuse, declare them as insensitive to rape.
We know they are insensitive to rape mikeN, as you and rickA are.
It also isn’t clear why anything to do with her brother or parents is relevant here — except in the classic scumbag tactic of blaming the woman and attempting to smear her by association and ominous yet vague accusations.
You scumbags are very good at that.
>ominous yet vague accusations.
Ahem.
Nothing ‘ominous and vague’ about the sexual assault described.
Another rightwing sociopath outed.
Next.
“Because if Kavanaugh is voted down over an uncorroborated story, this will become routine.” You’ve been seriously wrong once already this week. Are you sure that the story is uncorroborated? Thus far, Christine Blasey Ford has not had any evidence suggesting she is a liar presented to the court, unlike Kavanaugh. Yeah, boy, he sure had no idea that the Democratic talking points were illegally obtained! Boy that is hilarious! You fucking conservatives won’t even let a Democratic president put a middle of the road nominee with impeccable credentials up for the SC, because you wanted to stuff the court with hard right conservatives from the last century! Well, you are getting your way. And you are building up a reservoir of bad kharma and resentment that should last for decades. So your threat to have uncorroborated witnesses step forward to tank Democratic nominees is a pretty stupid one, don’t you think? What, are you promising that conservatives will produce fake witnesses in the future whenever needed? How jesuitical of you.
Kavanaugh appears to me to be a very clever sociopath. He appears to me to be able to lie convincingly. That is my opinion. And conservatives prefer somebody like him to somebody like Merrick Garland. Conservatives do not want a middle of the road jurist in the SC. They do not want someone who graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law. No. Not that. High testosterone sociopathic liars seem to be all the rage in coservative circles these days, so Brett Kavanaugh it is. Good luck with that formula, boys.
I gotta go tend my batteries. Over and out.
“That’s what Democrats are looking for here. They don’t really believe the story. ”
This is point number what, one thousand, that identifies you as a complete asshole.
And no mikeN, the accusations are not vague. At least not to people who take the topic of sexual assault seriously, which you and rockA clealy don’t.
Why didn’t Feinstein ask Kavanaugh about this accusation, even without specifics?
Isn’t it just a little bit suspicious that Grassley just happened to have a list at hand of sixty-five women who knew Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in high school and who had testified to his good character? Just as soon as the news of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations hit? Good timing, eh? It certainly looks like Grassley had prior knowledge that Brett Kavanaugh did something very naughty in high school, and/or that he was ready in case that fact leaked out. And please remember, when the GOP savages Christine Blasey Ford for the strength of her memory based on the time elapsed since she was in High School, that the same time has passed for the witnesses on that list.
More telling to me than the Grassley list, though, was Kavanaugh’s blank response to Fred Guttenberg early on the hearings. Kind of like the look of a someone who was caught off guard and who couldn’t summon up a genuine emotion about someone else’s tragedy. It was like someone who was exhausted from a morning of grilling and who just couldn’t summon the response of a normal person, because he didn’t know what that was. It was like he couldn’t figure out what to say, so he just walked away. Totally consistent with a sociopath under stress. Fred’s daughter died? How hard would it have been for this future SC “whiz” to have said, simply, “I am sorry about your daughter”? I’m starting to feel pretty sure that Brett Kavanaugh is not really good about saying he is sorry about other people’s daughters.
Brett Kavanaugh looks more and more to me like a Thomas or a Bork; a heartless, selfish, sociopathic conservative ideologue who will do incalculable damage if given the chance. The Republic will endure his selection, but it is not certain that the Republicans will. Go for it GOP. See what happens when you select a sociopath president, who then selects multiple sociopath judges. That will be like experimenting with the production line at a munitions plant while it is making live munitions. What could go wrong?
How would you answer?
I would be comfortable with my son being publicly labeled as a sex offender based on the level of detail provided by Ford in her letter. I would not ask for any more evidence or corroboration.
Yes / No ?
Thank Harry Reid for Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
Why did liberals never consider that someday **they** might want to filibuster a judicial nominee? Are liberals simply incapable of abstract thought? Are they like children who only understand the here and now?
“Nothing ‘ominous and vague’ about the sexual assault described.”
The alleged scene: Some house in Montgomery County
The alleged time: Summer of ’82 (maybe)
Yep, it’s really nailed down.
“Of course it is suspicious to you rickA — the person involved isn’t a white male, so there is no reason to consider taking the accusations seriously because the accuser is not an important member of society (in your warped libertarian world).”
Was Clarence Thomas a white male during his confirmation hearings?
“TW, do you know that Brett Kavanaugh belonged to The 100 Keg Club at his prep school? The members were all supposed to have acquainted themselves with 100 kegs of beer during their senior year. Do you think that it is at all possible that someone who would so brazenly flaunt his school’s, his family’s, his state’s, and his church’s rules by belonging to a drinking club at that age , would ever flaunt any other rules in his lifetime? ”
THANK YOU for finally admitting that Barack Obama was morally unfit for the highest office in the land!!!
https://www.businessinsider.com/juicy-details-young-barack-obama-david-maraniss-2012-6#even-at-age-8-the-future-president-had-big-dreams-3
“As a student at Honolulu’s elite Punahou High School, Obama was a member of the “Choom Gang,” a group of boys who liked basketball and smoking pot (choom is a verb meaning “to smoke marijuana”). ”
“Obama’s wild antics as a teenager in Hawaii provided little indication of the future that lay ahead. According to Maraniss, Obama and his friends, the Choom Gang, spent most of their time playing basketball, smoking pot, drinking beer on the beach, and generally getting into trouble. ”
“And he thanked his drug dealer in his high school yearbook. Obama’s tribute section in his senior year high school yearbook includes one line of gratitude: “Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.”
Ray, according to Maraniss, was an older guy from whom Obama and other members of the Choom Gang purchased their pot. “
“Is that all you want, just another Clarence Thomas who barely opens his mouth but who faithfully votes on the side of the rich and powerful?”
Please explain how Clarence Thomas siding with the homeowners against the property developers in Kelo vs City of New London is a vote “on the side of the rich and powerful”?
““Is that all you want, just another Clarence Thomas who barely opens his mouth but who faithfully votes on the side of the rich and powerful?”
https://www.quora.com/Has-Supreme-Court-Jusice-Clarence-Thomas-ever-written-a-major-opinion-or-decision
Bob Dinerstein’s take,
“The really interesting opinion here is Justice Thomas’s dissent, where he briefly makes two points: 1) This case was indeed controlled by Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte; and 2) Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte, however, should be overruled. “Indeed,” says Thomas, “I rather doubt that the Framers of the Fourth Amendment would have considered “reasonable” a program of indiscriminate stops of individuals not suspected of wrongdoing.”
As is becoming more common, Justice Thomas stakes out a position on a matter of criminal procedure that is both unique and more “liberal” than the rest of the Court. And he is led to a more “liberal” position because of his consistent commitment to originalism. Are the liberal opponents of originalism paying attention? I hope so.”
““Is that all you want, just another Clarence Thomas who barely opens his mouth but who faithfully votes on the side of the rich and powerful?”
https://www.quora.com/Has-Supreme-Court-Jusice-Clarence-Thomas-ever-written-a-major-opinion-or-decision
Bob Dinerstein’s take again,
“This case concerned whether the government could subpoena documents and use them to prosecute one of Clinton’s jailbound cronies, Webster Hubbell. The constitutional amendment in question was the Fifth: no person shall be “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” The Court first noted that subpoenaing documents often doesn’t violate this provision, because a) the production of documents is not “testimonial” in character, and b) the witness was not “compelled” to create the documents in the first instance. It then noted, however, that the so-called “act of production” doctrine can be used to exclude documents if the very act of production itself has a “compelled testimonial aspect.”
The ultimate outcome of this particular case is not important. What is fascinating is that Justice Thomas (followed by Scalia) wrote a separate concurrence in which he argued that based on extensive analysis of originalist materials, the Fifth Amendment should protect against the production of ANY incriminating evidence, unlimited by the Court’s “compelled testimonial aspect.” He analyzes the word “witness” as used around the time of the Framing, concluding that it applies equally to documents.
Once again, Justice Thomas takes a position more “liberal” on criminal matters, due to his consistent originalism.”
Jesus your arguments are weak, Locus. Was there any substance in all those lines of screed you recorded above? I didn’t see any. What a waste of space.
BTW, judge Kavanaugh really was an ideal person to help Bush justify waterboarding, don’t you think? After all, it appears that he had a predilection for suffocation going back at least as far as high school; maybe further.
It can be difficult to recognize a sociopath. A smart one can fool just about anybody. Their serial lying though does, over time, tend to leak out and betray even the most skillful of that tribe. Kavanaugh could not have not known that the Democrat briefing papers he had access to were obtained fraudulently. Yet he claims he didn’t realize it. He is a liar. He’s a creep. He is good at lying. He is very jesuitical. And conservatives love him.
If Kavanaugh gets selected, or even if the Republicans do a sufficiently vicious job of savaging the well respected professor, a woman with absolutely no evidence of perjury in her resume, we can be sure that there will be enough outrage to contribute even more energy to a splendid backlash in November.
Can’t wait.
I suspect that there’s enough evidence against Kavanaugh that he will be impeached within several years should he be put into the Supreme Court.
Further, I reckon that Democrats would in a future Democrat administration rejig the Supreme Court to contain 11 judges if Kavanaugh became the latest member.
If Kavanaugh has any regard for his future he should just quietly sink from public view and hope that his transgressions aren’t followed further.
Sorry but I didn’t catch your answer to my question. So I’ll ask it again.
Would you be comfortable with your son being publicly labeled as a sex offender based on the level of detail provided by Ford in her letter? Would you ask for more evidence or corroboration?
Yeah, I’d ask for more investigation, not try to bury it like you lot are doing.
As you always do, when one of yours gets exposed doing something sociopathic.
Try and bury the investigation under a spew of lies and bullshit.
Doesn’t work. People aren’t stupid. Look at Teh Donald’s popularity ratings…
Now, you’ve failed to make any headway and smeared yourself with shit in the process. Best go and piss on some other well.
The voice of reason from David French.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-allegations-serious-but-not-solid/
Nobody at nationalreview has a voice of reason — only a moron thinks that.
Clearly this is difficult for you to understand, so I expect you’ll read it and still make stupid comments — that’s all you seem to do.
No, I wouldn’t be comfortable with such an accusation, with any level of detail, especially detail that was as complete as we saw here (I know the right has been lying about lack of detail). Of course I’d want more evidence and an investigation, every decent person would.
The fact that the right doesn’t want any investigation speaks volumes here, about their lack of integrity and more.
Based on excerpts from Kavanaugh’s high school friend Mark Judge’s book, it is pretty clear that the attempted high school rape described by Christine Blasey Ford is completely plausible. If Kavanaugh had spent all his weekends and free time studying or training, or mentoring, or volunteering, it would be a lot harder to pin this on him. But clearly, his friend was a drunk, and Kavanaugh was a member of a drinking club. So you figure it out. The philosophy described by Judge in his other talks and writings are completely consistent with the actions of a drunken teenage rapist who considers women to be no more than objects on which to enact his violent visions of male domination. Just having a buddy like Mark Judge makes Kavanaugh cringe worthy.
And so it looks like we are going to hear her side of the story first hand next week. If she turns out to be a highly credible witness, the right wingers will have a problem. If they savage her like they did Anita Hill, that will go poorly for them. If she collapses under pressure, that won’t be a very good optic for the Republicans either.
Kavanaugh is a liar. I think he is a sociopath too. The right has already taken a highly credentialed, middle of the road jurist from us, and now they want to put another power hungry right wing reptile in the court. This shall not stand.
I hope that they call Mark Judge. He will undoubtedly deny everything, but you know what? A good interrogator can bring out the fact that he appears to be a fan of rape culture, and that he and Kavanaugh drank so much in high school that they probably don’t have much memory of a lot of those parties, or what they did at them. And if I am not mistaken, being drunk doesn’t absolve you of guilt in the case of attempted rape. So the statute of limitations may have run out, but the animus of American women against Kavanaugh and his Republican supporters probably has not.
So conservatives would apparently rather risk putting a lying sociopath in the SC than just pulling back, finding a better candidate, and starting over. Bunch of fucking reptiles.
From what I’ve read, the statute of limitations has not run out.
The hearing is scheduled for Monday.
I read that they are having trouble getting Ford to RSVP. She hasn’t responded to 3 or 4 emails.
She’s probably getting a lot of e-mail. Why haven’t they called her lawyer?
I read now that they did call and email lawyer. I also now read that there must have been some sort of communication recently, because Ford’s lawyer Katz wants to put some restrictions on what Ford can be asked about. Not yet clear Ford will testify.
“Of course I’d want more evidence and an investigation, every decent person would.”
So Dean, why are you screaming in spittle-flecked rage at anyone who is asking for more evidence?
Because the republicans weren’t until they were forced too. Look at the deniers here who still say “it’s nothing because she’s a woman” and worse.
Look at what the (long time despicable) Orin Hatch said (regarding the assault charge).
Good men don’t have a history of sexual assault, but denying that is where the Republicans, and their boot-lickers who post here, have put themselves.
“Now, you’ve failed to make any headway and smeared yourself with shit in the process. Best go and piss on some other well.”
Wow, that’s some inspired rhetoric right there BBD. Did you learn that at Oxford or Cambridge?
Dean,
“Of course I’d want more evidence and an investigation, every decent person would.”
So how can you claim that Kavanaugh has a “history of sexual assault” if more evidence is needed?
“Good men don’t have a history of sexual assault, but denying that is where the Republicans, and their boot-lickers who post here, have put themselves.”
So why did Democrats ignore Chris Dodd’s history of sexual harassment for decades?
So why did Democrats ignore Ted Kennedy’s history of sexual harassment for decades?
And worst of all Bill Clinton has been accused of rape by not one but two women and yet he remains a respected elder statesman of the Democratic Party?
Oh, and let’s not forget Democrats longstanding relationship with avant garde horticulturalist, Harvey Weinstein.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2017/10/05/harvey-weinstein-and-democrats-deals-with-hollywoods-devils/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.125058aed092
Dean
Look at the deniers here who still say “it’s nothing because she’s a woman” and worse.
Really? Where? Show me someone who said that !!!!!!!!!!!
That is the entire point of ricka and mikeN you ignorant dick.
I do notice a difference that are (still) lie about. Nobody here defended Clinton or Weinstein, or the others you mention . Compare that to the rallying around serial molestor in chief.
You can lie, and dissemble, all you want. I get that you are completely lacking in ethics like the other two scum right wingers here have been. I get that you will bring up unrelated “what abouts” to deflect from this. I get that the modern right doesn’t care about honest, integrity, or anyone that isn’t a well off white male, so folks like you will spew all out no end of bullshit.
It would just be nice if, for once, you would try to behave like decent people. But, since you never have, we’re not going to hold our breath waiting for it.
It looks like Ford will not be at the hearing on Monday.
Now she wants the FBI to investigate.
The FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction – and have already said they are not going to investigate.
So this appears to be just a stalling tactic.
Her lawyer said on CNN that she just came forward 48 hours ago.
Well, she wrote the letter months ago, hired a lawyer a month ago and took a lie detector test a month ago, so that isn’t really correct.
She must be getting cold feet.
I suspect the hearing will be cancelled on Monday, the committee will vote and it will go to the floor for a full vote. The democrats will bitch, but lose the vote.
Feinstein blew it. Ford should have sent the letter to Feinstein AND the chair (Grassley). Now they can just say they gave her the chance to testify. She said she was wiling to testify. Debra S. Katz, Ford’s attorney, said on NBC’s “Today” show that Ford was ready to testify publicly to the Judiciary panel.
Well not any more.
The FBI investigated the Anita Hill claims, though in a very abbreviated three day period of time. If they had jurisdiction then, they have jurisdiction now. The problem for the Republicans at the moment is that a cursory investigation as was done for Anita Hill wouldn’t pass muster today.
Of course, if Republicans were confident that nothing would come of such an investigation they’d welcome it …
Anonymous said “If they had jurisdiction then, they have jurisdiction now.”
The FBI does have jurisdiction to investigate what happens at a Federal department (like the EEOC).
The FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction to investigate state crimes (like an alleged sexual assault on private property).
If Ford had wanted an investigation, she could have filed a police report anytime over the last 36 years.
The call for an investigation is clearly a stalling tactic, and it will not work.
On the jurisdiction.
The FBI is not being asked to carry out a criminal investigation, so any question about their jurisdiction in criminal matters is not relevant.
They do normally carry out background checks for federally nominated potential appointees. Had this particular alleged attempted rape been known about prior to their initial background check, the FBI would have included it in their background check, and carried out the sort of investigation people are talking about. Now that it is known about, a responsible executive branch would ask the FBI to go back to their background check and expand it.
Personally I don’t care if they do or not. If they leave it alone, he will be confirmed. Meanwhile, the state of Maryland can carry out its investigation (don’t worry, they will) and arrest the SCOTUS judge, and then he can be impeached.
I mean, what the heck, might as well do this in the most chaotic way possible.
Greg:
You are correct – had the allegation been made before the background check, the FBI could have asked family and neighbors if Kavanaugh sexually assaulted anyone they know.
What the FBI cannot do is investigate a state crime – which is what they are being asked to do. First, nobody knows within a two year span when the alleged assault took place, or where it took place. Second, three of the four men at the alleged party say they were never at such a party. So what is there to investigate?
Nope – I don’t think even the police of Maryland will be able to find out anything from 36 years ago about a party which never happened, that they don’t know the location of and which 3 of 5 people even deny being at – so it is very very unlikely they will ever arrest Kavanaugh or that he would then be impeached.
I guess we will have to wait and see.
Confirmation does look very likely.
Dean,
“That is the entire point of ricka and mikeN you ignorant dick. ”
Then prove it. Provide a quote that even remotely resembles what you FAKE quoted, “it’s nothing because she’s a woman”. Back up your accusations.
Right – I never said that.
I said her claim lacked credibility, because it does lack credibility.
Not because she is a woman, but because there was no living sole told about the alleged assault for 32 years, and then the notes of the therapist don’t name the nominee, and the person she told the story to in 2017 also said she didn’t name names. There is zero corroboration for her accusation.
Now three of the four males named as having been at the alleged party say it never even happened (Brett, Mark and PJ). I wonder when we will hear from the fourth.
If I was Grassley I would hold the vote tommorrow, as originally scheduled.
Dean,
Dean,
“I do notice a difference that are (still) lie about. Nobody here defended Clinton or Weinstein, or the others you mention . Compare that to the rallying around serial molestor in chief. ”
You accused R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N-S of overlooking a history of sexual assault, so I showed examples of D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T-S doing that with actual abusers.
Got it?
No, you dissembled about things not discussed here and implied there was a difference.
My comment stands: you won’t find me or others involved here defending the folks you referenced or saying they shouldn’t have been investigated. You, and the others, however, are doing exactly that for Kavanaugh, and have also defended your president.
See the difference you dishonest little dick?
Dean,
“It would just be nice if, for once, you would try to behave like decent people. But, since you never have, we’re not going to hold our breath waiting for it.”
You’re the one faking quotes!!!!!
No shithead — you are ignoring what your fellow right wingers are saying. I’m not surprised at your dishonesty, but I’m a little stunned that you believe anyone would believe a word you say
“Speaking to Fox News Tuesday, Feinstein said she “can’t say everything’s truthful” about the accusation from California professor Christine Blasey Ford.”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/36043/feinstein-under-fire-scrambles-walk-back-truthful-james-barrett
“It looks like Ford will not be at the hearing on Monday.
Now she wants the FBI to investigate.
The FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction – and have already said they are not going to investigate.
So this appears to be just a stalling tactic.”
The following could explain why Blasey Ford wants FBI involvement.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/christine-blasey-ford-letter-fbi-investigation.html
The Republican majority shows no interest in expert testimony and just as little interest in the evidence that could be provided by Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge. This certainly doesn’t attest to “conservatives’” supposed interest in fairness and transparency, does it?
I note that all of the Republican committee members are men, a couple of Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill vintage. I imagine that this oddity would also be noted by others – especially women.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/meet-brett-kavanaughs-alleged-accomplice-mark-judge.html
Note that the letter states that she was willing to testify in closed session (in confidence) earlier, and only came forward publicly when her name was leaked.
A bit of a different scenario than that spun by our resident right-wingers.
That’s not what the letter says. ‘in confidence’ doesn’t mean testifying in closed session, but rather ‘she sought to tell her story, in confidence,’ by sending a letter to Dianne Feinstein to share with the committee.
Cosmicomics,
Staffers at the judiciary committee are denying the claim that Ford would be required to sit at the same table as Kavanaugh.
I’d be very interested in the seeing the email traffic between the committee and Katz/Marshall/Banks.
Everyone likes bringing up Anita Hill, but at least Hill made her accusations in a sworn affidavit. Ford has yet to do that and I would contend that is necessary before we start putting everyone through the wringer.
Cosmicomics,
Sorry, forgot the link.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/theres-no-evidence-that-anyone-planned-to-have-brett-kavanaugh-and-his-accuser-sit-next-to-each-other-to-testify
A few years ago Kavanaugh joked that “What happens in Georgetown Prep, stays in Georgetown Prep.” Pity for him that he seems to have done some of his dirty work off campus, where no similar rule applies.
Oh well. In a world where being civil is now criticized as being “politically correct”, I guess we just can’t expect a modern conservative supreme court nominee from a Jesuit all boys school to have not been a drinker and a sex criminal in high school. That would apparently be too much to ask for. You know, the strains of being a future leader and all.
Using today’s rules, almost everybody today is a sex criminal.
Ever play catch and kiss?
I did.
Yep – she tackled me, sat on my chest and gave me a big smooch.
Today that would be considered sexual assault.
All of kids at the time just thought it was fun.
