Kavanaugh hearing

[Forty Two]

Remember girls, if you want to be taken seriously you can't act like the boys.

They can act how they want. They just can't expect 36 year old unfalsifiable claims to be believed at face value, just like any other 36 year old unfalsifiable claim made by anyone else.

[Forty Two]

I wouldn't need to speak out, because if he did something criminally terrible to me, I would have called the police.

Not good enough, you also need to be able to consider what is okay for others to do in any given situation. So, is it okay that she didn't call the police but would like to say something now? I say that it's perfectly fine, and even good given the importance of his position.

It would have been better to have had this happen sooner. It is unfortunate that it is happening now. It is difficult to know how to proceed. Anyone who says that it is easy is a liar or an idiot.

Should we all seek out your high-school chums, and look for accusations against you?

If we find some, should we accept them uncritically? Or is that only the case if you are up for a big promotion?

The ones who aren't dead or in prison you mean?

Yes, absolutely you should only care if I'm being promoted to a high office. I mean isn't a big reason many of us will never run for office the skeletons in our closet? Some guys act like it should never weigh them down, and for some it never does. --god playing favorites if you ask me

In discussing this kind of issue, there seems to be this pervasive tendency to beg the question. We do not know if Kavanaugh has a skeleton in his closet. Blasey-Ford has said there is a very scary skeleton there. She said Mark Judge saw the skeleton get put in there, but Mark Judge says no. She said Leland Keyser was there when the skeleton was put in his closet, but Leland Keyser says she doesn't know what Blasey-Ford is talking about and doesn't remember ever meeting Kavanaugh. PJ was supposedly in the house where the skeleton was put in the closet, and he doesn't have any recollection of the party or the house or the skeleton.

Basically, we have one person's word that a skeleton is there, and that person has a significant motive to fabricate (that doesn't prove fabrication - it just means there is a reason for someone to fabricate under these circumstances, and Blasey Ford is a human being). Also, regarding memories of the skeleton, time has clouded much of it over - are those bones? Even the person saying she saw the skeleton first hand doesn't have great recall about it, conflicting stories have been told, and there are internal inconsistencies.

We can all understand how memories fade over time, and traumatic incidents play tricks on our brains - some memories can be imprinted strongly, and others not so much - people forget, remember, forget, remember, and memories naturally shift and change and are influenced - even talking to counselor, psychologists and lawyers and spouses and such can effect them and modify them over time. This is all understandable. Unfortunately, as understandable as that it, the understandableness of these issues does not make the story any more demonstrable or believable.

Does Kavanaugh have a skeleton in his closet? If so, why do you think that? Because Blasey Ford is accusing him and it's a woman claiming sexual assault? Is that enough?

[Tero]

Yes. But as I stated, he already failed by other criteria. He is not a judge, he is a corporate lackey libertarian judge.

FBI probe will reveal him to be a hypocrite as well.

[Sean Hayden]

We do not know if Kavanaugh has a skeleton in his closet.

I can live with that. We've already gone over this. I said it's enough to require evidence. What we ought to avoid is attempting to discredit Ford. I mean today you've gone so far as to talk about her own wild side. Why do you feel that is relevant? Cunt wanted to go down that path from day 1. Why would he want to do that?

[Sean Hayden]

Tell me how you would like me to interpret your attempts to portray her as a party animal in her own right as it relates to this hearing? What do you hope I will conclude?

[Forty Two]

Yes. But as I stated, he already failed by other criteria. He is not a judge, he is a corporate lackey libertarian judge.

FBI probe will reveal him to be a hypocrite as well.

Yes, to what?

He can fail by whatever criteria you want him to fail, and you can oppose him for whatever philosophy he has. If he really was a libertarian, I'd be more in favor of him than I am. If he were a socialist, I'd want him out as quickly as possible. However, if he were a socialist, I would not want him rejected based on allegations like this. Would you?

[Forty Two]

We do not know if Kavanaugh has a skeleton in his closet.

I can live with that. We've already gone over this. I said it's enough to require evidence. What we ought to avoid is attempting to discredit Ford. I mean today you've gone so far as to talk about her own wild side. Why do you feel that is relevant? Cunt wanted to go down that path from day 1. Why would he want to do that?