The problem isn’t that you wrote something that stupid — or, since it’s you, intentionally dishonest as an attempt to minimize actual sexual assault and the accusations Kavanaugh has against him: the real problem is that it is all too easy to believe that you (and mikeN, and locus) could actually believe that line of bullshit.
Even more disgusting, rickA, is that you seem to be equating something you describe a children’s game with the assault that is alleged to have happened to Ford, and by extension to all sexual assault. I know you tossed aside all decency and integrity when you went libertarian, but such a blatant dismissal of the horror sexual assault is appalling. It is a little morbid watching you demonstrate that no matter how low an opinion of you we’ve formed, you can go lower.
dean:
Yep – I am equating the two. Because they are exactly the same. You grab someone, thrown them down and force yourself on them (i.e. forcibly kiss).
If you don’t think that would be called sexual assault today, when it was not 36 years ago – well that is your problem.
You might want to check out the rules for recess and the playground to see how things have changed. Kids aren’t even allowed to hold hands anymore, for fear someone will sue for sexual assault.
Of course, my hypo doesn’t even matter if the party never took place.
3 of 4 people she named as being at the alleged party are now saying it never happened. I look forward to hearing what the 4th person says. Hopefully they will release a statement as well (like PF did).
Recent events certainly don’t help Ford’s credibility. Especially the not testifying (privately or publicly) part. Her lawyer said she was willing to testify, but as soon as the Republicans took her up on her offer she changed her mind.
Pretty soon – even democrats are going to start to smell a rat.
“Using today’s rules, almost everybody today is a sex criminal.
Ever play catch and kiss?
…All of kids at the time just thought it was fun.”
“Yep – I am equating the two. Because they are exactly the same. ”
RickA
At this level, there’s no difference between surgery and a knife attack.
Equating a non-threatening game with agreed to rules in a socially controlled environment with sexual assault in a setting in which the victim is isolated and not only has no immediate recourse to help, but is prevented from screaming and feels her life threatened, is a shocking example of moral depravity and lack of empathy. Superficial similarities are used to explain away the differences that can make the latter experience a long-lasting trauma. The historical, cultural, and biological factors that would make this situation more threatening for a woman than for a man are conveniently ignored.
RickA: “Kavanaugh is really just amazing and has a very deep understanding of the body of Supreme court caselaw and how it should be applied to actual cases and controversies. ”
I did some research on him and I agree that he has the knowledge and experience to be a good associate justice of the SCOTUS. That said, I also found — let’s call them “caution signs” — that indicate his understanding of the law is deficient.
http://chris-winter.com/Digressions/Election_2016/Kavanaugh.html
I also doubt that his empathy and ethics are up to the mark.
Among other things, the article shows that there’s no legitimate excuse for not involving the FBI.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/19/republicans-have-no-good-options-brett-kavanaugh/?utm_term=.61c351296893
RickA: “This allegation has very little credibility, as there is nothing which happened before this year which shows she ever named Kavanaugh to anybody during the last 35 years.”
Were you equally dubious when LeeAnn Tweeden told her story, ten years after the event, of Al Franken groping her on a plane during a USO tour? I hope so, because there was reason to doubt, including the presence of other passengers who surely would have objected to such a thing happening.
I do know that a great many right-wingers bought into it and called for Franken to be thrown out of the Senate. As he was. Tweeden’s ten-year silence didn’t bother them at all.
1. Multiple women accused Franken of inappropriate touching.
2. The photo
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sen-franken-embarassed-groping-claims-rebuild-trust/story?id=51394106
MikeN: “Small world. Her brother worked for same law firm that Fusion GPS hired.
Her parents went to court over a foreclosure. The judge was Kavanaugh’s mother.”
The judge in that case, Martha G. Kavanaugh, ruled in favor of the Blaseys and let them keep their house.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brett-kavanaugh-foreclosure-accuser-parents/
Yes, I suspected as much. That’s why I didn’t accuse her of holding a grudge. Just found it odd.
Dean,
“Good men don’t have a history of sexual assault, but denying that is where the *****Republicans******, and their boot-lickers who post here, have put themselves.”
You accused R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N-S of denying “a history of sexual assault”. So I showed how the D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T-S have overlooked the history of sexual assault in their own ranks.
And right now all we have against Kavanaugh are accusations.
Whataboutism is rhetorical bollocks, Locus.
And there’s a fundamental difference between how the two groups deal with sexual transgressions. See Cosmicomics, below:
As usual, you are making too much noise for your own good.
Dean,
“No shithead — you are ignoring what your fellow right wingers are saying. I’m not surprised at your dishonesty, but I’m a little stunned that you believe anyone would believe a word you say”
And still not a single word from anyone that would support your accusation. Because you’re lying.
Back on the “bloviating morons” thread you tried to claim that I had a history of making “racist comments” on “several other blogs”; a scurrilous LIE. When I called you out on this smear you resorted to the same sort of sniveling, mealy-mouthed dissembling you’re demonstrating now.
When you don’t know what to say, you just fabricate some lie so you can “win”.
Disgusting.
So for the third, goddamn time! Show a quote from anyone here that could even remotely be interpreted as suggesting that Ford’s accusations should be dismissed simply on the basis of her gender! Back up your accusations!
Please list the three blogs at which you post most frequently.
Thanks.
No, sorry, I’m not. The fact that you, mikeN, rickA are fine with language and messages that send racist (and worse) messages and don’t believe they are racist and worse is the issue. (Look at rickA’s equating of sexual assault in general with some game he played as a child for the type of dismissive and offensive crap you folks put out.)
Work yourself into a lather if you want — nobody cares. Perhaps if you tried to be a decent person you’d find the reason people have the opinion of you they have.
It is, of course, true that both Republicans and Democrats have been guilty of sexual harassment, but what’s more important is that the Democrats have attempted to learn and have come to reject and sanction this behavior, whereas the Republicans haven’t.
“In the year since the #MeToo movement began, Americans have relearned one old truth and learned one new one. The old truth is that, when it comes to perpetrators of sexual harassment, politics doesn’t matter. Liberal men and conservative men, socialist men and fascist men, anti-feminist men and avowedly feminist men—some percentage of all these subspecies prey on women. For every Clarence Thomas, there’s a Bill Clinton.
The newer truth, which was less clear a year ago, is that while politics may not determine your propensity to abuse women sexually, it does determine your ability to get away with it. This wasn’t always the case…
“The Franken resignation, in retrospect, was a historical crossroads. It was a crossroads because Democrats had plenty of excuses for standing by him…
“This weekend’s accusation that Brett Kavanaugh assaulted a woman in high school shows just how wise that logic was. Republicans desperately want the public to believe the assault charge is a smokescreen: that Democrats are looking for any opportunity to defeat a nominee whose politics they oppose. That’s true: Democrats are looking for any opportunity to block Kavanaugh’s confirmation. But Democrats can also credibly demand an investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh because, when it comes to sexual harassment, they have earned the moral high ground. They earned it with Franken. Yes, Kavanaugh’s alleged incident occurred while he was in high school. But, if true, it’s worse than anything Franken is alleged to have done—and Democrats ditched him without even the benefit of a hearing. When it comes to Kavanaugh, Democrats may be opportunists, but they’re not hypocrites.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/the-growing-partisan-split-over-sexual-misconduct-allegations/570430/
Keith Ellison?
The distinction between recovered and traumatic memories is important here:
“It is also important to note that what Dr. Blasey is describing in her report of sexual assault by Judge Kavanaugh is not a so-called recovered memory — one that a person believes he has recalled after having suppressed it for many years. Quite the opposite: It is a traumatic memory that she’s been unable to forget.”
Together with other corroborating evidence (e.g. the record that was established in 2012, Kavanaugh’s drunkenness, the sexism and alcoholism of his cheerleader friend), this supports the accuracy of Blasey’s accusation.
Then there’s the question of whether adolescence excuses the behavior Kavanaugh is accused of:
“We all know that teenagers are notoriously impulsive and should be forgiven for doing things like that, right?
“Wrong. Sexual assault cannot be easily dismissed as youthful indiscretion or the product of alcoholic intoxication. First, alcohol does not create violent sexual impulses so much as it unleashes or magnifies pre-existing ones.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/opinion/kavanaugh-christine-ford-sexual-assault.html
While it’s entirely possible that Kavanaugh has matured and grown up, it also seems that a transgression of such gravity should disqualify him from one of society’s leading positions. It should also be noted that Republican attempts to excuse a “youthful indiscretion” committed by an adolescent from a privileged milieu are totally at odds with the politics of trying and punishing less privileged children as adults.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/kavanaugh-allegation-conservatives-boys-will-be-boys-juvenile-justice-reform.html
Therapist’s notes don’t mention Kavanaugh. Just kids at an elitist boys school who are now members of high society in Washington.
If she had gone to school in St Louis or Chicago, maybe, but Georgetown Prep likely had many boys that fit that description, including Neil Gorsuch.
Perhaps Democrats will look to impeach him just in case he was at the party.
You are claiming that Ford is either lying or mistaken about Kavanaugh’s presence at the party. This fails the parsimony test.
1) Ford is begging the FBI to investigate. If she has lied or is otherwise wasting the FBI’s time, she stand to receive serious penalty from unwarranted referral to the FBI.
2) She explicitly put Mark Judge, a good friend of Kavanaugh’s, in the room. If she was lying or mistaken Judge could very easily deny the allegation. Even if she was telling the truth he could lie about it, and make her case more difficult to prove, but instead he went with the lame rejoinder that he “doesn’t remember”…
3) If Ford wasn’t assured that it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her she would hardly be inclined to go public in such a spectacular way. She knew very well beforehand that she’d be attacked by the misogyny-supporting conservative base and their media, and it’s documented that she attempted to keep her identity secret very early on in the piece after Kavanaugh was named. Yet despite this fear she has come out to repeat her claims, in the face of multiple death threats and harassment to the point that she’s been forced to move her family from their home.
5) Ford has good standing in the academic community. She would not jeopardise that by lying about Kavanaugh, when lies would be very easy to identify, because to do so would ruin her research credibility.
6) Every aspect of Ford’s description of the event is backed by evidence that supports the character of all involved. She herself has a documented record of having to seek counseling for the assault. Kavanagh and Judge are both documented by their own words in their respective yearbook entries, biographies, and later fraternity membership to have been drinkers and misogynists. Kavanaugh’s ongoing legal opinions reflect a very patriarchal, disparaging, and disrespectful attitude to women.
The character of the men are entirely consistent with Ford’s version of events.
7) If it had been other youths who had assaulted her at the party the rest of the attendees would surely have appeared to set the record straight and free Kavanaugh from suspicion. So far no one’s volunteered to correct the record.
8) The Republicans are doing their damnedest to prevent the FBI from following up on Ford’s allegations, even though they routinely did exactly this as a matter of course when Anita Hill appeared to make accusations against Clarence Thomas decades ago. The precedent if for them to add to their previous report. It appears that the Republicans either know something about Kavanaugh’s background, or they don’t care if anything like that exists because it is consistent with their misogynistic attitude to women and as a by-product Kavanaugh supports non-democratic support of GOP authoritarians.
The fact that Senate Republicans are appointing outside counsel to potentially interrogate Ford i a hearing only adds to the appearance that they are afraid of what Ford has that could blow up in their faces.
9) If Kavanaugh is innocent the very best thing to do would be to have Ford’s claims investigated because his name would be cleared.
10) Kavanagh has lied and dissembled in his hearing for this and for previous positions, to the point that sooner or later he’ll likely be impeached if he remains a judge. Further, Ford can still report the matter to the police and if they substantiated the accusation Kavanaugh can be impeached at any time in the future.
Kavanaugh is a dead man walking, and the longer that the GOP support him the more harm they do to themselves.
“Quite the opposite: It is a traumatic memory that she’s been unable to forget.”
She forgot where the alleged attack took place.
She forgot how she got to the alleged crime scene.
She forgot how she left the alleged crime scene.
She forgot what year the alleged crime took place.
She does claim however that everyone, except Judge and Kavanaugh, had ONE beer only. Funny, how selective Ford’s memory is.
“Together with other corroborating evidence (e.g. the record that was established in 2012, Kavanaugh’s drunkenness, the sexism and alcoholism of his cheerleader friend), this supports the accuracy of Blasey’s accusation.”
Um how? What evidence do you have that every hard-drinking high school student committed a sexual assault?
“Then there’s the question of whether adolescence excuses the behavior Kavanaugh is accused of:”
Complete, utter Straw Man fallacy.
Kavanaugh isn’t asking to be excused. He’s saying categorically that he never did such a thing in his life.
Ford wants the FBI to investigate because it is the only thing that would delay the hearings. The goal is to push past the elections and hope to have Democrats make the choice, or at least past the start of the new session of the Supreme Court.
Mark Judge’s words seem carefully selected to clear Kavanaugh only and not himself.
>If Ford wasn’t assured that it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her she would hardly be inclined to go public in such a spectacular way.
She would if her goal was to keep Kavanaugh from being appointed to the Supreme Court.
>She would not jeopardise that by lying about Kavanaugh, when lies would be very easy to identify, because to do so would ruin her research credibility.
Anita Hill’s lies were easy to identify. Yet she ended up getting a job at a better college.
>documented by their own words in their respective yearbook entries,
And Ford’s yearbook entries show a school that unlike Kavanaugh’s ‘What happens in Georgetown Prep stays in Georgetown Prep’, tells everyone what they are about. Ford would hang around to see where all the drunken parties are happening, and didn’t want her parents to find out what happened because they might stop her from going to drunken parties in the future.
>If it had been other youths who had assaulted her at the party the rest of the attendees would surely have appeared to set the record straight and free Kavanaugh from suspicion.
You are assuming the assault, or even this party, actually happened. There are so few details, that people can only say they weren’t at such a party, not that they were there and nothing happened. Because they would have no way of knowing this is the party she’s talking about.
>Kavanagh has lied and dissembled in his hearing for this and for previous positions,
People keep claiming this. Even liberal Washington Post gave Mother Jones a whole bunch of Pinocchios on it.
“Funny, how selective Ford’s memory is.”
Almost all memories are selective. The inability to forget is a very rare condition. Some memories are more vivid than others.
“What evidence do you have that every hard-drinking high school student committed a sexual assault?”
Absolutely none. I never made such a claim.
“Then there’s the question of whether adolescence excuses the behavior Kavanaugh is accused of:”
“Complete, utter Straw Man fallacy.
Kavanaugh isn’t asking to be excused. He’s saying categorically that he never did such a thing in his life.”
If Locus had been better at reading comprehension, s/he would have understood the difference between “the behavior Kavanaugh is accused of” and Kavanaugh’s behavior.
BBD,
“Because you are refusing to provide any evidence that would prove me wrong. ”
**You’re** the one making the accusation! How am I supposed to prove a negative??????
I would literally have to dump every single word I’ve ever written online on this blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence that I “have something to hide” so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
No, all you need to do is link to three blogs where you comment most. It would take a moment of your time to clear this up.
So why won’t you do it?
As I’ve said, repeatedly, we know. But I like watching you wriggle.
Keith Ellison?
Still an unanswered question. From the little I’ve read, the woman who says she was abused refuses to show the evidence she claims to have. But let’s say that Ellison was guilty and hadn’t been sanctioned. That would be a regrettable inconsistency. The tendency, though, is that Democrats are taking sexual harassment seriously and supporting initiatives that help women. Republicans aren’t.
Blasey didn’t identify Kavanaugh to her therapist.
Why would she? Why would the specific identity of the perpetrator be relevant in a therapy setting?
Re. Blasey’s brother and Fusion GPS:
“It is true that BakerHostetler hired Fusion GPS as part of a Russian money-laundering investigation, and that Fusion GPS later worked with Mr. Steele on the Russia dossier. But Fusion GPS has said that there is no link between its work on the earlier case — which involved Prevezon, a Russian holding company based in Cyprus — and the 2016 presidential election.
“And according to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Blasey left the firm in 2004, more than a decade before any investigation into Russian collusion began.”
Once again, it seems that the media you get your information from are a lagoon of overflowing pig shit.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/us/politics/christine-blasey-ford-kavanaughs-fact-check.html
Finally, here’s a question you might try to answer:
Why do all these racists keep joining the GOP?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/09/20/why-do-all-these-racists-keep-joining-the-gop/?utm_term=.406482374728
I’m not suggesting you’re a racist yourself, just that there’s no place like home, if you get what I mean.
>Why would the specific identity of the perpetrator be relevant in a therapy setting?
It’s not. It also means that telling the therapist isn’t corroboration from six years ago.
Cosmicomics,
Cory Booker wrote about fondling a girl too drunk to give consent in 1992.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/36121/bookers-opposition-kavanaugh-called-out-over-his-ryan-saavedra
I demand an FBI investigation!!!
I can’t wait for Booker to label this his “I am Grope-a-Cus” moment.
Cosmicomics,
“Keith Ellison?
Still an unanswered question. From the little I’ve read, the woman who says she was abused refuses to show the evidence she claims to have.”
Fake News!
https://www.dailywire.com/news/36084/bombshell-ellisons-accuser-releases-medical-ryan-saavedra
I won’t speculate on whether Monahan’s accusations are accurate or not. However, she has already provided far more to back up her claims than Ford.
All the Democratic Party has done is wait until the polls closed in Minnesota before tweeting that domestic abuse allegations will be taken seriously. Sure they will.
So much for your claims of the moral high ground for Democrats.
Like T-Bone, Corey Booker is probably lying about this story. He needed a convenient hook for his ‘I am a newfound feminist’. Key evidence, Top Gun wasn’t released by the year he claimed to be assaulting this woman with Top Gun tunes running in his mind.
BBD,
BBD,
“Please list the three blogs at which you post most frequently.
Thanks.”
Please show ANY evidence that backs your accusations.
It’s like there’s an international competition among liberal idiots to see who can spew the most baseless accusation. Congratulations numskull, you just took the lead from Christine Ford.
I thought you’d refuse to list the three blogs where you comment most.
Because you know that if you do, your commentary there will not withstand scrutiny.
As I said earlier, you are making too much noise for your own good. Take the hint.
Bernard J,
1) Ford’s story is so nebulous that it would be impossible to disprove. She’s under no real risk of a charge of filing a false statement with the FBI.
2) Judge has admitted to black outs during his drinking days. Therefore his “doesn’t remember” statement is accurate. C’mon, if he stated categorically that he never met Ford, you’d be the first one to bring up his memory lapses.
3) Nonsense. There’s more than plenty examples of false accusations. Tawana Brawley, Duke Lacrosse, Rolling Stone UVA … Just this week a schoolmate of Ford’s tried to claim that Ford’s story was well-known at their school. That was a fabrication.
4) blank
5) “…when lies would be very easy to identify…”
That’s actually the problem. Ford’s story, at least so far, is just a cloud bank. Nearly impossible to either prove or **disprove**.
6) “The character of the men are entirely consistent with Ford’s version of events.”
Complete NONSENSE. We haven’t seen any of the many women that Kavanaugh has worked with over the last thirty years complain about his alleged “misogyny”.
7) Circular logic. You’re assuming that an assault actually happened.
8) Just plain ridiculous. If Ford had something that would “blow up” the nomination she doesn’t need a hearing. She could just email it or phone it in to CNN.
DOJ sources told Fox News that the FBI declined to investigate because of the age of the accusation, Ford’s inability to provide even a approximate date or place and Ford’s not swearing out a complaint.
9) Ford’s claims are so nebulous that Kavanaugh could never be cleared. How in the hell is he supposed to account for his every movement during the summer of ’82 ( Ford *thinks* it was ’82 )
10) If you really thought that Kavanaugh would be impeached off the SCOTUS is a few years you wouldn’t be so emotionally attached to this desperate, Hail Mary attempt to scuttle the nomination. Please don’t take up the holy game of poker. You can’t bluff.
Dean,
“Look at the deniers here who still say “it’s nothing because she’s a woman” and worse. ”
“The fact that you, mikeN, rickA are fine with language and messages that send racist (and worse) messages and don’t believe they are racist and worse is the issue.”
What messages? For the fourth time now, SHOW A GODDAMN QUOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
List the three blogs at which you comment most, and I’m quite certain quotes will come thick and fast.
🙂
Again, your failure to recognize that what you’re saying isn’t racist and worse isn’t our problem — it’s yours.
Fuck off back to your klan meeting.
“It’s not. It also means that telling the therapist isn’t corroboration from six years ago.”
But it is. It confirms that the attack took place. Blasey has since unequivocally identified Kavanaugh as the attacker. She has never identified anyone else.
Re. comments using The Daily Wire as their source:
“According to Snopes, “DailyWire.com has a tendency to share stories that are taken out of context or not verified.”[12] Among the falsehoods published on The Daily Wire include protesters digging up Confederate graves, Democratic congresspeople refusing to stand for a fallen Navy SEAL’s widow, and Harvard University holding segregated commencement ceremonies.[12]
“FactCheck.Org found that The Daily Wire was the source of a false story which credited Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson with finding over $500 billion in accounting errors made by the Obama administration. FactCheck.org found that the errors were discovered and published by HUD’s independent inspector general before Carson became secretary.[13]
“The Daily Wire has published a number of articles doubting that climate change is occurring and that humans contribute to climate change. Experts have described the articles as inaccurate and misleading.[14][15][16] ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Wire
For more on the right-wing lagoon of overflowing pig shit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/us/politics/christine-blasey-ford-kavanaughs-fact-check.html
“The two sides are not, in fact, equal when it comes to evaluating ‘news’ stories, or even in how they view reality. Liberals want facts; conservatives want their biases reinforced. Liberals embrace journalism; conservatives believe propaganda. In the more measured but still emphatic words of the authors, “the right-wing media ecosystem differs categorically from the rest of the media environment,” and has been much more susceptible to “disinformation, lies and half-truths.””
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-new-book-details-the-damage-done-by-the-right-wing-media-in-2016
Even if Booker did fondle “a girl too drunk to give consent in 1992,” that wouldn’t refute that the Democrats today have the moral high ground. Also, this is another illustration that “conservatives” are morally deficient. Fondling and attempted rape are two different species.
More evidence of the moral depravity that runs through today’s Republican Party:
” A South Carolina GOP congressman opened an election debate Thursday by joking that he almost had to miss it and fly back to Washington to address the latest drama involving the Supreme Court.
““Did y’all hear this latest late-breaking news on the Kavanaugh hearings?” said U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-Rock Hill. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln.”
“Norman, of course, is attempting to make light of Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh trapped her in a bedroom, forced her down, held his hand over her mouth, and tried to take off her clothes during an incident that took place while both were in high school.
It’s a comment that fails to meet basic standards of human decency…”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/republican-congressman-ruth-bader-ginsburg-abraham-lincoln-groping-ha-ha.html?via=gdpr-consent
https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/297478717736916/?_fb_noscript=1
Not 1992. Today. Note the laughter. Joking about sexual harassment in today’s GOP has an appreciative audience.
The comment is also an attempt to appropriate the legacy of Lincoln at a time when the Republican Party is the obvious choice of Nazis and members of the Ku Klux Klan.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/09/20/why-do-all-these-racists-keep-joining-the-gop/?utm_term=.406482374728
Or maybe a disavowal of the legacy of Lincoln by characterizing him as a groper, which would fit in well with the GOP’s long-standing “southern strategy.”
All true about the daily wire, but probably not a complete description of how bad its owners are.
Also true that if you are the type of person that visits the daily wire facts have no meaning to you.
More on “conservative” credibility and the reliability of pig shit sources:
“Cory Booker wrote about fondling a girl too drunk to give consent in 1992.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/36121/bookers-opposition-kavanaugh-called-out-over-his-ryan-saavedra
I demand an FBI investigation!!!”
Locus
“But the skeleton in Booker’s closet seized on by outlets such as Fox News and the Daily Caller wasn’t really in his closet. The senator himself chose years ago to air the issue, marking a notable contrast with instances in which accusations of impropriety burst forth as a result of media investigation or opposition research.
“In 1992, Booker, then a student at Stanford University, wrote a column for his college newspaper in which he recounted the groping and used his own behavior to underscore, in starkly personal terms, how his views had shifted on gender and sexual respect…
““Senator Booker’s Stanford Daily column has been the focus of disingenuous right-wing attacks that have circulated online and in partisan outlets for the past five years,” a spokeswoman for Booker said in an email. “These attacks ring hollow to anyone who reads the entirety of the column, which is in fact a direct criticism of a culture that encourages young men to take advantage of women — written at a time when so candidly discussing these issues was rare — and speaks to the impact Senator Booker’s experience working to help rape and sexual assault survivors as a college peer counselor had on him.””
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/21/in-1992-cory-booker-admitted-to-groping-a-high-school-classmate-and-issued-a-call-for-sexual-respect/?utm_term=.b3858fdb5679
Locus’s favorite source seems to be a typical example of right-wing “journalism.” As mentioned above, it’s not journalism, but propaganda. There’s no vetting, information is taken out of context to serve partisan interests, and tales that have been disproven are not corrected. Calling The Daily Wire a pig shit source is not an exaggeration, but this is the kind of crap that Locus and his/her ilk indiscriminately swallow and serve to others. He/she has inadvertently contributed additional evidence that the Democrats, unlike the Republicans, have been able to learn.
“Blasey has since unequivocally identified Kavanaugh as the attacker. She has never identified anyone else.”
Correction: Blasey did, in fact, name Kavanaugh in 2012:
“In an interview, her husband, Russell Ford, said that in the 2012 sessions, she recounted being trapped in a room with two drunken boys, one of whom pinned her to a bed, molested her and prevented her from screaming. He said he recalled that his wife used Kavanaugh’s last name and voiced concern that Kavanaugh — then a federal judge — might one day be nominated to the Supreme Court.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/california-professor-writer-of-confidential-brett-kavanaugh-letter-speaks-out-about-her-allegation-of-sexual-assault/2018/09/16/46982194-b846-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html?utm_term=.869a1bd8bb43
So it looks as though MikeN’s protestations re. corroboration in no way undermine Blasey’s credibility.
Cosmic, yes her husband is corroborating the story, which is quite different from the therapist is doing so.
The husband could be making this detail up just as Ford is, to keep Kavanaugh off the court.
It is really kind of interesting watching conservatives spinning at high speed to defend Kavanaugh. They are smoking! Why so much concern to get another conservative extremist into the Supreme Court? Well, that one is kind of obvious, isn’t it; to advance their 1% friendly agenda in a highly politicized court; to be able to legislate from the bench.
The painful memories of the professor of Biostatistics are only a distraction at this point. She is, after all, a woman, and therefore has little credibility to Republicans, despite her professional credentials as a major league scientific truth seeker ; even Republican women are against her ! I heard one GOP woman interviewed today who asked what teenage boy hasn’t done something like that? Wow. That sort of statement that confirms my worst fears about Republican males and females. But I digress.
My problem with Kavanaugh is more that he has already proved himself untruthful on other issues, namely the purloined prep notes. That is enough right there. But wait. There is also this. Do we really want another judge with sadistic/sociopathic leanings when it comes to torture? I sure don’t. Do we really want another judge who clearly will be prejudiced towards one religious interpretation over all other belief systems? I sure don’t. Do we want another prep school elitist who thinks he is above the law, who has never had to work with his hands, or work in a factory or rub shoulders with ordinary people in dangerous or dirty jobs? I sure don’t. Do we want another leering misogynist who chooses clerks for their sexiness? I sure don’t. Do we want someone whom Donny Mushroom thinks is a fine person? That right there kind of indicts Kavanaugh in my book.
“The comment is also an attempt to appropriate the legacy of Lincoln at a time when the Republican Party is the obvious choice of Nazis and members of the Ku Klux Klan.”
The republican party has been welcoming racists and worse since the mid 1960s and the passage of the voting and equal rights acts.
“The republican party has been welcoming racists and worse since the mid 1960s and the passage of the voting and equal rights acts.”
The implication of this is that before the mid sixties both major parties and a majority of the electorate were utter shitbags who couldn’t even read the fucking constitution.
The donkeys have an appalling indefensible heritage.
The donkeys are STILL a pack of WMD loving cockheads.
The elephants are fuckwits but it’s a low bar and the donkeys ain’t striving to elevate themselves to a decent ethical position.
Any reasonable study of Lincoln would conclude he is a shit bag. The defence would say, oh but everybody was a shit bag then so that’s ok.
Bullplop. It’s not OK.
“… couldn’t even read the fucking constitution.”
Oops. The USA declaration of independence I mean.
It’s clearly an unloved document that dosnt mean much to yanks. Totally ignored for hundreds of years.
To whit. The passage of voting and equal rights acts in the when was it? 19 fucking 60s!!!
Cosmicomics,
“Almost all memories are selective. The inability to forget is a very rare condition. Some memories are more vivid than others.”
Ford only seems to remember what supports her story. Ford never seems to remember anything that could be used to check her honesty. For example, if she remembered the alleged incident happened on a certain weekend then Kavanaugh and Judge might be able to show either one or the other was someplace else.
Funny how that works.
The following account of sexual assault was written by Ronald Reagan’s daughter
Patti Davis:
“I don’t remember what month it was. I don’t remember whether his assistant was still there when I arrived. I don’t remember whether we said anything to each other when I left his office.
I never told anyone for decades — not a friend, not a boyfriend, not a therapist, not my husband when I got married years later.
It doesn’t surprise me one bit that for more than 30 years, Christine Blasey Ford didn’t talk about the assault she remembers, the one she accuses Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh of committing.
It’s important to understand how memory works in a traumatic event. Ford has been criticized for the things she doesn’t remember, like the address where she says the assault happened, or the time of year, or whose house it was. But her memory of the attack itself is vivid and detailed. His hand over her mouth, another young man piling on, her fear that maybe she’d die there, unable to breathe. That’s what happens: Your memory snaps photos of the details that will haunt you forever, that will change your life and live under your skin. It blacks out other parts of the story that really don’t matter much.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-was-sexually-assaulted-heres-why-i-dont-remember-many-of-the-details/2018/09/21/8ce0088c-bdab-11e8-8792-78719177250f_story.html?utm_term=.e6ee31499009
“For example, if she remembered the alleged incident happened on a certain weekend then Kavanaugh and Judge might be able to show either one or the other was someplace else.”
I think this understanding of memory, that people are able to remember non-essential information that happened many years ago, speaks for itself.
As for the rest, Locus consistently fails in reading comprehension, excels in drawing erroneous conclusions from his/her misunderstandings, uses terms (ad hominem) that s/he doesn’t understand, and is incapable of objectively evaluating information that doesn’t confirm biases created by being immersed in pig shit.
BBD,
“List the three blogs at which you comment most, and I’m quite certain quotes will come thick and fast.”
This makes NO sense. If you don’t where else I’ve posted then you haven’t read anything I’ve posted anywhere else. So how, how, how can you be “certain” of the content of my posts?
Anyone honest, with nothing to hide, and acting in good faith, would just post the links to the blogs.
You, on the other hand…
Cosmicomics,
“What evidence do you have that every hard-drinking high school student committed a sexual assault?”
“Absolutely none. I never made such a claim.”
Then how in the hell can you possibly claim that “Kavanaugh’s drunkenness … supports the accuracy of Blasey’s accusation.” ???
If Kavanaugh had a history of getting “handsy” while drinking, then maybe. But no one has made that allegation.
Cosmicomics,
“If Locus had been better at reading comprehension, s/he would have understood the difference between “the behavior Kavanaugh is accused of” and Kavanaugh’s behavior.”
So now you think that Kavanaugh is innocent, i.e. his behavior is different from what he is accused of?
What changed your mind?
Dean,
“Again, your failure to recognize that what you’re saying isn’t racist and worse isn’t our problem — it’s yours.
Fuck off back to your klan meeting.”
For a **fifth** time. Show a quote!
Back up your accusations!
Where do you post most, Locus?
Why won’t you just say, so we can all look at your posts and see what kinds of things you say?
What’s the problem, Locus?
Why are you so afraid of us reading your comments elsewhere?
What can it be?
* * *
Are you so fucking stupid that you don’t know when you’ve been outed?
Cosmicomics,
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln.”
This allegation is unequivocally false. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, nearly seven decades before Ginsburg was even born.
It’s simply impossible.
The remark wasn’t made by me, but by a Republican congressman:
” A South Carolina GOP congressman opened an election debate Thursday by joking that he almost had to miss it and fly back to Washington to address the latest drama involving the Supreme Court.
““Did y’all hear this latest late-breaking news on the Kavanaugh hearings?” said U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-Rock Hill. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln.”
https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/16/how-to-force-senator-susan-collins-to-do-the-right-thing/#comment-634058
Further proof that Locus doesn’t understand what s/he reads. (Or writes.)
Cosmicomics,
“Even if Booker did fondle “a girl too drunk to give consent in 1992,” that wouldn’t refute that the Democrats today have the moral high ground.”
Bill Clinton ejaculated on one of his female employees, in the workplace, during regular business hours. He then lied about it and stood by while his supporters savaged the young woman in the press, calling her a liar and a stalker until the infamous blue dress was produced.
To this day, Bill Clinton is a respected, elder statesman of the Democratic Party.
What sort of message does that send to young women today?
Cosmicomics,
I see you’re engaging in a series of ad hominem attacks on The Daily Wire. So tell me, what did they get wrong? Are you trying to claim that Corey Booker did not actually fondle a drunk girl in 1992?
You said,
“Sexual assault cannot be easily dismissed as youthful indiscretion or the product of alcoholic intoxication.”
Funny how you didn’t apply that standard to Booker!
I see you don’t know what as hominem mean locus. No surprise there.
The comments about the daily wire and the scum who write there are facts.
Thanks for adding more evidence to how big a racist dick you really are
Gee, Locus. Haven’t they taught you that “What-about-ism” is falling out of style these days in debating circles? It is too easily called out. It looks to me like you are just trying to stir up trouble among Americans, not try to find any solution.
At any rate being quite familiar with Kavanaugh’s hedonistic, misogynistic Drunken Deke fraternity, and knowing that he also belonged to “Truth and Courage” , aka “Tit and clit”, and knowing that he naughtily likes his law clerks to be highly attractive females, and knowing that his elite Jesuit prep school had a reputation for totally out of control hedonism, misogyny,and, well, “I can get away with anything” elitism, knowing all that, and not seeing any evidence to suggest that he was ever anything other than another self indulgent punk, not seeing much evidence that he was concerned about anyone but himself and having a good time, I would say yeah, he would make a great GOP (Greedy Oily Pigs) justice, along the lines of a Clarence Thomas, or a or an A. Scalia, or a Neil Gorsuch ( Georgetown Prep! Class of ’85!).
Yeah we just need more elitist bastards to push the 1% agenda. Thanks for helping the cause.
SteveP,
Did Kavanaugh ejaculate on one of his female employees in the office during business hours, lie about it and have the young woman denounced as a liar and a stalker?
You need to review the definition of the word ‘consensual’.
* * *
Meanwhile, what is it that you are hiding? Just keeping company with racist scum and failing to call them out, or active participation in the discourse?
A bit of Jew-baiting, or maybe some homophobia or religious bigotry? Or just plain old hate for POC?
The longer you refuse to defend your commenting history elsewhere, the worse we all suspect the truth will be.
SteveP,
“It looks to me like you are just trying to stir up trouble among Americans, not try to find any solution. ”
How? By asking that people not be condemned without supporting evidence?
Why do you hate the centuries old tradition of due process?
“How? By asking that people not be condemned without supporting evidence?”
You seem to be as stupid as you are dishonest and bigoted. Stop playing the attempts to deflect attention front the current situation, and realize the scum you associate with are now and have been done smissinf these latest accusations. And stop pretending you have any real concern about evidence and fairness. Nobody believes your bullcrap.
“You need to review the definition of the word ‘consensual’.”
Don’t ever expect the scumbag locus to look for facts.
SteveP,
“…knowing that he naughtily likes his law clerks to be highly attractive females…”
Evidence please?
‘No accident’ Brett Kavanaugh’s female law clerks ‘looked like models’, Yale professor told students
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/20/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-yale-amy-chua
Chua denies it.
BBD,
“You need to review the definition of the word ‘consensual’. ”
In what way did Monica Lewinsky “consent” to being called a liar and a stalker?
ML consented to the sexual activity. She wasn’t coerced.
How stupid and dishonest are you?
Don’t worry, we already know.
BBD,
“The longer you refuse to defend your commenting history elsewhere, the worse we all suspect the truth will be.”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence to support your allegation so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
All you have to do is demonstrate you aren’t a bigot. Why will you not do this?
(We know, obvz, but it’s fun rubbing your face in your own shit).
Dean,
“You seem to be as stupid as you are dishonest and bigoted. ”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of bigotry on my part so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Dean,
“Thanks for adding more evidence to how big a racist dick you really are”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of racism on my part so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
BBD,
“Are you so fucking stupid that you don’t know when you’ve been outed?”
If I’ve already been “outed”, then why can’t you provide any evidence?
Because you are refusing to provide any evidence that would prove me wrong.
And we all know why.
BBD,
“All you have to do is demonstrate you aren’t a bigot. Why will you not do this?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of bigotry on my part so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Thou dost protest too much.
If you don’t want to be known as a bigot, liar, racist, and all around dick, stop being those things
BBD,
“Anyone honest, with nothing to hide, and acting in good faith, would just post the links to the blogs. ”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence that I “have something to hide” so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
BBD,
“ML consented to the sexual activity. She wasn’t coerced. ”
In what way did Monica Lewinsky “consent” to being called a liar and a stalker?
Dean,
“Don’t ever expect the scumbag locus to look for facts.”
In what way did Monica Lewinsky “consent” to being called a liar and a stalker?
Shitbag, ibdont know why Blumenthal and several secret service agents called her a stalker.
Why do you filail to speak out about Trump’s serial abuse of women? Why aren’t you upset about his admission of walking into the dressing room of teenage girls while they were changing? Why aren’t you upset about him on tape talking about how he’s able to molest women because he’s a celebrity. Why aren’t you upset about his defense of Nazis after their rally (and his asinine assertion of equivalency between them and those who opposed them). His lies about the need for tariffs? Why do you dflefend the scum at the daily wire?
I know far too many scum like you are around, and you’re proud of your complete lack of intelligence, ethics, your racism — your complete lack of anything that would make you a decent person. That doesn’t mean we need to give a shit when you pretend you’ve been insulted when your traits are.lointed out.
Christina said she was ready to testify to the Senate committee, and hasn’t done so.
As last week, she says she will testify but her conditions need to be met. Translation delay delay delay.
Oh yea, Monday testimony won’t work for her because she doesn’t like to fly.
You still don’t have a relevant point there mikeN.
She’s lying about testifying. More evidence she is lying about Kavanaugh.
Oh, and she will only take questions from Senators, no other lawyers.
And now her fourth identified witness is also denying it.
The only testimony that matters mikeN is hers. If she’s not believable she’s not believable. I expect the republican response if she is believable is what yours, ricka’s, and locus’ has been: it doesn’t matter because she’s a woman and we need kavanaugh on the court.
It’s also very easy to check your running list of irrelevant points and find immediately the fake news sites you follow.
Dean,
“If you don’t want to be known as a bigot, liar, racist, and all around dick, stop being those things”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence to support these accusations so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Dean,
“it doesn’t matter because she’s a woman and we need kavanaugh on the court. ”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence that anyone said “it doesn’t matter because she’s a woman”.
Don’t be a gutless little coward. Prove your accusations!!!
No comments on the issues of your non-condemnation of the behaviors you claim to find disgusting by people you oppose.
Your support for the racists running the right wing at this time, your lack of condemnation for the dirt at sites like daily wire, etc., show you for what you are: dishonest, bigoted, racist, lacking in any integrity or decency. Your actions show you for what you are, and your fake demands for “proof” are laughable.
You are the poster child for the ignorant people in Trump’s corner: stupid and vile.
I don’t know if Locus himself is a racist; I’ve seen no evidence that he is. What I do know is that Locus is part of a political network that attracts racists. Locus himself has an easily documented problem that goes beyond racism and was most concisely stated by Groucho Marx:
“You’ve got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I’ll bet he was glad to get rid of it.”
I put it less eloquently earlier:
“Locus consistently fails in reading comprehension, excels in drawing erroneous conclusions from his/her misunderstandings, uses terms (ad hominem) that s/he doesn’t understand, and is incapable of objectively evaluating information that doesn’t confirm biases created by being immersed in pig shit.”
https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/16/how-to-force-senator-susan-collins-to-do-the-right-thing/#comment-634918
There was one mistake there. I used the plural “terms” but only mentioned ad hominem. He clearly doesn’t understand straw man either:
“Then there’s the question of whether adolescence excuses the behavior Kavanaugh is accused of:”
Complete, utter Straw Man fallacy.
Unfortunately for Locus, the argument that adolescence excuses the irresponsible behavior of (privileged, white) teenagers has, in fact, been made to defend Kavanaugh.
Using Monica Lewinsky as a kind of proof in this case is yet another example of Locus’s inability to comprehend. What’s important is that Democrats no longer find Bill Clinton’s behavior acceptable, so to equate today’s Democratic rejection of Clinton’s behavior with today’s overwhelming Republican acceptance of Donald Trump’s, Roy Moore’s, and others’, shows a total lack of understanding. If I thought Locus was capable of understanding what he does, I’d call it dishonest.
Cosmicomics,
“Using Monica Lewinsky as a kind of proof in this case is yet another example of Locus’s inability to comprehend. What’s important is that Democrats no longer find Bill Clinton’s behavior acceptable…”
Right, right. Democrats demonstrated their disapproval of Bill Clinton by falling all over themselves to donate millions and millions to his giant slush fund disguised as a “charity”, the Clinton Foundation.
Not to forget Bill’s ability to raise money,
“Clinton has long been a prodigious campaigner and fundraiser. He is a staple for Democrats during elections and is known for his ability to both connect with key constituents and get top-flight Democratic donors to reach a little deeper into their pockets. In 2014, he traversed the country to stump for a wide array for Democratic candidates.”
https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/politics/bill-clinton-2016-role/index.html
Oh, the disapproval!
Wait. This quote is from CNN. There goes your usual “argument” of calling The Daily Wire a bunch of poopy-heads.
Face it, Democrats love Bill Clinton. In the Democratic Party, principle is just a smokescreen, and a pretty thin one at that.
>so to equate today’s Democratic rejection of Clinton’s behavior
I’ve seen some statements after Hillary lost, for example Kirsten Gillibrand, but as long as the Clintons were electorally viable, they were quite supportive. Obama was holding his hand on stage at the convention, and Bill made him stand waiting over an hour to get that photo he so desperately wanted.
Did y’all know that “Locus” is pronounced pretty much the same in Russian as in English? I can picture the tag team of trolls and troll trainees at the St. Petersburg Troll Academy vying to get the biggest response and posting as much as the site will allow. You can call out their what-aboutism but they are too stupid to get that fewer and fewer interested in their distraction and deflection. Or maybe it is one guy in Milwaukee. Doesn’t matter. Locus is the human equivalent of a fly. Eats shit and bothers people.
SteveP,
I’m in awe of your debate skills.
Dean,
“…show you for what you are: dishonest, bigoted, racist, lacking in any integrity or decency.”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence to support these accusations so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Still refusing to do what any honest person would do and link to a few sites where you comment regularly. All it would take, but you will not do it.
Because you know what we will find.
So, this game is over. You got nailed, again.
Your words have outed you shitbag. Your support for the president do the same.