I brought up the issues with her yearbook, drinking, and such as a response to the same stuff being brought up about Kavanaugh. For some reason, there doesn't appear to be much reticence on certain folks' part (those who oppose Kavanaugh) to suggest that his beer drinking in high school is evidence of him being black out drunk and having abused Ford in that state (explaining his lack of memory). His goofy yearbook commentary seems to be evidence that he would try to rape girls. I raised Ford's conduct to show why people were overdoing it regarding Kavanaugh's high school conduct -- the fact that Ford was a drinker in high school or promiscuous ought not be evidence that she was to drunk to remember who assaulted her, right? Why would it be relevant to Kavanaugh's state of mind, but not Ford's? Shouldn't the same standard apply?

Let's use another example - let's say a woman was on the block for SCOTUS, and she used to be a teacher. An allegation comes out now from a student that says that when she was 25, and the student was 15, she used her position of authority to coerce sex from the student. No report was ever filed at the time, and the student said that no adults were told about it at the time due to fear of getting in trouble, etc.

It's now 30 years later. The memory of the student is shaky. The student does not know where the conduct took place, or when, just that it was in the late 1980s at a school location. The student is 100% certain, however, that this SCOTUS candidate was the teacher involved, and that sex occurred.

Do we believe the victim? Is it enough to disqualify the candidate? Does the fact that when the candidate was in her early 20s, she drank a lot and partied all the time, and was promiscuous?

[Forty Two]

Tell me how you would like me to interpret your attempts to portray her as a party animal in her own right as it relates to this hearing? What do you hope I will conclude?

You don't have to conclude anything about it. If, however, you were to apply the same standard being applied by some to Kavanaugh's party animal status, I think you'd have to conclude that it makes her less credible and reliable as a witness. Some folks are saying Kavanaugh is likely a rapist because he probably got black out drunk and attacked Ford. That's why they wanted to raise the issue of his high school drinking and yearbook nonsense. Isn't it?

[Brian Peacock]

Did you think she was telling the truth in the hearing, or pulling some sneaky Meryl Streep method moves?

I'd suggest that it's exactly because her testimony seemed so sincere and honest, for all its flaws, that the Republican media machine has turned to despoiling her character. It's a story as old as time - in the good old days a woman making those kind of allegations would probably end up in a nunery, the mad house, or chased out of town.

I did an image search for "Kavanaugh meme" earlier. Ms Ford seems to be the focus of two thirds of them.

[Cunt]

Yes, absolutely you should only care if I'm being promoted to a high office. I mean isn't a big reason many of us will never run for office the skeletons in our closet? Some guys act like it should never weigh them down, and for some it never does. --god playing favorites if you ask me

So it isn't about the offense, the victim or the crime against society, but only about stopping a *gasp* teenaged-drinker from getting a job.

OK, I still don't care about this 'issue' either. Just about the optics.

From the balance of the facts, it doesn't look like these two were "enemies" anyway.

date rape
very common

How often have you done it yourself?

How often have you witnessed it yourself?

If your answer is greater than zero in either case, I would like to ask some follow-up questions.

You have to be kidding. I was not drunk till 20s and my women experience is nearly the minimum. You are doing the Kavanaugh thing
Senator: Have you ever blacked out while drunk?
Kavanaugh: have you?

You were the one who claimed that 'date rape' (however you define that term) is very common.

Is that not what you meant?

We do not know if Kavanaugh has a skeleton in his closet.

I can live with that. We've already gone over this. I said it's enough to require evidence. What we ought to avoid is attempting to discredit Ford. I mean today you've gone so far as to talk about her own wild side. Why do you feel that is relevant? Cunt wanted to go down that path from day 1. Why would he want to do that?

He would want to do that, because he wanted to know if the picture the accuser was painting was an accurate one.

When someone paints themselves as innocent, or nearly so (I had ONE beer) it sounds a bit...um...motivated.

Who attempted to scrub her yearbooks, and why? That might be more interesting than the fact that she was a drunken teen idiot, much like Kavanaugh and Judge are claimed to be.

If her claim is important, investigating it is at least as important.

Unless you just want to cry 'rape' and attack, of course. For that it's best if there is no fact revealed.

[Sean Hayden]

Yes, absolutely you should only care if I'm being promoted to a high office. I mean isn't a big reason many of us will never run for office the skeletons in our closet? Some guys act like it should never weigh them down, and for some it never does. --god playing favorites if you ask me

So it isn't about the offense, the victim or the crime against society, but only about stopping a *gasp* teenaged-drinker from getting a job.

OK, I still don't care about this 'issue' either. Just about the optics.

From the balance of the facts, it doesn't look like these two were "enemies" anyway.

date rape
very common

How often have you done it yourself?

How often have you witnessed it yourself?

If your answer is greater than zero in either case, I would like to ask some follow-up questions.