As we’ve said before, if you don’t want to be known as the poster child for the worst characteristics a human can display, clean yourself up.
Absent that, stop your butthurt whiny crying. You chose to be the things you’re accused of, stop bitching about having that pointed out.
Then answer why you pretend to be upset about the offenses of people who’ve been punished for sexual abuse, but aren’t offended by the president’s history of abusing women and why you don’t think kavanaugh’s accuser shouldn’t be believed. We know why mikeN and ricka keep bringing up unimportant issues as though they matter.
“throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.”
In addition to everything else you’ve ever commented on, it’s clear you have no clue what “argument” is. It isn’t a surprise, given your lack of regard for facts and use of “news” sources run by racists and white supremacists.
Christine Blasey’s high school yearbook:
“And there were always parties to celebrate any occasion. Although these parties are no doubt unforgettable, they are only a memory lapse for most, since loss of consciousness is often an integral part of the party scene.”
No worries, while Chrissy doesn’t remember whose house it is, how she got there, or when it happened, she remembers that she and her friend had just one drink along with the other boys and girls, except Kavanaugh and Judge who uniquely drank a lot at this party.
I have seen a large number of stories about how Ford has agreed to testify Thursday.
However, when I look at the last statement from her lawyers from Sat. night, it doesn’t say testify – it says “Dr. Ford accepts the Committee’s request to provide her first-hand knowledge of Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual misconduct next week”.
Provide first-hand knowledge doesn’t necessarily mean testify – it could mean provide a written statement. Of course it could also mean testify. But why not say testify if she was agreeing to testify? It provides wiggle room.
I actually have to say that at this point, with all four alleged witnesses saying they don’t recall any such party, that the odds of Ford actually showing up in Washington to testify are very low.
I guess we will have to wait and see.
At this point, my bet is no hearing – just a vote.
Does anybody know where the four names came from? I read the redacted Ford letter and it doesn’t read like multiple names were listed, just one. Probably Judge.
I have been trying to find where the four names came from and I cannot find it.
I had thought that all the people at the party were boys except Ford – but now we hear from a girl who was placed at the party. I found that confusing and was trying to nail down the four names and where they came from.
Any links?
RickA, around the same time as the letter, Ford contacted Washington Post. She gave them four names, Kavanaugh, Judge, and two others not named in the article.
At the time, I assumed the other two were girls. The therapist note said ‘four boys’ and Post said this was an error and Ford said there were four boys at the party.
Now her witnesses are revealed as a boy and a girl. If she didn’t make clear there were more people at the party, then Washington Post was lying in its story by not pointing out this discrepancy. Kim Strassel I think is in error in ruling out there could have been more people at the party. Post said neither of the two witnesses would comment.
MikeN, rickA, if you don’t have any serious issues stop bringing up things which are irrelevant. We all know why you dismiss her out of hand, you don’t need to reinforce your biased opinions.
Thank you MikeN.
Dean – these are serious issues I am bringing up and they are certainly not irrelevant. All we have to go by are things Ford has written or said.
She wrote Judge’s name in her letter (I believe) and told the Washington post four names. If she named named 3 boys and one girl to the Washington Post, that doesn’t square up with her explanation of the therapist error (four boys).
Unless there was another person at the party?
Anyway – all the people named as being at the alleged party have now denied there was a party, and her good friend says it didn’t happen (even though she believes Ford).
So now we are supposed to believe this assault happened at a party which her good friend was at, and which the good friend denies ever happened and also that she didn’t mention it to the good friend?
All of this lowers her credibility or her memory of events.
I would be very nervous testifying if I were Ford, now that her attempts to corroborate have completely failed.
That is why I wonder if she will ever testify.
Re. Bill Clinton:
The election of Donald Trump and the rise of#MeToo marked a sea change. Try to find recent statements by Democrats that defend Clinton’s sexual behavior. Where are the signs that he’s been visible in this election cycle?
“Mrs. Clinton appears determined to play at least a limited role in the midterms, bolstering longtime allies and raising money for Democrats in safely liberal areas. Her husband has been all but invisible….
“Mr. Clinton has been largely sidelined amid new scrutiny of his past misconduct with women.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/us/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-midterms.html
MikeN’s technique is to take pot shots and hope he’ll hit something. He so consistently twists facts, and so consistently cherry-picks and leaves out relevant information that doesn’t support his argument, that it’s fair to call him a pathological liar.
“Cosmic, yes her husband is corroborating the story, which is quite different from the therapist is doing so.
The husband could be making this detail up just as Ford is, to keep Kavanaugh off the court.”
Not just different, but “quite different.” At the same time, not relevant.
“The husband could be making this detail up …”
Yes, he could, but, based on all the other corroborating evidence we have, this is far less likely than Kavanaugh lying to protect himself and advance his career. Or forgetting because he was to drunk to remember.
“… just as Ford is …”
There is no evidence that Ford is making anything up. But it is reasonable to assume that she would not want someone who attempted rape on the Supreme Court.
More MikeN
“As last week, she says she will testify but her conditions need to be met. Translation delay delay delay.
Oh yea, Monday testimony won’t work for her because she doesn’t like to fly.”
“She’s lying about testifying. More evidence she is lying about Kavanaugh.”
First this:
“More than a thousand women who attended Holton-Arms, the girls’ school from which Ford graduated, have signed a letter that describes the alleged assault as “all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton. Many of us are survivors ourselves….”
“As reporters have investigated Kavanaugh’s high-school years, many alumni have expressed fear about going on the record and alienating themselves from a close-knit community. “I guess you could call it a fraternity between a bunch of rich kids,” an anonymous alumnus of Georgetown Prep, who overlapped with Kavanaugh there, told the Huff Post. “All this shit happens, and then nobody really wants to talk about it, because if one person crumbles, the whole system crumbles, and everybody tells on everybody.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-boys-club-that-protects-brett-kavanaugh?reload=true
This would seem to be indicate that Kavanaugh the soused jock, was part of a culture that engaged in sexual abuse and cover-ups.
Blasey’s conditions are both normal and reasonable. As in the Clarence Thomas case, she has requested an FBI investigation. There’s no legitimate reason for refusing it. There’s precedent for it. And it would eliminate some of the perception that the Republicans will push Kavanaugh through, no matter what evidence there may be against him:
“The FBI, which would already have performed an extensive background check on Kavanaugh in connection with his nomination to the Supreme Court, can pick up its investigation — and check into the issues that the woman accusing Kavanaugh of assault has raised — more quickly, more effectively and more sensitively than untrained Senate committee staffers can. Such an FBI investigation should certainly come before Christine Blasey Ford is subjected to questioning from the Senate or its staff members — not only because that’s what Ford has requested but because it’s only fair for senators to question her (or Kavanaugh) with the additional information that the FBI’s work would surely yield, and because it gets us closer to the truth….
“Simply put, President Trump’s claim that the FBI “doesn’t do” investigations like this is only true because, in this case, he hasn’t asked them to.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/20/i-directed-white-house-nominations-course-fbi-can-check-kavanaugh-again/?utm_term=.47eff4b27d07
She has requested that Mark Judge, who she says was present while the assault was taking place, be subpoenaed to testify. She has requested the testimony of experts on traumas. All of these are legitimate demands, and rejecting them shows that the Republicans have no interest in giving her a fair hearing, not that she’s lying about anything. Despite the risk and uncertainty, she took a polygraph test. Have Kavanaugh and Judge volunteered to do the same? In light of the death threats against her, she has requested special security.
Anyway, it now appears that some sort of agreement has been reached and that MikeN has once again been exposed as a liar.
Cosmicomics,
“Anyway, it now appears that some sort of agreement has been reached and that MikeN has once again been exposed as a liar.”
You might want to ease up on calling people “liars”.
“This is not an ‘acceptance’ of anything at all. The email doesn’t even say she will testify. It says she will ‘provide her firsthand knowledge’ but it doesn’t say how. It says she will do so ‘next week’ but doesn’t say when. And it says the rest of the terms are still up for negotiation. It ‘accepts’ nothing at all, but the language is very carefully calculated to give her credit for having accepted,…”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/36211/kavanaugh-accuser-accepts-tentative-deal-testify-emily-zanotti
Cosmicomics,
“This would seem to be indicate that Kavanaugh the soused jock, was part of a culture that engaged in sexual abuse and cover-ups.”
So would you apply this same reasoning to the trial of a poor kid who comes from a crime-ridden neighborhood where “snitches get stitches”? Would you automatically assume he’s guilty?
Witnesses do not get to make demands about who testifies before them. It is up to the committee to see who they want to hear from. She first demanded to speak before the Committee. Then when they said OK, she backed off and started making other demands.
You say no evidence she is lying. There are four people who have given letters to the committee, which if are found to be lies would mean they can be charged with a felony, either outright denying the story or saying they have no recollection of being at a party like that.
Meanwhile, Ford has given no statement to the committee. Her letter hasn’t even been released, which itself was sent to a Congressman, thus making her not liable for false statements.
Correction, Grassley has released the letter, and it is addressed to Feinstein, so I think Ford is opening herself up to a felony charge with a false statement.
Still more MikeN
“And now her fourth identified witness is also denying it.”
No – another distortion from MikeN. She’s saying that she doesn’t remember it, which is not the same. For Blasey, being subjected to an attempted rape has been a haunting traumatic experience. For someone who simply was at a party that took place more than 30 years ago, and who didn’t experience anything special, the party would be non-essential information that probably would be forgotten.
The woman also says that she believes Blasey:
” In a brief interview at her home in Silver Spring, Keyser said that she did not recall the party, but that she was close friends with Ford and that she believes Ford’s allegation.
“Before her name became public, Ford told The Post she did not think Keyser would remember the party because nothing remarkable had happened there, as far as Keyser was aware. Ford has said she did not tell anyone about the alleged assault until 2012.
““It’s not surprising that Ms Keyser has no recollection of the evening as they did not discuss it,” Katz said in a statement. “It’s also unremarkable that Ms. Keyser does not remember attending a specific gathering 30 years ago at which nothing of consequence happened to her. Dr. Ford of course will never forget this gathering because of what happened to her there.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/lawyers-for-christine-blasey-ford-say-she-has-accepted-senate-judiciary-committees-request-to-testify-against-kavanaugh/2018/09/22/e8199c6a-be8f-11e8-8792-78719177250f_story.html?utm_term=.3d2d23cc8db2
Again you assume her story is true to make calculations of traumatic experience and memory.
And of course Christine Ford doesn’t remember the specifics of this party either.
Leland hasn’t just said that she doesn’t remember anything like what Ford said, but that she doesn’t know Kavanaugh and doesn’t remember being at a party with him.
Ford wasn’t expecting this, as her friend would hold parties in high school so was expecting her to say it was possible she was at a party with them. It’s why Ford gave that prebuttal to the Post about how she wouldn’t remember anything.
BBD,
“Because you know what we will find.”
Like what?
Why are you posting using my screen name, Locus?
Please don’t do that again.
* * *
Everything you’ve been trying to hide.
What’s interesting about this is that you apparently know that you’ve said indefensible things online. Or why the flat-out refusal to make all this go away by simply linking to a few sites where we can see what you have been posting?
Especially as your incessant refusal to demonstrate your innocence – something anyone innocent would immediately do – is just too funny.
Dean,
“Your words have outed you shitbag.”
What words?
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence to support these allegations so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Dean,
“In addition to everything else you’ve ever commented on, it’s clear you have no clue what “argument” is.”
I know that an “argument” is not mindless screaming RACIST over and over again like you’re doing.
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence to support these allegations so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Sorry fuckwad, we’ve never tried to engage in an argument. I’ve pointed out your lies and your racism, asked you why you choose to harp on things in the past over actions nobody here (me included) defend, but you fail to speak out against admitted actions by your president. You continue to reference sites that are inherently bigoted and racist as “evidence”. They are evidence, but not for what you think they support: they support the evidence against you.
Your little “show one quote” line of bullshit has gotten old. What you are is on evidence to everyone, and your constant whining just shows you to be a touchy little pisser.
I’m starting to believe that a major problem is that you realize the rest of us (rickA, mikeN excluded) were raised to be far better ever people than you’ve ever dreamed of being.
Dean,
“It isn’t a surprise, given your lack of regard for facts and use of “news” sources run by racists and white supremacists.”
Ben Shapiro, the editor of the Daily Wire and an orthodox Jew, is a “white supremacist”?
What gave him away? The yarmulke?
Cosmicomics,
“Where are the signs that he’s been visible in this election cycle?”
According to Gallup, as of last December,
“Currently, 76% of Democrats have a positive opinion of him, down from 81% in 2016.”
So let’s see. Bill Clinton ejaculates on a female employee in the office, lies about it and stands idly by while that young woman is savaged in the press. After twenty years of consciousness raising, four in five Democrats approve of the man personally. The MeToo movement then knocked a whole 5 percentage points off that personal approval. Wow!
The Democrats’ new awareness is a sham. They’re only sacrificing dead wood. They’re doing nothing on Keith Ellison because Ellison is still useful.
Pointing out to donkey party people that most donkey party people have ethical issues and a myriad of hypocrisy, and could they maybe have a look at it, is futile.
I don’t know why donkeys think ignoring issues is best practice but they are adamant on that path.
Terrible terrible leadership and upper management in the donkeys.
Of course it’s even worse at the elephants.
Where are the signs that he’s been visible in this election cycle?
Locus doesn’t answer this question, but one I didn’t ask. S/he can’t find any sign that Clinton is or will be an active participant in this election cycle, so he uses a straw man argument.
“A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
In other words,Locus, who uses terms s/he doesn’t understand, accuses others of using straw man arguments and then uses them him/herself.
https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/16/how-to-force-senator-susan-collins-to-do-the-right-thing/#comment-633800
So Ford’s story is that she left her friend at a party alone with three boys, two of whom she believed to be attempted rapists who inadvertently tried to kill her?
If her friend believes this story, she is awfully forgiving.
Although they are still negotiating, Ford has committed to an open hearing on thursday. I don’t know what that means, but assume she is willing to testify under oath. We will see.
Based on everything I have seen, her claim is beginning to fall apart.
All the people she named to the Washington Post have now denied her allegation.
So she is left with a naked allegation and no corroboration.
I am still somewhat doubtful she will actually testify – but we will see.
Hmmmm – a new allegation published in the New Yorker.
Now the delay makes more sense.
Now Feinstein doesn’t want a hearing on Thursday – but a new delay and a new FBI investigation.
Ah – I get it now.
If I was Grassley I would set a deadline of tuesday at midnight to get all the people who want to make allegations to come forward. Then I would have the hearing Thursday and then have the vote.
This is the link to the New Yorker story that RickA (who believes that attempted rape is an aceptable form of behavior) left out.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/senate-democrats-investigate-a-new-allegation-of-sexual-misconduct-from-the-supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaughs-college-years-deborah-ramirez?reload=true
The story is important and provides additional proof of Kavanaugh’s drunkenness and abusive behavior toward women.
“The classmate said that he had been shocked, but not necessarily surprised, because the social group to which Kavanaugh belonged often drank to excess. He recalled Kavanaugh as “relatively shy” until he drank, at which point he said that Kavanaugh could become “aggressive and even belligerent.”
“Another classmate, Richard Oh, an emergency-room doctor in California, recalled overhearing, soon after the party, a female student tearfully recounting to another student an incident at a party involving a gag with a fake penis, followed by a male student exposing himself….
“Several other classmates said that they believed Ramirez to be credible and honest, and vouched for her integrity. James Roche was roommates with Kavanaugh at the time of the alleged incident and is now the C.E.O. of a software company in San Francisco. “Debbie and I became close friends shortly after we both arrived at Yale,” he said. “She stood out as being exceptionally honest and gentle. I cannot imagine her making this up.” He said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh engage in any sexual misconduct, but did recall him being “frequently, incoherently drunk.” He described Ramirez as a vulnerable outsider. “Is it believable that she was alone with a wolfy group of guys who thought it was funny to sexually torment a girl like Debbie? Yeah, definitely. Is it believable that Kavanaugh was one of them? Yes.”
The allegations against Kavanaugh lead to a larger issue. This is not a criminal trial and the allegations don’t require the same burden of proof. The bar here is “beyond any reasonable doubt,” and Kavanaugh is not able to clear it.
“Putting Judge Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court in light of credible allegations against him could raise troublesome questions about the court’s legitimacy. And that’s a genuine problem, both for the court’s ability to function and more broadly for the rule of law.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/opinion/kavanaugh-blasey-allegation-disqualify.html
This is a lifetime appointment that can’t be undone by an election, but only by impeachment followed by a conviction. Despite this, “conservatives” are willing to sacrifice the legitimacy of the court in order to stock it with allies. There are indications that this strategy might backfire. The allegations against Kavanaugh have activated memories of the Clarence Thomas hearings, and as the article below shows, there is evidence that he committed perjury and that his seat on the court is therefore not secure.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/the-case-for-impeaching-clarence-thomas.html
We know you are willing to dismiss serial sexual assault rickA. They’re only women after all, and in your world they’re just property for sex and making babies. That isn’t the case for most people.
cosmiccomics,
I think he did get the point of the story but chose to lie. But, whichever version is correct, it’s quite telling that he and others are constantly going on about truth and the left’s efforts to cover up the successes of trump, but are also doing their damnedest to stop and dismiss any comments against kavanaugh. It’s only an (well, now more than one) accusation of sexual assault, right? RickA has already said sexual assault is no more serious than a child’s game, so there’s no issue.
I don’t know how the testimony will go. I have a feeling it will be hurried, and as poorly done as the last time someone with a history of sexual harrassment was nominated for the bench. He’s still on it. I suspect that no matter how credible she is, or how many more possible victims come out with evidence, it won’t matter. We know the lies he’s told when he was interviewed don’t matter as people believe the fake economic gains Trump is bringing are real and important.. The primary point is that these hearings need to go on so that there is a record of just how far to the side of evil the right has gone.
I was expecting Democrats to produce a second woman to tell lies about Kavanaugh. I wasn’t expecting such a weak claim. Even Rolling Stone wouldn’t run that. Ronan Farrow couldn’t say no to Jane Mayer, but he seeded the article with all the evidence that clears Kavanaugh.
Norah O’Donnell wasn’t seem to be buying it.
Where did the corroborating witness get the information from? -@JDickerson “He remembers it from–he was in the same dorm .. and he remembers it clearly” -@JaneMayerNYer But did he see it? -@JDickerson “No. As I’ve said, he heard it from someone who was there.” -@JaneMayerNYer
You are obviously still to grasp why victims of sexual assault cannot come foward quickly, or easily, or according to a timetable convenient for promoting your ideological agenda. If credible victims come forward after Thursday (or any other arbitary dealines) their testimony and potential assaults are no less valid for having been allowed to be heard, and Kavanaugh’s jeopardy is in no way lessened. All that happens is that the Supreme Court is more rapidly stocked with a flawed candidate, and i the process is diminished as are the rights of vitims to be heard.
Remember that the Republicans were more than willing to keep Obama’s pick out for a year, and perhaps for many years if that’s what it took. And how many federal judges have the GOP kept out?
Of course it might all explode with Avenatti’s latest revelations. As much as he’s a media tart and a showman, he;s also astute and is the lawyer who’s been scoring all the runs. If I was Kavanaugh I’d be seriously thinking about a future that doesn’t so much include a seat on the Supreme Court, but perhaps one in front of another judge…
“…for not having been allowed to be heard…”
b:
I think 35 and 36 years is enough time.
Fish or cut bait!
Of course, they can come forward after he is confirmed, but if they want to be heard at the hearing, there is a deadline.
“Ronan Farrow couldn’t say no to Jane Mayer, but he seeded the article with all the evidence that clears Kavanaugh.
MikeN
Yes, the rational man and the irrational woman. Misogyny, anyone?
Typical that MikeN isn’t able to provide any evidence for their division of labor. Also typical that a lack of definitive corroboration and damning accounts of Kavanaugh’s character become “evidence that clears Kavanaugh.”
Nah, just recognizing the quality of work Farrow did against Harvey Weinstein, and the shoddy work Mayer did against Clarence Thomas way back when.
If the process of nominating to the Supreme Court, and if the respect due to the members of the Supreme Courts, are both not to to be denigrated and diminished then there should be a sufficient time to assess all facts germane to the selection of a candidate. Rushing it simply destroys the credibility of the Court.
Of course, the Republicans didn’t think that rushing was important when Obama proposed Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. Does anyone else smell the stench of double standards?
“her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. ”
“The New Yorker has not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party. ”
” The magazine contacted several dozen classmates of Ramirez and Kavanaugh regarding the incident. Many did not respond to interview requests; others declined to comment, or said they did not attend or remember the party. ”
“One of the male classmates who Ramirez said egged on Kavanaugh denied any memory of the party. “I don’t think Brett would flash himself to Debbie, or anyone, for that matter,” he said. Asked why he thought Ramirez was making the allegation, he responded, “I have no idea.” The other male classmate who Ramirez said was involved in the incident commented, “I have zero recollection.””
“In a statement, two of those male classmates who Ramirez alleged were involved in the incident, the wife of a third male student she said was involved, and one other classmate, Dan Murphy, disputed Ramirez’s account of events: “We were the people closest to Brett Kavanaugh during his first year at Yale. He was a roommate to some of us, and we spent a great deal of time with him, including in the dorm where this incident allegedly took place. Some of us were also friends with Debbie Ramirez during and after her time at Yale. We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it—and we did not. The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett. ”
“This is a woman I was best friends with. We shared intimate details of our lives. And I was never told this story by her, or by anyone else. It never came up. I didn’t see it; I never heard of it happening.” She said she hadn’t spoken with Ramirez for about ten years, but that the two women had been close all through college, and Kavanaugh had remained part of what she called their “larger social circle.”
As for Ronan Farrow, perhaps I am giving him too much credit due to his other work. The lack of evidence is clear to see. Indeed, the article itself doesn’t state anything happened, but rather ‘Democrats are investigating.’ With that article, Democrats then declare ‘We must investigate!’
I think he was under pressure to get his name on an article before the votes, as the young star reporter that NBC let walk. But maybe not.
This dean guy is a repugnant piece of shit.
Yes, observing that people who support racists and condone sexual assault (like rickA, mikeN, and locus) are bad guys to the modern right.
In other news, you seem to be a real low life yourself.
So just what clues do Democrats have that Judge Kavanaugh’s character is a bit… skeevy? Here is a recap.
1. He bragged about belonging to a binge drinking club while at an elite Jesuit prep school.
2. He belonged to a powerful, hedonistic, misogynistic, elitist fraternity at Yale known as DKE, a group known for requiring its pledges to steal female underwear.
3. He belonged to another powerful, hedonistic misogynistic, elitist fraternity at Yale known as “Truth and Courage”, the nickname for which consisted of two sexually titillating parts of the female anatomy.
4. One of his best friends wrote a book about how outrageously out of control his group of associates were in high school.
5. He has been accused of trying to rape a 15 year old girl while drunk.
6. He has been accused of sexually assaulting a young woman while a freshman at Yale a year or two later.
7. He used stolen prep notes to prepare for federal judicial hearings, and then claims he did not know they were stolen. How the eff else could his side have obtained them?
8. He clerked for Alex Kozinski. Another sexual predator and harasser who had to step down because of his behavior.
9. He is a known high level political operative, someone who, IMO, is a lousy choice for a Supreme Court judge.
10. Perhaps most damning of all, he was nominated by a known and admitted sexual predator who claims that Kavanaugh was “born” to be on the Supreme court.
I am waiting for any evidence that the man has a sharp mind, a sense of fairness and justice, or compassion, or any kind of wisdom at all. Instead I see a corrupt privileged agenda driven sot bent on money and power, nominated by a corrupt privileged narcissist bent on money and power. Without even adding in the sexual assault accusations, he still looks like a terrible, undignified, corrupt man who is skilled at deception, and who will do incalcuable damage to this nation and its institutions if appointed to the SC.
The original unredacted letter is released:
https://www.newsweek.com/christine-blasey-fords-unredacted-letter-accusing-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-1135066
“The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and 4 others.”
So five people were at the party, based on Ford’s own initial letter allegation.
She told the Washington Post 3 guys and one girl, all of whom denied there was even a party.
She told the therapist 4 boys.
Hmmmm – her story has changed since 2012.
No wonder Feinstein didn’t want to release the unredacted letter.
It further weakens Ford’s already weak credibility.
The 2nd allegation is even weaker than the first.
She couldn’t be sure Kavanaugh was even there until she consulted with her attorney for six days?
Everybody she names who was actually at the party says Kavanaugh wasn’t there?
It is embarrassingly transparent, and will not work.
Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed and hopefully it will happen very soon after Thursday.
Why not send Debbie’s attorney to consult with Ford, and then she can recover her memory of when it happened, and whose house? Look at the letter again. That one line that names Kavanaugh is edited later with a different font. My suspicion is the lawyer rewrote it to take out a more specific date.
MikeN:
Yes, I went and looked at the original and that one line is in a different size font. However, the line spacing seems to fit with it being a larger font from the beginning. Maybe she did that to emphasize the name and allegation?
What do you think about the line spacing?
My theory is Ford has edited it with one font, and then her attorney edited the Word doc and her default font is different. She changed the one line, and then this was printed.
I suppose that is possible.
I assumed you were referring to editing an actual printed letter or editing a PDF scanned copy of the letter.
I guess Ford could have sent a word version of the letter.
Lawyers would never do that, but maybe professors do?
There are multiple versions of the details of how this letter got to Feinstein. Congressman Eshoo was getting hip surgery that day, so it’s unlikely she delivered it.
Here is another article breaking down the 2nd allegation:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/24/breaking-down-new-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-misconduct-allegation/?utm_term=.623766535b3a
The following is based on information from the New Yorker article:
“But tucked into the New Yorker article is one particularly appalling revelation that speaks less to the character of the Supreme Court nominee himself than to that of the Republicans who continued to press his case:
The offices of at least four Democratic senators have received information about the allegation, and at least two have begun investigating it. Senior Republican staffers also learned of the allegation last week and, in conversations with The New Yorker, expressed concern about its potential impact on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Soon after, Senate Republicans issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote. [Emphasis mine.]
“Ah. We had wondered what the hurry was, and now it all makes sense. It turns out that Graham and other in-the-know Republicans were likely in a rush because they were hoping to get out ahead of a second female accuser, to ram through a confirmation vote before any new potential roadblocks could be brought to light. It was “imperative.”
“ … If you assumed that these Republicans cared about character, or that the concerns of women matter to them in any way, it’s time to revise that assumption.
“If you held out hope that Kavanaugh’s advocates would set aside their partisan aims in favor of country, justice or even preserving the legitimacy of the nation’s highest court, it should be extinguished.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/09/23/the-republican-party-has-laid-itself-bare/?utm_term=.8fd0360f3278
The WaPo commentary that RickA linked to focuses on the lack of corroboration. What it doesn’t report are the damning assessments of Kavanaugh’s character, i.e.
that it would be in keeping with his character to do something like this. Now there’s also this:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/avenatti-implicates-kavanaugh-in-pattern-of-sexual-assault.html
The logical conclusion would be that the allegations deserve to be investigated, maybe even that a person others who knew him find capable of such harassment should not sit on the Supreme Court.
“The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate [Ramirez’s] story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.”
Rick, I don’t understand about the line spacing.
When I look at the original letter, I see more white space above and below the line with the larger font. That is what happens with word processing, and looks to me like it was a larger font in the original.
Pure speculation on my part – but it could be a larger font on purpose and not a larger font typed in later, in an edit.
Yes, I am not suggesting a white out and retype, but that a new font was placed in for an edit.
The release of this letter makes clear that Washington Post was lying in its story. Four boys was what Ford told the therapist, and she explained to Post that it meant four boys at the party. Why didn’t Post tell us that there were not four boys at the party? Why didn’t they ask Ford about this?
Is Ford now going to claim that she misremembered the details when she told her therapist?
Most likely, she forgot what she had told the therapist, and created the story about Kavanaugh and Judge to match what she remembered telling the therapist.
It is possible that the story to the therapist was part of a plan to derail Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination that would happen under President Romney, or perhaps it was just a story to get some sympathy in couples counseling, matching something she had heard from someone else, or perhaps witnessed in high school.
Almost stunned by the asinine posts of the conspiracy mongers over a reproduced letter. It’s really scary seeing what passes for “analysis” from the losers on the right.
“The release of this letter makes clear that Washington Post was lying…”
Your desperation is showing.
We don’t know what her story will be, or how believable it will be. We do know that the Republicans won’t care, just as you won’t care about her, the other women who have said he assaulted them, or about the lies he told. As I noted, the primary benefit here is that when there is a hearing there will be a record of how far to the side of wrong the Republicans and their butt-lickers have gone.
Yet you and others have already made declarations that Kavanaugh is an attempted rapist.
We should know what her story will be since she detailed it in a letter.
I think you need to read Dean’s comment again.
Or maybe just stop saying stuff to fill up the stony silence.
Yeah no. Liar during his hearings, yes. Accused of assault, yes — so if that in your mind equates to “attempted rapist” so be it.
Makes as little sense as your asinine ruminations about letters and your false assertions that she was confused, couldn’t remember, etc.
The only thing that is interesting is that you and your kind don’t want to have any effort made to find out the facts here. It’s just more evidence that you have no concern for facts in general.
I’ve used the term attempted rape here:
“This is the link to the New Yorker story that RickA (who believes that attempted rape is an aceptable form of behavior) left out.”
MikeN has used an equivalent here:
“So Ford’s story is that she left her friend at a party alone with three boys, two of whom she believed to be attempted rapists who inadvertently tried to kill her?”
I don’t think anyone has gone so far as to say that Kavanaugh is guilty of attempted rape. Exactly what he may be guilty of is clearly something that the GOP and its supporters here have no interest in finding out.
Looking thru thread, Dean has generally been calling it allegations only. Others(including me) not so much.
“Exactly what he may be guilty of is clearly something that the GOP and its supporters here have no interest in finding out.”
No, they aren’t. Locus and the rest don’t care about the Lewinsky story for any reason other than the fact it can be used as a blunt weaponin ignorant spittle-flicked rants about what “Democrats believe”. Look no further than the lasting republican defense of Roy Moore for evidence of how unconcerned they are about allegations of abuse: thise women were lying too, according to them. The difference: Moore and Kavanaugh (and Trump) are Republican, so it doesn’t matter if they actually abused anyone, and there’s no need to find out. The only reaction is the argument that Ford must be lying because she waited so long to speak up, glossing over the fact that women now are routinely greeted with reactions like theirs (no belief, no support) and implying that she would have been automatically believed and treated well 30 years ago. I fully expect them to pull out the “Well what was she wearing?” Crap if these allegations are.shown to be true.
Dean,
“I’ve pointed out your lies and your racism”
Like what?
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence to support these allegations so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Cosmicomics,
“Locus doesn’t answer this question, but one I didn’t ask. S/he can’t find any sign that Clinton is or will be an active participant in this election cycle, so he uses a straw man argument. ”
False dilemma fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Cosmicomics is falsely trying to claim that the **only** way to estimate the feelings of Democrats towards Clinton is his visibility on the campaign trail.
My evidence was exactly on point. Three out of four Democrats still personally approve of their President who ejaculated on a female employee, lied about it and then stood by idly while that young woman was savaged by the press.
Democrats will always love Bill Clinton. The only thing that’s changed in the MeToo era is that they want to hide that affection.
Donocewts will always love bill Clinton?
You are a massive ass. Did your plan meeting get out early today?
Once again Locus has shown his/her inability to comprehend. I am not talking about “the feelings of Democrats towards Clinton.”
BBD,
“Especially as your incessant refusal to demonstrate your innocence”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of my supposed “guilt” so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Get off your fake high horse. Your refusal to condemn on the right the same – mostly worse – actions done by the right procode all the evidence needed to show what a dishonest, bigoted, scummy POS you are. That’s been true as long as you’ve posted.
Fuck off with your nonsense. You lost that one last week.
This is the problem with morons: they’re like wind-up toys.
Cosmicomics,
“But tucked into the New Yorker article is one particularly appalling revelation that speaks less to the character of the Supreme Court nominee himself than to that of the Republicans who continued to press his case:”
So why did Feinstein sit on Ford’s letter for six weeks?
If Republicans were “in a rush” to confirm Kavanaugh then why have they delayed the vote?
Why have the demands changed so often? A week ago Ford was eager to testify. Then when Republicans *agreed* she suddenly demanded that she not testify until after an FBI investigation. Now Ford is back to wanting to testify. Oh, and she can’t travel by plane.
Why did both the New York Times and the Washington Post refuse to print the Ramirez allegation? Doesn’t that speak to the lack of journalistic integrity of the New Yorker?
So why did Feinstein sit on Ford’s letter for six weeks?
Because Ford asked her not to release the information for anonymity. The stupid assumption was that there would be a real investigation, forgetting the type of people the right currently has don’t give a crap about women.
They did realize the type of bullshit irrelevant crap folks like you and mikeN toss around. You losers automatically assume the woman is lying now, but “can’t imagine why she didn’t say anything 30 years ago”? You’re so dishonest you don’t realize when your biases and fake concern conflict.
Feinstein could have asked Kavanaugh about the accusation without stating the names. If the intent was to remain completely anonymous, then Ford should never have sent the letter.
What was Ford’s intent in sending the letter. Presumably it wasn’t just to tell Feinstein.
She also wanted to stop the Kavanaugh nomination, or to be charitable, to let the people voting know about the events while they decided on the nomination.
If the latter, then Feinstein had to reveal to them the letter.
If the former, then Feinstein had to either reveal the letter, or ask Kavanaugh about it, either in a generic way or in private and ask him to withdraw.
Feinstein did nothing. She was not honoring Ford’s wishes.
I don’t know about 30 years ago, but how about 20 years ago when she saw Kavanaugh on TV next to Ken Starr as they were interrogating Bill Clinton over sexual harassment?
She didn’t think that might have been a good time to speak up?
Or perhaps she hadn’t thought of her lies yet.
“Why did both the New York Times and the Washington Post refuse to print the Ramirez allegation? Doesn’t that speak to the lack of journalistic integrity of the New Yorker?”
Locus
Once again Locus shows his/her inability to do elementary research.
“Particularly for those already primed to be suspicious of The New Yorker story, the Times’ account was proof that there was less to it than met the eye.
In comments to Washington Post media reporter Erik Wemple, New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick stood by the magazine’s story, while Dean Baquet, his counterpart at the Times, insisted that he was not trying to “knock down” Ramirez’s account.
Below are comments from NYer editor David Remnick and NYT Executive Editor Dean Baquet regarding NYT’s declining to publish the Deborah Ramirez story. pic.twitter.com/9FsSfhNT8V
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) September 24, 2018
Then, Farrow and Mayer weighed in. Farrow claimed that the reason the Times couldn’t corroborate his story is simply that Ramirez had granted him and Mayer exclusive access.
Dean Baquet is a hero of mine and I also respect you immensely, Erik—but it is not accurate to say the Times “declined” to publish Ramirez’s story. Their reporter pursued Ramirez aggressively. She declined to participate because she was talking exclusively to the New Yorker. https://t.co/13r2jSS1Fo
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) September 24, 2018
Mayer backed him up, contending that the Times would have published the story if it had been privy to the same facts, and had the chance to speak with Ramirez on the record.
Ditto that – the NYT is best paper around, but if Ramirez had talked to them on the record, and they’d found a classmate who heard the identical story at the time, and they knew Congress was investigating, and she wanted FBI to come in, the chance they wouldn’t publish is…0. https://t.co/3iNRA6Bl2j
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) September 24, 2018
Significantly, Mayer also said on Monday that Ramirez was not the initial source for The New Yorker story. (It’s not clear why this highly relevant fact wasn’t included in her story.)
This is significant. According to @JaneMayerNYer (who broke the Ramirez story), Ramirez wasn’t the original source. Yale graduates knew about the story since it happened. They talked about in writing in July. This wasn’t made up in the “11th hour.” pic.twitter.com/zVUgw9nuyK
— Laura McGann (@lkmcgann) September 24, 2018
Earlier, Farrow said on CNN that Ramirez’s story “exceeds the evidentiary basis we’ve used in the past in several cases that were found to be very credible.””
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/new-york-times-new-yorker-spar-over-kavanaugh-story.html
Note Farrow’s last remark about “the evidentiary basis.” MikeN has previously stated that he finds Farrow credible, but not Mayer.
https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/16/how-to-force-senator-susan-collins-to-do-the-right-thing/#comment-636271
https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/16/how-to-force-senator-susan-collins-to-do-the-right-thing/#comment-636271
(Because of the links, I’ve divided this reply.)
“Why did both the New York Times and the Washington Post refuse to print the Ramirez allegation? Doesn’t that speak to the lack of journalistic integrity of the New Yorker?”
Evidently Locus doesn’t understand that newspapers and magazines compete with each other:
“Particularly for those already primed to be suspicious of The New Yorker story, the Times’ account was proof that there was less to it than met the eye.
In comments to Washington Post media reporter Erik Wemple, New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick stood by the magazine’s story, while Dean Baquet, his counterpart at the Times, insisted that he was not trying to “knock down” Ramirez’s account.
Below are comments from NYer editor David Remnick and NYT Executive Editor Dean Baquet regarding NYT’s declining to publish the Deborah Ramirez story. pic.twitter.com/9FsSfhNT8V
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) September 24, 2018
Then, Farrow and Mayer weighed in. Farrow claimed that the reason the Times couldn’t corroborate his story is simply that Ramirez had granted him and Mayer exclusive access.
Dean Baquet is a hero of mine and I also respect you immensely, Erik—but it is not accurate to say the Times “declined” to publish Ramirez’s story. Their reporter pursued Ramirez aggressively. She declined to participate because she was talking exclusively to the New Yorker. https://t.co/13r2jSS1Fo
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) September 24, 2018
Mayer backed him up, contending that the Times would have published the story if it had been privy to the same facts, and had the chance to speak with Ramirez on the record.
Ditto that – the NYT is best paper around, but if Ramirez had talked to them on the record, and they’d found a classmate who heard the identical story at the time, and they knew Congress was investigating, and she wanted FBI to come in, the chance they wouldn’t publish is…0. https://t.co/3iNRA6Bl2j
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) September 24, 2018
Significantly, Mayer also said on Monday that Ramirez was not the initial source for The New Yorker story. (It’s not clear why this highly relevant fact wasn’t included in her story.)
This is significant. According to @JaneMayerNYer (who broke the Ramirez story), Ramirez wasn’t the original source. Yale graduates knew about the story since it happened. They talked about in writing in July. This wasn’t made up in the “11th hour.” pic.twitter.com/zVUgw9nuyK
— Laura McGann (@lkmcgann) September 24, 2018
Earlier, Farrow said on CNN that Ramirez’s story “exceeds the evidentiary basis we’ve used in the past in several cases that were found to be very credible.””
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/new-york-times-new-yorker-spar-over-kavanaugh-story.html
Note Farrow’s last remark about “the evidentiary basis.” MikeN has previously implied that he finds Farrow credible, but not Mayer.
https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/16/how-to-force-senator-susan-collins-to-do-the-right-thing/#comment-636268
https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/16/how-to-force-senator-susan-collins-to-do-the-right-thing/#comment-636271
cosmicomics said “Yale graduates knew about the story since it happened. They talked about in writing in July. This wasn’t made up in the “11th hour.””
I would find this much more persuasive if you had an email or writing that was contemporaneous (from 1984 or even 1985). But an email chain that started after Kavanaugh was named as the Supreme court pick isn’t very persuasive.
“cosmicomics said “Yale graduates knew about the story since it happened. They talked about in writing in July. This wasn’t made up in the “11th hour.””
This may come as a shock to RickA, but I’m not Jane Mayer. She said, not I. I regret that I was too lazy to put in all quotation marks, but I thought the context would show who said what. It’s all here and the layout eliminates all possible confusion.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/new-york-times-new-yorker-spar-over-kavanaugh-story.html
Many of us do not want someone on the Supreme Court who belonged to an illegal drinking club at his elitist, upper crust prep school. Similarly, a “Drunken Deke”, a “T&C” man, and an out and out Republican operative don’t belong on a Supreme Court. Someone who used stolen Democratic prep notes just, well, stinks. But lying about it stinks worse. So why do the Republicans insist on trying to ram this nominee down our collective throats? Mostly, I think, because they are sadistic, scum sucking patriarchalists who belong in the 1500’s, but that is just my opinion.
But the leader of the stoner “Choom Gang” at an elite prep school who became famous not for legislation but for voting “present” was a perfect fit for the Oval Office?
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/politics/20cnd-obama.html
https://www.npr.org/2012/10/13/162786014/hawaii-prep-school-gave-obama-window-to-success
Dean,
“Look no further than the lasting republican defense of Roy Moore…”
That’s funny. I thought Roy Moore **lost** his election. In a state that hadn’t elected a Democratic senator in 20 years.
What’s more, while President Pants-Dropper then spent the next twenty years as a respected elder statesman in the Democratic Party, he also laundered tens of millions in “donations” through his scam of a charity.
Meanwhile Roy Moore has been reduced to e-begging to “make ends meet”.
Who was supporting him locus? Which party members and leaders? Try reading for comprehension and stop with the intentionally dishonest “what abouts”
“Or perhaps she hadn’t thought of her lies yet.”
No, you haven’t prejudged things at all. What a dick.
So scumbag, have you disowned your president for his years of serial abuse? His years of racism, failing to pay contractors, lying about donations to charities for 9/11 first responders, and more?
Thought not. Stop pretending you really care about the Clinton affair as abuse when you don’t care about any of the issues from your side. Your concern is using Clinton to make up more attacks in the current election, not concern for women.
F-off to whatever pool of worm vomit you came from.
Your president supported him. Republicans wanted him in. The fact that the general public had a greater sense of decency than you or your party’s leaders makes your attempt at deflection just another bit of stupidity.
Almost as stupid as your slam of President Obama’s background, considering the results he achieved. (He didn’t close Gitmo, he foolishly expanded the “war on terror”, and stupidly kept the tax cuts, but given the opposition he had from the right simply because he wasn’t white, those things aren’t surprising.) He was able to hand trump a strong and improving economy. But we get it — your problem with him isn’t based on fact, it’s based on race.
So, Republicans, what about this over-privileged nominee do you think makes him more suitable than other nominees such as, for instance, Merrick Garland? Has Brett Kavanaugh shown any evidence of being a superior judge in terms of wisdom, understanding of human nature, and the needs and desires of the 99% of the nation who weren’t raised with his level of privilege? And why can’t we see the rest of his writings?
Well qualified rating from ABA is some evidence, especially when they tend to rate down conservatives.
Getting his opinions endorsed at Supreme Court level is more evidence.
As for rest of his writings, they are not his writings. He was staff secretary. The documents they are talking about have nothing to do with Kavanaugh, and they know it.
So if the ABA recommendaation is important, what about the letter from the Yale Law School faculty saying the vote should be postponed until there is a thorough investigation?
The ABA tends to down-rate conservatives? Still making up conspiracies I see.
As I asked earlier, has Brett Kavanaugh shown any evidence of being a superior judge in terms of wisdom, understanding of human nature, and the needs and desires of the 99% of the nation who weren’t raised with his level of privilege? Thus far, I have seen no evidence that he is a superior judge in any of those criterion that I mentioned. Kavanaugh is just not the best of the best of the best. At best, he is average. He did not graduate from law school with distinction, as opposed to Merrick Garland, who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Kavanaugh is a well connected a political operative and executive suck up who will likely rule in our pathological president’s favor and against the good of the nation should we have the misfortune of having him selected to the Supreme Court. He is a good ol’ boy, and a man of limited imagination , locked in an adolescent level brain.