You have to be kidding. I was not drunk till 20s and my women experience is nearly the minimum. You are doing the Kavanaugh thing
Senator: Have you ever blacked out while drunk?
Kavanaugh: have you?

You were the one who claimed that 'date rape' (however you define that term) is very common.

Is that not what you meant?

We do not know if Kavanaugh has a skeleton in his closet.

I can live with that. We've already gone over this. I said it's enough to require evidence. What we ought to avoid is attempting to discredit Ford. I mean today you've gone so far as to talk about her own wild side. Why do you feel that is relevant? Cunt wanted to go down that path from day 1. Why would he want to do that?

He would want to do that, because he wanted to know if the picture the accuser was painting was an accurate one.

When someone paints themselves as innocent, or nearly so (I had ONE beer) it sounds a bit...um...motivated.

Who attempted to scrub her yearbooks, and why? That might be more interesting than the fact that she was a drunken teen idiot, much like Kavanaugh and Judge are claimed to be.

If her claim is important, investigating it is at least as important.

Unless you just want to cry 'rape' and attack, of course. For that it's best if there is no fact revealed.

I'm sorry man, but I don't think you're following.

[Cunt]

I'm following...Ford doesn't matter - lying or honest victim. All that matters is stopping a Republican.

It looks an awful lot like only evidence from one side of this discussion will affect you. Tell me, should we always treat criminal accusations this way?

He is being accused of being a criminal - painted as the worst kind of criminal, actually. Is accusation enough? Every politician of any importance has had horrible claims made about them...

What is really funny to me is what is probably happening while everyone is watching the Kavanaugh sex show. It has the look of a distraction to me.

[Sean Hayden]

No, you're really not. You're still coming across as though you're talking to an idea rather than me. Or is there someone else here who can vouch for your interpretation of what I've said? Would anyone else like to explain how what I've written can be interpreted to mean that I don't think Ford matters? Or that I'm only looking to get rid of a Republican?

--maybe this is just more of that keen perception of yours at work?

[Sean Hayden]

From my first post in this thread:

Who else is listening and what do you make of it, him? He sounds very intelligent and reasonable. (not counting his comment about self-pardoning of course )

--my second:

I heard Democrats trying to make out that he believed that, but I didn't get that from him. Maybe it was in another part or something he's written?

I have to say my confidence in the "dirt" brought against people on either side from either side is at an all time low. I just don't buy it. Go look into the "lying" he supposedly did with regards to his involvement in policies allowing torture. That's some seriously shaky shit. Some people appear willing to accept that he lied on account of a senator's email accusing him of lying. The senator's reasoning itself doesn't do much to support the accusation either.

My posts only changed in response to what I saw as unnecessary and ugly behavior towards a possible victim of assault. Yet you've managed to come to the conclusion that I don't care about Ford, and it's just about getting a Republican.

I don't think it's a big deal. Like I said I think you're pretty much just arguing against an idea and it's convenient for you to put that idea on me for the sake of making your points. --cool, I'm sure I do that too from time to time.

[Seabass]

Here is a pretty good dismantling of Kavanaugh's horseshit.

HOW WE KNOW KAVANAUGH IS LYING
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/ ... h-is-lying

On Thursday morning, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christine Blasey Ford detailed under oath her claim that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attacked her and sexually violated her when he was 17. On Thursday afternoon, Kavanaugh went before the committee to defend himself from the charge, emotionally—sometimes angrily—claiming that he was an innocent man being persecuted by Democrats, that his hearings had become a “national disgrace” that had “destroyed my family and my good name.”

The two witnesses, Ford and Kavanaugh, were both steadfast in their stories. The hearing did not offer any obvious moments that would decimate either party’s claims. Some viewers may have left not knowing what to believe: Ford was clear and responsive. Kavanaugh was irate and at times teary, but emotional denials are what we might expect from an innocent person who was wrongly accused. Predictably, people broadly on the left found Ford’s testimony compelling, while people broadly on the right… well, here are the headlines from the National Review’s homepage today:

• Brett Kavanaugh’s History-Changing Speech
• We Are Living Nineteen Eighty-Four
• An Eleventh-Hour Ambush
• Confirm Kavanaugh
• Brett Kavanaugh Should Be Angry
• After Kavanaugh’s Stand, Republicans Abandon Him At Their Peril

(This is a partial selection.)

The allegations against Kavanaugh so infuriated Lindsey Graham that during the hearings he lapsed into what I think can only objectively be described as a sputtering fit of rage. “I hope the American people can see through this sham.. This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward because of this crap… If you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.”