SteveP,
From the New York Times,
“His record in the Supreme Court has been exceptional, with the justices adopting positions advanced in his opinions 13 times.
Sometimes the Supreme Court sustained his views after hearing an appeal in a case in which he had written an opinion. At other times, it agreed with a position he had advanced, but in separate cases from other courts raising the same issue, often citing Judge Kavanaugh’s earlier opinion.
His successes involved cases concerning environmental regulations, criminal procedure, the separation of powers and limits on suits against corporations accused of complicity in human rights abuses abroad. He took almost uniformly conservative positions.
When a closely divided Supreme Court agreed with him, its conservatives tended to be in the majority. But the justices also favored his views in several cases by lopsided majorities or unanimously.
He was reversed just once, on an environmental case. Writing for a divided three-judge panel, he said the Environmental Protection Agency had exceeded its authority in how it held states responsible for air pollution that drifts across their borders and causes harm in downwind states. The Supreme Court ruled by a 6-to-2 vote that the agency’s approach was permissible.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/us/politics/judge-brett-kavanaugh.html
ABA bias against conservatives.
https://www.heritage.org/courts/commentary/what-make-kavanaughs-aba-rating
Dean,
“So if the ABA recommendaation is important, what about the letter from the Yale Law School faculty saying the vote should be postponed until there is a thorough investigation?”
1. Because the Senate has been asking the ABA to rate Supreme Court nominees since 1956. The Senate did not ask for the Yale Law School’s opinion.
2. You’ve been accusing me of whataboutism for two days straight. And then you literally ask “what about”.
GENIUS!
Yale law school faculty sent amicus brief to the Supreme Court over the Solomon Amendment. The Supreme Court endorsed the opposite view 9-0,
Dean,
“Who was supporting him locus? Which party members and leaders? ”
That’s the point. He didn’t get much support so he lost what should have been an easy race. No one is supporting him now which is why he’s e-begging.
So Judge Kavanaugh’s opinions were approved by a conservative court. Why am I not impressed? Suits against corporations accused of complicity in human rights abuses abroad? Again, why am I not impressed. Arguing that the EPA exceeds its authority in trying to protect the air I breath? You conservatives like to suffocate people don’t you.
“But the justices also favored his views in several cases by lopsided majorities or unanimously.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/24/air-pollution-cognitive-improvement-environment
Here is a name to remember. Renate Schroeder Dolphin . Renate signed the list of 65 women who had “known” Kavanaugh in high school and said that he was an okay guy. Then later she found out that he had listed her as a sexual conquest in a coded message in his yearbook. So Kavanaugh, he of the 100 Keg Club, was definitely not yet of a suitably mature character for a Supreme Court justice back then. When do you think that his character changed? Was it after Delta Kappa Epsilon? Was it after his membership in the Tit and Clit club? Was it after he dealt with his gambling problem?
Was it after he perjured himself in the prep notes theft incident?
My contention is that he has shown little or no proof that the man behind the mask is any different from the self serving thug he was in high school. I would be happy to see any indication that he matured at some point later in life. But as of now, I haven’t seen anything.
No, this is just more of the same old Republican shit sandwich , torturing other people with the most unsuitable judge they could find. Because he is reliably anti-liberal. Because he is a sadistic adolescent devolutionary shit. So GOP.
Dean,
“Because Ford asked her not to release the information for anonymity. The stupid assumption was that there would be a real investigation, forgetting the type of people the right currently has don’t give a crap about women.”
Feinstein didn’t even tell her own Democratic colleagues about the letter, let alone the majority.
How are people supposed to launch an investigation into an accusation that they haven’t even heard?
Third allegation in…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/24/brett-kavanaugh-third-woman-expected-to-make-accusations-of-sexual-misconduct
Really?
What is the third allegation?
Fine, be a knobend. Nobody cares anymore.
Maybe you should say “Third allegation coming . . .” instead of over-egging the pudding.
It is a sign of weakness in some circles to change ones position on an issue, even after being given evidence that ones position is wrong. That in itself is an antiquated belief, but it persists.
It is clear that Kavanaugh was drinking to excess in high school and in college ( see for instance his membership in 100 Kegs, DKE, and Tit and Clit, as well as the testimony of his Freshman roomate at Yale). It is clear that drinking to excess leads to uninhibited behavior that is sometimes illegal, and that the illegal behavior is often forgotten after the incident. Why do Republicans want to give Kavanaugh a pass on his serious substance abuse problem or problems? What is so special about Brett Kavanaugh that he MUST be elevated to the Supreme Court? Isn’t he clearly showing signs of bad judgement in some of the most important years of his earlier life? Is it possible that we can agree on that, or do you defend that behavior? Can Republicans point to a point in life where his judgement improved? It doesn’t seem to have improved before his senior year at Yale when he was inducted into the club with nickmane “Tit and Clit”. Was it in graduate school? Just from the practicality standpoint during the selection process we are in now, would you rather want to champion a judge with excellent credentials and no ethical baggage, or would you rather push one through sideways who has a known drinking issue, with all the moral issues that involves, beside the risks that come from the over large possibility that he did something heinous during one or more drunken binges, something that he might not even remember today? It just seems to hypocritical of cons to push morally questionable people into positions of power to enforce “moral” conservative beliefs. It looks very, very skeevy. Know what I mean?
Obstinate, thoughtless loyalty is perhaps just a little bit over-rated here. Why not pick a reasonable nominee and just move one?
Steve:
I doubt there is any person who could be a “reasonable nominee”, if you require them never to have been drunk. When I went to college in 1979 in Minnesota, the drinking age was 18 and we had drinking parties at our dorm. You would be hardpressed to find anybody who didn’t drink, sometimes to excess.
The fact that Kavanaugh drank in high school and college does not change my mind about these allegations. Without corroboration these allegations are not convincing at all, whether Kavanaugh ever drank to excess or not.
I fully expect Kavanaugh to be confirmed to the Supreme Court and I look forward to Thursday’s hearing.
I am not holding my breath that Ford will actually show up and testify under oath – it seems they are still “negotiating”. So we will see if this hearing actually happens.
I also wouldn’t expect the cry for a delay to work this time, when Avenetti actually publishes the third allegation on Wednesday (probably late in the day). It would be smart to get the third allegation (and the fourth and fifth, if they are in the hopper) out early, rather than late. But I suppose the democrats have their strategy and are sticking to it.
I find these last minute smears very unseemly and each new weaker and uncorroborated allegation further lowers my already very low respect for democrats.
Kavanaugh is a Republican political hack unfit for elevation to the highest court in the US. Anybody with half a brain can see this.
Watching the usual partisan scum insist that his nomination goes forward no matter what is as predictable as it is unpleasant.
If you lot get killed by a womens’ vote backlash in the midterms it will be entirely your own fault. And I will laugh to see it.
It’s just like with the endless lying about climate change – the right is digging its grave with its own filthy hands.
All we need is patience.
SteveP,
“In his 1995 memoir “Dreams of My Father,” Obama writes about smoking pot almost like Dr. Seuss wrote about eating green eggs and ham. As a high school kid, Obama wrote, he would smoke “in a white classmate’s sparkling new van,” he would smoke “in the dorm room of some brother” and he would smoke “on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids.”
He would smoke it here and there. He would smoke it anywhere.”
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/obama-and-his-pot-smoking-choom-gang/
It appears to be clear that the cons want Kavanaugh no matter what, and that the judiciary committee hearings are pretty much a farce. Kavanaugh is a conservative’s conservative. Of course, where does that leave the rest of us, who want an impartial Supreme Court judge? We were robbed of such a judge in the totally partisan McConnell theft. That is a really, really heinous crime that I cannot forgive and that I want to see McConnell and the Republicans severely punished for it at the polls or in any other way that they possibly can be. I don’t think that you conservatives know or understand how pissed off we are about that and how our rage is empowering us.
Earlier I put forth the idea that a man whose formative years were largely interlaced with what I consider serious substance abuse might not be a good selection for the Supreme Court, and I got a what-about-everybody-else-who-drank in response. Let me try again. Merrick Garland, for instance, does not have a record that includes salacious comments about women , including one who stood up for him! in his yearbook, membership in an illegal drinking club in high school, participation in a school and a class that was so out of control that a book was written about it, membership in the Drunken Dekes at Yales, membership in Tit and Clit, or evidence that he was a belligerent drunk as a freshman . Merrick Garland doesn’t have a pal who is a complete stone age fucking misogynist like Mark Judge. Merrick Garland wasn’t mentored by a judge who got thrown out for sexual misconduct. Merrick Garland didn’t use stolen prep notes for political advantage. Merrick Garland is not a political operative, and he is not someone who enjoys hurting others.
Conservatives are subverting the rule of law time and time again. Their hypocritical coalition with evangelical religionists is based in the lowest levels of hell. They will not acknowledge this, so they are not likely to ever explain why they do these things. I can only guess, and it is difficult to find an explanation for their behavior that is not pathological; fear, immaturity, lack of moral compass, lack of ability to see serious consequences, or lack of awareness that other human beings have worth. The more I am exposed to conservative behavior, the more I consider it to be part of a disease process.
Steve:
Everything is relative.
From my standpoint, it looks like the liberals will reject kavanaugh no matter what. You see the conservatives rejecting all the evidence and ramming Kavanaugh through no matter what. See – relative.
The hearing was fine – it is what has happened after the hearing that is a farce (in my opinion).
The hiding of the allegation for 2 months, the timing of the release, the search for a second allegation and the weakness of having found a woman who didn’t remember Kavanaugh as having done it, but after six days consulting with her attorney, now she suddenly remembers it was Kavanaugh who did it. That is a farce.
From a conservative point of view, these allegations, which are completely unsupported with any corroborating evidence, look like they are just made up to stop Kavanaugh. At least that is my opinion based on what I have seen so far.
But we will have the hearing and see what happens (if there is actually a hearing).
I am interested in the discrepancy between the therapist notes and what Ford told the Washington Post.
I am interested in whether she still places her good girlfriend at the party, after the denial, or whether she might have misremembered, and goes back to what she told the therapist.
We won’t find this out – but I would be interested in how she described the “attack” to the therapist and her husband in 2012. Was it just groping or did she allege an actual rape? It would be interesting if the story has changed over the years (more than it already has I mean). The only way to find that out is to interview the husband and therapist. Of course, there is doctor patient privileged, but is that waived? She gave the doctor notes to the Washington Post after all.
I am really having difficulty believing if this really happened she wouldn’t tell her good friend, who was actually at the party where it allegedly happened. After all, she claimed she successfully fought off the attack – seems like a good story to me. I would be interested in hearing from the good friend about her remembering her friend ever disappearing from a party before – even if Kavanaugh wasn’t there. Maybe this attack happened at a different party that Kavanaugh wasn’t at, and she went up to the bathroom, got away and ran out without telling her friend?
So lots of good questions to ask Ford.
I have good questions for the 2nd alleger also.
Was she on the email chain?
What did she really say to the Yale people she called, trying to see what they remembered?
What was the process she went through to go from unsure if Kavanaugh was even there to being sure he did it?
And so forth.
As a lawyer, it has been my experience that people lie, but they are very reluctant to lie under oath. So I would like to hear from Ford and the 2nd alleger , and they have to say once they are under oath.
Based on what I have read and seen so far, I think we have people who are very concerned that Kavanaugh will overturn Roe v. Wade, and think the ends justifies the means and will do or say anything to stop Kavanaugh from getting on the Supreme Court.
Yep – I think they are lying and they have the burden of proof to convince me otherwise.
Time will tell.
“I am really having difficulty believing if this really happened she wouldn’t tell her good friend, who was actually at the party where it allegedly happened.”
And “ I am really having difficulty believing” that RickA is totally oblivious to the trauma and shame of abused women, especially at a time when women are coming out and telling why they didn’t report anything.
#WhyIDidntReport
https://www.thequint.com/neon/social-buzz/sexual-assault-survivors-trump-why-i-didnt-report
https://www.elitedaily.com/p/these-tweets-about-why-i-didnt-report-are-slamming-trumps-response-to-christine-blasey-ford-12005361
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a23366420/why-i-didnt-report-assault-hashtag-donald-trump/
Well, actually I’m not surprised. Libertarians aren’t known for their empathy, and in their morally perverse world, abusing a woman could be a manifestation of MY FREEDOM.
Even if she didn’t tell her friend, there is the problem is that she is claiming it was her, her friend, and three boys, two of whom tried to rape her or inadvertently kill her.
Now in her story she locked herself in a bathroom, waited, and then went downstairs and left. She doesn’t remember how she got home.
I see a handful of possibilities here:
Her friend found her in the bathroom, and they left together.
Her friend saw her on her way out and took her home.
Her friend saw her leaving.
Her friend didn’t see her leaving, and was left alone at the party with the 3 boys.
In every case, I think it would be an unusual occurrence that her friend would have asked her about, and also remembered. Her not remembering such a party suggests it never happened.
I’m not as sure about the other denials, either in this case or Ramirez case.
They aren’t denying it because it didn’t happen, but because it did.
They don’t want to admit that they were involved in all these wild parties, as described in yearbooks for both schools.
I would guess that Ramirez’s story is true, but involves someone other than Kavanaugh. The others at the party are giving no comment, rather than admitting they saw it and implicating the guilty party.
The people who were against Trump were already energized to vote. Not much change with seeing Kavanaugh confirmed/ Ford ignored.
Meanwhile, Republicans who were lukewarm or against Trump are energized at the idea that you can get random charges thrown at you just for being Republican. Women with sons are not happy about what might happen to their boys in college kangaroo courts.
Men who are apolitical who ever had a drink underage sees the Democrats are against them.
The New Yorker story makes me suspicious that Ramirez is a Trump plant.
I hope you are right and the right gets energized.
We will see Nov. 6th.
My, my. Who knew? There’s another female Republican!
“We are now in a place where it’s not about whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified,” Murkowski told the New York Times Monday night. “It is about whether or not a woman who has been a victim at some point in her life is to be believed.
” … On Tuesday, she told reporters that she sees the merits in an independent FBI investigation into the allegations, something Senate Democrats and the accusers have called for.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/25/17901304/lisa-murkowski-kavanaugh-accusers-swing-vote
Meanwhile, the assembled world leaders in the UN laugh at Teh Donald’s self-aggrandising bullshit.
What a perfect demonstration of how far removed from reality Trump partisans really are.
0
David Bernstein:
HERE”S A SOUND ARGUMENT: I was sexually assaulted over thirty years ago, and I never told anyone. Therefore, I can attest from personal experience that just because someone didn’t tell anyone for over thirty years about a sexual assault does not mean we should assume she is lying, exaggerating, or has a false memory.
Here’s an unsound argument: I was sexually assaulted over thirty years ago, and never told anyone. Therefore, anyone who alleges after thirty plus years that she was sexually assaulted is telling the truth. Therefore, I know that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Dr. Ford over thirty years ago.
The right will not acknowledge the seriousness of Kavanaugh’s drinking problems. I do not want a fucking drunken Deke on the Supreme Court. Christ I met enough of them already in college. Nor do a want a former member of Tit and Clit on the Supreme Court. Conservatives have lost their dignity, have lost their sense of shame, have lost any sense of perspective. No, they are too busy defending their fucking positions of privilege to care about anything else. They see an angel in Kavanaugh; we see a soul far too familiar with a bottle.
SteveP,
Please present any evidence you have that Kavanaugh has a drinking problem.
I have asked you conservatives for one single bit of evidence that Kavanaugh is a superior jurist and you know what? You have given me evidence that he is at best mediocre and at worst, just another conservative hack who will vote in lock step with the other conservatives, no introspection or analysis required. You have given me your excuses for mediocrity. You have claimed a position that everybody drinks so who cares. You have ignored the fact that he may have done incalculable damage to girls and women while drunk that he can’t even remember having done, but hey, that’s okay, because he is conservative. Wouldn’t it more truthful if Kavanaugh at least said he doesn’t remember assaulting anyone instead of protesting that he never did? How would he even know?
SteveP:
Have you ever sexually assaulted anyone?
It depends on your definition – so I am certain you could answer the question yourself – depending on your particular definition.
Bill Clinton would say that only vaginal penetration counts as sex, so pinching a girl wouldn’t count (or groping).
Me – I would say yes – because I played catch and kiss in 6th grade.
I guess I couldn’t become a Federal Judge, an appellate Judge or a Supreme Court Judge – because they will have to ask this question from now on.
If you say yes you are disqualified.
Oh well – I am retiring soon anyway.
SteveP,
“Among those scheduled to introduce Kavanaugh on Tuesday is Arnold & Porter partner Lisa Blatt, a Supreme Court litigator who describes herself as a liberal Democrat and feminist, the National Law Journal reports. She had supported Kavanaugh in an Aug. 2 Politico op-ed that called Kavanaugh a supremely qualified “superstar” who deserves to be confirmed.
Also supporting Kavanaugh is Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar, a Hillary Clinton supporter who said in a New York Times op-ed that Kavanaugh is a superb, widely respected nominee whose ideas have influenced the U.S. Supreme Court. Amar is on the witness list for the Republican majority, the National Law Journal reports.”
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/aba_committee_gives_kavanaugh_a_well-qualified_rating_hearings_begin_today
Kavanaugh is clearly a skeevy judge, great for conservatives, but bad for the rest of the country. In fact, by dragging conservatives through the mud with him, he is not even that good for conservatives. And after he is all done, then what? Will this man recuse himself from anything having to do with sexual harassment? Or sit their like a great conservative hypocrite and drawing the scorn of half the nation anytime a case he is on involves substance abuse or sexual violence.
Unlike Merrick Garland would have been. Merrick Garland would have been an easy choice for someone who wanted to work towards the goal of helping create a more perfect Union. That is not the goal of Mitch McConnell however. No. Mitch McConnell is still trying to re-litigate the stupid fucking civil war.
Once Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court I do not expect him to recuse himself from any sexual assault or sexual harassment cases. That would be silly.
It is cute that you think democrats are working towards the goal of helping create a more perfect Union, but that republicans are not.
Perhaps reasonable minds can disagree on what a more perfect union looks like.
Some people socialism is a more perfect union and some people think capitalism is a more perfect union. Different strokes for different folks.
Or does everybody have to agree with you Steve?
“It depends on your definition”
No, not in the least. You are intentionally diminishing the seriousness of sexual assault — as you did earlier when you equated it with a child’s game.
dean:
Well than Steve shouldn’t have any trouble answering the question.
How about you dean – have you ever sexually assaulted anyone?
This is from an earlier exchange between MikeN and me re. the New Yorker article on the second woman:
My comment begins with a MikeN quote:
September 24, 2018 at 12:24 pm
“Ronan Farrow couldn’t say no to Jane Mayer, but he seeded the article with all the evidence that clears Kavanaugh.”
Yes, the rational man and the irrational woman. Misogyny, anyone?
Typical that MikeN isn’t able to provide any evidence for their division of labor. Also typical that a lack of definitive corroboration and damning accounts of Kavanaugh’s character become “evidence that clears Kavanaugh.”
MikeN replied:
September 24, 2018 at 12:39 pm
Nah, just recognizing the quality of work Farrow did against Harvey Weinstein, and the shoddy work Mayer did against Clarence Thomas way back when.
I’m wondering if MikeN could specify which “shoddy work” he’s referring to. It wouldn’t be the National Book Award finalist, “Strange Fruit” that she wrote together with Jill Abramson, would it? The reply couldn’t be a tactic to cover up misogyny, could it? I’d also mention that Farrow, who according to MikeN’s febrile fantasy “seeded the article with all the evidence that clears Kavanaugh,” stated that Ramirez’s story “exceeds the evidentiary basis we’ve used in the past in several cases that were found to be very credible.” Not much “evidence that clears Kavanaugh” there, is there?
https://gregladen.com/blog/2018/09/16/how-to-force-senator-susan-collins-to-do-the-right-thing/#comment-636920
“Perhaps reasonable minds can disagree on what a more perfect union looks like.”
Using brute political force to keep a sitting, freely elected,dark skinned president from fulfilling his duty to select nominees for the Supreme Court is not my idea of a perfect Union. It smells of everything that I think is wrong with conservatives, and I have fought with conservatives for over 50 years so I am familiar with the smell.
They did nothing to prevent Barack Obama from selecting nominees to the Supreme Court. He nominated three people, and two were confirmed.
“They did nothing to prevent Barack Obama from selecting nominees to the Supreme Court. ” Asshole. They prevented his selected nominee from even being considered so in effect they prevented him from being reviewed and having the chance of being voted on. Fucking Asshole.
More evidence you should never expect mikeN to make an honest statement.
When George W Bush was President, there were a number of judges who could not get a vote once Democrats took the Senate, and because of filibusters, even before that. Were you upset about this?
RickA, have you ever sexually assualted someone? You claim that you only did so in sixth grade, but are you sure that is all? But aside from that, the point here is not whether RickA or Bill Clinton were sexual cads. What aboutism is not what we are discussing here. And I am not even pressing the sexual assault angle; I think by the end of the week, people will have a lot clearer insight into that problem than they do now. What I am doing now is making the argument that this hearing is just a sham, like a North Korean election, and that you conservatives have made up your mind that this cad, whom I consider, briefly, to be an over privileged, mediocre, dishonest political hack with a substance abuse problem, will be on the Supreme Court. So, go ahead, stick your heads into this political dumpster fire, light your wigs on fire, and run down the road to the voting booth in November. We will help you put yourselves out then.
RickA
“How about you dean – have you ever sexually assaulted anyone?”
No. That wasn’t the question though. You made a comment earlier equating sexual assault with a child’s game, a horrible thing to do (although not surprising coming from you). You seem to be playing locus’ game of making asinine “what about this” diversions simply as an attempt to make people sexual assault is nothing to be concerned with.
BBD,
“Fuck off with your nonsense. You lost that one last week.”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of my supposed “guilt” so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
How can I when you refuse to link to a single site you comment at?
An innocent man would provide evidence of innocence. You refuse, therefore you are hiding your guilt QED.
The only person who got humiliated here is you. The only coward here is you – too gutless to own your own bigotry.
How even you can be so stupid as to keep shitting on yourself like this is beyond belief.
Take the hint and fuck off.
so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Dean,
“Your refusal to condemn on the right the same – mostly worse – actions done by the right procode all the evidence needed to show what a dishonest, bigoted, scummy POS you are.”
Classic whataboutism! And you’re ALWAYS accusing everyone else!
Dean,
“Stop pretending you really care about the Clinton affair as abuse when you don’t care about any of the issues from your side.”
There is no issue presented so far during the Kavanaugh confirmation. These accusations are unbelievably flimsy.
Dean,
“Almost as stupid as your slam of President Obama’s background, considering the results he achieved.”
Why? Why are Democrats now scandalized by a hard partying high schooler, but so forgiving of the leader of the “Choom Gang”
“But we get it — your problem with him isn’t based on fact, it’s based on race.”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of my supposed “racism” so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Dean,
“You seem to be playing locus’ game of making asinine “what about this” diversions…”
Says the gutless weasel who argues by screaming RACIST over and over and over …
Don’t like being known as a racist. Apologize for being one and supporting them blindly, and change your ways. Until then — that’ll be one of your defining characteristics, despite your fake “show me where” pathetic attempts at self-defense.
Dean,
“Donocewts will always love bill Clinton?
You are a massive ass. Did your plan meeting get out early today?”
What is a “plan meeting”? What is a “Donocewt”?
Please refrain from posting while trippin’ balls.
“Promise to donate money, at leat $20.20, if she votes Yes on Kavanaugh. The money will be used to fund the endorsed Democrat who ends up running against Collins in the next election.
A typical Maine Senate seat costs, I think, about $6 million to run for, if you are a well established incumbent like Collins. If this program raises about 3 million or so, that’s enough to knock her off her game if the Democrats can find a well liked candidate that knows how to run a campaign. ”
Is $20.20 to Collins’s opponent a ‘thing of value’. Is not providing a thing of value to her opponent a ‘thing of value’ to Collins? Is providing a ‘thing of value’ to Collins in exchange for her vote, bribery?
Cosmicomics,
“The election of Donald Trump and the rise of#MeToo marked a sea change. Try to find recent statements by Democrats that defend Clinton’s sexual behavior. Where are the signs that he’s been visible in this election cycle?”
The Democratic “sea change” has been highly convenient, and like all highly convenient conversions it should be met with extreme skepticism.
For two decades Democrats had no problem reconciling their dishonest “we’re for women” rhetoric with their favorite sex offender, Bill Clinton. It wasn’t until 2016 though that they finally had a Republican opponent who could be attacked on this issue and suddenly Democrats had a whole new attitude. Amazing!
The Democrat story is that sure we’ve been absolute hypocrites over the last forty years, studiously pretending not to notice Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd making waitress “sandwiches” and Bill Clinton screwing his employees, but now that Trump’s here we found Feminist Jesus!
Ask yourself this. If there really has been a “sea change” in the Democrats, who the whole time declared themselves the champions of women, then aren’t Democrats the worst bunch of pathological lying scum?
If Hillary had won the election then Bill would be chasing the chambermaids around the White House Residence and Democrats would still be making excuses.
Democrats aren’t sidelining Bill because he sexually assaults women. They’re angry because his dumbass wife lost the election.
No dickhead, there’s not a whit of validity in your comment. Your refusal to denounce your heros Moore and Trump, serial assaulters, show you don’t give a damn about sexual assault at all, unless you can use it as a tool to bludgeon your political foes. Your conflation of what began as a monumentally stupid and ill-advised sexual relationship between Clinton and Lewinsky with an “assault” as framed by the Republicans who pursued it when they couldn’t find any other crimes is irrelevant here, and meaningful (probably) only to the terminally stupid, like you.
Re — my spelling: Yup, I make spelling errors, I sometimes screw up simple html tags. I’d rather be known as having really shitty manual dexterity, something I’ve been cursed with for years, than (like you) known as a racist, lying, dishonest, integrity-free scumbag.
Dear Tag Team Locus,
It is time to take your Russian flavored what-about-ism and shove if up your collective Russian asses sideways. As soon as allegations of unwanted kissing and grabbing were made against Al Franken, both Shumer and McConnell referred Franken to the Senate Ethics Committee. Shumer. You know. The Democratic leader in the senate, the minority leader.
Your misconstrual of non-republicans and how they think is remarkably stupid. Mischaracterizing why we are or are not angry is laughable. Only we know our own thought processes. Conservative hacks like yourself really don’t know what is in other peoples’ minds. Christ, with your collective disavowal of of things like science and psychology in favor of mythology, you are the least likely people to know what other people think. So when you make statements about others which the others immediately know is not true, you brand yourselves as liars. Over and over and over. Stupid twits. Keep it up, assholes.
SteveP,
“Only we know our own thought processes. Conservative hacks like yourself really don’t know what is in other peoples’ minds. ”
That’s odd.
YOU claim to have read conservative’s minds and determined that opposition to Obama was simply because of his “dark skin”.
YOU claim to know that Kavanaugh is a “sociopath” because he didn’t instantly recognize Fred Gutenberg.
YOU claim to know that Kavanaugh “naughtily likes his law clerks to be highly attractive females” even though that claim has been vigorously and categorically denied by Amy Chua herself.
So you want to be able to impugn conservative motives all you want, but then throw a hissy fit when anyone questions your side.
In all four persons have now stated that they were informed about Blasey’s assault years before Kavanaugh was nominated.
“Christine Blasey Ford, the first woman to come forward in accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, now has four confirmed people corroborating her claims ahead of Thursday’s Senate hearing.”
https://www.thecut.com/2018/09/4-statements-support-kavanaugh-sexual-assault-accuser.html
“On Thursday, Kavanaugh will not just be asking the senators on the Judiciary Committee to accept that Ford mistook his face but also to believe that many of his contemporaries and his friends mistook his character.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-havent-republicans-abandoned-brett-kavanaugh
And now the third victim has come forward:
“In a declaration, Julie Swetnick, who attended Gaithersburg High School, said she observed Kavanaugh drinking excessively at house parties and engaging “in abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls.”
“Swetnick said she witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh and others to get girls inebriated so they could be “gang raped” in side rooms at house parties by a “train” of numerous boys.
“I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh.””
But gang-banging incapacitated women is as innocent as a child’s party game, and Brett Kavanaugh is emminently qualified to sit on the Supreme Court – just ask RickA.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kavanaugh-nomination-trump-calls-nominee-an-absolute-gem-as-tensions-swirl-over-planned-hearing/2018/09/26/df224aea-c190-11e8-97a5-ab1e46bb3bc7_story.html?utm_term=.afdb7e8e2ea3
Here’s more:
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17901076/brett-kavanaugh-drinking-high-school-sexual-assault-allegations
“”In approximately 1982, I became the victim of one of these ‘gang’ or ‘train’ rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present…””
“”I have reviewed Brett Kavanaugh’s recent claim on Fox News regarding his alleged ‘innocence’ during his high school years and lack of sexual activity. This claim is absolutely false and a lie. I witnessed Brett Kavanaugh consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women during the early 1980s,” she stated.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/26/brett-kavanaugh-latest-accusation-julie-swetnick-sexual-misconduct-michael-avenatti
I think that, like Trump, Kavanaugh didn’t anticipate the amount of scrutiny he would be subjected to. He probably thought that he could slither through with solid Republican support and no one suspecting what had been hidden for years.
Now it looks to me as though he won’t be confirmed and that the GOP is headed toward an ignominious defeat. This could not only mean that Kavanaugh will never sit on the Supreme Court, but that his position on the Federal Court will become untenable as well. I imagine that the GOP will try to push through a lame-duck nominee, but that won’t be pretty, and, if the Democrats take over the Senate, it would violate all their Merrick Garland claims about letting the people decide.
Julie Swetnick has a current security clearance. She’s willingly and deliberately asked for an FBI investigation and a lie-detector test, and a lie-detector test for Kavanaugh.
If she was found to have lied to the FBI she would lose her security clearance and her job. She’s literally putting her money where her mouth is. And yet the Republicans and Kavanaugh don’t want to test her claims – it seems that they have consciousness of guilt and are deliberately hiding something.
It says a lot that the GOP sycophants here support such an immoral and corrupt party…
I am really looking forward to this hearing tomorrow.
I sure hope Ford shows up!
I think the democrats have over-egged the pudding with this crazy third allegation.
Dean,
“Your refusal to denounce your heros Moore and Trump…”
Please post any quotes where I expressly supported Moore or Trump.
Cosmicomics,
““”In approximately 1982, I became the victim of one of these ‘gang’ or ‘train’ rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present…””
I have to tell you, this looks like the left-wing version of PizzaGate.
I have to say, you are an ignorant pos. There are real people associated with the current allegations, there was nothing real about the pizzagate story.
Of course, none of the crap the right told about HRC for over 30 years was true: no pay for play with the foundation, no guilt in the Benghazi story, nothing at all in the uranium stories, nothing in the people killed by the Clintons. It was the same with the right’s allegations about the Obamas. You weren’t upset by the lies then, or the death threats for wishes for Michelle and the daughters to be raped, or the other stuff the tea-baggers and other assorted racist members of the right said, but you are upset about these allegations.
You aren’t concerned about facts. You’re simply a two faced hypocritical scumbag. (That’s not a new revelation though — your history shows you to be that and more.)
Dean,
“…known as a racist,…”
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of my supposed “racism” so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Please show you aren’t (thus contradicting years of comments from you) by condemning the racism of trump and most of the rest of the republican party. Then condemn their support for people who abuse women. Then condemn trump’s defense of nazis, and his bogus reasons for implementing tariffs.
Otherwise your childishly repetitive claims that you aren’t a racist are contradicted by your history.
Oh — and stop pretending you really care about abuse of women. It’s clear it’s only important to you because you think you can make a point by using it as a weapon.
BBD,
“How can I when you refuse to link to a single site you comment at?”
Are you actually claiming that you don’t know that I post comments at gregladen.com? WTF is wrong with you?
“An innocent man would provide evidence of innocence. You refuse, therefore you are hiding your guilt QED.”
How…can…I…prove…a…negative ????????
“The only coward here is you – too gutless to own your own bigotry.”
Please provide any single, solitary evidence of my “bigotry” so people won’t just assume you’re a gutless coward who makes unsubstantiated allegations after being humiliated in an argument.
WTF is wrong with you, pretending that this is what I was asking you for? You know it wasn’t. Everybody does.
Look, you’ve demonstrated that you are too much of a coward to own whatever vile shit you’ve posted elsewhere. It’s done. There’s no getting out of it and everybody knows now.
The fun bit is that since you refuse to show your commentary elsewhere, we can all make up whatever we like and attribute it to you.
The only way of stopping this in future will be to link to three sites where you comment regularly.
So, how’s the Jew-baiting going?
The third witness says she never saw Brett Kavanaugh engage in the rapes, just drugging girls who then get raped, and standing in line to rape, oh and she saw him waiting to rape her. I thought the second story was absurd enough….
Lie detector conducted by ex-FBI agent:
1) Is any part of your statement false?
2) Did you make up any part of your statement?
Just how the FBI does it.
Dean,
“That’s not a new revelation though — your history shows you to be that and more.”
Like what?
Please provide any single, solitary evidence of your accusations so people won’t just assume you’re a gutless coward who makes unsubstantiated allegations after being humiliated in an argument.
The one you won’t share because you know it will demonstrate what a vile shitbag you are 🙂
You know, with the Islamophobic hate speech, the really detailed and nasty misogyny… all that stuff you post elsewhere.
Putting aside for the moment that lie detector test results are worthless,
“Just how the FBI does it.”
Any evidence of that?
Dean,
“…your childishly repetitive claims that you aren’t a racist are contradicted by your history.”
What history?
Please provide any single, solitary evidence of my “racism” so people won’t just assume you’re a gutless coward who makes unsubstantiated allegations after being humiliated in an argument.
Headbutted any faggots recently and bragged about it online?
Kavanaugh is a well groomed, oily weasel. He has been positioned for ascension into a Supreme Court slot for some time. If the Republican elites botch this, there will be hell to pay from their various owners.
The conversation here has taken an obsessive, unproductive turn, in which persons I normally respect and who know a lot more than I do about things I think are important are supporting a standard of proof that is indefensible in a post-Enlightenment society.
Instead of providing proof that Locus is a racist, s/he’s being asked to prove that s/he isn’t one. One can conclude that Locus supports “conservative” positions that attract racists, but one can’t conclude that every individual that supports those positions is one. If they have positive proof that Locus is a racist, they should present it.
My objection to Locus isn’t that s/he’s a racist, which is something I don’t know, but that s/he’s ignorant, uninformed, easily duped by right-wing propaganda, relies solely on misinformation, and thinks s/he’s qualified to participate in a discussion that requires knowledge and elementary skills in argumentation. In short, my view, which is easy to prove, is that Locus is one of the best examples of Dunning-Kruger one can find. His/her ignorance and stupidity make him/her incapable of understanding how unqualified s/he is and are a source of intellectual pollution.
One unfortunate consequence of the racism perspective here is the claim that Obama was only opposed because he was black. In fact, destructive Republican opposition became institutionalized during the time of Newt Gingrich, and that was against a white president. As long as the Republicans could praise Hillary Clinton to contrast her with the face of power in the Democratic Party, they did, but when she became Obama’s apparent
successor, they began to savage her.
Republican policies disproportionately hurt blacks and Latinos, but also others who are not among the privileged. As Marx might have said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” They exploit racism to gain support for their economic agenda, but, at the same time, they stand by and display the Clarence Thomases and Tim Scotts who support it.
If Locus isn’t a scumbag, then it would be the work of a moment for Locus to prove it.
Locus refuses, therefore Locus is a scumbag – QED.
This is watertight and really not worth arguing about.
You’re not trying to prove Locus’s guilt. You’re asking him/her to prove his/her innocence.
This kind of argument is beneath you, and the principle involved is so important that it is worth arguing about. (For me this is not about Locus, whom I have no respect for.)
This isn’t a court. It’s blog comments.
Locus isn’t a defendant, he’s a sack of shite.
You are wasting your time with this. As I said, it isn’t worth it.
Essence of bad faith, as incorporated by Locus et al. will trump loft ethics every time.
You need to learn a new dance.
Hillary was savaged when Bill was president, but your general point is taken.
“One unfortunate consequence of the racism perspective here is the claim that Obama was only opposed because he was black.”
If you look at the issues locus and the others bring up against him, you find they are baseless — they either didn’t happen or are phrased in ways that are incredibly deceptive. If they don’t take the time to find any real issues to object to (and they exist) there isn’t much more to believe they are complaining about.
“Hillary was savaged when Bill was president…”
Yes, but Michelle Obama wasn’t, and I think it’s relevant to ask why. My explanation is that Hillary – “two for the price of one – represented a modern woman who would be active in policy-making, whereas Michelle Obama retreated to the traditional First Lady role. In other words, Clinton immediately positioned herself as coequal in what I’ve called the face of power. Savaging Clinton was a misogynistic attempt to keep women in their place.
“If you look at the issues locus and the others bring up against him, you find they are baseless…”
Agree, but Locus and others like him/her are basically aping the talking points of the “conservative” establishment. In my opinion these are motivated by interests of money and power, being in a position to help one’s friends, the revolving door, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Both sides do it to some extent, but in these Trump times this has become the raison d’être of the Republican Party. All GOP policy is related to preserving (and enlarging) economic advantage. It doesn’t matter whether Obama was black, white, green or blue – in order to gain the power to get and dispense perks, they would have slandered him any way they could. But, of course, the fact that he wasn’t white made it easier.
“This isn’t a court. It’s blog comments.
Locus isn’t a defendant, he’s a sack of shite.
You are wasting your time with this. As I said, it isn’t worth it.”
Locus is an inconsequential fool. Why one would waste time arguing with him is beyond me. The “conversation” is a perennial replay, analogous to flogging a dead horse.
And no, this isn’t a court, but maybe some enlightened values should extend beyond the courtroom.
The only way to deal with trolls is to troll them right back. They don’t like it at all. They want to tie you up in knots, not get kicked in the balls repeatedly.
Anyway, this Locus has been chewed until all the flavour has gone. Time to spit.
In the early 80’s, a co-worker explained to me the advantages of being a conservative church going Christian. Basically, he said that he could get away with shit (unsavory or illegal behavior ) because the good references he would get from all the powerful people in his community protected him. At that level, it was a purely pragmatic philosophy. Basically, it was an similar to or related to Trump saying “I could shoot somebody on fith avenue and get away with it”. It is the power of being above the laws that govern the rest of us.
Fast forward, 36 years. It will be interesting to see what the world is like tomorrow, after today’s hearing, which is starting right now. Kavanaugh’s supporters think that he is not getting a fair deal, and they are crying about that. Doesn’t it strike any of them that Merrick Garland and President Obama got an extremely unfair deal from Mitch McConnell and the Republicans? Justice for all doesn’t seem to mean much to Republicans. But I, for one, hope that Brett Michael Kavanaugh gets all the justice that he truly deserves.
Anyway, Kavanaugh strikes me as a power hungry person, who, like pretty nearly all conservatives, works within a mythological context full of the illusions that the rest of us know as lies. It appears that lies and lying are not good or bad to conservatives, they are just tools. Lying to support their beliefs appears to be okay with them. Lying about the other side’s is fine. This framework accepts lies, works on lies, and freely propagates lies. We have an indisputable liar as a president, and his base just loves the lies he spins. So we can expect Kavanaugh to lie like a rug. That’s just the way that his side works. And, to some extent, all politics works within this framework. But the extent of conservative lying has today reached an extremely high level. This level is called malignancy.
Nobody made up accusations against Garland to sink his nomination. They merely refused to act on his nomination. They could even cite statements by Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer against the Presidents Bush as reference, saying they would not approve a nominee if an opening happened. And there is the reference from Bork that qualification alone is not enough, if they have the votes they will block.
No one “made up” accusations because there was no basis on which to make accusations against Garland, and in fact there was no basis to refuse his rise to the Supreme Court.
On the other hand Kavanaugh has shown himself to be a liar, a bully, a partisan, and without judicial temperament. And this is quite apart from his misogyny and a highly apparent proclivity in his youth to sexually assault women. So there’s every reason to test Kavanaugh’s claims.
You’re hard of learning, so I will repeat – there was no case to deny Garland. There is, on the other hand, a very strong case to not only deny Kavanaugh but to investigate his past and perhaps impeach him for removal from his current role.
If he really was innocent he’d be more happy than are Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and Julie Swetnick to have an FBI investigation to verify his versions of their accounts. That he fulminates in a most un-judgelike manner at his hearing, that he complains about left-wing conspiracies and the Clintons and victims of sexual asault coming forward, shows that he is simply another rabid conservative with an overweaning sense of self-privilege, and one schooled by the White House for the last week in the strategies with which to respond during yesterday’s hearing.
“This kind of argument is beneath you, and the principle involved is so important that it is worth arguing about.”
Locus has been asked several times to condemn the the type of behavior in Republicans he’s condemned in Clinton and others. Nothing. Not even enough concern to give fake responses of the usual “Yeah but…” flavor.
That, with his history of falsehoods and racist comments, drives in the nails.
“Locus has been asked several times…”
Indeed. Please see my response to BBD, which contains the expression “flogging a dead horse.”
You seem to react to Locus with anger. I guess I’m more arrogant. I react with contempt, which is not conducive to further communication. I sometimes comment on what the local “conservatives” write, but I generally don’t communicate with them. I see no point in it.
I’m enjoying this little breather on this blog from the conservatives. My guess is that they are waiting for the standard bull shit response message from one of their great-big-heads. Here are some things that I thing that we can rule out in that message.
1) Compassion
2) Understanding
3) Wisdom
4) Science
What their screechings will do is involve picking up on bread crumb sins, to quote BD. Anything that they can’t understand, they will turn into a talking point. Any error Dr. Ford makes will be magnified and distorted. Recognition of the woman as a human being will be absent. Recognition of the damage to the nation from the Kavanaugh nomination in terms of role modeling, or loss of confidence in institutional authority will be completely overlooked. No, the lemmings are headed for the cliffs and nothing will deter them. That is my expectation.
I’m looking forward (in a sad way) to how mikeN and rickA will lie and distort her testimony in their attempts to argue she should not be believed. You know it’s coming from them.
I had the who, what, when, where and how and had five people that I told, not even counting the woman who found me 30 minutes after the rape with a swollen busted lip, torn clothes and in a state of shock,”
I found the most interesting part of Ford’s testimony that she was driven to and from the party. But nobody asked who drove her?
Was it Chris Garrett?
Was the party at Chris Garrett’s house?
Was it Chris Garrett’s room that she was pushed into?
She hung out with Chris Garrett for several months, it was Chris Garrett who introduced her to Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh. She seems reluctant to name him and I wonder if that is why she cannot remember how she got to the gathering, got home from the gathering or where the gathering was held.
So I found that very interesting.
If the party was at Chris Garrett’s house, than one wonders where was Chris?
Maybe Ed Whelan wasn’t so crazy after all.
Did Chris Garrett’s name come up? Would you be having these questions if Ed Whelan hadn’t tweeted?
That she was driven there is not surprising because she was 15, and she lived miles from the country club that was her stated starting point(from her yearbook photo we can assume she wasn’t walking miles a day).