Some concluded that they didn’t know what to conclude. Noah Rothman of Commentary said that “Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s pain was real and searing” and “the line of questioning pursued by a criminal prosecutor hired by Senate Republicans failed to effectively undermine her credibility” but that Kavanaugh “argued forcefully that the condemnation of him and his family over a rumor with no contemporary corroborating evidence in its favor would be a monumental injustice, and he’s correct.” The hearing, Rothman said, resolved nothing about the facts.

Let’s leave aside the procedural questions about if and how an investigation should proceed. Given what we know now, after the hearings, what can we conclude for certain? Let’s just say we do not know whether to believe Ford or Kavanaugh, that we found both of their testimonies equally likely to be true. In a state of uncertainty, we’d be left with a tricky situation. The truth or falsity of the allegation against Kavanaugh is extremely important; if it’s true, not only did he attack a woman three decades ago, but he lied shamelessly about it under oath, forcing Ford through a humiliating public process that led to her receiving death threats. If what Ford says is true, then not only should Brett Kavanaugh not be confirmed to the Supreme Court, but he should be impeached and removed from the federal judiciary entirely, disbarred, and prosecuted for perjury.

The stakes here are high: If Kavanaugh did it and is confirmed, then a sexual assailant and sociopathic liar will be given one of the most powerful offices in the country (wouldn’t be the first time). If he didn’t do it, then his indignation and disgust is justified. Republicans have argued that Ford’s allegation is completely unproven, uncorroborated, and totally inconsistent with known facts, and that presenting it to the country represents an abandonment of the “presumption of innocence” (which it is refreshing to hear them care about).

What is the best way, then, to figure out the truth? It’s absolutely the case that Christine Ford has no eyewitnesses to support her. She cannot remember exactly where the assault happened, or exactly when. She can’t remember all the people who were at the house, and the people she does say were there have said they have no memory of the event. She told nobody about it at the time. Looking at these facts, we can see how someone strongly committed to due process might think the allegation extremely weak. (Just for the moment, let’s leave aside the two other serious sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh.)

However, while these aspects of Ford’s allegation might lead us to demand more proof, they in no way make it inconceivable. In fact, they’re exactly what we might expect if the allegation were true. A girl attacked by two jocks at a party may not tell anybody, precisely because she knows there are no eyewitnesses, they’d back each other up, and even if there had been physical evidence they could never be convicted of anything. It’s not surprising that attendees other than Ford don’t remember this gathering; she says it was small and informal, and remembering who was at every small and informal gathering you were ever at in high school three decades ago is impossible. Ford (and the alleged perpetrators) is the only one it was a significant night for. So the lack of corroboration doesn’t itself make the allegation dubious, and if we demand eyewitnesses before believing victims, most of the time someone who did this would get away with it, because most of the time people are sexually violated in private. Of course there is a serious risk to the “believe all accusers” approach—it leads to wrongful convictions. But there is also a risk to a “never believe an uncorroborated charge” approach—it means that you can attack someone if you’re alone with them, and as long as you leave no marks, you’ll get away with it forever.

If we are taking an uncorroborated claim seriously, though, what does that mean for standards of proof? Much later in life, Ford told her therapist and husband, but at the end of the day we only have her word. If we were to base his guilt on her word alone, then wouldn’t people be able to make any kind of false allegation they liked?

Not quite. The existence of a “he said, she said” does not mean it’s impossible to figure out the truth. It means we have to examine what he said, and what she said, as closely as possible. If both parties speak with passion and clarity, but one of them says many inconsistent, evasive, irrational, and false things, while the other does not, then we actually have a very good indicator of which party is telling the truth. If a man claims to be innocent, but does things—like carefully manipulate words to avoid giving clear answers, or lie about the evidence—that you probably wouldn’t do if you were innocent, then testimony alone can substantially change our confidence in who to believe.

In this case, when we examine the testimony of Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford honestly, impartially, and carefully, it is impossible to escape the following conclusions:

1. Brett Kavanaugh is lying.
2. There is no good reason to believe that Christine Blasey Ford is lying. This does not mean that she is definitely telling the truth, but that there is nothing in what Kavanaugh said that in any way discredits her account.

I want to show you, clearly and definitively, how Brett Kavanaugh has lied to you and lied to the Senate. I cannot prove that he committed sexual assault when he was 17, and I hesitate to draw conclusions about what happened for a few minutes in a house in Maryland in the summer of 1982. But I can prove quite easily that Kavanaugh’s teary-eyed “good, innocent man indignant at being wrongfully accused” schtick was a facade. What may have looked like a strong defense was in fact a very, very weak and implausible one.

full article:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/ ... h-is-lying