Ford testified that Chris Garrett was the person who introduced her to Brett and Mark, although she was very reluctant to name him. She also testified that she spent several months going out with him that summer.
So, we know she didn’t drive and she says she doesn’t remember how she got to the gathering, where the gathering was or how she got home. I don’t find this credible at all – but what I find likely is that the gathering was at Garrett’s house and he was the person who got her there and home. So the next hole in her story is where was Chris Garrett? If the party was at his house?
So I think the unnamed boy was Chris Garrett, and the party was at his house and she just doesn’t want to name him, which I find odd. Since none of the people actually named, the most important being her girlfriend, put Brett at the gathering, I suspect something happened to her at this gathering, but it was not done by Brett.
Therefore, when I weigh the credibility of both Ford and Kavanaugh, I come down on the side of Kavanaugh. I would vote to put him on the Supreme Court.
The reason you’re “find[ing] it odd” is because you’re suffering the cognitive dissonance that can manifest when employing a logical fallacy, as you did so spectacularly in this post.
In case you’re wondering which fallacy it is, I’ll remind you that you should not be begging the question.
Awfully convenient for the SEC to pick this time to file charges against Elon Musk. It would be ironic if this was done to allow someone to make a buck short selling while others were distracted.
Dean,
“Please show you aren’t (thus contradicting years of comments from you)…”
Like what comment?
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of my supposed “racism” so that people won’t assume that you’re just a gutless coward who starts throwing wild accusations after being humiliated in an argument
BBD,
“Look, you’ve demonstrated that you are too much of a coward to own whatever vile shit you’ve posted elsewhere.”
This makes no sense. If you’ve never read what I’ve posted elsewhere then how can you claim to know that any of it is “vile shit”.
“The fun bit is that since you refuse to show your commentary elsewhere, we can all make up whatever we like and attribute it to you. ”
So you freely admit that all of your accusations are fabricated because you’re a gutless, sniveling coward.
BBD,
“So, how’s the Jew-baiting going?”
Please provide any single, solitary evidence of my alleged antisemitism so people won’t just assume you’re a gutless coward who makes unsubstantiated allegations after being humiliated in an argument.
BBD,
“You know, with the Islamophobic hate speech, the really detailed and nasty misogyny… all that stuff you post elsewhere.”
This makes no sense. If you’ve never read what I’ve posted elsewhere how can you possibly claim to know that it’s “Islamaphobic” or “misogyny”.
Please provide any single, solitary shred of evidence of your accusations so people won’t just assume you’re a gutless coward who makes unsubstantiated allegations after being humiliated in an argument.
BBD,
“Headbutted any faggots recently and bragged about it online?”
Please provide any single, solitary shred of evidence of my alleged “homophobia” so people won’t just assume you’re a gutless coward who makes unsubstantiated allegations after being humiliated in an argument.
Just tell us where you comment regularly and we can rapidly establish your homophilic credentials.
What are you so desperately hiding, Locus?
BBD,
“If Locus isn’t a scumbag, then it would be the work of a moment for Locus to prove it. ”
How is it the “work of a moment” to prove a negative?
Why isn’t the “work of a moment” to prove that I am a “scumbag”?
All you are being asked to do is link to a few blogs where you comment regularly. That is the work of a moment.
Once done, your unimpeachable progressive credentials can rapidly be established.
All you have to do is post three fucking links! It would take seconds, not even a full minute… but all you do is wriggle and keep repeating the same old bollocks.
Why?
Why won’t you do it? What are you so desperately hiding?
BBD,
“Locus isn’t a defendant, he’s a sack of shite.”
Well now we know that BBD graduated from Oxford. At Cambridge debates they would call their opponents a “bag of shite”.
“Essence of bad faith, as incorporated by Locus et al. …”
What exactly is the role of “faith”, either good or bad, in the context of a logical argument?
You aren’t making a logical argument. That’s just another diversionary pretense.
You are refusing to share relevant information.
You are being evasive for rhetorical advantage, which is an act of bad faith.
Only the guilty hide the evidence.
Dean,
“If you look at the issues locus and the others bring up against him, you find they are baseless — they either didn’t happen or are phrased in ways that are incredibly deceptive.”
How so? Everything I’ve said about Obama was quoted from his biography and one of his autobiographies.
Are you claiming that Obama’s own autobiography was “baseless”?
Dean,
“That, with his history of falsehoods and racist comments, drives in the nails.”
What “racist comments”?
Please provide any single, solitary shred of evidence of my “racism” so people won’t just assume you’re a gutless coward who makes unsubstantiated allegations after being humiliated in an argument.
Your stupid little canned comment was funny at first, because of the notion that anyone would believe you’re offended at being identified for what you are.
Now however, it is tiresome: it’s simply another indicator of your limited cognitive skills.
“Yes, but Michelle Obama wasn’t, and I think it’s relevant to ask why. ”
I’m clearly missing something. The tea baggers constantly had people comparing Michelle and the girls to monkeys, posting comments “wishing” for them to be raped, and so on. There was no condemnation from the right’s leadership.
I know you put a good deal of thought in to your comments, hence my first sentence: I’m missing something here.
I think there’s a difference between not condemning something and actively participating in the activity that should be condemned. I don’t recall that leading Republicans attacked Michelle Obama. She didn’t constitute a political threat, whereas Hillary Clinton did. This is not to excuse their silence on despicable comments or ignore the probability that their attacks on Barack Obama contributed to those comments.
Does that make sense?
Maybe a small difference, but it certainly doesn’t give a good message about the people who stay silent. Where does silence move from being unconcerned to complicit?
“I think there’s a difference between not condemning something and actively participating in the activity that should be condemned. ”
Ummmm. Yes there’s a difference. Because they are 2 different things.
Hypocritically not condemning things seems to be a proud American trait. It’s seen clearly in pathetic yank journalism.
I don’t know how yanks can function carrying the load of hypocrisy they do.
It’s very heavy.
“…it certainly doesn’t give a good message about the people who stay silent.”
No, it doesn’t, and it makes me think of the choice between honesty and loyalty, also about the broader question of accountability and responsibility, which also ties it to Charlottesville – not just as an isolated event, but as a symbol.
“Where does silence move from being unconcerned to complicit?”
It’s an important question. I don’t pretend to be a legal scholar, and I don’t think that legal scholars could give you a definitive answer. I imagine that the answer to a great extent would depend on the circumstances. But we are seeing a pattern of expedient, irresponsible silence (and worse) that would indicate moral, if not legal culpability.
Interesting. Of course, it’s by another left wing shill, so… (at least that will be the position taken by the folks here who don’t think sexual assault matters at all).
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/09/27/alan-dershowitz-postpone-kavanaugh-confirmation-until-fbi-can-investigate-accusations-against-him.html
“In theory, the Judiciary Committee and the full Senate should try as best as possible to arrive at the truth, by placing the burden of proof on the accusers – not the accused – even though it is Kavanaugh who has been nominated to the Supreme Court.”
The problem is that the burden of proof isn’t the same here as it is for a trial. Kavanaugh isn’t on trial for a crime. He’s trying to get a more prestigious job. And Dershowitz is ignoring other signs that could lead to denying him that job: his repeated evasions, his refusal to request an FBI investigation, his blatant politicization. Dershowitz is playing a game: trying to appear fair while stacking the deck.
The Senate’s Failure to Seek the Truth
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/opinion/kavanaugh-blasey-ford-investigation.html
Why Brett Kavanaugh Wasn’t Believable
And why Christine Blasey Ford was.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/opinion/why-brett-kavanaugh-wasnt-believable.html
“The problem is that the burden of proof isn’t the same here as it is for a trial. Kavanaugh isn’t on trial for a crime. He’s trying to get a more prestigious job. ”
It’s typically the extra judicial ( the hight of irony!) way of HR.
I fucking hate the abuse of it.
It’s a pretty big broo haha with high standards of evidence to get a punishment fine of say, 200 000 dollars.
Getting sacked from a job or not getting the job in the first place that pays that much can be decided almost whimsically or perhaps nepotistically.
I argued vehemently about the POTENTIAL abuse of power safety officers had.
I agree he’s playing a game, but thought that article was interesting for another reason. I little of me wonders whether he realized how credible she was and is a little concerned that a ramrodding of Kavanaugh’s vote could come back to cause damage to his beloved republicans, so he’s trying to send a subtle “you should slow down and make more of an effort to look as though you intend to be fair about this” message.
He loves Republicans now?
He’s been a big Trump backer mikeN. Don’t act surprised.
“…trying to send a subtle “you should slow down and make more of an effort to look as though you intend to be fair about this” message.”
Exactly. Pretending to be fair.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/e-mails-show-republican-senate-staff-stymied-a-kavanaugh-accusers-effort-to-give-testimony
By the way, I’m appreciating this exchange because your comments are making me think.
Cosmicomics,
“…two for the price of one – represented a modern woman who would be active in policy-making.”
“Savaging Clinton was a misogynistic attempt to keep women in their place.”
Complete nonsense. The President’s spouse is not mentioned in the Constitution. They have often been acknowledged as having an influence on policy and politics, but not to the extent of remaking the nation’s entire health care system. If a modern woman wants to be active in policy-making, then she could run for office.
The claim that Rebublicans/conservatives “want to keep women in their place” is utterly laughable. If it had somehow been possible, conservatives would have trampled H.W. Bush in order to nominate “The Iron Lady”, Margaret Thatcher.
BBD,
“The only way to deal with trolls is to troll them right back.”
How am I “trolling”?
**You’re** the one making baseless accusations like a gutless little coward.
“Baseless” – oh no, you can’t make that claim in the same breath as refusing to let people see your comments elsewhere.
Nor can the man too frightened of his own comments to reveal them accuse others of being “a gutless little coward”.
That would be trolling.
* * *
You are so bad at this it isn’t fun anymore 🙁
BBD,
“You are refusing to share relevant information.
You are being evasive for rhetorical advantage, which is an act of bad faith. ”
Funny, I can argue just on what you post here. I don’t need to demand that you dump your entire Internet posting history here. Why are you incapable of doing the same?
“Only the guilty hide the evidence.”
What evidence?
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of my alleged “racism” so people won’t just assume that you’re a gutless, little coward who slings baseless accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Your desperately concealed comment history elsewhere.
Disingenuous trolling, much?
Dean,
“…because of the notion that anyone would believe you’re offended at being identified for what you are.”
How have I been “identified”?
Please provide a single, solitary shred of evidence of my alleged “racism” so people won’t just assume that you’re a gutless, little coward who slings baseless accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Kavanaugh has been caught in numerous lies. He is intemperate. He is a sniveller. He is a cry baby. He. Is. Extremely. Partisan. To the point of it’s being malignant. Trump is under bussing him right now. Trump will find a woman to replace Kavanaugh, and it will help the Republicans in November. Probably Amy Coney Barrett, someone who is very unlikely to have sexually abused anybody. Unlike our over grown baby Kavanaugh, she is something of a Wonder Woman and will probably be as much or more of a pain in the ass to women and liberals than Kavanaugh might have been. So, we will be trading in a conservative drunk and a liar for a conservative religious zealot. What could possibly go wrong with that?
“… and it will help the Republicans in November.”
I’m not so sure about that. It would probably bolster support among GOP donors and women, but maybe not among the more misogynistic men, who could be angered by the failure to appoint Kavanaugh. And it probably wouldn’t reduce the mobilization among Democratic women that has resulted from the Kavanaugh allegations and the revived memories of the Thomas hearings.
Speaking for myself, the result of the 2016 election has made me more cautious about making definitive predictions. There are too many incalculable variables.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump
In other words, he is a Trump clone. That jumped out when he (Kavanaugh) went on his “I went to Yale Law school” crybaby rant. It was the same level of childish bragging as “I have a really high IQ” shit the president engages in.
According to this article the GOP leaders intend to stick with Kavanaugh. They believe that will help them retain the Senate, but increase their House losses.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/us/politics/kavanaugh-republicans-midterms.html
Presumably deemed a price worth paying to keep the authoritarian bible bashers writing cheques and voting GOP.
Dean,
“Interesting. Of course, it’s by another left wing shill, so… (at least that will be the position taken by the folks here who don’t think sexual assault matters at all). ”
Hooray! I’m so glad that you managed to slip the confines of the liberal hive-mind and start thinking for yourself.
Dershowitz has been calling for an investigation since he acknowledges that Kavanaugh has corroboration on his side so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT9aaHq-TLQ
What’s more Dershowitz is calling for Ford to be rigorously cross-examined, saying,
” “Are women born with a special gene for telling the truth, and men with a special gene for lying?”
“”I don’t believe her. I don’t believe him,” he added. “I have an open mind, I want to hear both sides of the story and make a determination.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/dershowitz-rejects-i-believe-her-crowd-are-women-born-with-a-special-gene-for-telling-the-truth
I look forward to seeing you push back against the drooling morons like Greg Laden who claim they’ve seen all the evidence they’ll ever need.
Oh, and since you’re now a Dershowitz fan, don’t forget to pick up his new book.
‘The Case AGAINST Impeaching Trump’
Happy reading!
Once again you fail locus. I said (after the first post) I thought he was playing some sort of game to appear fair.
But it’s no surprise you are behind on things. You just aren’t capable of keeping up with reality or facts
“According to this article the GOP leaders intend to stick with Kavanaugh.”
That shouldn’t be a surprise — we’ve known all along they were no more interested in facts than the three Trump supporters who routinely spam Greg’s blog. I’d put the chance of Kavanaugh not making it at less than 10% (and will continue to hope I’m really wrong).
It’s also clear that the FBI’s hands are highly tied concerning the “investigation” they’re allowed to do. There really isn’t any desire to do a thorough investigation.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna915061?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
And now there’s word the investigation isn’t hamstring. Great if true, we’ll just have to wait and see
And apparently Trump’s claim there were no restrictions was, as it always is with him, a lie.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/white-house-limits-scope-fbi-s-investigation-allegations-against-brett-n915061?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
Ah, the carefully hamstrung, one week only ‘investigation’. Hardy-bloody-har.
MikeN didn’t seem to understand what I meant earlier when I said that K was in.
Of course he’s in. This is a circus, not a fair hearing or an investigation. Yes, all the whining we heard from the partisan right was unnecessary: they need never have worried.
The investigation looks like a farce, but still I’m uncertain as to how this will end, both concerning the immediate and post 2018 and 2020 future. Let’s imagine that the Democrats win the House, hold hearings with all relevant witnesses, and produce corroborated evidence that Kavanaugh was involved in sexual asault and that he perjured himself. Maryland has no statute of limitations on sexual assault, so possible Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh could be put on trial some time before or shortly after the 2020 elections. I imagine that a perjury charge would require action from the Justice Dept., but inaction in the face of solid evidence would be hard to defend. I’d also remind everyone that the Senate lineup in 2020 is the opposite of what it is this time: approximately 20 Republicans and half as many Democrats. I don’t think that bodes well for either a Justice Kavanaugh or a Justice Thomas.
This confirms my speculation:
“But as Democrats tried to sound alarms that the White House may be constraining the F.B.I.’s work, one key member of the party indicated that if the Democrats won control of the House in November and Judge Kavanaugh made it through the Senate, he would have no choice but to more fully investigate the claims against him.
“If he is on the Supreme Court and the Senate hasn’t investigated, the House will have to,” the lawmaker, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said on “This Week.” “We would have to investigate any credible allegations, certainly of perjury and other things that haven’t been properly looked into before….”
“We can’t have a justice on the Supreme Court for the next several decades who will be deciding questions of liberty, and life and death, and all kinds of things for the entire American people who has been credibly accused of sexual assaults, who has been credibly accused of various other things that — wrong things, including perjury,” Mr. Nadler said.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/us/politics/fbi-kavanaugh-investigation-scope-democrats.html
Witnesses who want to testify are given a runaround. The prearranged denial of accountability seems to be that GOP senators state that the breadth of the investigation is determined by the president, while the White House claims that it’s acting on the recommendations of the Senate.
Another article by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow. Farrow, you’ll remember, is a source trusted by MikeN.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-confusion-surrounding-the-fbis-renewed-investigation-of-brett-kavanaugh
James Comey has written a NYT op-ed about the FBI’s ability to conduct a quick investigation that contains the obvious qualification:
“If truth were the only goal, there would be no clock, and the investigation wouldn’t have been sought after the Senate Judiciary Committee already endorsed the nominee. Instead, it seems that the Republican goal is to be able to say there was an investigation and it didn’t change their view, while the Democrats hope for incriminating evidence to derail the nominee.
“Although the process is deeply flawed, and apparently designed to thwart the fact-gathering process, the F.B.I. is up for this. It’s not as hard as Republicans hope it will be….
“Significance drives memory. They also know that little lies point to bigger lies. They know that obvious lies by the nominee about the meaning of words in a yearbook are a flashing signal to dig deeper.”
But:
“Unless limited in some way by the Trump administration, they can speak to scores of people in a few days, if necessary.”
At present it looks as though the FBI will be limited both regarding what they can investigate, e.g. not “the meaning of words in a yearbook,” and whom they can speak to. However, if the Democrats win control of the House, all of this will be looked into.
Comey link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/opinion/james-comey-fbi-kavanaugh-investigation.html
BBD,
“Your desperately concealed comment history elsewhere. ”
Which is evidence of what exactly and how would you know?
BBD,
“Once again you fail locus. I said (after the first post) I thought he was playing some sort of game to appear fair. ”
No, someone else said that, after which you agreed.
Importantly, you failed to address any of my points. Ford’s lack of corroboration etc…
In addition to being a bigot and worse, you double down on being a liar. No surprise I guess.
BBD,
“Nor can the man too frightened of his own comments to reveal them accuse others of being “a gutless little coward”. ”
Please show any single, solitary shred of evidence that I’m “frightened” of my own comments lest any observer assume you’re just a gutless little coward who hurls baseless accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
You’ve refused to say where else you comment about 100 times on this thread.
You are as thick as mince as well as dishonest, which is an unpleasant combination.
BBD,
“Your desperately concealed comment history elsewhere. ”
If you haven’t read any of my comment history, they how would you know it’s “evidence” of anything?
Please show any single, solitary shred of evidence that I’d want to “hide” my own comments lest any observer assume you’re just a gutless little coward who hurls baseless accusations after being humiliated in an argument.
Your flat-out refusal to show them.
Just how stupid and dishonest is it actually possible to be?
Cosmicomics, Dean, BBD,
Your speculations are all wrong.
“The renewed F.B.I. background check of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh over allegations of sexual assault will be relatively limited, relying on voluntary interviews and document production.
Former prosecutors said that because it is not a criminal investigation, F.B.I. agents will not be able to get search warrants or grand jury subpoenas compelling witnesses to testify or hand over documents. Witnesses and others can refuse to cooperate, though talking to an F.B.I. agent is often a powerful motivator to tell the truth.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/us/politics/kavanauagh-fbi-background-check.html
Ford could file a report with either the local police department or the State Police to start a real, criminal investigation with possibly a grand jury.
Democratic calls for an FBI “investigation” is an obvious sham.
It is a sham, but because the Republicans, like you, didn’t think sexual assault is important unless you can leverage it as a weapon. As long as the woman accused Republicans your goal is to dismiss it.
It is a sham, but because the people who put the “investigation” in place are as lacking on decency and honesty as you are locus. Vile people
So Trump loves Kim Jong-Un, and Putin, but hates Americans if they are liberals, Democrats, or anti-nazi? Rush Limbaugh was a big proponent of “No Means Yes” at the time that Kavanaugh’s fraternity at Yale was saying “No Means Yes and Yes Means Anal” .
What is wrong with the fucking Republicans anyway? What treachery, what violation of national, local, or religious law is so vile that they would drop their support of Trump and his ever growing band of criminals? What lie would he have to say for Conservatives to say “enough!”. They are going fucking crazy. They are fucking off the rails. They want to divide the nation against itself, weaken enlightenment values, and take all the money and run. Their philosophy is are turning into a fucking disease, a national rot. Their philosophy is devoid of anything that even has a pretense of wisdom anymore. What is their philosophy these days?
BBD,
You’ve refused “about 100 times” to provide a single, solitary shred of evidence to support the allegation that I’ve posted racist, sexist or homophobic content here or anywhere else for that matter.
How is my reasonable demand that you show ANY evidence to back up your accusations in any way “thick” or “dishonest”?
Because you flat-out refuse to provide any links to your comments so we can review the fucking evidence.
As I said nearly a week ago this is over. Only the guilty hide the evidence – the innocent defend themselves. You nailed yourself to the door by refusing to share a few links.
So, case closed. Stop trolling and piss off.
BBD,
You’ve “flat-out” refused to show any shred of evidence to support your baseless accusations.
“Just how stupid and dishonest is it actually possible to be?”
Might I suggest that you look in the mirror?
No.
Dean,
“It is a sham…”
So if it’s a sham, then why have Democrats been so adamant in calling for it?
How effing stupid are you? Read again. it is a sham because of the constraints the republican leadership put on it.
I know you don’t care one whit about sexual assault or facts, so your attitude isn’t unexpected, but your lies stupidity are really getting the better of you with these latest obviously bogus ‘arguments’.
He’s just a shitbag rightwing troll with a small brain.
Hence the truly abysmal quality of ‘argument’.
It didn’t take long for locus to call up two of the prime heroes of the racist and dishonest right to “support” his point. I’m surprised he doesn’t pull in David Duke.
Matt Christiansen DESTROYS the Democrats on the Ford-Kavanaugh hearing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oliEem49cVs
Ben Shapiro dismantles the libs, point by point …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK-B2h8bx3Y
If you are stupid enough to buy anything Shapiro sells you’re a little right wing racist scumbag.
BBD,
“So, case closed. Stop trolling and piss off.”
No.
Trolling is as trolling does…